Trance

Origin

Hope Abbott was raised in Bloomfield Hills, Michigan in what was perceived to be a normal, suburban home. When Abbott’s mutant abilities manifested themselves, it appeared as if a ghost had emerged out of her body, giving her father a near-fatal heart attack. She was sent to the Xavier Institute by her parents believing that she would be “cured”.

While at the Institute, Abbott was assigned into the Paragons Squad under the watch of former New Mutant Wolfsbane , where she was given the codename Trance. The Paragons worked hard together, even though they were largely over-shadowed by the Hellions and New Mutants Squads. For a while they were left without a mentor, when Wolfsbane’s relationship with Elixir was revealed. Magma took over the role as the squad’s adviser.

Creation

Trance was created by Christina Weir and Nunzio DeFilippis and first appeared in a cameo in New X-Men #7 (2005).

Major Story Arcs

M-Day

When the events of Decimation of the mutant population on M-Day transpired, Trance was one of only twenty-seven students to retain their powers.

Greatly weakened by the losses, Emma Frost placed all of the remaining students into an all-out brawl to determine who would compose one training squad that would receive a crash course in combat and defensive skills. Trance was initially frightened of what would happen to her body, due to the nature of her mutant powers. She wished to leave her physical body outside the Danger Room, which would have enabled her astral form to attack, without fear of her physical form being hurt. From her performance in the Danger Room, Trance was not chosen to become one of the New X-Men. Like all of the other students who retained their powers, she remained at the school under the X-Men’s protection.

Quest for Magik

Soon after, on an evening when the students were telling stories and roasting marshmallows over Match, they came under attack from one of the X-Men’s oldest foes. Belasco had returned from the dead and was desperately searching for Illyana Rasputin. Although the students were aware of events from the House of M , Belasco had sensed Illyana’s presence among some of the New X-Men. Therefore, he broke the barrier between Earth and Limbo, kidnapping many of the students from the Institute and held them hostage in Limbo. Trance was terrified. She had never experienced first hand battle out in the field before. However, she was held hostage close by to X-23, who had read Trance’s portfolio and understood the nature of her powers. Belasco had distracted as he tortured Prodigy. Hope was distraught when she saw Belasco rip out Prodigy’s heart.

However, under X-23’s instructions, Trance began to use her mutant powers. Leaving her physical body behind, Trance flew in her astral form back up through the portal into the Institute. There, she found Hellion and Surge and was able to send them a garbled message about what had been happening. However, in her fright she also told Surge that Prodigy (Surge’s then-boyfriend) had been killed. Trance’s astral form was pulled back into her body. However, the message she sent spurred her classmates into action. They located the fallen mistress of Limbo,Amanda Sefton. With her magic, they were able to enter Limbo and attack the demons there with the help of a sentinel guard from the Institute. As events transpired in Limbo, the boundaries between Limbo and New York began to weaken, and the other X-Men were also drawn into Limbo. With help from the soulless demonic form of Illyana Rasputin, they were able to defeat Belasco. Trance & the other students were saved and teleported back to the Institute.

Divided We Stand

After the death of Professor X and the destruction of the Xavier Institute, the X-Men were disbanded. Without a home or any teachers, Trance & all the students are sent back to their families. Teenage precogntive mutant Blindfold had a vision and informed the X-Men that Trance was going to be in trouble. While having dinner with her family, Trance’s home was attacked by the Orphan Maker. However, Trance wasn’t his target. Nanny liked to adopt mutant orphans, and would often kill the parents in order to collect more children to protect. Therefore, the Orphan Maker focussed his attack on Mr & Mrs Abbott; Trance’s parents.

Luckily Wolverine had been sent to watch over Trance. Although he was initially overpowered, his attack forced Nanny to change her plan. Trance and Wolverine were both kidnapped and taken on board Nanny’s ship; Trance was tied to a chair, while Wolverine was chained to the ground. Although the physical bonds wouldn’t have prevented her from using her astral form, Trance chose not to use her powers believing that Wolverine would save them.

Upon realising that Wolverine couldn’t help her, Trance projected her astral form out of her body and began to attack Nanny and the Orphan Maker. Trance’s stinging blasts were enough to drive her kidnappers off, forcing Nanny and Orphan Maker to eject in an escape pod. They abandoned the ship, leaving it to crash land with a self-destruct enabled. Using her energy blasts, Trance disabled the self-destruct timer on the ship before it crashed into a lake. Trance had managed to save herself and Wolverine.

