Hush Returns and Joker is sane?

[pariah-1972]

Weird Question i know but why is Joker acting completely sane and mourning over his dead wife during Hush Returns?
i wasn't sure if that story was even completely in continuity or not and it's kind of weird to see him mourning over his wife all of a sudden...
I always thought DC was determined to hedge there bets on this one just to keep things mysterious by saying that Joker could have been lying or making this up since he's crazy but they had Riddler pretty much confirm the story as true.


This was happening during Infinite Crisis with a lot of weird shit going on all over the
DC universe so i'm not sure if someone completely "F"ed up or was this part of the retcon punch somehow?
I know this is probably a old question but i just found this book and thats been really bugging me.

[Cornelius Stirk]

This is why I hated A.J Lieberman's Batman run, he took too many liberties with characters just to fit his story.

[pariah-1972]

This is why I hated A.J Lieberman's Batman run, he took too many liberties with characters just to fit his story.What else did he do?
I can't believe that they let him get away with making the Joker completely sane it almost felt like it was done on purpose for some reason.


Has anyone else ever acknowledged his origin in the Killing Joke?

[Choppa]

^I don't believe so. If you haven't finished "Returns," you might want to stop reading now because it has no ending and will probably be forgotten anyway when HUSH returns in next month's 'Tec.

[pariah-1972]

^I don't believe so. If you haven't finished "Returns," you might want to stop reading now because it has no ending and will probably be forgotten anyway when HUSH returns in next month's 'Tec.I'm already done lol and then i ordered a couple of issues of gotham knights were he makes an appearance hoping to clear some things up about it.
:redface:

[matthewaos]

So it's a good thing that I stopped in part 2...

[pariah-1972]

So it's a good thing that I stopped in part 2...

Honestly it's not all that bad even if the Joker part was extremely weird i can't help feeling that this was done on purpose for a reason.

I mean even crazy people have bouts of sanity sometimes.

[frostedone]

HUSH RETURNES is almost universally hated. It is probably out of continuinity now. It messed up a lot of things and ended up being a failed attempt at being a KILLING JOKE spin off.

[pariah-1972]

HUSH RETURNES is almost universally hated. It is probably out of continuinity now. It messed up a lot of things and ended up being a failed attempt at being a KILLING JOKE spin off.I don't know i wanted to be pissed off about Joker acting out of character but i was just like "wha?"

Besides that i liked the writing and the art, of course i couldn't figure out what hush wanted with Prometheus and why they had a falling out?

[Choppa]

I imagine the whole idea of Joker being sane was supposed to tie into Jason's assertion that the Joker was "faking" being crazy. If you remember, when Jason kidnaps Joker, he finds in at the abandoned circus, which is where he is last seen in the HUSH story. Since that whole thread was dropped we will never know now though.

[Chad]

Hush Returns got me out of comics up until recently. To do a storyline without letting the readers know upfront that the story would end abruptly in the middle of the tale because it was "meant" to be unfinished (something Liebermann mentioned only after readers bought the first five months worth of Hush Returns) has ensured that I will never buy anything with Liebermann's name on it again and if I purchase something from DC I'll remember to lower my standards first. So, it pains me to say it, but...I liked the sane Joker in this "story". That isn't to say that I don't prefer the insane Joker, but there are things you can do with a rational Joker that I don't think you can with the usual one.

Although his insanity gives him a flamboyance and an eccentricity (ie. we'd never have had Joker-Fish if he weren't crazy) it also takes something away from the notion that the Joker is also pure evil. I'm hard pressed to cite any instances where the Joker in the throes of madness has been anything but evil, but there have been suggestions that if you remove the Joker's insanity, he'd be a decent, normal person (ie. Morrison's JLA during Rock of Ages, Waid's JLA when the League visits his mind, even Killing Joke to an extent). I don't think insanity should be at the core of his character - I think evil should be.

