The Boys: Why Black Noir Never Speaks Or Removes His Mask

Warning: SPOILERS for The Boys comics and season 2, episode 5.

Black Noir never speaks or removes his mask in The Boys, and a good reason for that was explained in the comics. While Billy Butcher’s main target has and always will be Homelander, Butcher himself is in fact Black Noir’s main target – when the superhero isn’t dealing with super terrorists, that is. Black Noir was sent to deal with the terrorist Naqib at the start of The Boys season 2, but then after returning home and subsequently learning about Compound V, he was seen crying in the halls of Vought Tower. That wasn’t the end of his story, though.

Despite appearing distraught over the news about Compound V – learning he was an experiment and presumably robbed of a normal childhood – Black Noir seemingly took it upon himself to hunt down the person responsible for The Seven’s recent misfortunes: Billy Butcher. With the help of Anika in Crime Analytics, he ultimately found Butcher holed up with M.M. and Hughie at Butcher’s aunt’s house. He attacked them and was about to kill Hughie when Butcher’s threat to expose the existence of Homelander’s son stopped him. That’s when Black Noir got a phone call from Mr. Edgar, revealing he was acting under the order of the company’s CEO the whole time.

What’s interesting is that when Black Noir got the phone call, he didn’t speak – in fact, he hasn’t spoken at all since his introduction in The Boys season 1. This is something he shares with his comic book counterpart, but the comic version eventually does speak. It’s revealed Black Noir was a clone of Homelander, and he was inducted into The Seven as a failsafe in case Homelander ever got out of control. Not speaking and being fully covered up is merely a way of concealing his identity. And that blind loyalty to corporate certainly seems to have worked in Vought’s favor as Mr. Edgar has taken on Black Noir as his personal hitman.

Because Black Noir didn’t speak for so long – or never spoke – and was forced to live a solitary life, he developed intense hatred for Homelander. He wanted to bring down Vought’s crown jewel whether they wanted him to or not, so he raped Becca Butcher and took pictures to frame Homelander. Of course, that particular twist can’t happen the same way in the series as it did in the comics since Homelander owned up to raping Becca. But that doesn’t mean Black Noir isn’t still a clone of Homelander.

Given the amount of screen time and focus Black Noir is getting in The Boys season 2, perhaps his secret will soon be unveiled. If not, then there’s always a chance the truth can come to light about his identity in The Boys season 3, which is already in development. Either way, it’ll certainly be interesting to see Black Noir’s real face and hear him speak. If Amazon’s series continues down the same path as the comics, that would give Homelander actor Antony Starr an intriguing role to play with.

About The Author

Mansoor Mithaiwala
(1888 Articles Published)

Mansoor Mithaiwala is Screen Rant’s TV Lead Editor. He originally joined the site as a freelance writer on the Lists team before moving over to News and Features, eventually becoming an editor in 2018. Over time he’s done quite a few different things, including helping launch gaming on the site, often handling news, features, and guides simultaneously. Now he sticks primarily to movies and TV, and spends way too much time looking at analytics. It sure seems like he’s put his Political Science degree to good use, huh?

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