10 Comic Book Heroes Whose Origins Are A Mystery
5. Hooded Justice
Hooded Justice was a mysterious member of the Golden Age team the Minutemen in Alan Moore’s Watchmen Universe. Virtually nothing is known about the identity of the hero save that he is of German-American descent and that he made his first public appearance in the fall of 1938 when he stopped a street gang from assaulting a young couple. Later named Hooded Justice, he would controversially beat his opponents nearly to death.
Unknown to all but a few of his teammates, Hooded Justice was a homosexual man. Even his lover, Captain Metropolis, didn’t know the true identity of his paramour. To hide his sexual identity, Justice pretended to be in a relationship with Silk Spectre, with her consent. It was he who discovered the Comedian raping the Silk Spectre and savagely beat his teammate and had him thrown off the team.
In 1955, the Comedian continued the Silhouette's investigation of recent child murders and discovered a man named Rolf Mueller, who was a former Nazi henchman. Blake framed Hooded Justice and claimed he was Mueller, despite the Nazi being much older. He pushed his teammate Nite Owl to apprehend Justice and the Owl ended up killing him. Capt. Metropolis burned his former lover in the old Minuteman HQ to preserve his identity.