I can only imagine the back-slapping and high-fiving that went on in the Marvel offices upon the devising of this "shocking" "twist"--because I'm so distracted by my complete flabberghastation that grown men could congratulate themselves as brilliant writers for sticking a plot twist in the middle of a book without putting a single clue, a single character trait, a single goddamn anything that would enable a particularly perceptive reader or a reader who's rereading the thing after discovering the twist believe anything other than the initial deceptive direction that the author forced us into that even if I were at the back-slapping session in question I'd just have to sit there scratching my head and saying "what the fuck?" (A reaction similar, no doubt, to your own in trying to unravel that grammatically torturous sentence. Do you see what bad writing does to me? It's contagious!)

Another comparison might be instructive here. In a recent issue of New X-Men, writer Grant Morrison revealed that the zen-spouting masked healer known as Xorn was, in fact, the presumed-dead Alan David Doane Magneto in disguise. Like all good twists, it was one that almost no one saw coming. Also like all good twists, it was one that, upon re-reading the issues that led up to it, almost everyone would smack themselves in the head and say "how could I not see that coming?" Morrison did a real purloined-letter on this, peppering Xorn's words and actions with clues as to his true nature and identity.

But his talent at misdirection was such that we a) never felt that this was too obvious (as might be the case if, say, you introduced a brand new character no one had ever heard of before who dressed exactly like the secret villain of your piece); b) never felt that this had been done by cheating (as if, for example, you introduced that character only to shoot him in an alleyway in full view of like five other major characters, then say "ha ha, no, that was actually a guy made out of clay using his magic powers to make himself into a clone of that character"; c) never felt that the surprise twist made a reductive mess out of the preceding storyline (as if, by way of a for instance, you'd kept everyone buying a story religiously for twelve months promising that "nothing is what it seems," only to reveal in the final issue that, in fact, everything was exactly what it seemed, you dumbasses).

There's more to "Hush" than this awful phony non-twist, though, I hear its proponents saying even now (they're not using the words "awful phony non-twist," but the sentiment is roughly the same). There's the art by Jim Lee! Ah yes, and, um, art it is. I'm not part of the cult of Jim, a cult formed primarily through his work on X-Men and his co-founding of Image Comics in the early 90s. Though his hyper-rendered artwork doesn't do all that much for me, I don't find it offensive, as some others do. But what bothered me was my ever-increasing conviction that Loeb's "plot," such as it was, was simply an excuse to publish "How to Draw Batman the Jim Lee Way," enabling Lee to create almost comically labor-intensive portraits of Batman villains (given slight revamps so that they look REALLY BAD-ASS!), Batman sidekicks (an ever more redundant clique of S&Mish nitwits who clutter up this supposed loner's life like the world's worst-dressed in-laws), and Batman shoes.