"KOPIYA"
"KOPIYA"
Membership: "Koshka," "Mishka," "Temnota"
Purpose: To serve Russian interests, as perceived by their Red Room masters
Aliases: None
Affiliations: Former Red Room directors
Enemies: Black Widow (Natasha Romanoff), Fantomex (Jean-Phillipe)
Base of Operations: Bestuzhev, Russia
First Appearance: A+X#10 (July 2013)
History:
(A+X#10 (fb) - BTS) - With Russia flexing its old militaristic muscles, a
group of former directors of the Red Room obtained a drive that contained
the digitalized DNA of virtually every state-sponsored hero to emerge from
Russia during the past two decades, and set up shop in the ghost town of
Bestuzhev, which had been abandoned at the end of the Cold War. There they
empowered at least three female operatives, presumably graduates or trainees
of the Red Room's Black Widow program, giving them the powers of Sibercat,
Ursa Major and Darkstar. Word leaked out about the program, and an unspecified
government hired the mutant thief Fantomex to retrieve the drive. Around
the same time the Black Widow (Natasha Romanoff) also heard of the project,
and headed to Bestuzhev to investigate and steal the data, recalling how
the Red Room robbed her of a chance for a normal life and hoping to spare
others the same fate.
Getting to the facility ahead of Natasha, Fantomex broke in, but was soon detected, and attacked by the trio of Widows.
(A+X#10) - Black Widow arrived at Bestuzhev and crept up to the supposedly abandoned facility. She peered in a window, then narrowly managed to pull herself out of the way as Fantomex crashed through it backwards, firing rapidly at the ursine shape of Mishka, who emerged through the shattered window frame seconds later. Fantomex continued firing his guns at his pursuer while deriding the Russians creating an agent with bear powers as ridiculously predictable, but Mishka shrugged off the shots and insult with equal disdain. Recognizing Fantomex as an associate of the X-Men, and identifying Mishka as a ersatz Ursa Major, Black Widow offered her assistance, but Fantomex informed her that he had a handle on the situation, using one of his many abilities to hit Mishka with an hallucination of a stream full of salmon, overwhelming her animal instincts so that she became distracted trying to swat the fish from the illusory waters rather than fighting them.
The respite was short lived as Koshka and Temnota
raced towards them, both in their depowered states. Recognizing Black Widow,
they called her a traitor to Russia and attacked. As she blocked Temnota's
kick to her face, Black Widow noticed that Fantomex was using the decoy she
was providing to slip back into the base, but she was too busy overpowering
Temnota to pursue him. The few moments it took Black Widow to knock down
Temnota were sufficient for Koshka to transform into her replicated Sibercat
form. As she lunged, Natasha dodged the slicing claws and tried to reason
with her, but Koshka persisted with her assault, so Black Widow delivered
a powerful kick to Koshka's face. Before she could follow through, the now
powered-up Temnota blasted her in the back, sending her flying.
Seeing Natasha starting to get up, Koshka urged Temnota to finish their stunned foe while she was down, but a shocked Temnota admitted that she hadn't expected Black Widow to survive the first attack. The pair's approach towards the Black Widow halted suddenly as they were distracted by Fantomex leaping out of the base through yet another window, this time carrying the data drive. Spotting Natasha, he advised her to get up and run, then took to his heels, even as she queried what she was to run from. A moment later the facility exploded; closer to the blast, Temnota and Koshka were stunned. Using his misdirection power, Fantomex distracted Black Widow with an illusion while he boarded his ship, EVA, and escaped. Annoyed at his gall, Natasha paid little heed as the three Russian doppelgangers menacingly surrounded her, but glared at them when Temnota taunted her that her friend had left her alone to face them.
(A+X#10 - BTS) - Despite being outnumbered three-to-one, it took Natasha less than five minutes to knock out all of her opponents, though they got in a few good hits, ripping portions of her outer costume to reveal the body armor hidden beneath it. Upon being rendered unconscious, both Koshka and Temnota reverted to their depowered forms, though Mishka remained in her bear form.
