| “ | Marian, a beautiful young policewoman, is a student of Kung Fu and part-time assistant instructor at the martial arts training school run by Billy and Jimmy Lee. A narcotics investigator, she has disappeared while attempting to infiltrate the ruthless criminal mob known as the Black Shadow Warriors. | „ |
| ~ Description in Return of Double Dragon English manual |
| “ | Marian is a childhood friend of the Lee brothers and trained with them as a kid. Sharing a similar sense of justice, she joined the police force. Marian is mature, understanding and righteous. But she can also be rash when facing injustice. | „ |
| ~ Description in Double Dragon Gaiden: Rise of the Dragons |
Marian Kelly is a main character in the Double Dragon series. She is the girlfriend of protagonist Billy Lee, a martial arts master and dojo owner. Billy and his twin brother, Jimmy, have been good friends with Marian since childhood.
In English, she was voiced by Cathy Weseluck (cartoon), Christijana York (Neon), Wendy York (Evil Marian in Neon), and Erika Harlacher (River City Girls 2). In Japanese, she was voiced by Hiroko Emori (DD II & PCE), Yuka Koyama (Neo Geo), and Marina Inoue (River City Girls 2). She was portrayed by Alyssa Milano in the film.
Overview[]
In the first game, the Shadow Warriors kidnap Marian off the streets, forcing the Lee brothers to save her. At the start of Double Dragon II, Marian gets killed by the Shadow Warriors, which leads to the Lees seeking vengeance. How she dies depends on the version of the game. In most versions, including Wander of the Dragons, she gets shot to death by Willy Mackey. In the NES and PC versions, she gets killed by a crony of the Mysterious Warrior. In at least some versions, Marian does come back to life. In the ZX Spectrum version, the Lees fight their souls in order to enact a Shinto ritual to bring her back and traverse a space-time continuum for a happier life; in the NES and PC versions, the demise of the Mysterious Warrior results in her being restored to life where she and Billy embrace.
During Return of Double Dragon, Marian took up the job of police work in addition to being an assistant instructor to the Lee brothers part-time. While doing a narcotics investigation regarding the Shadow Warriors, she suddenly vanishes which prompts the Lees to take action and save her.
Biography[]
In the first game, Willy Mackey's Black Warriors kidnap Marian and take her to their hideout. Billy and Jimmy both set on their way to rescue her from their evil clutches. It is eventually revealed that they abducted her to lure Billy to their headquarters in order to make him surrender the secrets of the Sou-Setsu-Ken arts to them, a martial arts discipline rumored to give their practitioners unmeasurable powers.
The two brothers infiltrate the gang's hideout and defeat all of their enemies, leaving Willy for dead. However, when the time finally comes to release Marian from her ties, both brothers engage in a final match between themselves to decide who would be the one to take her home, which Billy canonically wins. However, Willy didn't die from his injuries; after a long recovery, he reorganized the Black Warriors, now recruiting much more powerful fighters within its ranks, some of which even dwelt in the black arts.
Some time later, the gang once again corner Marian in the city streets. But, this time, Willy ruthlessly guns her down with his machine gun in plain daylight. Filled with anger, the brothers set forth once more to the Black Warriors' hideout, and once again beat all of their enemies. The arcade version of Double Dragon II states that Marian remained dead. However, most home ports and sequels changed this event, where Marian was instead resurrected after the brothers broke the link with magical forces after defeating all the enemies. There are variations on how this event took place among the many ports and retellings of this story, but in the end, Marian always survives.
While Marian originally exclusively played the role of a damsel in the earlier titles, as the series progressed, many attempts have been made to give her a more proactive role. The first of these attempts include making her part of various entities of law enforcement, whether she is a policewoman, a narcotics detective, or even a street vigilante. In fact, there exists a set of unused sprites in the Double Dragon Advance game files where she appears in various combat poses, although these were cut from the final release.
In the NES version of Double Dragon III: The Sacred Stones, Marian was made the game's final boss, who had been possessed by the spirit of an ancient Egyptian queen called Princess Noiram. However, in both the original arcade and Japanese versions of this game, the final boss is the Egyptian queen Cleopatra instead, with no involvement of Marian whatsoever. This change to the story was made by Acclaim during the western localization of the game.
In Double Dragon Neon, after being kidnapped by main antagonist Skullmageddon, a possessed Marian aids him during his second boss encounter, hovering in the air and projecting energy blasts at the Dragon Twins. Moments later, after being rescued and after the twins defeat Skullmageddon in another dimension, Marian receives him from a long drop with a punch to the crotch.
In addition to her law enforcement roles, throughout many of the series' installments, Marian is stated to be a part-time instructor at the brothers' Dragon Dojo. In fact, in 2013's Wander of the Dragons, a remake of the NES/PC Engine CD version of Double Dragon II, the player actually controls her in this role all throughout the tutorial, during a raid by the Black Warriors to the dojo.
More recently, Marian appeared in WayForward's River City Girls 2, a spin-off series of the Kunio-kun franchise, which Double Dragon is derived from. This game marks her debut as a fully playable character in a beat-'em-up (she previously appeared as a playable fighter in the one-on-one fighting game Double Dragon for the Neo Geo, based on her appearance in the live-action film). While she first made a cameo in River City Girls as the Downtown District shopkeeper, this time around she has a complete set of martial arts moves. Likewise, Marian appears as one of the four playable protagonists in Rise of the Dragons, where she mainly uses firearms and a bazooka to fight enemies.
Appearance[]
Marian is mostly portrayed as having long hair and in a red dress, though her dress is yellow in the arcade version of Double Dragon II: The Revenge. In artwork for Super Double Dragon, she is shown in a police uniform. According to Neo Geo, her height is 5′ 5″, and her measurements are 31/21/34.
Gallery[]
Trivia[]
- Acclaim Entertainment's localized ports of Double Dragon II and III refer to her as Marion.
- Marian originally had no surname in the games, but she was eventually given several throughout the various Double Dragon media.
- Muneki Ebinuma has mentioned that Marian and her police car still have sprites within the ROM of Super Double Dragon. However, if they exist, they are still to be found.
- If the first game is played in two-player mode, the final fight will be the Lee brothers fighting each other for Marian. In Double Dragon Advance, the Lees fight each other, but Marian yells for them to cut it out.
- Although largely recognized as Billy's girlfriend, Marian's interactions with the other playable characters in River City Girls 2 imply that she not only is no longer in relationship with Billy, but was also involved with Jimmy at one point.
- Marian's extremely defined abdominal muscles in her River City appearances are a possible reference to her kidnapping sequence in Double Dragon and its various ports and remakes. In that sequence, Marian is knocked unconscious with a single punch to the belly by Williams, and is then carried off by him. Presumably, Marian began training to overcome this weakness.
Licensing[]
This article contains content derived from the "Marian" article on the Double Dragon Wiki, licensed under CC-BY-SA.
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