Man,I was asking the same thing when you posted Kintaro regarding his sash,but I dig it now. Making it blue distinguishes him from Goro and Sheeva. You can even make a case that red is the trademark color used in Draco Shokans' attires and uniforms,while blue is Tigrar thing.

Kinda like two different class colors. Maybe even show it on Kintaro's alternate costume,I dunno. But I am personally good with blue,it is unique from other Shokans.

How is Shao Kahn coming along? Did you start him? Man,I know there are Blaze and Hornbuckle plus alternate costumes for MK2,but I can't wait for your MK3 costumes,I swear! Just imagining what you have in store for Nightwolf,Stryker,Kabal,Sindel,etc. And freaking Motaro!!!

I've got a bit done for Kahn, I'm still trying to refine his pose. I'd like to have him finished this week, but we'll see.

So what's the big deal between Baraka and Mileena? Is it a love/hate relationship or is it complicated?

I know Mileena wanted to take over Edenia from her appearance in MK4, but wouldn't Baraka go for it since it gives him a chance to spread their Tarkartan race into that realm instead of being confined to Outworld? Why do they hate each other so much in Deception at the point of killing each other? Did Mileena betray Baraka at some point like limiting his power once Mileena takes over Edenia or did she step over Tarkartan customs that infuriated Baraka since I don't know male Tarkartans suppress their females traditionally? (Just a hypothesis).

Plus even if they are the hybrid of Netherealm demons and Outworld humans, are Tarkartans naturally evil? Is Baraka serving Kahn for some power station rather than just being evil for the sake of it? Also, is there an evolutionary background behind the Tarkartan handblades?

It was love (or more likely lust) in MK2.

I imagine secretly so, because Kahn would surely not approve of one of his daughters consorting with a lowly mutant soldier. For Baraka's part, I think he'd see Mileena as WAY prettier than a normal Tarkatan woman, not to mention the political power he'd hold if, say, Kahn were to die and Mileena were to inherit the throne.

They were out of contact from each other in MK4, partly because Mileena died in MK2 and was working for Shinnok rather than for Kahn in MK3 and 4, partly because Baraka was secretly working for Quan Chi in MK4 and the rest of Shinnok's army didn't know about it. (Probably because Kung Lao chopped Baraka in half during MK3 but Quan saved him or brought him back from the dead, hence the staples. At least, that's how I'll be writing it.)

In Deception, Baraka found out that Mileena was in Edenia's dungeon and set her free so they could both work for Onaga. Mileena's job was, as you know, to pose as Kitana and lead the Edenians into a trap.

Mileena did this by having Bo' Rai Cho lead them into a suicidal battle against Baraka's army, so the Tarkatans could kill them all.

What neither Baraka or Mileena knows is that Liu Kang's ghost showed up to the fight and gave Bo and the Edenians a boost in power and inspiration that helped them WIN what was supposed to be a hopeless fight.

Afterward, Mileena realized "Oh, this army is the best. I'm gonna pretend to be Kitana and lead them forever!" and she realized that Baraka was the only person in the world who knew what she was up to, so she tried to have him killed.

The assassination attempt failed and now they hate each other.

---

As far as Tarkatan nature...

Whether or not the monsters in MK are "born evil" is interesting, since Sareena, a pure demon born in Hell, isn't evil.

But then, Sareena has been magically given a human form and human-like intelligence may have come with it as opposed to her being born that smart, we don't know. A lot of the demons and corpses you run across in Konquest mode talk like they're dumb and animalistic or Hulk-like. And a lot of things that live in Hell are tortured until they become insane, like Drahmin.

Tarkatans are capable of sentient thought, but they also seem naturally dumber and more animal-like than a human. Tarkatan culture also nurtures savage behavior, that's the way of life they're raised in, their values system rewards behaving like a marauder/pirate/barbarian, y'know? They don't see killing and eating people as wrong.

As far as their service to Shao Kahn...it's possible it's bred into them. It's not confirmed in canon, but there's reason to believe that he's the one who created them in the first place, the one who forced the breeding between demons and Outworlders, so he could have a race of soldiers to replace all the ones who committed suicide and became mummies when Onaga died. I'm going to treat that as canon in the Razorverse, at least, because it makes sense to me.

It would also explain why, when Mileena was created, they thought mixing Kitana's DNA with a Tarkatan would make the clone more loyal.

