This week’s episode of Watchmen on HBO finally revealed who the very first superhero in existence was, and it was no surprise when Hooded Justice’s identity was revealed.
Here is a look at who Hooded Justice is on Watchmen.
Hooded Justice on Watchmen
Most people assumed that Hooded Justice was a white man, like almost every other superhero in the world of Watchmen. However, that was not true.
As foreshadowed on the early episodes where the young boy survived the Black Wall Street Tulsa Massacre and ended up as Angela’s grandfather Will Reeves, he is Hooded Justice.
He ended up taking on the role when he earned the role of a police officer but then found out he was a token hire and was almost lynched by fellow police officers after he tried to arrest a white man for arson.
He kept the noose that the officers tried to lynch him with and then put on the mask they put over his head to save a couple in danger of a robbery in an alley.
He then began to put white makeup around his eyes so it appeared he was a white man to the public and ended up joining the Minutemen.
While he thought the Minutemen could help him bring down a Ku Klux Klan underground organization that was trying to make black people look like criminals through hypnosis, he later learned they had no desire to help him at all.
Will Reeves ended up murdering the people involved in the Cyclops program and that pushed him over the line.
The episode flashed ahead to show that Will had mastered the device Cyclops made and had Chief Judd Crawford hang himself to start the wheels rolling on whatever he has planned.
Who is Yahya Abdul-Mateen II?
While Louis Gossett Jr. plays the elder Will Reeves, the younger version from this episode of Watchmen on HBO is played by Yahya Abdul-Mateen II.
Abdul-Mateen is most recognizable to fans of another DC property. He is the man who portrayed Black Mantis in the movie Aquaman. He also had a role in the 2020 Oscar-contending movie Us, as Weyland.
Watchmen on HBO airs on Sundays at 10/9c on HBO.