There are so many horrific moments in A.J. Lieberman’s “Batman: Hush Returns†graphic novel that you’ll often find yourself scratching your head in simultaneous shock and disbelief.
While the story starts off interesting enough, with Hush hunting not only the Batman, but Riddler as well, the trade soon falls off the wagon as it blatantly begins to steal material straight from the Alan Moore classic “The Killing Joke,†as it needs the story from there to help fuel its mediocre setting and flat lining drama.
Focusing much more on the Joker than anyone else, you’ll wonder what exactly Lieberman was trying to accomplish in this throw-away tale. Simply put, even if you loved Jeph Loeb and Jim Lee’s “Hush†series, you’ll find little to enjoy here in this pitiful attempt to cash in on a successful character that didn’t have the legs DC originally thought it did.
The fact that the trade jumps over 10 issues after a major moment in the trade [many of the standard issues of the series are impossible to find as well, forcing you to go on Wikipedia to find out what eventually happened] is proof enough that someone dropped the ball big time on this one.
Feeling as if Lieberman was trying to throw in as many characters into the tale as possible, the plot of “Hush Returns†is an absolute mess. There’s little to no development here either, as Batman seems terrified of the thought of fighting his former childhood friend, but is given so few opportunities to speak that you’ll wonder what it is your missing. The small conflict between the Dark Knight
Just when things start to get good, another character, whether it be the Penguin, Green Arrow, Prometheus, the Joker or Poison Ivy, someone jumps in and the atmosphere is gone.
It’s like getting ready to eat at a gourmet restaurant and closing your eyes right before the spoon hits your mouth- to only find your feast replaced by a White Castle slider.
Ironically, the best parts of the book are the ones where Lieberman has an opportunity to show just how devious and cruel Hush can be, but these are too few and far between to make the book remotely enjoyable.
Luckily, the pencils of Al Barrionuevo and Javier Pina are off-beat and original, as splash pages galore capture the action in dramatic fashion. Nonetheless, it’s not enough to warrant a purchase of this lackluster tale.
Like a good-looking woman with toilet paper on her shoe, you can’t help but laugh when she asks to be taken seriously, parading about unknowingly.
Rather than rip-off one of the best one-shots in the company’s history, DC wasted what could have been an interesting tale by allowing Lieberman to depend on the tales of the past, rather than continue a decent enough storyline provided by Loeb and Lee, in the end creating a mess of a story that belongs anywhere but in your personal comic book collection.
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