Mariko Yashida
 | It has been suggested that Sunfire (Exiles), Wikipedia talk:WikiProject Comics/Notice Board#Merging Alternate Characters and Merging Alternate Versions of Characters be merged into this article. (Discuss) Proposed since June 2007. |
| Mariko Yashida | |
|---|---|
| File:Mariko Yashida.jpg The death of Mariko Yashia | |
| Publication information | |
| Publisher | Marvel Comics |
| First appearance | Uncanny X-Men #118 (February, 1979) |
| Created by | Chris Claremont John Byrne |
| In-story information | |
| Team affiliations | Clan Yashida, Wolverine |
Mariko Yashida is a fictional character who appears in comic books published by Marvel Comics. Created by Chris Claremont and John Byrne, she first appeared in Uncanny X-Men #118 (February, 1979).
Fictional character biography
Mariko is the daughter of Shingen Yashida, the half-sister of the Silver Samurai, and cousin of Sunfire and Sunpyre. Upon her father's death, she becomes head of his Yakuza crime family.
She meets the X-Men when they return from a sojourn in the Savage Land and are asked to help Japan, which is being blackmailed by the terrorist Moses Magnum. She becomes Wolverine's fiancée, but their wedding is halted by the supervillain Mastermind, who uses a mind control device to change Mariko's mind. When the control is lifted, Wolverine and Mariko resume their relationship after a period of separation, but have not reconsidered marriage.
When the X-Men return from the first Secret Wars and accidentally end up in Japan and fighting a dragon their companion Lockheed had brought along, a young girl named Amiko Kobayashi loses her mother when a collapsing building crushes her. Dying, the woman begs Wolverine to take care of her daughter. While Wolverine could not take care of her himself, he chose to place Amiko in Mariko's care, whom the girl soon adopts as a surrogate mother.
Mariko is poisoned with tetrodotoxin from a blowfish by an assassin named Reiko, in the hire of her rival Matsu'o Tsurayaba.[1] She asks Wolverine to kill her to avoid a painful death. Wolverine kills her and vows to avenge Mariko by yearly severing parts of Matsu'o's body on the anniversary of her death.
When last seen, Matsu'o is missing an arm, his right ear, his nose and his gallbladder.[2] He plans to beg Wolverine for release through suicide. Wolverine never arrives because he was having a near-death experience in Canada.
Alternate Versions
Age of Apocalypse
In the "Age of Apocalypse" timeline, Mariko was a member of the Human High Council, a group of humans that opposed Apocalypse's tyrannical rule. While not engaged to Logan, Mariko was his former lover and she birthed him a daughter, Kirika, who is an amalgam of X-23 and her 616 daughter Amiko Kobayashi. Mariko participates in an attempt to bomb forces of Apocalypse based in North America, though she knows this would mean extensive civilian deaths.
Exiles
An alternate version of Mariko is a member of the Exiles from issue #2 (September, 2001) until her death in issue #37 (January, 2004. As Sunfire, she has the same powers as her Marvel Universe cousin. This version was created by Judd Winick and Mike McKone.