There are plenty of reasons why this comic book is so much better than most of its competition. Turning the Green Lantern symbol into the Omega symbol is simply not ignoring the balls.
Super hero comic books too often wind up not being about anything except super hero comic books. So now we get stories deconstructing the ideals and myths which were commonly excepted tropes for decades. How would people actually react to a world full of super powered people? What if the super heroes weren't infallible and could be corrupted by their own power? What steps would the government take to control the perceived menace? If we're not getting stories about the negative reaction people would have to the super heroes, we constantly get the story where the heroes teach regular people that they're the actual heroes. Everybody is actually Batman! Everyone is actually Superman! We are in control of our own lives and thank you, super heroes, for giving us that message! It's exhausting! Although not in an intellectually exhausting manner! The stories are never subtle about who is in the right and who is totally fucking wrong. Although sometimes I think Superman is being a complete and utter dick but the story is hitting me over the head with some stupid fucking message about how he's doing the right thing even though he obviously isn't. So maybe I'm just tired of writers who can't write complex stories without having to explain them in long-winded narration boxes that often contradict the actions of the character. Maybe I'm just tired of being told, by the writer and the first person narration of the main character, how I'm supposed to feel and the conclusions I'm supposed to draw.
Sometimes I just want to read a book that can't fucking decide if the hero is inspiring or terrible! I want a book that lets me decide who to support! Although, to be fair, putting "The Omega Men" right on the cover kind of makes me think I'm supposed to agree with their view of the universe. And who is actually reading this book and siding with The Citadel anyway (you know, since politicians and CEOs probably aren't reading it)? So maybe this is a bad example of a comic book with an ambiguous message that doesn't offer any easy answers. This book hasn't really tried to be subtle about the black eye it's intending to give America's foreign policy and America's kowtowing to corporate interests. Maybe I should have begun with an off-topic thought like usual.
Is it bad that I drive around in Grand Theft Auto laughing hysterically as I run people over or would it be worse if I were totally stoic and serious about it?!
This month, The Omega Men gather an army and march into the Citadel's headquarters. That's pretty much the summation of the entire issue. Trying to summarize something so well put together and make stupid dick jokes about it would be an insult to the work. The meat of the story is how the characters go about convincing each world to join the war against the Citadel. The actual action, the war, the battles...they're all skimmed past in a few pages detailing half an Earth year's worth of conflict. Some writers would have made a huge mistake and swapped those ratios and concentrated on huge double splash pages of heroic battle and stupid one liners. I don't know if Tom King would have spent longer on the war if given more than twelve issues of The Omega Men. Whatever the case, it's better this way. Sometimes writers are tempted to fill pages with nonsense or simple action because they have no actual deadline for a story. In fact, it's the exact opposite where the writer knows that the comic just keeps going and going, so why not pad the story as much as possible to fill up as many pages as possible to extend one story for as many issues as possible? I really wouldn't mind if all of DC's comics simply became four, six, or twelve issue mini-series! Because then the writer would be forced to pitch an actual story with a beginning, middle, and end with a fucking reason for existing. Until then, we'll just keep getting pitches for stories for things like "Superman battles the most powerful intergalactic monster he's met to date for five issues until he finally wins in the last issue through sheer force of willpower and heart!"
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