Characters / Thunderbolts Founding Members

Founding Members

Citizen V / Baron Zemo

Citizen V / Baron Zemo

Baron Helmut Zemo XIII

^{Click here to see as Citizen V} 

Alter Ego: Baron Helmut J. Zemo

First Appearance: Captain America #168 (December 1973) ^note As Phoenix; Captain America #275 (November 1982) ^note As Baron Zemo; The Incredible Hulk #449 (January 1997) ^note As Citizen V

The 13th Baron in the Zemo bloodline. Helmut followed in the footsteps of his father before him, becoming an enemy of Captain America and the Avengers. In what could be his greatest scheme ever, Helmut masqueraded as Citizen V and led the Thunderbolts to public acclaim in order to conquer the world. In the end, he failed only because his cohorts desired to remain heroes and rebelled against him.

See Captain America: Central Rogues Gallery for more info.

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Atlas / Goliath

Atlas / Goliath

Atlas

^{Click here to see as Goliath} 

Alter Ego: Erik Josten

First Appearance: The Avengers #21 (October 1965) ^note As Power Man; Peter Parker, The Spectacular Spider-Man #49 (December 1980) ^note As Smuggler; Iron Man Annual #7 (October 1984) ^note As Goliath; The Incredible Hulk #449 (January 1997) ^note As Atlas

Starting his super-criminal life as Power Man and then reinventing himself as the size-altering Goliath, Erik Josten has served as a member of several incarnations of the Masters of Evil and the Lethal Legion. It wasn't until he became Atlas and a founding Thunderbolts member that he truly "discovered" himself.

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• The Big Guy: His main role at both the Thunderbolts and Masters of Evil.
• Dead Little Sister: In his backstory, Erik had a little sister who wanted to hang out with her delinquent big brother, who brushed her off. Determined, she tried riding after him and his friends on a bike. At night, after it had been raining. She got hit by a car and died in hospital, leaving Erik to forever regret how mean his last interaction with her had been. It's one of the reasons he becomes so protective of Jolt.
• Depower: Once, he worked for Count Nefaria, who betrayed him and stole his powers.
• Discard and Draw: His powers used to be derived from Pym Particles, same as the various Ant-Men and Wasps, but when Zemo and Fixer yanked him out of the dimension he'd been sucked into, they found the particles had been drained out of him, causing a shift in Erik's powers.
• Heel–Face Turn: While he's had relapses in villainy throughout the years, he has mostly remained a Face since.
• Hunk: In order to make him unrecognizable, Techno altered his face to look like this. He liked it so much he asked Techno to make it permanent.
• Hyperspace Is a Scary Place: Back when he was called Goliath, he received his abilities from photon energy, which he gained by stealing it from what he thought was the same source as Wonder Man's powers. To his horror, it turned out that his physiology had been changed so as to syphon energy from a hostile micro verse-dimension; and his body served as a beacon to those dimension's inhabitants, and he can hear them talking in his head. While said invaders are repelled by the Earth's heroes, poor Erik is dragged into their dimension against his will. He is so thankful to Baron Zemo for freeing him from the Microverse several years later, that he swears his undying loyalty to him right then and there.
• I Have Many Names: Power Man, Smuggler, Atlas, and Goliath.
• Mook Promotion: Started off in life as one of Heinrich Zemo's goons, before he got superpowers.
• One-Steve Limit: Erik has no relation to that other Power Man, Luke Cage. In fact, Erik once attacked Luke for taking the moniker, and it didn't go well for him.
• Primary-Color Champion: His new costume as Atlas is mostly red, blue and yellow.
• Secondary Color Nemesis: His costume as Goliath was orange.
• Sizeshifter: Though usually only to make himself bigger.
• Super-Strength: Even at normal size he's pretty strong.
• Undying Loyalty: To Baron Zemo. Serves as the basis for his character arc in the early issues as, being a soldier, he cannot betray his commanding officer (Zemo), but is constantly tempted to do so, as he discovers a new side of himself after playing at being a hero and falling in love. Ultimately subverted in issue 12 of the original run, where he helps the badly wounded Zemo escape the space station, but refuses to go with him, deeming their debts to be square.
• The Worf Effect: Suffers from this more than any other Thunderbolts member. Almost every new enemy the team faces gets a turn to beat Atlas into unconsciousness in order to establish them as a significant threat. However, this usually leads to...
• Worf Had the Flu: ...this trope. Once the Villain of the Week's plan has been thwarted, they will usually turn around to come face-to-face with a recently revived Atlas. Cue long overdue ass-kicking.

