Quintavius "Quentin" Quirinius Quire, also known as Kid Omega, is a fictional character appearing in books published by Marvel Comics, usually in those featuring the X-Men. A green-skinned character resembling Quire appeared in one panel of New X-Men #122 (March 2002), and appeared colored pink on the cover of New X-Men #126. Quire appeared in his now-familiar, canonical form in New X-Men #134 (January 2003). He was created by writer Grant Morrison and artist Frank Quitely.

Biography

Xavier Institute
Quentin Quire joins the student body of the Xavier Institute after Professor X's return from averting a war with Genosha and the rebuilding of the X-Mansion. He immediately stands out as a brilliant intellect and quickly becomes Xavier's prize pupil. Xavier teaches Quire to control his powers when they first appear. The extent and type of his mutant abilities are never clearly defined. Quire appears to be a very powerful telepath, and the Stepford Cuckoos describe him as having a 'see-through mind', but he is not necessarily limited to that.

Quentin often associates with Glob Herman and has a crush on Sophie, one of the Stepford Cuckoos. However, something about Quire disturbs the Cuckoos, though Emma Frost dismisses it as academic rivalry.


Omega Gang: New X-Men
While a student at Xavier's, Quire invents the anti-gravity floats for Martha Johansson's brain canister, and exposes the charisma-powered Slick's true, ugly body to the other students. On his birthday, Quentin receives a call from his parents, who tell him he was adopted. This seems to destabilize him. He goes to town, getting a haircut reminiscent of Bolivar Trask's depiction of a mutant overlord from a newspaper that was published the day Quire was born. Quire becomes strongly opposed to a policy of tolerance with humans, calling for vengeance for the recently murdered mutant designer Jumbo Carnation. He takes to wearing clothing based on the Trask mutant overlord illustration, which happens to be one of Jumbo's creations. He also debates with Professor X the merits of his dream of humans and mutants living in peace, and the school policies based on this idea. He questions whether Xavier would allow any dream other than his own to exist.

Shortly afterward, Quire and a group of like-minded students visit town wearing the Trask-overlord clothes, and Quire convinces them to take the mutant drug Kick. They accost a gang of humans in an alley and kill or maim them all. When Herman asks what had happened to a human Quentin himself had murdered, Quire replies he had carved his name across the man's mind. Back at school, Xavier confronts the students, but Quire is not implicated. Quire and his gang later go to a mutant tattooist and have their arms marked with an Omega symbol over an X, then attack U-Men Central. Returning to school, the "Omega Gang" ambushes Professor X with a baseball bat and clamps his head in a thought-proof helmet. The next day, at the school's "Open Day" to parents and the media, Quire publicly proclaims it is "open season on humans" and starts a riot.


"Riot at Xavier's"

Some of the students join Quire in protesting Xaviers' policies, but most of the damage is done by the Omegas themselves. They are finally subdued by Beast, Cyclops, Emma Frost and Xorn. However, with Quire still guarding Professor X, the situation threatens to continue. Quire even mentally subdues Wolverine with a memory of his past life. Xavier eventually frees himself of the helmet and confronts Quentin, calling his thought-proof helmet and his plans of revolution "flimsy." However, the altercation is not officially ended until the Stepford Cuckoos, led by Sophie, use Cerebra and a dose of mutant drug Kick to boost their shared powers. They blast through to the grounds and confront Quire, who confesses that his motivation for the ordeal was to impress Sophie, to whom he is attracted. This uniformly disgusts the Cuckoos, who mock his motivations and defeat him with a massive telepathic shockwave. Disoriented, Quentin apologizes. He confesses that he started everything not only because of his desire to impress Sophie, but also because of his own disrupted sense of identity upon discovering he was adopted. Emma Frost chastises him for his recklessness, as she reveals the now deceased Sophie in her arms.

Quire is taken to the Infirmary, where Henry McCoy tries to stabilize him, but his body is being burnt out by his own psionic energy. This is apparently the result of his overdoses of Kick, which cause a secondary mutation that changes his brain into faster-than-light energy. Apparently this simultaneously puts him in telepathic contact with everyone on the planet across time. Seeing that Quire is terminal, Professor X calls for Xorn. He opens his helmet to expose Quire to the mini star in his head, and Quire "left the mortal plane." Quire's final words when Xorn "heals" him are vaguely prophetic of many of the coming events in Morrison's final run of New X-Men. This includes the foreshadowing of events such as Xorn later being revealed to be Magneto, Xorn's eventual destruction of Manhattan, and the actions of Sublime, a bacterial entity that claims to be the cause of some of the human/mutant hatred and aggression occurring.


"A Higher Plane of Existence"
However, Quire is not truly dead and Xavier announces to the student body that he believes Quire has ascended to a higher plane of existence. Quentin remains in a dormant, semi-alive, energy form in a containment unit on Beast's lab table. The potential future shown in the New X-Men story "Here Comes Tomorrow" indicated that Quentin is destined to become an avatar for the Phoenix Force. A young boy, wearing a Phoenix costume and Quentin's distinct pink haircut, is seen telling Jean Grey, who vaguely recognizes him, that she doesn't have long to set the events in the timeline right.

