The title of this issue, “…Long Live the King!” refers to the passing of the torch. The last issue was called “The King is Dead!” because Maxwell Lord had been killed; but his death did not end the problems for DC’s metas, rather it left Brother Eye in command as the new “King” – a king without Lord’s interests in maintaining Checkmate, and with no restraint when taking the war to its enemy.
After issue four, with its major plot points occurring in other titles altogether, I didn’t go into this one with much hope. Once things get off the rails they have a tendency to stay there. But I can say now that I was very much surprised. I enjoyed issue five a lot. And, no, that’s not a result of lowered expectations. I really liked it.
There are no major League players in this issue. It is Brother Eye versus the Justice League International in Moscow, though the new king does scan through various other metas, assessing their current threat levels. Superman and Wonder Woman are “negligible,” Black Canary “normal.” Once the fight in Moscow heats up, it is interesting to see how the various heroes have their “threatclass” ranked. Mary Marvel and Guy Gardner are alphas, Metamorpho beta, and Booster and Fire epsilon. Alpha and beta are the first and second letters in the Greek alphabet, epsilon the fifth. Even Brother Eye doesn’t give Booster his due. This fight takes up from the OMAC’s attack on Rocket Red and J’onn J’onzz, with the League coming to their rescue.
With the deaths of Sue Dibny, Blue Beetle, and Maxwell Lord, the so-called Giffen League has taken more than its share of hits under DC’s current management, but they come on very strong in this issue. They are as tough and co-ordinated as the classic JLA line-up. It won’t give much away to say that they do win in Moscow, but at a cost.
Brother Eye multitasks his way through the issue, carrying on concurrently with his creator and events at headquarter. We learn that OMAC really does stand for One Man Army Team, how they are created, and how many there are, as Brother Eye initiates the Annihilation Protocol, and activates every single one. We also learn what happened to Sasha, following the skewering she got in the last issue.
The art work is strong, in spite of being split up again, with Saiz drawing most pages and Richards and Wiacek the ones inside Checkmate headquarters. The OMACs have been appearing all over the DCU, with their appearance enough for the company to slap a “tie in” label on a comic, but next issue is supposed to bring it all to a head. In the countdown to Infinite Crisis, it doesn’t look as though the four minis will reach a common place and then lay things open for the crisis. Rather, it looks like each will cause a major disruption in the DCU and thereby contribute to the impact of the upcoming crisis. However the OMAC Project contributes, Rucka has done a great job of setting up his final confrontation. |
