Hooded Justice/DC Timeline

Hooded Justice
Biographical Information
Alias	Hooded Justice HJ
Affiliation(s)	Minutemen
Occupation(s)	Vigilante
Familial Information
Spouse(s)	Nelson Gardner (lover)

Hooded Justice, whose real identity in the HBO series is Will Reeves, was the first-ever masked adventurer and the lead influence for Nite Owl (Hollis Mason) and the rest of the early costumed heroes. He wore a hood and a noose, had the body of a wrestler, and was a charter member of the Minutemen.

Although the press and many members of the public believed the Hooded Justice was in a relationship with fellow crime fighter Silk Spectre (Sally Jupiter) (to the extent that Laurie Juspeczyk believed that Hooded Justice was her father), in fact he was homosexual, who was involved with Captain Metropolis. He also had sadomasochistic tendencies (see Sexuality, below).

He is the only masked vigilante whose final fate is never fully resolved. It is suggested he may have been killed but never proven.

Biography

Becoming Hooded Justice

On October 14th, 1938 a young couple was on their way home from the theater when they were ambushed by three criminals in a alleyway in Queens, New York. The armed robbers stole all their valuables and physically assaulted the man, then threatened to assault his girlfriend. They were interrupted, however, by a masked figure in an executioner's hood with a noose around his neck who had disarmed them and then beat them with such severity that they were hospitalized. One of the assailants lost the use of his legs due to a spinal cord injury.

The news media sensationalized this story and it became the talk of the town, but there were no other sightings of the masked vigilante for seven days. The vigilante was again spotted disrupting what appeared to be a supermarket robbery at Fred's Original Market. Gunfire disrupted the night, drawing onlookers who all reported seeing the masked vigilante sporting a red cape, noose, and an executioner's hood and was built like a wrestler. Before the cops arrived, a brave boy stepped in the vigilante's path as he attempted to flee. The boy asked the vigilante what he is. The vigilante replied "Justice". The name was spun into "Hooded Justice" by the papers the next morning.

Hooded Justice - TV series

Many more sightings sprung up over the next few months including an incident involving a triple homicide at a federal bank. Of the four criminals, H.J. hunted down Tony and Little Bob, the other two were inside a battery park factory. H.J. took off Monty. Nobody knows what happened, but the cops, and Hollis Mason who was present on duty heard their screams. Mason was the only one who saw a little of his red cape as he left. The vigilante's violent tactics made him a target of a police manhunt, but he became a champion of the people - particularly the impoverished neighborhoods he seemed inclined to protect. After a number of failed attempts to capture Hooded Justice by the police, the NYPD hired a private consultant to aid in the apprehension of Hooded Justice and the copycat vigilantes which began popping up.

However, the consultant, Nelson Gardner, went the other direction. Nelson secured political backing to endorse the costumed adventurer movement. Unbeknownst to the police, Gardner even became a costumed adventurer himself, calling himself Captain Metropolis, and formed his own team of adventurers. Gardner did make good on his promise of finding Hooded Justice, but instead of locking him up, he recruited him to become a member of the new team of costumed heroes known as the Minutemen.

Minutemen

In the autumn of 1939 there was an advertisement in the New York Gazette for all other masked adventurers to step forward that was submitted by Captain Metropolis with the help of Laurence Schexnayder. Like the rest, Hooded Justice joined the group and fought crime as a team.

His relationship with Gardner was soon known, and Schexnayder tried to persuade him to be more cautious and suggested he tried to be closer to Silk Spectre when in the public eye. He also tried to persuade Jupiter to date him and revealed his identity.

At the Minutemen Christmas Party that year, it was noted that he and Jupiter had 'sort of' started dating, but Nite Owl speculated that even though she attached herself swiftly to him, he never seemed very interested in her.

Hooded Justice (1955)

In 1940, after the group's photo had been taken, Jupiter stayed in the room to change, and the Comedian attempted to sexually assault her. Hooded Justice walked into the room realizing how long she was taking and caught Blake on the ground over her with his pants down, and she appeared to be almost unconscious. After Hooded Justice brutally attacked him, Blake coughed up blood and said, "This is what you like, huh? This is what gets you hot..." Hooded Justice replied, "Get out," and told Sally to put some clothes on.