A few months later in X-Men: Phoenix – Endsong, when a fragment of the shattered Phoenix Force returns to Earth, it senses Quire and investigates him, thinking he might be Jean Grey. Though the Phoenix passes up Quire, it shocks him back to consciousness and he reconstitutes his body. Furthermore, he seeks out and reanimates Sophie's corpse, but is unable to complete the process, so he sets off to find the Phoenix Force so he can be with his love. Quire finds the Phoenix, which has resurrected Jean Grey to attract Cyclops' attention, engaged in battle with the X-Men. Just prior to his arrival on the scene, the X-Men get the Phoenix to inhabit Emma Frost, Cyclops's current lover, and imprisons both her and Scott inside a containment vessel. Quire arrives and breaks the containment chamber open, releasing the Phoenix fragment. Quentin then asks the Phoenix to resurrect Sophie, which it does. Sophie is still disgusted by him (and/or his actions) and chooses to return to death. Quire breaks down in anguish, and the Phoenix leaves him to his "sickness". Having spent too much of his energy, Quire apologizes to the X-Men for his rash behavior and returns to his non-corporeal state in the container in Beast's lab.


Nation X
Beast brings Quentin's container to his lab on Utopia after the X-Mansion is abandoned. Finding life on a higher plane to be "boring," Quentin revives himself and decides to become a villain and secretly destroy Utopia, claiming that the X-Men stole his idea to create a mutant nation. He elects to make his endeavor a game and selects Martha (a disembodied mutant brain with telepathic abilities living in a life support container) to be his nemesis, giving her seven and a half minutes to stop him. Martha attempts to alert the X-Men and locate Quentin, but he intercepts and taunts her at each attempt, ultimately smashing her container and leaving her to die. Martha realizes that Quentin has infiltrated Cerebra in order to destroy the island and take revenge on the Cuckoos by putting them in a mental loop. Martha breaks the Cuckoos free, and they quickly defeat Quire.


"Schism"
Quire returns in the X-Men arc "Schism", after being secretly broken out of the X-Men's prison by Kade Kilgore, the new Black King of the Hellfire Club. Thinking his containment unit just malfunctioned, Quire decides to celebrate 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. After this stunt, he becomes the most hunted mutant on Earth and seeks refuge on Utopia. Instead of handing him to Captain Steve Rogers like Wolverine suggests, Cyclops orders that Quire be put back into containment so he can be tried by a jury of his peers after the trouble Quire caused is resolved.

After the events of "Schism", Quire is considered one of the world's worst terrorists. Feeling that jail would only make Quentin's sociopathic tendencies worse, Wolverine strikes a deal with Captain America. He is released into Wolverine's custody and Quire is to attend the newly reformed Jean Grey Institute for Higher Learning in an effort to rehabilitate him. Nobody consulted Cyclops on this.


Wolverine and the X-Men
Quentin Quire is shown in promotional art for Wolverine and the X-Men #1 as a member of Wolverine's post-Schism team. In issue #3 of that series, Quire helps Wolverine's team by successfully reasoning with an offshoot of Krakoa. Later, while helping Wolverine con a "space casino" out of money needed for the school, Quire is able to manifest and use what he calls a "psychic shotgun," which is very similar to the psychic swords used by characters like Psylocke.

Quire faces off against Wolverine in a mental construct of his own devising in an attempt both to show Wolverine who is tougher and to punish him. This incident draws in Armor, a fellow student. Quire finds the effort extremely taxing to the point where he loses control of his own creation, leaving Wolverine's body a beastly, raging nightmare hellbent on killing Quentin. The limited series is titled Wolverine and the X-Men: Alpha & Omega, which is written by Brian Wood.

Quire is chosen as one of the few students to represent Wolverine's school in a friendly competition among similar schools for super-youngsters. This 'Contest of Champions' is attacked by an alien armada. Quire witnesses fellow student 'Crimson' being flattened right next to him. Ultimately Quire's telepathy is essential in the other students joining together to defeat an alien giant.

After several members of the Jean Grey School defected to join the new Hellfire Academy, Quentin followed them, hoping to discover why Idie Okonkwo switched sides. After gaining entrance to the Hellfire Academy it was discovered that Quentin did not change allegiances, but was looking for Idie. This led to Quentin getting "detention", in which he was beaten, until Toad helped him escape his tormentors. While trying to escape, Quentin and Toad were confronted by the other students of the academy. Together with Idie, and Wolverine's X-Men they defeat the Hellfire Academy, and he returns to the school. Quentin later graduates and becomes a graduate student/assistant at the school. In Battle of the Atom he comes face to face with his future Phoenix self, and begins to question his stay at the school.

Quire later breaks off association with the facility when he becomes independently wealthy and the new White King of the Hellfire Club. However he finds himself not quite able to enjoy the riches and fame because he saw his own death on a time travel adventure. Wolverine and Iron Man try to bring Quire out of his self-imposed isolation but fail.

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