Spoilers ahead!
I originally meant to post this last week but I had other scholarly requirements to prioritize and so I held this back until I have a stack of words to pop out again. Anyway I'm too lazy (all of you should know that by now) to edit out some details so just think of it like this is a blog post written in the future which I sent to the past. Enqueue....
Enjoy. I meant to type enjoy.
Anyway, new graphic novel: Hush
Or should I say 'old graphic novel that I recently bought'?
I'm going on a diet again this week after spending my food allowance on two new graphic novels and a video game. Addiction has its tolls and merits no matter the source I guess, although I don't think I have the right to call 'reading and collecting graphic novels' an addiction yet.
I've done my research and I'm still a little confused about the continuity of DC's New 52. So instead of following a continuous story I thought I'd just read the most well received story arcs of Batman. Here's my hit list for now:
- Batman: The Killing Joke
- Batman Year One
- Joker: Death of the Family
- The Dark Knight Returns
All of these are heavy on the price tag so I prioritize the thicker ones to, y'know maximize the time I spend reading when I should be doing something productive, which led me to Hush.
Hush tackles the themes of friendship, family, trust, and betrayal. Unlike Death of the Family where the main antagonist is well pronounced right in the opening pages, the identity of Hush is an ongoing mystery until the closing pages of the graphic novel. There are of course hints spread throughout each chapter but with every answers offered the question keeps changing.
Friendship
To properly flesh out one of the characters introduced in Hush, there were plenty of flashbacks to the time before Bruce Wayne's parents got murdered - when he only had one friend: Tommy Eliott. Tommy is a skilled surgeon and was responsible for bringing Bruce Wayne back to health when he got into an automobile accident, that of course is a cover story, when what really happened was he took a mighty long fall to the cold hard ground while he was chasing Catwoman.
Superman is also featured in one chapter of Hush but for part of that one chapter the Detective and the Boy Scout put their friendship to the test thanks to a walking greenhouse. This also served as a nice surprise on my part.
"Deep down, Clark's essentially a good person...and deep down I'm not", those famous words hardcore comic book fans always love to quote originated in Hush.
And it really fit the situation.
Family
Bruce knows the importance of family and what it could do to someone, especially a child, when it is taken away from them. For some reason, with the two Batman GNs that I've read Gotham's protector sure have a lot of internal monologue, and I mean A LOT. And often times what he keeps to himself are more interesting than what he actually says to people when he's talking. From Alfred to Catwoman, Bruce may not outwardly show it but he values what few relationships he has. One big chunk of the latter half of the story reveals his sentiments to three people he took under his wing, the three people who took the mantle of Robin. Dick Grayson, now Nightwing, saw being Robin as a thrill which is why he outgrew it. Jason Todd saw it as a game, which got him killed. And the current Robin in Hush, Tim Drake, wanted to be the world's greatest detective. Based on his internal monologue it was obvious who the black sheep was but even then Batman still couldn't cope with the death of Jason Todd.
Chapters 10 and 11 made it all personal. Whoever Hush was, Jason Todd was one of the characters I suspected. But that was a later assumption when it was already obvous which direction the story was going. Those two chapters kept me at the edge of my seat. I haven't read A Death in the Family yet, but I know Jason Todd's death was a big blow to Batman. The intensity of chapters 10 and 11 was enough to prove that. But I guess this is not the story arc where Jason Todd, or the Red Hood rather, is reintroduced.
Trust
Like I said, Bruce Wayne values what few relationships he has. He values the few people he can really trust. Alfred, Gordon, Tim Drake, Dick Grayson, Superman, Barbara - they are just to name a few but normally if you were to list more Catwoman, Selina Kyle, wouldn't appear on the top half, not even on the middle part of the list. But in Hush Batman reveals his identity to Selina to take their relationship further. Their growing romance, though, is not just a passing fan pleaser, it was well written in the chapters that followed. The end, though, was disappointingly silent for both. I can't really tell if something came of it, but it sure didn't look like Bruce's bed was the next destination after all that happened.
Betrayal
Hush's real identity is indeed Thomas Eliott.
It wasn't really that mysterious. It was pretty easy to suspect Tommy on the get go, though there weren't any strong evidences that support the accusation. The other one was Two Face. However, most mystery driven plots often use misdirection. First you think it's him, then you think it's not. Mid way through Tommy was shot dead by the Joker almost in the same manner as how Bruce's parents were killed. From that moment on until the last chapter I believed that Tommy was in fact just another victim of some person's grand scheme. I was wrong. When Batman defeated "Jason Todd", who turned out to be Clayface, the possibility of Tommy being Hush returned. Sure enough in the last chapter his identity was revealed. But what drives Thomas Eliott? What made him so desperate in breaking Batman?
