Issue #10: “Secret Origin of the Omega Committee”

Rikers Island – Breakout: -10 minutes (takes place simultaneously with Firestorm #8)

“Multiplex, you have a package from Mr. Hewitt,” a voice bellowed from behind the cell door of Danton Black. Danton cursed under his breath as he marked his place in the novel he was reading and looked toward the door. The door creaked open slightly and a rectangular package was thrown into the cell. “Enjoy,” the voice, which Danton recognized as Officer Ramon, said.

“I swear I’m going to kill you,” Danton muttered under his breath as he walked toward the door and grabbed the package. Officer Ramon was the one who had coined Danton’s popular handle, one that Danton despised so much that he’d tried to kill the correctional officer, which had resulted in him being placed in solitary confinement.

Danton bent down and grabbed the box. It was a standard gift box that department stores use to place clothing in. He opened it and saw that it contained a newer version of his costume. The circuitry was more refined and designed to carry, hold and disperse energy more efficiently than the crude original that Danton had made days after the accident that had given him his powers.

There was also a small circular device in the box, with a red button in the center that reminded Danton of the Easy Button commercials he used to see on television. A note was attached to the bottom of the device. Danton held his new costume under his arm and opened the note.



Danton shed his prison jumpsuit and began to put on his new costume. He started to think about his meeting with Henry Hewitt. While Hewitt had the reputation of being a bit of an eccentric, he was always direct and to the point. In their meeting two days ago, Hewitt had been very cryptic and reluctant to divulge anything about what his ultimate goal was or even what group he was now the head of. The way Henry had talked about it, it seemed like he was trying to recruit Danton into some kind of fanatical sect. But he’d mentioned that the Firestorm Matrix was a huge part of it and that’s what had caught Danton’s attention.

Danton had hypothesized that he had a part of the Firestorm Matrix within him. It was the only way he could explain the connection that he had between Ronnie Raymond and Martin Stein, when they were joined as Firestorm. He could occasionally see what they saw and hear their thoughts, as well as flashbacks of previous hosts of the Matrix. It drove Danton nuts to see how Ronnie and Martin were not even tapping into the awesome potential of the power that they fell backwards into. So many mysteries could’ve been solved using the power of the Firestorm Matrix. Energy dependence, the environment and disease were just some of the things that could be cured by the transmutagenic powers of the Matrix, as well as maybe unlocking the mysteries of the universe itself. With all of the knowledge that the Matrix contained, Ronald Raymond and Martin Stein seem to be content running around after purse stealers and costumed hooligans.

The promise of the Matrix was the only reason why he’d listened to Henry Hewitt’s mealy-mouthed babbling. That and he figured dealing with a bunch of fanatical miscreants was worth the price of his freedom and gaining another opportunity to go after Firestorm. He finished putting his costume on, pulling the new mask over his head, and grabbed the circular device and pressed the button in the center. The device began to beep. It was slow at first but rapidly sped up. Danton felt a small shock from the device and the lime green circuitry of the new suit began to glow. The device emitted another shock, this time much stronger and longer lasting. Danton Black screamed.



Officer Ramon was down the hall, checking in on the other prisoners of the metahuman wing of Rikers. He looked into the cell of the Hyena, whose head perked up and began to sniff in the air. It turned, looked towards Officer Ramon and snarled. Ramon was about to press a small, red button next to the door that would’ve sent an electrical shock through the Hyena’s shackles, but stopped when he heard a scream in the air. He immediately recognized it as Danton’s and ran towards Danton’s cell. He opened the door and not only found that Danton was okay, but that there were three Dantons, all looking at him.

“Officer Ramon,” all three Dantons said in unison as they converged on the correctional officer, “it’s about time I made a formal complaint about you.”



Danton let out a deep breath and dropped the lifeless body of Officer Ramon to the floor. One of his duplicates bent down and removed the officer’s nametag and pinned it on his chest as the wall behind him exploded. Standing in the rubble as the smoke cleared was a woman in a suit of green armor. The shoulders and chest areas had an extra layer of orange armor that matched the faceplate of the helmet and the gauntlets.

