The Red Hook: New Brooklyn

The Red Hook Volume 1: New Brooklyn by Dean Haspiel
My rating: 4 of 5 stars

When New Brooklyn's most notorious super thief gets saddled with the Omni-Fist of Altruism, The Red Hook finds himself a super hero against his will. Will he defeat Benson Hurst for the good of New Brooklyn?

Yeah, it's more complex that that. I loved Dean Haspiel on The Fox so I had to pick this up. Apparently, The Red Hook is an award winning web comic and this is the first physical collection of that web comic.

The Red Hook inhabits New Brooklyn, a Brooklyn that split off from the United States into its own nation, a place where art can be used for currently. The Red Hook is a super thief, although he doesn't have powers for the first half of the book, not until The Green Point bestows the Omni-Fist of altruism upon him, making him the city's champion.

The Red Hook and The Possum are partners and lovers, kind of like if Catman and Catwoman got together, both street level characters walking the line between burglary and heroism. While The Red Hook has a lot of The Fox in his parentage, there's also some Wildcat and possibly Daredevil in there.

The book reads like an update of cheesy Silver Age comics, complete with puns. Haspiel's art is a little more cartoony than it was on The Fox but what do you expect with villains like The Boob or Iron Knee? The tone is light but there are some surprisingly dark moments. Due to its origins as a web comic, the writing feels choppy at times but I don't think that could be helped.

The Red Hook's journey from super thief to reluctant super hero was a fun ride. Four out of five swords of sacrifice.

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