Much in this world has changed, but one thing has not. I’m Alex Jaffe, best known to our official DC Discord community as HubCityQuestion. Every day I remain on guard in the #ask-the-question channel to provide answers and guidance for the greatest mysteries that DC fans across the world have to offer. Why do I do this? For the money? Some kind of brain disease? No, it’s all because I love this world of superheroes and the people who love it. And every month, in seeking answers on your behalf, I unfailingly learn more myself. Here are just a few highlights of the many cases brought to my office over the past month.
 

Popthebop101 asks:

In what issues are Cluemaster’s game show origin mentioned? Because I’ve been hearing about it, but I have no clue what issues or comics it’s mentioned in.

In fairness to you, Pop, Cluemaster’s origins are pretty easy to miss if you don’t know where to look. As a villain, he already appears fully formed in 1966’s Detective Comics #351. And in the modern era, where most of his appearances tend to be in the context of his daughter, Stephanie Brown, it rarely comes up at all.

The game show host angle actually comes from the small window in Post-Crisis continuity between Cluemaster’s introduction and Stephanie’s debut, during his tenure with the “Injustice League” in scattered issues of the “Justice League International” era. The backstory first comes up during a story in 1991’s Justice League Quarterly #4. But we don’t get to see what actually happened to Arthur Brown’s game show hosting career for ourselves until more than twenty years later, in 2014’s Batman Eternal #11.
 

Garra asks:

Barbara Gordon’s transition from Batgirl to Oracle. What book does that happen in after The Killing Joke?

Would you be surprised if I told you that the first time we see Barbara in her role as Oracle, it isn’t even in a Batman comic? The identity of the world’s most well-connected information broker actually began as a recurring mystery in John Ostrander’s 1987 run on Suicide Squad, eventually revealed in 1990’s Suicide Squad #38. How that transformation occurred, though, would only come to light six years later. We get the full story of how the former Batgirl reinvented herself in the deeply stirring “Oracle: Year One,” a short story by Ostrander and his partner Kim Yale that picks up the pieces from The Killing Joke.
 

Zac asks:

Are nonbinary people allowed to visit and live on Themyscira? Has this ever been explored in any comics?

While recent Wonder Woman comics have made it clear that trans women are welcome on Themyscira, we’ve yet to see any real source address the topic of other identities across the gender spectrum. I believe this is a worthy question that warrants exploring, though. So, for some perspective, I reached out to some of the leading authorities on Wonder Woman and the Amazons for their opinions.

Former Wonder Woman co-writer Michael Conrad told me that in his honest opinion, there were already nonbinary Amazons we just haven’t seen on panel. Nubia and the Amazons co-writer Vita Ayala confirmed for me that their understanding was that the culture of Themyscira is not “women only,” so much as “no men.” Here’s an answer I got from Kelly Sue DeConnick, who literally wrote the book on Amazon history, Wonder Woman Historia: The Amazons.

My short answer is yes, but I still find myself bristling at the question like I bristle at ‘who wins in X vs X fight.’ I need to think on why. Something about the bloodlessness? Takes the stories out of the stories and reduces complexities to rules and stats.

Like, do I imagine there is a rule book somewhere that says who can be an Amazon? I do not. And since I can only speak with authority on the world of Historia, remember that Hippolyta—eventual Queen—was told in no uncertain terms that she could not be an Amazon. No more than a bear can will itself a bird, or words to that effect. And yet.

So who can be an Amazon? Whomever needs to be. And when? When they remember who they are already.

I want to be clear, I’m not bristling at the reader asking the question either. Something about my own inability to make anything easy. If the reader asking is NB and wants permission to imagine themselves as an Amazon, please tell them they need no permission, but if it helps: permission granted.

On the other hand, if the person asking is looking to create some kind of headcanon where the 7th would turn away someone who needed their community, then Historia’s Hippolyta would like to have a word.
 

Rod, Lord of the Dance asks:

Are some of the international metahumans from Doomsday Clock new characters? There are some phenomenal deep pulls in there, but I can't find anything on the Blacksmith of Tehran, for instance.

Some of them are, yes. Many of those new heroes are based on real world regional folklore. The Blacksmith of Tehran, for example, is based on an actual Iranian mythological figure dating back to the 10th century, whom writer Geoff Johns incorporated specifically for this feature. One of the intended themes of Doomsday Clock, like some of Johns’ previous work, was bringing attention to an international community of superheroes where most of our focus has historically been on the United States. That gave Johns the opportunity to revisit some historical non-American heroes who have already been established, but also to create many more intended to draw from their own local cultures, just as American heroes are so often informed by American folklore.
 

Seraph asks:

I purchased and read New Teen Titans Annual #2 yesterday and one key detail stood out to me as odd. Is it ever explained why the Monitor is working with H.I.V.E. assassins to provide them with work such as the Anthony Scarapelli job at the center of the issue? It seems so out of place from what I'd read of him in the first few issues of Crisis on Infinite Earths.

The Monitor’s intentions are indeed a mystery in his first appearances. In the two years leading up to Crisis, as Wolfman and Pérez were at work planning the event, the Monitor was making cryptic appearances like this one throughout DC’s titles as a benefactor to various super-villains. Why? Because the heroes of the DC Universe were about to face the greatest threat to existence they had ever known. Upping the ante on behalf of their enemies was the Monitor’s way of challenging our heroes to step up their game in preparation of the threat to come.
 

Paul J Rabin asks:

Who is the oldest character to have an on-screen adaptation?

DC’s oldest significant recurring character, mystic mystery man Doctor Occult (debuting in 1935’s New Fun #6), makes a couple of small appearances in video games, including DC Universe Online and Scribblenauts Unmasked. But if we’re talking specifically about film and television, then the crown goes to detective Slam Bradley—one of the original protagonists of Detective Comics, from 1937’s issue #1. Bradley makes an appearance in the 2008 animated film Justice League: The New Frontier and debuted in live action as played by Kurt Szarka in a first season episode of The CW’s Batwoman, “How Queer Everything Is Today!”
 

That’s all the space we have this month for ASK…THE QUESTION here on DC.com. I’ll be back in thirty (give or take) with more. But until then, you can catch me at your leisure by lighting up the Q-Signal on our Discord server. I’ll see you there.
 

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.