The DC universe has plenty of shadowy vigilantes, including about a dozen in Gotham City alone,
but few of them are as enigmatic as the Question.
He's never been a household name, but that doesn’t mean this is a character you shouldn’t
get to know.
From two-fisted newsman to mysterious urban shaman, here are the answers behind the Question.
The Question is Always A
The Question was created by the legendary Steve Ditko, who you may recognize as the
co-creator of Spider-Man and Doctor Strange, among others.
After leaving Marvel in the ‘60s due to a dispute with Stan Lee, Ditko moved to a
smaller publisher called Charlton, where he created the gadget-using 60's version of Blue
Beetle.
Since Charlton needed a backup feature for Blue Beetle, Ditko offered up the Question,
although that wasn’t his original plan.
Instead, it happened because he was concerned that another character he’d created, Mr.
A, would be censored by the Comics Code.
In that respect, he was probably right.
Mr. A was the end result of Ditko's growing fascination with Objectivism.
Conceived by Ayn [rhymes with “wine”] Rand, it's the belief that moral truths exist
as absolutes, meaning that something that's wrong is always wrong, no matter what the
circumstances around it are.
Any compromises, according to Rand, are moral failings that only serve evil.
Mr. A was a pure avatar of this philosophy, right down to his name: “A is always A”
is Objectivism in a nutshell.
Mr. A was ruthless in dispatching those he deemed guilty of moral crimes, rising above
what Ditko called the “self-made neurotics” that he saw in other, morally conflicted superheroes
like, say, Spider-Man.
Either way, Ditko would continue creating new Mr. A stories long after he left mainstream
comics, with the most recent appearing in 2009.
With the Question, Ditko found a way to strike a balance between representing his beliefs
and the needs of Charlton Comics to get the stamp of approval from the Comics Code.
Reporter Vic Sage railed against injustice and corruption, and when criminals would hide
behind their money and connections, he would dole out justice as the Question.
Unlike Mr. A, however, the Question’s actions were never quite ruthless enough to get banned
by the Code.
Vic Sage and Victor Szasz
Along with the other Charlton Comics heroes, the Question was acquired by DC Comics in
1983 and brought into the all-new DC Universe after the reality-alterning Crisis On Infinite
Earths.
In the new continuity, the creative team of Dennis O'Neil and Denys Cowan began a new
Question series that redefined the character for a new generation.
This new Vic Sage wasn't originally Vic Sage at all; he was an orphan in Hub City named
Charles Victor Szasz with no relation to Batman villain Victor Zsasz who changed his name
to Vic Sage in order to pursue television journalism.
While the character retained some of the hallmarks of Ditko's original conception, O’Neil and
Cowan’s version was, ironically, exactly the kind of "self-made neurotic" that Ditko
had originally blasted when he created the Question, used to explore philosophies that
went well beyond objectivism.
O’Neil would even include a suggested reading list in each issue’s letter column, often
diving into subjects like Zen Buddhism and martial arts.
The Rorschach Question
When the Charlton characters were acquired by DC, writer Alan Moore and artist Dave Gibbons
pitched a miniseries that would revolve around them, dealing with themes of violence, superheroism,
and modern political issues.
DC editorial was impressed with the pitch, but worried about where the ending of the
book left the characters for future use.
Moore revised the pitch, creating new characters that were inspired by the Charlton heroes,
leaving the originals to join the DC Universe proper.
That book would go on to become the groundbreaking Watchmen, and Rorschach, one of the main standouts
in the book, was obviously inspired by the Question.
He was both more and less faithful to Ditko's original conception, committed to seeing the
world in absolute terms of black-and-white, good and bad, directly following in Ditko's
Objectivist footsteps.
Here, however, the Question's featureless face is replaced with a Rorschach test inkblot
that's different every time it appears, subtly mocking the hard-edged worldview that Rorschach
operates under.
Years before DC and Watchmen would officially cross over (against Moore's wishes), Rorschach
and the Question actually had a crossover sort of.
In The Question #17, Vic Sage travels to Seattle to follow some assassins, and since it’s
a long flight, he reads a copy of Watchmen to pass the time.
When he falls asleep, the Question remembers a prior moment from earlier issues, with his
body replaced by Rorschach's.
It all comes to a head when copying Rorschach's "punch-first, worry later" strategy ends with
Vic Sage stumbling through the snow trying to escape two goons that captured him.
The Question learns his lesson, especially considering Rorschach’s difficulty escaping
from dangerous situations in the snow.
His conclusion?
“Rorschach sucks.”
The Urban Shaman
A 2005 miniseries reinvented the Question as a quasi-mystical “urban shaman” capable
of communicating with cities and manipulating the flow of chi.
In this new version of the character, the chemicals released in the Question's belt
were also hallucinogens, giving Vic Sage the ability to "walk between two worlds" and a
dreamier outlook than he’d ever had before.
Written by Rick Veitch and drawn by Tommy Lee Edwards, the miniseries showcased Vic
Sage helping the city of Metropolis itself foil Lex Luthor's plot to build a chi-powered
building that would (what else?) kill Superman.
Luthor's plan also involved the Subterraneans, arrogant super-thieves who saw operating undetected
in Metropolis as the biggest thrill a criminal could achieve.
The Subterraneans would only rob banks when Superman was half a planet away, and ran an
entire vice ring out of the bathrooms in Metropolis, since that’s the one place Superman wouldn’t
peek with his X-Ray vision.
With the help of a ghost, because why not, the Question was able to kill the Subterraneans
and trap their souls within the grounds of the chi-powered building, rendering it incapable
of shooting lethal lasers.
No weird deed goes unpunished, though.
Superman kicked the Question out of Metropolis for killing people, and for having a bit of
a creepy crush on Lois Lane.
Renee Montoya
While Vic Sage is the most well-known Question, he's not the only one.
After quitting the Gotham City Police Department, detective Renee Montoya took over the identity,
becoming Vic Sage’s protege.
This iteration of the Question stuck close to O'Neil's conception of the character, with
a mysterious Vic Sage teaching Montoya to follow her curiosity, and even sending her
to the heroes that had trained him to fight.
The reason?
Sage was dying of lung cancer and wanted Montoya to take over when he died.
She did, and in addition to the usual crooks, Montoya tangled with the Religion of Crime,
a fanatical sect of criminals who believed that Cain (of Cain and Abel fame) was a prophet
of sin.
Eventually, Montoya accidentally killed their former leader in a fight to the death, leading
the cult to worship her as "The Faceless One."
As for Vic, he was briefly reanimated during Blackest Night, a crossover that saw dead
superheroes brought back to life as superpowered zombies.
Fortunately for everyone, that was only temporary.
New 52 and Rebirth
When DC Comics rebooted their entire universe in 2011, The Question got a major facelift
as part of the Trinity of Sin, a group of characters cursed with immortality and doomed
to try and endlessly atone for their heinous sins.
Five years later, though, DC again rebooted their entire universe, and in 2018 they announced
the debut of yet another new version of the character.
So will this one stick?
With this character, there are never any answers.
Only… more Questions.