Review – Streets of Gotham #21
Title: The House of Hush Finale
Written by: Paul Dini
Art by: Dustin Nguyen, Derek Fridolfs
Cover by: Dustin Nguyen
Release Date: March 23, 2011
Official DC Snyopsis: The sequel to “Heart of Hush” concludes! The life of Tommy Elliot takes a shocking new turn as “House of Hush” reaches its final soul-searing chapter. Secrets are revealed, lives are torn apart and a deadly new villain rises to threaten the existence of Batman and his allies.
Review by: Cesar Rodriguez
Well, it’s here, the final issue of Streets of Gotham has arrived. All the characters and plots that Dini has been building over the last several months finally reach their climax in this concluding issue. Looking back at the entire series, if there is one character who stole the spotlight more than any other, it was definitely Hush. Dini obviously must have come to really love the character during his stint on Detective Comics, because it often felt like he couldn’t resist using him on this title repeatedly. Not that I’m complaining, because quite frankly he made Hush into kind of a bad ass. This chapter opens with Hush betraying his new ‘allies’, Judson Pierce and Doctor Death, only to then be captured by a very unsuspecting villain after trying to settle his own score by himself. Those friends of his really could have come in handy right about now. Pierce, while dying from a gunshot, then remembers how he came to this point by showing us in flashback just why he spent so many years in prison. After awakening Dr. Death, the two of them manage to escape but Pierce unfortunately has a little chemical accident, and if you read comics you know that for some reason strange chemicals always have a handy way of bringing out the most bizarre side effects, as opposed to deadly infection of course.
What’s great about this issue is that it really does feel like the final issue of a long story as many of the characters undergo some sort of change that wraps up their story for the time being. It looks like Pierce may have a future as a new addition to Batmans ever growing rogues gallery, and Hush… well, let’s just say that he won’t be posing as Bruce Wayne any longer. At the same time, it’s obvious that Dini had plans for many more issues as there were several subplots that were laid out but now abandoned (Catwoman, Bedbug) now that the book is being canceled. This certainly isn’t the end of Dini’s career on Batman, as he has a new mini series coming up, so there may be a chance that any future plans he had may be brought to another title someday. Dustin Nguyen’s art will probably be the first thing that pops into my head when I think about this book,as he brought his unique art style to render what is definitely the best rogues gallery in all comics, and while his work on Batgirl is great as well, I feel like his style just works so much better when dealing with the scummy and twisted villains of Gotham.
As a huge fan of crime fiction and film noir, I remember when Streets of Gotham was first announced and being quite intrigued by the street level nature of what at the time promised to be a successor to Gotham Central, a book I continually champion as being one of the best comic books ever made. It turned out that while Streets of Gotham was indeed a gritty street level comic, it chose to focus on the other side of the law, which I feel is just as interesting of a premise. I’m going to miss reviewing Streets of Gotham, especially considering that this was the first book that I was given to review for this website, and while not every issue was a home run, it sure was a fun ride. Obviously the adventures of Batman, and the various villains who appeared throughout this comic will never end, but with so many Bat-titles these days it is probably for the best to trim out a few.
Score: 3.5/5
Link to GKO website/review:
Review – Streets of Gotham #21
No comments:
Post a Comment