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Melissa Gold
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Melissa Gold

224 appearances · Bronze Age · 1979–2026 · 8 key issues
Who is Melissa Gold?

Melissa Gold grew up hardscrabble and turned to crime, eventually becoming the supervillain Screaming Mimi as a member of the Grapplers, a wrestling team secretly sponsored by Roxxon Oil. Through later circumstances she reinvented herself as Songbird, ultimately becoming a hero.

Few Marvel characters have traveled as long and winding a road as Melissa Gold, who first stepped onto the Bronze Age stage in Marvel Two-in-One #54 back in 1979 and has been making waves ever since — nearly five decades of appearances and 196 catalog entries that speak to genuine staying power. Her world is rich with company: she shares pages with heavy hitters like Captain America, Karla Sofen, Moonstone, and Abner Jenkins, and her deepest roots run through Thunderbolts, one of Marvel's most morally complex team books. With eight key-issue designations to her name, Melissa Gold is the kind of character that rewards the collector who digs in — a Bronze Age original who has kept reinventing her place in the Marvel Universe all the way into 2026.

Identity

Real name. Melissa Joan Gold

Affiliations. Formerly:; S.H.I.E.L.D. ; A.I.M. ; New Avengers ; Initiative ; Femizons ; Masters of Evil ; Unlimited Class Wrestling Federation ; Grapplers ; covert operative for Roxxon Oil Company56

★ First appearance
Marvel Two-in-One #54
Aug 1979

Trivia

  • Melissa Gold didn't simply swap aliases when she joined the Thunderbolts — her sleek, bird-themed Songbird costume represented a full visual reinvention from her raw, punk-inflected Screaming Mimi days, signaling that this was a character rebuilt from the ground up.facebook.com
  • During the Thunderbolts era, Melissa Gold emerged as one of Marvel's most prominent reformed villains, anchoring a title widely celebrated as a landmark for making readers genuinely sympathize with ex-supervillains rather than treating redemption as a cheap narrative gimmick.facebook.com
  • Songbird was woven into the DNA of the original Thunderbolts twist — introduced alongside teammates who were initially presented as heroes before the book pulled back the curtain on their true identities, cementing her as one of the characters most closely associated with that seismic status-quo shift.facebook.com
  • Kurt Busiek has written more of Melissa Gold's comics than any other writer in our catalog — 35 issues.

Top series

Covers through the years — 1979–2024

Marvel Two-in-One #54 1979
Marvel Two-in-One #54
Marvel Two-in-One #96 1983
Marvel Two-in-One #96
Avengers Spotlight #28 1990
Avengers Spotlight #28
Captain America #411 1993
Captain America #411
The Incredible Hulk #449 1997
The Incredible Hulk #449
Avengers Forever #12 2000
Avengers Forever #12
Thunderbolts #74 2003
Thunderbolts #74
New Thunderbolts #3 2006
New Thunderbolts #3
Thunderbolts #144 2010
Thunderbolts #144
Dark Avengers #183 2013
Dark Avengers #183
Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D. #3 2016
Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D. #3
Women of Marvel #[nn] 2021
Women of Marvel #[nn]
Thunderbolts Epic Collection #2 2024
Thunderbolts Epic Collection #2

Appearances (1–150 of 224, oldest first)

Marvel Two-in-One (1974)
Titans (1976)
#47
Spécial Strange (1975)
Avengers Spotlight (1989)
Captain America (1968)
The Incredible Hulk (1968)
Tales of the Marvel Universe (1997)
#1
Deadpool (1997)
#3
Marvel Vision (1996)
Thunderbolts '97 (1997)
Star Trek / X-Men: 2nd Contact (1998)
#1
Avengers Forever (1998)
Marvel Special (1997)
Die Rächer (1999)
#6
Iron Man 1999 (1999)
Comic Box (1998)
#16
Spider-Man 1/2 - Thunderbolts 1/2: Comic Action '99 Sonderedition (1999)
Captain Marvel (1999)
Marvel Crossover (1999)
#17
Avengers 2000 (2000)
Hellcat (2000)
Avengers (1998)
Maximum Security (2000)
#2
Earth X (2000)
Comicology (2000)
#3
Marvel Heroes Hors Série (2001)
#7
Thunderbolts: Justice Like Lightning (2001)
Giant Size Mini-Marvels: Starring Spidey (2002)
#1
Marvel Universe: Millennial Visions (2002)
#1
Avengers / Thunderbolts (2004)
New Thunderbolts (2005)
Official Handbook of the Marvel Universe: The Women of Marvel 2005 (2005)
Official Handbook of the Marvel Universe: Teams 2005 (2005)
She-Hulk (2005)
Civil War (2006)
Avengers Assemble (2004)
#4
Ultimate Fantastic Four (2004)
#38
Thunderbolts: Guardian Protocols (2007)
Marvel Zombies: Dead Days (2007)
Thunderbolts: Breaking Point (2008)
#1
WWH Aftersmash: Damage Control (2008)
Civil War Chronicles (2007)
Thunderbolts: International Incident (2008)
#1
Thunderbolts: Reason in Madness (2008)
#1
The Amazing Spider-Man (1999)
Secret Invasion (2009)
Dark Reign: Elektra (2009)
#1