Warning: Contains potential SPOILERS for The Boys
The Boys season 3 has finally started filling the gaps of Seven member Black Noir, but these revelations still leave one big question: how old is Black Noir in The Boys? Black Noir is by far the most mysterious member of the superhero team, being clad head to toe in black body armor while never once speaking. However, now that Black Noir has been unmasked, it has finally become easier to learn the age of The Boys' silent supe.
The Boys follows the titular group of powerless humans as they attempt to take down Vought International and its band of brutal superheroes. Vought's main team of supes is known as The Seven, with its superpowered members constantly swapping out due to death or controversy. Although characters like The Deep, Translucent, Lamplighter, and more have had stints on The Seven, there have been a few consistent members throughout The Boys' three seasons: Homelander, Starlight, Queen Maeve, A-Train, and Black Noir. Each of these characters is a dark parody of an iconic DC or Marvel character, committing atrocities that give the Boys good reason to take them down.
Up until The Boys season 3, the identity of Black Noir has been a complete mystery. Vought uses Noir for covert-ops missions, and Noir is able to handle a lot of damage, but besides that, not much is known about the supe. However, The Boys season 3, episode 3, "Barbary Coast" finally gives some insight into Black Noir's backstory. Noir was actually a member of Soldier Boy's Payback team, a group that assisted the Contras in Nicaragua in the early 1980s. Even back then, Noir wore his black body armor, but not because he wanted to; rather, Vought forced him to in order to conceal his identity. During the same 1984 mission that got Soldier Boy kidnapped, Noir finally decided to operate with his mask off, leading to him getting badly burned, explaining why he never takes his mask off. Maskless Noir is played by actor Fritzy Klevans Destine, a fairly new performer who seems to be somewhere in his 20s. While there's no definitive answer to how old Black Noir is in The Boys, this scene does offer some hints. If he was in his mid-20s in 1984, then it is likely that he was born sometime during the late 50s to early 60s. However, things may not be that simple.
The "Barbary Coast" 1984 flashback is the first time that Black Noir's identity is revealed, although Noir has frequently appeared in costume in the present day. While it is possible he ages normally, Black Noir has a healing factor, a power that typically slows aging in various superhero comics. In The Boys, supes aren't born with their powers. Instead, they gain them when they take a dose of Compound V. If Noir stopped aging as a result of his healing factor when he got Compound V, it becomes nearly impossible to determine his age. Noir's time with Payback is the farthest back info The Boys gives on the character, meaning that he could have been operating for years before. Since Nazi Frederick Vought first started experimenting with Compound V during WWII, the earliest Noir could have gotten a dose would have been the early 1940s, meaning he would have been born in the 1910s or 1920s.
In The Boys comics, Black Noir is a failed clone of Homelander, a path the Prime Video show is clearly not taking. Because of this and the lack of info on Noir's healing factor, it is impossible to perfectly pin down exactly how old Black Noir is in The Boys. However, at the earliest Noir was born in the 1910s, and at the latest, he was born in the 60s. With The Boys season 3 teasing that more Black Noir info is to come, it may soon be possible to narrow this window, but his birth year can at least be placed in a 50-year gap with the details the show has provided so far.
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The Boys continues Friday on Prime Video.