San Francisco Riots

Soon afterwards, the X-Men reformed. They moved their base of operations to Graymalkin Industries in San Francisco. Trance left her family for a second time and returned to life with the X-Men. However, despite their initial warm welcome, the X-Men were soon forced from their home. Proposition X was being put forward as a law that would prevent mutants from having children. Many mutants took to the streets of San Francisco to march in unity, as a sign of their defiance against the Proposition. Unfortunately, Norman Osborn sent in his HAMMER Agents and newly formed Dark X-Men to round up any mutants outside after curfew. At the same time, Simon Trask had been converting regular human beings into living sentinels who were hunting for mutants. It all culminated in riots on the streets of San Francisco.

Trance and her friends watched over the riots. Accidentally caught up in the action, and desperate to go home, Trance found herself on the run with Dragoness, while trying to carry Toad who had been injured. HAMMER Agents pursued them through the streets. Cyclops sent Rogue and Gambit to find Trance. By the time they arrived in San Francisco, Osborn had sent his Dark Avengers in to aid the Dark X-Men, so Rogue was forced to drain some of Ares’ strength, battle Moonstone (who was posing as Ms Marvel). Rogue used her own power to siphon memories from a HAMMER Agent and discovered that the Agent had used an electrical taser on Trance while she was using her powers.

Eventually, Gambit found Trance’s unconscious body. The taser that had hit her effected the use of her powers. Trance’s astral form was no longer able to return to her physical body. Gambit was soon joined by Onyxx and new recruit Ariel. Onyxx carried Trance’s body, while Ariel warped space allowing them to teleport straight back to the X-Men. However, Trance’s mutant powers interacted with Ariel’s alien ability to bend space; she was lost to a random location when Onyxx carried her through the portal. Mindee Cuckoo telepathically informed Rogue that Trance had been located somewhere downtown.

More HAMMER Agents had appeared before Rogue could arrive. They threatened to shoot if she didn’t power down her astral form. Unfortunately, Trance was growing more emotional. Scared and tired, her power levels were building. Rogue found Trance in a state of distress as her powers ran uncontrollably, releasing powerful bio-electric blasts. Rogue attempted to calm Trance by telling her not to be afraid of her powers.

However, Ms Marvel appeared demanding a rematch with Rogue. Rogue had retained some of Ares’ strength from her earlier confrontation, forcing Ms Marvel to phase. As Rogue fought Ms Marvel, Trance summoned up the strength & willpower to gain control of her powers. Just as Rogue lost the last of Ares’ godly strength, Trance discovered that her astral form was able to fight Ms. Marvel while she was intangible. After a few bio-electrical punches from Trance, Ms Marvel returned to her normal state which allowed Gambit to stun her.

With Pixie’s help, the group returned to the X-Men’s headquarters where Trance was medically treated and put back into a stable condition. She stayed with the X-Men when they relocated all the other mutants to their new island home of Utopia.

Nation X

Life on Utopia seemed idyllic and peaceful. However, Emplate had been spying on Utopia. Since M-Day, his choice of mutants to feed off had become drastically limited. From his home in a dimension slightly off-tuned from reality, he had spotted Bling! who reminded him of Penance.

Emplate kidnapped Bling! and when the X-Men began to investigate, it transpired that Trance was the only one who could see the portal between dimensions. The X-Men weren’t sure whether to believe her, until she shifted into her astral form and her glowing hand disappeared when she placed it through the dimensional rift. This was due to her body and powers developing new reactions to spatial warping and energy fields; a lasting side effect of her being tasered.

Trance was ready to use her astral form to leap through the dimensional rift and retrieve Bling! until Cyclops stopped her. Instead, it was decided that Rogue was to go in Trance’s place. Agreeing to let Rogue borrow her powers, Trance was forced to lie unconscious while Rogue created her own Trance form and flew into Emplate’s dimension. On Utopia, the X-Men waiting nervously for news from Rogue. They knew that time grew short as Trance began to show signs of waking up. However, Rogue had been successful, and sent Emplate’s fortress home colliding into Utopia long enough for the X-Men and Bling! to scare him away from Utopia.

Soon after, Trance briefly left Utopia with some of the other younger mutants. They met up with Jubilee in San Francisco. She told her about hitting the not-real Mrs Marvel in the face,but was later recalled by Surge who was furious at them for leaving the safety of Utopia.

Necroshia

When Eli Bard resurrected and controlled dead mutants on behalf of Selene, he sent them to attack the X-Men on Utopia. Trance was among the various groups of X-Men fighting for their lives. She helped to protect her peers by fighting off the resurrected Generation X members Skin and Synch.

Amongst all the fighting, Blindfold was warned of an impending danger on Muir Island by resurrected Destiny. Blindfold informed Cyclops who ordered Nightcrawler to take a team of X-Men to check it out. Nightcrawler quickly assemble his squad which included Trance. Upon arrival on Muir Island, Trance was ordered to use her astral form to perform a quick reconnoitre of the area since she would be quick and unable to be harmed. On the island, Blindfold met Destiny again. However, when the two blind precognitives touched, Blindfold became possessed by the resurrected spirit of Proteus.

