Quarter Bin 114 "Omega Men #38"

Omega Men #38 (DC)
from May 1986

So this is how the story originally ended.  I love that cover.  As a huge, huge fan of Tom King's Omega Men, it looks relevant.  Reading the actual comic, the contents are relevant, too.  Surprisingly relevant.  There's Primus and Kalista leading a popular revolt against the Citadel.  I mean, that's the crux of the story even in King's version.  Put aside everything else, and King was telling exactly the same story.  I mean, clearly he tells it differently, but it's the same story all the same.  So that's really, really good to see.  I mean, there's plenty I don't recognize, whole characters, but there's also Tigorr and Doc, regardless of how different they are here.  Planets in the Vega System like Karna and Euphorix.  I mean, obviously King was drawing on existing material, but it's just...really great to see some of that stuff, and identify it so easily, and see the connective tissue...

It's fascinating, it really is.  So I get to the letters column, and I see what readers were thinking, and...

"Today I found out DC is cancelling..."

"It lacks direction."

"Even I felt my loyalties waning after the poor showing this issue."

To think even when everything was done absolutely right, Omega Men still suffered poor sales, it's kind of like the concept is cursed, really.  The letters and their responses from the editor present a heartbreaking portrait.  It's easy, in letters columns, to see how passionate creators really are, which is half of why they're so valuable.  I mean, sometimes they're clearly just the creators blowing smoke up their readers...well, you know, creating a cult-like atmosphere (which has become all too common in the columns being put together these days), but sometimes they seem absolutely genuine.

Or maybe it's just me reading into this one, because I know what happened next, well, several nexts later, and I find it so easy to find parallels...

The creators of the original Omega Men series have interesting legacies.  Todd Klein, the writer, ended up having a hugely distinguished career as a letterer.  He's singled out in these letters, as indicated above, as failing to present a clear picture of the series, which is kind of funny, since King clearly picked it out years later so effectively, and this issue proves that he didn't have to look very hard to find it.  Which means it's sad he never really got a chance to pursue writing in comics, even though he now seems like a visionary.  Still, legendary status in any creative capacity is no small potatoes.

Shawn McManus, the artist, did "A Game of You" in Neil Gaiman's Sandman, and so he's guaranteed to be remembered, too.  Seems he caught a number of bad breaks while working on Omega Men, necessitating apparently inadequate fill-in replacements on a number of issues.  But that cover...! 

So I'm very, very glad I found this issue and decided to read it.  Knowing the Omega Men existed before Tom King is one thing, but to see what they actually were, and how they originally ended their stories, is quite another. 

Omega Men #12 (DC)

The series DC saved from cancellation at least reaches its final issue.  It was worth it.

Tom King's unique perspective was instantly evident in the sneak preview that saw Kyle Rayner seemingly executed.  Anyone who read further knew that Kyle survived, and that King had done that deliberately, and evoked what he evoked just as deliberately. 

Yeah, this was always a story about the Iraq War.  This conclusion makes that, if it wasn't before, completely obvious.  King is also writing the Vertigo series Sheriff of Baghdad, which addresses the war far more directly (drawing from King's own experiences), by the way.  One way or another, everyone has a strong opinion about the Iraq War.  I don't know if that alone will help people finally discover Omega Men, but maybe it should, because as a commentary, it's probably worth reading for that alone.

This issue is the story of what happened after the war ended.  King's Viceroy was Saddam Hussein, all along, the strongman uniquely capable of containing the madness of a Middle Eastern kingdom that stood apart, but somehow represented, the madness of the terrorism age.  That Hussein was originally put into power by the very people who later eliminated him isn't lost on King, and isn't dismissed as a conclusion in and of itself, as so many detractors of the war liked to make it.  No, this is a story of nuance.  It always was.

Kyle is forced to face the fact that all of the allies, the Omega Men, he aligned himself with during the course of the series, don't have happy endings.  Each of them become embroiled in the chaos caused by the elimination of the Viceroy who created his own kind of order in the Vega System, which the Guardians of the Universe had sealed off from its Green Lantern Corps ages ago, preciously because of this kind of scenario.

Kyle is left to try and make sense of it all.  He's asked, by an anonymous military figure, where he views his allegiances now.  I mean, that was the whole series right there, Kyle struggling with his conscience. 

King concludes that there are no easy answers.  All the William James quotes he ended issues with support this, that as humans, we're bound to find ourselves in traps of our own making, that to be human is to be faced with situations that are bigger than us, and that we're morally bound to confront them, that being human means we must.

