Mariko Yashida - Fictional Character Biography

Fictional Character Biography

Mariko was the daughter of Shingen Yashida, the half-sister of the Silver Samurai, and cousin of Sunfire and Sunpyre. Upon her father's death, she became head (Oyabun) of his Yakuza crime family, Clan Yashida.

She first met the X-Men when they returned from a sojourn in the Savage Land and were asked to help Japan, which was being blackmailed by the terrorist Moses Magnum. She strongly became romantically close to Wolverine despite her family's disapproval. However, when her father ordered her to marry a criminal associate to settle one of his debts, she obeyed without question as a matter of honor. Furthermore, she was intent on keeping to this duty over Logan's protests and the fact that her husband is physically abusive. However, her father had his personal assassin, Yukio, secretly poison Logan to temporarily weaken him before maneuvering him into an unfair duel of honor to disgrace himself in front of Mariko and to demoralize him.

Afterward, Mariko was later used by her father as a secondary motivation to maneuver Wolverine into participating in an assassination of a rival by having the superhero inadvertently provide a distraction while protecting his love from the rival's own assassins. This also had the intended effect of deepening Mariko's disgust for Logan upon witnessing him going berserk in battle, albeit in defense of her. However, Mariko soon realized that her father was evil and was shaming her family with his sinister schemes. To stop him, Mariko planned to kill her father and then commit seppuku in recompense for the deed. Fortunately, Logan, learning the truth about his manipulation and inspired by a personal epiphany about his humanity, attacked her father and slew him in a fair battle of honor before she could act. In doing so, Logan was convinced that Mariko would be honorbound to kill him for that and was prepared to die at her hands rather than harm her in self-defense. However, Mariko explained her opinion of her father and presented the family katana to him as a token of her approval of him as an honourable warrior who is properly entitled to it.

At this, Mariko became Logan's fiancée, but their wedding was halted by the supervillain Mastermind, who used a mind control device to change Mariko's mind. When the control was lifted, Wolverine and Mariko resumed their romantic relationship after a period of separation, but have not reconsidered marriage. Mariko also refused any closer engagement with him until she had dealt with her father's criminal legacy, which she felt honorbound to rectify.

The X-Men returned from the first Secret Wars and accidentally end up in Japan, fighting a dragon their companion Lockheed had brought along. During the chaos, 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. Since Wolverine could not take care of her himself, he chose to place Amiko in Mariko's care, whom the girl soon adopted as a surrogate mother. Akiko and Mariko were at one point targeted by Ogun, one of Wolverine's old enemies, but the attack was averted by Wolverine and Kitty Pryde.

Mariko was poisoned with tetrodotoxin from a blowfish by an assassin named Reiko, in the hire of her rival Matsu'o Tsurayaba. She asked Wolverine to kill her to avoid a painful death and preserve her honor. Wolverine killed her and vowed to avenge Mariko by yearly severing parts of Matsu'o's body on the anniversary of her death.

When Phaedra, an agent of the Hand, resurrected Shingen and stole a piece of Wolverine's soul to torture him, when Wolverine made a deal with Azrael, the Angel of Death, where he would kill Phaedra to stop her resurrecting the dead if Azrael would heal his soul, Phaedra attempted to convince Wolverine to spare her life by offering to resurrect Mariko, but Wolverine refused, stating that, while he would pay any price to bring Mariko back, he deeply loved Mariko because she was a better person than him in every way, and she would never accept life if it meant that someone as evil as Phaedra was allowed to live as well.

Many years later, Wolverine was captured by the Devil and taken to Hell. In order to have Wolverine comply with his demands, the lord of Hell had Mariko's soul (who had been condemned to Hell for her leadership of the Yashida clan's criminal activities) brought to him and torture Wolverine into submission. Wolverine, however, was eventually rescued by his old friend from Alpha Flight, Puck, and his own father. When Logan finally prepared to flee Hell, he intended to take Mariko with him, but with nothing to return to in this life, she asked him to leave her behind and return to Earth and reclaim his own life, a request Logan reluctantly acquiesced to.