By Travis Trombley | |
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.
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.
And while King - an ex-CIA counterterrorism officer - grant the Omega Men some sympathetic light by quickly revealing the monstrous behavior of the Citadel, embodied in the purple-skinned Viceroy, it’s almost always counteracted by an act distinctly non-superheroic by the Omega Men.
For example, in the second issue, the Viceroy demands 3,900 executions from a planet because 39 Citadel soldiers died in an attempt to capture the Omega Men there. That the Viceroy would so cordially enforce an assumption that the life of a single Citadel soldier is worth 100 natives cements him as villain. But that doesn’t make the Omega Men heroes, as Rayner quickly learns. Rather than stop the massacre, as a superhero would, the Omega Men use the chaos of situation to steal a ship and escape the planet, against Rayner’s protests, of course.
“I’m sorry, Kyle . . . But I know your love of sacrifice,” Primus says to Rayner as they flee. “Had we taken any longer, an entire Citadel fleet would’ve been upon us. We’d be as dead as them. And if we’d succeeded by some miracle, they’d have avenged our victory by killing three times the number here on Ogyptu or on Karna. If we want to save anyone, we run.”
Immediately one understands why quotes from American philosopher William James punctuate every chapter. The Omega Men brandish a pragmatism so often foreign to superheroes, men and women granted the abilities to shape reality by their ideology. The Omega Men are far more constrained, and in this sense arguably more realistic. They aren’t superheroes - they’re super insurgents waging a very real form of rebellion, and at no point does King and company let us lose sight of that.
Later we learn that much of system’s struggle is owed to a resource unique to Vega: Stellarium, a rare element that can stop planet cores from erupting, as in the “Kryptonian incident.” While it totes a religious imperative, the Citadel invaded Vega and wiped out an entire planet’s population in order to mine it for the stellarium and sell it to the billions of planets throughout the universe. Sound familiar at all? Stellarium is a clear analog to oil, making Vega an allegorical Middle East, rife with familiar militarization, imperialism, and religious zealotry.
But thankfully, King doesn’t settle for allegory alone. The volume concerns Kyle Rayner’s conversion to Omega Man, which is a conversion away from believing in the non-lethal, everybody can win “high road” - the “third way,” as he calls it. It’s an arc that toes a line between tragic fall and revelatory maturation - as Primus later laments, Kyle must “give up [his] soul” to save everyone. The slow and gradual nature of this arc is handled with such grace and intention that one can’t help but feel as ideologically flustered as Kyle.
At the turning point, when the Omega Men finally reveal to Kyle the genocidal nature of the Citadel and officially ask for his help in waging war after holding him hostage for half of the book, one of them says, “Of course you’ll say no. Of course that’s your first thought. That’s why we took you. To have a next thought. You needed to see the blood and corruption of our worlds.”
King offers no answer. The book’s conclusion is rather disillusioned, and Kyle’s faith is shaken. The political reality sets in and very real questions arise about the effectiveness of violence, the existence of long-term solutions, and the consequences of waging an asymmetrical war.
One can’t help but think King wants of his readers the same thing the Omega Men wanted of Kyle: to have a next thought beyond the categorical rules and constructs and narratives by which we’ve come to define ourselves.
For example, in the second issue, the Viceroy demands 3,900 executions from a planet because 39 Citadel soldiers died in an attempt to capture the Omega Men there. That the Viceroy would so cordially enforce an assumption that the life of a single Citadel soldier is worth 100 natives cements him as villain. But that doesn’t make the Omega Men heroes, as Rayner quickly learns. Rather than stop the massacre, as a superhero would, the Omega Men use the chaos of situation to steal a ship and escape the planet, against Rayner’s protests, of course.
“I’m sorry, Kyle . . . But I know your love of sacrifice,” Primus says to Rayner as they flee. “Had we taken any longer, an entire Citadel fleet would’ve been upon us. We’d be as dead as them. And if we’d succeeded by some miracle, they’d have avenged our victory by killing three times the number here on Ogyptu or on Karna. If we want to save anyone, we run.”
Immediately one understands why quotes from American philosopher William James punctuate every chapter. The Omega Men brandish a pragmatism so often foreign to superheroes, men and women granted the abilities to shape reality by their ideology. The Omega Men are far more constrained, and in this sense arguably more realistic. They aren’t superheroes - they’re super insurgents waging a very real form of rebellion, and at no point does King and company let us lose sight of that.
Later we learn that much of system’s struggle is owed to a resource unique to Vega: Stellarium, a rare element that can stop planet cores from erupting, as in the “Kryptonian incident.” While it totes a religious imperative, the Citadel invaded Vega and wiped out an entire planet’s population in order to mine it for the stellarium and sell it to the billions of planets throughout the universe. Sound familiar at all? Stellarium is a clear analog to oil, making Vega an allegorical Middle East, rife with familiar militarization, imperialism, and religious zealotry.
