During her marriage to the Vision, the Scarlet Witch used her reality-altering powers to create twin boys William and Thomas from two lost souls. Later Mephisto reclaimed the lost souls. However, their souls had been so transfigured by Wanda's magic that they destroyed the demon and dispersed.
The soul of Thomas was apparently reborn in Thomas "Tommy" Shepherd, who was born and raised in Springfield, New Jersey. He is the only son of Frank and Mary Shepherd, who divorced when he was still young. Tommy was in and out of juvenile halls for most of his life. It was in one of the detention centers that Tommy first met Lisa. The two seemed to have had some kind of romantic or physical relationship during this time.
Because Tommy "accidentally" vaporized his high school using his powers, he was imprisoned under court order in a high-powered facility equipped with advanced offensive and defensive technology such as robotic suits and power-dampening containment cells. Before the Young Avengers freed him, Tommy had been locked up for months and was being tested and experimented on with the goal to make him into a living weapon.
After Hulkling had been captured by the Kree Sentries, Wiccan, and the other Young Avengers were desperate to rescue him. To locate reinforcements the Vision recommended using the Avengers Fail-Safe Program, the same program Iron Lad used to locate the original Young Avengers.
The team was able to locate him in a high-security detention facility for superpowered juvenile offenders. They release him from his cell, and Stature almost immediately noted that Tommy and Billy could be twins. The breakout did not go unnoticed, and as the team ran into the armed officers of the facility. Tommy cynically and cruelly began attacking the officers and fleeing doctors but was stopped by Kate Bishop and Patriot.
Speed helped the team in battling both Kree and Skrulls soldiers to rescue Hulkling. After the battle, Tommy officially joined the team and adopted the codename "Speed". Speed was anxious to be a hero, and was the first to alert the Young Avengers that the villainous team, the Zodiac, was attacking the United Nations.
When the Runaways tried to stay out of the conflict, they barely managed to escape from the government forces. Hearing of this development in the news, the Young Avengers decided to help the Runaways even though Captain America vetoed the plan. Wiccan used his magic to locate and teleport to the Runaways. However, the Runaways believed that the Young Avengers had come to capture them and a fight ensued until Patriot succeeded in convincing Nico Minoru to stop the hostilities. Speed develops a close sibling-like friendship with Molly Hayes. The two teams were later attacked by Marvel Boy, who captured Wiccan, Karolina, and Hulkling, and almost killed Xavin. The young heroes became the prisoners of the Warden, who proceeded to practice vivisection on the unconscious Teddy. The boys were rescued by Xavin, whose Skrull physiology allowed him to recover from Noh-Varr's attack. Billy came close to killing the Warden, but Teddy stopped him.
When Wiccan decided to begin searching for the Scarlet Witch, Tommy agreed to joined him. The pair searched through Genosha and Wundagore in Transia before finally encountering Master Pandemonium in Cresskill, New Jersey at a former residence of the Scarlet Witch and the Vision. Master Pandemonium offered some information but did not know the current whereabouts of the Scarlet Witch.
Not long after, Speed went on a date with Kate to help relieve her tensions about losing her codename and bow to Clint Barton. The date ended with the pair breaking into the New Avengers' Brooklyn apartment and reclaiming her bow.
When the Skrulls invaded Earth, Speed joined the other Young Avengers and Runaways on the front lines of the battle. Speed and Wiccan saved Hulkling from execution and later assisted Xavin to again rescue Hulkling.
When the Young Avengers confronted the group of teenagers who had been using their name, Tommy immediately recognized one of their members, Coat of Arms, with whom he had a relationship in "juvie".
During the Siege of Asgard, Tommy was the armor-bearer for Tony Stark. Speed along with the other Young Avengers helped rescue the fallen warriors and civilians after the battle. Speed was pushing himself hard but still felt like he was failing until Ronin found him. He simply let Speed know that giving it his all would always be enough.
