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Quentin Quire
Fictional character From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
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Quintavius Quirinius "Quentin" Quire,[1] also known as Kid Omega, is a fictional character appearing in American comic books published by Marvel Comics, usually in those featuring the X-Men. Quire first appeared in New X-Men #134 (January 2003).[2] He was created by writer Grant Morrison and artist Frank Quitely.
Quentin Quire is an Omega-level telepathic mutant, with substantial telepathic and telekinetic abilities, often manifesting as pink psionic hard-light constructions such as shotguns and motorcycles. He is initially a student of Xavier Institute, but is disillusioned with the views of the X-Men. He later joins superhero teams such as the West Coast Avengers, X-Force, and X-Men.
A character inspired by Quire and credited as "Kid Omega" appears in the 2006 film X-Men: The Last Stand, portrayed by Ken Leung.
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Publication history
Quentin Quire made his first appearance in New X-Men #134 (Jan. 2003). His first appearance as Kid Omega and the first appearance of the Omega Gang were in New X-Men #135 (Feb. 2003). Grant Morrison has cited The Sekhmet Hypothesis as an influence on the story as well as Quire's angry punk rock aesthetic, referring to it in their book, Supergods.[3]
Quentin appeared in multiple other X-Men titles as a student such as Wolverine and the X-Men and Generation X (Vol. 2), alongside frequent appearances in other related titles. He would also appear as a superhero in titles such as West Coast Avengers (Vol. 3), X-Force (Vol. 6), and X-Men (Vol. 7).
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Fictional character biography
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 | This section may contain an excessive amount of intricate detail that may only interest a particular audience. (June 2018) |
Xavier Institute
Quentin Quire joined the student body of the Xavier Institute after Professor X's return and the rebuilding of the X-Mansion. He immediately stood out due to his brilliant intellect and quickly became Xavier's prize pupil, with Xavier guiding him on the use of his powers. The extent and type of his mutant abilities were never clearly defined past being Omega-level, and he was considered a very powerful telepath.[4]
Quire often associated with Glob Herman and had a crush on Sophie, one of the Stepford Cuckoos. However, something about Quire disturbed the Cuckoos, though Emma Frost dismissed it as academic rivalry.[4]
Omega Gang: New X-Men
While a student at Xavier's, Quire invented the anti-gravity floats for Martha Johansson's brain canister, and bumped heads with other students. On his birthday, Quire received a call from his parents telling him he was adopted, which seemed to destabilize him. He got a haircut reminiscent of Bolivar Trask's depiction of a mutant overlord from the Daily Bugle that was published the day Quire was born. Quire became strongly opposed to a policy of tolerance with humans, and called for vengeance for the recently murdered mutant designer Jumbo Carnation. He drastically changed his look to further resemble Trask's depiction and also debated with Professor X on his dream of human-mutant coexistence, questioning whether he would allow any dream other than his own to exist.[5]
Shortly afterward, Quire and a group of like-minded students visited town wearing the Trask-overlord clothes, and Quire convinced them to take the mutant drug Kick. They accosted a gang of humans in an alley and killed or maimed them all. Back at the Xavier Institute, Xavier confronted the students, but Quire was not implicated. Quire and his gang later got tattoos of an Omega symbol over an X, (which would later become his logo). The Omega gang ambushed Professor X and restricted his powers.[6]
Riot at Xavier's
Quire and the Omega Gang incited a riot against Xavier and humans among the students, but were thwarted by the X-Men. However, Quire continued to guard Professor X, further escalating the situation. Xavier eventually freed himself and confronted Quire. The altercation was officially ended by by Sophie and the Cuckoos using Cerebra and Kick to boost their shared powers. They confronted Quire, who confessed that his motivation for the ordeal was to impress Sophie, to whom he is attracted. The Cuckoos defeated him, but Sophie was revealed to have died. Due to a mix of this revelation and overloading on his own abilities, Quire immediately entered a catatonic state.[7]
