Marvel vs. Capcom 2: New Age of Heroes is an amazing, once in a lifetime game that brings together over 50 characters from wildly disparate worlds and franchises. So, in an effort to pay tribute to one of the games I believe to be the greatest of all time, please enjoy the final day of our five-part, 100% complete, generally alphabetical look at every fighter in Marvel vs. Capcom 2. Now let’s talk about the monkey girl…
SonSon
SonSon is one of four original characters in Marvel vs Capcom 2. Amingo, Abyss, and Ruby Heart were all created exclusively for MvC2, and they have not appeared in anything but cameos ever since.
Except SonSon is not an original character. SonSon is based on SonSon from the obscure 1984 Capcom arcade title, SonSon.
Except SonSon is an original character, because she is the granddaughter of that SonSon. She is not the SonSon of SonSon. She is, essentially, SonSon III.
Except SonSon I was not an original character, either. SonSon I was based on Sun Wukong from the 16th century Chinese novel, Journey to the West. SonSon is one of a thousand “adaptations” of this classic tale, with the original premise of Dragon Ball being one of the most prominent illustrations.
So, SonSon III is ultimately an original character that is based on a character that is possibly the least original character in the whole roster.
But, hey, at least she can turn into a giant monkey. That might be better than being a cactus.
Peter “Spider-Man” Parker
And, yes, both franchises subsist on several Young Adult fiction tropes, but very specifically for both cases…
1. The central “Marvel” conflict of Spider-Man was always that Peter Parker kind of sucked as Peter Parker, but excelled at being Spider-Man. Iron Man had his potentially deadly shrapnel that “made him” Iron Man, the Incredible Hulk had his man/monster dichotomy, and Spider-Man had the unbearable burden of having to be a good Peter Parker and superhero. He failed. A lot. Nearly everyone in Peter Parker’s life, from his adopted mother to his boss, thinks Peter Parker is a slacker that is never going to achieve anything, and this is primarily because Pete puts too much of an emphasis on saving the world. He was late because he was stopping a mugging. He missed Aunt May’s birthday because he was dealing with Galactus. It’s kind of a “nice guy” fantasy wherein your every failing has a big, important reason that no one would ever understand because it must be a secret for their own good. But, end of the day, Spider-Man is saving the day, even though J.J. would never believe Peter Parker can accomplish anything. In much the same way, Usagi, Sailor Moon’s “secret identity”, is the world’s biggest screw-up, and if you told her parents that she was destined to rule a thousand years of peace after banishing all evil witches from the land, they would likely die laughing. Very similar “secret identity hijinks” on both sides, with a heavy emphasis on simultaneously being super important but extremely poorly regarded by their friends and family.
2. Similarly, Spider-Man is…
Marvel vs. Capcom 2: New Age of Heroes is an amazing, once in a lifetime game that brings together over 50 characters from wildly disparate worlds and franchises. So, in an effort to pay tribute to one of the games I believe to be the greatest of all time, please enjoy a five-day, 100% complete, generally alphabetical look at every fighter in Marvel vs. Capcom 2.
What a great place to start! Akuma was the first Capcom fighting game character to “crossover” with another franchise, as he appeared in 
Where is your videogame uncanny valley threshold?
Final Fight: Streetwise decided to chase the gameplay concepts and maturity of Grand Theft Auto 3 like a Japanophile running down a katana collection. FF:S takes place in a largeish (by PS2 standards) world with distinct neighborhoods, shops, and citizenry. There is the main plot, and a variety of “side quests” that can be distributed by assorted townsfolk/drug dealers. There are quests, both required and optional, that allow for the player to experience an escalation of regular gameplay, or more “minigame”-like fare. And, while Final Fight has always been a “street” franchise that included mature themes (the boss of Level 3 is a corrupt cop! You can eat his gum!) and roaming, malevolent gangs, the decision was clearly made at some point to make Final Fight: Streetwise feature characters that could be immediately described as “hardcore”. The central problem of this story is not a princess kidnapping, but a new drug on the streets. Our current hero is battling in an underground fight club to make ends meet, and all the previous protagonists are all suffering from various states of decay and corruption. And the new characters are all either morally compromised, or clearly too good to survive the whole of this adventure. This is a real story about real people in a real mean neighborhood.
