I vote for Sonya 'cause she is sexy!

People can make of the whole ninja thing whatever they want. I've specified my perception of it and I put up in-game proof to support my arguement, and that's what I will hold on to. Even Ed Boon call all of them ninjas as a general term, because it is just easier to generalize a group of people who have something in common, in this case it is masked people.

I don't like generalizations though so I'm not going to do that. I like to stick with the facts and that's what I'm going to do.

But in the end, yeah, ShadowPreacher is right, I'm just an attention seeking whore who wants people to approve of me and tell me I'm right, because I simply cannot live without other people's approval...

(That last part right there... yeah, that was sarcasm)

After Deadly Alliance, I haven't really.

I'm not going to force it upon other people to think my way... It's just, after that game, I haven't seen these guys act like ninjas.

For example, Reptile. But, I have to go to work right now, so I can't really explain my case until eight hours from now.

Take a hike, Goldie Locks

I agree the Reptile in Deadly Alliance is certainly a large exception, as his look certainly evolved a lot from UMK3 to MK4 to MK:DA.

But while I certainly agree that these characters don't really "act" like ninjas in terms of what they do, or what their positions are within their groups/races or who their groups/races are and what they do, to me, it's still just a gut reaction with a lot of people based solely on looks.

I think that for many people, that reaction to the ninja characters likely either predates the 3D games, or perhaps is more of a reaction to the latest MK game, where the "ninjas" were back to being much closer to the color-coded, palette swap look of UMK3 and prior.

Perhaps more knowledgeable MK fans such as yourself and Jaded-Raven are a bit more discerning in your views of characters and you look at things beyond what a characters appearance is, and to me, that's great, really.

But I do think that there are some that have a reaction that's based more on the look of a character that might, for better or worse, color their view on Sub Zero, Scorpion, Smoke, Noob, Reptile, Ermac, Rain and Tremor and perhaps they get dogged slightly for being so similar in appearance.

Personally, I think that the best thing they could do for these characters is get rid of their color coding entirely. Characters like Ermac and Reptile, in the 3D games especially, got their own style that was unique and very un-ninja-like, yet Ermac still had to have black and red and Reptile still ahd to have some black and green. Why?

Reptile's original MK4 outfit was black and purple and even had he not had a green ninja costume as his alt, I don't think the world would've caved in had he not had that alt.

Maybe it's just me, but I think that these characters would be much better off if they had costumes that more reflected who they were individually and just get away from the whole "hey was the blue ninja once, and he shoots ice, so Sub Zero must always have blue in his costume." Again, why? Cyrax is yellow, Sektor is red, Smoke is gray and they're all part of the same clan. Why does each character have to have a color associated with them?

Ikr ? even Chameleon has his color swaps on all of them.

This, this, and this.

What makes people call them "ninjas" is that they all dress so similarly. The big exception like you said is Ermac. Especially his alt in this game which is truly a thing of beauty. Also Sub-Zero's MK3 look is another good example.

I mean even in this game you can look at Rain, Sub-Zero, Smoke, Scorpion, and Reptile (especially his alt), and see that even though the colors and some of the details are different they all share a similar design pattern. Same for the female ninjas.

Now there is a bit of a canon explanation for this. Smoke, the Sub-Zeros, Cyrax, and Sektor all come from the same organization so it makes sense that they have some overlap in their clothes as it's more of a uniform. But that doesn't explain Rain, Reptile, and Noob. (Although in his case I suppose you could say that he's dressing similarly to how he did when he was a live).

The point is these people dress alike and are thus grouped together as ninjas since the most visible of these characters, Scorpion, is in fact a ninja.

I don't know why you're saying this like it's a bad thing, but that's a hallmark of iconic character design. Just like how in Street Fighter, Ryu always wears white, Ken is red, Chun-Li is blue, Guile is green, etc.

Or hell, how Superman is always red and blue and Batman is black and gray. And when these iconic character designs DO get tampered with, like Wonder Woman wearing pants and what not, lots of people get pissed off.

I don't know if a lot of MK fans are just blissfully unaware of how it works in other pop culture franchises, or if they just really do think MK should play buy a different set of rules for some reason. But Ermac has always been "the red one" and Reptile "the green one", and truthfully they always should be. Just like you get the occasional SF fan whining about why Sakura is still a schoolgirl or something...they're missing the point.

