Omega the Unknown

Collects: Omega the Unknown v. 2 #1-10 (2008)

Released: September 2008 (Marvel)

Format: 256 pages / color / $29.99 / ISBN: 9780785130529

What is this?: A remake of the ‘70s series, complete with the same mysterious robot-fighting alien, orphan boy raised by robots, and weird images.
The culprits: Writers Jonathan Lethem and Karl Rusnak and artist Farel Dalrymple

I have no idea what to make of Omega the Unknown. I really don’t.

The original Omega the Unknown from the ‘70s lasted for ten issues. The concept was co-created by Steve Gerber, and Gerber in the ‘70s was one of the more manic and impressive idea men comics had to offer. Really, when it came to creativity, Gerber picked up where Jack Kirby left off. Both men, when they were at their peak, were wildly inventive; unfortunately for Gerber, his ideas never caught on the way Kirby’s did.

Howard the Duck is of course Gerber’s most famous creation, but Omega is probably (a distant) second to Howard and his supporting cast. Omega is known for being a riddle, a series with a lot of intriguing mysteries and clues but no resolution; the story was completed by another writer in the pages of the Defenders, and man, I don’t know any more disappointing way for a story to fizzle out. In short, there was a mute alien who fought crime on earth while wearing an omega-shaped headband and firing blasts that left omega-shaped scars on his hands; he had some undefined connection to a young boy, also able to fire blasts from his hands, who had been homeschooled by his robot parents until they died while taking him to live in the city. Looking back on my review of the original series, Gerber and co-writer Mary Skrenes (and artist Jim Mooney) created a series that combined Gerber’s stark, bleak worldview with the Marvel Universe. Jonathan Lethem, writer of the newer Omega, says in an afterword that Gerber’s Omega was a “metatextual self-deconstruction of the super-hero genre,” a sort of precursor to Watchmen. Perhaps so, but the Marvel Universe intrusions shot the effect Gerber was aiming for to hell and gone.

In Lethem and co-writer Karl Rusnak’s Omega, the story begins much the same; Lethem admits to “slavishly” following some elements of the first issue, such as the scene with the young protagonist (renamed “Alex”) talking to the head of his robot mother after the car crash. In fact, other than substituting a corrupt, publicity-seeking “hero” called the Mink for the Marvel Universe trappings, the first three or so issues don’t significantly change Gerber and Skrenes’s story. When things start deviating from the 30-year-old tale, it’s to make Omega into a story about villainous nanotechnology vs. dysfunctional heroes. It’s hard to see how Omega and Alex are supposed to stop this robotic conspiracy, although of course they are successful. They just don’t seem to put in as much work on it as the villains do.

Omega distinguishes itself from its predecessor by its odd touches: the amputated hand that grows legs and becomes human sized, sneaking around the city; Omega’s gustatory predilection for birds, be they chickens or eagles; the Mink’s entire persona, corrupt and cowardly and vainglorious and amoral; Verth the Overthinker, a cut-rate Watcher. There are dozens of these ideas, and most of them deserve better than serving as ornaments for a rehash of an interesting but terrifically flawed Bronze Age series. They could have been intriguing parts of a new series. Instead, they’re bolted onto a remake that is part ‘70s Gerber, part 21st century Lethem. They’re both modernist takes on superheroics, but they’re miles apart on the details, and when the stories are put together like this, it’s like watching a half Ford Taurus, half Mercedes M class drive down the road. Both are popular cars, but no one wants a Forcedes Maurus.

The modern Omega is a better story because it is allowed to be its own story; it doesn’t have cameos by the Hulk or Electro, and it won’t be finished up years later in the Defenders by another writer. That said, what made the original Omega an interesting — and occasionally maddeningly fascinating — story was the newness and originality of the ideas. Remaking Omega to give coherence to the entire story is like unto remaking the TV series Lost just because you didn’t like the last two seasons. It’s not like the new Omega gives all the answers either: neither Alex’s robotic parents nor Omega’s power outages are ever explained, and Omega gives his origin in a wordless, crudely drawn comic that leaves considerable latitude for interpretation. The story is left open at the end as well; whereas the original Omegas, young and old, were killed in the Defenders, this story ends with them out of the conflict, while the nano-robots haven’t stopped. The struggle continues, with the heroes seemingly disinterested or unable to help humanity.

