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Renee Montoya is an officer of the Gotham City Police Department and the vigilante known as the Question.
History
Early Career
Originally trained by Harvey Bullock, Renee became a skilled and competent detective. As a Gotham rookie, she had a brief romantic relationship with Kate Kane.
During the aftermath of the cataclysmic earthquake that shook Gotham, Renee physically put herself between Two-Face and Batman, showing him unexpected compassion. This, tragically, had unexpected repercussions; lacking the capacity to respond in kind, Dent then "bastardized" her compassion, and nearly ruined her life in the process. The incident traumatized Renee greatly, and continued to affect her for years to come.
At some point, she left the force and became associated with the vigilante Victor Sage, a.k.a. the Question, coming to consider him her best friend. Their travels together took them to Kahndaq, where they met Black Adam. She saw Victor die of a wasting illness in her arms on a mountaintop and later took up his mantle as the new Question.[1]
She later became a detective in Bludhaven despite her history as an officer.
The New 52
Despite alterations to history, Renee was one of a number of individuals who retained fragmentary memories of their original history, though like the others, she struggled to reconcile those memories with her new history. Notably, Victor's death was initially erased from the timeline, but her memory of it remained.[1]
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DC Rebirth
Renee's relationship with Kate rekindled after Renee's return to Gotham City and well after Kate had become Batwoman; Renee accompanied Kate on at least one mission after they got back together.[2][3]
Just before Bane's takeover of Gotham, Renee was involved in a police standoff with Black Mask that ended with him escaping (aided by Apex Lex) and killing two GCPD officers. Renee vowed to track down Black Mask.
About a month later, she had tailed him to Atlanta, where Kate Kane also happened to be living at the time, having been displaced by Bane's capture of Gotham. Renee enlisted her girlfriend's help to capture Black Mask, but once again he was able to escape, this time after wounding Renee.[4]
Sometime later, Renee turned in her badge and became a vigilante in her own right, assisting Lois Lane as the Question to solve the murder of Russian journalist Mariska Voronova, and later to help discover the identity of Leviathan.[5][6][1]
While investigating Mariska's death, she re-encountered Vic Sage, whom she had believed to be dead and whom had been resurrected as a result of outside forces manipulating reality.[7]
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Infinite Frontier
Around the time of A-Day, Renee rejoined the GCPD as a detective, and soon accepted Mayor Christopher Nakano's offer of the position of Police Commissioner, replacing Harvey Bullock.[8]
During planet-wide storms of mutagenic Lazarus Resin rain, Commissioner Montoya used her alter ego as the Question to investigate the case of George Dennis Elroy, a suspect in a spree of killings that had suddenly become far more violent. Tracing a key from his apartment to a storage locker, she found several of his would-be victims and Elroy himself, transformed into a monstrous creature by the Lazarus rain. Though nearly overcome by the killer, Montoya was rescued by one of his intended victims with an electric cattle prod, and the monstrous Elroy was captured and prosecuted for his crimes.[9]
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Dawn of DC
Weeks after the Lazarus rain event, Montoya's friends and fellow officers were attacked[10] by a mysterious assailant calling himself "Zerø," who, after slandering her with false allegations of misconduct, attacked the Commissioner herself at her office. Although Montoya was able to clear her name with information she provided to the press as the Question, her secret identity was leaked at the same time.[11] Ultimately, however, Vic Sage falsified evidence against her being the Question and Montoya was able to both deduce Zerø's identity—Jordan Rich, a man who blamed her for his near-death at the hands of the Chicago Mob—and beat him to the home of Kate Kane, where together they were able to overwhelm Rich and take him in.[12]
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All In
After Montoya was forced out of her position by Mayor Nakano and new Commissioner Vandal Savage, she was recruited by the Justice League to act—in her costumed identity—as head of security for their orbital satellite headquarters, the Watchtower, which they believed had been infiltrated by a malevolent force after a series of accidents.[13] As security chief, she upbraided Justice League allies the Titans when they accidentally caused a containment breach of the Watchtower's menagerie of alien animals.[14]
While she toured the satellite and met its occupants—incuding her support team, the Blue Beetles Ted Kord and Jaime Reyes—the Watchtower came under attack by a mechanical duplicate of the villain Conduit. Although the Question was able to dispatch the robot,[13] she found that the assault had in reality been only a diversion from the attempted murder of Kenn Kawa of the Challengers of the Unknown, the Watchtower's technical staff, who had been mauled in Montoya's personal quarters by an alien animal loosed by Kate Kane. She learned that Kane had been behaving abnormally at the time of the attack, and, finding her at the convalescing Kawa's bedside, confronted her with surveillance video evidence, driving a wedge between them. They were interrupted by the sudden reawakening of Kawa, who warned of an interloper in the Watchtower, and the arrival of the Eradicator, a Kryptonian android who attempted once more to kill the Challenger of the Unknown, but was stopped by other members of the Watchtower staff.[15] While on patrol, she kept Killer Frost, a supervillain-turned-Leaguer, away from the restricted Phantom Zone containment area.[16]
