The retcon dilemma is different this time around. Yet still, more people should acknowledge that Retcon-Monster has always been there along with Mortal Kombat. Moving on now... Shang Tsung was described as Outworld's champion in Shao Kahn's biography of MK/DC.

John Wokkel has watched too much The Bold and the Beautiful.

The best thing to do in these situations is just to roll with it, or else you won't be able to enjoy it for what it is: a videogame, a means of entertainment. Just look at all the butthurt around these forums, because people care too much about the consistensy and is therefore not able to enjoy this game. It's too bad, really.

MKvsDCU is not canon. It's set in its own universe where things are very different from the regular MK games.

And that line is a simplification of Shang's job in MK1, because only those who're familiar with MK lore would know that Goro was the actual "champion", but everyone knows Shang was the end boss. Since Goro's not even in MKvsDCU but Shang is, better to say it this way and not confuse the casuals and DC comics fans buying the game to play as the Justice League who don't know MK all that well.

What I enjoy is stories. That is the very thing I play games for. I'm mostly into RPGs and the occasional platformer. For example, Mass Effect 3 may be the only game I buy all this year. Maybe Transformers: Fall of Cybertron too, we'll see...

I got into Mortal Kombat as a kid because in the arcade, the character bios in the attract screen really fascinated me and drew me into following this whole world Tobias was building, buying up all the magazines and strategy guides they made back in the 90's to find out more about the plot and characters. I don't much play fighting games otherwise. I took a brief interest in Soul Calibur for a while because they seemed to have something interesting going on too, but it stopped being good at 3 or 4. I also read the Street Fighter comics series by Udon but have never owned an SF game, because the comic actually makes the characters interesting.

I guess the only fighting game I ever play for the fun of the fighting experience is Smash Bros., and I need to have three friends in the room to do that.

I love Udon's comics for telling such an interesting story about the Street Fighter characters and from what I know, Capcom sees them as canon to the game. Just too bad it doesn't reflect much in the games though.

I too love playing games with a vast and interesting story, such as RPG's, but I have a certain weakness for fighting games. Mortal Kombat brought those two interests together with its vast story and believe me, I too am disappointed about some of the story changes in the new MK, but it's not enough for me to totally disown the game as it is overall the best game in the entire series, in my opinion. Though not 100% consistent, the story mode is by far the best in any fighting game I have ever played and it has added alot of interesting information about the characters in focus while sadly some are left behind.

That the changes, retcons and inconsistency is too much for you to handle and prevents you to enjoy this game is, as I said, simply just too bad, because I feel you are missing out on it then. However, if fighting games aren't really your style anyways, then I guess it is no big loss.

Interesting thread. I really like all the points these guys are making out. Sadly, I mostly play the game for gameplay, unlike many others on this site.

Jaded-Raven's post sums up my feelings about the story more than any other post I've read. I do think it is cool that MK has such a deep storyline, but I'm also aware the game was originally intended to be a Van Damme fighting game, and looking at the first few games it's clear that the creators never took themselves too seriously. Toasty!

Deep things have consistency and logic behind them, Shadow Preacher has a point though....the series has been doing these retcons and inconsistent shenanigans for quite a while, well before this game, they're just more glaring and flamboyant now because they targeted the original canon and golden age games' story, that's why so many are up in arms, I get both sides of the argument.


I'm to the point of just wanting this roster back with minor tweaks and updates to the roster and things of that nature, story mode might improve over time....or it might not, maybe since they're finally NOT trying to tackle the story of three games in one story mode, they'll be able to handle it superbly.


I'm focused on the gameplay mostly now and I'm just hopeful I can play as everyone who died in this game, they all have really unique gameplay, getting rid of it for nothing isn't beneficial to gameplay OR story.

How many of the "X is officially dead (next game) just kidding, he/she saved themselves just in time/was healed on the brink of death/other nonsense" still haven't been accounted for? I don't recall reading Kabal (DA --> D) and Jarek (4 --> Armageddon) mentioned yet.

