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Underground > Comic Books >

DC - The Question?

  
  

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lukabeast
19:41 / 13.03.04
Has the Dennis O'Neal and Denys Cowan series ever been collected into TPB format? I could not find such a beast anywhere, but thought I would ask the..uh..question.
 
 
■
22:33 / 13.03.04
No. Issue 1 was a beautful work of art, but the rest of the series was largely a smelly pile of earnest and misguided poo. They should never have tried to resurrect Rorschach.
 
 
Haus of Mystery
15:59 / 15.03.04
i thought it was flawed, but always interesting myself. a bit cod-philisophical and heavy handed, but definitely worth reading. Look in comic back issue bins. It should be dirt-cheap.
 
 
lukabeast
22:25 / 15.03.04
Yeah, not perfect, but I do remember enjoying the art, and at least a few of the issues. Probably comes off as not quite as sophisticated as some other comics from the many years since the series was cancelled I suppose.
 
 
Mister Six, whom all the girls
00:25 / 16.03.04
You guys have to familiarize yerselves with the source, Ditko's Question (not easy to come by, but such a unique comic). In comparison, Denny is light handed as all get out. It's a tough character to work with and I'm very interested with how Veitch will handle it with the relaunch.

I think the series was amazing until the Mayor was killed or something (it's been like 10-12 years since I read them), then got very very boring. But what other comic has the hero confront an assailant with 'We don't have to do this'?

The Question took the whole idea of the vigilante to a high level, looking at the place of the individual in a society of crooks. The problem is that in the end, it's just a mess and I think that's how the series eventually ended up. Streets full of mayhem, the hero naked and delirious, eventually just leaving Hub City to find himself in the Amazon.

One thing I won't defend is the datedness of the comic. Big old mullets (party in the back-business in the front) and Patrick Swayze kung fu. Ah, the 80's.
 
 
Haus of Mystery
11:18 / 16.03.04
Wasn't Ditko's Question kinda right-wing. O'neill, being a bit of a hippy, seemed to position Vic Sage as more of a liberal, albeit a kung-fu, Sun Tzu quoting liberal. I was rather small when I read this stuff so I didn't pick up on all the politics, but it definitely seemed to be a response to Ditko's work (which I haven't read, so forgive me if I'm off base. The fact that Rorscach is based on him does support this idea though).
 
 
The Falcon
11:44 / 16.03.04
There's supposed to bem a new mini or that of this, done by a Wildstorm team (Micah Wright?) out soon.
 
 
■
11:46 / 16.03.04
[Sign] You know you'be just wasted another weekend for me, don't you? I'm going to have to reread it now.
 
 
Simplist
16:15 / 16.03.04
Wasn't Ditko's Question kinda right-wing.

More like right-libertarian, specifically Objectivist. Ditko was apparently somewhat of an Ayn Rand devotee.
 
 
Haus of Mystery
16:46 / 16.03.04
Disn't he do a character called Mr A, who was an even further right take on the vigilante?
 
 
quinine92001
17:40 / 16.03.04
Ditko was a follower of Ayn Rand's ideas. His Question was heartless at times. I think there was a moment where he just let the bad guys drown while he watched. He parted company with Stan Lee over the fact that he didn't want the Green Goblin to be Norman Osborn. I guess he wanted all criminals to be "faceless".
 
 
Jack Fear
18:12 / 16.03.04
cube:

They should never have tried to resurrect Rorschach.

What are you talking about here? The issue where Vic reads WATCHMEN itself, and the brief dream sequence?

That's hardly an attempt to "resurrect" Rorschach. It's a metafiction thing, given that Rorschach was based on the original Ditko Question--and also a statement of purpose, as Vic is briefly drawn to Rorschach's worldview and methods, but then explicitly rejects them.

A reasonably clever idea, if not ideally executed.
 
 
■
20:20 / 16.03.04
As I say, I have to dig it out. I realise that the Question came first, but my memory is shaky as to whether the series came after Watchmen. I guess not. The Blue Beetle DC run came well before Night Owl after all. Who were the other analogues again? Was Booster Gold Ozymandias?
 
 
Haus of Mystery
20:39 / 16.03.04
Dr Manhattan - Captain Atom
Silk Spectre - Phantom Lady
Ozymandias - I dunno. Maybe Thunderbolt. Or maybe Moore stopped adhering to analogues as the idea gained momentum...
 
 
Jack Fear
21:30 / 16.03.04
Ozymandias was indeed an analog for Peter Cannon, Thunderbolt. (Booster Gold was an original DC character.)

Nite Owl = Blue Beetle, who had appeared in two versions--like Hollis Mason and Dan Dreiberg. The Comedian = The Peacemaker.

