when you change the entire mystery 

The movie made me question what I was tricked into watching.

Finally someone said it. Batman: Hush the comic is so SOLIDLY OKAY. Awesome vid!

I mean, i like the comic's ending for riddler, he has the answer to who batman is, but he can't and won't tell anybody.

Hush seems like something you had to be there for. The comics landscape at the time was different. The Schumacher films were still relatively new and their silliness was how much of pop culture saw Batman. Hush was a powerful reset for the character's publicity. Hush acted as a great on boarding experience for new and returning fans to the world of Batman. It was also entirely self-contained, in one comic book with no crossover issues, and ran for about a year. Which doesn't happen these days. The Hush comic evolved the power sets, tactics and expectations for every single Batman villain it featured. Pretty much all of these changes became status quo going forward, so going back to read it if you weren't reading comics at the time means some of that impact is lost as well. Hush needed to exist in order for stories like "Under the Red Hood" to be possible. Both to establish the tone and by Hush implying Jason could still be alive, and having Clayface impersonate Jason. This was the first time Jason Todd had had any real narrative significance since his death 15 years prior.

I wouldn’t say Selina is cynical here. Maybe to us the audience but as a character - Selina isn’t Superman. Selina isn’t Wonder Woman or John Constantine. Death means something for her and the continuity of her character. Tragedy and loss are real for her. Even when Batman or the bat family die it’s not like she’s in on the inner workings of the whole thing. For her these people disappear and pass like legends and stories and old internet friends. They don’t die they just go away for awhile. So when she sees Batman’s best friend die, almost watches Batman die, and has to kill the riddler to save him, and he’s still lamenting - That’s two, almost three deaths in the space of a night and the person who lived isn’t reflecting, isn’t changing, isn’t even aware that there’s a problem: That, from her perspective Batman fundamentally doesn’t value his own life. He’s so hurt and so wounded and that’s what she’s looking at. Selina doesn’t make the choice to leave because she doesn’t believe in happy endings or good things. She leaves because Batman presents a fundamentally self destructive quality in her eyes and staying there would mean loving him. It would mean hoping and praying every night that the one thing she knows to be true doesn’t pass- Because one night he’d leave and never come back to her. That is not the act of a cynic. That’s the act of someone who would have given it all if she only knew the one she loved most wouldn’t throw it away. Bruce to her was someone who’d die one day. And he might have taken her with him if she followed.

The romance was the only thing that stood out to me in this movie. The moment when Selina realizes that she was willing to give up her way of life for Bruce, but Bruce would never give up his way of life for her was heartbreaking. She deserves better.

I just remember being disappointed and confused by the Riddler reveal, because it kind of came out of fucking nowhere...

Honestly the best Hush story was written by Paul Dini. "Heart of Hush" is a great and fun read giving Hush a better origin than Jeph Loeb did.

NGL, I am glad I'm not the only one with this hot take on the original Hush comic. I love Jeph Loeb's early work, as well as his run on Superman/Batman, but Hush was just the awkward transition between the super-serious noir inspired mysteries of his early work and the unapologetically campy action of his later work. He really worked in two entirely irreconcilable genres, and Hush is what happened when he tried to keep the same hard-boiled voice and ethos while exploring the more absurd edges of the superhero world. It just didn't work, but Jim Lee's art (which honestly looks great but is not particularly strong narratively in this series, to say nothing of his falling behind schedule) covers a multitude of sins for most readers. To be clear, Loeb always has tended towards overstuffing his stories with as many characters as he can get his hands on, and I appreciate that isn't always a strength, but when he introduces all of the villains in the Long Halloween, it's mostly as a backdrop to emphasize the larger theme of how Gotham is evolving from a city run by the mob and corrupt politicians to a city at the mercy of murderous maniacs; we don't get the same overstated melodramatic monologues from Batman about how each rogue is a dark reflection of himself and how he is locked in an endless dance with the Joker, etc. Instead, he treats all of the villains and mobsters as dangerous opponents whom he must stop. Actually, I think that is my key complaint about Hush, now that I think about it: Batman is constantly absorbed in reflection on his relationship with each and every single character, and he continuously does so in such highly philosophical terms that it eliminates any actual emotional weight in those connections. This is why none of his emotions (whether loving Selina, hating Joker, respecting Gordon, or admiring Dick) feel sincere. It's all just a bunch of words.

