Jack Kirby's OMAC

Jack Kirby's OMAC: One Man Army Corps

This 200-page hardbound volume, published in June, 2008 by DC Comics, contains all the  issues of 'OMAC ('One Man Army Corps) that DC released, starting with issue one in September, 1974, and concluding with issue 8 in November, 1975.

'Jack Kirby's OMAC' is in full color, but uses the 'newsprint' quality paper that draws some criticism from reviewers at online venues.

The book features a Forward by Mark Evanier, who indicates that Jack Kirby first envisioned the OMAC character ca.1968, during his time at Marvel comics. Kirby evidently was interested in creating a sort of near-future manifestation of Captain America, a character whose 'Go Team USA !' attitudes would seem obsolete and inadequate to cope with a world similar to that of the one outlined in Alvin Toffler's 1970 book Future Shock.

Kirby left Marvel before the idea of a 'Future Shock' Captain America progressed beyond the conceptual stage.

As Evanier relates, in 1974, DC's contract with Kirby called for him to deliver a minimum of 15 pages of completed artwork per week. Because Kammandi was doing well, DC's management suggested that Kirby do another sf-themed title, and so, Kirby recalled his concept of an updated version of Captain America from six years previously, and launched OMAC.

The opening issue introduces us to Buddy Blank, an undersized, hesistant young man who works as an errand boy in a large corporation. When Buddy stumbles on a clandestine sales operation, he is marked for elimination by his employers - until, that is, Blank becomes the target for a super-secret program: the conversion of an everyday, average citizen into OMAC, the One Man Army Corps.....

OMAC is the prime agent for justice in 'the world that's coming', an entity that reflects the Future Shock visions of a globe beset by the social upheavals wrought by the advent of new technologies.

In succeeding issues, OMAC, now an agent of the Global Peace Agency, and aided by the high-tech gadgetry of the satellite Brother Eye, takes on corrupt gangsters, megalomaniacs intent on conquering the planet, illegal body-swapping brokers, and hordes of monsters infesting the subways of New York City.

The artwork in OMAC is as good as anything Kirby did on his other titles for DC (and, considering his workload, Kirby's artwork was especially impressive). As always, Kirby's pencils (some of his draft pages are reproduced here) were ably inked by Mike Royer.

The writing is less rewarding. While most episodes start on a promising note in terms of content, with some even prefiguring cyberpunk themes a good decade before Neuromancer was published, all of the episodes seem to devolve too quickly into more traditional material, often consisting of well-choreographed, lengthy fight scenes, often with monsters reminiscent of creatures like 'Fin Fang Foom' and 'Torr' from Kirby's early 1960s comic books for Marvel.

The final two issues of OMAC show that Kirby was trying to direct the plotting into more imaginative directions, including one dealing with eco-disaster, and an awareness that OMAC was not invincible, nor always assured of victory. Unfortunately, the series was cancelled by DC after Kirby made a decision to return to Marvel in 1976.

Summing up, I really don't think 'Jack Kirby's OMAC' is sophisticated enough to appeal to modern comic book readers. The book is directed more towards those over 45 who are nostalgic over those long-ago days of Kirby's titles for DC, as well as Kirby fans and completists. They are more likely to enjoy this incarnation of  'OMAC'.

OMAC by Jack Kirby (first issue, September - October 1974)

I remember buying the first issue of OMAC in a corner drugstore in the small upstate New York town of Hancock in the late Summer of 1974. All through the early 70s Jack Kirby had been producing some great books - such as 'Kammandi' and 'The Demon' - so I was interested in giving OMAC ('One Man Army Corps') a try. As with his other DC titles, Kirby's OMAC was ably inked by Mike Royer.