“I’ve been sent by Mr. Hewitt to retrieve you,” the woman said as two foot-long spikes shot out of the sides of the gauntlets. She pointed them towards Danton and said, “I’m only taking one of you, so get rid of the other two or I will.

“Fine,” Danton said as his two duplicates pressed the kill switches on their costumes and vanished into the air. “Who are you?”

“My code name is Enforcer,” the woman said as she dropped a circular device on the ground. “We need to get out of here if we want our gear to continue to work. That’s going to emit an electromagnetic pulse that should release the electric locks on the cells and provide us with a nice distraction.”

Danton grabbed the Enforcer’s hand as she started up the rocket engines in her boots and began to fly away from Rikers. Even though her voice was disguised to sound computerized, there was a familiarity about it. Before Danton could ask, he felt a sting in the palm of his hand and began to feel drowsy; seconds later he was unconscious.



Danton woke up and tried to rub the sleep out of his eyes, but was unsuccessful and still felt drowsy. He looked around and saw a room painted in white, and equipped with bright florescent lighting with no windows. It all felt sterile to him. He looked to his side and saw a young African-American woman dressed in a black business dress-suit and heels, monitoring some kind of machine. He followed the wires of the machine and saw that they led to his arm. He also realized that his costume was gone, and sat up.

Danton’s actions startled the young woman and caused her to drop her clipboard and let out a sharp scream. “My goodness, Dr. Black, you scared me,” she said as she grabbed her chest.

“Where am I?” Danton demanded, but immediately softened his tone when he saw how attractive the young lady was.

“You’re in an underground facility beneath Mr. Hewitt’s mansion in Arlington, Virginia,” the young lady said as she caught her breath. She pushed a strand of long black hair away from her face and smiled at Danton and extended her hand. “My name’s Mica. I’m Mr. Hewitt’s personal assistant.”

“Pleasure.” Danton shook Mica’s hand and was becoming infatuated with her big smile and sparkling brown eyes.

“The pleasure’s all mine,” Mica said in a bubbly tone as Danton let go of her hand. She walked to and entered a closet, near to the machine she was monitoring, and then came back to Danton with his costume and handed it to him. “I hope you had a pleasant respite.”

“I guess I can be thankful for that,” Danton said as he disconnected the wires from the machine and grabbed the suit from Mica. He got out of bed and began to get dressed. He noticed that Mica didn’t look away; she just stood there and smiled. Danton also noticed she was wearing a brooch on her lapel. It had a black gem that was cut in the shape of an Omega. “So, Mica, what’s going on here? Hewitt was being enigmatic in telling me what he was really up to during our meeting two days ago…”

“Actually, Dr. Black,” Mica interrupted him politely, “that was four days ago.” Mica bent down and picked up her clipboard, and there, attached beneath the paper she was making her notes on, was a front page section of the New York Times. Danton looked at the headlines and saw they involved the breakout at Rikers and Firestorm fighting some kind of werewolf in Queens.

“Okay, Mica, but that doesn’t answer my question,” Danton said as he threw the newspaper onto the bed. “What am I doing here? What’s going on?”

“I think it would be best if Mr. Hewitt answers those questions for you,” Mica answered. Normally, Danton would’ve been growing impatient with the lack of answers he was receiving, but it was hard to get mad at someone who was so polite and as striking as Mica. The door to the room opened and soon the humming sound of an electric motor filled the air.

“Good morning, Dr. Black,” Henry Hewitt said as he wheeled himself in on his electric wheelchair.

“Right on cue, Mr. Hewitt,” Mica said, sounding genuinely excited to see her boss.

“I see you’ve met the lovely Mica,” Henry Hewitt said as he wheeled himself over to the young lady in question. He gently grabbed her hand and kissed the back of it.

