Written by: Tom King

Art by: Barnaby Bagenda, Toby Cypress (guest artist: issue 4) & Ig Guara (co-artist: issue 7)

Publisher: DC

When Omega Men was first announced to us I remember people groaning that it was DC’s version of a gritty Guardians of the Galaxy. This belief couldn’t have been further from the end result that we got, as was seen when a preview was released that depicted White Lantern, Kyle Rayner, kidnapped by the Omega Men and then killed. The story deals with an ongoing war between the Omega Men and The Citadel, the governing body of the Vega System state, with Kyle acting as a third, deciding man in all of this. A fairly cliche set-up but Tom King manages to subvert most of the reader’s expectations and turn this tale into a story of political intrigue and a study of the place of belief and pragmatism in war time, exploring themes through the lens of William James’ writings, making this a rather interesting neo-pragmatist text. The series was lauded by critics as ground breaking but didn’t sell well, as shown by DC almost cancelling it halfway through. Fortunately it was allowed to run through to completion and the TPB contains all 12 issues, the preview and some bonus annotated pages on character design and coloring techniques used, so you get plenty bang for your buck here.

Religion and War:

The war between the Omega Men and the Citadel is touted as a war of religious freedom vs. terrorists, with the Omega Men worshiping both Alpha and Omega while the Citadel only recognises Alpha. Obviously this dichotomy of how one side views the other does heavily mirror modern day troubles in the Middle East, as other critics have observed. The most glaring example being the preview taking the form of a broadcast that bears great similarity to the sort released by various terrorist organisations throughout the past decades. In this allegory the Citadel takes the place of the West, trying to control and subdue for the better good by any means necessary although they are sometimes shown to be a bit too cartoonishly evil, such as when the Viceroy orders the murder of 4000 innocents.

What I feel the book does even better however, is to show some of the many different uses of religion in war that can be found throughout the history books. Almost all of the most common exploits are seen here and fit into the characters and plot perfectly. It is seen as an instigator, due to the initial differences between the two culture’s beliefs, later we learn that it is an excuse in order to allow the Citadel to take over planets and mine for Stellarium and an excuse for the Omega Men so that they can rise to positions of power. Religion serves as a source of refuge to Kyle and some of the Omega Men too as they face their tribulations, and the Citadel uses religion as a tool to be manipulated as they bribe the leaders of the highly religious planet, Changralyn into teaching their flock to support the Citadel’s actions. The use of religion is best shown off in issue five, ‘The Spring is Dry’ wherein the group visit Changralyn and their corruption is tackled. It’s one of the best issues in the series an eleven in a world of tens, capped off perfectly with a William James quote, ‘When a religion has become an orthodoxy, its day of inwardness is over: the spring is dry: the faithful live at second hand exclusively and stone the prophets in their turn.’

Going back to real world settings, in this way the Omega Men doesn’t so much remind me of the issues we face in the East but more the holy wars of the Byzantium empire (better known as The Crusades) which mirror many of the motivations of government and usage of the church seen in The Omega Men. The Byzantines used their heavy influence in the church to convince their congregations that the war was ordained by God so they could stop Islam from spreading to Europe all while acquiring new land and resources then handing the church a slice of the profits.

The tale can also be viewed as a story of the perversion and loss of faith as we see Kyle going from devote catholic and member of the corp. to stopping in the middle of both both the lantern oath and his prayer in the finale, a testament to the injustice he has seen.

Us and Them:

Kyle represents the ‘hero’ or ‘observer’ in us. He’s the every-man, the one with ideological ends that he can “save everyone”, this is repeated throughout the series meaning different things at different times which I’ll call back to later. He believes there must always be be a third way, a standard trope for such a stalemate scenario between two groups, his belief in a different religion is a reflection in that. Both citadel and omega men assert that there is only Alpha and Omega, civilisation and monsters, us and them. The ‘us and them’ attitude is one that has been around for centuries, nothing quite gets the people on your side like accusing the enemy of being monsters that eat babies or other such atrocities.

