Black Noir

Black Noir is the name of three characters from the comic book series The Boys, created by Garth Ennis and Darick Robertson, and the television series and franchise of the same name, developed by Eric Kripke. In both the comic and television series, Noir is a member of the hedonistic and reckless Vought-American superhero group the Seven and is depicted as a "silent ninja" type parody of Batman, Snake Eyes and Deathstroke.

In the comic series arc Over the Hill with the Swords of a Thousand Men, Noir is revealed to be a clone of the Homelander and enhanced with Stormfront's DNA, created to replace him if he ever went rogue. Driven insane by a lack of purpose, Noir resolved to frame the Homelander for various atrocities as part of a plan to gradually drive him insane and replace him. However, after the Homelander and Billy Butcher team up to face him, he is ultimately killed by the latter. In the television series adaption, Noir, portrayed by Nathan Mitchell and Fritzy-Klevans Destine, is instead depicted as a brain-damaged African-American Supe named Earving, who is loyal to Vought CEO Stan Edgar. In The Boys Presents: Diabolical, Noir is depicted guiding the Homelander in his early career. Following Earving's death in the third season finale of the main series, starting with the fourth season Mitchell is portraying a replacement Noir in the series called Black Noir II.

Comic book series
In the comic series, Black Noir is depicted as a member of the Vought-American-sponsored superhero team, The Seven, and the only superhuman created by Vought-American who can beat the Homelander in arm-wrestling. Until the events of the series' climax, it is implied that the Homelander had raped Billy Butcher's wife, Becky, who then died giving birth to a superhuman baby Butcher had then killed, a crime actually perpetrated by Black Noir, who has been impersonating the Homelander during his free time for years. In Issue #40, the Boys receive a series of incriminating photos seemingly showing the Homelander engaging in grisly acts of murder, cannibalism, and necrophilia against men, women, and children. The series eventually reveals that the Homelander cannot remember either these incidents or the rape of Butcher's wife, and suggests that the Homelander has dissociative identity disorder and may have sent the photographs to Butcher himself. In private, Homelander shows signs of suffering a mental breakdown, talking to his own reflection in a mirror, and having bouts of nausea over the images, genuinely confused and horrified by their contents, events which a secretly watching Frenchie decides to keep from Butcher. Concluding he is "damned" for the acts depicted in the photos, the Homelander decides to give in to any intrusive thoughts that cross his mind.

Following Herogasm, in which Black Noir randomly "thumbs up" Wee Hughie's posterior while the latter was infiltrating an orgy (revealed in Highland Laddie to have whispered "good soldier" to the deeply traumatised Hughie while doing so), the Homelander resolves to free himself and the superhero community from Vought-American's control. In Over the Hill with the Swords of a Thousand Men, he leads the other superheroes in a coup d'etat against the United States, launching an attack on the White House and killing everyone inside, including the Vought-controlled Vice President, under the guise of doing so for the Vought Guy. During the subsequent confrontation between the Homelander and Butcher, surmising why Butcher must hate him, Black Noir arrives in the Oval Office and reveals himself to be a clone of the Homelander created solely to kill and replace him if he ever went rogue. In addition, he was also enhanced with Stormfront's DNA making him a binary clone. Gradually being driven insane due to not being allowed to kill the Homelander, Noir reveals that he had committed the atrocities documented in the photos amongst other actions (having destroyed the plane during Herogasm) and raped Becky to set Butcher and the Homelander against one another so that he would be given authorization to fulfill his purpose. Outraged, the Homelander attacks Noir, who proceeds to tear the Homelander apart. Before dying, Homelander manages to seriously injure his former teammate, allowing Butcher to later finish him off with a crowbar, before embarking on his own genocidal plan to kill all superheroes and those "Supes" with the genetic potential to become them.

The Boys
In the live-action television adaptation, Black Noir is portrayed by Nathan Mitchell while Fritzey-Klevans Destine portrays Noir in flashbacks. Largely silent, he primarily communicates in a series of silent gestures and intimidating body language, and possesses a healing factor coupled with a penchant for artistic exploits, standing toe-to-toe with the Female and effortlessly playing classical music on a piano in the first season. In the second season, Noir is revealed to be the loyal enforcer of Vought CEO Stanford "Stan" Edgar, who directs his every action in combat, including killing the super-terrorist Naqib and tracking down Billy Butcher and the Boys. However, Noir also displays simple, friendly character traits of his own outside of combat, such as giving Naqib's son a teddy bear, befriending a Vought programmer while looking for Butcher, and breaking down in tears upon learning his powers originated from Compound V injections given to him by Vought with his parents' consent as a child. Later, while attempting to apprehend the then-rogue Starlight, Noir is put into a coma by Queen Maeve after she exploits his tree nut allergy by forcing him to consume an Almond Joy and kicking his Epi-pen out of reach, during which he is revealed to be black.

