It looks like Ian Fisher over at Shogun Gamer has conducted an exclusive interview with Vincent Proce, former Midway employee and the artistic genius behind the MK reboot art showed in an earlier update. A selection of questions from the interview:

Ian Fisher: What was the main inspiration behind the MK reboot concept art you did? Was there anything in particular like a film or comic that inspired you to take that direction or was it all natural and pure brilliance on your end?

Vincent Proce: Mortal Kombat is a part of history. The MK team is a pretty tight knit group and they have been very successful doing what they do with the MK franchise. I didn’t want to mess with that machine even if I could. Besides, there really wasn’t any opportunity to innovate within that group. So in my pitch I figured I would just take a completely new perspective on the game as a whole.

I had a burning desire to redesign the characters for a long time and finally, I just did it. I looked at it as an alternate view of the same universe, sort of like what the Marvels Ultimate Universe is within Marvels multiverse. I also wanted to reinvent the fighting game genre to possibly expand the MK fan base. I took the characters the way they originally appeared in MK 1. Their color, silhouette and weapons are essentially the same (with a few more deadly weapons added of course) and just redrew them the way I saw them in my head.

Ian Fisher: If Midway were to develop a new Mortal Kombat game, what would you focus on or change from previous installments?

Vincent Proce: I would make a spin off universe that reboots the entire franchise into a different branch. Everything would be rethought and adjusted, from how the arenas are laid out to how the fight mechanic works in relation to the controllers, to the back story of all the characters.

To read the interview in its entirety, click here.

Warner Bros. has registered "Sonya Blade" as a trademark for the following items:

Motion picture films featuring comedy, drama, action, adventure and/or animation, and motion picture films for broadcast on television featuring comedy, drama, action, adventure and/or animation; audio tapes, audio video tapes, audio video cassettes, audio video discs, and digital versatile discs featuring music, comedy, drama, action, adventure and/or animation; stereo headphones; batteries; cordless telephones; audio cassette and CD players; CD-ROM computer game discs; telephone and/or radio pagers; short motion picture film cassettes featuring comedy, drama, action, adventure and/or animation to be used with hand held viewers or projectors; video cassette recorders and players, compact disc players, digital audio tape recorders and players; radios; mouse pads; eyeglasses, sunglasses and cases therefore; game equipment sold as a unit for playing a parlor-type computer game; video and computer game programs; video game cartridges and cassettes; computer and video games which are designed for hardware platforms, namely, game consoles and personal computers; CD-ROM computer game discs and computer programs, namely, software linking digitized video and audio media to a global computer information network, cellular telephone accessories, namely hands-free accessories, cellular telephone covers and cellular telephone face covers; encoded magnetic cards, namely, phone cards, credit cards, cash cards, debit cards and magnetic key cards; and decorative magnets.

Many are seeing this as a sign that WB plans to do a movie revolving around Sonya, similar to Capcom's Street Fighter: The Legend of Chun-Li.

However, as Rough Cut Reviews points out:

They could just be going over all of their newly-claimed assets and discovered that none of this sort of paperwork had ever been filed for the Sonya Blade character. After all, isn't it odd how the only paperwork that was filed was for Sonya Blade, and none of the other 50+ Mortal Kombat characters?

To read the full article on Destructoid, click here. To read the full article on Rough Cut Reviews, click here.

So Vincent Proce, one of the artists for MK vs. DC Universe, has updated his page with tons of goodies from this game.

Check out all the never-before-seen sketches, paintings, early box art mock-ups, and transitions of the characters endings as they are shown from a rough black-and-white sketch to the final version shown in-game.
He also gives credit to his fellow artists Bruno Werneck and Mike Tassie when applicable.

To view the artwork directly on his page, click here. Thanks to for another update!

Update: There's also this illustration he's posted, of many video game characters, including Scorpion:

In addition – and thanks go to for pointing this out – he's also posted the complete storyboards from the first chapters of the MK side as well as the DC side of MK vs. DC Universe's Story Mode. Here's DC:
And here's MK:


Update (Sept-20-2009): Vincent Proce has also updated his blog with some more stuff. From his blog directly:

Here are the never before seen Mortal Kombat characters I designed for a Mortal Kombat pitch I made before I left Midway last year. The basis for the idea was a re imagining of the Mortal Kombat franchise from the original premise but mixing modern muti-player and dismemberment game design with the original fighting mechanic.

I also took the original character designs and upgraded them.



Scorpion as a wraith wearing the yellow blood of the demon that helped him resurrected to exact his revenge against his mortal enemy.

Raiden as a god who's feet rarely touch the ground.

Sonya, the daughter of a Texas Ranger who's sex appeal weakens her opponents while her Special Forces training kicks their asses.

Kano, half Japanese half US military bad ass.

These are the only four characters I designed and presented with the pitch. The game idea isn't going to happen now that I no longer work there. I still would like to one day redesign all the rest of the original characters if I ever find the time.

Update (Mar-21-2010): Vincent also updated his blog to say the following:

Hello folks, I promised that I would try and complete the other five characters from the original Mortal Kombat when I found some time and yesterday I did. Here is Sub Zero how I envision him. I haven’t worked out much of his back story other than that he was a part of the Way of the Frost Dragon, an honorable secret society of warriors that were direct enemies with the ninja organization Scorpion was a part of before he was killed by Shang Tsung (disguised as Sub Zero).

