Batman: Hush Returns
March 13, 2006 | Trades
Batman: Hush Returns
DC Comics
$17.50 (Paperback)
*** (out of five)
A.J. Lieberman is a decent writer, but he’s no Jeph Loeb and he’s certainly not Alan Moore.
Lieberman draws inspiration for Hush Returns from two key stories, Loeb’s recent bestselling Hush storyline (featuring art by Jim Lee), which saw a childhood friend of Batman’s return to make his life a living hell and Moore’s 1988 classic The Killing Joke, where the Joker’s origin is first revealed.
As this latest story opens, Hush, who may or may not be the same person who tormented Batman previously, returns to Gotham City to continue his mission. But a meeting with the Clown Prince Of Crime puts the two at loggerheads and threatens to drag the city into a crime war.
Sprinkled through the story are references to the Joker’s previous life, which involves the tragic loss of his pregnant wife, and the introduction of a twist — that perhaps she was murdered.
Hush Returns is filled with clichéd, easy-way-out plot twists and turns one the DC Universe’s key villains from a psychotic maniac with a bad sense of humour to a whiny, obsessive crook. And as for any changing of Moore’s masterpiece — that’s just wrong.
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