What Is OMAC in ‘Blue Beetle’? Explained

Throughout the entire storyline of ‘Blue Beetle,’ there was only one thing that Victoria Kord wanted. She was looking to get her hands on the Scarab to use its technology to power up the technology that she and her team at Kord Industries developed. We are talking about OMAC, which is a proprietary tech that Vicky thought was going to take Kord Industries into the future. So, what is OMAC in ‘Blue Beetle’?

The OMAC stands for One-Man Army Corps and is a security system designed by Kord Industries to replace any standard police force. This system relies on an OMAC suit designed using the same technology that the Scarab uses. As such, it can morph to create its weaponry. 

While the purpose of the OMAC was supposed to revolutionize the policing and security system of the world, it was clear that Vicky Kord had military uses in mind as she was probably going to sell this system to entire military forces worldwide. Of course, Jenny Kord didn’t like how Vicky was running the company, which wasn’t supposed to be into weapons manufacturing. That said, let’s look at the OMAC and why it was dangerous.

OMAC was based on the Scarab’s tech

The entire storyline of ‘Blue Beetle’ wasn’t shy about the fact that Victoria Kord, the head of Kord Industries, was the main antagonist of the entire movie. She was introduced early on when she and Carapax were overseeing Kord Industries’ hunt for the Scarab, which she searched high and low throughout the entire planet for 15 years. And that was because she had special things in mind for this alien tech.

A few scenes later, Jennifer Kord, Vicky’s niece, visited her in her mansion and confronted her about the OMAC. According to Jenny, the OMAC had been scrapped years ago. But for some reason, Vicky was looking to revive this project. And that was how Jenny found out that her aunt may have already found the OMAC.

Basically speaking, OMAC stands for One-Man Army Corps. According to the promotional video that Jenny played, the OMAC was designed to be a security system that allowed one single man in a suit to have enough weapons and capabilities that were meant for policing. In that regard, the promotional video made it look like the OMAC was meant to revolutionize the private security of many different companies and private entities around the world.

However, when Vicky hosted a party meant to introduce the OMAC to potential investors, it was clear that there were military uses in mind because she invited the big guns of the military to attend the party. As such, she was also looking to sell the OMAC to entire military forces worldwide and would make a lot of money using this revolutionary weaponry system.

The thing about the OMAC, however, is that it was limited in terms of its capabilities without the source code of the Scarab. We saw during the middle portion of the film that Carapax was wearing a prototype version of the OMAC suit. But it was quite limited in what it could do because it didn’t have the same tech that the Scarab uses. As such, the power of the prototype OMAC without the Scarab paled compared to Jaime Reyes’ suit.

Nevertheless, after Vicky Kord was able to transfer the source code of the Scarab to the OMAC, Carapax showcased the full power of the suit as he became so much stronger than before. The new OMAC could create any kind of weapon in the same way as the Scarab can. On top of that, its firepower also increased exponentially compared to the older version of the OMAC without Scarab’s code.

During the film’s climax, Jenny Kord and Milagro Reyes also discovered thousands of other OMAC suits that have already been developed on Pago Island. As such, it was clear that Vicky Kord used Pago Island as the secret facility for the development of the OMAC.

Even though Vicky was able to successfully get her hands on the Scarab code, Jenny destroyed it to ensure she would never be able to use it. Meanwhile, after Jaime defeats Carapax, he decides to atone for his sins by overloading his OMAC suit to destroy the entire facility on the island, along with Vicky and the other OMAC suits.

OMAC in the comics

In the ‘Blue Beetle’ movie, it was clear that the OMAC was a piece of technology designed by Kord Industries to mimic the same functions that the Scarab was capable of. However, the OMAC in the comics is slightly different from what we saw in the movie.

In the comics, OMAC was created as a comic book storyline. The acronym stood for Observational Metahuman Activity Construction and had since been retconned to mean Omni Mind and Community. In that regard, it is clear that the OMAC in the comics differs from that OMAC in the ‘Blue Beetle’ film.

An OMAC in the comics is a human that was transformed into a cyborg. It’s a specific kind of cyborg created after exposure to the OMAC virus. This cyborg is activated by Brother Eye and is compelled to do whatever Brother Eye ordered it to do. In a sense, the OMAC is an entire army of cyborgs that acted on the orders of its master.

For those unfamiliar, Brother Eye is an artificial intelligence that Batman created in the comics. Its purpose was to gather data on the metahumans that were on the planet. That’s because Batman didn’t trust all of the metahumans on the planet, and he needed to develop a system that allowed him to monitor the activities of every superpowered individual on Earth. But this was one of Batman’s biggest mistakes because it developed its own consciousness. Simply put, Brother Eye used the OMAC cyborgs after it went rogue. 

So, in a way, there are some similarities between the OMAC in ‘Blue Beetle’ and the one in the comics in the sense that they are both created using human tech and were supposed to create an army of cyborgs or mechanized human beings. However, the difference here is that the OMAC in ‘Blue Beetle’ allows the suit user to have free will and is based on the technology of the Scarab. On the other hand, the OMAC in the comics is controlled by one single artificial intelligence.

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