OMAC #2 - The Super Rich!

OMAC Vol.1 #2 is dated December, 1974. Jack Kirby as usual supplies the writing and artwork for the issue but this time a new inker steps in to grace the linework. Bruce D. Berry takes the place of Mike Royer who was seeking a break from the deadlines working on Kirby's multitude of pages required.

In this story OMAC follows up on his mission begun in the debut comic and seeks Mr.Big. To that end he heads to Electric City but is stopped by armed guards who claim the city is shut because the super-rich Mr.Big has bought it for the night.

OMAC reacts with his usual plow-ahead lack of restraint and quickly overcomes the guards. Then he is picked up by a peculiar pair dressed as a Clown and a Skeleton who appear to party-goers headed for the big night in the city. They drop OMAC off but then follow him secretly.

OMAC seeks out Professor Myron Forest, the genius behind his creation and the builder of Brother Eye, the orbiting satellite which remotely transmits power and more to OMAC to allow his powers to function.

The Clown and the Skeleton reappear though and murder Professor Forest, but fail to kill OMAC who follows them to their meeting with their boss Mister Big.

Mister Big has hired the entire city as a cover to hide his plot to kill Forest and OMAC, trying to end a threat to his power before it becomes greater.

OMAC appears and tries to take Big into custody but a citywide battle erupts which ends in the apparent death of OMAC. His body is taken to Big by Skeleton and Clown but they are surprised when the GPA (Global Peace Agency) appears to take them into custody, the evidence their own confessions recorded by Brother Eye when OMAC's body was brought to the location. OMAC's death was a ruse as his vital signs were reduced to a level undetectable by regular scans and so he is awakened ready to pursue the next mission given him and Brother Eye by the GPA.

The idea of a super rich culture which lives apart from the context of the broader society, a group so wealthy that normal laws and restraints have little effect, is certainly resonant in the modern day. The gap between the rich today in the world and the greater population has indeed created different worlds, worlds in which the rules of civilization are threatened.

Mister Big here is the classic miser figure, the ultra-rich criminal who lives free of fear of normal police, a man who sneers at the law. He is the essence of what makes a society of based on fundamental fairness difficult to maintain. As presented here, OMAC is the counterbalance, an attempt by the world to rein its criminal element.

More to come next week in the second OMAC weekend. Be here.

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