Mortal Kombat series

**Mortal Kombat** (commonly abbreviated MK) is a popular series of fighting games created by Midway, which in turn spawned a number of related media. It is especially noted for its digitized sprites (which differentiated it from its contemporaries' hand-drawn sprites), and its mix of bloody and brutal action; its graphic Fatality killing moves contributed to the founding of the ESRB.

## Overview

The original *Mortal Kombat* was developed as a reaction to the popular Capcom fighting game *Street Fighter II*, with simpler controls and digitized graphics. The original idea of *Mortal Kombat* was thought up in 1989 along with storyline and game content, but not put to arcades until 2004 (and game systems). Some say the game's graphic violence was gratuitous, and was only included in order to generate a public outcry and controversy that would garner publicity for the game. Although highly controversial, the mix of realism and violence propelled *Mortal Kombat* to widespread and historic renown.

Throughout the series, the game was noted for its simplicity of controls and the exotic special moves it featured, as well as a tendency to replace the letter 'c' in a word with the letter 'k', thus deliberately misspelling the word "combat" in the title, as well as any other words that begin with the letter 'c'.

## Characters

### Mortal Kombat

* **Abir Abu Zamir:** A Saudi Arabian Mercenary, who grows toxic plants and owns a war horse.
* **Ancestor:** Based on the alien-liked at we know it. He is the outworlder from the beyond who haves sacrifice itself.
* **Baraka:** An unpredictable warrior in service of Outworld emperor Shao Kahn.
* **Belokk:** Actual secret characters can be accessed via rotating a specific box for a normal character (Shinnok's box unlocks Goro, Reiko's box unlocks Noob Saibot and Cyrax's box unlocks Sektor), and when a player tries to do this to Tanya's box, a question mark (that was rumored to unlock Belokk) appears; however, this was later listed among the game's technical glitches, as there was no such thing to unlock the character.
* **Blaze:** An elemental who had been pursuing a quest when he was attacked on a bridge by an ancient sect.
* **Chameleon:** As a partially transparent male ninja who imitated all the palette-swapped human ninjas' special moves. The game simply referred to him as "one of Shao Kahn's deadliest warriors. There is no information to suggest that he is from the same race of Raptors as Reptile and Khameleon.
* **Cyrax:** A member of the Lin Kuei clan of assassins who underwent transformation into cyborgs. Along with counterparts Sektor and Smoke, Cyrax was assigned to hunt down the rogue former clansman Sub-Zero, but unlike Sektor, he and Smoke were able to rediscover their human side, with Cyrax in particular joining Sonya Blade and Jax Briggs as a member of the Outer World Investigation Agency after having his soul restored.
* **D'Vorah:** A member of an insect-like race called the Kytinn, from the island realm of Arnyek, which was merged with Outworld.
* **Dullahan:** A ex-member of the Brotherhood of Shadow.
* **Ermac:** A  fusion of the many souls destroyed in Outworld's wars, only to be controlled by Emperor Shao Kahn and his Shadow Priests.
* **Erron Black:** A mercenary gunslinger in the service of Kotal Kahn who was respondent with the Black Dragon, until Kano's betrayal. In his ending it is shown that he was hired by Shang Tsung 150 years ago to murder an Earthrealm warrior, in exchange for having his aging slowed down.
* **Ferra & Torr:** A symbiote pairing consisting respectively of a young female rider and a giant masked brute, and were found wandering the Tarkatan wastelands before being made to serve as new Outworld emperor Kotal Kahn's personal bodyguards. They are of an Outworld species in which the rider bonds with its mount.
* **Gargon:** A half demonic-god, the gargoyle king, and the former emperor of Netherrealm.
* **Goro:** Part of the four-armed half-human, half-dragon race, called the Shokan. He has been champion of the Mortal Kombat tournament for 500 years before being defeated by eventual tournament champion Liu Kang.
* **Henge:** He comes from Nightmare Realm called by the ninjas that were defeated by Liu Kangand Bo. Henge was defeated by Liu Kang after having a short fight with Bo.
* **Jade:** Is that of an assassin in the service of evil Outworld emperor Shao Kahn, which was expanded and onwards to her being a friend and confidante of Princess Kitana, as well as a fellow patriot of their otherworldly home realm of Edenia that was enslaved by Shao Kahn.
* **Jarek:** The brutish and short-tempered second-in-command of the Black Dragon clan.
* **Jax Briggs:** As the physically-imposing United States Special Forces superior of Sonya Blade.
* **Jerrod:** The son of Kitana and Liu Kang, the former emperors of the NetherRealm from the far future. Jerrod grew up in the NetherRealm to become it's superior emperor.
* **Johnny Cage:** A cocky movie star who provides the comic relief of the franchise.
* **Kabal:** A former member of Kano's Black Dragon criminal organization who had reformed as a force for good and thus became one of the chosen defenders of Earthrealm, while notably suffering an attack by Outworld emperor Shao Kahn's extermination squads that left his face disfigured and thus concealed behind a mask.
* **Kai:** A former member of the secretive White Lotus Society who meets Liu Kang in the United States, while Liu Kang was recruiting and training a new generation of Shaolin warriors.
* **Kano:** A calculating thug, mercenary, and member of the international crime cartel known as the Black Dragon, Kano is also the top fugitive and persistent nemesis of Sonya Blade and Jax Briggs of the Special Forces.
* **Khameleon:** The last female of Reptile's race of Raptors, who were driven to near-extinction by Shao Kahn, who then merges their home realm of Zaterra with Outworld. Khameleon informs Reptile that Kahn is responsible for their race's extinction,[13] but Reptile falls under Kahn's influence once again and turns against Khameleon. Having failed in her attempts to assassinate Kahn, she wanders the realms while contemplating her revenge. Khameleon seeks to attain this power for herself in order to keep it away from Kahn while exacting revenge on him for his actions against her race.
* **Kintaro:** A tiger-striped Shokan (the same race as Goro and Sheeva) who joins Kahn's forces in order to conquer Earthrealm.
* **Kotal Kahn:** An Aztec-inspired warrior whose realm of Osh-Tekk was merged with Outworld. He was additionally worshipped in Earthrealm and served Mileena before overthrowing her from the Outworld throne for treason.
* **Kung Lao:** He is a former Shaolin monk and a former member of the White Lotus Society who stands in the shadow of his great ancestor, the Great Kung Lao. Kung Lao is the best friend of the series' male protagonist named Liu Kang. He gained considerable popularity and favorable critical reception, in large part because of his famous weapon, which resembles Oddjob's hat.
