Reserve member of the Avengers (fifty-first recruit); sponsor child of Edwin Jarvis.

     Silverclaw was born in the South American nation of Costa Verde from the union of the human Jaime Santiago and the volcano goddess Peliali. Because of her mother's heritage, ever since she was born she could transform herself into a silvery version of most of the animals of Costa Verde, including (but not limited to) snakes, birds, felines and sloths, which she considers her most powerful form. Initially her transformations were instinctive, but with age she learned to control them.

     For her own reasons, Peliali never showed herself to her daughter and, despite her father's efforts, Maria eventually came to consider herself a mutant and ignored the traditions of her people, the Kamekeri.

 Eventually her father died due to a disease, and she ended up into an orphanage, supported by an American charity. One day, in response to a TV ad, the orphanage received a letter from Edwin Jarvis, butler to the well-known Stark family, who wished to sponsor a child. The orphanage, having heard of the connection between the Starks and the hero Iron Man, and scared by Maria's powers, considered Jarvis to be the best-suited person to take care of her, and made her his sponsoree. Despite never meeting each other, the two quickly became pen friends, but Maria, wanting to mostly ignore her past, never told him of her powers.

     Eventually, Maria decided to join a college in the States and left Costa Verde, bringing with her the cerimonial costume that her father had given her years before. On the plane however she was confronted by some agents of the terrorist Moses Magnum, who somehow knew about her, and was forced to aid them in taking control of the plane. This led to a brief battle between Maria, who was calling herself Silverclaw, and the Avengers (Captain America, Thor, Iron Man, Justice, Firestar, Hawkeye and Scarlet Witch) who arrived to stop the terrorists in the destination airport. Eventually, Silverclaw clarified her position to Jarvis and the Avengers, and even helped them against Moses Magnum.

     She then joined university, but a while later was contacted by Taskmaster, posing as Captain America, who convinced her and the heroes Warbird (now Ms. Marvel), Ant Man (Scott Lang) and Captain Marvel III to work with him in a secret mission against a religious cult called "The Triune Understanding". Silverclaw agreed, thinking she was helping the Avengers, but quickly realized that "Captain America" was actually an imposter. The heroes managed to defeat Taskmaster, but were in turn defeated by Jonathon Tremont, leader of the Triune, who later blamed them for the destruction of one of his buildings, as a part of a complicated plot to ruin the popularity of the Avengers.

     Forgiven by the Avengers, she had to ask for their help shortly afterwards, when a sinister looking telegram forced her to go back to Costa Verde. With the new roster of the Avengers (Iron Man, Wasp, Goliath, Warbird, Triathlon and She-Hulk), she reached her native village, only to find it under the mystical control of the sorcerer Kulan Gath.  He had decided to end his mortal life and become a god, and needed to kill Peliali and absorb her energies. In the ensuing battles, Silverclaw managed to free her people from Gath's enchantment and to put a stop to his plans. However, Peliali was mortally wounded and, after making Silverclaw the rightful defender of Costa Verde, had to leave earth forever to reach the "Realm of Gods". Impressed by Maria's skills and courage, the Avengers offered her reserve membership, which she accepted. The meeting with Peliali also helped Maria to finally accept her condition.

     Despite her reserve status, Silverclaw took part to a fair number of missions with the Avengers, against the likes of Ronan the Accuser, Diablo (whom she managed to fight to a standstill on her own) and even Thanos. During this last mission, she briefly got close to the hero Haywire, but his death ended any potential romance between the two of them.

     Eventually, the Avengers had to face a full scale planetary invasion by the supervillain Kang. Joining them once more, Silverclaw took part in a succesfull mission with Yellowjacket, Warbird and Quicksilver against the self styled Master of the World, in order to take control of his advanced technology and use it against Kang. Shortly afterwards, Kang took control of the Earth, but the Avengers eventually managed to defeat him.

     With this crisis gone, Silverclaw sat in as a witness in the court martial of Warbird, guilty of killing the Master of the World (she was acquitted) and shortly afterwards went on missions against the Elements of Doom, the Order and Krona. However she then decided to go back to her studies and presumably downgraded herself to reserve status once more.

     She was last seen with the Avengers when the team disbanded following a number of powerful attacks by the temporarily insane Scarlet Witch.

--Contributed by Shiryu