Neal
So did you notice the page in issue one of this? Where they have something called the Ultimate Kombat Kwiz?

Corey
No, it was if that was in the back better than no.

Neal
It's right at the end of the rest of the end of the keynote backup story it's it says Test Your Might. The ultimate Kombat Kwiz, K-W-I-Z This is in Mortal Kombat, US special forces issued number one. Okay, I'm gonna throw a few of these quiz questions actually see how well you know your multiple choice Okay,

Corey
so we're doing it right now. Oh, fuck yeah, we're

Neal
gonna do it right now. That's how we're gonna open the episode man Cory I'm gonna give you the ultimate combat quiz again que wiz This is that. In what world? Is that? How you spell quiz like even in universities. Traditional a traditionally you change the C to A k, this is a que you change to a K W. It's out of control. All right. Question number one. This is multiple choice. So again, let me read all of the choices before us choose okay. What is the name of Sub-Zero's ninja clan? Is it A: the hand, B: the cold warriors? C: Lin Kuei or D: Wang Chung?

Corey
And this seriously the four options they came up with?

Neal
These are seriously the four options on it in this comic book.

Corey
I want to go with, uh, I'll do "C" Alex

Neal
Yes. Lin Kuei That is correct. All right. Well done. Question number two. I don't know this one, good thing there's an answer key. For what movie? Did Johnny Cage win an Academy Award?

Corey
Oh, fuck.

Neal
A: uncaged fury B: fists of stone C: dragon warriors or D: Sudden violence?

Corey
I genuinely don't know.

Neal
Yeah, this. This might have been in an issue of the comics we haven't read yet.

Corey
I think it was.

Neal
It might have been in like Battlewave number one. Honestly.

Corey
I like my chances. I guess though. 25 percent chance.

Neal
Let's hear it.

Corey
Sudden violence sounds like the most likely to be

Neal
correct answer you nailed. Excellent. Okay. Question number three. According to Midways Mortal Kombat two comic book, which warrior won the last Mortal Kombat tournament? This is weird that they're referencing like the official Mortal Kombat two Collector's Edition comic. Yeah. Licensed piece of garbage. A: Liu Kang B: Sub-Zero C: Goro or D: Johnny Cage?

Corey
Who won the last one?

Neal
Yeah, the last Mortal Kombat tournament this okay

Corey
It would have to be Goro wouldn't it then

Neal
It, it is Goro.Goro is the answer but if it's the Midway Mortal Kombat to comic Liu Kang won Mortal Kombat one this.. ah whatever we're gonna take it it's Goro you got it.

Which combat and cannot actively compete in Mortal Kombat A: Scorpion B: Reptile C: Rayden or D Baraka

Corey
can't compete?

Neal
cannot compete

Corey
Rayden can't

Neal
Yeah Rayden cannot compete. Easy one. You got it. Uhh, here's a big one. What is the name of Goro's father?

Corey
Is this really the question?

Neal
It is. A: Goron B: Gorbak C: GoMo. Or D: Cornelius.

Corey
I really wish it was Cornelius. But it's Gorbak

Neal
it's King Gorbak. superb.

Corey
I can't believe I know these I don't know what I was worried about the questions being but like they're surprisingly answerable.

Neal
Alright, well, we got a tricky one coming up next. Okay,

Corey
How many fucking questions are there?

Neal
There's 10 questions. Number six. What secret Mortal Kombat character is named after the game designers. A: Noob Saibot. B: Soob Naibot C: Boon Tobias or D: Boon Sibat?

Corey
Why did they even why did they do this? Noob Saibot obviously but also just like

Neal
Damn dude you know your shit.

Corey
Who owns the book and it's like filling this out. And is like, Fuck, I think it's fucking Boone Tobias, dude.

Neal
Soob Naibot is pretty good. Honestly,

Corey
like if you're gonna bother doing this quiz. I don't know how you don't know all of these just like in passing.

Neal
Sure. How old is Shao Kahn believed to be oh god. 100 years. 500 years? 1000 years or 10,000 years?

Corey
Fuck I don't know. Actually. This one.

Neal
Well, how well We do know that Katana is believed to be 10,000 years

Corey
that's the only thing I was gonna go off of is that

Neal
yeah sure 10,000 years correct you nailed it.

Corey
Yeah, I figured it was that or 1000 but I didn't know how they were going to try to maybe fudge the numbers

Neal
they should have made it more obvious it should have been like 40, 60, 10,000

Uh, of what criminal organization is Kano a member A: the green serpent B: the black dragon C: the red plague or D: the yellow fever

Corey
wow I don't like the last two that they went with it all actually

Neal
It was 1995

Corey
Yeah, well, like even I don't know. Just make one of them the Red Dragon make it funny.

Neal
Sure. Yeah.

Corey
Black Dragon please

Neal
Correct. Which character is the rightful heir to the throne of Outworld. Mileena, Katana Shang Tsung or Shao Kahn. Easy peasy, right?