It's superhero storytelling on a completely different scale.  Thirty years ago, Alan Moore produced the parable of the Nuclear Age we call Watchmen.  Now, we have King's parable of the War on Terror, and called it The Omega Men. 

It's that simple.

His partner in crime, Barnaby Bagenda, is as uniquely suited to bring this vision to life as Dave Gibbons was for Moore.  The style of Watchmen has been as commented on as its story.  With Omega Men, Bagenda's mastery of the grid ends up speaking directly to Kyle's conclusions.  Moore wrote an indictment of the superhero genre.  King, and Bagenda, leave the conclusion up to the reader.  Life isn't never that easy to interpret anyway.

Reading Comics 185 "I am being Broot, plus the end of Scott Snyder's Batman and the penultimate Geoff Johns Justice League"

Batman #50, 51 (DC)
These are Scott Snyder's final two issues of the most successful run from the New 52 era.  I've done my fair share of waffling on Snyder's Batman, but in the end I can agree that it was historic, and in a good way.  #50 counts as the end of Jim Gordon's run as Commissioner Batman.  Bruce Wayne, in an earlier issue I haven't read, finally reconciled himself with his Batman destiny again, and aided in the thwarting of Mr. Bloom's plans to deconstruct Gotham (via methods that made him a cross between Christopher Nolan's Ra's al Ghul in Batman Begins and Poison Ivy).  Along the way, Snyder brings Duke Thomas, the would-be next Robin who went on to somewhat fill that role in We Are Robin, back into the fold, providing sort-of closer to one of his signature creations (along with the Court of Owls and Harper Row) during the run.  #51 is a better issue, as it directly reflects on the very first issue by bringing back the "Gotham is..." newspaper column feature in the captions, along the way providing a hopeful interpretation of what Batman means to his city.  I think that about sums up what Snyder brought to the character, building on Grant Morrison's earlier Batman Inc. mentality and allowing Batman to be less grim, while still pursuing monumental stories (just about every story was a crossover arc).  This was something that was largely absent from of the New 52, a truly cohesive vision that looked like something new but was also, for those paying attention, something familiar.

(Snyder returns in the DC Rebirth era with All Star Batman.)

Justice League #49 (DC)
Geoff Johns pens the penultimate chapter of "Darkseid War" and his run in this series, his last regular writing assignment for the foreseeable future, and he continues to drop big moments, such as the death of Moebius (the responsible party is hardly someone you would expect), setting up a finale in which all the remaining players must sort out their variously tangled relationships, enemies of so many orders that you kind of might confuse this for the best-ever X-Men story (or the rest of the Marvel universe lately, as has been heavily depicted in its movies, soon to be seen again in Captain America: Civil War).  So that's exactly what Johns has accomplished in this very DC series that has stood as the uncrowned monthly event series I've been describing since the first issue...

Omega Men #11 (DC)
The penultimate issue of Tom King's masterpiece sees war grow more and more entrenched, as the individual remaining members of the team rally the individual worlds of the Vega System to the cause.  This is where we get to see the results of what the rest of the series has accomplished, and my favorite moment comes from Scrapps, the dirtiest player in the game (no, silly, not Ric Flair!).  Scrapps is the girl I will probably have to go back and read to find out if King ever actually explored her background, but she's been the toughest soldier in an army that was packed with all kinds of muscle.  She confronts Broot's father, the pontifex of Changralyn (where Omega be praised), and utters the phrase leading the title of this column, "I am being Broot."  ("Broot" means heretic, by the way.)  It's a great moment, and points to what King, and DC, may have been intending all along with Omega Men, which was to present DC's version of Marvel's Guardians of the Galaxy, which a couple of years ago became a hugely successful movie, famously with the tree creature Groot, whose dialogue nearly exclusively consists of uttering the phrase, "I am Groot."  And as far as I'm concerned, that's exactly what King has accomplished.  DC has always been the thinking man's comic book company.  There are plenty of people who would love to dispute this, but they'd be wrong, and I'm not even just talking superhero comics (no other company has been able to so successfully juggle those and so many other genres like DC).  But even in terms of between DC and Marvel, DC's always been the more philosophical one, whereas Marvel has always tried its hardest to play the superhero game straight (again, you can see that clearly in the movies).  Right now we have a lot of fans who prefer the Marvel method.  When it swings around again (and it will), Omega Men will be waiting to be rediscovered.  And make a better movie...

