Mortal Kombat is one of the most popular and well-known fighting games ever made. It has been around for over 20 years, yet not a single comic book could depict the atmosphere and violence. It’s almost like Malibu purposefully ruined the series — made it kid-friendly, and screwed up all the lore. The series ran for 3 years with 31 issues. The writing was horrific, the art was bad, and there was no gore or fatalities. The art style also made everything bright and colorful like some sort of superhero comic. Where is the dark atmosphere? The moody colors? It didn’t exist, I never even knew these comics existed growing up, there’s probably a reason for that.

There are 2 large series that ran and they were both horrible. They tried building up to the Mortal Kombat tournament, but each series went absolutely nowhere. If I had to pick one, Battle Wave was better than Blood & Thunder but only slightly. There were a few mini-series that ran as well as a few one-shots. Goro, Prince of Pain was probably the worst of the bunch, U.S. Special Forces had terrible new characters, and Rayden & Kano was just pointless. There were one-shots for Kung Lao, Kitana, and Mileena, as well as two Tournament Editions that were the finales for Blood & Thunder and Battle Wave. There was one issue 0 comic as well as a one-shot for Mortal Kombat 4. All were terrible, they all had the same crappy writing and art despite the art and writing teams being mixed up. Why didn’t the MK team stop these guys? It was horrendous and offensive on every front.

Kitana & Mileena had a really bad lore inconsistency. It said their secret of them was revealed on the front cover, but the entire comic is completely wrong. Kitana wasn’t taken from a previous king of Outworld. They made the old Outworld look like something from King Arthur. What the hell? Shao Kahn invaded Edenia and brainwashed Kitana into thinking she was his true daughter. He killed Sindel and then later brought her back from the dead to make her his queen, that’s what really happened. Sindel was never married to this King Arthur-looking king. Why did they make this crap up? It was so bad! I also hate how Smoke always says Toasty! He doesn’t say it! Dan Forden pops up during MK3 after a big combo and says it! Just because Smoke and Toasty kind of relationship doesn’t mean you can bastardize it. Why didn’t they make Toasty a new ninja? A fan-made him one, he was orange and had the power of fire. Why did they come up with lame new characters?

In the end, the comic series is just plain bad. There’s no redeeming value here, you won’t learn any new secrets from the series or anything hidden. It’s all crap that’s made up and the entire comic line-up doesn’t go anywhere with the game. Just stay away and play the older games instead.