Don't remember Jarek, but Kabal in MKD revealed he was "Near death" when Havik saved him.

Yep yep, but MK/DC is part of the nine Mortal Kombat games and it had some canon things included but that wasn't one. I know that Goro is the official champion of Outworld, the guy who beat the Great Kung Lao.
I see the MK team's motif for misleading new-comers that way however.
More importantly: MK/DC and MKSM have been mentioned throughout this thread beginning from the opening post so this should be appropriate.

The games never actually said that Sonya or Jax's MK4 endings happened, or what happened to Jarek. They just didn't mention him at all until MKA.

Mavado killing Kabal in DA, Kabal surviving and killing Mavado in Deception, and Mavado somehow still being alive without explanation in MKA though, that definitely counts as retcons.



Yeah, but earlier posts also argued that MKSM shouldn't be included in this thread because it's non-canon, and I agree. It's not a retcon if it didn't happen in a canon game, otherwise we might as well start listing things from the movies, Conquest, Defenders of the Realm, Malibu Comics, and Rebirth/Legacy too.

The meaning of a retroactive continuity is complex. People can say for instance that Superman's red pants will be retconned from Nolan and Snyder's Man of Steel even though the movie has a script of its own. One could consider MK/DC as an individual reboot too albeit I don't see it so.

Absolutely, if you want, though they're not games anymore. I'm interested.

Actually, the definition of Retcon is pretty concrete. it's short for "Retroactive Continuity" and it means "the alteration of previously established facts in a fictional work."

So for example, because something that happens in an adaptation, which is only based on the source material, but is not part of it, like Mortal Kombat: Defenders of the Realm (Say for example, Nightwolf being a computer geek who merges with a pet wolf named Kiva to activate his shaman powers) does not affect or alter previously established facts in the source material itself, i.e., the Mortal Kombat GAME series (where Nightwolf is not and has never been a computer geek who merges with a pet wolf), it is NOT a Retcon.
Another example would be this:
Kano was an American raised in Japan in MK1.
Kano being Australian in MK: The Movie is not a retcon, because the movie isn't part of the games, it exists outside "continuity". It's merely a change for the adaptation.
Kano being Australian in MK: Deadly Alliance and every game thereafter, however, IS a retcon, because Deadly Alliance is part of the continuity.

Kiva was funny. 'Kiva' is Finnish for 'nice'. Pretty nice, if you ask me.
Keep in mind that 'retcon' started out as an unofficial word and it has evolved through time gaining different generally accepted meanings. Words commonly obtain new meanings through time based on people's beliefs. What was your source of the retroactive continuity information?

That's what its always meant since comic book readers invented and started using the phrase, and it's what ANY dictionary or encyclopedia that recognizes the term will tell you it means. Where did you think it came from?

I believed it came from the Wikipedia page of retroactive continuity which "needs additional citations for verification", "has multiple issues", "may need to be rewritten entirely" and "contains weasel words: vague phrasing that often accompanies biased or unverifiable information". These are the words of Wikipedia. I just remember your earlier link to it.

Wikipedia, TVTropes, UrbanDictionary, a dozen other places, like maybe every forum on Earth where comic books are a subject of discussion? The entire goddamn internet knows what a "retcon" is. Do a god damned Google search. Get familiar, son!

Seriously, I realize you're from a foreign country where English isn't the first language, and that earns you a little slack, but this is fucking ridiculous, it's legitimately making me angry to have to explain something so simple and common. I DARE you to find a page containing a definition of "Retcon" that tells you it's NOT a portmanteau of the words "retroactive" and "continuity". That is literally the origin of the term. What, you think "retcon" is an English word all by itself? It'd just be gibberish if not for the fact that its short for something else. RETroactive CONtinuity.
I Know I'm overreacting a bit but seriously. Google. How does a person NOT Google things they don't know? It's not like it's a hard site to find.

