Tom King and Barnaby Bagenda’s Omega Men: The End is Here functions as a superhero title only in that it interrogates the genre, removing the ideals and moral codes from a world of heroes and transporting them - in the body of white lantern Kyle Rayner - to a place far less forgiving. A world far more like our own.

As intelligent as it is well-drawn, Omega Men provides multiple layers for exploration. There’s an almost allegorical harkening to the global politics playing out in the Middle East. There’s an exploration into the cyclicality of war and violence, and the human calculus involved in waging such struggles. There’s an extended discussion of religious devotion and the role it plays in our personal narratives. There’s action, humor, tragedy, more action, and a well-developed cast of diverse characters. There’s everything one needs to feel provoked to further ponderance after closing the glossy cover - everything a comic needs to become an instant classic.

The plot follows Kyle Rayner’s experience with a group of guerrilla “terrorists” known as the Omega Men in the Vega System, an area of space guarded from Green Lantern policing by way of treaty. Rayner chose to surrender his White Lantern ring to enter the system as a diplomat in an attempt to broker peace between the Citadel, a theocratic empire, and the Omega Men, a small insurgency group who resists the Citadel’s imperialistic control of Vega’s six planets by way of asymmetrical warfare.

Partially resurrected from Roger Slifer’s DC storylines from the 80s, the current Omega Men include Primus, a once nonviolent resistance leader, Tigor, an eager-to-fight big-cat humanoid, Doc, a killer robot (and well-used comic relief), Broot, an excommunicated priest with spectacular strength and interesting syntax, and Scrapps, an trigger-happy, quip-slinging 'teen.' They greet the would-be diplomat Rayner by taking him captive and publicly executing him via live broadcast in the vein of the propaganda videos produced by the Taliban and ISIS. Or so we are led to believe. In reality, it was a ruse perpetrated in order to give the Omega Men time to conscript Rayner to their cause: freeing Vega of Citadel control. ​

Bicker as fans may about which shared ‘superhero’ universe they prefer, few would contest DC Comics’ title of champion in the ring of standalone, self-analytical narratives. Among the established tradition of Watchmen, Dark Knight Returns, Kingdom Come, and Year One rests an entry more modern in copyright but older in sensibility: The New Frontier.  

While lacking some of the more rigorous character depth found in other DC tours de force like DKR, with New Frontier author and illustrator Darwyn Cooke weaves a tapestry narrative from the individual threads of DC’s most famous characters spanning the Golden and Silver Ages of comics. And it’s a colorful, beautiful tapestry, indeed. Beautiful enough to win Eisner, Shuster, and Harvey Awards.

Capitalizing on some of the same authority anxieties that defined the aforementioned late 80s works, New Frontier transports readers back to a ‘60s when superheroes - now casualties of McCarthyism - either resigned to work with the government, retire, or operate as outlaws. But while we see Superman and Wonder Woman - two heroes who took the loyalty oath - debate their patriotic duties in a world more grey than red, white and blue, other adventures take center stage in the book’s first half. Many, many other adventures, in fact.

Young fighter pilot Hal Jordan - who’s resolved never to kill - is put in a life or death situation two hours after the end of the Korean War. New-to-Earth J’onn J’onzz takes the form of a detective to blend into and help his adopted planet. Rick Flag and his military-supported Task Force X protect the country from threats that would have otherwise been left to the costumed adventurers. A young, idealistic Barry Allen prevents an armed robbery at a party attended by Oliver Queen, Bruce Wayne, Lois Lane, Selina Kyle, and - at another table entirely - Hal Jordan and his pilot friend Ace, who eventually becomes the leader of an adventurer team known as the Challengers. Agent Faraday, when he’s not trying to apprehend costumed heroes like Flash, works with Ferris Air to plan a mission to Mars.

But serendipitous interactions alone do not unite these characters. The threat of something known as “the Centre” - which turns out to be a psychic entity in the guise of a floating island covered in dinosaurs (it sounds preposterous, but works so, so well) - generates a number of circumstances that ultimately bring together the world’s heroes - “super,” adventurer and military, alike. ​

​Despite the pending status of my formal mythology education, one of the more salient features of any myth tradition, to me, seems to be revisability. In order for a culture to make use of a myth, that myth must be able to adapt to the culture's changes over time. In effect, old stories have to be updated. Mind you, I don’t consider this revisability to be a function or defining aspect to mythology; it is more of a superficial component that allows mythologies to function. But more on that later.

Now, if one there is one that word Microsoft Word does not consider a word that applies to the superhero genre, revisability (seriously, MCW does not accept revisability as a real word), I think, is that word. Take for example the recent update to Tony Stark's origin: though in his 1963 debut the events that led to his capture and later creating the Iron Man suit occurred in Vietnam, Warren Ellis's Iron Man: Extremis and the blockbuster film Iron Man place Shell-head's formation in the Middle East. Revisability.

Not only do superheroes change over time as they pass from one writer to the next, but every so often these heroes undergo rather substantive overhauls or alternative explorations. If I may use some genre vernacular, these overhauls or alternatives (consider especially Marvel's Ultimate universe and DC's New 52) usually involve origin stories, the tales that explain both how and why--the latter usually being the more interesting--a superhero comes to be. 
                                                
Many of the recent superhero films act as re-tellings of our favorite heroes beginnings (or re-beginnings, if we're discussing the recent reboots of Batman, Spidey, and the Man of Steel). Of course, this makes perfect sense since the filmmakers are introducing these characters to a much broader audience than they may have had on the page or TV; however, these re-tellings also act simultaneously as updates to these heroes' origins. The simple fact is that we love origin stories—en medias res has little narratological standing in this realm.

Into this arena enter J. Michael Straczynski and Shane Davis’ Superman: Earth One, the beautiful, stand-alone 2010 graphic novel that retold the superman origin.