Over time I will try and draw the rest of them.

Sub Zero was always my favorite character to play with.

Ex-Midway LA Studio employee Matthew Doyle has posted some concept art from MK: Shaolin Monks 2 (which he has noted as being canceled). Nicknamed the Spiral Shaft, it seems that there were several puzzles involved in this never-released-level, including a "Lever Challenge" which would raise the bars blocking the door at the end of the level. Check it out: To see all of Matthew Doyle's level designs, most of which consist of other games, go here. A big thanks go out to for this News Lead!

Update: So from FDMK contacted Matt Doyle and got some more information on the canceled MKSM2, which was to be titled “Fire & Ice”. From his interview with the man himself

Matthew Doyle: It was canceled within a few weeks of my arriving at Midway. I don't have anything else to show you unfortunately. Half the studio was laid off, and new management was brought in. Then we started work on TNA Wrestling.

A prototype level was built, but that was it. A few design docs were worked on, and a few characters were made in 3D - Scorpion and Subzero. The game was codenamed Fire & Ice - as those two characters were to be the main characters. I was really looking forward to doing level design and construction for it. It was a shame it was canceled.

Recently, Mortal Kombat series co-creator and project lead Ed Boon has been bitten by the Twitter bug. Due to Ed's plentiful updates with Mortal Kombat information as well as images, this thread is being created to house all the material in one, convenient location for the fans to easily access. With each new image added, this topic will be edited accordingly. When new additions are made to this news lead, it will be moved to the top of the thread listings. The most recent change will be listed first, while older material will be categorized by type and date originally released. Also, be sure to follow Ed Boon on Twitter yourself!

MK Deception Early Artwork

April 10, 2010: Found some old MK Deception box concepts made by and old ad agency.

Update: January 25, 2010 - Ed Boon has posted, "EEE!" The only explanation for this exclamation is his excitement about the E3 convention, and a hint that MK9 will make an appearance there.

Box Art for 'MK Realms'

November 25, 2009: A little useless trivia. At one point we were going to call MK Deception...MK Realms. Cuz of all the....well, Realms.

MK vs DC goes 'Greatest Hits'

October 25, 2009: After selling over 2 million MKvsDCs, I'm psyched that it's going to Greatest Hits for the holidays! :)

MK1 Source Code - Sonya's Square Wave Flight - Written in 34010 Assembly:

October 25, 2009: Even if you dont know 34010 assembly language you might figure this one out.

The origin of Reptile:

September 9, 2009: Dug up another old one. One Sunday I went through the KFC drive through on California & Irving Park. While waiting in line I realized that it would be really easy to make a 3rd ninja using Subzero & Scorpion's images, tinted green. I decided not to tell anyone on the team.

When I got back to work, I programmed some quick & obscure rules on how to find him and made his fights at the bottom of this pit & called him Reptile, which now I'm embarrassed by since that name is so generic. A few hours later he was in the game and I told no one.

A couple of weeks later I heard players talking about it at the Diversions arcade and weeks later I got this picture in the mail. Seems like one arcade REALLY got into the Reptile mystery & had a contest for the player that could find him first.

Here is the picture they sent me. love the way the Dragon they drew on the poster looks like a Dragon-Duck mutt.

Macaulay Culkin playing MK1::

September 8, 2009: So...WAY back in the day, while working on MK3, we were asked to show Macaulay Culkin how we made our games. So he stopped by for a visit.

He brought his brother and some friends along & spent a few hours at Midway. During lunch he told us that Michael Jackson sent him...

a full size MK1 arcade cabinet. Here are a couple of pics from that day.

Pictures taken with a polaroid camera which screwed up.

Notice the rats nest of hardware screwed on to the cabinet of my work station. 1 programmer = 1 mess!

You might notice the (brick & blood) graphics on the cabinet. Those were the original graphics for NARC. But they were eventually replaced.

Behind the scenes:

August 5, 2009: Rich Divizio motion capture work
July 30, 2009: MK9 fatality motion capture work
July 15, 2009: MK3 Sheeva stop-motion figure
June 20, 2009: MK1 Goro stop-motion figure

Concept art:

September 19, 2009: Damage in MKDA/MKD/MKA
August 12, 2009: Rough Concept for 4 Simultaneous Players
August 11, 2009: Colored Dairou concept
August 11, 2009: Colored Dairou concept
August 7, 2009: Joker fatality concept
August 5, 2009: MK: Deadly Revenge concept box art
August 4, 2009: MKD Earthrealm corkboard
August 3, 2009: Falling Cliffs concept art
August 1, 2009: Test Your Sight concept
July 31, 2009: MKDA character concept
July 30, 2009: Mavado concept
July 23, 2009: MKDA Swamp arena concept
July 7, 2009: Quan Chi DLC render

Other Games:

August 19, 2009: Picture of Scorpion from The Grid
July 22, 2009: Discarded NBA Jam unlockable court

Note: Due to the nature of this topic, we will be unable to award our users who submit news leads for Twitter related updates. However, we do appreciate your continued support!