Characters of the Mortal Kombat series

[1] Series creators Ed Boon and John Tobias drew design inspiration from the stop motion adventure films of Ray Harryhausen, especially his depiction of Kali in The Golden Voyage of Sinbad in redesigning Goro with four arms.

[5] Goro is the reigning champion in the 1995 film Mortal Kombat that follows the events of the original game, and was a life-sized animatronic model that cost over $1 million to construct and required over a dozen puppeteers to operate.

He is not playable in Mortal Kombat X, but appears in the game's story mode when his fellow Tarkatans aid D'Vorah in loading captive Shaolin monks before they are confronted and defeated by Raiden, Liu Kang, and Kung Lao.

In Mortal Kombat (2011), during which Raiden creates a new timeline while attempting to avert the events of Armageddon, Smoke is rewritten to become Tomas Vrbada, a Czech member of the Lin Kuei who can transform into his namesake.

[citation needed] In Mortal Kombat Gold (2000), Cyrax experiences flashbacks of his former life as Sonya Blade and Jax Briggs bring him to the Outer World Investigation Agency (OIA) headquarters to restore his humanity.

After Fire God Liu Kang creates another new timeline while stopping Kronika, Cyrax was rewritten once more to become a Nigerien Lin Kuei clanswoman and Sektor's apprentice who wears a powered suit developed by the latter.

In Mortal Kombat (2011), after Raiden alters the timeline to avert the events of Armageddon, Kabal is rewritten to become a former Black Dragon member who became a NYPD riot control officer partnered with Kurtis Stryker.

Amidst Shao Kahn's invasion of Earthrealm, Kabal is grievously injured by Kintaro and kidnapped by Kano, who nurses him back to health with help from the sorcerer Shang Tsung and outfits him with a respirator due to his lungs being damaged beyond repair.

Kabal eventually escapes to join Raiden and his champions in defending Earthrealm, only to be killed by Shao's queen, Sindel and converted by the necromancer Quan Chi into one of his undead revenant slaves.

[129][130] After aiding in Quan Chi, Shang Tsung, and General Shao's failed attempt to conquer Outworld and Earthrealm,[131][132] Rain goes into hiding and allies himself with Havik, who has him destroy Orderrealm's capital, Seido.

[78] Returning as a hidden character in Mortal Kombat Gold, Sektor comes to view the Lin Kuei's grandmaster as inferior and kills him, but is defeated by Kuai Liang before he can claim the title and flees to Japan to form his own clan of cyborg ninjas.

After Fire God Liu Kang creates another new timeline while stopping Kronika, Sektor was rewritten to become the daughter of the Lin Kuei's master armorer, Longwei, and one of its leading warriors, Madam Bo.

She additionally has a more significant role in the series for the first time, as she aids a time-traveling Shang Tsung in retrieving Kronika's Crown of Souls so Liu Kang can restore history after exploiting her blood oath to Sindel.

[164][165][166][167] However, Den of Geek ranked Stryker 21st in their 2015 rating of the franchise's 64 playable characters, citing his sucker-punching of Mileena in Armageddon's opening cinematic sequence and Perlman's portrayal in the animated series, in addition to "really [becoming] something worth caring about in the reboot, where he came off as a likeable, disgruntled smart-ass.

In the game's training mode, Quan Chi suggests that he, Shang Tsung, Shao Kahn, and Onaga work together to defeat the forces of good, but is secretly serving as a double agent for Shinnok.

In the retold events of Mortal Kombat 3 therein, Quan Chi revives the deceased Queen Sindel in order to enable Shao Kahn to invade Earthrealm, after having resurrected the dead elder Sub-Zero — killed by Scorpion in the first tournament — as Noob Saibot to assist him in his plans.

[175] NetherRealm Studios character artist Solomon Gaitan initially referenced actor Yul Brynner when digitally sculpting Quan Chi's facial features for Mortal Kombat X.

Shinnok also makes a brief appearance alongside the forces of evil in the battle royal in the opening cinematic sequence against the other combatants at the Pyramid of Argus, when he summons giant subterranean skeletal hands that pin Raiden to the ground before he is struck with a lightning blast.

[201][202] Den of Geek ranked Shinnok 35th in their 2015 rating of the series' 73 playable characters, critical of how he was "just a lazy Shang Tsung" in MK4, while "it wasn't until Armageddon and Mortal Kombat 9 that they were able to make him seem like an actual threat," and further adding that in MKX, he "was pretty fun as a hybrid of Emperor Palpatine and Loki.

In the new timeline depicted in Mortal Kombat 1 (MK1), Tanya is the leader of the Umgadi, a group of warrior priestesses that guard Outworld's royal family, having become one of its most trusted members after Emperor Jerrod was murdered on her predecessor Li Mei's watch and she quit in disgrace.

Bo' Rai Cho trains Kung Lao after he learns of Liu Kang's death, and in Deception, he rescues Li Mei from having her soul trapped inside one of the corpses of Onaga's army.

[48] Joe Pring of WhatCulture rated Li Mei sixth in his 2015 selection of the twenty worst Mortal Kombat characters for "[wearing] a bandana while dancing around in metal-plated underwear", which he stated "deserves to be ridiculed".

[237] Originally named "Malvado", the Spanish word for "evil",[238] Steve Beran conceived a matador-style look for the character,[239] but the idea was nixed due to the belief that it did not fit in with the Mortal Kombat universe.

[48] Bryan Dawson of Prima Games named Moloch in his 2014 selection of the "cheapest" Mortal Kombat characters for his playable version in Armageddon having "a near infinite combo limited only by the size of the stage" and "ridiculous reach with most of his special moves".

In the rebooted timeline of Mortal Kombat 1, Nitara has a minor role in the game's story mode, in which she allies herself with Quan Chi to conquer Earthrealm in order to prevent mass starvation of her people after they overfed on Vaeternus' creatures.

[48] Her storyline as an arms dealer who disguised herself as a man was ranked fourth by John Harty of WhatCulture in his 2015 selection of the series' ten "Most Badass Backstories", calling it "a concept that speaks to a person having some serious balls".

Ebenezer Samuel of the New York Daily News called Ferra and Torr a "highlight" of the game, with their in-gameplay mannerisms "distracting enough to take your eye off the battle, and quirky enough that it's worth watching.

Gavin Jasper of Den of Geek ranked Geras 20th in his list of the series' characters, with praise for his time manipulation powers and calling his ability to alter the game's match timer "such a wonderful, brilliant asshole move".

However, Mortal Kombat 1 reveals the fight over the possession of Hourglass between both Liu Kang and Shang Tsung ripped apart the fabric of reality, creating a multiverse where the two rivals, alongside their allies and enemies, each become victors and Time Keeper Titans of their respective new timelines.

[298] She was ranked 23rd in the Den of Geek's series characters list, the second-highest final boss behind Shao Kahn, which praised her as "a great major villain" who was "scary not because of her pure might, but because of her affronting divinity".