\n| \nRe-Readability<\/td>\n | \n![](\"https:\/\/www.hill-kleerup.org\/blog\/images\/stars2.jpg\" "\\"Poor") <\/td>\n | \nCharacters<\/td>\n | \n![](\"https:\/\/www.hill-kleerup.org\/blog\/images\/stars3.jpg\" "\\"Fair") <\/td>\n<\/tr>\n<\/tbody>\n<\/table>\nThe 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<\/em> (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
\nearly 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<\/em> cartoon, which probably prompted DC\/Warner to give O’Neil a chance to write and publish his long-expected Question novel.<\/p>\nWhat 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<\/em> justice.<\/p>\nHo-hum.<\/p>\n 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.<\/p>\n 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.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" Helltown by Dennis O’Neil (2006) Overall Story Re-Readability Characters The Question was a second-string character (one of a raft from the fertile mind of Steve Ditko) from a second-string…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_seopress_titles_title":"","_seopress_titles_desc":"","_seopress_robots_index":"","_seopress_robots_follow":"","_seopress_robots_imageindex":"","_seopress_robots_snippet":"","_seopress_robots_primary_cat":"","_seopress_robots_breadcrumbs":"","_seopress_robots_freeze_modified_date":"","_seopress_robots_custom_modified_date":"","_seopress_robots_canonical":"","_seopress_social_fb_title":"","_seopress_social_fb_desc":"","_seopress_social_fb_img":"","_seopress_social_fb_img_attachment_id":0,"_seopress_social_fb_img_width":0,"_seopress_social_fb_img_height":0,"_seopress_social_twitter_title":"","_seopress_social_twitter_desc":"","_seopress_social_twitter_img":"","_seopress_social_twitter_img_attachment_id":0,"_seopress_social_twitter_img_width":0,"_seopress_social_twitter_img_height":0,"_seopress_redirections_value":"","_seopress_redirections_enabled":"","_seopress_redirections_enabled_regex":"","_seopress_redirections_logged_status":"","_seopress_redirections_param":"","_seopress_redirections_type":0,"_seopress_analysis_target_kw":"","_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":false,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","default_image_id":0,"font":"","enabled":false},"version":2}},"categories":[36,11],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-10604","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-media-books","category-media-comics"],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack-related-posts":[{"id":10347,"url":"https:\/\/hill-kleerup.org\/blog\/2007\/02\/12\/book_review_green_lantern.html","url_meta":{"origin":10604,"position":0},"title":"Book Review: Green Lantern: Hero’s Quest","author":"***Dave","date":"Mon 12-Feb-07 1:18pm","format":false,"excerpt":"Yeah, I've been on a bit of a tear of late with the super-hero novels. Actually, I've been reading other stuff, too, just nothing to completion (or nothing previously unread)....","rel":"","context":"In "Books"","block_context":{"text":"Books","link":"https:\/\/hill-kleerup.org\/blog\/category\/media\/media-books"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/www.hill-kleerup.org\/blog\/images\/stars3.jpg?resize=350%2C200&ssl=1","width":350,"height":200},"classes":[]},{"id":16073,"url":"https:\/\/hill-kleerup.org\/blog\/2009\/10\/23\/book-reviews-a-plenty.html","url_meta":{"origin":10604,"position":1},"title":"Book Reviews A-plenty!","author":"***Dave","date":"Fri 23-Oct-09 4:00pm","format":false,"excerpt":"I think I've been saving these up for months ... Escape from Hell by\u00a0Larry Niven and Jerry Pournelle\u00a0(2009) Overall Story Re-Readability Characters \u00a0 I love their mid-70s\u00a0Inferno (it's a book I regularly revisit). This sequel rightfully tries to be something different, but muddles it by trying to be too philosophical,\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "Books"","block_context":{"text":"Books","link":"https:\/\/hill-kleerup.org\/blog\/category\/media\/media-books"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/www.hill-kleerup.org\/blog\/images\/stars3.jpg?resize=350%2C200&ssl=1","width":350,"height":200},"classes":[]},{"id":13699,"url":"https:\/\/hill-kleerup.org\/blog\/2008\/10\/19\/book_review_bloody_jack.html","url_meta":{"origin":10604,"position":2},"title":"Book