Joker in House of Hush

[SicSexSix]

Did anyone get the impression that Dini was implying that Sonny, the little boy from the clinic, might have been the Joker as a child? His dialogue to Sal Guzzo was word for word Guzzo's words to the boy in the bar, after they blew up the clinic. I always assumed Joker said all that based on Guzzo's "kinky" reputation, but re-reading it last night it occurred to me just how coincidental that the dialogue in the whole bar scene was. The remarks Guzzo made about "Havin' some laffs" and telling him to stop walking around with that hang-dog frown, & that he should smile, etc. all coupled with obvious molestation, would've been more than enough to twist that kid into a psychotic, or leave him with enough psychological scarring that would eventually erupt into such a vicious personality some where down the road. Any one ever give any thought to that or consider it a possibility? Dini hinting at something or just throwing something down to make the fans speculate?

[FHIZ]

Yeah, that was definitely picked up on around the time of release. Nothing definitive, but like you said, there to cause speculation.

[Patroklos]

Yeah, Dini has always been big on hinting on different origins for Joker.

[HeroComplex]

Is House of Hush worth picking up? I enjoyed (didn't love) the original Hush.

[SicSexSix]

Absolutely.

[cosmicjoke]

Dini actually confirmed on I think twitter that Sonny is supposed to be the Joker. There'also the connection from the Batman: Black and White issue, where the Joker's nickname before he became the Joker was rumored to have been "Sonny".

I thought that was an excellent couple of issues, actually, and it's pretty brutal, what happens to Sonny when you read between the lines of what Guzzo did to him. The part where he's saying he told him to "swallow it down, nice and easy", ugh. You know exactly what that means. You could definitely see why the kid eventually snapped. I think it's one of the more well done origin tales out there.

[jgiannantoni05]

Yea, I think it was confirmed by Dini.

It was a fine and not too in-your-face.

But...the problem is keeping it all within "multiple choice," not making the origin version for certain. I love Dini's B&W "Case Study" origin he played into with this, but in Case Study, Dini wisely connected that to crazy Harley, making you wonder if it was made up or not.

I don't think House of Hush's Sonny stuff was left much room for doubt. Have to check on that. Maybe unreliable narrator, can't recall.

Maybe these writers now figure we'll automatically couch their version with "multiple choice," I don't know, but it'd be nice if they reinforced it. It ain't going away.

[Christopher Cross Is God]

Is House of Hush worth picking up? I enjoyed (didn't love) the original Hush.

It's good, and far better than Loeb's Hush. Dini gives Hush some depth, whereas the original Hush storyline by Loeb was fairly empty and essentially a gallery of Batman allies/villains of that point in time.

If you like it enough, you'd also want to get the 2-parter featuring Catwoman. I don't think they ever put that into trade form, but the actual issues were Detective Comics #852 & Batman #685.

[SicSexSix]

The flashback with Sonny in the bar was from Judson Pierce's POV, so it reasons to stand that it was pretty accurate. I've read & re-read House of Hush about a dozen times in the last year & a half and I'm still kicking myself for not picking up on that until last night :-p I'm sure it's effectively wiped away thanks to the Nu52, but regardless, it does explain quite a bit. Even if you want to assume that boy grew into the man we met in the Killing Joke, it still fits. It's just one more issue that was bubbling beneath the surface, and came out when the surface was burned away by chemical waste.