Reading Comics 184 "Darkseid War, Superman: America Alien, Omega Men, Web-Warriors"

Justice League #47, 48, Special #1 (DC)
Okay, so the word ought to be ought by this point that Justice League #50 will finally give a definitive answer as to who is the Joker.  Because that's going to happen.  So I dove back into Darkseid War.  The original plan was to eventually read the whole thing in trade collection, because this is one of the biggest stories Geoff Johns has ever done (which is saying something), building on just about everything he's done in this series, including Forever Evil, and arguably telling a definitive New Gods tale in the process.  With various members having taken over various New Gods facets in the wake of Darkseid's death, they come to the realization that the Crime Syndicate (as Lex Luthor realized immediately) will probably have to play a role in this, and by the end have actually decided to team up with their doppelgangers.  (It's worth noting that the animated Justice League: Crisis on Two Earths is actually pretty good.)  In the Special, Johns gets to write a Jessica Cruz (Power Ring) tale, more or less riffing on what he's already done in the series proper, but still fun for fans of his Green Lantern to see (it's also worth noting that his two creations, Cruz and Simon Baz, finally helm their first ongoing series, thanks to the upcoming Rebirth era, in Green Lanterns).  But more importantly, and also slightly riffing on earlier material, Special also puts the spotlight on Grail, and as such is another essential issue for those who realized that Johns has been using Justice League as his first run with Wonder Woman.  And may he have another...

Omega Men #3 (DC)
And thusly now do I have physical copies for all extant issues of this series.  In this one, Tom King explores Princess Kalista's motivations, which at the time seemed all the more crucial because she had the most immediate relationship with Kyle Rayner, and this was the first time the series delved into a team member's back story, but certainly not the last.  The William James quote?  "The 'sentimental fallacy' is to shed tears over abstract justice and generosity, beauty, etc., and never to know these qualities when you meet them in the street, because the circumstances make them vulgar."  Again, I love these quotes in the series.  Clearly Kalista was used to win Kyle over, because she's a romantic figure, enough to make him begin to care, when the rampant chaos of the Vega System itself was never enough.  I hope comics fans eventually come around and realize how significant King's work in this series really is...

Web-Warriors #5 (Marvel)
I had to read at least one issue of this series, right?  It's a de facto continuation of Mike Costa's work from the Secret Wars Spider-verse mini-series, which is to say, more with all those Spider-Man variations running amok together.  What strikes me, in reading this, is that Costa is completely at home in this chaos. I guess it took a while for me to reconcile this version of his writing with the more sober work I know best, but if it gets him more fans and maybe even regular work, then I can support that.  Maybe not read it regularly myself, but clearly there are readers for this sort of thing, so I can't complain.  Happy for the guy...

Superman: American Alien #2, 4, 5 (DC)
I read the first issue digitally, and I was impressed with this latest variation on Superman's origins.  Every issue spotlights a different period of Clark Kent's formative development.  The second issue, for instance, features Max Landis' take on the period featured in Smallville, the teenage Clark figuring out what to do with his powers.  Each issue features a different artist.  This one has Tommy Lee Edwards, in a style you'd not typically associate with Superman, more like Ed Brubaker's crime comics, say.  The fourth issue features budding journalism, with Clark, and Lois, covering the media coverage of emerging moguls Oliver Queen (post-island), Lex Luthor, and the elusive Bruce Wayne (who was previously featured in the third issue).  This is my favorite issue so far, and not just because of the typically lush Jae Lee art.  Here's a quote from Luthor:

"There's a fatalism that's been going around, and I think it's toxic -- self-fulfilling.  I think fatalism is hip and pragmatism has gotten boring.  I think dark futures are paradoxically easier to see than bright ones.  Everyone talks about the problems of tomorrow, the apocalypse of next week, but whatever happened to the man of tomorrow?  Why are we so convinced there aren't those among us who could maybe solve these problems that seem so insurmountable to the pseudo-intellectuals who pose them? We scared to even talk about a hopeful future, because we're terrified it won't come to light."

Anyway, Landis has some big, brainy thoughts in mind, perfectly in-character, too, and his work speaks to the enduring strength of revisiting familiar stories, no matter how familiar we think they are, or how familiar we think we are with the players.  Young Luthor is always as fascinating as Mature Luthor, and in the hands of someone like Landis, Young Clark is arguably more fascinating than his mature counterpart.  His first encounter with Batman, in this version, inspires him to become Superman.  And so the fifth issue is all about his first, unsure attempt at being a superhero, like the Landis version of Frank Miller's famous Batman: Year One.  And it's fantastic.  The whole Blur thing from Smallville always seemed half-considered to me, a placeholder.  As depicted by Francis Manapul, in arguably his best work to date, the Landis version seems like it always existed.  Well, now it always will...

