After a little bit of a hiatus (you must remember that I am an active college student with two jobs!), I’m back with some old comic fun. What are we gonna be covering this week? A “hero” that DC’s putting at the top of the heap in this whole “One Year Later” debacle.

The Question #1 – “The Bad News”
Original Release Date: February 1987
Writer: Dennis O’Neal
Artist: Denys Cowan
Inker: Rick Magyar
Editor: Mike Gold

It doesn’t take very long for the faceless man that’s been waiting outside in the rain to get inside the old dusty house. It takes even less time for him to take down the bad guys inside. Also, there’s a woman there. She does nothing but watch as the faceless vigilante has his way with the goons.

Why’s he so intent on taking these guys out? They’ve got something he wants. A tape.

Eventually, one of the guys gives it up, asking for one thing in return: his identity. The man without a face hands the man a card with a question mark on it. There’s his answer…

A few minutes later and some distance away, the Question gets in his jalopy and removes his mask. Under it, he’s Vic Sage, star, and controversial, reporter of Hub City’s evening television news. Speaking of, Vic floors the little car’s engine and makes it to the station just in time to hand over this VHS tape to a producer and take the stage.

Once in front of the camera, Vic relays a powerful message of corruption in the city. To accent his speech, he asks his producer to roll the tape. On it is none other than the local commissioner of schools, Mitchell Doohan.

On another side of town, Mayor Fermin sits with Reverend Jeremiah Hatch watching the newscast. This is all very bad news for them, because the corruption points right to the top, to the mayor himself.

They deduce who gave Vic the tape and send a couple of their hoods to take him out. The good reverend also enlists the aid of the mysterious woman who was present at the time of the Question’s rampage: Lady Shiva, the world’s most dangerous assassin.

The next day, Vic is shot at outside of the TV station. The bullet misses him and hits a cop. Chasing down the shooter, Vic finds that it’s the same man he got the tape from the night before. The guy explains: if he can off Vic, he can set things straight with his boss who had sent those thugs to deal with him earlier. Vic punishes him the only way he knows how: with his fists.

After handing the unconscious shooter off to the police, Sage heads back to the TV station. He is met on the steps by none other than the good Reverend himself, Jeremiah Hatch. The two exchange words, none of them truly pleasant and part ways once inside the building.

On another side of town, inside a shady little pub, a deal is going down; one of information. It takes place between one of Vic’s regular informants, Moe, a greasy little drunkard, and a guy that’s working for the Reverend and the Mayor (mostly just the Rev though, ‘cause he’s the one that’s really pullin’ all the strings). The Rev’s goon tells Moe of something big going on down at the pier later that evening and that he should probably tell his good friend Vic Sage about it… after all, what’s going down is gonna big news and Vic would probably wanna know about it.

Moe places a call to Vic, who smells the setup from a mile away. His girlfriend Myra suggests that he doesn’t take the bait, but Vic’s too interested in getting a piece of Mayor Fermin or anyone else that might be close to him.

Later that evening, The Question arrives at the pier and is immediately greeted by Lady Shiva. He tells the woman to do just as she did last time: stay out of it… he’s got no interest in hurting her. Unfortunately for The Question, he works more with his fists than his mind. Also, his ignorance of her identity really helps him put his foot in his mouth.

She politely shows him the error of his ways…

After putting a pretty hefty beating on The Question, Lady Shiva backs away. She asks if she should kill him and the Reverend, who has been watching the entire thing, suggests that the thugs he humiliated the other evening get the chance. Eager to get a piece of him, the thugs set into it with pipes and fists.

The beating goes on for what seems like an eternity before the Reverend interrupts it; it’s time to end it completely. One of the thugs puts a slug through The Questions head… and the others dump his lifeless body in the river.


Ouch, pretty heavy ending, huh? The good guy doesn’t even survive the first issue of his own book! Unique!

In summarizing this issue I purposely left out details that come into play in the following issues. After all, I’m not here to spoil things for you, just get you interested enough in a book to go out and grab it for yourselves.

Now, with that being said, you absolutely have to pick up the next few issues of this book, at least until the ending of the first arc, because it only gets better.

This comic came around in the 80’s at DC, which means it fell into the heyday of subdued comic violence. What do I mean by “subdued comic violence?” I mean that this book is crazy violent, but in a way that’s not too graphic. It is regular DC continuity after all.

As The Question, Vic (or, his real name, Charles Szasz) puts a beating on a number of people, hell, as Vic he puts a beating on a number of people. The bad guys do too.

The writing is absolutely top-notch, but then again, it’s Dennis O’Neal. What? You’ve never heard of him?? Okay, you’re new to comics then, right? Okay, let’s just say that O’Neal has worked on just about every major comic that DC has produced (and the majority of Marvel’s too)

The writing here is so damn good that my summary does it zero justice. You’re going to read my summary up there and think this book sucks, but you’d be wrong! My writing sucks! See, that’s where I get ya! I didn’t even try for a good summary. I could have put “comics is good” up there and been done with it. I knew going into this that there was no way I could convey just how good a book this is without either a.) spoiling it or b.)… well there’s a “b.” somewhere.

The art is appropriately dark. It’s gritty and ugly; not the least bit visually appealing, but that’s how it should be; it matches the story. I’m not saying that Denys Cowan is a bad artist, far from it. I’m saying he does a fantastic job here.

Anyway, this comes with the highest Down, But Not Out “Seal of Approval.” That’s like someone getting one of those little star or smiley face stickers on a test in elementary school; it means nothing, but it’s cool!

I got all of this series not too long ago for cheap (maybe not the easiest series to find right off, but be diligent!) and have gotta say: Dennis O’Neal has made The Question one of my favorite comic book characters of all time. This book is just that good.

Enough gushing, just buy the damn book! You’ll see! I’m not crazy (okay maybe!)!