The "Dream of Rorschach" issue of THE QUESTION appeared a couple of years into the book's run, not long after WATCHMEN had been collected into TPB and started getting mainstream press--but, IIRC, the QUESTION book premiered while WATCHMEN was still being serialized.

As the story goes, Moore was offered the chance to do something with the Charlton characters, the rights to which DC had just purchased. He turned in a proto-WATCHMEN treatment, and DC brass said, "This is fantastic--but we can't possibly use the Charlton characters, because it leaves us nowhere to go with them, and destroys the franchise."

So Moore rewrote the story and came up with WATCHMEN, and the Charlton characters were handed off to various other DC writers. The Peacemaker had his own book right around the same time as The Question, but it folded fairly quickly; Beetle was written into the JLA. And all the books ended up coming out within a relatively short period, so comics fandom was becoming reacquainted with the "proper" Charlton characters even as Moore's crypto-Charlton characters were blowing minds the world over.
 
 
■
05:57 / 17.03.04
Just found them. Yep, look like Watchmen 6 came out at the same time as Question 1 so I completely take back the glib Rhorschach comment. The editorial mentions a Charlton character called Judomaster. Any guesses?
The Question is as gorgeous as I remember it. There is still something about those early Prestige DC comics that looks great.
 
 
DaveBCooper
16:16 / 17.03.04
Lukabeast, to answer your question, there was a collection touted (maybe even solicited) called something like 'Thunder over the Volcano', and collecting the first 5-6 issues. But I have the feeling that it was never actually released.

I really used to enjoy this series, though I think it went a little off the rails towards the end - the city in a constant state of riot, and the Quarterly issues, didn't quite float it for me. And I didn't find Malcolm Jones' inks quite as smooth over Denys Cowan's pencils as Rick Magyar's had been - slightly more scratchy, if you know what I mean, but then again I think Denys' linework was kind of loosening up as time went on anyway.

I rather liked the cross-over Annuals with Green Arrow and Detective Comics ('Fables') that they did one year - worked pretty well as standalone stories or part of a larger whole, which was the avowed intention.

This series was my first real exposure to Dennis O'Neil's writing, and I liked it a lot - I think his pacing's a bit strange in stuff like Azrael, though, particularly with lines of dialogue being broken --
-- across two panels when it doesn't always quite seem necessary.

Thought Rucka did a nice job with the Question in the Batman/Huntress: Cry for Blood series, which also featured Richard Dragon... who I gather is coming back in a series soon where he appears to be a young man. Has he been skinnydipping in the Lazarus Pit or similar, or have I missed something ?
 
 
Horatio Hellpop
00:46 / 18.03.04
1. maybe ozymandias is really judomaster
2. i actually think the art really picked up once rick magyar left. it may be that cowan was expressing some sergio toppi influence but it looks better with dick giordano's fill-in on 21 and then much better with malcolm jones (iii) from 22 up. actually 22 is great and 23 and then it sort of goes back to being just good but i still much prefer it to magyar's tenure.
 
 
lukabeast
02:00 / 18.03.04
Dang, dang, dang. Ya know I used to have the full run many years ago (regular series), I flogged it of course at some point. Now all this conversation is sucking me back...sucking me backkkkkkkkk.....

One of the issues that really sticks out in my mind is the issue with Edward Nigma - the Riddler, man did he get made out to be an eight time loser. The charecterization of "failure" was just perfect.
 
 
The Falcon
23:17 / 21.03.04
Rick Veitch and, I think, Tommy Lee 'one issue of The Invisibles' Edwards.

One page.

Another.
 
 
■
06:33 / 22.03.04
Spent the weekend re-reading, and I have to say I go with my original judgement that it started well, but degenerated quickly. It seemed a bit too contrived for something which was supposed to be gritty realism. Too many people coming back from the brink of death hours after being written off. The philosophy also jarred quite badly. Unlike the way Moore or Morrison write the philosophy into the structure, there just seem to be a few Sun Tzu quotes thrown in clumsily between fights. Oh, what a lot of fightes there are, too. For the time, I think I can say it was groundbreaking, but it has dated very badly.
 
 
lukabeast
14:05 / 22.03.04
Well whether or not I made a mistake, I went out and bought the first dozen issues or so (have not read yet, worked all weekend). Not sure what it is, just interested in the charector. I see the 6 issue mini-series should be out in September, sounds like it could be interesting, but ack, they are sending him from Chicago (original home base of the Ditko version)to Metropolis. Link.
Hmmm...can't picture him in the SuperMan world, but will have to wait and see.
 
