Review by Win Wiacek

Always more cult hero than classic crusader, under Dennis O’Neil the Question carved a unique niche for itself as “comics grew up” post Crisis on Infinite Earths and Watchmen (see recommendations). Here Jeff Lemire returns to O’Neil’s canon to tell a revelatory tale of reincarnation, zen mystery and undying evil.

Hub City is a hell-hole, the most corrupt and morally bankrupt municipality in America. Mayor Wesley Fermin is a slick, degenerate crook, but real power resides in his Special Counsel Holden Malick, political cronies, a hand-picked gang of “heavies” and the largely corrupt and racist police force. As under O’Neil the Question is killed, but revived via mystical means and a year later a re-energised, faceless avenger began cleaning up Hub City.

The Question doubles as crusading TV reporter Vic Sage, who ambushes former lover Myra Fermin (the mayor’s sister and oblivious City Alderman) with the revelation of the crooked Councillor the Question left for the cops has mysteriously been erased from all official reports. Shocked and outraged, Fermin continues deluding herself about her brother and the administration, but the damage has been done and she starts looking where she shouldn’t…

Events move on and Sage uncovers a historical organisation called the Hub City Elder Society that all wore a symbolic ring and draws some telling conclusions to today’s political elite. At the exact moment the Question uncovers an ancient den of occult ceremony, an innocent Black man is gunned down by a racist cop and Myra Fermin bursts in on her beloved brother committing savage atrocities on a bound captive. The concatenation of blood climaxes as the Question finds an old faceless mask with a bullet hole through the forehead in a cavern under the city. It’s not one of his, but he is assaulted by a wave of memories and images of supernal evil when he holds it. It begins a journey into past lives.

Artists Denys Cowan and Bill Sienkiewicz worked on O’Neil’s The Question, and here keep evocative pace with the sudden switches of mood and era.

Combating Western dystopia with Eastern thought and martial arts action is not a new concept, but here the problems of a society so utterly debased that the apocalypse seems like an improvement are also lensed though a core of absolutism. Is man good? Is there such a thing as True Evil? What can one man do?

Who’s asking?

Although Lemire keeps the focus on dysfunction – social, societal, civil, political, emotional, familial and even methodological – the core motivation for today’s readers has shifted. The horror show that is and always has been Hub City now arguably attributed to an eternal supernatural presence. Regulation masked avenger tactics don’t work in such a world, and some solutions require better Questions…