DETECTIVE COMICS #850

Review by: Tork

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Size: pages
Price: 3.99

Ever since Paul Dini’s been on this book, Detective Comics has been the secondary title that feels like a flagship.  If nothing else, Paul Dini’s spent the last fifteen-plus years proving he’s one of the best Batman writers of all time.  It’s no surprise that when the writer of Mad Love was given a shot at a Batman book in the regular canon, it was going to excel.  “Heart of Hush” has been no different.

Perhaps the most impressive thing about this story is the fact that this is probably the deepest and most intense use of Hush I’ve seen since his bandaged face popped up under Jim Lee’s pencils about five years ago.  I think the reason some people find him very irritating is that in the last ten years, DC has created (or revamped) at least five different “Anti-Batman” characters.  Grant Morrison started off by reintroducing Owlman in JLA: Earth 2 for the first time since the original died in the Crisis.  Then, he made Prometheus, a mad tech-based villain on a life-long crusade against the law and order that took his parents, before the promising JLA villain fell into the C-list once Morrison took off.  Between those two and Hush were Red Hood and Catman before DC seemingly stopped trying to make five different versions of the same idea.  Among the five made, Hush is one of the weaker ones, lacking the punch of pre-Hush Returns Prometheus (oh the irony!) or the charm of Gail Simone’s Catman.  For the most part, Hush is more or less a mummy in a coat who knows Bruce is Batman yet never seems to do much with it and quotes Aristotle so people think he’s an intellectual even when the quote makes no sense to the situation.

Here, that Hush is replaced by another, a deeply disturbed man-boy whose materialistic jealousy of Bruce Wayne leads to monstrous acts.  The theme of “playing games with people’s lives” has been an early trope of the character, yet here it’s used to maximum effect.  Whereas Hush had earlier simply employed others to do his bidding, here he literally screws with people’s brains and hearts to get at Batman.  His flashbacks show a man who doesn’t see people as people but as tools for his benefit.  His outrage at how much “cool stuff” Batman has as well as the ending reveal a person who never grew up emotionally, a spoiled rich boy who values things over people which eventually becomes his undoing.

Hopefully, Dini’s version of Hush– a genuinely vindictive nihilist– will remain the standard of the character.  The art, very animated in feel, serves the story well.  Nguyen required a little time of my part to get used to, but now I can appreciate it’s simplicity.  The nods in the Batcave to the various Batmobiles (a current running gag of the Batman books, I believe– “Show every Batman car in existence in the Batcave, no matter how dumb”) and even the Whirlybat is a nice touch.  Dini’s Batman is as spot-on as always and even if the happy ending is brief, it’s still a good way to end the story on.  I don’t know where Dini fits if at all in the post-RIP setting of Batman but even if he’s brushed aside for other things, his run from One Year Later to now on Detective Comics is assuredly secured.

Story: 4 - Very Good
Art: 4 - Very Good

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