Streets of Gotham: How Thomas Wayne Met Martha Kane, Part 1

[espanolbot]

Trigger warning for classism and racism.
In this part of the series, Tommy Elliot, aka Hush, was still impersonating Bruce Wayne, but Alfred and the fairly large number of people who were friends of Bruce, such as Katana and Zatanna, acting as... a means of ensuring he doesn't go off the reservation and do evil while pretending to be Bruce.

He's moved out of Wayne Manor though, and back into his families' mansion where he finds something that fills in more information about his own parents, as well as her fascination with the Waynes. Tommy's mum continues to be positively charming.






Coincidentally, a former gangster by the name of Judson Pierce, the man who bankrupted Martha's family, has a grudge against the Waynes that started around around this time period 37 years before the present. He explains to a nephew of a college of his the point that not only marked a turning point in his life, but evidently one that would lead to Gotham as a whole changing forever...





Back with Hush again, and Alfred has noticed how the supervillain has started to become restless again. So he assigns Zatanna to be his watcher, as she's more confident in the spotlight of the media event that she and Tommy are attending than his usual guard, Katana. And we once again get to see that Tommy picked up his mother's charm.




The next part, Thomas comes to apologise, the nephew remembers the time his uncle met the Joker, and how Sal and Pierce changed Gotham for years to come.

Comments

[espanolbot]

That's kind of the point though, it's meant to demonstrate that despite all of his posturing and reputation as being The AntiBatman or Batman's One True Foe... he's actually just something of a sociopathic snob with an entitlement complex and massive issues with his mother

Due to the lackluster characterisation of Hush prior to Dini getting a hold of him, he didn't really have much of a personality as they didn't seem to know who he even was for a significant time. Was he Elliot? Was he Jason Todd? Was he both?

With the Dini retcons, we at least get an explanation why he disliked Bruce so much and why he attempted to murder his own parents, besides the flat explanation of "I'm AntiBatman, so rather than my parents being murdered by a criminal, I WAS THE ONE THAT KILLED 'EM! MWHAHAHA!".

The Dini one has an actual understandable personality and motivations, which the previous version didn't. This isn't the same as his personality being a likeable one, but it's better than him being just generically evil, just 'case.

[shadowpsykie]

oh i agree. i kinda liked this about him. really he was just a snob with delusions of grandeur and Bruce wayne envy

[icon_uk]

Wasn't the eventual reveal that Hush was, technically, the Riddler all along? (With Elliott/Hush as more or less a distraction/stooge)

[espanolbot]

Pretty much.

For such a popular Batman story Hush... wasn't really that good.

[icon_uk]

Oh I thought it was bollocks from the outset, so painfully contrived as to be unreadable, and the Jim Lee's art didn't impress me one iota.

But for the Hush character to be treated as a major recurring threat, when he was never more than a pawn in the much lauded introductory maxi-story NAMED for him.. that's just sad.

[espanolbot]

It kind of struck me that it had the same kind of problem as Amazons Attack, Countdown and a large amount of the reboot. In they had people who weren't really that great at plotting writing stories while at the same time publicising the heck out of it to the point that people kind of get swept up in it.

I mean, there are good parts of it, Selina and Bruce getting together in a more official capacity which was that carried on in later stories, be really it seemed to be more of an exercise to fit as many Bat Characters into the story as possible, including Harold the Hunchback.

Oddly no Spoiler nor Batgirl though, but I think that was more the choice of Jeph Loeb more than anything. As he decided to use Barbara as Batgirl in his Supergirl run instead (it was Clayface in disguise, which then asks the question of why didn't he have updated information about the new Batgirl?), while the only time he actually used Cass (no Steph) was in his Batman/Superman storyline, where he had Lex Luthor gas her and hit her in the face with no actual effort.

[jaybee3]

Technically Dini himself plotted Countdown (he even said in the beginning he had written a whole story bible detailing the plot points) but given how Countdown turned out (and Dini himself has never brought up since) I have my doubts about that. Amazons Attacks, Countdown and the new reboot all share one singular thing in common - they seem to have been entirely thought out by Editorial (Didio, Berganza, Harras) and then given the writers as a fait accompli (this was certainly the case with Amazons Attacks whose writer Will Pfeiffer said as much). When you have that much interference in the story process and the writers are reduced to just adding bits of dialogue, the story is (more often than not) not any good.

[icon_uk]

Also, whilst I agree that this Hush has more character, he doesn't strike me as being in any way more interesting as a result. It's like a sort of trompe l'oiel, giving an illusion of delth and substance when there is now.