International Operations (Wildstorm)

International Operations
Publication information
Publisher	Wildstorm
First appearance	WildC.A.T.s #1 (August, 1992)
Created by	Jim Lee, Brandon Choi
In-story information
Type of organization	Intelligence agency
Base(s)	Black Towers, (McLean, Virginia).
Agent(s)	John Lynch, Mark Slayton Cole Cash, Holden Carver, Miles Craven, Ivana Baiul, Ben Santini, Frank Colby, Alicia Turner, Dominique Faust

International Operations (a.k.a. I.O., IO or I/O) is a fictional American Intelligence Agency in Wildstorm comics. I.O. first appeared in WildC.A.T.S. volume 1 #1 (August, 1992) and was created by Brandon Choi and Jim Lee.

International Operations was founded in 1964 as a branch of the Central Intelligence Agency with the mission to safeguard the United States' interests and safety abroad. It quickly became an independent agency under the leadership of Director Miles Craven. The appearance of Youngblood was the original reason for the restart of Project Genesis.

Under Miles Craven, I.O. became a vehicle for Craven's obsession with superhumans. Craven wanted to control a group of superhumans himself and had the luck to come into contact with Dr. Simon Tsung. Tsung had found a baby with superhuman powers. This baby, Ethan McCain, was the reincarnation of Sigma, a superhero from an alternate universe. Tsung studied the baby and managed to isolate the source of its superhuman powers: the Gen-factor. Craven exposed many test-subjects to the Gen-factor, but most of them died or went insane. Others were physically mutated into monsters and Craven locked them away on Level Nine. During these tests Craven was assisted by Gabriel Newman, a telepath. When Tsung found out about Craven's experiments, he went into hiding with the help of Admiral Philip Cray, father of Michael Cray.

After many failed experiments, Craven decided to expose his best men to the Gen-factor. He sent Team 7 on a fake mission and exposed them to the Gen-factor, claiming later that it was a chemical weapon used by their enemy. Most of Team 7 started to develop superpowers, except for Michael Cray, whose powers wouldn't manifest till 20 years later. Other members went insane or committed suicide, but in the end seven members of Team 7 had developed superpowers while retaining their humanity. Craven sent them out on another bogus mission to test them, leaving Cray behind on a ship. He then fired a nuclear weapon at Team 7, but Cray managed to warn them in time (taking the ship into custody and holding the Captain as a hostage at the same time. For this, he spent time in Leavenworth). Team 7 combined their powers and formed a shield, allowing them to survive the nuclear weapon. They then went into hiding, except for team leader John Lynch who returned to work for Craven.

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Wikipedia