The New, New 52: Will O.M.A.C. Join S.H.A.D.E.?

This month, DC's first official New 52 crossover has taken place between O.M.A.C. #5 and Frankenstein, Agent of S.H.A.D.E. #5. Checkmate, which perceives O.M.A.C. as a rogue asset that they need to reign in, call upon S.H.A.D.E. for help and Frank is the guy who's sent to make it happen. With the announcement today that O.M.A.C. will be canceled, though, one has to wonder whether that's a sign of things to come. Could O.M.A.C. be headed for a role in S.H.A.D.E.? And if so, what evidence do we have to base that idea on? Well, first of all, Frankenstein writer Jeff Lemire told ComicBook.com's Panel Discussions podcast in August that the importance of Checkmate as a government organization will be diminishing in the New 52, giving way to the dominance of S.H.A.D.E. "Within DC some of the main editorial people want S.H.A.D.E. to become the main DCU espionage organization; they're really counting on the book taking off and replacing Checkmate and all these other things," Lemire told us during that interview. "Kind of DC's S.H.I.E.L.D. but almost in some ways the opposite of S.H.I.E.L.D." In terms of the jockeying for position between the two organizations, the writer speculated that the more financially successful book, with the longer life on the shelf, might end up being home to the organization that wins out. "I think that's going to be one of the cool things to watch," Lemire said, "to see how these different spy organizations or government organizations play out in a year or two and which ones are still around and which ones take prominence. A lot of it, i'm sure, will depend on which books are more successful so we'll have to wait and see." Hear the Lemire interview here. When DC's Editor-in-Chief Bob Harras talked to Newsarama today, he assured them that, "The thing that is also important to note is that these characters [in the canceled books] aren't going to go anywhere." Harras went on to give some examples, but the first words out of his mouth were, "Characters like O.M.A.C. — he's going to show up in another title." Clearly the plan is to have most or all of these characters continue on into the DC Universe and so it's safe to say that any given one of the characters will be seen again soon, but the terse and definitive nature of "He is going to show up in another title" makes it sound as though a plan is already in place and, so far, Frankenstein seems to be the only really logical book for the character to appear in.