Hi! Hope you're doing well! Just wanted to ask what you think about Hush (and his, bruces and dicks relationship)? I dont really know much about, just that he made himself look like Bruce? And in some other comic like dick? No clue tho. Would love your thoughts! :D
(Also hope that whatever thing you were pulling all-nighters at work for is over and done, bc it sounded really stressfulT_t)
Writing this at 4:56am. Second all-night in 5 days. Looking to be a third tomorrow LMAO, but I've been working since 5:00pm yesterday and I needed a break.
Hush is... a guy. I can't say he's the most interesting guy to me -- especially at the beginning. He's this mysterious best friend who was *so close* to Bruce except we didn't hear about him for 60 years. Which feels like a hard retcon to swallow imo, but I'm not mad at it.
He does eventually make himself look like Bruce. He does this because he's jealous of Bruce. Specifically, he grew up in very similar circumstances of wealth, but whereas Bruce became an orphan and gained freedom from it through being able to travel the world and shit, Thomas Eliot (Hush) actually tried to kill his parents so he could inherit their wealth and do the same, but his mom lived and proceeded to suck for the next decade or so. I think his moment turning into Dick is cooler though because of course I do. Not really because of Thomas, because who gives a shit about Thomas, but because of what it says about Dick and Bruce's relationship.
So if we're taking it at face value that he really was Bruce's best friend, which the narrative really wants us to believe, it says something that he assumes the face of Dick to achieve this. Not just in the obvious way of "well of course, Dick is Bruce's favorite person", but also in the complexities of their relationship compared to the other siblings.
I've always found what they have to be so fascinating. Like, Bruce takes a parental role at times with Dick, but very often doesn't. They're some fusion of brothers-in-arms, leader and right-hand-man, and a million other tropes like that which come together to make a dynamic that is simultaneously rather obvious in the power hierarchy in a way that can be toxic at times, but also so so close. Idk. It always gets me giddy to see writers acknowledge this in the modern era. Up until the 2000s it was actually more common to see Dick refer to Bruce as his "brother" or "friend" than "father", but then DC decided that the modern batfamily had to be nuclear or something, and he was placed into the role of another son.
Hush also allowed for some neat exploration into other family members during his other appearances, and I seem to remember Heart of Hush being pretty good. He's a great plot device for exploring backstory without having any substance of his own whatsoever... which is what my friends would call me if I had any ;)