First of all, I'm not your son, father.
Jag tar mina många språk som ingen ursäkt. Pardon, wrong language. Anyway, it's no excuse in my eyes here to be from a 'foreign' country, and yeah, I know that it derives from "retroactive continuity" and I know what it means. At no point I stated that I wouldn't know its meaning. I threw out a point that even MK/DC could have things called retcons based on the fact that i.e. Man of Steel is said to have retcons even when it has a new script overall. Especially if MK/DC is considered as eighth in a series.
IMDb for instance tells that "In the comics, Tony Stark participated (and became Iron Man) in the Vietnam War; later this was retconned to the Gulf War. In this film, the character's origin was retconned to Afghanistan, as Jon Favreau did not wish to make the film a period piece but instead give it a realistic contemporary look."
There is my point really, whether it's a new sequel, threequel, prequel, midquel, sidequel, interquel, pseudoquel, remake, re-imagining, reboot, adaptation, re-adaptation, reinterpretation, spin-off, cross-over or instalment, you can talk about retcons when you compare it to another product in which it is largely based on. Wikipedia is untrustworthy in this case. Yahoo!, Bing and Google are in my arsenal. That's all, folks.

And yet, you asked where I got it from like you didn't know. A little contradictory, no?

Anyway, the use of "retcon" in the Iron Man movie article is wrong. They should've just said "changed" since the movie isn't canon with the comics. This is the point I'm trying to make, people use the term incorrectly.

It's only retroactive continuity when there's a continuity being changed retroactively. The movie creates its own continuity, it didn't affect that of the comics and it certainly can't be "retroactive" anything because it's the first in the series. Just like Shaolin Monks and vsDCU don't affect MK1 thru Armageddon.

You know, I honestly prefer to be a lurker. Just read, respect, and move on. And then somebody comes along that just IRKS the living crap out of me. This is one of those times. So sit back, pop a bag of popcorn, and watch the fun folks!


ShadowPreacher

"And MK9 is obviously in a new universe. Raiden's flashbacks however are not. If it helps, think of Raiden's message to his past self as a call that went over on crossed wires. He sent it to the past...of a parallel universe. It seems like the kind of thing that could go wrong pretty easily after all. And remember...Armageddon Kahn won...was merging the realms...One Being wakes up...reality blinks out of existence...game over. There was no past for Raiden to send it too because it was completely erased. Parallel Raiden in the MK9verse picks it up instead, and hilarity ensues. There, I just solved the discrepancies that ProudNintendoFan and RazorsEdge have been giving themselves ulcers over the last year when a solution was staring them right in the face!"


OK, bro, quick question for ya, then. If it’s a different universe, as you claim, then why does NRS (Nobody Really Smart works here), the very studio responsible for this utter rape of the franchise, call it a reimaging of the Mortal Kombat franchise? Not to say that I don’t like your ‘theory’ better, it’s to say stating your opinion as fact while ignoring oh, the FACTS, not a good idea. You might get called on it by someone. Oh, wait, you just did. :)

This story is obviously MK Reboot/Retread. A slightly *chuckle* different way of imagining the storylines from MK1-3. The chuckle at slightly is because if they made it any more of a fluster cluck out of the story, they would’ve had to call it Mortal Dumbat, but again, another story for another time.

The beginning scene is from Armageddon. However, since Raiden hadn’t been killed, Shao Kahn hadn’t won before the message was transported back, thus the original timeline still existed. Dark Raiden sent the message to his younger self in a way to alter the time line to insure that he’s never in the situation to begin with. Hense, your Alternate universe theory. *Poof* Nice smoke cloud, isn’t it? 



"And why does Quan Chi at the first tournament get so much hate, when Kitana, Jade, Baraka, Jax, Kung Lao, Nightwolf, Sektor, Cyrax and Sheeva all aren't supposed to be at MK1 either? (I guess we can allow Ermac as a shout-out to the old Error Macro rumor.)\"

My issue with Quan Chi being in the game is simple. He wasn’t even INTRODUCED until MK4. He had precisely dick to do with tournament one, tournament two, and tournament three, the three storylines being destroyed here. Not only that, but they give the dude a bigger role than ever conceived for him to this point. He’s the one that came up with the idea of resurrecting Sindel? Must be that alternate universe you were talking about, because in the original, it was Shao Kahn’s master plan. Bury Sindel on Earth so he could have viable reason to invade, should the tenth tournament be lost, and the forced tournament be lost or the invitation not accepted at all.