So funny story, around the time this movie came out on the old DC Streaming service, my dad had watched it before me and asked “hey can I spoil something?” And I was like “yeah of course! I already read the book!” And he said “Oh cool! I can’t believe it was riddler as Hush!” And I just was like “WAIT WHAT? THEY CHANGED IT??” And he just felt so bad, like he ruin the movie 😭 Love ya pop.

I didn't care for the animated adaptation but to be fair I never really thought narratively the original Hush storyline, or even the title character was that compelling to begin with. It more so felt like an excuse for Jim Lee to draw most of the Batman pantheon.

How the hell is the Riddler a C list villain seriously he’s up there with the big leagues, even the joker respects him

Batman was legit insane in the movie. Not saving Riddler wouldn't break his code on a technical level. Meanwhile in Son of Batman he was okay with letting Slade drown to death.

Intro never gets old

Gotham by Gaslight is another great example of this but I would say that film pulls off a fresh twist even better and explores how different eras make different men.

The original comic made the mistake of thinking a good mystery is an unsolvable one, but I don’t entirely want to write it off. There’s a really nice hook to having all bad guys breaking their modus operandi. It’s just that they ended up scrapping Jason Todd. Could have gone with Hugo or something. The riddler bit at the end was my favorite part. Riddler solves Batman’s identity, but he can’t spoil it because that would be outside his MO.

In my opinion the big problem with hush is that it was written as a stunt Jim Lee was brought back and he wanted to draw all the villains and the writer was Jeff Lobe who did the long Halloween.

why is your lil guy coved in blood 😢

The Catwoman stuff was what stood out for me, but I hated pretty much everything else in the adaptation.

Yeah hush had a big impact and then they go crazy with the twist. We got another controlled Superman Glad Selina calls Bruce out on his ideology

It's always amazing to see these videos pop up in my recommended they are always amazing to watch and come back to.

I think the main reason this movie doesn’t have a very good reception is just because of how they handled Hush and his mystery. It’s essentially a Batman and Catwoman movie where Riddler/Hush happens to be the main obstacle. If they had just called the movie “The Bat and the Cat” or something I feel it would’ve gone a long way.

I always preferred Batman’s characterization in Under the Red Hood. In which he refuses to kill, however doesn’t blindly try to save his enemies. The narrative punch at the end of HUSH always seems like a cop out to me. Never allowing him to fully be with Selina, despite having the rest of the bat family. Status quo remains 😕.

Thomas Eliot was always a joke. And I always saw the story more about the relationship with Batman and Selina, and the rest of his rogues' gallery.

Two video in one week..awesome vid

Your content makes my day every time, man. Keep it up👍 (Also i recommended any kingdom come adaptation. even losely adapted, its always intresting in its themes)

i love your videos!!!! keep up the great work

Hilariously enough.I only like the comic book more than the animation for the soul fact that I think it is just hilarious at the very end it's the riddler. The last scene with him is 10/10

yeah everything falls short of bats and catwoman romance in BTAS. Though I love the episode of I think it was in the Brave and the Bold show where Alfred wrote a Fanfiction about Bruce and Selina

God the comic art is so good😍

If the rumors are true I hope Reeves takes inspiration from Dini's Hush for The Batman II

Amazing timing for you to put this video out, considering I'm currently working on a Hush fanfic type project. The comic version of this story always frustrated me because it felt like Selina and Bruce's breakup wasn't done to give insight into Bruce's character and why he can't be happy, it feels like it was just done to revert things back to status quo in tidy fashion with the bare minimum of justification. Imo the film gets it right that it's more interesting for Selina to break it off than Bruce, but her being angry with his no-kill rule is a little lame too. I always thought it might be dramatically richer/juicier if they leaned into the idea that she was being influenced/mind controlled into starting their relationship to begin with, and breaks it off at the end because she feels too violated by Riddler's mind games to continue being with Bruce even though it's what she really wants.