In flashbacks to the Cold War depicted in the third season, Noir is revealed to be a man named Earving who had begun his superhero career and joined Payback, Vought's predecessor to the Seven. However, Noir and the rest of his teammates were subject to career sabotage and physical abuse by team leader Soldier Boy. In 1984 amidst a joint operation with the CIA to stop a communist government in Nicaragua, Edgar secretly assigned Payback to trade Soldier Boy to the Russian government so Vought can eventually replace him with Homelander, who had been conceived with sperm obtained from Soldier Boy. Throughout, Noir complained about having to wear a helmet that covers his face as he wanted to be the "Eddie Murphy" of superheroes, though Edgar told him Vought believed a publicly black superhero was neither profitable nor acceptable at the time. Amidst an attack on their camp by Nicaraguan and Russian soldiers, Noir led Payback in cornering and attacking Soldier Boy. They eventually succeeded in subduing him, though not before Soldier Boy left Noir permanently disfigured, mute, and brain damaged. In the present, upon coming out of his coma and learning of Soldier Boy's return to America, Noir cuts his tracking chip out of his arm and hides out in an abandoned Buster Beaver's Pizza Restaurant, where its mascots and his imaginary friends reenact the abuse he suffered from Soldier Boy to convince Noir to face him instead of running. Upon returning to Vought, Homelander kills Noir for withholding his knowledge of Soldier Boy being Homelander's biological father.

Seven on 7
In the 2021–2022 promotional web series Seven on 7 with Cameron Coleman, which bridges the events of the second and third seasons of the live-action adaptation, Noir is revealed to have awoken from his coma and been charged by Vought with tracking down numerous Supes that had escaped from a psychiatric hospital as well as filming promos for Vought's streaming service, Vought+, on which his film Black Noir: Insurrection is to be released.

Death Battle!
In the 2020 Amazon Prime Video-sponsored The Boys promotional episodes of Death Battle!, Black Noir gives up his place in participating in the Seven's battle royale to Billy Butcher, in favour of serving as one of the event's hosts alongside Wiz and Boomstick, with whom he communicates via a series of head and hand gestures. Noir subsequently reappears in Death Battle! as a recurring character and background comic relief.

The Boys Presents: Diabolical
In The Boys Presents: Diabolical prequel episode "One Plus One Equals Two", Black Noir is revealed to have been the "Homelander before Homelander", who Madelyn Stillwell sought to supplant, describing Noir as being built to destroy Homelander. After coming across a then-18-year-old Homelander after he accidentally killed several hostages and eco-terrorists on his first mission as a superhero, Black Noir evades Homelander's attempts to kill him before tricking him into destroying the compound they were in and mercy killing the last hostage in its aftermath to prevent Homelander from killing them both. Successfully gaining Homelander's trust, Black Noir writes him an excusatory speech to provide to the press outside, claiming the eco-terrorists had a bomb which he tried to stop.

Black Noir II
Following Noir's death in the third season finale of the main series, Eric Kripke confirmed in July 2022 that Noir's actor Nathan Mitchell would portray a replacement Black Noir in the fourth season; describing the character as a "whole new" and "really interesting and hilarious character". The original Black Noir is replaced by an aspiring actor who wears the same masked costume that hides his identity from the public; however, unlike his predecessor he is talkative in private and shown to be both excitable and nervous about his new role. In addition, Black Noir II has the power of flight but suffers from narcolepsy, and admits that he is uneasy with the violence he is ordered to do.

First appearing in season four, the second Black Noir debuted where he, the Deep, and A-Train killed three Homelander sympathizers and planted their bodies near a riot between the Homelander sympathizers and the Starlighters in light of Homelander being found not guilty for killing a Starlighter that threw a bottle at Ryan Butcher. While visiting A-Train on the set of Training A-Train which A-Train is starring in with Will Ferrell, Black Noir II asked about them killing those Homelander sympathizers as A-Train reminds him that the original Black Noir never spoke. Black Noir II later took part in the filming of Ryan Butcher's first rescue. While having not been invited to Tek Knight's party, the second Black Noir unmasks to drink a beverage and confides in the Deep (who was also not invited to Tek Knight's party) over his insecurities. While still claiming that he doesn't know how his predecessor acted, Black Noir II also mentions that his predecessor has a bunch of Buster Beaver memorabilia in his closet. The Deep tells Black Noir II that he must kill to be equal to his predecessor while bringing up one of Black Noir's previous assignment in Asia. Black Noir II and the Deep are dispatched by Homelander to attack the Boys at their headquarters. After briefly nodding off during the fight, Black Noir II was shown to both fly and speak, surprising Butcher. When A-Train comes to the Boys' aid, Black Noir and the Deep are repelled. Later that day, Black Noir II and the Deep witness Sister Sage leaving Vought International after Homelander kicked her out for withdrawing information that A-Train was the leak. Both of them are surprised that Sister Sage slept with both of them.

