The tradition of Fight Night returns to Mortal Kombat Online next week when the MK Online Stream Team welcomes a special guest line-up to Twitch! The stars of the now-klassic Mortal Kombat movie will take part in a live Q&A you'll be able to stream right here on Friday, August 3rd! Read on for details of prize giveaways & how you can get involved:
Watch the Friday stream live right here on Mortal Kombat Online!
Robin Shou (Liu Kang), Linden Ashby (Johnny Cage), Keith Cooke (Reptile), and guest of honor Chris Casamassa (Scorpion) will be broadcasting live with FatalKade & ]{0MBAT, and special guest host moviedude18 at a scheduled start of 10:00PM EST!
The fondly remembered cast of the original MK feature film are in Anaheim for Casamassa's Business Kombat live event. The Bully Proof Fitness author is revealing the secrets of Red Dragon Karate to a select group of attending school owners. MK Online Users won't miss out, with the celebrity guests beaming right to you in the player embedded above!
Registered users have until Friday morning to submit questions to the actors via the forum! MK Online will select questions to be answered during the show -- with every entry going into a draw to win a signed photograph!
Additional prizes will be given away during the live stream! All you have to do to get involved is be watching right here on MK Online and log on to Twitch Chat or Discord on Friday, August 3rd! Catch up on past fan streams by watching archives on Twitch and YouTube. Find and discuss more in the Media & Merchandise forum!
For the past several years, Galloping Ghost Arcade has sponsored Mortal Kombat-related events involving the actors from the classic titles, and this year is no exception! Today, the Kombat Kon Website has been updated with the release date of October 27, 2018 - mark your calendars!
As usual, attendees can expect a meet and greet with the actors, photo ops, signed photos, cosplay, tournaments, and more! And, everyone is encouraged to bring their own MK memorabilia to get signed by the cast as well.
The preliminary guest list has been announced as follows...
Chris Alexander (Johnny Cage MK Trilogy)
John Parrish (Jax)
Liz Malecki (Sonya)
Daniel Pesina (Johnny Cage and all the male ninjas)
Phillip Ahn (Shang Tsung)
Tony Marquez (Kung Lao)
Brian Glynn (Shao Kahn)
Rich Divizio (Baraka, Kano, Quan Chi, and Kabal)
Sal Divita (Nightwolf, Sektor, Cyrax, Smoke)
John Turk (Shang Tsung and all the male ninjas)
More to come...
Tickets should be available for purchase soon through the Kombat Kon website. The standard tickets are $25, and the VIP tickets are $60 (which gives the ticketholder extended hours and access to the after-party).
In conjunction with Kombat Kon, we at Mortal Kombat Online are also in the early stages of planning a special community event for our own members for the night before - Friday, October 26th! Join us as we celeberate our upcoming 20th anniversary! This will be your chance to meet and chat with MKO staff members and others from the MKO Community. We'll also be conducting a special stream that Friday as we look back at our site's history of covering the Mortal Kombat franchise. Details on how to register will be forthcoming. Space may be limited.
Model and musician Paris Jackson brought a touch of Mortal Kombat to San Diego Comic-Con this week, attending the event in full costume as Sonya Blade! She shared photos of her outfit via Twitter and Instagram accounts. Click thumbnails to enlarge below:
The costume recreates Sonya's updated design from Mortal Kombat (2011), with military green vest, pants, black gloves, and sidearm -- just like the game! Fans learned of her famous father's MK fandom when author Paul Theroux shared fond memories in 2009.
Singer Zayn Malik took inspiration from Sonya's Special Forces partner, Jax, combining fashion with metallic arm coverings while attending the 2016 Meta Gala. Official cosplay models were part of Mortal Kombat promotion in 2011 [full story].
The very first crossover comic between Injustice: Gods Among Us and another franchise is here! Issue 1 was released as a digital chapter yesterday [purchase] with a print edition to follow shortly.
Featuring the writing of Tim Seeley, art by Freddie E. Williams II, coloring by Jeremy Colwell, and lettering by Wes Abbott, the first of this six-part miniseries sets the tone for the crossover chaos to come!
The story begins with a brief intro narrated by Zodac, hurtling alone through outer space. Through his exposition, we are introduced to this particular incarnation of Eternia. Interestingly, this series takes place in the aftermath of a He-Man/Thundercats crossover event, where it turns out that the evil robot impostor Faker has been posing as He-Man and ruling in his stead. On the DC side, this series takes place in the aftermath Injustice 2, following Superman’s ending, where he has destroyed Brainiac and appropriated his tech to turn Batman into a mindless servant.
