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It's "White Male Rage: the Action Figure"!
A chance encounter with a demon gives petty thief Parker Robinson a mystical cloak and transforms him into a true criminal menace.
Depending on how you count, The Hood is the newest character in this series. Technically the Andrew Forson Scientist Supreme was introduced a decade later, but "Scientist Supreme" as a position within AIM had been around since 1971. Killing a Nisanti demon and stealing its clothes, Parker Robbins gained the ability to walk on air and to turn invisible when he held his breath. Not the most impressive powers in the world, but you work with what you're given.
The first thing that stands out about this figure is the head. Rather than sn expressionless face, Hasbro's sculpted him with a big angry yell. He
looks like the YouTube thumbnail of every video explaining why Captain Marvel failed at the box office, why MotU Revelation Teela is too butch, what's wrong with Taskmaster, or why Faye Valentine's Netflix costume isn't good enough. This is a guy who has made "liking Joker" his entire personality, and thinks girls aren't interested in him because they don't want nice guys. He'd post a Wojak meme about dinosaurs. It's hilarious that we now have a reaction image in physical form for the next time somebody complains about The Force Awakens. Truly outstanding!
Under his cape, Parker just wears normal street clothes: brown dress shoes, olive pants, a white button-up shirt and a blue jacket. This is still the version of the body with the toes turned all the way to the inside, and here's our promise to you: we will never stop making fun of this plastic mistake until it stops being used. The same way we always point out when archers have articulation that won't allow them to arch: shaming companies into doing better by constantly ridiculing when things go wrong. Do good and we'll shut up.
Just like Abed Nadir believes, the cape
is what really matters. He can't very well be The Hood if he doesn't have a hood, can he? Of course not. In fact, when he lost his magical cloak at one point, he soon got a replacement, because status quo is god. The cape is a new mold, a single piece of red plastic with golden discs up by the collar. The lower edge is tattered, because demons don't take care of their stuff very well; unfortunately, it seems like no one was paying close enough attention during the design phase, because a few of the folds come down lower than his feet do, and the material used is too thick to really flex back without pushing the hood up off his head.
Parker comes with a pair of pistols,
just normal real-world guns. They're not the same ones Deadpool carried, but they are similar. Because he can fire magic from them, we get some really neat energy effects that fit over the barrels: there's a spiral of yellow-orange flame, circling around a dark pink "bullet" that appears to float in the center. It's a really clever design, and feels like something you'd get with a fancy Japanese figure. Very cool!
He's also got a piece of this series' Xemnu the Titan Build-A-Figure, the left leg.
For a while there, the Hood was kind of a major villain. He somehow managed to organize almost all of Marvel's unaffiliated villains into a huge criminal syndicate while Civil War was keeping al the heroes distracted, and even threatened the Avengers (until they got serious about him). Not bad for an angry street punk! He almost got an an action once before, appearing in the 2009 SDCC ML concept case for a potential fan vote, but while that one didn't work out, it's good to have him now.
-- 09/22/21
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