Renee Montoya is a character who’s had a strange couple of years – to put it mildly. Originally created for Batman: The Animated Series, she made it to comics shortly before her debut on the show, but it wasn’t until Greg Rucka started writing her that things kicked into high gear.
Under Rucka, Renee became arguably one of the most fleshed-out characters to grace the DC Universe, with Gotham Central exploring the conflict of her being a cop and her being a lesbian – before those conflicted and she quit the force. From there, he led her to train under Vic Sage, the Question’s wing in 52, culminating in her taking on the mantle of the Question herself, and it was great to see her adopt that as her own.
Flash forward to the 2020s, where, for some reason, she reverted to being the Police Commissioner. Now, I’m all for creatives having different takes on characters. But that was a storytelling decision that seemed backward, coupled with a lack of understanding of what made Renee such a powerful character. It wasn’t until the last Detective Comics run, under stories penned by Ram V, Dan Watters, et al. that the tides seemed to turn again, bringing her back under the faceless mask of the Question.
And then the Question questioned: Where do we go from there?
The answer to that is brought to us by way of Alex Segura and Cian Tormey in The Question: All Along the Watchtower #1.
In the DC All-In Special, the issue that kicked off this new era of DC, we’re introduced to Renee’s role in all this via a singular panel, where we’re told that she’s the ‘Head of Security’, but not much more than that. And it’s for the best – because the first issue of this miniseries gets you accustomed to the basics while also setting up the mystery she has to solve.
Most of this issue’s page space is dedicated to catching you up to speed – whether you’re someone who’s actively been following Renee’s journey, someone who passively knows her, or someone who doesn’t know her at all. Segura captures the introspective nature of the character (and the mantle) by using a lot of narration boxes that double as her inner thoughts, keeping us in the loop with her headspace at all times. This is all wonderfully illustrated by Cian Tormey, whose page layouts are less formal and more erratic, in harmony with the chaotic nature of the narrative at hand, which contrasts really well with how Segura presents Renee as someone who likes to keep things orderly. Fajardo Jr.’s colors are also very pretty, and Willie Schubert letters everything to never overtake the art.
It’s great too, that the issue takes things from the setup of the new Watchtower that are very much meant to be ‘bugs’, and rolls with them, exploring what they entail through Renee’s inner thought, and I can only hope that it’s something that is continued to be explored as the series progresses. As for the mystery itself, it only kicks off on the very last page, and while that is a good enough hook to make me come back for the next one, I do wish that I had something more to chew on.
Yet, this was really good! The character work here is spectacular, I just hope that the next issue manages to present the mystery to be just as intriguing.