However...the Tarkatans are quick to switch sides and serve Onaga when he returns because he's the strongest ruler around at the time. So it's more likely that they're not genetically programmed to serve Shao Kahn specificially, but rather, like dogs, they serve the alpha male. The Tarkatans follow Baraka because he's the toughest, and Baraka followed Shao Kahn because HE was the toughest...and then they followed Onaga because HE became the toughest.

As far as the blades, I have no idea.

I can't explain why they're metal but no other bone or spike on the Tarkatan's body is.

I can't explain why they're longer than the forearm is, unless they don't slide in and out like Wolverine's claws but rather GROW bigger and smaller like Marrow's.

I don't even know if all Tarkatans HAVE blades, since normally, all the Tarkatan NPCs we're shown look exactly like Baraka...except in Baraka's MK9 ending where we get to see some unique looking ones for the first time, and that set has blades and bone spurs coming out of different places, like a chick Tarkatan has two coming out of each hand like X-23, and another dude has giant ones growing out of his shoulders...

All I can say is, there's a reason that the Tarkatans are called "mutants" in the earlier games. They're an entire race that should not exist of messed up, mutated, grotesque abominations against nature with weird growths in weird places. They were specifically designed to be by a sick breeding program and possibly additional magical augmentation.

I can't wait to see your design for Kahn! Last time I was on you finished the Jade drawing. I really like the new additions to the roster you drew Razor!

Once ur finished with Kahn. I hope 2 see the alternate costumes of MK2.

Are you going to add some new details and development to Taven's story once you get to Armageddon? I know his plot seems pretty obvious: wakes up 10,000 years later-learns that parents sent him on quest to find shit or what not-searches for his bro-bro turns out to be evil (also killed their parents, the douche)-tries to learn purpose of quest more-gets tricked into entering realms-dragon mentor gets killed-travels to Outworld-eavesdrops on conversation-Raiden wants to kick his ass, but loses-travels to Edenia and fights Scorpion-finally fights and beats bro learning that he's only a tool to help beat up Mr. Flamo to prevent the MK doomsday-and nothing happens...That's it his armor just makes him a god and the realms are still unbalanced which I'm not surprised because well it's Mortal Kombat of course there's always going to be people fighting each other. However I thought that ending could be MORE better in retrospect that the game title itself "Armageddon" infers to the player, "Yeah it's the end, no more Kombat" but then came the excuse such as "OH WAIT LETS REBOOT THE ENTIRE SERIES, HAVE SHAO KAHN SURVIVE AND WIN ARMAGGEDDON AND RAIDEN RUIN THE ENTIRE FRANCHISE AGAIN!" I remember you said Taven AND Daegon would both slay Blaze, but it doesn't really explain how Daegon was coaxed into doing this. I mean we're talking about a little bro who not only killed his parents, BUT started a rival Dragon Clan devoted to finding AND killing his brother who happened to be in hibernation, grew into this wicked fuck, and enslaved his old dragon friend...I don't really see him as the kind of guy who deserves some redemption since he himself said that he wanted to attain "full godhood."

As for Taven's character, I did like his personality a little bit. He wasn't too snobby and regal in fact he made a lot of sarcastic remarks through Konquest so he's this Edenian prince who's not only tough-looking, but still has a sense of honor and humor to him even though A LOT of shit has happened to him. I mean we're talking about a guy 10,000 years ago who was playing with his brother and was summoned to court, got knocked off somehow, and put into hibernation 10,000 years later and wakes up to find out that not only is his kingdom gone, but his brother turned into a freaking psychopath, his parents are dead, his godly allies turn against him, and his the only means have preventing Armageddon yet he feels like he wake up from yesterday. Pretty traumatic isn't it? To be honest, I'm not really sure if ALL of Taven's Konquest events should be included in your fan fic it depends on the relevance, but I think he needs a little more character development and more of his personality revealed. I honestly think he's one of the best non-original MK characters of all time.

And I don't get Smoke and Noob. What use is Smoke to Noob? Can Noob use Smoke just to sadistically torment his younger bro the new Sub-Zero? Does Smoke have some special energy source that makes Noob "indestructibly immortal?" Noob already has his inky shadow partner I don't get why he needs another partner who's not only dead, but is a ROBOT.