MACH-1 / Beetle

MACH-1 / Beetle

As MACH-X

^{Click here to see as MACH-IV} 

^{Click here to see as MACH- 1} 

^{Click here to see as Beetle} 

Alter Ego: Abner Ronald "Abe" Jenkins

Notable Aliases: MACH-1, MACH-2, Abe Jenkins, Matthew Davis, MACH-3, MACH-IV, MACH-VII, MACH-X

First Appearance: Strange Tales #123 (August 1964)^note As Beetle; Incredible Hulk #449 (January, 1997) ^note As Mach-1; Thunderbolts #37 (April, 2000)^note As Mach-2; Thunderbolts #57 (December, 2001)^note As Mach-3; New Thunderbolts #1 (December, 2004)^note As Mach-IV; Thunderbolts #144 (July, 2010)^note As Mach-V; The Superior Foes of Spider-Man #2 (October, 2013) ^note As Mach-VII; Thunderbolts Vol 3 #1 (July, 2016)^note As Mach-X

Boomerang: Abner here was the Beetle — the original Beetle. You probably don't notice much resemblance. And yes, a while back, we were in the same crew — called ourselves the Sinister Syndicate. I like to think I've grown past it. Thing is, Abner was a piece of ☠☠☠☠ even then. Double-crossed me more than twice — but hey, at least I could respect that. A crook is a crook. Then one day, he gets himself hooked into another gang — the Thunderbolts — a bunch of costumed baddies pretending to be good guys. It was a brilliant, beautiful long con. Least it was before Abner screwed the whole thing up — by actually becoming a good guy.

An aircraft mechanic, Abner Jenkins decided to supplement his income through less honest means and built a suit of insect-themed Powered Armor. Starting out as a foe of the Fantastic Four, he came into conflict with Spider-Man, continually redesigning and updating his armor in an effort to take out the Wall-Crawler. After joining the Thunderbolts under Baron Zemo, Abe decided to put his life of crime behind him and rebranded himself as a superhero called MACH I. Serving as a mainstay of the group, he would achieve legitimacy as a superhero and continue to upgrade his armor, eventually becoming MACH-X (and counting).

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• Amicable Exes: Even after breaking up with Melissa, they still care deeply for each other.
• Animal-Themed Superbeing: His original suits were built around a beetle motif.
• Becoming the Mask: As a Thunderbolt, he started out by pretending to be a hero, and ended up as an actual one, because he found Good Feels Good.
• Clothes Make the Superman: Abner has no powers but is a brilliant mechanic who can build himself different suits of Powered Armor to compensate.
• Combat Tentacles: The MK 1 Beetle Armor's fingers could extend a significant distance; combined with the strength-enhancing properties of the armor and the suction cups, they could ensnare foes in an incredible grip.
• Costume Evolution: As is common for Power Armored supers who invented their own suits, Jenkins has gone through multiple iterations of costume as he's redesigned and reinvented himself over the years.
  • As the Beetle, he started out with the MK 1 Beetle Armor, an embarrassingly Silver Age design that looks more like a baggy green bodysuit with a helmet, metal wings strapped to his back, and mechanical gloves with three sucker-tipped tentacles for fingers. In the 90s, he upgraded to the MK 2, which looked more like a form-fitting jumpsuit with a stylish helmet and a backpack reminiscent of a beetle's carapace. Finally, he invented the MK 3, a Mini-Mecha with an appearance somewhere between the MK 2 and Iron Man's Hulkbuster — ironically, he never actually used this suit himself.
  • As MACH, he has continually redesigned his armor, increasing the numeral addendum to his name with each new model.
• Crouching Moron, Hidden Badass: He can come off as an overeager klutz, but is still a more than competent engineer and fighter.
• Dude, Where's My Respect?:
  • Starting as a semi-credible villain, multiple defeats over the decades bumped him down to The Chew Toy. The breaking point was just before Zemo recruited him. Abe had organized a heist, only for his crew to turn on him and run with the money. As Abe confronted one of them, the guy said they'd all been laughing at him behind his back. Abe then got attacked by Daredevil and tried fleeing through the Hudson, which gummed up his armor, forcing him to walk back to his lair. Where he found Zemo waiting with an offer to stop people from laughing at him ever again.
  • He occasionally gets annoyed when people think Techno is the only one on the team with any scientific knowledge.
