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- NOTE: This article is only for the TV version of Black Noir. To see the article for the original version of him, go to Black Noir (The Boys).
| “ | Black Noir: So, listen, if I'm gonna take a more central role on the team, then I want to lose the mask. Stan Edgar: Silent ninjas score extremely high with boys seven to ten years old. The mask lends a certain mystique. Black Noir: Well, f*** mystique. People don't even know it's me under this thing. I got to wear it just to get a cab. |
„ |
| ~ Black Noir and Stan Edgar. |
| “ | It means that lately, some of you have been, eh, a little out of sorts. Erratic. Unreliable. Downright sloppy. Not you, Noir, you've been great. | „ |
| ~ The Homelander about The Seven and to Black Noir. |
| “ | Soldier Boy: What the f*** is this? Black Noir: Something we should have done a long time ago, you piece of shit! |
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| ~ Black Noir turning with the Payback against their much hated leader, Soldier Boy, also his last words before Soldier Boy caused him mental damage that would mark him forever. |
Earving, better known as Black Noir, is a major antagonist in the 2019 Amazon TV adaptation of the highly controversial adult comic book series The Boys. He serves as a supporting antagonist in Season 1, the secondary antagonist of Season 2, and a major antagonist in Season 3.
Black Noir is The Seven’s superpowered ninja. His super strength and heightened senses are matched only by his proficiency in the martial arts. Criminals run in terror at the mere mention of his name. Noir is also a former member of Payback who was rendered disfigured and mute by Soldier Boy after plotting to kill him with the rest of his teammates during a mission with the American military.
He is portrayed by Nathan Mitchell, while a younger version of him was portrayed by Fritzy-Klevans Destine.
Biography
Backstory
Little is known of Black Noir's true origins, life, or even his identity prior to joining the Seven. However, it is said that he was once a ninja trained by a masterful sensei during his youth, but it simply could be another origin story manufactured by Vought for the public, making Noir's real origins a complete mystery.
Before he was a member of the Seven, he served on the superhero team Payback alongside Crimson Countess, Gunpowder, Swatto, Mindstorm and the TNT Twins. It is shown that Black Noir was talkative and outgoing in his youth contrary to his now stern and mysterious persona. He is also a close friend to Stan Edgar. Payback's leader, Soldier Boy, was frequently abusive towards the members of the team including Noir, who took away his chance of becoming an actor. Fed up with his constant abuse, Noir hatched a plan with his comrades, sans Gunpowder, to sell out Soldier Boy to the Russians; this was also facilitated by Vought, who had already planned to introduce a replacement more powerful than Soldier Boy himself, Homelander.
In 1984, Payback staged their plan during the CIA-sanctioned Operation Charly in Nicaragua, under the ruse of it being a Contra-allied drug trafficking operation to help in their fight against the Soviets. When the Russians were alerted, Payback killed both the attacking enemies and their fellow rebels to ensure there were no witnesses. When Noir and Payback revealed their betrayal, Soldier Boy attacked and heavily injured Black Noir, resulting in him having half his face mutilated when his face was seared against the hood of a burning car, losing a part of his brain, and damaging his larynx, leaving him unable to speak. However, the mission was successful and Soldier Boy was captured.
The Boys Presents: Diabolical
During Homelander's debut in the Seven, Stan Edgar makes Homelander bring Black Noir to the stage where the ninja gathers more applause, much to Homelander's ire. When Madelyn Stillwell warns Homelander that Edgar merely put Black Noir there to spy on him, make sure he follows orders and take him out if he doesn't, true to her word, when she leaves, Homelander catches Black Noir spying on them.
After Homelander panics and kills members of the CLF who have taken workers of a power plant hostage, he is confronted by Black Noir. Though he tries to justify it at first, Homelander concludes that Black Noir would use the incident to get him thrown out of the Seven and tries to kill him. Black Noir tries to get Homelander to stop by waving his hands in a ceasefire gesture, but the latter refuses to listen, forcing them to fight. Despite Homelander's immense power, Black Noir is able to hold his own through throwing knives and smoke pellets.
