Mortal Kombat fans appear to be literal sorcerers, able to manifest their basest
desires into reality. Everyone knows how they made Mileena a part of MK11,
but they've been known to materialise new characters out of literal nothing.
So let's go back to the beginning and see if
we can untangle this yarnball of a canon. Welcome to Canon Ball.
The original instance of this was with Ermac. In MK1's audit menu, beneath "Reptile Battles",
a listing for "Ermacs" is present. Given its proximity to the secret fighter listing,
and with the rumours of a glitch that turned Scorpion's outfit
red circulating around the time (similar to how Reptile was a green Scorpion recolour),
many believed this was a second secret boss. Such rumours persisted through MK2's
lifespan and into the MK3 series. When the ninjas came back for Ultimate MK3, the team
decided to make Ermac into a real character as a fun nod to the community misconception.
With Ermac now real, fans could rest easy knowing they had everything they wanted.
Except that Rain guy in the attract mode, what was that about? Rain isn't really an
example of this, but people will mention it if I don't. Rain was a fake character
made for the UMK3 intro to make people play more to find him.
Church: "Wait. That's illegal."
He became real in home ports and MK Trilogy.
MK2's The Pit II features a pair of kombatants in the background that fans latched onto pretty
quickly. They were a green-clad Liu Kang and a burning Liu Kang, and fans gave them the nicknames
"Hornbuckle" and "Torch" (the former coming from one of the SNES version's cryptic hints
as a nod to Leanne Hornbuckle, who is thanked in that version's credits. Given the other hints
referencing Ermac and Kano, the latter of whom has a fake counter in this game's audit menu,
it made sense for fans to think this was another secret fighter, but nothing ever came of him. But
come Deadly Alliance, Blaze was introduced. Blaze was intended to be Torch (renamed for obvious
legal reasons), but once his character was fleshed out, it became impossible for the two to be the
same from a story standpoint. Still, fans crafted lore for Hornbuckle based around Blaze's story as
a slave of Onaga's followers, making him one of the latter. Newer versions of The Pit regularly
feature Blaze or another burning man in the background, but Hornbuckle has been replaced by
the likes of Rain and is unlikely to become real any time soon. Maybe when Onaga makes his return?
Fans were pretty chill until 2006, when Midway released this wallpaper for the then-upcoming MK
Armageddon. The wallpaper features everybody who's ever been playable or fightable in a mainline MK.
Except Motaro, Chameleon and Khameleon. And Meat. Who is Meat? MK4 had a bloody skeleton model used
for certain Fatalities. Prior games used a single sprite for this, but in 3D games, you need a full
model rigged to an animation skeleton. And at that point, you might as well have some fun with it,
so the team included a method to use this model in place of your character's model. He was presented
as an actual character in strategy guides for MK4 and Gold, even though the game itself treats
him more as a costume. Still, the team and game files supposedly called him "Meat", and
that may have influenced fans latching onto him. When fans demanded his inclusion in Armageddon,
the team just took Drahmin's model, tweaked and recoloured it and said Meat now had muscles. And
that was enough to make the fans settle down. I guess the fandom was more chill in those days...
In a similar vein to Ermac, rumour of a female red ninja also circulated,
starting around MK2's release. But it didn't receive nearly as much attention.
Come MK9, the team decided to make her a real character. They even used the age-old
fan nickname, Skarlet. Her backstory was even constructed to complement Ermac's
as a nod to their similar real world origins. And the existence of Klassic
skins allowed her and Ermac to be played in forms reminiscent of their supposed origins.
So with Skarlet checked off, fans were quick to find a new dumb meme to latch onto and demand
unusually respectfully for this fandom. Tremor had always had a bit of a weird following since
his debut in MK Special Forces. He was just a basic male ninja, but buff and in brown. I
think it was just people wanting the full set of male ninja colours, since we had yellow,
blue, green, grey, black, red and purple, and orange was commonly repped by Scorpion,
so brown and pink were pretty much all that was left and you'd never find someone
openly asking for a pink male ninja in those days because gay or something.
I believe I recall some fans wanting Tremor in Armageddon on the Midway forums at the time,
but not enough to make it happen. But with the Skarlet demanders and the Meat requesters backing
them, Tremor got a nod in the Vita port of MK9, where he appeared in the exclusive challenge
tower added for that version. He then became fully manifest in MKX's DLC, fifteen years
after his original debut. He even made it into an animated movie as the sub-boss. Ah,
the power of fans who promptly forgot about him after his first nerf and moved on to the next one.
The current focus of this kind of attention is Hydro. Hydro was a character created for the
Malibu comic series in 1994. He was Sub-Zero's partner on the mission to kill Shang Tsung,
and he was killed by Scorpion in the fourth issue. Despite this minimal screentime, fans
started recreating him in fangames and Mugen, but that's just for the hardcores. Where he went more
mainstream was when, in 2011, needing an opponent for the newly cyberised Sektor and Cyrax in the
Season 1 finale of MK Legacy, Kevin Tancharoen and crew used Hydro, which was a name mega fans would
get a kick out of. And this seems to be where the current hype started, but remained mostly dormant
until Skarlet and Tremor made it in. Hydro has since been referenced in a tower consumable in
MK11, and Rain has a number of blue skins that can easily be used to make a Hydro variation.
I think the thing holding him back is that, since his debut, Rain was introduced and given aquamancy
abilities, making Hydro redundant. His only chance of getting in is as a cyborg,
possibly replacing Smoke and Sub-Zero in the main trio. But then, like Sektor and Cyrax, fans will
demand a human version, and then complain when he replaces Rain to avoid redundancy.
Amusingly, the Malibu comics had both an aquamancy-wielding ninja and a character
called "Rayne", before rain the aquamancy ninja was ever created.
But after Hydro gets in, who's next? Hornbuckle's always had a small following,
like Tremor used to. What about Belokk the unused demon character from MK Gold? Maybe some of the
unused Deadly Alliance characters? Nah, knowing our luck, it'll be Cole Young or Vera Briggs or
something. God, or Khrome. Remember, it's never something cool or interesting the fans latch
onto - it's something stupid or so minimal as to barely even be concept. Like Jacqui.
If you liked this video, then please watch my non-MK content so it doesn't completely bomb.
If not, then make sure to share it with your enemies so they can suffer along with you.
Today's recommended video is The RealmKast's interview with Charles
Marshall, the writer of the Malibu comics and the creator of Hydro.
I guarantee that Netherrealm will not consult with this man,
and will instead make Hydro just some jobber who loses to everyone. 'Tis the Netherrealm way.