soviet-supersoldier

[soviet-supersoldier]

Well, after seeing yet another Reddit comment about Omega Red being a rapist (that was unfortunately upvoted by a lot of people), I decided to find a way to write to Marvel about their terrible online wiki entry and their need to update it with comic book material rather than using an old, outdated 30-year-old handbook as their main source about Arkady’s past. If there's anyone else out there who is just as tired as I am about how inaccurate and out of date Arkady’s wiki entry is, I recommend you send Marvel a message directly requesting that they actually update their entry on Omega Red using the actual comics.

Here is Marvel's email address. Hopefully, the more people who write in to complain (and ask for an Omega Red Origins comic), the more Marvel might be inclined to do something: OFFICEX@MARVEL.COM

[soviet-supersoldier]

It seems that these one-shot ideas just keep coming and won't leave me alone! Here, then, is a more tragic piece featuring our favorite supersoldier.

[soviet-supersoldier]

Thank you to @rei-ismyname for jogging my memory on this bit with regards to countries that have ceased to exist. Arkady has now lived through the fall of two countries he was once a citizen of. First, the Soviet Union, which he learned no longer existed after he was brought back from being frozen for decades. And now, most recently, Krakoa. That has to be hard, outliving your country, not once but twice. Especially for someone like him, who was literally made to serve his country as a weapon. He has long outlived the original purpose he was altered for, then after years of misery, found new purpose and direction as a citizen in a new homeland, and then lost it again.

It's an experience that is unique to him. No other X-men character has gone through this kind of loss before like he has. It does explain why his reaction to the fall of Krakoa was different than what anyone else's has been. He's been at this point before, a man without a country or a home. Like so many times before this, he is left alone to fend for himself without any help. He knows the tragedy of the loss that he has experienced and yet knows that it's something that can't be changed. Like the Soviet Union, Krakoa is gone. A beautiful dream, lost again.

[soviet-supersoldier]

Wow!! He looks amazing!! The drawing and coloring here is incredible!! Great job! You have an incredible talent! Keep up the amazing work!

Finished drawing!!! And thank you sm for the reposts!!! I’m the sketch!!!

Also to everyone saying he looks like a little high schooler/ teenager. 100% agree as a high schooler

[soviet-supersoldier]

Yet another adorable little piece! Arkady did look like such a cute little kid in the Infinity comic, and this reminds me of how much of a cute kid he was!

Slight update on the omega red drawing

I drew a chibi of him

[soviet-supersoldier]

This is a wonderful piece so far! It makes me think about how he would have looked as he continued to get older and before he was weaponized. It would be nice to get more of a look at his teenage years and get more of his origins. Perhaps someday. Until then, beautiful art pieces like this will sustain us.

So my secondary school is hosting a art contest and it’s to draw video game characters

So my teacher told me i need to draw omega red, and here’s the wip of him so far!

[soviet-supersoldier]

Something that I noticed with Omega Red and Sage's dynamic throughout X-Force was how often Sage used Arkady’s real name when talking to him. She probably holds a record of some kind, as I think she's used his real name the most in comparison to other characters. Sage seemed to use Arkady’s real name in two major ways, both of which helped him regain more of his humanity throught the series.

The first way was using his name in situations where Sage was making an appeal to his humanity, reminding him that he is a person and should be trying to act that way:

In those instances, Arkady was often doing something questionable that needed to be corrected. By using his name, Sage was giving Arkady a reminder of his personhood and that he needed to try to do better. And he did. By the end of the series, Arkady was no longer acting that way.

The second way Sage used his name was in moments where she was concerned about Omega Red’s wellbeing. This happened in incidents where either he had been hurt or had been in danger. Sage used his name when she asked if he was alright. She was checking up on him, again, showing in a subtle way that she valued him:

In each instance, Sage using Arkady’s real name was a reminder to Arkady that to her, he was a person first and foremost. She didn't see a monster or a weapon to be used, but another human being that had rights and dignity that had to be respected. Sage helped Arkady regain some of his lost humanity and helped him remember that he was a human being capable of more than what he had been made into.

And this was all done through the use of one simple word: his name. There's a lot of power in a name, and Sage wielded it well.

[soviet-supersoldier]

Well, I'm still not sure how much we're going to get for Omega Red, Colossus, and Magik, but with preview images for Ultimate Wolverine #2 just dropping, I am starting to think maybe they may end up getting more for development than the first issue let on:

From this alone, it looks like the dynamic between the three of them is not as equal as things initially appeared. Colossus looks to be the head of this (wonder why him?), and Magik and Omega Red are almost his enforcers/support. I guess we will see what truths will be revealed in this issue.

