Poison (Final Fight)

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Poison
Poison from Final Fight
Game series	Street Fighter series, Final Fight series
First game	Final Fight
Designed by	Akiman
Voice actor(s)	Atsuko Tanaka (Street Fighter III)
In-Universe Information
Birthplace	Los Angeles, USA
Measurements	B88, W66, H89[1]
Height	175cm (5'9")[1]
Weight	52kg (114 lbs.)[1]
Fighting style	Self-taught martial arts
Likes	French fries, Cody
Dislikes	Jailtime
Affiliation	Formerly Mad Gear, Capcom Wrestling Association (last confirmed)

Poison is a video game character from the Final Fight series, created by Akiman for Capcom. Introduced in the first Final Fight, she has has appeared as a cameo character alongside Street Fighter III character Hugo in his subsequent appearances. Poison was planned to appear in Capcom Fighting All Stars, but the game was cancelled. She was also slated to appeared in Final Fight Streetwise (though this may have been Roxy instead), but much like Sodom, was cut from the final game. However, voice samples for Poison/Roxy still exist in Streetwise's data files, and can be heard via several PlayStation sound ripping tools such as Psound.

Contents 1 History 2 Fictional Biography 2.1 Final Fight 2.2 Street Fighter III series/SVC Chaos: SNK vs. Capcom 2.3 Final Fight Revenge 2.4 Final Fight Streetwise 3 Non-Canon Appearances 4 Design 5 Gameplay 6 Personality and Relationships 7 Related Characters 8 External Links 9 References

[edit] History

Poison's first appearance is in Final Fight as a minor enemy and part of the game's main villain group Mad Gear. She tended to be one of Capcom's most controversial characters. The game had a penchant for palette swaps, and the character Roxy was hers. In initial game design both characters were female. However, Capcom of Japan received a phone call from a Nintendo rep opposing violence against women, so the developers changed them into newhalves,^[1] or in other words women who have male genitals (pre-op transsexuals). This is stated in the game's japanese instruction manual for the character's backstory.^[2], and reflected in the very male "knockout moans" characters make as they are defeated. However despite this, US playtesters failed to realize they were actually male until a representitive of Capcom Japan informed them of such^[3]. Despite this, Nintendo felt that the female enemies should be censored, and they were replaced with generic characters Billy and Sid (it's important to note that while Poison and Roxy both have at least some backstory, these two have none and exist solely as filler characters).

Capcom of USA's current policies of changing character stories, backgrounds and otherwise censoring helped result in further confusion as to whether the characters were male or female. Capcom Japan contributed to this themselves in All About Capcom^[1] by proposing the idea that Poison had a sex change and was now female, only to come back later and state she in fact was still a newhalf. This was reiterated again with Capcom Classics Collection, though now Roxy was stated as female in her bio. Capcom has yet to state otherwise for either character since.

The character's design is most likely based off the band Poison, coinciding with many other villains in Final Fight who were based off musical bands such as Sodom or Abigail. The band was notable for their members dressing up as females and many of them having bits of similar attire. Despite the striking coincidences however, Capcom has not stated what the influences behind the character were. The character is popular enough with the capcom staff to appear in many other artworks as cameos, and is one of the few characters from the series to move onto lesser but present story involvements in the main Street Fighter series.

Poison has some notoriety as one of the few LGBT characters in the Street Fighter canon, the other confirmed character being Eagle, though in Eagle's case he is a tribute to Freddie Mercury, who was himself gay. Poison in game regards herself as totally female, flirting with opposing characters, wearing a highly revealing outfit, and engaging in near-erotic behavior as seen in Final Fight Revenge when fighting. Her voice is currently completely feminine also, only adding to the confusion of whether she is male or female on the parts of some players.

[edit] Fictional Biography

[edit] Final Fight

As stated her first appearance was as a common enemy opposing the protagonists in their search for Jessica. Her backstory for the game states she grew up an orphan in Los Angeles, and later in life became a street thug for the original Mad Gear gang. Her look-alike character Roxy grew up in the same orphanage as her, and looked up to Poison. Despite Poison's gender, given her female body she dresses akin to a transvestite, a practice Roxy has been stated to not approve of, yet regardless dressed in a similar fashion. In game, Poison and Roxy are fast characters, and attack in an acrobatic fashion. (Important to note, Roxy is at the time of Final Fight the only palette swap character with a backstory: Two.P and El Gado didn't gain one until later games).

