We'll see how funny your jokes are after I've eliminated you in the Royal Rumble, chico.

This costume is much less like the "Reptile of old", and the drawing clearly is closer to the atypical MK ninja costume. That's just all there is too it. It isn't just the breastplate vs. V-shaped tunic either. It's the mask and the rest of the costume as well. He's nearly human except for his hands and feet, he even looks fairly human in the face. I just don't like it. This might have been cool in MK4 or something, but it's time to move on. We all know what Reptile really looks like, let's stop dressing him up in these silly attires to conceal that.

Reptile's "look" always keeps changing. Sometimes he looks more like a raptor, others like a dragon, others like a snake. I don't think we know for sure what he looks like since his look is always in flux.

Totally irrelevant... those all show his face, and the drawing in this thread does not. Also, Reptile's look has been explained. It's de-evolution.

But Reptile's "human disguise" was a very essential part of his origins. Even his MK2 bio mentions this.

"Shang Tsung's personal protector, Reptile lurks in the shadows stopping all those who would do his master harm. His human form is believed to disguise a horrific reptilian creature whose race was thought extinct millions of years ago. He enters the contest hoping to defeat all and protect his master."

I'm a tad upset his attempts to disguise himself as human in the first tournament, and then the second, have sort of been neglected and retconned away. I always felt his camouflage as a normal human being was great espionage and spy work, making him a very tactical and crafty spy for his masters.

What "we" already know about Reptile is irrelevant in a return to the MK1 thru 3 era where the people Reptile is fighting do NOT know what Reptile is and a disguise would actually still be useful to him.

Pretty wild! I mean, most people just change their hairstyle, maybe grow a beard here and there. MK characters change their entire heads! WOWEE!

That, or we're reminded of the fact that this is a series still desperately trying to find it's way to design maturity. To a definitive answer that was never supplied by it's earliest incarnations, which themselves have only hampered attempts to reach this respectable mean. A respectable mean that, for many characters, was found in the last generation of games, but unfortunately for Reptile, was perhaps obscured by a high concept direction.


Dressing as a green double of another fighter, probably not exactly the most cunning mode of disguise. There might have been some reason for it during the first tournament, but the reason it's probably been so readily discarded is because... it's completely unnecessary at this point.
Why shy away from the hook that makes Reptile a unique character? Why actively try to water that done by making him like other characters?



EDIT: Also, I'm totally gonna superkick Razor over the top...

Mind-boggling that the 2011 variation's face bears the greatest resemblance to the Defenders of the Realm incarnation out of all of the above. O_o

The fan art posted by the thread-maker doesn't look bad, but I still prefer the less sophisticated costume we have now. Being a ninja does not mean you can't look unique. This fan's interpretation could apply to most other ninjas with a few tweaks. Remove the fishnet, take the spikes off the arm guards, swap the masks, switch symbols, and you basically have a costume for Ermac or Rain. That's a bad thing.

I'm not against the ninja costume, but it's gotta stay strong with the character's signature. As many problems as I have with Scorpion's outfit, at least it succeeded in that category.

Why? Reptile has always been portrayed as not very intelligent and reliant on whoever his master is at the time. That sort of character isn't going to make a very good "spy" in the first place. He's not cunning at all.

Reptile was ONLY portrayed as "dimwittted" in the newest installments due to his de-evolution path. Prior to this, he was quite intelligent and even articulate. The first game, as a secret character, had him speaking in complete English sentences. His motivation was actually noble, serving his masters because they promised him they'd help him resurrect his dead and dying race and they were the only beings with the power to do so. All the way up to MK4 had him being very intelligent, just desperate and a bit naive.

Khameleon is another member of Reptile's race, and she was also intelligent and very evolved. Reptile's origins were as a spy on the Earthrealm warriors, a task he performed admirably. His camouflage abilities coupled with his training as a stealthy warrior made him very good at his job, and he could legitimately be called a "Zateran ninja".

Reptile was never a spy, that was Ermac's job. Reptile was a bodyguard in MK1, a regular competitor in the MK2 tourney, and chasing down a fugitive in 3.

Staying out of sight is still a useful skill for the bodyguard task, though.

And I imagine it was part of Outworld's strategy in the Mortal Kombat tournaments to make sure their human opponents didn't realize what they were in for, that they were facing all kinds of creatures and weirdness they don't have on their world, catching them unprepared and whatnot. Which is why the human disguise would make sense for the first game, and maybe that "if my opponent doesn't realize I'm a monster right away, he'll underestimate me" strategy might work as far as into MK2 too, but admittedly, that's where it starts pushing it.

By 3, the need for the disguise is definitely dead and gone, but still. I'm just sayin', an alt costume with his scales turned peach would be nice for the continuity nod.

Well, they did that for Shaolin Monks, and "human" Reptile did appear in Sindel's "Deception" ending, so it obviously hasn't been totally forgotten.

Indeed, the MKSM version was a great idea and I'd love to see it used in a more official way, because using his chameleon-powers to change his scales is a far more logical explanation for how his disguise worked than the alternative, that he was wearing some sort of layer of fake skin or something.

I wouldn't put too much stock in the Sindel ending, though. He only looked like that because the body they used was the model from konquest mode.

They tried that once. It was really fucking awful.

Considering no such game exists...

Didn't really have ninjas. It did, however, have awesome cheesy 60s and 70s music.

The one where Midway was all like "You know those popular ninja characters we have? Were replacing them with robots. Robots that look like the Predator. And Sub-Zero will forget that shirts exist."

That one. Stop not liking cool things.

Grime's got a point. I remember what 1995 was like. An MK game with no Scorpion was just plain a dumb idea. Thank god for Ultimate.
I'm one of the few that actually likes Subbie's Cable-lookin' outfit, though. Well...not the original version. But the MKDA version is kinda nice.

Someone hacked your account, dude.

i`m surprised most people like reptile`s MKSM outfit tho to me the head wrap looks exactly like ermac`s except for the visible teeth which is sad coz it takes away the first uniqeness.

Lmao @ RazorRamon.

That's really all I have to contribute at this point.

Well, besides the fact that I never realized that Sub-Zero looked like Cable and Kitana/Mileena in MK2 looked like Psylocke.

I like them all anyway.

So your solution is... to make him resemble several other characters, rather than just one?... MKSM was a pretty weak excuse for more pyjama swapping, but I'm not sure your logic sticks.

Yeah I know, under normal circumstances I'd be checking myself into a mental hospital for agreeing with something you said...but you just had to go and say something that normal people actually believe. How can I, or anyone, disagree that original MK3 sucked? The whole reason Ultimate was made was because like the entire fanbase was pissed the ninjas were left out.
Like I said, I still remember 1995.