The Hood, Volume 1

Blood From Stones
written by Brian K. Vaughan
pencils by Kyle Hotz

Parker Robbins, The Hood's protagonist, is petty, criminal, cheating rake, who is as ignorant and unlikable a character as Vaughan dare to make the center of his anti-hero story.  The premise is excellent, if not entirely unprecedented.  In the Marvel universe—riddled with masked superheroes inspiring the awe of the country and with masked villains, who seem to appear out of a void one at a time to be their convenient counterparts—Vaughan imagines a criminal culture, one typically implied but not seen, or relegated to the background of most superhero comics.  For Robbins and his family, having grown up in the shadow of Kingpin and his criminal empire, theft is a way of life, and it's one he embraces fully.

His perspective changes, however, when in the middle of a heist with his cousin John King, he discovers a strange, semi-mechanical hooded figure in a cryptic, mystical circle.  After shooting the demon, seemingly dead, he then re-appropriates his boots and cloak only to discover that they give him special powers:  the abilities to fly and to turn invisible when he holds his breath.  Putting his new powers to good criminal use, Parker and John then stumble into the world of crime bosses, blood diamonds, and super-villains.  For the most part, the villains are uninteresting.  Madame Rapier, Constrictor, Jack O' Lantern and Shocker serve as suitable muscle and some mediocre thug-banter, but contribute little else.  The Golem—né Dennis Golembuski—is significantly more so, but it takes until the final few issues for the nature of his involvement—i.e., his coerced participation through his family's kidnapping—to become more clear.  In fact, despite being published as a mini-series whose follow-up didn't appear until 2006, The Hood reads more like a beginning than a whole story, one that ultimately repositions its characters for a longer vision than completing their story.

Most importantly, it redeems Parker somewhat.  Parker begins as an immature 19-year-old guy cheating on his pregnant girlfriend with a prostitute, committing armed theft with his recovering-alcoholic cousin, and habitually lying to his institutionalized mother about his career path.  In the course of his abbreviated run as a masked villain, he manages to piss off a notorious crime boss working for an unseen and even more terrifying master, to shoot and ultimately kill a beat cop (also cheating on his wife with his partner), and trade in blood diamonds.  However, his remorse about the cop and his loyalty to his similarly reprobate cousin lead him toward a more wholesome lifestyle, so that his final promise to his mother, though understandably unbelieved by her hospital's staff, seems sincere.  However, the damage is done, and just as a hero rises, a villain—in this case, the cop's wife, formerly a Stark engineer, transforms into White Fang—sprouts up to fight him.

As usual, Brian K. Vaughan is strongest in his dialogue.  The casual, pop-culture-ridden banter between Parker and John in particular is both character-appropriate and frequently hilarious.  It provides a levity his story needs and a kind of cultural embeddedness that ground its fantastic elements in a more relatable world.  Unfortunately, Hotz' artwork is less impressive.  It's good enough, but it does little to enhance the story, and his interior artwork falls well short of his stark, evocative cover illustrations.

Collects The Hood: Blood From Stones #1-6
ISBN:  978-0785110583