He's not doing it for redemption, he's doing it for the power, trying to beat Taven to it. It's sorta by coincidence that they both stab Blaze at the same time.

Afterward, Taven and Daegon will appear in my fanfic trilogy and continue to develop as characters. Taven will be dealing with being the new protector of Edenia, Daegon will be banished to the Netherealm and trying to rise again and such. It'll be a very Thor/Loki sort of relationship.

Taven will actually be rather important, in fact, because my trilogy is sort of designed to build up to Dark Raiden being the final boss. Raiden's plan is to wipe out any realm that could be a threat to Earth, and because Armageddon was Edenia's fault and it almost destroyed the realms, Edenia is Raiden's prime target.



All of the cyberninjas have microscopic robots called nanobots or nanites in their bodies. They normally replace the cyborg's immune system, like white bloodcells or the like, so that the cyborgs can repair their own wounds after a fight, like how human flesh heals.

Cyber-Smoke, however, also uses his nanobots to attack. He shoots clouds of them at people, or turns into a cloud of them to teleport, imitating the real smoke clouds he used to make as a human, because he lost those powers when he was automated. (In fact, he's made entirely out of nanobots in that Deception costume where he looks like a living cloud, because Noob taking him to the Netherealm corrupted them and they took over his whole body)

Noob's plan was to use Smoke's nanobots to infect and convert people and demons into cyber-demons that he could program into slaves that would serve him, and thus he'd be able to take over Hell despite not being as powerful on his own as Quan Chi or Shinnok. We see Smoke do this to Lin Kuei members in Armageddon Konquest.



To be fair, KI will eventually have a story mode, it just hasn't been added to the game yet. That's what happens when you release a game in pieces.

But yeah, I obviously didn't like MK2011 either, which is part of the reason I'm doing this.

Though I actually started this before MK9 was even announced. I actually started doodling MK1 costume revamps back in, like, 2004. I just always wanted to see the games get remakes so the old 2D games would match up to Deadly Alliance and Deception better, in terms of costume detail and having cutscenes to show the stuff they said happened, like how MKDA was all "back in MK3, Sonya threw Kano off a building, Motaro saved him, Sheeva killed Motaro, Kano betrayed Sheeva, and that's how Kano became General."

What I wanted though was something more like the Gamecube version of Resident Evil 1, or when Square-Enix redoes their old Final Fantasy games. Not, y'know, what MK9 did.

But I digress. I'd rather talk about the Razorverse in a Razorverse topic and leave the bitching about MK9 to the many, many other threads where I've done so over the past three years.

No one respects source material anymore. It's like a dying art form. I'd tip my hat to you, good sir, but I haven't got a hat.

Do you plan to explore a backstory for Quan Chi, especially with how his studies of magic changed him into what he is now?

I dunno. I mean, it'll come up in the text, Raiden or somebody will explain to one of the good guys that he was once an oni and though the study of magic, he evolved and transformed himself into something human-looking...I'm not sure if there's anything deeper I can add, though. It's obvious that his hunger for power is because he started as such a lowly creature and wants to be more than that.
He doesn't have a particularly psychological motivation like how Tsung is terrified of aging/dying, or how Kahn wants a family. He's just all ambition and probably was born a literal "incapable of empathy" sociopath 'cause he's a demon.

I find the sociopath aspect perfectly fitting for Quan Chi's character.

Anyways, Razor, has it ever been said how Kitana discovered the truth about her past, what with Kahn not being her father and such? And in this process did she also learn the truth about Mileena and what lies under her mask, or is that something she figured out long before or what?

And concerning Mileena's face... Do all the characters know about her true features? Will the cast see her rip her mask off sometime during the tournament or will Kitana spill the beans and say, "Oh yeah, she's got a tarkatan mouth. That's why she wears that mask all the time."

According to MK2, she found out both things sometime before the tournament, and kept it to herself, waiting for the right time to rebel. The games never specifically said when or how.

In the Razorverse, my intention is that she deduced the truth through a combination of suspecting something wasn't right ever since she first met Mileena (because Mileena has to be less than 1,000 years old because Shang created her and that's how old he is. So she must have been introduced to an already grown-up Kitana with some bullshit story about why they didn't grow up together), learning clues from the Edenian rebels she was constantly sent to assassinate, and finally investigating on her own, exploring Edenian ruins and learning their history, and spying on Shang to find out what he really gets up to down in those Flesh Pits of his.



