Helltown by Dennis O’Neil (2006)
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The Question was a second-string character (one of a raft from the fertile mind of Steve Ditko) from a second-string publishing company — Charlton. Charlton’s whose assets were bought up by DC, merged into the DCU during the Crisis on Infinite Earths, played with under the DC aegis by Alan Moore in The Watchmen (where the Question got turned into Rorschach), and gradually integrated into the mainstream with greater or lesser success. The Question himself became the title character of an
early mature-line comic written by O’Neil, and has since made various appearances as a philosopher / detective / crimebuster. He achieved his greatest fame, of late, in the Justice League Unlimited cartoon, which probably prompted DC/Warner to give O’Neil a chance to write and publish his long-expected Question novel.
What results here, though, is oddly unsatisfying. A stumble-bum failure returns to his armpit of a home town, seeking both work and information about his dead parents. Caught up in a third-rate conspiracy, he ends up being mentored by an array of DCU “normal” characters — Shiva, Richard Dragon, and the Batman himself — becoming another two-fisted bringer of noir justice.
Ho-hum.
There’s very little new or interesting here in the setting, the plot, or the main character, though all are well-framed by O’Neil. Not only that, but the protagonist ends up just not being very protagonistic, rescued and helped at several critical junctures, he never really rises to stand on his own. That may be part of the message — family is what you make, not what you inherit — but that may also be just poor plotting of a “hero starts out” novel.
O’Neil does a workman’s job here, solid, but nothing special. He professes a love for the character and his run on it, but that doesn’t translate anywhere near into The Canonical Question Novel. Instead, it’s a frothy-light, entertaining, quick read that will leave you with more questions than answers, but little interest in pursuing them.