United they shall stand!
Creative Staff:
Story: Tom King
Art: Barnaby Bagenda
What They Say:
Crippled and desperate after their brutal defeat on Karna, the Citadel brings an all-out war to the Omega Men as the team attempts to unify all the worlds of Vega in a last stand against their conquerors.
Content: (please note that content portions of a review may contain spoilers):
As we prepare for the finale for The Omega Men the next time around, the series puts together a familiar penultimate installment in a lot of ways. But like oh so many stories, it’s not so much the story itself but rather the execution of it. Tom King and Barnaby Bagenda have been working some real magic with this book since day one and all that has been poured into it feels like it’s full of payoff here. With the exploration of so many worlds, peoples, and cultural settings, revisiting them here in the face of what’s to come feels earned. Not a false moment of montage material filled with superficiality. It’s got the meat to it that it needs to feel real and The Omega Men have reached that point where they are now capable of doing what they have to. And the price will be paid without regret.
As the events have unfolded, it’s come down to the final war itself thanks to what was set into motion with the stellarium. The reveal shook the foundations of how the universe works and with Kyle Rainer at the center of it, he’s changed the course of everything. The Citadel knows what it has to do, they’ve essentially been forced into that position, and they’re engaging with all their might, some twenty-seven million troops across a seemingly endless array of ships. Their goal of throwing everything they have at the five worlds in order to find one with weakness, one they can exploit in order to prosper again, is simple enough. It’s a war of attrition of the highest scale. What this issue becomes about is is aligning the forces to fight back, to hold the line, and to push forward. There’s a beautiful sequence at the start with Kyle as he gets what’s necessary for the worlds to have a fight chance and it has a kind of catharsis about it that’s just beautiful.
The rest of the book is even more powerful. Each of The Omega Men get a couple of pages with the world’s they go to in order to rally them there and deal with essentially taking control. These story beats hit back to what we know of them from the past exposures and it really works beautifully in bringing stories full circle, from Kalista claiming the throne and changing the way things work to Primus’ impassioned speech. His sequence in particular stands out for me because he makes it clear that yes, there are times when the ideals must be put aside because survival is what’s needed. He’s losing his humanity and the pain we see him in is humbling. But the authenticity of what he says, the reality of what must be done, is like a full on species imperative that comes into play. It’s powerful stuff that King and Bagenda present here, reaching to the past and connecting it to the future through characters like these.
In Summary:
The Omega men is a powerful work when taken in small monthly doses and I can only imagine it being an even more powerful work when read in full. I’m excited to see how the finale plays out but also saddened that there won’t be opportunities for future exploration by this team with the structures they’ve created. King and Bagenda have seeded some fascinating and intriguing material into the DC Universe that elevates it as a whole, putting the galactic stage on a very different level. While I suspect few, if any, will get to play with it depending on how Rebirth goes, this is a strong and self contained storyline that is a must-read that belongs on every comic readers shelf to remind of just what the medium can do with familiar characters long thought to be outdated by the years.
Grade: A
Age Rating: 13+
Released By: DC Comics via ComiXology
Release Date: April 27th, 2016
MSRP: $2.99