Now granted, some MK designs are more nebulous (Kano, Sonya, Jax) but in their cases their iconic characteristics lie don't lie within their outfit (cyber-eye and knives, hot blonde chick, big black guy), but you could make the argument that these characters also would be better be off with a more consistent appearance. (MK9 Jax and MKvsDC Jax don't even look like the same person...this is NOT a good thing.) You'll notice that even the more generic looking characters like Liu and Cage always have their trademark black/red and black/blue outfits, or at least ever since their iconic look was nailed down. (Ryu had red hair and slippers in SF1 after all). But you can't expect the ex-pallette swaps, or, (sorry I'm not sorry Jaded-Raven) NINJAS to abandon the iconic look that made people like them in the first place.

Back in 1995, as those of us who were actually there in those days can vouch for, no one gave a flying fuck about Ermac's "journey" or if he contained King Jerrod's soul. It was, "oh cool! now there's a RED one!!"

Likewise, I remember and appreciate when MK had at a least a SMALL degree of subtlety and was content to leave the green ninja as "rumored" to be a lizardman in disguise. Then came Deadly Alliance, where they said "well his name is Reptile, so we're changing him from ninja to GIANT 2-LEGGED IGUANA!! Get it?! GET IT?!?"

I'm sure there's quite a few of you of new-school fans who'll come in here singing the usual company line of "that's how he was always intended!" and "technical limitations!" (as if I'm somehow unaware of that). But that being the case, give me the good old days of technical limitations anyday.

^ I agree that the colors of some characters are iconic and they should definitely keep them but that doesn't mean that the designs can't progress and change.
I think Tekken is a good example here. Before Tekken 5 the characters always had different looks but they still had their iconic sort of looks to them.

I want to say Street Fighter is a bad example. Seeing those same outfits over and over again was more about Capcom reusing the same sprites over and over again which is actually a large complaint but they also go over the top crazy with alts and even other color choices.

So actually now that I think about it Capcom offers a shitload of variety in that department while keeping everything iconic in the game.

I agree with most of this. Most of MK charachters (and most charachters in any franchise) tend to have similar looks from one iteration of the game to another, and even if costume itself is not similar, you'll always have patterns (like Cage being always shirtless), colors (like the ninjas), or items (like Kung Lao's hat) that will be there so the charachters are easy to recogince. But luckily since MK4 this franchise has alternate costumes wich have given a lot of charachters the chance to wear something diferent to what people are used to see, and Nightwolf's, Cage's and Liu's alternates are great examples of this. I think MK ninjas should always keep the same colour for their primary costume, but as the rest of the charachters, they should be allowed to have an alternative costume that is in no way similar to the first one, and that includes changing the colour.

"Blissfully unaware of how it works in other pop culture franchises?" Given the ages of many people on this site, this might be one of the more condescending statements I've heard in a while.

I was there before 95, but in 95, I wasn't saying "oh cool! now there's a RED one!!" and no one that I knew in arcades were overly thrilled either. When they saw Ermac and Rain, alot of the chatter in arcades that I went to was usually of the "seriously, a red one now? This is getting ridiculous" variety. But this is just from my recollection.

And personally, I couldn't care less what color an iconic character has. I'm sorry if that ruffles a few feathers, but if a character gets a new look and it's better than the one before it, I don't care what colors are in it. If Capcom came out with a look for Ryu where he had a beard, long, scraggly hair, and he wore something that wasn't a karate gi, but he looked cool, I wouldn't even remotely care.

I grew up watching a batman that had grey tights, a blue mask, blue gloves and blue boots. The show was campy, but that was Batman to me. Yet I don't recall caring that Batman was turned in to what Tim Burton and later Christopher Nolan turned him in to. Why? Because it was awsome. He wore all black instead of gray and blue, he no longer sounded like a science professor, and the entire tone was changed from campy to dark and gritty, and I loved every minute.

Honestly, the fact that Sub Zero is "the blue ninja" isn't why I like him and I don't feel that I need colors to identify certain characters. If that's what other people need to identify him, then so be it, I guess. But for me, I guess I just don't need to have some sort of unifying elment to a character's look just because they're an "icon" or whatever.

Liu Kang was just as cool wearing black only as he was wearing black and red and if he looked cool wearing something else, I'd be more than fine with that as well. We'll just agree to disagree.

I'm colourblind. so the colour-coded characters never really attracted me. Sincerely, when they were placed next to eachother, they looked like the Power Rangers... and that's not very flattering for a dark and gory fighting game.

I don't mind that they are colour-coded though, but it would thrill me if they did it in a better and less obvious way. Ermac is mostly black in his newest outfits, yet he has a bit of red here and there to compliment on the black. As long the outfit and colours fit the characters, I don't care if Reptile is green or purple. My favourite intepretation of Reptile is his MK4 look and that has nothing to do with his colours. It was the outfit and his overall look I thought was cool.

