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Character Name: Thomas “Speed” Shepherd
Series: Marvel-616
Timeline: Post-Young Avengers, Volume 2.
Canon Resource Link: Tommy at the Marvel Wiki

Character History:

First Birth, aka the one we try not to think about too hard

Thomas Shepherd, most often called ‘Tommy’, was first born as Thomas Maximoff, one of the twin sons of Wanda Maximoff, aka the Scarlet Witch. Wanda had desired children with her then husband, the synthesoid Vision, but, being unable to conceive with them, drew upon her magical powers to create children. However, it turned out that they were created out of lost souls, which were claimed as property of Mephisto. When this was revealed, Mephisto attempted to reabsorb the souls of the twins, but they had been changed enough by Wanda’s magic that they destroyed Mephisto and were thought to cease to exist. Instead, however, the souls ended up in two different families: the Kaplans and the Shepherds.

Second Birth, Not Much Better Than The First

Tommy was born to Frank and Mary Shepherd in Springfield, New Jersey. Little is known about the Shepherds aside from the fact that they divorced while Tommy as young. It is implied they were either abusive or neglectful; Tommy spent the majority of his childhood in and out of juvenile detention centers, and has never shown any interest in returning to his parents after joining the Young Avengers.
It is not known when Tommy first started displaying his mutant powers. However, after an incident where he “accidentally” blew up his school, he was taken to a secret facility that was masquerading as a juvenile detention center. There, his powers were tested as they attempted to mold him into a living weapon. He was there for months before the Young Avengers broke him out in order to recruit him. As soon as he was freed, he reacted with anger towards his captors; he was only narrowly stopped from using his ability to vaporize solid objects on the soldiers and doctors of the facility. The Young Avengers’ leader at the time nearly withdrew his recruiting offer, saying that he came to find a superhero, not a “young master of evil.” He then asked Tommy which one he would rather be. Tommy chose superhero.

Tommy and the Young Avengers immediately went to the rescue of one of their teammates, Hulkling, who had been kidnapped by the Super Skrull. It was after finding Teddy and hearing the Super Skrull suggest it that Billy first came up with the idea that he and Tommy were “soul-twins,” the reincarnated sons of Wanda Maximoff. Tommy rejected the idea as ridiculous, even though Billy was convinced enough to tell Captain America about it when they engaged the Skrull army. During this fight, Tommy proved to be a useful, if ruthless member of the Young Avengers.

Afterward, he shows his newfound dedication to superheroing by getting into an altercation at the end of the Young Avengers series, appearing in the costume Kate had made for him after blowing up the United Nations building in an attempt to stop the superhero team Zodiac. He encourages the others to come with him, before returning to the fight.

Civil War

During the superhero civil war, Tommy and the other Young Avengers left Captain America’s secret hideout against orders in order to aid another group of young superheroes called the Runaways. After an initial skirmish with them, stemming from a misunderstanding, the two teams began to talk out their plans. During this time, Tommy began to bond with the youngest members of the Runaways, a twelve-year-old named Molly Hayes. Though he was initially dismissive of her, he quickly began to start playing games with her and showing her his powers. Due to this, he missed the groups getting attacked by an alien controlled by SHIELD; he had been speeding around with Molly on his shoulders.

The leader of the Runaways, Chase, scolded Molly for it and later showed his continued displeasure with them by having his dinosaur attempt to pee on Tommy. Tommy questioned Molly, asking why Chase acted so much like her dad. After the battle, he brought Molly, who had passed out due to using her powers, to Chase, and told her he needed to take better care of her.

Marvel Presents

Despite his reservations about their familial relationship, Tommy agreed to go with Billy to search for the missing Wanda Maximoff. He eagerly searched for her, only to end up in a trap at the house in which the previous Tommy and Billy had been born; he was transported to Hell by Pandemonium. While nervous, he did not lose his cool, searching for an exit until Billy and Pandemonium, who had come to an understanding, came to fetch him. He was impatient with the villain, however, as he told the two of them the nature of their previous birth. He advised them both to stop looking for Wanda, as their past was filled with nothing about darkness and they needed to accept their present instead. It is unknown how Tommy reacted to this information, save that he was impatient and still wanted to look for Wanda, for the first time calling her “mom”.

Secret Invasion

When the Skrull invasion was uncovered, Tommy and the Young Avengers once again teamed up with the Runaways. He ended up helping protect Teddy from the Skrulls who wanted to destroy him, as he was a rival heir to the throne. When the fighting got particularly bad, he quickly grabbed Molly and another young girl who was with the Runaways, speeding them a good 1700 miles away to Mt. Rushmore so that they would be safe before returning to the fight.

Children’s Crusade

During the Children’s Crusade, Billy frightened the Avengers with powers that were very like his mother’s. When the Avengers convinced Billy to go under observation with them, Tommy and the other Young Avengers worked to break them out. It was while they were in the middle of breaking him out that Billy and Tommy met their grandfather, Magneto. They agreed to go with him on a search for Wanda once more. They ended up teleporting to where Wanda was born, fleeing from the Avengers who were attempting to recapture Billy.

Using a spell that Magneto and Tommy participated in (though Tommy joked he “didn’t have feelings and didn’t hold hands,” perhaps in response to Billy’s earlier accusation that Tommy was the “team sociopath,” Billy was able to tell Wanda was in the village. Tommy ran off to find her and ended up running into his uncle, Pietro Maximoff. Pietro threatened them, telling Magneto to release them and the children to return home, but after they refused, he kidnapped Billy. Tommy quickly caught up with them, telling Pietro he was “offended” that he did not kidnap them both and challenging him to a race. The race was put to an end by Magento, who upended the Earth under Pietro’s feet.

