But there ended the resemblance, because Omega was not to be a wish fulfillment figure. After all, in the 1976 series co-created by Steve Gerber, Mary Skrenes and Jim Mooney, he ended up being mistakenly shot dead by Las Vegas police.
“The 10-issue series follows the adventures of (two) protagonists, who interestingly don’t directly interact often but face thematically interlinked challenges,” noted comics historian Matthew Grossman.
James-Michael Starling’s world “…is a cockroach-infested, often cruel place and his repeated struggles with the uglier sides of high school suggest that to an emotional innocent, schoolyard bullying can be as harrowing as any battle with super-villainy.
“The laconic, initially silent Omega struggles with the role of superhero he finds himself unwittingly cast in. It’s a task he barely understands and finds himself pretty lousy at, losing many battles and surviving most of the rest through sheer luck. And much to the consternation of a superhero-wise public, he’s willing to let villains walk away when they offer valid reasons for looting the public.
“Both characters seem to be representations of adolescence struggling in an adult world.”
Though commercially unsuccessful, Omega was arguably ahead of its time, anticipating the ambience of Alan Moore and Dave Gibbons’ 1986 Watchmen.
“Gerber was Marvel Comics’ auteur of absurdity,” Grossman observed. “Superhero comics, with their repetitive plots and nonsensical underpinnings, lend themselves to the absurdist preoccupation with meaninglessness, and the disillusionment of the period, reflected in Bronze Age comics’ move away from optimistic themes, provided fertile ground for explorations of psychological malaise.”
Charles W. Fouquette said, “It seems like a nihilistic version of Superman in a post-Watergate/Viet Nam 1970s world. … Gerber always did push the boundaries on conventional comics and we have to give credit to Marvel for giving him leeway for some of his ideas.”
Bob Doncaster wrote: Always wondered if his death was planned for issue 10 or if Gerber decided to kill the character when the book was to be cancelled.
ReplyDeleteMark Engblom wrote: Gerber would’ve been right at home in DC’s Vertigo line or as an indie creator. His sensibilities were very much misaligned with what I was looking for as a young non-jaded fan. The first issue left my friends and I cold. In retrospect, it was sort of a “Twin Peaks” of mainstream comics.
ReplyDeleteMichael Fraley wrote: I only ever saw one issue of Omega. It was fascinating, but understandably confusing. I didn't appreciate Jim Mooney's artwork at that time, and that made it even more difficult -- a supposedly "square" artist working on something so radically different.
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