Hulk Smash Existential Dilemma
The second issue of Omega the Unknown (“Welcome to Hell’s Kitchen!”) did what all Marvel comics of that era had to do: it featured a more famous guest star in order to attract readers. At the time, Spider-Man would have been a good bet; in later years, Wolverine. But Omega the Unknown got the Hulk.
Fortunately, the Hulk was a known quality for Gerber, and he and Skrenes turned an obligatory guest star into a vehicle for advancing the series’ themes. Though the character might be an odd fit for the comic’s cerebral tone, the Hulk, as we have seen, is one of Marvel’s best embodiments of duality. As Bruce Banner, he is intelligent (like James-Michael and Omega) and articulate (like James-Michael), while the Hulk’s communications skills are limited.
James-Michael’s encounter with the Hulk takes place after a promise of self-discovery. Dr. Barrow encourages him to take the study of “the mind” seriously, to which James-Michael assents (“My interests gravitate more toward the hard sciences, Dr. Barrow. But I enjoy learning about anything…!”). Barrow takes it a step further: “I want to introduce you to some fascinating new subjects matter—yourself.”
If this issue is the beginning of James-Michael’s self-study, it is thoroughly free of any kind of navel-gazing. In fact, the lessons Amber gives him in the “jungle philosophy” of life in Hell’s Kitchen follow upon his parents’ earlier explanation for why he needs to get out in the world. When James-Michael first glimpses Bruce Banner, he and Amber mistake the man sleeping on the street for a drunken derelict. They immediately pass by James-Michael’s own version of an alter ego, Omega, who is now dressed in construction garb (Amber finds him attractive).
James-Michael is unaware of his kinship with either man: Omega, because he doesn’t recognize him without his costume, and Banner, because he has yet to wake up and speak in the same over-educated manner James-Michael himself favors. When Banner, who is the superhero comic equivalent of Chekhov’s gun, inevitably transforms into the Hulk, the result is a two-pronged assault on both Omega and James-Michael that highlights not only the duality of their mysterious connection, but also the duality within themselves. James-Michaels’ reaction is not to the physical transformation occurring before his very eyes; rather, the process of metamorphosis awakens James-Michael to “the voices” his mother warned him about:
“Amber…I’m becoming dizzy…in my mind…I can hear…”
[…]
“The voices..! Amber…!”
[…]
“They’re still fighting…the voices inside the green man…Amber…!”
There are plenty of reasons to be disturbed by the appearance of a giant green monster just a few feet away, but James-Michael experiences the Hulk as the sum total of his interior conflicts, the “fighting” between the monster and Banner. Omega, meanwhile, has been existing almost entirely as a body: “Physical labor: the job demands only minimal mental activity, allowing the mind to roam elsewhere.” Upon seeing the Hulk, Omega, unlike James-Michael, responds as a body rather than mind:
“Every nerve seems to fire at once…body launched into motion by chemical lightning…
"Even his face…!
“Unaccustomed to so violent a physiological response to danger stimulus—what is this world doing to him?—Even his face…
“Momentarily, it betrayed him, betrayed his inner self.”
Though an “inner self” is affirmed, Omega still experiences events as a body and mind occasionally working at cross-purposes, rather than a self-sufficient being. Meanwhile, the conflict between actions and introspection plays out in the responses of James-Michael’s two guardians, the women whose personalities are such sharp opposites. Amber leaps into action, taking photographs as part of her job for The Daily Bugle. Ruth, upon seeing the Hulk, is immediately taken back to her time with Richard Rory and the Man-Thing: “It’s just…well, she’s lived through certain experiences which she speaks about only rarely. […] And the violence of this scene—and of the man-monster in particular—evokes memories.”
“Welcome to Hell’s Kitchen” is a story of exploration and self-discovery, but provides no answers. The Spider-Man villain Electro knocks Omega out, causing James-Michael to go into shock. Dr. Barrow’s invitation to study “the mind” in the first few pages is counterbalanced by an ending that leaves both its leads unconscious.
This turns out to be the perfect launching point for issue 3 (“Burn While You Learn,”) whose overall theme is awakening. Characters emerge from slumber, unconsciousness, and dormancy; one young boy gains a new sense of his own agency, while another learns how not to be overwhelmed by sensory inputs. All against the backdrop of a new school, a beating by a bully, and yet another fight with a supervillain.
“Burn While You Learn” initially looks like a step-backward for James-Michael—he’s back in the hospital bed he occupied for so much of the first issue, and when he is ready to leave, he is treated to another homily by Dr. Barrow about the complexities of the mind. HIs parting words about the benefits of the school Ruth has arranged for the boy are casually perceptive:
“Frankly, she’s not sure you can cope with it just yet. But I think it’s just what you need—
“—to lift that gauze curtain from your eyes.”
The metaphor is surprisingly apt: James-Michael is strangely removed from his own life, as if by an almost invisible barrier. Like Ruth, he has trouble “relating,” which is also probably why she has been unable to connect with him (they have yet another misunderstanding on the comic’s second page).
The “gauze curtain” is made literal in the panel just beneath Barrow’s words, with Omega slowly returning consciousness illustrated by a vaguely pointillist paterns and a series of white blobs overlaying his face. He is held captive by Electro, whose electric superpowers also have a metaphorical side: he sparks such rage in Omega that our silent man of mystery is obliged to take action, while his literal powers recharge and revive the robot that has been stalking both of the comic’s leads:
“Something about this man infuriates him. Not the swaggering boastfulness. Not the sneer on the thin, pale lips…
“No, the anger derives from the fact of the anger itself…from Electro’s uncanny ability to jab verbally at all the right spots to arouse his ire…
“…to shatter his once inviolable composure and thus prompt him to act without analysis."
