OMEGA RED: Page 4 of 4

Omega Red has left a legacy in the Marvel Universe beyond merely a trail of bodies. Several other enhanciles have been derived from the work that produced Arkady.

EPSILON RED

Despite the name, the Soviet Super-Soldier Program did not limit itself to producing soldiers. After the arguable success of Omega Red, a second bio-enhancement program was authorized. Commissioned in 1967, this program focused on the "space race" with the Americans, and produced a super-cosmonaut by the name of Epsilon Red. Epsilon was forcibly bio-engineered to survive freely in the vacuum of space, but as a result his body could no longer function in Earth's gravity and atmosphere without a containment suit. His suit was outfitted with four prehensile tentacles similar to Omega Red's, but equipped with tools that would be useful to him during space walks.

Patriotic up to a point, Epsilon Red still regretted the changes his body was forced to undergo. His wife became pregnant prior to the conversion procedures, but after them he found he could no longer even hold his wife, trapped as he was inside the containment suit. When Logan of Team X arrived at the Tyuratam Space Center to assassinate him, Epsilon Red welcomed death. He begged the Canadian to kill him while his wife begged for his life, hoping to convince Epsilon that the process might some day be reversed.

While Logan struggled with his conscience, Creed busted into the space base and gave Logan new marching orders: the hit on Epsilon Red had been called off by a higher authority. As Logan evac'ed, Epsilon Red asked Creed to kill him instead, sensing that Sabretooth was a harder man than Logan. Unfortunately, he was correct -- Creed refused to kill Epsilon because "he wanted it too much", but instead mortally wounded the cosmonaut's pregnant wife before leaving. Epsilon's daughter Elena was born by Caesarian section just as her mother was passing away. A natural psi-talent, Elena was born with a mental imprint of her mother's dying thoughts, leaving her with a lifetime of psychic scars and an innate hatred of Sabretooth.

When Neil Armstrong beat the Soviets to the moon in 1969, Epsilon Red's mission was scrapped as a low priority. He remained at Tyuratam for the next several decades, abandoned and forgotten by the Communist party as no longer being relevant. Elena grew up to be a powerful telepath in the service of the KGB until the fall of the Soviet Union.

In the present era, Epsilon Red finally received a chance to change his fate when Wolverine returned to Tyuratam. Suffering from memory regression at the time, Logan initially believed it was the 1960's again, and he was back on the original Tyuratam mission. Elena and Epsilon Red helped Logan unlock and straighten out some of his damaged memories, and in exchange he helped them commandeer a launch at Tyuratam. Instead of embracing death, Epsilon Red took the opportunity to enter his natural habitat, taking the shuttlecraft out into the vacuum of space and exploring the stars as he was meant to do. [Wolverine (2nd series) #67-68]

Epsilon Red's real name was never revealed, although his daughter's name was Elena Ivanova. Based on Russian naming conventions, he likely either had the first name of Ivan or the surname of Ivanoff. Additionally, Epsilon Red misrepresented to Logan that he was the telepath instead of his daughter, but Epsilon may still have been a mutant with unidentified abilities of his own.

THE OMEGA CLAN

After the death of Omega Red, the White Sky facility acquired his remains and used them as part of their artificial assassin production. White Sky specialized in growing genetically engineered super-beings for their clients, tailored with memory implants to ensure absolute loyalty and dedication to whatever agency or task they were created for.

The new Brotherhood of Evil Mutants commissioned the Omega Clan for their campaign against Wolverine and his X-Force kill squad. According to their memory implants, Sylvia Engel and her two brothers were the children of a research scientist who discovered a cure for a heinous disease. Wolverine, Deadpool and Nightcrawler of X-Force were then allegedly hired by a pharmaceutical company to kill the Clan's father to prevent his righteous discovery from eating into their profits. The Clan remembered being herded into the safety of a closet where they watched through a crack in the doors as X-Force brutally murdered and dismembered their parents. After a lifetime of grief and revenge they believed they were approached by the Brotherhood and White Sky, and augmented to strike back against their family's murderers. Engineered with new abilities partially derived from Arkady's cells, they became :

Omega Red II, who most closely resembled their predecessor, believed himself to be the eldest Engel child, who personally witnessed his mother's death. His tentacles extended from beneath his wrists just like Arkady's, but instead of a death factor they delivered a turbo-charged auto-immune disease called "super lupus" into his victims on contact. Omega Red relished in the "coincidence" that the very disease cured by the father he remembers could be weaponized as the perfect attack against the healing factor possessed by his killer, Wolverine.

