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Last Updated: Jan 1, 2009 - 6:19:39 PM

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Omega the Unknown #4 By Henry Chamberlain Jan 15, 2008 - 6:05:07 PM

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Omega the Unknown #4             
Marvel Comics
Writer: Jonathan Lethem
with Karl Rusnak
Artist: Farel Dalrymple
Color: Paul Hornschemeier

Offbeat, deadpan, and downright cryptic, Omega the Unknown is hard to follow in a way that makes you want more. It's not an easy thing to do especially in the earnest world of superheroes. In fact, the characters, the setting, the style, is all very dry and grim which turns out to be just fine in the more than capable hands of writer Johnathan Lethem and artist Farel Dalrymple.

Now, it needs to be pointed out that Omega the Unknown was created in 1975 by Steve Gerber and Mary Skrenes. Gerber walked into Stan Lee's office one day with two book proposals, Omega the Unknown and Howard the Duck. Both ahead of their time, both enigmatic, but only one forever remembered thanks to the excesses of Francis Ford Coppola. But not anymore. If an obscure comic book superhero could be given the royal treatment, Omega the Unknown is being resurrected in very high style. And that is only happening because the original was something quite out of the ordinary, so different as to catch the attention of Lethem, a highly regarded novelist.

Lethem's hugely popular novel, The Fortress of Solitude, makes references to Omega along with other Marvel titles and pop culture from the '70s. The main focus of the book is the lives of two boys, one white, one black, and the tenuous hold they have on their friendship amid the racial tension of the time. It is a story of vulnerability and, through it all, a desire to rise above the everyday even through superpowers, imagined or real. It is not difficult to see how Marvel Comics and Lethem would be drawn to each other.

The plot of the new Omega so far finds us with parallel stories of two very unlikely heroes: one is Omega, alien in human form who has crashed landed on Earth and seems to be only looking out for himself; the other is Alex, a very withdrawn teenager who discovers his so-called parents are robots just as they die in a freak car accident. Both characters have been thrown into extraordinary situations they are reluctant to react to in any significant way. Both find guides: the alien is employed by an old cook running his cafe out of his van; and the boy is befriended by Edie, a young nurse who sort of adopts him. Then there is a fake superhero, The Mink, who plays up to the media but it actually up to no good, a team of evil robots, nanoviruses, and all the class bullies needed to make Alex's life hell.

Where the art in the original Omega was fairly standard issue art the Marvel way, the art for the new Omega is nothing but cutting edge indie. It is the loose expressive look more likely to be found in alternative comics than Marvel Comics and that's a good thing. Farel Dalrymple's sensibility matches up quite nicely with Jonathan Lethem's. For anyone familiar with Dalrymple's Pop Gun War, which he wrote and drew, it is clear he shares a similar sympathy for the misfit in the gritty city. It is the right unconventional art for Lethem's poetic prose, something too often not the norm in mainstream comics.

Just study a couple of panels from the new Omega and you can see that Dalrymple knows his material. He's lived it, he's drawn it and written it, and he has a kindred spirit with Lethem and the original Omega. That little surreal exchange between Omega and a bald eagle destined to become Omega's dinner seals the deal for me. It follows up some of Lethem's trippy musings: "The problem stated simply: food isn't food if it doesn't fly. Minister Upward Bell keeps serving soup. If only soup had wings. Bell's parlor features a framed print of a family praying at the Thanksgiving table. You'd bow your head in gratitude too, for a meal like that. Feathered things come to those who wait in trees."

Omega the Unknown is a limited series of ten issues--issue 4 is the current release--and it takes the original concept as its jumping off point. Instead of throwing in various supervillains to do battle with Omega old school way, this is more of a study of characters and a story that takes its cues from the slower pacing of a novel. So, you could pick up any issue and enjoy it on its own terms. But it's early enough to probably easily find the first three issues at your local comics shop or purchase online.

DC Comics has made several inroads in keeping up with the wave of new alternative comics, new talents and new attitudes, cheifly with their Vertigo line, bringing in alternative cartoonists for specific projects, and the new Minx line. Marvel Comics a few years ago brought us Unstoppable Molecules with art by James Sturm and Craig Thompson but not so much until now. If Omega the Unknown is making up for this, then Marvel has succeeded with a very unique project that will be remembered for years to come. It is a book that can stand for Marvel's embrace of creativity, past and present, outside and within the Marvel universe.
 

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