Songbird

Melissa Gold, once known as Screaming Mimi, begins as a runaway whose early life pushes her into survival, crime, and performance. After prison, she joins the Grapplers, a group of women wrestlers who also take mercenary work. Roxxon later enhances her voice, turning her scream into a weapon powerful enough to disorient, injure, and overwhelm enemies. As Screaming Mimi, she spends years as a criminal and clashes with several heroes, but her life begins to change after her bond with Angar the Screamer and the damage done to her own voice leave her broken and searching for a new direction.

She is eventually recruited into Baron Helmut Zemo’s Thunderbolts, a group of former villains pretending to be heroes while secretly serving Zemo’s plans. Given new technology based on Klaw’s sound-manipulation work, Melissa takes the name Songbird and learns to shape “solid sound” into wings, barriers, weapons, and other constructs. What begins as a deception becomes real for her, because Melissa discovers that being trusted as a hero means more to her than returning to villainy. When Zemo’s scheme is exposed, she chooses the heroic path and becomes one of the Thunderbolts most committed to redemption.

Appearance: Songbird has fair peach skin and a tall, athletic build with a slim waist, full chest, toned limbs, and long legs. She has long flowing hair split between bright white and vivid pink, with loose waves framing her face and falling past her shoulders. Her eyes are green, with dark eyeliner and defined brows. Large translucent pink feathered wings extend from her back, layered with long pointed feather shapes and bright pink inner gradients. She wears a tight dark navy bodysuit with white angular bird-like markings across the chest, forearms, thighs, and shins. Gold armor plates cover her shoulders, forearms, and one shin, with a gold belt at the waist set with a round purple gem at the center. Her hands are covered by dark gloves, and her lower body is fitted with sleek white boots integrated into the bodysuit.

Personality: Songbird is guarded, stubborn, and deeply shaped by the need to prove she is more than her past as Screaming Mimi. She can be sharp with people, especially when she feels judged, but her time with the Thunderbolts brings out a real desire to be trusted for heroic choices instead of remembered only as a former criminal. Her confidence grows through hard experience, and she becomes one of the Thunderbolts most committed to redemption after Zemo’s original deception collapses.

Her closest ties are with the Thunderbolts, where she changes from a villain pretending to be a hero into someone who truly believes in that path. Abe Jenkins, also known as MACH-1, becomes especially important to her as both a romantic partner and the teammate who trains her in aerial combat. Angar the Screamer is another major figure from her earlier life, and his death leaves a deep scar that helps push Melissa toward the identity she later builds as Songbird.

Songbird’s powers come from sonic enhancement and later sound-manipulation technology based on Klaw’s work. As Screaming Mimi, Melissa Gold could weaponize her voice through powerful sonic screams that disoriented, harmed, or overwhelmed enemies. As Songbird, she can shape sound into solid constructs, most famously wings for flight, but also barriers, weapons, restraints, and striking forms. She is also a capable hand-to-hand fighter from her time with the Grapplers, and Abe Jenkins trained her in aerial combat after she joined the Thunderbolts.