WARNING: The following contains spoilers for Tales From The Dark Multiverse: Hush #1 by Phillip Kennedy Johnson, Dexter Soy, Sergio Davila, Matt Santorelli, Ivan Plascencia, & ALW's Troy Peteri, on sale now.

In the mainline DC Universe, Hush's deep connections with Bruce Wayne made his attempts to bring down the Dark Knight all the more personal. But in a world where Thomas Elliot accidentally broke Bruce Wayne decades before he would become Batman, he also set up Gotham to become a far more cruel place.

The Gotham of Tales from the Dark Multiverse: Hush is one of the grimmest versions of the city every put to page, a world where the villains won and spread their influence throughout the entire city, leading to open class-warfare and a broken Batman stalking the streets.

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Batman the Silenced Gotham City

The Dark Multiverse has featured many broken and corrupted versions of Gotham -- including the totalitarian government of a victorious Jean-Paul Valley and the corrupted ruin of a world that the Batman Who Laughs hails from. At first glance, the Gotham of Tales from the Dark Multiverse: Hush is a far more peaceful version of the city than either of those. But just beyond the veneer of peace is a cruel and heartless society where Bruce Wayne's fortune was absorbed while he went to Arkham. Gotham is a police state, with a government-controlled police force leaving a slew of corpses in their advancement through the city-streets. The state-sanctioned media glosses over these battles and instead focuses on the ruling class of the city. Gotham has even broken away from the greater United States and established itself as an independent state.

In this world, Thomas Elliot essentially became a dark and murderous version of what Bruce Wayne could have been, Now a Gotham Senator as well as Wayne Industries CEO, Thomas publicly highlights his romance with the mysterious Talia, who has connections with the League of Assassins. Meanwhile, other power players in the city include the District Attorney Harvey Dent, business-mogul Oswald Cobblepot and defense contractor Jason Todd. The city has embraced all the shining glamor and casual cruelty of Gotham City, and anyone who stands in the way is dealt with by the true power behind the throne: the Court of Owls. In this reality, Lincoln March was never defeated or exposed, and he's since risen to the Presidential seat of this independent and frightening Gotham -- with a murderous Dick Grayson at his side as his Gray Son.

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Dark Multiverse Hush

To make matters worse, Arkham Asylum is treated with a far more hands-off approach than in the core DC Universe. In this Gotham, Arkham has become essentially the personal laboratory for Doctor Jonathan Crane, who never had to become Scarecrow. With Elliot's funding and assistance instead, he's become the head of the asylum, which has given him the freedom to experiment on its various residents. In exchange for this help, Crane has been quietly assisting Elliot in keeping a catatonic Bruce Wayne off the board, which allows Elliot to expand his control over Gotham as a whole.

All in all, the city feels like a far colder place than most Gothams. This is a world where the villains won without ever really trying, where they casually kill enemies like James Gordon, and where their influence has poisoned the city beyond the point of redemption.

Even by the end of the story, Gotham remains a corrupted and crumbling city-state. While Thomas Elliot's crimes have been quietly confronted, the now-mad figure known as Batman the Silenced stalks the night streets, capturing the assorted power players of Gotham. As chaos continues to rule Gotham's streets, Talia has moved on from an M.I.A. Thomas Elliot to begin a relationship with Lincoln March, setting up a potential alliance between the League of Assassins and the Court of Owls. But even this victory is tempered by the apparent death of this world's Grayson, who appears beneath Batman the Silenced, seemingly broken apart by the mad vigilante. It's a brutal and dour Gotham, and this corner of the Dark Multiverse stands as one of the grimmest incarnations of the city yet introduced.

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