7 Times Comics Made Terrible Heroes Great

5. The Question Moves From Charlton To DC

Prior to 1987's Question series from Dennis O'Neil and Denys Cowan, the character of Vic Sage (Charles Victor Zsasz) wasn't a particularly likeable one. In fact the character as a whole was pretty flawed, stemming from the mind of the legendary Steve Ditko as the Spider-Man co-creator looked to an avatar to embody the philosophies of Ayn Rand, an 'objectivist' thinker who Ditko admired.

As you can probably imagine, Rand's writings didn't make for a particularly compelling hero, and Ditko's first stab at it resulted in Mr. A. When Mr. A didn't catch on, Ditko returned with the Question, a comic all about a crusading journalist who took to the streets at night with a faceless mask to problematically beat the snot out of criminals the way only a Randian figure could.

Flash forward two decades later, and DC purchased the rights to use the character (as well as a few others) from Charlton Comics. Ditko's hero subsequently inspired the satirical figure of Rorschach in Alan Moore and Dave Gibbons' Watchmen, with DC then keen to incorporate Charlton's characters into the mainstream DC Universe.

This resulted in O'Neil and Cowan's Question book - one of the greatest comics of all time - and it begins with O'Neil killing off the original version of the character to give way to a more zen-like figure. The rest was history, and today, the Question is revered as one of DC's finest ever heroes.