Godvia

Oh. My. God. It reeks down here! This is a sewer! You’re holding a meeting in a bloody sewer!

Previously: The Justice League International has been decimated by a terrorist attack at their press launch. Rocket Red is dead and Fire, Ice, and Vixen have been hospitalized. The terrorists – Breakdown, Lightweaver, and Intersek – have continued to apply pressure via the media. Batman has drafted Batwing to help with the investigation, but the UN has already told them to stand down. When it looks like things cannot get any worse a blue-giant called OMAC attacks the JLI outside of the hospital where their friends are being treated.

OMAC crushes the August General into the ground, but hesitates and then asks where the Batman is. Godvia and then Guy attack the blue giant, but he leaps away when he realizes the Dark Knight is not with them. Booster, Batwing, and Batman are nearby discussing the superhuman terrorists who have been targeting them. Skeets, Booster’s AI assistant, contacts him with news that there has been an attack on the Eiffel Tower in Paris which is too similar to the UN attacks not to be investigated. However, their response is immediately interrupted when Skeets tells them about OMAC’s attack on their team-mates.

OMAC is leaping through New York when he’s brought to Earth by Booster’s energy blasts. The giant doesn’t seem to be thinking linearly. He finally comes face-to-face with Batman only to announce “I am O.M.A.C.! And it’s all your fault!” Guy Gardner shoulder tackles OMAC and then creates a suit of power armour for himself with his ring. Guy and OMAC slug it out as Batman tells Booster they cannot talk to it until the current situation is under control. Batman then moves the battle below street level by having Batwing drop an explosive charge at OMACs feet.

The shock of being dropped into a New York sewer brings some sense to OMAC and he asks for a chance to explain himself. He tells them that until recently he was a man called Kevin Kho, but he has been transformed into the monstrous form of OMAC against his will. He believes that Batman was involved in the development of the technology that caused this and is seeking his help. He explains that he cannot understand why he lost control and attacked the JLI. The rest of the team appear, but Booster tells them that their first problem is the attack in Paris. They’ll take OMAC with them and figure out his involvement afterwards.

Nearby, Intersek reports to Breakdown that her control of OMAC has vanished. She had been suppressing Kevin’s mind so that OMAC’s brutal aspect could dominate. The JLI are out of range so Breakdown summons the fourth member of his team, the teleporter Crosscut, and has him teleport them all to his bunker. Meanwhile, the JLI are in a Green Lantern ring construct hurtling across the Atlantic. The August General sympathises about OMAC being stuck another body while Booster talks to Godvia about her Rocket Red’s recent death. The arrive in Paris to discover that several flame-headed superhumans are battling each other.

• Neither Fire, Ice, or Vixen appear in this issue.
• Batman was involved with the technology behind OMAC’s creation.

International Exchange

In International Exchange #9, Dan Jurgens told Russ Burlingame about the current deal with knowledge of Booster’s origin:

Did you want to roll back the number of people in the hero community who knew his “secret?”

No. It’s just that we tend to be a skeptical society now.

If an individual suddenly shows up and claims to be from the future, some people are bound to be skeptical. On top of that, I think Batman, more than any other hero, would be the type to check into it on his own and make sure.

Now, if you wrap that into the idea of a hero who advertises projects and tends to hype himself, well, you can see why Batwing would have assumed it was an act.
Jurgens additionally revealed that:

Dan also revealed that OMAC looking for Batman was worked into the title with Dan Didio’s help and that the crossover into Firestorm was meant to “plant seeds for development down the road”.

Sales

My Thoughts

Surveying the Internets

A Comic Book Blog:

Of course it is Jurgens (and DC’s) prerogative to fill the book with whoever they want, but it is quite sad that Fire, Ice and Vixen didn’t seem to get the chance to develop that the other cast members did. Is it too much to ask to perhaps remove Batman for one of these female heroines?

Suraph (Hub Pages):

Despite my lack of knowledge of the character and his status quo I was never lost and the creative team did a good job of making sure the important information is there. On the other hand that does mean that quite a bit of space is given over to explaining exactly what O.M.A.C. is doing here which takes away from the ongoing story. Even the other characters begin commenting on how this is a distraction from their primary goals.

Nicole D’Andria (Player Affinity):

The actual fight was done well, and I especially enjoyed seeing Guy Gardner attacking O.M.A.C. in an Iron Man garb with a hammer reminiscent of Thor, but all I could keep thinking about throughout was how unnecessary and distracting it was from moving the main plot forward.

The Verdicts

Page 1. Godiva was asked by one of the British Royal Family, “the Prince”, to represent the UK in the JLI. Which Prince it was isn’t mentioned, but my money would be on Prince Charles, the heir to the throne.

Page 2. Guy asks what an OMAC is. He was original a research biologist for Cadmus Industries called Kevin Kho who was picked by the Brother Eye satellite to be its agent. Brother Eye infected him with a nanite virus that turned Kevin into his monster. His adventures played out in O.M.A.C. #1-8 as Kevin came to grips with Brother Eye’s takeover of his life and the attempts of Maxwell Lord’s Checkmate to capture him. That series ended with Brother Eye returning Kevin’s freewill at the expense of leaving him stuck in his OMAC form. This type of rage is what we would expect from the pre-OMAC #8 version so something is wrong.

Page 6. The battle in Paris that Skeets is picking up is from The Fury of Firestorm #8.

Page 9. It shouldn’t take me to tell you that Guy is wearing a knock off of Tony Stark’s Iron Man armour…

Page 10. …or using a knock-off of Thor’s hammer. Skeets says OMAC’s physical make-up “is a blend of human DNA and pan-dimensional, sentient technology.” The word “Genesis” came up to describe this technology in his own series. “Genesis” as in New Gods’ New Genesis.

Page 12. OMAC hates sewers. In O.M.A.C. #4 Kevin tried to get out of Brother Eye’s control by going underground, but found himself running for his life from a cluster of bio-gators sent by Cadmus. The shielding meant he couldn’t contract Brother Eye and thus couldn’t transform into OMAC to defend himself. It was not a particularly enjoyable experience.

Page 13. Batman’s involvement in Brother Eye’s construction was hinted about by Kevin’s own investigations into OMAC shown in O.M.A.C. #6.

Page 14. Kevin says he hates loosing control. A running element in his own title was that Kevin was OCD, he survived mentally through his displaced childhood by trying to impose control on the environment around him.