I do remember the first time I shifted, though. One minute I was me and the next I was Ms. Jamison, my preschool teacher. And I could see every memory she'd ever had. Fucking her husband's best friend, shoplifting lip gloss, hitting a student. But you know what the funny part is? She felt justified in doing all those shitty things. You all do it. You all think you're the heroes of your own story.
―The Shifter vents about human nature to Starlight.[src]
The Shifter meets with Sister Sage disguised as a "Shady Man", while secretly being photographed by A-Train. Sage criticizes the Shifter and says he smells like alcohol. The Shifter is defensive and claims he got to the meeting as fast as he could. Sage gives the Shifter blue folders and orders him to do the job he has been tasked with. A-Train suspects this Shady Man is going to assassinate President-elect Robert Singer so that Victoria Neuman can take control of the government. Butcher, Hughie, and Annie infiltrate the Shifter's apartment and find Secret Service files detailing Singer's presidential rally. The trio hear a thud and find a woman inside a closet. The woman claims the assassin murdered her husband and thanks them for rescuing her. Annie helps her up and comments that the woman's skin temperature is above normal. The woman states "It's like a furnace in there." The woman then uses a hidden knife to slash Hughie's right hand before running off. The Boys give chase as the Shifter bumps into an elderly woman. She touches the elderly woman's arm and steals a robe as she continues running. The Boys chase her down a flight of stairs while the Shifter begins tearing off her skin to unveil her new disguise. The Shifter finishes her disguise of the elderly woman and exits the building. The Boys follow but the Shifter disappears into the crowd outside.
Following The Boys' fight with The Deep and Black Noir II, the Shifter tracks them down to a bar. She disguises herself as "Karen" and gets a selfie with Annie. When Annie got up to go the restroom, the Shifter ambushed her and incapacitated her with an anaesthetic gas. She kidnapped Annie, took her to an abandoned building and shackled her to the floor. The Shifter impersonates Annie and meets back up with The Boys. As Annie, the Shifter hears The Boys' plans to use the virus on Neuman. The Shifter later meets up with Hughie. Hughie reveals he talked with Victoria and failed to convince her to turn against Homelander. The Shifter wears the Starlight costume except her boots and seduces Hughie. As Hughie sleeps and she gets out of bed naked, the Shifter unlocks Hughie's safe, steals his laptop and deletes Hughie's blackmail against Neuman.
For the next 10 days, the Shifter continues to impersonate Annie while keeping the real one prisoner. While Hughie searches for information on the identity of the Shifter, she wears a dress and attempts to seduce Hughie once more. Hughie would prefer to focus on his work, so the Shifter tells Hughie the story about Annie's great-grandparents' proposal. The Shifter then proposes to Hughie and Hughie ecstatically accepts. He retrieves an engagement ring and puts it on her finger. The two embrace and have sex once more. The Shifter then notices her skin falling off her finger. She gets up out of bed and leaves under the guise of getting champagne to celebrate, in reality she leaves to refresh her disguise. The Shifter returns to the imprisoned Annie and grabs her. The Shifter regenerates her disguise and reads Annie's thoughts about her mother. The Shifter tauntingly claims she won't go to Sedona just to kill Annie's mother. The Shifter then reveals Hughie's engagement ring and taunts Annie about having sex with Hughie. Annie calls the Shifter a psychopath and Shifter angrily corrects her, stating that she's a sociopath. She talks about the first time she shifted and how everyone she turns into feels justified in doing bad things. The Shifter then demeans Annie and claims she's no better than anyone else. Before leaving, she reveals she's going to frame Annie for Singer's assassination.
The Shifter returns to Hughie and witnesses his reaction to the deleted files, silently smiling in reaction to his panic. M.M orders Hughie and "Annie" to regroup with The Boys and President Singer. The Boys stand guard of Singer and wait for the Shifter to infiltrate his bunker. The Shifter Annie talks with Hughie and says, "It's like a furnace in here." Hughie recognizes the phrase as something the Shifter said prior and realizes that the Shifter is impersonating Annie. While the Shifter leaves to get water, Hughie warns M.M and the two attempt to hide their suspicion. The Shifter returns with water and shows off their engagement ring. The two attempt to stay calm, but the Shifter notices their nervousness and attacks them. Several secret servicemen shoot her, but she easily kills the guards. The Shifter gives chase to Singer and fights Kimiko. The Shifter overpowers Kimiko and breaks her neck. The Shifter corners Singer but she's tackled by Annie. The Shifter taunts Annie before the fight resumes. Annie overpowers the Shifter and slams her head into the floor. Annie begins strangling the Shifter as she vents about her self-doubt. Annie chokes the Shifter until she stops breathing.
