Batman villains are a lot like jelly beans; they're mostly delicious, but every once in a while you get a brown one that tastes less like root beer and more like garbage juice. The good news for Bat-Villains though is that they live in a world of fantasy where they can be re-imaged and updated for current times, whereas bad tasting jelly beans only option is trash can city. For every Joker, Riddler, and Two-Face Batman has also battled villains who wear Guy Fawkes masks, have quilt-themed crimes, and use kites as their main mode of transportation. Formidable they are not, but thanks to DC's New 52 campaign, many of these characters could be given a second (or in some cases, third) chance at life. So while they're reinventing some of the worst characters, why not give new life to the ones that had all the potential in the world, but didn't quite take off. Characters like...
5. Hush
Who Is He? Dr. Thomas Elliot was a childhood friend of Bruce Wayne who grew up to be a celebrated surgeon and a psychopath with an affinity for gauze. Elliot had attempted to murder his parents when he was a child by cutting their break line on a rainy night, but Bruce's father (who also was a noted surgeon) saved Tommy's mom, preventing him from inheriting his families vast fortune until she died years later of cancer. Because comics are sometimes weird and plots need to be forced, Tommy blamed Bruce for this and concocted an elaborate plan to ruin Bruce's life in the year-long story arc "Hush." Unfortunately Hush's plans never bore fruit as Batman survived the ordeal (as he is wont to do) and spent the remainder of his published career highlighting B stories in the backup Batman titles "Detective Comics" and "Gotham Knights." Hush was a character created by committee, and was needed to linchpin the sometimes out-of-control story that Jim Lee and Jeph Loeb put together. Used as a plot device more than as a character, Hush never really got a chance to shine.
How Should He Return? The "Arkham City" video game actually did DC a favor and laid the groundwork for a Hush re-introduction without even knowing it. Instead of focusing on Elliot's furious revenge plot, DC should shift the spotlight toward the whole "crazy surgeon" aspect of Hush's character. In the game Hush was killing Arkham inmates and stealing their faces, using different pieces of each to create his very own Bruce Wayne mask so he could steal his identity. Dump the whole trying to look like Bruce aspect and sticking with the serial killer who likes to perform surgery on his victims shtick and you've got a formidable foe for the Caped Crusader to track down and bring to justice. As for the trench coat and gauze mask? Keep it. Trench coats never go out of style, and that mummy face is too creepy not to be cool.