Following the news of Soldier Boy's return, Black Noir gruesomely carves his tracking chip out of his arm with one of his several knives and flees Seven Tower.
But Black Noir, a former member of Soldier Boy's squad, knows he's in trouble… so he grabs a knife, digs into his arm, rips out his tracking chip, and bails.
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".
However, viewers will likely wonder why Black Noir's healing powers have not helped him recover from these injuries. He has healed from a variety of severe injuries throughout the duration of The Boys, but Black Noir's scars are too severe for even him to overcome.
Mental Illness: His unstable mind causes him to lose control and reveal his true colors. This eventually leads to his downfall at the hands of Butcher and the military after being greatly weakened by Homelander. Obsession: Black Noir has an uncontrollable desire of fulfilling his purpose of killing Homelander.
Noir is later seen in the Vought tower, sitting near a wall and crying in the middle of the hallway while holding his phone, watching the news story on Vought and their 'Lab Made Heroes' realizing he was lied to his whole life.
During Payback's fight against Soldier Boy, Black Noir received catastrophic brain injuries that left him both unable to verbally communicate and saddled with bizarre hallucinations of cartoon animals.
Black Noir would've been Homelander's initial choice; after all, he was on Payback with Soldier Boy, so he probably has some insights about the man. But Noir flees Vought early in the episode, brutally ripping a tracker out of his own wrist so he can't be found.
Soldier Boy put on a strenuous resistance and severely injured Black Noir, who lost part of his brain and half of his face due to flames during that clash, forcing him to wear a mask for the rest of his life.
It also added a new weakness, as the lethal Supe is deathly allergic to nuts. This was inspired by the real-life allergy of Nathan Mitchell, who plays Black Noir in The Boys. As powerful as Black Noir is, this nut allergy ultimately brought him down in The Boys season 2.
While it is possible he ages normally, Black Noir has a healing factor, a power that typically slows aging in various superhero comics.
Powers And Abilities
HIgh-Speed Flight: Being a clone of Homelander Black Noir is naturally capable of the same flying feats as the Homelander or perhaps even better.
Explaining why they decided to go for animation for the flashbacks, showrunner Eric Kripke told TV Line: "We knew that he had to have his dark night of the soul alone, and we would have to be inside his head because he has no one he can talk to.
Homelander Kills Noir
It's a sad and shocking way to see this silent yet relatively good (in Boys/Payback terms anyway) character go. And he exhibits no remorse for it at all. He even goes on to admit what he did in front of Ashley, A-Train, and the Deep before essentially disowning them too.
Could Black Noir Regenerate? The first way Black Noir could return is through his regeneration abilities. We have seen his character survive numerous fatal attempts on his life. The fact he survived getting his skull bashed open by Soldier Boy speaks to the supe's resilience.
Yes, you read that correctly. Black Noir is revealed to be Homelander's clone in the comics. It is no surprise that he's always been a goody-two-shoe around the superhero entity. If there is one thing about The Boys comics, it is that the plot twist pops out of nowhere and completely alters the game.
Even though Payback is able to take down Soldier Boy, he brutally disfigures and scars Black Noir so that he will never be able to take his mask off again.
In the finale, released on Prime Video on Thursday night, Homelander (Antony Starr) ruthlessly killed Black Noir by shoving his hand through his chest and ripping out his organs.
Maeve explains that Black Noir has a tree nut allergy, a simple but genuinely surprising weakness for such a mysterious and seemingly immortal figure.
After the Herogasm party was suddenly interrupted, Homelander flew to Vermont to confront Soldier Boy. For the first time, Vought's finest superheroes ever created locked horns in an epic battle. Before fighting, Homelander warned his adversary that he was the improved version of Soldier Boy.
Regenerative Healing Factor: Noir possesses a superhuman healing factor which allows him to regenerate damaged or destroyed bodily tissue with far greater speed and efficiency than an ordinary human it seems to heal within hours or at maximum, days.
Black Noir was a young man who wanted to make a cultural impact by removing his mask to reveal that he was a Black male underneath his body armor. He believed doing so would allow him to reach out to more minorities and allow him some fame and recognition without having to wear the mask.
In bringing the allergy detail to light, Maeve also revealed that Black Noir is actually a Black man beneath the mask. Black Noir's race reveal was an extremely interesting surprise for The Boys' showrunner Eric Kripke to bring out.
While Homelander always relied solely on his powers to win battles, Black Noir has all the same abilities plus actual combat training. Noir also seems even more mentally unstable than Homelander, which would likely translate to him being even more brutal in a fight.
Later, we discover that Black Noir was goaded into attacking Soldier Boy and selling him to the Russians by a young Stan Edgar (Giancarlo Esposito), an event that left Black Noir mutilated and nearly lobotomized.