Along with the first three pages of the comic, I’ve scanned an advertisement for what appears to be a steal of a deal for some toy soldiers (in reality they were all 5 mm thick, super -cheap plastic things), and an essay (in lieu of a Letters Page) by Kirby in which he lays out the philosophy behind OMAC. It’s an interesting read, and a quasi – nostalgic look at pop culture in the ‘Future Shock’ era of the early 70’s. Kirby is channeling many of Alvin Toffler’s concepts with the scripting of OMAC, most revolving around Toffler’s contention that the pace of technological change was moving so fast that mankind would have increasing problems absorbing these events and handling them responsibly.

According to its Wiki entry, OMAC only lasted eight issues before being canceled. The hero / concept still pops up occasionally in various DC titles. A 200-page hardbound collection of the Kirby OMAC issues was published by DC in July of 2008 and is available at amazon.com.

The Eternals the Complete Collection

The Eternals: The Complete Collection

by Jack Kirby

Marvel Comics, 2022

 

In 1975 Jack Kirby quietly returned to Marvel Comics, a company he had left, with some rancor, five years previously. Kirby's efforts at DC Comics, such as 'The Demon,' 'The New Gods,' and 'OMAC,' had not brought lasting commercial success, and Kirby increasingly felt constrained by the editorial staff at DC. So, following conversations with Stan Lee, who offered Kirby the freedom to create new books at Marvel, Kirby decided to return to the company.

Lee handled Kirby's 'return of the prodigal son' with grace and consideration (something Lee's detractors have failed to acknowledge). Lee assigned Kirby to draw 'Captain America,' as well as Kirby's new title, 'The Eternals.'

'The Eternals,' which Kirby both drew and plotted, ran for 19 issues from July 1976, to January 1978, at which time Kirby, disillusioned with the comic book business, left Marvel to go work for Hanna-Barbera. 

 

'The Complete Collection,' which was published by Marvel in 2020, assembles in trade paperback format all 19 issues, plus the 1977 Eternals Annual, along with some pencil art pages, editorials, and advertisements, for a total of 400 pages.

 

Kirby took inspiration for The Eternals from the works of Erich Von Daniken and other popularizers of the 'Ancient Astronauts' theme. In Kirby's mythology, the Eternals are godlike beings created a million years ago by a race known as the Celestials. Opposing the Eternals are the Deviants, a race of monsters who dwell in the depths of the sea and inside the Earth's crust. Homo sapiens form a third humanoid type, displaying both the malevolent tendencies of the Deviants, as well as the moral and intellectual aspirations of the beneficent Eternals.

In the opening issues of the series, Kirby introduces the reader to lead characters Ikaris, an Eternal who is engineering the return of the Celestials to the Earth, and Margo Damian, a young woman who serves both as Ikaris's girlfriend, and as a sort of interlocutor between humankind and the Eternals.

As the series unfolds additional Eternals are introduced, all assisting in the fight against the machinations of the Deviants. The Celestials, depicted as beings of immense size, remain enigmatic as they appear in various places around the Earth, terrifying the populace (as well as the Deviants). 

While Kirby's artwork for The Eternals maintained his characteristic visual energy, the reality is that his writing had not advanced much at all, in terms of sophistication, during his time at DC. The dialogue and plotting in The Eternals has a simplistic, almost juvenile quality, and is markedly inferior to the caliber of writing that was commonplace in other Marvel titles of the mid-70s.

According to Sean Howe's 2012 book 'Marvel Comics: The Untold Story,' the reader mail for Kirby's titles was so relentlessly disparaging that at least one staffer admitted to fabricating letters that said favorable things about Kirby's stuff, this being the only way the letters pages could have an approbratory quality.

Also according to Howe, Kirby resisted efforts by Lee and the Marvel editorial staff to feature other Marvel universe characters in The Eternals, something Lee saw as a viable way to bring new readers to the Kirby lineup and boost circulation. 

Grudgingly, in issue 14 Kirby did include the Hulk, but it's not really the Hulk, rather, it's the 'Cosmic Hulk,' an android created by students at the 'Maryland Institute of Technology.' 

