I really thought Hush was mediocre as an idea. It could have been done by Ra’s, he has the information but he’s got to much class. While Hush has been elevated as a big Batman rouge, I personally don’t buy it. He’s a C lister in my book.
I liked Identity Crisis as it was the logical extension of “dark and gritty”. So many people hate it or find it disturbing because it went to far, but, IMO that was kinda the point. It deliberately crossed the line.
My problem with it is that it literally assassinated one character and figuratively assassinated another, and in both cases, it was to the detriment of all preceding stories featuring those women.
And yes, Hush is garbage. Such a bad story.
I still don’t get the hate that’s directed at Hush (Thinking it’s overhyped and too long relative to its substance? Sure. But I thought it was a fun, harmless mystery that didn’t permanently break anything - “garbage” seems like a real stretch to me), and I certainly wouldn’t compare it to Identity Crisis aside from being a mystery story that people don’t like.
Over the years I’ve gone back to Hush to see if maybe time or my own personal tastes have changed and every time I read it, I come up with the same problems:
I can understand why people like Hush; for many it was either their introduction to Batman, their first taste of comics, maybe their first DC story, but for me, when I look at it as a story, I don’t see what people are so reverent about. It’s not a bad story, it’s just flawed. It’s why I’m puzzled by it’s popularity.
I should also say if you liked Hush, I don’t want to take anything away from you or your enjoyment of the story. This is just my personal opinion on it.
It’s the textbook example of a story where things happen just to create a cliffhanger hook. The mystery therefore doesn’t actually work as a mystery, since it’s mainly just an excuse to send Batman from one location to another, not to show off any real detective skills on his part. Most of the characters who appear in it are superfluous to the central conflict and exist primarily as glorified cameos. The premise of a long-lost childhood best friend for our hero (who has never been mentioned until now)* popping up as a new villain is utterly schlocky and hackneyed.
*And to keep this on topic, there’s your bad retcon.
I don’t want to get too off topic here, but here’s my reasoning.
Problem #1: None of the characters are written like themselves. But that’s not really the problem. They also aren’t written consistently within the seven issues. Superman flips and flops between inspiring Man of Steel to grumpy, grizzled veteran from page to page. Sometimes the Green Arrow we know and love shines through. Other times he reads as entirely unlike himself.
Problem #2: The pacing is sloppy. Like, really really sloppy. The story crawls at a snail’s pace for the first five issues, and then seems to realize that it only has one more issue to go somewhere in the middle of issue six, which leads to every important story development occurring in the space of one-and-a-half issues. This is a good lead-in to the third problem.
Problem #3: The mystery is nonsensical and poorly constructed. Every single “clue” that the readers are given in the first five issues ends up not mattering at all. The Dr. Light stuff? Red herring. The Deathstroke stuff? Window dressing. The Captain Boomerang stuff? Emotionally hollow fluff. It never comes back. Every actual clue comes in the last two issues. The footprints on the brain come in the sixth issue. Jean Loring’s confession comes in the seventh issue. The only actually important stuff happens in #1, #6, and #7. And, honestly? A three issue, tightly-plotted murder mystery with the Justice League sounds kind of cool. Shame that isn’t what we got.
Problem #4: Jean Loring’s guilt makes no sense and borders on sexism. The woman’s motivation for murder is that she broke up with her husband, but she “needs a man” or something. It reads like “b***hes be crazy” made into a plot point. Plus, why did she bring the Atom suit and the flamethrower to see Sue? “Just in case?” Just in case of WHAT? Not to mention, the Atom suit doesn’t shrink items down with it. It isn’t the Ant-Man outfit. None of it makes any sense.
Problem #5: Making the Silver Age dark. People like to complain about the sexual assault and lobotomies, but really the presence of those things as plot points isn’t what bothers me about them. What bothers me about them is that they’re handled with all the grace and thoughtfulness of Die Hard with a Vengeance. Sue Dibny’s emotions are never explored to any greater depth than “she’s sad.” The whole thing is viewed as the Justice League’s tragedy, not hers. Not to mention, it has no reason to be there. It never ends up becoming important, it’s just a red herring in the book for shock value. As for the lobotomies of Batman and Dr. Light, it just rings as remarkably unsuperheroic, and it makes those old Silver Age JL comics really hard to go back to. They all really hated each other. They all cared way more about their secrets than doing the right thing. It just doesn’t work. Also, again, none of that ever comes back. It all just goes away once the tiny footprints pop up during the autopsy.
Identity Crisis is just a bad comic. No bones about it.
And in keeping with retcons, a part of me always wonders what the story would’ve been like HAD it been Jason Todd under the bandages. It certainly seemed like that’s the direction they were heading towards. Jason could’ve been the reason the Lazarus Pit residue was found and it would’ve been interesting to have Jason use all this against Bruce.
I agree with everything you say, and I still think it’s a better detective story than Hush. 
More cohesive, perhaps? The Lazarus Pit nonsense has to be the worst part of the story in retrospect. It really is nothing more than Jeph Loeb wanting to give Jim Lee a chance to recreate some Neal Adams panels. There are false leads, and then there’s pointless fan service.
The cliffhanger item is an interesting point. I’ve been watching Batman’66 Riddler episodes, all which naturally have cliffhangers. It’s really interesting because in basically each one is that the first half is the Riddler baiting B&R into a death trap and we see the Riddler’s near orgasmic delight in killing the dynamic duo. (Frank Gorshin is absolutely phenomenal in the role.)
But, all the cliffhangers in Hush do harken back to something out of Batman’66 and there is no doubt, to me at least, that consciously or subconsciously that the influence of Batman’66 is there. Hush is one of the most “glee in destroying Batman” takes on the Riddler in comics.
Hush felt like another “dark mirror image to Batman”, but I can’t say he ever made much of an impression on me. Okay, he’s got that bandage look going for him, the trench coat; effective in a simplistic kind of way (and better than some other attempts at basic costumes). Though I kind of found it sill that they slapped an H on his chest–because I guess everyone needs a symbol? However, his backstory of hating Bruce for saving his verbally abusive Mom was, in hindsight especially, a really lame reason for him to decide an a whole new identity and a lifelong mission of revenge. In one of (possibly only) instance of a New52 origin actually doing something right, changing it so that he was kind of always off and fixated on being like Bruce, or even being Bruce, does work a little better.
Anyone else enter that contest the held regarding his identity? I don’t recall who I picked, other than it wasn’t Tommy.
Yeah, but the cliffhangers in the TV show feel less cynical and cash-grabby. Hush doesn’t have the worst “buy our next issue to make sense of this last panel” tendencies I’ve ever seen*, but again, it feels as though most of the things that happen in the story are there just to hook people into buying the next issue, not to convey the story of a conflict between our hero and villain.
*That would be this one right here:
The New 52 strikes again. Worst. Reboot. Ever.
Harvey Dent smash!
To the same effect, I didn’t like Identity Crisis because of the mystery, because of what they did to Sue, the ridiculous fight with Deathstroke and it being yet another story where Batman is infallible. That trope was really getting on my nerves around that time.
It just cemented my idea that writers should not use such serious themes as rape unless they can appropriately and sensitively handle the subject.
And Ted kord going from 19 to 40 during the whole process. That was bizarre
The New 52 Question had me scratching my head.
I mean… Why?
The Lobo redesign was horrendous
I think they eventually changed it to Batman being around for ten years instead of six, but even that’s pushing it…would make Damian make a smidge more sense though.
Yes.