Review: Bloody Jack","author":"***Dave","date":"Sun 19-Oct-08 7:18pm","format":false,"excerpt":"A fine gift from Randy, finally read during my Mumbai sojourn. \u00a0 Bloody Jack\u00a0by L. A. Meyer (2002) Overall Story Re-Readability Characters \u00a0 Great YA tale, \"Being an Account of...","rel":"","context":"In "Books"","block_context":{"text":"Books","link":"https:\/\/hill-kleerup.org\/blog\/category\/media\/media-books"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/www.hill-kleerup.org\/blog\/images\/stars4.jpg?resize=350%2C200&ssl=1","width":350,"height":200},"classes":[]},{"id":11242,"url":"https:\/\/hill-kleerup.org\/blog\/2007\/10\/14\/book_review_fall_of_knigh.html","url_meta":{"origin":10604,"position":3},"title":"Book Review: Fall of Knight","author":"***Dave","date":"Sun 14-Oct-07 11:51am","format":false,"excerpt":"Fall of Knight by Peter David (2006) Overall Story Re-Readability Characters Story: This is the third volume of Peter David's return of Arthur trilogy.\u00a0 Knight Life (one of David's...","rel":"","context":"In "Books"","block_context":{"text":"Books","link":"https:\/\/hill-kleerup.org\/blog\/category\/media\/media-books"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/www.hill-kleerup.org\/blog\/images\/stars4.jpg?resize=350%2C200&ssl=1","width":350,"height":200},"classes":[]},{"id":10998,"url":"https:\/\/hill-kleerup.org\/blog\/2007\/04\/30\/the_dresden_files_book_se.html","url_meta":{"origin":10604,"position":4},"title":"The Dresden Files book series","author":"***Dave","date":"Mon 30-Apr-07 9:37am","format":false,"excerpt":"The Dresden Files (series) by Jim Butcher (2002-present) Overall Story Re-Readability Characters I got into the\u00a0books via the SciFi channel TV series based on it.\u00a0 I've reviewed the first...","rel":"","context":"In "Books"","block_context":{"text":"Books","link":"https:\/\/hill-kleerup.org\/blog\/category\/media\/media-books"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/www.hill-kleerup.org\/blog\/images\/stars4.jpg?resize=350%2C200&ssl=1","width":350,"height":200},"classes":[]},{"id":10392,"url":"https:\/\/hill-kleerup.org\/blog\/2007\/01\/29\/book_review_superman_the.html","url_meta":{"origin":10604,"position":5},"title":"Book review: Superman: The Never-Ending Battle","author":"***Dave","date":"Mon 29-Jan-07 2:27pm","format":false,"excerpt":"Continuing with DC\/Warner's JLA series of paperbacks, -- a pleasant surprise: a nicely crafted, if unremarkable, JLA novel. \u00a0 Superman: The Never-Ending Battle by Roger Stern (2004) Overall Story Re-Readability...","rel":"","context":"In "Books"","block_context":{"text":"Books","link":"https:\/\/hill-kleerup.org\/blog\/category\/media\/media-books"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/www.hill-kleerup.org\/blog\/images\/stars3.jpg?resize=350%2C200&ssl=1","width":350,"height":200},"classes":[]}],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/hill-kleerup.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/10604","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/hill-kleerup.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/hill-kleerup.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/hill-kleerup.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/hill-kleerup.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=10604"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/hill-kleerup.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/10604\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/hill-kleerup.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=10604"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/hill-kleerup.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=10604"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/hill-kleerup.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=10604"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}} |
![](\"http:\/\/images.amazon.com\/images\/P\/0446616583.01._SCMZZZZZZZ_.jpg\" "\\"Helltown")
<\/a>\n<\/div>\n