I was about twelve when OMAC came out. I absolutely loved it. I didn't know at the time, of course, that the idea was to advance on Captain America, but it makes sense: these were the Watergate years, and this was Captain America (who was also a skinny "loser" transformed into a super-soldier by technology) for a paranoid, terrifying era, far into the future, where global peace was kept by men so in danger because of their jobs that they had to wear masks! (They were OMAC's bosses!)

Buddy Blank (OMAC's alter-ego) was in love with a replicant pleasure-bot named Lila. OMAC was powered by a satellite named "Brother Eye." He'd weaken and need a charge, and if Brother Eye was in trouble, so was OMAC.

When you talk about the quality of Kirby's writing, you have to break it down into his dialog - which was weird, for sure (I loved it, but I get that some just couldn't get into it) - and his storytelling. To me, one barely has to say it: Kirby was an amazing writer, and OMAC is astounding storytelling. Yes, it is experimental; this is the series, to me, where he gets into territory that was also being walked by Kubrick and Philip K. Dick - not imitating, but forging paths alongside them.

God, I loved the DC Kirby stuff. I've even gotten over the fact that it all went unfinished. I'm almost glad it did - it makes it, in a way, immortal. I worked for DC briefly in the early 1980s and made the mistake of telling one of the veteran artists there how much I loved the Kirby era. He looked at me with utter hatred.

In retrospect, OMAC is one of the most revolutionary works of that revolutionary period from Kirby. He's taking his most traditionally great creation - Captain America - and tossing him into one of the most bizarre dystopias in the history of comics.

The dunderheads trying to "darken" the character these days have no idea. In a way, the biggest complement - sadly - one can pay to OMAC today is that if it came out right now, it would probably still fail.

I like my version of the story better. His arm exploded, and I'm sticking to it, even if it isn't true.

The guy referenced in the link in comment number four actually had his massive bicep EXPLODE from overtraining.

yuck.

Not to bring the conversation down to a practical level, but if you're wondering how to make it work, extract the ZIP; you'll get a qtz file. Drag that into ~/library/screensavers, then activate it in system prefs.