Blue Beetle: What Are OMACs?

Blue Beetle has landed in theaters, topping the box office charts and introducing audiences to the titular DC hero. In addition to establishing the lore of Jaime Reyes / Blue Beetle (Xolo Maridueña), Blue Beetle peppers in some interesting aspects of DC lore, many of which are expected to carry over into James Gunn and Peter Safran’s new DC Universe. In particular, Blue Beetle weaves in the biggest live-action introduction of OMAC — and here’s what you need to know about them. Spoilers for Blue Beetle lurk below! Only look if you want to know!

Across Blue Beetle, it is revealed that Victoria Kord (Susan Sarandon) is searching tirelessly for the Scarab technology for the sake of Kord Industries’ latest endeavor. Despite the missing Ted Kord and his daughter, Jenny Kord (Bruna Marquezine), both being adamant that Kord Industries should not make weapons, Victoria does not share that belief. Under Victoria’s guidance, Kord Industries hopes to create a new exo-skeleton that can help improve law enforcement — the One Man Army Corps, or OMAC. While the OMAC suits are already fairly functional, with Ignacio Carapax (Raoul Trujillo) sporting one throughout the film, Victoria wants the Scarab to help boost the suits’ capabilities. She briefly succeeds in her effort, before Carapax turns on her and kills them both at the end of the film.

Who Is DC’s OMAC?

Initially created by Jack Kirby, OMAC was originally a moniker used by Buddy Blank, a Captain America-esque supersoldier in the far future. Buddy worked tirelessly for the faceless Global Peace Agency, and his stories were chronicled throughout various solo books and back-up stories through the 1990s.

Fast-forward to 2005, when Greg Rucka and Jesús Saíz reintroduced the concept of OMAC to DC lore in The OMAC Project miniseries. Renamed the “Observational Metahuman Activity Construct”, these new OMACs were humans transformed against their will into faceless robots, whose only goal is to destroy metahumans. With the help of Batman’s Brother Eye satellite, Maxwell Lord used the OMACs to enact his evil plan. This, as well as Max shooting Ted Kord / Blue Beetle, became the lynchpin for the Infinite Crisis event. In the years since Infinite Crisis, the OMAC concept has had ties to Batman and the Outsiders, Generation Lost, and even a rebooted version of Buddy Blank. The New 52 canon also introduced an entirely new iteration of OMAC (this time, standing for One-Machine Attack Construct), named Kevin Kho.

What Do Blue Beetle‘s OMACs Mean For the DCU?

Blue Beetle weaving OMACs into its lore works on multiple levels — for starters, Kord Industries having a hand in their live-action creation is something of a poetic tragedy, given how Ted died in the comics. Ted’s death in the lead-up to Infinite Crisis also led to Jaime initially getting the Scarab in the comics. It also provides an unexpected way to streamline the lore of Carapax, compared to his debut in the comics.

But beyond that, Blue Beetle‘s introduction of OMACs — and subsequent destruction of them during the film’s final fight — further fleshes out the DCU for future stories. Depending on how publicly-known Victoria’s OMAC project was (which, given the fact that we see a TV commercial for it in the film, could be likely), there’s always a chance that another foe could try to restart the efforts in a later adventure.

What do you think of Blue Beetle introducing OMACs to the big screen? Share your thoughts with us in the comments below!

Blue Beetle is now playing exclusively in theaters.