8 Smartest Decisions In DC Villain History

4. Dismantling Bruce Wayne's Legacy - Heart Of Hush

Batman Heart of Hush Face
DC Comics/Dustin Nguyen

Thomas Elliot arguably didn't become the great Batman villain he's known as today until much later into his career as a comic book character. Sure, he enjoyed a fine introduction in Batman: Hush, but he seemed unremarkable; another villain tied to Bruce Wayne's past who'd disappear, never to be seen again.

Six years after the publication of Hush, Paul Dini, Dustin Nguyen and Derek Fridolfs would prove everyone wrong by orchestrating Heart of Hush, a tie-in to Batman R.I.P. that saw the bandaged supervillain strike at Batman in a whole new way - by stealing Catwoman's heart.

Not in a figurative sense, by the way. No, Hush literally takes Selina Kyle's heart and forces Batman into a wild chase in an attempt to get it back. Usually that'd be that; Hush hates Bruce Wayne and would do anything to make him hurt. However, Elliot takes it all one step further by revealing he's reconstructed his entire face to look like Bruce Wayne. The end goal? To impersonate his rival and tarnish his family's name.

Villains have tried time and again to get underneath Batman's skin, but none had the... inspiration, shall we say, to think this far ahead. The Bat-Family are able to curtail Elliot's schemes to a degree during Streets of Gotham, but in presenting a new quandary for them to deal with - all while the real Bruce was missing following Final Crisis - Hush's scheme will go down as one of DC's smartest.

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WhatCulture's very own resident movie guy, Ewan has been working in the content creation biz for over 10 years now, having started as a freelance contributor to WhatCulture Gaming all the way back in 2015. After graduating with a First-Class Honours in History from Northumbria University in 2017 (where he won a prize for a totally killer dissertation on the Watergate years), Ewan took on the role of Comics Editor at WhatCulture and quickly developed WhatCulture Comics into one of the biggest superhero-focused channels on YouTube. He followed this with a brief hiatus at Screen Rant in 2021, where he worked across the Gaming and Film sections as a writer and editor, before returning to WhatCulture as a Senior Content Producer / Presenter in 2023. He started his own podcast, We Love Dad Movies, in 2022, and has contributed several written pieces to the Eisner-nominated comics website Shelfdust as well. In his current role, Ewan incorporates his love of cinema, comic books, and history into written pieces and video essays for WhatCulture's Film & TV channel, as well as WhatCulture Gaming and WhatCulture Horror, with a particular focus on nineties-era Dad Movies, old school Westerns, and Golden Age Hollywood Noir. John Carpenter is his fave, and he thinks Batman Beyond should never have been cancelled. If that's your vibe, you'll probably like his stuff.