[edit] Street Fighter III series/SVC Chaos: SNK vs. Capcom

The character disappeared from the SF storylines until showing up in Street Fighter III: 2nd Impact, going fully legitimate and managing fellow Final Fight veteran Hugo Andore. In this appearance, she is merely a cameo character for Hugo's intros, taunt and winposes, though played a key role in his storyline and helping Hugo make a name for himself in professional wrestling. Hugo's bio states the two of them are pretty good friends despite their constant quarrels. Many subsequent storylines in SF3 and their appearance in SNK vs Capcom: Chaos revolve around either finding a tag team partner for Hugo or planning to start their own wrestling organization (the Hugo Wrestling Association, as see in the ending of Street Fighter III: Third Strike) due to Hugo being unable to find decent competition because of his immense strength^[1]. The canonical successes of these ventures has never been stated, though Hugo is stated to be considered "legendary" by Kyle Travers in Final Fight Streetwise.

[edit] Final Fight Revenge

Final Fight Revenge occurs chronologically story-wise before her appearance in Street Fighter 3 (and subsequently Final Fight 2), directly after the fall of the first Mad Gear and the fallout from Belger's demise. In this game, Poison appears as one of the selectable fighters (see Gameplay, below). Her background story in the game revolved around her her worried about her past crimes (namely, beating other people up) getting her arrested and thrown in Jail. Former Mad Gear member, Edi. E was arresting many of her former cohorts from the gang so he could get promoted. To escape it, she had framed Cody for her crimes, sending him to prison and setting up his storyline for his Street Fighter Alpha 3 appearance. Poison's own ending states she had feelings for Cody, but knew he'd always love Jessica, Mayor Haggar's daughter.^[4]

There has been some confusion as to if the character is meant to be female or not in this game, given Poison is expressed her in a completely female manner, and the game having been made by Capcom USA. However as of yet this game and the events that occured in it has not been disproven to be part of Street Fighter canon or otherwise retconned out.

[edit] Final Fight Streetwise

Concept artwork^[5] in the promotional comic book shows a character dubbed as Poison, though she uses Roxy's colors. Hugo is in Streetwise as one of the pit fighters, but there is no mention of just where Poison is. All About Capcom states that she lives with her cat in an apartment facing the back streets of Metro City, leaving the possibility of this being her whereabouts during Streetwise.^[1]

[edit] Non-Canon Appearances

She was set to appear in Capcom Fighting All-Stars, though little is known about this game at all, and even less about Poison's intended role as a playable character in it. Chronologically story-wise, the game occurs sometime between FF Revenge and Final Fight 3, as Haggar is still mayor of Metro City, and Poison is still regarded as a criminal (taken from the limited known character intro dialogue for the game). Videos show that her fighting style was an almost exact replica of that used in Revenge.

A parody of the first Final Fight, Mighty Final Fight featured super deformed characters, including one called "Poison Kiss". This Poison is actually stated to be the younger sister of the original, and a corrupt cop.^[6] Nowhere in Poison's official storyline is she stated to have any siblings however, the closest thing being Roxy.

Poison has also appeared on cards for SNK vs. Capcom: Card Fighters Clash and the game's Nintendo DS counterpart, as well as cameoing in Street Fighter Alpha 2 and 3 in backgrounds. Given the number of character background cameos in these games and some of the more outlandish ones, it's possible these are merely easter egg.

[edit] Design

Poison is shown to be a caucasian female with long pink, somewhat rugged, hair. She wears a black cap, blue cutoff shorts, red high heels and a tanktop cut just below her breasts (in one version of Final Fight, this tanktop was extended due to her gethit animation showing quite a bit of what was beneath in the original game, and her shorts lengthend). She wears several armbands around her right arm and neck, and has chains and a pair of handcuffs suspended off her shorts. Final Fight Revenge shows her also possessing a whip, though no version of the character's artwork has been shown with such an accessory. In Final Fight Revenge and some artworks, her hair is shown to be purple instead.

