Batman has been around for a very long time. In those eight decades, the Caped Crusader has become one of the faces of DC and one of the most popular fictional characters in the world. He’s starred in thousands of stories in that time. Some are the pinnacle of comic book storytelling, and some aren’t even worth the paper they were printed on. One of the best-known Batman comics is the “Hush” storyline, which defined Batman in the early 2000s. The plot, art, and connections Bruce made in “Hush” created one of the best-recognized versions of Batman of all time. Now, unfortunately, “Hush” has a sequel.
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“H2SH” has been a mess since the very beginning. The team behind the original “Hush,” Jeph Loeb and Jim Lee, have reunited over twenty years later to write a sequel to their beloved story, but it has not been received well. Even ignoring the multiple-month delays that have “H2SH” releasing concurrently with the next Batman volume, the plot is all over the place, and it ignores the last two decades of lore to do whatever it wants. Batman (2016) #162 is the fifth part of this abysmal series, and the first page alone condenses everything wrong with this comic into a single, hateable piece of art.
The Worst First Page in History
So far, the story of “H2SH” has seen the titular villain set up a deadly game in Gotham, forcing Batman to save the Joker’s life and pitting the Red Hood against the rest of the Bat-Family, again. In the previous issue, for some inexplicable reason, Batgirl Barbara Gordon blamed Batman for her dad almost getting killed after Hush sent an exploding package to his house. The two fought, and the issue ended with the arrival of Nightwing, Robin Damian Wayne, Huntress, Catwoman, and a temporarily allied Riddler aiming to break them up.
This issue picked up right where the last one left off, with Batman narrating that he was well and truly alone in this fight. He called the rest of the Bat-Family entanglements, not so subtly implying that he wished he had never gathered partners in the first place. Bruce openly acknowledged that Hush was manipulating Batman and his family into fighting each other, and then immediately played into his hand by tranquilizing Batgirl while her back was turned. He said that the others were reacting emotionally, and instead of attempting to explain that Hush was pitting them against each other, he declared that he was the only one capable of acting rationally and proceeded to act like a toddler.
Everything Wrong With Modern Batman, Condensed
Instead of explaining the situation, Bruce literally dedicated himself to beating down his family by abusing their trauma and weaknesses against them. This is so far from proper characterization for Batman that you could convince me this is a scene from All-Star Batman and Robin. Bruce is needlessly aggressive and so committed to doing everything on his own that he handicaps everyone, himself included. He knows exactly what the villain’s plan is, but for some reason, he still fights his family. Batman fighting his family is so far past a trope at this point that it’s insulting. Instead of creating real drama, this story and other terrible modern Batman stories like “Gotham War” manufacture is by contriving a reason for Bruce to punch his children.
This contrived excuse for a fight is juxtaposed with Batman’s internal monologue about how he doesn’t want to do this, which is severely undercut by how quickly he decides to do it. Batman hasn’t worked alone since Detective Comics (1937) #38, with Robin’s introduction. Ever since, he’s either always had a sidekick, fellow hero, or an Alfred-equivalent with him. That’s even ignoring Jim Gordon, who’s been there since the beginning. Overly edgy stories like “H2SH” constantly romanticize this idea of Batman working alone, only to show why he shouldn’t, while he beats up people he trained to help him. It’s Batman being constantly at odds with himself.
Then there’s how this story portrays the Bat-Family and continuity. Only five members are present, despite the group being much bigger. Huntress being there in place of others like Tim Drake or Cassandra Cain feels strange, given that she hasn’t been nearly as close with the Bat-Family in recent years. Then there’s Damian, who acts like the past ten years of character development don’t exist. Of course, that’s a problem for this entire story, as it acts like “Hush” just released last year, and none of the characters present have evolved since then. It ignores every lesson learned and bit of character growth over the last twenty years to force characters to make choices they would never make in their right minds. And this is all ignoring how they reset Red Hood to an angry murderer mad at Bruce, again.
Every single person in this story acts like a caricature of themselves. The first page alone has Batman fight his family, act like a man-child who is convinced he’s the only person in the world who can do anything, and treat the Bat-Family like a mistake Bruce never wanted and was never close to. This storyline could already be one of the worst pieces of mischaracterizations and terrible ideas strung together of all Batman-time, and we’re still not even halfway through it. Believe me, the rest of the issue doesn’t offer much else.
Batman #162 is on sale now.
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