I finished Omega Men late last week and am finally getting a chance to pull my thoughts together. Let me start off by saying that this is definitely my second favorite Tom King work, behind Up in the Sky. It was less abstract than Mister Miracle, which was a good call, as King’s intentions behind the story came across very well.
I have a feeling that this was a very personal story for him. It seemed to be dripping with his experiences in the CIA and the analogies to the political situations in Iraq and Afghanistan are very in your face. I thought that using Kyle Rayner as the entry point for the audience to experience the Omega Men was a very good call. King wrote Kyle in a very generic way. With the exception of Kyle reflecting on the fact that he wasn’t technically chosen by the ring, (and of course his status as. White lantern) he could’ve inserted John Stewart or Hal Jordan and it wouldn’t have mattered. But Kyle definitely worked here.
I appreciated King placing emphasis on Kyle’s catholic faith (I’m not sure if that is a thing in the comics. I’ve never known Kyle to place such emphasis on his Catholicism like Huntress or Daredevil. But again it was very effective here.) The religion subtext as well as the overarching political themes provided a lot of provocative questions. Between this and his Cold Days story in Batman, I notice that King seems to contemplate the book of Job a good bit. This makes sense due to the fact that Job poses the age old question of why does God allow bad things to happen, but refuses to answer it aside from saying that Karma is too easy an answer. King wrestles with that premise, and ultimately, like the book of Job, doesn’t answer the question. And I’m glad he doesn’t.
King recognizes that he cannot craft an answer to that question without it coming across as trite. So he just lets it sit there. Also, by providing Kyle as the audience’s point of view, he is able to show us the flaws in even the titular heroes. By the end, after the bad guys are put down and the good guys are set up in power, the good guys start to look eerily similar to the bad guys. This is an obvious metaphor for our global (and national) political climates.
The ending to the book was the most poignant inasmuch as Kyle is asked a very interesting question: where do his allegiances lie? Kyle is made aware that there is an unavoidable conflict down the road where Earth will have to impose its might on the Omega Men in order to survive. Earth can only be virtuous for so long until it will have to become the Citadel, the villain of the story, in order to survive. Since the Omega Men don’t show themselves righteous in the end, will that justify Earth’s inevitable exercise of force? And where will Kyle side in the fight? Where will the other heroes? What side is truly right?
None of the questions are answered and the book is all the better for it. These are deep questions that we should contemplate and as an audience it is right that we not be spoon fed the canned answer.
In the end, I thought this was a masterpiece. King could’ve made Omega Men a silly Guardians of the Galaxy rip-off, but instead he told a provocative story that requires our reflection and contemplation on issues of God, politics and the fundamental notions of right and wrong. And he did it wonderfully.