* **Kurtis Stryker:** A leader of the Special Riot Control division in the NYPD and a somewhat stout-looking man sporting an often-criticized "urban" design.
* **Lady Kitana:** The princess of the otherworldly realm of Edenia and the biological daughter of Queen Sindel, as well as an adopted daughter of the evil Emperor Shao Kahn.
* **Liu Kang:** A Shaolin monk who enters the Mortal Kombat tournament to save Earthrealm (Earth).
* **Lord Raiden:** Based on the Japanese thunder god Raiden-sama or Raijin, and portrayed in the series canon as the thunder god and appointed protector of Earth, Raiden defends the planet from myriad otherworldly threats alongside his handpicked warriors. He commands many supernatural abilities such as teleportation, flight, and control of the elements.
* **Meat:** A horrific experiment created by Shang Tsung who escapes the sorcerer's clutches before he could be completed.
* **Mileena:** A dual sai-wielding assassin, she acts as the evil twin and magenta palette swap of Princess Kitana.
* **Motaro:** A race of Centaurians (a race of centaur-like creatures with ram-like horns and a long metallic rat-like tail). Motaro's kind have come into conflict with the Shokan, a four-armeded race to which Goro, Kintaro and Sheeva belong, as Kahn favors the Centaurians and aids them in the defeat and subjugation of the Shokan race. As a Centaurian, Motaro possesses a great strength as well as a razor-sharp tail that fires energy blasts from its tip, and the power of teleportation. He also has an absolute immunity to projectile attacks, as Motaro's skin appears to have some sort of reflective surface that automatically repels long range attacks to the point of sending them right back at opponents.
* **Naberi:** An official powerfull fighter known as the mysterious character that everyone cannot knows it, until if revealed the Revenant.
* **Nightwolf:** A Native American shaman and historian who is chosen as a warrior of Earthrealm during Shao Kahn's invasion.
* **Noob Saibot:** He initially had no backstory, aside from being established as a demon of the Netherealm worshipping a fallen Elder God, established him as the original Sub-Zero, who had been killed by his nemesis, Scorpion.
* **Oniro:** Was the Grandmaster of the Lin Kuei before its reformation.
* **Penance:** The gladiator, was an prisoner of the Brotherhood of Shadow.
* **Queen Sindel:** The mother of Princess Kitana and the unwilling wife of the evil emperor Shao Kahn.
* **Rain:** Hails from the otherworldly realm of Edenia like Kitana and Jade, but he does not share his compatriots' allegiance to their homeland and instead opts to serve evil Outworld emperor Shao Kahn.
* **Reiko:** A general of the armies of Shinnok, Shao Kahn, and the Brotherhood of Shadow.
* **Reptile:** A Raptor, a nearly-extinct bipedal humanoid race of reptilian creatures and loyally serves the series' recurring villain Shao Kahn in hope that his race will be revived.
* **Sarah Nac:** The former daughter of the Chaosrealmer and the half-edenian, half-chaosrealmer.
* **Scorpion:** An undead ninja specter seeking revenge for his own death at the hands of Sub-Zero.
* **Sektor:** A member of the Lin Kuei clan of assassins who underwent transformation into cyborgs. Along with counterparts Cyrax and Smoke, Sektor was assigned to hunt down the rogue former clansman Sub-Zero, but unlike Cyrax and Smoke, Sektor never bothered to rediscover his human side and has pledged his complete loyalty to the Lin Kuei. He battles with Sub-Zero over leadership of the Lin Kuei, and also forms his own faction, the Tekunin, composed entirely of other cybernetic warriors.
* **Shang Tsung:** A powerful evil warlock, he is a demonic shapeshifter who absorbs the living souls of those he defeats in order to maintain his youth and power and is able to change his appearance, including by morphing into other characters while retaining their abilities and movesets in-game. Shang Tsung is usually portrayed as the right-hand man of series archvillain Shao Kahn and the main rival and archenemy of Liu Kang.
* **Shao Kahn:** Is depicted as a brutal warlord who is the Emperor of the mystical realm Outworld. Feared for his godlike strength and knowledge of black magic, he seeks to conquer all of the realms of the *Mortal Kombat* universe and merge them with Outworld.
* **Sheeva:** She is of the multilimbed Shokan species from the otherworldly realm of Outworld, like Goro and Kintaro. She has served as the personal protector of Outworld emperor Shao Kahn's queen, Sindel, while harboring a bitter hatred for Motaro, who is of the Shokan's sworn enemies, the Centaurians.
* **Siang:** A  powerful fighter that becomes his own character when Sing and Sangfuse together to create an awesome warrior of the Order of Light.
* **Skarlet:** A warrior created by Shao Kahn using sorcery and the blood of countless warriors, only to be released by Shao Kahn as a last resort. Her sole purpose is to discover Quan Chi's true reason for attending the *Mortal Kombat* tournament. Skarlet uses kodachi swords and kunai knives as well as her power to turn into, and absorb, the blood of her victims.
* **Smoke:** His role in the series has predominantly been that of a friend and confidant to the younger Sub-Zero; both are part of the Lin Kuei clan of assassins who boldly choose to defect after learning of the clan's plan to convert its members into cyborgs. Smoke was ultimately captured and transformed, and given orders to hunt down Sub-Zero, but unlike his robotic counterparts he had retained his human soul.
* **Sonya Blade:** the commanding officer of the United States Special Forces and later of a specialized U.S. government agency. Her goal in most of the games is to pursue and capture Kano, as well as eliminate his criminal syndicate, the Black Dragon. In later games she is joined in this effort by her comrade Jax Briggs.
* **Sub-Zero:** A formidable fighter possessing the innate ability to control ice in many forms.
* **Tanya:** A native of Edenia like Kitana, Rain, and Jade, Tanya is introduced in *MK* as appearing innocent, but is regularly portrayed in the series thereafter as untrustworthy, as she elects to serve on the side of evil, even if it means betraying her comrades in the process.
* **Triborg:** Operatives from the Special Forces found hidden storage data for the Lin Kuei's Cyber Initiative, and in an S-F facility, scientists proceeded to upload the data into a test body. This caused the minds of Cyrax, Sektor, and Smoke to intermingle, bringing the body to life. After killing everyone in the facility, Triborg now seeks to destroy all organic life.
* **Tundra:** An cybernetic version of Kuai Liang, aka Sub-Zero.
* **Vesper:** A warrior of his unnamed queen's army.
* **Wynd and Rayne:** These two sisters were servants to the God of Thunder in his home within the high Heavens.
* **Zenkaro:** He is a colonel of Shao Kahn's Shokan forces.