I found the Arkham Knight Hush so much more engaging as a character. The bandages are iconic but really end in a lackluster conclusion IMO. In AK, you find out Thomas Elliot has surgically altered his face to look like Bruce Wayne. It's a step so much deeper than simply trying to kill Bruce. He wants to become him. Ruin his name.

I'm glad you like the ending but I can't get over it. Catwoman is mad at Batman for not killing people, and the narrative of the film pretends that's not sociopathic of her

This is why they should of been allowed to make Hush jason todd like originally planned, would of been much better for the comic.

I like the scene by scene breakdown but more power to you

IMO HUSH was the best thing they had done in awhile at that point, it made me wanna pick up the comic in its entirety and I'm not someone who actively runs out to buy comic books. It resonated with me, and this movie felt like a huge disservice to everything that the comic book was. It should have been more than another slot in the New 52 series of films. This should have taken up at least 2 films to get going. However the film WAS okay, but I had a lot of expectations for it because it was a comic book I actually bothered to read, so knowing they failed to adapt it better was a bitter pill to swallow and well I had a lot more fun watching that batman and turtles crossover movie that came out around shortly thereafter I think.

Recently watched the movie again. I'm pretty sure I hated for all the same reasons everyone did the first time I watched it. But on review I think it's my favorite of the DCAU movies. Having been through some hard break ups and now having a family with a woman I love I appreciated the love story on a level I didn't get before because I was the guy who refused to change. But I've changed a lot (I hope for the better) because I met a woman who was willing to grow with me. Sometimes you gotta stop fighting your demons and start living an actual life with someone who gets you

I think changing the twist works for the movie because even if you already know the original twist you still get to be shocked a bit

We were there day one and still have my copy but we went in for the art first and foremost. The rest was ok but the art is what made it special.

I like the first "Hush" comics, also dig ya thoughts. I thought the whole thing was about how Bruce was never alone

The movie still keeps me up at night...

Okay, who the crap is getting blood on Implicit these past several videos?

I liked this style

Comic Hush is used to show how riddler can be be an interesting villain, setting up the idea of him being able to create new rogues out of the prettiest and most uninspired sorts of people or organize different rogues to co-ordinate a plan that seems impossible for any one person to accomplish. Movie hush purposefully sabotages the whole plan to make it pointless mess for the soul purpose of Batman turning to the camera to say "Nah riddler sucks as a character actually"

I really love watching unique content creators. You're doing a really good job as far as the style change I think a little more following the plots structure would be ideal. Not exactly going back to the beat for beat analysis just a little more narrative structure in the commentary.

The Hush comic was basically just DC letting Jim Lee draw all the characters he's wanted to draw and then figuring out a story reason for all of them to show up.

As much I don't care for Hush as a character in his first appearance, I really like what Paul Dini with his character by making him an identity thief.

definitely like the new style more

I did get a little laugh at the "Batman media" joke with a picture of Dengar from Star Wars lol.

Lore of when you change the entire mystery momentum 100

"beloved" lol

Brother ur gonna have run out of animated films if u keep up with ur current upload schedule

Cool video (I 100% finished it)

The thing about introducing a new character to a story that's going to involve a mystery is that you gotta have something for that character to do in the story, beyond appearing in it. Mask of the Phantasm comes to mind, considering how Andrea wasn't just there to appear in the story. She also was an old love being rekindled and a strong basis for the flashbacks.

What a gamer.

Super Nice

In the comic, I feel like a LOT of people know Brucs is Batman

So I first learned about Hush while playing the Arkham games, first from his profile in Asylum, then his sidequest in Arkham City. Those impressions really, really made me like the idea of him. The idea of one of Bruce’s childhood friends being a baddie sounded great, it seemed like untread territory. But in execution… yeah, he’s kind of a nothing most of the time. As said, Paul Dini writes him well, but even those stories owe a lot to Dustin Nguyen’s fantastic artwork. I love the idea of Tommy Elliott Hush, but the execution has always been less than the sum of its parts.

It made me mad that the animated versions of killing joke and hush took so many rewrite freedoms

I like the comic because of Jim Lee's artwork, but I like the movie better because the story gets to the point wiht a clearer goal in mind. Also, I'm so happy that you're going to talk about Justice League: The New Frontier! God bless the great Darwyn Cooke! May he rest in peace and glory!

