How do you rate the "Hush" story arc?

[Lorendiac]

I was in a thread on another forum where the conversation had turned to whether or not "Hush" was overrated beyond what it deserved (whatever that might be). Comments from others in that thread led me to realize that I honestly don't know just how many of my fellow Batman fans would give "Hush" a high rating in the first place!

So this is your chance! Share your opinion by clicking to vote! Did you think it was a wonderful piece of storytelling about Batman and some of his friends and enemies, or do you groan whenever you remember it, or are you somewhere in between?

(Remember, I'm only talking about the 12-part arc which ran from "Batman #608" to "Batman #619," and not about any later stories which used the character of Hush after Jeph Loeb and Jim Lee had introduced him to us!)

 

[mothy]

i love the artwork for hush.

however, if you like overblown, overrated glorified fan fiction, yeah, hush is awesome.

it's mediocre. fun, but nothing particularly well written in any aspect.

 

[Mandalore464]

Definitely not the ultimate Batman GN, but I would give it at least a 15/20.

I love Jim Lee's art, what can I say? I know it's flawed, I know the human proportions look ridiculous but so what, I don't expect superheroes and villains to look like your average meathead, and I can close my eyes on the faulty proportions, there aren't so many of them. It doesn't mean I can't appreciate Tim Sale's art or Mazzuchelli's art for that matter, I really do love them. But I'm still a sucker for Lee's art.

The story was ok, maybe a bit too much overall, but I also liked how The Riddler was responsible for everything at the end, he was sourly in need of some credit after being depicted as one of the most incapable villains of the Batman mythos over so many years. Hush's design is great, but his motivations are a bit meh...

Overall, great art and ok story equals good comic-book. Very enjoyable read, recommended to anyone who hasn't read it.

 

[cokebabies]

It's a very visually interesting book, with a story that is good enough to hold up to repeated readings. I don't think it's a great story by any means, but again, good enough.

Hush definitely gets put in regular rotation of things I read while trying to fall asleep. Obvious boredom jokes aside, it's a good, light plot.

 

[The Joker]

It's average to good. My biggest gripe with it is Hush's motivations for doing all of that were just piss weak. Haven't seen a villain with worse reasoning for having a personal grudge against the hero since Venom in Spider-Man.

The artwork is simply gorgeous though, and definitely a big attraction factor to the story.

 

[Mace Dolex]

I mostly bought because of Jim Lee's art which was the big draw into getting back into Batman, the story is good but I wouldn't put it on a list of essential Batman stories to read, all the hype was with the Loeb/Lee team-up anyway.

I have the single issues, the two hardcover TPB's and the Absolute edition but I still think the story was "ok".

 

[Drz]

I have to say the main reason people love this is the art. Sadly this makes half the Hush fans completely ignore his motivation and they just say "oh hes a cool villain! One of the best!" simply because they loved Jim Lee's drawings of him.

 

[cokebabies]

It's average to good. My biggest gripe with it is Hush's motivations for doing all of that were just piss weak. Haven't seen a villain with worse reasoning for having a personal grudge against the hero since Venom in Spider-Man.

I'd consider Hush to have a MUCH weaker origin rationale. Parker may not have been acting malevolently, but he still knew he was going to affect Brock's life negatively. So while it's a weak reason to want to, well, eat someone, it's still a lot better than "I had to wait for my inheritance."

I have to say the main reason people love this is the art. Sadly this makes half the Hush fans completely ignore his motivation and they just say "oh hes a cool villain! One of the best!" simply because they loved Jim Lee's drawings of him.

Definitely agreed. Which is why if the poll question was changed from "What do you think about the story 'Hush'" to "... the character 'Hush'", we'd be seeing very different results. At least I know I'd be giving a very different answer.

 

[TruerToTheCore]

Hush AKA "Let's use every hot female character in the Batman universe because Jim Lee is drawing" is not very good.

