THE QUESTION by Denny O’Neill and Denys Cowan. I know, I know, technically not a Bat-Comic. But he does appear, so whatever.
Honestly, it’s one of the best comics ever published. O’Neill is a master of comics, and Cowan is a great gritty artist (At least he is here).
The Question is Vic Sage, a reporter in Hub City, who’s taking a stance on corruption and crime.
But O’Neill makes it much more. It’s also about, well like the first collection is called, Zen and Violence.
DC finally began collecting this great 80s series in 2007, although I would still recommend hunting down the singles. Why? Because of the letter pages. O’Neill included a recommended reading list in each issue, about a subject the issue dealt with, and sometimes not. But it was definitely interesting, and I wish DC would reprint the letter pages in the trades. Either way, this series is definitely worth your time, even if Batman only appears a little.
Check!
Oh yes. Well, the story is all over the place. In theory, this would be a good comic to intro someone to Batman. Great art, a Bat-villain a chapter. But Loeb kind of makes the mistake of A) going too deep into Bat-continuity, a mistake you could say Morrison also made in his most recent run. But I digress. B) Loeb simply isn’t the greatest writer anymore. I used to like him on Marvel’s Colour line (Spider-Man: Blue, Daredevil: Yellow, etc. This might be due to Tim Sale though) and his Superman For All Seasons. But lately, and maybe starting with Hush, he hasn’t been on top of his game, sadly.
So, a woman gets murdered and Batsy is going to solve it. But it’s mostly a tale about Batman failing and as such I can see people hating it. Also, it meant 100 Bullets wasn’t coming out for a little while.
I’m not entirely convinced you have to own it, through. I mean, yes, it’s co-written by JH Williams III and Dan Curtis. And yes, the late and amazingly great Seth Fisher illustrated it, but did we need another look at Batman’s early days? Or Mr. Freeze’s origin?