Batman: Hush Returns

Batman: Hush Returns 

By A. J. Lieberman, Al Barrionuevo & Javier Pina (DC Comics)
ISBN 1-84576-258-4

The worst thing about major events in comics publishing – as elsewhere, sadly – is the blind compulsion to follow up and cash in on them. There were a whole bunch of years between Frank Miller’s The Dark Knight Returns and the recent sequel, and Alan Moore and Dave Gibbons have thus far resisted all urgings to revisit Watchmen. But it was inevitable that Hush, Batman’s dark opposite, would return sooner rather than later.

Relying on the tired plot premise that ‘everything you know is wrong’, and yet another string of guest-stars to bolster a weak and confusing storyline. Here it involves a battle for crime supremacy among insane super-criminals (Joker, Riddler and even the Penguin) intent on outsmarting each other, but this frankly bewildering mess could have benefited from fewer chapters and stricter editing, although the art is pretty good and Batman fans as much as any follower of long-running characters, have grown used to dry patches and occasional troughs between all those epic high points.

Originally published in Gotham Knights issues #50-55, the volume also contains a nominal epilogue from issue #66 featuring Hush’s hired thug Prometheus and the assorted villains from the criminal Society that plagued DC’s hero community since the onset of Infinite Crisis. This one is so very Not Recommended for anyone trying a graphic novel for the first time.

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