Already looking more promising than the first issue ended up being for more about these guys, but we will have to see where this leads. This is still Wolverine's comic, so I still don't expect to get too much more background on them and their dynamic. But hey, we got to see Magik finally use her powers. That's a start at least. Here's the link to look at other pages of the preview:

[soviet-supersoldier]

So, the new Ultimate Wolverine comic that came out this week has given us a little bit of Omega Red along with Colossus and Magik. It's not much, far less than I expected, the comic and its structure and basic plot reminding me a great deal of the plot for Wolverine Revenge, and not in a very positive way. We're only given the most basic of information to set things up, and very little clues are given to us about the Triad that Omega Red, Colossus, and Magik make up.

All we learn about their background is provided here. Nothing that explains how they came to power. Nothing that explains why Omega Red, who is not related to the Rasputins in any way whatsoever, is with them. How did they meet? How did this all get established? We aren't told. Omega Red is just kinda... there. Hanging with the Rasputins for some reason. We have no way of knowing how and why they get along with each other and split power three ways like this. It was something that I was hoping would get explained. But it didn't. The Russian mutants are all working together for unexplained reasons and are evil because the plot demands they should be. Someone has to be the villain, after all, why not them? It's just accepted as the reality of the world, and we're not supposed to question it. But, since I'm reading this story for Omega Red primarily, I'm questioning it. My blog is about following Arkady’s character, after all. Not Logan’s. I'm interested in how his story fits into all of this and in this new world. And so far, I'm left rather disappointed by how little has been revealed.

Perhaps this will get explained in an upcoming issue, but I do doubt it. This story seems much more interested in establishing things in the present day, not the background, and characters that are predestined to die won't get time wasted on fleshing them out. This is a Wolverine comic, after all, and there's only 12 issues. I don't see much for worldbuilding that will happen here beyond the basics to serve Logan’s story. If this comic subverts my expectations in that regard, I will be surprised. After being burned one too many times by Wolverine comics (and especially with what they end up doing here in the story to Kurt), I'm keeping my expectations low.

Back to Omega Red, we see him with the others here talking about Logan. This is the only dialogue Arkady has in this issue. The most noteworthy part is with Arkady saying, "I like him," with regards to Logan. I assume he likes him due to his ferocity and ability to survive. Logan likely reminds him a lot of himself.

There is one other thing that I do want to note here that I don't think anyone else noticed, but I'm going to talk about it. When the doctor begins to talk about what Logan survived before he was brought here, Arkady comments, "Impressive," to which Colossus asks if he is jealous. I think this is an important piece of dialogue as it establishes something about Arkady’s healing abilities in this universe: it's not as strong as Logan's. Just from the dialogue, we can guess that Arkady is much like his 616 counterpart and can take a lot of damage. But, apparently, this universe has the dynamic between Omega Red and Logan shifted a bit because Logan is the stronger one here, not Arkady. His healing factor is being established to be better than Arkady’s. Does his overall age have something to do with it? Once again, we don't know. We're working with scraps here.

We get a couple other panels of Arkady, showcasing the Constrictor-style tentacles that he had in the previous Ultimate Universe, which I've personally never been a fan of. Are they organic ones like that previous universe had? Again, not sure, but if he does, that again is setting him up as weaker than Logan in this story. Logan can actually, realistically, cut through them without breaking immersion in this story. Omega Red in this universe is being set up to be very killable. I do at least have to appreciate the work done to establish that. Unlike what Wolverine Revenge did.

And that's it for Arkady, just more panels of him standing with Colossus and Magik looking menacing and evil. As I said before, I doubt any of them will get much depth, they're being set up as the big bads Logan has to kill. They are going to be dead by the end of this 12-issue run. I've seen it before, and I will be very surprised if this story subverts my expectations and actually does something different with its premise.

Instead, I expect it to run in similar fashion to the plot structure of Wolverine Revenge. We've seen the basics of it already: 1. Establish a dystopian world where bad things happen for everyone. 2. Kill an established character quickly to drive stakes and provide Logan angst and motive (Wolverine Revenge did this with Captain America, and Ultimate Wolverine did it here with Kurt). 3. Revenge. Everyone dies except for Logan, and he goes off to whatever comes next for his character.

So, if you are coming into this story for Logan, you will be highly entertained. It's dark, tragic, and somewhat reminiscent of the Weapon X-style of stories. If you are going to be picking up this story because you heard your favorite would be appearing: beware. They already killed Kurt to drive the plot. The writers are not pulling their punches and will likely kill plenty more beloved characters to tell their story. Gambit and Kitty are set to appear in this story next. I highly doubt they will live ( I would love to be proven wrong, but again, I've seen this plot before). This is a Wolverine story first and foremost. It is dark, tragic, and filled with horror. People will die as they're not protected by the status they have in 616. And if you are a fan of any member of the Triad, Omega Red, Colossus, and/or Magik, my heart goes out to you if you expected more and better for your favorites. But as the villains of a Wolverine Revenge-style story, they won't live. This series is a tragic tale. There will be no happy endings here. Unless something changes in this basic story structure I'm not expecting, this will not end well for anyone. Wolverine will have his revenge.