• Endearingly Dorky: Became more pronounced after he switched sides.
• Energy Weapon: One of the many weapons his armor is equipped with.
• Fun with Acronyms: It's shown in-universe that the MACH name came first and then he and Fixer tried to think up words that would allow for the acronym. They eventually settled on "Mobile Armored Cyber-Harness", which was later changed to "Mechanized Aerial Combat Harness" when he became MACH-V.
• Heel–Face Turn: As a result of his stint on the Thunderbolts, he ended up as a hero, and is one of the few Marvel characters whose turn stuck.
• I Just Want to Be Special: After becoming a hero he's developed a dream of being an Avenger.
• Iconic Outfit: His MK 2 Beetle Armor suit (the bottommost one in the image), which he wore in the 1980s and 1990s, is one of his best-known looks.
• The Klutz: Those wings...◊
• Nice Guy: Part of the reason his Heel–Face Turn has been accepted pretty well by the heroes; Abner may have been a crook once, but he's a sweetheart who's always looking for friends.
• No-Respect Guy: While the heroes have welcomed Abner as an ally, not many of them really respect him.
• Official Couple: With Songbird in the original Thunderbolts run.
• Old Shame: In-universe, he's not too impressed by his old Beetle armor.
• Powered Armor: His trademark, which he continually reinvents over the years. As Mach, the fact that his suit is cybernetic is far more noticeable; his Beetle Armors look more like bodysuits.
  • The MK 1 Beetle Armor sported multi-function wings that could be used as razor-sharp melee weapons, shields and digging devices. It could fly at speeds of roughly 45 mph, lift around 800 lbs, and grip almost any surface.
  • The MK 2 Beetle Armor was an all-around improvement. Whilst no longer able to use its wings to shield or dig, it could now lift over a ton and fly at speeds of 60 mph. On-board cameras give Jenkins a 360 degree field of vision, and its various sensors and communicators include a proximity alarm that can recognize individual targets. The armor's battle computer was able to track a target and attempt to predict its moves based upon data it had previously collected. It could also jam radio waves and project an energy blast called "the electrobite".
  • The strength-boost and flight speed of the MACH suits varies between models. Collectively, they retain the 360-degree vision of the MK 2 Beetle, and sport a variety of weapons; the MACH-I alone featured machine guns (both conventional and rubber "mercy" rounds), heat-seeking missiles, a gas grenade launcher loaded with smoke and tear gas rounds, energy blasters and a photon burst that could be used to illuminate the area or temporarily blind foes.
• Primary-Color Champion: His MACH-X armor is mostly blue with a red face mask.
• Put on a Bus: Left the Thunderbolts for a while when Hawkeye convinced him to surrender to the authorities and spend his time in jail as a way to show the Thunderbolts were serious about wanting to be real heroes. He later returned to the team after the Commission on Super-Human Activities tried to use him as a deniable agent.
• Religious Bruiser: Not brought up much, but after his Heel–Face Turn he apparently reconnected with his faith.
• Rogues' Gallery Transplant:
  • An enemy of the Human Torch but well-known for fighting Spidey too.
  • He provided extra muscle for several of Justin Hammer's plots against Iron Man. Beetle would use technology stolen from the Armored Avenger to upgrade his battlesuit, which came back to bite him during the first Armor Wars' storyline.
• Secondary Color Nemesis: All the Beetle armors have purple and green to varying extents. The MK 1 was almost entirely green, the MK 4 is almost entirely purple, and the MKs 2 and 3 are a mixture.
• Shock and Awe: The MK 2 Beetle Armor has the ability to generate short-ranged but powerful blasts of static electricity, an attack Jenkins referred to as "the electrobite".
• Took a Level in Badass: People today would probably laugh at his old costume, which didn't look very beetle-esque. He updated his armor in the 1980s, and it's stuck around — in fact, it was the only other costume he ever wore as the Beetle, with the bulkier MK 3 being designed by him but worn by the 2nd Beetle, Leila Davis, and the obviously feminine MK 4 being custom-designed for the 4th Beetle, Janice Lincoln, aka "Lady Beetle".
• Why Did It Have to Be Snakes?: He's not too fond of Spider-Man.