“Mr. Hewitt’s such a flirt,” Mica whispered to Danton, but loudly enough that anyone within an earshot could’ve heard her.

“I don’t know how many times I have to tell you, call me Henry,” Hewitt replied. “I hope Dr. Black hasn’t been too much trouble.”

“Well, he’s understandably concerned about his current situation,” Mica said as she smiled at Danton. “I told him that it would be best if I let you fill him in, so… with that I’ll take my leave.” She reached into the pocket of her suit jacket and pulled out a card that she handed to Danton. “If you need anything, don’t hesitate to call or page me.”

“Thank you,” Danton said, grabbing the card from the attractive woman and shaking her hand. For a moment, Danton thought he saw her eyes cloud over and turn completely black, but, when he blinked, he saw that they were normal.

“Yes, Mica, thank you,” Henry Hewitt said as both he and Danton watched her leave the room. “She’s great, isn’t she?”

“Quite, but I would like for this secretive nonsense to stop and to finally be told what’s going on, Henry.”

“Of course. Follow me, Doctor,” Hewitt said over the hum of the electric motor in his wheelchair as he exited the room. Danton followed him into the hall, which shared the same sterile feeling as the room did. It was completely white with bright fluorescent lighting. At the end of the hall was a black door with an Omega symbol painted on it in white. A muscular man stood guard in front of it, wearing a black suit and tie that matched Hewitt’s. And, of course, the tie was embroidered with an Omega on it.

“Doctor, do you recall a couple of years back when the Earth was invaded by those extra -dimensional beings. Remember how their hellish-looking home planet appeared in our sky? How those fire pits it housed lit our sky?”

“Of course I do. It’s hard not to remember something like the Earth being invaded,” Danton replied as he followed Henry down the hall toward the door.

“Well, it showed a lot of us how ill-prepared we were for not just an invasion, but the resulting aftermath. Contingency plans needed to be made in case of widespread destruction to our world’s infrastructure, technology and architecture. Plans needed to be in place in the event of governmental failure. We needed to ensure that the human race would not be forced into regression, but would continue on a path of evolution. We cannot depend on groups like the Justice League or Justice Society to be there for us. The incident with those starfish creatures proved that.”

“Okay, so the human race needs to be better prepared for chaos and heroes have proven themselves to be unreliable,” Danton replied as they stopped in front of the large black doors. “I’ve heard that argument a billion times and I don’t care. I wanna know how do I play into this and how the Firestorm Matrix plays into it.”

“Dr. Black, like I told you in Rikers, the Firestorm Matrix is everything.” Henry Hewitt turned to the man guarding the door. “Open it.”

The door opened and revealed a giant laboratory. It contained the same themes as the hall and the room. White, sterile, fluorescent lighting and a giant Omega symbol on a wall, and above that were windows to what looked like a control room. There were men scattered about working on two large machines which Danton immediately recognized.

“Those are the same reactors that were used in the Hudson Power Plant.”

“Well, not the same, but built from the plans that you stole for me,” Henry Hewitt said as he smiled proudly. “They are the key to humanity’s future, to insure that order prevails in the mist of chaos. This is the secret work of the Omega Committee.”

“Omega Committee… With all of the Omega symbols around here I would’ve never guessed it.”

“This isn’t the time to be droll, Dr. Black,” Mr. Hewitt said. “We have reason to believe another catastrophic event is on the horizon and we must work diligently to ensure our survival.”

“So let me guess,” Danton said as he noticed that each reactor was attached to a clear cylinder, big enough for a person to be contained in. “You plan on using these to recreate the accident that created Firestorm and myself.”

“We already have,” Henry said, “but while we can create the exact conditions of the accident, something is amiss.”

“What happened? What were the results?” Danton asked.

“While promising, nothing close to what we desire. The first subject was tested to have similar meta-gene capability and potential as Ronnie Raymond and Martin Stein…”

“You know who Firestorm is?” Danton interrupted. He couldn’t believe what he was hearing. “How?”

