Saturday, November 11, 2023

MINOR SUPER-VILLAIN 370: THE GREEN HOOD

(Minute-Man 002, 1941)


As mentioned in our last entry, the Green Hood was retroactively revealed to be the boss of Illyria, Queen of Spies in her final appearance (probably for the best as it's hard maintain queenly authority when people know that you have a supervisor). He's your standard hooded mastermind/ spymaster, albeit with a much more dramatically draped hood than most.



He is also A Bad Boss, as shown by his demonstration of managerial style above. Having tasked Illyria with the daunting task of capturing Minute-Man, he condemns her to death (the super-villain equivalent of a very harsh write-up on her file) for capturing General Milton as bait/ in order to extract Minute-Man's secret identity from him.

For comparison, this is like hiring a team of scientists to travel to the centre of he Earth and then firing them when you find that they're building a giant drill. Or, for that matter, setting someone the task of killing Batman and then getting mad when they show up with Alfred. The Green Hood's uncle probably runs this spy business, is what I'm saying.


Having ruined his chances of getting Minute-Man and squandered his best agent on a fit of middle-management pique, the Green Hood determines that he should make a grand gesture by attacking an unnamed New York-like city in the name of his unspecified Germany-like county using a tank that dispenses poison gas. He makes some headway but is ultimately felled by cop with a hand grenade.

The issue ends with a hint that the Green Hood and Illyria might just be back someday and I'm sure that he would have been if the US had not entered WWII - hooded spymasters and femmes fatale were just too subtle and nuanced to be representatives of Nazi Germany in the comics. Sorry Green Hood but you are D E A D.

No comments:

Post a Comment

MINOR SUPER-VILLAIN 619: GYP CLIPP

(Fantastic Comics 007, 1940)  Mr Clipp here is our first villain with "Gyp" or "Gypsy" as a part of their name, and ther...