Omega Red is a Russian mutant, born as Arkady Gregorivich Rossovich, shortly before the second world war, to a family of peasants, comprising of his father, mother & older brother, Vassily.

Growing up amidst the harsh conditions of Soviet Russia, Arkady's penchant for bloodshed first revealed itself through the mutilation of animals & the mysterious vanishing of local beggars. Vassily would report his crimes to the authorities, but nothing serious came of it.

As an adult in the 1960's, Arkady joined the Russian military where he was assigned to the USSR's Spetsnaz unit. Despite this, he also continued his crimes: whenever the opportunity presented itself, he secretly abducted, S.A'd& murdered young girls. His crimes were for a time left unnoticed until he was transferred to a Soviet Outpost near the Antarctic Circle, where the disappearance & deaths of several girls were finally noticed by the other Russian soldiers.

After discovering the atrocious crimes he committed, he was executed, shot in the back of the head in a windowless cell. But his latent mutant powers saved him from death which prompted his superiors to use him for their super soldier program.

Before he could be used for the Russian super soldier program, he escaped to Europe where he committed several crimes with the help of his newfound powers, his "death factor". His crimes attracted the attention of a young Irish Interpol agent, Sean Cassidy, who went rogue after the Soviet Union pressured Interpol to drop the case.

Arkady wanted Sean to kill him before he could be retrieved by the Russians, but the detective initially proved unwilling. Cassidy was goaded into action when Arkady turned his death factor on Cassidy's partner, Inspector Magrite Devereaux, killing her. Cassidy subsequently opened fire on the serial killer., & though Arkady survived the attack, he was still arrested by Cassidy & turned over to the authorities. Unbeknownst to the detective, who thought Arkady had been sent to prison, he'd instead fallen into the hands of a "Special Interest Group", which was actually the KGB. This marked the beginning of Arkady's active involvement in the Russian super soldier program.

The end result of the experiments was Arkady becoming "Omega Red". The Soviets implanted retractable Carbonadium tentacles within each of Arkady's arms. Carbonadium was the Soviets' attempt to recreate the artificial alloy known as adamantium. It was a more malleable form of adamantium.

Arkady can use the tentacles as weapons & as grappling appendages, & 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 survival; the carbonadium implants, while great offensive weapons, slowly poisoned him & he was required to regularly drain the life energy of a person, or perhaps take small amounts from larger numbers of individuals, in order to temporarily sustain his immune system. In order to stabilize his condition, Omega Red required the "Carbonadium Synthesizer," a device that was stolen by CIA-sponsored taskforce called "Team X".

Omega Red was placed in suspended animation in a secret bunker in the USSR, until he was needed again. But when the USSR dissolved in the early 1990s, he was forgotten about.