The Question -- All Along the Watchtower #6 // Review
Rene Montoya is drifting about in light. She’s thinking about the end. And it’s fitting because this is the final issue of her mini-series. Pages later, she’s still alive and all she knows is that she owes SOMEBODY a seltzer for saving her life. It’s going to get a lot more dangerous for her in The Question -- All Along the Watchtower #6. Writer Alex Segura concludes a remarkably entertaining superhero series with artist Cian Tormey and colorist Romulo Fajardo Jr. The ending of the series feels as sharp and cleverly-crafted as the rest of the series. With any luck, this particular team will get another chacne to hang out with Montoya again at some point in the future.
The enemy has nearly taken over the entire Justice League Watchtower and everyone in it. Rene is in over her head. Thankfully, the one guy they decide to send after her? He’s another Question. And y’know...he’s the original Question. (The one created by Ditko.) So she knows him. And he knows her. And all it takes is the right hit to jostle him out of the mind control he’s under. Now the villains have TWO Questions to deal with.
Segura has a solid sense of rhythm, timing and intensity in what turns out to be buddy action comedy in many ways. The fact that it just happens to involve the Justice League and the fact that it just happens to feature a really, really cool incarnation of The Question is extra. There’s a very distinct connection between the two Questions and each of them has a distinct personality that forms into a fun dynamic as the series reaches its big conclusion at issue’s end. Segura not only nails the pacing for an issue of a superhero comic...he nails the pacing for a final issue of a mini-series, which can be really, really difficult for any writer to manage.
Ditko’s original design for the look of The Question was a brilliant kind of minimalism. The update on the hero without a face in the form of Rene? THAT looks just a bit cooler. The long hair and the scarf...she’s beautiful. And she’s got a hell of a lot of attitude and expression that she’s able to deliver to the page without a single facial feature. Sean Tormey’s stylishly percussive and moody rendering delivers the action to the page with clean lines that provide a perfect canvas for Fajardo’s colors to work their magic on depth and tone.
The series comes to an end all too soon. Rene has made a tremendous amount of progress over the course of the series. She lands as one of the more interesting mainstream characters to be featured in her own book this year. It’s going to be kind of a disappointment to see her featured in a series of cameos in the near future. Segura and Tormey did such a good job of making a case for her own ongoing series.