Art comes from Farel Dalrymple, whose style is more indy than Marvel or DC. Dalrymple eschews the slick look of modern comics (or even Silver or Bronze Age comics) art for a sketchy style that homes in on the necessary details. Despite the art’s lack of polish, Dalrymple is a better storyteller than most, and he does a better job with facial expressions than many artists who will be considered for Amazing Spider-Man or Superman. He shows some range, too: the crude comic Omega draws to show his own origin is a different style than the Silver-Agey Mink comic Omega is forced to read or the rest of the book.

Should you read this? I really don’t know. I think most comics readers should read an Omega story, and I feel bad recommending Gerber and Skrenes’s messy, discombobulated, all-mystery-and-no-resulution Omega to Lethem and Rusnak’s streamlined and coherent Omega. But creation is a messy process, and with all its flaws, the original is still a more remarkable accomplishment.

Rating: (2.5 of 5)

Essential Daredevil, v. 5

Collects: Daredevil #102-25, Marvel Two-in-One #3 (1973-5)

Released: February 2010 (Marvel)

Format: 496 pages / black and white / $19.99 / ISBN: 9780785144540

What is this?: Daredevil loves and loses the Black Widow and battles Hydra, Thanos’s goons, Mandrill, and a few others

The culprits: Writers Steve Gerber, Chris Claremont, Tony Isabella, and Marv Wolfman; pencilers Don Heck, Bob Brown, and Gene Colan, with some others

Essential Daredevil, v. 5, comes from a sort of forgotten era in Daredevil’s career. Daredevil has a lot of forgotten eras; everything between Stan Lee’s last Silver Age issue of Daredevil and Frank Miller’s first issue is generally unremembered, as is most of what falls between Ann Nocenti’s “Typhoid Mary” storyline and the Kevin Smith late ‘90s reboot. For the most part, forgetting is the best course of action for those issues.

However, that’s not true of v. 5 — this stuff deserves to be remembered. That may, in part, be because there’s more continuity of creators than usual for an early Bronze Age Essential. The book has a long run from writer Steve Gerber and penciler Bob Brown, and writer Tony Isabella and penciler / inker Don Heck have shorter runs.

As you might expect from Gerber’s involvement, this isn’t Daredevil’s usual kind of stories, resembling neither what came before or after. He’s in San Francisco, playing Marvel Team-Up with the Black Widow; both changes were set up by Gerry Conway in the previous Essential Daredevil. But Gerber takes that and runs with it, having Daredevil battle large crises by himself. Daredevil fights the minions of Thanos, and Gerber puts Moondragon (who introduces herself as “Madame MacEvil”) and Angar the Screamer to good use. He uses two of my favorite characters, Mandrill and Nekra — they’re both goofy and menacing, especially Mandrill’s telepathic control of women. Gerber’s not afraid to have Daredevil lose fights, as the Beetle beats him and Kraven the Hunter defeats both him and the Black Widow. He shows an occasional flair for the Black Widow’s dialogue, especially when she snarks with society ladies in #104. And there’s something charming about having the Owl try to steal Daredevil’s brain.

Although some of the pieces of Gerber’s run are fascinating, the overall picture feels warped. There’s no denying that Thanos, Captain Marvel, and Moondragon are poor fits for Daredevil, and Mandrill’s nationwide revolution doesn’t quite work as a Daredevil story. Shanna the She-Devil and her story don’t exactly feel at home either, and meeting Man-Thing in his swamp really feels like something Spider-Man or the Thing would do rather than Daredevil. Perhaps most damningly, Gerber draws a hamfisted line under Black Widow and Daredevil’s relationship — Moondragon as a romantic foil for the Black Widow? Really? — as well as the entire San Francisco experiment.