Eventually, Black Noir tricks by taking one of the surviving CLF members, tying him up, using a smoke pellet and making Homelander believe the hostage was him, causing him to use his heat vision on one of the reactors, destroying entire power plant. After the surviving worker tries crawl away from Homelander, Black Noir emerges from the debris, but before he can kill them both, Black Noir lifts her up and snaps her neck, shocking Homelander. Black Noir approaches Homelander and draws on a notepad an unknown message, which finally gets Homelander to finally see him as a non-threat. The two later join a press conference and blame the destruction on a bomb the CLF had, to which Black Noir holds his hand to his face in grief. Later, as Homelander tells Stillwell that she was wrong about Black Noir, the ninja lurks behind them and drinks a hot beverage.
The Boys
Season 1
In the present day, Black Noir is a feared member of The Seven, often used for his expert combat skills and extraordinary strength. Black Noir is one of the only people that has come face to face with The Female and lived. In "The Female of the Species" he was able to fight on par with The Female, perhaps only due to her weakened state. Furthermore, he is able to strike fear into the hearts of the public, putting Frenchie and Cherie into a panic after noticing him outside of their flat.
Season 2
In his first appearance in the second season, he violently murders the Supe terrorist Naqib and several others present. He is shown displaying a dark sense of humor when he walks up to a child carrying Naqib's head, then picking up a plush rabbit and toying with it. He is then seen with The Seven as they hunt down The Boys and briefly gasps upon the sight of the dead whale washed up. After the news of Compound V was revealed to the public, Black Noir is seen sitting against the wall, sobbing at the notion of Compound V. However, not long after, Stan Edgar personally tasks Noir to hunt down Billy Butcher and he does so by intimidating Anika.
Once spotting Butcher near Becca's home, Noir immediately hunts him down and tracks him all the way to Judy's house where he gets tricked into breaking in her home only to be blown up by a bomb implanted by Butcher, Hughie and Marvin. Though severely burnt, Noir exhibits no sign of pain quickly attacks the three of them. However, Butcher warns him that if he kills all three of them, information regarding Homelander and his illegitimate son will be leaked to the media and the public. Noir proceeds to choke Butcher against the wall only to receive a phone call from Stan Edgar who negotiates a deal to have Noir spare Butcher, Hughie, and Marvin's life in exchange for Butcher keeping the secret. After the deal's been made, Black Noir lets go of Butcher and leaves the scene.
Some time afterwards, Vought upon discovering Starlight's secret alliance with The Boys sends Black Noir to capture both Starlight and her mother and lock them up each in different cells at Vought Tower's anti-Supe fortress. However, due to an alarm set off by Lamplighter after he burned himself to death, Starlight is able to escape but is soon ruthlessly attacked by Noir who easily overpowers her. As he is choking her to the brink of death, however, Queen Maeve appears and briefly unmasks Noir, revealing a hideously deformed face before immediately shoving an Almond Joy chocolate bar into his mouth, weakening him as it is revealed by Maeve that Noir is actually allergic to peanuts as he desperately tries to reach his EpiPen prompting Maeve to kick it away from him.
The next day, it is revealed by Stormfront that Noir is unresponsive and currently being treated by Vought’s medical staff.
Personality
Black Noir seems to be the lone silent type and is somewhat socially withdrawn from other members of The Seven, though he does appear to have a sort of friendship with Homelander. He never speaks but is apparently very in touch with his emotions as he was shown to be very distraught with the revelation that he and all the other Supes weren't born with their powers causing him to cry through his mask. Despite being a fierce fighter and rarely ever showing his emotions, he is apparently not to be as ruthless as some of the other Seven members. Upon eliminating Naqib, Noir finds a little boy in his pajamas and grabs a nearby stuffed animal and plays with it in front of the boy and just heads out. He also apparently has a soft spot for animals and was genuinely shocked and heart-broken to see a whale beached and killed at the hands of Billy Butcher. These humanizing and sympathetic factors make him the polar opposite in terms of personality of his original comic book counterpart.
