Why is this so popular with casuals? It's not even the best comic with the titular character
>>78625505
First real comic I ever read, it's good for beginners
>>78625505
It's like Batman's greatest hits, you get a taste of most of his major villains, sidekicks, and even a little Superman.
Every single popular Batcomic is popular with casuals, because Batfanatics are all casuals. No matter how many Batcomics you read, they won't somehow make you become a non-casual.
>>78625505
It's a good comic if you don't think about it too hard. A lot of the characters' actions and motivations don't make sense, but it has pretty art and a lot of big set pieces. It's not until you're in the second half do you start thinking "wait, what?"
>>78625505
Why did Elliot wear those bandages? It made sense in Heart of Hush, but here it seems like literally the only reason was to trick the reader into thinking Two-Face is Hush.
The really bizarre thing about Hush's popularity is that Long Halloween is the exact same "greatest hits" style package except superior in every possible way from the atmosphere to the characterization to the mystery plotting etc etc. It's even more newbie friendly.
I think a lot of Hush's success is the Jim Lee meme art.
>>78625876
Basically that, though Long Halloween was really popular in comic shops/ book stores in the early 2000's, too. basically every page in Hush is structured so that the original pencil page can resell for big bucks. It's one of the most shameless examples of it. You can make a poster or merchandising art out of at least one panel from every page in the whole comic. Everything is structured for pure marketability. There's an unimportant Barbara gordon Batgirl flashback yet no sign of the Cassandra Cain Batgirl, just so they could get art of Jim Lee's Babsgirl.
Any prior storyarcs or ongoing changes in the batman comics before this story arc are largely ignored, or changed for the sake of adhering closer to things seen in outside media, like animation and movies. This is pretty characteristic of this era of DC comics, when the older writers/editors started leaving, and Dan Didio and others stepped in. So I'd say Hush is arguably the first "current" era Batman comic, or current era DC comic in general(disregarding continuity stuff like New 52.)
>>78625676
What if my favorite Batman run is Grant/Breyfogle?
>>78626315
>basically every page in Hush is structured so that the original pencil page can resell for big bucks
I really can't argue against you, but man so some of Lee's pages make great posters/standalone art.
>>78626315
>when the older writers/editors started leaving
Minor correction. Many were outright outright fired. One of the casualties was O'Neil the 90s editor on the Batbook who was replaced by Bob Schreck. Hush was Schreck's baby. His other projects was War Games, DKSA (which Millar did once they got rid of O'Neil due to bad relations) and All-Star Batman and Robin the Boy Wonder.
>>78625505
It was marketed to Hell and back when it initially came out, so it was a lot of people's first.
>>78625505
is very good entry level, it has also nightwing, bat-family and red hood/jason tood, plus almost every major bat-villian ever.
And it was the last time that jim lee drawn well.
Like others have said, it functions well as a "tour" of Batman, touching upon almost every major aspect of the character and the world he lives in. Most of Bruce's notable accomplices and villains show up in some form or another, you get some classic detective action, some decent backstory, hell they even go into his relationships with Catwoman and Superman. And it's all wrapped up in some nice Jim Lee art.
The actual story is nothing to write home about, but it's easily digestible.
>>78625505
Because to this day Jim Lee's art is used for promotional art and DC merchandise; when someone unfamiliar with the medium gets told about a Batman comic they think of a big muscled Jim Lee Bats.
Logically this leads to them reading Hush combined with it being a great springboard for other Batman story has everyone recommend this to newcomers.
>final issue where the shocking revealed villain sits the hero down and explains the entire mystery with every twist and turn in a MASSIVE text dump
Horrible mystery writing 101, Jeph.
>>78626374
you are literally worse than hitler
what is the best written comic that Jim Lee has worked on?
>>78634138
Multiversity
>>78625505
I wonder if it just a straight up rejection of the Rucka Brubaker stuff that came before it.
>>78625876
Tim Sale's art isn't casual-friendly though. Not nearly house-style enough.
>mystery plotting
Nah, you get 12 issues of Batman doing nothing to actually try to solve the mystery except staring at items and recapping previous issues, and an extraordinarily stupid last page twist. Loeb was always a bad writer.
>>78626315
>Every panel/page is a resell poster
Holy fuck how did I not spot that!
>>78625505
It was one of the first western comics I ever read and my first taste of Batman in his native medium. It's been over a decade since I first read it and it does not hold up well. As a matter of fact, it's come to encapsulate everything I hate about mainstream comics.
>>78634204
Yup
>>78625641
This and only this.
It's literally the best comic for people who already know Batman and his mithos but never read a single comic.
>>78625641
yep.
it's basically an entry level event comic. a lot of people i know who don't read comics have at the very least read hush. surprised they haven't made an animated movie out of it yet, but they are more deep into new52 related things right now.
>>78637879
i dont have a problem with this. The Killing Joke is kind of like this as well, albeit better written. I'd rather read well written anthology type stories than continuity-driven clusterfucks
>>78625505
That's a really good question. I thought it was pretty bad.
>>78625505
Because the villain was in that one Batman game
>>78637947
They can't make an animated movie out of it, because they would have to cut down on all the guest appearances, which was the reason why Hush is notable in the first place
>>78637879
>mithos
lurk more before you try to regurgitate
>>78626374
That was a better run than people remember...
>>78625641
This basically
Loeb literally had Batman talk/narrate about his sidekicks and villains so that casuals could get their origins and all the bad things that happened to them.
He explained why Dick became Robin, why he's not anymore, why Barbara was in a wheelchair, who Huntress is, why Batman doesn't like her much, etc.
Jim Lee's art helps. It's clear and works just fine, but it's generic and not heavily stylized at all.