After the verdict to expel Blake was announced to him, HJ attempted to separate Blake and Mason, who argued. As he approached, Blake pulled HJ from his rope noose and threw him down. He pulled a gun on Gardner and then threatened that he will shoot HJ when he next sees him.

When Ursula Zandt's lesbianism was outed by the press, and despite their homosexual relationship, Metropolis and H.J. voted her out as the revelation would damage the team's image. She was soon murdered by the Liquidator and Jupiter held themselves responsible. While investigating the Liquidator's murders, Metropolis and H.J. were after his traces in gay joints, before reaching his hideout. They found Jupiter, having already killed the Liquidator. After scolding them for their hypocrisy, she announced her wish to quit.

During the Congressman Subcommittee hearings of the House UnAmerican Activities Committee sometime around 1955, each member Minutemen was requested to reveal their identities to one representative of the committee. Even though his identity would not be released to the public, Hooded Justice refused to be exposed on the grounds that he was not prepared to reveal his true identity to anyone. Due to America's strong campaign, they put a great deal of pressure on the vigilante, but he never did reveal his identity. Instead, he simply disappeared.

Final fate

Due to his disappearance, there has been wide speculation concerning the identity of Hooded Justice. To the general public, there is no concrete evidence regarding Hooded Justice's fate after his disappearance. Even his reasons for disappearing are not known for certain, although Hollis Mason suggested in Under the Hood that Hooded Justice probably chose to retire rather than reveal his identity. An article from the New Frontiersman, printed about a year after Hooded Justice's disappearance, mentions an East German circus strongman named Rolf Müller, who was believed to have been Hooded Justice since they both disappeared around the same time and shared a similar body type. The article takes this further, suggesting that Hooded Justice had been working for the communists.

Another article revealed that a body, tentatively identified as that of Müller, washed up on the coast of Boston a little over a year after his disappearance. The body was badly decomposed and had been shot through the head believing it to be a political assassination. The assassins were never identified, although the article from The New Frontiersman suggests that Müller may have been killed by his communist superiors.

It is later believed that Hooded Justice was killed by Nite Owl in 1955 after the latter believed he killed several children. Müller was later revealed not to be Hooded Justice, but instead, the real killer of those boys and was a Nazi criminal who raped and tortured young children including Silhouette's sister. The Comedian found Müller and killed him while finding a photo of him and a boy named Jacob, and orchestrated a series of events to flush Hooded Justice out, only to have Nite Owl seemingly kill him.

 Although believed to have died, the real Hooded Justice managed to survive that night and escaped; much to the dismay of the Comedian who would continue to track him him down until his death in 1985. In the fall of that year Hooded Justice met with Nelson Gardner, and informed him of his plans of early retirement and traveling abroad. HJ made it clear to him that he never wanted to see him again after almost ruining his life.

Adrian Veidt looked into Hooded Justice's disappearance when researching his crimefighter predecessors. Veidt learned that the Comedian, while under the orders of J. Edgar Hoover, attempted to unearth Hooded Justice shortly after his disappearance but reported failure. Veidt suspected that Blake had found and killed Hooded Justice, but reported failure to his superiors, although he admitted that he could not prove this. With the exception of Captain Metropolis, Nite Owl I, Mothman and Silk Spectre I nobody knew of HJ's real identity.

Appearance

On multiple occasions, Hooded Justice was described with the physique of a wrestler and has been noted as one of the biggest men most people had ever seen. Both tall and made up of erupting muscles, there is no question why he was such a worthy candidate for his title. In one view, it can be seen through the eye-holes of his hood the color of his blazing ember eyes, filled with fury and shock.

His costume was the least gaudy of the Minutemen, even with his bright red cape, his attire was simple and surprisingly symbolic. Along with his cape, which fell to his knees and opened upward from his neck, circling his face except for the front, was his similarly colored spandex trousers. The rest of his body was covered in the same material with a dark purple or possibly black color. Most notable and symbolic of all his attire, besides perhaps the simple hood over his head (resembling that of an executioner), is the hangman's noose wrapped around his neck, likely a symbol for the punishment of villains and law-breakers. He also wears the same rope around his waist, wrists, and ankles.

Personality

Linking Hooded Justice further to the circus strongman Rolf Müller, Hollis Mason mentioned that while Hooded Justice was part of the Minutemen, he had gone on record for expressing approval for Hitler's actions during the Third Reich, although this was before the attack on Pearl Harbor.

