From its coin-op origins in the arcade to inspiring blockbuster big screen adaptations and a triple A video game reboot: Mortal Kombat is officially celebrating its 30th Anniversary! To mark the momentous occasion, NetherRealm Studios has squeezed three decades into a single pulse pounding, spine ripping retrospective. Watch:

Raiden has been an icon of the series since its arcade inception, but fans who discovered Mortal Kombat through home ports to popular gaming consoles, the 1995 feature film, or other licensed media of the nineties, came to know the thunder god by a slightly different name -- and it seems one of his co-creators was not happy with the change!

The world has been shocked to learn of the sudden passing of actor Luke Perry, who is best known for his starring role on Beverly Hills 90210. The heartthrob also notably provided the voice of Sub-Zero on the 1996 animated series Mortal Kombat: Defenders of the Realm.

Mortal Kombat co-creator John Tobias recently unearthed a treasure from the series' past: A hand painted cel sheet from the animated series - Mortal Kombat: Defenders of the Realm!

Superhero summer blockbusters and licensed sequels have rewritten the box office rulebook for Hollywood in the 2010s. These days you're nothing if you aren't striving for a total media blitz, building a multi-pronged franchise "universe" across spin-offs and tie-ins. Marvel's Avengers has become the multimedia benchmark, extending its Disney-owned tendrils across multiple major movies, an on-going television series, several upcoming Netflix original series, and various other projects. It's the model everyone now aspires to - but did you know Mortal Kombat actually kinda did it already in the nineties?

The announcement of the first-ever Region 2 DVD release of Mortal Kombat: Conquest - The Complete Series has stirred a massive amount of interest within the fan kommunity. As well it should! Conquest isn't just a time-locked series that's only been available in its entirety to digital pirates, Australians [via a 2005 Region 4 release], and devotees of late night reruns. It's a unique piece of Kombat franchise history, and a rare example of a video game license thriving in a film environment.

Whether you're new to Conquest and the world created by Larry Kassanoff and his Threshold Entertainment Group, or simply revisiting, we hope you'll join us as we look back at what we generously consider the Mortal Kombat Cinematic Universe. Here's the rundown:

In addition to being available on Blu-Ray and Netflix, as reported earlier, the Mortal Kombat movies are now available in the Apple iTunes store as well!

"We're thrilled to add this property to the iTunes lineup," said Eddy Cue, Apple's vice president of iTunes. "The Mortal Kombat films, while available for the iPod and AppleTV, have never looked better than they do on the iPad."

"Besides the movies, we have also made available the films' accompanying soundtracks, the two TV shows [MK: Conquest and MK: Defenders of the Realm], the straight-to-video release [MK: The Journey Begins], the online-exclusive fights [MK: Federation of Martial Arts], and for the first time ever on video - the Mortal Kombat Live Tour!" explains Martin Tremblay, president of Warner Bros. Interactive Entertainment. "We've also had some success on iTunes with digital comics books on some of our DC properties such as Superman: Red Son, and so we will be adding the Mortal Kombat comics later on in the year, as well."

To visit the iTunes store directly, click here. A big thanks go to Apple Insider for the word on this update!