Origin

As a child Shela (she/her) made friends with Morgan Red (he/they). They bonded over the fact that they were secretly mutants and secretly transgender. They confided in each other about their identities first and grew into them together. Because Morgan was assigned Shela's identifying gender at birth, he was able to teach her a few things like makeup in private. Although Shela's parents accepted her when she revealed she was a mutant, they did not when she came out as trans, thus Morgan invited her to live with him and his accepting family. Combined with their ambition to become supervillains that only target bad guys, they created an operation where Morgan would supervise and hack security from his computer, and Shela would go into the field as Escapade.

Creation

Escapade debuts in the 2022 issue of Marvel's Voices: Pride

Major Story Arcs

Invitation to Krakoa

Shela's galivanting as an honorable thief got that attention of the new mutant nation of Krakoa. She was approached one night by Emma Frost and Destiny. Destiny had a vision of Shela using her ability to swap consequences with another person on Morgan accidentally. This would cause Morgan to die. Emma shared this vision with Shela using her telepathy. They leveraged this possibility to convince her to join Krakoa.

However, Shela has very strong opinions about Krakoa. She sees them as pretentious at best and authoritarian at worst. She continued solo missions until she came face to face with Skullbuster. It was such a close call that she started to reconsider Emma Frost's invitation and offer of training, much to the chagrin of Morgan, who agreed with Shela's original assessment of them.

New Mutants

Emma put Moonstar and Karma in charge of Shela's training, but he naturally gravitated to the Lost Club. She was hanging out with them one day when Wolfsbane offered them a field trip to New York. She even convinced Morgan to show up and meet her new friends. Unfortunately, they were attacked and kidnapped by the U-Men for spare parts.

While trapped in a power dampening cage, Morgan used his tech expertise to find a fluctuation in the signal granting them a small half a second window every 93 seconds that they could use their abilities. It was only enough time for Shela to swap herself out of the cage with a guard. In disguise, she tracked down Martha, who was being prepared for organ harvesting. She begged Shela to kill her, but Shela refused. She didn't trust the resurrection protocols so she double swapped into Martha's shoes, giving Martha the chance to free the others.

They were separated during their escape attempt with Morgan and Shela finding themselves on the roof of the U-Men's hideout. Unfortunately, it matched Destiny's vision of Morgan's death. Just then, Shela and Martha auto swapped back. Alone, Shela did her best to survive but was ultimately collared by Sublime.

He tried to make off with her catatonic body, but the Lost Club came to her rescue. Martha hit Sublime with a telepathic attack causing him to drop her. As she fell, she fought against changing places with Morgan and accepted her death. However, Leo slowed her descent and Wolfsbane grabbed her from thin air. Morgan's death due to Shela's lack of control has been averted.

Lethal Legion

While trying to distract Martha from the side effects of her new body, Shela shared stories of her thief days. She mentioned how the real fight wasn't humans vs mutants but everyone vs the oligarchs. Scout overheard them and thought they were actually planning a heist. They started hypothetically considering it after finding out Count Nefaria was having an open house for potential Lethal Legion members. So, they raid the Krakoa armory for random gear to make themselves look like supervillain henchman. Shela dubbed herself "Blaster Dame."

The plan was for Shela and Scout to compete while Martha sneaks into the basement to crack the safe. The first round was a combat challenge. Shela planned on losing and then switching places with one of the losers, however, her X-Men training proved more useful than she realized when she and Scout handedly made it the next round. Next round was an interview. Shela shared actual details from her childhood that forced her into supervillainy winning Nefaria's respect.

Unfortunately, Nefaria offered her special wine that got Shela drunk. Her powers started backfiring and drawing suspicion, especially from Skullbuster, who was also auditioning for the Lethal Legion. With their ruse revealed, Shela and Scout were forced to fight their way out. Luckily, members of the New Mutants came to their rescue. Once together, they decided to stop Nefaria's new team from attacking a science expo.

Back on Krakoa, Shela buried the hatchet with Morgan and shared a kiss with Martha, solidifying their mutual romantic interest.

