Comic Book Review: Omac #1 (of 8)


Its a weird thing, but sometimes as a fan, I feel a little possessive of certain characters. When you are in a small group, sometimes you are the only one to like a certain character or comic, and it becomes your territory. For no reason I can identify, I felt that way about the OMACs. So getting this issue was an automatic for me. Will I feel that way about this comic?

Creative Team
Writer: Bruce Jones
Artist: Renato Guedes
Art Rating: 7 Night Girls out of 10
Story Rating: 4 Night Girls out of 10
Overall Rating: 5 Night Girls out of 10

Synopsis: Our seeming protagonist, Mike ends up being at the wrong place at the wrong time. Waiting outside while a friend is on the consumer end of a drug deal, it spills out to where he is waiting, and when the police try to break it up, the dealer grabs Mike as a shield. This is when the title of the comic starts to make sense, and Mike turns into an Omac, kills the drug dealer and his group, and flies off, apparrently under orders to return to Brother Eye (I).

The Omac runs into Firestorm while fighting some Air Force Jet Fighters near Salt Lake City, Utah, and manages to occupy Firestorm with some collateral damage enough to get away from him, but then some miles later the Brother Eye relinquishes control and de-Omacs Mike right outside of Las Vegas.

Comments:

The Good: The art combined with the special coloring style (done by the artist, by the way) is a unique, and very urban. Each settings has enough detail and color to make it look realistic, but isn’t so fully rendered that it may have taken the artist more than a month to draw the issue. The dialogue sounds as real as the writing, and the writing is clear and understandable. The use of Firestorm is consistent with his appearance in his own book, which is noteworthy.

The Bad: Unfortunately, there is not enough story here to pull me into a second issue. The character of Mike does not come across as likable to me (but I’ve never lived in a metropolitan setting). The story is fairly standard ( not a complaint), but no unexpected twists. This is issue one of an eight issue story, and the story feels quite “decompressed”. At $2.99 an issue, I just did not see in this issue to pick up the other seven issues.