You know the drill by now: black ring resurrects a dead hero or villain, said hero or villain antagonizes former loved ones, former loved ones figure out a way to defeat resurrected hero or villain. And with this, the 37th issue of the long-cancelled Question series, DC continues to use Blackest Night, the biggest event of the year, as a way to drum up some interest in a lesser-known character. And you know what? Like most of the Blackest Night tie-ins, it works.
After a brief recap of Vic Sage’s life and times, we find his successor, Renee Montoya, holed up in her lighthouse headquarters with Aristotle Rodor, the man who mentored them both. It’s a dark and stormy night (of course) and the two await the eventual return of the previous man to wear the faceless mask. I guess they’re familiar with the drill too. Rodor, apparently not understanding the whole deal with the Black Lanterns, is hoping to discover the secrets of life and death and the afterworld. Montoya spends her time telling him he’s sick until a knock at the door brings Lady Shiva, who figures it’s about time to put the new Question through her initiation rites. Next thing you know, that dead guy comes a-callin’ and it all comes to a head.
First and foremost, we’ve got the old Question team of Dennis O’Neil and Denys Cowan on this book. That alone is reason to buy it. It’s one thing to do an extra issue of an old comic, but to get the original creative team of such an awesome book back together again? Perfection. Who else would have such a great handle on what makes these characters tick? If you’re going to bring Vic Sage back from the dead to talk smack to his old buddies, you gotta get O’Neil to handle the writing chores to ensure it’s done correctly. Then you’ve got Greg Rucka, the current Question scribe, to make sure Renee Montoya isn’t given the bum’s rush. The return of Lady Shiva is the icing on the cake (actually, it’s probably the best part of the book, as she steals the show).
And what makes cake better? When you’ve got ice cream on the plate right next to it. Who doesn’t love it when a little bit of ice cream gets mixed in with the cake with every bite? Well, the ice cream in this birthday celebration is the artwork of Denys Cowan, who is sweet on any occasion, but even more sweet when he gives us a kung fu battle in the rain. Me? I love ice cream, I love cake, I love making food analogies in my comic book reviews and I love Denys Cowan. If you read enough of these, you’d probably assume I’m morbidly obese by now, but I assure you I’m doing okay. Maybe a little on the chubby side as I get older, but my rapidly slowing metabolism really has nothing to do with this review.
Cover art to THE QUESTION #37 by Cully Hamner
Anyhow, this book does exactly what I feel a Blackest Night tie-in should do: it entices old Question fans with the return of the creative team from the old series and gives new fans a kickass story with a bit of a history lesson. Well, hopefully anyway. It also enhances the overall Blackest Night experience by shedding a little light (no pun intended) on how this Black Lantern thing works. The only real negative is that the whole thing just wraps up way too quickly without sufficient detail. It could’ve used maybe four to six more pages and a little more thought to flesh the whole thing out a bit better.
But how often do you get a superhero story asking existentialist questions and featuring kung fu battles and reanimated corpses? I’ll deal with it and give this one a very solid B. Oh, and I should probably mention the Cully Hamner cover too, ‘cause I think Cully Hamner is the cat’s pajamas.
LOGIN
REGISTER
RSS
HOME