Fall of X

When Orchis attacked the nation of Krakoa forcing all the mutants on the run, X-Corporation was reorganized as a new version of X-Corps to take on The Externals trafficking of newly emerged mutant children, while they were vulnerable. When they tracked the Externals to Brazil, who were working with Selene. Escapade was part of a group of reinforcements they had called in.

Abusing Tempo's time manipulation powers, Selene cast a spell that turned her into a giant made of blood and in control of an army of blood golems. Escapade used her abilities to switch places with Tempo, disrupting the spell, reverting Selene back to normal size and dissolving the golems.

Avengers Academy

Escapade was on a Hexus Airline flight when it was attacked by Hydra goons. She managed to nearly get the best of them, but one of the Hydra terrorists decided to open the door. A random passenger, flying with her son, was blown out the door. Shela instinctively used her ability to trade places with her, sacrificing herself. Emma Frost mobilized teleporters whom managed to save Shela and the plane. Impressed by her heroism, Emma offered her a spot in the revitalized Avengers Academy. Early into their first semester together, they were attacked by Swarm. It took the combined powers of the entire class to defeat Swarm, revealing his employer, Hexus, might have an interest in the new school.

After some time together, they were forced into action, despite Danvers' instructions not to, when Stanley Osborn, brother of fellow student, Red Goblin, was kidnapped by a new Sinister Six. Thanks to a romantic entanglement with another member, classmate Aaron Fischer believed the team had a man on the inside who would help them get Stanley back.

Mysteriant would make good on being their inside man. He even went as far as to use his illusions to trick his leader, Squid Kid, into thinking he stumbled upon his betrayal. When the Sinister Six ambushed the cadets, it was a trap to keep the villains distracted while the students free both Stanley and the sensitive business data of the likes or Roxxon and Hexus that Squid Kid had been holding for ransom. Although, rather than return it, Mysteriant had it dumped on the internet for the public to see.

Serpent in the Garden

Because the new academy existed across dimensions, it got the attention of Emplate, a vampiric mutant who also existed across dimensions. He took special interest in Shela, the lone mutant cadet. He kidnapped Shela during a particular depressive episode and tried wining and dining her to make her feel better and thus taste better. He also kept her locked up with Mettle, an original cadet of Avengers Academy who was believed to be dead. Emplate planned to use Escapade's powers to make moving through dimensions less painful.

While feeding on her, he also managed to turn Shela into a familiar. When her classmate, Bloodline, and the new resident advisor, Hazmat, found her, she attacked them. Thankfully, Bri was able to talk Shela out of her thrall and the shared with her the same medication she takes to quench her own vampiric thirst. With Shela healed, they busted Kid Juggernaut and Mettle, both of whom had been taken prisoner by Emplate and returns to the campus.

Unfortunately, they found the cadets left behind transformed into familiars of Emplate, and Escapade was too weak to fight back. Bri stood guard and fought Emplate. Bri attempted to stab him once more with the Tusk, but Emplate used Escapade's ability to switch places with her, stabbing Bri instead. Shela was shocked and reached her full potential to save Bri. She stacked her switches, diluting the Emplate infections across her friends as well as Bri's injury, thus healing them all. She also stole enough of their powers to overwhelm Emplate and banished him from this dimension. This put her into a coma.

The Midnight Chapel

Brielle was at Shela’s bedside when she heard voices coming from under the hospital bed. She found the original variants of Speed and Wiccan, created from pieces of Mephisto, who escaped their father’s realm and had been hiding on campus. They had believed they didn’t exist and that no one could sense them, as if they were ghosts. Scared by Bri, they tried to run away. Bri managed to catch up with Billy while Tommy doubled back to Shela’s bed and managed to wake her up for help. They had convinced both cadets that they needed help since Mephisto had sent Blackheart to campus to drag them back to Mephisto’s realm.

