The Black Hood was the last of the solo titles from the Impact line, the first issue not shipping until the other 5 books were already on at least issue 4. The character had already popped up in other books (The Fly, The Web.) Very excited at the prospect of other costumed heroes emerging, always talking up the idea of them all forming a super-team.
They eventually would, and we'll get to The Crusaders next year, but Black Hood wouldn't be part of that. At least, not the same Black Hood.
The Black Hood wasn't unique in switching protagonists. Legend of the Shield had a different guy (briefly) take the uniform once Higgins' name was cleared. The Web was an ensemble cast who were all, at one time or another, "The Web." However, this was at least a little unique in how it made those switches, the reasons why, and in one case, how quickly.
It starts with Wayne Sidmonson. Sidmonson is the Black Hood who met other heroes. By the time the series begins, he's all the way round the bend. The first issue is overlaid with a letter to his wife, who he abandoned to pursue the cause of his truest love, Justice. No, seriously, that's what he says. He still loves her, and wishes he could be home for Christmas, but his war is just too important. He also admits he drained their kids' college funds to buy weapons. What, you couldn't just keep drug dealers' cash, like the Punisher?
His moral compass is out of whack. A teenager taunts Wayne about being lost, he twists the kid's arm to near breaking, then locks him and his friend in a filthy mall bathroom stall, just to be cruel. He gleefully terrorizing them, because one kid was rude. He's in Seaside City looking for a subterranean pier. But it's not to break up a deal between local crimelord "The Patriarch," and Pirate Blue. No, Wayne wants to make a deal with Blue - a pirate, a smuggler, an arms dealer - to buy weapons.
All this seems to stem from him owning a "McBonnie Burger" franchise, which got robbed at some point. He's Michael Douglas' character in Falling Down, mediocre middle-class dude who decides guns are the answer to his insecurity. He wears spiked gauntlets, huge shoulders pads, and armor. The armor is bulletproof. The hood is not, and Wayne bites the dust in issue 1, at the hands of Hit Coffee, #2 man to the Patriarch.
(The main story of The Black Hood Annual is Wayne's wife dealing with his funeral and just how badly he fucked their finances, while two government agents that had been tracking him conclude she's a frigid bitch for being mad Wayne wasted all their savings on a "Hood-mobile." I just end up feeling bad for Darcy, stuck dealing with the lousy hand her nutso dead husband left her.
I would have done an entry on the Annual if there'd been a splash page from the back-up story about the past wearers of the Hood, but no dice.)
Wayne wasn't the first Black Hood, as he learns in the afterlife and we see in the final issue and the back-up stories in the Annuals. He's not the last. The two teenagers got out of that stall and followed him. The rude one, Jeff, can't keep his mouth shut and gets in trouble. His friend, Nate Cray, won't abandon him, but doesn't want to risk being recognized. So he puts on the Hood. And grabs some guns. And starts dodging bullets with surprising ease. Somehow, the hood being cursed, in addition to giving it sentience, enables it to give the wearer enhanced physical abilities.
Nate rescues Jeff, they escape. Nate doesn't want anything to do with the hood. He's a big farm boy whose family just moved here after the farm went belly-up. Quiet and kind, but awkward. A boy who would protect a snapping turtle biting his hand from his father's attempts to make it let go, but also named his dog, Dufus. What the hell, man?
But when he holds the hood, at least at first, he feels more confident, and he keeps running into situations where he needs it. A stage magician sent to prison for 17 years because someone tampered with his saw-in-half box, gets paroled and sets out for revenge. A doctor who went from working on "safe acid", to some video game, to drugs to alter your DNA, took the drug and now he's ozone.
Which somehow gave him the ability to rain lasers from the sky. Is he manipulating the ozone layer to let tiny pinpricks of cosmic rays rain down? I have no idea; this is not the last time Wheatley does something regarding a character's backstory and powers that makes no sense to me. Nate - whose outfit is a simple red coat and some heavy pants and boots, much more stripped down than Wayne's look - kills the doctor with the power of CFCs, but feels no validation at stopping the man who hurt his mother. He hates what the hood's doing to him, the changes he feels in himself. He throws it away.
Hit Coffee finds it. Hit touts himself as the Patriarch's #2 man. What that means is, he gets the shit jobs. Run to Baltimore to fetch sandwiches for the Patriarch. Go pick up a sports car the Patriarch is giving to one of his other guys. Wayne became the Black Hood because he was afraid, and wanted things to make sense as he understood the concept. Meaning terrorize the people he thought ought to be terrorized. Nate wore it to protect people he cared about, then threw it away to protect himself. (He'll ultimately take it up again to protect those same people.)
Hit wears it - along with a snazzy vest with big buttons and a collar and shoulder pads - to get what he thinks he's owed from an ungrateful boss. He finds getting to be the boss isn't so great. It's constant fires to put out, and demands from underlings to deal with. Made harder because the hood's influence means he can't handle things how he wants. The curse condemns its wearer not to harm a good man (so what's it say about Jeff, that Wayne could do what he did?) This apparently continues even after you give the hood away.
