OMAC: One Man Army Corps
Author: Jack Kirby, Mike Royer, D. Bruce Berry
Publisher: DC Comics
Publishing Date: 2021
Pgs:
Dewey:
Disposition: Irving Public Library - South Campus - Irving, TX
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REVIEW MAY CONTAIN SPOILERS
Summary:
In one of his last major works for DC, Kirby envisions a 1984-inspired dystopia starring corporate nobody Buddy Blank, who is changed by a satellite called Brother Eye into the super-powered O.M.A.C. (One Man Army Corps). Enlisted by the Global Peace Agency, who police the world using pacifistic means, O.M.A.C. battles the forces of conformity in this short-lived but legendary series!

Witness the early tales of Jack Kirby's legendary creation O.M.A.C. in this new graphic novel collecting stories from O.M.A.C. #1-8 (1974-1975) plus artwork from WHO'S WHO!

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Genre:
DC Comics
Dystopia
Graphic Novels
Superhero
Mecha

Why this book:
Jack Kirby
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Cover and Interior Art:
Love the covers of the OMAC books.

The art throughout grows on you more and more. The covers are great. Same with the splash pages. #6’s cover is greatness.

Plot Holes/Out of Character:
Telling someone like Buck Blue that your superpowers have to get recharged isn't smart.

Favorite Scene:
The Gang Train image... would've been awesome to have had Kirby illustrate King's Dark Tower.

Favorite Quote:
“It is the era of the Super-Rich! When money, like technology, reaches complex proportions, complex situations arise---and this one could spell death." -More of Kirby's World That is Coming. It's like he had a crystal ball.

“What will movies be like in The World That's Coming? Story plots translated electronically and fed into the human brain, will make the viewer a participant in the movie action...every viewer will be his own movie star...every movie will be a personal experience...technology will breed wonders...but will it also produce earth-shaking perils!!!” -And that's just the bumper for Issue #3 of OMAC.

Favorite Concept:
A sentient satellite performing hormone surgery on a target from space. Comic book, sci Fi nerd goes hell yeah; horror fan goes damn, that's messed up.

Tropes:
Sending the Build-a-Friends to targets and killing them is a big theme in literature and movies. I immediately keyed on that reflecting on the Black Widow movie plot...and an old Wild Wild West episode.

Stopping to lecture low-level hood Buck Blue when he should be busting Fast Freddie and the Godmother is OMAC getting preachy instead of doing his job.

OMAC is a 6-Million Dollar Man. Bloodshot is sort of an OMAC. The tropes abound.

Hmm Moments:
So OMAC loved Lila, but his solution to her being an automaton, moving and doing at someone else's behest with no agency of her own, is to destroy the factory where she and all the other Build-a-Friends were being manufactured illegally. That's a heavy message in comic book form, especially for the 70s, and especially when delivered in as few panels as Kirby managed to communicate this.

Mr Big's bread and circuses party for the masses to keep them distracted reminds me of the billionaire space race.

Brother Eye's structural print factory is well done visually. 3D biological printing, Kirby was right about a lot of his The World That Is Coming. And he was doing OMAC in the middle 70s.

Meh / PFFT Moments:
Kirby's finger on the pulse of The World That Is Coming is tempered by classic comic book naivete. OMAC is made a 5-Star General by the Global Peace Agency because that will make the world obey his orders as he moves through the countries and about the globe. ... ... ...[sarcasm] 'kay, sure, why not. [/sarcasm]

Juxtaposition:
The cruelty, the inhumanity of those running the Pseudo-People factory is shocking, just part of the World That's Coming, as Kirby stated it. The shame is that I could see it happening today in the World That Is.

Dr Skuba is a Bond villain-type.

The Unexpected:
The Lila Build-a-Friend is such a messed-up image to start with. Even knowing about the Build-A-Friend doesn’t stand up to reading it and the visuals. The disassembled Stepford Wives vibe icks me out.

Dreamcasting:
Not sure who a modern Peter Cushing would be, but I could totally picture him in the role as Mr. Big. Or a modern Angus Scrimm.

OMAC’s face looked almost Eastwood-like in the sequence with Buck Blue on the hunt for Mr. Big.

Movies and Television:
They sort of did an OMAC with the Bloodshot movie with Vin Diesel.
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Pacing:
Very well paced.

Last Page Sound:
The story of OMAC does go on in various backup issues. He becomes Kamandi's grandfather. And also various other versions of OMAC appear throughout the comics. The World That Is Coming is largely dropped in favor of the World That Is Here when they flip the script and make Brother Eye a Batman tool that is taken over by Maxwell Lord on his heel turn, and Kamandi's post-apocalypse. OMAC is stronger as it’s own thing, with the Kamandi stuff thrown in. Making him and his kind part of the larger DC superhero universe doesn’t track for me.

Conclusions I’ve Drawn:
I can see now that I need to revisit Kirby's work. I never really read OMAC, New Gods, or Kamandi complete. More an issue here or there.

Author Assessment:
Love Kirby.
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Pretty campy, but some of Kirby's futurism is on poit. ( )

http://jmgold.blogspot.com/2008/06/omac.html ( )