Exclusive: Read Jonathan Lethem's Omega the Unknown #1

By Heidi MacDonald -- Publishers Weekly, 2/22/2008 5:00:00 AM

In recent years, Marvel Comics has added several successful prose authors to its list of contributors, from Stephen King to George R. R. Martin. One of the most unusual moves was the addition of acclaimed novelist Jonathan Lethem to reimagine an obscure but highly regarded comic from Marvel's past: Omega the Unknown.

Originally conceived by the late Steve Gerber and Mary Skrenes in 1976, Omega the Unknown was the highly evocative tale of a mysterious and silent superhero; a lonely boy named James-Michael Starling who discovers that his dead parents were actually robots; and the strange bond that grows between them in the sometimes-brutal Hells Kitchen of '70s New York.

Lethem has made no secret of comics' influence on him, and even made references to Omega in his superhero-themed 2004 novel The Fortress of Solitude. In an interview at the comics news site Newsarama.com, he said "Omega floored me, but I didn’t resent it. I thought it was fantastic. Those first issues, when Gerber and Skrenes were really allowed to do what they wanted to do and were building this incredible story full of all sorts of weird implications and possibilities…I simply thought it was the best comic book I’d ever read."

In Lethem's new version of the comic book, visualized by artist Farel Dalrymple (Popgun War) and colored by Paul Hornschemeier (Mother Come Home), he explores the comics’ mysteries in a modern setting. You can read the entire first issue of Omega the Unknown, courtesy of Marvel Comics, at this link.