Warning: spoilers ahead for The Boys season 3
How is Black Noir still alive in Compound-V has given Noir super-strength, increased durability and inhuman agility, but these powers are complimented by highly-trained hand-to-hand combat and weapon skills. Unlike the other Seven , Black Noir isn't compromised by personal factors - no Nazi girlfriends, drug problems or allegations of inappropriate behavior. Instead, Noir's weakness comes out of a vending machine...
In The Boys season 2, Black Noir did battle against Starlight. Though Noir came close to winning, Queen Maeve arrived in Starlight's defense, slamming an Almond Joy down the Silent Knight's throat and triggering his devastating nut allergy. Black Noir ends The Boys season 2 in a coma, hidden away somewhere within the bowels of Vought's Seven Tower. Positive updates come when Black Noir is mentioned as an active superhero in The Boys season 3. During the opening episode's "Dawn of the Seven" premiere sequence, Ashley stops a journalist questioning A-Train about his lack of races by leading the reporter over to Noir, who's loitering in the background. Later in the same episode, Butcher tells Queen Maeve to ask the ninja supe about Soldier Boy's death.
Noir's The Boys return is sort-of explained via Amazon's "Seven on 7" online promo segments released between seasons 2 and 3. The October edition revealed Black Noir was hunting Cindy, the runaway Sage Grove patient, before December's episode claimed Noir made a full recovery from "an unspecified severe allergic reaction" and was now back on duty, promoting Vought products to schoolkids. As far as everyone in The Boys is concerned, Black Noir came out of his vegetative state to make a full recovery during the year-long gap between The Boys seasons 2 and 3. Other clues, however, suggest a Vought cover-up is afoot.
Queen Maeve didn't just defeat Black Noir, she placed him in an allergic coma and left his life hanging in the balance. Something feels off about The Boys season 3 is a masked Homelander copy?
Not only would this explain Black Noir's comeback after being stuffed with Almond Joy, it'd for his distinct lack of lust for vengeance against Queen Maeve. We've also seen conspicuously little from Black Noir in The Boys season 3's opening episodes (the present day timeline, at least) and that could be because the Seven supe is a different character now, and too much screen time would clue viewers into his secret too early. Most importantly, incorporating Black Noir's "recovery" as some kind of hidden Vought conspiracy justifies leaving the character in a coma at the end of The Boys season 2 far better than the "Silent Knight" simply getting better off-screen between seasons.
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The Boys continues Friday on Prime Video.