Dennis O'Neil and Denys Cowan Restate The Question

Question #1 is a nearly perfect first issue to revamp a character who was barely known or remembered in 1986, despite being created by one of the greats, Steve Ditko.  The Question appeared a year or so earlier in Crisis on Infinite Earths after DC swooped up the Charlton charters (including Blue Beetle, Judo Master, and Peacemaker.) Worlds lived, worlds died, and it was time for older characters to have a new life.  

Following that event, DC was all about revamping and reintroducing their characters.  Superman and Wonder Woman were rebooted with new series and Batman’s origin was reworked.  John Byrne, George Perez, and Frank Miller were the wunderkinds of the time, reshaping these golden-age characters to appeal to a mid-1980s reading audience.  It was the “Marvelization” of those characters as DC saw the popularity of Marvel’s, particularly Chris Claremont’s X-Men, and wanted some of that razzle-dazzle for their characters and myths.  It extended to team books as well as the Justice League and Suicide Squad were reworked.  Somehow in all of that, DC decided to brush off Ditko’s old character The Question, and update him as well.

Denys Cowan is a fascinating artist to charge with this task— he doesn’t look anything like Ditko.  Where Ditko is all about the flow, Cowan is about brutality and that’s what’s showcased in this introductory issue.  And that’s exactly what Dennis O’Neil’s story needed.  The Question #1, “The Bad News,” is a ragged book, opening up on a rainy night as a man, whose face is hidden in shadow, waits outside a shack, waiting for the moment to strike.  “Hub City, Friday, November 21, 10:45PM:  Charles Victor Szasz has exactly 25 hours and 15 minutes to live,” O’Neil writes as the introduction to this series and this issue.  Cowan’s framing of The Question on this first page, shows us a man ready for violence.  “… He will burst through the door to do violence.  Or have violence done to him,” O’Neil writes and Cowan delivers a page of so much potential energy, a powerful entry into this comic book. With that, the countdown to The Question's death begins.

This issue takes place over the span of those 25 hours.  O’Neil and Cowan show us almost everything we need to know about the man Charles Victor Szasz, aka Vic Sage and more secretly aka The Question.  He sees his pride on full display as well as his self-righteousness.  And we see those get in his way causing him to stumble as he tries to expose and tear down the greed and corruption controlling Hub City.  In this issue, we witness the last day of his life as his righteous anger meets the more calm killer Lady Shiva who could maybe teach him a thing or two.  

Through Cowan’s pencils and Rick Magyar’s inks, we get a tour of a city that just doesn’t care enough about the people it should be protecting and encouraging.  Hub city and most of those in it, maybe even including Sage himself, lack any empathy for the general population of the city.  It’s a city where the ugly and ruthless rule over the weak and are powerless; it’s a city of corruption.  Even when Sage steps in to stand up for one of the city’s homeless, a former reporter, any empathy that Sage displays is expressed through violence and force.  These are the lessons that the city has taught its citizens and its protector.   

Sage isn’t the type to let process or decorum get in the way of his crusade. When he’s not a vigilante, he’s a reporter for the local television station, working to uncover the corruption that controls his city. Without clearing his story with the producer or the station’s lawyers, he goes on live television to deliver the news that the city’s officials are bought and paid for.  “He comes on strong! But he delivers the goods!” the stations bosses praise him for even as he shows local school officials “with the nose candy.”  And then, after the broadcast, he goes home and sleeps with the news anchor, Myra Connelly.  It’s not the way anything should work but it’s what Sage makes work for him.  

This is the “hero” that O’Neil and Cowan are introducing to us even as they count down to his death.  

“Charles Victor Szasz has 24 hours and 59 minutes to live.

“Charles Victor Szasz has 16 hours and 14 minutes to live.

“Charles Victor Szasz has 14 hours and 33 minutes…

“Exactly 12 hours…

“Exactly 7 hours and 14 minutes…

“4 hours and 46 minutes…

“1 hour and 15 minutes…”

Up to this point, we’ve seen a man in control of his world and everything around him.  He moves with the confidence of a man who can’t be touched.  The Question is equal parts Dirty Harry and Death Wish as O’Neil and Cowan guide us in these 25 hours of a man’s life.  And then they have him face Lady Shiva, this superior fighter who has been hanging around in the background of the story and who’s everything that Sage isn’t; she’s calm, she’s professional, and she’s ruthless.  That last hour is her beating him practically to death, where he’s thrown into the river and sinks to the bottom of it.  “Down, down, into the freezing depths… A minute passes, two— ten… as the husk of what had been Charles Victor Szasz settles into the sand and is cold and silent and still…”

The way that O’Neil and Cowan show us this portrait of who The Question is and so effortlessly tear it down in the final pages is as ruthless as Lady Shiva is. They walk us through a day in the life of this vigilante to the point where we think we know him and then rip it all away at the bottom of that river.  It’s one of the more inventive ways to revamp a character like this and it was something that DC could never have done with Batman or Superman.  O’Neil, a storytelling veteran, takes a big swing with this issue and delivers one of the best reintroductions during this era at DC.  Because here was a character we didn’t know; O’Neil and Cowan had to give us an idea of who he was so they could reinvent him.  Everything that comes after this couldn’t have worked without having the baseline character traits that are introduced in The Question #1.