Omega Black, who believed her real name to be Sylvia Engel, was the female member of the Omega Clan. Her tentacles were smaller than Arkady's, and located as a set of five extending from a plate on her chest. Omega Black could inject her opponents with a fast-acting cancer toxin, causing tumorous growths to appear on their bodies.

Omega White deviated the most from Omega Red's template. A being of psychic energy, "Omega White the Lord Plasmatic" existed inside a containment suit, and could make himself and the suit intangible to levitate and avoid physical harm. His "tentacles" were projections of psychic energy from his mind that drained that same energy from others, causing them to wither away as their bodies were "erased" on a molecular level.

The Omega Clan were prepped and release by White Sky just as Deadpool iniltrated the organization on X-Force's behalf. Eager to test their new powers on the "murderers who killed their parents", the Clan quickly overpowered Wolverine and Nightcrawler with their talents. X-Force would have been killed if Deadpool didn't access White Sky's equipment to create his own ingenious defender: Alpha Achromic, Lord of the Hot Dogs! The ridiculous but powerful construct distracted the Omega Clan long enough for Nightcrawler to teleport his teammates to safety. [Uncanny X-Force (1st series) #25-26]

The momentary reprieve wasn't enough to save X-Force, however, as other members of the Brotherhood executed Fantomex in Paris. This ended his misdirection effect on Ultimaton back at Cavern-X, and the unstable Weapon XV went nuclear, apparently killing all of X-Force's remaining members while the Omega Clan and the Brotherhood watched with glee. [Uncanny X-Force (1st series) #27] Despite their apparent success, the Brotherhood was not so overconfident as to believe Wolverine and the others were truly gone for good. Instead, they fortified themselves at an undersea base in Genosha, waiting for the inevitable retaliation. [Uncanny X-Force (1st series) #30]

In the meantime, the Omega Clan underwent further manipulation thanks to the Shadow King. Farouk used his telepathy to "unlock repressed memories" in the trio, when in fact he was altering their simplified minds to make the Clan even more in line with the Brotherhood's goals. Perhaps this explains why Omega Black gleefully helped Daken and Farouk in their efforts to corrupt their child prisoner, Genesis. [Uncanny X-Force (1st series) #31] X-Force did eventually return, but Omega Black, Blob and Daken captured Deadpool when he tried to rescue Evan. Black used her cancer toxins to physically torture Wade while Farouk tried to dig into his mind. Meanwhile, Wolverine fought his way inside and confronted the rest of the Brotherhood. He delivered a crippling strike to Omega Red's chest before being brought down. Omega Black ensnared him in her tentacles and left him at the mercies of his estranged son, Daken. [Uncanny X-Force (1st series) #31-33]

Even with all their efforts, however, the Brotherhood failed to corrupt Genesis into the new Apocalypse. He used the Celestial armor they provided to rescue Deadpool from his torturers, and they in turn rescued Wolverine before Daken could drown him. Omega Red apparently never recovered from the chest strike Wolverine gave him earlier, and the furious Omega White charged Psylocke in an brutal effort to steal her mind and get his revenge. Instead, Betsy's more surgical psychic abilities allowed her to overpower White and erase his artificial mind. She then used him and his psychic containment suit as a tool against the Shadow King. By manipulating Omega White's psychic consumption power, Psylocke forced him to absorb the totality of Farouk's psychic essence, leaving the Omega telepath trapped forever inside Omega White's vegetable mind, unable to escape. [Uncanny X-Force (1st series) #34]

In the aftermath of the battle, Psylocke turned Farouk and his "living cage" of Omega White over to her brother, Captain Britain, for safe storage in Otherworld. [Uncanny X-Force (1st series) #35] With Omega Red apparently dead from his injuries, only Omega Black remains free, slipping away during the chaos of X-Force's war with the Brotherhood. The state of her memory implants is unknown, but the White Sky facility gave a satisfaction guarantee that their assassins would feel and all-consuming desire for revenge, and so it should be only a matter of time before Omega Black resurfaces, looking for more "justice" against Wolverine and the members of X-Force.