A Questionable Comic Book

Back in the late 80s/early 90s, I was a comic book fan. My favorite comic that I would never miss and move heaven and earth to make sure I could get the next issue was The Question.

Rather than get into a long, boring entry about the history of The Question, you can go here and here.

My using the name TheTrenchcoat is 90% based on The Question. He was the ultimate comic book hero to me. He wore a trench coat and a fedora and wore a mask that made him look like he had no face.

He used no weapons except for his fists and vowed never to kill anyone. (Take note of that, it becomes important later on ). Near the end of his run in the ’80s, The Question did kill someone out of necessity even though he didn’t want to.

Imagine my joy when I found out that a new Question series was being planned. Yesterday, I finally picked it up, and I was a little disappointed in the new direction.

Within the first few pages of the new series, he’s already killed two people. In the 4th issue of the 6 issue series, he pushed two evil henchmen in front of a moving subway. I must have missed something that happened to him between the time I stopped reading comics and now. Maybe one of my readers can help me out with that.

Anyway, since the series is taking place in Metropolis I can’t see the big blue guy taking too kindly to a vigilante that kills. Now I have no problem with comic book heroes that kill, for example, The Punisher. However, that was one of the qualities that endeared me to The Question.

Another more famous comic book character was based on The Question, and that was Rorschach from the legendary Watchmen series. In that series, Rorschach was crazier than a shit house rat and had no problem at all killing evildoers. It seems like to me that the creators of this new series are basing this more on Rorschach rather than The Question. If I wanted a Rorschach series, I’ll read Watchmen again.

All in all, it’s not a bad series so far, it’s just not The Question I remember. It’s things like this that made me get out of comics in the first place.