 
Janean Patience
15:06 / 24.05.07
THE QUESTION VOL. 1 TP
Writer: Dennis O'Neil
Artists: Denys Cowan & Rick Magyar
Collects: THE QUESTION #1-6
$19.99 U.S., 176 pages

Coming out in October. I loved this series. I don't remember the first six issues being that great, though... a trade of the first 12 issues would have more accurately represented good ol' Zen asskicker Vic Sage.
 
 
Phex: Dorset Doom
17:40 / 24.05.07
From the looks of this week's DC Nation the Question- the Renee Montoya Question- will star in a Greg Rucka written series called 'The Crime Bible', about Intergang's founding document, last seen in the pages of 52. On the plus side it's the first real outing for the new Question written by a writer familiar with the character from his stint on Gotham Central, on the minus side the Intergang stuff wasn't nearly as interesting as it should have been.
 
 
Benny the Ball
19:58 / 24.05.07
I rather liked the cross-over Annuals with Green Arrow and Detective Comics ('Fables') that they did one year - worked pretty well as standalone stories or part of a larger whole, which was the avowed intention.

These were great - fantastic covers too.

Was the Question (Denny O'Neil) quarterly, or was that a later book, or did it become quarterly? I thought Denny wrote him as a jokey right wing character, playing up to the older version, or am I remembering that completely wrong? Didn't like the recent mini too much, bit messy and didn't do much with the character.
 
 
Benny the Ball
20:06 / 24.05.07
I hope the collected books include the reading assignments and letters pages.
 
 
Janean Patience
20:33 / 24.05.07
Was the Question (Denny O'Neil) quarterly, or was that a later book, or did it become quarterly? I thought Denny wrote him as a jokey right wing character, playing up to the older version, or am I remembering that completely wrong?

It was a monthly for 36 issues covering the arc of Vic Sage, who began as an arrogant right-wing dilettante vigilante, died at the end of the first issue except not, and then tried to save Hub City, his relationships and himself from damnation. He didn't really succeed. Hub City itself, based on crime and poverty-ravaged St Louis IIRC, was as much a central character as he was. The Question Quarterly followed, the first issue in Brazil which was meant to be the new status quo for Vic, the second heading back to the Hub. The fourth issue was the only rubbish one done by different creators and the fifth was Rashomon in Hub City told from the perspectives of all the regular cast and a fine ending for the comic.

Perhaps a lot of my affection for this is based on it being groundbreaking-for-the-time but I'd still recommend it. O'Neill managed to mesh characterisation and conflict stylishly, the supporting characters were three-dimensional and interesting, the plot took unexpected turns and Cowan's art, while dependent on a good inker, demonstrated how helpful it can be to have a martial artist drawing fight sequences.
 
 
DaveBCooper
09:30 / 25.05.07
I'm not so interested in Montoya as the new Question, I have to say - thought she was a more interesting character at the Gotham Central/Detective Comics street level, and putting her in a mask just doesn't quite sit for me. I might give it a go, mind.

Oh, and the Ditko stories which people have referred to were reprinted (in part), in DC's 'Millennium Edition' of Mysterious Suspense 1, which you might be able to find cluttering the not-too-'spensive bins in comic shops.

I'm right in thinking that Vic Sage dies off-panel in 52, aren't I ? I remember the question-mark shape in the snow, but not an actual death scene… which might say more about me than 52, but there you go
 
 
Hallo, Paper Spaceboy
19:03 / 25.05.07
I'm not so interested in Montoya as the new Question, I have to say - thought she was a more interesting character at the Gotham Central/Detective Comics street level, and putting her in a mask just doesn't quite sit for me. I might give it a go, mind.

I'll have it a go, with the hopes that they leave in at least a little bit of the faux-Marlowe noir-captions that reveal Renee's HARDNOSED internal monologue. The thing with Renee is that she will remain a street level character even with the mask -- the Question's never been much of a rooftop runner like the Batclan and I think Rucka will probably respect that. I can't really see him taking her in the "street shaman" direction of the Veitch/Edwards series. I just hope the art's good -- that last shot of her in 52 with the mondo Nineties "secret shoulderpads" shoulders was distressing. That and I want to see a good female-protagonist driven series to set along side Manhunter.
 
 
Grady Hendrix
19:36 / 25.05.07
The Dennis/Deny Question was great, but I thought it took about 9 issues to really hit its stride. I'm hoping DC is committing to bringing out the entire series in TP because just the first 6 issues aren't going to be that interesting.

The Question was enough of a superhero to scratch my itch for the costumes but enough of a flatfoot to let the series be a real crime comic with the central question for its characters being: why can't I do more? Why can't Vic Sage be more than just a masked thug who beats up criminals? Why can't the Question be more than just a guy who picks fights? Why can't the citizens of Hub City do more to save their town?

