Conspiracy Makes No Sound
The 12 issue miniseries Hush was published in the regular Batman monthly title in 2003. It was amazing, and really got me hooked on Batman stories. The title character Hush, created for this particular story is one of those retconned characters that don't feel forced and helped to give Batman's infamous backstory a bit more foundation.
Tommy Elliot, first appearing in Batman #609, was created by Jeph Loeb and Jim Lee as one of Bruce Wayne's childhood friends from the same social status. Elliot is a sociopath, murdering both parents for the family fortune, jealous of Bruce Wayne for losing his parents first, and devoting a life to plotting revenge, for some reason. Eventually he returns to Gotham, partners with the Riddler and puts together a scheme involving many Batman villains with the goal of taking down Batman/Bruce Wayne. This makes the 12 issue Hush storyline great, as it incorporates a large portion of the Batman villains gallery, mixes it with a who-dunnit mystery (who is this Hush guy anyway?), and adds to the Batman backstory in ways we hadn't seen in a very long time.
Tommy Elliot is another in a long line of Batman foils, antithesis characters that mirror Bruce Wayne/Batman but are opposite in the ways they are the same. For example, both Wayne and Elliot are children of privilege, growing up in Gotham's rich, elite social circles. Both are very intelligent, gifted individuals. Elliot is a world renown surgeon, like Wayne's father, and Wayne is the world's greatest detective. Both lost their parents, Wayne watching his both die at another's hand, Elliot killing his one at a time. Just like the Black Mask, and the Penguin, and Prometheus, Hush is a mirror to Batman.
Although I did enjoy the Hush storyline, the character is not very interesting, and probably should have been a one-off character for the purpose of the miniseries story. I'm not sure what else he exists for other than revenge against the Batman. Hush is basically a rehash of Knightfall, and Tommy Elliot is a smaller, sneakier Bane whose only purpose is to beat Batman. After this storyline, we got a bunch of other similar villains like Dr. Hurt who craft these ridiculous schemes to break Batman. I've complained about this in other posts too. Even later on, Tommy Elliot tries to become Bruce Wayne, something similar was tried by Hugo Strange in the Prey storyline in 1990.