Batman: Hush

Hush is a 2002-2003 comic book story arc that ran through the Batman monthly series. It was written by Jeph Loeb, penciled by Jim Lee, inked by Scott Williams and colored by Alex Sinclair. The story depicts a mysterious stalker called Hush, who seems intent on sabotaging Batman from afar, and it includes a large number of guest appearances by Batman villains. It also emphasizes the romantic feelings between Batman and Catwoman.

Plot
Batman is rescuing a boy kidnapped by Killer Croc, whereupon Catwoman steals the ransom money. As Batman swings through Gotham City in pursuit of her, his rope is cut and he falls to the ground, fracturing his skull. He is nearly killed by a group of criminals but saved by Huntress. His butler, Alfred Pennyworth, follows his instructions to summon Bruce Wayne's childhood friend, Thomas Elliot, now a renowned brain surgeon. Batman recovers, and discovers that Poison Ivy had used Catwoman to steal the ransom and has taken it from her. Batman rescues Catwoman, and a tenuous romance blooms between them. He eventually decides to trust Catwoman and reveals his identity to her. He tries to interrogate Killer Croc but he escapes Arkham, however Batman tracks him down but he is captured before Batman can fully interrogate him.

The pair track Poison Ivy to Metropolis, where they find that Ivy has also taken control of Superman. By using a kryptonite ring that Superman entrusted to him, Batman stalls him while Catwoman lets Lois Lane fall from the Daily Planet building. Superman comes to his senses and saves Lois, and together the heroes capture Ivy.

Later, in Gotham City, Bruce Wayne, Selina Kyle, and Dr. Elliot are attending the opera Pagliacci, when Harley Quinn tries to rob the theater. In the ensuing struggle, Dr. Elliot is killed, and it appears that the Joker shot him. Enraged by seeing this, Batman tries to kill the Joker with his fists, even rendering Catwoman unconscious to prevent her stopping him, but former police commissioner James Gordon appears and dissuades him from doing so, though he wounds Batman with a bullet. Dick Grayson returns to Gotham City for Elliot's funeral. Batman tells him of his suspicions that some mastermind is behind all his enemies behaving so out of character. Behind the scenes, a man with a bandaged face appears at all of the crime sites and seems to be orchestrating the plot. He comes to be referred to as Hush.

After foiling an armored car robbery by the Riddler, Nightwing and Batman discover evidence that Ra's al Ghul is also involved in what Batman has come to think of as a grand plot. Batman kidnaps Talia and leaves Catwoman to guard her while he seeks out Ra's, who tells Batman that someone from his past has used one of the Lazarus Pits. Catwoman is overpowered by Lady Shiva who has been sent to rescue Talia, but Talia knocks Shiva out and helps Catwoman recover from the attack, meeting Batman and telling him what happened. Returning to Gotham, Batman finds Catwoman being attacked by a delusional Huntress. Batman is able to have her knocked out, but then encounters the cause of the Huntress' attack, the Scarecrow but he overpowers him in a graveyard. He discovers that the current Robin, Tim Drake, has been captured by the former second Robin, Jason Todd, who had previously perished during the events of Batman: A Death in the Family. While fighting Jason, however, it is apparent that Clayface is mimicking the identity of Jason.

Batman then finds a device planted in his computer, which led him to seek his old friend (and trusted mechanic) Harold. He has a late-night meeting with Harold, who has been missing since the times of No Man's Land. Harold admits that someone had treated his disfigured condition in exchange for planting that device, but he is shot and killed by Hush before he can name the mastermind. Thomas Elliot is discovered to be the trigger-man, and the face behind the bandages of the mastermind (it is later implied that Clayface had been mimicking Elliot when he appeared to be killed). Elliot held a grudge against the Wayne family since Batman's father, Dr. Thomas Wayne, had saved the life of Elliot's mother after a motor vehicle accident; Elliot had sabotaged his parents' vehicle in order to gain their inheritance, and considered Bruce's father as the one who did not allow his plan to be completed. In the ensuing confrontation, Elliot is shot by the reborn Harvey Dent and plummets into the water, with Batman never having a chance to unmask him (it is only assumed it is Thomas Elliot). His body is unable to be recovered.

In an epilogue to his face-off with Elliot, Batman discovers that the true mastermind behind the conspiracy is the Riddler. He had used a Lazarus Pit to cure himself of cancer, and during his time in the pit, deduced Batman's identity as Bruce Wayne. Having first approached Thomas Elliot with a cure for his mother's cancer (the Lazarus Pit), the Riddler had instead allied with Elliot against Bruce Wayne. Riddler is also the only villain who Batman did not believe acted in an unusual way during the entire saga; the robbery Batman foiled was fairly typical of Riddler at the time. The Riddler also tells him that he and Elliot referred to the plot as the "Hush" plot. Batman convinces the Riddler not to reveal his true identity to anyone else, because a riddle which everyone knows the answer to would be worthless, and even if he does, the revelation would give Ra's al Ghul a vital clue that Riddler is the one who used his Lazarus Pit, making Ra's send his League of Assassins after him.

