He's a great villain. Really! The DC Comics PR Machine, with some help from The Pulse, tries to convince us that Hush was more than just a lame plot device. Here's Gotham Knights writer Andy Lieberman on the return of the Bandaged Bandit:

"Originally Hush's return was supposed to be somewhat of a surprise. By the way, that's the other thing I learned about the comic industry, it's hard to keep a secret. Anyway, the idea was to tease readers with the return of a major character. But after some kind of leak it was painfully obvious that readers had found out our plan and it became the worse kept secret in comics. So, here we are talking about GOTHAM KNIGHTS big surprise villain. Fortunately the realization of who we were hyping didn't effect the plotting of the first story line."

Lieberman also offers this unintentionally funny assessment of Batman: Hush: "I believe the Loeb/Lee story line was about half way done at this point."