Quire's body was being burnt out by his own psionic energy, due to overdoses of Kick, which caused a secondary mutation that changed his brain into faster-than-light energy. Xavier enlisted Xorn to expose Quire to the miniature star in his head, and Quire "left the mortal plane". Quire's final words when Xorn "healed" him are vaguely prophetic of many of the coming events of New X-Men.[8]
"A Higher Plane of Existence"
However, Quire was not truly dead and Professor Xavier announced to the student body that he believes Quire had ascended to a higher plane of existence. Quire remained a dormant semi-alive energy form in a containment unit. The potential future shown in the New X-Men story "Here Comes Tomorrow" indicated that Quire was destined to become an avatar for the Phoenix Force.[9]
During X-Men: Phoenix – Endsong, a fragment of the Phoenix Force returned to Earth, and investigated Quire. The fragment realized he wasn't Jean Grey and left. The Phoenix's presence shocked Quire back to consciousness and he reconstituted his body. He sought out and reanimated Sophie Cuckoo, but was unable to complete the process, so he set off to find the Phoenix Force. Quire found the Phoenix, contained within Emma Frost by the X-Men. Quire broke the containment chamber, releasing the Phoenix frgament. Quire asked the Phoenix to resurrect Sophie, which it did. Sophie was still disgusted by him and chose to return to death. Quire broke down, and the Phoenix left him to his "sickness". Having spent too much of his energy, Quire apologized to the X-Men for his rash behavior and returned to his non-corporeal state in the container.[10]
Nation X
Beast brought Quire's container to his lab on Utopia after the X-Mansion was abandoned. Finding life on a higher plane "boring," Quire revived himself and decided to become a villain and secretly destroy Utopia, claiming that the X-Men stole his idea to create a mutant nation. He selected Martha Johansson to be his nemesis in his game, giving her a few minutes to stop him. Martha attempted to alert the X-Men and locate Quire, but he intercepted and taunted her, smashed her container and left her to die. Martha broke the Stepford Cuckoos free from Quire's mental loop and they defeated Quire together.[11]
Schism
Quire returned in Schism,[12][13] after being broken out of the X-Men's prison by Kade Kilgore. Thinking his containment unit malfunctioned, Quire celebrated his new freedom by infiltrating an international arms conference in Switzerland (where Scott Summers was to be giving a talk) and forcing the top leaders of the world to reveal their deepest, darkest secrets on camera.[14] After this, he became the most hunted mutant on Earth and sought refuge on Utopia. Instead of handing him over to Steve Rogers like Wolverine suggested, Cyclops ordered that Quire be put back into containment so he could be tried by a jury of his peers after the trouble is resolved.[15]
Wolverine struck a deal with Captain America, where Quire was released into Wolverine's custody and was to attend the newly reformed Jean Grey Institute for Higher Learning in an effort to rehabilitate him. Nobody consulted Cyclops on this.[16]
Wolverine and the X-Men
Quentin Quire was shown in promotional art for Wolverine and the X-Men #1 as a member of Wolverine's post-Schism team.[17] In the series series, Quire reasons with an offshoot of Krakoa to be the school grounds.[18]
The limited series Wolverine and the X-Men: Alpha & Omega details Quire's battle with Wolverine, which is written by Brian Wood.
Quire becomes more of a team player with fellow students and even Captain America in A+X. During Infinity, Quire was chosen as to represent his school in a competition.[19]
Quire defected alongside other students to the new Hellfire Academy, hoping to discover why Idie Okonkwo switched sides, later defeating the Academy. Quire graduated and became a graduate student/assistant at the Jean Grey school. In Battle of the Atom, he came face to face with his future Phoenix self and began to question his stay at the school.
Due to his anger towards Logan and others, Quire later broke off association with the facility when he became independently wealthy and left the school to join the Phoenix Corporation, where he later became the new White King of the Hellfire Club. However, he found himself not quite able to enjoy the riches and fame because he saw his own death on a time travel adventure.[20] The events of AXIS and Wolverine's death caused him to finally return to the Jean Grey School and help both the Avengers and X-Men battle Red Onslaught.