Reading Comics 182 "Making a commitment"

Yesterday I went to see Deadpool and Batman v Superman: Dawn of Justice (thought it was entertaining, loved it, respectively) and in between visited Heroes & Villains again.  I wanted to order a copy of Omega Men #3 (the only one missing from my physical collection) and pick up the latest issue, #10.  Then I put in reserves for the two remaining issues, and next week's Wonder Woman: Earth One from Grant Morrison.  Omega Men, as anyone who's been reading this blog since last fall will know, has become my favorite recent comic, certainly favorite since Morrison's Annihilator which concluded early last year (and topped the last two annual QB50 lists).  Things rarely work out this way for me (yet), but ideally I'd like to see Omega Men remembered in the same ranks as Alan Moore's Watchman as a seminal superhero comic.  It's just that good.  It changes everything.  At least DC has rewarded writer Tom King with the plush assignment of Batman in the impending Rebirth era.

I walked away with a few other comics, and so I'll talk about that stuff:

Sam Wilson: Captain America #7 (Marvel)
Billed on the cover as celebrating Cap's 75th anniversary, this supersize issue features a pivotal moment in the "Standoff" crossover arc, for Steve Rogers, and a few extra stories from some acclaimed creators.  The lead features Sam Wilson, who's been Captain America for the past year or so but is also familiar to fans as Falcon, as he enters Maria Hill's misguided supervillain reconstruction town.  He teams up with Bucky, who still responds to the name of Winter Soldier these days.  The writer is Nick Spencer, who made a splash with DC a handful of years ago but has otherwise been making his name with the Image series Morning Glories.  (I'm surprised his name didn't already have a label here, because I was reading him in those early years, including the start of Glories, but I guess that was just before I started this blog.)  Joss Whedon teams with superstar artist John Cassaday for a tale from Cap's WWII past, Tim Sale does a mostly wordless story concerning Cap's oft-overlooked parents, and Greg Rucka features Steve Rogers at the ballet, along with artist Mike Perkins, who worked on Ed Brubaker's Captain America, as well as Marvel's ambitious adaption of Stephen King's The Stand.  Rucka and Perkins easily have the best work in the issue.

Omega Men #10 (DC)
King finally gets to the war the Omega Men have been plotting against the Citadel from the very start, and predictably, there's very little glory to be found, just mere survival.  Kyle Rayner stumbled into the fight of his life, one that has nothing to do with Green Lanterns, and by the end of the issue he walks off into the distance, and his last words in the issue are, "No.  No, I'm...I'm just another Omega Man."  King's quote from William James (always one of my favorite features in this series) says, "Truth happens to an idea.  It becomes true, is made true by events."  It's not until this issue that the Omega Men have truly been allowed to do what they've been promising all along, to be the heroes in a great fight for freedom.  What does it feel like to be a part of that?  Although King has been featuring the secret origins of the team itself, the series has had Kyle at its core since the start.  He doesn't revel in the results they've had so far.  Not having a personal stake, it means something different to him, but it has become personal.  That's King's genius. 

Prez #6 (DC)
This is the final issue of the initial run.  DC's promised to let Prez complete its twelve issue run, just as with Omega Men, but it'll take a little longer.  Ben Caldwell has since started work at Marvel.  I hope he'll be back to finish Prez, because Mark Russell's biting political satire is truly some of the best mainstream work I've seen in years, challenging what I believe, and I still love it.  That's just one of the many things to love about it.  I'm glad to have finally read the issue.

Superman/Batman #1 Special Edition (DC)
This was a freebie released in conjunction with Dawn of Justice, reprinting the debut issue of Jeph Loeb's modern World's Finest series.  Loeb had become one of the most acclaimed writers in comics at the time, and this series continued his trademark psychological insight into superheroes he'd previously brought to works like Batman: The Long Halloween and Superman For All Seasons, plus the more contemporary Hush arc with Jim Lee, in which he helped shape the landscape of DC at that time.  In this issue, President Luthor is still in office, one of the key developments that stretched from the dawn of the millennium to Infinite Crisis, characterization that reflects Lex's role in the later Geoff Johns Justice League and Zack Snyder's Dawn of Justice.  There are far worse free comics out there...

