A YJA Moment - Weapons Plus

Namor the Sub-Mariner was the first known metahuman.  Although he was part Atlantean, he exhibited powers that were beyond those of the sea-dwellers.  During World War II, individuals emerged that possessed extraordinary abilities that were seeming tied to their genetics.  Both the Allies and the Axis rushed to develop ways of creating and harnessing the abilities of metahumans as weapons.

Though America is best known for Project: Rebirth and its creation of the metahuman Captain America, the deep-science division of Germany known as HYDRA had developed some sinister technologies of its own.  Knowledge of the Nazi weird-science was captured by the Allies after the end of the war, divided between American, British and Russian forces.

With the formation of the cold war, the Western powers suddenly realized that the U.S.S.R. was in possession of technology that would allow them to create their own enhanced individuals.  In addition to the nuclear arms race, the globe was looking at a more secret race - a metahuman arms race.

Spurred on by the fear of the Soviet weapons program, the United States took the remnants of Project: Rebirth and formed its own advanced research organization which it called Weapons Plus.  Because of the "red scare", Weapons Plus was created under the utmost secrecy, its funding, and existence under the highest classification level.

Weapons Plus obtained an untold number of metahumans for its research. They underwent experimentation to learn the secrets of their origins and they were brainwashed to serve as operatives for so-called Covert Action Teams.  Their secrecy allowed them to operate above any moral, ethical, or legal concerns and the horrors within Weapons Plus facilities were indescribable. 

At the end of the cold war, the American government no longer needed to spend billions on a clandestine metahuman experimentation program.  The actions of some metahuman groups against Weapons Plus had also threatened to reveal the government's role in their extremely illegal activities.  So the decision was made to end the Weapons Plus program and cut all funding.

However, Weapons Plus had learned its lessons well.  It decentralized most of its operations, allowing the various projects to operate almost completely independently of each other.  These laboratories were focused on their own missions and were purposely unaware of other parts of the organization.  This prevented any adversaries from tracing the 

It also secured its own funding, selling some of its technologies to governments and super-villains on the black market.  They also had their own operations divisions, developing the covert action team Task Force X and the intelligence-gathering Checkmate.

Utilizing blackmail and the promise of weapons to defeat their enemies, Weapons Plus has continued to operate as a rogue entity within the United States government.  Under the leadership of biokinetic director John Sublime, the agency is poised to be the new kingmaker in a renewed metahuman arms race.