Corey
The rightful heir to the throne of Outworld.

Neal
Yes, not. Don't overthink it. This is before that was really clear.

Corey
So it would be Kitana, yeah..

Neal
Sure. And the last question How many times must Shang Tsung win Mortal Kombat to open the portal between Earth and Outworld? Three times? five times? 10 times or 13 times?

Corey
Any multiple choice question that's built around. Numbers sucks. First of all, this is not an interesting question. Because it's like, well, it's not three, because it would have happened already. Because I've read the book that you made to be read. Like, sure. That would be 10 Please 10

Neal
Not Yeah, dude. All right.

Corey
Well, I'm a true Mortal Kombat champion.

Neal
Feel the power. Let me tally this up here a little bit. Looks like you got 10 out of 10 Congratula-?

Corey
Do I win anything?

Neal
So here's how the scoring breaks down if you get nine to 10 Correct, which you did? Congratulations. You are the grand champion of Mortal Kombat!

Corey
That's a big responsibility

Neal
That's you! You are, dude!

Corey
I don't want that.I didn't sign up for that

Neal
Kung Lao didn't want that either.

Corey
Well, yeah, he's at least capable

Neal
it's the burden you must carry.

Corey
Put the sound drop in

Neal
If you got six eight correct very good effort, but you're still mortal three to five Correct. Not bad, but not quite in fighting form. Are you and one to two correct Goro would like to have a few words with you.

Corey
I don't believe that he will actually say much.

Neal
You did it man. You're the Mortal Kombat champion.

Corey
Damn, that's crazy. That's all it takes. I was genuinely worried that the some of those were going to be some weird like, deep cut bullshit, not canon lore and I wasn't gonna know!

Neal
No they played it, they played it so they played it very safe. They're gonna be like What is US special forces agent Lance's birthday? right?

Corey
Well, that's may 15. That's today actually. We're doing an iceberg.

Neal
Oh shit. The real Mayday Am I right? Happy Birthday Lance. Lance, who was not mentioned once in this book.

Corey
He was too busy celebrating his birthday.

Neal
Malibu Comics Presents Mortal Kombat US special forces a mortal kombat adventure as the title page calls it. The story is called Secret treasures. Do you want to just dive right into this? This GI Joe knockoff comic?

Corey
Yeah, let's do that.

Neal
Let's do it. Let's run through the, um, let's run through the makers. The creators of this masterpiece I'm gonna do a little Neal Nook here

they had a little fun with the credits

Corey
they did.

Neal
They did I'm gonna read them. This issue secret treasures parts one and two. This goes for both issues. The main story was written by the tingling pin of Mark Panaccia penciled by the gashing graphite of Patrick Rolo embellished by the enchanted strokes of Abraham Madison, lettered by the naturally nimble fingers of Joe Allen, colored with Vicious vibrance by Scott Catanich and edited with a liberal dose of lighthearted fun by Dan Shaheen and based on characters created by Ed Boon and John Tobias they didn't get a fun credit

Corey
Gross it's liberal

Neal
Different writer. So when I said that Charles Marshall wrote all of these I was wrong. He didn't write this one. The guy who wrote this one was actually the editor on blood and thunder and Goro prince of pain. I believe. One big change is that when this guy is writing, people aren't referring to themselves in third person on every page.

Corey
They are are still doing it though,

Neal
are they? Because I had a hard time identitifying some of these key players

Corey
They're also saying other people's names a lot. Like in conversation, like it would be like every time I talked to you, I started the sentence by saying, Neal, right. There's some of that

Neal
which, which you're going to do for the rest of the podcast. Correct.

Corey
I will, Neal, Yeah.

Neal
Okay, cool, Cory, okay.

Corey
It makes the sentences just feel so much more direct when you say the person's name to them. It's weird.

Neal
Yeah, it sure does. Corey

Corey
Yeah, it does. Neal.

Neal
Corey, it kind of makes you sound like an asshole. Oh, another thing I noticed the art in this. Even though Patrick Rollo is still providing pencils. It doesn't seem to have the same sort of vibrance.

Corey
Well, I think that's more of like a color palette, or like a conscious decision.

Neal
Sure. It's the it's it's the colors, but it's also I think the inker?

Corey
Yeah, it's, I find it more visually less visually interesting. Yeah. There's also

Neal
a lot of just sort of generic vans and docks. And yeah,

Corey
stylistically, it's very, like blandly, 90s. But also, like, the hyper saturated colors was such an appeal of like, the earlier issues that we read. And I know that this is meant to be at least somewhat more grounded. But

Neal
yeah, arguably,

Corey
well, like theoretically.But that hyper color, visual style is such like, a point of appeal. With those books being kind of messy otherwise, that yeah, for that, for the visual appeal to be muted pretty significantly. I just found that it lost a lot of that, like,

Neal
a lot of the style that blood and thunder had

Corey
The flourish is just not there.