Poison's alternate outfit for Capcom Fighting All Stars was somewhat along similar lines but different. Made of shiny, silvery material it consisted of boots that extended halfway up her thighs and a combined sleeveless shirt/short skirt with plunging cleavage. Gloves and a small hairband were also added, as well as a belt, with the handcuffs hanging off of it. Her arm straps were removed, though the one around her neck remained.

Roxy appears much like Poison does in Final Fight, save that she sports red/orange hair and red shorts. This has actually led to some confusion regarding an appearance in a promotional comic for Final Fight Streetwise. Here, in the concept art section of the comic a character labeled as Poison is shown with red hair, a red micro skirt showning a hint of underwear, jacket, button-up white shirt showing her lower stomach black high-heeled boots, gold belt, and a wool cap. Given that this character follows Roxy's colors more, some speculation has been done that this is in fact her and not Poison, and there was a mixup when the comic was made. No statements have been made to prove or disprove this as of yet.

[edit] Gameplay

Like many fighters in Final Fight Revenge, her actual fighting style is a bit unorthodox, though her moves mainly revolve around rising uppercuts with her whip or immobilizing the opponent. Her whip is used primarily in her Cat Claw/Thunder Whip shoryuken/Shin-Ryuu-Ken style attacks respectively, but is also able to be used in a solo attack to steal a weapon from the opponent. Along with her whip, her handcuffs can be thrown in a fashion akin to a classic fighting game fireball to immobilize the opponent.

One of her most unique attacks is her hyper attack Poison Kiss. In it, Poison blows a large heart-shaped kiss at the opponent that travels in a sine wave path. If it connects, a quick 'peep show' of Poison in several erotic poses is displayed, and afterwards the opponent is shown stunned with hearts dancing over their head. Defeating an opponent with this attack in Revenge results in Poison doing a pole dance for her winpose, with her whip serving as the pole.

A few of her attacks will change up if armed with a knife, stick, sword or chainsaw. From what little is known through screenshots and gameplay videos of Capcom Fighting All-Stars, her gameplay there would have been extremely similar to that of FFR (sans the weapons of course), notably the Poison Kiss attack.^[7]

[edit] Personality and Relationships

Poison enjoys actual fighting, as well as flirting with her opponents or outright trying to seduce them as shown in her Poison Kiss attack. She is shown however to have a softer side in that she feels sorry for Cody after he was incarcerated, and by the time of Street Fighter 3 and SvC: Chaos, she prefers to let Hugo do the fighting.

She was in love with Cody, though that flame has probably long died out as it has not been referenced again. She also seems to know both Jessica and Haggar personally on some level judging from her FFR ending and CFAS dialog with Haggar. She and Haggar quite obviously don't get along with each other at CFAS's time period (she calls him sarcastically her favorite mayor, he states he "knows a little girl who's going back to jail"^[8]), though this may have changed by the time she starts managing Hugo, as Haggar and Hugo do have a match with each other.^[9]

Despite fanon, Hugo and Poison are not involved in any relationship beyond good friends in the canon storyline. It's unknown if Hugo knows if Poison is a newhalf, or even cares. There is artwork of her standing beside Sodom (who is sweating because of his armor and fanning himself off) though no explanation is given for this beyond they're both members of Mad Gear at the time.

[edit] Related Characters

[edit] External Links

• WikiKnowledge.net’s entry for Poison Previously hosted by Wikibooks

[edit] References

v • d • e Street Fighter Characters

Adon – Akuma – Alex – Balrog – Birdie – Blanka – Cammy – Charlie – Chun-Li – Dan – Dee Jay – Dhalsim – Dudley – Eagle – E. Honda – Elena – Fei Long – Gen – Gill – Gouken – Goutetsu – Guile – Ibuki – Ingrid - Karin – Ken – M. Bison – Makoto – Necro – Oro – Q –R. Mika – Remy – Rose – Ryu – Sagat – Sakura – Sean – The Dolls – T. Hawk – Twelve – Urien – Vega – Yang – Yun – Zangief

v • d • e Final Fight Related Characters

Belger – Carlos – Cody – Dean – Guy – Hugo – Kyle – Lucia – Maki – Mike Haggar – Poison – Rolento – Sodom – Minor Characters

v • d • e Other Related Characters

Captain Commando  - Saturday Night Slam Masters characters

v • d • e Characters not part of the official storyline

Blade – Kevin Striker – Sawada – Sheng Long - List of Street Fighter EX characters