Let's just say Johnny Cage sees something terribly disappointing fairly early in the tourney.

Trying to decide if I should feel sorry or not for Johnny in this instance. On that note however, if you don't mind, would you explain the reasoning behind the fights as their listed in the tourney bracket, and maybe also how Scorpion forfeits and gets replaced by Jade?

I guess I can, since I already spoiled it anyway...

Here's a link to said bracket, by the way, for anyone who didn't see it in the other thread.

I didn't want the Outworlders to seem like pussies in their first appearance, so I made sure Baraka, Kitana, and Mileena all got a win in the first round. (Sure Reptile kinda gets the shaft, but that's alright, he got to beat Sub-Zero in MK1, and he'll have a good outside-of-the-tournament subplot.)

I also needed to pad out the roster so that it would be a square number and fit a bracket. Thus, several NPCs were inserted to die in the first round. The ones who fight good guys will be Tarkatans, and the ones who fight bad guys will be Shaolin and White Lotus who were kidnapped during the temple attack. Art-wise, they'll be based on the unused MK2 Tobias concept art like the Proto-Baraka hookswords guy and the pink kickboxer girl, or Malibu characters like Sing and Sang.

It's still slightly uneven in that there's a round where Kitana and Mileena have one more fight than everybody else does...but that's because they both get eliminated so early and most of their plot and fighting happens outside of the tournament, I wanted to make sure they got a chance to shine adequately first so that the fact that they're called Kahn's best assassins wouldn't seem stupid because how can they be the best if they lost in their only fights? To make sense of that extra round, just assume everybody else has a fight with an NPC as well but it happens offscreen or as part of a montage.

Also, I put Kintaro in the bracket instead of him only fighting at the end like Goro did because Kintaro's not special or a champion like Goro was. Kahn's changes to the rules specifically name that A) The tourney will be held in Outworld instead of on Earth or Shang's Island, B) No more "win ten in a row to conquer Earth" rule, it's all or nothing, and C) he himself is the final challenge of this tournament. Everyone else has to be in the bracket, Kintaro's just another soldier with something to prove like Baraka.

I wanted Johnny to fight Mileena because they both like to flirt. I also had to decide which of the good guys was going to perform poorly in the tournament, since, y'know, they can't all win. So I settled on having Johnny be the first one eliminated, because as comedy relief, it won't hurt his character to have a poor showing (and besides, he only came to Outworld to help rescue Sonya, which he can still do without being in the tourney), and because it's hard to explain why the bad guys aren't performing Fatalities, but I could see Mileena letting someone she's attracted to live to "play with him later".

I also wanted Mileena to fight Scorpion, because I want to have fun with her character by having her flirt and be creepy-slutty as often as possible, and who would be more funny to have her hit on and try to attach herself to than fuckin' Scorpion, right? Super-serious dude from Hell who sets people on fire specifically because he misses his dead wife is the least likely to stand for that shit. It's kind of an homage to the teddy bear mission from MK9.

I wanted Liu to fight Baraka so I can write Kung Lao being mad and yelling at Liu for not kill him and avenging the Shaolin.

I wanted Liu to fight Kitana because Kahn would suspect she's up to something and want her to prove her loyalty by performing her best against the biggest threat.

Raiden goes up against Shang early and loses because A) I realized this would be the ONLY opportunity during the Earth vs. Outworld saga for Shang and Raiden to ever fight each other. They didn't in MK1 and as the plan currently stands, they won't ever be in the same place at the same time in MK3, so if I wanted to have the protector of Earthrealm go up against the villain of MK1, the guy he's been matching wits and fighters against for the past thousand years, I'd have to do it here. And B) because I wanted to have Raiden, as powerful as he is, be eliminated shockingly early, to show that even though Shang's not the main villain anymore, that doesn't mean he should suddenly fade into the background and become an unimportant henchman. He's gotta stay still relevant, still be a big deal, and now that he's young again, he's actually even more of a threat than he was when he was the end boss.

Shang then fights Kung Lao and beats him too because Kung Lao's story is all about wanting to prove he can do anything Liu can do, and wanting to get revenge on Shang, Baraka, and Kintaro for killing the Shaolin. But the important thing about Kung Lao's story is that he's NOT as good as Liu Kang. He CAN'T beat Shang.