With Kane in tow, the Question interrogated the captive Eradicator, resorting to beating him in an attempt to learn his goals and the identity of his allies. Refusing to answer, their prisoner was freed by Nightshade, a Justice League member under the mental control of the Cyborg Superman,[17] a prisoner of the League's who had arranged the prior incidents and attacks to secure his release from their Phantom Zone prison. Overwhelmed by the Cyborg and his pawns, she and Kane were imprisoned by mind-controlled Leaguer Animal Man and his menagerie. Montoya was able to bring Animal Man back to his senses by calling on his memories of his family, and set out with her allies to retake the satellite from the Cyborg, who planned to destroy the Watchtower and all aboard by sending them into the Phantom Zone.[18]
Though her enemy was able to resume control of her teammates, Jaime Reyes broke his hold for long enough to give the Question a tracker which led her to a quarantined dog infected by the Phantom Zone's energies and carrying on its collar a failsafe device for the Phantom Zone containment unit, which she integrated into her Phantom Zone shotgun. Naming it "Crispus" for her old partner, she was temporarily waylaid by the mind-controlled Batwoman, but freed her by refusing to fight, instead sharing a kiss. Joined by Vic Sage, they aborted the self-destruct sequence, but were set upon once more by the Cyborg, who tore open the hull of the Watchtower to expose it to the vacuum of outer space.[19] Reyes was able to again shake off the Cyborg's control and activated an emergency force field, saving her life, and the battered Question was inspired to continue by visions of her loved ones. When Sage, now mind-controlled, was sent after her, she discovered that with the failsafe, a burst from her shotgun broke the Cyborg's hold on him. Retrieving a Green Lantern Ring from the Watchtower armory, she freed her allies once more and defeated the Cyborg, using the ring to hurl him from the satellite down to Earth. The threat ended, she called on her team to resume their duties, investigating an individual attacking the Watchtower promenade in a Darkstar Exo-Mantle.[20]
The Question offered young Leaguer Air Wave, a time-lost sidekick, to help find a home in the present, and pushed him to join the League's operations to build a sense of belonging among them.[21]
Powers and Abilities
Abilities
- Criminology
- Firearms
- Investigation
- Martial Arts
- Multilingualism: Renee is fluent in English and Spanish, and speaks some Russian.[5]
- Stealth[5]
Other Characteristics
- Alcoholism
- Mental Disorder: Renee suffers from depression and PTSD.[22]
Paraphernalia
Weapons
- Handgun
- Phantom Zone Shotgun: As the head of security on the Justice League Watchtower, Montoya was equipped with a shotgun that can alternately paralyze its target or teleport the target to a holding cell in the Phantom Zone.[13]
Notes
- Renee Montoya was created by Paul Dini, Bruce Timm, and Mitch Brian, first appearing in the Batman: The Animated Series episode "Pretty Poison". However, Renee Montoya first appeared as part of Prime Earth continuity in Batwoman (Volume 2) #1 by J.H. Williams III and W. Haden Blackman.
Trivia
- Renee watches the Canadian sitcom Letterkenny.[23]
Related
- 166 Appearances of Renee Montoya (Prime Earth)
- 59 Images featuring Renee Montoya (Prime Earth)
- 19 Quotations by or about Renee Montoya (Prime Earth)
- Character Gallery: Renee Montoya (Prime Earth)
Footnotes
- ↑ 1.0 1.1 1.2 Lois Lane (Volume 2) #4
- ↑ 2.0 2.1 Batwoman (Volume 3) #18
- ↑ Red Hood: Outlaw #29
- ↑ Black Mask: Year of the Villain #1
- ↑ 5.0 5.1 5.2 Lois Lane (Volume 2) #1
- ↑ Event Leviathan #4
- ↑ Lois Lane (Volume 2) #3
- ↑ The Next Batman: Second Son #3
- ↑ Lazarus Planet: Legends Reborn #1
- ↑ Batman: The Brave and the Bold (Volume 2) #15
- ↑ Batman: The Brave and the Bold (Volume 2) #16
- ↑ Batman: The Brave and the Bold (Volume 2) #17
- ↑ 13.0 13.1 13.2 The Question: All Along the Watchtower #1
- ↑ Titans (Volume 4) #16
- ↑ The Question: All Along the Watchtower #2
- ↑ Titans (Volume 4) #19
- ↑ The Question: All Along the Watchtower #3
- ↑ The Question: All Along the Watchtower #4
- ↑ The Question: All Along the Watchtower #5
- ↑ The Question: All Along the Watchtower #6
- ↑ Justice League Unlimited (Volume 2) #3
- ↑ GCPD: The Blue Wall #2
- ↑ Lois Lane (Volume 2) #7
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  This character is or was an officer of, or held a title in the Gotham City Police Department, in any of its various incarnations. This template will automatically categorize articles that include it into the "GCPD members" and "Police Officers" categories. |
 This character is or was an incarnation of or an ally of Batman, and a member of the Batman Family. This template will automatically categorize articles that include it into the "Batman Family members" category. |
 This character has been a member of the Justice League of America, or simply the Justice League in any of its various incarnations, sworn by a duty to act as guardians of America and the world by using their skills and/or superpowers to protect Earth from the clutches of both interstellar and domestic threats. |