Customer Reviews

Batman: Hush Returns

5 star:		(2)
4 star:		(1)
3 star:		(4)
2 star:		(6)
1 star:		(9)

 

 

Arguably, it would very difficult to follow-up the stellar 'Hush' storylines and come out smelling like roses, but the creative team of A.J. Lieberman, Al Barrionuevo, and Javier Pina give it their best shot. Resurrecting Bruce Wayne's childhood chum, Tommy Elliot, to continue his crusade to bring down the Bat was a risky gamble that pays off in the first half of this graphic novel collection (originally appeared in serialized format in BATMAN: GOTHAM KNIGHTS), but, in the second half, the tale spirals largely out of control as Hush spends more time battling the Joker for criminal control of Gotham than he does chasing Batman. A loose chapter tacked on (seemingly) months after the main story tries to bring closure to the whole affair, but it all seems far too rushed and not very well planned out. Had the writers opted more for a stand-out piece working Hush into the greater pantheon of Bat-villains, 'Hush Returns' might have felt less like a commercial exploitation of a great character than it does, but that's not the case. Still, if you're looking for a Hush-fix and you've re-read the two volumes introducing Elliot to Gotham City, there's nothing wrong with the first few installments here. It's a quality read ... just don't look for any strong finish.

Don't even bother.

I can't think of a single redeeming characteristic here. I mean, bringing back Jason Todd in those other trades was a bit gimmicky, but at least they're (somewhat) pulling it off. But this?

Puh-leeze. I find better plots on cereal boxes.

First of all, the Joker is no crime kingpin. Never has been. He's not some connected mafia goon that can get someone like the Riddler sprung from prison "just like that." He is NOT obsessed with "running Gotham" a la say, Black Mask.

Second of all, the Joker's characterization in the last oh, TWENTY YEARS is such that he is basically an insane, inhuman monster (uhm, killed Jason Todd at the end of the 80s, right?) - not some heartsick fop pining over a dead wife and kid.

Which brings me to the third point: ahem, we DON'T KNOW that the wife-and-kid thing ARE Joker's background; he's CRAZY, remember? It has never been part of ANY conclusive pantheon. "Killing Joke" doesn't COUNT as canon, since it's the recollection of a madman who prefers his history as "multiple choice."

Fourth and finally, Hush is a total waste in this story. His complete APPEAL isn't that he knows Bruce so well, or that he's a great surgeon, or that he can run around so well in all those lame bandages. NO. His appeal came (1) you don't know WHO he is (calling him "Tommy" is just plain dumb), since he was NEVER REVEALED at the end of the first "Hush" storyline; (2) he was calm, collected, a chess-player villain who had thought dozens of moves ahead and planned everything meticulously.

Therefore, making him another Two-Face / Killer Croc meets Phantom of the Opera madman flapping about in a lame trench coat and bandages making threats and slugging it out with people just BASTARDIZES the ENTIRE POINT of this guy! Having him fight the Joker for "control of Gotham" is just lame, lame, LAME. Neither of them NEVER had interest in this before, so why now?

Besides, Hush was getting the villains to COOPERATE with him AGAINST Batman by tapping their personal foibles / interests / obsessions. Making him another thug vying for top dog means he's just as dumb as the others!

Gee. Guess I had a lot to say.

I just hate the fact that such an awesome storyline and character has been so utterly, totally RUINED by some lame marketing department trying to cash in for a buck today that robs them of several thousand they could have made tomorrow with a decent writer.

First of all, the plot is interrupted near the end. They essentially split the plot into two- one part, the predominant, 85-90% part before the events of War Games, and a small fraction afterwards. One page briefly describes in broad strokes War Games and then the plot you were following before is fast forwarded months into the future.

Second, they repeat the plot of "The Killing Joke" that seems to finally settle the Joker's origin. He watched in horror as his wife and unborn child die, transforming mentally into the ghoulish clown that he had already become physically. Hush is portrayed as the figure who is the Joker's superior, betraying a wealth of Batman literary tradition.

Joker, Penguin, and Riddler just seem to passively accept that "there's a new kid in town." For those of us who have followed the comic for decades, it undermines the classic villains that helped get Batman to the pinnacle of popularity where he is now. The villains themselves had strange personalities and fixations that made them as interesting as the protagonist.

Hush Returns is a rare disappointment in an exciting and fascinating sea of Batman graphic novels.

I really hate to give a Batman title such a bad review, but this one deserves it. This book was fair with a few high points, until the last chapter. WHAT HAPPENED!? Lieberman, I was with you until then.

Here's the story: Hush is after Riddler for the events of "Hush", Riddler hires Joker under the promise of revealing who killed Joker's wife in "The Killing Joke", Joker lays a pride obliterating b***h-slap on Hush, Hush hires the hero-killer Prometheus (see: JLA vol.4 "Strength in Numbers") to go after Riddler and Joker (to which, I actually said aloud "Oh, Damn " when I saw that) but Hush then ends up having to save Prometheus's life after he's nearly killed by Green Arrow. At this point, things are going downhill. Then to add insult to injury, the story goes from bad to worse as everything you read in the previous 100+ pages of this book is thrown out the window and it becomes a tie-in to the now seemingly a little over-killed Infinite Crisis. Huh!? What!? The story literally changes mid-stream without warning or any sort of resolution. That is just bad story telling and is completely unacceptable from a Batman title. Even the characters were blasé. Joker is played up as a crime-boss with a mansion and wise-guy brutes; he's not a gangster, he's a maniac. As for Prometheus, who nearly took down the entire JLA at one time, for him to get bested by Green Arrow is off the mark and out of character. I do understand and see the need in having to tie the Batman stories and characters into the "big crossover event", but COME ON, at least transition it! It was going alright until then, and even then it was mediocre at best. The art was pretty good, but not even that could have saved this story. Joel Schumacher could have made a more gripping Batman story.