#### Ultimate MK (version)

* **Enjin:** The Earth God, as a sumo who is shrunken to be Goro's size cause other wise it would be fair.
* **Fujin:** The then-unnamed wind god that first appears in *MK Mythologies* as one of the four guardians assigned by Raiden to guard Shinnok's amulet, all of whom Sub-Zero must defeat in order to acquire it.
* **Nimbus Terrafaux:** Nimbus Terrafaux was rumored to be a playable character (a kickboxer) in the first *Mortal Kombat* game as an unlockable secret character. It was later revealed as a creation of *Electronic Gaming Monthly* as part of an April Fool's Day joke, though Ed Boon had originally hinted at the character in an interview with the magazine, which then intentionally published false information on this character, complete with doctored screenshots and a fabricated storyline. The character was included in Game Revolution's list of "Top 10 Old School *Mortal Kombat* Characters" in 2011.
* **No Face:** Was a member of the Black Dragon organization.
* **Nu'o'c:** The Water Goddess decided to flesh out his back story a bit more.
* **Quan Chi:** A sorcerer and necromancer from the eternally-damned Netherealm. He is a malevolent opportunist who will ally himself with anyone who can help him further his own goals, and his conniving nature has earned him several enemies, including *Mortal Kombat* mainstays Sub-Zero and the ninja specter Scorpion.
* **Sareena:** Is among Quan Chi's three personal assassins, along with Kia and Jataaka, who are ordered to kill Sub-Zero before he reached Quan Chi.
* **Shinnok:** A disgraced former Elder God who was imprisoned in the eternally-damned Netherealm, which he rules alongside the nefarious sorcerer Quan Chi while seeking revenge against Raiden for his banishment.
* **Tasia:** An expert swordswoman and ninja master member of the Black Dragon.
* **Tremor:** A brown palette-swapped ninja who is one of Kano's Black Dragon cohorts and possesses the ability of geokinesis (earth manipulation), he escaped from Special Forces custody during a prison break orchestrated by Kano, to whom he was blindly loyal. Kano assigned him as his lookout and guardian of a portal leading to Outworld, but Tremor was eventually defeated by Jax.