Random Thoughts: OMAC Project

I have a love-hate relationship with the OMAC Project Miniseries. At first it was my favorite of the post Countdown, pre-IC minis. It was the only one that really seemed to give any personal, emotional weight or acknowledgement to Ted Kord's death.

I remember thinking the moment where Bruce presents the broken goggles and Booster takes a shot at him was actually, surprisingly pretty powerful.

The next issue started out awesome too, as many former JLI/JLE members teamed up to figure out what the hell was going on and to avenge/honor their friend's memory. Okay, so Max Lord ended up killed in Sacrifice instead, it still had a lot of emotional poignancy.

I thought it could be great, a dark, sad bittersweet counterpoint to Formerly Known As/I Can't Believe it's Not the Justice League.

But then all of a sudden the mini series lost me. Maybe it was the emphasis on Sasha Bordeaux, a character I found mildly intriguing in Murderer/Fugitive, but quickly grew to resent when she began to overtake the plotline I actually cared about in OMAC project. And as she kissed Batman, seemed to die, got injected with nano-tech, and became all shiny...well, I just didn't care. (As metal chicks go, Bulleteer's hotter anyway.)

And then the way the JLI in the end pretty much got their asses handed to them, culminating in Booster leaving for the future. Yeah he came back, cool. But damn if that didn't erk. I was reading the series for some narrative closure damnit. It would have been much much more satisfying to see the JLIers actually kicking ass in honor of their fallen friend than the constant travails of the metal chick in the satellite.

So I wasn't really planning to get the oneshot. But it had Bea on the cover, and I love me some Fire. Didn't think I'd like it much.

I was...sorta right. It was weirdly a mix of really awesome stuff and really boring stuff. I *don't* *care* about Sasha Bordeaux. AT ALL. Metal or no. Sorry, she could have been intriguing, but too much too soon and at too much cost.

But then, the stuff with Amanda Waller and Fire...*that* stuff. Fucking awesome, man. I do believe Checkmate's gonna rock. I enjoy some dark espionage stuff sometimes, and Amanda Waller as the black king (KING, not QUEEN, hah!) will be awesome. Alan Scott is apparently going to be the opposing white king, which should be great too. This has the makings to be really awesome.

...but is there any way to get rid of Sasha and replace her with someone better? I know Katana or Shiva are busy, but there must be other vaguely morally ambiguous female characters out there that would be much more interesting in that role.

And if there aren't...you could always make a new one. :-)