The Question Vol. 6: Peacemaker

Written by Dennis O'Neil
Art by Denys Cowan, Malcolm Jones III, and Carlos Garzon

It's funny how memory can sometimes play such tricks on a person.  I have fond memories of picking up some random issues of Dennis O'Neil's run on The Question from the late 80s, although I never had anything like a complete set of the run. I got interested in the character after the series had closed, although I remember a quarterly title, with the same creative team.  When I saw this volume, which holds the last six issues of the run, on sale for only $2, I thought it would be cool to see how the comic held up.

It hasn't held up at all.  Fine, the clothing and hair styles are really dated.  There are a bunch of mullets, pleated skirts, and shoulder pads stinking up Denys Cowan's otherwise fine artwork, but that's not the problem.  The problem, surprisingly, is that O'Neil's writing is ham-fisted, clichéd, and embarrassing.  Reading this, I wonder how any fans could have been upset that Renee Montoya took over the mantle of this character.

The concept is sound - that The Question patrols Hub City, the most perfect example of urban decay and blight this side of Warren Ellis's Snowtown, and ten times worse than Detroit (not an urban farm to be found).  The problem is that Hub City is ridiculous.  If you park your car for five minutes on a main street, a gang of thugs will just randomly attack it.  People walk around with dead babies hoping to con you into lending them a dollar for milk.  Corrupt judges hire gigantic black men named Cathy to kill the mayor, and then lend them their car to drive to City Hall in.  I don't even think those are the worse examples.

And then there's the mayor.  I remembered Myra Fermin as a tough, dedicated, hands-on mayor, but the number of times that she gets kidnapped or chased after by killers is insane.  I really don't know what was going on with this book, or why DC has just recently reprinted the whole series.  It's probably best left forgotten...