Melinda May

*"You two have been through a lot. But now it's been a year, and if last year has taught me anything, it's that life isn't meant to be lived alone."*
―Melinda May to Yo-Yo Rodriguez[src]Professor **Melinda Qiaolian May** is a highly-skilled S.H.I.E.L.D. operative, nicknamed **The Cavalry**. A veteran pilot and soldier with years of experience and a good friend of Phil Coulson, she withdrew from field duty after an incident in Manama, Bahrain which left her mentally damaged. However, she returned to the field when Nick Fury asked to her to secretly assemble a team for Coulson and to monitor his recovery process. She worked with the team on all their missions. When the HYDRA Uprising began, her true role on the team, to be Fury's eyes and ears on Coulson, was discovered, leading to a rift between her and the team. Feeling unwanted, she left, searching to find out the truth behind Coulson's resurrection. She found the truth and brought it back to Coulson. She helped the team stop John Garrett and went with the team to the Playground to help restart S.H.I.E.L.D., under newly promoted Coulson.

As Coulson's unofficial deputy, May helped Coulson in fighting the forces of HYDRA led by Daniel Whitehall and dealing with Coulson's growing obsession with the alien writing. After the Battle for the Kree City in which HYDRA was dealt a heavy blow and resulted in Skye gaining superhuman abilities, May helped them all to deal with the situation the best they could. When another S.H.I.E.L.D. faction led by Robert Gonzales emerged and occupied their base, May helped Coulson to escape, but later accepted a position on Gonzales' board. When the two factions united, May became a member of Coulson's council of advisors. Following the War Against the Inhumans and the Kidnapping of Bobbi Morse, she retired from S.H.I.E.L.D. for a short time to be with Andrew Garner.

May's retirement would be short-lived, however, as Lance Hunter would request her help in getting revenge on Grant Ward by killing him. Though the duo would be unsuccessful in that mission, May would fully return to S.H.I.E.L.D. to stop Ward and a newly-discovered HYDRA cell led by Gideon Malick from bringing HYDRA's founder, an Inhuman named Hive, back to Earth. During HYDRA's campaign, May would also face a new threat in the form of an Inhuman named Lash, who was killing other Inhumans. May would soon discover that Lash was her partner, Andrew Garner, and would make the difficult decision to shoot him, though he would survive. HYDRA's plan to bring Hive to Earth would culminate in Ward's death at the hands of Coulson, though Hive would possess Ward's body and return to Earth. May would work against Hive as he plotted to turn the Earth's population into Inhumans loyal to him, a plan that would end in his death as well as that of Andrew Garner's.

Following the relegalisation of S.H.I.E.L.D. and the appointment of Jeffrey Mace, May was given the task of rebuilding and training the new STRIKE team. During one of her missions, she was touched by Lucy Bauer, a person with ghost-like powers, causing her to have a mental breakdown that would've lead to her death. Jemma Simmons and Holden Radcliffe managed to save her life at the last moment. Prior to S.H.I.E.L.D. victory on Eli Morrow, May was incapacitated and kidnapped by Aida and was replaced by an LMD of herself. After several escape attempts, May's mind was trapped inside the Framework, a virtual reality where she lived as a HYDRA agent. With the help of Daisy Johnson and Simmons, May finally escaped the Framework, only to face the threat of the now-organic Aida. May and her team managed to kill Aida, however S.H.I.E.L.D. was now an illegal organisation once again. May and the team would go to a diner to have a meal before being arrested, however a mysterious man would capture them and send them through a monolith to the year 2091.

May and the others found themselves in the Lighthouse, a bunker used to contain the rest of humanity following Earth's destruction. May was captured by the Kree, who ruled over the station, and sent to Earth's surface. There, she would be saved by the man who sent her to 2091, a Chronicom named Enoch who had sent them there as part of his plan to prevent the destruction of Earth. On the surface, May would meet Robin Hinton, who had been raised by May in Hinton's past. May and her team would successfully return to the present, and immediately begin work on preventing the destruction of Earth. However, they would come into conflict with another HYDRA cell lead by Air Force General Hale, an alien Confederacy, and Glenn Talbot, who had infused himself with Gravitonium and gained superpowers. As this transpired, May and her team would learn that Phil Coulson was dying as a result of a deal he made with the Spirit of Vengeance to defeat Aida. S.H.I.E.L.D. would be forced to kill Talbot, succeeding in preventing Earth's destruction. May would retire from S.H.I.E.L.D. again to be with Coulson during his final days. May would be there as Coulson peacefully passed away.

May returned to her service within S.H.I.E.L.D. under Alphonso Mackenzie's directorship, who assigned her to the new STRIKE team. Later, S.H.I.E.L.D. encountered mercenary group led by Sarge who had an incredible resemblance with Coulson. With May's strong desire to find out about Sarge, S.H.I.E.L.D. apprehended Sarge and temporarily allied with him in the fight against Izel, a non-corporeal entity that seeked to help her species invade the universe. Eventually, May found out that Sarge was an entity from a non-corporeal dimension that possessed a replica of Coulson's body which corrupted his memory. May, together with Mackenzie and Sarge headed to the Temple of the Forgotten to stop Izel from unleashing her realm's powers on Earth, however, Sarge took Izel's side and killed May, throwing her body into her realm. Due to the nature of Izel's realm, May survived her fatal injury and managed to kill Izel in the fight before Jemma Simmons put May in a cryo-freeze chamber to save her.

May was taken onto the Zephyr with the team, which then travelled through time to 1931. Though May was left in the Zephyr to recover, she would escape the cryo-chamber prematurely and meet a new LMD of Coulson. Upon her escape, she would realise that she was no longer capable of feeling emotion but could feel the emotions of others when touching them, which she would later discover was due to her time spent in Izel's realm, where emotion did not exist. May would be debriefed on the team's new mission: travel through time to prevent the Chronicoms from altering the past to erase S.H.I.E.L.D. from history. May's new empath powers would be vital in helping the team detect Chronicom impersonators of real humans as the team jumped through the decades. Though the Zephyr would be stranded in 1983, Leo Fitz would arrive to bring them back to 2019 to fight the Chronicom fleet. May and the Coulson LMD would defeat the Chronicom leader, Sibyl, finally putting an end to the Chronicom threat. After the team's victory, S.H.I.E.L.D. would be rebuilt and May would retire from field work to become a teacher at S.H.I.E.L.D.'s new school, the Coulson Academy.

1. ↑ 1.0 1.1 Cite error: Invalid `<ref>` tag; no text was provided for refs named `AoS217`
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8. ↑ Cite error: Invalid `<ref>` tag; no text was provided for refs named `AoS204`
9. ↑ 9.0 9.1 Cite error: Invalid `<ref>` tag; no text was provided for refs named `AoS303`
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15. ↑ Cite error: Invalid `<ref>` tag; no text was provided for refs named `AoS506`
16. ↑ Cite error: Invalid `<ref>` tag; no text was provided for refs named `AoS507`
17. ↑ *Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D.: 5.08: The Last Day*
18. ↑ Cite error: Invalid `<ref>` tag; no text was provided for refs named `AoS513`
19. ↑ *Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D.: 6.01: Missing Pieces*
20. ↑ *Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D.: 6.07: Toldja*
21. ↑ *Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D.: 6.08: Collision Course Part One*
22. ↑ *Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D.: 6.10: Leap*
23. ↑ 23.0 23.1 *Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D.: 7.03: Alien Commies from the Future!*
24. ↑ *Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D.: 7.05: A Trout in the Milk*
25. ↑ *S.H.I.E.L.D. ID Cards*