Name: Miri
DW username: meerkats
E-Mail: aikeichan@gmail.com
IM: Kitchnnsync
Plurk: pondicusrex

Other Characters: Hannibal Lecter

Character Name: Tommy Shepherd
Series: Marvel 616 - Young Avengers
Timeline: post New YA#2, after he gets stolen by Not!Patriot.
Canon Resource Link: here

Character History:


Tommy’s history begins with a story of non-existence. Once upon a time, a woman named Wanda Maximoff, more commonly known as the Scarlet Witch, fell in love with an android. Desperate for children, she warped reality and created for herself twins. The problem is, of course, that matter cannot be created nor destroyed, only changed. In order to make for herself children, her chaos magic drew them from pieces of Mephisto’s soul. She was able to have her children for only a short while, before Master Pandemonium came to claim them back for Mephisto. Unfortunately for him, he was not strong enough to match Wanda’s magic and the souls of the children were dispersed, entering the wombs of two separate women.


" I don't have feelings and I don't hold hands. "

Tommy was born to Frank and Mary Shepherd in Springfield, New Jersey. Their relationship was tumultuous and they divorced when Tommy was still a kid, beginning the weakening of Tommy’s sense of existing family. Most of his youth was spent in delinquency, and while we don’t know when his powers manifested, we can safely assume that they came early. Ever faster than everyone else in body and mind, he always felt different, which would lead him later to have a great deal of respect for Magneto, his grandfather and a notable mutant terrorist. He acted out enough in his impatient, hyperactive youth to end up in and out of juvenile detention centers for most of his earlier teenage years. It was during this time that he had one of his first and possibly his only serious relationship, with a girl named Lisa. Lisa was smart, a budding artist and social activist. She and Tommy worked well together; he wasn't stupid, just full of too much energy. She was patient with him, stone faced and introspective in the face of his endless energy, and the sex was pretty great too. At least as great as sex between teenagers could be.

Being a repeat juvenile offender was bad enough, but in his last stint of being an actual high school student, he earned a worse punishment. Not entirely in control of his own frustrations, Tommy “accidentally” used his powers to vaporize his high school.

Vaporize is a kind word. He blew it up.

No one was hurt that we know of, but Tommy was officially designated a dangerous mutant and imprisoned in a high security juvenile detention facility equipped to deal with dangerous mutants. They dampened his powers and locked him up for months.

Skipping ahead a few months full of solitary confinement and unethical experimentation on an underage mutant, and Tommy was finally broken out of prison by the most unlikely group of people. In an attempt to gather as many useful helpers as possible in order to find a missing team member, the group known as the Young Avengers broke him out of his super powered prison. In their ranks was Billy Kaplan, whose face matched Tommy’s exactly. He was quick to violently attack the officers who had treated him so poorly, but that wasn't going to fly.

“We didn't come here to free a super-powered teenage terrorist. We're here to rescue a superhero. So, what's it going to be?”

He had a choice, in that moment, that would come to define him. Be the bad guy the administrators of this prison and every school he had ever been in wanted to say he was and stay behind, or join the Young Avengers and give himself a second chance at being good. He took his choice and became Speed of the Young Avengers. He had never been a bad kid, just an unfortunate one, lashing out.

And so Tommy’s new life began. He never returned to high school (as far as we know), instead living somewhere in New York City, presumably by himself, dedicating himself to being part of the team. He was eager to take this second chance, to be a hero. Throughout their ordeal choosing sides during the superhero civil war, Tommy remained a firm team member, more dedicated to the team than any other side.

Still, in spite of his attempts at being better, Tommy would always have a little speed demon in him. Being a good guy didn't mean that he had to be good all the time, after all, and what’s the point of being a super powered teenager without having a little fun? For example, during a date with teammate Kate Bishop, Tommy convinced her that it was a great idea to break into the Avengers apartment and steal back Hawkeye’s bow.

Needless to say that as neither of them were subsequently banned from the hero business, that went over pretty well.

Meanwhile, Tommy and Billy approached together their own awkward situation. They looked the same, and shared the powers of the Scarlet Witch and Quicksilver, noteworthy mutant twins. Billy was sure that they must be the Scarlet Witch’s missing sons, and Tommy went along for the ride. Tommy had not had a particularly stable family life, and while he didn’t entirely believe what Billy was selling him, he took to the idea relatively well, using it to poke fun of his ‘little brother’ whenever possible. It was part and parcel with the rest of the Young Avengers package: a new life, a new change, new friends and new family, which had until this point never been worth much at all. They decided to try and find the Scarlet Witch, who had gone missing after causing her own amount of trouble years earlier. It was on their search that they found Master Pandemonium, the man who had tried to steal the Scarlet Witch’s children long ago. He hinted that they were perhaps right but never confirmed it, though that was only after sending Tommy to Hell and then allowing Billy to bring him back. Just an average day in the lives of superteens, right?

