If Jade is cut and yet Smoke is included in the game, then something's wrong with this picture.

I never really cared for Jade, she was just the generic masked female to me.
Her slot best saved for great potential such as myself, Li Mei.

Kind of hard to feel much sympathy with the Jade fans when they continuously bash and shit on Jax for possibly being included in the roster.

Jade was at her best in Deception. She had pursuits independent of Kitana, but still favoring her ties to Edenia: going after the traitor, Tanya. It's not a particularly deep story, but it was a logical transition from Shao Kahn's little-known enforcer to Sindel's. I could easily see her having performed some of the uglier tasks required to protect and enforce Sindel's rule during that time.

If she does come back, I hope they continue down that road of separation between her and Kitana. They share a long history of being assassins for a tyrant, and are friends as a result, but Jade strikes me as being the one who still has that colder assassin personality beyond her loyalty to Edenia. Kitana is of royal stock, and always came across as an aspiring monarch who sets her time under Kahn's rule firmly in the past.
I think it's fitting that Kitana would model a style after the woman she spent so long with working for Kahn. It's a noble thing to do, and fits her personality. I couldn't see Jade doing the same in reverse, though.

I also feel it's still worth remembering that Jade will return in a future game (Pretty much guaranteed, given her broad appeal), if she doesn't return in MKX in some form or another.

What has she ever done aside from hide behind trees in MK2, follow Kitana, or babysit Tanya tbh?

I don't hate her design, I love it... Always have.

But seriously - her MK9 ending was the most interesting thing that has ever happened to her.

I love Jade. But i definitely want Li Mei who is one of my favorites.

Kung Lao and Jax have each already been able to show a significant sign of value in previous games. They could each have their own standalone games if they wanted. Jade really hasn't.

In what way? What kind of solo Kung Lao or Jax story could be told, right now, that couldn't and shouldn't also involve Liu Kang and Sonya, respectively? Some of the enforcers like Baraka and Reptile and even minor characters like Khameleon or Sareena have more potential for standalone games than KL and Jax do, storywise.

MKX might very well change that, but as of now, their existences are dependent on their partners, though they've tried propping up Jax a few times, making Sonya's beef against Kano in MK:SF (and the whole game) his, him going after Hsu Hao alone in MK:DA (why wouldn't Sonya also want him dead?), and then making him one of the two dead heroes to return in MKD: Unchained, complete with an ending where he just murders Onaga. All of these felt forced, like they just want Jax to be a bigger deal than Sonya, but to me, he'll always be a second-rate Sonya whose only qualities really are his moveset and fatalities.

It's okay to dislike Jade for being a sidekick, or prefering the movesets, designs and/or fatalities of Jax and Kung Lao, but let's not kid ourselves, they are sidekicks too. Those three aspects (especially gameplay and design) are probably why casuals prefer them to Jade, as they're not as big on the story as hardcore MK fans are, so basically, the casuals' preference of these two to her makes more sense.

Kung Lao =Deadly Alliance, and there is a chance for MKX. There is plenty of backstory for Kung Lao, such as grudges with Goro, his ancestry, the possibility of Liu Kang staying dead and him assuming the mantle, and much more. The reboot made him into a scrub, but if you recall, he was kind of a badass in the old series.

Jax is a major player in the special forces with enough backstory to allow him his own missions. There is plenty to expand upon with the Black Dragon versus Special Forces that Sonya doesn't really need to be a part of.

Jade has successfully stayed a pallet swap. No real defining personality traits aside from her move set.

They said Jade will not be in MKX. Now obviously she won't be playable but does that also mean she won't even appear in story mode? We should at least see her in story mode.

Jax will always be synonymous with Sonya like Jade is to Kitana. There's no getting around it, folks.

I don't care for either character. It's just a fact. Jax has historically been more important to Mortal Kombat than Jade, regardless of the degree.

Yeah Jax and Sonya are seen as two independent characters who work together. Same for Kung Lao and Liu Kang. I don't know maybe because they're not pallet swaps.

@diluba

First, MK:DA was not Kung Lao's game. No more than the previous games were Liu Kang's. Secondly, Kung Lao's story in that game was all about avenging Liu Kang. Thirdly, Liu Kang will never permanently stay dead, so Kung Lao will most certainly not assume any mantle. Kung Lao is not the Kuai Liang to Liu Kang's Bi-Han.

Besides, if Kung Lao's potential lies primarily in him being a successor to Liu Kang, then his potential is very limited. He certainly won't become MK's Nightwing (now that's a former sidekick who succeeded on his own).

Other aspects of his story, like his grudge towards Goro, isn't something that warrants an individual spinoff, but rather should be part of either a prequel about him and Liu Kang, or it could be explored in a core MK game, like MKX. As for his ancestry, well, what that means is that his ancestor might deserve his own game (or rather a fighting game set in his time), so it wouldn't even be about the modern Kung Lao, even if his MK9 ending was canon and he was the original re-incarnated, unless his ancestor was exactly like him. Plus such a game would just end with him getting killed by Goro, anyway.

As for Jax, again, I don't see why Sonya couldn't get or be part of any stories that strictly involve Jax. A proper Special Forces prequel should not be all about him (again).

The only reason Jax seems more important than Jade, is because Ed Boon has a boner for the guy, that's all. If Ed liked her anywhere near as much as Jax, she probably wouldn't have missed out on many games after UMK3.

Riiiiiiiiiiiiiiiight.

