The Best DC Comic You've Never Heard Of

And why it's one you can't afford to miss.

by Ewan Paterson
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DC Comics/Denys Cowan

Considering the fact that DC Comics has been publishing superhero stories for over 80 years, it's actually quite surprising that a considerable chunk of the publisher's library hasn't been lost to the archives. Today, most of the company's classic comic book runs are all easily retrievable in collected editions, whether they be Batman, Superman, or someone much more obscure.

Unfortunately for Dennis O'Neil, Denys Cowan and Rick Magyar's Question, it's a comic that most DC fans are unlikely to have heard of - despite the character's cult status in the lauded Justice League Unlimited cartoon spearheaded by Dwayne McDuffie.

But while this might be the case, O'Neil and Cowan's reappraisal of the classic Steve Ditko creation ranks among the finest DC works of all time, and one more than deserving of the kind of status more commonly associated with the likes of Frank Miller's Daredevil, O'Neil and Neal Adams' Batman, or even their run on Green Arrow too.

O'Neil's influence - and indeed preeminence - goes without saying, but his and Cowan's philosophy-driven, nuanced examination of the superhero genre (and the eighties zeitgeist on top of that) is still overlooked. Here's why, if you can manage to track it down, you won't be left disappointed.

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Content Producer/Presenter

WhatCulture's very own resident movie guy, Ewan has been working in the content creation biz for over 10 years now, having started as a freelance contributor to WhatCulture Gaming all the way back in 2015. After graduating with a First-Class Honours in History from Northumbria University in 2017 (where he won a prize for a totally killer dissertation on the Watergate years), Ewan took on the role of Comics Editor at WhatCulture and quickly developed WhatCulture Comics into one of the biggest superhero-focused channels on YouTube. He followed this with a brief hiatus at Screen Rant in 2021, where he worked across the Gaming and Film sections as a writer and editor, before returning to WhatCulture as a Senior Content Producer / Presenter in 2023. He started his own podcast, We Love Dad Movies, in 2022, and has contributed several written pieces to the Eisner-nominated comics website Shelfdust as well. In his current role, Ewan incorporates his love of cinema, comic books, and history into written pieces and video essays for WhatCulture's Film & TV channel, as well as WhatCulture Gaming and WhatCulture Horror, with a particular focus on nineties-era Dad Movies, old school Westerns, and Golden Age Hollywood Noir. John Carpenter is his fave, and he thinks Batman Beyond should never have been cancelled. If that's your vibe, you'll probably like his stuff.