It's been a long time since Reptile compelled quarter stuffers to look moonward, or Smoke and Jade shared a private joke behind a talking tree, but the element of secrets hasn't left Mortal Kombat entirely. While other franchises begin to abandon the long practiced chase of unlockable characters, MK keeps one foot in the shadows, taunting a rabid fanbase all the way to the end date and beyond.

Yesterday, Mortal Kombat Online enjoyed a customary April Fools rib. The lure of DLC additions and discarded characters may be rooted in truth, but you weren't fooled so easily. For MK fans of the past, however, it hasn't always been so easy to discern truth from fiction.

For fans eager to squeeze a little more out of obscurity, characters like Tremor and Wu Lae remain a luring prospect. Even the likes of Hydro -- a water-themed Lin Kuei character, created by Malibu Comics -- have fought for renewed existence, getting as far as a cameo appearance in the final Mortal Kombat: Legacy [last year]. There is another class of character, however, who contributes to the MK mythology as much, without ever actually having existed -- the rumored, or prank character.

The official Mortal Kombat Facebook site updated with a few renders of characters from the upcoming Mortal Kombat game posing on the front of EGM and Hyper magazines. As noted earlier, Mortal Kombat was in the most recent issue of EGM and was featured on the cover. The Australian gaming magazine Hyper will be running a story for the game in their August 2010 issue. Scorpion appears on the cover, giving fans a larger glimpse of his look first seen on the select screen during E3.

Though this week is typically reserved for E3, gaming magazine legend EGM has revealed their cover art for the upcoming Issue #239 and it features the upcoming entry in the Mortal Kombat series as the cover story!