Omega Red
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Omega Red (real name Arkady Rossovich) is a comic book super villain in the Marvel Comics universe and a foe of the X-Men. His first appearance was X-Men (vol. 2) #4 (1992). He was created by the Soviet counterpart of the Weapon X Project.
Character history
Little is known about the past of Arkady Rossovich execpt that he was a serial killer. He was captured by the Soviet government, which wanted to created a super soldier similar to Wolverine. Omega Red was the end result.
Omega Red possesses a variety of superhuman attributes as a part of both genetic mutation and artificial enhancements granted to him by the Soviet government. Omega Red possesses superhuman strength, endurance, and a high degree of resistance to physical injury. He has a superhuman regenerative healing factor similar to that of Wolverine and Sabretooth.
He also possesses the ability to secrete an odorless pheremone that has the ability to weaken anybody within his immediate vicinity. The pheremone has never been given an official name, But has often times been called his “Death Factor” in opposition to Wolverine and Sabertooth’s “Healing factor”.The pheremone (or "Death Factor") is sufficient enough to render his targets unconcsious, or even kill them, if exposed to the pheremone for a long enough period.
The Soviet government implanted (or at least bonded with carbonadium) one retractable tentacle within each of Omega Red's arms. Carbonadium was the Soviets' attempt to recreate the artificial alloy known as adamantium. These tentacles are used by Omega Red as weapons and as grappling appendages. He is able to a wrap a victim in his coils to literally drain them of their life energy.
This vampiric tendency was once essential to Omega Red's continued health since the carbonadium implants, while great offensive weapons, slowly poisoned Omega Red and he was required to regularly drain the life energy of a person, or perhaps taking small amounts from larger numbers of individuals, in order to temporarily sustain his immune system.
In order to stablize his condition, Omega Red requires the "carbonadium synthesizer", a device that was stolen by Wolverine, Maverick, and Sabretooth during their final mission together as "Team X" sometime during the 1960s. It is because of his need for the carbonadium synthesizer that Omega Red has continuously sought out these three individuals over the years, believing they may know of its whereabouts.
At some time in the past the Soviet government decided that due to his treacherous and psychopathic nature he needed to be put in cryogenic suspended animation until a method could be found to control him. After the fall of communism in Russia he was released by the clan of ninja known as the Hand. Omega Red was led to believe that Wolverine knew the whereabouts of the carbonadium synthesizer which could save his life. Arkady sought him out in an effort to find this device and has come into conflict with the X-Men and Wolverine many times. Ultimately, Omega Red failed to eliminate Wolverine and proved to be no more loyal to the the Hand than he was to the Soviet government.
Eventually Omega Red found a means of eliminating his need to drain living beings of their life forces to survive. He is currently a crime lord in Russia who poses as a ligitimate business man, much like Wilson Fisk does in the United States of America. At present Arkady seems to have lost interest in Wolverine and is more focused on activities that indulge his greed and lust for power.
Powers and abilities
Omega Red is a mutant with superhuman strength and the ability to emit lethal pheromones from his body (death spores). These spores result in the weakness or death of humans in his near vaccinity. The severity of the effect is based on the endurance, health, and relative proximity of the victims. Normal humans would be killed in a matter of seconds of exposure, while beings with heightened endurance can withstand it for minutes or hours.
He has carbonadium tendrils, which is only slightly less durable than adamantium. His skeleton is also laced with carbonadium rendering it nearly indestructable. Even damaging carbonadium with adamantium would require enormous pressure (thousands of tons).
His durability is superhuman and he possesses a regenerative healing ability as well. Omega Red is able to withstand extreme temperature and pressures, practically all toxins, corrosives, punctures, and concussive forces while sustaining little, if any, injury. Arkady's unique physiology allows for him to be cryogenically frozen without damaging his cells. His carbonadium armor and natural durability make him very difficult to kill, but he is not immortal; sufficient concussive force fired at point blank range (such as a ballistic missile capable of disintigrating a building) would reduce him to a lifeless carbonadium skeleton.
Omega Red has the ability to drain the life force of other humans to sustain his own. At one time the carbonadium in his body had the effect of slowly poisoning him which caused him to need to drain life forces frequently. This is no longer necessary but he still retains the ability to drain life forces.
An excellent hand-to-hand combatant and military tactician; Arkady has been trained in various forms of armed and unarmed combat by both the Soviet government and various organizations throughout the Japanese underworld. Highly intelligent; he has quickly become highly skilled in the management of criminal organizations.
Other
Omega Red is a player character in Capcom fighting games such as X-Men vs Streetfighter, Marvel vs Capcom 2, and X-Men Children of the Atom.