[soviet-supersoldier]

Alright, since the events of Raid on Greymalkin directly affects Arkady, let's talk about it and how terribly the X-men have all been written in this narrative for this story to work and what it likely means for Arkady’s future.

So, in the first issue of Sentinels, Omega Red was captured and brought to Greymalkin Prison by the new Sentinels that Larry Trask and Warden Ellis have created to hunt down "bad" mutants. Keep in mind, Omega Red did absolutely nothing to deserve being thrown into a place like this, as his arc in the From the Ashes Infinity Comic shows. In fact, no one imprisoned here deserves to face what goes on behind these closed doors:

Here, we are shown the state of this prison. It's flithy, rat-ridden, and disgusting. These characters have to live in this place. Blob is being tortured, and -- as we later come to learn in the events of Raid -- brainwashed KGB-style through this method of torture to become a "trustee." I'm going to focus on this a bit as it is important to not only show how this is going to affect the imprisoned characters moving forward from this storyline, but also how it paints the X-men in a very bad light for allowing this to continue.

So, the characters who are imprisoned in Greymalkin currently are all characters who have been villains at one point or another. Every one of these characters has faced judgment and hatred for being what they are and what they were made into. Omega Red is a prime example of this. As a child, he feared and hated his powers:

This is not a view of himself that has improved in adulthood. Arkady still views himself as a monster, that his abilities make him a bad person:

And this is a view he holds even after his time spent on Krakoa where he was able to start turning his life around. He doesn't have to kill to live anymore, and Sage had done a lot to help him improve himself while he lived there and worked as a member of X-Force. Even after all that and her encouragement, the doubt lingers. The self-loathing is still there. I know Arkady is not the only prisoner trapped in Greymalkin right now who struggles with such doubts. Who carries guilt like he does. It's a subconscious view that a lot of mutants have about themselves because society has pretty much told them for their entire lives that they're horrible people because of their powers. That they're all monsters and freaks of nature that need to be killed or locked up. And now, these characters have been put into a place where those fears and doubts about themselves and their place in the world are being indoctrinated into them to be the only thought they're allowed to have about themselves:

This creed that these trustees are forced to recite and believe in is just sickening. Any amount of self-worth that any of them started to get in their lives as of late is being stripped away again in the cruelest possible way. They're being told -- through torture mind you -- that they were born evil. That they're monsters. That they are lesser than humans and lesser than any other mutants because the genetic lottery gave them powers that were a burden and a curse rather than something that can easily be used to benefit others or that would allow them to pass as a normal human like so many of the X-men can.

Which brings this all around to the main point: the X-men. Before this new era even started, I want to point out a few things. The first is that the X-men worked with all of these current prisoners in one form or another while living on Krakoa. They (eventually) gave every one of these characters a chance. Blob was a bartender. Omega Red got cured of his need to kill and became a member of X-Force. Theresa was able to reconcile with Sean and Black Tom and bring their family together. The X-men were able to see these changes and progress made by all of these people. In Omega Red’s case, they even voted on the decision to give him a second chance, with Kurt being a voting member of the Quiet Council who decided to listen to Sage’s argument to have him brought back. They should know that these former villains have been making an effort to improve themelves. The last time they saw any of them, these former villains were all allies, which makes comments like this seem very out of character for someone like Kurt to make:

Kurt should know Arkady is an ally. But yet he's acting like Omega Red is a monster and that nothing he did on Krakoa to improve himself even mattered. Which, again, is something that all of these prisoners are being tortured into believing about themselves. Hearing the X-men hold the same view about you as these horrible guards do is not something that will make a person feel welcomed or loved or help them believe that they can be better than what the world made them into. The trust that Omega Red had started to build on Krakoa with the X-Men is going to start to crumble because of how they are continuing to view him and the plight that all these characters are in.

Which brings me to my next point: just what are the X-men doing? When Krakoa fell, Orchis had mutants under siege. They rounded up mutants in camps to strip them of their powers and torture them. The X-men and Avengers didn't stand for that and fought tooth and nail to get rid of Orchis. They went to war for their kind, for their right to exist. And they beat Orchis. But what did they really end up gaining at the end of it all? Well, if you're the X-men, you got some variation of peace or concessions, getting bases, time to relax and enjoy the world and your victory. Being able to pass for human really helps in that regard. If you weren’t able to pass, however?

You faced violence. Discrimination. Hatred. Society is not kind to mutants who look different. Who are unable to blend in. These were the mutants --villain or not -- who benefited the most from Krakoa. Because they all finally had a place where they could be safe and accepted no matter their looks or abilities. When the X-men finally beat Orchis, they seemed content to leave everything at that and didn't try to reclaim any piece of what they had lost for the sake of those mutant brothers and sisters who were bound to struggle the most without a mutant community to support them.

