Mikado (comics) pattern, and the Question tracked him down. Their conversation touched Dr. Spaulding deeply, and he injected himself with a poison intended for the Question. By the time the Question had recovered from the Mikado's opiate injection, the Mikado had disappeared completely. He has not appeared since then. The Mikado's name was taken from that of the Gilbert & Sullivan opera of the same name, and his chant is a line of a song sung by The Mikado, the Emperor of Japan, in Act II. The name of his alter ego was taken from the Groucho Marx character, Captain Spaulding. Marx
The Mikado and yet would not hurt a worm, may perhaps please the public." In an 1885 interview with the "New York Daily Tribune", Gilbert stated that the short stature of Leonora Braham, Jessie Bond and Sybil Grey "suggested the advisability of grouping them as three Japanese school-girls" referred to in the opera as the "three little maids". He also recounted that a young Japanese lady, a tea-server from the Japanese village, came to rehearsals to coach the three little maids in some native Japanese dances. On 12 February 1885, one month before "The Mikado" opened, the "Illustrated London News" wrote about