Hit gives it back to Nate, while Nate's wearing a different hood. Hit somehow knows who Nate is, and intends to use him to help keep the Patriarch's mob in line. How he figured it out is never explained. They stop a guy who, as a child, was exposed to several defoliants in Vietnam and now absorbs the memories of people he touches as a result. Which he uses to rob mob casinos. The guys running the casinos do not seem to connected to the GIs that attacked his village, he just figures it's a good place to get a lot of cash. Refer to my earlier comment about backstories and powers.
The DNA drug the doctor made gets into the hands of a girl Jeff really wants to impress, but her low self-esteem turns her into living slime. Jeff seeing her as a wonderful girl helps pull her together, but Nate's harsh words wreck all that. It's a weird pair of issues, with everyone assuming someone is being dragged down by someone else. The principal assumes Jeff will ruin Nate. Jeff's dad - a sadsack idiot of a counterfeiter whose printing shop is now owned by Nate's dad - assumes Nate is the one getting Jeff in trouble. Nate assumes Carmen is going to ruin Jeff. Everyone is pointing fingers, no one is trying to help.
One thing we learn in issue 12, where a heretofore unseen WEB agent with some sort of telepathic abilities tries to assess Nate and ends up connecting with the hood, is the hood tries to seek out someone who will use it well. But over time, it corrupts the wearer. We're shown Wayne early on wanting to protect and serve justice in a way he feels the cops don't. Given he's in a panel colored entirely red, with guns everywhere, it's hard for me to think the cheese hadn't already slipped off his cracker. Did this mean Nate's harsh words to Carmen were the start of his corruption? Or just him being a dumb teenager, frustrated with what passes for his best friend and lashing out at a safer target? It's also the story where Nate turns to shooting sooner and more frequently than normal, which is a troubling development.
The recurring theme is, Nate puts on the hood to help people. Everyone else uses their powers or skills to get something. The magician, the doctor, the casino thief, Hit Coffee: All resent how things went for them, and decide to take what they feel they're owed. Revenge, money, whatever. Even Wayne decided at some point any means were justified for his ends, even dealing with Pirate Blue. His war is too important to worry about details like who gets hurt. You could add Jeff, who initially thinks the hood is really cool and wants Nate to go on patrols and beat people up.
(Nate questions how he's supposed to traverse rooftops, or get down to street level in time if he does see a crime in progress.)
The book's tone goes strange places at times. Issue 7 alternates between Hit taking apart the Patriarch's operations, and a history of "The Patriarch," a title not so much handed down as wrested away since colonial times. Wheatley and main series artist Rich Burchett present it like a Seuss story, complete with the issue title, "Horton Wears the Hood!" (because Hit's real first name is Horton.) The backstory works as another example of people seeing power only as a means to get what they want, but the choice of presentation is curious.
There's a whole bit where Jeff's dad is a hostage Hit doesn't want, because the hood wouldn't let him kill the man. Hit keeps leaving Mr. Sealey ways to "escape" - a crowbar, the keys to the handcuffs - and the man keeps refusing to take the hint. In issue 3, there's an entire sequence where Jeff repeatedly fails to hide one of the huge guns Nate brought back from the confrontation underground as Nate's mother cleans up some broken glass on the floor right in front of them, and she simply doesn't react. During the DNA drug doctor's trial, his attorney's opening statement is hampered by him fumbling papers, or his glass of water, or his glasses. I think it's meant to be he's gradually turning to ozone and is increasingly incorporeal, but it comes off like he's a klutz, and this is somehow hurting his defense.
Burchett is the artist for the first half of the series, albeit with a host of different inkers. Mike Chen in issue 4, Chen and Jose Marzan Jr. in issue 5. Damon Willis on issue 6. Willis also pencils issue 9. Burchett draws issue 7 himself, then does breakdowns on issue 8, with Neil Vokes as penciler. Tim Sale draws issues 10 and 11, and Peter Snejbjerg (with Chen on inks) draws issue 12. Burchett emphasizes a different style and approach for each wearer of the hood. Wayne is built like a fire hydrant and tends to charge straight in, letting bullets bounce off the armor and tackling his enemies. It's full speed ahead, deal out punishment.
With Hit, he's mostly using two Uzis, so it's a lot of shooting. We occasionally see him show off the strength, lifting a metal plate that covers the entrance to the place he hid Sealey, or hefting machines off Jeff so Nate can pull him clear. But Hit's also the slimmest of the 3, even shorter than Nate despite being a grown man, so that showcases the power the hood provides. Or shows the difference in Hit when he's wearing the hood. The guy who relied on hustle, charm and perseverance is brute forcing his way through things now.
With Nate, Burchett and the other artists focus on agility, the strength apparent through the leaps and flips. When the magician (who apparently studied how to combine different animals into chimeras in prison, which I guess could at least be loosely connected to unfortunately cutting his dog in half) sets a flying tiger on Nate, Nate leaps forward with his arms wide, then tucks into a forward roll to avoid the claws. Or he's leaping over tables and halfway up escalators while carrying a tactical shotgun, vaulting police cars and dumpsters with one hand like Daredevil would. Nate shoots, but it's a last resort.
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