Foes of the Superwomen of EVA #5: The Grapplers
"During the event dubbed the 'Secret Crisis', when rich criminal gambler Amos Fortune (from one universe) made a wager with En Dwi Gast (alias the Grandmaster, an 'elder of the universe' from another universe) involving their respective worlds' resident teams of superheroes, each put together a team of foes they then sent to each others' universes to get the attention of said superheroes. While Fortune sent his own group, the Royal Flush Gang, to the world that was home to the Avengers (a team made up of women involved in various capacities during the Angel War), the Grandmaster got more 'creative' with his team.
The Grandmaster turned his eye on a group of Japanese female pro wrestlers calling themselves 'the Grapplers', and after imbuing them with power that increased their strength, stamina, reflexes, and durability, along with a few select special abilities (all while putting them under his control), he sent them to Fortune's world, which was home to the Justice League (the counterparts to the Avengers). The League and the Grapplers battled it out until the former were able to defeat the latter, at which point the Grandmaster teleported them back to their home universe.
On that Earth, some time after those events, the Grapplers (who barely remembered being the Grandmaster's pawns) were working out in their gym one day when they discovered that they'd retained the power they were given (after accidentally damaging their exercise equipment in the process). Realizing they'd be disqualified from any regular match in the league, the group worked to master their new abilities and came up with a solution to their dilemma after being inspired by the various appearances of superhumans following the rise of the Avengers during the Angel War. Successful in securing financing from a number of sponsors and contacts, the Grapplers helped form a new league for aspiring wrestlers with extraordinary abilities, known as the Unlimited Class Wrestling Federation.
After generating some initial buzz with a series of crowd-pleasing exhibition matches, the Grapplers kicked off a massive publicity event in the form of a charity tournament, with members of the Avengers as their opponents and the proceeds going to post-Angel War relief and recovery efforts. The heroes agreed to participate, with some of their number being actual combatants and the others watching from the stands in their civilian guises; a few of their number, on the down-low, found something off-putting about Tetsuma Kido, one of the chief financial backers of the UCWF and the head of a pharmaceutical empire specializing in health and fitness. During a few of the matches, at certain points some of the Grapplers went berserk and became hard for their opponents to handle, forcing the Avengers to subdue them. Finding this suspicious, Avengers members Wasp (Kaede Agano) and Yellowjacket (Aoi Mogami) shrunk down and infiltrated Kido's box suite at the stadium where the tournament was taking place; they soon discovered he'd been using the Grapplers as test subjects for a new drug his chief scientists, Drs. Yoshio Sawada and Karl Malus, had developed called MGH (Mutant Growth Hormone); furthermore, Kido himself is a power player in the criminal underworld going by the alias of the Power Broker, selling 'enhancements' to all kinds of crooks so they have a better chance against the superhuman element within Tokyo-3 and Tokyo-2.
Wasp and Yellowjacket swiftly made their way to the announcer's booth where they exposed Kido's plans to the audience and the competitors, shocking everyone present. Not wanting to have his ambitions spoiled, Kido sent out a group of MGH-enhanced thugs to keep both the Avengers and the Grapplers occupied while he and the two scientists made a break for it. Both Captain America (Mari Makinami) and Sakura "Screaming Mimi" Hagiwara caught up to them, only to square off with Kido after he injected himself with an untested new batch of the MGH formula. Despite putting up quite a fight, the Avenger and the Grappler managed to defeat Kido so he could be taken into custody by law enforcement; Sawada and Malus, on the other hand, managed to get away.
While some of their number recovered, the other Grapplers made a promise to the Avengers to redo the charity tournament at some point soon, though with clean fights all-around.
Some of the prominent members of the Grapplers include:
1. Misaki "Lascivious" Toyoda - veteran wrestler and mentor to Sakura due to similar pasts as former idol singers. Possesses additional ability that lets her stimulate and influence the part of the brain that regulates passion and attraction, hence her ring name. Faces off with She-Hulk (Misato Katsuragi) in the charity tournament.
2. Sakura "Screaming Mimi" Hagiwara - formerly an idol singer who took up wrestling to avenge her bandmate's humiliation during an exhibition match with her future teammate Rio, only to take to the sport and go pro. Possesses the additional ability to generate powerful sonic attacks and shields with her voice. Faces off with Captain America (Mari Makinami) in the charity tournament.
3. Miki "Battleaxe" Morita - former mid-class pro wrestler who joined the Grapplers with her best friend Eri. Skilled with a pair of small twin axes made of the rare metal adamantium. Faces off with Thunderstrike (Maria Vincennes) in the charity tournament.
4. Eri "Gladiatrix" Kazama - former mid-class pro wrestler who joined the Grapplers with her best friend Miki and her half-sister Rio. Faces off with Ms. Fantastic (Maya Ibuki) in the charity tournament.
5. Rio "Poundcakes" Kazama - younger half-sister to Gladiatrix, with more of an attitude to match her strength and fighting spirit. Faces off with Stature (Satsuki Ooi) in the charity tournament.
6. Jackal "Vavavoom" Tojo - former mentor to Lascivious and the 'blonde bombshell' of the Grapplers. Faces off with Spider-Woman (Ritsuko Akagi) in the charity tournament.
Other members of the team include Elena "Letha" Miyazawa, Sakura's best friend and former bandmate; Juri "Auntie Freeze" Sanada, another mentee of Vavavoom's; and Moe "Capriole" Fukuoka, the youngest member of the team and a karate prodigy.
At a later point in the near future, Sakura and Elena would don new costumes and monikers when they became two of the newest Avengers: Songbird and Hellcat."
*Author's Note(s)*
For today's entry, we have here my take on a group of female pro wrestlers and occasional muscle-for-hire known as the Grapplers, creations of the collaborative team of John Byrne, Ralph Macchio, and one of my favorite writers (living or dead), Mark Gruenwald. Bringing them into my tribute series (both here and on DeviantArt) was made possible thanks to my introduction to two female pro wrestling-based anime separated by roughly thirty years: the 1986 one-shot OVA Wanna-Be's (where Miki and Eri originate) and the 2013 TV series Wanna Be the Strongest in the World (where Sakura and the rest come from).
From there, I picked out which character would get which alias and gimmick, mingling a few elements of each anime along the way; making Sakura Screaming Mimi/Songbird was one of the more fitting pairings, for example. (The fact that Eri and Rio share a last name is a coincidence.) Unlike the Marvel Comics version of the Grapplers, I opted to have this take's time as supervillains be brief, so they're more like occasional antagonists and sparring partners; I was inspired partly by Gladiatrix's joining the Anti-Registration side during 2006's Civil War, and Letha and Poundcakes becoming the bodyguards for G.I.R.L. in the short-lived series The Unstoppable Wasp.
Fun factoid: Misaki and Elena share their respective English VA's, Leah Clark and Monica Rial, with respectively, Hikari Horaki in the second Rebuild of Evangelion movie and Maya Ibuki in the ADV director's cut of their Evangelion dub.