Some of the few confirmed moments of Hooded Justice's actions as a crimefighter indicate that he was incredibly vicious and terse, as evidenced by the bodies of the villains he hunted down. The crimefighting was possibly a way for him to express his vice in a somehow useful manner. As the Comedian taunted, beating him was what turned him on. While Larry tried to make some remarks about his public image, H.J. was seen browsing and caressing hardware tools like a saw and a hammer, possibly burying some anger caused by Larry's words. In any case, his character was in stark contrast to the mostly gentle and timid Nelson Gardner.

Sexuality

In a letter from Sally Jupiter's scrapbook, Laurence Schexnayder discusses the dilemma between "Nelly" (Nelson Gardner) and "H.J." (Hooded Justice) and how Nelly was upset over another tiff with Hooded Justice. He describes their actions in public as those of an old married couple and how they are getting more difficult to cover for. Nelly claims that when he calls, Hooded Justice is 'out with boys' with a lot of 'rough stuff' going on.

The fact that Hooded Justice apparently relished rough sex is what allows Blake to goad him when he stops Blake's rape of Sally. "This is what you like, huh? This is what gets you hot?"

Identity

Hooded Justice compared to Rolf Müller.

He is the only costumed vigilante whose real name or identity is never revealed in the series.

Although his identity was never confirmed, there was speculation in an article in The New Frontiersman, a year after Hooded Justice disappeared, that mentioned the absence of a circus strongman named Rolf Müller who quit his job at approximately the same time as Hooded Justice had vanished. Only three months later his body had washed up on the coast of Boston that was shot through the head and badly decomposed.

Rolf Muller, if that was indeed a name that Hooded Justice used, may also have been only an alias and his true identity was never discovered. Muller and his family were East German and had been on the run from the Communist witch hunts, thus the paper claimed that he had been executed by his own Red superiors.

A lot of his actions while Hooded Justice imply that he was a Nazi supporter rather than a communist, but the strongman's immense size could easily have been described as the physique of a wrestler.

Considering Muller's family is from East Germany, this would only be further proof of their secrets. Seeing Muller as a Nazi would conclude that he is an authoritarian, but is hypocritical toward himself due to Hitler's eradication of homosexuals from Germany also.

One could speculate that Muller if he was indeed Hooded Justice, was simply a very authoritarian person who wanted to see law and order prevail in his country, and would support whichever group promised this, Nazis in the 1930s, Communists after the war.

Adaptation

The sixth episode of the HBO series, "This Extraordinary Being", answered the largest unsolved mystery in Watchmen Canon: who is behind the Hooded Justice mask? The common presumption is that, like the rest of the Minutemen, Hooded Justice is white. It’s even depicted as such in the campy show-within-the-show, American Hero Story.

However, it turns out that the man behind Hooded Justice is Will Reeves, Angela Abar’s grandfather. Reeves joined the NYPD to fight for justice only to be met with racism immediately: the Chief refuses to shake his hand at the badge ceremony. After Officer Reeves tries to arrest a white man named Fred for throwing a Molotov cocktail into a Jewish deli, the other cops let the man go. Later, they follow Reeves down the road, asking him to go for a drink with them. When he refuses, they follow him, kidnap him and take him to a park where they put a hood over his head and a rope around his neck. His fellow cops lynch him, leaving Reeves within an inch of his life before cutting him down as a warning for “getting into white folk’s business.” While walking home, traumatized, Reeves sees a group of men attacking two people in an alleyway. He dons the hood and rope used to lynch him and becomes Hooded Justice, the first vigilante in the Watchmen universe. 

True to legend, Reeves engaged in a sexual relationship with Nelson Gardner aka Captain Metropolis. Metropolis told HJ after an intimate moment that he will have to keep the mask on outside their relationship because "the others are not as tolerant as I am" about Reeves being black. It is furthermore implied that the two don’t share the same vision for the Minutemen. Reeves asks Gardner for help taking down the Cyclops (a secret Klan-aligned white supremacist group), and foiling their plan to coerce violence out of black people through hypnotism. Gardner interrupts him at the press conference instead to talk about Moloch and a recent advertising deal with the National Bank. Later, when Hooded Justice calls Captain Metropolis from a payphone to request the Minutemen as backup against Cyclops, Captain Metropolis refuses, telling HJ "I’m afraid you’ll have to solve black unrest all on your own." 

