10 Brilliant Marvel Characters You've Never Heard Of

3. Omega The Unknown

Marvel ComicsMarvel ComicsIf there's one thing that hampered this character's success, it's that his origins are absolutely impossible to summarise in a succinct fashion. And we're not just saying that because we're having trouble doing just that, it's because we genuinely believe the lack of a decent elevator pitch for Omega the Unknown might be why Marvel had trouble selling him, cancelling his titular series after just ten issues and relegating him to a bit player in Howard the Duck and Defenders guest appearances. Okay, here it goes: Omega is the last survivor of a dying alien race who had created a superpowered humanoid who would be able to live through the harsh conditions their planet was being subjected to. Omega seems linked somehow to regular 12-year-old kid James-Michael, who dreams of the superhero and ends up being rescued by him when his family comes under attack by the same evil robots that destroyed Omega's home planet. It's actually a lot more convoluted than that, and creator Steve Gerber had planned a long, complex mystery that would slowly unfold over the course of a long series, peeling back the layers and eventually revealing the true origins of Omega and why he found himself drawn to this borderline autistic child. Except he never got chance because the book was canned, the hero killed off in the final issue. Despite a 2007 revival in a miniseries my celebrated novelist and fanboy Jonathan Lethem, Omega disappeared into obscurity once more. Which sucks, because once you get your head around it he has one of the most interesting stories going in the cliche-ridden genre of superhero comics.
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Tom Baker is the Comics Editor at WhatCulture! He's heard all the Doctor Who jokes, but not many about Randall and Hopkirk. He also blogs at http://communibearsilostate.wordpress.com/