linblythe_pub22's review against another edition
adventurous
mysterious
medium-paced
- Plot- or character-driven? Character
- Strong character development? It's complicated
- Loveable characters? It's complicated
- Diverse cast of characters? No
- Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes
3.0
bimenace's review against another edition
adventurous
dark
mysterious
tense
medium-paced
- Plot- or character-driven? A mix
- Strong character development? No
- Loveable characters? It's complicated
- Diverse cast of characters? No
- Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes
4.25
aburchard's review against another edition
4.0
The story did not blow me away, but the characterization was AMAZING. Everyone felt like themselves (only not, but that was intentional and had to do with the plot, so no problem there), and I enjoyed seeing such a big cast interact with Batman. It was incredibly well done, making it one of the better Batman stories I have experienced in my short comic reading career.
sjj169's review against another edition
4.0
I had such a hard time deciding how to rate this one. I liked it and I didn't like it. I'm going with a four star..just because I love me some Batman and there are several really good things about this book.
Like: Batman and Catwoman. Do I like them together doing the smoochie smoochie? Well, somewhat.
I thought it would be hotter than it was..I mean come on, they are both awesomeness..but well it kinda fizzled in this book.
But here? Pure hawt.
Yes, I know I'm weird. I've been told that before.
The artwork: Frigging amazing.
Ohhhh Bats-you are looking good.
They story was fairly decent at times. I liked him teaming up with Superman and I figured out who the bad guy was before the end, but it's not a bad book.
What I thought was over the top:
Too much going on. Why does the Batman series that I've read have to have every bad guy that he has ever fought in each book? I felt sorry for the poor guy because he was running around like a chicken with his head cut off.
In the end this is one of the better Batman books I've read. He is on the darker side and I love him when he gets all angry and angsty.
ETA: I forgot this! My friend Hulk boy aka Jeff recommended this to me. He seems to know the comic books I might like..if he would quit ignoring Kelly and I lately because we Goldblum/Groinkick/Vomit gif him to death.
Like: Batman and Catwoman. Do I like them together doing the smoochie smoochie? Well, somewhat.
I thought it would be hotter than it was..I mean come on, they are both awesomeness..but well it kinda fizzled in this book.
But here? Pure hawt.
Yes, I know I'm weird. I've been told that before.
The artwork: Frigging amazing.
Ohhhh Bats-you are looking good.
They story was fairly decent at times. I liked him teaming up with Superman and I figured out who the bad guy was before the end, but it's not a bad book.
What I thought was over the top:
Too much going on. Why does the Batman series that I've read have to have every bad guy that he has ever fought in each book? I felt sorry for the poor guy because he was running around like a chicken with his head cut off.
In the end this is one of the better Batman books I've read. He is on the darker side and I love him when he gets all angry and angsty.
ETA: I forgot this! My friend Hulk boy aka Jeff recommended this to me. He seems to know the comic books I might like..if he would quit ignoring Kelly and I lately because we Goldblum/Groinkick/Vomit gif him to death.
thisotherbookaccount's review against another edition
3.0
Batman: Hush was sold to me as one of the best Batman stories ever told. I should have known that "one of the best" is a subjective statement in most cases. Batman: Hush is by no means a bad comic book. In fact, for most part, it is rather gripping. At the end of every chapter, you are left wondering: Who the hell is that guy with the bandages on the face?
What is slightly off-putting, however, is the multiple bait-and-switches towards the end of the book. The man in the bandage is... THIS! OK, not really, but we got you didn't it? Now, for the true reveal. The man in the bandage is... THAT! Hah! Got you, didn't I? It's not really him. Did you really think we'd do THAT? Fine, fine, we won't be pulling any legs this time. The real villain is... THAT.
By the end of the back-and-forth and the true (for real this time) villain is revealed, it somehow feels like a letdown. There are no deeper meanings to be found here, unlike those you find in The Killing Joke and The Dark Knight Returns. No revelation that touches on a moral ambiguities — nothing. It's a personal vendetta from Batman's past that bites him in the ass. It's straightforward and it's simple — perhaps too simple.
With that said, it's still an enjoyable romp through Gotham (and Metropolis at one point). If you want a story that sees Batman pitted against all his past enemies, most of them are here again to torment your favourite caped crusader. Most comic book fans may see this as a cliche of sorts but, since I haven't read THAT many Batman books, it's still relatively fresh for me. Besides, who doesn't want to see Dick Greyson?
I don't think Batman: Hush is the best Batman book, nor is it particularly terrible. It is very middle-of-the-road that's not particularly sophisticated.
