Mortal Kombat comic review (90's arcade tie-in comic)

 By Mark Rodriguez

Ah... good old Mortal Kombat... back when Street Fighter 2 was the king of the arcade and suddenly everybody and their mother just had to cash in the fight game craze and release their own copy of it. I have to admit to liking some of the earlier SNK games like Fatal Fury and Art of Fighting, but they did not compare. And any other company besides SNK? Not even close! It took Mortal Kombat, a game with awesome digitized actors that would send blood flying with every attack as well as hidden Fatalities to bring enough attention away from Street Fighter 2 to make this game a serious contender. And when it finally came to the home versions and the parents saw the Fatalities for themselves... what an uproar!!

Johnny Cage wasn't the only that lost his head once parents and politicians caught wind of this

Now one thing that stood out was that if you watched the demos in the arcade, you know, before you put the quarter in, there was actually an offer for a comic book! All you had to do was send three bucks to the address provided and bingo! And hey, I was living in Chicago at the time so I figured I'd get my copy pretty fast. I still remember dad looking confused when I told him I was gonna buy a comic by going to the arcades and writing down the address provided by an arcade game. And yeah, at the time this comic could ONLY be bought through this arcade ad, it wasn't in any comic store.

I wonder what's going on at that address currently, especially since Midway became Netherealm nowadays.

The cool thing is, despite buying this back in my childhood, and moving to Mexico, and then back to the states... I still have it. And still in good 'only read it a few times' condition. The book basically goes into why everyone is into the tournament and leads into the part where you put your quarter in and press start. Let's check it out.

Now keep in mind that this comic was released when Mortal Kombat 1 was out.... so any inconsistencies or mistakes or whatever is mostly due to the fact that this was most likely made before they even expected to make a Mortal Kombat II. If you remember, Raiden was just the god of lightning at this point, he wasn't the heroic elder god gathering Earth's champions and all that like later games would explain.

The comic opens explaining that years ago, Shang Tsung was the champion of the Shaolin Tournament. However each victory would grant him power as he would steal the soul of the opponents to maintain his youth and please his gods. However, his title reign was ended after he was defeated by the noble Kung Lao.

Shang Tsung would return years later, prematurely aged due to failing his gods with an outworld pupil. This was Goro and he defeated Kung Lao, allowing Shang Tsung to take over the the tournament and bend it to his liking.

500 years later, Liu Kang, having heard stories of Shang Tsung and his tournament, has received an invitation to it. The elders agree to it and say he should be careful since Goro has been undefeated for 500 years and Liu Kang's defeat would ensure that the Shaolin would never be able to regain control of the tournament away from Shang Tsung. Liu Kang accepts this challenge.

Two years later, Johnny Cage is getting ready to board a junky old boat as he chooses to accept the tournament invitation. His agents are worried he won't be back in time to film his next movie, and are also suspicious since the tournament isn't sanctioned by any official martial arts organization. Cage is sure he'll be ok.

Elsewhere, Kano is in a speeding car with his Black Dragon members, shooting at an armored vehicle that's chasing them. Kano is ready to enter the tournament, and he says he heard there's a palace made of gold there. He plans to win the tournament and gather all the Black Dragons to loot the hell out of that place when he's done. Kano hops out of the car and jumps right on top of the armored car and runs across it.

Sonya Blade is inside the vehicle with the rest of her team. She sees Kano making a run for it and they start to chase him on foot. Kano leaps out and open fires on Sonya and her teammates, and they dodge the gunshots. Sonya realizes he was actually aiming at some barrels behind them and they soon explode. Kano uses this as a distraction to leap onto Shang Tsung's ship. Sonya's companion says the other people on the boat don't look like Black Dragon members, and Sonya feels they should let it drift off a little farther into sea before they send a speedboat to intercept it.

Shang Tsung goes to distant lands to invite Raiden to his 'great and noble' tournament. Raiden says he fears no mortal and says the tournament is about as noble as Shang Tsung is. He does accept the invitation, and Shang Tsung reminds him that the tournament will be held in his domain under his rules.

