I was going to work on the next update of the Top 200 Fighting Game Endings, but then it was revealed that the next downloadable character for Injustice: Gods Among Us is none other than Scorpion from Mortal Kombat. Not just any Scorpion, but Scorpion as designed by Jim Lee. Which essentially means he’s wearing overly-elaborate armor and he doesn’t have any underwear over his pants. Not that he did already, but now he DEFINITELY won’t.

Talking about Scorpion is still on-topic, so waiting a little longer for the next countdown update isn’t so bad, right?

Alias: Hanzo Hasashi
First appearance: Mortal Kombat (1992)
Powers: Pyrokinesis, resurrection, teleportation, enhanced strength
Other media: Appeared in movies, comics, the Mortal Kombat animated series, live-action web series, a novel and an episode of Drawn Together

Time to explain Scorpion to people who… don’t… know comics? Well, this is awkward.

Scorpion first appeared in the first Mortal Kombat game as a palette swap of Sub-Zero, originally played by Daniel Pesina. In his profile, little info was given on him. Just that he was a mysterious ninja who didn’t seem to like Sub-Zero, which suggested they’re from rival clans. Through his Fatality, it revealed that he wasn’t human due to his skull head under the mask and his ending revealed his origin: Sub-Zero killed him and he was reborn as a spectre, bent on revenge. He also left a wife and son behind, but could never see them again because why not just rip off all of Spawn while you’re at it?

Wait, they came out the same year? Huh. Snark retracted.

Scorpion succeeded in killing Sub-Zero and returned to Hell. Then he popped back up for some unknown reason and figured it had something to do with Sub-Zero being seen walking around. He entered the second tournament to take care of Sub-Zero once and for all, but then got weirded out when he saw Sub-Zero defeat an enemy and spare their life. He figured out that this was the younger brother of Sub-Zero, who had taken up the mantle and was a bit on the pure-hearted side. Scorpion let Sub-Zero live and decided that he’d make amends by becoming something of a guardian angel to him.

Despite being the most popular character in the franchise, Scorpion was nowhere to be seen in Mortal Kombat 3. It still bewilders me. When they upgraded it with Ultimate Mortal Kombat 3, Scorpion was brought back into the fold, as well as a myriad of other ninja characters who were all just the same actor in different colored sprites. Joining him were Reptile, Classic Sub-Zero, Ermac, Noob Saibot and in the next follow-up, Mortal Kombat Trilogy, Rain and Chameleon. Scorpion’s deal was that Shao Kahn recruited him for his siege on Earthrealm, but Scorpion realized that Sub-Zero was one of his targets, so he turned on him. Then he went back to Hell, because that’s where he keeps his stuff.

They released a side-scrolling prequel called Mortal Kombat Mythologies: Sub-Zero, which finally gave more of an origin to Scorpion. Scorpion was part of the Shirai Ryu ninja clan from Japan. Just your average bunch of ninjas, really. The Lin Kuei ninjas were rivals to the Shirai Ryu, so when evil sorcerer Quan Chi had a special mission in mind, he decided to play both clans against each other. He hired Sub-Zero and Scorpion independently to acquire a map. The two ended up fighting for it and although Scorpion begged for his life, Sub-Zero killed him anyway because he was kind of a dick. Which was the point of the game’s story. Quan Chi repaid the Lin Kuei with the bones of the entire Shirai Ryu clan, as well as Scorpion’s family. So consider that part from the first game about his family still being alive as being retconned. Sub-Zero needed to enter Hell to save the world and did so, but he briefly crossed paths with Scorpion, who was led to believe by Quan Chi that Sub-Zero was responsible for all those deaths.

In Mortal Kombat 4, they threw away the idea that Scorpion was the second Sub-Zero’s protector by having Quan Chi insist that the second Sub-Zero was the one who did all those murders after all. Scorpion believed him because he was practically Quan Chi’s lapdog, but after beating up Sub-Zero, he discovered the truth. Quan Chi banished him back to Hell, but Scorpion grabbed onto him and dragged him down with him.

In the next game, Quan Chi got away from his never-ending beatings and escaped Hell. Quan Chi started up a big supervillain plot with fellow evil sorcerer Shang Tsung along with their own group of henchmen. It was an interesting time of plot decisions for the series as the game Deadly Alliance started out by killing off major characters Liu Kang, Goro and Shao Kahn in the intro. Then in the intro to the follow-up Mortal Kombat: Deception, they revealed that Deadly Alliance ended with the deaths of nearly all of the good guys. Scorpion included, as an attempt to sneak into Quan Chi’s fortress led to Scorpion being beaten by demonic henchmen Moloch and Drahmin. Scorpion was shoved into a “Soulnado” (a tornado of souls pulled from Heaven so that Shang Tsung can feast forever) and his body and soul were torn to pieces.

