Who watches the supermen? Renee Montoya, the cop turned Question. Life in Gotham City having gone to hell (again!), she’s accepted Superman, Wonder Woman and Batman’s offer to be marshal of the new Justice League Watchtower, hangout for every one of Earth’s heroes.
She certainly looks the part.
There’s a specific mission attached to the role.
Assigned to help Renee in her efforts are heroes Blue Beetle II, Blue Beetle III, Batwoman and Animal Man. The latter, Buddy Baker, is in charge of his own section of the League’s space base.
That last comment presages the issue’s climax. I assume it’s deliberate, as Alex Segura is a very smart writer. Within the first few pages he banishes my qualms about having Renee re-adopt the Question identity.
Her journey from Gotham cop to replacement Question in the legendary 52 series was interesting, but Vic Sage’s hat never seemed a comfortable fit. I was glad, therefore, when she set it aside and went back to police work. But Segura makes her agreement to get back on board the superhero train – well, satellite – make sense in terms of where her character has been of late. And Renee’s reflections as an alcoholic come via some nicely nuanced writing; hearing about AA practices is fascinating, and I wonder how things will go if our heroine has to work with Bobo, Detective Chimp, an unrepentant boozer. Look, there he is, trying to recreate the Oblivion Bar in decidedly un-moody surroundings.
She’s already fighting her feelings for Batwoman, her ex and another hero owning a former dependence upon drink.
I’m not keen on the new outfit, if you’re going to be The Question, be The Question, not Jonah Hex. Then again, maybe the point of this mini-series is to get Renee to a new place… is she going to emerge as The Sheriff?
The thing I really dislike is that freaking big shotgun.
Maybe it’s because I’m a Brit, not from a gun culture, but I would never be able to relax around someone hoiking around a rifle… just passing through US airport security is terrifying. And she has Ted Kord to hand, a man who knows how to miniaturise kit. So the shotgun is there because someone thinks big guns are cool. Hard disagree.
Oddly, while Jaime Reyes Blue Beetle is introduced as ‘Blue Beetle’, Ted Kord Blue Beetle is ‘Ted Kord’, yet he’s sitting right there in his Blue Beetle costume. I was initially disappointed to see both Beetles, given the huge variety of characters available – I yearn for Firestorm, I’d love to see Bluejay, bring on Witchfire – but I’ve read enough by Segura to assume he’ll have a good reason for the Blue Beetlemania. And Jaime does straight away serve as a joyous contrast to the relentlessly grumpy Renee.
Both Beetles do look good courtesy of Cian Tormey, who always gives us strong, recognisable characters. Things I especially like here include the moody Batman flashback and nicely composed Batwoman splash. There’s also that very nice shot of morning at the Watchtower, with its sweet inclusion of Shining Knight nuzzling his horse. I’m not sure Stargirl can fly without her Cosmic Rod, mind, but who knows, technical powers internalise so often in the DCU!
I’m less keen on elements of a fight scene involving an obscure villain – D-list, says Renee, but he was a thorn in Superman’s side once upon a time. Said bad guy, Renee remarks, ‘neutralized Fire, Nightshade, and Hawk in less than a minute’. And yes, we see heroes meet villain, but in the most understated way – it’s like a fight in a flea circus. It’s entirely possible this was a script instruction, to indicate growing chaos coming for Renee, but in an issue which is mostly set-up and chat, the action should be bigger.
Romulo Fajardo Jr colours with his usual flair and, in a lovely surprise, veteran letterer Willie Schubert, calligrapher on the classic DC Question series, has been brought in, and it’s a treat to see his distinctive style.
The DC All-In promotion has themed covers with heroes standing on their logos. Renee is posing atop Vic Sage’s, and Tormey’s compositional choice, with flapping coat, brought one thing to mind.
There are worse role models. But seriously, that’s a really odd angle for a debut-issue Hero Shot. Seeing that Q is a reminder of how great the masthead was for the Denny O’Neil/Denys Cowan series, I feel sad for the new logo. As for the series subtitle, Googling tells me ‘All along the watchtower’ is a Bob Dylan song, I wonder whether it’s been picked simply because it has ‘watchtower’ in there, or whether it’s telling us Renee has a raspy, depressing voice. I bet she does.
Alex Segura, Cian Tormey and co grabbed me with a well plotted, superbly scripted and good-looking number. I’ll be back next time, no question.
Too Dangerous For a Girl 2 
Aw, man, I wish I were more sold on this series. I like the Question, I like Renee, I like the premise of a mystery for the Justice League’s head of security to solve, and I like Alex Segura’s writing. And yet I finished this book and felt like I was missing something.
I think, ultimately, I just feel a yawning disconnect between the Question and the job she’s been called to do. It’s simply not why I love the character — even this version of the character, who’s been more embroiled in DCU goings-on than Vic Sage ever was.
Plus, I’m in total agreement with you about the gun. Not only do I hate seeing the Question with a weapon like that, but also the idea of it being some sort of science-fiction paralysis/teleportation gun makes it worse, not better. This is a character built for the real world, and we’ve strayed pretty far afield.
