Saturday, August 21, 2010

The Unknown Soldier Would Be A Cool Guest Star

We're halfway through the Batman Beyond mini-series. So what's the deal with Hush? I don't believe the fellow running around with bandages is actually Tommy Elliot. He'd be as old as Bruce Wayne, and while Old Many Wayne can be effective, he's not so great a leaping around and unleashing jump kicks these days. I've three theories.

1) This Tommy Elliot, like the one in the current Bat-books, has Bruce Wayne's face, and as such, is impersonating the Old Man to drive Terry off. Failing that, he'll use the Bat-Wraiths to destroy Terry, then Gotham, since that's all there is Wayne seems to care about. It could be that it isn't the case in this story's universe, but I found it interesting that when Wayne was relating his past history with Hush to Terry, he didn't mention that Hush altered himself to look like Bruce Wayne. Like I said, maybe that's because it didn't happen in this history, or maybe Elliot did it, but later caught a vat of acid with his face, and so he lost those looks. Still seems like the sort of important information to perhaps mention.

In that scenario, the person calling themselves Hush could simply be someone Elliot hired and trained. Ex-military, former operative, just a person who knows how to fight and kill that Hush can coach on how to mess with Terry's head. And that would leave Elliot free to yell in Terry's ear during the fights by pretending to be Old Man Wayne.

2) It's Clayface. I figure a guy made of mud wouldn't face aging issues, so he could be Hush. If we want to think he's also Bruce, there was an episode of the Batman cartoon that established Clayface could split off a part of himself to operate autonomously. He lost control of it, but he's had years to improve control since then.

3) Old Many Bruce is just being extra crotchety, and this Hush is Cadmus and Waller's first attempt at making a new Batman. He's a clone of Bruce, but warped, damaged. He's killing people, but criminals, old foes of Batman. And he doesn't care about McGinnis, except to tell him he's not good enough.

OK, fourth idea, it's the Unknown Soldier. Don't know why he would be killing Bat-foes. Maybe he's not as sane as previous versions. Yeah, that's probably not it.

2 comments:

joe ackerman said...

see, now I'm more inclined to go with the Cadmus making a new Batman theory there. but they've cloned Tommy Elliot and not Wayne?

ah, what do I know? I'm just enjoying the ride. Batman Beyond's the only Bat-title I can actually read without suddenly feeling like tearing my own spleen out.

CalvinPitt said...

joe bloke: I could see the clone of Tommy Elliot answer, but I can't figure what benefit Cadmus or Waller derives that. His running about Gotham killing Bat-villains doesn't seem to be something they're after. Although with Waller, who can tell. This could all be part of some scheme of hers and she's playing concerned to throw people off the scent.