#consider this a hug from one tommy to the rest of yall

[mcytkinaesthetics]

techno + light blue/pink + love for a tommy

👑 art credit 👑

#dsmpkin #aesthetic #tommyinnitkin #mod tommy #too tired to tag properly #consider this a hug from one tommy to the rest of yall #B) ! #🍓 ; tommy

[redrobin-detective]

Yeah Hush is... not good...

I’m just… If you had asked me three days ago about Hush I would have had nothing but good words. A comic classic, one of the first Batman stories I read and an old favorite, a combo of Jim Lee’s stellar art and Loeb’s masterful storytelling.

Rereading on shift last night reminded me that I haven’t physically read it in years and I had a. forgotten how messy it was b. Probably didn’t understand Batman the way I do now. I’m way too tired for long explanations and yall don’t want to see it so I’ll lay out the basics.

- We herald Jim Lee as some kind of artistic deity and by gum some of his panels were beautiful but also every. single. shot that had a woman in it was painful. Everyone was in a body hugging, tit revealing, gravity defying outfit posed in a way no one ACTUALLY stands all tall, curvy and stacked and at times uncanny valley. It was honestly really distracting.

- Its no secret I love Jeph Loeb’s TLH/DV and this story was clearly continued /borrowed from those stories but it just felt kinda cheap? He employed a lot of the same narrative devices used in both stories which I understand but it just really didn’t fit the theme of the story. The big bad guy reveal was not only super obvious but also just badly scripted and a frigging disaster overall.

- Baby me read it and was like “look at all the Batfam! What a good story” but a lot of them are characterized or twisted to suit the story. Selina, my poor Selina, she was a catty (pun intended) bitch the whole time. ‘owo she gave B a kiss’ but like she was either actively fighting against B or needing to be saved, even when she was “helping” she was demeaning Bruce and his coworkers (family) and I’m worried on what Lee/Loeb consider a healthy M/F relationship. Alfred felt flat and remarkably uninvolved in such a personal Bruce Wayne story. Tommy Elliot was a Gary Stu from the start and didn’t have 1 (one) genuine moment the whole book. 

- The few bright spots of characterization were Dick and his relationship with B was wonderful and Tim’s little deception with Bruce/Selina was very nice (though it shouldn’t have been necessary). 

- The worst to suffer was Bruce and it honestly broke my heart to see Loeb do that. They did the ‘darkness and pain are my only friends, I am so alone, I have no one who understands so the mission is all that matters’ which fits early Bruce more not a Batman who’s grown and matured and amassed a pretty sizable family, in and out of costume. There’s one line where I actually put the book down and stewed for a minute, when he’s fighting Superman where he says “Clark is a fundamentally good man and deep down I am not” which is such a criminally inaccurate description of Bruce Wayne who goddamn loves people more than just about anyone on Earth. There were fleeting moments where we see his kindness and understanding of his heart’s great strength (his whole Jay monologue) but they feel SO out of sorts compared to the theme of the rest of the book.

- Okay I will say I do still like the Jason scene. If only bc i wish I could’ve been a fan as this came out and lost my shit with everyone else like ‘JASON TODD!?!?’ Plus it was fun to pick out where real Jay exchanged for Clay as we know happens in UtRH. Its a bit messy like the rest of the story and kind of doesn’t make sense if you think on it but this was a great example of a comic thing being kind of bad but you’re like “ya know, i don’t care I still like anyway”. I DIDN’T like B’s constant bashing of Robin Jay though ‘tbh Jason was never this good’ ‘he viewed it as a game that got him killed’. I know its not a new idea and almost assuredly was done as set up to UtRH which came out the next year I think but still made me frown.

- Uh rogues were used poorly, where baby me saw it as a grand adventure taking the best of Batman me now was just annoyed at them trying to cram as many familiar faces as possible. Plus the whole idea that Elliot as Hush was working with all these guys is a wreck. I do really still dig the idea of Eddie being behind it all, wish they did more with “Riddler knows Bats’ ID” but w/e. Also idk wtf they were doing to harvey but it was a disservice to his arc in TLH

- Basically the story itself was chaotic, difficult to follow and the conclusion is both obvious and made no sense. The characters were warped visions of themselves tilted through a sexist, grim dark lens to make a Batman world that just felt off with every single word. There’s still elements I did enjoy, I cant say I hate-hate it but wow I won’t be rereading that one for a while. 

#Batman Hush #idk I guess I got massive whiplash from what I remembered vs what the story actually is #for so long I cited it as definitive batfam as a good example of a story to get into comics #but ug probably won't recc that to newbies now #it doesn't paint the best picture of the batfam