OMAC 1-8

After reading the DC comic, "Brave New World", I decided to give this mini series a try. I'm pretty glad I did.
Story-The story is basically fallout from the "Identity Crisis" series, where the JLA decided to mind wipe Dr. Light after he brutally raped the wife of the Elongated Man. Batman vehemently disagreed with the rest of the teams decision to alter another human being's mind and the JLA decided they had no choice but to mind wipe Batman as well, causing him to forget the whole situation. Batman,being Batman, figured out what was done to him and became mistrustful of all other metahumans. To police the superpowered police men, he created a satellite named Brother Eye, who could create an army of human-robot cyborgs that would be capable of putting down the JLA, should they ever try to infringe on the rights of the average man again. Unfortunately for Batman, he created Brother Eye too well, and it decided to go into business for its self and began converting regular humans into superpowered OMAC cyborgs that were attempting to take out the metahuman population of the DC universe even though the heroes hadn't slipped up again.
To rectify his mistake, Batman, along with a contingent of Justice Leaguers, travelled up to the Brother Eye satellite, and after a big battle managed to destroy the satellite as well all the OMAC's, ending the threat of Brother Eye, once and for all, or so they thought.
Apparently, though damaged, Brother Eye was operational enough to activate a sleeper agent on Earth, 17 year old junkie, Michael Costner. As long as Costner was high, Brother Eye was able to establish control of him and transform him into an OMAC, where it could have him do its bidding on Earth, which initially consisted of gathering parts needed to repair it's systems in space and brutally dispatching any who opposed its goals. Costner, although a druggie and a thief, wasn't a murderer, and would constantly fight against the orders Brother Eye would feed him. Costner, as OMAC, killed several people while under Brother Eye's control, but wouldn't kill women. Brother Eye ultimately grew tired of its inability to fully control the actions of Costner, and influenced him to sleep with a Vegas dancer named Vienna who he met while fighting withdrawal symptoms and Brother Eye's commands and had taken pity on him. This act allowed Costner to pass the OMAC virus to Vienna, which caused her to also become a OMAC sleeper agent.
Batman, aware that something was awry, due to reports of an OMAC moving cross country, enlisted Superman to travel into space to search for remains of the Brother Eye satellite, to see if Brother Eye was indeed repairing itself. Superman discovered it was, but became trapped inside the station, due to the fact that it coated itself with some Kryptonyte it had found in space. While trapped, Superman was able to contact Costner mentally by tapping into Brother Eye's systems and warned him of Brother Eye's ultimate goal of destroying the Earth, as well as the fact that Vienna was now infected with the OMAC virus, while being pregnant with Costner's child to boot. Hearing this, Costner, who refused to transform into OMAC out of fear that Brother Eye would cause him to create more destruction, decided that he had to try to destroy Brother Eye to protect his unborn child. Vienna now fully in control of Brother Eye, became an OMAC as well and tried to terminate Costner, who Brother Eye now deemed an unnecessary security risk. While Vienna/OMAC was attempting to kill Costner, he screamed to her that she was pregnant, which was enough to snap her out of Brother Eye's trance. She then tricked Brother Eye into thinking that she killed Costner, while in reality, he transformed into OMAC and launched an attack on the Brother Eye satellite, freeing Superman. While they battled the satellites defenses, Superman realized Brother Eye planned to punish Vienna for her failure to kill Costner, and raced down to Earth to try to protect her, telling Costner that since the satellite was coated with Kryptonite, there was nothing he(Superman) could do, and that only Costner as OMAC could destroy Brother Eye. Superman arrived on Earth to discover that instead of killing Vienna, since it still needed an operational OMAC to carry out its plan to destroy the Earth, it vaporized her unborn child as punishment for disobeying.
The death of her child caused Vienna to lash out at Superman, tricking Brother Eye into thinking she killed Superman, before returning to space with Superman to make one final attempt to destroy Brother Eye. While Superman held Costner at bay, Vienna sacrificed herself to destroy the satellite, and end the threat of Brother Eye. Afterwards, back on Earth, we find a heartbroken Mike Costner, free of the OMAC curse, since there was no more Brother Eye to power him, but also despondent over losing the woman he grew to love as well as his unborn baby. The final pages of the comic show the destroyed debris that was Brother Eye drifting through space, leaving us to ponder if Brother Eye was able to repair itself from destruction before, could it possibly do it again?
The Good-Where do I begin? I loved that Mike Costner was pretty much a scumbag and a loser, but he was still deep down good enough to fight through the insidious programing of Brother Eye to become a hero. Overall, the series told a great story of a troubled youth, who was able to become a hero and find redemption. While I was disappointed that Mike seemed to be powerless at the end of the series, he would have been a hell of a force for good, I was optimistic that somewhere down the line, if Brother Eye was able to rebuild itself again, we'll be seeing more of Mike and OMAC again. The artwork, which I rarely pay much attention to, was noticeably great throughout the series, giving a more realistic look, without the bright coloring of a normal Super Hero book, which worked really well in the case of this comic.
The Bad-At times, the story was a little bit confusing, especially when Brother Eye would cause Mike to see things that weren't there or weren't occurring. Since Brother Eye was always playing with Mike's head to force him to follow orders, it would go to great lengths to confuse him and then use this confusion to take control of his actions. Brother Eye wasn't only confusing poor Mike, it was doing a good job at confusing me as well. There were a couple of times I would have to look back through the pages of one of the comics and say to myself, did that happen or was it just one of Brother Eye's illusions.
Overall-BUY THIS COMIC! It's definitely for more mature audiences, with Mike being a junkie, with track marks and withdrawal symptoms, as well as the many times salty language was used by the characters. However, it tells a great story about someone that society could care less about, showing he had what it took to become a true hero, regardless of the curve balls life kept throwing his way. So, if I didn't make myself perfectly clear, please, BUY THIS COMIC!!!!!!