You know how I said last week that it didn’t really matter where you read these three annuals? Well, I lied. Turns out it did come out after these issues. Whoops! This is why editorial boxes are still useful DC, just don’t overdo them.
Spoilers ahead
Cover by Denys Cowan
and Bill SienkiewiczWritten by Denny O’Neil
Penciled by Denys Cowan & Rick Magyar
Inked by Rick Magyar
Colored by Tatjana Wood
Lettered by Willie Schubert“A DREAM OF RORSCHACH!” After failing to foil their prison break, the Question follows Butch and Sundance to Seattle. He’ll have his hands full, as Green Arrow also makes an appearance!
When I was discussing the Annuals last week, I wasn’t a fan of O’Neil’s Green Arrow issue. Part of it was the way he wrote the banter between Ollie & Dinah Lance, who it took me the entire issue to realize it WAS Dinah, which I didn’t really touch on, and the other was the art. Well, do I have a treat for you all. Cowan drawing Green Arrow in a Question story is, undoubtedly, a lot more engaging.
Cowan & Magyar’s art is chunky. Characters are layered with texture, owing in part to the era’s inking practices to create shadow and depth rather than the colorist. Fights and action are kept tight, making sure each blow or action conveys something beyond it being a fight — a turn in the action, taking out an opponent with a gun, a hand being pierced and the shock taking an entire panel to set in. The color is no slouch, though, and Wood continues to show why, despite early hiccups, she was a staple of DC’s house colorists for decades (she colored both Moore, Bisette, Totleben, Vietch, and Alcala’s “Saga of the Swamp Thing” AND Morrison, Truog and Hazlewood’s “Animal Man.”)
What I love most about her coloring is that it’s dark but highly saturated, with bursts of pink and orange. She utilizes the solid, eye-catching colors to draw attention to the violence and contrast it with the mundane. Harsh orange, reds and yellows are reserved for explosions, fire, and when the world is sucked out of a panel, leaving only an act of violence behind, while pinks are often the color of a punch. . .or a cowboy shirt it seems.
It’s not all positive in the issues this week. “The Question” #19 does drop the n-word again, though with far less zeal. Again, it’s used to drive home a point, that the “squeaky clean” candidate is actually a bigot when in private, and so bigoted he has no qualms about listening to his associates dropping multiple different slurs. Thematically and character-wise, it’s consistent and that makes for good storytelling. . .but it’s still uncomfortable to encounter coming from a white writer, even if this was the late 80s. The usage of slurs in fiction as indicators of villainy is something that must be done with great care and is often used as an excuse to utilize powerful, painful words by those who are not affected by them instead. I don’t believe that to be the case here but I’m open to convincing.
There’s also some artistic hiccups in issue #17. Some of the incidental mooks that get beat up are stiff, as if they were the blowup doll from “The Question” #19. On a book with an otherwise high level of attention to detail, it’s a noticeable dip. Perhaps that’s why Cowan took an issue off and let Magyar take pencil duties on that one. It’s a lot grungier of an issue, which is fitting. It’s another one shot that ties into the larger ongoing politics narrative that connects each of the disparate shorter arcs and one-shots. It’s about clowns and run-down circuses, though not in a horror way, unless the horror is the way we treat those that’ve been othered and the ways a puritanical society with respects to women’s sexuality does irreparable harm to all within it.
Something we’ve lost in the era of decompression and writing for the trade is the ability to pull on old threads that were important in earlier issues and give them added context. Actions have consequences but they don’t always line up like you’d think. “The Question” #20 takes the tryst from issue #12 and adds another layer to its
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There’s actually a surprisingly large amount to talk about with these issues that it’s hard to remain focused. From O’Neil drawing a distinct line between The Question and Rorschach, commenting on the failures of his philosophy and those who see him as the hero of the piece rather than another facet of the, intentional, problems with the world Moore & Gibbons created, to O’Neil’s soap box about corporate & political corruption going hand-in-hand and the moral bankruptcy of the specific argument against gun control & regulation of “how can you blame the manufacturers for what people do with these guns” and “cars kill more people,” I could spend entire reviews on each issue and still miss something interesting to discuss.
One larger idea I’ll spotlight is how O’Neil is willing to actually wrestle with the moral greys of reality rather than handwave any responsibility to have a stance by saying things are “realistic because they’re grey.” Myra isn’t initially with Vic on cutting ties with the plastic gun guy because she needs the money but, after considering the point, decides to do the ethical thing and not accept his support. She asked herself what she was willing to compromise for politics and found it wasn’t this. It’s clearly a difficult position, and she’s up against the dog whistles of Dinsmore and the questionable morals of her former campaign advisor, but it’s an important one for her.
Reading “The Question” #17-20, I’m left with one final thought, and it’s not a particularly pleasant one: the more things change, the more they stay the same.
