Although Marc Gugghenhiem, co-creator of the CW Arrowverse, has indicated that Vic Sage, also known as The Question, could have a future alongside the likes of Oliver Queen and Barry Allen on the small screen, nothing has become of it. However, the fate of the clandestine reporter-turned-vigilante may lie elsewhere.
“I always bring him up, “ Gugghenhiem admitted to the 2016 ACE Convention audience. “I always feel that the character would be a great fit with the tone of Arrow. Again: it’s not our characters, it’s DC’s characters, and they’ve got other plans for The Question. [I] don’t know what their plans are, but clearly they do have plans, [otherwise] we’d be using him.”
Since his creation at the hands of artist Steve Ditko in 1967, there have been numerous incarnations of The Question. The most popular, crafted by Dennis O’Neil and and Denys Cowan, is that of Vic Sage, an investigating reporter in the fictional town of Hub City. Through the use of a chemical substance known as “Pseudonym,” he completely disguised his facial features to the point where his face was a complete blank surface. O’Neil directed his adventures towards exposing political corruption as opposed to hunting down supervillains. Further, after being nearly beaten to death by international terrorist Lady Shiva, Sage received both medical treatment and training from Richard Dragon. O’Neil’s version influenced the animated version voiced by Jeffery Combs on Justice League Unlimited; the character also had a significant role in the overall plot of season one.
Following the events of the limited series 52, which saw the death of Sage, the mantle fell to disgraced GCPD officer Renee Montoya, Vic’s chosen successor. The male version reappeared in a reimagined Question in The New 52 as part of four sinners, two of which being Pandora and The Phantom Stranger, his features and name erased from his memory through magic. That version, however, did not catch on. The elements of O’Neil’s version has influenced other characters, most notably that of Alan Moore’s Rorschach of Watchmen.
Guggenheim has tried to lay the groundwork for the inception of The Question’s arc on television; Ray Palmer and Kendra Saunders, of DC’s Legends of Tomorrow, for example, lived in Hub City in the 1950s as a couple for two years before returning to the Waverider. There has been no official word on an official treatment onscreen or television as of yet.
