I think I found this comic for about four bucks some time ago. The opening is shocking splash page of a disassembled woman's parts, submerged in styrofoam and packaged in a "Build-a-Friend" cardboard box, while a yellow hand grips the box and someone just off-panel shouts, "Lila...LILA!" The narrative caption decrees: "OMAC - One-Man Army Corps...is the story of a young man in the world that's coming!! In that strange place, the common objects of today...may become the terrors that we never bargained for...like the one below!" You have to love the unabashed orgasm of exclamation points. And, in the fresh world of 1974, just a few years after Liberation, well -- the image! The horror that underscores it.
Now, OMAC arrives on the scene, apparently recognizing his long-lost love, Lila, as the disembodied simulation in the box. And, in the name of the "Global Peace Agency," OMAC blows up the heartless corporate factory, it's workers, and the hundreds of pre-packaged robot women...
The deal is that our hero, OMAC, is actually a carefully selected candidate named Buddy Blank, who is chosen to undergo transformation into your standard mohawked future-gladiator to help the GPA take down threats to the world and democracy and futuristic ideals. The GPA's agents, generally, walk around in loud outfits and blank orange face-masks. Buddy happens to work for a company called Pseudo-People Incorporated, dedicated to building synthetic people for all manner of day-to-day tasks. The GPA, sadly, has discovered that the company is actually using their robots as weapons - delivering sexy women robots to their targets and then blowing them up.
Yes, Unwitting Kamikaze Robot Concubines.
Meanwhile, good little worker bee Buddy befriends a girl named Lila - we know this going to go bad, what with the "start at the ending" structure. He discovers what's really happening and that Lila is merely a walking bomb when - suddenly! - he's engulfed by an inferno of strange energy! "I've heard some talk about it!...electronic surgery!...a computer hormone operation done by remote control!!" And, well, enter: OMAC. With his head full of instructions and his body full of power provided by his "brother," a giant satellite hovering over Earth called Brother Eye: "I shall always help you. We are linked by the eye symbol on your chest...we are like brothers..."
This is a truly weird Jack Kirby comic, mixing creepy body horror with the flashy science fiction future. Kirby delivers an essay on the soon-to-be-letters page ending the adventure and I snagged on this:
"Any hatful of concepts in practice today would flip out the fabled Captain Nemo and turn Doctor Frankenstein into a depressed catatonic. Fritz would drop the good doctor like a hot potato and seek employment as a 'sweep-up' in some Biological Research Institute.
I've bought a balloon and a Mickey Mouse hat for my granddaughter at Disneyland and watched the androids of tomorrow being born among the autitronic robots that speak their pieces by computer tape. It is easy to conceive that a few more dollars could cause these things to move and mingle with the audience without a ripple of consternation. Are we so far from an army of two legged wire and plastic that is programmed to win victories?"
-- Jack Kirby, OMAC #1, 1974.