Scorpion was reborn before the Elder Gods, the cold beings who watch over Earthrealm, yet never really ever do anything (much like the Guardians from Green Lantern). They gave Scorpion some swank gold armor and a holy sword with a mission to become their new champion and save reality from the threat of Onaga the Dragon King. Awesome idea. After all, Scorpion was THE mascot of Mortal Kombat and yet he was never anything more than a supporting character. Kill off most of the good guys, turn Raiden evil and make the popular zombie ninja from Hell into the one true hope in saving the day. Brilliant!

But it was just a big swerve. Instead, the TRUE champion of the Elder Gods was Shujinko, Mortal Kombat: Deception’s unlikable protagonist in the form of the world’s most gullible old man. After being out of a job, Scorpion was super pissed. Not that he truly cared about his quest, but because of his pay. The Elder Gods agreed to resurrect his dead ninja clan if he helped out. They decided instead to just make them mindless and undead. Great prank, guys.

In the game Mortal Kombat: Armageddon, almost the entire cast of the franchise’s history got together to have a huge battle royale in the desert, with Scorpion siding with the villains. In the latest Mortal Kombat game, they revealed what became of Scorpion: dead with an ice sword shoved into his back. I figured he’d be able to come back from that eventually, but it’s a moot point. Everyone was dead except Shao Kahn and what was left of Raiden. Raiden magically sent a message to his younger self, back in the days of the first game, along with flashes of the timeline.

In this new timeline, Scorpion’s role was brief. Raiden tried to convince him not to kill Sub-Zero and it almost worked, but then Quan Chi showed up and was all, “Hey, remember that time Sub-Zero killed your family? No? Let me show it to you with my magic! No way is this shady!” Scorpion killed Sub-Zero like in the original game and kept on as Quan Chi’s enforcer. Probably for the best, since most of the cast is dead thanks to Raiden’s fuckery with the timeline and Quan Chi’s boss Shinnok is preparing to clean up. Maybe Scorpion will find his way in the next game.

This isn’t Scorpion’s first time fighting the DC heroes, as he appeared in the non-canon Mortal Kombat vs. DC Universe. He did a whole lot of nothing for the most part. Chased after Sub-Zero, searched for Kitana under Quan Chi’s orders, got punched in the back of the head by Joker’s boxing glove gun. In his ending, he became host of the joint energies of Shao Kahn and Darkseid, which would turn him into the most powerful being in the universe if he were to survive the transformation.

Since these essays are essentially about explaining comic characters to people who don’t read comics, I figure I might as well talk about Scorpion’s comic book appearances as well. There were five official Mortal Kombat one-shots to promote the games over the years, for Mortal Kombat, Mortal Kombat II, Mortal Kombat 4, Mortal Kombat: Deception and Mortal Kombat vs. DC Universe. Scorpion did fuck-all in them except briefly corner and threaten Sub-Zero in the first one and get his new champion gig in the Deception one. The Deception prequel had some really nice art, but they never finished coloring it, so it was released as a limited edition black and white comic.

Between the releases of Mortal Kombat II and Mortal Kombat 3, Malibu Comics released a set of comic miniseries that are really hard to put in order. The series started as pretty terrible, but got better towards the end. Scorpion acted as one of Shao Kahn’s higher-ranking henchmen and was depicted as an evil sadist despite his sympathetic backstory. You’d think that Scorpion would turn good and Sub-Zero would be the bastard, but that didn’t appear to be the case at all. In the series’ final issue, Sub-Zero (the original one) was the only one left capable of saving the world by getting his hands on a certain magical medallion. He took down Goro by himself and was then confronted by Scorpion. Rather than fight, he removed his mask and told him, “Yeah, I killed you back in the day, but that was fair and square and you had an honorable death. If you’re still mad about that, then tough shit. I’m-a go save the world. Peace.” Scorpion just shrugged and spat fire onto him. Sub-Zero crawled over and grabbed the medallion while dying from being on fire because he’s badass like that.

Scorpion’s weapon of choice changes in different mediums. In the games, it’s a spear connected to a rope. In the movies, it was a little piranha plant from Super Mario Brothers coming out of his hand. In the eye-meltingly bad animated VHS Mortal Kombat: The Journey Begins, it was just a rope that wrapped around people. In the comics, it was a spiked ball at the end of the rope. Then in the Defenders of the Realm animated series, it was just a cool gold chain.

His phrases of, “GET OVER HERE!” and, “COME HERE!” are recorded by creator Ed Boon. In the game Mortal Kombat: Shoalin Monks, you can play as Scorpion in Versus Mode. When you do that and spam his spear attack again and again, you’ll eventually hear him yell, “GET OVER HERE, BITCH!” and, “GET THE FUCK OVER HERE!” The game also gave us the beautiful image of Scorpion’s death scene, where he’s dragged down into lava by a bunch of skeletons and he gives the T-800 thumbs up before submerging completely.

He had his own short-lived cooking show at one point. Lot of chopping was involved.

Similar Posts:

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• Malibu Kombat: Part 3
• Malibu Kombat: Part 1
• Malibu Kombat: Part Gold

Posted in Guide to the Injustice Roster, Video Games by Gavok |