James Marcus

Early Years and the Discovery of the Progenitor Virus

James Marcus was an expert in Virology and while at school he befriended Edward Ashford and they began work on the Progenitor Virus. To fund their work they needed another member, Ozwell E. Spencer and he provided all the necessary income to continue the experiments. Backed by this funding, the three discovered the Progenitor Virus in 1967 with Marcus and Spencer wanting to weaponise the virus while Ashford simply wanted to research it.

To mask this research, they formed Umbrella, a respected pharmaceutical company but what was secretly a biological weapons business. In 1968, Marcus was promoted to General Manager and Research and Development Director while also being appointed the head of the Arklay Mountain Research Facility.

Discovery of the T-Virus

It wasn’t until 1978, that Marcus created the T-Virus by mixing the Progenitor Virus with leech DNA. This discovery made Marcus well respected by his fellow researchers but made Spencer increasingly paranoid. He later took on two protegeès, William Birkin and Albert Wesker before Spencer shut down the research facility. Here, Marcus lived in isolation while continuing to work on the T-Virus and thus created the Lurker, Eliminator and the Plague Crawler. During this period, Marcus’ mental state began to worsen and he began using his assistants as experiment guinea pigs until only he was left.

Assassination and 'Rebirth'

As Spencer became more and more wary of Marcus, he sent in Birkin and Wesker to assassinate Marcus. This occurred in 1988, and although he was now dead, one of his leeches crawled into his mouth and together their DNA bonded. Over the years, Marcus regenerated and gained the ability to control the leeches, while also taking on a younger version of himself.

He resided in the facility wanting to exact revenge upon Umbrella but was later killed by Billy Coen and Rebecca Chambers a day before the Mansion Incident.