The Question: The Deaths of Vic Sage #1 // Review
The Question has had a long and storied history, both inside and outside of DC Comics Continuity. Created by famed writer and artist (and Spider-Man co-creator) Steve Ditko for Charlton Comics, The Question, aka Charles Victor Szasz, aka Vic “Charlie” Sage, was initially a vehicle for Ditko’s thoughts about Objectivist philosophy. When Charlton’s heroes were acquired by DC Comics, The Question entered the wider DC Universe and served as the inspiration for Rorschach in Alan Moore and Dave Gibbons’ Watchmen. In 2006, as part of DC’s weekly series 52, Charlie died and passed his mantle on to Renee Montoya. In 2011, when DC rebooted its continuity into the New 52, The Question became a mystical character, part of a trinity with the Phantom Stranger and Pandora, cursed with immortality and to never recollect his own name and history. In recent years, both the original Vic Sage Question and the Renee Montoya version have resurfaced as supporting characters in the Superman family of books. With DC’s new Black Label series The Question: The Deaths of Vic Sage, it seems as though DC plans to synthesize all of these different iterations of the character into something coherent.
Issue one of this new series follows Vic as he attempts to uncover the corruption of the government of his home town of Hub City. It seems like a very traditional, if extra hard-boiled Question story at first, paying homage to both the original Ditko stories and the famous Dennis O’Neil run of the 1980s. The Question espouses typical Objectivist sentiments as he busts a prostitution ring and chases down a mystery. The story tilts on its axis a bit when his investigation leads him to a mysterious cavern beneath Hub City, and his investigation begins to take a more mystical tone.
Writer Jeff Lemire, who hasn’t written The Question before, seems to be right at home. He ably reintroduces all of the Hub City supporting cast and captures the voice of Ditko’s Objectivist hero. Smartly, Lemire also introduces a dilemma into the Question’s world that will prove to be difficult to square those Objectivist philosophies, one where black and white really does blend into gray, much as Vic wishes it wouldn’t.
Smartly, DC has paired Lemire with a classic Question art team of penciler Denys Cowan and inker Bill Sienkiewicz, whose work with Dennis O’Neil helped define the character thirty years ago. The book is expertly drawn by Cowan and Sienkiewicz, gritty and atmospheric, and smartly paced. The coloring by Chris Sotomayor and lettering by Willie Schubert takes that classic look and gives it a 2019 sheen, in a really effective way.
The first issue of The Question: The Deaths of Vic Sage smartly reintroduces the Question and his supporting cast. It will be interesting to see how the mystical turn at the end of the issue informs the rest of the series.
