How Sage fundamentally changed Omega Red
Something I think about a lot is just how much Sage changed Arkady's life and the impact she had on him during the however long time Marvel says Krakoa lasted. Because she really did have one of the biggest impacts on him as a character, changing him very much for the better, and her actions to take a chance on him -- I cannot stress this enough -- was such a HUGE risk for her to take.
I want to look at this first from her view. The two of them (maybe) met very briefly during the Age of X-Man event (Uncanny X-Men vol. 5 #10), where Arkady was turned into Nate Grey's Horseman of Wellness against his will and used once again to fight the X-men. They were both on the same battlefield, but probably didn't truly really notice much of each other. Sage probably noticed Arkady more than it would have been the other way around, given his antagonistic role, but this was literally how she would have met him first:
Brainwashed and controlled as a puppet (in one of the worst redesigns Marvel put him through). I don't doubt Sage read whatever files there were of what the X-men have about him, so even at that point, she would have known what the X-men had his reputation recorded down as -- the things he had been listed to have done and his threat level. If there was a scenario that went down where she would have had to face him, I don't doubt she would have had a plan. Analyze and take down. There wasn't any personal connection at this point.
Fast-forward a few months to Krakoa. Omega Red pops up again, this time back to his old, unaltered self and caught in a mess with vampires. Starting out, Sage probably did view him like the rest of the other X-men did, so when they decided to start watching him, she went along with it. It's standard protocol. Flagged as a threat, and given his reputation, something bad would probably end up happening because of him. Better to watch him than have him cause something that bit them in the ass later. After all, that was her job on X-Force.
But something changed. We don't really see the moment where it clicks for her, but we do see the consequences of that thought process later. At some point, she started to have doubts on what the X-men were doing. How they were treating Omega Red compared to other individuals that they allowed on the island. Was it when Beast killed him and brought him back with no memory? Was it when he came to them later on of his own volition and confessed everything? Regardless, something began to chip away at that view of not only Omega Red, but also of the X-men. There was a double-standard on how he was treated compared to the other villains on the island, and he really didn't get a fair shot when he got started there. X-Lives of Wolverine happened, and Arkady’s entire future was put into question. He was a condemned man, quite literally on death row for what he had done after he discovered the truth of how the X-men had used him.
So what happened? This incredible moment:
I cannot stress how crucial of a moment this was. Arkady had no voice, no defenders in a moment that would decide his fate. A one-sided kangaroo court that could have very easily gave him a permanent death and covered up the X-men's crimes. But Sage went against everyone to speak up on his behalf. She advocated for him against her superior, Beast, and in front of the entire Quiet Council. And some of those members were people who she had dark history with. Charles, Emma, Shaw. She went into what easily was a hostile room and still spoke out.
She spoke up on behalf of a man who had never been given a second chance by the X-men, a man that everyone viewed as a villain and treated as such. She spoke up for what she knew was the right thing to do even when everyone else was against her. Sage didn't bend her morals on what was right because of who this crime was being done towards. She went up to the Council at a critical moment and spoke the entire, honest truth. And she was able to convince them to take a better road.
And it doesn't stop there. Because from here on out, Sage and Omega Red are connected. Not just from a technology standpoint. She does give him access to connect and coordinate with her computer network (which, in and of itself is a huge level of trust she's giving him), but also from a personal standpoint. Sage spoke up for him. She is staking her entire reputation on Arkady, on this gut feeling she has that he can do good if offered a proper chance.
That's not something that should be considered as a light thing. Sage herself as a character went through a lot of hardship to even be given proper due as a member of the X-Men. She benefitted from getting a chance by Storm, but an action like this -- if it went wrong -- could have very easily ostracized her from the group. There are countless examples of the X-men trusting a villain and it backfiring in a spectacular way. Omega Red could have easily been one of those cases, and no doubt was viewed as such by the other X-men:
But she stuck to her guns. She decided to tie their fates together in that moment. He was getting this second chance because she was taking a gamble on him needing a few key items to put him on a better path. She made the decision to not only offer him an untainted C-Synthesizer, but also further edits to make sure his body didn't have the needs that forced him to kill and upgrades that improved his carbonadium tentacles far beyond anything he had before.
In essence, she made Omega Red stronger than he ever was. No more weakness, being given technology improvements, all things that people feared to give him because they were afraid of losing control of him. This very easily could have gone wrong. Except there was one thing that Sage was counting on that literally no one had ever considered:
There was a man still inside Omega Red. Someone who could be reached if someone showed they cared enough and gave him that critical support he needed to thrive.
And really, his time on X-Force came to bear that truth out. Arkady changed quite a bit. You see it in not only his behaviors, how well he comes to work with the team, but also in small moments and changes in his design over the course of the series. How Arkady presents himself. And ultimately, this bears fruit in one final action even beyond the end of X-Force which is really incredible.