 

It's a lame storyline, with trite dialogue ("Jumpin' Jupiter -- He's a MONSTER !") and perfunctory plotting that did little to endear The Eternals to the newer generation of Marvel comic book buyers who were avidly reading 'X-Men,' and its complex plotting from Chris Claremont.

Who will want a copy of 'The Eternals: The Complete Collection' ? While Jack Kirby fans certainly will be interested in the book, I doubt modern-day comic book readers will see much in its pages that they will find appealing (particularly after the 2021 feature film based on the comics turned out to be a Woke mess that bombed at the box office). That said, I was able to find a copy of the book for under $9, so getting it is not a heavy lift for those curious about this chapter in Kirby's career.

Book Review: Slugfest

Book Review: 'Slugfest' by Reed Tucker

5 / 5 Stars

'Slugfest' (276 pp.) was published in October, 2017 by De Capo Press. Author Tucker is a New York City-based author who has written hundreds of articles for print media outlets such as Esquire and USA Today. 

'Slugfest' was made into a documentary, available on the Roku Channel.

'Slugfest' is a history of comic books from the 1950s up to the late twenty-teens, as seen through the competition between the two biggest publishers, Marvel and DC.

I first began reading and collecting comics around 1967, when I was 7 years old. In my small town in upstate New York, there were two drugstores that had comics, displayed on spinner racks. One drugstore sold DC, the other, Marvel. I learned early on that I much preferred Marvel. Indeed, I didn't pay much attention to any DC titles until the early 70s when I took a liking to their science fiction comics, such as Strange Adventures. I also took in the Neil Adams Batman comics, and then Jack Kirby's stuff like Kammandi and The Demon and OMAC. 

So by the time I began discontinuing my interest in comic books by the mid-70s I was a fan of Marvel, but not to an exclusive degree.

'Slugfest' doesn't take sides, but brings a humorous attitude to the topic, and as a result is an easy and entertaining read. While author Tucker necessarily covers some of the same ground about Marvel comics as did author Sean Howe with his Marvel Comics: The Untold Story, 'Slugfest' has lots of observations and anecdotes about the staff, artists, and writers of DC, a subject with which I was much less familiar. 

For example, I didn't know that DC editors Mort Weisinger, Robert Kanigher, and Julius Schwartz were utter pricks, who screamed abuse at their employees on a daily basis. I also didn't know about the shenanigans of the illimitable Bill Jemas, who during his time as the Marvel president went out of his way to insult the competition (the 2002 series Marville, written by Jemas, was one long rude and mocking jibe at DC). Nor did I know that in 2011, Marvel tried to blunt the sales of DC's 'Flashpoint' crossover by offering retailers a 'special variant cover edition' of the Marvel title 'Fear Itself' issue No. 6, in exchange for the submission of 50 covers ripped off of 'Flashpoint' comics.

The closing chapters of 'Slugfest' deal with the transition of both DC and Marvel to corporate properties, a transition that has major implications for the future of the medium. Nowadays the competition between the companies has moved from print media, where it is increasingly an afterthought, to the movie and television realms. 

It's also clear that as of May 2022, graphic novels are driving consumption of comics by the public, according to this essay by comics retailer Brian Hibbs. And here, things are not looking promising for either DC or Marvel. 

Can the competition between the companies still have relevance when the top 5 best-selling graphic novels of 2021 are 'Dog Man' (1,295,470 copies of 'Dog Man: Mothering Heights') and 'Cat Kid' titles from Dev Pilkey ? 

'Dog Man: Mothering Heights' sold 1,295,470 copies, while the top-selling graphic novel (48,000 copies) for DC was Teen Titans: Beast Boy, a Young Adult title. And the only graphic novel from Marvel that sold over 10,000 copies (10,066 to be exact) was The Infinity Gauntlet, by Jim Starlin and the late George Perez, a compilation of comics first printed in 1991.............

Whether or not the competition between DC and Marvel continues, 'Slugfest' is a recommended read for comic book fans, and fans of American pop culture of the postwar era.