Neal
There it is flourish. That's a good, that's a good word for it

Corey
and the flourish was exciting. It went a long way, so.

Neal
yeah, and you know, I think from here on out in the series, we're gonna get a little bit of some stuff's gonna look like this book does and some stuffs gonna look more like the blood and thunder and Goro books did, but they're definitely yeah, the style is going to change as we go. And, uh, yeah, I think you're kind of right. It's kind of a bummer.

Corey
I like how like off the wall those other issues feel like it's...what's those shirts that like you slap somebody in the back who was sweaty and and put a handprint on their shirt in a different color? whatever that was.

Neal
I have no idea.

Corey
Oh,this is a thing, apparently like shirts that you change color if you like rubbed it or something.

Neal
I kind of remember that. When they adapted mood ring technology to wearable clothing.

Corey
Yeah, it was like what if that was on every page of your book, but also only pastel colors were allowed. It was pretty it was pretty sick.

Neal
The first like, Blood and Thunder and Goro: Prince of pain were like slap bracelets as comic books.

Corey
I think what I'm thinking it was called hypercolor. hypercolor. Yeah, that's that that it had some hypercars in it.

Neal
And this, this book is just a little meh. I still I still enjoyed it. I'm not gonna lie. I think it taps into something specific for me. I'll probably talk about later. But let's just start digging through this this storyline for secret treasure. We open with just like a bunch of dudes loading crates onto a boat, and their black dragon goons and they're worried about the Special Forces catching them and then the Special Forces just kind of show up and catch him right?

Corey
Yeah, yeah.

Neal
So who makes up our team here? We've got Sonya Blade and Jax Briggs. And then we just meet

Corey
Oh, litany of random people.

Neal
Just everybody's everybody's favorite Mortal Kombat characters. The US special forces team.

Corey
Yeah, so there's there's Billy Flanagan, who's just a guy

Neal
Billy Flanagan or Cody Finnegan.

Corey
It's Cody Finnegan. Who's Billy Flanagan. It's definitely Cody. I just got It's Cody Finnegan. Cody Finnegan. who's just a guy

Neal
Yeah, my note says Cody Finnegan who just sort of sucks.

Corey
Again it just a guy in a Berret

Neal
and shoulder pads.

Corey
And then there is in what order is the funniest way to do this. Let's do this one. Then there is Sylence. Yes. SYLENce? Yeah, who is.. uh?

Neal
I don't know. She's a woman. Her face is kind of painted like maybe she's in the kiss army. Right?

Corey
Right. Wait, hold on. This is the this is not a joke. I've confused two of these characters. Because I was about to describe the ghosts that can fly.

Neal
That's, that's Vapor.

Corey
Ah fuck

Neal
You want me to you want me to lead?

Corey
No, I should just open the book because I don't have it open. But you want to get a sense of the degree to which this didn't leave an impression. I read it yesterday.

Neal
Yeah, me too.

Corey
And I've completely forgotten Okay, so Sylence has swords

Neal
She's got.. Are they are they blades? I couldn't really tell from the art we don't get a lot of looks at these people

Corey
The cover looks more like daggers and then somebody else has sword but

Neal
I think the daggers come out of her hands.

Corey
I'm gonna like I'm gonna level with you I genuinely don't know the name of the person on the cover holding swords because I only have three other names written and there's four more people.

Neal
What but she's so important. Alright, let's get let's get through Sylence, Sylence has daggers that sort of come out of her her wrists like shitty

Corey
like Altair

Neal
kind of like Baraka or like a shitty Wolverine. Right?

Or Assassin's Creed.

Yeah, sure, like Ezio.

Corey
Well, that's what Altair was!

I did the bill already. Come on. I get everything else wrong. I have to at least get the bit right.

Neal
You got it. Okay. And then the one that you can identify from the cover with us two swords. That is she's the only one I think we get to rank for Lieutenant Mika Stone, who write is faster and more dangerous than a nunchuck essentially, is how they describe her. More or less when she cuts a guy's nunchucks with her swords in this big fight, then we've got vapor to tell people about vapor.

Corey
Yeah, vapor is a ghost that can fly. Sure, ostensibly, there was some sort of science experiment where something went wrong, and like some kind of superhero origin story, she I guess can turn into vapor, which is the ghost bit but can which is not the same as turning into smoke. Now they're different. They can also fly. Yeah, with that power. And despite the fact that in this experiment that allegedly maimed them in some way, the rest of their body is completely fine. They do wear a metal mask they have never taken off.

Neal
Sure. It's like a Vega style mask. Yeah. from Street Fighter. And then we've got uhh

Corey
a different motherfucker with metal ARMs.

Neal
Torque who has two bionic arms. Which honestly mostly feels like a fuck you to Lance from like the first issue of blood and thunder. And again this is a pre 'Jax has metal arms' world that we're living in because we're in 1995 Still, yeah, also also torque wears Morpheus glasses, just little tiny sunglasses.

