final thoughts |

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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 were 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 two 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 and Prince of Pain were probably the worst of the bunch; U.S. Special Forces had terrible new characters; and Rayden and Kano were 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 of the 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 and Mileena had really bad lore inconsistencies. It said their secret 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 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 you have a smoky 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 these 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.

I didn’t really have high hopes for this comic series. Comics are a good avenue for video games because you get a new story along with visuals. The first mini-series wasn’t all that great. The art was good, but the story was very average and just felt like a piece of a level from the game. There were a couple of comics after that that focused on Jace, which is a character I didn’t really like. These issues felt pointless, and I feel sorry for anyone who wasted $4 on them. The second mini-series, Barren, was excellent, with fantastic art and an awesome story. It also brought out a darker side to the franchise that wasn’t seen in the games. Using a run-down facility to capture and rape girls to create babies to keep humanity running. Delta Squad goes in and tries to save them, but there is a constant love/hate thing going on, and it was very gripping.

After this, the series went into some one-offs with Jace again, and I didn’t like them. The third and final mini-series was Dirty Little Secrets, which led up to the ending of Gears of War 3. Karen Traviss wrote the comic this time around, except the artwork was terrible. It was washed out, and the character design was inconsistent with the whole series. There were some character tie-ins to the Gears novels, so anyone who’s read those will finally get to see what these characters look like, such as Trescu, Mathieson, and a few other Garasnaya people. The story was pretty gripping, and it got into the heads of Adam Fenix, Chairman Prescott, and Hoffman. Of course, by now everyone knows how Gears ends, but this is still a great insight.

Interestingly, WildStorm dropped the series shortly after the Barren mini-series, and DC Comics picked it up. I don’t know if it wasn’t profitable anymore. I highly doubt the comic series sold very well. After the switch to DC, the artwork went down the wayside, yet the stories were a little better. Seeing as the series only ran for 24 issues (2 years), I’m guessing after Gears of War 3, they didn’t expect it to sell. It went on for quite a while, as most video game comics are only one mini-series long. If you are a hardcore Gears of War fan, I recommend at least picking up the last two mini-series. The series went through some ups and downs, but it was solid for a franchise that mainly focused on shooting things.