Last year saw the launch of DC All In, a major new publishing initiative that has brought new titles, new creative teams and an all-new universe to the world of DC Comics. This month on DC.com, we’ve asked some of our contributors to write about an All In title that they’ve personally gone All In on, letting us know what it is about the comic that they’ve been enjoying.
This month, the DC.com writing team is covering our favorite comics from the All-In lineup. And I’ll be honest: I’m really spoiled for choice here. I could talk about the sweeping, balletic action of Batgirl, the true succession of Mike Grell’s golden years on the back-to-basics Green Arrow, the high flying romance of Superman and Superwoman, the madcap comedy of Harley Quinn, the truly limitless potential of Justice League Unlimited, the start of The New Gods’ candidacy as one of the greatest interpretations we’ve ever seen of Kirby’s mythology… Really, I could just go on listing every title in the lineup.
But if you know me at all, you already could have predicted where my focus would be. It’s all about the Question. Let’s talk about The Question: All Along the Watchtower.
Renee Montoya, former GCPD detective turned private investigator, turned superhero, turned missing, turned GCPD commissioner, and just now turned chief security officer of the Justice League’s space station, has been through twenty years of hell. A closeted lesbian while serving in the police force, she was outed by a jealous Two-Face, jeopardizing her career, family and relationships. She had a messy affair with socialite Kate Kane, now the vigilante Batwoman. Her partner, Crispus Allen, was murdered by a fellow officer. She became disillusioned with her life’s calling, quit and started drinking. Eventually, she made a friend and mentor in the Question, who died far too soon, leaving her a blank mask as his legacy. She stopped drinking. She did a little bit of saving the world and the universe before disappearing for a while. When Renee came back, it was to fix the system she rejected, to see if she might make it better from the top. She couldn’t. Now, it’s time for something new. Not a cop, not a hero. But maybe something that can be both, together.
Part of what makes Renee Montoya stand out within the DC Universe is that she has never been a static character. Through failures and triumphs, her character has accumulated growth and nuance in each stage of her development. In All Along the Watchtower, the toll of these events are accumulated, as Renee moves from leading a large corrupt force to a small righteous one, walks a new beat, and finds herself working at Wonder Woman’s behest with her most intimidating ex. In a comic book landscape copious with resets, this series refreshes as a next chapter.
Perhaps even more so than Justice League Unlimited itself, The Question: All Along the Watchtower may be the title which best presents the mission statement of the All In era. No longer do our heroes exist in isolation from one another, but now find themselves interconnected as part of a whole. With the world’s greatest heroes all living, working and socializing together in the Justice League Watchtower, someone needs to walk among them to keep them honest. Someone must watch the watchmen. Who better than a detective who has seen through the cracks in every system she’s been a part of, walking the streets of Gotham and the halls of Justice? Renee Montoya is the woman for the job, which serves our premise well, as All Along The Watchtower is a book about heroes with jobs.
As much as The Question: All Along the Watchtower provides the much-needed next step in Montoya’s personal journey, the secondary character in its title is no less important: the Watchtower itself. So much of the appeal is how it presents the home of our heroes as a lived-in space. We see heroes storied and obscure in roles that feel like they were always meant for: Ted Kord and Jaime Reyes working side by side as Montoya’s deputies. Animal Man and Tawky Tawny managing the menagerie, cataloging exotic alien creatures. Nightshade tending her own classy bar for the costumed set who are ready for a well-earned round as they kick up their feet. Alix Harrower, Grant Morrison’s own Bulleteer, managing the armory. The whole setup, with beloved figures frequently featured in the background inviting you to just imagine what they might be up to, makes the Watchtower feel like a place where you’d want to set a roleplaying game. It’s a book you want to hang out in, as Montoya makes her rounds to solve her first mystery around a technological breach and a dead Challenger of the Unknown.
What makes this book a special treat for the true DC freaks like me isn’t just that the Question is here, though. Alex Segura has only been writing for DC a short time, but he’s quickly earning a reputation for picking up on long lost story threads that long time DC readers never thought they’d ever see resolved. His lead-up to Watchtower, a three-part story in Batman: The Brave and the Bold #15-17, details Montoya’s last major case as commissioner while reckoning with the remainders of one of her earliest notable stories, 2001’s Batman: Officer Down. Issue #2 of Watchtower significantly features the lost Green Lantern ring of Lord Malvolio, bringing a degree of closure to a Christopher Priest Green Lantern story which has remained standing since 1988. Halfway through the series now, each new issue has unfolded this developing mystery in ways that will delight the deepest of DC mystery solvers.
Which is all to say this book feels like it was written specifically for me. I don’t know where Alex Segura is headed after this six-issue series wraps up. But wherever it is, I can be sure of three things. First, that he’s going to keep making the DC Universe feel like a bigger, more liveable place. Second, whoever he writes, he’ll be accumulating their baggage to take them exactly where they need to go. And third, wherever it may be, I’ll be All In.
Alex Jaffe is the author of our monthly "Ask the Question" column and writes about TV, movies, comics and superhero history for DC.com. Follow him on Bluesky at @AlexJaffe and find him in the DC Official Discord server as HubCityQuestion.
NOTE: The views and opinions expressed in this feature are solely those of Alex Jaffe and do not necessarily reflect those of DC or Warner Bros. Discovery, nor should they be read as confirmation or denial of future DC plans.