That was the question that drove the series: why can't we do more? And it really worked. Starting with the El Beato story in issue 9 the Question took off, choosing a third path to the beat or be beaten superheroic view of the universe. It was the closest modern comics have come to Will Eisner's THE SPIRIT with supporting characters and one-off troubled people getting far more screen space than the ostensible title character.

Some standout parts of the series:

Issues 9 - 11 The El Beato/Santa Prisca story where a drug lord wants to use his self-financed particle accelerator to literally cleanse his soul of his sins.

The Musto family who start the series as thugs for hire and wind up getting an entire storyline dedicated to the infighting and sickness in their own family-run business that ends with a chilling self-mutilation. 15 issues later the Mustos are still making appearances as deranged supporting characters.

A Dream of Rorschach - Vic Sage reads "The Watchmen" and wonders what it would be like to be Alan Moore's Question-inspired vigilante. Holy Meta-text!

The Question/Batman/Green Arrow Annual Crossover storyline - rarely have the Batman and Green Arrow been presented so well as in this three-handed zen murder mystery.

That Election Day tornado and the cowardly weatherman.

Lady Shiva - never better than in this series. Ditto, Batman.

"Boom. The End" - a riff on the issue of Spider-Man where he's trapped beneath the machinery and must struggle to find the strength to fight on, only this time the struggle is against an unhappy childhood, Lady Shiva is involved and instead of getting some machinery off his back Vic Sage gets his ashes hauled at the climax.

The final three issues - a traumatized Vic Sage, Hub City falling completely apart and Myra Fermin, the female mayor of Hub City turns out to have been the book's most heroic character after all.

And from Cathy, the deranged killer, to the old man killed by a falling Vic Sage, the dozens of great minor grotesques and freaks who populated Hub City.

I'll be an old man before it ever happens but really: an Absolute edition, please.
 
 
Jack Denfeld
01:05 / 26.05.07
It kinda sucks that Sage Question died. Between his time in 52 and his appearences on the JLU cartoons, I woulda been totally amped to pick up a new series about him. Montoya seems ok, but I've only really seen her in that 52 series, and I'm really not sure about her motivation. I'll give her new series a try though.
 
 
FinderWolf
04:07 / 26.05.07
Thanks for that summary, Grady - that does indeed sound awesome and makes me hope as well that they collect the whole run and not just the first 6 issues.
 
 
This Sunday
04:52 / 26.05.07
Between not knowing if Vic did really and fully die in 52 and the Countdown death o' Jimmy, I just kept thinking of The Dark Knight Strikes Again and people insisting online and in comics shops around the globe that The Question was the older Jimmy Olsen, for all sorts of silly reasons.

I think of Rorschach or O'Neill's Question as both good ruminations, good spins on the character's potential, politically, socially, and realistically, but that's the only connection. Moore did that intentionally, since he wasn't really writing the Charlton heroes, and presumably O'Neil knew what he was doing, as well. But I like to see characters handled by their original, generating conceit. The only use of the real character since the Ditko days seems to've been the past handful of years.
 
 
Grady Hendrix
12:15 / 02.10.07
I'm probably the only person on this board who loves the O'Neil/Cowan QUESTION at all, so I'm probably the only person who cares about this interview, and consequently I'll have to log on with a different username later and pretend to be interested in this post. But I can handle it.

Greg Rucka does an interview about THE QUESTION, focusing almost entirely on the O'Neil/Cowan run and speaking very little about his own Renee Montoya version of hero. Really great stuff for anyone who liked the original series and it points up how much the story was about Myra, the punching bag of the mayor who became the actual mayor of Hub City, as it was about Vic Sage. Also, it's got an interesting bit about Sage's possible parentage.

No one cares about this series but I thought it was absolutely terrific and I hope that when they put me in my coffin they'll just have enough time to get a pre-ordered Absolute Edition from Amazon into my cold, cold hands before I go in the ground. If I'm buried at sea they can just tie it to my head and use it to weigh me down right to the bottom of the Mariana Trench.
 
 
DaveBCooper
13:20 / 02.10.07
Interesting interview, I think - thanks for the link. Rucka's stuff isn't always to my tastes, but I frequently like it a lot, and it seems from the interview that he gives a lot of thought to his work.

Apologies if I've already asked this here, but has anyone read 'Helltown', O'Neil's recent-ish semi-retelling of the Question in novel form? It's kind of interesting, though mainly because of what's missing from it (Myra's little more than a walkon, if memory serves). An interesting curio if you love the old series, but in no way essential.
 
  

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