As a member of the Green Lantern Corps, Kyle Rayner has been through his share of wars. He’s been part of large-scale conflicts against everyone from the Sinestro Corps to his fellow Lanterns. However, none of that experience prepared him for his time with the Omega Men. Unlike the corps or Justice League, the Omega Men weren’t part of a simple conflict between good and evil.
Rayner was the only traditional superhero in Omega Men, by Tom King, Barnaby Bagenda, Toby Cypress, Ig Guara, and Jose Marzan Jr. The 12 issue series was a reboot of characters created by Marv Wolfman and Joe Staton in Green Lantern #141. Their biggest claim to fame before King’s run was that Lobo was introduced in Omega Men #3 by Roger Slifer and Keith Giffen.
King recast the Omega Men as a group of revolutionaries who were the survivors of genocides on their home planets. The genocides were perpetrated by a mega-corporation called the Citadel that enslaved planets in the Vega system to mine the planet stabilizing metal called Stellarium that it then sold to other worlds. The Citadel used its influence to paint the pragmatic Omega Men as terrorists.
Rayner initially stepped into the middle of the conflict as a diplomat, tasked with brokering peace between the Citadel and the Omega Men. Instead of achieving that goal, Rayner was kidnapped by the Omega Men. They faked his death in an execution video and forced him to join them. Taking a page from Amanda Waller, the Omega Men claimed to have implanted a bomb in Rayner’s throat and threatened to detonate it if he tried to escape.
The Omega Men wanted Rayner to see what the Citadel was capable of for himself. This started with the public execution of 4,000 civilians on the planet Ogyptu in restitution for the 39 soldiers who died trying to apprehend the Omega Men. Team member Primus frustrated Rayner by refusing to let him sacrifice himself in an attempt to save the civilians. The Omega Men’s true purpose was to use the execution as an opportunity to kidnap The Viceroy of the Citadel’s ship.
While in confinement, Rayner bonded with a fellow prisoner, Princess Kalista of Euphorix, who was secretly the leader of the Omega Men. She used Rayner’s desire to atone for his girlfriend Alexandra DeWitt’s infamous death to forge a connection with him. They began a romantic relationship after surviving a ship crash, but Rayner soon realized she was playing him.
In spite of everything they did to him, Rayner still sided with the Omega Men against the Citadel after they showed him that the organization was responsible for the deaths of over seven billion inhabitants of the planet Voorl. The Omega Man Scrapps was the only survivor of the massacre.
In spite of seeing the Citadel’s evil for himself, Rayner still held fast to his principles. Instead of using his White Lantern ring as a bomb like the Omega Men wanted, Rayner hoped to find another way to quell the violence between the Citadel and the Omega Men.
He showed video of Voorl’s mass graves, hoping the galaxy could find a peaceful way forward. The Omega Men had other plans. Doc, an A.I. that took part in the genocide on Voorl, blew up the planet, cutting off the galaxy’s supply of Stellarium. Kalista dared the galaxy to pick another Vegan planet and mine its stellarium in the open before forcing Kyle to choose a side.
Rayner joined the Omega Men in an all-out war with The Citadel. In spite of the odds, the Omega Men were able to unite with the five remaining planets of Vega. In the final battle of the Omega War, the Omega Men had the Viceroy at their mercy. Rayner tried one last time to appeal to his teammates’ to find a better way. After stopping Scrapps from shooting the Viceroy, he seemed to finally be getting through to some of the team. Unfortunately his pleas fell on deaf ears when it came to Kalista, who beheaded the Viceroy.
Rayner’s time with the Omega Men gave him a different perspective on war. He saw what desperate people had to do in order to survive when they didn’t have the Green Lanterns’ power. He also saw the limits of his own morality. His appeals to truth and justice meant nothing to the Omega Men. Any positive impact he had on them was fleeting, as they devolved into violence against their own people once he returned to Earth. Rayner learned first hand that he couldn’t save everyone, not even from themselves.
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