Denys Cowan

The Question by Dennis O’Neil & Denys Cowan, collected complete as a pack of 2 oversized omnibus volumes and cheaper than buying them one by one. The Question by Dennis O'Neil & Denys Cowan Omnibus Vol. 1 collects the acclaimed late-1980s reinvention of Vic Sage, the faceless investigative-journalist vigilante who directly inspired Watchmen's Rorschach. After a near-fatal beating by Lady Shiva, Vic is trained by Richard Dragon in martial arts and Zen, turning a rigid crusader into a man who questions his own methods. It's a mature, philosophical crime drama set in corrupt Hub City, praised for O'Neil's literary writing and Cowan's expressionistic art, including issue #17, where Vic reads Watchmen and confronts his own successor. The Question by Dennis O'Neil & Denys Cowan Omnibus Vol. 2 concludes the acclaimed run on Vic Sage, the faceless philosopher-vigilante of Hub City. It collects the final issues of the 1987 series plus the follow-up material: The Question Quarterly, the Green Arrow team-up annuals, The Brave and the Bold and later specials. O'Neil and Cowan bring their mature, Zen-inflected crime drama to its close, deepening Vic's introspection and his war on a broken city. The essential second half of one of DC's great late-1980s runs.

The Question by Dennis O'Neil & Denys Cowan Omnibus Vol. 1 collects the acclaimed late-1980s reinvention of Vic Sage, the faceless investigative-journalist vigilante who directly inspired Watchmen's Rorschach. After a near-fatal beating by Lady Shiva, Vic is trained by Richard Dragon in martial arts and Zen, turning a rigid crusader into a man who questions his own methods. It's a mature, philosophical crime drama set in corrupt Hub City, praised for O'Neil's literary writing and Cowan's expressionistic art, including issue #17, where Vic reads Watchmen and confronts his own successor.

The Question by Dennis O'Neil and Denys Cowan is a martial-arts crime series about a faceless journalist who gets beaten nearly to death in issue #1 and has to learn how to fight. O'Neil writes Vic Sage as a man doing philosophy badly and improving at it, with Richard Dragon training him and Zen koans opening every issue. Cowan's Hub City is one of the ugliest and most convincing fictional cities in comics. It is a genuinely adult book that DC has never quite replicated.