Thao Kitihawa TranMelee

The mutant Melee lives in a world where she cannot stand by while injustice occurs. Instead, she leaps headfirst into action, using her powers to help others. 

Headfirst, Fists Second

Born to a Vietnamese father and a Potawatomi mother, Thao Kitihawa Tran grows up with her parents and siblings in Chicago. Her middle name honors one of the first Chicagoans. 

At some point, her mutant powers manifest, giving her the ability to phase through things and turn invisible. As a teenager and while playing on her school’s soccer team, Thao notices a fellow mutant in the stands getting bullied. She throws him the “Midnight M” hand sign that asks if he needs help, but the teenage mutant doesn’t respond. Seeing that he was still in trouble, Thao bravely intervenes, getting into a fist fight with the bullies, until a strange woman phases herself, Thao, and the other mutant teen through the bleachers to the ground below. The teen is Alejandro “Alex” Mateo Luna and the woman is X-Man Katherine “Kate” Pryde, AKA Kitty Pryde. Kitty advises them to leave, but Thao chastises her for getting involved. Storming off, Thao phases but not completely into the bleachers’ support structure and gets stuck. Kitty helps her out before taking off.

Thao later joins Alex and fellow mutant teen, Trista Marshall. They discuss why they should be friends and seek out advice from their mutual ally, Kitty. But when they approach her apartment, their minds are suddenly controlled. They awake several minutes later to see Kitty sparring with a woman in white. Though, the arrival of Kitty’s roommate Priti calms things down between the sparring pair. Thao and the others find out that the woman in white is the White Queen of the Hellfire Club and formidable telepath, Emma Frost. She offers to tutor them in their powers but Kitty thinks it best if they both advise them, wary of Emma’s influence. Priti offers up her ballet studio and Kitty and Emma turn it into a mutant dojo. Thao joins their dojo and the other teens after school to learn how to protect themselves in a world that hates and fears them. 

At her first training session with Kitty, Alex, and Trista, Thao asks about hero codenames, but Trista has them figured out. She calls herself “Bronze” on account of how her skin changes to a metallic bronze; “Melee” for Thao since she’s always ready for and running into action; and “Axo” after the Axolotl salamander, which changes color just like Alex. The names are a hit but Kitty advises that they don’t need to be heroes, instead they need to know how to survive. But Emma arrives with costumes, encouraging the idea that they could be heroes, an idea that Thao fully supports as Melee.

Invisibility and Intangibility

Thao can turn invisible and become intangible, allowing her body to phase through matter. She’s still learning the extent of her abilities and their limitations. She also trains in hand-to-hand combat with veteran X-Men as instructors. 

Fighting Her Battles

Thao sees anyone who bullies mutants as a threat and jumps in to protect her fellow mutants whether they are family or not. Early mutant threats come in the form of a cloned Iceman, who tricks her and lands her in a block of ice. But she uses her phasing powers to escape the frozen-solid situation. 

Friends and Tutors

Thao makes friends with Trista Marshall, AKA Bronze, and Alejandro “Alex” Mateo Luna, AKA Axo, over their shared existence as mutants. Thao sometimes acts before thinking, which can come off as inconsiderate to other people’s feelings, but her friends remind her when it happens. She trains in the use of her powers under Kitty Pryde and Emma Frost, learning from their combat techniques and sees them as allies in her effort to protect herself and potentially become a hero to protect others.

Chosen Path

After donning her new costume from Emma, just like her fellow mutant trainees, a swarm of goblins attacked them. Thao and the others used their defensive powers, until Alex sensed the goblins were an illusion created by Emma. An argument between the two mentors followed, but was cut short when their fellow colleague, Bobby Drake, AKA Iceman, arrived. 

Later, while training at the dojo, Thao and the others heard Bobby and Kitty arguing, with Kitty admitting she had killed people. Thao was appalled and stormed off, quitting the dojo. She then came home to find her cousin Ellie there, upset about some bullies saying she needed to fix herself with Verate, the app that can cure mutants if they give them their DNA. The next day at school, Thao publicly chastised Ellie’s bullies, though Ellie was hoping she’d handle it privately. Thao soon received a video call from her X-Fam, Trista and Alex, who reminded her that she sometimes forges other people’s feelings and while respecting her principles, they hoped she was still committed to them. Realizing she was in the wrong, Thao apologized to her cousin, admitting that she should have asked what Ellie wanted, and rejoined the dojo to train. Thao sparred with Kitty, who complimented her strong moral compass and shared her own experiences of being in a similar position when she was younger, choosing to be an X-Man made her think that her compass always pointed true north, but Thao didn’t have to choose. While Thao understood, she still chose to be an X-Man. 

Thao and the others started a paid internship with Priti’s consulting firm, where they met Sheldon Xenos, head of the app Verate. Both Thao and Trista questioned him about preying on people’s insecurities and taking their DNA, but Priti could see it was going to lead to a heated discussion and politely removed them both from the meeting. Afterward, both Thao and Trista commiserated on how Verate was rife with problems, such as its potential for eugenics, how it could impact data privacy, and promote body-shaming. But Axo liked Xenos, and reminded them that they didn’t wear their mutant identity on them the way he did. Later at the dojo, Thao and Trista asked Kitty and Emma to weigh in on their Verate debate, but Axo was upset that they were pitting their mentors against him.

Thao continued practicing at the dojo, where Emma criticized her technique in hand-to-hand combat with Trista. Alex showed up late and explained his absence away but both Emma and Thao called him out for lying. Not wanting a lecture, Alex shouted at Thao and questioned whether they all really cared about him, who then left in a huff. 

When Thao, Trista, and Alex met up later while shopping, Alex was acting weird and there was a sudden fire nearby that made a fellow shopper panic, sending several racks of clothing nearly on top of an elderly woman. Thao phased through the racks in time and got the elderly woman to safety. Trista contained the panicking shopper, and the mutants guided people to safety. Trista suddenly pulled Thao aside and told her that Alex was not Alex, and noted how he hadn’t changed color at all during their recent crowd management. They tried to contact Kitty to no avail and then found Alex in a nearby restaurant, having turned into a puddle of goo. 

Thao and Trista took what remained of “Alex” to Kitty, Emma, and Bobby. Thao and Trista mentioned that they hadn’t seen Alex since he went off with Sheldon Xenos and Kitty put together that the Verate founder’s initials were “S.X.” which sounded suspiciously like “Essex” and Kitty knew then that Nathaniel Essex, AKA Mister Sinister, was involved. Kitty hacked her way into corporate fillings and discovered where Sinister and Alex would be, and the adult mutants left to save him. Thao was upset that they were leaving her and Trista behind. But Bobby returned later and told them to join him without explaining anything, saying there was no time. They arrived to find there were two Icemans and realized they had been tricked by a faux Iceman, and a fight broke out between the two Icemen. Melee and Bronze ended up stuck in a wall of ice courtesy of the faux Iceman frozen but Thao phases both herself and Bronze out of it. Sinister soon had them both in a hold, excited to explore their powers for himself, but Emma attacked Sinister to her seeming sacrifice.