Isabella’s five-issue run is more tightly focused, and it holds together much better. It involves Daredevil, the Black Widow, and SHIELD vs. Hydra, with the life of Foggy Nelson at stake. I’m a sucker for a good Hydra story, and this one is just that — a good Hydra story, rather than a great one. It has Silvermane and his son trying to guide the Hydra to a new resurgence, backed by several second-string villains — El Jaguar, Man-Killer, Mentallo, Blackwing. It’s a good idea, with the ousted Maggia leader presumably having the organizational capability to mold a splinter of Hydra into something more, and I wouldn’t mind seeing that sort of plot again.⁴⁵

The art is especially solid for the Bronze Age but not spectacular, except for isolated issues. Heck doesn’t get as much respect as some of his Silver Age contemporaries at Marvel. But he does an excellent job here in his five issues as penciler (he also inked some issues); he’s outstanding in the non-action scenes, with extremely expressive faces. His action scenes can be a little stiff, however. Brown is the real surprise. I’d never heard of him before — or maybe I didn’t remember him. His action scenes are a real step up from Heck, and even if he isn’t quite the equal of Sal Buscema (who drew the Marvel Two-in-One issue included) or Gene Colan (who did a couple of Daredevil issues), he’s still pretty impressive. He can get across emotion through the faces and bodies of the characters as well as Heck, although sometimes his conceptions of the characters — especially Black Widow — seem a little off compared to Heck. Then again, Heck did co-create the Black Widow, so he’s got a slight advantage here.

There are more than a few things that aren’t quite right about Essential Daredevil, v. 5. But that’s what happens when a writer tries hard to do different things with a title — big things, in the case of Gerber. Sometimes it doesn’t quite work, but that doesn’t mean it’s not worth reading. It’s different from just about everything else with Daredevil in it, which isn’t nothing.

Rating:

Omega the Unknown Classic

Collects: Omega the Unknown #1-10, Defenders #76-7 (1976-9)

Released: December 2005 (Marvel)

Format: 224 pages / color / $29.99 / ISBN: 9780785120094

What is this?: Reluctant superhero has strange connection to orphan boy, who’s trying to survive in Hell’s Kitchen with the worst foster parents ever.

The culprits: Writers Steve Gerber, Mary Skrenes, and Steven Grant and penciler Jim Mooney and a little Herb Trimpe

My admiration for Steve Gerber’s imagination and occasional weirdness is vast; he is among the greatest imaginative talents (with Jack Kirby) to ever be part of the comics universe.

Howard the Duck is his signature character, but one that is emblematic of his career, in some ways, is Omega the Unknown. Its description by readers is so uniform it might as well be part of the name: weird. So when I found an inexpensive copy of Omega the Unknown Classic at a Charlottesville comics store, I was all over it.

Most of the weirdness is encapsulated in the concept, which makes it hard to sum up. There are two narrative threads: James-Michael Starling, a child who suddenly becomes orphaned, and an unnamed superhero who escapes from his devastated planet. James-Michael, who is far more analytical and unemotional than most adults, has to survive school and life in Hell’s Kitchen, which he is singularly unsuited to do. His half-attentive caretakers don’t help, and neither do the strange fits and occasional powers he exhibits. Both are seemingly linked to the hero, who comes to Hell’s Kitchen himself and gains the name “Omega” after his headband, which is in the shape of the Greek letter. Omega, mute and taken in by an elderly shopkeeper, becomes a superhero, although he struggles with our alien morality.

It’s interesting that for such an odd concept, the book is firmly ensconced in the Marvel Universe: Omega fights the Hulk and Electro, for instance, and battles minor villains like Nitro and Blockbuster. Perhaps it was Marvel editorial policy. Still, other than a villain revealed to be Ruby Thursday by a later writer, there aren’t any of the strange villains Gerber could and often did create.

Omega is largely follows the themes Gerber emphasized in works like Howard the Duck and Man-Thing: alienation, being an outsider, the senselessness of much of human endeavor. Sometimes I think it must have been a very lonely and frustrating existence to be Steve Gerber. His protagonists are rarely happy and can’t find even the minor victories that, say, Spider-Man indulges in.

It’s no different in Omega, although there’s none of the leavening of humor that you find in Howard. Everything is played deadly serious, as deadly serious as young James-Michael always is. I don’t know if this is because of the influence of co-writer Mary Skenes or because Gerber thought Omega was a more serious creation; perhaps there’s another reason. The school scenes with James-Michael are depressing criticisms of urban education; the extraneous elements of the school experience realistically overwhelm the classroom parts, which is puzzling and disturbing for a scholar like James-Michael, and that gets across to the reader quite well.

