Brought to you by the letter Q...

My love of obscure characters is no secret. In fact, I hardly ever shut up about it. From Street Fighter III, here's the mysterious Q:

click above for larger view

Q doesn't exactly fit in with the assorted commandoes, kickboxers, and karatekas of the Street Fighter universe. Judging by his name and face mask, he appears to be based on Shotaro Ishinomori's character Robot Detective K. However, he also bears a strong resemblence to Mitsuteru Yokoyama's character Iron Mask (from Babel II), and Osamu Tezuka's character Pero (from Astroboy and Metropolis).

Incidentally, all three of the mangaka that I just mentioned were contemporaries. Ishinomori was Tezuka's assistant at one point (this is well documented), and I've read the same thing about Yokoyama (but I couldn't find a reliable source on that). If you're a fan of manga, anime, tokusatsu, or even Japanese-made video games, I highly recommend that you check out the works (and derivations there of) of Tezuka, Ishinomori, and Yokoyama. Their influence on is tremendous, and continues to this day.