Mortal Kombat The Movie Action Figures

Hasbro released a line of action figures of all of the characters from the first “Mortal Kombat” video game circa 1994.  I can’t quite tell for sure because the date stamp on the figures all say 1991, because their bodies were, for the most part, recycled from G.I. Joes.  However, most of the heads were original (I’m wasn’t a G.I. Joe collector so I’m not sure what all was recycled) since they attempted to at least make these look like the characters.

The line consisted of all of the characters from the game, except for the secret character,  Reptile.  This breaks down to Liu Kang, Johnny Cage, Raiden, Sub-Zero, Scorpion, Sonya Blade, and Kano.  The two boss characters, Shang Tsung and Goro, were also released, though Goro will not appear in this article because he came in a multipack that I never could find in stores.

I used to keep these figures in a box together when I was a kid but somehow they got separated, which means that Liu Kang, Raiden, and Johnny Cage will not appear in this article unless I can find them at a later date.  While Shang Tsung appears in this article, the figure is actually the movie version and not the game version.  Upon reviewing some photos of these figures from other sites, I seem to recall that I owned the game Shang Tsung.  He too is missing.

Sub-Zero

Sub-Zero has always been my preferred character in the “Mortal Kombat” franchise because I hate memorizing moves.  Even after not playing these games in over 15 years, I still remember all of this dude’s moves (which is the reason why I have, and continue to, totally suck at “Street Fighter” games).

This figure didn’t actaully come with the cloth (soft goods) outfit–I took it from the movie “Frozen Sub Zero” figure and put it on this one because it’s a better figure.

Scorpion

Over the entire run of the Mortal Kombat franchise, only one character comes in second to my favorite, Sub-Zero: Scorpion.  His moves were easy to use and his fatality was one of the more exciting of the first game.

This photo isn’t of the Scorpion figure but actually the Sub-Zero.  Hasbro did release a Scorpion figure as part of this line, but he was one of the few figures that I couldn’t find when I was putting this article together, so I just did, with Photoshop, what the toy makers did the first time: use yellow cloth and yellow paint instead of blue.  Literally.  This is also what the developers did with all of the various differently-colored ninjas in the games (its a process called “palette swap”).

This figure didn’t come with a soft goods either, but the movie version did.  I also had this version and it is currently lost.

Frozen (Movie) Sub-Zero

This is the movie version of Sub-Zero, which came with the soft goods outfit that I later moved to the first Sub-Zero because it looks more like the character than this one, which just looks wrong.

Sonya Blade (Movie)

Sonya’s outfit looks nothing like the Sonya in the game, but this is the “movie edition.”  Gotta love those. : /

Kano

Kano is one of my least favorite characters from any of the games and was usually my go-to dummy to beat up on in.  At least the figure looks pretty accurate.

Shang Tsung (Movie)

Here’s Shang Tsung… I think?  Actually… I don’t know…  This one just doesn’t make sense.

This is actually the “movie version” of the character, but even then, this is still a fail because they could have at least used an older actor to portray the character in the film.  This doesn’t even look like the younger Shang Tsung in the film!  Then again, when have movies based on video games ever been true and kind to any source material?  Something tells me that the figure designers had spent all their budget or energies on creating the figures that actually look something like the characters and so they just used something from another product line.  According to YoJoe.com, this was a figure called “Budo” from a cancelled action figure line called “Ninja Commandoes.”

Custom Ninjas

I used the same color swap process that I used to re-create Scorpion to create these virtual custom figures of characters mostly that didn’t exist until later on in the franchise.

First is Reptile, who was released as part of the Hasbro line, but I never owned the figure.

Second is Ermac, the red telekenetic ninja that came out in “Ultimate Mortal Kombat 3.”

Third is Smoke, a secret character in “Mortal Kombat 2” that later became a playable cyborg ninja in “Mortal Kombat 3” and a playable human form ninja in “Ultimate Mortal Kombat 3.”  Hasbro also released an official Smoke figure.

Fourth is Rain, a ninja that controls the weather.  He, too, first appeared in “Ultimate Mortal Kombat 3.”

There’s a story that the developers of “Mortal Kombat 3” weren’t allowed to use any straight-up “ninja” characters in the game so instead they changed the appearance of Sub-Zero to more of a generic martial arts character and introduced cyborg “ninjas” to counteract the loss of the classic ninjas.  Then, when “Ultimate Mortal Kombat” came out, the developers were able to put the classic ninjas back into the game, including classic Sub-Zero, Scorpion, Reptile, and human Smoke as well as several new ninjas including Rain and Ermac.  Noob Saibot also returned as a playable character in some versions of the game.  However, because he is essentially just a black silhouette of the same ninja model, I decided not to make a fake custom of him for this article.

In all, the line wasn’t a “flawless victory” but it wasn’t that bad.  The likenesses weren’t very accurate and the costumes were relatively generic and representational rather than accurate portrayals, but for 1994 they weren’t too bad.  I can recall lines that were considerably worse, namely pro wrestling and figures based on movies. My semi-custom Sub-Zero looks decent by today’s standards for toys of this scale and if the ninja chararacters had come this way in the first place then they would have been fantastic by 1994’s standards.

For more photos of some of these characters, including some that I don’t have or couldn’t find, visit this YoJoe.com article.