{"id":280,"date":"2016-01-28T11:39:26","date_gmt":"2016-01-28T16:39:26","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/mozaikcomics.com\/HeroesWithoutBorders\/?p=280"},"modified":"2016-01-28T11:41:04","modified_gmt":"2016-01-28T16:41:04","slug":"hero-beat-akulas","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/mozaikcomics.com\/HeroesWithoutBorders\/blog\/2016\/01\/28\/hero-beat-akulas\/","title":{"rendered":"HERO BEAT: AKULAS"},"content":{"rendered":"

\u201cA Russian superhero is a stillborn, stunted thing,\u201d Head of Interpol Moscow, Oleg Yudin, infamously told reporters at a 2009 press conference. His comment was born out of frustration, and he quickly suffered under the lash of the outcry that followed even though Yudin had made a career of blunt statements. This time, he was speaking on the diaspora of Russian metahumans across the globe and the import of foreign superhumans for hire into Moscow itself. Despite the admiration of the rank-and-file for Yudin, however, Moscow\u2019s Police Commissioner and Interpol Secretary General both agreed that it was time for him to step down.<\/p>\n

At the time it was seen as a vindication for the proud Russian people, but since then, it\u2019s a move that’s left many people wondering: Was Oleg Yudin right?<\/p>\n

There are parts of the world where being a metahuman is plain dangerous: Somalia, Sudan, and Myanmar where civil war has turned regional supers into petty warlords or into weapons of genocide; Iran, Afghanistan, and Yemen where religious unrest have made supers instruments of terrorism or victims of it; and China, North Korea, Syria, and Belarus where metahumans have become tools of the regime. So putting Russia on this map is a tricky, dangerous thing. Not because supers live in fear, and not because the Russians don\u2019t love their supers with the fervor of a European soccer fan rooting for his home team at the World Cup, but because an embarrassment of riches is often laid at a metahuman\u2019s feet. And with so much wealth being thrown their way, it\u2019s hardly surprising that many Russian metas sell their services for profit.<\/p>\n

The Cold War had seen its share of state-sponsored heroes posturing in both corners of the ring. It was theater, it was camp with an ultranationalist flair, and it was propaganda. What would become the modern identity of the Russian superhuman was born in the death throes of Communist Russia. The captains of the bureaucracy that held the Soviet administration together, the so-called elite known as the nomenklatura<\/em>, had already seen the writing on the wall. They, along with ex-KGB and with members of the Russian Mafiya, knew that Communism was dying and that capitalism had already wormed its way into the void for those with connections. It was a money grab for State-resources and crumbling institutions, and in the case of metahumans registered by the Soviet state, a literal power grab for their abilities.<\/p>\n

Where supers were once expected to follow and obey the edicts of the Supreme Soviet of Russia by way of special division KGB-Alfa, metas found themselves being courted and wooed by the nomenklatura as bodyguards and by the Mafiya as enforcers. It was a new reality, and whatever old world reservations they might have possessed concerning the \u201cevils of the West\u201d evaporated when the money hit their bank accounts. Not all, but those who did found themselves working with metas who\u2019d evaded government notice and who had been working underground for the Russian Mafiya as so-called akulas<\/em> or sharks.<\/p>\n

The Russian Mafiya, or Bratva, first came to the West in the 1970s and 80s, as d\u00e9tente allowed for the immigration of Russian Jews across the world. Russian mobsters hid among the refugees, gaining a foothold in Brighton Beach as the Odessa Mob, and spreading across North America from there. Akulas, on the other hand, didn\u2019t start appearing until after the fall of Communism, in the 90s when the government also lost track of their key bioweapons scientists and some of their nuclear arsenal. Akulas remained below the public radar, however, until Russian enforcers Zaraza <\/em>and Ovcharka<\/em> went after several metahumans for their attacks against the Odessa Mob\u2019s franchise businesses. The pair severely wounded The Ruby Saint and Fearsomebody, but it was the brutal murder of Gallant that pulled The Honor and New York\u2019s Finest into the fight. During the month-long manhunt that saw over two-dozen metahumans pull together to apprehend the pair, Zaraza was captured, but Ovcharka managed to escape North America and vanish back inside Russia.<\/p>\n

