RED FLAG
Real Name: Kostya Yesenofsky
Identity/Class: Human technology user (Russian citizen)
Occupation: Terrorist
Group Membership: None
Affiliations: Doctor Yes
Enemies: Venom (Eddie Brock)
Known Relatives: Doctor Yes (Sergei Yesenofsky, father), unidentified mother (see comments)
Aliases: Sword of the Party
Base of Operations: New Odessa
First Appearance: Venom: License to Kill#1 (June, 1997)
Powers/Abilities: Kostya's first battlesuit possessed enhanced strength, resistance to weapons fire, flight via a back-mounted jetpack, an on-board air supply and built-in spotlight. The suit was also watertight, and could withstand the intense pressures of the ocean depths. His Red Flag suit incorporated a canister of plague toxin, capable of killing most adult humans within 24 hours.
History:
(Venom: License to Kill#2 (fb) ) - Kostya was infected by his father's plague toxin in a lab accident. Dr. Yes built him a containment suit to slow (but not stop) the disease's effects, but the fall of communism forced him to serve as a scientist-for-hire for a variety of dictators and tyrants to pay for the suit's upkeep. Relocating to an abandoned Soviet submarine base, which he dubbed "New Odessa", Yesenofsky plotted to make all of humanity pay for his son's inevitable death.
(Venom: License to Kill#1) - When a scheduled money drop erupted into a gunfight between three of Yes' robots and CIA agent Edward Brock, Yes sent Kostya to resolve the situation.
(Venom: License to Kill#2) - Kostya subdued Brock, and brought him to New Odessa. As Yes greeted Brock, Kostya donned his new armor, becoming Red Flag. Upon discovering that the money Brock had brought was not only marked, but also counterfeit, Kostya and Yes left the androids to kill Brock while they prepared the toxin for release. They watched Brock (now morphed into Venom) tear apart the robots remotely via the robot geisha, and plotted to take his symbiote as a cure for his sickness.
(Venom: License to Kill#3) - Dr. Yes sent Kostya and an army of androids to capture Venom at New Odessa's airlock. Even en masse, the robots proved no match for the symbiote's fury, prompting Yes to send Red Flag to the surface to release the toxin. En route to the surface, Red Flag encountered an American nuclear missile, launched by Brock's handlers. Undergoing a change of heart, Kostya renounced his father's ways and steered the missile into an ocean trench, where it exploded, taking Kostya and the plague toxin with it.
Comments: Created by Larry Hama, Derec Aucoin, Rich
Faber and Ralph Cabrera.
There's a woman pictured in both of the photos of Dr. Yes and Kostya in their Soviet days, and it stands to reason that she's Yes' wife and/or Kostya's mother, but it's never explicitly spelled out. Whoever she is, she was out of the picture by the time Venom crashed their hidey-hole.
Profile by Minor Irritant.
CLARIFICATIONS:
Red Flag has no known connections to:
images: (without ads)
Venom: License to Kill#2, p16, pan1 (main image)
Venom: License to Kill#1, p11, pan1 (headshot, pre-accident)
Venom: License to Kill#2, p13, pan2 (original armor)
Venom: License to Kill#3, p16, pan2 (headshot, post-accident)
Venom: License to Kill#1, p11, pan1 (Mrs. Yesenofsky)
Other Appearances:
Venom: License to Kill#1 (June, 1997) - Larry Hama (writer), Derec Aucoin (penciller),
Rich Faber & Ralph Cabrera (inkers), Tom Brevoort (editor)
Venom: License to Kill#2 (July, 1997) - Larry Hama (writer), Derec Aucoin (penciller),
Rich Faber (inker), Tom Brevoort (editor)
Venom: License to Kill#3 (August, 1997) - Larry Hama (writer), Derec Aucoin &
Josh Hood (pencillers), Eric Cannon & Scott Koblish (inkers), Tom Brevoort (editor)
Last updated: 03/12/07
Any Additions/Corrections? please let me know.
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