Even in a year in which Marvel renewed and relaunched its entire X-Men franchise, a new Omega mutant is still big news – especially when is a classic character who found a way to boost his powers. Omega Mutants are incredibly rare in X-Men lore, with only a few dozen ever formally identified. The most powerful superhumans in existence, Omega mutants have powers that play with the building blocks of reality, often warping it completely around them.
The number of Omega mutants grew by at least one in 2024, when mutant inventor Forge achieved the impossible. A 'technopathic' inventor whose power allows him to build any machine or device he can imagine, Forge has turned his powers on himself, trying to find a way to make the entire world his project. And in Geoffrey Thorne, Marcus To, Erick Arciniega and Joe Caramagna's X Force #1 he succeeded, reaching Omega level.
Although before Forge could "see mechanical solutions to physical problems", now he is connected to a global network of causality. This means he can now sense the world-ending events in time to prevent them from occurringassembling a team of mutant heroes to save the Marvel Universe before it even knows it's in trouble.
Forge upgraded his powers to Omega level, creating the analogue
But the X-Men hero's new powers have a shocking side effect
Forge's new powers are channeled through the Analog – a portable 'crystal ball' that depicts the shifting web of causalityley lines and exotic energy that can essentially predict the future. Throughout 2024, Forge and his X-Force faced threats such as the gigantic Nuklo and a fungal superweapon developed by the villain Mister Sinister. Forge is able to intuit the perfect team for each problem, adding heroes like Deadpool and Man-Thing to his main team as needed. However, this ability came with a huge disadvantage.
While Forge's intuitive understanding of engineering would be almost comprehensible to a mortal mind, his new relationship to causality is not. This means that although Forge's Omega-level powers can predict where new 'fracture points' will occur and assemble the right team to stop them, he doesn't always know exactly how his solution will work. This had devastating consequences on Force X #5 when the young mutant Surge sacrificed himself to stop Nuklo.
Since then, Forge has been unable to discover whether his powers caused him to maneuver Surge into his sacrifice. Although she was not part of the original team he planned for the mission, her actions are now linked in a web of cause and effect, meaning it is possible he somehow unconsciously knew how events would play out. Surge's death also caused his teammate Sage to leave X-Force, removing a piece that Forge considers vital to its continued success.
2024 saw the end of the X-Men's multi-year Krakoan era, followed by the full relaunch of 'From the Ashes'. Each of Marvel's new titles worked hard and fast to establish a new status quo, with Forge's new Omega powers acting as the centerpiece of the new X-Force. However, the Omega powers are so powerful that there is no real way to draw their limits. It's entirely possible that, by assembling a team to save the world, Forge is preparing his friends and allies to die one after another because of him, potentially making this classic X-Men hero regrets his choice to go from mutant hero to mutant god.
X Force #1-6 are now available from Marvel Comics.