Another mystery begins troubling the Dark Knight. Even though the man he fought at the graveyard was revealed to be Clayface, Jason Todd's remains are still missing from his grave. The Riddler even taunts Batman of his greatest failure to save Jason's life, and refuses to tell him where Jason's body is, prompting Batman to punch out the Riddler.

In the final scene Batman and Catwoman meet. He continues to mistrust her and cannot be sure that she is not more aware of the plot than she admits. While trying to console him, Catwoman inadvertently tells him to "hush" seconds before trying to kiss him, provoking a fierce reaction from Batman that compels her to end the relationship. Before leaving, she says that she does not care if their relationship started out as a "spell". It works because of who they are, and someday he will learn to trust that. Batman thinks that it may "someday" be possible.

Aftermath
After the story's success, Lee and Loeb were slated to follow the story up with another 6 issues, but the project failed to materialize. Hush's story was continued by AJ Lieberman in the now discontinued Batman: Gotham Knights title.

The plot element involving Jason Todd was later retconned in other Batman storylines. In the Under The Hood arc, it was revealed that Batman was actually fighting the real Jason Todd in the graveyard, who later switched places with Clayface. Todd is now a murderous vigilante known as the Red Hood. It is also revealed that Batman had suspected that it was really Jason Todd he fought with and that Todd had been stalking him since then. This is evident during the arc storyline of As the Crow Flies, where it is shown that Jason's mask was found in the Batmobile. After Jason revealed himself to Batman and kidnapped the Joker, he does not only become a thorn to Batman and his allies in Gotham but also ends up clashing with the Teen Titans, Outsiders, and Green Arrow as well. At the same time The Dark Knight has desperately tried to reach Jason in an effort to atone of his past failures. Following Infinite Crisis, the Riddler spent a year in a coma and lost all memory of ever knowing that Batman was Bruce Wayne.

The Hush storyline was followed up in Paul Dini and Dustin Nguyen's well-received storyline, Heart of Hush, where Hush returns to get revenge on Batman through Catwoman and surgically changed his appearance to match Bruce Wayne's in an attempt to steal his identity. The series was praised for adding backstory and depth to the character of Hush while returning him to a credible threat. An origin story for Hush is given in Detective Comics #846-847.

Publication history
Hush was published in monthly installments as Batman #608-619 by DC Comics. The first issue of the story arc was a success ranking 1st in the Top 300 comics for the October 2002 period with pre-order sales of 113,061. It was later collected into two volumes as hardcover and softcover, and later in 2005 in an oversized Absolute Batman: Hush hardcover slipcase. DC Comics released the story arc in one volume in August 2009. A hardcover collected edition featuring Jim Lee's artwork entirely in pencil form, titled Batman: Hush Unwrapped Deluxe Edition, was released on February 22, 2011.

Critical reaction
IGN Comics ranked Vol. 1 and Vol. 2 of Batman: Hush #17 on a list of the 25 greatest Batman graphic novels, saying that "there are some truly unforgettable moments" and "Jim Lee's artwork is unbelievable."

Craig Lemon from Comics Bulletin criticized the plot, arguing that too many people now know of Batman's secret identity, opining that the story was not very gripping, and that Batman was depicted as inept for not being prepared for a situation as basic as someone cutting his batline. Nonetheless, he praised the dialogue, the lack of unnecessary exposition, the pacing and action, and minor aspects like the self-defense mechanism of the batsuit. Regarding the artwork, Lemon stated that it was generally good, but complained that "it's gritted teeth on all the men. It's huge breasts on all the women. It's impossible anatomy on everyone", though conceding that some readers enjoyed this type of artwork.

In other media
Hush was originally going to be featured in a planned DTV set on the animated series The Batman, along with that universe's versions of Riddler, Catwoman, Joker, Clayface, Mr. Freeze and Penguin. The project was later scrapped by DC and WB. There is some sketch art of Hush in Legions of Gotham.

Hush is the main antagonist in the side plot, 'Identity Thief' in the 2011 critically acclaimed video game "Batman Arkham City". In the game, he kidnaps inmates throughout the city with facial structures resembling Bruce Wayne, and performs facial surgery by removing their faces and re-attaching them onto his face. After investigating three victims throughout the city and confronting two prisoners (both say they saw Bruce Wayne), Batman learns of Hush's location and Hush himself tells Batman his plan to take revenge on Bruce Wayne. This version of Hush is apparently ignorant of Batman's secret identity of Bruce Wayne, unlike in the comics.

Collected editions
The entire storyline has been collected in two volumes and later into one volume.


 * Batman: Hush (320 pages, paperback, August 2009, ISBN 1-4012-2317-6; unwrapped deluxe hardcover, July 2011, ISBN 1-4012-2992-1; 372 pages, absolute edition hardcover, December 2011, ISBN 1-4012-0426-0)
 * Batman: Hush Volume One (collects Batman vol. 1 #608–612 and a story from Wizard magazine #0, 128 pages, paperback, August 2004, ISBN 1-4012-0060-5)
 * Batman: Hush Volume Two (collects Batman vol. 1 #613–619, 192 pages, paperback, November 2004, ISBN 1-4012-0092-3)