Meteorite / Moonstone

Meteorite / Moonstone

Moonstone

^{Click here to see as Meteorite} 

^{Click here to see as Ms. Marvel} 

Alter Ego: Dr. Karla Sofen

First Appearance: Captain America #192 (December 1975) ^note As Karla Sofen; The Incredible Hulk #228 (October 1978) ^note As Moonstone; Incredible Hulk #449 (January 1997) ^note As Meteorite; Dark Avengers #1 (March 2009) ^note As Ms. Marvel

I'm more Ms. Marvel than you'll ever be! I am going to break you! I will keep you in the basement of the Avengers Tower! Turn you into my pet! I will be your God!

Dr. Karla Sofen is a founding member of the Thunderbolts and former member of the Masters of Evil. She has flirted with both sides of the law in Norman Osborn's Avengers as Ms. Marvel. She's a control freak with nearly limitless power granted her by moonstones, hence her codename.

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• A God Am I: Seems to have this opinion upon getting her powers, not helped by her degree in psychiatry and innate belief in her superiority to all others.
• Archenemy: She made life difficult for a lot of people, but the Hulk was the first one able to prove Karla Sofen was a criminal (with a little help from Doc Sampson). Hulk got displaced by the second Captain Marvel, who indirectly put Moonstone out of action when Sofen broke her own neck in a botched escape attempt. When Captain Marvel lost her powers, the original Moonstone, Lloyd Bloch, came back with new powers seeking revenge on Sofen, and became her main enemy. When Bloch got taken out by Count Nefaria, Sofen's nemesis defaulted to Ms. Marvel, Carol Danvers, who is determined to redeem and reform Sofen.
• Big Bad Wannabe: Karla is very intelligent and has a wide range of powers, but she has a tendency to overestimate her abilities, often only winning because she is working with others against particular foes and forced to acknowledge that she isn't quite as manipulative as Baron Zemo or as skilled a fighter as Photon when they manage to outmaneuver her in direct confrontations.
• Cerebus Retcon: Dr. Karla Sofen (Meteorite/Moonstone) first appeared as a psychologist and psychiatrist who so disliked being dependent on her patients for income that she entered the super-criminal world as an aide to Doctor Faustus. Then in Thunderbolts #25, her backstory revealed that she grew up in the mansion of Hollywood producer Charles Stockbridge, as the child of his butler Karl Sofen. Growing up, Karla resented the wealthy family her parents served for having the wealth she wanted and was forced to be a playmate to Charles's daughter Deanna Stockbridge. While Deanna saw Karla as a true friend, Karla envied the wealth she had and started to manipulate the naïve Deanna into giving her things, and other times she merely messed with the poor girl's self-esteem for her own amusement. Karla wanted to get away from the mansion and the wealthy family for their effortless superiority. When her father died of a heart attack, Karla got her wish, and her mother, Marion Sofen, left the mansion to live with her parents. Karla saw her mother get three jobs to support them and made sure to give Karla the chance she never had by sending her to the best schools. At Karla's graduation, while Marion felt pride for her daughter, Karla felt contempt for her mother. Karla vowed never to be so stupid as to put anyone else's needs over her own and went into psychology in college to understand better how to control others. Then it is shown that Karla Sofen is more evil, cruel, and selfish than she let on. First, Thunderbolts #110 revealed that Karla drove eight patients to suicide and was instrumental in the therapeutic hospitalization of six more. Then Ms. Marvel #38 took her contempt for her mother to its ultimate conclusion when it is revealed that she murdered her mother. And while there were hints, she felt guilt for killing her mother, and she killed her mother because she did not want to see her as a supervillain. When she destroys her mother's grave, she shows that she truly will never put the needs of others before her own despite the guilt she feels or hurting the people she loves.
• Chronic Backstabbing Disorder: Karla tends to plot against and betray anyone all the freaking time. Generally, the only reason anyone puts up with her is because her powers make her too useful to pass up, or she has something that can't easily be taken from her.
• Curb-Stomp Battle: In issue 12 of the first Thunderbolts series, she's the one who goes after Baron Zemo when the Thunderbolts try to free Earth's heroes from his control. In a rare case of realistic outcomes, her Super-Strength and his lack of a pre-established edge means that she effortlessly handles him; she crushes his hand so badly the bones are described as snapping like twigs, breaks his jaws, pulverizes three of his teeth, and crumples his ribcage.
• Cut Lex Luthor a Check: Whilst handing out her Curb-Stomp Battle to Baron Zemo, she furiously berates him for his lack of imagination, declaring the Thunderbolts to have been a scam that could have profited them for years, but which he wasted on one single doomed-to-fail scheme.
  • She's also guilty of it, as Karla could just be an effective shrink, but decided to be a Psycho Psychologist - even when she discovered it could work in her favor, by breaking Lloyd Bloch to the point he released his moonstone, Karla took that as an opportunity to became a supervillain. And Moonstone's attempts to go straight always end with her branching into illegal activity.
• Dating Catwoman: With Hawkeye. Karla genuinely loved Clint, and actually made a genuine attempt at heroism for his sake.
• Dirty Coward: If a situation's looking bad, Karla's first instinct is to save herself.
• Evil Counterpart: After already having been Ms. Marvel, Karla is put into Captain Marvel's costume, making her baffled at how much people want her to be this to Carol Danvers.
• Fatal Flaw:
  • Sloth. Karla always takes the easiest option, even when it could come back down the road to bite her. After the redemption-seeking Thunderbolts turn on Zemo, she uses her position as leader to make several decisions that grant them the momentary victory, but which could clearly come back to bite them, such as her actions on Kosmos and against Graviton. This results in the rest of the Thunderbolts calling her out on this failing, and ends in issue 20 of the original run, where everyone agrees that this trait of hers makes her unsuited to be their leader.
  • Her lack of empathy is another. She recognized for a while that being a hero was better for her than being a villain, but because she just lacks any natural empathy for others, she's unable to recognize her own cruelty in others. And when her heroism eventually leads her into a coma, it pretty much takes away any lasting desire towards heroism.
