Trista MarshallBronze

When Trista’s mutant power emerges, her body transforms into a bronze-like metal and she can unleash rope-like whips, which she wields exceptionally well. While her power also makes her super-strong and durable, she’s still learning the ins and outs of her abilities and discovering herself along the way.

A Strong Girl

Trista Marshall is a bright young Black teenager living in Chicago, Illinois, who can crochet and her favorite anime is Sailor Moon. She even fashions her braids like the character’s signature Odango hairstyle with twin spherical buns. Growing up, she is often told to be a strong girl, especially when she’s left in the care of her grandmother after her mom has to go away, but she would rather be gentle and peaceful. What she wants is also the exact opposite of her mutant power, which is to turn into a hard, bronze-like metal. She attends Westinghouse College Prep and hopes that she doesn’t lose control of her abilities.

When a bigoted bouncer prevents Trista from entering the Bunny Starlite Dreams concert, Trista transforms and her skin becomes a bronze-like metal. With superior strength, she punches him back and as whip-like cables extend from her arms, she uses them to tie him up. But he breaks free and points a gun at her. Just then, X-Man Katherine Pryde, AKA Kitty Pryde, comes to her rescue, phasing her out of danger, through the nearest wall, and right into the concert’s crowd. Kitty pulls Trista through the crowd and into another wall, only to be confronted by several security guards. They escape again and Kitty drives Trista home, who is embarrassed and compares herself to a monster. Kitty says there’s pride in being a mutant, and Trista acknowledges how Kitty saved her and if that was what it meant to be a mutant, she could get behind it. She complimented Kitty’s strategy and battle tactics.

Arriving home, Trista’s grandmother could see that she was upset and comforts her with a hug. She reminds her that Trista comes from strong people. Trista soon creates a care package for Kitty and sends it to her as a thank you, with a note calling Kitty her hero. 

Bronze Out

Trista can alter her skin into a bronze-like metal, which gives her superhuman strength and durability. Though she cannot sustain too many full-on blasts from a Sentinel. While transformed, she can unleash rope-like whips from her arms, which she uses to lash at her opponents or lasso them up.

First Sign of Trouble

Trista’s instincts for trouble are spot on. When a bouncer attempts to shove her, her mutant powers engage and she defends herself. Later, when she meets mutant Sheldon Xenos, CEO of the mobile app known as Verate that collects people’s DNA, she's immediately suspicious of its potential for its inappropriate uses.

X-Fam

Former X-Men teacher Kitty Pryde becomes Trista’s first mutant ally when she saves her from getting shot at a concert. Trista looks up to her, seeing her as a hero. Through Kitty, Trista meets other teenaged mutants and joins a dojo run by Kitty and telepath Emma Frost, the White Queen.

The Bronze Age

Trista sought to learn more about her mutant powers, so her new hero Kitty connected her with other teenaged mutants: Thao Tran, who can turn invisible and phase through things like Kitty, and Alejandro “Alex” Luna, who can read other people’s moods, change their skin color like a salamander, and inadvertently cause others to spill their secrets. The trio bonded over bubble tea and then showed up at Kitty’s place, but ended up mind-controlled by Emma Frost, the White Queen. Coming out of it, they witnessed a fight between Kitty and Emma and steered clear. Kitty’s roommate, Priti, soon came home and calmed things down. Emma was there to offer them a place in the Adirondacks where they could learn more about their powers. But Priti had a better idea, giving them the use of an inherited warehouse turned dance studio. Kitty, who did not want to be a teacher again but also didn’t want the teens to fall under Emma’s influence, reluctantly agreed to co-train the teens at the studio. 

At the warehouse studio now mutant dojo, Thao asked about code names and Bronze had them all sketched out. She gave Thao the code name “Melee” since she runs headfirst into a fight. For Alex, she suggested “Axo”, a shortened version of Axolotl, the salamander that changes color. Trista gave herself the code name Bronze, because of the color of her skin when she transformed and it sounded cool. Both Alex and Thao loved them. Still, Trista struggled to accept what the world saw about her. She wanted to be tender and soft, and for the world to be easy on her. Kitty reminded her that wasn’t something in anyone’s control and guided her through a relaxation technique to transform, and Trista did so beautifully.

Emma arrived with costumes emblazoned with an “x” on them, and suddenly an invasion of goblins attacked. The group went on the defensive, while Bronze took a deep breath and unleashed her whips, taking out a bunch of goblins at once. But when Axo sensed that the goblins were a manifestation originating from Emma, he exposed her and the creatures disappeared as quickly as they came. Kitty and Emma fought over her harsh training techniques just as Bobby Drake, AKA Iceman, interrupted and ended up helping the students train as well.

Bronze continued training and battled a Sentinel that Emma psionically conjured, but ended up cowering during the combat scenario. Trista revealed that she was distracted by a desire to try out for the school play with her theater nerd crush, but didn’t want to risk bronzing out. Emma encouraged her to practice transforming over and over to help with what she needed: certainty. When it came time to audition for the play, her performance was interrupted by a giant demon beast that came hurtling through an interdimensional fracture. Trista repeated the word “certainty” to herself and turning to bronze, she used her whips and sent the beast back through the fracture. The play’s director was impressed and offered her a role, but Trista decided instead to spend her time at Kitty and Emma’s dojo. When she arrived, she told her new friends that she bombed the audition but successfully transformed at will. The group soon overheard an argument between Bobby and Kitty, the latter of whom referenced her murderous past.

Horrified by this new revelation, Thao quit, Alex left, and Trista ran out crying. Later, Trista and Alex heard about an incident with Thao starting a fight at school to protect her mutant cousin from bullies. Though Trista and Alex supported her ideals, they called her out for embarrassing her cousin and for bailing on them too. Thao realizes the error in her ways, rejoins the dojo, and trains with Kitty. Trista and Alex returned to the dojo as well.

A couple weeks passed, and Trista and the others soon started internships at Priti’s firm where they met with mutant Sheldon Xenos, the founder of Verate—a mysterious new app promising to cure mutants if they submitted their genetic information. Trista was rightly suspicious of it, seeing the endless problems it could create, from data privacy to eugenics, and her instincts about it are shared by Thao, though Alex related to the mutant technologist.