The Best DC Comic You've Never Heard Of

3. The Premise

The story behind the creation of the 1987 Question reboot is long and winding, and it involves another seminal text from that decade: Watchmen.

When Alan Moore originally conceived of the Watchmen story, he wanted to use characters from Charlton Comics, who DC had acquired a few years earlier. The likes of Blue Beetle, Captain Atom and of course Question too were all originally meant to feature, but when the publisher decided that those characters should be saved for the main DC Universe instead, Moore was forced to create heroes of his own; Doctor Manhattan replaced Captain Atom, Nite Owl appeared in place of Blue Beetle, and Rorschach became the analogue for Ditko's Question - an angry, faceless vigilante who followed a strict crimefighting mantra.

Watchmen #1 debuted a few months before the new Question series, but the contrast between O'Neil's version of Vic Sage and the analogue seen in Moore and Dave Gibbons' novel was evident. Whereas Watchmen pooled all its inspiration for Rorschach directly from the original Ditko comic, which was heavily inspired by the philosophies of Rand, O'Neil opted to write the hero anew from the ground up. The first issue of the run, titled 'The Bad News', begins by literally killing this version of the character off, before embarking on a journey that would see Vic transform from a steely, arrogant vigilante, into a genuinely intelligent - sometimes imperfect - hero fighting against corruption.

From that point forward, The Question became an outlet from which O'Neil could approach various philosophies and themes, and have a genuine conversation with the reader. There isn't a comic like it, and with Cowan's immaculate pencils to boot, the creative duo birthed a series that gained a following remarkably quickly.