• Femme Fatale: Tall, curvaceous, seductive (slept with Hawkeye while in the Thunderbolts, and Noh-Varr, Bullseye and Daken during her Dark Avengers stint), and very evil.
• Form-Fitting Wardrobe: Karla can summon her costume, and thus starting with Meteorite's metal-like first suit◊ it's often something that showcases her body. When questioned about this, Kurt Busiek replied that Moonstone deliberately uses sex appeal as a weapon. Granted, she does it on her own terms, and doesn't always feel comfortable wearing other people's revealing designs.
• From Nobody to Nightmare: She started out as just a henchperson for Doctor Faustus. She's come a looong way since.
• Flying Brick: Her move set is this as she can fly, hit strong, quickly, with more endurance and agility than most.
• Good Powers, Bad People: Deconstruction; the gemstone that grants Karla her powers was originally crafted for a Kree space hero, and it's imbued with a portion of their heroic instinct, which began to come out while working with the Thunderbolts, particularly when Hawkeye came around. However, this is personified largely by giving her a conscience and a sense of empathy, two things that were completely alien to her and confused the hell out of her. The dichotomy of having an "artificial" conscience while being a natural sociopath caused a great deal of mental instability, and nearly drove her insane. Later, it succeeded, both in driving her insane and then resorting her to sanity with a conscience, that Sofen proceeded to ignore.
• Heel–Face Door-Slam: At one point, she actually did try to go straight. It didn't last. She just cannot resist the temptation to make a quick buck, even if it is illegal. Power over others is also something she just cannot resist.
• Helmets Are Hardly Heroic: Invoked, she decided to go without a helmet when pretending to be the superhero Meteorite. It didn't provide her with that much more protection than her powers did anyway, offering little help during her defeats at Captain Marvel's hands. Even after returning to being Moonstone, she ended up with a white mask instead of the helmet thanks to Norman Osborn, who had his own image concerns.
• I Am Not Left-Handed: In the early days of the team, she hid her phasing ability so her powers wouldn't too closely mirror those of the villain Moonstone (lest anyone get suspicious).
• I Am What I Am: Karla's pretty damn well aware of what a monstrous person she is, and gives absolutely no craps whatsoever. She revels in it.
• Intangible Woman: She can make herself and other persons intangible by reducing her or the person's body's specific gravity.
• Jerk with a Heart of Gold: On occasion; for instance she WAS genuinely saddened when Jolt was murdered despite the fact that Jolt wasn't overly fond of her.
• Lack of Empathy: She outright swore as a youth she'd always put herself first. While she's not a the popular idea of psychopath in that Sofen is mentally capable of caring for other people, and of discerning right from wrong, she's generally held herself to that.
• Legacy Character: She was the psychiatrist of the original Moonstone, Lloyd Bloch. Karla messed with his head, then took the moonstone for herself.
• Light 'em Up: She is able to illuminate dark areas, make it hard for other people to see if she lights herself up too brightly and can push around concentrated photons with her fists, giving her projectiles that can rend iron.
• Light Is Not Good: As Moonstone her costume is mostly yellow and white, yet she's easily the most amoral of the Thunderbolts.
• The Lost Lenore: Was this for a while for both Hawkeye and Baron Zemo, after being rendered comatose. With Hawkeye it was short-lived, as he then died shortly after himself, and when he returned, so had she. For the Baron, it was much longer, and in some regard his genuine attempt at heroism was motivated by her.
• Manipulative Bitch: Given she is a certified psychiatrist, Moonstone uses her knowledge of the human mind to goad others - right in her villainous debut, it worked on the Hulk, confusing him enough to make Moonstone go mostly unharmed and Hulk to eventually flee the Gamma Base. There isn't anyone she won't psychoanalyze, manipulate into doing her bidding and dispose of to get what she wants.
• Morally Ambiguous Doctorate: Unsurprisingly, Karla generally used her degree in psychiatry to screw with people, rather than diagnose and medicate them, causing several of her patients to kill themselves.
• Ms. Fanservice: Her form-fitting suits are often self made or even manifested through her powers, showing Sofen likes to show off her voluptuous curves and figure that certainly caught some stares. She doesn't always like other people's revealing designs, however, especially disliking Carol Danvers's old Miss Marvel outfit, but Sofen still wore it, if only to look more "heroic" and thus still fulfilled this trope.
• Necromancy: Conversed during one of Moonstone's many scams. Dr. Sophien's "Project Aaru" involved using emotional manipulation and blackmail respectively on Spectrum and Ghost in an attempt to upload human memories as data in a digital communications network that would be accessible to the paying public via the internet. She claimed this would allow people to continue to converse with their loved ones after death, but "Sophien" had no knowledge, or care about any method to preserve anyone's consciousness in the process; she was really just taking the personal information of dying people without their consent. Ghost was not amused, neither with being used nor the moral implications of her science project, so he ended up helping Spectrum overcome Moonstone before making off with the data he desired.(he didn't agree with the extraction, but since the information was available he figured he might as well use it)
• Nice Job Fixing It, Villain: In a rare slip-up from her, Karla let slip that Norman Osborn was a villain, and his Dark Avengers team consisted entirely of villains, to Noh-Varr, turning the Kree against Norman.
• Not Me This Time: During the Ellis run, Moonstone ran into Songbird's on-the-wagon mother just after she'd had an argument with Melissa. Very soon, Melissa's mother was found dead, from drunk driving. Later on, Norman Osborn asked if Karla was responsible for this.
  Norman: Did you kill her?
  Karla: Did you?
  (awkward pause)
  Norman: ... Well, then.
• Power Crystal: Moonstone's name and powers are derived from a Kree gravity stone that was found on the Earth's moon and bonded with her nervous system. The stone gives her the power of flight, intangibility and laser blasts from the hands. For a time, she had absorbed a second gravity stone which also granted her the ability to control gravitational forces, erect force fields, generate miniature black holes, and transport objects through dimensional rifts.
