It doesn’t take too long to figure out that The Black Hood isn’t your normal Archie Comics series. The hero getting a shotgun blast to the face on the third page pretty much does it.
Out in stores today, the first issue of writer Duane Swierczynski and artist Michael Gaydos’ comic-book series kicks off the reality-based shared universe of Archie’s Dark Circle Comics line and retools a Golden Age superhero character from the 1940s.
With a more modern spin, though, Black Hood also digs into the inherently violent world of a cop-turned-vigilante on the mean streets of Philadelphia, a place that would send Jughead screaming for cover at the local malt shop.
“We’ve always known how dark it would go,” Swierczynski says, “but it’s been great fun fleshing out the Black Hood’s character in ways that surprise even me.”
No one’s told the writer he’s gone too far yet in the story of Greg Hettinger, a cop who’s shot in the line of duty while investigating an incident involving rival drug gangs. He ends up gunning down the masked vigilante known as Black Hood before passing out and ends up a hero in the process.
Greg jumps back into police work, though he’s fostering a new addiction to Percocet that leads him to putting on the familiar black mask himself and fighting crime in a different sort of fashion.
“I love that right now Greg is light-years away from what you might consider a superhero, other than his stubborn desire to ‘do some good,’ ” Swierczynski says. “He doesn’t have super-strength. He’s not a millionaire. He’s not an inventor. In fact, his only ‘superpower’ is that criminals’ punches don’t hurt quite as much, because he’s usually high on painkillers. So it’s fun to watch him problem-solve and grapple with threats larger than his natural abilities.”