Potential spin-off
In October 2020, following news of the development of several spin-off series of The Boys, Black Noir actor Nathan Mitchell expressed interest in a potential "Mr. Bean-style comedy" solo series focused on the character, tentatively entitled The Secret Life of Black Noir.

Powers and abilities
In the comics, Black Noir is a long-time member of the Seven, almost always shown in silhouette with his face obscured. His powers include super strength and supposed skills as a pilot. He is stronger than even Homelander; Mother's Milk states he can "[...] bench a dozen Mack trucks". While initially an enigma, it is revealed at the climax of the series that Black Noir is actually a clone of the Homelander, developed by Vought-American as a contingency, in case the leader of the Seven became a liability, and as such, has all of his powers, including heat vision, super strength, durability, flight, and enhanced vocal cords.

In the television series, Black Noir is depicted as a normal man imbued with Compound V. As a result, he gained superhuman strength, a regenerative healing factor and "silent ninja" aesthetic, with his only weakness being his tree nut allergy, in reference to both Superman's weakness to kryptonite and his actor Nathan Mitchell's real-life tree nut allergy. However his abilities are all far lesser than in the comics; for example, his skin can be penetrated by knives and pistol bullets.

Development
In September 2020, The Boys television adaptation's producer and showrunner Eric Kripke confirmed that despite the apparent foreshadowing of Homelander often comparing Black Noir to himself, that the plot twist of Noir being Homelander's clone, capable of killing him, would not be used, choosing instead to portray Black Noir as his own character and amalgamating the comics character's psychopathic traits with Homelander. Noir's role as a "failsafe" against Homelander was similarly supplanted by that of Homelander's son Ryan Butcher (primarily portrayed by Cameron Crovetti), a loose adaptation of the Supe baby killed by Butcher in the comic series after it killed his wife while she was giving birth to it,  with Kripke saying: "[W]hat makes Noir 'Noir' is he's just this complete cipher; like, you just don't know anything about him and he's just completely mysterious. But then he has these strange reactions, like he'll make the teddy bear dance, or he'll cry, and he'll reveal some vulnerabilities, emotional vulnerabilities. Then he'll just return to just being this completely still, horrifying Terminator of a character, and that's kind of what I like about him, I have to say. Every so often, it comes up like, 'We should really learn who he is.' And I'm like, 'But should we know? Isn't it more interesting that we just never really quite understand how he got that way?' So I think Noir definitely remains as mysterious as always."

On the third season reveal of the first Noir being a black Supe named Earving (portrayed by Fritzy-Klevans Destine) who had been "tasked by Stan Edgar to do away with Soldier Boy on Payback's Nicaragua mission [in 1984], which result[ed] in Soldier Boy searing Noir's face, after which he goes silent" from the resulting brain damage to become Edgar's unquestioning assassin by the present-day, who sees his imaginary friends as a result, Kripke stated that: "'Young Noir grew up going to this pizza chain called Buster Beavers. It's like a Chuck E. Cheese. He sees the animated characters. They come to life and they have a lot of interaction with him. Like everything on the show, it's sort of this organic road to hell, I guess. We wanted to see Noir sort of Dark Night of the Soul. It's hard to do that because he doesn't communicate. We knew we had to go inside his head and someone pitched, like, he goes to a cabin. And I said, 'He should go to a cabin, but all these Snow White animated creatures should be flying around all over him' and that we strongly implied they've always been there. And then someone said, 'Well, it might be a little corny. What about like a Chuck E. Cheese?' So it just evolves.'" On the use of animation for Noir's imagination, inspired by his development of The Boys Presents: Diabolical, Kripke further revealed that "[w]e worked with this amazing [animation] company called 6 Point Harness, which did create all the animation for us [right at the level of real Disney hand-drawn animation]. But what I love about it most of all is it's definitely implied that for the entire run of the series, these characters just hang out with Noir. If you were to cut [back] into Noir's point of view [during the first two seasons], he'd have these animated characters that he's interacting with. And that just brings me no end of pleasure."

Merchandise
To promote the third season of The Boys, Amazon Prime Video licensed a line of Black Noir action figures from MAFEX, NECA and the Japanese company MediCom Toy Incorporated.

Reception
Inspired by Batman, the character and Mitchell's portrayal in the series (considered a breakout character) have received critical acclaim. Black Noir II also received praise for his sudden and humourous dialogue.

The character has been compared to slasher film villains such as Jason Voorhees and Michael Myers, and to the Marvel Comics antihero Deadpool.