• Pragmatic Villainy: She actively encouraged her teammates to reform and sided with them when they turned against Zemo, not because she was noble, but because, as explained above, she felt pretending to be heroes was more profitable and comfortable than Zemo's idiotic scheme to Take Over the World.
• Psycho Psychologist: Sofen is practically the ur-example for the Marvel Universe. She used to enjoy convincing suicidal patients to kill themselves, and at least once was shown in a flashback to her pre-Moonstone days deliberately encouraging a patient's concerns that her husband was having an affair by calling the woman's house and acting as though she was her husband's lover because she allegedly had too few patients to "afford" to lose one because she was successfully cured.
• Put on a Bus: Entered a Convenient Coma after the events of Avengers / Thunderbolts. She woke up again just at the end of Nicieza's run, and remained through 'till the end of Secret Invasion, when she shuffled off to Dark Avengers.
• "The Reason You Suck" Speech: Her epic chewing out of Baron Zemo for blowing their cover as the Masters of Evil during her Curb-Stomp Battle with him in issue 12 of the original run:
  Meteorite:Let me explain something, Zemo. Let me tell you why I undermined your leadership at every turn. I've got a pretty simple philosophy of life. You want to hear it? It's this: Don't. Get. CAUGHT! Oh, I was stupid at first - I thought my powers made me invincible... so I ended up getting a record, getting caught. I was willing to ride it out, serve my sentence and start anew — but you press-ganged me into your scheme, and there went that. Still, it was a good scheme — posing as heroes — and we made it work. We had it all — public support, adulation; the perfect cover to pull any number of scams — and you went and blew it over just one! Who CARES about ruling the world?! Who wants to do that much WORK? We could have run this con out for years before it got old! But no, you couldn't be smart — not when you could play Hitler like your idiot father!
• Sanity Slippage: She went completely mad during the events of Avengers / Thunderbolts.
• Shadow Archetype: After the death of Mar-Vell Sofen became written as a shadow to the second Captain Marvel, Monica Rambeau. They both have mother issues but while Rambeau worked hers out Sofen shut hers out, and then was revealed to have killed her. Both are attached to their super powers, to perhaps an unhealthy degress, but Rambeau got hers by dumb luck and was initially frightened by them, falling in love with them later after being deemed the new Captain Marvel by news media, while Sofen decided to steal hers from the first Moonstone, along with his title. Both often seek posisitions of leadership, but Rambeau is a somewhat reluctant leader who takes charge when she thinks she is best for the job and lives to serve, while Sofen seeks leadership as a means to control others and live more comfortably. Sofen has discovered genuine joy in serving other people, but unlike Rambeau Sofen refuses to do so unless she herself is benefitting first. Since "leaving" The Masters Of Evil Sofen has recognized their shared interests, desires and flaws and attempted to convince Rambeau her that Sofens goals align with Rambeau's values. They usually don't, and Rambeau knows it, but was nonethelss persuaded into helping Sofen complete Project Auru during Comic Book/Strikeforce.
• Sherlock Scan: Lazy, cowardly, treacherous, but she's not stupid. Karla is capable of quickly assessing things at a glance... and then working out how to utilize that for her own gain.
• Single Woman Seeks Good Man: The reason she fell in love with Hawkeye. She had spent weeks planning to manipulate him, trying to figure out some way to do so, but then realized that Clint was attracted to her. Though she briefly thought about manipulating him, she found his natural charm and heroism strangely infectious and instead just seriously courted him.
• The Smurfette Principle: She has a tendency of being the only woman when recruited into villain teams, being the only female of Norman Osborn's first Dark Avengers. When recruited by Zemo and Kingpin for their newest incarnation of the Thunderbolts, she was the only woman, and the same when Fisk hired her as personnel at Ravencroft, being the only female villain specifically brought.
• The Starscream: Karla's greatest ambition is to be the one in charge - as much as she likes messing with peoples' heads for fun, it's pursuit of power that drives her manipulations and treachery first and foremost.
• Statuesque Stunner: She stands at 5'11"/180cm, the same height as Carol Danvers.
• Stripperiffic: She hated having to play Ms. Marvel for Norman, muttering angrily about Carol's old, revealing outfit.
• Super-Strength: With one moonstone, Moonstone is roughly equal to Spider-Man in strength. With two she's comparable to Miss Marvel.
• Teeth-Clenched Teamwork:
  • Initially with Zemo, as neither trusted one-another (and in fact, Karla hadn't even wanted to be on the team in the first place) and both sought to undermine the other's leadership. They got along much better after both of their Heel–Face Turn.
  • With Songbird, as the two genuinely can't stand one-another. Melissa resents how much of a callous sociopath Karla is and her cruel tendencies even when trying to be a hero. Karla resents that Melissa is naturally more likable and endearing to others then she is and finds the girl self righteous. Both have a tendency to butt heads, though Karla in particular likes to snarkily put her down and relishes the opportunity to antagonize her.
• Then Let Me Be Evil: After a lengthy stint as a genuine hero, Karla got left comatose due to a mental breakdown. When she recovers, she slides back into her old sociopathic villainy, making it seem that nearly dying in an incident that was partially the Avengers' fault made her decide there was no point in heroics.
• Token Evil Teammate: Amongst the Thunderbolts, she's the most manipulative, sadistic and amoral member of the team. She even makes Zemo more likable.
• Villain: Exit, Stage Left: Related to the Fatal Flaw above, she knows when to run away instead of fighting. Sometimes it doesn't work and she's captured.
• Warrior Therapist: She's a warrior, a therapist, and she's evil.
• Why Did It Have to Be Snakes?: Losing her powers and becoming an ordinary person again.
• Wicked Cultured: Has a fondness for the works of Sondheim. When Jolt says she always thought his works feel a little bit like the man is too smug for her tastes, Karla's reaction was basically "... and?"

