Very little is known about Shego's early life and even her real name is never revealed. At some unknown point prior to the start of the series, a rainbow-colored comet smashed into Shego's childhood tree house, and endowed her and her four brothers with super powers. She then became a hero who, alongside her four brothers, defended Go City against a number of villains as the superhero group Team Go. Shego eventually left the team for reasons that were never fully specified, but anecdotal evidence suggests there were three primary reasons: a fascination with villainy, crankiness, and irritation with her brothers. At some point, she abandoned her family and their quest for justice for a life as a mercenary-for-hire.[4]
It is unknown what happened with Shego right after leaving her family, but from the beginning of the series Shego has been, for the most part, in the employ of Dr. Drakken as his sidekick and enforcer. It is during this stage of her life in which the series mostly revolves, leading her and Drakken to multiple confrontations against Kim Possible. Throughout the series, Shego is repeatedly defeated by Kim Possible and sent back to jail. She is (as previously mentioned) a formidable fighter and gets the better of Kim Possible a few times, whereupon her successes are usually stopped by Ron (often accidentally), Rufus, or, on occasion, bungling from Drakken or interference from his machinery.
In the second season, one of the most notable events involving Shego was her reunion with her brothers; she had to team up with her rival Kim to retrieve their powers, which had been stolen by an old enemy of hers, Aviarius. This was the first time the show took the time to detail bits of Shego's past, delving into her previously unknown background as a once-upon-a-time teenage heroine herself.
A notable curiosity in the series, Shego is the only villain who is never given all of her basic characteristics: she lacks a common name—being known only as Shego throughout the show's run—and her age is also difficult to place. (At times, she seems to be older than Kim Possible, enjoying hip-hop music, fast cars, and handsome men; she critiques the heroine on her fashion and dating choices and is found attractive by both Ron and Senor Senior Junior, who are both of a high school-college age. Still, at other times she seems to be quite a bit older, having a complex college degree in child development, dating Mister Barkin, in Sitch in Time, Shego has the same white stripe in her hair as Drakken, Monkey Fist, and Kim's parents, indicating she's older, and being characterized by Ron as "older, like, a lot older!" Of course, this also comes in the same scene in "Clean Slate"[5] where Shego tries to convince an amnesiac Kim that she was a senior while the heroine was a freshman.)
During the fourth season, Shego's character went through some development which pointed to the possibility that she may have been growing tired of her established role as a villainous sidekick. She walked out on two separate capers,[6][7] and on two occasions she actually saved Kim's life. Shego states her reason for doing so is because nobody is allowed to kill Kim, except for her.[8][9] Finally, at the series' end, she and Drakken team up with Kim and Ron to save the world from an alien invasion. Because of this, she is greeted as a heroine once again.[10]
Alternative versions
In addition to the stock edition of Shego, her character and design has been modified on a number of occasions in order to fit in with specific plot devices and episodes.
In the multipart episode A Sitch In Time (Aired in the US as a stand-alone TV movie), a future version of Shego was shown as the only Kim Possible villain ever to successfully take over the world.[11]
Using the Tempus Simia, a mystical idol with the power to create portals through space-time, Shego, acting on the advice of her future self, managed to take over the world by making fruitful financial and criminal investments to strategically separating Kim and Ron, thus splitting up Team Possible and decreasing their effectiveness. This way, they failed to stop Shego from obtaining the idol and dragging them into the future, leaving the world for her to dominate.
Twenty years in the future, Shego, now known as The Supreme One, establishes Middleton as her capital, renaming it "Shegoton", and transforming Club Banana into "Club Shego". She has dissenters brainwashed in special totalitarian facilities (including and particularly the former high school) and everyone, aside from a small band of resistance fighters, wears a dress code based on Shego's green and black costume.
Although mostly the same, this version of Shego appeared to be much crueler and more evil than her present self as well as more criminally sophisticated, using her subordinates (other villains) to fight her enemies instead of doing it herself ("the Supreme One always delegates!"). She proves to be a seemingly capable Overlord in her delegations, capturing all of the rebels as well as Kim, Ron, and Rufus by sending her minions after them (Killigan, Drakken, and Monkey Fist). It was only when she began listening to Drakken's inane "tips" about how to gloat and boast that she becomes distracted, allowing the heroes to destroy the time monkey, undoing all of her victories and erasing her from history in the process.