Corey
Yeah. Yeah, he's I will say early in this book. Everybody's very like on the first splash page where you're getting like the close ups of everybody's like Special Forces outfits. Torque is the most 'Judge Dredd looking motherfucker that has not been in a Judge Dredd book' I've ever seen

Neal
Yeah, he definitely yeah, I can absolutely see it. And he's like gripping a dude.

Corey
Oh, he's murdering a guy 100%

Neal
He's ready to fucking kill

Corey
If you've always thought "Man. media that I enjoy has not given the US military enough runway to just sort of do whatever they want with a bunch of elaborate technology and murder people with reckless abandon," Boy, do I have good news.

Neal
This is what happens when you give commandos Metal Arms,

Corey
Metal Gear Solid.

Neal
First of all, most of these designs decided to lead not Mortal Kombat esque, right? Not at all. Like, these look like they were designed to sell action figures that were just that just never had a chance of getting put out it or these are like rejected designs from some other Malibu comic series. And they're like, Well, we already got like the art and designs worked out. Let's just throw them in this. It's very strange. And it's it's so very 90s it's so specifically everything has to be a GI Joe clone, right? Like they even did that with Street Fighter and the Street Fighter cartoon. It's just the GI Joe series in the movie right than the the 94 live action Street Fighter movie. It's just a GI Joe movie. And now we got this Mortal Kombat comic book that is just a bad GI Joe comic book. Like everything was doing this at the time. They just didn't have any other ideas. I guess I don't know man. But Special Forces bust up these black dragon goons loading crates onto a boat. And then all the black dragon goons just kind of like dive off the end of the boat and blow it up and send all the special forces people flying. And poor torque loses an arm but don't worry, it's a robot arm. Also the black dragon people keep calling the Special Forces agents spreads.

Corey
Yeah. Which is not a short form that I think makes a lot of sense.

Neal
Also, shout out to the black dragon dude with one eye and a gun for a hand. That was kind of sick.

Corey
Yeah, that was kind of sick.

Neal
And then of course, the lame leader of this gang of the Black Dragon Rojak

Corey
trash name

Neal
yeah bad name. He's gonna be very integral to this storyline but nothing else ever so they will have the boat Special Forces guys all make it away Sony and the boys are fine. We cut back to them at the Special Forces HQ action figures sold separately. It is a huge building right it's like the Baxter Building from like the Fantastic Four so

Corey
it's comically gigantic. But also can I read the description of the building to you?

Neal
Yeah, yes, you can.

Corey
The building stands like a tall and proud Sentinel. Knowing that within its rooms and halls, some of the bravest and most honored soldiers of America strive to keep this great country safe for others. Yet it is a towering responsibility. One that bestows relentless pressure on those who have taken an oath that many times overwhelms and tires. Can we fuck it chill out, dude.

Neal
Yeah, there's a lot of that in this

Corey
your murdering a made up group of terrorists

Neal
sure and a boat just exploded and you're going to spend most of your time not even driving around in like the Special Forces battle van just regular old vans in this comic books.

Corey
And this one dude who keeps losing his metal arms, it makes the one funny joke in the whole thing. "If I keep losing my arms, Clinton is gonna have to raise taxes again," which means that Bill Clinton is canonically President in the Mortal Kombat universe

Neal
and getting called out for his tax bill

Corey
Imaginel that you're raising taxes on the American public to...

Neal
to pay for medical cards for Special Forces.

Corey
bionic arms. For the fucking Special Forces.

Neal
So is this the writer of this comic book? Like, is he like a Republican kind of calling out Clinton's tax plan? Or is or is he like a liberal do calling out the bullshit about how the American people have to pay for the military? Like,

Corey
I think it's just a joke.

Neal
I don't know there's something more here, whatever. Either way, is definitely whoever wins we lose. Am I right? Yeah,

Corey
that is the thing I say.

Neal
So we're back at the Special Forces HQ. Sonia is reading the file on Rojak went on everyone's favorite Mortal Kombat character Dr. Boone, who again is just like another dude and doesn't have cool like action figure accessories comes in and shows her a piece of like a stone tablet or some kind of relic with markings all over it, that they recovered from that scene at the dock. Right? And he identifies this thing. He's like, look, it's too old to have been made by man. And I don't know what it's made out of. I can't identify the substance. I don't think it exists here on Earth. But we also recovered a whole bunch of gold bars that the black dragon were putting on that boat. And they all have the same markings. Oh, and we captured one of the Black Dragon goons and his name is tread.

Corey
Yeah, why does everybody have fucking names like like a tire?

Neal
So we get a scene where agent Cody banks I mean, Agent Cody Finnegan, and Sylence are interrogating tread, and Sylence is like straight up threatening to murder him. But he won't talk. So they're like, Alright, let's get some truth serum in here.

Corey
I thought that was a joke. I don't think they actually had truth serum.

Neal
Well, they got robot arms.

Corey
I thought that the implication of treason was they were just gonna beat him up.