Songbird / Screaming Mimi

Songbird / Screaming Mimi

Songbird

^{Click here to see as Screaming Mimi} 

Alter Ego: Melissa Joan "Mel" Gold

First Appearance: Marvel Two-in-One #54 (August 1979) ^note As Screaming Mimi; The Incredible Hulk #449 (January 1997) ^note As Songbird

Formerly the super villain Screaming Mimi, Songbird is a founding member of the original Thunderbolts. Melissa Gold grew up in a trailer park with her drunken father, her mother in prison for theft, and was tormented constantly by her peers. She had to develop a tough personality and ended up living on the street after running away from home. After being set up and sent to prison herself, she joined the super-human wrestling scene, being forcibly given surgical implants to give her super-sonic screams. After a brief stint with the Masters of Evil, she partnered up with fellow sound-themed villain Angar.

After the death of Angar, Mel fell into despair and ended up destroying her vocal cords. Approached by Zemo and Fixer, she was given a new set of cybernetic vocal cords which not only returned her screams to her, but allowed her to manipulate sound into hard objects. Becoming the "hero" Songbird, she agreed to help them in their plans. Seeing her Songbird persona as the second chance she so desperately needed, she recreated herself fully, embracing the new mantle she had been given and, as more former villains joined the team, sought to give them the same chance that she had been given at a new life.