Miss Go (1)
In the season 3 episode "Rewriting History", A young woman named Miss Go helps Bartholomew Lipsky (ancestor of Drew "Drakken" Lipsky) to steal an experimental device from Professor DeMenz (ancestor of Professor Dementor). In the process, she permanently sullies the good name of Miriam "Mim" Possible (ancestor to Kim), who is forced to go into hiding in shame. While this Miss Go lacks any apparent super-powers, she is still a remarkably gifted thief and hand-to-hand combatant, even while fighting in period-appropriate attire such as a corset, broad hat, and billowing skirt. She fights Miriam to a standstill while moving throughout the Middleton World's Fair, and eventually manages to escape with Lipsky.
Whether or not Miss Go ever truly existed is left unclear, as the episode ends in the trope of "It was all a dream;" only to show up in references in following episodes such as "Emotion Sickness" that at least some aspects, such as the existence of Jonathan Stoppable and the Taco Stand were probably real.
Miss Go (2)
In the Season 4 episode "Stop Team Go", Shego temporarily lost her crankiness to an enhanced version of Jack Hench's Attitudinator, wielded by an old enemy of Team Go, the techno-powered villainess Electronique. Electronique's plan had originally been to turn all of the members of Team Go evil, but since Shego was already evil, she was turned good instead.[12]
Assuming the alias Miss Go, Shego used her degree in child development to land a job as a substitute teacher at Middleton High School, taking over one of Kim's classes. As Miss Go, Shego is a genuinely kind, caring and even airheadedly girly person who is into shopping and romantic movies. She has a lot in common with Kim and the two quickly become close friends, with Kim going so far as to describe her as being "like a big sister." Shego also attracts the attention of fellow substitute teacher Steve Barkin, and they enjoyed a brief romance.
At the end of the episode, Shego was accidentally transformed back to her original self by Ron, and the Attitudinator is damaged beyond repair. Right after this, Shego rejoins with Drakken, who spent the episode failing to get a pickle jar open without her (she eventually opens the jar with great upset, to which Drakken retorts, "Oh, sure, after I loosened it!"). Towards the episode's close, she is seen looking wistfully at a strip of photo booth pictures of Kim and herself, suggesting that she might have regrets about losing their brief friendship; she then burns the pictures as Drakken approaches, apparently because she did not want him to see them. Later during the credits Barkin tries to win her back; though she considers it at the beginning, as soon as he started to sing, she used the lair's defense system on him.
Creation and reception
Initially, Shego was meant to be "just" Dr. Drakken's sidekick, designed with green and black as what the creators considered to be known as "bad colors".[13] However, it was after hearing Nicole Sullivan's performance as Shego that they started to develop her unique relationship with Drakken, as Nicole portrayed Shego as sarcastic and smarter than Drakken, which prevailed along the series as trademark, even though the characters' voice actors had already worked together in Buzz Lightyear of Star Command.[14] Originally, Shego wasn't included in the first versions of the pilot episode of Kim Possible ("Crush"), but was added in later versions of it.[15]
Shego has become the most popular villain of the series[citation needed] as well as one of its most popular characters, and also one of the main character's most popular non-canon love interests among fan art and fan fiction. Her popularity led the authors of the series to keep her, alongside Drakken, as one of the most recurring characters, even though they had intended to work less with them; the duo are thus regarded as Kim Possible's arch-nemeses.[15]
Besides being one of the most recurring characters of the franchise, Shego is one of the few characters who has had appearances outside the series. She appeared in the Lilo & Stitch: The Series crossover episode entitled “Rufus”, again as Drakken's sidekick in his attempt to kidnap Stitch.[16] She also appeared in almost every Kim Possible video game, most notably in What's the Switch?, where she is a playable character alongside Kim and covers up half of the adventure. For gameplay purposes, her powers in said game are portrayed as being electromagnetic rather than thermal.
The Spanish all-female punk band Shego is named after her.[17]
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