I know a person can easily point to the big moments where Arkady showed his moments of humanity. Of when he searched hours to find Sage after she went drinking. When he put his own life on the line to save Domino and Deadpool against orders when they fought the Omni-mutant. When he went against orders to bring the trafficked mutants he rescued directly to Krakoa instead of Beast's press conference. But I want to point out the most subtle change that we see near the end of X-Force in issue #47 that I don't think people caught, or really cared to notice.
The moment the team is at the North Pole and creates the Greenhouse. Do you notice anything? Arkady is wearing a coat.
Why does a coat matter? Because up to now, in all his 30+ years of existing in the comics, Arkady never did. No matter how cold it got in scenes he was in, fighting in the cold and blowing snow or moving around in frigid environments, we have never seen him actually wear something to protect his body against the cold. He is always wearing his uniform, nothing else. But we see it here. A simple coat. This is a sign of care and consideration for his own health and well-being that we have never seen given to him up to this point (and something we also see in Demons and Death). He's being shown to take care of himself, that the people around him care enough about him to make sure that he is actually wearing something to keep himself warm instead of just toughing it out.
It's a small moment and expression of humanity, but it means the world on how much he has changed to consider himself like a person again. That he is wearing normal clothes. The uniform is a symbol of him as a weapon, as a machine, and now we are finally seeing pieces of his humanity coming out. It really speaks volumes on his progress over the course of X-Force. On how much Arkady has not only integrated himself into the team, but also how much he has actually grown to accept himself in a way that he never did before Krakoa. Which really leads to the final part, the true impact Sage had on Arkady. We see it in Demons and Death, when Arkady is expressing his thoughts in his inner monologue:
In a lot of ways, I truly think that Sage reminded Arkady of Nastya, his childhood friend he grew up with. There are enough similarities I can see between the two characters and how they treated Arkady that would have brought up those old memories that he had been burying and ignoring for decades. You can tell in his monologue here that there was a real sense of shame Arkady felt about himself after he became Omega Red. He couldn't bear the thought of returning home and letting the only person in his life who actually loved and cared for him see what he had turned into. So he avoided it like the plague. He avoided her. That is... until after Krakoa.
It's clear what happened. He says it himself that living on the island changed him. How did it change him? It made him willing to finally face that part of himself that he refused to touch. To try to go home, to retire and put away Omega Red (the story in the end didn't allow him to do that, but the intention was there for him to close that part of his life away) and try to return to his humanity. To face Nastya again and try to heal that aching old wound and pick up wherever the two of them had left things off.
Sage gave him that. She gave Arkady his humanity back. First by giving him what he needed to actually live. Then a home and a purpose on Krakoa until the sad day came when she couldn't do it anymore. We don't see what all went down when Sage had her mental breakdown to end up in the mental hospital we see at the start of the 2024 X-Force series, but I know it was a sad moment. The team couldn't survive without Sage, she was the glue holding them all together, the person who had given them all a place. And while she wasn't able to continue on, she was at least able to have inspired enough change and growth in humanity for Arkady to want to try to continue to follow in that path Sage had encouraged him to go on.
Sage helped Arkady heal to the point where he felt that he could face his past again. That while there still was that sense of shame about who he was and what he had become, it wasn't all-consuming to the point where he couldn't bring himself to face the twinkle of light that was still a part of his past. Sage had been that light for him on Krakoa, helping him to adjust to living away from the darkness to the point where he could stand on his own and seek out his own light. And all of this happened because she took a chance that no one else did. She didn't just offer Arkady a spot on a team. She took down every single one of the barriers he had on being able to actually live a normal life.
He doesn't have to kill to live anymore and that is because of her. He got a real second chance because Sage decided to take what the X-men would have viewed as the biggest gamble in the history of gambles. And it really paid off. Not just in how Arkady was able to help the X-men when he lived on Krakoa, but in how he was able to improve as a person. Hands down, I think Sage's success in rehabilitating Arkady is one of the best things she has ever been able to do, and it not only speaks volumes on her ability to make good judgement calls on the quality of someone's character, but also her ability to reach those the X-men deem unreachable.
What Sage did for Omega Red fundamentally changed him. She encouraged him to grow in ways that you really can't undo without breaking the character and put an end to the 30-year C-Synthesizer plot that had hung around Arkady's neck for so long. That's a powerful thing and something that really should be applauded because it really is a rare thing to happen, not only to a traditionally villainous character, but in a world where Marvel tends to worship status quo and character progression is often stagnant or non-existent. Sage was really who Arkady needed all along, and moving forward, I know I for one will tally every good action Arkady does in future stories as another win for Sage, as her kindness and actions to help save him when the entire world condemned him will hopefully continue to bear fruit.
Thank you, Teresia Karisik. You are the perfect character who best represents what the X-men should stand for.
