Comments on: Breaking down “Event” comics, Part Four: The OMAC Project; or, why hasn’t anyone killed Batman yet?

By: Ken Raining

Ken Raining — Fri, 16 Jun 2006 18:28:15 +0000

Real quick: Fire’s secret origin (from an issue of, naturally, SECRET ORIGINS) posits her as a Brazillian super- spy who recieved her powers on a mission gone wrong. It was a sind- of silly story (weren’t they all, in those days), and I thought it was a very nice touch for Rucka to pull that out and use it in a serious way. My least favorite thing about all this Crisis stuff is the swath of destruction over the Giffen- era JL– proving once again that no one outside of Keith and JM really understood what that comic was all about. At least with Fire, Rucka used a minor, but established, plot point in her history to make her a stronger character.

By: Greg Burgas

Greg Burgas — Thu, 15 Jun 2006 18:28:41 +0000

Thanks, John – I couldn’t remember if Max could control people without talking to them. I thought he couldn’t, but at least they cleared that up. And, of course, I didn’t read “Sacrifice,” so I wouldn’t have read the explanation. Stupid DC and their stupid policies!

I agree with you on the idea of the heroes being aware of the hierarchy among heroes. It’s unbelievably dumb. Maybe writers will stop it in the Brave New World of DC. But I doubt it.

By: John Seavey

John Seavey — Thu, 15 Jun 2006 15:56:08 +0000

Two things–one, no, severing Max’s vocal cords wouldn’t have worked. He was capable of controlling Superman when Superman was on the moon and Max was on Earth; if there was ever a point where he relied on direct vocal commands for his power to work, it wasn’t true by the time Wonder Woman killed him. He explained the issue fairly nicely while he was tied up by the lasso of truth. As long as he was capable of thought, Superman was his to control, and he would make him kill. (I so wanted, when Batman kept whining, “There’s always another way!” in ‘Infinite Crisis’, for just one person to ask him, “OK, dumbass, what was it?”)

And two, the thing I really _really_ hate about DC Comics right now is that yes, there are A-list, B-list, and C-list heroes, and the heroes themselves seem to actually know it. It’s so frustrating to have everyone in the DC Universe practically saying, “Pffh. Blue Beetle? Like we’ll listen to you. When was the last time you had your own series, 1989?” Maybe I’m being nostalgic, but it used to be that DC’s super-heroes weren’t aware of the hierarchy of popularity fans imposed on them. (That would be the same time when “altruism” was a believable motivation for super-heroes; now, it’s just assumed that everyone except Superman does it because they have psychological problems. But I’m rambling now…)

Oh, and yes, three, it seems pretty clear to me that Batman is complicit in the deaths of Rocket Red, Blue Beetle, and anyone else the OMACs killed (and, indeed, anyone who became an OMAC and was subsequently killed.) But it’s OK, now, because Batman went on a year-long cruise with two fit young men, and now he’s forgiven himself for his role in the deaths of super-heroes. And if Batman’s forgiven himself, can’t we just do the same? Certainly DC can; I’m willing to bet they’re just going to sweep that whole thing under the “One Year Later” carpet.

By: Mike Loughlin

Mike Loughlin — Thu, 15 Jun 2006 12:38:05 +0000

Thank you for saving me the time and expense of reading OMAC Project. Given how much I liked Rucka’s writing Sasha in Detective Comics, I was curious about this book. Sounds like I didn’t miss much. I bought the first issue of Checkmate, and it didn’t make much of an impression on me. Has it gotten better?

By: Apodaca

Apodaca — Wed, 14 Jun 2006 20:51:40 +0000

I don’t know, Greg. Severing his vocal cords seems like a pretty cruel punishment, too. I’d put it right up there with mind-wiping.

By: Sean Juan

Sean Juan — Wed, 14 Jun 2006 19:00:49 +0000

One thing that bothered me about this series is how did Batman survive an unexpected, full-force attack from Superman. Not only did he survive, but by series end (it appeared that the comprised of a couple of days in DC time), Batman was back in action.

By: moose n squirrel

moose n squirrel — Wed, 14 Jun 2006 18:07:42 +0000

The Max Lord thing was so stupid I initially assumed it was a fake-out, that he wasn’t really dead. I mean, what the hell was his plan – to send a bunch of random kill-bots after superheroes and then have Wonder Woman bump him off? What the hell? Even within the asinine “Max Lord is now a crazy paranoid Luthor-type who hates all superhumans” setup is made no goddamn sense. I lost one of my favorite post-Crisis characters for this?

The good thing about IC is that it left me all outraged out. I couldn’t possibly care about what Joe Quesada did to Spider-man today after all this crap.

By: Filipe

Filipe — Wed, 14 Jun 2006 17:12:07 +0000

Bea was a spy before she joined Global Guardians. This has been in her background, at least since late 80′s I think. It was one of those forgotten cotinuity things.

By: Greg Burgas

Greg Burgas — Wed, 14 Jun 2006 17:08:04 +0000

Yeah, I haven’t read the whole War Games/Crimes thing, but I understood he was acting like a dick in that, too. Sad to hear that he’s also stupid. He’s the World’s Greatest Freakin’ Detective! And he also can be a nice guy if he tries a bit.

By: Paddy

Paddy — Wed, 14 Jun 2006 17:03:49 +0000

When I got Omac project I got the TPB which included countdown, a synopsis of the first 3 issues of sacrifice and the last episode.

Reading the synopsis I thought it sounded like I didn’t miss much. In fact I thought that is sounded like a waste of paper to print the comic that they did.

Unfortunately like the big completist I am I had to get those issues and it turned out I was right. It was just a stupid, stupid story that should have been told in 1 or 2 issues.

I would like to address Batman acting like a stupid dick. Although countdown was the first time I saw Batman acting like a dick (I read it first) war crimes is actually a much earlier example of him being a dick. He is a dick to pretty much every body and he’s pretty stupid too.