Monday 5 September 2016

The Question in Blue Beetle (1967) # 1-5, Mysterious Suspense (1968) # 1


(I originally read these comics in March 2015)

Charlton Comics' laissez-faire attitude to editorial oversight provided quite the draw to Steve Ditko upon his departure from Marvel Comics in 1966, even despite the company's notoriously low page rates. Working for Charlton meant Ditko being able to produce his kind of comics his way. He quickly resumed working on Captain Atom and revived Charlton's failed hero the Blue Beetle in the new secret identity of Ted Kord. However, Ditko's most personal and memorable character of the period debuted as a back-up strip only, in Blue Beetle # 1.




There's no origin story given. Ditko plops us straight into the action and all we need to know is imparted via the stories. Vic Sage is a crusading investigative journalist for the World Wide Broadcasting network. Strident and uncompromising, he won't think twice about putting noses out of joint while pursuing the truth. For those times when the famous face of Vic Sage would prove a hindrance, he adopts the identity of the Question, a featureless, blue-suited crusader of justice.

Make no mistake, Sage is less a fully-rounded character and more a conduit for advancing Ditko's ideas, these ideas being inspired by Ayn Rand's Objectivism, a fully integrated system of philosophy incorporating metaphysics, epistemology, ethics, politics and aesthetics. (Rand's magnum opus 'Atlas Shrugged' had been published in 1957 and was still making waves.) Sage isn't Peter Parker; he doesn't fight crime out of guilt or a mistaken sense of responsibility. He isn't a victim. Presumably, Sage's motivation for crime-busting is a rationally selfish one, in line with Rand's ethics; the desire to see justice done and to live in a world (or at least, a city) free of evil. Working upon the Aristotelian axiom of 'A is A,' the Question has no trouble identifying criminals as exactly what they are and judging them accordingly. A bleeding heart, he ain't. This is most evident when he knocks a pair of gunsels into a sewer and is satisfied to watch them be washed away. Maybe they'll live, maybe they won't. What does it matter to the Question? He certainly won't be risking his own neck to save scumbags whom he's judged as "just so much sewage."

Not all Ditko's villains carry guns. Those willing to compromise, to look the other way, to not rock the boat and to refrain from judging are complicit. There's a fine example of a Randian villain in the Banshee, a hanger-on who appropriates the creation of his better as a shortcut to unearned riches. Sage isn't without allies, though; Sam Starr, his boss, stands by him and functions as a kind of anti-J.Jonah Jameson. 

I find the Question works better in shorter tales. In the 'Mysterious Suspense' one-shot, Ditko's didacticism and wordiness make for a bit of a slog. 


 


The character made a subsequent appearance in Charlton Bullseye # 5, with art by Alex Toth, before being acquired by DC Comics in 1983. In their Post-Crisis universe, he was revived (and dare I say, perverted) by Denny O'Neil and has since been made into a shadow of his former self by "creators" with no sympathy for Ditko's worldview. That's not the Question I want to read. The original is the only one for me. 



(As a point of interest, the Question shares a look with the masked killer of Mario Bava's 1964 giallo horror film, 'Blood and Black Lace.' Given Ditko is a Bava fan - as confirmed here - the influence would seem undeniable.)


Blue Beetle (1967) # 1-5, Mysterious Suspense (1968) # 1 and Charlton Bullseye (1975) # 5 are collected in:

Hardcover:

Mysterious Suspense (1968) # 1 is collected in:

Softcover:



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