Batman (2025) # 158

 By Mark Rodriguez

Here it is! The start of a whole new Batman run as well as the sequel to one of Batman's classic stories. Some comic shops were even holding events or special sales on the day of release. What will happen when Hush returns? Let's find out! 

"Hush 2 Chapter one- The Pawn" opens with Batman going after a garbage truck as he recalls an earlier crime. Several years ago, the then Captain Jim Gordon called Batman about some maniac trying to poison The Gotham Reservoir. It was some guy calling himself the Joker. Batman says he stopped him then, and he will stop him now. One of Joker's men, predictably dressed like a clown dumps the truck full of Joker-ized piranha into the ocean.

Batman swoops down and tried to get answers from the men, but it seems their masks are rigged to spray them with Joker gas whenever they're removed. Batman narrates that he found two garbage truck drivers, missing their uniforms and shot in the head. Two night ago there was a break in at the Gotham City Aquarium and an entire exhibit of red-bellied piranha was stolen.

Batman remembers the Joker Fish and the attempt to poison the reservoir, and wonders why Joker would return to old crimes and old jokes. Joker suddenly steps out of the truck and smacks Batman on the side of the head with a crowbar. Joker says 'if first you don't succeed, cry cry again' as he kicks Batman in the ocean. The Joker piranha swim all over him and start to bite into him. 

Batman narrates that if someone were to forcefully remove his mask without him wanting to, that person would get hit with either tear gas or a several hundred volts of electricity. Batman removes his mask, sending a current of electricity, blasting the fish off him. Batman lays unconscious, from the blast and the blood loss. A helicopter swoops overhead, shining a light on him. A woman swims out to get him.

Joker runs off, being happy to have put one over on Batman. Suddenly a large man grabs the Clown Prince of Crime by the throat, lifting him up. The man hits Joker with some sort of psychic attack, racking his brain with a loud scream of 'GET ON YOUR KNEES'. The man drops the Joker who collapses and blacks out. The man drags Joker off, leaving one of his shoes behind. Someone else watches this, saying 'Patience is bitter, but its fruit is sweet.'

Meanwhile at the Clock Tower, Barbara Gordon's current workspace, she tells Nightwing that 'Number One' has gone offline. Nightwing asks his last location, and the best Barbara can do is say Gotham City. Nightwing says they got nine Robins, fourteen Batgirls and a Huntress so they can reach out to one of them. Babs says either her system or his system is being jammed. Nightwing says that can't happen but Babs assures him that it is.

Meanwhile the woman has brought Batman back to shore and uses CPR to revive him. Batman slowly wakes up, thinking it was Catwoman, but actually it was Talia Al Ghul that was helping him. Batman asks how she found him and then says that she was tracking him. Talia says that he lets others track him. Talia says she came to visit their son Damian, and also has more of a passing interest in the health of his father.

Talia grabs onto the rope ladder from the helicopter and says he almost died tonight. She says the greater the number of people believing in him, the more there are to be disappointed in him. Talia leaves as Batman calls out, asking her if she knows where the Joker went.

The Joker is barely conscious as a masked man places a torture device in his mouth that will force his jaw open with every crank he gives. The man explains the person that grabbed him earlier goes by many names, but he prefers to call him 'Silence'. We see that the Joker is tied down to a spinning board. The man gives the board a spin and says that the Joker once told him there wasn't enough room for two homicidal maniacs in Gotham. The man says he's not a maniac. He monologues, whispering the whole time, as he grabs several surgical knives and tosses them as the Joker is still spinning. The blades stab Joker into several places on his chest.

The man pulls the blades out, saying he nicked several of his arteries and he will slowly bleed out and die. The Joker has a few hours, maybe even a day left. The man says that Joker could possibly scream for help and maybe someone can come, so he'll do something about that. The man says he's an unlicensed surgeon as he continues to turn the crank on the torture device in his mouth until a loud crack is heard. The man says the Joker will day and he has no family. He asks who would even mourn him.

Back in the Bat Cave, Batman puts on a new costume as he remembers teaching Dick to ask the right questions. He ponders what the Joker was trying to accomplish and how Talia found him. He wonders who else knew about the events of the evening. Batman ponders that his suit was compromised when Joker hit him, which is why it zapped both him and the fish. He wonders if Joker knew the exact spot to hit him. He wonder if it was random or luck.

As he fixes the mask he wore earlier, Nightwing and Batgirl come online, relieved to see him back. Batgirl explains that his signal dropped out and they were trying to reestablish contact. Nightwing says something was jamming their signal. Batman says they have been compromised and initiates lockdown. Batman says he does not believe in luck as he looks at Joker's shoe that was left behind.

