It’s been more than twenty years since Jeph Loeb and Jim Lee introduced us to the arch-nemesis that the Dark Knight never knew he had in Batman: Hush. Now, the creative team that brought Tommy Elliot crashing back into Bruce’s life is reuniting for a sequel in the pages of Batman once again. Which might have you asking: where has Hush been all this time? If it’s been a while since your last check-up with Doctor Elliot, here’s a primer on where and how he’s been keeping busy.
War Games
Even after taking an apparently fatal dive off a bridge at the conclusion of Hush, it wasn’t very long at all until he was back in action. With the carefully orchestrated alliance between Batman’s enemies that very nearly succeeded now in shambles, Hush returned to Gotham seeking to collect on unpaid debts. This largely played out in the last 25 issues of Batman: Gotham Knights, casting Hush as the central antagonist of A.J. Lieberman’s run on the title from issues #50-74, and intersecting with the War Games event where the cold conflicts between factions of Gotham’s underworld turned hot (with some fallout spilling into the 2006 Man-Bat miniseries).
In this period, Hush attempted to seek revenge, recruit, or otherwise manipulate the other major enemies in Batman’s rogues gallery. During this tumultuous time, Hush nearly kills both the Riddler and Poison Ivy, and even drives Joker out of Gotham completely. He forms temporary alliances with both Prometheus and Cassius Payne, the new Clayface, using him to frame Alfred Pennyworth for murder. Hush’s status as a move maker in the Gotham underworld comes to a hiatus when the Joker returns with a vengeance, surgically implanting a bomb in his chest that would take him off the board for a while.
Single White Surgeon
As Bruce Wayne was getting put through the crucible of Grant Morrison’s Batman saga, Hush was left in the care of Batman: The Animated Series co-creator Paul Dini. No longer grounded by the solved puzzle box mystery that originally drove interest in Batman: Hush, Tommy Elliot was in need, as a character, of new direction. Who better to provide it than the person who reinterpreted so much of Batman’s rogues gallery so successfully?
In Dini’s Batman: Heart of Hush (Detective Comics #846-850), we learn Hush bears a connection to another Batman villain with a doctorate: Jonathan Crane, the Scarecrow. Crane was Elliot’s mentor after the boy killed his own parents, training under him as Bruce did under many masters in his own world travels. Hush’s own obsession with Bruce Wayne runs ever deeper in this story, literally, as he surgically removes Catwoman’s heart like he’s making a statement on where Batman’s heart should truly lie. Dini’s grand reveal is that under his trademark bandages, the surgically gifted Elliot has altered his own face…to look exactly like Bruce’s. After getting Selina’s heart back, Batman and Catwoman team up to take out Hush once again, with Selina robbing him of the fortunes he amassed during his tenure as hopeful crime lord.
(If you’re familiar with Hush’s role as a Bruce Wayne impersonator in the Batman: Arkham video game trilogy, this is likely the incarnation of the character you’re most familiar with. That’s by no coincidence. Batman: Arkham City’s lead writer was Paul Dini himself.)
As followers of Morrison’s Batman know, halfway through the story, Batman disappears through time and Dick Grayson takes up the role in absentia. But what of Bruce Wayne? Paul Dini would return to address Gotham’s favorite son in Hush Money, a crossover story leading into the events of Batman: Streets of Gotham.
Bruce Wayne may be gone. But there just so happens to be a man with his exact face loose in the world. And indeed, it’s Thomas Elliot who masquerades as Bruce in public, intending to ruin his old friend’s world and reputation in his name. Luckily, Gotham’s resident heroes pick up on the ruse pretty quickly. But rather than shut him down, they allow Elliot to keep up the ruse—under their “no funny business” supervision. Better to keep a public facing Bruce Wayne active so as not to raise any questions until the real one can return. The final Streets of Gotham story arc, “The House of Hush,” sees Bruce Wayne return to his rightful place and finally deliver his former friend to Arkham Asylum.
Hush would play one more role before the onset of the New 52 in Batman: Gates of Gotham, working with criminal mastermind the Architect, as we learn more about the Elliot family’s role in the founding of Gotham City.
Hush Eternal
When the clocks on the DC Universe were set back with the Flashpoint event in 2011, no one was quite sure where, when, or in what capacity we would ever see Hush again. The weekly 2014 series Batman Eternal presented a new cascade of challenges for Batman and his closest allies, starting with the framing of Commissioner Gordon for a mass subway murder and extending through every corner of Gotham’s underworld, from the mundane to the mystic. Halfway through the series, we learn that the figure behind the scenes who set these events into play was Hush himself, seeking to strike back against Batman once again through a massive conspiracy of super-villains. After all, penchant for self-surgery aside, that is Hush’s signature move.
A new chapter in Batman and Catwoman’s relationship would next bring Hush out of the woodwork in Batman: Prelude to the Wedding, as Batman prepares himself for marriage. In a last-minute attack by Hush, we see that Elliot has transformed himself once again. No longer does he bear the visage of Bruce Wayne, but of the man he believed Bruce had replaced him with as his closest friend—the man he now most wished to be. Batman’s best man, Dick Grayson.
Hush returned to his organ-harvesting tricks in Detective Comics #1031-1034 in a doomed surgical plot against the Bat-Family, which is the last time we saw him in the spotlight. Recently, in Joshua Williamson’s Batman and Robin series, a new villain made her appearance in Gotham: the aesthetically similar “Shush.” In Batman and Robin #9, Shush reveals that she had been Elliot’s protege and medical assistant up until his initial defeat, at which point she set upon avenging his name.
How much of any of this will factor into H2SH? In all probability, likely none of it. After all, one of the things that made the first series so appealing was its accessibility. You didn’t need to know anything about Batman going in. While it seems reasonable that H2SH will assume you've read the team’s first storyline, knowing all of Tommy Elliot’s subsequent appearances seems at odds with the spirit of the original project. Still, just in case I’m wrong, you have this overview to help you. After all, you know Batman’s credo: there’s no such thing as being overprepared.
H2SH by Jeph Loeb, Jim Lee, Scott Williams and Alex Sinclair kicks off next week in Batman #158.
Alex Jaffe is the author of our monthly "Ask the Question" column and writes about TV, movies, comics and superhero history for DC.com. Follow him on Bluesky at @AlexJaffe and find him in the DC Official Discord server as HubCityQuestion.
NOTE: The views and opinions expressed in this feature are solely those of Alex Jaffe and do not necessarily reflect those of DC or Warner Bros. Discovery, nor should they be read as confirmation or denial of future DC plans.
