I think Bendis did too much, too soon for him. The idea of having someone try to organize the supervillains, especially in the vacuum left in the underworld with the Kingpin in jail and Hammerhead being dead (killed by Underworld after Kingpin basically tricked Iron Man into foiling his attempt to organize baddies) isn't a completely bad one. The problem is that in his prior appearances, the Hood had been depicted as a novice criminal at best, and a borderline anti-hero in other areas, like BEYOND! where he was reconsidering his turn in life (and genuinely was inspired by the young hero Gravity).
Of course the idea that Dormammu is the demon who empowers the Hood's cloak and his influence is increasingly spreading upon the guy is alright. The problem was similar to many things Bendis does; the execution. With one speech he gathers an assortment of criminals and gets them all to blindly follow him. While some of them, like the Wrecking Crew, are career grunts, there are others who are leaders of teams, such as Crossfire or the Wizard, ones who rarely work for others, like Corrupter or Controller, as well as a few who at the time were supposed to be part of the heroic Initiative, like Constrictor. Madame Masque was later explained to be his girlfriend, which is a major step down from trying to bed Tony Stark. Even Jonas Harrow, a mad scientist type, was on the front lines. Hood's entire strategy is basically, "rush at the heroes and fight them with your fists", even for villains who are mind controllers or gadgeteer types. After all the usual Bendis big talk in his villains about how "nothing like this has ever been done before" and "this time it will be all different because I'm smarmy and know how to do things right", guess what, the gang does one robbery before getting pummeled by the weaker power level New Avengers. Then they plan a revenge attack and a weakened Dr. Strange pwn's them. I think Dr. Octopus has had better success leading teams (it was his Masters of Evil, recall, who were all defeated by Hank Pym single handed).
Ideally, after those short-comings, the Hood should be considered a flash in the pan, especially as Underworld was taking the longer term approach to mob rule in comics no one read. But naturally, this is Bendis, the guy who made Purple Man an A-Lister. Some have theorized that Dormammu allowed Hood to "mesmerize" villains into joining him and acting like thugs (even if they are mad scientists), but until it's written, it's all theory, No-Prize territory (wouldn't Joe Q's Marvel charge $1.99 for a No-Prize these days?).
The Hood, like many of Bendis' ideas, fell short in the execution. Maybe if someone else takes up the idea, it may work out better.