That said, I’ll be reading the rest of this on DCUI, and will likely enjoy it as it goes along. It’ll probably be a fun romp, the poor redshirt notwithstanding. (When he showed up, I thought, how nice! Someone’s remembered him! Maybe some of the new characters will show up in the new Challengers book — there’ve been a good dozen or so people who could call themselves Challs at this point. One less, now.)
Segura seems to have an especially good handle on Renee’s alcoholism; her characterization is the one thing really grounding this series. I’m just not sure how long it can hold up against preposterous androids that attack out of nowhere. Hopefully the new Green Arrow storyline will show DC there’s still a market for heroes and villains made of flesh and blood.
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I agree, Renee is a weird fit to the extent of not being a fit. Surely when Ralph Dibney, longtime JLAer, massively experienced superhero and born detective is available you’d at least ask him if he’d like to do the job.
I didn’t recognise the new Chall immediately but assumed I’d come across him, and there he was in the New 52 DC Universe Presents. Getting murdered. At the end of the three issues June said she’d seen him and other dead Challs in a dream, and she was convinced they were alive,and they’d find ‘em… and that was that until last week. Poor Kenn.
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The only version of Vic Sage I’ve ever liked was the cartoon so I’ll take Renee any day. (O’Neil’s shallow social commentary was always a turn off). That said, I can’t say I liked her much past her introductory story. Not reading much Batman since I felt O’Neil’s editorship removed pretty much everything I liked about the character, I had no idea where she was at. I did like the costume change. Her dressed like Vic always hit me as stereotypical lesbian dressed like a man even if it was never the intent.
That said, they Big Two plus Wonder Woman shouldn’t need a Renee. It’s like getting a minor league player to sub for an all star. Mister Terrific feels like a better fit for her role and while I’ve never warmed to any Challenger added to the team post June, removing one from the board the way they did seemed gratuitous.
I’ll read the whole mini because what I disliked looked awesome and was well written considering I didn’t like the choices probably foisted on Segura. I see it as background homework for getting the full feel of the Justice League stories I read going forward.
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To me, Renee wearing the same ensemble as Vic Sage was just her wearing the uniform that came with the job, not doing a Marlene Deitrich.
And me too, re Denny, I stopped reading Batman comics after decades when he changed so many things.
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Yay! I spy the Shining Knight in one of those images above. This does look interesting. I must admit that I’m not yet sold on this new “Justice League United” concept, maybe because the actual book by Waid hasn’t premiered yet? Seems like, schedule-wise, that should have come out first… On the one hand it makes sense for all of the heroes – or most of the heroes – to all work together and not be in these little silos. So maybe I’m just so used to decades of the little silos that tearing those down makes me uncomfortable as a comics fan, even if it’s logical, and I just gotta get over it. And I’ve been pleased with the comments Waid has made in interviews about having a core team, but then bringing in other heroes as needed and highlighting characters in particular that aren’t well-known/aren’t often in print these days.
But I also worry that making the Justice League title basically one big monthly DC superhero “Who’s Who” fest kind of takes away the “specialness” of the individual properties. Having the Challengers of the Unknown, for example, hanging out regularly with the Justice League kinda just makes them an extension of the Justice League for me rather than their own unique thing, if that makes sense? Same with using the Question/Renee as League security.
Also – and I’m getting wayyyyyyyyyyy ahead of things here – but honestly how long can this concept last? Like, is this the new Justice League status quo forever now, even long after DC All In has run its course and Waid has moved on to other projects? It seems like one of those ideas that, once introduced, is difficult to back away from because it really is the logical outcome of years of superheroes doing their own thing. How do future writers adequately explain when new Justice Leagues decide to go back to slimmer rosters whose members just handle every crisis on their own?…
-Brian
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I think the writers will just wave away the unlimited idea with a ‘we were too sprawling, no three heroes should be trying to tell heroes with their own interests and specialities what to do, individual teams worked just fine.’ The justification for a mass JLU makes little sense to me, Amanda Waller was kept at bay just fine when the teams were without a massive umbrella. There’s nothing to stop teams sharing info, maybe have one liaison to the other teams in each group.
Or maybe plenty of heroes would be like me and run screaming at the idea of hanging out in a big target 22,300 miles from Earth, in airless space.
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When you put it that way Martin I can’t argue. I’m def very curious to see how Waid handles this. Feel like it’s gonna take a few issues, maybe even a story arc or two, to get a sense of it/his approach. I love Waid and have a lot of faith in his ability to make this a great book. But I can’t say I love how tied it seems to be to picking up threads from Absolute Power/the DC All In special/the Absolute titles right now. So I’ll also be interested to see if Waid has the freedom to just tell some great Justice League stories or if this is all just leading up to the next event, in which case I’d rather just stick with his World’s Finest work…
-Brian
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The look is terrific. — Professor Alan
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Sheriff Renee?
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