Pietro attempted to attack Magneto and ended up striking someone who looked a lot like his sister—but ended up being a Doombot. That was how they figured out that Wanda was a prisoner of Dr. Doom.
Billy attempted to go after Doom with Pietro, but the Young Avengers followed… only for Billy to sneak away again by himself. He found Wanda, who had amnesia, and was captured by Doom. Tommy and the Young Avengers went after him in the morning to save him Billy, but the Avengers had caught up. A three-way battle began between the Young Avengers, the Avengers, and Doom’s forces. In order to escape it, the Young Avengers and Wanda went into the timestream. During this time, Wanda regained her memory and was only stopped from committing suicide by revealing Billy revealing he and Tommy were her sons. Tommy baulked after she realized it was the truth, however, saying it “didn’t matter” because Wanda was a criminal who was going to get arrested or be killed, and thus be taken away from them before they got a chance to know her.

However, after Doom arrived and tricked Wanda into giving him his powers in an attempt to right her wrongs against mutantkind, it was Tommy who stepped in between Wanda and the X-Men, refusing to let them take her.

The fight with Doom ended in the deaths of two Young Avengers. Afterward, the Young Avengers decided to break up – save for Tommy. Tommy was the last one standing that still wanted to be a superhero. Without the Young Avengers, he felt lost. He stayed with the Kaplans for a short while, but soon left, feeling uncomfortable around Billy’s blood family due to their well-adjusted nature, something he had never experienced.

However, some months after, Tommy and the other surviving Young Avengers were officially inducted into the Avengers, though it seems to be a ceremonial role only.

Young Avengers Volume 2

After the break-up of the Young Avengers, Tommy worked manufacturing jobs, spending ten minutes doing two week’s worth of work. He called it “hell, but hell that pays.” He would do this for a few weeks, take time off to travel, do some superheroing on his own, and then go back to work. It was during one of these jobs he met a mutant named David Alleyne. He invites him for noodles and coffee, and spends his time explaining his troubles to him, including how he didn’t want to quit superheroing like everyone else and how he’s still wanted by the law and he has to keep moving. He invites David to go clubbing with him, which David declines.

However, they met up for coffee the next day, which Tommy counts as becoming friends. When they arrive at work, they find out their office has been broken into. Someone dressed as one of the Young Avengers had stolen parts. Finding out it was not who it looked like, Tommy offers to stake out the building and volunteers David to come with him. They confront the person, who turns out to be some entity that is never explained. He seems to vaporize Tommy completely.

Tommy, however, reappears at the end of the series after David kisses the person who vaporized him. He seems rather unflumoxed by suddenly being at a New Year’s party; he has no memory of what happened to him. Instead, he runs off to dance.

And that is the last he has been seen in canon.

Abilities/Special Powers:

- Super-speed: His most notable power is that he is extremely fast. He has been shown to break the sound barrier, and he runs fast enough that he can run across the top of water without breaking the surface tension. In addition to physical speed, his brain can handle processing at similarly rapid rate, allowing him to be able to digest information, do tasks, and speak at these speeds.

- Durability: Due to his need to be able to deal with impact forces at high-speeds, he is much more durable than a normal human being. There are limits, however; he can be harmed, for instance, by bullets.

- Molecular Acceleration: He can accelerate and destabilize atomic matter, causing any object he focuses his power on to explode. If he holds back a little, he can merely destabilize atoms enough to allow himself and others to pass through solid objects.

-Other: It is mentioned in a (canon) profile that Tommy has some sort of ‘aura’ that protects other people and things such as his clothes from the high impact forces that occur when he is traveling at super speed while carrying them. He also has mentioned an ability to ‘feel magic-types’ such as Billy and Wanda. This doesn’t seem to include feeling magical traps, however, and the range of it is uncertain.

Third-Person Sample:

If there was something Tommy did not handle well, it was stagnation. Sure, this place was nice and all, as nice as any resort he had ever seen in a magazine. There was free food, which was awesome, and a movie theatre, a beach and even a hedge maze. But it was a tiny cage for someone who could break the speed of sound. He had explored it all in seconds, and now he had nothing to do but sit and twiddle his thumbs. There was not even the predictable hell of work to look forward to.

Someone had mentioned there were ‘events.’ Some sort of crazy reality-warping nonsense that tended to be extremely dangerous. Tommy could not wait. He needed to do something, fight someone, punch some faces in – anything to escape this monotony. Hell, at this point he was going to take up reading just for something to do. Then he would become a nerd like Billy and no one wanted that.

Billy. Maybe Billy could break some of this boredom. At the very least he could amuse himself by pranking him or interrupting a make-out session. Yeah, that sounded like tried and true entertainment. Or maybe Teddy would play a video game with him. If not, at least there was a good amount of people. Maybe he should just start introducing himself until he found someone who wasn’t completely boring. Hey, it worked with David.

Might as well start now. Tommy rolled himself to his feet and forced himself to walk slowly through the halls, listening for his brother’s voice.

First-Person Sample:

[ A white-haired teenager appears on the screen, a grin on his face. He looks like he can barely hold still; the camera keeps shifting as he moves around in his seat. While he starts out talking slow, but it does not last for long. ]

Hey, Wonderland! Let’s make things short and sweet. This place is com-ple-tly boring, and I am looking for someone who is not as dull as a box of rocks to help me lighten things up. Come on, wanna go out for noodles? Or in for noodles, I guess, because it doesn’t take leaving the building. Or we could spar! There are superheroes here, right? Comeoncomeonwegottatrainorelsethesupervillainswin!Orwecould--

[ The video goes on, but Tommy’s now speaking too fast to be at all understandable. ]