Steven Grant has the unenviable task of wrapping up the story; I don’t know if the idea to do so was his or Marvel’s. It certainly wasn’t Skenes and Gerber’s, who didn’t like Grant’s ending at all. (As far as I know, Gerber never revealed his ideas for the series after its final issue.) It’s not a horrible ending in the “any-ending-you-can-walk-away-from” sense. But it certainly doesn’t match Omega’s tone; it’s a bit too optimistic and striving to match any Gerber story, whose cynicism stared back at the reader from the page like a third eye. Interestingly, Grant doesn’t skimp on the weirdness, although he does it in a more modern sense: characters like Ruby Thursday and Moondragon, plus invading aliens.

Jim Mooney provides the art for the Omega run. This was the ‘70s, you see, and Mooney gives the effort a workman-like edge. There’s little memorable about the art; it looks like most of the rest of the decade. There’s nothing that matches the imagination of the concept; I have the idea Mooney probably approached Omega as just another job, perhaps one more baffling than others. There’s nothing wrong with that, and I don’t want to come across as criticizing him. But if an artist with a distinctive style had worked with Gerber and Skenes, Omega might be a hidden classic rather than a curiosity. Herb Trimpe pencils the two Defenders issues and does a fine job.

Even after reading Omega, I’m still not sure what to make of it. It’s not as bizarre as I had expected, although it’s certainly different. It’s worth reading for two reasons: because it’s always worthwhile to explore Gerber’s body of work, and because it’s just interesting enough that a comic fan should have an opinion about it.

Rating: (3 of 5)

Essential Marvel Horror, v. 1

Collects: Ghost Rider #1-2, Marvel Spotlight #12-24, Son of Satan #1-8, Marvel Two-in-One #14, Marvel Team-Up #32 and 80-1, Vampire Tales #2-3, Haunt of Horror #2 and 4-5, Marvel Premiere #27, Marvel Preview #7 (1973-7, 1979)

Released: November 2006 (Marvel)

Format: 608 pages / black and white / $16.99 / ISBN: 078512196x

Essential Marvel Horror, v. 1 gained its name, I was convinced when it was released, because Marvel was too squeamish to publish Essential Son of Satan (or Children of Satan).¹⁸

Marvel Horror features two protagonists: Daimon Hellstrom, Son of Satan, and his sister, Satana. Hellstrom, being a square who sides with “humanity” over “the forces of evil,” gets the bulk of the book, but his darker sister gets her share at the end. Unfortunately, the shift in tone and style between these two is likely to spin the reader’s head around like that girl’s in The Exorcist.

Hellstrom is a rarity: an academic hero. (Ray Palmer is a professor; are there other superheroes who work for a university?) In his Marvel Spotlight series, he battles his father’s forces in St. Louis while being affiliated with Gateway University; in his Son of Satan series, he goes to work for the University of the District of Columbia. I prefer the Spotlight issues, written by Steve Gerber; they were consciously superheroic, with Hellstrom fighting a new supernatural menace each month and trying to keep the squares in St. Louis from learning about it. Why St. Louis? I don’t know, but it’s no goofier than fighting demons in New York City.

(Plus, Hellstrom transforms into his demonic alter ego by raising both hands with three fingers pointed upward, making the sign of his demonic trident. Yeah, right — laziest transformation ever.)

The eponymous title, which was mostly written by John Warner, seemed more crowded and more blatantly supernatural, treading ground already trammeled. Thematically, yes, it’s appropriate, but it’s less enjoyable, trying to tread the ground between the superheroes and Marvel horror mags.

And then there are issues of Marvel Team-Up and Marvel Two-in-One, the superheroist of the Marvel superhero comics. Hellstrom got his start in Ghost Rider, which wasn’t a straight superhero comic but was never incredibly far from it.

Gene Colan is perfect for this subject matter; unfortunately, he only does two issues. The other superhero artists … not so much. Not even one of my favorite superhero artists, Sal Buscema, really does the subject justice. On the other hand, they draw demons better than later artists, especially those involved in the Inferno crossover, who believed evil was best represented in Technicolor.

Satana, Daimon’s sister, was featured mainly in Marvel horror magazines. These stand out against the crowd; they are serious, drawn for a mature audience who doesn’t want to see superheroes. The plots are dark, and while they might not match the top of the horror market, they have a unified goal and show us the horror of a child of Satan gone wrong (or right, from Satan’s point of view). Not bound by the Comics Code or its usual kiddie audience, Marvel let the creators have free rein in subject matter and format, occasionally publishing illustrated texts that described Satana’s deeds.

