Writer: Greg Rucka
Artists: Rags Morales (Wonder Woman) & Jesus Saiz (OMAC)
Publisher: DC Comics
Parts seven and eight of a six-issue miniseries!
First, in the conclusion of the "Sacrifice" crossover with Superman, Wonder Woman fights for her life against a mind-controlled Man of Steel. The man pulling the strings is Maxwell Lord, former business leader of the Justice League turned murderous Black King of the shadow government, Checkmate. Battered and broken, the Amazon princess fends off Superman long enough to bind Lord in her magic lasso, compelling him to speak the truth. The tales he tells are monstrous, and Wonder Woman does what it takes to ensure her former colleague can never carry his plans to fruition. But with the Black King out of the picture, who's controlling the OMACs? Booster Gold, Green Lantern Guy Gardner, and Fire piece together the clues, while Batman watches his greatest creation strike its final rebellion.
As dodgy as slipping a four-issue weekly crossover into the second half of an otherwise-unrelated miniseries may be, "Sacrifice" was a powerful story from beginning to end, so much can be forgiven. In the three main Superman titles, the hero watched as his loved ones were murdered by Brainiac, or Darkseid, or Ruin, each episode overlapping but each seeming unbearably real. Superman takes his wrath out on the most deadly villains of his career, but it's all a hallucination: the body receiving the Man of Steel's rage is Batman's. The Justice League intervenes to protect the World's Finest, but they eventually discover that Superman's delusions can only be tackled at their source: Max Lord. That the final chapter of "Sacrifice" should ship the same week as the corresponding issue of OMAC Project is quite a boon, since waiting a month or even a week after to see what happens after Wonder Woman #219 would be excruciating agony.
That said, OMAC Project is now left with a bit of a quandary for its final few issues: it is without a star. Killer robots that can be anywhere at any time, controlled by a maleficent satellite that can see into the most hidden places on Earth, is pretty terrifying, but it doesn't give the reader the visceral sensation of just hating a bad guy. Max Lord was a terrific character. He was entertaining as the wisecracking businessman behind the Justice League, he was sinister as the cyborg Lord Havok (anybody remember this?), and he was a pure bastard as Checkmate's Black King. OMAC #4 deals with the aftermath of Lord's demise and the Brother Eye satellite's rise to power, and in a lot of ways this is still an exploration of Lord's influence: without him, Checkmate cannot exist. The pieces are swept off the board, game over. Brutal, powerful stuff. But what happens next? It's got to be more than killer robots.
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