(A+X#10) - Standing over the three unconscious Russian replicas, Natasha informed them that Fantomex was not her friend. She then pursued Fantomex, only to find him waiting nearby, having never intended to depart. He handed over the data drive without even being asked, explaining that he had fulfilled his client's request to retrieve the data drive, but that he didn't intend to deliver it to them, since he objected to any government tampering with someone's DNA to turn them into weapons. When she asked why he had bothered to leave her in the lurch if he always intended to give her the drive, he admitted he had simply wanted to prove that he could pull off the impossible heist. Then he departed, leaving Natasha to dispose of the data drive.
Comments: Created by B. Clay Moore and Kris Anka.
Russia has past form for duplicating their heroes, as evidenced by the existence of multiple Darkstars. Generally these replacements have used the same codenames as their predecessors, but that's generally been because the Russian government wanted the general public to think the replacement was the same person as the original. So while this seems to be a related project, it doesn't seem to be the same one, especially as all the agents involved appeared to be female, despite two of the individuals they were copying being men. I presume they were all members of the Black Widow program to begin with, given the Red Room aspect of the project, the display of martial arts skills by at least one of the trio, and the jumpsuits two of them wore, which look a lot like white versions of Black Widow's jumpsuit.
Like similar profiles where no real names have been provided, I've taken the liberty of making up "placeholder" identities for ease of reference; as and when official names are given in the comics or by the creators, these placeholders will be switched out. The individual choices for placeholder names are explained in the sub-profiles. For the group, I considered White Widows (since they appeared to wear white versions of the Black Widow costume, and we've had at least one Red Widow who wore a red variant of same, so the naming seems to be color coded), or Bestuzhev Widows, after the location of the facility that empowered them. However, I finally plumped for Kopiya, which is the Russian for duplicate.
Profile by Loki.
CLARIFICATIONS:
The Kopiya have no known connections to:
Koshka has a connection to, but shouldn't be mistaken for:
Mishka has a connection to, but shouldn't be mistaken for:
Temnota has a connection to, but shouldn't be mistaken for:
Koshka was a woman with short red hair given the powers of the mutant Sibercat (a.k.a. Siberian Tiger). She was capable of transforming into her feline form at will, but reverted back when rendered unconscious. Comments: It's possible she shared Sibercat/Siberian Tiger's codename; alternatively, I considered naming her Amur, as the Amur Tiger is another name for the Siberian Tiger. However, then I learned that Koshka is both the Russian for cat, and was the name given to a Siberian Tiger in Denver Zoo, so I went for that instead. --A+X#10
|
Comments: Fantomex dubbed her Yogi, after Yogi Bear, while Black Widow noted she was a smaller version of Ursa Major. It's possible she shared Ursa Major's codename, or had one like Ursa Minor, but I went with Mishka, which is a common name for a bear in Russia and is a variation of the name of the Russian Olympic bear mascot. --A+X#10 |
Comments: It's possible she shared Darkstar's codename, like other Sasha Roerich and Reena Stanicoff, the Russian operatives given Laynia Petrovna's powers, but I went with Temnota, which is the Russian word for "Darkness." --A+X#10 |
images: (without ads)
A+X#10 , p9, pan1 (main image)
A+X#10 , p9, pan2 (defeated by Black Widow)
A+X#10 , p9, pan1 (Koshka, tiger form)
A+X#10 , p4, pan3 (Koshka, transforming)
A+X#10 , p3, pan5 (Koshka, human form)
A+X#10 , p2, pan3 (Mishka, bear form)
A+X#10 , p3, pan2 (Mishka, headshot)
A+X#10 , p3, pan5 (Temnota, human form)
A+X#10 , p6, pan1 (Temnota, powered up)
Appearances:
A+X#10 (July 2013) - B. Clay Moore (writer), Kris Anka (art), Jordan D. White
and Nick Lowe (editors)
First Posted: 03/20/2019
Last updated: 03/20/2019
Any Additions/Corrections? please let me know.
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Mishka
was a woman given the powers of the mutant Ursa Major. She could presumably
switch between bear and human forms, but was only seen in her ursine body
during her encounter with Fantomex and Black Widow.
"Temnota"
A
blonde woman given the ability to manipulate Darkforce (though she inaccurately
termed it Dark Matter), the powers of the mutant Darkstar, Temnota joined
her fellow agents in defending Bestuzhev base from the two intruders, displaying
martial arts skills as she fought Black Widow.