“Our DNA projections showed that there could only be five people in the world who have the meta-gene potential to contain a force as powerful as the Firestorm Matrix. Ronnie Raymond and Martin Stein were at the top of the list. Of course, once we were able to obtain more recent samples of their DNA, that confirmed it. Of the other three, one was another New Yorker, a very prominent one as a matter of fact. The others live in Moscow and Detroit and we currently have labs being set up in those cities.”

“But we need the Matrix itself. This is why we came to you. We believed that you could offer the secrets of the Matrix, but tests show that the portion you contain is minuscule and not enough. We need to unlock its secrets and once we find the way to reproduce it, we can create a squad of Firestorms that not only could we defend ourselves with, but rebuilding after a disaster would only take minutes instead of decades.”

“How do you know all of this?” Danton asked.

“I believe I can answer that,” a voice, coming from the direction of the door, said. In the doorway stood a handsome young man, who Danton figured was right out of college. His short, black hair was spiked up with gel and he wore a black suit and tie with an Omega symbol, just like everyone else. He made his way towards Henry and Danton. “Danton Black, I’m Morgan Edge. I’m a big fan.”

“Morgan is sort of our wunderkind,” Henry added. “He’s been pretty much responsible for our recent developments and advances.”

Danton shook the young man’s hand and it felt cold and clammy. He also began to feel waves of hate, anger and darkness crash against him like ocean waves on a cliff. Danton fell to one knee and began to feel as if he was being choked by those dark feelings and they were beginning to overwhelm him. He looked up and saw what seemed like a shadow spread from the body of Morgan Edge and cover the room in darkness with no visibility. He started to hear a laughter and tried to cup his ears with his hands, but could only cover one ear since his other hand was still holding on to Morgan Edge’s. The laughter grew louder and more distorted and began to resemble a sound similar to feedback from a speaker. Danton screamed as his head felt as if it was about to burst.

Then he opened his eyes and found himself staring upward at Morgan Edge and Henry Hewitt in the white room, with his hand still in Morgan’s. “What happened?” he asked.

“You just kinda fell down and grabbed your head,” Morgan said, with a teasing tone in his voice. “It seems like I have this kind of effect on people.”

“Morgan, now is not the time to be playing your games,” Henry Hewitt reprimanded the young man. “The business of the committee is reaching a critical stage and we need you to stop playing these silly games with people.”

“You know what, Henry,” Morgan said as he let go of Danton’s hand after helping him up. A look of anger and rage began to surface on his face, before being replaced with a giant smile. “You are absolutely right.” Morgan turned around and walked over to Henry’s wheelchair. He stood behind the old man as he sunk his fingers deep into Henry’s shoulders. Henry did not flinch or make any kind of movement.

“I totally forgot why I came down here,” Morgan said, before leaning down to Henry’s ear. “Mica sent me to get you because the boards of directors of Hewitt Industries are holding that conference call now. You need to do whatever you can to keep them from causing a huge fuss about all of your company’s resources being pulled and reassigned to Committee business.”

“And if I can’t?” Henry asked.

“Well, that’s why we have someone like the Enforcer around,” Morgan said as he rubbed Henry’s bald head. “Now go on, off with you. I’ll continue to give Dr. Black the guided tour.” While Henry left the room Morgan turned his attention to the scientists that remained in the room.

“Why don’t you guys go ahead and take your lunch break now?” Morgan suggested as he clasped his hands together. “Go ahead; don’t worry about picking up or saving. It’ll all be there when you get back.” Morgan began to fidget as he waited for the last of the scientists to leave the room, which left him alone with Danton Black.

“So,” Danton broke the silence, “how do you people know about the Matrix? How do you know Firestorm’s secret identity? How did you develop your testing? How do you people know so much?”

“Those are all very good questions,” Morgan said, pointing his index fingers in the air and gesturing them back and forth. “Let’s just say we have an inside source.”

