For the Juneteenth holiday last month, I decided to take a short 100-degree walk over to the mall for some shopping. The guy running the GNC was about to put up a “Back in an hour” sign, before I caught him and made a quick purchase. Over at the Barnes & Noble, I found a bargain. I decided to pass on a $55 X-Men trade and instead bought a $35 Batman: Hush trade and a $13 Record of Lodoss War manga. I think I saved money. I’d actually went for the X-Men, but this is the second time I’ve passed on it. Hush is pretty awesome-looking and I couldn’t resist. (I’ve reviewed Jim Lee’s artwork on it in an art book.) I invested my “savings” into a snow cone at a new stand in the mall and returned home (in the 100-degree heat).
Batman: Hush
I’d hoped I’d be doing a gushing review of Hush. I’d be glazing Jim Lee’s artwork and Jeph Loeb’s masterful storytelling. I’ll do half of that right now; the artwork is tremendous. It speaks for itself. I’ll be addressing the story for the rest of this post. Bottom line, I’m severely disappointed.
Essentially, Hush has Batman interacting with several members of his rogues gallery and his own allies. There is a mystery stringing the encounters together as Batman tries to figure out who is out to get him. The running subplot is Batman’s developing romance with Catwoman.
Where does this go wrong? The interactions are just a series of cameos and pointless fight scenes. The mystery is unsatisfying in plot and resolution. On top of this, a dysfunctional, to say the least, romance is added between two unlikeable characters. It’s not smart. It’s not romantic. It’s just a bunch of cool drawings.
I feel like I might be selling the story short. Maybe I should go back and reread it. Maybe it’s one of those stories where you can only see how clever it is after you reread it. No, it’s not. Centrally, Hush is a cypher. He’s a not a character, as much as a plot device, and he’s not much of one, and he’s a clumsy retcon on top of it. Hush knows all about Bruce Wayne as a childhood friend and wants revenge because Bruce’s father, a surgeon, saved his mother after a car accident. He’d engineered the accident to kill her and his father, because wanted to be an orphan. He envied Bruce when he lost his parents. And then he somehow found out that Bruce was Batman and then he put on a trenchcoat and put bandages on head and . . . My head hurts, too.
Hush isn’t even somehow the “mastermind” of this “plot.” He doesn’t have any interesting mania or powers. So, if this is your main villain, the whole story isn’t going to work. Hush sure isn’t the mastermind. He had Bruce on an operating table for brain surgery and fixed him. For some reason, there’s a Hush 2 scheduled for next year (2026). This character does not merit a comeback.
If you were following this as a serial month-by-month, I can see where you’d be drawn into reading this (poor pun) and hanging on the mystery. Reading it all at once in a trade, the story is a mess and mercifully stumbles to a halt at the end. Too bad they limited themselves to only a year-long story, they missed out on jamming in more Batman villains and allies. I don’t think you’ll see Hush as the basis of a future Batman movie any time soon without major changes to the story. There was an animated version made of this. I’d like to see it, though fan reaction was mixed. They thought it diverged too much from the source material. That actually encourages me.
Moreover, the characters in this story are written mostly unlikeable and uninteresting. This is a difficult feat to accomplish given how many iconic characters are in this story. Certainly, I’m a fan of several of them. I’m actually not a Joker admirer, but his use in this was almost criminal (sorry, again) in its pointlessness. Somehow, Hush and his handler got most of Batman’s villains to go along with a scheme to . . . destroy Batman? They’ve all already got individual reasons to get Batman. There’s no need for a scheme.
I feel like Batman’s villains should really not get along at all and never knowingly be pawns in somebody else’s plans. If they worked together, they could easily kill Batman and takeover Gotham, but they’re all nuts and/or are powerful by themselves. His enemies should be, on some level, as lone wolf crazy as he is.
I guessed after Issue 1 that the mastermind was, of course, Condiment King. The scenes with the ketchup and the mustard and the fast food locales were obvious clues. Oh, spoilers for anyone who hasn’t read this. Hush has been around for a while, it’s okay. Who else would it have been? The Riddler? That’d be silly. There was no build up for that.