I completely agree on the Catwoman romance. I was tuned out and this made it interesting anyway.

I think i'm alone in preferring the Riddler as Hush.

Loved Hush

I knew about the comic long before the movie. My best friend (who is as big a Bat-Fan as me) somehow wasn’t spoiled at all. Together we watched the movie and after he had guessed who was supposed to be Hush, the movie tricked us both and changed it to being the Riddler. We liked the movie but I still wish I could’ve seen the original ending.

Are you going to review Justice league crisis on infinite earths?

Nigma balls... lol

You know I've heard people talk up so many different batman stories. No one ever talks up Hush.

I like them both, too! I kinda like the animated "I grew for you and was willing to grow more, but you're just stuck" line Selina dropped. I've been there.

I forgot I watched this film until I seen “The Riddler”…

The movie ending bit really made Selina annoying for me. In the comic her leaving made more sense to me. Bruce’s distrust (whilst understood) and emotional walls prevent him from taking the step necessary to really let Selina in; to the point he even hurt her physically after she said “hush” due to his paranoia. So she leaves. In the movie Selina can’t abide by Bruce’s mindset of saving any life he can, even the villains, at the risk of his own. He’s a HERO. That’s why he’s Batman. It’s one thing if she understood why he does it but just doesn’t want to go through the potential loss that would come from losing him from being that GOOD of a person, or if she just said she can’t do what he does because of how different they are. But she basically talks down to him as if what he does is insanity. I think that bit could’ve used tweaking to make Selina not come off so excessively cynical or critical of Bruce’s mindset. The movie frames it as if Selina is right with the tone of the scene.

Riddler won't be taken seriously after Jim Carey

What people forget is Riddler was the true mastermind and Hush was a pawn in the comic. Hush was never meant to be the next Joker or Ra’s Al Ghul

I liked how they didn't just copy the comic and changed it because I already read the comic before the movie.

Hush was my first Batman comic, I don’t think I’ve watched the movie, but honestly don’t want to. The comic is very meh, but coming into it as a new reader left me confused and asking myself if I really wanted to read Batman. I mean I gave the comics another shot, but if memory serves me right, it was weird and confusing. It also made me feel bad for Bruce, because this man can’t be happy, why won’t they let him be happy? It also left me realizing that Batman was stubborn.

Yeah, I remember reading Hush and being so confused about the hype. It's my definition of a 5/10.

This movie singlehandedly destroyed any interest I had in the rest of the DCAMU.

Don't have much to say since I never watched the film and only saw Linkara's review of the Hush storyline. But thank you for another fantastic video :D

The first time I read the comic I freaking loved the first half, but the second half was extremely disappointing and felt like a poor Scooby Doo parody

Why is a "La la land" song in the description?

At least the reason why Catwoman left here came down to more than “Tom King.” 😄

No one else felt that Batman's fall to near-death when Hush shoots out his grappling line is silly? No gliding, no back up line, no clever deployment of the bat-life raft? I was screaming at my laptop about it when at the end fight he does get a line cut, then produces another. Guess that was intentional? Also the amount Bats & Nightwing gets mortally wounded, and in Bat's case, keep fighting, is interesting. Riddler basically eviscerates him in the end fight *when Bats is distracted for a second by an explosion* (really?). Maybe they're still rocking the spandex, with no kevlar. I know it's fantasy, but the same story beats could have happened without those particular animation decisions & the imo uncharacteristic decisions Batman makes. Perhaps this is a much more human/prone to error interpretation of Bruce than I am used to.

I like the topical approach, but I'm usually coming in to see different, perhaps more focused, takes and interpretations of media, especially when it's pulling something out from the depths that often gets overlooked in a work

I know they baited it was Jason in the old comic, but its a shame cause it ends up using ideas and clues that could have been a way more effective in utrh. I do find it funny when kyle has lines about 'how she would change' when one of my fav storyline 'red skies' is all about how she refuses to change, while Nocturna is willing to, all so that she can be a mother to Jason and partner to Bruce. And Bruce (as a single father) is caught between who he loves and who is best for his son. Its so good

I’ve always found it weird that people focus on the “Mystery of who Hush” is, even though it was clearly not the pain of the comic

I feel like since Hush himself was more than likely going to be Jason Todd before editorial changed it, making him The Riddler instead of just some guy is fair enough. Thomas is just... not that interesting, and most of what works about him is already there in villains like Two-Face and Falcone, and even Dr. Hurt. He's just redundant as all hell. If they ever did a live-action adaption of Under the Red Hood but didn't want to dive too deep onto the Joker stuff, Hush would work as a replacement alt. identity for Jason, kinda like what happened with Arkham Knight, and I think that's ultimately the legacy of the character. That guy sorta like Red Hood.