And he has to learn that, so that when Deadly Alliance comes around and he decides to go kill Shang to avenge Liu's death, he'll know he can't take him the way he currently is, so he'll have a good reason to go "I better get special training" and seek out Bo' Rai Cho.

Sub-Zero had to not enter the bracket until the second round because he arrives late to the tournament. His first fight is Reptile because he's there to challenge Shang, and Reptile is still Shang's bodyguard. His second fight is Scorpion because that's what Scorpion's there for.

Scorpion wins because that's the way their original MK2 endings said it went down, Scorpion had him at his mercy and could have killed him but chose not to because he realized it wasn't Bi-Han.

In fact, I think it's important to note that canonically, neither Sub-Zero has EVER beaten Scorpion after Scorp got his spectre powers. I don't think they CAN beat him. His powers are specifically DESIGNED to defeat Cryomancy.

Anyway, Scorpion forfeits the tournament after his match with Sub because he's not there for anything else, he simply doesn't care about Earth vs. Outworld. Besides, he's already fought Liu Kang before in the previous tournament, he knows he can't win that one.

He's replaced by Jade because SOMEONE has to fight Liu, no way is Kahn going to let him just have a bye to the next round.
As for why Jade? Well Smoke, Noob, and Skarlet aren't in the tournament at all because they're hidden characters, and the means by which you find them has nothing to do with the arcade ladder, so I kept them literally hidden out of the spotlight and involved in their own little secret missions in the plot...but if you'll recall, Jade is the Question Mark in the MK2 Arcade Ladder right before you fight Shang, Kintaro, and Shao Kahn, so I knew I wanted to have her become a surprise entrant towards the end of the story.

The whole "Kintaro fights Jax to stop him from rescuing Sonya and Kano from their chains in the arena, almost kills him, and Raiden saves Jax by jumping in and exploding Kintaro" thing is a rumor of how MK2 ended that dates back to the arcade days. It was in a strategy guide or something and whether or not it was really canon has been debated, but it's the ONLY answer we ever had that explained why Kintaro never showed up again until Armageddon, so I always liked it. AND it explains why Jax decides to get his metal arms in 3 - if "The Strongest Man in the World" wasn't strong enough to beat a monster from Outworld, then he needs enhancements if he's gonna fight a war against more Outworlders.

And Liu of course has to fight Shang again, because that's what Liu's character development arc is all about throughout the whole MK2 story: dealing with the fact that if he had killed Shang the first time, the Shaolin Temple wouldn't have been massacred. I wish this fight could come before the Kintaro one so the order of the arcade ladder could be preserved, but it just couldn't be worked out that way logistically. Honestly, I think the story might work better this way anyway, to go straight from Liu dealing with his Shang issue to Liu facing the final boss, rather than cutting away to some Raiden and Jax scene in between the two climaxes.

I hope you never leave this site Razor. Your discussions about MK's story is the biggest reasons I visit this site. Love seeing your insight and reading all the details about the story that I've missed.

A more on topic question, how quickly does MK3 take place after MK2? I knows its fairly soon since Kuai had to return to the Lin Kuei first before all the souls are taken.

Also do you have any plans for Noob Saibot to encounter Sub Zero before you have his identity unveiled during the MK4 story?

It's pretty quick. Days, weeks at most. Enough time for the heroes to return to their homes and start preparing because they know Kahn is going to invade, but not enough time for those preparations to get anywhere useful. Kung Lao doesn't have time to assemble the White Lotus, Sonya and Jax don't have time to convince the government Outworld is real, all they can do is outfit Jax with his bionics, etc.



They might cross paths during 3, I'm not entirely sure if there'll be good reason for them to be in the same place at the same time yet.

Will Sub-Zero (the young one) and Scorpion cross paths in Deception now that they both found new purposes in their lives since their interaction in MK4?

Also, how much of Shujinko's story will be used as canon in the fan fiction? Deception is mainly focused on what's going on in that present right?

In canon, Deception's story ended with Shujinko rounding up as many kombatants as he possibly could at Onaga's castle for the final battle, so he could absorb all their powers.

Scorpion and Sub-Zero were both in that crowd, so yeah, Kuai and Hanzo meet again in MKD.

