Black Hood
Entry updated 24 August 2026. Tagged: Comics, Publication.
US Comic (1943-1946). MLJ Magazines/Archie Comics. 11 issues (numbered #9 – #19). Artists include Red Holmdale, Everett Kinstler, Irv Novick and Clem Weisbecker. Script writers include Bill Woolfolk; Otto Binder (see Eando Binder) wrote one script, mentioned below. Initially 60 pages, declining to 52, with 4-5 strips (three featuring the Black Hood), plus a short text story (in #9 a nonfiction piece, "Is Germany's Secret Weapon a Rocket Plane?", concerning World War Two, perhaps a misunderstanding of V-2 Rocket research).
Black Hood was, on the whole, one of the slighter comics of the era. The Superhero Black Hood is police officer Kip Burland, who had first appeared in Top-Notch Comics #9 (1940). Other police consider him a crook, particularly Burland's partner, the comic-relief Irishman Sergeant McGinty: a running gag is his receiving the credit for the other's actions and being lauded by the press. Barbara Sutton, a reporter, becomes a regular character and knows Burland's secret; she also provides help. Burland/Black Hood occasionally makes deductions, but the stories usually lack sf or Fantasy elements, with rare exceptions. In #13, Burland is the only person capable of drawing a sword from its scabbard, this being King Arthur's Excalibur; the Black Hood wields it for the rest of the story before the sword is thrown into a lake and grabbed by a skeletal hand. #15 has a Tibetan monk returning from the dead (see Eschatology) to retrieve his idol's rubies and punish the thief and murderer. There are also a couple of borderline-sf Supervillains. In #19 Black Hood's identity is revealed, the police realize he is on their side, and he becomes a private detective.
Hangman had first appeared in Pep Comics #17 (1941), in which the superhero The Comet – first appearance in Pep Comics #1 (1939) – dies saving his brother Robert Dickering's life. Robert became the Hangman to avenge his murder; the name reflects the fate of those he captures once convicted (see Crime and Punishment). Binder's script appears in #10, where Hangman corners a criminal in a Mad Scientist's laboratory and sits them down, but the scientist sees the opportunity to test his "Time Chair" (see Time Machine), sending him to 2044 (see Time Travel). Our hero pursues: a local policeman's paralysing Ray causes the criminal to fall off a wall onto some wires, garotting him. (Last appearance #10.)
Brothers Roy and Dusty are a pair of very dull teenaged superheroes known as the Boy Buddies, who first appeared in Hangman Comics #5 (1942) and have a strip in Black Hood #9; only Dusty shows up in #10, where he talks to the strip's artist, asking him for a Villain to face – but no one too threatening. Roy returns in #11 for their final appearance. From #14 there is Gloomy Gus, the Homeless Ghost – first appearance Top Notch Laugh Comics #29 (1942) – a Humorous strip. The Supernatural Creature Gus is sent by St Peter on missions to Earth, where he inhabits the bodies of the dying or recently dead (a kind of Identity Transfer). In #15 Heaven is keen to prevent a stock market crash (see Economics), so has Gus and a friend possess two dying tycoons. [SP]
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