3 out of 5

Gang: I don’t get it.  The Vision?  That I get.  Issues from that series – the first issue, even – have been striking, and worth contemplation; reading that catches you off guard.  It’s very possible it will get sucked under an editorial Right-the-Ship mandate by series end, but regardless, King has managed to eke out several definite moments that have made my time with the series worthwhile.  But Omega Men… never gets there.  It shares a similarly notable visual style to Vision, with its reliance on a 9-panel grid, but artist Barnaby Bagenda does not have the same pitch-perfect sense of framing and pacing as Gabriel Hernandez Walta, so all the cool layouts in the world can’t make the over-stuffed feeling of some pages (not due to the grid, but due to use of space within the panel) smooth out, nor can it distract from what unfortunately comes across as a frustratingly empty script at points.

There’s certainly a sense of what King was hoping to do, and it’s damn near boiling at points, just on the verge of breaking into something smart but losing it the next issue; and if I may be critical of DC and Marvel readers, I’m guessing just this extra dash of effort is what’s merited all the praise for the title, that the book for sure sticks out amongst the norm.  But again, that it doesn’t really go anywhere special unfortunately makes it, ultimately, an empty read for me.

Now, I’m not familiar with the original Omega Men.  I don’t know if we’re making plot diversions to account for nods to the history or whatnot.  The Omega Men tale being told here is actually a good one, the bits of the story with teeth.  But it seems that this title was given the green light via a Green Lantern path – Kyle Rayner stepping into the Vega solar system in which the Men reside and getting wrapped up in their little war with the ruling power of the system, The Citadel, and mostly its purple-skinned evil honcho guy, The Viceroy – and from a writerly perspective, King’s decision to essentially anchor the tale around Rayner, as a moral center (even though it’s down very waywardly) is what holds it back from pursuing its more interesting components.  There are quotes at the end of each chapter from philosopher William James that speak of perception, and how that affects concepts like “truth,” and that’s very much at play throughout Omega Men: the titular anti-heroes killing in the name of justice; manipulating for a greater good.  King doesn’t let us stew in this darkness as in Vision, though; Rayner, hero that he is, continually edges toward the light, pontificating and giving speeches and flip-flopping way too easily just to remain all Green Lantern-y.  One could suspect some meta work here, especially given some visuals and dialogue in the last issue, but as I often maintain when it comes to interpretation: if I’m not given any reason from the reading itself to go that extra contemplative mile, I’m not going to assume that it was an intention.  Or, at the very least, it was not effected well, which should still affect the rating.  In case it’s not clear: I got no scent of subtext from Kyle’s point-of-view.  There was no irony to his heroism.

If this all sounds negative, it’s more to justify why I didn’t find The Omega Men to be a great read, but it’s still a good one.  Especially for a title involving a mainstream character, King takes a very backwards, somewhat slow-burn approach – not really involving Kyle much or even explaining much about what’s going on for several issues – and, excepting a tendency to use “realistic” dialogue which ends up just reading very repetitively (characters pause and restart their sentence quite often), the book, on the whole, is well written: the characters express their personalities well, and scenes flow.  But the inability for the plot to really push us into intellectual territory dilutes the experience.  It’s exactly as though we’re reading an Omega Men story that someone slapped Green Lantern into.  His role is very MacGuffiny, backwards justified to support a concept that easily could have come through from the other characters.

Back on the art tip, briefly, Fajardo’s oil-ish colors are just fantastic.  They heighten every moment of the book, and make what otherwise reads as space opera take on a more somber, serious note.  Compare this to Hi-Fi’s colors in book 10 – same penciller; Bagenda’s art seems sloppy and very comic-booky.  The issue doesn’t have as much gravity.  All down to the color.

So the jury is still out on King.  I want to say this title was hijacked because it dealt with too high profile of a character, but that means his Batman will be a tough sell as well, and I don’t want to admit defeat quite yet.