Reading Comics 181 "Always a Fan"

I went shopping again, in part because Christian Mock got a letter in a comic book, and so I'll be heaping further praise on Tom King's masterful Omega Men, plus some other thoughts.

First, a word on Comic Shop News.  This is a free weekly newsletter you can find in most comic book shops (although I've had a rough time finding it in recent years with a lot of stores simply not making enough to give away stuff like this).  It's basically the last print source for fans in the age of the Internet, which is probably what killed Wizard.  While its interior content is more or less superfluous these days, its main articles are an excellent resource, the rare all-inclusive source for notable projects throughout the medium.  Without it, for instance, I may never have heard of Andi Ewington's breakthrough 45.  I'm talking about it at all because I picked up a copy, which turned out to be #1,500, which is a milestone if there ever was one.  The cover feature this issue concerns Paul Dini's forthcoming graphic novel Dark Night: A True Batman Story, which looks like an amazing project.

Before I get into the comics I bought, it's also worth noting that Batman v Superman: Dawn of Justice is opening this weekend, and the merchandising blitz is in full force, including select cereal boxes including mini-comics.  Most of these mini-comics aren't much to write about, but Jeff Parker's "Playground Heroes" turned out to be a pretty good one.  In it, he explores Superman's impact on a boy struggling with how to respond to bullies.  It's a worthwhile character study where these things tend to be fairly generic storytelling.   Presumably, the other three mini-comics in the set are equally worth reading. 

Plus, y'know, that movie they're technically hawking is a pretty big deal.  As a fan of Man of Steel, I'm glad the Justice League franchise is spinning out of it.  Even if fans still prefer the irreverent hijinks of the Avengers and Deadpool at the box office, this is still some of the best superhero material on the big screen, ever. 

Anyway, onto the comics proper:

Dark Knight III: The Master Race #3 (DC)
I nearly bought the deluxe version of the second issue.  In my more limited comics experience these days, I won't read the complete story until the eventual collected edition.  I previously read the first issue digitally.  As of this issue, I would equate DKIII with DC's previous Before Watchmen, with Brian Azzarello once again stepping up to help make it a reality.  Frank Miller's voice is still there, but there's clearly a filter this time around.  I decided to pick up this issue because the mini-comic this time features Green Lantern, apparently from the perspective of the ring itself rather than Hal Jordan.  It's interesting stuff. 

Martian Manhunter #10 (DC)
I figured I had to revisit this series when the cover boasts, "The Secret Origin of J'onn J'onzz," which otherwise means Rob Williams is getting around to explaining exactly what's been going on, and that's exactly what this issue is all about, a new version of Mars mythology and origin of the Martian Manhunter, how J'onn is involved, and why he ended up splitting himself up into a variety of guises, including Mr. Biscuits.  I liked it.  Should anyone be interested in expanding on these concepts, they could easily once again tie in Bloodwynd with the rest of it, as confused readers two decades ago...

The Omega Men #2, 4, 5, and 9 (DC)
While accidentally duplicating my print collection of #5, now I'm only missing #3, which I'd read previously in digital form.  I can't get over how brilliant this series is.  Tom King obviously got to write the greatest non-Geoff Johns Green Lantern story of the New 52 era by making the ostensible leads the terrorists/freedom fighters Omega Men, making alien politics as realistic and intriguing as possible, and featuring a heavy dose of Kyle Rayner to move the narrative along, including #9 finally featuring him reuniting with the white ring.  I think Omega Men represents what DC has routinely done better than Marvel, which is to look deeper into the superhero narrative, looking for alternatives in storytelling approach.  Marvel does it on occasion, like Frank Miller's Daredevil, Matt Fraction's Hawkeye, and King's Vision, but more often than not it clings to the tradition more than anything else, even in the Ultimate Comics experiments.  DC, meanwhile, routinely pushes the boundaries of literature storytelling, not as exceptions but increasingly as the rule.  It frustrates fans to no end.  They want simplicity and familiarity above everything else.  They want what they always had.  Omega Men flies in the face of all the rules.  Nine issues in and we're still waiting for Kyle to pick a side.  Shouldn't it be obvious?  Isn't it obvious?  And yet King is writing something truly great here, buried in a series that has some of the worst sales of DC's whole catalogue, which DC itself saved from cancellation in order to give King the chance to complete his story.  Because, as I've said time and again, DC knows better than the readers what it has with Omega Men, and King.  Word is that King will be writing Batman once the full details of DC Rebirth are revealed.  I couldn't be happier.

