Reading Comics 177 "Omega Men, one of the best comics of the year"

Having read through each of DC's spring sneak peeks, I had a chance to find out if I'd been missing anything from what I'd been reading since then, and I discovered I had, ironically from one of the previews I'd already read:

Tom King's Omega Men. 

This one's one of the greats, one of the best comics of the year, very easily.  Start with the sensational premise of tackling the idea of terrorism, which surprisingly very few comics have since 9/11.  And then add some of the best storytelling of this or any other year.

The added bonus for me is the inclusion of Kyle Rayner.  Kyle was the new Green Lantern of 1994.  Flashforward a decade and by all rights he should have been permanently sidelined upon the triumphant return of Hal Jordan.  Except old Green Lanterns never die.  They just get better.  With Kyle, it took a while.  DC certainly kept him around, even gave him the Ion mini-series, and when the New 52 began, he was given somewhat special distinction within the pages of Green Lantern: New Guardians as the sole member of the family to have his story revisited.  Yet he was still lost in the shuffle.

In the sneak peaks, he seemed fated to the ultimate indignity: being sacrificed for the sake of someone else's story.  Except that's not his fate in Omega Men at all.  In fact, in some respects, this is as much Kyle's series as anyone else's.  Having now read the first six issues of the series DC saved from cancellation, it was just one of the pleasant surprises to be made.

The Omega Men themselves first appeared in a Green Lantern comics, in 1981.  (Another of those pleasant surprises.)  Yet you don't need to know or care about their prior print history to understand this incarnation.  It's like Marvel's endless attempts to get the Inhumans to work, but this time, it does.

King navigates their story expertly.  Anyone else might have dug directly into the team itself.  Instead, King digs into their story, as it relates to Kyle Rayner and eventually, a princess who turns out to be their leader (except Kyle doesn't know this).  Gradually, individual members and their stories get the spotlight, but never pulling the reader outside of the greater narrative.  The fourth issue is the only real exception, but that's Kyle's spotlight, which is only natural.

A whole mythology effortlessly springs from King's work (grounded in original Omega Men lore, then improved).  It's almost as if this is DC's response to the Guardians of the Galaxy movie, with DC saying, "Oh yeah?  We can do it better."  And they really do.  While there have been a lot of cutesy elements added to the DC lineup lately, this isn't one of them.  As far as I'm concerned, Marvel's biggest failing is that it's always tried to infuse cutesy into everything, even amidst all the angst, always just a tad too much.  It may be enjoyable, but it's like empty calories.  Omega Men is the perfect diet.

Wisely, King keeps the team's exact nature ambiguous, so that you can read the series without thinking you're supporting terrorists.  (Actually, if anything, King is writing Star Wars without Star Wars..  Excellent timing, Tom.)  Like the best fiction, it exists to make you think.  It's been a long time since comics undertook that role.

Joining King is Barnaby Bagenda, whose art is outside the DC norm without being so unusual that it makes the proceedings feel like anything other than the adventure it ultimately is, which is to say, it isn't pretentious.  It can be playful, and it can be impactful, but it's never intimidating.  It's also distinctive, and especially for its unusual use of grid paneling (though there are exceptions) looks like nothing else out there, not because of flashy coloring or overly intricate work, but because Bagenda is serving the story, not getting in its way.  This is a calling card for both King and Bagenda, and truly a career-defining work for both.

Even if DC keeps it around just long enough to complete a single story, it'll have done a very good thing, no matter what the characters in Omega Men ultimately accomplish.