Published on July 30th, 2003
Two weeks ago, DC published a new Batman #1 with writer Matt Fraction and artist Jorge Jiminez. It wasn't very good to be honest. Hopefully, it'll get better. The strangest thing is that the book was supposed to follow "Hush 2" but that got delayed, so for the next few months there's going to be two main Batman books with different numbers (Batman #3 and Batman #162 are both coming out on November 5th). I don't know how they're going to figure out the legacy numbering in the end but it's kind of a mess. It probably doesn't help that everyone online keeps mentioning how terrible "Hush 2" is. I can't exactly say the original "Hush" storyline is that great, either. The art by Jim Lee is good and you get to see all the famous villains (Scarecrow shows up in #617). The story, though, is getting ridiculous. At first it seemed to just be a murder mystery. Now, who the fuck knows what's going on? In this issue, Catwoman gets invited to the Bat Cave. Catwoman fights with Robin. Catwoman then jumps on a motorcycle and ends up getting in a fight with Huntress, who also shows up riding a motorcycle. Scarecrow eventually jumps on Huntress' motorcycle. Maybe Jim Lee just really felt like drawing motorcycles that month. That, or writer Jeph Loeb was just like, "Wouldn't it be cool if there's a fight between everyone riding motorcycles!" Eventually Hush kidnaps Robin and Batman confronts them in a cemetery. Hush reveals that he's Jason Todd, an ex-Robin that's supposed to dead. First off, there's way too many Robins. The real Robin in this issue is Tim Drake. The original Robin was Dick Grayson. The Robin these days is Damian Wayne. I'm sure there have been others considering Batman has been around since 1939 and Robin showed up in 1940. The art in this issue is a little sloppy and rushed in parts, but it still looks dynamic and in-your-face. There's still two more parts of "Hush" to go and this storyline feels like it's fallen apart. *1/2