Well, bad news, folks, Final Fight: Streetwise is an aggressively stupid game. There is no other way to describe it! This is a story where the featured characters are all idiots that always choose the single stupidest move possible. “This guy tried to kill me once, but maybe if I be polite, things will be better… whoops, got tricked, now he tried to kill me again.” That’s a plot point! It is meant to be a surprise when the mafioso that initially threw the protagonist into a deadly pit fight then again tries to kill the hero through an immediate bout of arson even though he was being so polite. And, granted, “being polite” should be rewarded for Kyle Travers, as his default mode is just cursing and punching people. I am not just talking about during gameplay, either! Kyle immediately resorts to fighting literally everyone he encounters. With a deft hand, a writer could portray Kyle as a man that knows he is in a rough situation, and immediately reacts to even the slightest kindness with inversely reciprocal brutality. But this is not a story written by a deft hand. This is a story about solving every problem with punching, and being rewarded for punching as hard as possible. And this translates to the gameplay, as literally everything in this world, from the sidequests to the gyms where you can spend your rewards, exists exclusively to power Kyle’s punches. And, again, this is a videogame, that could work. But, unfortunately, it all works to make this Final Fight world seem entirely too small to support the kind of game that could be happening here. It makes every corner of Kyle’s quest feel… stupid. This is a stupid hero doing stupid things in a stupid world.
But it is still a world. And it is a world that, with its “streetwise” aesthetics, tries to be realistic. The voice acting and graphics are great (by a Playstation 2 standard), and, if you are willing to forgive a number of (stupid) limiting choices in the game, you could easily see this as more of a “real world” than the cartoon world where you frequently see a dude in a gi tossing fireballs out of his hands. The venues in Final Fight: Streetwise are like those from the original Final Fight: subways, fighting rings, and the mean streets. And, while there are a few fantastic special moves as Kyle levels up, the majority of the fighting is based on traditional punches, kicks, and grapples. It is easy to slide into the simple comfort of playing this generally mundane game, and imagine you are controlling a real character in a real world.
I think I’ve figured out how Final Fight has influenced the characters of Final Fight. Here are my findings:
So Final Fight: Arcade is how it all happened. Where does that leave Final Fight SNES, though? This is a Final Fight title, but it is missing the Factory Stage, Rolento (the Factory Boss), and, most glaringly of all, Guy. One can forgive a lack of a two player mode for not impacting the canon, but two whole characters missing? And not even mentioned? What happened there?
And speaking of testimony, Final Fight One, the Final Fight version that appeared on Gameboy Advance, allowed “new” Cody and Guy to be playable characters. After punching enough dudes, you can select not only Guy, Cody, and Haggar, but also Street Fighter Alpha’s Guy, and Street Fighter Alpha 3’s Cody. This means you can play as Cody in his 2nd evolution: a down on his luck convict wearing his prison stripes. Given the dialogue spoken during Final Fight One (and, yes, this is the one [non-mighty] Final Fight version where the characters actually talk past the opening), the “future” characters are revisiting their own memories of Final Fight as their older selves. So why would that be happening? The answer lies with “Prison Cody”: this is one of Cody’s many parole hearings, and Cody and Guy are both testifying about how Cody is an upstanding citizen (that punches hundreds of other citizens). Future Cody even admits that he does not remember the factory area (because he took a shortcut), but goes with the story because he wants to show accurate parity with Guy. Everybody on the same page? Great! Maybe Cody will be back on the streets and… fighting? Again? No, probably best to keep this malcontent locked up.
Actually, let’s focus on Belger. In the original Final Fight story, he is a “legitimate businessman” kingpin of crime that has kidnapped Jessica because he wants to extort the mayor. In Mighty Final Fight? Belger is a cyborg “beast” that kidnaps Jessica because he has a crush on her. He’s practically Bowser! And does that make Cody into Mario? Maybe! And what else is missing from Mighty Final Fight? Edi E., the corrupt cop that previously stalked around Metro City. With the removal of a “morally gray” police officer and his favorite sidearm, Mighty Final Fight becomes a lot more kid-friendly. Right down to Mike Haggar getting a “whacky” hammer to swing at his foes (oh, there’s the Mario of the group), everything about Mighty Final Fight seems to be made to appeal to younger kids not yet old enough for the “real” violence of Final Fight.
Let’s Talk about Mighty Final Fight for a second: This is one of the few beat ‘em up games where it feels like the level up system is justified, as it doesn’t completely break the difficulty of the game depending on your level (it mostly just gives you extra health and a fireball). This, almost by default, makes Mighty Final Fight one of the best beat ‘em ups out there, and certainly top two for the NES (see also 
What’s in a name: In addition to Poison’s identity issues, the SNES/GBA versions rename Damnd and Sodom (to Thrasher and Katana, respectively). I understand having to think of the children when seeing a name that sounds an awful lot like “damned”, but Sodom is biblical, people! You religious people love the Bible, right? Leave the poor Japanophile be. And he was named for a German thrash metal band, anyway…