Rainbow Mika (Street Fighter) vs. Blue Mary (SNK)

Opening
Spider: It often seems that the fighting females of pop culture more often than not use a fighting style that reflects the typical ideals of femininity.

Pixie: We might be over-run by skinny, fragile, battle-ballerinas leaping gracefully over their more muscular foes, but the female grappler is a rarity. Rainbow Mika, the Star of the Ring.

Spider: And Mary Ryan, better known as Blue Mary. I’m Spider.

Pixie: And I’m Pixie!

Spider: And it’s our job to analyze their power, abilities and skills to determine who would win a Death Battle.

Blue Mary
Spider: Mary Ryan worked as a secret service agent, protecting the president alongside her father (whose name is not given) and her ex-boyfriend, Butch.

Pixie: Yeesh, I can’t even begin to imagine how stressful that must have been. Working with her dad and ex-boyfriend at the same time, I mean. Not the protecting the president part.

Spider: While on a mission together, both her father and her former lover were shot and killed by terrorists. For a time, it was said that Mary had never smiled since, and she took on the moniker, “Blue Mary”.

Pixie: She’s cheered up quite a bit since she became friends, and later, lovers, with Terry Bogard, though, but people call her Blue Mary anyways, because it sounds pretty cool.

Spider: Mary went on to work as a private detective, and when a mysterious benefactor (actually the criminal mastermind Geese Howard) invited her to the King of Fighters Tournament, Mary was given a chance to show off her hand-to-hand skill.

Pixie: Mary practices Commando Sambo. While ‘Commando’ Sambo isn’t actually a thing that exists, Combat Sambo is, and it’s badass. For the purposes of this analysis, we’ll assume that Commando Sambo is mostly like Combat Sambo, except that the user isn’t wearing any underwear.

Spider (face-palming): You’re hopeless, Pixie… Sambo is a Russian martial art using both grappling and striking techniques, and was developed by the Soviet Army, who desired to create a more effective method of hand-to-hand combat. Sambo draws from Boxing, Savate, Judo and Greco-Roman wrestling, to name just a few influences. Needless to say, this makes it an extremely well-rounded and versatile Martial Art. In addition to the typical punches, elbows knees and kicks, Mary sports a few unique actions, like a trip-throw elbow-drop combination, a leaping double-hammer-fist and a double-round kick.

Pixie: Like any decent Fighting Game character, Mary uses a variety of spectacular special attacks. The terribly named Spin Fall is a flying somersault kick that Mary can follow up with the Spider, a grappling take-down where she grabs her opponent with her legs and wrenches their arm. Her Straight Slicer is a sliding kick that… kind of sounds a lot like Cammy White’s Razor Edge Slicer… Wait, her next attack is a kick special with ‘Arrow’ in the name? And rising just like Cammy’s Cannon Spike!? SNK, you thieving bastards!

Spider: Well, while the Vertical Arrow is a rising kick similar to the Cannon Spike, Mary can actually follow-up the attack by grabbing her opponents with her knees and slamming them into ground, so it’s pretty different from Cammy’s attack.

Pixie (grumbling): If you say so… Mary also has tricky three counter-grapples she can use to shut down enemy attacks. Mary’s Reverse Facelock counters jumping and high to mid-ranged attacks by pulling foes into a sacrifice throw and kicking them into the air behind her. The Head Buster counters low attacks by flipping her enemy over and elbow dropping them. The Real Counter lets Mary Dodge any attack except and follow up with a nasty suplex.

Spider: Blue Mary also packs three powerful Desperation Moves, which she can use after building energy attack and taking damage. Her Rose Splash lets her dash back and forwards past her opponent while hammering them side elbow-strikes, then flying kick them and knock them into the air with a spinning back-hand strike. With the Dynamite Swing, she leaps into the air to perform a knee-strike into a take down, then grabs her stunned foe, swings them around while spinning like a top, and hurls them away. Her most devastating attack is the Typhoon, where Mary… well…

Pixie: Where Mary shamelessly rips off Cammy’s Frankensteiner.

Spider: Where Mary grabs her opponents with her legs, leaps high into the air while spinning, and slams them into the ground. The move does bear a passing resemblance to the Frankensteiner, but Mary leaps far higher, so it likely hits much harder. It also worth noting that while Mary does not have any real super-human abilities, she can infuse her throws and attacks with Ki energy. Curiously, Mary can also throw opponents regardless of their weight… by… honestly, I’m having trouble wrapping my head around the physics on that one. Maybe Mary’s Ki energy lets temporarily interrupt the flow of gravitons between her foe and the earth, so that they temporarily weight nothing? But even then, you’d have to factor in the resistance of their inertia, which—

Pixie: Spider.

Spider: Yes?

Pixie:  Say video-game physics. Just say it.

Spider: …Video-game physics?

Pixie (smiling): Ah, that’s better. Now we can move on. Mary doesn’t have too many glaring weakpoints. She doesn’t have any ranged attacks, but then again, not many grapplers do. She’s not always successful in her missions or investigations, but she did manage to dismantle the cartel called NESTS, with some help from her boyfriend Terry and the Women’s Martial Arts Team, so she’s got more crime-busting under her belt than most of the people reading this do. While she does occasionally angst about her work and her past, Mary has an extremely friendly personality, and wears a smile inside the ring and out.

[Clip from KOF 2001]

Blue Mary: It's been a while... hate to bloody a buddy.