Ok fine, Renee Montoya, is the new Question. It isn’t like DC didn’t spend the last few months skirting around the issue in 52 (which is, by the way, one of the best series I’ve read this year - if you haven’t bought any of it yet go out and get it), so none of this is a big surprise. Call me a bit of a purist, but I’ve always seen the Question in his Ditko framework: as one of the more “adult” comic heroes that was a discussion about societal ills and gave Ditko a platform to discuss Objectivism. I never really enjoyed the more Zen version of the Question, it just didn’t fit into the ideals that Ditko had set up for the character.

I managed to find a ragged copy of a Charlton version of the Question as a kid and it turned me onto Objectivism. As I grew up I read more and more Rand but didn’t slip as deep into it as some people did. Ditko, on the other hand, fell deep into it and spent about 3/4ths of his career putting out Objectivist inspired comics. The Question is probably as close to getting balanced as Ditko ever got.

Charlton Comics was one of the first places that Ditko was allowed to be himself. Their editor had a fairly relaxed view of what the creators there could put out. Ditko started getting into Objectivism towards the end of his career at Marvel. After his falling out with Stan Lee (over the Green Goblin?) he went off on his own. One of the first things he put out was an Objectivist comic called the Avenging World that was set in an abysmal world with very sparse dialogue. Eventually he settled down and started to write seriously for Charlton again which gave him creative freedom over what he put out. While Dr Strange is noted for being surreal and altruistic, everything he did during his run at Charlton was hardcore Objectivist. The Question was his first attempt at blending Objectivism with comics and is probably the only series where he actually got it right. It was through the Question that Ditko was able to attack moral relativism, one of the things that Objectivism found detestable. In the Question’s world there is no such thing as a subjective decision, just right and wrong decisions.

As mainstream appeal became harder to accomplish he dove deeper into indie comix and started putting out stuff that made anything he put out with Charlton seem like a leftist hippie bong pipe. Most of what he put out between stints at DC and other various publishers was highly influenced by Ayn Rand, impossibly rare to find, and unappreciated unless you were a hardcore Objectivist.

It was through Mr. A that Ditko started getting preachy:

When Blue Beetle got his own magazine, they needed a companion feature for it. I didn’t want to Mr. A, because I didn’t think the Code would let me do the type of stories I wanted to do, so I worked up the Question, using the basic idea of a man who was motivated by basic black & white principles. Where other “heroes” powers are based on some accidental super element, The Question and Mr A’s “power” is deliberately knowing what is right and acting accordingly. But it is one of choice. Of choosing to know what is right and choosing to act on that knowledge in all his thoughts and actions with everyone he deals with. No conflict or contradiction in his behavior in either identity. He isn’t afraid to know or refuse to act on what is right no matter in what situation he finds himself.

Source.

Put out through witzend, the very first issue of Mr. A focused on Mr. A letting a cop killer fall to his death while preaching to a teacher about the ills of altruism. Not surprisingly, this character wasn’t a bit hit with people. The critics of the time tore the comic apart and Ditko responded in kind with a lengthy diatribe in Guts #5. Mr. A remained one of Ditko’s most prized creations, as evidenced by the fact that the last time he put out new material, it was for Mr. A.

So this brings me back to the Question.

Why shouldn’t DC fuck with the character? Because it was the last time Ditko connected with his fans. It was before he lasted a single issue of Hawk and Dove. One was a personification of right-wing ideals and the other of left-wing ideals. Ditko was so slanted towards the right that he made Hawk into a complete badass… and completely neutered Dove, making him into a whiny bitch-boy that cried over fighting. While I’ve appreciated everything DC has done with 52 so far I question the merit of changing one of the few propaganda characters Ditko created even further simply to market them more. It might make Montoya a bit more popular with fans, maybe even sell a few more issues of a limited series featuring Montoya as the Question… but Zen meditation is everything that Ditko didn’t want for the Question.

I hope that DC takes the character back to its roots. I hope they make Montoya into what Ditko had envisioned the Question to be. But I know that’s probably just a pipe dream…

You can read more about Ditko and Objectivism here: 1, 2, 3, 4, 5.