Appearances

TV series

• "Martial Feats of Comanche Horsemanship" (AHS)
• "Little Fear of Lightning" (AHS)
• "This Extraordinary Being" (flashback)

Trivia

• The author's notes reveal that this costume was originally designed for a Minuteman called Brother Night who claimed to have occult powers.
• In the movie, Hooded Justice is only heard to speak one line, "You little bastard!" His inflection and accent are not American, they could perhaps be German, but they could also be upper-class British or even Irish, adding a further level of ambiguity.
• Rorschach's journal in Chapter I says that HJ had gone missing in '55, and Under the Hood: Chapter V says he disappeared during the HUAC hearings without giving a date, but suggesting the same. The prequels retcon the dates, and H.J. is seen missing earlier, in '52. He is killed in '55, but while officially still considered missing, and his death is kept secret; Rorschach (or anyone else) wouldn't know about the date '55.
• In the graphic novel, Hooded Justice (whose identity was never revealed) was notorious for being a Nazi apologist. This is retconned in the TV series, which states that Hooded Justice was Will Reeves, a black police officer going after a white supremacist group called Cyclops. The show does not mention anything Reeves said about the Nazis as HJ, while Peteypedia dismisses these claims as rumors and speculations by Hollis Mason. However, Damon Lindelof would later confirm in an interview that Will only made those statements to further hide his true ethnicity. There's also the German military letter to black Allied soldiers he carries around, which may or may not be related to this.

Gallery

on American Hero Story

2009 Film

Comic (black/white)

Comic (color)

See also

• Jacob
• The Fate of Hooded Justice and Captain Metropolis

Navigation

v • e Watchmen characters
Costumed adventurers
Minutemen	Captain Metropolis • Hooded Justice • Nite Owl I • The Comedian • Silk Spectre I • Dollar Bill • Mothman • Silhouette
Crimebusters	Captain Metropolis • Doctor Manhattan • Rorschach • The Comedian • Ozymandias • Nite Owl II • Silk Spectre II
Tulsa PD masks	Sister Night • Looking Glass • Panda • Pirate Jenny • Red Scare
Other vigilantes	Reggie Long
Criminals & villains
Costumed villains	Captain Axis • Captain Carnage • Claude Boke • Moloch the Mystic • Erika Manson • Jimmy the Gimmick • King Mob • King of Skin • Liquidator • Marcos Maez • Screaming Skull • Spaceman • Twilight Lady
Knot Tops	Aline • Lawrence • Roxi
Seventh Kavalry	Carmichael • The Suspect • Renee
Cyclops	Judd Crawford • Jane Crawford • Joe Keene • John David Keene
Criminals	Big Figure • Derf • George Paterson • Gerald Anthony Grice • Harvey Charles Furniss • Michael Stephens • Otis • Rolf Müller • Roy Victor Chess • Underboss
Government & law enforcement
Politicians	Alexander Haig • Jane Crawford • Joe Keene • John David Keene
New York PD	Capaldi • Francis Giancarlo • Charlie Greaves • Hollis Mason • Joe Bourquin • Samuel J. Battle • Shaw • Steven Fine • Willis
Tulsa PD	Charlie Sutton • Judd Crawford
FBI	Dale Petey • Kaufax • Laurie Juspeczyk • Luxem
Military	Forbes • Greg • Holden • J. Sanderson • Peterman • Pierce • Pitch
Other	Anthony Randolph • Mulhearney • William Parker
Partners & family of masked adventurers
	Adrian Veidt: Ingrid Renata Veidt Angela Abar: Cal Abar • Emma Abar • Topher Abar • Marcus Abar • Ruth Robeson • O.B. Williams Eddie Blake: Vietnamese Woman Hollis Mason: Hollis Wordsworth Mason • Liantha Mason Jon Osterman: Inge Osterman Laurie Juspeczyk/Sally Jupiter: Bella Juspeczyk • Laurence Schexnayder Nelson Gardner: Norbert Veldon Reggie Long: Gloria Long • Malcolm Long Ursula Zandt: Blanche Zandt • Gretchen Slovak Walter Kovacs: Peter Joseph Kovacs • Sylvia Kovacs
Civilians
Notable others	Bernard • Bernie • Lady Trieu • Will Reeves • Ms. Crookshanks • Mr. Phillips • Bian My
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