The Question: The Deaths of Vic Sage #2: The Wild WIld Question

I was worried that The Question: The Deaths of Vic Sage #2 was going to be a Question comic with the backdrop of a western. I was pleasantly surprised to find an equal balance between the two. The first half of the book would feel at home in any western comic or film. Things get a little juicy when Vic saves Booker, a man framed for murder because he is black. While they are escaping on horseback, Booker’s wife is shot in the head by the pursuing mob. The death is masterfully done because the hit is right at the top of the page. It really feels sudden and loud especially being paired with the dramatic and intense red color. It is little moments like these that make you really appreciate this all-star team.

The pacing felt a little jumpy in this issue. Things pick up when Vic gets his “face” and learns of the man with a thousand faces. Readers get a montage of destruction as Vic travels around seeking vengeance. He finds himself in an old mine where he finds Booker in a pit but it can’t be Booker. Vic is shot in the head and it is revealed that “Booker” was the preacher from Hub City. Vic wakes up in the 1940s as if it was all a dream. Was it? He writes “man with a thousand faces” and “man with no face” on a piece of paper. Does this mean he can pick up where he left off in 1886. Is there something unconsciously driving him on his quest?

Who or what is the man with a thousand faces? I immediately thought of James Campbell’s idea of the hero with a thousand faces: the idea that all heroes in myths and stories all follow a similar path. Is Vic the man with a thousand faces? He is referred to as the man with no face, but the fact that the series is going through the different deaths of Vic, it leans towards the idea that maybe he has many faces. It is almost like every time he dies he must pick back up where he was in the last life but without knowing there was a last life. Issue #3 will take place during the 1940s which will be interesting because that is a time period most closely associated with the noir genre.