Origin

Carmen was raised by a single mother until she was five years old, when her mother met her stepfather. Her stepfather raised her as his own. She even adopted his last name. Despite this, she still had feelings of abandonment and fell in with similar outcasts at school, including Buddy Bartholomew, who Carmen secretly had a crush on. One day, Carmen and her friends came across a crashed alien spaceship. Inside, they found advanced technology that could be used to mimic superpowers. Using a pair of construction gloves built for demolition, she mimicked the abilities and style of Gambit, taking the name Gimmick. Since each of her friends found gadgets that simulated the abilities of popular X-Men, they pretended to be Children of the Atom.

Creation

Feint first appeared in Children of the Atom #1 by Vita Ayla and Bernard Chang, however, she was going by Gimmick at the time.

Major Story Arcs

The Krakoa Era

Carmen and her friend garnered a lot of attention when they fought the Hell's Belles, a group of depowered mutants that used technology to equate their old powers. They received a lot of negative attention from the U-Men, who attacked them for being mutants. Mutant discrimination was on the rise since the founding of Krakoa, a sovereign nation exclusive to mutants. A group of mutants from Krakoa also approached them reminding them that they would be welcome on Krakoa. Unfortunately, the easiest way off and on the island nation was through Krakoan Gates, teleportation doorways that only worked if you had the x-gene, which the group did not have. Or so they thought.

Carmen did in fact have the x-gene. It had recently activated giving her the metamorphic ability to shapeshift. She was eventually outed by mutant tracker, Caliban, and personally invited to the Hellfire Gala by Storm. This caused a lot of jealousy among her friend group. As she was impressed at the gala, her friends continued to act as vigilantes without her, despite being warned against it by the X-Men for the sake of their own safety.

In their confrontation with Hordeculture, Carmen rejoined their ranks. After beating Hordeculture, her friends were very apologetic. Buddy even considered a romantic relationship with Carmen.

Fall of X

After Orchis successfully attacked Krakoa and drove mutantkind underground with a far-reaching propaganda campaign, Carmen was outed to the authorities by Buddy’s father. She was saved by an Orchis prison transport by Arcangel, Maggott, and her former inspiration, Gambit. After they were liberated, they were invited to the Limbo Embassy in New York, which had been turned into a mutant refuge by Madelyne Pryor. There, she revealed her new look and codename, Feint.

Madelyne had devised a Mercy Crown, a helmet based on Cerebro that senses souls, not minds. As Feint, she joined a rescue mission in Mexico. A mutant named Flourish had created a fungal barrier to protect her from anti-mutant attacks. Feint’s metamorphic ability allowed her to filter Flourish’s hallucinogenic spores. She tried to convince Flourish to return with them to the embassy, but she refused.

After defending the Limbo Embassy from an even more demonic variant of Madelyne that Orchis kidnapped from the multiverse, Feint left with Gambit to rejoin the X-Men in the main fight against Orchis.

Powers & Abilities

Equipment: Carmen and her friends found alien technology that they used to become superheroes. Since the development of her x-gene, she no longer seems to use them.

• Gauntlets: Carmen has a pair of gauntlets that allows absorption and manipulation of kinetic energy. She can charge objects with this energy causing them to explode. The team theorizes they are excavation tools of unknown alien origin.
• Headgear: Carmen, and the rest of her team, have psychic blocking headgear they bought on the black market, made of discarded Magneto helmet pieces.

Shapeshifter: Carmen is the only member of her friends with a real x-gene. She is capable of shape-shifting, similar to Mystique.

• Healing Factor: Carmen recovers from personal injuries faster that a normal human.
• Berserker: When enraged, she can take on beastly characteristics and increase her strength incrementally.