Here we have two examples of propaganda, the one on the left is obviously an issue of The Omega Men while on the right is one posted by the British Government during the First World War. I enjoy the lengths that have been gone to in order to bring across the ‘us against them’ mentality to the reader, even changing the covers to these memorable propaganda styles from what were pretty standard comic designs (included in the bonus section). The whole point of us vs them is obvious, it unites the people and dehumanises the enemy, makes them easy to hate and act against without remorse. After all they’re barbarians and you’re just ordinary people who have to protect themselves. In this way the Omega Men use this technique to attack the Citadel so they can ‘grant liberty and prevent the genocide of their planets’ however the Citadel use the Stellarium from the desolate worlds for the greater good to save others and are quick to point out that the Omega Men’s methods are responsible for the death of thousands in their own use of ‘us vs. them.’

In this way we come onto another of the regularities of this series, ending each issue with a quote from William James, one of the founding fathers of the philosophical school of Pragmatism. The center of this school is this Maxim ‘Consider what effects, that might conceivably have practical bearings, we conceive the object of our conception to have. Then, our conception of these effects is the whole of our conception of the object.’ There are a number of ways to interpret this although the most common and simple version appears to be, “What concrete practical difference would it make if my theory were true and its rival(s) false?” Where there is no such difference, there is no genuine (that is, non-verbal) disagreement, and hence no genuine problem.’ You can apply this method to a dozen questions posed by Omega Men, such as ‘Who are the real savages? Who are the heroes?’

Deconstruction of the super-hero

Towards the end it is revealed that the Viceroy was already trying to implement the third way, was already trying to compromise and that was what was leading to the never-ending war. In this way our expectations of the role Kyle will play are thwarted and the trope of the hero finding a happy compromise is deconstructed. We see that the Viceroy has his own motivations for his actions that could show him to be the hero of his own story, he goes against the wishes of his superiors and tries to allow the residents of the Vega system as much freedom as possible, wherever he can. The reader’s feeling are reflected in Kyle, shocked in how they were wrong in believing that Kyle could waltz in and everything would be fine when he left, instead of the exact same problems being there were at the start.

This part is also particularly interesting to me as it serves the point at which Kyle realises that he can’t save everyone. This is an aim which he strongly fixates on throughout the series, as he tries to redeem himself for not being able to save his girlfriend with a fanaticism that is best explained by the only W. James quote used more than once in the series, book-ending the story):

‘If this life is not a real fight, in which something is eternally gained for the universe by success, it is no better than a game of private theatricals from which one may withdraw at will. But it feels like a real fight.’

A number of things can be taken from this that fit the story, I believe it best describes Kyle’s motivation and raises the question as to whether intervention by outside sources really brings any worthwhile benefit but I have heard other interpretations. It is this level of openness that makes Omega Men one of the greats that I believe people will remember for a time to come.

The last page:

Omega Men may have best ending for a series I have ever seen. Tying in all of the ideas strewn throughout the 12 issues, bringing the same concepts and questions back to earth and then turning these on the reader by referencing the panel layout used to begin and end every issue to great effect. Everything is laid out for the reader, the epilogue of the Omega Men members really racing home that question of whether they were different from the Citadel at all, the 3×3 layout used way more here than anywhere else (could have written this whole article on the usage of that layout), the role of religion, us vs. them and what it means to be a hero.

Summary:

If you’ve read this far congrats but if you’ve skipped ahead just let me say this; Omega Men is one of the best comics to be released in the past decade, the art and humour may be iffy at times but the writing, theming and characters are sure to resonate with that questions things, that part that wonders if what we’re doing has any effect, that part that searches for a real human connection. Omega Men may not have been a commercial success but it is one of the few comics out there with real heart and soul and that can be seen in the reactions of those who’ve read it. It has some really amazing moments, Kyle reciting the Lantern Oath at the end of issue two is my favourite but there are a whole host of others that you have to pick up the book to appreciate. Go pick up this book, it is very much worth the price.

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