Allies of the Superwomen of EVA #9: Maki Oze, Hero-for-Hire

"Maki Oze came from a long line of venerated firefighters, with her father Danro being a highly-decorated captain in the Tokyo Fire Department and her brother Tagaki working as a top fire prevention inspector. Taller and a bit beefier than the other girls in her class, Maki overcame a childhood of teasing by putting her above-average physique to use as part of the girls division of her high school wrestling team. After college, Maki followed in her family's footsteps by becoming a skilled firefighter herself, becoming as decorated as her father and grandfather before her. She was also a frequent face at many volunteer events in her neighborhood, making her well-regarded among the many residents she went out of her way to help. She was a boon to her company, especially with how much they were called upon for rescue operations as Tokyo-3 became ground zero for humanity's battle against the otherworldly menaces U.N. special agency NERV had codenamed 'Angels'.

During the aftermath of one such fight between an Angel and NERV's Evangelions, a fire blazed throughout a section of Tokyo-3 that contained a biochemical research facility, with the flames trapping a number of staff within. Maki and her company were on the scene almost in an instant, getting to work putting out the fire and rescuing the people within. On her third time in the facility, the fire had caused a number of specific chemical cocktails (some with mild amounts of radioactive elements) to burst from their containers, leaving fumes in the air. Spotting a researcher who was unconscious and barely breathing, Maki was forced to temporarily put her own air mask on the researcher as she carried them out; in the process, she accidentally breathed in some of the fumes, and by the time she got out with the researcher, she collapsed and was transported to Tokyo-3 General Hospital.

Maki spent the next month comatose, with those keeping an eye on her unaware of her body metastasizing the chemical mixture, changing her in the process on a cellular level. Once it finished, Maki awakened, much to the relief of the other members of the company and her family. A physical examination would then reveal the changes to Maki's body, as an attempt to get some bloodwork done saw multiple hypodermic needles bend and crumble against her skin. Further tests showed not only that Maki developed super-dense skin and muscle tissue that proved to be bulletproof, blade-proof, and (fittingly) fireproof, her strength and stamina had increased to superhuman levels, and she also now possessed a minor healing factor enabling her to recover faster than normal from injuries (if she sustained any). The researcher Maki had rescued, who'd undergone their own recovery, was able to give a possible explanation of this, revealing that the facility had been conducting research on what had been dubbed the 'Burstein formula', named for American scientist Dr. Noah Burstein, who had been trying to create a variant of the super-soldier serum that resulted in Captain America. (A reworked version had, in another part of the world, been administered to the legendary super-soldier's great-granddaughter, NERV Evangelion pilot Mari "Illustrious" Makinami.)

In spite of these new abilities, Maki continued to be the same person she always was around her teammates and her neighbors, though there were occasions where she underestimated her own strength, leading to a bit of property damage and accidental injuries to those she rescued. While taking time off to better understand her new power levels, she chanced upon a shakedown-in-progress by members of a local gang, who were harassing her friend Iris, a young nun (and American expat) at the local church. Maki stepped in and was forced to fend off the thugs, crumpling their weapons into useless lumps with her bare hands and tossing them around until they ran off, tails between their legs. All of this was witnessed by Tamaki, another friend of Maki's who worked as an assistant to the classifieds editor at the local newspaper. The next day, inspired by her actions, Tamaki convinces Maki to set herself up as a nonprofit 'hero-for-hire' (akin to a private investigator); initially turning down the proposition, Maki changed her mind (much to her chagrin) when Tamaki revealed that she'd already drafted up an ad and had it run in the newest edition of the paper; Maki begrudgingly agrees only when Tamaki emphasizes how any proceeds from the jobs she takes would go back into the community. Tamaki then helps Maki get their new 'side-business' off the ground, with Iris being roped in as their 'receptionist' (while Tamaki acts as their 'PR girl'). Iris, showing off her talent for costuming, went as far as crafting an outfit for Maki to, in Tamaki's words, better sell the 'hero-for-hire' image (Maki would comment that it 'wasn't as ridiculous' as she'd initially imagined).

Her first client would be a couple who owned and ran a custom jewelry store that was one of a number of small businesses being targeted by the underlings of crime boss Wataru Sotomura, known for his fearsome strength due to the cybernetic exoskeleton he wore. After roughing up a number of his flunkies, Maki confronted Sotomura himself in a one-on-one fight, and while the exoskeleton made him a rough equal to Maki in terms of strength and stamina, Maki's determination won out and she ended up pushing Sotomura's exoskeleton to the breaking point, causing it to short out and fail him. Maki then hauled the defeated Sotomura to the police, with testimony from the small business owners his thugs tormented leading to his arrest and the dismantling of his gang. Maki was convinced enough afterwards to continue with her 'side-job' in addition to returning to her firefighting duties.

Maki's first encounter with the superwomen of Tokyo-3 would be when she was hired to go after a strange man who'd been waltzing about throughout the city, dining out on expensive meals and buying all manner of luxury goods, all without paying a single amount of money and leaving those attempting to collect on his bills in a weird trance. Eventually coming upon the man, he was revealed to be one Zebediah Kilgrave, alias the 'Purple Man', due to his literal purple skin pigmentation. Before Maki could even lay a finger on Kilgrave, the callous hedonist used his self-generated pheromones, the same used on the bill collectors, to stop Maki in her tracks and put her under his control, wielding her like a living blunt instrument as he continued his one-man crime wave. Maki would be freed from his control thanks to the intervention of the superhero known as Spider-Woman (secretly Ritsuko Akagi, head scientist of NERV), whose own pheromonal powers were able to counter Kilgrave's. Maki, justifiably enraged, double-teams Kilgrave with Spider-Woman's help; the wall-crawler is also able to help clear Maki's name of any wrongdoing due to Kilgrave's control. The two women became friends afterwards, with Ritsuko empathizing with Maki over her own feelings of being used by men (in her case, NERV supreme commander Gendo Ikari).

A year later, following the defeat of the Angels (and the conspiracy of the secret organization SEELE), during an incident where the time-traveling despot known as Kang the Conqueror temporarily trapped the Avengers (the team Spider-Woman helped found) in a temporal void, Maki was one of a number of superpowered allies of the team brought together via their 'New Avengers' protocols to defeat Kang and bring the team out of the void. Maki, along with the others, was then given reserve Avenger status by the team's leaders for her efforts."

*Author's Note(s)*

In this wave of street-level heroic allies, for the second one to round things out, I opted to focus on the niche filled by characters like Luke Cage and Jessica Jones, and in the end decided to do something of a composite.

For the anime character to fill that role, I found myself inspired by my viewings of the Fire Force anime and my bit of fascination with one of the central supporting characters in Maki Oze. Her physique and characterization may be a stark contrast to both Cage and Jones, but with a few tweaks here and there (plucked from Cage and Jones's respective publishing histories) I figured she would make a decent fit for my narrative purposes. As for costuming her, thrice now I turned to DeviantArt user Zair-dacorus for an artistic interpretation, for which I say he did a terrific job. I had him blend Jessica Jones's Jewel costume with the outfit that Luke Cage wore in his early-1990s solo series, which while not as flashy and iconic as either his original 70s look or the many purely street threads he sported in the 2000s, makes for a decent look overall. In the end, I'm quite satisfied with how his take on my vision for Maki turned out.

For those curious, Wataru Sotomura is based on Willis 'Diamondback' Stryker, and yes, there definitely was a moment in her side-hustle where Maki was hired by Gendo Ikari for a job, only for him to stiff her, causing Maki to track him down and utter that immortal line: "Where's my money, honey?".