This weekend’s escapist, light-hearted superhero post here at Balladeer’s Blog looks at Jack Kirby’s creation OMAC during its 1974-1975 run at DC Comics.
OMAC Vol 1 #1 (October 1974)
Title: Brother Eye and Buddy Blank
Villains: Pseudo-People, Inc.
Synopsis: The setting is Earth of the future – many years from the present but before the Great Disaster that caused the post-apocalypse world of Jack Kirby’s Kamandi series. The Global Peace Agency, secretly run by aliens called the Visionaries, covertly intervene on Earth to try preventing said Great Disaster.
The GPA’s attention has been drawn to a shady corporation called Pseudo-People, Inc. which manufactures and sells lifelike programmable androids to provide human customers with companionship. To launch an investigation of the company, the agency recruits Pseudo People, Inc. employee Buddy Blank to infiltrate the organization.
Because of the danger of this assignment, Buddy is first used as a test subject for Operation OMAC (One Man Army Corps). The test is a success and when needed, the everyday Buddy Blank can be infused with superpowers by the GPA’s orbiting satellite called Brother Eye.
As OMAC, Buddy’s body is so altered that he can battle the villainy of PPI without giving away his secret identity. In this original incarnation of OMAC, the Brother Eye satellite was eventually revealed to be the long disused Justice League satellite. (Remember, this is the far future.) Later versions of the OMAC series gave Brother Eye different origins. Continue reading
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