For now, it looks most likely that Ermac and Liu Kang will free them. Ermac has the only ending that makes reference to these five characters. Sindel's ending only features Kitana, and Ermac's fits the overall flow of the storyline better than hers. This whole death/instant ressurection into zombie slaves thing was just a lame excuse to get the regular heroes out for a game, to shift the focus on some of the MK B listers.

Kung Lao, Johnny Cage, Kitana, Sonya, and unfortunately, Jax will all be back in the future. I predict Kung Lao and Kitana at very least making it to MK7 out of this group. For now, I think it's 50/50 that Onaga will return for the next game. He was quite a disappointing boss, and they seem to be building up the now insane Raiden, Shao Kahn's return to power and have also brought up the "One Being" as the big threats for MK7. I also think Quan Chi is coming back, as he had so much build up in the MKD intro, and looks to have survived Raiden's blast.

Hopefully some stay evil to develop a deeper story to their character, and at the end, they are free from the spell.

I'm not so sure about that. Thing is, while they're under Onaga's control Kung Lao and the rest are just mindless zombie slaves. Well whoop de doo, that's a really exciting character development. Might as well bring Hsu Hao back if you want a drone who simply follows orders, at least he had the excuse of a cyber heart.

I guess they could have someone having been freed from Onaga's control, but still with traces of the evil inside of them. But that's already happening with Li Mei, who's currently trying to fight the evil influence the Deadly Alliance put into her. If they can do something different and interesting with it, then they should try having a hero or two stay evil, otherwise do something else with them as good guys, or else don't bring all five back at once. I've lost a lot of respect for Jax, and am totally indifferent to Sonya, so I wouldn't mind those two missing out for a while longer.

We don't yet know for certain if they are just mindless zombies or if Onaga truly corrupted them with the evil in there souls.
Hopefully, in MK7 we'll find out its the latter, and the possible ramifications that can, and should, come from this can give many of these characters' great story boosts.

Since Kitana was once evil....and before anyone says it, Shaolin Monks

....they could say he corrupted her by reawakening the evil in her soul. Since throughout the games she's been trying to change herself from a heartless assassin into a good guy and redeem herself, this would be a big deal for her. Now say while under Onaga's control, she does something really horrible and unforgivable like, just an example, kills Sindel.
Aside from the obvious horror she'd feel that she killed her own mother, that Onaga was able to control her so easily would be confirmation that there is terrible evil in Kitana's soul.
Also consider how the people of Edenia would react. Look at this from their perspective: "Okay, she's served Shao Kahn for thousands of years, then suddenly said she was against him and that she changed....now she's helping this Onaga guy and killed the queen." Kitana's gone to great lengths to earn the trust of her people and because Onaga everything she's built can fall apart.
And also bear in mind this latest tragedy would be on top of a lot of other shit Kitana's dealing with. First Goro "died." Then Liu Kang died. Then she died. Not to mention what's happening with Shao Kahn, Goro, and Mileena.

I also think Sonya Blade can benefit from being evil. While being under Onaga's control, she can supply him with Earth's military secrets and help him destroy the Special Forces. Since Sonya is afraid of loss, naturally she'd be pretty freaked out finding out she helped attack her friends and allies while under Onaga's control.
I also just think it'd be fun to see an evil Sonya, even for just one game. Nice change of pace.

However, the one thing they'd need to watch out for is making sure Kitana and Sonya's reactions to this stuff isn't the same so they don't just rehash each other. Since they idea is similar, they'd need to make sure Kitana and Sonya deal with their situations differently.
Like Kitana loses all hope, while Sonya gets pissed or Kitana goes ballistic, while Sonya's confidence shatters.....etc.

An idea I think would be good for Jax is have him stay evil, even when Onaga's gone. Have Jax remain corrupted, and have him pissed at Sonya for constantly dragging him into all these fights. Or have him blame her for getting him killed by the Deadly Alliance. Or have him sick of being her side-kick, especially since he outranks her.
This would provide obvious conflicts for Sonya, but also give Jax and much needed story boost.

I'm sure Johnny Cage could benefit. I've no real concrete or long term ideas, but I'm sure something could come up.

The only one I think should get free from Onaga right away is Kung Lao. They need to get back to building him as the next hero.
My idea for Kung Lao is that his confidence is shattered after being defeated and killed by Shang Tsung, even after Bo' Rai Cho's training. IMO, Liu Kang should not come back, therefore everyone expects Kung Lao to take his place, but he doesn't know if he can.


Sure killing and immediately resurrecting the heroes probably wasn't the greatest idea, but it can be salvaged if they do something with this plot turn and NOT have Ermac free everyone like nothing happened. That's just lame.
I for one don't want these characters MK7 stories to just be "We were killed by the Deadly Alliance and turned evil by Onaga.....but we're okay now, so no worries."

Turning Sonya evil would actually make her a halfway interesting character.

After playing MK:SM for a while. I actually wanted Cage back and I never really liked him that much. He was so funny.

Hopefully Kung Lao comes back too he was my fav in MK:DA. His fatalities in MK:SM are badass too.

I've never been a big fan (no pun) of Kitana.

Sonya is good and should return.

Jax needs a bit of work.

yeh i can see promise in jax, i think he has plenty of poitential.

i actually never realy liked cage until mksm,

and i deff think kitana or mileena have to die !!! and die for good, we need some cooler chicks, Kira but wid more depth in the story

True, but if well developed their actions can lead to many interesting twists. XiahouDun84 did a great job pointing this with his stories.

I can't really picture Cage being evil. It doesn't really go well with his story. He's sort of there for comic relief, (although I understand that they're taking him more seriously with SM,) and so I couldn't see him being convincingly evil. It would be an interesting character to have remain evil though.

I thought they made Cage more of a comedic relief character.

Like in the MK:SM intro where he gets creamed and says funny stuff. Like "I almost lost my sunglasses" .

I liked him as they didn't make his being a movie star so big like in MK4 and MKDA. It was still there but they didn't go overboard. They made him super confident but thing's didn't all ways go the way he planned.

Easily my fav MK:SM character.