Book Review: Batman: Streets of Gotham vol #3

Book: Batman: Streets of Gotham volume #3: The House of Hush (issues #12-14 and #16-21) by Paul Dini with illustrations by Dustin Nguyen, ink by Derek Fridolfs, color by John Kalisz and letters by Steve Wands and Sal Cipriano

Cover by Dustin Nguyen

Edition: Trade Hardcover

Description:

Cracking under the strain of living as 'Bruce Wayne,' Tommy Elliot plans his final, murderous revenge on Dick Grayson, Selina Kyle and other members of Wayne's extended network of friends and allies. Will Dick and Damian be enough to thwart Tommy's plan--or will the end of Hush require the return of Bruce Wayne?



Rating: 5 stars

Review:

Batman: Streets of Gotham volume #3 begins with an interesting story (issues #12 and #13) which mainly followed Jenna Duffy a.k.a. Jenny the Carpenter. She had accepted a job to renovate an old theatre for a director who was planning to kill Batman (Dick Grayson) as well as other superheroes while capturing it on film. But since there is no honor among thieves (crooks and murderers), Jenny stumbled upon a plan to use her as a test for one of the traps she installed. Not planning on dying in one of the Director's trap, Jenny did the unthinkable and tipped off Batman (who she was no fan of) about the Director's plan. This was a good story and there was quite a bit a humor to go along with the mayhem. There were a few scenes of Hush and his continued disdain for having to pretend to be Bruce Wayne (which he brought on himself) and another featuring Damian Wayne and his friend Colin Wilkes a.k.a. Abuse.

Now the main story (issues #14, #16-21) centers around Dr. Tommy Elliot a.k.a. Hush who is still trying to seek his revenge against Bruce Wayne. Back in the first volume, he had his face surgically altered to resemble Bruce Wayne and was planning to ruin Bruce financially among other things but the Batfamily stopped him before he could do too much damage. From then on, he had been constantly monitored by Alfred Pennyworth and members of the Justice League to make sure he wasn't doing anything he wasn't supposed to.

By this point in the third volume, Hush was tired of his situation of having to pretend to be Bruce along with having superhero babysitters keeping an eye on him. However, thanks to an unexpected kidnapping by Mr. Pierce and a couple of his associates, Hush might finally get another chance at revenge against Bruce. Mr. Pierce was an old mobster who held a grudge against Martha and Thomas Wayne because a deal he had been working on went bad and landed him in prison. He was recently released and wanted to exact his revenge against them but since they were dead, he was going after Bruce. However, Pierce got more than he bargained for in kidnapping "Bruce" but he did end up gaining a new ally. But will their plan finally given them the revenge they were looking for?

Hush was unaware the Bruce Wayne had returned (see Batman: Bruce Wayne, The Road Home) but since Bruce couldn't publicly return until they figured out where Hush was, he was lurking in the shadows as Batman. While Batman was dealing with the villain Bedbug (and trying to reconnect with Catwoman), he and Alfred were also trying to find Hush and he found him thanks to a disturbance at Wayne Tower when the murders sort of double crossed each other.

This was a very well-written intense and sometimes disturbing story that also contained an interesting bit of backstory centering around Bruce's parents Martha and Thomas, the Elliot family, the Zatara family and a group of mobsters who were trying to get their hands on a certain piece of real estate.

I never understood why Streets of Gotham was cancelled, the series featured a lot of interesting and different stories and all three volumes were a great read. It also introduced Colin Wilkes, a new character and Damian's new friend who I thought would have been included more in the main Batman comics or added to the Teen Titans series.