2003’s Batman: Hush is widely regarded as one of the best Batman stories of all time and for good reason. It’s a well-written story by Jeph Loeb with some beautiful art by Jim Lee and is iconic for a reason. But that doesn’t make it perfect. The problem of Hush is with the character of Hush himself. The story sees a new villain arrive in Gotham while an old childhood friend of Bruce Wayne returns as well. You can take a guess at the connection between these two things. After all, it’s not exactly something that hasn’t happened with some regularity in comics. The issue, however, is that after the events of Hush, the character hasn’t really evolved, either as a threat to Gotham or a personal threat to Batman as well.
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As a dark mirror to Bruce Wayne, Hush is a villain with a lot of possibility and story potential. Unfortunately, writers just seem to insist on keeping the character in the same narrow tropes, even in the most recent (and entirely unnecessary) Hush sequel. It’s this lack of any real development that has made Hush Batman’s worst villain to date.
Hush is a One Trick Pony
Whenever Hush returns, it’s always to torment Bruce Wayne in any way he can and he frequently uses the same methods by which to do it, including that he commonly has had his face surgically altered to look like Bruce as well. It’s necessarily a terrifying thing. Instead, it’s a case of identity theft that is always played to be over the top and mysterious with Hush’s identity kept under wraps. Somehow, this guy can assemble all of Batman’s greatest foes for whatever his scheme is at any given time and hold onto his identity for himself. You’d think he’d do something with that but just just hangs around, seemingly with no real motivation for larger schemes.
On top of having surgically made himself look like Bruce, Hush is frequently determined to become Bruce in another way as well: he’s out to steal his fortune. That’s not an awful idea, and honestly there are plenty of villains for whom stealing a fortune is the entire thing, it just feels very basic and plain for a villain with such a personal connection to Batman. It also feels a little lazy, particularly in more recent stories, since Bruce lost his fortune for a while. With Bruce’s fortune being quite a bit less than it once was, arguably reduces Hush’s motivations. In a sense, Hush feels less like a criminal mastermind with a grudge against Bruce Wayne but more or less like a petty ex-boyfriend. Hush’s identity is securely held by his hatred for Bruce Wayne so much he tries to become him and can only fool the public. It just feels like a very flimsy motivation in a mythos full of villains who are much more over the top.
Hush Doesn’t Work, But Shush Does
While Hush is a one-note villain, there is someone else connected to him that is actually a more interesting threat. Recently in the pages of Batman and Robin we got the legacy villain, Shush. What makes Shush work is that her introduction was played off as the same predictable mystery as Hush’s except this time around, it wasn’t so easily figured out by the reader. We had a massive hint about Shush that was played off as a correct idea only for it to turn around once we were comfortable in our assumptions. Having a direct connection to Thomas Elliot and carrying out his legacy felt new with this character because her motivations were unclear. Shush has no specific reason to target Bruce. She’s just in it because of Hush.
For all of the reasons Hush doesn’t work as a character it feels like Shush, coming into things with a largely clean slate and just a fixation with the villain, can work. It’s absolutely a case of mileage may vary from reader to reader but, taking the base concept and doing something new changes up how basic the Hush as a villain feels. It’s a similar deal with Punchline who has a similar concept to Harley Quinn but works well on her own.
Batman: Hush was the definition of catching lightning in a bottle when that story first arrived. Every time Hush has returned since, however, has been trying to catch that some bolt of lightning again and missing every time. It’s about time for DC to just move on fron the character, letting someone else take up that villain space.
What do you think of the character Hush? Let us know what you’re thinking.
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