My issues with everyone, sans Jax, is they came in at the wrong time. Kitana had no business being there until they crossed into Outworld in the second tournament, ect. The only reason I don’t have the same objection for Jax is because, in Sonya’s original Storyline (I won’t even go into the ways they cluster bombed her story into oblivion in this pathetic ass excuse for a game, because it would take me about six pages to rant on), she and her team were captured, and their lives were held over her to force her to fight. Logic would dictate her CO would be on that mission.


"Even within MK9 itself, you'll notice the complainers are in no way objective, nor do they even try to be. Some retcons are apparently ok, but others are worth boycotting MK forever over even though the gameplay itself is leagues above all others in the series. For example, why does Mileena's new birthday get SO much attention while seemingly nobody has a problem with Kabal being retconned into not only being a cop, but STRYKER'S PARTNER all of a sudden? I mean seriously, how small did the world just get?"

Again, timeline and original story. Until the end of MK2, Kitana believed Mileena was her twin sister. For that to be true, the clone would’ve had to been made near the same time as Kitana, and they would’ve had to grow up together. Otherwise, the story doesn’t jive. Kabal being Striker’s partner is two steps beyond retarded. Going back to his original story, he was an exiled black dragon member, left for dead, seeking revenge. I prefer the original, personally, but I also have little real fan base involved. In other words, don’t care because I never liked the S.O.B. anyway. Mileena has a fanbase that obviously does care, and her connection to one of the key characters of the MK Universe (Kitana), makes such changes infuriating.

"Now, I'm sure Razor is frothing at the mouth to point out that Scorpion didn't kill Sub-Zero in the actual tournament, he did it after a big clusterfuck battle where they actually teamed up against Shang's goons after Liu won and the tournament was over. And thus Bi-Han actually did survive the tournament. *Technically* Real sneaky with the sleight of hand there, Razor."

No more so than your convenient twisting of anything that opposes your little alternate timeline theory. It’s one thing to oppose someone’s viewpoint, it’s another to come off as a pompous half cocked little peckerwood that sees fit to not only dismiss anything that doesn’t fit his theory, but also makes it a point to somehow diminish the opinions of others because they don’t have his narrow minded viewpoint.


"Even within MK9 itself, you'll notice the complainers are in no way objective, nor do they even try to be."

And then proceeds to complain about the same thing. A tiny bit hypocritical, aren’t we?

"Except then THAT now contradicts the official MK1 comic where Scorpion confronts him on the boat and makes a big production how he's not a murderer like Sub-Zero, and he'll kill him honorably in the tournament."

If Scorpion confronted him on the boat that would make it PRIOR to the tournament starting, right? What in the blue moon cluster fuck would that have to do with the END of the tournament? The question you need to ask yourself is what happened between Point A and Point B. Did they have Rainbow shooters in Shang’s Island’s strip club? Did they have a meeting after their match, and discuss things? Did Scorpion kill Sub-Zero one and Sub-Zero Two was the battler in his place against Shang’s goons? Were they working together to get to a final one on one faceoff, as Scorpion couldn’t enter his hall of the dead without defeating SubZero himself?

"Yes, folks. Mortal Kombat. Totally, completely retcon-free until 2011. Honest!"

There have ALWAYS, ALWAYS been story connectivity problems with MK. Special Forces the most glaring and angering to me, for obvious reasons (Still want my money back for that misadvertised POS. I paid to play Sonya, not Jax) The problem is it’s rarely (Special Forces being my notable exception) a complete and total RetCon Nightmare. 2011 is a textbook retcon, and any MK fan into the story more than the game play is going to have a complete shit fit by the end of playing this jacked up POS.

