Mortal Kombat 1’s timeline renewal is a great opportunity to hit a factory reset on many iconic characters and reinterpret them in ways that ordinary character development wouldn’t allow. This way, Fire God Liu Kang’s overhauled universe could feature characters as fans have never seen them before, but it seems like NetherRealm is instead taking this as an opportunity to instead run the clock back to Mortal Kombat’s original installment with how it wishes to portray certain characters. This is what a rewritten timeline can afford to legacy characters.
Meanwhile, drastic changes in the same timeline often mean a retcon has happened. This was the thought that instantly came to mind when Chris Redfield rappelled down from a helicopter at the end of Resident Evil 7 with a completely new face and a figure that was much more slender than fans remembered him having in Resident Evil 6. Then, for Resident Evil Village, Chris was portrayed again with a look that was congruent to his Resident Evil 6 appearance. Interestingly, while Chris failed to make a seamless transition to his original appearance, Mortal Kombat’s Johnny Cage has succeeded.
Resident Evil 7’s Chris Redfield Debacle Got Retconned Instantly
Resident Evil’s Chris Redfield wasn’t always the muscle-bound brute he is now commonly characterized as. Still, it has easily become his defining trait after throwing haymakers at Kijuju locals and punching an enormous boulder onto his path inside a volcano. This was fine for Chris, who was fairly indistinct beforehand as an elementary character model, though his original appearance had an average build.
Therefore, Chris suddenly possessing a bodybuilder’s physique was a definite change. Then, when he was reintroduced in Resident Evil 7, it seems as if Capcom wanted to regress the character back to that kind of aesthetic archetype for whatever reason. The game main continuity, meaning that Chris lost all of that muscle mass and had an unmistakable face swap, and that was a tough pill to swallow.
That now represents a blemish on the character’s continuity since it is never explained why he undergoes such a dramatic appearance change, nor why he is suddenly of a larger stature again and with a face more similar to what he looked like before when he shows up in Resident Evil Village. This retcon is not franchise-shattering, but it certainly disrupts any suspension of disbelief for anyone who appreciates canon-wide immersion.
Mortal Kombat 1’s Johnny Cage Takes the Character Back to His Roots
It’s already well-known that Johnny Cage will have a Jean-Claude Van Damme skin in Mortal Kombat 1, which celebrates how Cage was inspired by JCVD and brings that influence full circle with the martial artist’s voice lines and likeness. It makes sense then why NetherRealm would want Johnny to be more lean than his Mortal Kombat 11 counterpart since a leaner body type is arguably more representative of JCVD.
Moreover, this is another full-circle moment for Mortal Kombat since Johnny wasn’t originally muscle-bound either, similar to Chris Redfield, but became bulkier as the franchise went on. Mortal Kombat 1 depicting Johnny with a much leaner figure makes sense, though, because it is a new timeline refurbishing, and means that the series can go back to when Johnny might not have packed on a ton of muscle, whereas Resident Evil tried to slim down its legacy character in the middle of the main continuity and then retcon that decision a game later.
Mortal Kombat 1 releases on September 19 for Nintendo Switch, PC, PS5, and Xbox Series X/S.