Neal
Oh, I like that better. That's probably exactly what you're talking about. But they don't do it.

Corey
They don't.

Neal
They should have. Meanwhile, Jax and mica stone are still at the dock investigating the scene. And Jax's like, I don't know, man. My intuition is telling me we've overlooked something. And that something is like a fairly large black dragon like handheld communication device. It's like the size of like the original Gameboy.

Corey
Yeah, can we talking about this for a second? These apparently worked with like phone numbers and just like normal ass area codes and shit. So you can like look up, you can just hit read or you can just hit redial and then the last person that you call in your fucking Gameboy is like a chemical company explosives company explosives

Neal
factory I think what do they have a publicly listed number? Like clearly they just access like the address book like this whoever communicator this was in the black dragon like took the time to input like the name and the email and the address and the relation like the whole like profile that nobody ever puts it on their phones, right? Yeah. Like Like do you do that like do you have like

Corey
occasionally I will put in where somebody works but that's largely for like work reminder purposes. Right? If it's somebody that I'm just like friends with absolutely not.

Neal
So you don't have like Mitch in there with like his address and his I don't email and everything. Good. It'd be psychotic if you did. Do you ever save like a business? Like do you have like a Guitar Center like saved to your phone?

Corey
No contact I like that I do not have Guitar Center saved into my phone

Neal
or anything similar like King burger there was a time in my life where I was like I'm going to do this I'm going to Why are all the information of all the places that I go into my phone so that I can if I need to call them or whatever or send somebody directions to meet me there it's all ready to fucking go I got like three entries in and I was like I'm never doing this

Corey
then you realize you can also do the Google it and like two seconds we can rely on other things now.

Neal
Yes, the amount of time it takes to google it is less than the time it takes to input it in your phone. Yeah, it was just it was just not worth it. But it's black dragon standard practice I guess. Anyway, they find the communicator and Mika and Jax head back to the van to like trace the number to this chemical explosions place right or explosives place right and immediately just get their van ran into by a black dragon van. Like right away. Yes, they get like a small fight but there's like eight black dragon dudes and just Jax and mica so Jackson we could get their asses kicked and the black dragon take them hostage. Back ahead. Special Forces headquarters torque comes in with his new arm and makes us sick. Check out the armory joke.

Corey
And everyone laughs

Neal
and everyone who asks him claps and shakes up turn around head on their shoulders like he's a hero. And then the team finds out that they've lost contact with Jax and Mika so they all rushed to the interrogation room to check on tread and they find tread like dead on the floor of his cell. That's the kind of treasure secret treasures part one nothing fucking happened.

Corey
Nope, they set up that the black dragon exist and are doing something. Nothing fucking happened. And he's you've met 18 People you didn't know before

Neal
they spent all their time introducing a bunch of people that you'll never see again. And yeah, that's that's how they chose to start this to. Like they needed a third issue probably because they're going to try to cram a shit ton of story into the second issue.

Corey
It is really weird that it's only two. Yeah,

Neal
but before we get to part two, they've injected a small like three page backup story into issue one called Kaino in breakout. Now I know what you're saying. Why are we interrupting the main story arc to talk about this? Because that's what the publisher wanted by putting this story that clearly takes place after this arc in the middle of the two. So I'm gonna run through their credits for this one also because it is different than the main story we've got. Oh, and they also had a little bit of fun with the with the credits in this one too. Yeah. Charles Marshall is back on this one. He is credited as the prosecutor Patrick Rolo is credited for mug shots. Richard Imani is the armed guard. Can't even figure out what his role is. Nope, I'm thinking inker. He's the inker. Right? Joe Allen is the court recorder. That must be lettering and danza Hien as the district attorney and Mark Tonatiuh as the warden, which is a nice way to like, call your editor a warden in a prison. Anyway, there's like nothing happens in this right. Sonia and Jax are at the midway penitentiary. Nice trying to warn the warden that the black dragon is going to break Kaino out and they want to help stop it and the warden is like thanks but no thanks. We here at Midway. I'm more than capable of handling the black dragon on the next page. The black dragons broken cane out of this fucking prison. And as the as the textbook says it's a night for madness a night for freedom. And then Canelo starts referring to himself in third person because Charles Marshall is the writer on this. Sony injects do their best to beat up all the black dragon goons but Keno still escapes, just basically by hopping a fence and getting on a helicopter. And he takes off and says that Kino has places to go and people to kill. That's the whole story. It was like three pages, but it looks more like blood and thunder because of the artwork and everything like it was closer to what we've seen so far. So it was kind of a nice, nice

Corey
little I do want to say quickly the artwork that we're getting here isn't like bad and it's still got some like color accent in it that I find interesting. It's just not as fun by a pretty significant margin.

Neal
No, but it is like it is 90s 90s cheese like always everyone in this this is what's maybe different from the other ones where we've got like the ninjas and like Lukang wearing like his baggy pants is that everyone in this is in skin tight clothing like you could men and the women you can just you can just see everything.