They unfortunately seemed to just accept that everything was still fine since they themselves weren't personally being bothered by the hatred. But all the while, mutants have started to slip through the cracks without support from the wider mutant community. A community that the X-men are supposed to protect. And this extends beyond characters like Omega Red and the other Greymalkin prisoners, although they are the ones currently being tortured the most. Lifeguard. Chamber. Firestar. These are all characters that have faced a world that hates and fears them without the X-men doing anything to help them. Why haven't the X-men done anything? Because so many of them just gave up and settled for what they have. They had the luxury to be able to do so because they look human. Their powers aren't horrendous abilities that they can't control or that kill people.

Even still, even if they want to take a break, they should all know the fight is not done. They are all well aware of what was done to their former home, the X-Mansion. They know it was turned into a prison. Jubilee scouted it out. Rogue and Scott had phone calls about it. And yet they did nothing. They let it continue to stand, this place which sullies the name of the X-men and their history. This place -- which treats mutants in a similar way to how Orchis treated mutants -- is allowed to continue to grow and thrive even after the X-men and Avengers had just put their foot down and said such places were not going to be tolerated. Now they're tolerating it? Why? There is absolutely no reason to wait. And yet they did. They did absolutely nothing to correct this injustice towards their fellow mutants until one of their own was impacted. Until they themselves finally started to face the same things characters like Omega Red had already been facing for months now. It was only when they were personally threatened that they decided to do anything. Which brings us to the Raid itself.

The Raid... was a mess. A disaster. A series of unfortunate events that didn't have to be. Instead of going into this place, seeing the atrocities committed on the grounds of their first home and feeling a strong urge to eliminate this threat, what did they do? They fought amongst themselves. They argued. They did absolutely nothing to help any of the prisoners. Kurt left Omega Red to rot in his cell. They did nothing to free the trustees nor made any sort of real threats of anger towards the warden for what she was doing to their fellow mutants. Rogue came the closest to saying this place was wrong, but all her concern was devoted to Charles Xavier, the only mutant willingly imprisoned in this place. No concern was given to any of the others at all until it was too late.

And yet, again, this whole thing just seems wrong and runs as an antithesis to what the X-men are, what they stand for, and what they would actually tolerate. A big laser gun should be something they should be able to take care of. The X-men shouldn't be this easily cowed into obedience after everything they recently faced with the fall of Krakoa and how they fought back against Orchis. Thry shouldn't be taking "no" for an answer. They shouldn't allow for this prison to stand. They NEVER should have. And yet, time and time again here, they have failed in their work to actually help their kind, to make the world a better place for mutants. This is not the X-men I fell in love with reading about. This is not the X-men that I know. The X-men should be doing so much better than this. But they're not. They've rolled over and accepted that this is the reality and that they are powerless against a podcaster and her satellite weapon.

This is something the X-men should have never allowed to happen. They should have never allowed things to get this far. And as a result, by doing nothing when they could and SHOULD have been doing something, their enemies were allowed to regroup and begin targeting the most vulnerable members of the mutant community. The X-men failed in their responsibilities and let a place full of cruel and unusual punishment to stand because they weren't the mutants being personally affected by what was happening. And now, so many more have to pay the price for their inaction.

Where does that leave the unfortunate prisoners of this place? At this point, beyond being torn down in mind and body, it's hard to say. Every single one of them does have the right to call the X-men out on their failure, though. They all would be very justified in their anger at being left behind, both after Krakoa fell and here at this prison. In Omega Red’s case, I could very easily see this whole experience souring him on the X-men again and making him very unwilling to trust them again. Because even after everything that these former villains have been trying to do, there's still some part of the X-men that seem to view these unfortunate souls as monsters that deserve to be treated like animals. That they deserve to get beaten, fed rotten food and forced to sleep in wretched cells.

The X-men have failed in their role to protect mutants. They have failed to stand for what is right and failed to help their fellow mutants from being condemned to one of the worst fates a mutant can face: to be weaponized and used like a tool to attack other mutants. The Raid on Greymalkin story arc is a blight on X-men comics and is an example of what not to do when doing a story like this. Characters and their histories cannot be ignored. Petty fights over arbitrary issues should not be taking place when there are SO many higher priorities that need to be taken care of. This story was nothing but disappointing and sours me on the direction Marvel is taking the X-men. There is nothing to look forward to. Like the mutant prisoners who were left behind to be further tortured and devalued, we the readers have been left to a similar fate, wondering when in the world we will finally be freed from this prison that Marvel's writers are putting us in and what we -- and the characters we love -- will even come out on the other side looking like.

[soviet-supersoldier]

Thank you to @swarmishstrangers for pointing it out to me. The Omega Red Discord server is for adults (18+) only. There are a lot of heavy and mature themes that accompany Arkady’s character, and a lot of those themes are discussed on the server in greater detail than they would be on other corners of the internet (along with some fun stuff as well, we have had a few laughs already).

We have spaces for many different subjects, from rivalries and relationships to fanfiction and art, and will change things as they are suggested to us, and the server grows. If you are a fan of Omega Red, are an adult, and have been thinking about joining us over there, you can!

