Thursday, November 19, 2020

Steve Ditko: "The Question"



"Spider-Man" co-creator Steve Ditko's faceless crime fighter character 'The Question", a ruthless adherent of 'objectivism', is currently in consideration for a live-action treatment, whether as a feature, TV series or guest-starring role in a CW series:


'The Question' ('Vic Sage') created by writer/illustrator Steve Ditko, debuted in Charlton Comics' Blue Beetle #1 (June 1967), as well as Charlton's "Mysterious Suspense" (October 1968) . 


The character was then acquired by DC Comics in the early 1980's...


...and incorporated into the 'DC Universe', with former 'Gotham' police officer 'Renee Montoya', a protégé of Sage, becoming the new 'Question'.


"...in 'Hub City', TV investigative journalist 'Vic Sage' looking into criminal activities by a 'Dr. Twain', was approached by 'Aristotle Rodor', a former college professor, telling Sage about an artificial skin he had developed with Twain called 'Pseudoderm' with sometimes fatal side effects. 


"Rodor and Twain agreed to abandon the project and parted ways, but Rodor discovered  Twain had decided to proceed with an illegal sale of the invention to Third World nations, regardless of the risk to human health.


"Sage resolved to stop him but had no way of going after Twain without exposing his identity. Rodor suggested Sage use a mask made of 'Pseudoderm' to cover his TV-famous features. Armed with a foolproof disguise, Sage caught up with Twain, leaving him bound in Pseudoderm. On television, Sage reported on Dr. Twain's illegal activities.


"Sage decided this new identity would be useful for future investigations, and partnered with Professor Rodor, who supplied the Pseudoderm and eventually modified the bonding gas to change the color of Sage's hair and clothing..."


'Objectivism', a philosophical system developed by author Ayn Rand in "The Fountainhead" (1943) and "Atlas Shrugged" (1957), was described as "...the concept of man as a heroic being, with his own happiness as the moral purpose of his life, with productive achievement as his noblest activity, and reason as his only absolute..."


Objectivism's central tenets are that reality exists independently of consciousness, that human beings have direct contact with reality through sense perception, that one can attain objective knowledge from perception through the process of concept formation and inductive logic, that the proper moral purpose of one's life is the pursuit of one's own happiness, that the only social system consistent with this morality is one that displays full respect for individual rights embodied in capitalism and that the role of art in human life is to transform humans' metaphysical ideas by selective reproduction of reality into a physical form—a work of art—that one can comprehend and to which one can respond emotionally.


Click the images to enlarge...