GUNPLAYGUNPLAY
Real Name: Miho Mikashi
Identity/Class: Human; briefly an artillery user
Occupation: Unrevealed
Affiliations: Sneak Thief, Spider-Man (ally)
Enemies: Diggers, Jury, Life Foundation (especially Carlton Drake/Homo Arachnis), Spoiler, General Orwell Taylor, Venom
Known Relatives: Toshiro Mikashi (father, deceased)
Aliases: None
Base of Operations: briefly the Life Foundation bunker beneath Washington, DC
First Appearance: Spider-Man: the
Arachnis Project#1-BTS;
Spider-Man: the Arachnis Project#2 (August,
1994)
Powers/Abilities: None. Miho had some self-defense skills and was reasonably experienced with the use of handguns, such as the .357 magnum she kept at home. She was courageous, and she strapped on an arsenal of weaponry as Gunplay, though she made little use of it.
History:
(Spider-Man: the Arachnis Project#1 - BTS) - The Life Foundation
used threats to Miho's life to force her father to comply with
them in the development of his Arachnis Project.
(Spider-Man: the Arachnis Project#2) - Miho met Peter Parker, who came to visit her father after he was framed for a death caused by the Life Foundation. That group then showed up and took out both Parker and Toshiro Mikashi with a gas attack.
(Spider-Man: the Arachnis Project#3) - Miho used a bandana to protect herself from the gas, and used her gun to drive off the Foundation members, though they escaped with her father. She initially accused Peter Parker of being involved with them due to the timing of his arrival, but he convinced her otherwise. When Peter left to investigate, Miho prepared in case the Foundation returned.
(Spider-Man: the Arachnis Project#4) - Nonetheless, Miho was captured by their goons anyway, and arrived in time to see her father get cracked in the head by Spoiler. On the way to her cell, Miho kicked Spoiler in the gibs and escaped, with assistance from Sneak Thief, another escaped prisoner of the Life Foundation.
(Spider-Man: the Arachnis Project#5) - After Drake turned into Homo Arachnis and turned the Life Foundation base into a warzone, Sneak Thief told Miho that the only way they stood a chance was to "become a pair of pistol packin' mamas." They raided the Jury's barracks, loaded up with weaponry, and Miho became Gunplay. Shortly thereafter, Miho watched her father sacrifice his life to destroy to set the self-destruct on the Life Foundation bunker, to prevent the Arachnis formula from being mass produced and misused. Sneak Thief convinced her that she had to fight on and survive, or her father's death would be rendered meaningless.
(Spider-Man: the Arachnis Project#6) - Gunplay was amidst the chaos as the Jury and Spider-Man fought Venom and then all teamed up against Homo Arachnis. She attacked Venom--considering him to be a puppet of the Life Foundation--and was nearly choked when he extended tendrils down her throat as punishment. She was saved by Spider-Man and Ramshot, and she escaped the bunker with the rest of the group. She was taken away in an ambulance, but she was happy that her father's work had been destroyed rather than being corrupted. She told Spider-Man to thank Peter Parker for keeping his promise of always being there for her father--though as far as she should have known, Peter didn't see her father again after he left her house...
Comments: Created by Mike Lackey and Andrew Wildman.
It would seem doubtful--even if anyone really did give a frog's fat ass--that Miho would have maintained her Gunplay alias. She had no actual fighting skills, and she only took the identity as a defense mechanism to get out of the bunker alive. There have been weaker origins, though...
CLARIFICATIONS:
No known connection to:
Toshiro Mikashi
Toshiro's
family, Japanese citizens, opposed World War II, and were
ostracized in their native land. They moved to the USA, but were
again looked on with distrust. Toshiro worked and studied,
becoming a great scientist, but still he was looked over for
promotions and lucrative jobs by the old boys network of the post-war
boom companies. He married fathered Miho, and became an
Entomology (which, of course, studies insects, not spiders, but
anyway...) professor at Empire State University. He later worked
at Williams University in Washington, DC.
He developed the Arachnis Project, designed to
replicate the exo-skeleton of arachnids in people, so people
could store toxins in their exo-skeleton and then shed them when
full, like he proposed a spider does. After his wife died, he
became increasingly depressed. Two years later, the Life
Foundation learned of his discovery, which was of interest to
their leader, Carlton Drake, who was dying of cancer. The Life
Foundation coerced Toshiro to work with them--initially under the
belief that their work was for the greater good, and later under
the threat that if he refused, they would go after Miho. One of
Mikashi's students, Jerry Powers, investigated his work, was
discovered by Life Foundation members. They terminated Powers by
exposure to Mikashi's simulated spider-digestive enzyme, which
rapidly digested his body, and then framed Toshiro for Powers'
death.
Learning of all this, Toshiro's old student,
Peter Parker, came to see him, just in time to be subdued along
with Toshiro by a gas attack. Toshiro was captured, and though
Miho drove them off before they could grab her or Peter, both
were later captured anyway (Spidey by the Jury, Miho by the Life
Foundation). The Lifers than coerced--including the butt of
Spoiler's rifle to the back of his head--Toshiro into stepping up
his plan and combining the blood of Spider-Man with his previous
formula. When the Foundation agents prepared to poison Spider-Man,
Toshiro tried to stop them and received a back full of buckshot
for his efforts. Spidey broke free and fought the Foundation's
various agents, and then used his webbing to patch up Toshiro's
back.
Drake took Toshiro's formula (he took it as an
intravenous injection, though it was meant to be drunk) and
mutated into the monstrous Homo Arachnis. Spidey brought Toshiro
to safety outside of the bunker, but he returned to prevent his
formula form being mass produced. Exposing himself to lethal
amounts of radiation, Toshiro set the nuclear bomb in the bunker
to explode, and said his goodbye to Miho by video link before
dying.
--Spider-Man: The Arachnis Project#1 (3(fb), 1-5
First Posted: 07/15/2003
Last updated: 07/15/2003
Any Additions/Corrections? please let me know.
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