[soviet-supersoldier]

Since we are on a roll to start off 2025 for Arkady’s fans (check out the subreddit @clown-cult started), I decided to create a discord channel for any fans of Arkady who might be lingering over there. Feel free to join!

[soviet-supersoldier]

Y’all, I finally did it. I couldn’t bear the lack of recognition Arkady gets any longer after I had to explain to someone that he’s a mutant. Arkady now has his own fan community on reddit so swing by!

[soviet-supersoldier]

That is a rather sad but intriguing idea. I had kinda figured that the whole reason X-Force ended up disbanding was because Sage had a mental breakdown following the events of Sabretooth War, and without her as leader, none of the team knew what to do and decided to split up. Sage seemed rather distraught in the aftermath of Sabretooth's attack and probably kept it together when they went to stop him, but afterward, fell apart thinking about how many people lost their lives in that event (losing Krakoa probably didn't help any either).

So I figured that her teammates all felt rather lost without her direction and eventually made sure that she was placed in that mental hospital before they all went off to go their separate ways. Arkady would have never tried to contact Sage after that because he would have figured she was still in the midst of treatment for her nervous breakdown and didn't want to disrupt that.

Your theory would go a long way in explaining why Sage hasn't seemed to try to contact Arkady after getting out of the hospital and why Arkady never tried to call her after he was imprisoned. If the commlink/connection was damaged on his side in the Infinity comic, Sage wouldn't see Arkady’s link to her network, and Arkady wouldn't be able to call out to her even if he tried. She would either assume he turned it off to go no contact or that something really bad happened to him. And Arkady might feel like he had been abandoned (which would be such a sad and terrible thing for him to feel, especially after Krakoa). Either way, she wouldn't be able to find him unless she tried to do it more of the old-fashoined way. (I still think it's Sage who put up the Wanted poster for Arkady in the Astonishing X-men Infinity comic. I want to believe that she would still be trying to find him).

It wouldn't be until they met up that they would be able to figure out what was wrong and that neither one was deliberately ignoring the other. It would be nice to see something like that acknowledged. And it would be nice to have it happen in such a way that it continues Arkady’s redemption arc, that him and Sage are able to pick up their dynamic where they left off (albeit with a few repairs). I'm just hoping, praying, and crossing my fingers that Omega Red gets some good things that come his way in 2025. Keeping him from backsliding into one-note villainy would be a great start.

I hope that Marvel (and their writers) remember for future stories that X-Force established a commlink/technology connection between Omega Red and Sage. They were made to be two halves of a whole, partners who could work together to accomplish what neither one could do alone:

That connection should still be there. Arkady should still be connected to Sage in some way. She's the brains, and he's her muscle. I hope that if and when Marvel lets them interact again, that they don't forget that. It's a neat detail, a sort of connection you don't see often. You have your psychic rapports, but a technological one? One that needs both partners in order to be used properly? That's unique. I'd like to see that brought up again. And used. I liked their private commlink conversations:

[soviet-supersoldier]

I hope that Marvel (and their writers) remember for future stories that X-Force established a commlink/technology connection between Omega Red and Sage. They were made to be two halves of a whole, partners who could work together to accomplish what neither one could do alone:

That connection should still be there. Arkady should still be connected to Sage in some way. She's the brains, and he's her muscle. I hope that if and when Marvel lets them interact again, that they don't forget that. It's a neat detail, a sort of connection you don't see often. You have your psychic rapports, but a technological one? One that needs both partners in order to be used properly? That's unique. I'd like to see that brought up again. And used. I liked their private commlink conversations:

[soviet-supersoldier]

Character Examination: Omega Red

Part 4: X-men (1991) #6

This comic is near and dear to my heart. It served as my first introduction to Omega Red as a character, being one of the first comic books that I ever read. I remember getting this comic with a Marvel Legends Sabretooth figure my dad bought in the early 2000s and every time I see this cover, I'm hit with a real sense of nostalgia:

Being the only part of this story arc I was able to read as a kid, Omega Red was really an enigma, a character that I really didn't grow to appreciate and discover his full story for until much later in life. When I first read this, I read it for Wolverine. And also Sabretooth. But they're not the ones I'm examining this story for now. How times change.

So, right out of the gate in this one, the X-men start on a rescue mission to try to get Wolverine back after managing to track down the location of the Hand's base in Berlin. This is where I saw Omega Red for the first time, popping out of nowhere to smack Beast in the face:

The way the characters are laid out on the panel here makes it rather difficult to figure out just where Arkady came from. The ceiling? The wall? Another hallway? It's a bit of a confusing perspective. Regardless, Arkady sounds like he had been lying in wait for them for a least a little while, listening to their conversation until he decided to step in and say, "Hello."