Suddenly, everyone wanted to know more about the tracksuit-wearing metas who worked for the mob; the public\u2019s fascination with Russian akulas began in earnest and it was impossible to satiate their thirst for news. To the West, akulas represented the ghost of the Cold War come back to haunt the Democratic-loving countries. To the Eastern Bloc, they represented heroes who were unafraid of American bullying and its grandstanding metas. They became the foremost threat to U.S. security according to the FBI, and attendance in the War College surged as supers begged for training to protect them from the ruthless Russian-trained killers.<\/p>\n

As more information was made public, it seemed that everyone\u2019s fears were justified. Russia\u2019s supers had either trained under the special division of KGB-Alfa or had honed their skills with the ruthless Bratva. Either way, the akulas were to be feared\u2014the new boogeymen and women with whom nobody wanted to tangle. Quick to rise into public notoriety were the brothers Serp<\/em> & Molot<\/em> who were supposed to be the next generation of Soviet worker-heroes before the fall of the Berlin Wall, Saadak <\/em>the psychic archer who fought in Afghanistan, Krasnyy Golub\u2019 <\/em>the Systema master, and Mitgh <\/em>the water-controlling meta turned first female Bratva boss.<\/p>\n

\"Serp
Serp & Molot<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

Everyone wanted them caught, nobody wanted to tangle with them. Any time Interpol or a Federal Task Force came close to corning a high-profile akula, they would vanish back into Russia or one of the former satellite states where friends in high and low places alike protected them. Interpol launched Operation Atlantic to apprehend wanted akulas, centered in the Moscow office under Oleg Yudin, but without the resources or exosuits of units like New York\u2019s Armored Mobile Police or the help of local metahumans, they were doomed to fail, hence Yudin\u2019s gaff at the press conference.<\/p>\n

What Yudin faced, and what still goes on is a combination of two already insurmountable factors. The first is the disparity of wealth in Russia and particularly Moscow, where extravagantly wealthy men and women can buy the best and most powerful metahumans; even the lowest Charlie-class hero can find lucrative employment and the kind of yearly salary the average Muscovite may never see in a lifetime of hard work. Throw on top of that the promise of ability boosting through power brokers in India, Brazil, and the United Arab Emirates, and the allure of more power and money would be enough to test any superhuman\u2019s resolve.<\/p>\n

The second is the unspoken fraternity among the Eastern European community of metahumans, that even if you don\u2019t use your abilities for profit, you do not betray your fellow metahuman. It\u2019s what we in the West would better understand as the Blue Wall of Silence, that unspoken rule that police officers do not betray their fellow officers. In this case, it\u2019s called solidarnost\u2019 <\/em>or ‘solidarity,’ and it is a frightening wall of silence for any Eastern European metahuman thinking of breaking it. At best, you might find yourself outside the protection of your fellow supers, and at worst, hunted by them. Many experts, however, claim the opposite circumstances are equally worse. Akulas are in the business of getting people (especially unaligned metahumans) to owe them favors by helping out with money or manpower\u2026 whatever it takes to get a super indebted to them or their bosses. And once you\u2019re in the family, there is no backing out. You\u2019re in for life because these are debts that can never be repaid.<\/p>\n

Solidarnost\u2019 applies to the United States, where Russian mobsters have created a thriving mercenary industry in renting out their akulas on contract for other organizations. That said, the hold of solidarnost\u2019 is not as broad here simply because the Russian Mob is more actively surveilled and hunted by American authorities. It\u2019s created a more tightly knit group of akulas who distrust outsiders and rarely fill their ranks with anyone who isn\u2019t originally Eastern European (and thus vetted by people back home).<\/p>\n