True that Batman, Wonder Woman and Superman has generally kept the same design, but when looking at how their heroes look, they do look incredibly campy compared to, say, Marvel's characters who have changed and updated their looks and outfits with the times. Storm went to wear white to wear sky blue to wear silver to wear black, and she has always been recognizable.

I wish the MK palette-swap characters would be alot more independent of one another, that their looks will be alot less alike and be alot more unique from eachother. The latest MK did a good job by going in the right direction for SOME of the characters, like Ermac, while others have taken a step back, like Rain.

The day none of the palette-swap characters look alike would be a happy day for me.

I really couldn't have said it better myself.

Honestly, I really don't feel the need to equate a color with a character. I don't see why some characters should have to adhere to this while others certainly don't. It makes no sense to me.

Also, when will MK have a pink ninja? They need to complete the Power Rangers set! lol. Okay, maybe they don't.

Am I the only one who doesn't really think any of them look alike? OK, Cyrax and Sektor's human outfits are similar, Reptile (alt) and Rain do kind of have the same outfit style (which is dumb, imo, Rain's Armageddon primary was better and fit him a lot more. In MK9 he looks like just a warrior, in Armageddon he looked like a warrior mixed with a snooty prince and that's exactly how he should look), so some of them do have sort of the same think going on which points back to when they looked alike but.

Come on, now, they really don't look much alike. They all have their different designs and looks and personalities and I don't understand why we can't define each of them as their own character instead of 'palette swap ninja instant hate'.

The only thing that bothers me about their designs is that most of them have black hair. OK, Sektor, Sub-Zero, and Scorpion are asian, understandable. Cyrax is... i don't remember, dark-skinned, OK.... Rain's edenian... sure... why the hell does Ermac have black hair too are you kidding me

I dunno. I'm just starting to think the whole 'ninjas' argument is getting sort of silly. Classifying them all as ninjas isn't bothering me a whole lot, but using that as a basis for disliking the character?

/skitters away.

Does Ermac have hair?

Baraka407, what do Adam West Batman, Tim Burton Batman, Christopher Nolan Batman, comics Batman, and animated Batman all have in common? Oh right, they're all instantly recognizable to any and everyone as Batman (men?), just different takes on the same character. We all know the 60's show was campy and Dark Night was not. That's not the point.

That's what I'm saying with fighting game characters too. If Ryu never had the classic white gi again, *YOU* might not care, granted, but a lot of people would. Understand that you do not speak for or think like the majority on this. And I have no problem with exploring different looks on the characters; that's what alt costumes are for. And SF4 does have a fuckton of alts. Some of them are awesome. Some of them...not so much, but hey.

As for Zero, a lot of people DID like him because he's the "blue ninja". Ninjas have always been a pop culture hit, and blue is a lot of people's favorite color. So put a blue ninja in a fighting game and of course people are gonna gravitate to him, and the fact he had the cheapest move in the game and ripped people's spines out didn't hurt. What was definitely NOT the reason for his popularity was his mythical alleged "character development" I keep reading about on this board. (Read: being chased by robots.)

Jaded-Raven:

You can call them "campy" if you like, but Superman, Wonder Woman and Batman have been beloved characters since the mid-20th century. There's a LOT of longevity there. If they're not to your personal taste...so what? Who's even talking about if you like them or not? And there's something to be said for characters who never change (much) and still remain popular in whatever decade we're in. The flipside of changing characters "with the times" is that when time moves on, you're left with a suddenly dated character. Why do you think everyone laughs at the whole 90s extreeeemmme movement? You try too hard to make a character look "kewl" and than he looks stupid a few years later. Meanwhile Bats and Supes are still around and always will be. A truly iconic design is always timeless.

And why is Storm wearing blue, black, or silver somehow more "hip" and with the times than her classic white? Did I miss out on a memo here?

Also, Mortal Kombat is a game where spandex ninjas fight to save the world from a "wrestler guy with a cow skull on his head". No MK fan is ever allowed to make fun of comics for being camp. That's why I thnk the MKvsDC backlash was ridiculous. On one hand we had a bunch of super-powered, mostly one-dimensional/archetypical beings in brightly colored spandex...and on the other hand we had the DC characters.

And is that Nightwing in your sig from the new NRS fighting game? (I haven't been following it) If so he looks pretty camp himself...talk about a design that'll be laughably out of date in a few years, if it's not already.

Yeah in one of his outfits in um... Armageddon I think it was.

Yup. In Deception/Armageddon, you could see his sideburns in his alt costume. His concept art had him, originally, mask-less with his black hair showing, as well as a soul patch/beard.