When I write Deception, I'm going to write it as an ensemble story cutting back and forth from character to character, just like how I wrote MK1. But there will be flashbacks to Shujinko's past as he explains to people who he is, how he already knows certain kombatants, and how he accidentally brought Onaga back.

I'm not entirely sure what I'll be considering canon from his Konquest yet. I don't consider any of the training missions that were optional and had no story importance canon, but I'm going to try and keep as much of the main plot as possible.

All I know for sure is I'm going to switch up all his meetings in the Netherealm because I want to actually SHOW how Ashrah starts out as one of Quan Chi's girls and finds the Kriss, Ermac shouldn't be alive yet when Shujinko was that young because he was created shortly before MK1, and I've mentioned before that Shujinko's training with Scorpion is a big plothole because the game suddenly jumped from MK1 to Deadly Alliance with no explanation how, so I'm going to have to figure out a way to move the order of events so that the part where Shujinko spends years in Seidan jail happens during MK1 thru 4 to explain why he's not around for the original games.
Also, for the sake of clarity, I'll point out that due to his age, when Shujinko joined the Lin Kuei, the Sub-Zero he trained with must have been Bi-Han and Kuai Liang's grandfather, not either of them.

Man,I just did Deception Konquest 2 days ago,so if there are some instances you don’t remember regarding main story,I will gladly help you out if you want because it is fresh in my head.

Neat idea regarding Sub-Zero the Grandfather,but what I don’t understand is how come Shujinko copies everyone’s moves with MAGIC attached to these moves? What I mean is how come Shujinko can throw ice balls when he is not a Cryomancer himself or do Raiden’s Superman move when he can’t fly because he is not a God.

It would make sense for him to copy FIGHTING styles of warriors,not their special moves is what I am trying to say.

Speaking of Deception Konquest,can I suggest a VERY SMALL thing? You remember Kenshi is also invited to Mortal Kombat tournament alongside Shujinko,but doesn’t make it to the ship? Are you going to reveal it at some point before MK Deception? MK3 maybe,when he meets Sonya and Jax and learns that Sonya has been to this tournament?

That's the whole point of the power Onaga/Damashi gave him. Shujinko needed to be powerful enough to find the Kamidogu and defeat anyone else who might want to take them for themselves, so Onaga somehow gave him the ability to mimic other people's magic and superpowers. So he's making himself more like a Cryomancer, more like a Spectre, more like a Thunder God, etc.
If all he could do was copy martial arts, he wouldn't be very effective in a fight against powerful people. And he wouldn't be able to kill Onaga with rainbow-punches at the end of Deception.

Shang Tsung does the same thing when he morphs, Chameleon can do it too, so power-copying's not impossible. You can even see in Shujinko's ending, he sucks colored energy out of people when he copies their powers. He must be absorbing a sample of their chi or something like that.

Though to be fair, I think plot-wise, Shujinko's copying actually wears off over time and he loses the moves, which is why in his ending, he has to copy from people who he's already met and stolen moves from before.

It'll come up in 3, yeah.

How is Stryker relevant to the entire series? He just tasers and throws around grenades, no special power included. Does he just suddenly appear in MK3 and stay low until Armageddon because of PTSD from the invasion? I'm not a Stryker hater, I'm just curious about this guy.

Also, what's with the resemblance of Reiko to Shao Kahn? They both have different storylines yet they seem to look alike for no apparent reason. One could presume that Reiko might be Kahn's illiterate son, but it doesn't make any sense because if he was, Kahn would have been putting his energy in preparing Reiko as heir to rule Outworld in the future, but clearly from the storyline there's no trace of it. So the only relationship between Kahn and Reiko is that Kahn installed the latter as general because he admires his ruthlessness nothing more. How will Reiko fit into your storyline? Will he get some alleged screentime with Tanya? They both seem to have similar personalities.

What with Kabal switching from bad to good, good to bad? Does he just have allegiance issues? Also, why does Kabal have so much faith in his new recruits Kobra and Kira in the events of Deception? I'd figure he'd pick something more experienced in the realm of combat.

Finally, how will Johnny Cage cope in the later installments? I know he does kinda admire Sonya (other than being hot), but I only really see them as allies. Does his personality actually change throughout the series? I had this amusing ending for him once Armageddon is done. I thought maybe Johnny would be approached by some spirits who implant memories of all the events of MK into his head and instruct him to tell the whole story to everyone so what does Johnny do? He makes a script of it and makes a movie! I was kinda inspired by his ending in DA, but I thought this would be the right moment for Johnny to make that decision. It kinda fits his Hollywood persona.