Thank god I checked this out from the library and not bought this, so all I ended up wasting was my time. I want the last hour of my life back!

The final storyline in a string of bad stories from the now cancelled and hopefully forgotten Batman: Gotham Knights monthly series.

Leiberman commits the crime of meddling with the classic "Killing Joke" to present a confusing, convaluted and outright bad sequel to the bestselling Hush by Jim Lee and Jeff Loeb . The revisions in this story imply that Alan Moore's masterful Killing Joke is erased from continuity to make way for this trash. Add the fact that DC is blatently using Hush in this story as a way to cash in on the superior effort by Lee and Loeb's original, to boost the sagging sales on what had become one of DC's worst monthly books, and the whole afair just leaves a bad taste in one's mouth.

The artwork by Al Barrineuvo is also nothing special. It is underdone and one can tell he is just starting out in the bussiness and has difficulty illustating the characters consistantly from panel to Panel. The coloring is also muddy and dull.

Leiberman is a better writer than what is presented here, and hopefully he will move on to better projects (that don't involve Batman).

Two words -- No resolution.

Seriously, this graphic novel ends with no plot resolution at all. There is such a great buildup with absolutely no payoff. Do NOT waste your money on this. The only redeeming factor is the decent artwork. Beyond that, the storyline is atrocious.

I enjoyed the first "Hush" graphic novel, and I was looking forward to "Hush Returns". All in all, it was pretty good, but I have no idea what happened toward the end. I don't read comics regularly, so I'm not up on the events of War Games or whatever, and there was really no conclusion to the story that I had been reading.

This was an "ok" read...it wasnt bad, it wasnt good either. This is a FARCRY from the original HUSH novel which in my opinion is one the best batman stories ever told. Heres the problem: its uneventful. Nothing great ever happens, hush doesn't even show up that much. He shows up here and there and talks some senseless stuff and thats it. The ending sucked so much i cant even begin to tell you how disappointing it was. The only good thing about the novel is that it sort of "expands" Alan Moore's masterpiece "The killing joke" storyline. Other than that, unless you are a hardcore batman fan, avoid this.

Hush Returns is not very good. It's part of the recent trend in the Batman books toward increasingly darker stories that don't earn any particular dramatic or emotional payoff. The art and coloring are unremarkable at best. And, as other reviewers have noted, there is not much resolution, just an exceedingly weird epilogue with Prometheus that feels completely out of place and not relevant to anything else that happens in the book.

The worst sin here, though, is the total mishandling of the Joker. I don't want to come off like a fanboy who cries sacrilege simply because Lieberman dared to tinker with The Killing Joke. But if you are going to go making revisions to an acknowledged masterpiece of the form, you should be aware that you will be drawing comparisons to one of the best Batman stories ever, and that your work is likely to pale in comparison. But even beyond that foolhardiness, even beyond taking the non-canonical Killing Joke origin and definitively inserting it into the canon, Lieberman is out of his depth. Every single alteration he makes to the Killing Joke Joker origin has the effect of weakening the story and making it meaningless. (SPOILERS FOLLOW:) Joker should not be pining after his dead wife--the whole point of the story was that her death convinced him that all life was meaningless, that all meaning was a joke, leading to his nihilistic insanity. Joker cannot be out for revenge; that is far too rational. And the origin story only works if her death is senseless, and takes place before his crime, rendering his risk worthless. That tragic irony is what makes life a joke. The clean cause-and-effect of mobster bumping off Joker's wife, turning him into a man driven for revenge is all too typical, all too logical. A man faced with that situation would not abandon reason. It destroys everything the Joker is.

I'm not saying there isn't room for alternate characterizations. If Joker's past is indeed "multiple choice" there is certainly room for a gangster Joker - but that Joker would have an origin more akin to that in the Burton film or the animated series - a guy with a past as a mobster, who then pursues crime boss interests. It is incompatible with the Killing Joke origin, and the attempt to combine them weakens every element of the character and the story.

The Joker mumbling, defeated, about "My city"? So wrong. Joker would be laughing at Hush, taunting him even as he takes a beating. Why not? That's what he always does with Batman.

Lieberman has no understanding of the characters he's working with, and worse, no understanding of what effect his dramatic choices actually have on the material. Pile that on top of a generally pointless story and you have a book that has nothing to recommend it.

Although I loved that the story continued, the writer of this "Hush Returns" doesn't fit in Gotham. He tried to make Joker sane, Ridler normal and worst of all Batman Scared! Jeph Loeb is the best Batman Writer out there and other's who are suppose to follow his story lines should at least try to write like him.