Sunday, April 3, 2011

Zatanna #11 & Batman: Streets of Gotham #21

We're going the DC route for this post, with the FINAL issue of Batman: Streets of Gotham, as well as the latest issue of Zatanna, both written by Paul Dini... Huh, I JUST realized that Dini wrote both of these... Creepy...

Batman: Streets of Gotham #21:

Summary: We kick this issue off with Hush finishing up his betrayal of Dr. Death before shooting that mobster he'd been working with, Judson Pierce. From there Hush locks the two men in a room and prepares to flood Wayne Tower with a deadly array of gases, at least until he realizes that all of his henchmen were unconscious. Before he can figure out who did the deed, he gets conked over the head by the Wayne Tower employee he kidnapped, an employee who turns out to be Jane Doe in disguise. The near dead Pierce manages to wake Dr. Death up, and Death manages to mix some chemicals that blow the door to their room open. Unfortunately for Pierce, the chemicals begin to eat away at his skin while Death makes his escape. Hush wakes up tied to a chair with Jane Doe cutting his face off in order to masquerade as Bruce Wayne(remember, Hush had given himself plastic surgery to look like Bruce). Jane affixes Hush's face to her head and prepares to kill him when Batman(Bruce Wayne for this issue) drops in and knocks Jane out. From there we learn that Dr. Death's chemicals had somehow enhanced Pierce's strength, while deforming him greatly in the process. Needless to say, Pierce still wants to kill Bruce. Finally, we find Hush with his face covered in bandages, trying to convince doctors at Arkham Asylum that Bruce Wayne and Batman were the same man.

Thoughts: Meh. As a huge fan of Hush, I can't say I liked this storyline at all... What happened to the master villain who could fight both Bruce Wayne and Dick Grayson to a standstill all while concocting all sorts of deathtraps? I mean poor Hush... His credibility as a villain has just been going downhill since his first couple of appearances in that awesome Hush storyline by Jeph Loeb and Jim Lee... Now he's locked in Arkham, AS Dr. Tomas Elliot, where nobody believes a word he says. At least most of the other times he's lost he managed to evade capture. This time he gets squashed by Jane Freaking Doe, gets his face cut off and gets locked in Arkham... Maybe he and Jason Todd can talk about the good old days when they were both meaningful Batman villains...

Score: 5 1/2 out of 10.Life really sucks for Hush.


Zatanna #11:

Summary: We get this one started with Oscar Hampel preparing to seal Zatanna(who's a puppet now) in a puppet case in a magic museum. Yeah, that's a pretty sucky fate if I do say so myself. Before he does though, he decides to take a break in his dressing room since he had a TV performance that night. He gets a knock at the door and find a scantily clad make-up woman, who wants to get him ready for his performance. Oscar happily lets her in and she smothers him with some chloroform. It turns out the make-up woman was one of Zatanna's assistants, and had been tracking Oscar since she figured out he had turned Z into a puppet... Ooookay. Z's assistant then TELLS Zatanna EXACTLY how she figured out what had happened, in detail(!), giving Oscar enough time to wake up and attack. Oscar tries to turn the assistant into a puppet too, but unfortunately for him, the assistant came prepared and was under a spell that would reverse any spells sent her way. Needless to say, Oscar turns back into a puppet, Zatanna turns back to normal, and this one ends with Zatanna locking Oscar the puppet in a giant milk can.

Thoughts: Wow, this... really wasn't all that good... On the bright side we learn that Brother Night had woken up and was back up to his old tricks again, but everything else about this issue was pretty bad. I mean why would Z's assistant spend FOUR pages telling her how she found her?! Shouldn't she have been more interested in trying to, oh I don't know, turn Zatanna back to normal before anything else?! It just seemed to odd(and incredibly dumb!) for Z(as a puppet) and her assistant to stand around shooting the breeze while the bad guy slowly recuperated. If I was ever turned into a puppet, my first thought would be turning back to normal, not finding out how my assistant located me, but I guess that's why I'm not Zatanna...

Score: 6 out of 10.Sure, just ignore the bad guy in the corner...

16 comments:

  1. Poor Hush, the thing that pisses ME off is the fact he lost his face so he's bandaged again... which means he's literally back to where he was BEFORE HEART OF HUSH, no longer has Bruce's face, and he accomplished NOTHING WHILE HE WAS BRUCE. Goddamn I hate everything Dini has done to Hush, because he was SO good first. The only way he could be salvaged is to make Hush the new Prometheus...

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  2. Agreed, agreed, AGREED! It was like Dini said, "Well, this is the end of my Batman run, I might as well as put everything back the way it was before I started!" You're totally right, JT, everything that has happened with Hush since before the Heart of Hush storyline was completely undone. Catwoman no-sold her heart being cut out, while Hush lost his Bruce Wayne face, as well as his freedom! I mean now he's in Arkham! That makes NO sense! Sure the doctors don't believe Hush's claims that Bruce=Bats, but what's to stop Two-Face or the frigging Mad Hatter from believing him? It just seems so... I don't know, stupid for Bruce to put both Jason(who knows his secret ID)AND Hush in the same Asylum, surrounded by crazy people who want revenge on Batman. Sure Jason can probably be trusted with keeping Bruce's secrets safe, but obviously Hush doesn't feel the same way, nor should he! Ugh, I could go on and on about this, but yeah, it was all pretty awful.