Later on, Batman drives in the Batmobile saying that the shoe's sole was stained with a combination of sawdust, diesel oil, mud and animal dung. He says it's the making of a circus, but there aren't any in town. Batman says this leaves an abandoned amusement park. He says the shoe was left with intent.

Batman arrives at the amusement park and sees the ticket stand with a person (or a dummy) wearing a rotting sack with glasses and a wig, designed to look like Gordon. As Batman steps inside the hall of mirrors, several fake Joker arms, all holding real guns, a voice calls out 'Lights, Camera, ACTION!'. As they say action, the arms start to open fire. Batman runs past the bullets and tosses a batarang that takes out most of the prop arms. Batman tells the Joker that he's coming to get him and smashes his way through the mirrors.

Batman is surprised to find the Joker, tied up to the giant wheel with a broken jaw and bleeding internally. Batman realizes that the Joker was just a pawn in all this. Behind this are several monitors showing the Joker in a pre-recorded video as he shows events of his most personal crimes against Batman, when Gordon was kidnapped and forced to watch pictures of Barbara when she was paralyzed (Killing Joke) and when he beat Jason with a crowbar, shortly before he killed him (A Death in the Family, though who the heck was filming this back then?). Batman realizes the crime at the reservoir was to point out how he first met the Joker.

Batman ponders how long he has tolerated the Joker's existence and all the pain he caused, and now he finally lays dying. As Batman sees this, the recording continues to play  as Joker asks if Batman would just leave him there to die. After all, Batman himself didn't do him in, so who would really know besides him. Batman sees one of the surgical knives in Joker's hand.

Batman ponders that only one man knows who Batman is and what he believes in. Only one man has the skill to pull all of this off. Batman angrily stabs the knife next to Joker's face. Batman knows that his childhood friend and world-renowned surgeon, Tommy Elliot, Hush has returned.

 My Thoughts-

So we kick things off with a few mysteries as well as the reveal that Hush is back in Batman's life. The Joker was just a set up to lure Batman in, but it's still pretty strange. Why was he repeating one of his older crimes. It seemed Joker was just carrying on, business as usual, and had no idea that big gut with the psychic attack was going after him. How did Joker film himself for his little video if he was captured? It seems he had just regained consciousness shortly before Hush started to torture him.  And while it's not important to this story, who the hell was recording the Joker beating Jason down back then? While I wouldn't put it past the Joker to kidnap some kid, dress him up as Robin and film himself beating him with a crowbar for his little video... I'm pretty sure this is supposed to the actual Jason Todd here.

It's good to see the Bat-Family make a return, though I was assuming a story as big this will be a 'all hands on deck' situation. Not sure if there are really are nine Robins and fifteen Batgirls like Nightwing said, but Batman is slowly getting there.

The story is pretty simple and straight to the point, all things considered. The comic itself feels extra thick because there are short previews of an upcoming Martian Manhunter series and an upcoming Green Lantern series. I hate it when comics do that, making you think you're getting a longer story and almost half is just ads, alternate covers and previews.

Now of course we all know Batman is going to save the Joker since the character is way too marketable and whatnot, but seriously.... he could just head out. Like Joker said (in the recording), Batman himself didn't do any of the torture. All he would have to do is just leave and let nature take its course. Similar to the end of Batman Begins where Batman chose just save himself from the collapsing train, leaving Rah's Al Ghul to die. Batman didn't kill him, he didn't have to save him. The same applies here, and I'd like some alternate take someday where Batman did just walk on out. 

I realize Batman is a hero, and in his eyes abandoning someone he can still save is no different to him if it was an innocent person or the Joker himself, but c'mon. I'm pretty sure the Joker is some sort of exception he can make. In any other reality, the Joker is one hell of an exception to make. Despite Gotham being full of other crazy mass murderers, I'm sure allowing the one with the absolute highest body count to die would make the city at least somewhat safer.

There was once a one shot story somewhere where Joker was actually going to be sentenced to death. It just so happens that the particular crime he was doing to die for was one he actually didn't commit. Despite the multi-million other crimes and murders he committed, Batman set out to prove his innocence and set him free, when he could have just sit this one out and let the law do its thing.

People sometimes joke that the Joker is self-aware and knows he's a fictional character, which is why he is able to kill so many people without remorse. He knows they're not 'real'. After countless years of death and murder, I'm starting to think Batman has become self-aware and the only reason he continues to save the Joker's life is because he knows he's his most popular villain and his comic books will plummet in sales if his most marketable villain is dead for good. 

Anyways, Hush is back. Let's see what will happen next and if Talia somehow ties into all this.