Millennium Edition: Mysterious Suspense

    (DC, 2000)
™ and ©2000 DC Comics

Mysterious Suspense #1 is an unexpected but well-justified inclusion in DC’s “best of the century” Millennium Edition series of reprints. Originally published by Charlton comics in 1967 (and acquired by DC in the mid-80s), Mysterious Suspense #1 features the first solo appearance of Steve Ditko’s uncompromising vigilante, the Question. The Question’s superficial gimmick is a featureless mask that conceals his identity while he fights crime and corruption. But the distinguishing aspect of the strip is the predominance of Ditko’s brand of black-and-white moralism, steeped in the objectivist philosophy of writer Ayn Rand. Ditko reportedly left Marvel’s Amazing Spider-Man over creative differences with Stan Lee. Now, in the Question, readers got to see what a pure Ditko crimefighter really looked like. The result, while didactic and confrontational, opened many avenues of philosophical inquiry to comics, culminating in (and inspiring) Alan Moore and Dave Gibbons’ classic Watchmen.
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#1

September, 2000
Cover Price: $2.50
4 copies available from $3.00 		Steve Ditko, David Charles GlanzmanSteve Ditko, Rocke Masterioso