#(and that's if they even realise it's in Hush not TT29)

[zahri-melitor]

Batman: Hush

This was a mix of well-written, fun, and intensely irritating.

Let’s start with the good: the art. The dreamy watercolours used for all the flashbacks really sold the story. I spent plenty of time staring at how pretty they were.

It certainly delivered as a run through the Rogues Gallery and a good chunk of the Bat family, plus I am extremely weak for Lois Lane and Bruce Wayne flirting on purpose in public (and Lois-Clark-Bruce-Selina team ups). I really enjoyed the way it just pinged around the whole cast and there was a lot of "who hasn't had a scene yet? Well it's YOUR turn!"

It's also a story that is fun to read as a trade, but must have really shone to follow in serial, because you got a rogue or so a month ticked off the checklist of 'culprit' as you went through it, leading to all sorts of interesting speculation. Like, I NOTICED that we didn't get Bane or Penguin in this story, both of whom also would have been reasonable 'I know your secret' villain solutions to this, as it would have been, in order, 'further payback for the brother thing not being true' or 'your bad business mirror image in Gotham'. Cobblepot knowing Batman is Bruce Wayne would play really well when Penguin is being written as a genuine threat to Gotham and leaning into his underworld fixer skillset (rather than when he's being written as a joke character).

The annoying parts: Look I know this was in Batman, the comic that is explicitly about Batman, but wow was Bruce's reality altering field that forces everyone else to be subservient to his own plot was in effect. This is why I tend not to read straight Batman plots, because Bruce has a habit of overwhelming the autonomy of everyone else on the page.

Helena and Harold in particular got done dirty here. I THINK all of Helena's situation got handwaved away as Scarecrow's fault? And what was the point of having Harold back for a single page to talk for the first time and then be shot dead? Poor Harold, you have never been used as more than a crude plot device.

In terms of "cognitive dissonance with what is going on in other books right now", Tim specifically manipulating Selina at Bruce's request right as simultaneously over in Robin his 16th birthday is occurring is...well you ARE a bastard aren't you Bruce. And you're not going to apologise for it.

I had to laugh that as far as I can tell, someone in the future just went 'everything we wrote here about Jason sounds good, let's make it canonically true when we resurrect Jason'. Like seriously. In hindsight the sliding of all of this between 'unreality to fuck with Bruce' to 'nope, that's really Jason' did his character a disservice. (Also that weird line about 'Jason' being the same age as Nightwing may have caused the accidental Jason age up issue? JASON IS STILL SEVENTEEN HERE IF HE'S REAL, editorial)

Also, being reminded that THIS is the famous ‘Jason cut Tim’s throat’ moment. Hah. “I’ll need stitches but Catwoman got the bleeding stopped”. This is not a hugely traumatic moment for Tim, folks. It’s a cut that’s already been bandaged. (Also Hush cuts Bruce’s neck almost identically in the very next issue, where’s the matching angst over that?)