Project Tearaway
Project Tearaway was a semi-secret government program initiated by USAMRIID in the late-1990s. Its initial program was to catagorize specific definitions of groups of mutation types, and to develop methods to transfer specific abilities into other applications. Particular attention was paid to mutant DNA which was shown to manifest healing factors, and to see if by twinning that DNA into boosters or skin grafts, whether it could be used to significantly improve existing medical therapies.
Unknown to Congress and their oversight committees, USAMRIID had taken a second and more radical step. By internally classifying mutants and mutant related research under the broad heading of bio-warfare, the Army branch began experiments into this newly assumed area. Tearaway was the first effort to graft mutant abilities into non-mutant subjects; a variant on the SuperSoldier program which had been ressurrected on and off over the decades by various agencies with little to no success.
Tearaway was headed by Dr. Nathaniel Essex, who successfully created a method that would graft mutant DNA into a regular person, and allow for the transfer of mutant powers. However, the project had many limitations. The individual genetic print needed to qualify to be receptive to the process was fairly limited, meaning only one individual out of a hundred thousand would match. The process had a high mortality rate amoung the volunteers. As well, specific powers rarely transfered, meaning that most subjects would go on to manifest completely different powers from the genetic template that was imprinted on them.
After more than three years, the only success was a single team of operatives, dubbed Marauders (old), to be of any use. When Congressional oversight committees began to ask questions, USAMRIID quietly shut the program down. Essex went on to continue to research elements of the process through a USAMRIID shell company called the Pygmelian Institute until 2003, when he left to joined The Xavier School for Gifted Youth.
A version of the Tearaway process, far more advanced, was utilized years later by Essex to created the flawed clone of Kevin MacTaggert called Proteus (plot).
