The Question ongoing 1987 (issues 1-11)
The Question #1
Cover Date: February 1987
Subtitle: The Bad News
Writer(s): Dennis O'Neil
Artists(s): Denys Cowan, Rick Magyar
Storyline:
Charles Victor Szasz, known as Vic Sage to Hub City's television audience and the Question to it's underworld, donned his mask and went in for some action. After taking down some criminals, he secured his goal - a video tape.
Sage got to the studio and broadcast his findings - a recording of corruption within the government of Hub City. Later, he visited "Tot," (Aristotle Rodor) his partner. Tot told him his mask may have slipped due to him returning to his smoking habit.
While checking with one of his sources, a cop was shot. The bullet was meant for him. He grabbed the shooter and handed him over to the police.
Vic got his tip and followed up on it, knowing it was a trap. Lady Shiva, who'd stood by while he beat on her employers while stealing the video, was asked to take him down. She did so with little effort. The Question was then shot and thrown into the river.
Note: "This double identity of yours...isn't it wearing? You are almost thirty..." (Tot)
The Question #2
Cover Date: March 1987
Subtitle: Butterfly
Writer(s): Dennis O'Neil
Artists(s): Denys Cowan, Rick Magyar
Storyline:
Charlie (as Tot called him) awakened six days later in a familiar, but unfamiliar place. He remembered very little, but Shiva had rescued him and delivered him back to his partner. The two worked at putting him back together. As he came in and out of consciousness, Charlie had visions (visits?) of Batman.
Some time later, a helicopter arrived for him. Shiva sent him to train under Richard Dragon. After his body and mind healed, his training was finished. Shiva met him for another confrontation. A quick spar gave her what she needed to know about him.
The Question returned to the man who ordered him killed.
Note: "...me, whom you've known for a dozen years." (Tot)
The Question #3
Cover Date: April 1987
Subtitle: Suffer the Children
Writer(s): Dennis O'Neil
Artists(s): Denys Cowan, Rick Magyar
Storyline:
The Reverend fell into a fireplace during his scuffle with the Question. He then laept from a window. Myra, Sage's girlfriend (and the mayor's wife - unknown to him) helped him escape the bodyguards. She told him she'd married the mayor after her daughter was threatened and that they'd planned on blowing up a school bus the next day.
Charlie met with Tot about the school bus thing and went to the main hub. There was no bus schedule as it was MLK Day, only one field trip needed a bus. The Question saved the children from the bombers. After, he met Myra's daughter and helped her and her friends build a snowman.
The Question #4
Cover Date: May 1987
Subtitle: The Sacrifice
Writer(s): Dennis O'Neil
Artists(s): Denys Cowan, Rick Magyar
Storyline:
Reverend Hatch's paid cops took Myra's daughter right out from under Charlie. He gave chase, but his car wouldn't allow it due to the damage it sustained in stopping the bus bomb.
Hatch confided to Myra that he would sacrifice her daughter. The Question got into the Mayor's Mansion in a stolen police cruiser. He took out some of the hired muscle and a fire was started. He saved Myra and her daughter, but refused to kill Hatch. Myra took the knife and did it herself.
The Question #5
Cover Date: June 1987
Subtitle: Cityscape
Writer(s): Dennis O'Neil
Artists(s): Denys Cowan, Rick Magyar
Storyline:
Looting and riots had broken out across Hub City - the fire at the Mayor's Mansion had destroyed countless records. The police and city officials were on strike.
The Question, working on 36 hours without sleep, stopped a purse-snatching. He felt guilty about the state the city was in. The drunken (as always) mayor was blaming everything on communists.
Myra struggled internally on how Hatch had been killed. Was it insanity? Self-defense? Premeditated? An office worker raped a coworker then jumped off the top of the building. A dirty cop tried to stop looters from robbing the corpse, but failed. The Question saved him and chased off the would-be robbers.
A woman continued to wait for the bus that would never arrive.
The Question #6
Cover Date: July 1987
Subtitle: That Small Rain Down Can Rain
Writer(s): Dennis O'Neil
Artists(s): Denys Cowan, Rick Magyar
Storyline:
The failure who screwed up the school bus job scarred his face with acid in hopes of getting his father to love him. He overheard his father put a hit on an old man at a farm and decided to kill the man to get in good favor.
The Question went in and broke up a fight between the man's father and a business associate.
