A masterpiece.
Creative Staff:
Story: Tom King
Art: Barnaby Bagenda, Toby Cypress, Ig Guara, José Marzan Jr.
Colors: Romulo Fajardo Jr., Tomeu Morey, Hi-Fi
Letters: Pat Brosseau
What They Say:
THE GALAXY’S MOST WANTED
Kyle Rayner, the White Lantern, is dead. And the Omega Men killed him. On live TV. They’re a criminal gang, a terrorist organization, a fanatical cult.
And they’re the only hope for freedom this godforsaken sector of the universe has.
No matter what the citizens of the Vega System think they saw, the White Lantern lives…as the Omega Men’s prisoner. What they really want him to be is their latest recruit in their relentless war against the all-powerful Citadel and its tyrannical Viceroy.
As Kyle gets to know this motley crew of outlaws, he’ll question everything he knows about being a hero. In this strange system where the Green Lanterns are forbidden, will he break his oath and join their revolution? Or will he discover that the Omega Men are monsters in the end?
Content: (please note that content portions of a review may contain spoilers):
I once took a literary criticism class. Although the purpose of the course was to cover the history of criticism from the Greeks on up to today, my professor, Dr. Downing, structured it around a simple six-word statement: “You are sick with Western Metaphysics.”
Naturally, I can’t condense what took three months and a gargantuan amount of reading and conversation into a paragraph, but the basic idea is that Western civilization is caught in binary, top-down thinking. We view the world as being one or the other, with one being the best and the other being the worst. White is better than black, male is better than female, civilization is better than savagery, etc. etc. This method of thinking is what allows us to “other” different people and justify prejudice and cruelty. And it’s this sickness, this disease, that permeates every page, every panel of The Omega Men: The End is Here.
The comic begins with a scene that has become all-too-familiar to us over the past thirty years: a man sits in a chair in a rundown, nondescript building, a bag over his head, his hands tied. Behind him against a concrete wall hangs a tattered and abused flag. A man appears, talking to the camera, ignoring the person tied to the chair. He talks about injustice. He talks about tyranny. He talks about the lengths his oppressors have forced him and his comrades to go in order to free themselves. Then he removes the bag. Then we see the man held hostage. Then we see him killed.
This could very well be a video sent by Al-Qaeda, or ISIS, or any militant guerrilla group, but here, in this comic, it’s the Omega Men, and the man they have strapped to the chair isn’t a journalist or soldier, it’s Kyle Rayner, the White Lantern.
Rayner traveled to the Vega system. The system is composed of many planets with diverse populations but a shared religion, and is one of the few systems off-limits to the Green Lantern Corps. Vega is also the only source of Stellarium, an element that can be used to stabilize planetary cores in danger of collapse. After the destruction of Krypton, Stellarium became a galactic commodity, and as we’ve seen on our planet countless times, if there’s something the rich and powerful want, they will get it no matter what the price to the environment or the indigenous people. The six closest inhabited planets around the star contain the only known sources of Stellarium, and they are controlled by the empire known as The Citadel—composed of non-natives to the system and appointed by a council of planets to mine and distribute the ore. Supposedly the Citadel rules with kindness and fairness.
And if you believe that, then I’ve got a bridge I’d love to sell to you cheap.
In reality, the Citadel abuses and exploits the natives, treating them like children, or chattel, or slave labor. Some, like the cat people of Karna, fight back, but most accept the Citadel’s rule, convinced of the empire’s power and their own profound lack of it. Only a small band of rebels poses any sort of threat to the Citadel: the Omega Men, who bomb and kill and conduct raids in the hopes of chipping away at the empire one piece at a time.
Kyle enters this quagmire in the hopes of acting as a neutral third party in order to broker some sort of cease-fire between the two sides. As an act of good faith, he leaves his ring with the Citadel’s Viceroy, and that’s what leads to his capture and death by the Omega Men.
Except that it only looked like he died. Nothing can be trusted in this comic. The lies and plots fold in on each other like the petals of an origami rose, and nothing is ever quite what it appears. Truth and lies, reality and illusion are the binaries that structure this fictional world and this comic. They are the Alpha and Omega.
The Omega Men wish to convert Kyle to their side, secretly hoping to use him as a bomb. To do this, they take him on a tour of the six planets of the Vega system, showing him firsthand the economic, military, and religious oppression the Citadel imposes on the people. Each member of the group hails from one of the worlds: Tigorr hails from Karn, Primus (the public leader) from Ogyptu, Broot from Changralyn, Princess Kalista from Euphorix, Scrapps from Voorl, and the medical robot Doc from the Citadel itself. Each has their own reason for wanting to see the empire crumble, and each is willing to do anything to make that a reality.
Tom King has taken the old Omega Men team created by Marv Wolfman and Joe Staton and used them and their world to tell a story that hits incredibly close to home, despite being set in a galaxy far, far away. Strip away the science fiction and comic book trappings—tiger men, sword-wielding princesses, magic science rings—and you get the story of an indigenous people who happened to be unlucky enough to live in an area containing a resource that more technologically-advanced societies desire. You could easily replace Vega with the Congo, or the Middle East, or South America, and the themes would remain the same. This grounds the genre elements and adds gravity to the story and the characters that both science fiction and comics often miss. The sophistication with which Tom King handles the politics along with the plot and character is simply breathtaking.
