Name: Melody Jacobs (derived from mother's tombstone)
Height:about 5'7"
Weight:about 115 lbs.
First Appearance:X-Men #27
Group Affilation:None
Known Relatives: Judith Jacobs (mother)
Known Allies: Nate Grey, Beast, Rogue
Known Enemies: Sinister,The Marauders, Abomination, Madelyne Pryor

Powers: Threnody has the ability to absorb the energy that is released when a living organism dies. At first, her mutant abilities were thought to be limited to those suffering from the Legacy Virus. However, recent issues with Threnody have proved this wrong. As of late, Threnody has been able to control these powers, but only with the devices that Sinister has on her forehead.

Origin: Threnody was a homeless woman that was believed to suffer from mental disorders. Police found her ranting and raving about how she could feel the "different ones" die from a horrible virus. They thought her crazy, until her mutant death charge k illed two officers. The emission of her death charge attracted the attention of Rogue, who along with Beast and Iceman, was visiting Infectia in the hospital. Infectia was dying of the Legacy Virus, and while the X-Men were at her bedside she was visited by a strange doctor. The X-Men, suspicious of his motives, followed him into a warehouse down the street from the hospital.

While in the warehouse, Rogue met up with Threnody, who was terrified and in pain. At this time, Threnody was unable to control her powers, and the death of a patient in the hospital caused another release of her death charge. Rogue (being invincible) was unhurt, but Threnody fled the scene because she was terrified of causing another death. She literally fell at the feet of Sinister, who had (of course) been the strange doctor that visited Infectia. Sinister told her that he could stop the pain, stop the suffering, if she would come with him. The X-Men arrived just in time to see Threnody agree to go with Sinister.

A moral debate ensued, which the X-men lost, and Threnody left with Sinister. In point of fact, Sinister was able to help Threnody by attaching strange devices to the sides of her head. These devices allowed Threnody to shut out the voices in her h ead and become stable again. In return for this peace, Threnody became Sinister's watchdog. Using his monitoring devices, Threnody observed the world, learning everything she could and reporting to Sinister on the movements of certain select mutants.

Some time after Threnody went to work for Sinister, Beast, Psylocke, Rogue, and Gambit breached Sinister's lab. (This lab was of course located in a remote Nebraska town beneath the orphanage that Scott Summers grew up in. Sinister is nothing if n ot predictable.) It was at this time that the X-Men learned what had happened to Threnody. She told them that she was using Sinister more than he used her; using his information to learn more about him and the world. It was apparent that she was preparing the way for her escape from Sinister's clutches. To prevent Sinister from using it again, the X-Men blew up the lab, and Threnody disappeared from view once more.

Later, in a communcations session with Sinister, Threnody was asked about the mutant Nate Grey. She told Sinister that she was clueless about the neophyte, but was actually hiding all the i nformation she could about him. Threnody planned to use Nate as the way out of Sinister's servitude. However Sinister was aware of the fact that she was not telling him the whole truth. He sent his Marauders to check up on her.

Threnody escaped from Sinister, but was pursued by the Marauders. Nate Grey saved her and killed all the Marauders except one (Riptide), and they fled together. Threnody did not tell Nate all the reasons for their flight, and did not tell him about Sinis ter or her connections with Sinister. However Nate was willing to accept her lack of explanations (for the most part) and her help in defeating some of his own enemies such as Holocaust.

By fighting and learning together, Nate and Thren became more than just good friends. For a short time they seemed perfect for each other, as if they were destined to be together for quite a while. In order to escape from their pasts and forge a new life for themselves, Nate and Thren went to New York. But all was not as it seemed - Threnody felt that if she told Nate the truth about herself, he would reject her. She became frightened during a battle and hid in the sewers.

She ran into the man-beast known as the Abombination. Abombination told her she could eat, but that she had to leave after that. She found a jacket that had once belonged to one of the Abominations people, and was attacked by two of his followers for taki ng what was not rightfully hers. Nate came to her rescue and during the battle, he looked into Thren's memories. He saw that Threnody lived on the streets of New York for a time. She was taken in by the street people that lived with the Abombination, but accidentally killed two that were trying to help her. He learned that Threnody felt a lot of guilt over those deaths as well as the deaths of others.

The Abombination felt that Threnody had killed those people and did not deserve to live, but Nate understood that it was an unfortunate accident, and that she shouldnt necessarily be punished for it. He decided that she was worth the risk of getting to kn ow, and took her with him so that he could learn more about her and start a new life with her. Threnody helped organize Nate's career as "Nate the Great" of Central Park. However Nate started to have second thoughts about what he was doing, and they bega n to dift apart. Threnody was willing to do whatever was necessary to survive, but Nate was not yet that desperate. When the temptation of death started to call her again, Threnody was unable to tell Nate what she was, unable to ask for his help even thou gh he offered it to her.

She began to wander though hospitals and nursing homes, absorbing the death energies of those already on the edge of death. This increased her plasma charge quite a bit, and she was able to control that charge with relative ease. But deep in the back of h er mind she knew that what she was doing was wrong, and she drifted even further from Nate, feeling that she wasnt good enough for him.

Her large plasma charge made her an attractive lure for Morbius, the living vampire. Because Morbius also lusted for death, he was somewhat attractive to Threnody, but still there was some conscience, some part of her mind that told her that what Morbius did was wrong. She was able to resist the lure of Morbius for a while but she couldnt hold out forever. She fled to a graveyard in NYC, and was found by Morbius, crying next to her mother's grave (this was where we learned her last name was Jacobs). With the help of SpiderMan, Nate was able to track Threnody through New York, and he and Spidey managed to save her from Morbius.

Nate and Threnody's reunion was ruined by the arrival of Madelyne Pryor. Pryor confronted Threnody, who was weeping on her mother's grave (we dont know where Nate was). Thren kept referring to Madelyne as a construction "bred to breed". Maddie got back b y removing the devices on Threnody's head, releasing all the energy built up in the young mutant. Nate believed that this resulted in Threnody's death, but it is possible that Madelyne merely rendered Threnody unconscious. In a later issue of Spiderman, it was mentioned that a dead girl had been brought into the NYC morgue, and a woman escaped from the same Morgue in X-Man #29