Tommy and Billy demanded they be brought to the chapel on campus. Blackheart cut them off. Shela would switch places with the demon. She would feel his despair, but he would feel her hope. In that instance, he allowed them to escape, angering Mephisto. When they finally arrived at the chapel, they were met by Kid Immortus (a time displaced variant of Iron Lad). the chaplain of the chapel, and M'Kraan, an angelic being who saved Immortus. She took the twins to safety.

Afterward, Blackheart would be returned to campus transformed into a human by Mephisto as punishment for his failure.

Lost in Time

As revenge for failing to enchant Kid Juggernaut, Enchantress curses the Avengers cadet to speak their hearts’ truths, leading to some awkward conversations. Jara, the lost valkyrie who runs the ice cream shop across the street from campus and has grown to like the students, uses a magic trinket of her own to undo the curse. However, these magical spells weaken the M’Kraan crystal that holds the campus in a superposition across time and space. Kid Immortus needed to send the cadets into time to correct incursions. Bri and Shela found themselves on ancient Asgard during a vampire attack.

The vampires were sent by Bellos, who had kidnapped Jara of the Riven Sky, who brings with her the sun. Bellos also ripped out his own eye and set a young Loki to find it, believing it to be a special stone. Once Loki brought it within Odin's castle, Bellos was able to use it as an invitation. Luckily, Bri and Shela had tracked down Jara's prison and released her. They returned with Jara and the sun, wiping Bellos and the vampires out. With Asgard's timeline corrected, Kid Immortus was able to locate and rescue them.

One World Under Doom

When Doctor Doom usurped the title of Sorcerer Supreme, he used it to install himself as world emperor. A Hydra splinter group, led by Sin (still using her Cherry Crane alias) used the confusion to hide their new illegal activities as they rounded up seditious residents of America including Jara and Marcus. The cadets locate Marcus on a maglev train Hydra was using to travel the country. As resident heist-master, Shela made a plan for them to board the train.

Blackheart opened portals to campus that the cadets could lead prisoners through, but his magic finally got the attention of Doom. He disliked the interdimensional magic of his mother’s torturer on Earth. He sent a fleet of doombots to take out Blackheart, who needed to be defended by the cadets. Meanwhile, Shela and Justin went to rescue Marcus from Sin and her enforcer, Maphegor, an apostle of Cyttorak. Shela tricked Sin into pushing her off the train so Shela could switch places with her midair, and Malphegor made his escape after Justin broke his crimson staff.

After Justin stopped the train, the cadets were finally confronted by Doom himself. They were completely overwhelmed, but Shela had an idea. She tried to attack Doom, who grabbed her and readied to attack. Shela then switched back with Sin, who took the brunt of Doom’s energy blast. Just as disgusted with Hydra, Doom burned the skin off Sin’s face yet again. Satisfied with whatever success he accomplished, Doom decided to leave Blackheart to his new prison of humanity.

Character Profile

• Height: 5'9"
• Weight: 175 lbs
• Eye Color: Green
• Hair Color: Red
• Citizenship: American
• Place of Birth: Medford, Massachusetts
• Marital Status: Single
• Occupation: Thief, part-time game designer
• Known Relatives: Unidentified parents, Morgan Red (best friend), Morgan Red's parents (took in Shela when her parents kicked her out for being trans)
• Distinguishing Features: Dyes the tips of her hair blue

Power & Abilities

X-Gene: Escapade has the ability to swap "circumstances" with another person. Circumstances mean their literal location in space but also refers to their powers, skills, and health, among others. It comes especially in-handy when cornered by a more ruthless supervillain.

• Limitations: Her target for swapping must be within seven feet. She can end the swap of physical characteristics other than location at any time, however, she appears to be able to maintain it for at least a few hours before it swaps back automatically.

Gadgets: Escapade as a wide array of gadgets that she has stolen from other supervillains and abusive labs.

• Repulsors: Repulsor tech in her boots and gloves allow her to fly
• Gravity Dice: Gravity randomizing generator. Numbers represent different planets gravity level. Shuri later retrofitted it to her gloves to use for flight or tractor beam.
• Glitter Bomb: Her gloves were also outfitted by Shuri with a tech neutralizing glitter.