Book Review: Omega the Unknown

In honor of Free Comic Book Day on Saturday: So what happens when a novelist like Jonathan Lethem makes his name writing literature (and a memoir with the title Fortress of Solitude, a comics reference in itself), and then he returns to writing comics by remaking an obscure 10-issue miniseries about a covert robot war on earth? I guess this is what happens. It's awkward and yes, more than a little strange, and narratively it's strangely paced: after setting up all sorts of mysteries in the first few issues we're given a long didactic explanation for how it all works around issue 7. (Kind of like the fabled "Joop the Monkey" coming onscreen and explaining all Lost's mysteries that its co-creators have threatened us with.) But I have a soft spot for originality and surprising writing fluorishes, and this has those, so I'm glad I checked this one out from the library. But I'm not impressed enough to put Lethem on my reading list yet. That ambivalent enough for you?