The Tragic Reason MM’s Hatred for Soldier Boy in ‘The Boys’ Goes Way Deeper Than Revenge

Of all the personal grudges fueling the members of ‘The Boys’, none cuts quite as deep as the one Mother’s Milk carries against Soldier Boy. While Butcher’s rage is rooted in grief and Hughie’s in guilt, MM’s hatred is something far more layered, far more generational, and ultimately far more heartbreaking.

When ‘The Boys’ finally pulled back the curtain on Marvin T. “MM” Milk’s backstory in Season 3, it recontextualized everything viewers thought they knew about the character. His meticulous habits, his obsessive routines, his uncompromising stance against Supes all trace back to one violent, chaotic night in Harlem that took someone he loved and left behind a wound that never healed.

The Night Soldier Boy Destroyed MM’s Family

One night in Harlem, a young MM was woken up in the middle of the night by the sound of Soldier Boy confronting a group of kids who were attempting to steal a Mercedes-Benz. To a child who had grown up idolizing America’s greatest hero, the scene must have felt thrilling at first, like something out of a comic book come to life.

Excited over seeing America’s hero in action, MM woke up his grandfather, and the two observed the scene together. However, during the altercation, Soldier Boy picked up the car and flung it into the brownstone building where MM and his grandfather were watching from. The car missed MM by mere inches, while it crashed directly into his grandfather, killing him and two other members of MM’s family.

MM’s father held Soldier Boy and Vought responsible for the incident, but the organization managed to free the Supe from all the charges. One reckless, consequence-free act by a Supe with zero accountability shattered an entire family in an instant, and no one paid for it.

How Vought’s Legal Machine Crushed MM’s Father

MM’s father, who was a lawyer, tried to sue Vought, but he was one man going against a company that had teams of lawyers and paid-off judges. Despite this, his father kept fighting, writing for hours on his typewriter. Every morning, MM would wake to the sound of clacking keys, and every night he would fall asleep to them.

After coming into contact with Compound V, MM’s mother gave birth to a child with disabilities. His father went to court again and tried multiple times to sue Vought until he eventually succeeded, though he couldn’t make Vought pay the price he had hoped for. The legal victories were partial, pyrrhic, and ultimately meaningless against a corporation that operated above the law.

Things took a turn for the worse when, one day while playing football, MM’s brother felt his powers emerging to the surface, leading to his body parts expanding beyond control. As his body grew, his head got stuck in his helmet, which became the reason for his untimely death. MM’s father had to file another case against Vought, but his health started deteriorating, culminating in his own demise. The toll Vought took on this single family across decades is almost impossible to overstate.

Mother’s Milk OCD and the Psychological Scar Left Behind

What makes MM’s hatred for Soldier Boy so uniquely devastating is that it did not stay in the past. By his own admission, MM suffers from Obsessive-Compulsive Disorder. Traumatized by the death of his grandfather, who was killed when Soldier Boy threw a Mercedes-Benz through his family’s home, MM still checks the stove’s burners three times a night, with his subconscious mind believing that if he doesn’t, Soldier Boy will return and kill the rest of his family.

MM tearfully tells Starlight that he is still that kid, still getting up in the middle of the night checking the burners, because if he doesn’t, Soldier Boy is going to come back and kill his family. The trauma calcified into ritual, and the ritual became the architecture of his daily life.

Starlight noticed his OCD habits of tapping his steering wheel three times when he changes lanes, stirring his coffee three times, and only using antiseptic wipes. Every compulsion, every anxious tic, every obsessive routine in MM’s personality traces back to that single night and the guilt he carries for being the one who woke his grandfather up to watch.

MM’s Personal Vendetta and What It Cost Him

MM’s hatred for Soldier Boy is so intense that he is willing to sacrifice everything, including his life, just to punish him. He has a daughter who means everything to him, yet his obsession drives him to attempt things he knows are futile, such as attacking Soldier Boy bare-handed after a halothane attempt to neutralize him fails.

Homelander now embodies the same jingoistic, nationalist characteristics as Soldier Boy, and MM has to watch his daughter fall for the kind of figure who ruined his life, while Butcher secretly brokers a deal with Soldier Boy himself for his own ends. The cruelty of his situation is that history feels like it is repeating itself in real time, with a new generation being seduced by the same lethal mythology.

Marvin finally opened up to his daughter Janine about his past, the truth about Supes, and the complex history starting from the night his grandfather died. Janine told MM he was her hero. That moment of connection, hard-won across a lifetime of compulsion and grief, is what MM has been fighting for all along, and it is what makes his story one of the most emotionally complete in the entire series. If MM’s journey resonates with you as deeply as it does with so many fans of the show, share which moment hit you the hardest and whether you think Soldier Boy ever truly deserved to face justice for what he did to the Milk family.