Tommy’s ability to remain a Hero was put to the test when Lisa came back into his life. During Norman Osborn’s occupation of New York, a team of juvenile delinquents went around acting on ideas of vigilante justice under the name of the Young Avengers. Obviously, this was not going to fly, and the actual Young Avengers confronted the group. The group included a girl calling herself Coat of Arms, who Tommy recognized instantly: it was Lisa. They gave the fake Young Avengers a choice: they could try out for the team legitimately or find another name. This was a group of kids who, in some sense, were exactly how Tommy could have been. They were angry, violent, causing more harm than good in the name of vigilante justice, and in the name of Lisa’s experiment in the nature of Heroes: namely, can they truly exist? Tommy, rather than acting as he might once have and siding in any way with them, stuck to his team vigilantly. When told by Lisa that he should run away, that there was something big and dangerous coming for the real Young Avengers at their hands, he refused. He knew where he belonged, and as naively optimistic and often preachy as he found them, they were his friends. Good friends, a family of its own, something that mattered. Even in their last moments together, Lisa and Tommy tried to get the other to join their team, to come quickly before they all had to escape and leave. They both refused, kept to their own allegiances, and remained alive but separate.

Not longer after, the Young Avengers found themselves in a spot of trouble yet again. After Billy lost control of his powers, he was kept under observation by the Avengers. Not a fan of his brother being kept in lock up, Tommy convinced the rest of the team to get him out of lock-up. Things went from bad to worse when they were joined by Magneto, who recruited them to help find Wanda and in essence made them fugitives from the Avengers. They traveled to Transia, Wanda’s birthplace and ran into Pietro, her twin brother, in their search. This was all very exciting for Tommy, who was being told by someone he respected that he had a real family, that Billy was acting on his gut rather than some idea of what was the law, and that he could outrun Quicksilver. Everything seemed to be going his way on this adventure until the inevitable fallout. In the final fight against Dr. Doom, Cassie Lang and Vision 2.0 died. Billy and Tommy came out the other end with a family, and without two of their closest friends.

After this incident, Billy insisted on disbanding the Young Avengers. Tommy had dedicated himself to being a better person through the Young Avengers, and prodded Billy to do superhero things again and again until it just seemed hopeless. Unable to handle living with Billy in his most emo state, he moved out of the Kaplan residents only a few months after moving in, and tried to find a way to keep focused. He got an under the table job at a manufacturing company that hired super powered people to make the labor cost cheaper. He would build electronics for them at super speeds, take his check and go on vacation for the rest of the month. He would then come back and do it again, It was here that he met David Alleyne, a former mutant who had been depowered by the Scarlet Witch. Bored with his routine, Tommy convinced David to help him with a mystery. Someone had broken into the building the night before dressed like his former teammate Patriot, but he knew from speaking to the actual person that it wasn’t him. They stayed the night, playing Heroes again, and the false Patriot caught Tommy and zapped him into the multiverse. Or, well, into Wonderland.


Abilities/Special Powers: Tommy Shepherd is a mutant with the ability to speed up atoms in himself and things he touches, and whose body is adapted to those conditions. Translation: Tommy is a speedster. His primary powers are super speed and the ability to destabilize molecules, causing them to either allow him to slip through them quickly or to vibrate together until they cause an explosion. His secondary mutations are physical, all allowing him to exist as a speedster. He heals quickly, has an incredibly fast metabolism, superhuman stamina, reflexes, durability and a limited degree of superhuman strength to match his other abilities.

Third-Person Sample:

When Tommy's face crashed down onto the grass the first thing he did was breath. A moment ago he had stopped moving, slowing down at a sluggish pace beyond what he had ever experienced. He couldn’t breathe, he couldn’t escape, and he thought no, no this must be what dying feels like. It was terrifying is what it was, and he let the grass catch the tear that dropped.

He dried his eyes against his fists, sniffed the whole concept of crying right back into himself and sat up. He looked around, he called out, but to no avail. Where the hell was he? Where was not!Patriot? Okay, this wasn’t the warehouse, and it didn’t look like anywhere in New York City either. He wanted to say that they weren’t in Kansas anymore, but there was no they. Just him, and who knows, he could actually be in Kansas. Opting not to sound like a crazy person talking to himself, Tommy stood up, called out for David one last time, before zooming off to figure out where the hell he was.

First-Person Sample:

[ Hello Wonderland. The feed turns on and looking right back at the viewers is a skinny teenager with white hair dripping dry on his face. He took a shower before deciding to spend the minute it took him to peruse the network, and hadn’t bothered to put on a shirt. He slurps his instant ramen, twiddling his chopsticks. When he speaks, it’s fast. ]

So, Wonderland, huh? That’s pretty weird, and I know weird. Can’t be worse than getting a timeout in hell from Master Pandemonium though. Yeah, that Master Pandemonium, the guy with the fu-manchu mustache who kisses the devil’s shiny red boots. Not fun, let me tell you.

Anyway, Speed here, of Young Avengers fame, yadda yadda yadda. I’m a pretty big deal in Queens, you might’ve heard of me or my little brother, he goes by Wiccan. Hawkeye’s here anyway, she probably gave you guys the whole run-down.

Here’s what I’m wondering. How did you guys get here? Did anyone see a creepy dude dressed like Patriot? Blue and red jumpsuit with a red domino mask and way too many stars with not enough stripes, looking kind of really possessed? Last thing I remember I was in a warehouse with a friend of mine, and then BAM, here I am, waiting for my witchy baby bro to save my ass with his reality warping mojo, again.

Being zapped into other places without a warning gets old, fast. Can we just sign a permission slip next time?