I loved the MK series because it had a storyline that was left to personal interpretation. Give me a little information, and let my imagination fill in the rest. But I’m a writer by nature, that’s how my mind works. I lurk, and read others opinions because I respect and own that my opinion and view isn’t the only one out there. It’s rare that someone like yourself just gets me ticked off enough to write a novel about how royally annoying they truly are. Congratulations, Shadow.

This returns us back to my earlier post.


I wanted to find out whether your information relies on Wikipedia or not. I asked that What was your source of the retroactive continuity information? to which you answered That's what its always meant and Wikipedia, TVTropes, UrbanDictionary, a dozen other places, like maybe every forum on Earth where comic books are a subject of discussion?.
I didn't question your definition of a retcon earlier there - instead I was curious about your sources. You didn't quite answer the question either but I see that your information is based on various places and you have a "good feeling" about it. The article in Wikipedia is confirmedly invalid.
Many words, typos and misconceptions become official after people begin to use them normally. For instance, the word Internet is supposed to be written with a capitalized initial letter but many journalists write it internet because that has become widespread and acceptable.
As I stated previously, nothing is necessarily written in stone forever in languages, especially not a portmanteau that's been just recently created by a comics community instead of an official agency. 'Retcon' itself could get retconned through time and right now I'm interested in what changes will its Wikipedia article meet. Strictly following TVTropes, the Iron Man text might not be valid. But if journalists use it this way, to me this relatively still unknown word can be used this way as long as it sends the right message to its reader. In a way, every MK game is a parallel universe of its own, especially MK/DC and MK9. Midway told in 2008 that MK/DC situates around MKII and MK3 with a coincidence causing this cross-over and obviously some retcons from the original MKII and MK3 times.
I see where you're coming from though. I'm more open to a diverse usage.

My source the fact that as a comic book fan with access to the interwebs, I and the numerous people I converse with on a daily basis have been using the term "retcon" for over a decade.
Comic book fans never call the changes in comic book movies "retcons" because we know not to expect movies to be true to or connected to the comics, and that just because, say, Heath Ledger's Joker is a guy in facepaint does not mean that suddenly the "real" Joker never fell into a vat of chemicals and got his skin bleached.
If the comics started saying that Joker indeed DID never fall into a vat, and he just wears facepaint like in The Dark Knight, THEN it would be a retcon, because that's what the word "retcon" is for, changes to the CONtinuity.
Using it to mean something that happened in a non-canon story or film is NOT an instance of the natural evolution of language, it's just plain using it wrong. The very purpose of the word, the only reason it exists, is to denote changes to the established history of a character or universe. What happens in a different universe doesn't matter. Otherwise, you could say ridiculous shit like what happens in "What If?" and "Elseworlds" stories is a retcon. You can't say "They retconned Superman into being a Russian communist" just because that happened in the alternate universe story "Superman: Red Son", because it's not true. Superman's still American in his ongoing comics.
At any rate, this is ]{0mbat's thread, perhaps we should leave it to him if he'd like us to list all the ways that outside MK media differs from the source material too, or if we should stick to the original purpose of the thread which was only to document the times that the games' storyline was re-written or contradicted.

I don't think this has been mentioned, but Sheeva being Sindel's personal body guard during the events of MK3, this was retconned into her only being her protector prior to Sindel's death in Earthrealm, removing any further connections. The Centaur and Shokan rivalry is vaguely hinted at in Kintaro's ending and not even touched upon in story with a hinted Sheeva/Motaro rivalry.


The Netherrealm only be a place for evil beings to be able to be contained within, now essentially anyone can be there regardless of good deeds or purity, which in turn kind of ruins Ashrah's story too because her whole Kriss demon slaying business is about her purifying her soul so that she can escape the Netherrealm.


I'll try to think of some more, everyone lists look pretty good so far, the sheer level of retcons is more astounding when grouped in one place.