Trivia
- Black Noir is a parody of Batman.
- His costume design also brings to mind Snake Eyes (Stan referencing Ninjas in "Payback" could also be a reference to this).
- He may also be a parody of Deadpool in the series as they both share the same weaponry and costume resemblance.
- On a side note, Deadpool is extremely talkative while Black Noir is the complete opposite. Furthermore, the jokes surrounding him are far more subtle.
- Black Noir is apparently not responsible for raping Billy's wife in the Amazon series as it is hinted and then confirmed by Becca Butcher that it was Homelander himself who raped her.
- There are several implications in the series that hints that Black Noir is indeed Homelander's clone or at least some variation of it:
- His incredible withstanding and surviving of Naqib's explosion implies he is a Homelander clone like in the comics.
- Also, despite getting slightly wounded while fighting The Female, he easily overpowers her.
- When finding out that he wasn't born with powers and instead was given powers by Vought using Compound V, Black Noir broke down in tears which possibly hints at his only purpose in life and by Vought is to kill Homelander in case he goes out of control. Although given that he seems to be less ruthless than he is in the comics, it is possible that Black Noir was upset with Vought for lying to him.
- Black Noir also has roughly the same height, build, and stature as Homelander.
- Also The Boys series' official twitter page posted a picture of The Seven members in various poses. There, suspiciously both Homelander and Black Noir are standing side-by-side with the same exact pose as one another, while each of the other Seven members has their own individual poses.
- However there are also several signs that he may not be Homelander's clone:
- He seems to have an weaker powerset than Homelander as he is seen getting wounded and bleeding multiple times during the show while Homelander has yet to show any weaknesses.
- Black Noir is allergic to tree nuts and regularly keeps an EpiPen on him in the event of a reaction. This weakness is the first sign that despite the above, Black Noir isn't Homelander's clone as he is in the comics though it could be a misdirection created by the showrunners to trick the viewers to make the twist even more shocking.
- Also his face gets partially shown when Maeve forcefully feeds him the Almond Joy and looks nothing like Homelander's seemingly confirming that he isn't his clone.
- When his face is fully shown, he appears to be a black person of African descent, where as Homelander is white.
- In the comics, Black Noir was created for the sole purpose of killing Homelander if he goes on a rampage, and when he continuously doesn't, it drives Black Noir insane, causing him to commit various atrocities (such as the raping of Billy Butcher's wife) disguised as Homelander. Yet when Homelander kills the CLF members in The Boys Presents: Diabolical episode One Plus One Equals Two, Black Noir not only tries to explain that he doesn't want to fight, shows no sign of superpowers, but goes so far as to kill the last witness to Homelander's rampage and help him cover up the power plant explosion as a bomb.
- Noir means "black" in French, which means his name is literally Black Black. Noir can also refer to the noir crime genre that could tie in with Noir being a parody of heroes like Batman.
- It is unknown if he played with a rabbit in front of a child just to taunt him about Naqib's death or just to cheer him up over it.
- Apparently, Noir's height and weight frequently change. This leads some fans to believe that Black Noir isn't one person, but multiple. Similarly to the comics where Noir sometimes appears skinnier as usual despite being a Homelander clone. Though this could be attributed to the comics' constantly changing styles.
- He appeared in a bonus episode of DEATH BATTLE, as a guest commentator and is there to intimidate Wiz and Boomstick. He strangles Wiz for suggesting Vought is lying about Homelander being a hero.
- In episode 7 of season 3, it's revealed that Noir has imaginary friends in the form of the cast of Buster Beaver's pizza, who appear to give him comfort and encouragement when he's down. It is also possible that his hallucinatory imaginations are a form of coping for the trauma he has experienced throughout his life, particularly for the abuse he suffered under Soldier Boy.
External Links
- Black Noir on the Boys Wiki.
 Villains
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Vought-International The Seven Payback Other See Also | ||
