The Kirby Files: OMAC (1974 Comic Book Series)

1974’s OMAC by Jack Kirby was a short-lived comic, but it was big on ideas with some prescient predictions, and the character has lived on to this day.

What Is It?

Set in the dystopian near-future world of “The World That’s Coming”, the series follows the unassuming Buddy Blank, who is transformed by the orbiting artificial-intelligence satellite Brother Eye into the super-powered OMAC (One-Man Army Corps). Working with the Global Peace Agency, OMAC battles threats ranging from corrupt corporations and mad scientists to bizarre technologies that exploit and endanger humanity.

Created By: Jack Kirby

Published: 1974-75, DC Comics, OMAC 1-8

Legacy:

This futuristic Kirby series had only a short run, and it is certainly not one of his greatest works, but he took advantage of its sci fi setting and presented an interesting look at how technology and society could take some bad turns with the greedy and the powerful calling the shots.

A Closer Look:

Jack Kirby made the move from Marvel to DC at the beginning of the 1970s after being one of the key people to establish the Marvel Universe in the ’60s, and he immediately went to work creating a number of characters that would live on for many years in the DC titles. His first major task was creating the Fourth World series, which included four interconnected titles and introduced Darkseid, the New Gods, Mister Miracle, the Forever People, and more. He would then create such titles as Kamandi, The Last Boy on Earth and The Demon in order to fulfill his contractual obligation of fifteen pages a week. However, while many of these characters would become well-established in the DC Universe in the years to come, they did not all perform well in sales in their initial runs (which is a whole story unto itself that I will be covering here at some point in the future). By 1974, all of those titles except Kamandi had been cancelled, and Kirby was being pushed to come up with new creations for his publisher.

Among those was OMAC, which he developed from an idea he previously had while working for Marvel. He had wanted to do a futuristic, more sci fi version of Captain America but never had the opportunity under his previous employer. So he took some of those concepts and worked them into an all-new character who would become OMAC, the “One Man Army Corps.” This took place in the near future of “The World That’s Coming,” where technology has developed notably, but the rich and the corporations have way too much control over people’s lives (sounds a whole lot like our current world). The Global Peace Agency is there to act as somewhat of a check on their actions (we sure could use them today), and after Buddy Blank is unwittingly transformed into OMAC by Brother Eye (something never really delved into during the series), he finds his super-powered alter ego working for this organization.

While I am a huge Kirby fan, I will say that OMAC was not one of his best works. It definitely had potential and could have turned into a classic if given a longer run, but it did not achieve that over its short, eight-issue tenure. The whole “World That’s Coming” thing seemed like a poorly devised gimmick, and the comic relied way too much on a James Bond-type gadget fixation. Plus, the bad guys that he came up with seemed far too copy-and-paste, and he never developed a Darkseid-like nemesis that would have given the series more heft.

Still, the comic can be quite fun, and OMAC was certainly an interesting character who could have turned into more than just a cult favorite if Kirby had more time to flesh him out. But the series was cancelled after eight issues, and Kirby was already on the verge of abandoning DC to return to Marvel. The final issue wraps things up quite abruptly with a rather grim ending (no further spoilers), leaving Kirby’s larger plans for the series unrealized.

OMAC definitely does not count as an all-time great comic book, and he is not even among the top Kirby creations. But the series had its moments, and it is definitely worth a read. You can get through it pretty quickly, and there are times when his “World That’s Coming” offers some rather chilling predictions.

The Story Continues:

While the original OMAC title would produce only eight issues, the character did not disappear after that, showing up in multiple revivals over the years. He made a crossover of sorts with Kamandi when it was established in issue #50 of that title that Buddy Blank was the Last Boy on Earth’s grandfather (Kirby had left DC by that point, and he had never hinted at that when he was working on those books). An OMAC backup feature by Jim Starlin would later appear in Kamandi #59, but the main title was cancelled right after that as part of the DC Implosion (more on that in an upcoming post). OMAC’s story was later continued as a backup feature in The Warlord, and the character made a few other appearances in DC titles through the 1980s.

In 1991, John Byrne did a four-issue miniseries that reworked some of Kirby’s concepts for the character and tried to fit him more firmly into the DC Universe. OMAC was further reworked in 2005’s The OMAC Project, which re-envisioned the concept as humans transformed into cybernetic agents controlled by Brother Eye, and they became part of the Infinite Crisis storyline. Then, in 2011, the character had yet another reboot as one of the titles of DC’s New 52, taking him even further from the original Kirby version.

For those who really liked the short-lived Kirby series, there is another comic that he worked on shortly after that could be seen as an extension of sorts of OMAC. Upon returning to Marvel, Kirby took over the Captain America title and moved that into much more of the sci fi realm. It wasn’t a future version like he had previously wanted to produce, but you can see an extension of many of the same themes Kirby covered in OMAC, and it is not hard to envision those storylines as taking place in the DC title. That run covered issues #193 through #214 and is definitely worth a look.

Should It Be Rebooted?

Yes! Absolutely, along with the other Kirby comics from the 1970s, but it should take place in an alternate universe known as the Kirby-verse. They could continue the story of the New Gods (including Mister Miracle and the Forever People), perhaps ignoring or reworking the ersatz ending provided by The Hunger Dogs graphic novel. OMAC could take place in a future version of that world, perhaps after Darkseid had used the Anti-Life Equation on parts of Earth’s population. And then Kamandi could take place in an even further future where the “Great Disaster” was caused by an apocalyptic war between the New Gods and Apokolips.

There are so many storylines that could be explored there, and they could also bring in Kirby characters like the Demon, the revived Newsboy Legion, the Manhunter, and more (but leave his and Joe Simon’s updated version of the Sandman in Dreamworld). I am sure there are plenty of writers and artists who love Kirby’s works and who would jump at the chance to work on this reboot, and this could produce multiple titles that link directly to the originals from the 1970s.

But DC has had other plans with the characters, who regularly feature in other storylines, and they have even recently brought back the New Gods title with a recent 12-issue maxi-series. I’m sure their preference is to keep these characters closer to the DC Universe, so I don’t see my Kirby-verse suggestion happening any time soon. But neither OMAC nor Kamandi has become too important to current DC continuity, so maybe they could just focus on those two and bring them back in a direct continuation of the original titles. There are plenty of us Kirby fans who would love to see that, but there is no indication that DC would be interested in going in that direction.

Interesting Facts:

Brother Eye provides an early view of the potential of artificial intelligence. The satellite can observe events on Earth, communicate directly with OMAC, and physically alter him from space. Read today, the combination of AI, global surveillance, and an orbital system watching humanity feels considerably less fantastical than it did in 1974.

In some respects, the Kirby series reads almost like proto-cyberpunk created a decade before William Gibson’s Neuromancer. It has AI, surveillance, multinational corporations, manufactured humans, genetic engineering, body modification, technology-driven warfare, and questions about individual identity—many of the themes that would become prominent in that genre.

Where Can You Read It?

The entire series has been compiled and you can purchase that in hardcover, paperback, and eBook format. It never became a huge collector’s item, so you can buy all eight issues of the original run without breaking the bank (just avoid the CGC graded editions).

Further Reading:

Wikipedia