James-Michael, too, will be shocked out of his calm demeanor at school, first accidentally slapped in the face first by a teacher and then intentionally punched in the jaw by Nick the bully. One page has Omega straining against his bonds followed by a montage of James-Michael’s schooldays, and the accompanying monologue could refer to either of them, or to both:
“The mind bends under the squall of implications. Passive acceptance has proved itself inadequate to deal with this new world.”
[…]
“Wry vexation, bemused detachment, the stance of the unfeeling, unobtrusive observer…may no longer suffice if existence is to consist of more than sleepwalking."
Like Howard the Duck, both Omega and James-Michael are "trapped in a world they never made,” but in their case, the nature of the trap is complicated by their unwillingness to engage. Howard, too, will withdraw at significant moments, but to do so, he has to fight his impulse to get involved. Omega is not a superhero, but, to paraphrase Jessica Rabbit, he is “just drawn that way,” and therefore has already been drawn into numerous conflicts in three short issues. Each time, however, he spend as much time resisting involvement as he does in the actual fight. But as an alien refugee from a dead planet and as a man running around in what everyone takes as a superhero costume, he has natural predators who make fighting a matter of survival:
“For virtually every species in the chain of life there exists a nature predator…
“… an agent whose aims run directly contrary to those of the first organism…
“Whose nature is to hunt it down, disrupt its doings, prey upon its inherent weaknesses.”
This particular Omega monologue puts our hero in the predator’s position for once, since it is he who recognizes the robot’s weak spots, but for most of the comic, it has been Electro who knows exactly what buttons to push in order to drive Omega into a frenzy that he so clearly wishes to avoid. James-Michael is not drawn like a superhero, and is not naturally assimilated to that particular genre; he is, however, drawn like the studious, nerdy boy who is the natural prey to bullies. He not only refuses to engage; he refuses to believe that he will be called on to defend himself. After Nick punches him in the jaw, James-Michael asks Amber for advice, and her response stuns him: “I dunno. Have you considered…hitting back?”
Both Amber and James-Michael are operating according to their customary scripts. James-Michael resolves to “analyze the problem in depth,” while Amber tells him to “give it a breather” and distract himself with the telethon on TV. But Electro is at the telethon, and therefore on the screen, and the television does a much more extreme version of the function that Amber ascribes to it: it shuts the viewer down. James-Michael stares in shock:
“The phenomenon might best be described as “white thought”—everything blending into flat, featureless nothing.
“Realities in collision—the plane of nightmares, piercing, rather than meeting tangentially the sphere of physical existence.”
Just two pages after the monologue that seemed attached to both James-Michael and Omega simultaneously, these captions appear to have centered the “Omega monologue” firmly on James-Michael. After all, it is only his connection to Omega that could explain the effect the broadcast has on him.
Television renders the already passive James-Michael an even more passive viewer, while the telethon in broadcasts offers up another boy to (literally) stand in for James-Michael during his near catatonia: Freddie, the telethon’s poster boy, who stays upright with the help of crutches. He is Electro’s hostage, which means he is the one Omega is trying to save. As a poster boy, Freddie is talked about rather than with, framed more as object than subject. Which is why Gerber and Skrenes spend an entire page following his consciousness. As Electro and Omega are deadlocked (shooting their energy bolts at each other), Freddie realizes that the moment is his:
“Somewhere, parsecs distant from either antagonist’s thoughts, stands little Freddie, looking on from a universe of his own.
[…]
“For a year now, he’s served as a professional object-of-pity […]
“Now, he decides, he’s had enough. Exploit, pit, and objectify him, will they? Oh, yeah???”
Freddie hits Electro with one of his crutches, breaking his concentration and allowing Omega to defeat him.
“No telling how many universes that single blow to the shin has affected. Electro’s, of course, is shattered. The mystery man’s, refortified, Freddie’s expand beyond measure.
“And there are others…within the studio and without.
“His proud mother’s…the TV announcer’s…of every man’s mind is a universe an d a few million are watching this extravaganza on their home screens…!
“He likes that notion.”
Freddie is a minor character never seen before and never heard from again, but that is the point. Gerber and Skrenes are demonstrating the power of both individual initiative (Freddie’s) and the simple act of being the audience. The viewers (and, by extension, the readers) are more than observer: they are witnesses, and they are changed by what they see, or at least they can be. This scene demonstrates a number of important features about Omega the Unknown. First, passivity can be overcome, and sometimes the way out of passivity is through it. Second, all action is important only to the extent that it effects consciousness (that is, an entire universe). And, finally, careful readers come to realize that all the real action in Omega takes place in the captions.
The disabled Freddie is a cliché, of course, but one with special resonance for the superhero genre. We have already noted the resemblance between the Omega/James-MIchael dyad and the Captain Marvel/Billy Batson. Captain Marvel quickly gained superpowered companions referred to as the “Marvel Family,” and the first of them was Captain Marvel, Jr. Just as Billy became Captain Marvel by saying a magic word, Captain Marvel Jr. was the result of a magic word shouted by.,…a boy named Freddy Freeman, who walked with crutches. In Omega, Freddie becomes a hero without actually gaining powers (or, for that matter, saying a single word). But his name, his status, and his assertion of his own agency all point back to “Enigma the third: the link between the man and the boy.”
In the last panel of “Burn While You Learn,” we find out that Freddie’s lesson has not been lost on James-Michael:
“The boy does not respond. He cannot select which from among the thousand voices in his head to allow to speak.
“But something is different now. He hears them with a new clarity. They’ve being to speak to him, not rail at him. Something is different now…in his universe.”
James-Michael has spent the first three issues repeatedly waking from slumber, fainting, or coma. This time, he wasn’t technically asleep, which means that this boy who is constantly observing the world around him as just noticed his own awakening.