I’m not entirely sure Chris Claremont, who wrote the bulk of the Satana stuff, was the right person for the job, for two reasons. One, his overwrought writing style, which was only beginning here, is more suited to the less serious and self-conscious superhero comics. And two, this is dangerous for him; Claremont loved writing powerful women, and in his later days, became obsessed with certain … well, let’s say tropes, because “fetishes” is a loaded word.

I won’t say the art in these issues are better, but I will say they are striking, while the Comics Code constrained the others so they were quite forgettable. Straying outside their usual bullpen for Satana’s stories, Marvel published contributions from international artists. Their work is moody, dark, vivid even in black and white. These issues really make the volume, and it’s a shame the rest of the book contrasts so sharply with it.

Since it’s Halloween, I’m legally required to answer this question: Is it scary? Well, the Hellstrom parts are decidedly not so. Marvel has neutered most of its dread evil Lords of the Afterlife and all of its demons so superheroes can fight them. The Satana parts? Let’s just say they feel nothing like a superhero story, with a definite sense that evil might win. That’s not enough to rescue the volume as a whole, however.

Rating: (2 of 5)

Howard the Duck: Media Duckling

Collects: Howard the Duck v. 3 #1-4, Howard the Duck v. 1 #1 (1976, 2007-8)

Released: April 2008 (Marvel)

Format: 128 pages / color / $11.99 / ISBN: 9780785127765

Steve Gerber was, after Jack Kirby, probably the most outrageously imaginative people to ever work at Marvel Comics. Among the many strange (and almost always commercially unsuccessful) ideas he had was Howard the Duck, a duck-like humanoid who found himself in a world of hairless apes: “trapped in a world he never made,” as the oft-repeated tagline said. Gerber used Howard in the ‘70s as an outside observer to drive home his satires and occasionally to break through his own creative difficulties.

It is easy to argue Howard should have been retired after Gerber had a falling out with Marvel over the character; certainly, no one has ever really made Howard seem to matter like Gerber did, and it’s difficult to imagine anyone pulling off the outrageous setups Gerber wrote monthly without seeming cheesy or idiotic. Even when Gerber resurrected Howard for a miniseries with Marvel in 2002, it didn’t quite reclaim the magic.

But any character that has been good once is begging to be reused, and into this breach steps writer Ty Templeton and penciller Juan Bobillo. In Howard the Duck: Media Duckling, Templeton seems to have an idea why Howard is so perfect for satire: he can take himself seriously, but not the world of the hairless apes, and the hairless apes take themselves seriously but not Howard. So Templeton uses Howard to fire a scattershot of satire at media, pundits, human rights in the era of Homeland Security, and the Internet. Easy targets, for the most part, but Templeton gives Howard enough surly character to make it amusing.

Templeton also realizes Howard is part of the Marvel Universe but exists uneasily with it; accordingly, the only Marvel characters / concepts Howard interacts with are She-Hulk (a lawyer / gamma-irradiated Amazon) and MODOT (Mental Organism Designed Only for Talking, a creation of Advanced Idea Mechanics). The absurdity practically drips off the page.

I generally like Bobillo’s art, and I’m mostly pleased with his work here. His style is well suited for the book, with the lack of realism allowing him free rein, and he does a good job of capturing the general cloud of chaos around Howard. I suppose what I have trouble with is his design for Howard; oddly, Howard doesn’t look cartoony enough, and he looks like he’s either sick or wet throughout.

As a bonus, this trade paperback includes the first issue of the first volume of Howard the Duck, written by Gerber and with art by Frank Brunner. It’s interesting if you want to know how that series begins, but it doesn’t give the flavor of Howard as much as later issues of that series do. Brunner’s style is smooth and rounded, completely different from Bobillo’s, so the contrast makes Bobillo’s work look a little unpolished.

There’s also the Howard the Duck story from Civil War: Choosing Sides, which is a real treat. Written by Templeton, this amusing story captures Howard registering as a superhuman, despite having no superpowers. Those in charge tell Howard, appropriately enough, they aren’t interested. Roger Langridge’s art echoes Brunner’s quite well.

Gerber died on February 10, 2008, and Templeton dedicated this trade paperback to him.

Rating: (4 of 5)