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• Amicable Exes: Even after breaking up with Abe, they still care about each other deeply.
• The Baby of the Bunch: Before Jolt joined, Melissa was the youngest member of the team, and many of them tended to refer to her as 'kid'.
• Barrier Warrior: One of the use she has of her powers as Songbird.
• Beautiful All Along: Without the Screaming Mimi wig and make-up, she's actually quite beautiful, as demonstrated when she became Songbird.
• Breakout Character: As Screaming Mimi, Melissa was an infrequently occurring bad guy. Tough, but definitely not an a-list threat. As Songbird, her popularity exploded. As of 2016, she is officially a member of the Avengers.
• Brick Joke: Finally joins the Avengers after being hinted at in Avengers Forever over twenty years ago.
• The Cameo: After not being seen in a couple of years, she's seen at the wedding reception of Hulkling and Wiccan during the epilogue of Empyre along with many other heroes.
• Dark Action Girl: Became just an Action Girl when she turned good.
• Depending on the Writer: In her Screaming Mimi days, it was often unclear if she shared the enhanced strength the other Grapplers had or if her scream was her only power. As Songbird, it's generally treated as the latter case, as she never references having any powers beyond her scream and sound constructs.
• De-power: More than once.
  • Aforementioned incident with Angar the Screamer.
  • During her stay as a "guest" of John Garret in 2015's New Avengers, her powers were deactivated. Good thing she knew some friendly mad scientists who managed to get them back.
• Didn't Think This Through: During her Screaming Mimi days, Melissa once used her scream on Dazzler. Y'know, the Dazzler whose mutant powers are fueled by sound. Once Alison managed to work through the pain, she had a handy power-up ready to go.
• Died in Your Arms Tonight: Her partner Angar, causing her to be so wracked with guilt that she proceeded to scream for 43 minutes straight destroying the surrounding area and wrecking her vocal cords.
• Discard and Draw: She traded a sonic scream with some degree of mind control properties for Imagination-Based Superpower based around solid sound constructs, allowing both flight and Spontaneous Weapon Creation. She later regained her original powers. This actually caused problems for her in the early Thunderbolts days, as she had no idea how to use her new powers.
• Double Reverse Quadruple Agent: During her stint on Roberto Da Costa's New Avengers, she claimed to be working for A.I.M., but was actually working for S.H.I.E.L.D., except she was really working for Roberto all along.
• Fanservice Pack: She had modest proportions, specially compared to the other girl (one issue downright has Melissa described by a goon as "a skinny chick", while Karla was "a blonde bombshell"). And then another artist took over and her reintroduction was like◊ this◊, and it led to more depictions with the Most Common Superpower (though usually it's just enough to fill out the Form-Fitting Wardrobe) or revealing civilian attire.
• Flight: Her most common use of her sound constructs is a pair of wings that allow her to fly.
• Heel–Face Turn: Eventually decides to actually make one after enjoying pretending to be a hero.
• Kid-Appeal Character: In-universe, it's noted that Songbird is very popular with young girls, due to her cuteness and good nature.
• Non Conformist Dyed Hair: As soon as she turned to crime, she dyed her blonde hair white. And the makeover as Songbird added a pink stripe.
• Only Sane Man: During Ellis' run, shared with Dr. Chen Lu (and even he had a slight wobble thanks to some bad guys).
• Significant Green-Eyed Redhead: If one counts the pink in her hair as red, she counts given being one of the most prominent members of the Thunderbolts.
• Status Quo Is God: Averted; she's probably the one least likely to revert back to villainy. It helps that Screaming Mimi was a pretty forgettable supervillain, while Songbird is a pretty awesome superhero.
• Stripperific: As Screaming Mimi, she dressed often in leotards or two-piece outfits with tiny skirts. As Songbird, she's dressed head-to-toe but in a Form-Fitting Wardrobe, and it's often shown her civilian attire can sometimes be on the revealing side.
• Super-Scream: Her original power. As Songird, she has a mantle allowing her to channel it onto very versatile "solid sound" constructs.
• Teeth-Clenched Teamwork: With Moonstone, as the two genuinely can't stand one-another. Melissa resents how much of a callous sociopath Karla is and her cruel tendencies even when trying to be a hero. Karla resents that Melissa is naturally more likable and endearing to others then she is and finds the girl self righteous. Both have a tendency to butt heads, though Karla in particular likes to snarkily put her down and relishes the opportunity to antagonize her.
• Took a Level in Badass: As Screaming Mimi, she was a decent threat for a singe hero but ultimately quite forgettable, but as Songbird, she's one of the Thunderbolts' heaviest hitters. She also started off with the T-Bolts as something of a Naïve Newcomer, both due to getting a new powerset she was unfamiliar with and her youth, but within a few years she was the team's field leader.
• The Starscream: To Zemo.
• Wrestler in All of Us: A former pro-wrestler.

Techno / Fixer

Techno / Fixer

Techno

^{Click here to see as Fixer} 

Alter Ego: Paul Norbert "Bert" Ebersol

First Appearance: Strange Tales #141 (February 1966) ^note As Fixer; The Incredible Hulk #449 (January 1997) ^note As Techno

A technological genius, Fixer pursued a life of crime as a partner to Mentallo and later a member of the Masters of Evil. He later became a founding member of the heroic Thunderbolts and despite hating the idea of being a hero has remained a mainstay ever since.

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• Bald of Evil: Usually appeared bald headed, although recently he has regrown his hair.
• Beard of Evil: He has a goatee, and he's easily one of the more amoral Thunderbolts.
• Brain Uploading: He escapes dying when he is seemingly killed by the Elements of Doom by transferring his brainwaves to a recording device in his tech-pack and then using it to create a new cybernetic body for himself.
• Capture and Replicate: Secretly returned to help the team disguised as Ogre, who he found in Mt. Charteris and decided to impersonate.
• Challenge Seeker: Joined up with Zemo mainly because he was bored out of his mind.
• Cyborg: He made himself a robotic body after his organic body was ruined, and could assimilate any technology into himself.
• Deadpan Snarker: To Mentallo and his more eccentric teammates.
• Do Not Call Me "Paul": Literally. He prefers to being referred to by his middle name or just Bert rather than Paul.
• Dude, Where's My Respect?: When the other Thunderbolts turn against Zemo, Fixer remains with him, and proves a dangerous enemy, until Karla exploits his vanity, unfavourably comparing him to his old buddy Mentallo. Fixer is so outraged he decides to check the international crime databases mid-fight just to soothe his ego.
• Gadgeteer Genius: Techno's original power set is his incredible aptitude for mechanics and seemingly endless stream of ideas for new inventions, which includes his own armor.
• Neck Snap: The Elements of Doom break his neck to kill him. It doesn't stick.
• Power Armor: He wears one of these, not just for protection but also to walk.
• Science-Related Memetic Disorder: Prior to his transferal to a robot body, Paul seems to be actually compelled to invent new things, to the point that early on, he gets into an argument with Baron Zemo about not being allowed to indulge his need to make new devices to spruce up their initial lair.
• Villainous Friendship: He had one with Mentallo. With Zemo he was betrayed and they fought over it. Yet they teamed up again in recent years, making it a bit complex.
• Wild Card: He's on his own side nowadays.

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