ALMA MATRIXALMA MATRIX
Real Name: Alma Zareth
Identity/Class: Human, possibly mutate (see
comments);
uncertain citizenship, possibly Italian, but probably not
American
Occupation: Scientist
Group Membership: None
Affiliations: Apparently controlled the possessed
Vera Croce security;
formerly Edwig Caine, Gemini
(Balance/Deborah
Crovi, Front/Gabriel
Caine, Grip/Brandon
Blake, Mandala/Iman
Dashire, Suede/Nicholas
Blake), Nosferath
Enemies: Edwig Caine, Lancelot, Gemini
Known Relatives: None
Aliases: "Mother Matrix" (called this by Child One)
Base of Operations: Vera Croce (True Cross) Base, Northern Italy
First
Appearance: (As Dr. Alma Zareth) Europa#0
(April 1996);
(as Alma Matrix) Europa#3 (September 1996)
Powers/Abilities: Alma Matrix was apparently able
to interface with technology, controlling and transforming it, allowing
her to take over powered armor, killing those inside via their
cybernetic interfaces and piloting their suits remotely, and also to
make cables and flooring transform into serpentine creations (see
comments).
Alma was a genius scientist and one of the
world's top experts in artificial intelligence.
Height: 5'10"" (by approximation; she wore heels, appearing taller)
Weight: 160 lbs. (by approximation)
Eyes: Green
Hair: Red
(Europa#2
(fb) - BTS) - The true source of the Gemini members' powers, Child One
was almost frozen, its heart beating once per six minutes while
machines fed its brain oxygen, keeping it asleep but alive. Zareth
realized Caine feared it waking, but was unable to destroy it either,
and though he wanted to examine the infant and find ways to tap into
its vast power, he didn't dare to go too far.
(Europa#0 (fb) - BTS) - Zareth
created a virtual reality training program for their EuroMind series
supercomputer, enabling the team of young heroes Caine had assembled to
practice their combat techniques safely against simulated opponents;
accessing the cerebral areas that generated dreams, those inside the
simulation believed themselves to be in genuine combat and real danger,
thus ensuring realistic responses. Eager to obtain S.H.I.E.L.D. backing
for the team, Caine arranged for the team to be officially evaluated,
and Zareth programmed their simulation with a standard training program
sent to them by S.H.I.E.L.D.,
processing the compatibility procedures. 
(Europa#0) - Caine met American S.H.I.E.L.D. agent Lancelot when he arrived at Vera Croce to carry out the evaluation, and introduced him to Zareth; seeking to be a good host, she offered him fresh made Italian coffee. Together they escorted the new arrival to the simulation room, where the team were already logged into the simulation via their virtual reality helmets. Lancelot and Caine donned interface helmets to watch the team in action, with Zareth logging them into the system so they were effectively electronic ghosts, unseen and incorporeal to the participants. However, one Gemini member, the telepath Balance, sensed Lancelot's presence and his unhappiness with Gemini's performance, so she overrode the system, attacking Lancelot and pulling him fully into the simulation.
Realizing something was going wrong, Caine called to Zareth to pull them both out, but Zareth was only able to disengage Caine, noting in confusion that the software seemed to have generated a "parallel variable to the original scheme" and cut her out. Caine swiftly ordered Zareth to disengage Lancelot's helmet, but when she tried to do so, her console violently shorted out, nearly electrocuting her. For the next few tense minutes Lancelot fought against overwhelming odds within the simulation before finally being released just as he was about to be slain. As Zareth watched, Caine tried to apologize, but it was clear the damage had been done, and after Lancelot departed Caine had a tense debrief with Gemini and Zareth. After dismissing the team, Caine and Zareth looked in on Child One, silently sleeping in its containment chamber.
(Europa#2 (fb) - BTS) - Gemini member Front, Caine's adoptive son, seemingly went rogue and murdered Caine (actually a Life Model Decoy/LMD the scientist used to fake his demise). With Caine's seeming demise, S.H.I.E.L.D. stepped in and took charge of Gemini.(Europa#2) - With
Gemini very much in the public eye and seeking to
sway Italian public opinion in the team's favor, Caine
had been booked for a television interview with investigative
journalist Carlo Paci; apparently unaware of Caine's deception, Zareth
took his place. Paci raised the prospect that the Italian public was
uncomfortable with having foreign powers such as Gemini and
S.H.I.E.L.D. operating in their country, but she insisted that she was
merely a scientist, not in charge of anything, and insisted that Caine
was a great man and scientist whose dream, Gemini, would not die with
him.
She reminded the journalist of Gemini's well-known (and partially faked) origin, that of infant children who had been the sole survivors of a terrorist attack twenty years ago, and who would have died had they not been healed by Caine's life-saving research. Paci challenged whether the children would have chosen to become superheroes had they been given the choice, but Zareth responded that the powers the children had manifested later had not been anticipated, and that each of them had made a free choice to join Gemini out of a sense of responsibility. Speaking directly to the camera, she told the audience not to fear, as Gemini were there to help and protect everyone.
After the interview Zareth visited Child
One's containment vessel with the remains of the Euro-Adaptoid, a robot
Gemini had recently defeated. She pondered Child One's sleeping form,
and decided to be bolder than Caine. He had feared trying to tap into
Child One's full power, but she did not, and now the salvaged remains of
the Euro-Adaptoid had yielded a microchip based on the same technology as
the Cosmic Cube, which she intended to use to enter Child One's dreams
and communicate with it.