I'm going to go with the MK9 approach of Stryker is a hero-cop, he's lived through action movie-style craziness already in his life, like, "he's Bruce Willis in Die Hard AND Keanu Reeves in Speed". He's sort of a special guy even though his martial arts skills have never led to him manifesting chi abilities.

Just like Sonya is when she first comes to the island in my version of MK1, remember, she had no "magic" moves in my story until Liu and Raiden start teaching her, but she was still worthy to be lured into a competition that's strictly for "the best fighters in the world" only.

So that's kinda why Raiden picks Stryker as a chosen one. Unrealized potential.

As for his relevance AFTER MK3, I've mentioned before that I'm going to have him act as a Commissioner Gordon figure to Kabal during Kabal's "vigilante cleaning up the streets" period between MK3 and MKDA, and I'm actually adding Stryker to the Deception roster as he investigates why Kabal went bad and broke Kobra out of NYPD custody.

That'll sort of lead to an alliance with Orderrealm, since Kabal's working for Havik.



They don't look alike, they dress alike, because if you notice from the NPCs and grunts in Shaolin Monks and Deception Konquest, ALL of Shao Kahn's human soldiers wear armor similar to his.

Storywise, Reiko was Kahn's head General in the past (And coveted the throne for himself, which is why he wants to wear the helmet. It's not a goofy fetish thing, Kahn's helmet is literally the Outworld crown and Reiko dreams of being king one day, that's all.), but he died sometime before MK1 and Goro became the general.

Reiko went to Hell and because of his great reputation conquering realms for Kahn, Quan Chi made him a wraith (which is why he has the same eyes as Noob Saibot and Brotherhood face-tattoos and hair-streaks like Kia/Jataaka/Sareena) and put him in charge of Shinnok's army.

During MK4, Reiko, being the great strategist that he is, realized that Shinnok was going to lose and abandoned his post so that he wouldn't get sent back to Hell with the rest of the bad guys. He laid low in Outworld until Armageddon, where he rejoined Kahn as General when Kahn took his throne back.



Kabal's...he's had near-death experiences like TWICE. That tends to fuck with a person.

He used to be in the Black Dragon...then one day, along come these monsters who nearly kill him using weapons Kano gave them. The only reason he survives is pure stubborn rage, he's scarred for life, can never show his now-hideous face in public again, and has to breathe through a tube in his fucking neck for the rest of his life because of this.

And when he goes out to avenge himself, he meets a bunch of heroes who accept him as a friend, and helps them save the world.

So naturally, he's like "Fuck you Kano, fuck this gang, I'm going to be a crime fighter from now on and kill you and your buddies."

Then Mavado nearly kills him for no other reason than because he USED to be a Black Dragon, and the only reason he survives that time is because Havik finds him bleeding out all over the floor and saves his life.

Havik is a preacher, dude loves to give speeches about how great chaos and anarchy is as a religion and way of life. He converted Kabal.

And at this point in time, the Black Dragon was dead, so sorta like how Sub-Zero went back and took over the Lin Kuei and changed them into whatever he wanted them to be to make himself feel better about being one, Kabal does the same thing by restarting the Black Dragons as an anarchist terrorist cell instead of a bunch of drugs-and-guns-selling gangsters.

He recruited Kira and Kobra not for their fighting ability, but because he wanted people who would fit in with his new ideology. (Plus even if he wanted to run with his old crew from the original BDs, which he doesn't because he believes the reason the old gang fell apart is they were too sloppy and thuggish, they're all either missing or dead by this time anyway.) Kira is highly disciplined, follows orders well, and believes completely in his cause. And Kobra is literally a psychotic serial killer, that's pretty chaotic I guess...

Granted, Kobra wasn't supposed to last for more than one game. Kira's Deception ending where the test to prove who's most worthy to be in the gang is having them fight each other to the death was SUPPOSED to be canon.

I'll probably have it be canon like it was supposed to be and have Kobra as a resurrected soldier on Shinnok's side when I do MKA.



