War of the Realms Omega #1: A Polished Turd

This issue is getting graded harshly mostly due to this “Omega” epilogue issue not really being anything of the sort. This should have been War Scrolls #4 (and basically was in everything but name) and borne the lower price tag, freeing this issue up to do the legwork that Thor and Avengers shouldered with an assist from Venom. I’m sorry to everyone who worked on it, but I have to say if you didn’t already, don’t buy this comic, buy one or all of the other three if you want a vague spoiler free recommendation of what each one does feel free to reach out to me and I can kind of let you know what each one does, from a Thor epilogue to a Midgard epilogue to an Avengers epilogue. Come to think of it you can probably figure it out from that sentence. I will say if you wanted to find out Malekith’s fate read this week’s Thor, as INFURIATINGLY this issue doesn’t deal with ANY of the antagonists of this event for even ONE SINGLE SOLITARY PAGE, in fact besides ONE PANEL in Avengers and the aforementioned (admittedly awesome) Malekith stuff in Thor we don’t get any fallout for the villains. I mean I’m probably one of ten people who cares but what happened to Ulik? Enchantress? The remaining angels of Heaven? You can’t honestly tell me that all we get is some poorly explained nonsense in Deadpool, Captain Marvel and Asgardians of the Galaxy (again, not speaking to the quality of the books, rather my disappointment with this issue), I mean obviously there might be something down the road (although with one issue of Aaron’s Thor left it’s doubtful) to provide some actual closure where this issue fails.

Also apparently eating Frost Giants totally flies in NYC?

Once again I’m fixated on what this issue failed to do and not what it does. I thought the God without Fear epilogue written by Jason Aaron was nice, and thought it was touching the way Heimdall showed such respect for Matt and helped him through what could otherwise be a rough time. If we ever see those sticks again I’ll be shocked though. Also, did Heimdall get his sight back? When? How? Another failing of this issue haha. I will say (not a dig at his other recent work) this is hands down the best work I’ve seen from Ron Garney in years, I generally think he’s a solid 7.5-8/10 on pencils (his faces tend to lose definition when they aren’t the focus in the panel) but were i rating just his art it would be maybe a 9.2 this story.

But on the plus side WAR THOR!!!!!

The Valkyrie short is one of the better parts of this issue, I really like the art by Cafu and Al Ewing’s trademark dark nuance is in play to great effect. Although once again something left dangling that could have been addressed in this issue is the quickly dropped WOTR plot point of Jane being named All-Mother for like half an issue before being completely roadblocked by Thor’s return. Once again this issue wastes space that could be used to provide closure to the event to promote a new series. Obviously this resolution could be found in the new series, but if the answer to every dropped WOTR plot thread is “f*** you, buy these other books” excuse me if I don’t rush out with my wallet in hand in the hopes they fulfill an obligation they already ignored once.

Next Daniel Kibblesmith and Oscar Bazaldua give us a short glimpse into Loki’s new life as king of the frost giants, unlike the other two stories this one does give us some resolution and as such is the high point of the issue, also I like Loki’s lil frost giant friend haha. The art is a bit stylized when it comes to the mini giant (regular sized man?) but otherwise looks awesome I’ll definitely be checking this series out.

Aaah! Kill it before it lays it’s eggs in my brain!

Last but not least the bridge between WOTR Punisher and Punisher Kill Krew comes a short from Gerry Duggan and Juan Ferreyra in which thanks to some convenient postulating Frank realizes there are war orphans aplenty to slake his vengeance boner (insert Helen Lovejoy WON’T SOMEBODY PLEASE THINK OF THE CHILDREEEN here). I did love a rare one on one talk between Thor and Frank which doesn’t happen often, and the scene with Frank and celebrating Asgardians was pitch perfection. Although honestly why isn’t anyone questioning why this man has a windowless white van full of orphans parked at a cemetery at dusk?

Was that even his family he was killed with?

All in all, this issue was fine, pretty good even. It just isn’t at all what I wanted as a final issue to this event. It’s unfortunate that this issue got a War of the Realms banner and the other 3 didn’t.