This also marks the only time Omega Red and Beast really interacted until Krakoa's X-Force. Given how Beast treats Arkady in X-Force, killing him or targeting him over the course of the series, one could argue that this moment right here is where Beast formed his grudge. That must have been one hell of a punch. And left-handed, too. Arkady has a good left hook. He throws a few of them over the course of his appearances, and as a lefty, it always makes me smile when I see it.

Before I move on from this page, there are two things I want to note. The first is with Arkady’s dialogue. As the standard of the time, villains in comics did a lot of monologuing as a way to tell the audience about themselves and their abilities. Their dialogue is used to advance the story and fill the heroes in about their opponent. Omega Red’s is no different, and it will really become apparent on the next page. That being said, Omega Red does end up developing the character trait of being a bit chatty while he fights, so it's not too out of character for him to talk, even about himself and his abilities. It's really the only time he ever gets the chance, seeing as how he only ever really showed up for fights for so many of his appearances. If he wasn't a talker, we'd never really know anything about him from his perspective at all.

The other thing of note is in the narration boxes: "Several decades ago, he was to be the world's first supersoldier -- in service to Mother Russia! Instead, he spent the last 30 years in a tomb."

After this story arc, comics that later come out about Arkady’s past really start to muddy up this established timeline. When this story came out, the narration would have suggested that the events Logan keeps having flashbacks to occurs in the 1960s. But then, Banshee is tied to his backstory (because reasons) and he said the events he took part in happened 20 years beforehand. Not only that, but Arkady was recently shown to have been a child in the 1960s. So something got messed up along the way in Omega Red’s personal timeline that still hasn't been properly addressed. Perhaps a future origin story will fix it, but for now, I suppose a solution of some sort is to say that Logan's memory sucks and that these events didn't happen 30 years ago like he thought, but rather, closer to 20 like Banshee had said and that the overall Marvel timeline is just scooted up from this occuring in the 1960s to now occuring sometime in the 1970s or 1980s.

Onto the next page:

So here Arkady talks about himself. His dialogue serving to introduce us, the audience, to what it is that he can do. He talks about his Carbonadium tentacles and their similarities to adamantium, how it is more maleable and not quite as indestructible as adamantium. However, they are still, for all intents and purposes, indestructible. That's why it really bothers me whenever I see someone cut his coils. They're still made of an indestructible material. It should be as impossible of a situation to occur as someone slicing Wolverine's adamantium claws in half. Now, ripping them out? I could see that happen. They are implants after all.

After talking about his coils, Omega Red then talks about his mutant powers, with Jubilee making a fart joke with regards to his abilities as he turns his powers on her. Brave of her to make such a joke, but then, I doubt Arkady truly understood what it was she was talking about. His dialogue suggests he's not quite listening to what she's saying. He knocks her out with a physical backhand and a sort of compliment/thank you for being an (unwilling) donor towards keeping himself alive.

This is made apparent later, but for as many times as Arkady claims his abilities are lethal, we never see him kill anyone here. He always just knocks them out, even though he continually says he needs their life energy to keep himself alive. Why does he do that when he has such an obvious need? Well, the real reason is that Marvel can't let all their heroes just die, but that leaves a weird plot hole within the story itself. Why doesn't Arkady kill these people? He has no connection to him, they're invaders into the facility he's at, and he needs life energy to live. A good guess might be that Matsu'o gave him orders not to kill, as capturing the X-men rather than killing them might draw Wolverine back in. And he is their real target. That, and Matsu'o seems to have some plans for Psylocke at least, so it would be in his best interests to make sure Omega Red doesn't end up killing her. Of course, he could have given the order to kill all intruders except the one who looks like a sexy ninja babe, but maybe he thought that would be too complicated. Regardless, Arkady, despite having death powers and a need for life energy to keep himself alive, kills absolutely no one.

As all this is happening, Logan is elsewhere with Maverick trying to fight for his life. These past hours have been incredibly taxing for him, and he's experiencing a ton of flashbacks to the time when he encountered Omega Red as a member of Team X:

So, Omega Red doesn't really appear on this page of the flashback outside of his coils shooting up through the floor here, but I want to make a few notes. The first is that Janice says, "The supersoldier has been activated." In the next issue, we find out that Team X starts their raid while Arkady is having his procedures done. He's naked in a tank being operated on when Team X shows up. And then they steal the C-Synthesizer (and later additions to this event add Sabretooth making a sales pitch to Arkady to join them and John Wraith making an appearance -- a lot ends up getting crammed into this). So, after Team X busts in and grabs Janice, Arkady has to get out of the tank, listen to Creed's pitch, kick him out, get dressed and have all the implants and things properly hooked up in order to go after them. All this right after Arkady went through (likely) the most painful process of his life. He's a real trooper for that, and you really have to applaud his speed, but man, he must have been really hurting.

