Kirby's OMAC opens the declaration. "I'm OMAC! Evacuate This Section! I'm Going to destroy it!" With the section in question being the futuristic (or present day, depending on how you read it) Build-A-Friend (real doll) factory.As we find out later, the dolls explode when they get to close to their target/buyer. So, maybe they're not such a bad idea. Once destroyed, we learn that the men from the Global Peace Agency, who wear faceless red masks, have selected poor Buddy Blank as the perfect candidate for project OMAC. Buddy is a meek stock clerk, no friends, bullied, and in love with a girl he barely knows or sees. After being bullied yet again, he finally decides to follow his love interest into her restricted department where Buddy is promptly captured, and to his horror, sees the exploding friends. Worse yet, he discovers that his love interest was a prototype. Buddy in his rage turns into OMAC and saves (destroys) the day.
It's very Kirby, and very awesome.
Turns out that the Didio & Giffen's OMAC is a fairly large homage to not just the original OMAC, but Kirby's style as well. The hands, faces, and angles of perception are all very Kirbyesque, all the characters have a nickname, and there is an omnipresent descriptive narrator. Omac shows up and
destroys a section of a large corporation to access its mainframe for Brother Eye. Along the way OMAC fights a Build-A-Friend in a great couple of panels, survives the mental attacks of Dubbilex and his henchmen (who wear faceless red masks!), and an army of gobblers that are best described as Jack Kirby meets the Goon.In the end our hero escapes from the corporate-boss-villain and we find that the human used by Brother Eye to fight as OMAC has no idea what is going on. This isnt much of a surprise since OMAC, in this first issue, is more rampaging beast than a "OMAC lives...so Man may live." kinda guy.
The issue is a nice throw back and I really enjoyed all the Kirby style that was utilized. It would have been fun to see a little more futuristic social commentary but hopefully that will come in later issues, or at least a destruct room. It's good Kirby and a good book. You could do worse.
OMAC, next month "Things Get Really Weird" and I think that's a good thing.
Okay, the way those doll limbs are sticking out in every direction from the packing material is creepy.
ReplyDeleteLooking at the face of the doll in the lower right corner made me think: there's a perception out there that some people read comics to ogle women in provocative poses, and there are certainly comics out there that make use of that. A lot of artists are also beloved in direct proportion to how well they draw women.
But Kirby drew some of the ugliest females in the history of comics and he's one of the most beloved and respected comic artists ever. What does this mean? Oh, probably nothing. Just throwing it out there.
I'm looking forward to future installments, Eli. I always seem to enjoy reading/listening to people talk about old comics more than I enjoy reading them myself.