KARMA

Shan was first seen in the Marvel Universe as a daughter of a colonel in the Vietnamese army. Xi'an and her twin brother Tran Coy Manh were both mutants who shared the same powers of possession. However, Tran took great delight in the use of his powers, enjoying the feeling of taking over a person's mind. Shan, on the other hand, was frightened of her power.

Shan kept her powers secret, but Tran told their uncle Nguyen, a general in the Vietnamese army. General Coy later arranged for Xi'an's family to leave Vietnam, which was now entirely under a Communist government, but only Tran was sent abroad. Eventually, the rest of the family left Vietnam on a small, crowded boat. Xi'an's father was murdered by attacking pirates, who assaulted the women; her mother died the day the survivors were rescued by the United States Navy. This left Shan, her younger brother Leong, and her younger sister Nga. They were sent to the United States to be reunited with their uncle Nguyen and Tran. General Coy had become a powerful and prosperous criminal in the United States (although he was publicly known as a businessman), and Tran was using his powers in his uncle's employ.

Coy asked Shan to use her powers in his service, alongside her brother, but she refused. She sought help from a Catholic priest, Father Michael Bowen, whom she had known in Vietnam. With Father Bowen's aid Shan secured employment and an apartment and enrolled her younger siblings in school.

General Coy was not out of her life yet, however. He kidnapped Leong and Nga in an effort to blackmail her into working for him. Desperate, she located Spider-Man, whom she believed to be a criminal from accounts in the New York Daily Bugle, and took possession of his mind so she could use his powers to rescue the children. While possessed by Shan, Spider-Man fought three members of the Fantastic Four, and eventually the FF & Spidey agreed to help Shan free her siblings.

In the battle against her uncle and Tran, Shan was forced to kill her brother by absorbing his life essence into herself. Devastated by the loss of her brother, Shan was nonetheless then reunited with Leong and Nga.

Shortly thereafter, Shan, who took the name Karma, accepted the invitation of Professor Charles Xavier to enroll in his school in order to learn to use her mutant powers better. Thus, she became the first leader of Professor X's New Mutants. Shan was with the team only a short time before she disappeared, thought drowned in South America.

Shan later resurfaced under the control of the Shadow King. The evil mutant had possessed her body, and Karma was now an obese monster.

The New Mutants and Storm eventually freed her, but she continued to suffer from depression as her body remained grossly fat. After being kidnapped by the Enchantress and taken to Asgard with the rest of the team, Shan found herself lost in an Asgardian desert. there she met a young girl (one of the Asgardian Fates), and over weeks of starvation and fighting to survive, Shan's body returned to normal and she rejoined the team.

Shan didn't remain at Xavier's long, however. Back on Earth, she found her siblings once again kidnapped. In an effort to save them, Shan took her leave from the team she founded, leaving a letter telling the others not to follow.

Karma's mutant power allows her to take possession of the minds of other people or animals. She control's her subject's actions and experiences what the subject's senses perceive. While possessed by Shan, her victim descends into a dreamless sleep, and will have no memory of his/her experience. Karma can possess multiple subjects simultaneously, though her control over her subjects then becomes weaker.

Since leaving the New Mutants, Shan teamed up with the X-Man Beast to recover her siblings from the villainess Viper. She has since remained a solo adventurer, but will occasionally join her former teammates in X-Force for a mission.