HUSH is a machine made to sell Batman comics, and a better mystery than many give it credit for.

 

Hush - Riddles in the Dark

Why the most successful Batman story of the 21st Century remains the most divisive.

I've been struggling to pick a subject for the last few days-- bouncing from possibility to possibility, paralyzed by abundance of choice. This is a blog about older Batman comics, and I don't take it terribly seriously but I want each and every piece to sing as loudly as it can. I'd like it to be more stimulating than simply pointing out that a given issue is particularly good.

Happily, fate obliged and provided me with the perfect jumping off point for discussion:

Bleeding Cool dropped the bombshell that writer Jeph Loeb and artist Jim Lee, the team behind the most commercially successful run on BATMAN since the Silver Age, would be returning to the character in March 2025; that Lee was working overtime now to have issues in the can for publication next year; and that it may either be a return to the main book or a stand alone miniseries.

This news touched off a number of reactions, many of which involve topics beyond the scope of this blog but one point that I suppose I knew but had never really internalized: Loeb and Lee's previous story on BATMAN, Hush remains a story that bitterly divides the fandom like almost no other in the canon.

For a character with as much ink as The Batman, the consensus about which of the stories are excellent is shockingly uniform, especially surrounding those that get constantly reprinted and repackaged. It is on this point that Hush stands alone as both one of the most financially successful and widely read Batman comics of all time... that half the fanbase regards with extreme derision.

The general consensus for HUSH is: "Bad plot, tremendous art. Jim Lee's iconic pencils and cutting edge production values are fun to look at, but the story by Jeph Loeb is a ridiculously shallow mystery that everyone has solved by the second issue."

Do me a favor the next time you hear this take, ask your friend "Who is the main villain of HUSH?"

Because it isn't the character Hush, and in a mystery whose entire central motif is "hiding in plain sight" the fact that so many people came away from HUSH not even realizing who the actual villain is indicative that it may be worthwhile to examine the themes of the story a little more closely.

HUSH is a 12-issue run published in BATMAN 608-619. It's a year long mystery about Batman's friends and rogues being manipulated into atypical crimes and situations, and Batman finally moving forward into a romance with Catwoman, all under the watchful eye of a bandaged man in a trench coat who is presumably manipulating the other players like chess pieces.

The major theme of the story is "hiding in plain sight" with key plot beats foreshadowed in early issues by seemingly insignificant details in the art: an extremely small shadow of Catwoman in a huge Croc splash page foreshadows her attempt to take the ransom, and the strings of plant life on her arm through the subsequent chase foreshadow her being under the power of Poison Ivy as an example.

HUSH was a "back to basics" story for a Batman line that had not found its footing after the NO MAN'S LAND crossover and was bogged down in second run stories with new villains who didn't take, experimental art styles that divided the fan base, and depressing event arcs like BRUCE WAYNE: MURDERER? and OFFICER DOWN where much of the narrative tension was derived from writing Batman as out of character for the majority of the events in order to sideline him and focus on his extended cast who all had their own books to feature in.

It used all the big villains, put a relentless focus on the title character, and generally was designed to bring someone who liked Batman secondary media into the fold as a regular buyer of Batman comics. On that score, it was a wild success. No Batman run of the 21st century has matched the sales of HUSH and the title's average monthly audience remained double what it was when the story started afterwards.

HUSH was written by Jeph Loeb, a Hollywood screenwriter and comics scribe who has a spotty track record: everyone agrees SUPERMAN FOR ALL SEASONS and THE LONG HALLOWEEN are high water marks and everyone cites his work on Marvel's Ultimate Universe as a low point but HUSH, as stated above is a bone of contention.

I think a lot of the negativity comes from a single misunderstanding: HUSH is not a story about Hush, the character. If you go into HUSH thinking that you're going to be experiencing the origin of the next big Bat-villain, you're going to be disappointed. HUSH is a story about Batman, and one of his oldest, most well known, villains. The final issue makes this very clear, but comic fans are so trained to respond to buzz and hype rather than what they're actually reading that I have been talking to a number of Bat-fans lately who despise the mystery of HUSH but cannot tell me who the culprit is.

Hush is one of the greatest Riddler stories of all time. Full stop.

The Riddler is one of Batman's greatest "lost" villains. For those who have only grown up on recent Batman media, the actual story "hook" of the Riddler may not be clear. He is not the Zodiac Killer, nor is he the scavenger hunt master of the Arkham games, the frustrated video game developer of Paul Dini's BATMAN: THE ANIMATED SERIES scripts, or the poor man's Joker of Tom King's run.

Edward Nygma is a man who is--

A. Compelled to commit crimes.

B. Further compelled to announce his intentions beforehand with riddles.

C. Still further compelled to "game" those riddles so that there's a trick to them

Chuck Dixon brilliantly displayed how to use the Riddler in his ZERO HOUR origin Annual: the Riddler sends a crossword puzzle for which the answer is "banquet", Batman and the cops stake out a massive charity banquet in town until Gordon's Chicago accent leads him to pronounce banquet as "bank-wet" and Batman realizes, too late, that Riddler has flooded the First National Bank of Gotham to disrupt the vault's pressure locks.

So, to write a great Riddler story you have to be clever enough to think up riddles, answers, cheats, and the big clue that breaks the case for Batman. This is too much actual work for almost every comic writer and so they "cheat" The Riddler by making him an "intelligence themed" generic supervillain. Only Peter Milligan in his revelatory DARK KNIGHT, DARK CITY has been up to the challenge of writing the Riddler to the standard.

HUSH is not the story of a heretofore unknown childhood friend of Bruce Wayne's stomping back into  his life to try and take him down. If it were, it would deserve every insult that flies its way. It's the story of a new and invigorated Riddler using said friend of Batman's (who, he makes clear in the finale, is a bit of a dolt) to create a stinging psychological defeat for the Dark Knight that he can never be punished for because he's in jail for a relatively innocuous crime while the climax is taking place.

The Riddler tricked not only Batman and his allies but the entire Rogue's gallery and the man paying him for the plan and now is armed with the knowledge of Batman's secret, and the further knowledge that he's successfully gotten into Batman's head. Batman is left with the cold comfort that Riddler cannot broadcast his identity to the world without losing his leverage and gaining an enemy in his own right in Ra's al-Ghul but the final panel, when he makes it clear he no longer trusts Catwoman or wants to continue with the relationship they've begun makes it clear that he's still reeling from the attack.

He committed the crime--

He announced his intention-- 

He gimmicked the announcement--

I was there at the local comic store when HUSH was running monthly. NO ONE guessed the Riddler was behind the events of the story. everyone thought it was Thomas Elliot, Harvey Dent, or Jason Todd in a double bluff.

Because, just like in THE PURLOINED LETTER, which Loeb references by name-- the answer was hiding in plain sight.

If you've convinced yourself that HUSH is a terrible story, go back and read it from Riddler's perspective and I guarantee you'll gain a newfound respect for Loeb's inventiveness.