It looks like there’s a good chance that Geraldine Viswanathan’s character, Mel, in Thunderbolts* may be on the path to becoming the Marvel Comics anti-hero Songbird. Fans have been piecing together clues since the casting was announced, and now, producer Brian Chapek is fanning those flames with a not-so-subtle nod to a hidden Easter egg.
In the film, Mel is introduced as Val’s assistant, seemingly just a grounded civilian caught in the middle of the madness. But long-time Marvel readers immediately perked up when her name was revealed as “Mel,” sparking theories that she might be Melissa Gold, a.k.a. Songbird, a character who started off as the villain Screaming Mimi before becoming a key player on the Thunderbolts team.
Now Chapek is nudging fans in that exact direction. In a recent interview, he teased:
“There is a character that fans are trying to figure out is she or is she not — I would say what emblem does she wear that may or may not hint at this character’s larger identity.”
And sure enough, eagle-eyed fans have spotted Mel sporting what appears to be a songbird necklace in one scene.
Even so, Thunderbolts* doesn’t give Mel any superhuman traits or powers, at least, not yet. What it does give her is an internal struggle and a moral tug-of-war, which is similar to Gold’s comic book arc.
Geraldine Viswanathan, for her part, isn’t confirming anything. But she did share some insight into Mel’s conflicted role in an interview with Collider:
“It felt very clear what to track, and it was really just about that internal struggle, but also what makes her pop is you don’t really know where her head’s at because you’re not really following her, but she then ends up driving a lot of the plot. She is also kind of instigating big things. She brings them to the Avengers Tower… Even just saying that now, it’s like, that’s so cool!
But we just had to really trust that it’s a very real thing when you work for somebody and you’re like, ‘Wait, are they bad? I want to do good I think.’ We talked a lot about Jake and his assistant, and that dynamic felt like hopefully it would pop. But I think just trusting that maybe audiences weigh in a little bit, or that she’s a normal girl, and it’s a very relatable situation that she’s in.”
So, it sounds like Marvel is laying the groundwork for something bigger with this character and I imagine we’ll see where that goes in Avengers: Doomsday.
Would you want to see Geraldine Viswanathan evolve into Songbird in a future MCU project?
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