Corey
Yeah, sorry, no.

Neal
Got lost thinking about it for a second. Anyway after that short disruption to just like tie up the fact that Canelo was imprisoned at the end of blood and thunder and needs to be free by the time battle wave starts. We're going to jump into issue two which is secret treasures part two. The crew Sonia torque Cody and Sylence are like all looking at treds dead body on the floor of his cell While doctors check him out. Sony's absolutely got like a little smile on her face.

Corey
And the doctors like like dudes dead.

Neal
Yeah, she's like, what's the prognosis doctor? And they're like, dead. He's dead. Obviously. He's dead. Right? poisoned himself somehow. Must have been like a cyanide capsule situation like in his tooth. Right? Yeah. Like they've all just kind of got those feels dangerous when you're in constant fistfights to have like a, like a tooth with a cyanide capsule because that shit is just gonna get broken.

Corey
I'm sure they figured this out. They've got technology.

Neal
Maybe they maybe they use the artifact to teleport the cyanide into his mouth. Right? They could they could consider that. Anyway, certainly a facetimes with some agent that we don't know the name of

Corey
it is weird that you're using a Gameboy phone but you have like all of this incredible shit.

Neal
Jackson's make his van was found and according to eyewitnesses, they were abducted by the Black Dragon. According to eyewitnesses, it didn't have airbags so van did not have airbags. It was a rough way to find out Jax is like either the airbags are broken or we didn't get them got increased taxes again, so the special forces can get safety features on there.

Corey
Figure it out. BILL Right.

Neal
Come on Clinton. What do you do

Corey
back from that island?

Neal
Yeah, is that the island we see through the portal at the end of the

Corey
road jackets? It's the Jeffrey Epstein's Island. Logs he's in

Neal
Rojak definitely

you know the black dragon was into some shit like that. But anyway, Sony is pissed right so we cut to a warehouse where Jax and Mika are being held, Rojak just like smoking a cigar and blaming them for how much gold the black dragon lost when the boat blew up,

Corey
but let me know they have infinite gold.

Neal
Yeah, Hey,

Corey
should we are we about to explain what this artifact actually we are?

Neal
Yeah, we can explain that now. But I just want to say at Part Part A of this. You blew up the boat Rojak like you could have had something in place to like throw the gold overboard with the rest of your boys because you you swam away somehow you probably could have like pulled a raft with gold on it and not had to blow it up. Like that was a choice that you made right? And you can be immediately and be you have infinite gold

Corey
because the artifact opens conveniently as everything does an extended Mortal Kombat or it opens portals to other realms.

Neal
Yeah, they call them dimensions in this and I think that's just the black dragon not knowing any better yeah.

Corey
And so they say that every piece of this artifact opens to a different realm. And yeah, this like ancient group put all of their like award winnings from various conquering things Yeah, and the spoil their spoils of war in two different dimensions as like safekeeping and now they have infinite riches.

Neal
Yes, so like long ago some island or tribe use these these artifacts, one of which the Special Forces has several of which the black dragon have called Ki Tae. And they Yeah, they just open portals to other dimensions. So it's like it's like a bag of holding right? In Dungeons and Dragons you can just open a portal to some dimension and just start like stalking you're sitting there and then closing the portal. We've

Corey
got a bunch of the guys in the alleyway from Mortal Kombat conquest Episode Seven,

Neal
yes, yeah. Tons of them all black robes and everything. That's what the black dragon are doing. I guess they were going to take this gold in this artifact and like open a portal and stick the gold through and then close the portal and then the Special Forces interrupted it. i It's unclear. It's it's still unclear.

Corey
I think it has just taken gold out of a portal and into like real world and they wanted to like, take it to go us.

Neal
Sure. But now in this warehouse, they're gonna open a portal somewhere else and put more gold in it again, like we know what the stuff does. We still don't understand the why or the how or what the fuck is going on. But we do know that the reason that the black dragon are keeping Jax and mica alive is to force them to be the ones who actually take the stuff either in or out of the portal. Because apparently these portals are a little unstable and sometimes they just close and Rojak is tired of losing his men, right?

Corey
He doesn't sound that tired because they do keep doing it.

Neal
Sure, but couldn't he but why? Why does it kill them?

Corey
Because they can't get out?

Neal
Sure. But can he just open the portal again? Just do the ritual again and be like, come on, Jeremy. Right.

Corey
I guess not get the lead out. The waves are really bad because they look like a lot of them over no water. So maybe you're like they just can't swim. Maybe it's a

Neal
shitty. It's a shitty shitty.

Corey
Bang, bang.

