The Exiles introduced an all new, all different version of the heat-based hero Sunfire, who crossed lines in both her gender and orientation.
Exiles introduced a host of different iterations of classic characters from across the Marvel multiverse, including some notable mutant heroes. This extends to perhaps one of the most memorable alternate incarnations of Sunfire, a classic X-Man and a newly elected member of the modern Krakoan X-Men.
Now, we’re taking a closer look at Mariko Yashida, the Exiles resident version of Sunfire, and how she set the Marvel Multiverse ablaze.
In the core Marvel Universe, Mariko Yashida was an important lost love of Wolverine, a human member of the Yashida Clan, and the cousin of the (mostly) heroic Shiro Yashida, aka Sunfire. But on Earth-2109, it was Mariko who was born with the ability to absorb solar radiation and convert it into energy. However, her mutation — coupled with her same-sex attraction to women — chafed against her conservative parents. Mariko fled her family and ended up joining the X-Men of her reality, becoming a valued member of the team. However, a fraying element of the multiverse resulted in various realities being altered for the worse — including Sunfire’s, with her powers now developing an uncontrollable element that made her an extreme danger to others.
To help fix the multiverse and restore her own timeline, Sunfire was recruited to the Exiles in Exiles #2 by Judd Winick and Mike McKone — a reality-hopping group of mutant heroes whose mission was to right the realities that had gone off track. Sunfire wasn’t a founding member of the team, replacing the deceased Magnus after he perished during their first mission against a demented version of Charles Xavier. Sunfire quickly developed a rapport with her teammates, especially the shape-shifting jokester Morph. Sunfire even found love during their travels, developing a romance with a version of Mary-Jane Watson in a reality dominated by the Vi-Lock Virus (a twisted fusion of the Legacy Virus and Warlock).
Mary-Jane, who in this reality was the heroic Spider-Woman, became Sunfire’s chief romantic interest in the series — with the pair even being briefly reunited following a mission that resulted in Sunfire and her teammate Nocturne being stranded in the Vi-Lock reality for over a month. Sunfire got the chance to encounter some of the multiverse’s strangest and most unexpected threats — battling alternate versions of the X-Men, facing off against the likes of Galactus, and even being exposed to vampirism after coming up against a corrupted version of the Avengers. Unfortunately, like so many Exiles before and after her, Sunfire’s tenure on the team came to a tragic end.
Exiles #35 deposited the team onto Earth-312, a reality where the fateful birth of the Fantastic Four played out differently when the Thing went berserk upon landing. The Exiles moved to prevent him from causing too much damage, but the ensuing battle revealed that one of Sunfire’s teammates, Mimic, had been exposed to the Brood and implanted with an egg. Transforming into a Brood Warrior, Mimic lashed out at the world and his teammates alike. An errant optic blast from her teammate Mimic destroyed a wall and threatened a number of civilians — resulting in Sunfire sacrificing her own life to save the group. Crushed by the rubble, Sunfire’s body was found by Morph, and the team was promptly forced to leave her body behind when they were teleported to another reality.
Eventually discovering her body (and the bodies of every other fallen Exile) in the Crystal Palace after defeating King Hyperion and exposing the Time-Breakers role in attempting to repair the multiverse, Morph made sure to give Sunfire a proper burial on the reality ravaged by the Vi-Locks. This way at least, Sunfire could be close to Spider-Woman, giving that version of Mary-Jane a tragic sense of closure. Sunfire was one of the multiverse’s most engaging versions of Mariko, quietly bringing an energetic and heroic edge to the team of multiversal misfits. It’s just a shame that her heroics ended up costing her life, and that she couldn’t have survived into the modern day alongside her teammates Blink and Nocturne.