Despite their failure to kill Singer, The Shifter was (indirectly) successful in framing Singer for Neuman's murder. It's revealed she recorded Singer ordering Neuman's assassination, leading to his removal from office and victory for Homelander.
Powers and Abilities[]
Powers[]
“
So we're saying that they could be anyone? How the fuck are we supposed to save the president if the killer could be anyone?
Shapeshifting: The Shifter possesses the ability to transform into anyone she makes physical contact with. During transformation, the Shifter sheds the skin, hair, nails and other biomass of her previous disguise before assuming a new one.
Memory Absorption: the Shifter automatically gains the memories and reads direct thoughts of anyone who's form she takes.
Pain Suppression: The Shifter possesses advantageous pain-suppressing abilities, as she rips off her own skin without showing any pain.
Regenerative Healing Factor: The Shifter apparently recovers more quickly than humans, since she loses a lot of blood during the transformation, but without any negative effects.
Superhuman Strength:
The Shifter fighting Annie
The Shifter possesses superhuman strength, which makes her stronger than humans and some Supes. She is capable of killing and incapacitating adult humans with little difficulty as shown when she throws a Secret Service agent into a filing cabinet with such strengh that his back breaks in half as a result. She is also able to easily rip apart her own super-durable skin. Her strength is roughly on par with Starlight and Kimiko, fighting with both of them equally.
Superhuman Durability: The Shifter possesses superhuman durability, which makes her more durable than humans and most Supes. She is completely bulletproof as seen when he is shot multiple times by several Secret Service agents and Hughie and remains unharmed.
Superhuman Hearing: The Shifter possesses superhuman hearing, allowing her to hear better than humans. Like all Supes, she can hear higher frequencies that humans cannot.[1]
Abilities[]
Skilled Combatant: The Shifter is shown to be a very capable fighter as shown when she stands her ground when fighting Starlight, landing blows and dodging the latter's punches.
Skin-Shedding: Unlike some other shapeshifters encountered by The Boys, this Supe has to shed her skin in order to change her physical appearance, taking longer than is required by those who can morph their body shape and transform their physical features almost instantaneously without having to go through such a messy and drawn-out process.
High Body Temperature: This supe is seemingly in a constant state of discomfort because of heat. This may mean that her flesh disguise is more like a full-body leather suit rather than skin. This quirk is what ultimately broke her cover.
Physical Contact Requirement: She is required to make constant physical contact with the exact person she's impersonating in order to maintain their physical form, otherwise it starts to deteriorate over time. This meant that she had to keep that person alive in order to use them to regenerate for required prepose of being to be able to remain in their physical form for a prolonged period of time, as shown when she had to keep Annie as a live prisoner in order to maintain her form so she could spy on The Boys and eventually assassinate Singer.
Brute Force/Limited Durability: Despite being more durable than humans, the Shifter can still be stunned, knocked unconscious, and killed by extreme force. Annie strangles her to death.
High Frequencies: Due to being a Supe, the Shifter is susceptible to high frequencies. When a high frequency is playing, it can induce immense pain and temporarily neutralize her.
Psychological[]
“
"You're a psychopath." "Sociopath. Which is to be expected, really; I mean, I barely remember what I look like".
Sociopathy: She is a self-described sociopath. She gave various explanations for this, mostly because she gains every memory from every person, she takes the form of, including the emotions they felt during those memories. As shown, due to constantly absorbing the terrible memories and emotions of others, such as their sense of entitlement and selfishness even when they do terrible things, the Shifter ended up developing a sense of complete emotional detachment towards others that eventually turned into disgust and even contempt for other human beings.
Unlike Doppelganger, whose ability to mimic is limited to only physical and voice replicating, the unidentified Shapeshifter Supe is able to replicate the victim's memory, much like Marvel's Skrulls.
This Supe is likely a parody of Marvel Comics, Husk, a mutant and a member of the X-Men, who has the power to alter her body’s physical matter into anything she wants by shedding her skin, typically by ripping it off with her hands. The exact same way the Shapeshifting Supe’s power work when she changes shape. Although she might also be a parody of Marvel’s Chameleon, as she can look like anyone, and is a criminal for hire.
The unidentified shapeshifter changes into another form in the same way shapeshifters from Eric Kripke's previous work, Supernatural, do. Additionally, the eye "flare" is also nod to the shapeshifters from the Supernatural.
The unidentified shapeshifter was never seen in her original form. When tormenting Starlight, she reveals that she can't even remember what she actually looks like. However, the Shifter possesses reptilian features such as double eyelids and skin shedding, implying the true form to be reptillian.
References[]
↑Bob in First Day: "Did you know Supes have a wider range of hearing than us? Like dogs."