Neal
Yes. Yeah, whatever. It doesn't make any fun. Anyway, that's it doesn't matter. It's dumb Black Dragon stole these things from the girl are from archaeologists, they come in. They did

Corey
a bunch of Hudson Hawks. And

Neal
back at HQ, Sony and the boys are in the research lab where some nerd is blasting their artifact with E waves or something. Their key tie. And they're like, Hey, this is how we can find Jax and Mika. Because if the black dragon have more of these we can like, like blast e waves until we find a reaction and then trace the reaction. It's bullshit. It's all it's pure nonsense bullshit. But whatever it works, right. So they set out in two teams. All right, we've got two teams of spreads. Here we've got Sonia and torque flying to the warehouse in the Special Forces battle chopper with vapor flying next to them on her own. And we've got Sylence and Cody driving to the warehouse in the Special Forces regular van. And their tracking system is like triggering a reaction to the key tie in the warehouse. And it's starting to like make them go off or like activate or something right. But they crashed the van into a bunch of dudes and Sony and the boys break into the warehouse. There's a fight they free Jax and Mika, one of the portals just opens in to Epstein's Island, clearly, just just an island on the water tork throws Rojak through the portal and then also throws the crate of key tie through the portal.

Corey
I don't see how that solves the problem.

Neal
And then the portal closes. And they're like and torque it loses an arm and they're like, Good job every I guess

Corey
ostensibly, the solution is well he can't get back to Earth. But like maybe yes, and we don't know,

Neal
maybe he can. Cuz it's just a whole box full of those things. But if nothing else, he can start hopping through realms. This is again, this is what we saw in Defenders of the Realm. This is what we saw in like, any number of

Corey
how the real US government works, which is we've just made it somebody else's problem.

Neal
Yeah, this is what we saw in blood and thunder when like reading through the book through a portal and it just landed the feet of Johnny Cage, right? Or when they kept throwing, like God killing weapons through space in Defenders of the Realm just like they're done. Like, you just did the same fucking thing that's gonna it's still a problem, dude. That is absolutely. That's America. Right?

Corey
Yeah. Well, it's funny. It's treated like a solution where it's just like, well, it's not your problem,

Neal
I would argue that they have created bigger problems by doing this than they were facing.

Corey
They've created the potential for much larger problems. Yeah, because they gave him it's, that's that's the whole silly conclusion to a story that is too short and not enough happens. That's the whole that's the whole story. And the new characters that we've met have very little bearing, if any, on anything that has happened here or will continue to happen. Some of them are cool like

Neal
they look cool. Like I like a lot of the designs and like you were saying the art like the you know, the the pencils and inks and stuff are good. It is really is kind of the drab colors and environments that are dragging this thing down. Because again, it's it's an office building and warehouses and a van. Right. Yeah, it's just kind of a boring, boring setting, and a boring story, but with some pretty cool looking characters in it that just don't we don't spend any fucking time with them. Yeah, right. Like, they spent more time designing the extra characters than they did utilizing them. So I kind of wonder if they were angling for like a whole running Special Forces series

Corey
I mean they must have been but like

Neal
to two issues just ain't enough.

Corey
It's not even enough to do proof of concept for the potential of getting more like, it's so little.

Neal
And I can't say for sure that the characters don't like maybe these characters are going to show up in like Tournament Edition two or battle wave or something. But like, the real world outcome is that we've got one more major Mortal Kombat story arc, and then like three, one shots and like that's it for the Oh, and then the Raiden and Kaino series, and that's it for the story. So maybe they probably read in the keynote series that might be kind of cool. But there's not a whole lot. There's just not a whole lot going on. Like like the comics, the comic doesn't have a lot of life left. So the intro produce like 17 characters with like sick designs for a to issue many likes that has no bearing some super analysis, right that we didn't even like really get to see them like utilized

Corey
I think they just want it to seem enigmatic

Neal
I guess. Right like it was cool to see vapor like, turn to vapor so she doesn't get shot and then fly next to a helicopter but I don't know what the fuck anybody else does. I can't tell if if Sylence is holding knives or her arms or knives like it's kind of not there's just one more that's needed one more issue with actual story in it. Right? Like yeah, this this was kind of disappointing. But I got a big theory boys.theory.

It's kind of a mythologies, maybe but it is my theory. You know, I have this ongoing theory that Kevin tencha Rowan, Director of all the Mortal Kombat legacy stuff, read these comics and was inspired by them. Right, right. This is kind of plot elements from this to issue arc, definitely made their way into the Jax Sonia and Kaino episodes of Mortal Kombat legacy. Just in reverse, right, you've got the black dragon in a warehouse. They've got a special forces forces agent captive. It just happens to be Sonya in that as opposed to Jax in this comic book, and then you've got a team coming to rescue them getting caught in a trap, right and still just having to do their Special Forces thing. Like I think that this mini series inspired that two episodes, those two episodes of Mortal Kombat legacy. We know he's like, he's got hydro in there and shit like that, too. Also in the warehouse, like I think that there's pretty clear evidence that, that Kevin tanto, Rowan was inspired by this comic book, the Malibu comics in general. But beyond that, but his way absolutely stole this storyline for the Mortal Kombat Special Forces video game. Oh, yeah, I'm convinced of it. Like there are obviously changes. And you will find no shortage of stuff out there that says like, despite sharing almost exactly the same title, the video game is not based on the comic book mini series, like that's on some of the Mortal Kombat wikis and stuff like that. That's true. Like I Yeah, it's not like an adaptation of this, right. But like, this comic book came out in 1995. And it's about the black dragon with a story in it of breaking Kaino out of prison, using artifacts that can open portals, and the special forces trying to stop them, right. The storyline for Mortal Kombat Special Forces released in the year of our Lord 2000 opens with instead of the gang freeing Kaino from prison Kaino freeing his black dragon gang from a maximum security prison. Right, then we've got a US Army Major Jax Briggs. Trying to track the black dragon down, he takes on a mission to stop them from retrieving an artifact of great power called the eye of chitin, which is an artifact that can open portals to other realms. Like it is the exact same story as this comic book arc.