After Wiccan's powers overloaded and the Avengers decided to keep him under observation, Speed and the other Young Avengers broke Wiccan out of holding and began the search for the Scarlet Witch. Accompanied by Magneto the team traveled to Transia where they met Quicksilver and a fake Wanda, who was revealed to be a Doombot. Wiccan teleported himself into Latveria and discovered a depowered and amnesiac Wanda engaged to Doctor Doom. The Young Avengers, Magneto, and Quicksilver went after Wiccan, as well as the Avengers. A battle with Doom's Doombot army soon broke out and was only stopped by the arrival of Iron Lad.
Iron Lad teleported the Young Avengers and Wanda into the timestream. They all went into the past and met a reanimated Jack of Hearts, who exploded. After that, Wanda remembered who she was, regained her powers and returned herself, the Young Avengers, and Scott Lang to the present. She then finally confirmed that Billy and Tommy were indeed her reincarnated sons.
Sometime after their induction into the Avengers, the Young Avengers again decided to disband largely at Wiccan's urging. Teddy and Tommy moved in with the Kaplans, but Tommy moved out a short time later. As the other Young Avengers stayed away from heroic activities, he separated from them. He was hired by a company hiring superpowered beings, assembling electronic components at a superhuman speed (five minutes equaling to a month of work) for a few weeks and saving that money to travel for a few months, before repeating the cycle.
In that company, he met David Alleyne, the depowered mutant formerly known as Prodigy, and started hanging out with him. Soon after, someone broke into the company building, under the guise of Patriot. After having confirmed that Elijah Bradley wasn't involved, Tommy decided to inquire about it and took David with him. Waiting for him at night, the duo confronted the entity and Tommy was seemingly dematerialized by the attacker. When David later settled his dispute with the mysterious entity by kissing it, Tommy reappeared in its place, with no memory of the events that transpired while he was gone, and was confused as to why David was kissing him.
Tommy and David had since started dating and often went out with Teddy. When Teddy was feeling lonely because Billy was off with Strikeforce, they invited him to go drinking at a gay bar where Tommy teased Teddy about his relationship problems with his brother. After being approached by agents of the Kree-Skrull alliance, a group of Skrulls who wanted to kill Hulkling attacked the bar. Speed fought them alongside David, but was quickly knocked out and only recovered after the fight was over.
Tommy attended Billy and Teddy's initial elopement in Las Vegas, as well as their official royal wedding in space.
After being informed that David had been murdered at some point before the Krakoa era by a recently resurrected Sofia Mantega, he visited him in the Boneyard on Krakoa. There he told David that he had been with him on the night of the O*N*E attack that killed Loa, which left the specifics of his death undetermined. Following a quick make-out session, they were interrupted by Northstar and Tommy was very excited to meet the other speedster. David quickly led him outside and told him to leave, but Northstar invited him to visit anytime.
Tommy attended the Hellfire Gala alongside David Alleyne. It was here that he was one of the first to discover Wanda Maximoff's corpse. Kyle Jinadu tried to comfort Tommy who hadn't left his mother's side since she was put in the Boneyard, but found strange vegetation engulfing her body. Neither knew what to do at this point, Tommy wished he could talk to Billy but he couldn't be reached. Eventually, Billy arrived and Wanda was revived in secret by Magneto and Hope Summers, Tommy and Billy tried to talk to her but she didn't know who they were because the memory backup used in her resurrection was from before they were born. When the island was attacked by three kaiju's they tried to lead her to safety but they were separated and she was sent to a realm of pure chaos magic.
Since that first visit and encounter with Master Pandemonium, Tommy frequently returned to the Leonia home he lived in with Wanda Maximoff, Vision, and his brother, to keep an eye on the confused but still mystically powerful Martin Preston, taking up residence in his own room and working a food delivery job with his super speed. Having affectionately nicknamed the demonic man "Master P", he served as caretaker for him, helping him get around, bathe, and watch the actor's old films. Though his boyfriend was a frequent visitor, Preston was unaware the two were dating.
Master Pandemonium remained mystically powerful and grew loyal to Tommy, though he sometimes would say hurtful things to the boy in his confusion. Even so, he was very willing to protect Tommy from mystic threats, convinced the boy had a greater destiny.
-Marvel Fandom
Key Issues & Appearances
1
Significant comic book appearances featuring Speed
