I can’t express my disappointment enough in the animated version of Batman Hush. I realize changing some story components in order to keep it fresh for an audience that has probably already read the comic book is in general a good idea. However in the case of this film, they ripped the heart and soul out of the story. Changing who the main villain was, losing the Tommy Elliot friendship explanation and double cross, it was just a mess. I was so looking forward to this film and it is the only one of the animated films that has truly broken my heart.
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Your feelings about Tommy and his motivations will certainly color your feelings about the movie. I don’t like the character at all, conceptually or in execution, so the change didn’t bother me.
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The whole Tommy thing wasn’t much of a problem for me, since I figured from the start that they would keep it simple and just have Riddler be the one mastermind of the whole thing.
What really ticked me off was the way they split Batman and Catwoman at the end. It would have been so easy to stay faithful to the comic and have them split over Batman’s paranoia that Catwoman was working with Hush and whatnot. Instead, they toss around this ridiculous argument about the ethics of Riddler dying and Batman’s “code”, and it really didn’t have the same impact on me when Catwoman broke it off.
The changes made to HUSH were akin to changing Moby Dick into a guppy. They ripped the heart and soul out of this comic, probably one of the 10 best Batman stories ever told. Again I understand some of the changes they made in previous films, but this is a classic, it should have stayed as close to the source material as possible. The source material was after all brilliant.
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Again, your feelings on the story will color your opinion. For those of us who think that the comic storyline was really, really bad to begin with (and not even one of the 100 best Batman stories ever told, let alone in the top 10), the changes may make no difference or may even seem like an improvement.
Plus it had the benefit of making Hush’s identity an actual twist, when it wasn’t in Loeb’s story.
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What are your top 10 Batman stories?
In no particular order for me,
The killing joke
Gotham by gaslight
The long Halloween
The dark knight returns
Year one
Arkham asylum
DCeased
Damned
A death in the family
The court of owls saga
*mad love
Well, we have one in common.
- “Night of the Stalker” (Detective Comics #439)
- “The Man Who Killed Mlle. Marie” (Detective Comics #501-502)
- Batman: The Killing Joke
- “Robin the Boy Wonder” (Detective Comics #38)
- “The Origin of the Batman” (Batman #47)
- “Ten Nights of the Beast” (Batman #417-420)
- “Night of the Reaper” (Batman #237)
- Batman: Son of the Demon
- “The Joker Meets the Cat-Woman” (Batman #2)
- Batman Incorporated
Anyway, if you like the story “Hush,” then you have every right to be disappointed in the movie.
I’m someone who didn’t enjoy the ending of the comic, so the animated movie was something of a pleasant surprise. It always bothered me that the red herring ended up being Hush in the comic. With the movie, we got Tommy out of the way.
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As someone who has NOT read Batman Hush, I really enjoyed the movie. Granted, I know the source material might have changed (at least it’s different from the Batman Arkham Knight Game).
Since it’s not earth 1 hush, I prefer too look at the movie as multiverse earth 59 (or something) version of Hush.
It might help make it easy to swallow. At least it helps me with the live action versions of Justice League, Titans, Wonder Woman, and so on.
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