Saying that Jade is an irrelevant character is one thing but then continuing that thought by saying ''She should step aside to be replaced by an even more irrelevant character''............I just can't.

I don't know your definition of irrelevant, and if you're referring to popularity then i agree, but Li mei did in 2 games more than Jade has done in 6, she's nobody's sidekick, and she wasn't dependant on anyone.

Very correct. She won a tournament by herself with no help.

I don't have the energy to explain why Kung Lao isn't just a filler, so let me just focus on the one thing MK fans say that really is a bit amusing.

"(insert character name here) is only famous because Ed Boon boners!"

Ed Boon is the creative director, but he isn't the main composer of the story arc. I am sure the same rules apply to any character, sans Scorpion.

Jax is more established than Jade because from the start, there was something more to build upon. Regardless of if Sonya was in a Jax game or not, he could build his own story. What's more, is if you really stand back and look at screen time, Jax is equally as relevant to the plot of the alternate timeline as Kitana, if not more.

Yeah, Jax gives off a strong sidekick impression. I think that is mainly in part due to him appearing in a sequel. If Jax was in MK1, he would be idolized as Sonya's equal by trilogy purists.

On the flip side, Jade did technically make her appearance alongside Kitana. Hell, she was a secret character, and fans ate that shit up (Reptile). You know where that has landed her as of now? "I DON'T LIKE YOU TANYA, I LOVE U KITANA!"

That's really about it.

Meanwhile, Jax has his own (shitty) video game, he is an established authority of the Earthrealm forces, an instantly recognizable appearance to casual MK fans, and the dude literally has to keep pulling Sonya out of bullshit. Honestly, even though Jax isn't my favorite character, I personally think he has been more useful than Sonya.

So to restate whatever point I am making.

I am not the biggest Jax fan, I am not a Jade fan, but even I can stand back and see that Jade has been pretty boring, especially in the alternate timeline.

I'm not sure why so many people hate Jax so much. According to MK3, he is "thought to be the strongest man on Earth." He was the first character to use extensive grappling attacks, and had the power to create earthquakes with his empty fist. He's Earthrealm's resident badass, and he has a pretty distinctive personality for an MK character: aside from being an archetypal Angry Black Guy, he's also a technology whiz and the only smoker in MK... except for, ah, Smoke, I guess. And far from him being Sonya's "sidekick," their relationship is more like a protective big brother/headstrong little sister situation. On top of the fact that he's actually her commanding officer. I wouldn't go so far as to say that Sonya is actually Jax's sidekick, but that would make a lot more sense than the other way around.

None of this even requires bringing up his starring role in the Special Forces game. I wonder if maybe it's because of that game that people got sour on Jax?

Now to be fair, Jade really isn't a sidekick either. She spent her time in MK2-3 as an antagonist to Kitana, ordered to be an enemy spy in the guise of a friend (who also faced a moral quandary of her own, making her the series' first true unwilling antagonist). It was a fairly compelling way to make her into something more than a Kitana clone. But unfortunately, once MK3 was over with, Jade struggled to have a strong narrative line because her role in the story ceased to exist. She was no longer a spy or an enemy-by-circumstance; the only thing left of her character was to be Kitana's friend and generic Edenian warrior. That's not really the fault of the creators for failing to come up with something else for her to do -- they found "something else for her to do" in MKD -- but it's because 2/3 of the basic foundation of her character fell apart when the story moved on. Once her pivotal character moment came to an end, she had no real momentum to follow up on.

Jade never had much longevity built in, yet characters like Jax and Kung Lao don't have that problem. Jax continues to be Earth's military powerhouse, hunting down threats via the OIA. Kung Lao maintains his somewhat tragic throughline of being the descendant/reincarnation of the Great Kung Lao, whose destiny lies in reclaiming his ancestor's honor but is constantly hampered by living in the shadow of Liu Kang (a pretty unique twist on the usual story, really). Seen from this angle, his brash and impetuous nature in Shaolin Monks and MK9 could be attributed to his central crisis: he should be the Chosen One by all rights, but Liu is kind of standing in his way. This isn't exactly a "sidekick" situation either, since Kung Lao remains a pretty compelling character on his own as the Avenging Descendant, and he blossoms in MKDA when his rivalry with Liu Kang comes to an end. (MKD screws up his line of development, but really, it did that to everyone who died.)

Come to think of it, the only classic character I can think of right now who really fits the sidekick profile is Smoke, who has never been much without one or the other Sub-Zero brother. Or if you want to count MK4, Fujin is the straight up definition of a sidekick.

Long story short, Jade is actually contributing more to the story by dying than she did in the old timeline by surviving. When Liu Kang similarly became stale in the old timeline, his death in MKDA kicked off a compelling turning point for everyone who knew him. That's not to say that I dislike Jade in any way. But she really was never built to last; her story lived and died in MK3. A lot of people will surely hate me for saying this, but when you really look closely at it, Jade is kind of the Darrius/Dairou of the classic era, whose real plot significance seems limited, by its very nature, to the events of a single game.

I was always a fan of Jade. The secret fight with her in MKII is still my favorite hidden battle of all time. She was such a challenge back then. Everything about her was grand, whether it be looks alone or moves. That being said, I don't mind her setting this one out. Sindel's massacre in the last game has to have some lasting effects. I imagine Jade was chosen to be one of the deceased characters this time around because they are either A.) unsure of what they want to do with her B.) wanting to reintroduce Tanya to the series and don't want her immediately being looked at as an "evil" version of Jade or C.) a combination of both

Jade had the best titties outta all the girls in MK2011