the black hood

If you are speaking of the MLJ/Radio Comics/Archie Black Hood, which Hood are you talking about? That company, in order to create some continuity among it's superhero characters, made it that there had been several 'Hoods over the years, all using some variant of the Black Hood mask, and, costume.

If so, it went right by me. I do know he was unmasked in the last issue of his comic book back in the '40s, but that seems to have been written out of continuity (or forgotten about, more likely) by the time he started turning up in '60s comics.

But Chuck has a good point. He was also on radio, and while I've heard an episode or two, I don't know a thing about it. For all I know, they could have killed him off there. Or maybe they did it in his pulp magazine (which I've never seen), but that seems unlikely -- they'd want him still in good shape for the comic book.

It was in the '80s that they re-invented him as a hereditary hero, going back to the time of Jesus as I recall. I remember a version drawn by Gray Morrow, with him in a highly modified Hood costume, riding a motorcycle. If that lasted more than one issue, I missed the second. Maybe they killed him there, figuring they could come up with a son or nephew for the second, but never published it.

Or maybe the one DC licensed in the '90s got killed. What the heck, that was a dead end anyway.

I don't know. If they killed a Black Hood off, I missed it. But if you have more details, it'd be worth hearing.

Thanks for posting.

Quack, Don

I'm talking about the original Black Hood from the forties. The only other running character I recall getting killed was Scarecrow from Dareville. Oh,yeah, also one of the Blackhalks. Chuck? Olaf?

Don;

Wasn't the 80's version of Black Hood the one whatever name the superhero line of Archie comics was called at that time, in their JLA, the Mighty Crusaders?

Well then, I'm stumped. I don't know anything about killing off The Black Hood in the '40s. All I know is, if they did, then he got better.

I also don't know this Scarecrow guy, tho there must be loads of '40s characters I never heard of. I do know they killed off The Comet. (But he got better too.)

Seems like I vaguely recall killing off a Blackhawk early on, but it wasn't Chuck or Olaf, both of whom were still around in the '60s.

Chuck, Archie was using the imprint "Red Circle" in the '80s.

Quack, Don

Okay, Red Circle was the Archie Comics superhero line in the 80's, but wasn't the motorcycle riding, special gun-toting, Black Hood of that era part of the Mighty Crusaders?

Not that I recall, Chuck. Seems like they had a more traditional Black Hood series, too, going on at the time (seems like they had an Alex Toth version in the regular black and yellow outfit). But my memory of quarter-century-old off-brand superheroes isn't as sharp as it once was (like, a quarter-century ago), so I could be wrong.

Quack, Don

My memory for comic series that didn't seem to have sustaining power especially back in the day when comic shops first opened, and, everybody and his brother were publishing books, some with better quality-artwork, and, stories, than others.Isn't the greatest, either. I haltingly remember what was called Red Circle. I picked up issues of Mighty Crusaders because I was very into superheroes, and, I hazily remembered some of the characters from the "Archie Adventure Series" that were included on that team.

The Black Hood I remember being on that team-and I readily admit I could be wrong, had the same name as the character of the 40's, and, the same basic "backstory", disgraced cop,etc. The difference being mainly in that he didn't wear a tradition superhero costume, except for the mask, which was a "generational" thing, as you said Don. His costume was basically motorcycle leathers, and, he used a special weapon called a "peperpot" I seem to recall. I also seem to recall that eventually Archie moved the line into "newsstand" like distribution, and, the quality went downhill from there, the Hood character turning into a Wolverine personality- beer drinking, cigar chewing, etc., though stil without superpowers.

If the Black Hood was re-created when DC licensed the Red Circle, etc.
characters for the Impact(?) line I don't recall. I think they did just about everyother character from that line.

I suddenly do recall Scarecrow from Daredevil. He was part of the kid gang that palled around with Daredevil before taking over his comic around 1950. I even wrote an article about them. But it wasn't Scarecrow that got killed. It was Meatball.

Chuck, we're off in what is only terra incognita to me. If anything, I know even less about DC's !mpact line than Archie's Red Circle. It's my impression that they made new versions of all the characters they used, but I can't swear to it. I guess I'll have to research it at one point or another, but that time fortunately isn't now.

Quack, Don

Don;

If you do decide to do an article on Impact, all well and good, it will fit in with your other articles of that kind. But we were discussing our memories of the Black Hood, my statement, in re Black Hood and Impact, was just to say if there were further revisions to the character,
I don't recall them, because I didn't see much of that DC licensed imprint. My impression was it tried to be more "kids oriented' than the "mainstream" DC line, in that all the heroes, as I vaugely recall, seem to have been teens. But Impact didn't last long, for whatever reason. (and, you need not fill in that gap in my knowledge.)

In "googling" for stuff on the Mighty Crusaders, I found this fan created "Mighty Crusaders handbook," and, this page on Black Hood 3 (Mighty/Red Circle) www.mightycrusaders.net/handbook/blackhood3.htm
which supports my contentions about this version of Black Hood being on the team.