(Europa#3 - BTS) -
Elsewhere in the base, Mandala and Balance were confronted by a
technological serpent of cables and flooring that arose to attack them.
The pair fled into the corridor to see Suede battling the security
guards. He took them down with an explosion, and tried to reassure
Mandala and Balance, who were unsure whether he or the guards were the
threat. As the ground began shaking, Suede urged them that they needed
to leave, quickly, but his plea came too late, as the entire building
lifted off into the air.
Suede, Mandala and Balance fought their way through the base, overpowering more security guards and discovering to their horror that the men inside the armor were dead, slain and then piloted by cables which had extruded from the helmets. Reaching the main control area, the trio blasted the door open, and were momentarily relieved to see Grip standing amidst the swirling smoke...until he collapsed.
(Europa#3) - Behind Grip was Alma Matrix, carrying Child One. The eldritch babe identified the Gemini members as the superhumans Alma had promised it and stated that if she delivered them to it, it would give her permission to nurture it (see comments). She responded that they belonged to it, but apologetically noted that their leader (Front) was missing; Child One reassured her that it sensed another of its minions (Mr. Illusion) who would bring it Front.
(Europa#4 (fb)
- BTS) - Alma Matrix and Child One captured the
remaining members of Gemini and Caine.
(Europa#4) - Alma Matrix transformed the
interior of the base into a Gigeresque-nightmare, binding the captive
members of Gemini to the walls and holding Caine to a throne-like
protusion. Caine begged to know why she was doing this, appealing to
her as a scientist, but she responded that though he was a genius he
was limited, and that what was happening now stood far beyond science.
She asked him rhetorically when a researcher had ever stopped before
horror, asking him why she shouldn't finish what he had begun? As he
protested, she pronounced Gemini's members cursed, saying they always
had been, and she explained to the other captives how Caine had made a
pact with Nosferath, an entity that had escaped from Hell, to bring
them back to life after they had died as infants, sharing its eldritch
power with them, only for Caine to betray and imprison it.
Mr. Illusion, Front
and Lancelot soon arrived, and, after seeing through Mr. Illusion's
deceptions, the new arrivals were confronted by the captured Caine and
Gemini, held prisoner by Alma Matrix and the floating form of Child One.
The entity praised Mr. Illusion for being a good slave, then turned to
Matrix. Apparently realizing what was about to happen, she pleaded that
it had allowed her to feed it, stating that was its meal, but Child One
corrected her, saying that it wasn't, and that it would allow her to
feed it again. Ignoring her protests and screams, Child One drained her
lifeforce, initiating its transformation into its true Nosferath form,
and apparently killing her.
Nosferath was subsequently defeated, and
Lancelot and the Gemini members returned to Earth, where the media
coverage of their return attributed the loss of Vera Croce base, Caine
and Zareth to another terrorist attack.
Comments: Created by Giorgio Lavagna, Francesco Mio, Luca Poli and
Carmine Di Giandomenico.
Poli and Di Giandomenico did the character designs for the
Gemini characters, while Fabrizio
Ugolini and Giampaolo Frizzi drew and inked the actual series.
The story doesn't explicitly reveal Alma Matrix's powers; however, the way the technology in the base acts once she wakes Child One resembles to some extent the way the Euro-Adaptoid attacked and absorbed people, and since Zareth used technology salvaged from the Euro-Adaptoid in her experiment to tap into Child One's power, and had a preexisting affinity for technology via her chosen scientific field, it seems reasonable to assume that she was the one who took over the base, turned the guards into armor-zombies and transformed parts of the building into robotic serpents.
The story isn't entirely clear
on the exact relationship between Alma Matrix and Child One. Though
the creature was said to be sleeping, it was still aware enough of
things to influence Mr. Illusion, so it might have been whispering in
her mind for a while too. Was she bad even before she made contact, or
did it corrupt her with promises of power once she made contact, or
did it outright control her? I'm guessing the middle option, but it
could be any of them. Before she made contact she did think to herself
that unlike Caine she wasn't scared to try and tap into its full
power, but that might be in a purely scientific sense, not a "get
power for myself personally" sense. The comments both she and the
child made about her feeding/nurturing it only make it more confusing
- it seemingly wasn't influencing her with promises of giving
her power, and sounds more like it was promising to let
her mother it. So did it tap into some maternal instinct within
Zareth?
Profile by Loki, with invaluable aid from comic translator Angelo Mammone.
CLARIFICATIONS:
Alma Matrix has no known connections to:
Europa#3, p16, pan1 (main image)
Europa#2, p18, pan4 (headshot)
Europa#2, p17, pan1 (civilian clothes, TV interview)
Europa#3, p6, pan1 (serpentine cable thing)
Europa#4, p15, pan4 (death)
Appearances:
Europa #0-5 (April-October, 1996) - Giorgio Lavagna
and Francesco Mio (writers), Fabrizio Ugolini (pencils), Giampaolo
Frizzi (inks), Enrico Fornaroli; Marco M. Lupoi; Miguel Carrasco
(editors)
First Posted: 10/05/2020
Last updated: 10/05/2020
Any Additions/Corrections? please let me know.
Non-Marvel
Copyright
info
All other characters mentioned or pictured are ™ and © 1941-2099
Marvel Characters, Inc. All Rights Reserved. If you like this stuff, you
should check out the real thing!
Please visit The Marvel Official Site at: http://www.marvel.com
Special Thanks to www.g-mart.com for hosting the Appendix, Master List, etc.!