Black Noir never talks or takes off his mask in The Boys, whether on the page or on the screen, but the reasons Black Noir stays hidden are different in the comics and on the who. In Garth Ennis's The Boys graphic books, Black Noir has a very different backstory than the one on the show. However, they do have some things in common, like the fact that neither of them takes off their masks. Even though they both end up showing their true faces at different points in their stories, when they do, it's shocking for totally different reasons. Here's why Black Noir never takes off his mask or talks in The Boys.
Who Is Black Noir?
Black Noir is the name of three superheroes from Garth Ennis and Darick Robertson's comic book series The Boys and Eric Kripke's TV series and property with the same name. In both the comic and the TV show, Noir is a member of the Seven, a group of Vought-American superheroes who like to party and take risks. He is a “silent ninja” spoof of Batman, Snake Eyes, and Deathstroke.
In the comic series, it turns out that Noir is a clone of the Homelander that has Stormfront's DNA added to it. He was made to replace the Homelander if he ever went bad. Noir was going crazy because he didn't have anything to do, so he decided to frame the Homelander for different crimes as part of a plan to slowly drive him crazy and replace him. He is killed in the end, though, by Homelander and Billy Butcher.
The show aired on Amazon Prime Video in 2019. It was based on the same-named comic book by Garth Ennis and Darick Robertson. Because Season 3 took longer to make, we had to wait longer between seasons. Eric Kripke made the show, and new episodes come out every Friday. The next one, “Glorious Five Year Plan,” will come out on June 10th.
Black Noir Face Reveal
In “The Boys” Season 3, Episode 3, “Barbary Coast,” a big secret about the character Black Noir is revealed. Grace Mallory tells a story from her past about a time when she saw Black Noir talk to the CEO of Vought International, Stan Edgar, about how he wanted to stop wearing his mask. Edgar doesn't like this idea because he doesn't want Black Noir's race to be known. He threatens to demote Black Noir if the mask is taken off. Later, Black Noir gets a serious injury to his face, which forces him to wear a mask all the time.
Black Noir has been a key part of The Seven since Season 1. In Season 2, he had an allergic response, which was talked about in the episode “Barbary Coast.” In most episodes, Nathan Mitchell plays Black Noir. In this episode, Fritzy-Klevans Destine plays a young version of Black Noir.
The news goes against the long-held idea that Black Noir is a copy of Homelander. In the original cartoon, Black Noir is a clone made to fight Homelander if necessary. But the TV show moves away from this idea, making it less clear what his real goal is.
Why Does Black Noir Wear A Mask In The Boys?
During seasons 1 and 2 of The Boys, there was a big question about Black Noir: Why does he wear a mask? The Boys season 3 episode “Barbary Coast” is good in both ways, and it's all because Payback is so bad at his job. Payback was put into Grace Mallory's Nicaragua operation as a test for supers who wanted to join the US military. As you might guess, the test failed.
Stan Edgar told Swatto not to stretch his insect wings, but he couldn't help himself. When enemy forces saw a costumed idiot hovering above the trees, they knew where Mallory's camp was. If they had been even a little bit useful, Vought's Payback team would have had no trouble beating these men. Instead, Crimson Countess had trouble telling who was a friend and who was an enemy, and Gunpowder was so excited to have a big gun in his hands that he killed everything that moved.
A powerful mix of friendly fire and rockets set the whole camp on fire, and Black Noir was right in the middle of the chaos. Noir's left side of the face is completely burned when Mallory finds him. His skin is bubbling hot, his left eye is loose in its socket, and big chunks of his hair have been burned. These injuries explain why people saw a glimpse of a burned face in season 2 of The Boys.
Noir looks straight at Mallory and desperately reaches for his fallen mask. He does this to show that he will cover his face for the next 40 years to hide the damage. Stan Edgar's scary warning that Black Noir would one day be “begging” for his mask back comes true in the tragedy of Boys' Payback.