 

[The Joker]

I'd consider Hush to have a MUCH weaker origin rationale. Parker may not have been acting malevolently, but he still knew he was going to affect Brock's life negatively.

You're thinking of the movie. In the comics, Peter and Brock never knew eachother until Brock became Venom.

 

[Ryan]

I really enjoyed the Loeb/Lee Hush series, but haven't enjoyed anything about the character since then. I really thought that this character might gain a strong footing and be considered a worthwhile adversary. I do agree that his "origin" is one of the worst, overused beginnings to a villain that I've seen. I have to admit, I marked out when I thought the identity of Hush was really Jason Todd, which I still believe would have made this character more then a 2 or even 1 dimensional bad guy. It could have been like the "winter soldier/bucky barnes" storyline which was executed so brilliantly in Captain America. Who knows, somewhere down the line hopefully someone will rectify this character's flaw.

 

[super85]

It was a good fun read. With lovely artwork. It's not my favorite story not my favorite Jeph Loeb written DC story either. But it was entertaining and handled professionally by DC. It had a monthly schedule(and that gave it momentum) and it actually came out every month!. Fans these days always use the BS argument "Its ok to be late if the artwork is great!!!!" while it actually isn't. "Hush" showed that with the proper lead time and a good editor you got a Jim Lee book out every month for a year.

 

[kguillou]

The majority of Loeb's work is regarded highly because he was lucky enough to have amazing artists draw his crappy scripts. If you go back and actually read any of his work with Tim Sale, the writing is very mediocre.

That said, Hush was treated much better when Paul Dini handled him.

 

[TruerToTheCore]

...

 

[Mace Dolex]

I have to say the main reason people love this is the art. Sadly this makes half the Hush fans completely ignore his motivation and they just say "oh hes a cool villain! One of the best!" simply because they loved Jim Lee's drawings of him.

Exactly in fact I think even when Loeb/Lee's Hush arc was done the sales on Batman went back to their usual average sales.

 

[CrimsonMist]

I thought "Hush" was alright. It's the same thing from Loeb though. "Let's throw in EVERY VILLIAN to tell the story". I don't like Jim Lee's art. Or i should say i HATE how his work is colored by Scott Williams. He makes Lee's art look flashy and bright. Jim Lee, painted by Alex Ross, is awesome. There's an atmosphere that's there that is no where to be found in his regular work. I find most Jim Lee art is kind of bland in that department. It's just flashy looking artwork. Nothing about it sucks me in.

The character is alright: weak motivation, and handled much better by Dini.

I never really understood all the fanboy love for this run though. It really overshadowed the following run, which was Broken City, which was AMAZING! Alot of fans hated it, because it didn't match the supposed greatness of Hush. I remember hearing how much Broken City was supposed suck, only to find out otherwise.

 

[cokebabies]

You're thinking of the movie. In the comics, Peter and Brock never knew eachother until Brock became Venom.

I wasn't thinking of the movie, but I realized after you pointed it out that I was forgetting what happened in the comics. I thought Spider Man pointed out Brock's error, but now I remember that's incorrect.

So yeah, that makes his origin much lamer, but I still rank it above Hush's.

 

[CantThinkOfAName]

Well it was still cool cuz it tied into the Sin-Eater story, but overall his motivation was a one-note deal.

Hush really wasn't that great, it was a pretty poor story of "hey, lets get every villain in one story" thing with flashy action and not much substance. And honestly, I don't care for Jim Lee THAT much.

Broken City was way better, it's a shame so many losers decided to drop the book after Hush. Honestly, it was probably the last really good story in Batman until Morrison took over.

 

[Lorendiac]

Frankly, I find myself wondering how this Poll would have gone if I had said: "IGNORE THE ART and just vote on how much you liked the writing -- dialogue, plot twists, that sort of thing." But instead I asked people to just vote on the finished product as a whole, didn't I?

 

[CantThinkOfAName]

Its ok, I didnt care for either art or story

 

[Cain]

Inferior. Less satisfying than the "average" Batman story.