Robin: Son of Batman #5, 6 (DC)
These are the remaining issues under Patrick Gleason's creative direction (although I guess I missed #4) in the follow-up series to his and Pete Tomasi's brilliant Batman and Robin.  The more issues I read, the more I'm convinced that Gleason had more creative input in Robin: Son of Batman's predecessor than previously thought, because he proves a deft hand as writer, so similar to and in the same spirit as it that it's a seamless continuation.  These issues features Damian's reunion with his mother Talia, confronting the matter of what happened in Grant Morrison's Batman, Inc. while also exploring Goliath's secret origin and rounding out Maya Ducard's story.  I have no idea why fans wouldn't embrace this series.

Superman #50 (DC)
Gene Luen Yang's final issue is a big one, concluding both the 'Truth" and "Savage Dawn" arcs.  I follow two blogs that both savaged (heh) the issue, and weren't particularly keen on Yang's run in general.  For me, putting aside my incomplete reading of it to this point, it was a natural extension of Geoff Johns' (it's rare when two different writers can do this; previously I can think of Chuck Dixon and Devin K. Grayson in the pages of Nightwing, and...really, that's about it, except for maybe Karl Kesel and Stuart Immonen in the Superman comics).  The whole point of it, taking away Superman's powers, was to provide one of those extreme situations that the '90s did on a constant basis.  And in fact, Superman lost his powers in the '90s, too (in the wake of The Final Night).  This time, however, his identity was exposed at the same time.  He began to feel hounded, and no longer knew who to trust.  For a lot of readers, this didn't feel true to character.  Yang's fight club, I think, was what most alienated readers.  It's a common trope, but as far as I could tell from the issue that debuted it, Yang's version was uniquely positioned to explore Superman's insecurities, kind of like if he'd ended up in the Bottle City of Kandor instead, or some other environment where he had to rediscover what being Superman means.  Because that's really what it was all about.  It was a place where he was safe when he felt unsafe everywhere else, both because of the powers and the identity being compromised.  So this issue has him dealing with Vandal Savage, who presents him with further options, ultimately forcing Superman to once again affirm what he does and why he does it.  At the end of the issue, he's reunited with Lois (and Jimmy), who tell him, "Go be Superman!" and, "Go be Clark."  Because far too often, there's confusion as to which he is.  When he's really both.  Which, again, was the whole point of this crisis.  We've become too comfortable with the notions of Superman and his secret identity.  The modern era has been trying to dismantle that for twenty years.  I guess it'll have to keep trying.

All-New Wolverine #5 (Marvel)
Mock's letter appears in the letters column of this comic.  It's one of those letters from a fan who has found a comic that's let them be a fan again.  Mock as been a reader longer than I have.  He's probably a different kind of fan than I am.  Which is fine.  This is another of the many Marvel series in recent years featuring a new character in a familiar guise.  It's an old DC trick but one Marvel has only recently begun to embrace.  A lot of them have been about switching the gender.  This is one of them.  Since Death of Wolverine (which some have interpreted as Marvel's campaign to undermine the X-Men movies by removing the most popular mutant from the comics landscape, except in the pages of Old Man Logan), classic Wolverine has remained dead.  In his place is now the character formerly known as X-23 Laura Kinney.  This particular issue reminds me a great deal of Valiant's Bloodshot Reborn, which features a character who is very much a Wolverine variant himself.  I can't say I find this to be a bad thing, because it's always nice to see the big guys pay attention to the competition, and to have a comic that pays attention to mythology in general.  I can't say the issue made me want to read the series faithfully (all told, I guess I'm more interested in Bloodshot Reborn), but it was certainly worth reading at least once.  Cheers, Mock!

I guess, if there's an overall lesson to be learned from this particular post, it's that I'm always going to be a fan, no matter how my readership evolves.

Reading Comics #180 "A Brief Check-in"

I think I can, I think I can...

So I went back to Hampton, VA's friendly Heroes & Villains comic book shop last week.  It was my first visit this year.  I was sorely tempted to buy the deluxe copy of DKIII #2 available, but I didn't.  I've been keeping tabs on what's going on in comics since I wrapped up my most recent ongoing readership experience last fall.  Marvel's preparing an official Civil War II (I contend readers will find a perfectly good follow-up in the Secret Wars spin-off), while DC is still in the midst of unveiling its latest brand revision under the Rebirth banner (which includes bringing Action Comics back to its original numbering in time to let the series reach #1,000 without looking like another cheap publicity stunt).  This is a period where I will be happy, as a reader, to begin reading in the trades.  Yes, it finally happened.  Although obviously I'll have to keep informed to know what's worth reading in the trades...