There are various red herrings. Harvey Dent/Two-Face has had plastic surgery from Hush to finally repair his face, which changes his motivations. President Lex Luther makes an ominous appearance. There is a fake out encounter with a resurrected “Jason Todd/Robin II.” That ends up being a loose end that’s resolved in a future story. Actually, there’s a couple of fake outs with Clayface. (I don’t know why he was going along with this scheme so deeply.) These would have been great twists in a better mystery.
The romance flat doesn’t work in this because Catwoman is completely unlovable and not hot enough to be desirable in spite of it. She has the personality of your wife right before she divorces you. Selina admittedly cleans up nice when you get her out of the gimp suit. That’s it. Does Batman have a leather fetish? Because otherwise, I have no idea why he’s chasing this woman? She has a lousy personality, a sketchy background, and all of the loyalty of an actual cat. (Which explains why she leaves him at the altar in an infamous future story.)
Batman, seriously pal, when you take off your cowl, you’re billionaire playboy, Bruce Wayne. You can have pretty much have any woman you want. Bruce should be going out with Sydney Sweeney. Catwoman is settling for a bad idea workplace romance. If you really wanted Catwoman, why didn’t you pursue her when she was drawn much more attractively by Jim Balent? (“She’s anatomically ridiculous for someone who does all those acrobatics.” Interesting that no one ever seems to complain about male anatomy.)
Frankly, Batman is no prize, either. He has a one-note personality. (It’s sort of a Hans Zimmer doom chord.) People who say that Batman is their favorite character haven’t read the comic in a while. His only spark of passion are the captions of his thoughts where he’s obsessing over Catwoman. You know, take that to the extreme and you’d have a more interesting story. It would at least explain why he wants her: he’s crazy (literally) about her.
If Batman’s going to be with anyone in this, it should be Talia, Ra’s al Ghul’s daughter. He already has a kid with her and she’s crazy about him (literally) and she’s also crazy hot. (In-laws always bring problems. Ra’s as a father-in-law is a wash.) At least she loves him. Catwoman just wants a simp to abuse.
This sketch is totally cool. I wish Hush had been more like this without Catwoman as Batman’s ersatz partner. I’m taking shots at what is considered to be a classic Batman story. I really should offer an alternative vision. Hush should have been a known ally or reformed villain who knows Batman’s secrets. This person would be behind the scenes plotting to destroy Batman’s and Bruce Wayne’s reputation by manipulating various villains and allies and incapacitating anyone completely loyal to him. Finally, when Batman is friendless and without any support, this person reveals himself and strikes.
I’d posit Talia as the culprit and her goal is to drive Bruce into her arms and to take over her father’s organization. (Wait, did they already do that story? A couple of times? Maybe there’s a reason they had to make up a new villain.) The Riddler actually reformed at one point. It could be him. What if it was Oracle gone bad? What if it’s a scheme by Catwoman to get Batman to fall in love with her? (Okay, nobody thinks she’s smart enough to pull off an elaborate scheme that isn’t a heist.) You know, I’ve always been a little suspicious of Leslie Thompkins. It could be her and Alfred as a geriatric diabolical duo!
You can still keep the romance angle. During this trial, Batman reveals his secret identity to Catwoman, and she ends up being the only one who unexpectedly stands by him. Sure, this would be a complex story that you’d have to plot out completely in advance. You couldn’t do this story with vague intentions and making up an ending at the last minute, like Hush read like.
This edition includes story notes with Loeb and Lee. Loeb wanted to have Poison Ivy and Catwoman making out. The editors vetoed that one. And, Loeb wanted a scene with Batman and Catwoman having sex with their masks on. Lee vetoed that one. There’s an extensive section of additional art and sketches, which are pretty cool. Lee, for some reason, felt he had to explain the Huntress’ new outfit.
I really did not get Hush with the intention of crapping on it. I am so disappointed. Was I expecting too much given the reverence this story generates? Again, it’s a nice picture book, but the story and characters are terrible. If you haven’t read Hush, you might be better off not, so you can still consider it a classic.
No comments:
Post a Comment