I hate how it kinda started a trend with Batman comics with no real ending. Bats didn't unmask Hush. Similar to the end of the first Court of Owls story, where he didn't find out if Lincoln Marsh was really his brother or not. Endless cliffhangers with no real resolutions.

Forget if the change to Hush's identity was any good, I hated Selina's whole "you're insane because you won't let people die". Immediately killed any enjoyment i had with the movie

What about Hush in Batman Arkham City/Knight?

This change didn’t bother me. They maintained the overall structure of the story and just reversed who was the red-herring and who was the culprit, and the narrative still made sense. Gotham by Gaslight also changed who the killer was and worked well enough. The Long Halloween movies on the other hand end up making no sense as what happens on screen before our eyes does not match the answer we are given.

I haven't watched the film, but I severely dislike the comic. Not only do I have a very low tolerance for Jim Lee's art, the story also came immmediately after a years-long arc by Greg Rucka and Ed Brubaker that was all about Bruce learning how to love and open up and generally be more human, and all of that development just gets completely wiped away and never even acknowledged.

Two things: 1) "Hush" was stupid, and 2) At the time, it was widely acknowledged as stupid; "It's just Thomas" became an immediate forum meme because of how obvious and uninteresting the mystery was.

Somehow the movie had the chance to fix the lackluster twist/ending but they didn't really for me

Never have I once heard of Howard. Who is he? What is his story?

Hush is meh. But jim lee hit a new level that i didnt expect to still work so well in the 21st century comics world.

Waiting for the X men and X men 97 video…🤞

I liked them both. I prefer the comic, by quite a margin, but the film was enjoyable enough and a different take on the story. I don't think animation captures Batman as a character capable of romance, at least not in the way my mind does while reading him. I also prefer Thomas Elliot as Hush. A more worthwhile enemy of Batman and a new one too - which is always nice when done well.

I've seen so many fans complain about the movie because it's different but I was just like, "But is it good?" And I think it's a decent movie with a decent story. I'm not a huge comic fan and since my favorite Batman and the one I grew up with was animated... I really couldn't care less if they change things from the comics. Not even The Killing Joke. But that's a whole other can of worms lol. Because then we have to get into the Bruce X Barbara thing so here we go, but let me start with something else: The Teen Titans cartoon does The Judas Contract better than the comic and the movie, imo. Especially since the movie implies Slade X Terra which made me feel like how Bruce X Barbara seems to make most people feel... but Slade feels exploitative to me, and Terra has Stockholm Syndrome at best, imo... and I don't think Bruce was like that with Barbara at all. He doesn't try to have any type of relationship with her, and she was crushing on him for years in Batman TAS, and it was one-sided... and eventually, in TKJ... he just... stops resisting so much for one moment. And the Bruce Timm interview literally says like, "Even the sound in the scene is supposed to indicate it's a MISTAKE between two consenting adults." So it never felt gross to me like Slade X Terra. Wasn't actually intending to get into Bruce X Barbara originally but then I realized it was inevitable when I mentioned Slade X Terra so... there we go. But anyway, I think sometimes changes from the source material are good. I mean, the DCAU is the definitive everything, imo. And they took bits and pieces. The Arkham games kinda did, too. Etc. Wayne Family Adventures? One of the best versions of the entire Bat Family? Where Harley Quinn is Bruce's real best friend? Lol

0:31 Peter Parker on the left there?

Facts. The only reason Hush is an interesting character to me is due to Paul Dini’s Heart of Hush. That said I still hated the animated movie. Riddler had his role in the story and it adds nothing to him making him Hush. In fact, it only takes away from Tommy Elliot.