What is slightly off-putting, however, is the multiple bait-and-switches towards the end of the book. The man in the bandage is... THIS! OK, not really, but we got you didn't it? Now, for the true reveal. The man in the bandage is... THAT! Hah! Got you, didn't I? It's not really him. Did you really think we'd do THAT? Fine, fine, we won't be pulling any legs this time. The real villain is... THAT.
By the end of the back-and-forth and the true (for real this time) villain is revealed, it somehow feels like a letdown. There are no deeper meanings to be found here, unlike those you find in The Killing Joke and The Dark Knight Returns. No revelation that touches on a moral ambiguities — nothing. It's a personal vendetta from Batman's past that bites him in the ass. It's straightforward and it's simple — perhaps too simple.
With that said, it's still an enjoyable romp through Gotham (and Metropolis at one point). If you want a story that sees Batman pitted against all his past enemies, most of them are here again to torment your favourite caped crusader. Most comic book fans may see this as a cliche of sorts but, since I haven't read THAT many Batman books, it's still relatively fresh for me. Besides, who doesn't want to see Dick Greyson?
I don't think Batman: Hush is the best Batman book, nor is it particularly terrible. It is very middle-of-the-road that's not particularly sophisticated.
jammasterjamie's review against another edition
4.0
Great and fun Batman story - Loeb, as usual, shows why he is one of the best in the biz, and Jim Lee is as amazing as always. I'm not a huge fan of the ending, hence only giving it four stars, but the ride there definitely makes this a must-read for any Batman fan.
georgezakka's review against another edition
4.0
4.5
Batman: hush - while in a chase with catwoman someone starts to interfere with Batman and not for good. This someone makes Batman fall and almost kills him needing surgery and Bruce asks for it to be done by child hood friend tommy Elliot using Morse code. After a series of unfortunate events occur Bruce has to find out who’s behind it with the help of catwoman.
My thoughts - I’m so happy this book had nothing to do with any stupid crime families like the maronis or the falcones behind I’m sick of that crap. While Tim sale is a great artist I think Jim Lee is amazing and really made the book beautiful. I really liked how they made Harvey dent and catwoman good guys, it’s nice to see them change their ways. I love the plot twist at the end when you find out that hush is thomas Elliot. My only problem was that there wasn’t enough robin, he was only at the end.
Overall great book
Batman: hush - while in a chase with catwoman someone starts to interfere with Batman and not for good. This someone makes Batman fall and almost kills him needing surgery and Bruce asks for it to be done by child hood friend tommy Elliot using Morse code. After a series of unfortunate events occur Bruce has to find out who’s behind it with the help of catwoman.
My thoughts - I’m so happy this book had nothing to do with any stupid crime families like the maronis or the falcones behind I’m sick of that crap. While Tim sale is a great artist I think Jim Lee is amazing and really made the book beautiful. I really liked how they made Harvey dent and catwoman good guys, it’s nice to see them change their ways. I love the plot twist at the end when you find out that hush is thomas Elliot. My only problem was that there wasn’t enough robin, he was only at the end.
Overall great book
mrerickeith's review against another edition
3.0
Good Batman story. Get to see a lot of the rogues come out for this. Jim Lee is a great artist.
lordenglishssbm's review against another edition
2.0
Hush feels like an essentially random series of events loosely held together by an admittedly somewhat interesting framing device. It's a trick Loeb pulled before, and one I liked when he did it in The Long Halloween, but the difference is that arc is a bit more cohesive, tonally and in terms of what its framing device leads its characters toward.
Long Halloween is fundamentally a mob story, and while Batman spends individual issues fighting a villain picked at random from his rogues gallery, the action is at least kept to the street level and the cast of characters never grows so big that it becomes hard to focus on the narrative underpinning it. Hush, on the other hand, is a story about someone trying to kill Bruce Wayne that spans two different cities and involves half the major figures in the DC Universe (including current president of the United States Lex Luthor, because DC comics are weird and comics continuity was a mistake. It's worth noting here that Last Halloween remains relatively detached from canon and can be read with relative ease as a standalone).
Like, I understand that this isn't an academic complaint, but Batman fights Superman one third of the way through this series, and the fight lasts less than an issue, and it only happens because Poison Ivy is controlling him, and all of that just feels viscerally wrong. Nightwing and Huntress and the Scarecrow and Clayface all appear and all of them take center stage for at least a bit, and their motivations and personalities are treated as important to the story, and the effect is just disorienting to anyone who hasn't read the comics, even though the narration spends time informing the reader of everything that has transpired in previous series. I played the first two Arkham Games, which at least gave me a good idea of who was whom, and clued me in to the character motifs that foreshadow certain plot points. I can't imagine what the experience would be like for a newcomer, and no, I don't think knowing who Batman is will cut it.
