Review: Batman: Hush

Batman: Hush by Jeph Loeb

My rating: 4 of 5 stars



So after how much I loved Court of Owls, the New 52 Batman trade, a friend recommended I check out Hush. He said it was one of the better Batman books out there period, and so why not? Strike while the iron is hot, right?

Hush does a few things really well. One, it establishes Batman's origin quick and easy - we all know the story, but it's good to know the story for this universe. Two, it then essentially tosses out one villain after another, from the ridiculous Killer Croc to tossing the Riddler out there for a time, and so on. It's a really fascinating way to run with the story, I didn't expect it to have them lined up in a row quite like that. It was a perfect way to introduce a lot of them to me, who only knows them third-hand - it was my second real exposure to Harley Quinn (first in the standard DC Universe), for example, my first non-Moore exposure to the Joker, the first time I have ever even heard of Killer Croc as far as I can remember. All of that was cool to me.

The writing was good, but felt a little forced. I don't necessarily get the artwork, but a lot of people love it and I think it may be more a lack of familiarity with the Batman comics than anything else - that and the fact that my first real exposures were the Moore comics and the Court of Owls, neither of which follow "traditional" comic art models. I definitely enjoyed this, and I spent a significant amount of time with it, but I didn't love it. I did like it better than the Moore versions, for what it's worth.

I'm coming around on Batman, though. I never liked him as a character before, now I'm getting there. I'm wondering where to head next.



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