After a month of reading a chapter or two as I had time, I finished the trade paperback of the much-lauded Tom King run of "The Omega Men." While my final opinion falls more into the "like" category than the "love," I admire its depth and ambition and found that it was worth the time I could invest in the story. If the book's sales were as high as its praise, I 'm certain that one of my biggest issues with the book (that it felt rushed) would have not been. Still, rushed or not, I'm glad that DC saw fit to allow King's tale to play out to its conclusion if not its entirety.
Other issues, however, were baked in from the start. I found the central MacGuffin difficult to swallow, even in a tale as fantastic as this, and, while we're at it, the balance of reality-based themes and fantastic elements wasn't always so balanced. That, and a tendency to fall back on cringe-worthy tropes detracted from what was otherwise a page-turner.
Barnaby Bagenda's art, while wow-worthy at times, might have better served a different story. I found it too cool at emotional and dramatic peaks, and at times it muddied the story. I frequently found myself breaking from the narrative to decipher a panel. This, however, may also have been corrected had the story been allowed to play out longer.
All of that said, it was nice to engage with a thoughtful and timely space-spanning tale that wasn't A) a blockbuster cross-over event or B) a space-spanning tale designed to sell toys/is a glamorization of Nazis (*cough*).
Is "The End Is Here" the best graphic story ever told? No, but it's close and well worth your time and attention for its successes.
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