Marc Guggenheim On What To Expect From Omega Red In X-Men Gold

Omega Red is back thanks to Marc Guggenheim and X-Men Gold.

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Guggenheim has been leading the charge for the X-Men‘s ResurrXion by writing X-Men Gold, which has already pitted Kitty Pryde’s team against a new Brotherhood of Evil Mutants and a new form of Sentinels. Now he’s reaching into X-Men history to bring vintage X-Men villain Omega Red back from the grave, and he seems pretty happy about it.

“I’m so excited,” Guggenheim tells ComicBook.com. “I love Omega Red. It’s funny, I think I’ve definitely shown a [Chris] Claremont-era bias in my writing, but Omega Red was such a great character. Those years with Scott Lobdell and Jim Lee and Whilce Portacio and even John Bryne for a hot second creating these new characters, they were really good characters. Bishop’s awesome and Omega Red’s great.”

Guggenheim went on to explain how Omega Red found his way into the X-Men Gold story.

“We had basically a space in the various arcs for a two-parter,” Guggenheim explains, “and Dan Ketchum, my editor at the time, was like, ‘You know, we’ve had a lot of stories set in New York City. Let’s get the X-Men out of New York.’ And I was thinking about just different ways and I thought, ‘Oh, you know what would be a lot of fun is if we take them to Russia.’”

Guggenheim also says that Omega Red will get the same approach that he’s taken to X-Men Gold as a whole.

“There was the Omega Clan, and Omega Red died. That’s a character that really needed kind of like a reboot…If the mantra of the book is ‘back to the basics,’ its very much taking Omega Red back to the basics.”

X-Men: Gold #9, the first issue of the arc that features Omega Red’s return, hits stands today. Not familiar with Omega Red’s past? Keep reading, and we’ll fill you in.

Omega Red’s Origin

Arkady Rossovich was a particularly violent member of the Soviet Union’s special forces during the Cold War. He was also a rapist, and when his crimes were discovered he was sentenced do death.

The manifestation of Rossovich’s mutant healing abilities allowed him to survive his execution. Instead, he was forced to join the USSR’s Super Soldier Project. They performed experiments on him that turned his skin white and left him with cybernetic implants that required a substance called Carbonadium Synthesizer, or C-Synth, to keep stable.

Interference from Team X – a special ops squad made up of Wolverine, Sabretooth, and Maverick – kept the C-Synth out of Omega Red’s hands. Without the substance, Omega Red was left with a vampiric need to drain the life force from others.

Feeling his own nation had betrayed him, Omega Red fled to Europe where he committed a series of murders. Banshee and Magneto found and captured Omega Red and returned him to Russian custody, and the Russian government stored him in suspended animation.

Omega Red First Appearance

Omega Red was created by Jim Lee and John Bryne and first appeared in X-Men #4 in 1992.

After the fall of the Soviet Union, The Hand came into possession of Omega Red. They revived him and told him that Wolverine was alive and knew where Team X had hidden the C-Synth.

This led to Omega Red’s first of many run-ins with the X-Men. Though Omega Red always proved to be a dangerous opponent, Wolverine and the X-Men always managed to beat him without providing him the C-Synth he so desperately sought.

Eventually, Omega Red tired of working for the Hand and left the organization.

Omega Red’s Life Of Crime

After leaving The Hand, Omega Red spent some time working for Neo-Communist organizations before turning to a life of more traditional crime and working with the Russian mob.

Omega Red was lured back into a quest for revenge against Wolverine by Sabretooth, who promised both Omega Red and Lady Deathstrike information on every known mutant in the world in exchange for their help in killing Wolverine. However, Sabretooth eventually betrayed them both, escaping with Wolverine and the information.

Omega Red rose to the top of organized the crime business while posing as an honest business but secretly was still obsessed with finding C-Synth. He believed Agent Zero knew where the substance could be found and hunted him down, but this led to a fight with Wolverine who defeated Omega Red and turned him into SHIELD custody.

Death of Omega Red

Omega Red ended up in the possession of the Red Room but somehow managed to escape. He quickly came into conflict with Wolverine, Colossus, and Nightcrawler and was defeated and was sent back into SHIELD custody.

Omega Red was later transferred to a Russian prison, where he broke free and began draining the life of the prisoners there. Wolverine was tricked into going to the prison and confronting Omega Red. Wolverine retrieved the Muramasa blade, a sword capable of neutralizing healing factors, and used it to kill Omega Red.

To find out how Omega Red is resurrected, you’ll have to check out X-Men Gold #9.