Unfortunately, there is no hope of it getting better anytime soon as the Mafiya continues to export Eastern European supers and rich Russians import expat metas. Moscow has consistently ranked as the top billionaire city in the world over the past six years, with over 85 billionaires living in the Russian capital of capitalism. Many of them are billionaires thanks to Russia\u2019s oil boom, and they are young and eager to surround themselves with nothing but the best status symbols regardless the cost: Cars, art, mansions, metas. There is a high demand for superhumans, and moreso for experienced metas. This means a brisk trade in both local talent and among expats who washed out on their two-year tours in Europe and North America. With the average salary of Muscovites at $1,200 a month, it\u2019s not surprising that many Russian metas forego patrolling the streets to fight crime when a salaried position pays for a life of comfort for them and their entire family.<\/p>\n

Also adding worry and fear of a bloody future involving akulas is what many organized-crime experts are calling an inevitable war between the Mafiyah and the Cartels. Both organizations rent metahumans out as soldiers, and the drug and human smuggling trade is bringing in Cartel-loyal supers from throughout Central and South America up into the United States. With deep pockets on both sides and territory to secure, it seems likely that a mob war between the two will see the first wide scale conflicts between metahumans. If my contacts are to be believed, both the Russians and Cartels are already planning for the eventual conflict by training their mercenaries and importing more metas into North American strongholds. This alone should worry North America’s superheroes, who should be preparing for the worst.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