Like an origami rose, each layer reveals another, and peeling them back adds both complexity and clarity to the situation. I admit that at first I had difficulty keeping up with the planets and the characters, but each issue added a little bit more, and about a third of the way through I had a good handle on it. King and crew basically take us along with Kyle, teaching us about the worlds and their people at the same time the Omega Men teach Kyle. In some ways it’s structured like a travel brochure (an impression highlighted by the fantastic covers by Trevor Hutchinson), only instead of taking us to the safe, tourist areas, we see the real world and the price behind our gadgets and luxuries.
As complex and sophisticated as the situation is, at the heart of it is the simple issue of binary thinking. The Citadel is bad and the Omega Men are good (or vice versa). This mode of thinking is supported by the religion of the Vega system, which revolves around two Gods (or one God with two aspects, I never quite figured that one out): Alpha and Omega. Alpha created everything and served as the source of all light. Omega will destroy everything, cleansing and baptizing the universe in blessed silence. The Citadel is Alpha, and the Omega Men Omega, and the problem is that the binary doesn’t allow for a third God or ideology. This is the danger, the sickness at the heart of the system, and the reason why Kyle’s offer to broker peace (as noble as it was) was doomed to fail. There exists no third option.
Again, we can see parallels between this story and events in our world. It’s not difficult to read the US and Al-Qaeda or ISIS in the conflict between the Omega Men and the Citadel. In both situations, a small band of rebels poses a credible ideological and military threat to a far stronger power, and in both situations each side sees itself as in the right. Both parties believe that the end justifies the means, and both parties possess remarkable blind spots concerning their own faults and atrocities. Tom King’s ability to interrogate this situation in such a sophisticated and complex way in just twelve issues is remarkable. Let me make it plain, this is a damn smart book, one that unfolds new layers with each reading.
So far I’ve focused on the politics and the ideology, but the plot and character work is just as impressive. I don’t want to go into as much detail, though, as I really want you to read this, and the joy comes from the ride. I will say, though, that this is one of the most impressive plots I’ve read in some time, and some of the most complex, compelling, sympathetic, and problematic characters I’ve ever read.
This also may be one of the best Kyle Rayner stories I’ve ever read. Since day one, Kyle has been the Green Lantern who doubts. No matter how many tests he passed, he still feels like a lottery winner instead of one chosen to wield the awesome power of the Guardian’s ring. The Omega Men’s manipulations wouldn’t have worked as well on Hal Jordan or John Stewart (I’m not even going to mention Guy Gardner), but Kyle is ready-made for it.
And yet this Kyle is also the most competent and confident that I’ve ever seen. Despite his deep-seated confidence issues, he’s also been battle-tested. He’s able to put aside his fears for the greater good, displaying a greater and nobler heroism than any of the other Lanterns. And love his heart, he tries. He tries so hard to break past the binary and show the people of Vega a different way. Unfortunately, there are some walls even a power ring can’t destroy.
Kyle is truly the only pure soul in this story. While the rest of the Omega Men begin with good intentions, the battles they fought, the choices they made, and the sacrifices they suffered mark them, and what makes this brilliant comic so brilliant is how it ends. Without giving too much away, there’s no happily-ever-after here. Victory just brings about new questions, and yesterday’s freedom fighter might well become tomorrow’s tyrant.
So far I’ve talked pretty much exclusively about the writing, but this comic wouldn’t work if not for the amazing talent of the artists and colorists. Barnaby Bagenda does the lion’s share here, and his line work is amazing. His character models, his action scenes, his body language and facial expressions are all top notch, and he draws some of the best settings in the business. It really feels like we’re seeing windows to alien worlds. Toby Cypress, Ig Guara, and José Marzan Jr. take up the slack for Bagenda in various issues, and while they do a perfectly fine job, it wasn’t quite the same.
Also, Bagenda has created possibly my favorite costume for Kyle.
Romulo Fajardo Jr., Tomeu Morey, and Hi-Fi’s colors also deserve special mention. I wish I had gone to art school so I could better explicate what I mean, but, really, you just have to look at it. Their colors are beautiful and alien and not only bring life and vibrancy to the illustrations, they add to them, creating depth and atmosphere. One little touch that I thought especially good was how they depicted Kyle’s power: the seams on his costume glow, cycling through the different colors of the spectrum, helping remind us that Kyle’s the White Lantern.
I don’t know if Dr. Downing read comic books, but if he did, I could see him reading this and nodding. This is a galaxy that’s sick with Western Metaphysics, and it makes for a damn good story.
In Summary:
The Omega Men: The End is Here blew me away. This is some of the most sophisticated writing I’ve come across in quite some time and the art is absolutely fantastic. The book has already earned a heap of praise, so I’m really just joining the choir when I saw that you should read this. It’s a good book, and it’s an important book with something to say. Dr. Josh gives this an….
Grade: A+
Age Rating: N/A
Released By: DC Comics
Release Date: 30 August 2016
MSRP: $24.99