After He-Man and the forces of good on Eternia conclude their battle, Batman (from the alternate universe) and members of the resistance arrive on the scene! In true comic book crossover form, heroes from both sides fight each other before realizing they’re on the same side. When Mossman and Swamp Thing used their telepathic link with plants to communicate with each other, it wasn’t long before they convinced their respective teammates to stand down. Batman explains that the team’s purpose in coming to Eternia was to enlist He-Man’s help against the tyrannical Superman. So, off they go!
Superman, it is revealed, has been collecting magical artifacts (magic being one of his few weaknesses) to ensure that they cannot be used against him. And, unbeknownst to our heroes, he has already enlisted the help of Skeletor—what type of force the Man of Steel used to compel his aid is left to the reader’s imagination. The first issue concludes by going back to Zodac, who has come face to face with Darkseid and his forces from Apokolips.
A read like this is a bit more involved than, say, the self-contained Mortal Kombat X comics (see our review here). To truly understand all the events going on, it requires a working knowledge of the events depicted in the Story Mode of the Injustice games as well as other contemporary crossover comics.
In some instances, the comic raises more questions than it answers. For example, He-Man’s mother (Queen Marlena) spent some time on Earth, in Fort Lauderdale, Florida. Was this the same Earth that is now under a tyrannical Superman’s control? The parallel Earth that Batman and Green Arrow are from? A different Earth altogether? To be fair, this is just the first issue, and there are five more to answer questions such as this!
In the long run, it will be interesting to see if any of the events that occur in this series will have an impact on future story developments. Since this series follows up to a Thundercats crossover, it seems reasonable that future He-Man adventures may make reference to this series. Of bigger concern to this audience will be if anything here affects the Injustice franchise. Could He-Man debut as a future guest character in Injustice 2? Could this comic be required reading to fully understand the events depicted in Injustice 3, when that is eventually released?
One other thing worth noting: The digital format appears more or less the same as the print book. This is a departure from the regular Injustice comics, in which the digital version is specially formatted for a widescreen reading.
Being the first crossover between Injustice and another franchise, it opens the door to a lot of possibilities! Perhaps if this is successful, others may follow suit.
What types of things would you like to see in this series? What character battles are you looking forward to the most? What other Injustice crossovers would you like to see, going forward? Register and share your thoughts on the DC Universe Injustice forum!
Digitized live-action graphics defined Mortal Kombat in its seminal incarnation, but many of the series' most iconic characters began life as design sketches by franchise co-creator John Tobias!
This weekend Tobias will discuss klassic digitized characters at San Diego Comic-Con [full story], but the talented artist also recently shared a mix of MK drawings from more recent eras! These include character sketches of Reptile and Liu Kang, as well as uncolored pencils from the official Mortal Kombat versus DC Universe comic book!
The prodigal son made his much publicized return to Mortal Kombat in 2008, drawing the heroes and villains of colliding worlds for the Mortal Kombat vs DC Universe Kollector's Edition. The comic book ended a nine year hiatus from his co-creation, which Tobias and Boon discussed in a promotional featurette.
The images shared via Twitter (@therealsaibot) show uncolored interior pencils of Superman slugging Sub-Zero in the Fortress of Solitude, and Shang Tsung standing amongst the Tarkatan hordes of Outworld. On the finished page, Tsung and his minions are facing off with Wonder Woman and an army of Amazon Warriors.
A character sketch of Liu Kang drawn "a few years ago" was also shared to Instagram (@therealsaibotoo), showing the Shaolin warrior monk in his belted MKvsDC design. Speaking to his creation's origins, Tobias adds, "we should all take a hero’s journey".
The comic, with writing credit to John Vogel, elaborated on the story of Dark Kahn: a living fusion of Shao Kahn and Darkseid, whose worlds began to overlap. Though brief in pages, it also featured cameos by Goro, Johnny Cage, Aquaman, and Robin, explaining their absence from the game through cosmic disappearance.
A sketch of Reptile as he appeared in Mortal Kombat 4 rounds out the black and white offerings [below]. Though divisive among fans, the design is memorable for advancing Reptile beyond the green palette sawp of his prior, digitized appearances. It emphasized his true reptilian nature, with exposed scaly skin, and mouth of fangs.
