Captain Iron Hook vs Captain Red Beard - The Case Finally Solved After almost 40 Years: Heads, Legs and Names Oh My!

[kelceycoe]

I tried to delete my other posts so I could redo newer posts that were shorter and conclusive, so here goes....

After reviewing commercials, catalogs, and club magazines across Europe and the United States (and limited Japanese media), I have finally been able to resolve this issue.

Understand, growing up here in America, we were not exposed to much Pirates lore as other regions so this is more in respect to Americans than anyone else.

First, the name "Captain Iron Hook" is NOT recognized by ANY official American Lego media (some of you may say But wait, what about The Lego Book... and remember, that is published by DK out of the UK).

Captain Red Beard, in America, was always promoted as the sole Pirate captain. Both mini figures were rarely seen together in America (I only recall the 1993 commercial and even then the guy we call Captain Iron Hook was cowering behind Red Beard on Rock Island Refuge). Not to mention throughout many American catalog diaramas Captain Red Beard can be seen many times throughout various scenes ("Captain Iron Hook" was usually hiding in the distance or not as easy to find).

Second, wherever a minifigure appeared from 1992-1996 with a red, tattered shirt, SO DID the "dark red / brown face resembling Captain Red Beard." This can also be verified on Bricklink by searching for all instances of this torso - you will notice it always matches the "Dark Red" version. Note that usually, but not always, this head appeared Brown when the lighting was angled a certain way and Dark Red in other ways (to see this, stack all of your heads with Dark Red and lay them besides a stack of Captain Red Beard heads; I verified all of my heads, most this way, but counted the number of heads I had and verified this was accurate - this brown/dark red face only appeared in 7 original sets and 2 reissues, so if you even collected the reissues you would have a maximum of 9, assuming you never repeated a set). This doesn't exactly rule out the fact we Americans were MISLED to believe he was Captain Red Beard - the blame on that goes to the Lego Club Mania magazines for 1994-1995 where they stated Captain Red Beard led the Renegade Runner - a ship with the "Captain Iron Hook" minifigure.

Third, many of us confused ourselves about his legs. If we laid out the sets BY THE YEAR RELEASED as I have done so below, it all makes sense: He started out with legs but during the Islanders sets he now had a pegleg. I go on to argue, as no evidence suggests this (and TLG was NOT a company that left fans the "open possibility" to make our own inferences about lore) that the "variation" of "Captain Iron Hook" that appeared in the 1996 set WAS NOT, AT ALL, THE SAME MINIFIGURE and that TLG basically did the same thing they did in The Black Seas Barracuda by just repeating faces/torsos and mashing them with different legs hats / legs (see Will, First Mate Rummy and Flashfork for examples). UPDATE: Thanks to TalonCard (see post below), he provided evidence that names the Ironhook-lookalike in the 1996 set, Red Beard Runner, as Jake "the Snake" Blake - completely proving Bricklink's reference to him as Iron Hook as another falsehood on Bricklink.

1992 Raft Raiders - legs

1993 Renegade Runner - legs

1994 Barnacle Bay - NA only set - legs

1994 Forbidden Cove - pegleg

1994 Enchanted Island - pegleg

1995 1788 Treasure Chest - pegleg

 

So in summary:

• In AMERICA: The "second Pirate Captain" has no official name, from an American perspective.
• His facial hair is either dark red or brown, dependent upon the lighting and angles and always with the tattered red shirt torso.
• He started with legs but ended with a legleg.
• He is NOT the same minifigure seen in the 1996 ship set as Bricklink claims. His real name is Jake "the Snake" Blake.
• Therefore, as it relates to an official cannon for those of us here in America, his backstory has no factual meaning to us, i.e. friends in Europe or enemies in Japan.
• To each his own. If an American fan wants to adopt the name "Captain Iron Hook," honestly it's probably better for us that we do since he began with legs and his set reign ended with a pegleg.

Edited 5 hours ago by kelceycoe

[Admiral Bejaune]

My take on the Redbeard/ Iron hook topic, is that they are the same person.  Iron Hook sounds like a name a native islander might call someone with a hook for a hand. And I think the first wave of Islanders came out when Iron Hook was introduced.  At least thats what my mind, as a kid, thought.  To be honests I havent thought about the Redbeard/ Iron Hook thing since I was a kid.  To me Iron Hook is Redbeard either having a hard time with the Islanders, or was in his battle and his clothes show it.  An interesting read! Thanks!

[Brick Bandit]

Hey there! 

[TalonCard]

For what it's worth, Ironhook was originally a proposed name for the Pirate Captain character that became Roger/Redbeard, and the Ironhook-lookalike-with-tricorne from the Redbeard Runner was given a name in the US Mania Magazine, Jake "the Snake" Blake.

[kelceycoe]

37 minutes ago, TalonCard said:

For what it's worth, Ironhook was originally a proposed name for the Pirate Captain character that became Roger/Redbeard, and the Ironhook-lookalike-with-tricorne from the Redbeard Runner was given a name in the US Mania Magazine, Jake "the Snake" Blake.

Oh thank god! I can see why I missed it but I knew - without having proof - he really wasn't Captain Iron Hook despite Bricklink having him listed as so. I really wish someone would begin correcting all the errors there.

1 hour ago, Admiral Bejaune said:

My take on the Redbeard/ Iron hook topic, is that they are the same person.  Iron Hook sounds like a name a native islander might call someone with a hook for a hand. And I think the first wave of Islanders came out when Iron Hook was introduced.  At least thats what my mind, as a kid, thought.  To be honests I havent thought about the Redbeard/ Iron Hook thing since I was a kid.  To me Iron Hook is Redbeard either having a hard time with the Islanders, or was in his battle and his clothes show it.  An interesting read! Thanks!

As a kid, thanks to the Lego Club Mania magazines from 1994-1995, I too always thought he was a shipwrecked/castaway version of Captain Red Beard that was more rugged and down on his luck and happened upon the Islanders. I always thought they were cannibals too and I probably got that assumption after watching National Geographic documentaries as a kid. After watching the film, "Cannibal Holocaust," I most definitely feel like the premise of the film loosely inspired the Islanders, even though the Club Magazine from Winter 1994 wrote an article about islanders from Fiji and related the Kahuka statue as similar to the ones on Easter Island. (In case you're what what connection I am seeing with the cannibals from Cannibal Holocaust and Lego Islanders - in the film the cannibals were peaceful until they were threatened; much like the Islanders here, if you watch the commercials and notice the dioramas the Islanders are literally some of the more earlier brutally violent groups to come to Lego - they feed their enemies to crocodiles and many fans believe they were also headshrinkers so yea some serious tribal stuff).

[Brick Bandit]

Hey there! I’m brick bandit on YouTube and have really been trying to put together lore videos and stuff for these Lego characters. Although I am not an expert on this stuff if any of you guys could help me I’d really appreciate it. I’m not sure if there’s a way to DM on here or what not because I just had to create an account on here and have never posted here before. If you have Instagram and are really good at this red beard lore and story please reach out to me on Instagram or however through here with any information you have regarding red beards complete history!