So every now and then, I have to check back in!  So, here's what I read.  Mostly, it was checking in with previous favorites or things I was merely curious about.  Without further adieu:

Captain America: White #5 (Marvel)
The final issue in the latest Loeb/Sale collaboration left me wishing there was more than simply Cap pining for the lost Bucky, but the Loeb/Sale Marvel titles have all been written in some way under that model.  It's a reminder, at the very least, that there was a considerable period in Cap's history where he truly did believe Bucky was gone forever.  So this is a useful testament all the same.  At some point I will read the complete story.

Earth 2: Society #7-8 (DC)
The first issue is Daniel H. Wilson's last on the series.  Honestly, I think fans didn't care for his run because they're still unaware that Wilson is technically a big deal.  His breakthrough novel, Robopocalypse, was optioned instantly by Spielberg (whether it's been in development heck because of Spielberg's association with the Transformers movies I can only speculate), and has subsequently lost the luster of, say, The Martian, which obviously became a very successful movie in the meantime.  I've argued his Earth 2's merits previously, and Society's in particular.  It's a fascinating concept, but it's bound to irritate traditionalists, especially ones who saw Earth 2 begin under the auspices of the far better established James Robinson.  However, Wilson's day is now done.  The second issue is the first under Dan Abnett's tenure.  Abnett is best known in his collaborations with Andy Lanning, but as a solo act I previously found his Conspiracy scintillating.  His opening pages with Hawkgirl, and then concluding ones where Hawkgirl meets Fury, are some of the things that affirm what a great idea Earth 2 and Society remain.  So that was all good to experience.

Huck #4 (Image)
I belong to the Millarworld message board community these days.  This is the first issue of Huck I've caught.  To me, it's clearly a Superman analogy, if based on nothing but the evidence in this issue.  But no less an authority than Mark Millar himself insists otherwise, that it's actually a Captain America metaphor.  The empirical evidence certainly disagrees further.  Maybe Millar is more sarcastic than I previously knew...

Omega Men #7-8 (DC)
This is me literally picking up where I left off.  These issues bring Kyle Rayner forcibly into the team's plans, by showing him what happened to Voorl, why they recruited him in the first place.  It also features a typically tragic origin for another member, Doc, who was originally programmed to enact the Voorl tragedy itself.  That's the kind of writing from Tom King that has made me a bona fide believer.

Robin: Son of Batman #9 (DC)
Patrick Gleason's final issue as writer/artist returns the series full-circle to its Batman & Robin origins, having Damian realize that now he's the one that's been left behind, just Batman was before him.  It's depth that was probably unexpected and unwanted by readers who just wanted to see Robin being a smart aleck, as is still what most fans know about him.  Even though I missed a few issues, I'm glad to see that Gleason also wrapped up his Maya arc in a satisfactory manner.  I don't know if there ended up being a Goliath origin story somewhere in there, but this is a series I will be proud to add to my trade collection, alongside its predecessor, as one of the great experiences I've had in comics.

Superman #45 (DC)
The most recent new issue that the shop had was also the next issue after the last one I'd previously read, which was pretty neat.  Readers apparently took poorly to Gene Luen Yang's run, but I found it fascinating.  This issue began the Mythbrawl arc, sort of the traditional underground fighting trope mixed with Neil Gaiman's ideas from American Gods.  Which, needless to say, I found fascinating.  To have Superman included in such an idea is novel, and takes in the concept to a greater scope than most writers often consider.  Too often he's dismissed by fans as being too godlike in his abilities.  (Never mind that the New Gods are hardly ever presented as godlike at all!)  Here's an example of taking that concept to its next logical step.  Cheers, Yang.  Bonus points for Howard Porter on art!

