The Boys: Black Noir's Animated Backstory Explained By Showrunner
Warning: This article contains spoilers for The Boys season 3
The Boys showrunner Eric Kripke explains the decision to flesh out Black Noir’s tragic backstory using cartoon animals. As a member of The Seven, the mute and masked Black Noir (Nathan Mitchell) has been The Boys’ most enigmatic supe throughout the show’s first two seasons. As he continued working with Homelander and Vought, season 3 of Prime Video’s superhero series has revealed more about Noir than ever before, including revelations about his past with Payback and its leader, Soldier Boy.
After finding out Soldier Boy is hunting ex-members of Payback for betraying him in 1984, Noir cuts out his tracker and goes off the grid. The Boys season 3 episode 7 explains Vought CEO Stan Edgar proposed Noir hand Soldier Boy over to the Russians and replace him with Homelander, which Noir was more than happy to do, given his contentious relationship with the costumed bald eagle. While Noir sits inside an abandoned Buster Beaver’s pizza, flashbacks are shown via the silent supe’s cartoon imagination that depict all of this, including Payback’s battle with Soldier Boy that left Noir permanently disfigured, brain-damaged, and unable to speak.
Related: Everything You Missed In The Boys S3 Episode 7
In a recent interview with TVLine, Kripke explains the idea to depict Noir’s backstory through zany animation. Given that episode 3 already featured a straight flashback, Kripke and company didn’t want to risk boring the audience in episode 7. Outside of the comedic element, Noir’s cartoon friends go a long way in painting the character in a different light. Read the full quote below:
We knew that he had to have his dark night of the soul alone, and we would have to be inside his
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