The Batman 2 Rumored Villain Revealed

The Batman Part II is so hush-hush that even its villain is being kept under wraps. Little is known about Matt Reeves’ sequel to his $771 million-grossing Batman reboot, which Warner Bros. officially announced last April before DC Studios chiefs James Gunn and Peter Safran confirmed a release date of October 3, 2025. After pitting a brooding Dark Knight (Robert Pattinson) against a trio of proto-villains — Gotham gangster the Penguin (Colin Farrell), puzzling serial killer the Riddler (Paul Dano), and cat burglar Selina Kyle (Zoe Kravitz) — The Batman 2 will reportedly introduce a new face to the Bat-Verse rogue’s gallery: the bandaged bad guy called Hush. 

That’s according to insider @DanielRPK, who also reports that The Batman 2 is on track to start filming in summer 2024.

In the DC comics, Hush is Thomas “Tommy” Elliot, a successful surgeon and childhood friend of Bruce Wayne’s. DC legends Jeph Loeb and Jim Lee introduced the character in 2003’s Batman #609 during the 12-part Hush storyline, which revealed that Elliot teamed with the Riddler to manipulate Batman’s enemies — including Scarecrow, Poison Ivy, and the shape-shifting Clayface — to unravel Bruce’s life. When he returned in the pages of Detective Comics, Hush had his face surgically recreated as the near-perfect likeness of Bruce Wayne. Hush planned to assume Bruce’s identity, dismantle his company, kill his friends and allies, and mutilate the real Bruce’s corpse so he could be rid of Bruce Wayne — and Batman — forever.

Reeves referenced the character with an Easter egg in The Batman, in which the Riddler defaced a campaign ad of late mayoral candidate Thomas Wayne with the word “HUSH!” The Riddler exposed the corruption of Bruce’s father, linking a hush-money agreement to Wayne and the crime lord Carmine Falcone (John Turturro), who had Gotham Gazette investigative reporter Edward Elliot murdered after he refused to kill a story that uncovered shocking Wayne family secrets. This would be a motive for the Bat-Verse Tommy Elliot to become Hush, whose childhood grudge against Bruce Wayne birthed a life-long vendetta in the comics.

“There are so many [characters]. I think Hush is a really interestingone to do. I’ll choose Hush,” Reeves told Twitter Movies in 2022 when asked which Bat-villains he’s most interested in adapting for The Batman universe. “That doesn’t mean that thenext [villain] will be Hush. I just want to say, there are so many. And whatwe would do next, what we’re going to do next if we have thatopportunity, it’s still in the planning stages and I have a lot ofideas. So please don’t latch onto this and say, ‘Hey, they’re doing the Hush movie!’”

“That’s a character that I love, that I would love to see done, andmaybe we’ll get the opportunity to do it,” Reeves added. “But there aremany, there are many [characters].”

Also rumored for The Batman 2 is another face-stealing villain: Clayface. The original Clayface was Basil Karlo, a once-famous character actor and makeup expert turned costumed killer; later iterations reimagined Clayface as a super-criminal made of clay-like flesh capable of molding his malleable body into whatever — or whomever — he could imagine.

The Batman Part II is scheduled to open in theaters on October 3, 2025.