**** Jeph Loeb

 

[Lorendiac]

I posted copies of this Poll on 5 forums. Just now I used Excel to add up the numbers from all five of those threads. 331 votes have been cast (including mine). Here's how it breaks down:

Excellent: 19.0%
Good: 34.4%
Medium: 32.9%
Inferior: 10.3%
Bad: 3.3%

Or to put it another way -- a hair under one-third of us think the overall quality was just Medium; a hair over one third of us think it was Good, as in visibly better than average, but not outstanding! The other one-third of us (give or take) are split between those who think it was Excellent -- 5 stars out of 5! -- and those who vote for Inferior or Bad.

Several people commented favorably about Jim Lee's art; some of those voters stated or implied that fond memories of Lee's contributions to the finished product raised their rating of the entire story arc by at least one notch on the Poll! I began to realize that if I had just asked: "How would you rate Loeb's writing on that story -- dialogue, plot twists, resolution of loose ends, etc., and never mind the artwork!" then I probably would have seen rather different results. But it was too late to change course in mid-voyage! (And what the heck -- comics are a visual medium, after all! If Alan Moore's "Watchmen" only existed in script format, with no illustrations whatsoever, I don't think it would be regarded quite so highly as it still is today!)

Now that I've gone to all this trouble, I'm going to indulge myself by reminiscing a bit. I bought the loose issues of "Hush" when they were new on the stands, and I was very disappointed by the time I finished the final issue. I had been hoping all along that various apparent plot holes would be explained away in the last installment . . . and a lot of them weren't! But I found a way to make good use of my disappointment -- by reading the arc later, taking notes on various things which really annoyed me, and adapting those notes into a parody, done in roughly the style of Mad Magazine!

Then I joined a bunch of comic book forums, around the spring of 2004, in order to post my parody in places where many of the prospective readers would actually be familiar with what I was mocking! Some people actually replied in ways which suggested they had not fallen asleep from sheer boredom before finishing it, and that was enough encouragement to make me become a semi-regular participant on various comic book-themed forums ever since! So in a way, you could say I owe it all to Jeph Loeb's ridiculously loose plotting in that 12-part epic!

If you're interested in taking a look at the parody, about five and a half years after I wrote it, so as to see what my major complaints about the plot actually were at the time, it's still available at:

Bratman: Shush (Part 1 of 2)
Bratman: Shush (Part 2 of 2)

 

[Carmine Falcone]

The writing is horrendous. And the art lacks character. It's all pin-ups.

 

[mothy]

i love the thrashing batman hands superman. he proves once again brains do beat brawn.

he punched him consecutively with a kryptonite ring, and said he had opened a gas main and that if he sparked heat vision he’d blow the entire block.

batman then hits him with supersonic sound from the utility belt, that superman and every dog in the surrounding area can hear, and will have a splitting headache in the morning.

batman, who is about to get hit by superman, tells superman he lied about the gas main, and perfectly times his grappling gun to jump clear of superman’s fist. superman’s fist connects to where batman was standing, and hits an electricity transformer that stuns him with the power of the entire city.

perfect.

 

[TruerToTheCore]

i love the thrashing batman hands superman. he proves once again brains do beat brawn.

he punched him consecutively with a kryptonite ring, and said he had opened a gas main and that if he sparked heat vision he’d blow the entire block.

batman then hits him with supersonic sound from the utility belt, that superman and every dog in the surrounding area can hear, and will have a splitting headache in the morning.

batman, who is about to get hit by superman, tells superman he lied about the gas main, and perfectly times his grappling gun to jump clear of superman’s fist. superman’s fist connects to where batman was standing, and hits an electricity transformer that stuns him with the power of the entire city.

perfect.

A Superman who was mindcontrolled and not at his top level
Superman is a super-genius, too, in case you haven't noticed, so forget the "brain versus brawn" thing. This is not Frank Miller's universe.