Corey
Yeah, heavily. Yeah,

Neal
sure. Take take from that. Also, just the idea like in that game, Jax still has like, meat arms, because that's like the it's the earliest game and Mortal Kombat video game can and it happens before Mortal Kombat mythologies, but he gets like the cybernetic like, kind of like we saw in Mortal Kombat Annihilation where he gets like the enhancements that he can like put on. And yeah, like, I think that the whole concept for the metal arms in general, for Jax, a Special Forces member probably came from these comics with a LANSON, his one bionic arm and torque and his two bionic arms and the idea of the Special Forces tech being out there to provide bionic arms to people. Like this sets the precedent, right? Like, I don't know if I'm like busting anything wide open. But there have been a lot of these sorts of interesting things where other Mortal Kombat media seems to have informed or inspired something that takes place in the game's universe or like the nether realm midway cannon universe, I just had to say something about it.

Corey
Somebody has to take a stand finally.

Neal
Sure, it can be me. Anyway, that's it. This was kind of a disappointing comic book arc.

Corey
Yeah, it is.

Neal
I did sort of think about why I like these because like, I still had fun reading this, even if it was inconsequential and didn't matter to anything. And I was just kind of thinking like, certainly the 90s aesthetic of it all is really nostalgic for me, because like, I was definitely reading 90s Comics back in the 90s. You know, so it like takes me back to that time. But like I also like I was really trying to think about this and it was like, Man, these, the feeling that these comic books are capturing are the feelings of like, being a kid and playing with action figures. Like that's what it reminds me of like when my friends or my brother and I would like set up all the action figures and like create storylines and like ongoing narratives for like our team of GI Joes or whatever. Like, it's really taken me back to like, that feeling that I had as a kid. And yeah, I don't know. It's just like vibing with me. Basically, what I'm saying is the storytelling in these is equivalent to like a six and nine year old making up stories with her action figures. As children. Yeah, it really does feel that way. But I love it personally. Man, that's to two weeks of black dragon stuff right in a row, man.

Corey
I could do with that for a while.

Neal
I Yeah, the thing that I've sort of realized is not a lot of interesting stuff going on with the black dragon in Mortal Kombat media. In general. I don't know what it is. The Black Dragon are like the worst part of anything that they're that they're in, aren't they?

Corey
Pardon? Sorry, I just what? Sorry, okay.

Neal
The Black Dragon are kinda like the most like, the worst part. The

Corey
worst thing you said it and my brain was like you said best and I'm like, No, I know. I disagree. With that. I was like, Hey, God.

Neal
Let's get out of here. Cory. Do we know what we're doing next week or we'll talk about that off air.

Corey
We can figure it out later.

Neal
Okay

Corey
We'll leave everybody iin suspense

Neal
It might be a commentary might be an episode of Sabrina. The teenage witch might be an episode of WMACC. Masters. We shall see. Oh, you know what? It's funny how the best black dragon thing we've watched is Raven Return of the black

Corey
repOh 100% it is, like handily.

Neal
Maybe we'll watch a raven who knows we'll figure it out. But for now, Cory? Where can people find you on Twitter?

Corey
@mrcoreyprice and also the two other podcasts I do. "They made another one" which is about like sequels and reboots and remakes and stuff with my friends leave and Mitch, that's @theymadeanother on Twitter. They made another one for podcasts and then eventually getting back to an f1 podcast that I do called Strat2 like the short form of the word strategy and the number after one.

Neal
Oh, because there's two of you. Yeah, nailed it. You can find me on Twitter at final Neal follow my retro gaming Instagram account. At final Neal retro, follow the show on Twitter and Instagram. @MKpodquest, go to our website MKpodquest.com. Find links to all the podcast services, our YouTube channel, our little merch store where you can buy a shirt that says four packs. And if you like what we are doing these look, these comic books were not cheap and I could I could really use 12 bucks again so KO-FI.com/mkpodquest or supersecretwhitelotussociety.com And thank you everyone for listening. As always, we love you. We are in love with all of you. It's true. The only special forces that I support, the special forces supporting that there are there are special forces out there by everybody

Transcribed by https://otter.ai