"The Phoenix"
Having become fed up with people, Quire decided to exile himself from society and live in the middle of the Atlantic Ocean with Krakoa taking the shape of a small desert island. Quire's was recruited by Thor, as the Shi'ar gods had conjured the Phoenix Force to have it lay waste to all of reality.[21] Quire psychically attacked the Phoenix, allowing Thor to access the White Hot Room and fight it. Quire entered the White Hot Room himself and negotiated with the Phoenix, which allowed him to absorb a small portion of itself. In the end, the Shi'ar gods were arrested and taken to Omnipotence City for their actions. As the Shi'ar were left without their gods, the newly Phoenix-empowered Quire became the New God of the Shi'ar as the Phoenix.[22] However, Quire appeared back on Earth and resumed his self-imposed exile on Krakoa. When M threw Jubilee into sunlight to kill her, Quire sacrificed the Phoenix power to cure Jubilee's vampirism and restored her mutant powers.[23]
Marvel Legacy
Kid Omega joined West Coast Avengers, under leaderships of Clint Barton and Kate Bishop. He also began an awkward romance with Gwenpool.[24]
During the "Empyre" storyline, Quire was among the psychic mutants who were summoned to Genosha.[25] He was among those who witnessed Magik's fight with the Cotatinaught.[26]
Krakoa and From the Ashes
Kid Omega joined the mutant nation of Krakoa, joining it's X-Force team. He was killed and resurrected multiple times on Krakoa[27], and had a relationship with Phoebe Cuckoo, but she broke up with him.[28] In a battle with Cerebrax, Kid Omega was apparently destroyed and his mind wiped from the Krakoan files. He later appeared alive, revealing he merged with Cerebrax and had been able to travel through time, only returning to warn of Beast's future crimes.
After the fall of Krakoa, Kid Omega was mutilated by a Sabretooth variant on Krakoa during the Sabretooth War storyline. His head was kept as a weapon by the group of variants, but they were defeated and Quentin was resurrected.[29] He later joined Cyclop's X-Men team.
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Powers and abilities
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Quentin Quire is an Omega-level mutant possessing advanced cognitive and telepathic abilities that enable him to organize and construct his thoughts at accelerated rates, overtly or covertly manipulate the minds of others, resist mind probes, and disable other forms of psychic manipulation.[7] His level of psychic influence on others depends on the number of individuals he wishes to affect — his influence is strongest among fewer individuals and subtler in large numbers of people.[11] Xavier explains that Quire's psychic powers are "deep, subtle, and he's able to influence minds around him".[5] Emma Frost also states that his mind processes several thousand "brilliant" thoughts a second.[5] Given that Quire is under the influence of the drug Kick for much of his time at the academy, it is unknown how much his power was being boosted by its effects. However, after the events of "Schism", Quire is shown to have most of his telepathic and telekinetic powers still intact, even without Kick. His powers also seem to continue to develop, as Quire is able to manifest and use a "psychic shotgun", as well as other weapons and objects, much in the same way other mutants (such as Psylocke) can manifest swords with their minds. He has also been shown to create an entire universe, which he calls "The Construct", within his mind, allowing him to imprison others within this world.[30]
In the miniseries X-Men: Phoenix – Endsong, Quire generates massive amounts of telekinetic energy which manifest in the form of tentacles, allowing him to break free of his containment chamber, blast through the Xavier School's foundation, pull Sophie's body out of the ground, restructure it a bit, instantly heal wounds on his body inflicted through Wolverine's claws, and fly at supersonic speed.
Quentin Quire has existed without a body as a form of energy inside a jar,. He is also depicted as being an alternate reality host of the Phoenix Force in the White Hot Room, suggesting that he can potentially be a host to the Phoenix.[9] Quire is apparently destined to become a Phoenix Avatar in more than one reality as further revealed by the Battle of the Atom storyline, where an alternate future version of Quire is a member of the future X-Men as well as a Phoenix avatar, having taken the codename "Phoenix".
Quentin Quire has also been shown to be able to psychically project his consciousness while sleeping to speak with other telepaths and in dire situations escape death, as well as being able to transfer the energy of his consciousness into different organically made "shells".
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Omega Gang
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The Omega Gang is a group of teenage mutants and enemies of the X-Men. Created by comics writer Grant Morrison, the gang first appears in New X-Men #135 but is not named until New X-Men #140, when Lucas Bishop asks to interview them.
