Professional thief and trans mutant Shela Sexton (she/her) is a good Super Villain known as Escapade—a modern Robin Hood who steals technology from the worst of society.
Coming Out
Shela Sexton is a mutant who grew up with gender dysphoria. Her parents accept that she's a mutant but refuse to accept that she's trans. Shela seeks out her best friend Morgan, a trans mutant, and shares her fear about going home. Morgan invites her to live with him and his more accepting parents. From then on, Shela gives up on the person people expect her to be and embraces the person that she is.
During the ninth grade, Shela accidentally swaps places with Random High’s principal for an afternoon. At some point before turning 19, Shela, Morgan, and a genetically engineered flying turtle named Hibbert move in together and join the trans mutant support group run by Dennis Dunphy, AKA Demolition Man, at the Matt Baker House in Ridgewood, Queens, New York.
Trading Places
Escapade can instantaneously switch physical locations with another person or trade any specific physical or abstract attribute, such as possessions, organizational status, skills, superhuman powers, etc.; to use her power, she needs to be within seven feet of her target. While switched, she can take on the physical health of her target—for example: trading a broken arm for a healed one—but all attributes, including health, return to their original owner when a change ends.
Escapade can choose to end a swap at any time, but can currently maintain it for only a few hours at a time—she discovered this aspect of her powers when she became the principal of her high school, Ransom High. The more complex the switch, the higher the likelihood of a mishap or Escapade losing control.
Shela is also a clever and a skilled thief. As Escapade, she wears a tool belt containing an arsenal of stolen tool and devices, including goggles with heads-up displays, lockpicks, a pair of dice that generate random gravity disruptions (high or low), a flashlight, a tech-disrupting glitter bombs. She wears a headset/earpiece to communicate with her technical support, Morgan Red (he/they), and can fly using detachable repulsor-based devices worn on her boots and gloves. Escapade wears a heart-shaped ring that says “she/her” on it.
Criminally Corrupt
Though a thief, Shela’s targets include criminals much bigger than herself. When she steals from the wealthy elite, she comes up against their security guards, including the criminal, costumed Skullcrusher.
Alongside the new mutants, Shela also faces Sublime and the U-Men, humans bent on becoming the physically superior species by stealing mutant’s powers.
Best Friends Forever
Morgan Red is Shela’s best friend since the fifth grade when they bonded over being trans mutants. Morgan and his family invite Shela to live with them after Shela’s parents ostracized her for coming out as trans. The besties decide to become good Super Villains—villains that help people and hurt only those that deserve it. Morgan is the first person that reaffirms Shela’s gender and feel good about herself. Together, they join a trans mutant support group whom they build a surrogate family with.
When the pair grows up, Morgan contributes his computer hacking skills to their robberies, which include labs, expos, banks, and even a bachelorette party. Morgan is protective of Shela, often encouraging her to use her mutant power.
For fear of losing Morgan, Shela reluctantly allies with telepath Emma Frost and accepts her offer of training on the mutant island-nation of Krakoa.
Daring Exploits
One night, Shela was approached by the mutant seer Irene Adler, AKA Destiny, and omega-level telepath Emma Frost. They showed Shela her future where she switches places with Morgan and how it leads to his death. Destiny assured Shela that it was a fixed event unless Shela took another path. Shela then set out to do so on her own.
A few weeks later, and upon learning of an “onyx needle” that, through unrevealed means, would prevent Destiny’s vision and change fate, Shela secretly sought it out. With Morgan on comms providing technical support, Shela then robbed a Helicarrier with the intention of stealing the onyx needle, which she thought to be aboard it. The Hellicarrier was owned tech billionaire and small-time cult leader Hawthorne Rayn. Despite Rayn’s tight security on the Hellicarrier, Shela and Morgan hacked into their system. When one of the security guards caught Shela, she used her gravity dice to disable him. When she ran into killer robots, she threw rainbow dust at them, causing them to malfunction. But, she was soon confronted with a real Super Villain: Skullbuster. Over comms, Morgan demanded Shela use her mutant power. Shela refused and instead engaged Skullbuster in battle, dodging all her attacks, with a plan to wear her out. But Shela didn’t last and ended up with broken ribs and an arm, which finally prompted her to use her mutant power. The pair suddenly switched places, Shela trading her circumstances with Skullbuster. Now able to stand, Shela switched off comms and asked Skullbuster for the location of the onyx needle. Skullbuster revealed that they had sold it to a guy in Madripooor. Shela continued on to the Hellicarrier’s stores where she gathered the things she came for, like stable and mostly-stable molecules, and confirmed that the onyx needle wasn’t there.
In her escape attempt, Emma Frost appeared in a flying convertible offering Shela a spot with the X-Men on Krakoa. Shela vehemently refused, calling the X-Men a eugenics army. She offered Shela training in her powers but Shela wasn’t having it and flew off using her repulsor boots. When she reunited with Morgan, Morgan expressed distrust towards Shela for having turned off her comms. As Shela’s injuries returned and Morgan helped dress her wounds, Morgan admitted how scared he was for Shela, unsure if she wanted to continue their life of crime. They attended a Supertrans Support Group with fellow empowered and trans folk, and revealed that she struggled with communicating when things scared her. Afterward, and feeling desperate to prevent Morgan’s death, she met up with Frost who asked her to swap places with the President of the United States. Shela, shocked, admitted that it could all go wrong and Frost offered to train her again. She accepted and returned home to Morgan and revealed the whole truth, about Morgan’s looming death and why Shela kept it a secret. Morgan disapproved of Shela’s decision to join the mutants on Krakoa but that she’d always have a home with him.
While training on Krakoa, Shela makes new friends such as Martha Johansson, AKA Cerebella, and ends up attending a celebratory event welcoming new mutants in Washington Square Park, NYC. Shela convinced Morgan to join and in the middle of Rahne Sinclar, AKA Wolfbane’s speech, to an angry crowd, a portal opened above them and out poured mutant harvesters, the U-Men, who abducted the lot of them. Placed in a holding cell, Shela and Morgan worked on an escape plan but they were interrupted by Sublime who took Cerebella away. Shela swapped places with a U-Man and found Cerebella strapped to a table about to be experimented upon. Cerebella begged Shela to kill her, reassuring that she’d come back on Krakoa. Shela couldn’t do it so instead she swapped places with her. Just as Sublime was cutting into Cerebella’s head, Shela swapped places with her, which allowed her to escape and free the others. Shela’s double swap quickly wore and she was back in the cage with Morgan. The others made their escape and got separated. When Shela and Morgan got their bearings and escaped the building, they ended up in the same place as Shela’s vision where Morgan would perish.