Vic went to the TV station and was told to leave - they'd not seen him in close to a year when he turned in his piece on the Mayor's Mansion fire. He ran into Myra there. She gave him the cold shoulder.
Charlie put two and two together and had Tot take him to the Farley Farm. There, he ran into both the father and son assassins. The son killed the father after bonding with his mark.
Notes: "You used to (work here). You took about a year off without informing me or anyone else." (Vic's station manager)
"A year ago, she was close to him. As close as he ever permitted a woman to get. Just one year ago" (narration)
The Question #7
Cover Date: August 1987
Subtitle: Survivor
Writer(s): Dennis O'Neil
Artists(s): Denys Cowan, Rick Magyar
Storyline:
A man named Volk arrived in town and was met by a would-be assassin. He quickly dispatched him and went on his way. He met with the Mayor about a deal, but didn't give him a chance after seeing he was a drunk. He also would not talk to his wife, Myra.
Myra went to Vic Sage and asked him to talk with Volk about what kind of deal he was interested in.
More assassins were hired for the Volk job.
The mysterious man continually denied an interview, so the Question visited him. Volk realized he was honorable and told him about his past. The assassins entered. All were either killed by volk or disarmed by the Question, but the last got in a kill shot. As he died, Volk told the Question of a tree shaped like a question mark in Bavaria.
Vic turned down a news assignment and headed to find this tree. There, he was greeted by a wold who had a scar over his right eye just like Volk.
The Question #8
Cover Date: September 1987
Subtitle: Mikado
Writer(s): Dennis O'Neil
Artists(s): Denys Cowan, Rick Magyar
Storyline:
After remembering a random conversation from when he was getting a wound dressed months previous, Charlie began investigating a series of crimes where the victim had been accused of doing the same to another. After some interviews with survivors, he learned the attacked wore a Japanese mask and quoted the Mikado.
His first choice, a drug dealer, had been in the hospital with hepatitis for the last month. The second, a physician, was his man. The Question got to him and was almost killed by him. The Mikado then let the drug wear off and gave him the slip.
The Question #9
Cover Date: October 1987
Subtitle: Watchers
Writer(s): Dennis O'Neil
Artists(s): Denys Cowan, Rick Magyar
Storyline:
The Question watched as the once dirty cop, Izzy O'Toole, turned down a bribe and arrested some drug runners. He acted in his defence once again. He then went home to Tot. Gas grenades came through the window. When Charlie awakened, Tot was gone. He ran a piece on the news.
After remembering a strange plumbing van nearby, he got the plates and had O'Toole run them. Turned out to be an old classified government branch in the suburbs. The Question went in and appeared to be gassed again once he got close to Tot.
The Question #10
Cover Date: November 1987
Subtitle: Santa Prisca
Writer(s): Dennis O'Neil
Artists(s): Denys Cowan, Rick Magyar
Storyline:
The Question awakened face down in some grass. He thought he'd been falling, but it was a hallucination. While out, the thought of a boy he went to college with who'd once drugged him. He looked the man up (Basin) and found out he'd gone straight and joined a federal drug organization.
Basin found out stuff about Aristotle Rodor - he'd gotten a PHD at age 23 and was a millionaire soon after selling a tranquilizer that went untested and caused a pharmaceutical firm to go bankrupt. Charlie followed a lead to Santa Prisca.
Once there, he felt he was being followed, so he went out as the Question. Rodor was there and was introduced to the man who'd had him detained - Hector Gomez, "el Beato." The man wanted Rodor's help - he wanted to no longer be a murderous monster.
The Question intervened in a domestic dispute. The woman killed her uncle. Charlie "borrowed" his uniform.
The Question #11
Cover Date: December 1987
Subtitle: Transformation
Writer(s): Dennis O'Neil
Artists(s): Denys Cowan, Rick Magyar
Storyline:
Using the woman and the uniform, the Question got to his destination and found Tot. He had another hallucination.
Rodor was shown some of this captor's work - actually his father's work. The two men had gone to graduate school together. El Beato was into alchemy and wanted to transcend himself into a saint. Tot worked out some of the mistakes in their equations and seemed to perfect it. During the first run, el Beato began to glow, then disappeared. Charlie got the mesmerized Tot to safety and back home.
Tot, after time enough to grow a beard a long hair, came out of his shock-coma.