The Omega Gang is formed by Quire, a young telepath and one of the top students of the Xavier Institute. Quire has become depressed because of an unrequited crush on Sophie of the Stepford Cuckoos; his unpopular status among the Institute students; and especially the revelation that he was adopted, which shatters his already fragile self-esteem. The death of mutant fashion designer Jumbo Carnation prompts Quire to gather a small group of students to exact revenge on Carnation's murderers.[5]
At Quire's request, all members tattoo themselves with a symbol formed by an Omega with an X below it and dress up with red-and-black striped shirts, jeans and whips. This is an outfit designed by Carnation himself and based on an illustration from an anti-mutant article written by Bolivar Trask many years ago, which portrayed mutants enslaving the human race. The Omega Gang members also consume the drug Kick in order to boost their powers. Unbeknownst to them, the drug is actually the aerosol form of the sentient bacteria Sublime, which seeks to increase the violence between mutants and baseline humans.[9]
The gang is responsible for the attack on a teenage anti-mutant gang and later for the Open Day Riots. During the riots, Professor X is injured and Dummy of the Special Class, a gas-composed mutant, is seemingly destroyed when his containment suit is pierced. The most notable victim is Sophie of the Stepford Cuckoos, who dies in her heroic attempt to stop Quire. The rest of the Gang is stopped by the efforts of the other X-Men.[7]
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Other versions
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Age of Apocalypse
In this harsh reality, it is revealed that Quentin Quire was examined by the Shadow King and found to be an unstable, mildly talented telepath with apparently no usefulness to Weapon Omega. Quire finds a way to create a kind of "psychic pyramid scheme" known as the Overmind by using minor "dreg" telepaths, the Mind Dolls, and uses this to increase his own limited skills, something the Shadow King didn't expect or even dream of.[31]
He instead takes Jean Grey into the mindscape and tries to force her into unleashing the Phoenix Force so he could further increase his own mental abilities, unaware that Jean has become powerless and the Phoenix Force has left her. Jean quickly understands that Quire is losing control over his powers and is falling into madness. She tries to help him but at the end, he dies by turning a gun on himself.[31]
His suicide appeared to be a ruse as he was later seen alive and well with the Overmind. He confronts the Shadow King in his penthouse apartment, where the Shadow King managed to easily kill the Mind Dolls, yet he finds himself unable to defeat Quire, who reveals himself to be Goodnight in disguise.[32]
Exiles
In Exiles: Days of Then and Now, Quentin Quire is one of the surviving heroes during the Annihilation Wave. It is led to Earth by a banished Hulk, who has killed Annihilus. Quire leads a group that includes Lightspeed, Patriot, Speedball, Wiccan, and three of the Stepford Cuckoos: Sophie, Esme, and Mindee. Quire has begun a relationship with Sophie, whose powers have changed to include limited precognition. After listening to Sophie's dream about a group of heroes that help restore order within damaged realities called the Exiles, Quire goes on an interdimensional mission to find the original Exiles. Instead, he eventually recruits a group of heroes from the worlds he visits into a new group of Exiles. In the reality where he meets and recruits Nighthawk, he comes up against an alternate version of himself.[33]
House of M
In the "House of M" storyline, Quentin Quire, along with most of the New X-Men characters, appears as a student of the New Mutant Leadership Institute. Upon confronting the spying Wallflower and boasting that no one could stop his mind, Wallflower uses her pheromones to fill him with self-loathing, forcing him to commit mental suicide. In this version, Quire retains his more clean-cut appearance.[34]
Post-Graduation
An adult Quire is now host to the Phoenix Force. He returns to the now defunct Jean Grey School for Higher Learning to confront his nemesis, Wolverine. Backed up only by bamfs, Wolverine is confronted with Quire's newest surprise: two million Negative Zone mutants in need of schooling. However, Logan relishes his new-found role as teacher and welcomes them in.[35]
Ultimate Marvel
Quentin Quire appeared in the Ultimate Universe, offering comfort and mind therapy to Rogue, who has been traumatized over all she has seen and done. He is also featured as a mutant under the care of Nick Fury.[36]
What If
An alternate version of Quentin Quire briefly appears in the What If: Rise & Fall of the Shi'ar Empire one-shot. After Vulcan is transported into the White-Hot Room, he tells Vulcan that he is not meant to be there. He is ultimately killed by Vulcan.
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In other media
Film
- A loose interpretation of the Omega Gang, simply called the "Omegas", appear in X-Men: The Last Stand, consisting of Quill, Callisto, Arclight, Psylocke, Spike, Glob Herman, and Phat. Additionally, Quill (portrayed by Ken Leung) is credited as "Kid Omega", which the production team has stated was a typo in the audio commentary.[37]
- Quentin Quire makes a cameo appearance in Dark Phoenix.[38]
Video games
Kid Omega appears as a playable character in Marvel Future Fight.[39]
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References
External links
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