Comic of the Week: The Question - The Deaths of Vic Sage #1
The Question: The Deaths of Vic Sage #1 is out 11/20/2019.
By d. emerson eddy — Hrrm. Influence, homage, legacy, lineage, and parody in comics can be quite an interesting thing. When you've got long-running recurring serial characters, it's inevitable that there will be cycles and returns as creators who were once fans of original stories and characters borrow from them in their own stories. We see it time and again, and we see it here in The Question: The Deaths of Vic Sage #1, from Jeff Lemire, Denys Cowan, Bill Sienkiewicz, Chris Sotomayor, and Willie Schubert, in a very unique way. The Question started out as a Randian exploration from Steve Ditko. The character was then reinvented as Rorschach in Watchmen from Alan Moore, Dave Gibbons, and John Higgins. Arguably, Rorschach exhibited the furthest extremes of the Randian philosophy, using Ditko's character as a springboard to show the pitfalls of black and white ideologies. When DC Comics brought The Question to his own series proper, shortly after the success of Watchmen, Dennis O'Neil, Denys Cowan, Rick Magyar, Gaspar Saladino, and Tatjana Wood took a different approach. Appearance and stylization took visual cues from Watchmen, but this Question was less a Randian malcontent and more a Zen warrior. It was another interesting transformation.
The Question: The Deaths of Vic Sage #1 is very much influenced by that latter The Question series, especially as this has Cowan, Sienkiewicz, and Schubert as part of the creative team. All of whom worked on that series. This first issue is not quite a one for one retelling of the first issue of that series, but it's very close. We get a similar situation with Vic Sage, Myra, Tot, Mayor Fermin, and Richard Dragon, but it's infused more with what you'd consider the Randian outlook from Ditko's version of the character. And then there's the narrative tics that Lemire pens for The Question that “sound” like Rorschach. Curt, succinct sentences. Dropping typical articles. Terse. It leads to a very holistic feel to the character, blending elements of pretty much all incarnations of the character, that serves very well as an introduction to the character. I also think that this representation of the numerous elements is important to overall theme and execution of the story, as it seems like we're going to be seeing an exploration of the Question even beyond what we know as familiar.
Regardless of whether or not you're familiar with The Question, this remains a great story on its own. The artwork from Cowan, Sienkiewicz, and Sotomayor is worth the price of admission. Cowan and Sienkiewicz are legends and they've not missed a beat. The art is visceral, giving a grittiness to the characters and Hub City befitting the moral decay of the tale. There's also a measure of structure and order in the layouts, that both pays homage to comics storytelling conventions of the '80s and can be interpreted as a representation of the attempts of ordering society through Objectivism.
Sotomayor's colors play up the noir aspects of the tale, emphasizing blues and grays, giving the story a rather subdued tone overall. The lettering from Schubert likewise is somewhat understated compared to what we've often seen from him usually.
Overall, this is an intriguing reinvention of The Question from Lemire, Cowan, Sienkiewicz, Sotomayor, and Schubert. It recombines elements from previous incarnations in a new form and looks to be investigating yet more permutations, framed within a compelling mystery. Be seeing you.
The Question: The Deaths of Vic Sage #1
Writer: Jeff Lemire
Pencils: Denys Cowan
Inks: Bill Sienkiewicz
Colorist: Chris Sotomayor
Letterer: Willie Schubert
Publisher: DC Comics – Black Label
Price: $6.99
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d. emerson eddy is a student and writer of things. He fell in love with comics during Moore, Bissette, & Totleben's run on Swamp Thing and it has been a torrid affair ever since. His madness typically manifests itself on Twitter @93418.