Posted in: Batman, Comics, DC Comics | Tagged: Batman, dc comics, john ridley, renee montoya

Renee Montoya On Having "Always Been A Police Officer"

Who is Renee Montoya? That is the question. A gushing PR-arranged interview between I Am Batman writer and Oscar winner John Ridley and Grant DeArmitt for Newsarama has gone a little viral, and it's not just for hard-hitting questions which include lines such as "one of my absolute favorite things in I Am Batman #13", " I think that's very cool", " I love that", "that stuck with me", "That's awesome. I'm sure that comes through" and concluding "I think that's a great place to end, this has been a phenomenal conversation."

But instead, it's something John Ridley said about the character of Renee Montoya, appearing as New York police commissioner in I Am Batman, and now in the GCPD: The Blue Wall series, where he states "Renee Montoya is one of the greatest of the modern-era characters of the DC universe. Renee is a police officer, has always been a police officer, and she's now commissioner." Emphasis ours.

And that has caused considerable fuss because one of

Taryn!: No, John Ridley, Renee Montoya has not "always been a cop." In fact, she's spent more than half of her existence as someone who isn't a cop!

kat: THE GOTHAM PD FAILED RENEE MONTOYA. THAT IS HER ENTIRE ARC THAT LEADS INTO HER BECOMING THE QUESTION

CassTalksComics: (DC every time they mention Renee) "Renee Montoya, POLICE SUPERSTAR, is on a new case. Can she use her COP powers and the help of the gotham city POLICE department to ARREST the bad guys? that's the QUESTION for this COP POLICE OFFICER COMMISIONER"

Famously, Gotham Central, Two-Face outs her as a lesbian to the public and then frames her for murder, before kidnapping her to make it look like Montoya had escaped custody. Montoya is cleared of all charges but takes it very personally. Later, she becomes obsessed with a corrupt crime scene investigator Jim Corrigan, and beats him up for information, leading to her partner getting killed, but finds herself unable to shoot Corrigan.

She quits the GCPD, becomes an alcoholic bar-hopping ex-cop in the series 52, which leads to her becoming a street vigilante, The Question. It would be years and years later, as part of DC Rebirth, that she would eventually rejoin the GCPD around the events of A-Day, with Future State seeing her as a future Commissioner of Gotham, before she accepts that role in current continuity, before switching cities to New York.

Maybe the new DC Timeline which was then abandoned, but formed the basis of The Next Batman, changed that? I just checked that, and no, she was The Question in that as well.

This doesn't get picked up in the interview, instead, John is told, "Your respect for the character is so evident." So let me go for a DC equivalent of a No-Prize. How about "has always been a police officer in her heart, if not on the street". Just edit that in and you are golden. Because obviously, John Ridley knows and has written about extensively in The Other History Of The DC Universe, for a start…

And GCPD: The Blue Wall is really, really, really going to be about this sort of thing… I guess you can't blame Montoya for being conflicted.

Enjoyed this? Please share on social media!

Stay up-to-date and support the site by following Bleeding Cool on Google News today!