    Wait, are you saying you want Hush to cut off Roy's OTHER arm and kill Cheshire and Catman's infant son, because I may take offense at that! :P

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  3. I agree, I doubt Two Face is gonna be all "Well.... you ARE IN AN ASYLUM, so you must be Crazy, no way rich boy Wayne is Bats." And yeah, the whole Hush thing just... I'd like to see what Snyder can do with Hush because right now nothing worse can happen to Hush and Snyder is pretty damn good...

    Lol nah :P But he could definitely be a threat, especially with his brains PLUS that helmet, being able to fight all those styles plus his nice ability with guns, he'd be untouchable.

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  4. Exactly! THat would give somebody like Two-Face another reason to take a shot at Bruce(especially now that he's made himself a target by stating that he was funding Bats). It's like, wouldn't you rather put Hush somewhere he CAN"T tell everybody he sees, "Bruce Wayne is Batman!!!"

    IDK, if Hush did become Prometheus, I think he'd be obligated to pull Roy's other arm off. It's like a right of passage for a Prometheus now...

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  5. Exactly... then again much like Jason, Arkham shouldn't be able to hold Hush. I mean if Harley can break IN to Arkham, and Joker breaks out whenever he wants a slice of pizza, then there's no damn way Jason or Hush with all their training and smarts should be stuck in Arkham. And you reminded me, Jason returns next month!

    Lol well I can't say I'd mind... they can give him two robotic arms like Jax from Mortal Kombat... I mean it seems if Roy's around someones losing a arm or a eye or a life or something.

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  6. Well it depends on which Hush is in Arkham I guess... If it's the one who got KOed by Jane Doe, well he may be stuck there for a while. Poor, poor Hush...

    HA! So wait, does that make Roy the new Jinx? Like some kind of bizarre body part Jinx or something?!

    And yes, our boy will be back and kicking ass again VERY soon. You know, that's probably the ONLY thing coming out of DC I'm actually looking forward to going into the Summer.

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  7. Haha, Jane Doe knocked out Hush, that's just sad... I mean when you say it like that, and you imagine Hush who eluded bats for months... it just seems ven worse.

    I'd say so! I mean Tim has had pretty good luck and has made out with quite a few chicas, meanwhile Roy is losing limbs, his teammates are losing limbs, and he apparently couldn't get his knife in Cheshire's sheath if you recall.

    Agreed, I;m so sure that Judd is gonna make this a good read too, and to see Bats, Robin and Jason all together kicking ass on the same team should be epic. Although I am looking forward to that new series that has Dick, Tim and Cass.

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  8. Dude, seriously! I mean was this the same guy who put Bats through so much hell in the past or was it a frigging body snatcher or something?! Ugh...

    Roy seems to have corrected his... little problem. Maybe Viagra is one of the many drugs he's hitting these days... :/

    Wait, what? What series dost thou speak? Because that sounds like something that will be making my pull list, even with my recent hatred of all things DC!

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  9. You know what, I wouldn't even mind if they pulled the "That wasn't Hush card" just so they could redeem Hush because as of right now that's just a horrible horrible character. Remember his day out with Harley in GCS?

    "Roy seems to have corrected his... little problem. Maybe Viagra is one of the many drugs he's hitting these days..." Lmao... No comment.

    Yessir, Batman: Gates of Gotham is supposed to be starring Dick, Tim and Cass Cain, oh and it's by SCOTT FREAKING SNYDER

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  10. I wouldn't either. Hush could REALLY use a major reboot. Can't we say an alien abducted him and sent a clone in his place or something?

    Sweet. Snyder seems to be one of the FEW writers DC has that actually KNOWS how to write a comic book that makes sense.

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  11. Let's just say Hush was abducted by Ra's because he saw him as a threat for the detective so he held him prisoner and replaced him with a lesser threat, and Hush has broken out and now wages war on Ra's to before the new leader of the League of Assassins and use them to destroy Bruce and the Bat-Family.

    Haha, so if I asked you to name five DC writers that do that, who would you pick?

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  12. Hell, that sounds plausible. I'd read that story. Anything to erase the bad taste the recent Hush stuff has left in my mouth.

    Okay, not including Snyder, I'd go with: Judd Winick(duh), Tony Bedard, Fabian Nicieza, Bryan Miller, and I guess Paul Dini, who's USUALLY good... Y tu?

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  13. Calling my story plausible = win in my book. :P

    Hm... I think I'd go with Judd Winick(duh), Fabian Nicieza, Bryan Q. Miller, Dan Jurgens and Gail Simone who I'd give the nod over Dini due to that horrible Hush storyline and some other stuff he's been kinda meh on lately. Now the fun, top five WORST DC Writers, GO!

    I say Didio, Grant, Tony Daniel, Rucka and Yost if he counts.

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  14. Always with the Morrison hate...sigh...lol

    And Rucka, really? I heard good things about his DC work. You know he'll be writing the new Punisher series?

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  15. Marc, Morrison is BAD. I don't think you've read his Batman work but the way he systematically destroyed Jason, made a villain out of a fat guy named Pyg, and names villains El Sombrero and Pink Flamingo just proves that point.

    And nah I hadn't heard that, then again I'm not that big into the Punisher

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  16. Huh, I forgot about Gail... Then again, with how lackluster BoP and Secret Six have been, that's probably why I forgot her!

    Well this is easy! Chairman Johns, Chairman Johns, Chairman Johns, Chairman Johns & Chairman Johns. :P

    Poor, poor, Crazy Grant...

    I honestly doubt I'll be picking up that Punisher series either, Marc... After the whole FrankenCastle thing, I think I need a nice LOOOOONG break from Punisher... :/

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