\u201cA Russian superhero is a stillborn, stunted thing,\u201d Head of Interpol Moscow, Oleg Yudin, infamously told reporters at a 2009 press conference. His comment was born out of frustration, and he quickly suffered under the lash of the outcry that […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_is_tweetstorm":false,"jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":true,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","enabled":false}}},"categories":[4],"tags":[],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p6OdZi-4w","jetpack-related-posts":[{"id":160,"url":"http:\/\/mozaikcomics.com\/HeroesWithoutBorders\/blog\/2015\/11\/26\/hero-beat-the-liberation-of-metahumans\/","url_meta":{"origin":280,"position":0},"title":"HERO BEAT: THE LIBERATION OF METAHUMANS","author":"Lucien","date":"November 26, 2015","format":false,"excerpt":"The photographs are iconic of the 20th Century, as indelible as the flaming crash of the Hindenburg, and a defiant Muhammad Ali standing over Sonny Liston in the ring. The grainy black and white photos on D-Day, June 6th, 1944 show Nazi-Kicker and The Honor protecting U.S., British, and Canadian\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "Hero Beat"","block_context":{"text":"Hero Beat","link":"http:\/\/mozaikcomics.com\/HeroesWithoutBorders\/blog\/category\/hero-beat\/"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":392,"url":"http:\/\/mozaikcomics.com\/HeroesWithoutBorders\/blog\/2016\/04\/28\/hero-beat-is-back\/","url_meta":{"origin":280,"position":1},"title":"Hero Beat is Back!","author":"Lucien","date":"April 28, 2016","format":false,"excerpt":"Hero Beat is back! Work has been hectic recently, and I can't wait till I get to announce what I'm working on at my day job at Ubisoft Montreal. Until that time, however, here's a new Hero Beat article talking about The Narcissist, who we showcased in a mini arc\u2026","rel":"","context":"Similar post","block_context":{"text":"Similar post","link":""},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":225,"url":"http:\/\/mozaikcomics.com\/HeroesWithoutBorders\/blog\/2015\/12\/17\/hero-beat-turning-a-blind-eye-on-the-baga-massacres\/","url_meta":{"origin":280,"position":2},"title":"HERO BEAT: TURNING A BLIND EYE ON THE BAGA MASSACRES","author":"Lucien","date":"December 17, 2015","format":false,"excerpt":"Between January 3rd and January 7th of 2015, the Jihadists known as Boko Haram tore through the Nigerian state of Borno. They overran the Multinational Joint Taskforce military base, and massacred over 2000 people in the town of Baga before Heroes without Borders managed to stop their rampage. While Heroes\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "Hero Beat"","block_context":{"text":"Hero Beat","link":"http:\/\/mozaikcomics.com\/HeroesWithoutBorders\/blog\/category\/hero-beat\/"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/mozaikcomics.com\/HeroesWithoutBorders\/wp-content\/uploads\/2015\/12\/BANGARANG3-249x300.jpg?resize=350%2C200","width":350,"height":200},"classes":[]},{"id":208,"url":"http:\/\/mozaikcomics.com\/HeroesWithoutBorders\/blog\/2015\/12\/10\/hero-beat-talking-with-riot-act\/","url_meta":{"origin":280,"position":3},"title":"HERO BEAT: TALKING WITH RIOT ACT","author":"Lucien","date":"December 10, 2015","format":false,"excerpt":"It\u2019s Friday night at the end of a long shift, and Harry\u2019s is packed. Obviously, Harrys\u2019 isn\u2019t the bar\u2019s real name, the officers of the Armored Mobile Police (A.M.P.) and the investigative arm better known as Amplitude Squad like to keep their favorite watering hole a secret. So I\u2019m here\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "Hero Beat"","block_context":{"text":"Hero Beat","link":"http:\/\/mozaikcomics.com\/HeroesWithoutBorders\/blog\/category\/hero-beat\/"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":151,"url":"http:\/\/mozaikcomics.com\/HeroesWithoutBorders\/blog\/2015\/11\/19\/hero-beat-interview-with-grimsta\/","url_meta":{"origin":280,"position":4},"title":"HERO BEAT: INTERVIEW WITH GRIMSTA","author":"Lucien","date":"November 19, 2015","format":false,"excerpt":"It was April 27th,\u00a02011 at the height of the Super Outbreak of storms when over two hundred tornadoes touched down across Alabama, Tennessee, Georgia, and Mississippi. It devastated towns and killed 355 people over the course of four days. Four of the tornadoes that spawned that day were F5s, the\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "Hero Beat"","block_context":{"text":"Hero Beat","link":"http:\/\/mozaikcomics.com\/HeroesWithoutBorders\/blog\/category\/hero-beat\/"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/mozaikcomics.com\/HeroesWithoutBorders\/wp-content\/uploads\/2015\/11\/Grimsta-copy-218x300.jpg?resize=350%2C200","width":350,"height":200},"classes":[]},{"id":288,"url":"http:\/\/mozaikcomics.com\/HeroesWithoutBorders\/blog\/2016\/02\/04\/hero-beat-roadkill-inc\/","url_meta":{"origin":280,"position":5},"title":"HERO BEAT: ROADKILL INC.","author":"Lucien","date":"February 4, 2016","format":false,"excerpt":"You\u2019ve probably seen their white and yellow vans driving around Manhattan following a metahuman \u2018incident.\u2019 That\u2019s the industry\u2019s polite term for when metahumans get involved in something messy. Roadkill Inc. isn\u2019t a name that inspires confidence, Donna Bartlet will be the first to admit with a broad grin, but nobody\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "Hero Beat"","block_context":{"text":"Hero Beat","link":"http:\/\/mozaikcomics.com\/HeroesWithoutBorders\/blog\/category\/hero-beat\/"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]}],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/mozaikcomics.com\/HeroesWithoutBorders\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/280"}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/mozaikcomics.com\/HeroesWithoutBorders\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/mozaikcomics.com\/HeroesWithoutBorders\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/mozaikcomics.com\/HeroesWithoutBorders\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/mozaikcomics.com\/HeroesWithoutBorders\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=280"}],"version-history":[{"count":4,"href":"http:\/\/mozaikcomics.com\/HeroesWithoutBorders\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/280\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":285,"href":"http:\/\/mozaikcomics.com\/HeroesWithoutBorders\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/280\/revisions\/285"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/mozaikcomics.com\/HeroesWithoutBorders\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=280"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/mozaikcomics.com\/HeroesWithoutBorders\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=280"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/mozaikcomics.com\/HeroesWithoutBorders\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=280"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}