the crowd=MK fans who hated the douche personality of kung lao

what happened to the Clint Eastwood persona of Kung Lao

I agree, I liked Kung Lao more when he wasn't that wayward and stupid like Ray-dude. He wasn't all that bad in MK9 either, but could've been better, certainly.

I liked him too. Sure his other personality was better, but I didn't hate this one either. I felt like his jealousy made sense.

Kung Lao wanted to be the one to avenge his ancestor, not Liu Kang. So when he beat the Deadly Alliance and Kintaro, he deserved the right to brag. He's just trying to show that he is just as good as Liu Kang.

Kung Lao is probably the only character who I always felt got their best depiction in, of all things, the Malibu comics. I still remember that scene where he was walking through the Living Forest all peaceful-like, until one tree got up in his face. He tried to bypass it and it smacked him; he thus proceeded to utterly annihilate it. That image of Kung Lao as someone who does their foremost to avoid conflict whenever possible (supported in part by his MK4 bio, living a life without violence in reverence to his ancestral beliefs) is too heavily ingrained onto the character for me; I thus hate what they've done to him.

I sincerely hope against hope that when he returns, they use his arrogant persona to re-establish his old one. Have him think back on his douchiness and arrogance, and his own death, and wisen the hell up. I really loved him until MKSM. Intentionally modeling his persona in 2011 on THAT was infuriating. He just feels like an angry second-stringer stock character. Why the 'jealous runner-up' trope got slapped on him I'll never understand.

I only liked Kung Lao in Shaolin Monks.

Honestly, I think that they were just trying to give him some personality, as opposed to him being the silent, stoic, type or the wise type or the mysterious type. Personally, I would've preferred any of those to what they actually did with him.

But yeah, after reading his bio for MKG and remembering what I thought about him in MK2, especially when I first saw him, and now seeing what he's become, to me it's like night and day.

Alot of people seem to think that Stryker got the biggest bump in terms of what NRS did for a character. This might be going out on a limb, but I think that Kung Lao, a character that used to be among my all time favorites, just might be at or near the opposite end of that spectrum.

Come on, Raiden!! Bring home the gold!

Voting Raiden because I like him.

And also I really don't want this to be Sub vs Noob.

wouldn't it be cool if it ended up being raiden vs ermac in the final? gosh that would be cool. it'd be totally unexpected and awesome!

I vote for Raiden.

Sub Zero.Loved Raiden in the mk9 but he has nothing on the coolest character ever.

Wow, one none palette swap left..and I just voted against him.

Fuck.

I wonder who would be in the quarter-finals if all the matchups were done at random.

Let's go Raiden!

Down with Sue-Zero!

Not an easy one for me...

Raiden used to be my 3rd favorite character and Subby right behind him (4th) with the slightest of margins. MK2011 however changed that and while Subby remains high on my list, Raiden dropped a few places but he is still safely in my Top 10 (I think I'd rank him somewhere from 6th to 8th).

I like both a lot, but my vote goes to Sub-Zero at the moment.

Voted for Subbie. Mostly because of this version of him:

Well Kung Lao, you had an incredible run. You out lasted Liu Kang, and you beat Goro. Looks like you finally avenged your ancestor. *teary eyed*

Voted Raiden because Sub-Zero is boring to me.

I voted for Raiden. I think that people are way too down on him, just as I think they're way too up on Sub-Zero.

Though I have yet to see an MK without him, I can imagine MK without Sub-Zero for a game or two. If anything, I have slight Sub-Zero fatigue and wouldn't mind going a whole game without his plotline. I'd like to see Noob, Sareena, Smoke, Scorpion, etc in a game, acting without a plot that surrounds him.

Call me crazy, but if anything, I think that these characters, while initially put in a good place by having something to do, are now just being held back a little by constantly revolving around this one guy.

Personally, I'd love to see Smoke as the main Lin Kuei protagonist for a game instead of being Sub Zero's sidekick or his rescue project.

As for Raiden, I've seen an MK game without him. It was MK3 and it was one of my least favorite games in the series. Now I could still see a game in the future without him, but at least we've had a break from him once before.

On that alone, I'd rather have him in the next game than Sub-Zero, and that alone makes me want to vote for him. So I did.

Eh... much as I'm not crazy about Sub-Zero (mostly thanks to his obsessed fans on here), I can objectively say that having a game without him would be a huge mistake, just like having a game without Scorpion and Raiden.

People really love these 3 characters.

An MK game without Scorpion, Subbie and Raiden, huh? I wouldn't mind that. MK3 was without Scorpion and Raiden while introducing some new, interesting faces like Sindel, Sektor, Cyrax and Kabal. It was a good game.

Right. Nobody missed Scorpion and Raiden in MK3.

Good call.

I didn't. ^^

That's great. I know YOU didn't. I also don't care.

It's not about what YOU like. If you've been paying attention it's not even about what I like, because as I've said I'm not the world's biggest fan of Sub-Zero.

It's about what the majority likes, and if I was somehow magically given the reigns to make an MK game I'm not leaving Sub-Zero out.

If it was always about what the majority likes, then the story in Story Mode would have played out differently. Many of the characters would have been different in personality. Many of the changes in the newest MK wouldn't have happened.

MK3 didn't follow the majority. MK4 didn't either. I would dare say MKD did also stray from what the majority wanted, again adding alot of new faces and neglecting many past characters.

Then again, majority wants Scorpion and Sub-Zero, at least nowadays. And they have been in every of the more popular MK games. So I can see that a game without those two, and Raiden, will most probably not happen in any future games.

That doesn't change that I could do without them. MK3 was a game I enjoyed very much, UMK3 even more so, but that was definately not because of Scorpion or Sub-Zero.

The next game would be a good game to wrap up the storyline up to Armageddon. However, the game after that could be a fresh new start and then I wouldn't mind if Scorpion, Sub-Zero and Raiden took a rest and didn't appear in the game.

Except the majority of MK fans loved the story mode, and it's been critically acclaimed and held up as an example for future fighting games to follow.

The posters here on MKO do not represent an accurate microcosm of all MK fans everywhere.