Telos #3 (DC)
Jeff King's Convergence spin-off was quickly dismissed as roundly pointless by fans, but I find it to be a continuation of DC's interest in expanding its space mythology, which is often relegated to the Legion of Super-Heroes, Adam Strange, and Green Lantern.  Along with Omega Men, I think Telos does a good job of filling that gap, not only in further expanding the Brainiac narrative, but by including the New 52 versions of Captain Carrot and Captain Comet (the latter of which last seen in Grant Morrison's Action Comics).  I think Telos as a new character fails for the same reason Bloodwynd failed in the '90s, because his origins are deliberately cloaked in mystery.  Fans don't tend to like that.  They like the instantly iconic.  It worked with Wolverine mostly because fans didn't even realize or care that Wolverine appeared without origins.  He was just cool, and was different enough from the rest of the Marvel landscape (he debuted in the pages of a Hulk comic, remember, not X-Men) that he stood out without needing everything spelled out immediately.  It doesn't stop me from liking characters like Telos and Bloodwynd, but then, I'm a crazy person who actually took Mark Millar's sarcasm seriously at first...

Reading Comics 178 "Tom King, the Breakout Talent of 2015"

I've been chattering a lot about Tom King lately.  Well, it's official: he's my favorite breakout talent this year.

After lavishing his Omega Men with repeated praise, it felt like time to check out more of his recent work.  The first came by accident, looking inside the Justice League: Darkseid War - Green Lantern special and realizing that he was the writer.  With all due apologies to Robert Venditti and IDW's Star Trek/Green Lantern, this is now my favorite 2015 Green Lantern.  King handles Hal Jordan like a pro.  He's the first writer since Geoff Johns to get him so clearly.  Which is to say, if you loved Johns' Hal, you'll love King's.

I've been reading good stuff about King's Vision over at Marvel (don't you let him get away, DC!), and so had a look at its first two issues.  Very literate, more like sci-fi prose than superhero comic.  It's the latest version of comics evolving past their stereotype (which will of course always have hopeless devotees, as these things tend to go).  DC (and Brad Meltzer, in the pages of Justice League of America...several volumes ago) tried doing this sort of thing with Red Tornado.  But bringing out a true "other" perspective from the Vision is exactly what you can expect to find here.

Lastly, King's Sheriff of Baghdad from Vertigo, which draws on the writer's own background, flashing back to the chaotic early days of the Iraq War.  As Eastwood's immensely popular film American Sniper did before it, Sheriff imagines a Western vibe to the events.  Like his Omega Men, you might need a few issues to get your bearing, but it's another example of King separating from the rest of the pack with vital writing that is among comics' best.

This guy will be one of the biggest names among a lot of fans soon enough...

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.

Reading Comics 174 "Omega Men, revisited"

I've been reading the complete sneak peaks DC put out for the Divergence launch in June, and it occurred to me that what I was talking about last time concerning Frank Miller and Holy Terror!, and what it means to think about comic books, terrorism, and the aftermath of the Paris attacks specifically has another dimension worth bringing up.

It's funny, too, because the Omega Men preview was one of the few I'd caught originally, and I even talked about then how audacious it was in showing what amounted to a comic book version of the beheading films terrorists have been uploading for the horrified public.

Reading it again, especially in light of the Paris attacks and the renewed sense of urgency they've provoked, I can't help but think of Omega Men as more significant than it seemed even then.

The writer is Tom King, one half of the duo responsible for the intermittently brilliant Grayson.  I guess I shouldn't be surprised.  King very deliberately sets the preview up as a dialogue, a thought piece, which none of the other sneak peaks did.  That's reason enough for it to stick out.  The fact that it seems to feature the death of Kyle Rayner, a character comic book fans of twenty years ago have particular nostalgia for, at the time of my original reading appeared to be the most important aspect of the whole piece.

But it really wasn't. 

My friends over at Weird Science track monthly sales, so I get to find out which titles are selling miserably (although, apparently, lately it's just about all of them), which includes Omega Men, which at its current rate would target it for cancellation.  And in fact that's exactly what DC did.  Except it went back and reversed that decision.

I'm thinking DC realized what it had, even if readers at the moment don't.  What I'm suggesting is that Omega Men might be one of those seminal comics that needs to be discovered.  I'm hardly its greatest possible ambassador, having read only the preview (twice).  But if King has managed to keep it compelling, relevant, on-point (and DC's faith in it certainly seems to suggest that), this might be exactly the comic book to explain, or at least attempt to make sense of, a perspective that seems downright baffling to the rest of it.

This is not to say that I think Omega Men or Tom King are endorsing terrorists, but that this is the rare experience that dares to go where no one else has gone, and it deserves some recognition for it. 

There are plenty of people who think Frank Miller's Holy Terror! after all did have the right approach, and there are others, notably President Obama, who think it's wrong to have a knee-jerk reaction to the Paris attacks.  And maybe Omega Men can help explain why.

Hey, it's worth a look.