On an overcast Sunday morning, Yonge and Dundas Square houses complete cosplay anarchy. And some drizzle.
The Justice League has assembled for a launch event. A tall, tailor-outfitted Batman and Robin, Flash and Green Lantern constructed from ornate masks and common hoodies, and a charmingly homely Wonder Woman pose for photos. They’re coming out of the woodwork. A rep for WB is momentarily thrilled when she thinks Deathstroke’s arrived, then confused, discovering it’s actually Marvel’s Deadpool (Slade Wilson, Wade Wilson, tomayto, tomahto).
It’s a lovely finish to the weekend. Admire caped crusaders, snap shots, and then beat the living shit out of them in Injustice: Gods Among Us, a new DC universe fighting game by NetherRealm Studios, the birthplace of Mortal Kombat.
The game bugs me. And not just because the Justice League look like Todd MacFarlane figurines. It’s an ill-fitted crossover on top of a troublesome recycled tone. It’s a backwards kash grab.
“We didn’t just want to skin a Mortal Kombat game with DC characters,” says Mortal Kombat creator Ed Boon, visiting Toronto to promote the game. “We wanted this game to have its own identity. It was definitely a challenge for us. The whole idea of doing a fighting game without fatalities, it’s like, how do you do that?”
Boon has given Superman massive head trauma before. The final Kombat game released by original publishers Midway, since bankrupt, was Mortal Kombat Vs. DC Universe. College-try story, but tepid combat and cookie cutter moves earned a weak reception. Worse, using DC idols came with compromises. Fatalities, Mortal Kombat’s spine-tearing claim to fame, were declawed. Most of the ultra-violence was redacted. One of Joker’s finishers, where he gigglefits from shooting his opponent in the head, was edited, with the victim (and the violence) off-screen. An early trailer showed everything.
“It was a different group of people at DC that we dealt with,” says Boon. “The first time it wasn’t a bad experience, but this experience was definitely better. It was a lot more of a collaborative thing as oppose to them telling us what can’t be done. They were volunteering things that would be cool this time around.”
A 2011 revival brought Mortal Kombat back into fighting form, taking the series back to its roots and cranking up the gore so a new generation of kids could try to hide playing it from their parents. It even added Freddy Krueger, as suggested by someone amazing in the marketing department. That made me feel as if they finally received all the letters I sent in grade 4.
Injustice doesn’t play exactly like the NetherRealm’s previous title. Move sets are new, some shockingly technical, and there are environment sensitive attacks you can pull on first-time chumps. But a well playing game alone isn’t the reason launch attendees are spandex-dressed.
Boon reiterated that the gore’s been toned down, that it’s still rated T for Teen. Yet the blood-red colours of Mortal Kombat gush through Injustice‘s skin. Skeletal vivisections are absent, and upon defeat the loser just takes a knee, but gaping, bone-deep flesh wounds pock torsos by the fight’s end, like someone tossed Green Arrow a turkey carver.
Comic blogs shivered when tie-ins revealed that the story begins with Superman punching a pregnant Lois Lane out of earth’s atmosphere. Writer Geoff Johns was a consultant, but the story was handled in-house. It’s not that DC hasn’t been violent, but Injustice dials in its carnage from an alternate universe.
As the inventor of Mortal Kombat, Boon’s heard everything there is to say about violent video games. “It’s the game that started it all,” he says, “it’s still in a lot of people’s memories.” Mortal Kombat is a shrine to immature violence. Brutality is its namesake.
Violence isn’t the problem with Injustice. Maybe I’m a sore nerd, by juvenilely wedging in properties rankles. Indulging in alternate realities, Injustice bends over a spike pit to give Wonder Woman a reason to punch a hole into Aquaman.
Injustice may not offer the heroes we deserve. But they’re the ones we get. It’s an obvious cash-grab, and WB Games has a few more on the way. As far as appropriateness it’s still a culture clash, unlike movie maniac Krueger. Even after a decade, Capcom’s Marvel Vs. Capcom games never seem to wrestle this jagged juxtaposition.
This is another sharp recess into the new-nostalgia, the ‘90s extremey-ness where murder jokes are the pinnacle of good writing. Mortal Kombat fits right into that groove, where most hero comics still fight to escape it. Why kompromise?
