The headlines shouted about the Imperial Japanese Navy’s devastating surprise attack on the U.S. fleet at Pearl Harbor, but elsewhere on the newsstands, the children whose fathers were about to go off to war found happier fare.
Jackpot Comics 4 (Winter 1941) featured MLJ Comics stars Mr. Justice, Steel Sterling, the Black Hood and some new kid named Archie Andrews.
“In Spring 1941, the Black Hood got extra accommodations at Jackpot Comics and appeared in all nine issues,” noted Lou Mougin in his Secondary Superheroes of Golden Age Comics. “The second issue (Summer 1941) featured another Skull story, with the corpse-faced criminal killing a senator, among a multitude of others, and following the cast on a South American expedition for a treasure city.”
“His stories were often Batman-style mysteries, and worked as well as, say, the Shield’s slam-bang action.”
“He was also one of the few comic book characters ever to star in his own pulp magazine,” observed comics historian Don Markstein. “Black Hood Detective began recounting his adventures in non-comics form in 1941, and lasted no less than three issues (although the title was changed to Hooded Detective with the second). For a few months in 1943, he even had his own radio show. But already, the superhero dominance of comics was starting to fade.”
After World War II, the Black Hood’s secret identity would be exposed by a criminal, and he’d continue his fight against crime openly as private detective Kip Burland before vanishing for 13 years.
When he returned, times had indeed changed. In some unexplained manner, he’d regained his secret identity.
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