On the subject on the Supreme Champion, my vote goes to Sonya.

Ermac has also got black nose hair in Mortal Kombat 9 I believe.
In Mortal Kombat Trilogy there is a handful of biographies and endings where the palette-swap men are referred as ninjas. Scorpion is a ninja, he was first and the palette-swap costumes are based on him – unless they came up with Sub-Zero first – thus everybody is called a ninja by NeRdS.
With more resources, I don't think that any proper MK9 character should be called solely a palette-swap character except Tremor because they're much more than that today. Noob Saibot used to be a "Scorpion clone" in Mortal Kombat II much like Smoke, due to the lack of resources. Error Macro has gotten his distinctive look but he, like the most of them, is still as well a palette-swap ninja in MK9 when using the classic costume.

First off, I'd like to state that I fully understand and respect your choice to denounce the general usage of "ninja," so please don't be upset of think less of me for using it.

I'm not being rude or anything, I'm just asking.

Anyhoo, of all the MK ninjas, the only ones that still look alike to me are Scorpion and Subby.

Reptile, as you have stated, has changed drastically from one game to another.

Ermac truly has gained his own look in recent years.

Noob Saibot finally looks unique, and he's too dark for any of us to tell, anyway. lol

Rain actually looks like how the MK ninjas should have looked in the early games.

Smoke is freakin' hot.

As for Cyrax and Sektor, I expect them to look the same, as should all the Lin Kuei cyborgs.

It would be cool if Sub-Zero started wearing something other than ninja-esque attire.

This one's a toss-up for me and I think both characters are pretty solid. But I prefer Sonya more and figured she's the underdog in this fight, so she gets my vote.

Ahahaha.

His hair bothered me for awhile.

Then I was like

.... 'k'

Who cares that they're intstantly recognizeable as Batman? Why does that even remotely matter? Personally, I think that you're looking at those Batman characters after the fact. Yes, the bat symbol makes them all instantly recognizeable, but that's just one small part of their costume. Their overall look was completely different and so was the tone and content of what the same character appeared in. So going along that line of logic, I don't think that the world would explode if the identifying color for Rain wasn't a part of his outfit.

However, and I was actually going to say this in my original post, I do realize that I'm probably in the minority here. You're absolutely right, and while I don't think that I made it sound as though I was speaking for anyone other than myself, it certainly wasn't at all my intention to do so.

I'm not one of those people that thinks that certain characters have to be in MK because they're "classic." When MK came out, none of these characters were "classic" and when MK2 came out and Sonya and Kano weren't in it? Alot of people that I talked to about the game were like "good, they were the worst characters in the game."

Granted, I like both of them, but I don't see them or any other characters as sacred cows that must not be messed with. I don't think that the original trilogy must be in every game, appearing in exactly the same or very similar to the horrendously outdated costumes they had back in the 90's.

I'd love to see modern, more grown up, gritty, realistic takes on a lot of these characters, but I sincerely doubt we'll ever see that because god-forbid we actually progress in to the current era of games.

As for your reason why Sub Zero was popular: I'm going to go with "shoots ice and rips spines" over "he wears the color blue." Sorry, but the fact that people like the color blue isn't really the best reason for why a character should always appear in a game looking a certain way.

By the way, I just wanted to point out that I'm not mad here or anything like that and I suspect that you're not either. I just disagree with you, so ya know, no harm, no foul.

Yeah dude (Baraka) I'm not mad or anything at all either. There's room for lots of different views in this world and I don't dislike people because they disagree with me. There's only 2 or 3 people here I seriously dislike and I'm sure they know who they are.

With Batman I'm not talking just the symbol. Speaking in terms of broad strokes (and this is key), everyone from West to Bale was still in pretty much the same outfit: the the cowl, the cape, and the dark (varying degrees) colorscheme. Just like all the ninjas, even with their new looks, will always have a mask and/or hood and their original main color somewhere, usually with a V-shaped top of some sort.

Yes, we all loved the ice and the spine rip, but if there wasn't something that made us pick Sub-Zero to begin with, we never would've found that out.

And I totally agree with you on Sonya in the first game. Everything about her design and her story sucked, and not to be mean or anything, but her original actress was....not attractive. I think a lot of people here try to re-write history on Sonya, the way I remember it she wasn't popular till Keri Hoskins came along in MK3, and also the movie coming out around the same time. I didn't miss her in MK2 anyway. With Kano I thought he looked cool but he was hard to use. His knife and cannonball had akward control inputs and that's why I think he missed the cut.

On the other hand they were both very anticpated when it got out they'd be back for MK3. Absence makes the heart grow fonder.