The second note I want to make is with regards to how Janice dies here. Why is it important? Well, because of this lovely panel that occurs in X-men (1991) #18:

Hmm. Something doesn't add up here. Why is Logan blaming Arkady for what happened to Janice? As his own flashback reveals:

Omega Red wasn't even on the same floor as them when Janice was killed. Logan clearly saw Sabretooth murder her. So why is he blaming Arkady for it several issues later? Crappy memory? Hard to say, but after that, Janice Hollenbeck is never mentioned again and Logan never brings this up in any of his fights with Sabretooth. Just the one he had with Omega Red. To this day, it baffles me that Arkady is the one he truly blames for her death since he wasn't the one who actually killed her.

So, the next page of the flashback shows us Arkady at long last:

So, Sabretooth ends up saving everyone's skin here (at least everyone not named Omega Red) and they all escape with the C-Synthesizer. With regards to Arkady on this page here, I want to talk about a few things. The first is his dialogue. His speech bubble is very unique, along with the lettering. The styling does seem to imply that Arkady’s words are supposed to come off as menacing and sounding rather off-putting, and it probably does, but I think that it's really due to two main reasons. The first is due to the pain he's probably in right now. Remember, he just had a major operation and was told to get up and go without any sort of recovery time whatsoever. It probably really hurts to talk. Or breathe. Or move. And yet he has to do so. Arkady knows the importance of what was stolen. He has to get it back or his life is going to really, really suck. The second reason is due to him speaking English. At this time, I doubt he was a very good English speaker. There are times where he seems to struggle with it even now. He was probably still learning and unfamiliar with the language. Despite the pain he was in, he was supposed to try to communicate clearly in a second language. I say he did a good job.

The next thing I want to talk about is his appearance here:

Look at all those mechanical parts strapped to his head. We see this design for him in one other flashback in the pages of Cable, and the design in and of itself tells a rather sad and painful story. Unlike Logan, who naturally has his claws, Arkady’s coils are 100% implants. Rather complicated ones too. How do they work? How do they move? As the headgear implies, it's by a computer/brain interface. Procedures had to be done to connect the coils to his brain to allow him to mentally control and move them. And given the technology level from back in the day, it was going to end up being something that's big, clunky, hot, and heavy. He had to carry that thing around on his head in order for the implants to work. His hair had to be shaved off. It was probably a very miserable piece of equipment to be forced to carry.

As time went on, this headgear disappeared, getting smaller and smaller until now the only real implants we see left on his head are the ones that remain on his cheeks. Why there? No clue. Guess the artists just think it looks really cool and decided that they wanted to keep it. However, seeing these first iterations of his design tells us that as the technology improved, Arkady had to go through procedures over and over again to update it. To have all the old equipment removed and then replaced with new implants had to have been horrible. Major procedures without any form of anesthesia at all. It had to have been agony. He would have been treated like a machine, having parts exchanged to make him more efficient. It would be the kind of thing that would really destroy any human image Arkady would have of himself, and you really end up seeing that view Arkady ends up having of himself in some of Omega Red’s upcoming appearances.

The final thing I have to say about this flashback before continuing on is how we have never seen what happened to Arkady after this. What he had to face when he went back to his superiors and had to tell them that Team X got away. That had to have been incredibly defeating. His very first assignment as a finished (somewhat) supersoldier: a failure. I doubt that his superiors were happy with him. And after this, he had to somehow find a way to carry on and do the jobs he was ordered to do despite the pain that he now had to live with. His life must have been absolutely horrid after this and only served to build up resentment and hatred towards all the members of Team X. They ruined his life.

So Arkady appears on this page with Sabretooth and the others, but says absolutely nothing. He's likely thinking about Sabretooth though, but given what Sabretooth says, that he doesn't remember Omega Red, he probably figures it's best to just keep his mouth shut. If Creed remembers what he did to Arkady and why, he likely would not do the job -- or at least that is likely the thought. The doctor and Matsu'o also avoid saying Omega Red’s name at all either, which implies they are probably thinking the same thing. That it's best to keep Sabretooth ignorant of their past history and keep him focused on Wolverine.

So Sabretooth goes off hunting and finds Wolverine and Maverick. Here, we are led to believe that Sabretooth was the victorious one and that he and Psylocke captured them. But, as is made clear next issue, it's a ruse:

So, focusing on the dialogue exchanged between the doctor and Arkady, we get a bit of insight as to what Omega Red thinks of Creed and the situation he finds himself in. The doctor notes the irony of the situation, that Sabretooth is unknowingly fixing a problem he helped cause 30(ish) years ago. Omega Red replies with, "There is much I owe Sabretooth. And I have every intention of paying back my debts in the order of which they occured."

What does Arkady mean by that? That he's going to end up waltzing to Victor's door one day and say, "Comrade Creed, now that I've finished paying off my debts to Matsu'o, I work for you now. I have to pay off that debt I owe you."? I don't think so. I doubt that he'd ever want to make life-long slavery his life goal. I think his intentions are far darker. This ends up really getting confirmed next issue, but it is implied here that Arkady’s view of paying back his "debts" is to kill the people responsible for there being a debt in the first place. Sabretooth is on his hit list. It doesn't matter if he's "helping" here. Creed screwed him over and made his life a living hell for 30(ish) years. He's had decades to build up resentment. He wants to dish out some real payback. Just like he wants to do to Logan.