On the boat, Kano picks a fight with Johnny Cage, saying he doesn't have any stunt men to take the hits for him. Liu Kang comments that the 'movie star is outnumbered' which directs Kano's attention to him. Johnny uses this chance to send Kano flying back with his Shadow Kick. Liu Kang attacks the other men with his Flying Kick before they could jump in. Johnny thanks Kang, but the shaolin warrior reminds him the next time they fight will be at the tournament and it might even be against each other. Kano leaves, saying that Cage has just made his worst enemy. Kang tells Cage to watch his back since Kano has a lot of friends on the boat, and Cage is sure he can take care of himself. Sub-Zero is hidden and watching over them.

Sub-Zero is suddenly grabbed by Scorpion, who calls him out for having killed him two years ago to that day. He won't kill him, but he'll make sure that the Lin Kuei ninja will pay for his crimes at the tournament. Sub-Zero says he'll regret having let him live, and Scorpion says that remains to be seen.

PENANCE STARE!!!

Soon enough that ship as well as other ships all arrive to the island and Shang Tsung and Goro arrive to greet their guests. He announced that he captured Lt. Sonya Blade, who was following one of their ships, and not only will her life depend on how she does in the tournament... so do the lives of her captured teammates.

The crew is in their tournament clothes and Cage looks worried. Kang says that kind of treachery is to be expected from Shang Tsung, and Kano feels confident he will win. Goro raises his arm and announces that the tournament has begun. Go to the local arcade and see what happens. Or um... get the game on XBox Live as part of the Mortal Kombat Collection game if you can't get your hands on a Delorean.

Compared to what we know now-

This comic was made with Tobias and Boon heavily involved so they got the mythology right to a tee, or at least what it was at the time. Shang Tsung took over the Shaolin Tournament and turned it into Mortal Kombat to further his goals in pleasing his gods. This was before they started that whole thing with 'they must win 10 Mortal Kombats in a row so that Shao Kahn can invade Earth realm' stuff. At this time, Tsung was calling the shots and we didn't know he was actually working for Shao Kahn. Hell, Shao Kahn was probably not even a concept back then, nor was the concept of a game boss actually working for a bigger boss in a later game. I mean... can you imagine if all along Bison or Geese were actually working for someone else?

Raiden was a thunder god, invited by Tsung for whatever reason. Raiden seems insulted by mortals in this game, and yes, this was way before he became the guide and leader of the good guys of the series. In fact in his ending for the first game, he basically destroyed humanity since he turned the tournament into one for gods to battle it out instead of mortals, which would basically end everything.

Somethings I noticed in the comic was the younger Shang Tsung from the comic looking how he'll eventually look in Mortal Kombat 2. We also see Goro defeating Kung Lao in the flashback, which would be the ancestor of the Kung Lao later introduced in Mortal Kombat 2.

The first Mortal Kombat movie also showed the gang arriving at the tournament by boat. When I saw that scene in theaters back then it reminded me of this comic.

I still say this movie was still pretty good, minus the horribly dated CGI Reptile, which didn't really needed an actual lizard thing. All it needed was a little blood, though I doubt the audiences were ready for guts being spilled in a mainstream movie back then. Everyone still had the 'videogames are just for kids' mindset back then.

My Opinions- 

It's a pretty good book, for what it is, which is an introduction of the characters to pump you up even more for the game. I know the game does explain the character stories during the character profiles and endings, but it is nice to see it in comic book form. The art is great and everyone is drawn just right based on how the characters looked like at the time. Fighting wise we see some gunfire between Kano and Sonya's team, and Johnny Cage and Liu Kang showed off their moves, though the comic is pretty short and there's not enough time for a long brawl.

The comic also added extra bios for the characters and also listed all the people that worked in the game and the actors (and actress) that played the characters in the actual game. There was also an offer for a Mortal Kombat shirt on the last page. Aw man, Mark of the past, why didn't you get this? It probably wouldn't have fit me nowadays anyway.

It's a cool comic and it brought back great memories of when this game was new in the arcades. I still remember my friends from high school being all crazy and telling me just how amazing and incredible this game was. Anyway, it's a good comic and good piece of MK history. If you're somehow able to snag a copy somewhere, go for it. Unfortunately, it'll probably go for more than just three bucks nowadays.