Second Coming

Trance is one of the members selected to go into Limbo to bring Illyana back. She at first attempts to refuse to go along, but agrees to go as long as she can leave her body behind. Once teleported into Limbo by Pixie, the team is attacked by hordes of demons. The team consists of Cannonball (as leader), Gambit, Anole, Northstar, Dazzler, Pixie and Trance.

After entering limbo, the team is quickly separated by the ever changing landscape of limbo. Pixie and Trance end up fighting the hordes of demons together. They encounter both Sym and N’astirh. Na’stirh offers to help Pixie get the piece of her sould stolen by Magik if she can get the soulsword for him. He also demands the death of Magik. Trance is in the process of fighting with Pixie and trying to convince her to not trust a demon when her astral form dissipates and returns to Utopia. She is returned to her body just as the second wave of Nimrod sentinels attacks Utopia.

First To Last

Trance is among the New X-Men members that protect Cyclops during the attack on Utopia by the Evolutionaries. She is also seen attacking Bliss, Masque,and Toad when they are trying to force information out of Irma Cuckoo.Hope was seen phasing through Bliss in her astral form. The group of New X-Men did not defeat the trio quick enough and Toad accidentally made Irma broadcast Cyclops’ memories to everyone on Utopia.

Shism and the Terrigen-Cloud

Over the months, Trance would remain on Utopia with Cyclops and the other X-Men, but eventually chose to join Wolverine and a number of other students to the new Jean Grey School in New York after a falling out between Cyclops and Wolverine during the events of Shism. She took classes and started developing her powers even more. She remained with the X-men after the war with the Avengers and joined the X-Men when they relocated the school to the Limbo dimension, hoping to stay safe from the Inhumans’ Terrigen cloud, which roamed the Earth at the time and turned out to be leathel for mutants. Once the Terrigen cloud was disposed of, Trance and the other X-Men returned to Earth as the school was relocated to New York City’s Central Park and renamed as the Xavier Institute. She helped the X-Men out fighting a number of advisories during the time that the school was located in Central Park.

X-Men Dissasembled

When the Xavier school was destroyed by Nate Grey, also known as X-Man, Trance joined the other X-Men in a fight against him. Eventually, the X-Men where seemingly wiped out of excistence by Nate Grey, including Trance. She however turned up alive and well in an alternate dimension in which she and the other X-Men had been transported to.

Powers and Abilities

Trance is a mutant who can project an astral form of herself away from her physical body. Although her normal physical body has no special abilities, with only the strength of a teenaged girl with mild athletic prowess, her Trance form is capable of various different skills.

Since Trance’s astral form has no physical mass, she is not subject to the downwards pull of gravity. Therefore, Trance never touches the floor while in her astral form. Although her physical body may be anchored to the ground as normal, the astral form often floats above her body.

Originally, her astral Trance form would return to her body after a period of a few minutes. There was always a long trail between the legs & feet of her astral form that led back to her physical body. However, since being tasered during the riots in San Francisco, she has been able to act more freely in her Trance form. Instead, she can last for longer periods outside of her body, and can move longer distances without the tailing connection between her two forms.

Since being hit with a taser, it appears that Trance’s physical body no longer falls unconscious. Instead, she can operate in tandem in both the physical and astral form. Although the range of her astral form appears limited, and prefers to remain close by to her physical form. Yet her physical body can also visually detect things that no-one else can see, because of the influence of her astral form giving her an awareness of disruption between dimensions. Therefore, there is still a close bond between her physical body & astral Trance form.

Trance’s astral projection is also capable of generating bio-electric energy blasts. Although not as powerful as Jubilee’s plasma fireworks used to be, Trance’s blasts are certainly capable of stinging an enemy and throwing them off balance. Rogue was able to use them to fight Emplate back from Bling! for a few short moments.

The blasts come from the bio-electrical substance that the astral form is made of. She used to build up the bio-electrical energy if she had been separated from her physical form for too long and grew emotionally unstable. As demonstrated during the San Francisco riots, Trance began to lose control over her emotions and her astral form began to build up so much energy that she was about to detonate. It is yet unclear how much damage she would have created if her astral form had discharged that amount of energy in a built-up area.

Alternate Earths

Age of X

Little is known about Trance so far in the alternate universe of Age of X, but she is seen standing guard with Gambit.

Other Media

Games

X-men: Battle of the Atom

Trance appears in several cards in the mobile game X-men Battle of the Atom. Her cards are:

• Trance
• [Muir Island] Trance

She is also a boss in the Nechrosa Event under the influence of Proteus.