Inheriting a legacy as a professional criminal, Red Lotus turns his back on the lifestyle and joins the X-Treme X-Men, facing off fearsome foes using his mastery in Martial arts.
Born Into Crime
Born in Australia, Paul Hark is Sydney crime lord Gow Yang Ju, AKA Julius Gow’s grandson and groomed to succeed him as Triad head. Taking the name “Red Lotus,” he trains to be a master martial artist.
Master Martial Artist
Red Lotus is a highly athletic and skilled martial artist, extremely proficient in hand-to-hand combat. He also seems to possess a resistance to Rogue’s power absorption abilities and instead neutralizes them.
Ominous Opposition
Hark’s alliance to the Examiner, an associate of his grandfather, ends when Hark objects to his torture methods, and as such, suffers a similar fate as the heroes he tries to protect.
Hark joins the X-Treme X-Men and goes up against Sebastian Shaw and Regan Wyngarde, AKA Lady Mastermind, the warrior Shaitan, and the Hong Kong slave ring run by the Hellfire Club, though he gets caught unawares by the sorceress Selene.
X-Treme Allies
After facing off the Examiner, who captured X-Men Remy LeBeau, AKA Gambit, Anna Marie, AKA Rogue, Hark joins them alongside the X-Treme X-Men. The team includes Gambit and Rogue, as well as Ororo Munroe, AKA Storm, Davis Cameron, AKA Slipstream, Lucas Bishop, AKA Bishop, John Proudstar, AKA Thunderbird, Sage, Heather Cameron, AKA Lifeguard. They work together to stop the extradimensional Shaitan.
He also allies with Courtney Ross and Ophelia Sarkissian, AKA Viper, Emma Frost, and Rachel Summers, AKA Marvel Girl, against the Hellfire Club.
Red Lotus’ Record
Finding the temporarily-depowered X-Men Gambit and Rogue, standing over his murdered grandfather, he assumed they had killed Gow, and incapacitated them. Red Lotus watched as Gow’s associate the Examiner (secretly the killer) interrogated them, but when the Examiner started to torture them with acupuncture needles, Red Lotus objected, prompting the Examiner to also incapacitate him as well. When Gambit and Rogue escaped, they took Red Lotus along, concerned the Examiner would murder him and frame them for it. While the trio escaped, Red Lotus still knocked out, the Examiner’s co-conspirators, Sebastian Shaw and Lady Mastermind, attacked them and kidnapped Rogue. Though Red Lotus faked his unconsciousness and evaded Wyngarde. After this incident, Red Lotus finally believed Gambit was innocent, and helped rescue Rogue and recover evidence of the Examiner’s betrayal, which he presented to the Triad’s ruling council. When the Examiner tried to flee, Gambit captured him and delivered him to the council.
Red Lotus later helped the X-Men prevent an extra-dimensional invasion and suffered severe wounds from his encounter with the monstrous warrior Shaitan. Sometime later, he allied with Courtney Ross and Viper, to infiltrate and break up a Hellfire Club-run Hong Kong slave ring. Hark and Marvel Girl discussed his plans, but the operation’s mastermind, the immortal sorceress Selene, interrupted and captured him. Marvel girl rescued him while Ross, Viper, and Emma Frost captured the ringleaders.