“Jesus,” Danton was growing frustrated, “don’t you people in this cult ever just give a straight answer?”

“A cult, that’s a little harsh. We are a ‘committee’,” Morgan chuckled as he made quotation marks with his fingers. “Anyway, I just want to ask … what did you think of Henry’s little spiel about being humanity’s last hope?”

“I’m about ready to kill the whole bunch of you,” Danton screamed.

“Look, just humor me. What did you think about Uncle Hank’s little speech?”

“I thought it was pretentious. Your boss seems to be delusional if he doesn’t think I can’t see that it was nothing more than a typical ‘takeover the world’ scheme.”

“Yeah, I thought it was B.S myself,” Morgan said. “But being the pragmatist that I am, you learn that it’s better to give certain people the illusion of power and control as long as it gets you to your ultimate goal… Actually, I got that lesson from an episode of The Sopranos.”

“So, wait… You are actually in charge here?”

“Shhh… Someone might hear you,” Morgan said, placing his finger up to his lips before letting out a chuckle. “’Just kidding. I really don’t consider myself in charge, per se, but more like the person behind the scenes that steers us in the direction that we really want to go. And while the little speech Henry gave you is sort of our ‘official’ position, the people that work behind the scenes have to keep our true work hidden. I mean, you can’t tell a bunch of white affluent businessmen that the world is going to end. They are so preoccupied with maintaining their achieved status and entrenched in the old ways of doing things, they’ll either pronounce you crazy or go crazy trying to delay the inevitable. So, by giving them the auspice that they will become the next ruling class in the coming post-apocalyptic world, it allows us to go about our work unabated.”

“Look, I’m not interested in what your purpose is. All I want is the Firestorm Matrix,” Danton said as he stepped toward Morgan. “I don’t want any more of this cryptic babbling and I want some answers.”

“I know what you really want, Dr. Danton Black,” Morgan said, with Danton’s masked face now up against his. “You want recognition; something you’ve sought your whole life. You sought it from your father, a factory worker from Pittsburgh who was disappointed that his son would rather read books than take a hard hat and work on an assembly line. You wanted to be recognized in high school, as the smartest kid in class, but missed out on valedictorian by one-one hundredth of a point. In your professional life, you had that department head position locked up, until Hudson University decided to go outside and hire Martin Stein. And we all know what happened with the Nobel Prize…

Danton glowered at Morgan, who continued, “Well, Dr. Black, I can offer you the recognition that you not only seek but deserve...”

“I only want the Firestorm Matrix,” Danton interrupted.

“Of course, but if you were paying attention earlier, our testing showed that there are only five people on Earth that can be the host of the Matrix. You don’t live in Moscow or Detroit, you’re not Ronnie Raymond or Martin Stein, and we experimented on the third one and I’m pretty sure it wasn’t you; but I’m offering something far greater.” Morgan reached into his pocket and pulled out a black crystal that he offered to Danton.

“What’s that?” Danton asked.

“It’s what I’m offering you for your service. It’s access to a power far greater than that of the Firestorm Matrix. It’s the beginning of your ascent to godhood.” Morgan replied.

“I’m starting to think you’re as delusional-” Danton started to say as he grabbed the diamond from Morgan, but trailed off as darkness began to seep from the black crystal into his body, filling it with rage, hate and anger.

“In the coming days you’ll find out that I’m a lot of things, Dr. Black,” Morgan smiled as his eyes turned completely black. “Most importantly, I am a harbinger, here to formally announce that this world is nearing its end and to prepare for the eventual arrival of our master, who will bring order to the chaotic aftermath and propel us into the Gods of the next world.”

Morgan looked at Danton’s hand and saw that the black crystal had been completely absorbed. He grabbed Danton’s mask and pulled it off, seeing that Danton’s eyes were completely black, matching his own.

“Welcome to the Omega Committee, Dr. Black,” Morgan said as he placed his hand on Danton’s shoulder. “Now, go and get Martin Stein and bring him to me.”

To Be Continued!


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