THE BOYS Season 3 Explained | How Black Noir WILL Return In Season 4

With The Boys season 3 at an end, I thought I’d look at one of the biggest comments I see popping up on my videos.

That is that Black Noir isn’t dead.

If you know the comics then you’ll know he plays a big part at the end of Homelander’s story so to have him go out here feels like a misdirect.

Showrunner Erik Kripke also teased that it might not be the last we see of him in an interview with entertainment weekly.

Throughout this post, we’re gonna be exploring whether he’s still alive, how he could come back, and also the main thing that happens to him in the source material.

Homelander Kills Black Noir

Episode 8 apparently features his demise, with Noir being murdered by Homelander. This all comes after Noir clearly shows that he knew Soldier Boy was his father and that he now wants to kill him. Throughout the entire series, Homelander has wanted nothing more than a mother and father in his life and he even ended up drinking Madelyn Stillwell’s breast milk after getting jealous of her son.

Therefore this idea by Noir simply won’t fly and even though they’ve been besties since the first day they met, Homelander chooses the potential relationship with his father over the one that he could have with his friend.

Noir in the Comics

Now in the comics, it was revealed that Noir was a clone of Homelander and that he’d been gaslighting the character throughout the entire run. Noir would dress up as him, go and kill some people, photograph it and then send it to Homelander.

He’d receive these images, and see someone that looked like him with his power set but rather than being horrified this enabled him.

He never got in trouble for this and slowly it made him think that he could do whatever he wanted. This led to him creating a Superhero uprising and after he stormed the White House Noir was permitted to take him down.

Throughout his life Noir had been told that he only had one purpose which was to take out Homelander in case he went rogue. So him sitting around and not being able to do this is what pushed him to set things up so that he’d finally be granted permission to kill him once and for all.

Now the show set up early on that Homelander had X-ray vision which kinda negated the clone thing as he’d be instantly aware of who Noir was when he looked under his mask. What he saw was the deformed and damaged sympathetic figure that we ourselves learned about in Season 3.

That’s why Noir’s death feels so painful because he’s killed whilst trying to help his friend. He never really stood a chance and throughout his life, he’s been overlooked and used by Vought as a weapon. This is reflected in several characters in the season such as Kimiko and Frenchy, the two of which were used as a means to an end due to their skills.

How Can Dead Characters Return?

Now there is precedent for dead characters to return in the comics.

Lamplighter, Nubia, and The Blarney Cock were killed in the series and they ended up coming back to life. This is because in the comics we learn that V supercharges one’s cells on every single level. Even upon death, the formula sparks up the brain and it causes someone to rise up in a zombie-like state.

Vought used this to their advantage in the source material and after the death of a Supe, they’d parade them around one final time.

This would be a PR move to show that the Supes were more than human and it was meant to poke fun at comic books in general killing off characters only for them to return down the line.

Once the parade and public appearances were over Vought would ship them off and Starlight even came across Lamplighter locked up in the Seven’s hanger. He was very much just a zombie covered in his own faeces mumbling words and not really doing anything.

Now in the case of Noir, they could do something similar.

Stormfront already showed us that they can annihilate a character to the point that they’re barely alive and still have them somewhat comeback from it. She was stabbed in the eye and burned to a crisp but at the start of Season 3 at least she was still alive and kic…well not kicking but you know what I mean.

Now Noir has already had severe brain damage and he doesn’t speak at all. They could probably bring him back much like how he was before without people really noticing all that much.

How Can They Control Him?

However, going beyond that we also know that Noir has something in his brain that makes him completely subservient to Stan Edgar and likely Vought itself.

During Season 2 he was just being ordered by Edgar as he sat in his office and after Homelander took the reigns of Vought he seemed to unleash him on Maeve.

Now, this implant could actually be used as a way to control the zombified version of Noir in the future. If he’s resurrected then they can pretty much use that as a way to reign him in and it would be a way to control his body.

I’d love it in Season 4 if he came back as a sort of Robocop-type figure that was just being controlled by whoever is up at the top of Vought. Much like Robocop we could have him throughout the season getting flashes of his death and who killed him. This could push him to break free of his programming and finally get revenge on Homelander.

It would still fit in with the arc in the comics in which Noir kills him but it would add so much more to it. Robocop much like Noir is also a sympathetic figure because he was Frankensteined together after going through so much so that a corporation could use him.

Lots of similarities between the pair and even the fact they both wear helmets that cover their heads, you know, could be something they do here.

Entertainment Weekly Interview

Now as mentioned earlier, Kripke sat down with Entertainment Weekly to discuss Noir.

He said:

“It’s definitely not the last we’ve seen of Black Noir as a hero. It’s just that the guy who was inside [the Noir suit] in season 3, he’s gone.”

He later went on to say “a character who is completely silent and in a black mask can be recast.”

So this clearly hints towards what they’re gonna do with Noir and when you think about it there’s no reason to retire the suit. Absolutely no one outside of a select few knows what Noir looks like and there are several merchandise opportunities there that they’d be turning down if they got rid of him.

Secret Death

There’s also the fact that no one knows he’s dead and Vought clearly had a plan for how to react if he was ever killed.

Both Supersonic and Maeve end up getting reports running for them on the tv which pay tribute to them but we never get this happen in the case of Noir.

Clearly, Vought didn’t run these because they want to keep up the idea that he’s still alive and the next Noir will just fill in the hole left behind by the last without anyone noticing.

Next Homelander?

Now, though I do like the Robocop idea, I think just getting in someone new would be a great way to take things. I don’t think that they’ll go the clone route as they’ve already put in place the idea that Homelander can use X-ray vision to immediately see who he is.

However, he could end up being used much in the same way that Noir was in the comics, namely as a contingency plan for Homelander.

Ashley is now well aware of how dangerous he is and she could be recruiting Noir’s replacement with this in mind.

Now there’s not really anyone in the comics who matches the strength and ability of Homelander.

Therefore I kinda get the feeling that they’ll invent a new character for this position.

Everyone is always wondering who the show will use for the next season’s main talking point and after Stormfront and Soldier Boy left massive impacts I’d love to see things take a new turn in the upcoming season.

Noir could end up becoming the focus and with a version of him already dying in Season 3 it would really hype things up for the next one. Who knows, this next version might even talk and he could be used as a wildcard to potentially expose not only Vought’s secrets but the truth about the last one.

Lots of things on the table but hopefully this video has helped the Black Noir fans realise that there is hope we’re gonna see the strong and silent silhouette of him once more.

I’d of course love to hear your thoughts so make sure you comment below and let me know.