First of all, as early as MK2, Johnny is actually already making movies based on the events of the tournaments. Or at least, he's started production on one. He leaves the set to go to the Outworld tournament. (half to save Sonya, half to get material for a sequel)

But the first movie probably never actually gets finished until after MK4 since, y'know, he's dead for a while there. I figure by the time of Deadly Alliance, he's made two MK films and "The Death of Johnny Cage", the film he doesn't want to make, would be an adaptation of the events of MK3 since that's the one where he died.

(Mind you, in Johnny's version of events, he always wins at the end and Liu Kang is portrayed as a sidekick, lol.)

Which brings me to his personality: He's pretty much the same in MK2 as he was in 1, but MK3 is a direction change moment for his character because he, y'know, dies. And then gets back up and gets to keep fighting. So...he's spending the entire story dealing with the fact that his days are literally numbered, he'll go back to being dead as soon as the merger ends, so he'll have to say goodbye to Sonya and co. That's a good reason to take things seriously.

The trick of writing it for me is going to be, Sonya certainly wouldn't admit she has feelings for him and have the two of them actually hook up...but if you think about it, the whole reason Sonya's personality is the way that she is, is because people close to her like her dad and the partner Kano killed have all died and she's put up these walls around her heart so as not to be hurt like that again...and the only guy since then that she's warmed up to is Johnny and now he's got, like, a magic zombie version of terminal illness.

Then he gets to be resurrected permanently in MK4 and you have the way he acts in Deadly Alliance. In that game, Johnny has actually regressed as a character. He's chosen to be in complete denial that he was ever dead, that's why he refuses to make the movie "Mortal Kombat: The Death of Johnny Cage". Maybe it's trauma, maybe it's just ego, maybe it's a midlife crisis...but for some reason, he can't admit he's ever done anything but "kick ass".

Now, I wouldn't say that's a bad thing necessarily. Usually when a character loses development and acts like however they used to be at the beginning, it's bad writing, but I actually think given all that Johnny Cage has been through at this point, a deliberate case of arrested development makes some sense for him. Being a comedian seems to just be how he deals with his problems, he's not really good at emotional honesty.

The biggest growth moment for Johnny seems to be Armageddon.

At the start of the story, Johnny Cage receives a vision or is otherwise lured into finding out that Shinnok is planning to come back. At this time, Liu Kang is dead and Raiden's gone bad, so the heroes have no leader. So Johnny Cage of all people decides HE'S gonna be the one who leads them. He convinces Fujin to assemble all the good guys and they find out what's up with Blaze and the Prize and march to Edenia to keep it out of the bad guys' hands.

Of course, Shinnok deliberately WANTED Johnny to do all this. Shinnok WANTS to cause Armageddon, he wants everybody to come to the crater and fight each other, because that's what makes Blaze show up in the first place, and Shinnok wants to get Blaze's prize for himself. Shinnok is the real villain of MKA, he's the cause of the whole thing. And Johnny here is used as the primary patsy to make the "getting the good guys to show up" half of the plan happen.

Now...imagine if Armageddon hadn't ended in "everybody's dead, reboot". Instead, it ends with a whole lotta people dead, but NOT all of them...and the realms are somehow saved at the end and life goes on like it does at the end of every other MK game.

In his first try as leader, Johnny Cage just led a shit-ton of his friends into a trap that ended in a lotta gruesome deaths. He kinda failed as commander of the Forces of Light. I don't think he'd take it so well. It'd be sobering at the very least.

So I'm kinda picturing Post-Armageddon Johnny retiring from battle and becoming an NPC who fully devotes himself to being, like, the scribe or witness whose job it is to "tell the world what happened here" with his movies, sorta like you suggested. Either that or he retires from the shallowness of Hollywood too and sort of forms ties with the White Lotus Society, helping train the next gen of Liu Kangs and Kung Laos.

So are we going to expect Shao Kahn's new design along with the fan-fiction sequel to be up next month?

Honestly, I'd be surprised if I found the time to finish writing the MK2 script outline this year. I believe I recently said I won't be getting back to that until after the MK2 alternate costumes are done...because having the art in front of me helps me picture scenes in my head.

But Kahn will certainly be done soon. Like, I don't wanna put too strict a deadline on it, so I'll just say "first half of February." The lineart is technically finished already, I just have to clean it up and color it.

...Which I could theoretically get done by the end of this week, except I just got the new Devil May Cry game and I've been wanting to play that since it came out last year, so...yeah, sorry guys...