This week OMAC 6 brought to an end the third of the six arcs leading up to the Big Event. In the last issue everything had exploded into a huge mess, with Lord dead and Brother Eye having activated all of the OMACs – over a million of them. Checkmate was in ruins, with only Jessica Midnight and Sasha Bordeaux alive at headquarters and Bordeaux had morphed into a metallic cyborg. Things are finally so bad that the two Checkmate survivors call up the other government agencies of the DCU and something remarkable happens… Positive and effective action is both organized and taken.
Throughout this crisis, from Identity to Conscious to Infinite, what has been hamstringing everyone are the dark secrets they being kept. The League has been broken by the secret of the mindwipe and Checkmate by the secret plottings of Maxwell Lord and his release of the OMAC nano-virus. But with nothing left to loose the two women bring everyone on to the same page and the many resources available to the good guys soon make a big impact.
The DEO and STAR labs propose solutions, Batman comes up with a plan, and two strategies are launched. There are also two battles, though the solutions overlap into both conflicts. One battle is in San Francisco, home of the Teen Titans and also Alcatraz, a prison for metas. Brother Eye doesn’t care if they are good guys or bad guys, it is after them all. The other is in the Libyan desert, where a large number of heroes gather in order to draw the OMACs in as a target.
The Libyan plan is put together by Batman and things are bad enough that dozens of heroes – including Gardner – will follow in spite of his role in creating the satellite menace. Many do, though, because of Ted Kord’s… Well, I’m not going to spoil anything, but his shadow looms heavily in this issue. The desert battle provides a couple of great images. One is the OMACs approaching like a swarm of locusts, the other a great and dynamic two page spread by Jesus Saiz, which shows us the battle and the many heroes.
This mini ends on a high note, and this issue is great, though, like Day of Vengeance and Crisis of Conscience, it leaves many things unresolved. These stories are all meant to lead us into that one upcoming Big Event, after all. Crisis of Conscience and Day of Vengeance ended with huge explosions. This one ends with a different kind of explosion, when Brother Eye strikes back in an unexpected way, and I am not sure if it would actually have the kind of impact DC really wants it too. There is also a minor point about warehouse deliveries, but these are all little things that will not take away from the overall story. I am also interested in the outcomes of the many images we are shown of people mobilizing. The image of the Freedom Force seems to tie directly to what we have seen on the Infinite Crisis preview pages. As the cover banner screams, one more month! |
