Thomas "Tommy" Elliot was a childhood friend of Bruce Wayne who attempts to murder his own parents and inherit their massive fortune.

Tommy grows up to become a gifted neurosurgeon and, out of jealous resentment, allies with the Riddler to ruin Bruce's life upon discovering that he is Batman.

Wrapping his face in bandages to conceal his identity, Tommy becomes a manipulative criminal mastermind called "Hush" to seek revenge against his former friend.

The character has been adapted from the comics into numerous forms of media, having been portrayed in live-action television by Cole Vallis and Gordon Winarick in Gotham, and by Gabriel Mann and Warren Christie in Batwoman.

[3] The two boys often played a Stratego-esque minifigure game together, and Tommy taught Bruce to think like his opponents and to use their abilities against them to win, which proved useful years later when he became Batman.

Shortly before Bruce returned to Gotham City, Tommy befriended a young woman named Peyton Riley (who would later become the second Ventriloquist) – a relationship of which his mother never approved.

When Tommy's mother recovered from cancer, she disowned him, subsequently cutting him off from the Elliot family fortune in retaliation for his continuing relationship with Peyton.

At some point in his career, Edward Nygma, also known as the Riddler, was diagnosed with terminal cancer and eventually hijacked one of Ra's al Ghul's Lazarus Pits to regain his health.

During this mystical treatment, which renders the participant temporarily insane, the Riddler experienced an unexpected epiphany: he realized that Bruce Wayne was Batman.

Written and drawn by the original authors Jeph Loeb and Jim Lee, it detailed how Hush escaped to an air pocket in a sunken boat at the bottom of the Gotham river after his defeat on the bridge.

[9] Still out to destroy Batman and determined not to let the rest of the villains get in his way, Hush quickly carved out a niche for himself, beating his former accomplice the Riddler to within an inch of his life.

At the Joker's mercy and unable to remove the device himself, Hush turned to the one man he felt he could trust (or rather, predict): Bruce Wayne.

Batman seemed to agree and began to leave, but then revealed that he had tricked Hush – the pacemaker was still in his body, and he had been allowed to escape from Arkham.

In the first issue, Hush reveals that his return was hastened when he began to hear whispers of the Black Glove's upcoming attack on Batman.

Hush attacks Batman with a paralytic gas, and shows him the room containing Catwoman's heart, which is being kept alive through artificial means.

In Streets of Gotham, Batman's biological son Damian Wayne visited Hush in his cell as the new Robin, and they played chess.

Dick and Damian, along with the Outsiders and assorted other superheroes, explained to Hush that they would always watch and control him- with the other heroes acting as a 'board of directors' intended to 'supervise' his financial dealings- and that someone will always be ready to take him down if he steps out of line.

When Ra's al Ghul arrived in Gotham, promising to ruin the Wayne family in retaliation against Red Robin, he immediately sought out Hush.

As this happened, Red Robin, Batman, and Blackbat realized that the Elliot family was connected to a series of bombings that destroyed three historical Gotham bridges.

Batman found Hush, who had been betrayed by the Architect and strapped to a bomb, but was forced to sacrifice Wayne Tower to save his life.

In this new timeline, Hush first appears in issue twenty-one of Batman Eternal as the apparent mastermind behind Commissioner Gordon's downfall and Carmine Falcone's return.

[20] After having blown up another weapon cache and having been shot through the shoulder with a grappling hook by Julia Pennyworth, Hush gave up his location to Batman to face him in a final showdown.

They met and fought in a weapon cache below the Martha Wayne Foundation hospital, which Hush had rigged to explode as a backup plan.

Batman defeated Hush, but was then informed that the government had seized control of Wayne Enterprises and its holdings due to its involvement in the catastrophic explosions around Gotham.

[28] Hush resurfaces in Detective Comics #1031, where he takes advantage of the confusion during an anti-vigilante riot to drug and kidnap several members of the Bat Family: Batwoman, Nightwing, Red Hood, Signal, and two Batgirls (Barbara Gordon and Cassandra Cain).

It also comes to light that Hush tried to have Bruce Wayne murdered as a boy, using his father's half-sister Catherine (who worked as a GCPD detective) to cover up the attempts by botching the investigations.

Due to injuries he sustained prior to the chase and his poor reputation with the Gotham City Police Department (GCPD) at the time, Bruce was unable to examine Elliot's body.

[30][31][32] In time, Bruce and Terry would learn the clone's identity and that he had been created by Amanda Waller via the original Grayson's DNA and memory readings taken from his last outing as Nightwing in the hopes of having someone she could control more easily.

Additionally, Waller's associate and the clone's co-creator Doctor Nora Reid reveals she is Elliot's granddaughter who seeks to atone for his sins.

After using the Legion of Super-Villains' time-travel technology to avert his parents' deaths, Batman creates a timeline where he and Elliot remained friends as adults.