Yeah, the current Joker is still evil, but that evil just feels like a by-product of his insanity. I liked the Jerry Robinson/Bill Finger Joker who was a rational man who stole for greed and killed because his ego insisted that his calling card be nothing less than a dead man with his smile on his face. He seemed to understand that the object he'd steal would always be worth less than the lives he took, but he just didn't care. Nowadays, I don't really get that sense from this Joker. He doesn't seem to understand what he's doing and seems directed simply by whatever rambling thoughts pop up in his mind. There's so little structure to his mind and to his crimes that he seems incapable of coming up with anything more elaborate than mindlessly running people down with his car (when was the last time he actually planned a crime rather than just go on a killing spree?). The modern Joker seems influenced by an obligation to prove that he is crazy which has produced several stories where he seems unintelligent. Essentially what I'm saying is, I'd like to see writers at least play around with a Joker who's more of a Mr Burns than a serial killing Krusty the Clown.

[pariah-1972]

Hush Returns got me out of comics up until recently. To do a storyline without letting the readers know upfront that the story would end abruptly in the middle of the tale because it was "meant" to be unfinished (something Liebermann mentioned only after readers bought the first five months worth of Hush Returns) has ensured that I will never buy anything with Liebermann's name on it again and if I purchase something from DC I'll remember to lower my standards first. So, it pains me to say it, but...I liked the sane Joker in this "story". That isn't to say that I don't prefer the insane Joker, but there are things you can do with a rational Joker that I don't think you can with the usual one.

Although his insanity gives him a flamboyance and an eccentricity (ie. we'd never have had Joker-Fish if he weren't crazy) it also takes something away from the notion that the Joker is also pure evil. I'm hard pressed to cite any instances where the Joker in the throes of madness has been anything but evil, but there have been suggestions that if you remove the Joker's insanity, he'd be a decent, normal person (ie. Morrison's JLA during Rock of Ages, Waid's JLA when the League visits his mind, even Killing Joke to an extent). I don't think insanity should be at the core of his character - I think evil should be.

Yeah, the current Joker is still evil, but that evil just feels like a by-product of his insanity. I liked the Jerry Robinson/Bill Finger Joker who was a rational man who stole for greed and killed because his ego insisted that his calling card be nothing less than a dead man with his smile on his face. He seemed to understand that the object he'd steal would always be worth less than the lives he took, but he just didn't care. Nowadays, I don't really get that sense from this Joker. He doesn't seem to understand what he's doing and seems directed simply by whatever rambling thoughts pop up in his mind. There's so little structure to his mind and to his crimes that he seems incapable of coming up with anything more elaborate than mindlessly running people down with his car (when was the last time he actually planned a crime rather than just go on a killing spree?). The modern Joker seems influenced by an obligation to prove that he is crazy which has produced several stories where he seems unintelligent. Essentially what I'm saying is, I'd like to see writers at least play around with a Joker who's more of a Mr Burns than a serial killing Krusty the Clown.Thats a pretty interesting paragraph there i'm not sure if i agree with you or not but it was well thought out and i give you credit for that.

I think if he started planning his crimes people would feel they are aping the sixties Batman tv show.

[earl]

The last two year run of Gotham Knights is a complete mess with open story lines abound. Really the odd characterization of the Joker is just the tip of the iceberg. The ending of that series was totally screwy.

I tend to doubt that any writer will ever reference those issues again as 'in-continuity'. I am kind of curious to see how Dini plays the next appearance of Hush.

[The Xenos]

Weird Question i know but why is Joker acting completely sane and mourning over his dead wife during Hush Returns?

Answer: It was a horrible story written by someone who knew next to nothing about the character and was making up total crap as he went along.

Well, that's my answer at least.

[pariah-1972]

Answer: It was a horrible story written by someone who knew next to nothing about the character and was making up total crap as he went along.

Well, that's my answer at least.Even people who have never read a comic before in there life now that the Joker is insane and manic crazy:confused:

and considering he is referencing Killing Joke which is one of the greatest Joker stories of all time you would think he would understand the character.

I personally believe this was done on purpose for a reason but maybe the editors decided not to go thru with it in the end?