The answer is simple - Bruce Wayne, through his father, indirectly saved the life of Tommy's mother. That was years ago when they were still children, when they were still friends. Tommy is just a deranged sociopath bent on inheriting the fortune of his parents. His intended his parents to die so that he could get their wealth. But his mother lived, thanks to Bruce asking his father to save them. Tommy hated Bruce for this. Thanks to him, Tommy had to spend being the pretender caring for his mother until she finally died of cancer.
That's what drives Tommy.
But that kind of grudge, and the amount of effort he pulled just to take revenge for the good thing that Bruce did was incredible. Eight villains. He convinced eight villains, including the Joker, to participate in his plan to break the Batman.
But deeper than that, there's one more. Possibly the ninth villain in Hush's grand scheme, and what an incredible betrayal it would've been if it was actually so. Was Catwoman just playing along, or was she really sincere in helping Batsy?
Well she's hush about that.
Better read the other Hush story arcs.
Superman is also featured in one chapter of Hush but for part of that one chapter the Detective and the Boy Scout put their friendship to the test thanks to a walking greenhouse. This also served as a nice surprise on my part.
Family
Bruce knows the importance of family and what it could do to someone, especially a child, when it is taken away from them. For some reason, with the two Batman GNs that I've read Gotham's protector sure have a lot of internal monologue, and I mean A LOT. And often times what he keeps to himself are more interesting than what he actually says to people when he's talking. From Alfred to Catwoman, Bruce may not outwardly show it but he values what few relationships he has. One big chunk of the latter half of the story reveals his sentiments to three people he took under his wing, the three people who took the mantle of Robin. Dick Grayson, now Nightwing, saw being Robin as a thrill which is why he outgrew it. Jason Todd saw it as a game, which got him killed. And the current Robin in Hush, Tim Drake, wanted to be the world's greatest detective. Based on his internal monologue it was obvious who the black sheep was but even then Batman still couldn't cope with the death of Jason Todd.
Chapters 10 and 11 made it all personal. Whoever Hush was, Jason Todd was one of the characters I suspected. But that was a later assumption when it was already obvous which direction the story was going. Those two chapters kept me at the edge of my seat. I haven't read A Death in the Family yet, but I know Jason Todd's death was a big blow to Batman. The intensity of chapters 10 and 11 was enough to prove that. But I guess this is not the story arc where Jason Todd, or the Red Hood rather, is reintroduced.
Trust
Like I said, Bruce Wayne values what few relationships he has. He values the few people he can really trust. Alfred, Gordon, Tim Drake, Dick Grayson, Superman, Barbara - they are just to name a few but normally if you were to list more Catwoman, Selina Kyle, wouldn't appear on the top half, not even on the middle part of the list. But in Hush Batman reveals his identity to Selina to take their relationship further. Their growing romance, though, is not just a passing fan pleaser, it was well written in the chapters that followed. The end, though, was disappointingly silent for both. I can't really tell if something came of it, but it sure didn't look like Bruce's bed was the next destination after all that happened.
Betrayal
Hush's real identity is indeed Thomas Eliott.
It wasn't really that mysterious. It was pretty easy to suspect Tommy on the get go, though there weren't any strong evidences that support the accusation. The other one was Two Face. However, most mystery driven plots often use misdirection. First you think it's him, then you think it's not. Mid way through Tommy was shot dead by the Joker almost in the same manner as how Bruce's parents were killed. From that moment on until the last chapter I believed that Tommy was in fact just another victim of some person's grand scheme. I was wrong. When Batman defeated "Jason Todd", who turned out to be Clayface, the possibility of Tommy being Hush returned. Sure enough in the last chapter his identity was revealed. But what drives Thomas Eliott? What made him so desperate in breaking Batman?
The answer is simple - Bruce Wayne, through his father, indirectly saved the life of Tommy's mother. That was years ago when they were still children, when they were still friends. Tommy is just a deranged sociopath bent on inheriting the fortune of his parents. His intended his parents to die so that he could get their wealth. But his mother lived, thanks to Bruce asking his father to save them. Tommy hated Bruce for this. Thanks to him, Tommy had to spend being the pretender caring for his mother until she finally died of cancer.
That's what drives Tommy.
But that kind of grudge, and the amount of effort he pulled just to take revenge for the good thing that Bruce did was incredible. Eight villains. He convinced eight villains, including the Joker, to participate in his plan to break the Batman.
But deeper than that, there's one more. Possibly the ninth villain in Hush's grand scheme, and what an incredible betrayal it would've been if it was actually so. Was Catwoman just playing along, or was she really sincere in helping Batsy?
Better read the other Hush story arcs.
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