The final thing of note that happens in this issue is the cliffhanger. It was one that really stuck in my mind as a kid because I never got to see how it ended. It took years for me to find out what happened next. So I thought about this a lot. Who would Omega Red kill to keep himself alive? Which X-men character was on the chopping block? How would the team react? Turns out, I didn't have to worry at all, as Omega Red -- despite being given an open invitation to kill as many X-men as he wanted -- kills exactly zero X-men.

Why? Matsu'o even says that Omega Red needs life energy. How and why did no X-men die? Did Arkady just tell Matsu'o, "No thanks, I'm not really hungry right now. Maybe later."? Next issue, it is implied Arkady was "using" (or at least was tricked into thinking he was using), Psylocke's life energy to sustain his own (which is something I will talk about in the examination of next issue), but she's not here right now. She's in the sewers with Creed. Absolutely nothing was preventing Arkady from killing the X-men. And yet he didn't. Once again, Marvel can't bring itself to have any heroes die, but as a consequence, leaves an interesting plot hole that can only really be filled with a variation of Arkady simply choosing not to kill. It's the start of a rather peculiar "no killing" pattern Arkady ends up developing despite the condition he's stuck living with, one that becomes more obvious the more appearances of his you read.

Well, this ended up being a very long review of this issue. The next one might end up being just as long. We will have to see as this first story arc featuring Omega Red begins to draw to a close.

[soviet-supersoldier]

Women who I think fall into the calculated, take charge, unafraid, comfortable with giving orders and brilliant category for Arkady:

Sage

Anastasia Illyevna

Lady Deathstrike

Arkady has been shown to get along with each one of these women very well in the comic issues they've appeared together in. They're each strong, assertive in their own way, and have proven to be good guides to direct his behavior in -- if not a more positive direction -- then at least one with purpose. The partnerships feel like a partnership of two equals. Arkady is not getting completely dominated by the other's personality, despite taking orders from them. He still gets to shine on his own even while being a supporting partner in the dynamic.

Men who I think fall into the think they're brilliant category:

Sabretooth

What can I say about Sabretooth? I know a lot of people seem to like the idea of him with Arkady (and I know I may upset some people by saying this), but I just can't bring myself to agree with that position. They may have some things in common, such as a history of being made into a weapon, and they did get along in Weapon X, but that comic run is an outlier, not the norm for their dynamic. It only really was able to work because Sabretooth was not acting the way he normally would, he was magicked into being a better person which resulted in him thinking in ways -- more sympathetic ways -- than he ever would normally. Outside of that run, he and Arkady just don't get along. Sabretooth backstabs and leaves Arkady in the lurch. He uses Arkady and loves getting one over him whenever he gets the chance. He throws insults at Arkady and doesn't care in the slightest about his share in the responsibility he had for ruining Arkady’s life. Sabretooth is always looking out for number one (himself) while always remaining focused on his ultimate prize: Wolverine. Everything and everyone else ends up getting sacrificed for that goal. Creed's standard behavior of self-centeredness and arrogance leaves him giving Arkady the short end of the stick more often than not.

I don't think Arkady deserves that. He doesn't deserve to have someone who treats him as second and who can have the tendency to overshadow him in the narrative (Arkady barely gets anything to do at the end of the Weapon X run and is kinda just there after he joins the team). I think Sabretooth would have to go through a lot of personal growth or change to ever really be a good partner for anyone, let alone Arkady. Given how much Marvel loves to have him fight Wolverine and carry such a fixation on him, however, I doubt they will ever let Sabretooth change so dramatically. I think Sabretooth War really hammered that final nail on the coffin. Sabretooth will always remain trapped in this cycle of being focused on Wolverine and refusing to ever change into a better person. That's just who Marvel wants 616 Creed to be.

With all this in mind, I think Arkady is better off with the women and that out of all his potential relationships, one of those actually stands a chance of being allowed to get properly established as a romance of some kind. They can be built up from the groundwork that already has been established and don't require an extreme change of character to get them to work well together. Their past is positive and has been left open in such a way that reconnecting and continuing where they left off wouldn't be out of the ordinary. Sage would be the best one of the options offered as she is 1. Alive, 2. Currently possesses her own personal drive that Arkady can match well with, and 3. As a heroic character, being with Sage would allow his redemption arc to continue and could allow him to be used more consistently in stories, ones which actually develop his character and personality rather than just remain focused on him being a bad guy to punch. He could actually grow, which is something I would really love to see for him.

Gleaning what we can from Arkady’s past interactions and partnerships with other people, I can gather that his type is either

— women who are calculated, take charge, unafraid of him, comfortable with giving him orders and are utterly brilliant

Or

— men who THINK they’re utterly brilliant.