The part of the story exploring Batman's relationship with Catwoman was legitimately well-written, but it feels like such a minor part of the story rather than the main narrative thrust because so much of the story's energy is spent on fight scenes with characters whose presence feels incidental, even as the moment-to-moment action requires we know who they are and what they want. The fights are fun for a bit, but the stakes usually aren't there, and when you're fighting a different guy every issue it's hard to become invested in any specific rivalry (particularly because the main character has already fought Superman), which doesn't matter so much when the action is just allowed to flow but does matter when the fight scenes get a bit dialogue-heavy.
It really does feel like watching one of the later Marvel movies: There are a hundred characters running around and you might know half of them because you're not interested in watching every single superhero movie that came out over the past decade. If nothing else, Hush demonstrates the problem with forcing legitimately skilled writers (again, I like The Long Halloween) to function in a system that forces them to spend half of their stories trying to drive up sales for other stories. Even if Loeb had pulled it off, it wouldn't have been better for having to work under these constraints. I don't even blame Loeb for this; Had I written this story it would have been just as bad, and for pretty much the same reasons. The one thing I think Loeb could probably have done better is that the reveal of the killer's identity feels predictable and anti-climactic, and the twist that follows isn't much better, in part because it implicates a character who is relevant to the larger Batman mythology but is a bit player here until the very end.
I hate comics continuity.
The art is fine. It handles motion well and comes alive during the fight scenes, though the way it frames its female characters serves as a constant, nagging reminder that this series was written for teenage boys.
Long Halloween is fundamentally a mob story, and while Batman spends individual issues fighting a villain picked at random from his rogues gallery, the action is at least kept to the street level and the cast of characters never grows so big that it becomes hard to focus on the narrative underpinning it. Hush, on the other hand, is a story about someone trying to kill Bruce Wayne that spans two different cities and involves half the major figures in the DC Universe (including current president of the United States Lex Luthor, because DC comics are weird and comics continuity was a mistake. It's worth noting here that Last Halloween remains relatively detached from canon and can be read with relative ease as a standalone).
Like, I understand that this isn't an academic complaint, but Batman fights Superman one third of the way through this series, and the fight lasts less than an issue, and it only happens because Poison Ivy is controlling him, and all of that just feels viscerally wrong. Nightwing and Huntress and the Scarecrow and Clayface all appear and all of them take center stage for at least a bit, and their motivations and personalities are treated as important to the story, and the effect is just disorienting to anyone who hasn't read the comics, even though the narration spends time informing the reader of everything that has transpired in previous series. I played the first two Arkham Games, which at least gave me a good idea of who was whom, and clued me in to the character motifs that foreshadow certain plot points. I can't imagine what the experience would be like for a newcomer, and no, I don't think knowing who Batman is will cut it.
The part of the story exploring Batman's relationship with Catwoman was legitimately well-written, but it feels like such a minor part of the story rather than the main narrative thrust because so much of the story's energy is spent on fight scenes with characters whose presence feels incidental, even as the moment-to-moment action requires we know who they are and what they want. The fights are fun for a bit, but the stakes usually aren't there, and when you're fighting a different guy every issue it's hard to become invested in any specific rivalry (particularly because the main character has already fought Superman), which doesn't matter so much when the action is just allowed to flow but does matter when the fight scenes get a bit dialogue-heavy.
It really does feel like watching one of the later Marvel movies: There are a hundred characters running around and you might know half of them because you're not interested in watching every single superhero movie that came out over the past decade. If nothing else, Hush demonstrates the problem with forcing legitimately skilled writers (again, I like The Long Halloween) to function in a system that forces them to spend half of their stories trying to drive up sales for other stories. Even if Loeb had pulled it off, it wouldn't have been better for having to work under these constraints. I don't even blame Loeb for this; Had I written this story it would have been just as bad, and for pretty much the same reasons. The one thing I think Loeb could probably have done better is that the reveal of the killer's identity feels predictable and anti-climactic, and the twist that follows isn't much better, in part because it implicates a character who is relevant to the larger Batman mythology but is a bit player here until the very end.
I hate comics continuity.
The art is fine. It handles motion well and comes alive during the fight scenes, though the way it frames its female characters serves as a constant, nagging reminder that this series was written for teenage boys.