But thankfully, King doesn’t settle for allegory alone. The volume concerns Kyle Rayner’s conversion to Omega Man, which is a conversion away from believing in the non-lethal, everybody can win “high road” - the “third way,” as he calls it. It’s an arc that toes a line between tragic fall and revelatory maturation - as Primus later laments, Kyle must “give up [his] soul” to save everyone. The slow and gradual nature of this arc is handled with such grace and intention that one can’t help but feel as ideologically flustered as Kyle.
At the turning point, when the Omega Men finally reveal to Kyle the genocidal nature of the Citadel and officially ask for his help in waging war after holding him hostage for half of the book, one of them says, “Of course you’ll say no. Of course that’s your first thought. That’s why we took you. To have a next thought. You needed to see the blood and corruption of our worlds.”
King offers no answer. The book’s conclusion is rather disillusioned, and Kyle’s faith is shaken. The political reality sets in and very real questions arise about the effectiveness of violence, the existence of long-term solutions, and the consequences of waging an asymmetrical war.
One can’t help but think King wants of his readers the same thing the Omega Men wanted of Kyle: to have a next thought beyond the categorical rules and constructs and narratives by which we’ve come to define ourselves.
Structurally, King gambled on a progressive revelation style of storytelling, and while it’s frustrating at first, it pays off. Relying on flashbacks and gradual reveals, the style gives readers the sense of stepping into a new world and understanding it over time, tying the reader’s experience to Kyle’s. Overtime, we become familiar with Vega’s five planets and their respective cultures, just like Kyle. And when they unite against the Citadel in all out war, it feels like something genuinely earned.
This style also permits King the ability to flesh out his characters without sacrificing pacing. Characterization plays a huge role in this tale, and like Kyle, we get to know these characters slowly over time, learning of the individual crises and tragedies that primed them for Omega Men membership. While this isn’t Firefly level in terms of character focus, the quality of work here in making characters who feel real in the sense that their decisions and sacrifices carry weight without feeling stilted is far above the standard set by most mainstream DC titles.
As for art, Bagenda’s pencils are quite beautiful and especially apt for conveying action, but it’s the paneling that stands out here. Deferring to classic nine-panel grids (with occasional variations for effect), the layout gives King space to have his characters talk a lot and fight a lot. Some of the best pages are grids of action: a meticulously choreographed 18-panel melee between Tigor and Kalista, battle montages that demonstrate the unending nature of war, a zoom out of the tiger-humanoids Karnians growling before battle. This patterning takes full advantage of the medium, justifying it as a graphic novel rather than a short story with pictures.
In their review, IGN said “Omega Men is the best Green Lantern comic you’ve ever read.” I can’t say I agree - this isn’t a Green Lantern story, although it features one as the central protagonist - our grounding rod. Omega Men lacks the sense of personal awareness and confidence that resonates so well in the best of Geoff Johns’ recent Green Lantern work. Arguably more insightful, Omega Men provides a gritty perspective on the cyclicality of war, the realities of enacting militaristic change, and the potential ineptitude of the superhero in a complex world.
To a degree, this is book is what Dawn of Justice wanted to be: an action blockbuster that deconstructs the genre to force questions upon the audience. Anyone like myself lamenting the lack of narrative rigor in the current superhero cinematic climate needs to pick up this volume - it’s a proud installment in the proud tradition of Watchmen, DKR, Marvels, and Astro City. An instant and much appreciated classic.
This style also permits King the ability to flesh out his characters without sacrificing pacing. Characterization plays a huge role in this tale, and like Kyle, we get to know these characters slowly over time, learning of the individual crises and tragedies that primed them for Omega Men membership. While this isn’t Firefly level in terms of character focus, the quality of work here in making characters who feel real in the sense that their decisions and sacrifices carry weight without feeling stilted is far above the standard set by most mainstream DC titles.
As for art, Bagenda’s pencils are quite beautiful and especially apt for conveying action, but it’s the paneling that stands out here. Deferring to classic nine-panel grids (with occasional variations for effect), the layout gives King space to have his characters talk a lot and fight a lot. Some of the best pages are grids of action: a meticulously choreographed 18-panel melee between Tigor and Kalista, battle montages that demonstrate the unending nature of war, a zoom out of the tiger-humanoids Karnians growling before battle. This patterning takes full advantage of the medium, justifying it as a graphic novel rather than a short story with pictures.
In their review, IGN said “Omega Men is the best Green Lantern comic you’ve ever read.” I can’t say I agree - this isn’t a Green Lantern story, although it features one as the central protagonist - our grounding rod. Omega Men lacks the sense of personal awareness and confidence that resonates so well in the best of Geoff Johns’ recent Green Lantern work. Arguably more insightful, Omega Men provides a gritty perspective on the cyclicality of war, the realities of enacting militaristic change, and the potential ineptitude of the superhero in a complex world.
To a degree, this is book is what Dawn of Justice wanted to be: an action blockbuster that deconstructs the genre to force questions upon the audience. Anyone like myself lamenting the lack of narrative rigor in the current superhero cinematic climate needs to pick up this volume - it’s a proud installment in the proud tradition of Watchmen, DKR, Marvels, and Astro City. An instant and much appreciated classic.
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