'There's Mortal Kombat in the DNA of everything I've done'
As spotted by IGN, it’s been confirmed at an interview at San Diego Comic-Con last week that JK Simmons—face of Spiderman’s J. Jonah Jameson in multiple movies—will be reprising his role as Invincible‘s Omni-Man for Mortal Kombat 1’s DLC.
Skybound’s Gina Darling spoke to Walking Dead and Invincible creator Robert Kirkman as well as Ed Boon, creative director of NetherRealm Studios and co-creator of Mortal Kombat. Kirkman seemed psyched for the crossover, admitting: “I have been back-channelling trying to get to Ed Boon for a number of years, ever since you guys have started doing the DLC characters, [it’s been]: ‘I gotta get to Ed boon … I’ll do anything, I’ll pay them, I don’t care.'”
For the uninitiated: Invincible’s a gory take on superhero comics that lands somewhere between critique and genuine love-letter, ultra-violent without being overly cynical of the genre itself. Omni-Man the father of protagonist Mark Greyson, a gritty superman analogue and alien “Viltrumite” capable of out-punching just about anything in the galaxy.
Invincible received its own Amazon prime series in 2021, which Ed Boon cited as confirmation that they’d be including Omni-Man on the roster: “First episode, final scene, I was like: Okay, we got ourselves another character for Mortal Kombat.”
Boon then proceeded to casually drop the news that JK Simmons, who voiced Omni-Man in the series, would be reprising his role for the game: “And then we had JK doing the audio for him … it’s as authentic as it can be.”
This was later confirmed on Twitter by Dominic Cianciolo, story and voiceover director for NetherRealm studios: “It’s been a thrill and a privilege to direct JK Simmons as Omni-Man in #MortalKombat1.”
The feedback loop of inspiration between Mortal Kombat and Invincible has a long history according to Kirkman, who spoke some more about that first episode—which he’s about to fully spoil, by the way, fair warning:
“When I did that sequence at the end of [the first episode] with Omni-Man just eviscerating the Guardians of the Globe: that’s me trying to do my best Mortal Kombat fatalities,” when discussing the “fatality meetings” he sat in on, Kirkman noted: “Everything is solid gold! I don’t know what to say, I have no notes! The team they’ve put together in this game is phenomenal.”
He also admitted that fans have Mortal Kombat to thank for a lot of his work: “There’s Mortal Kombat in the DNA of everything I’ve done.”
Mortal Kombat 1 itself is set to release in September. Omni-Man will be the first of the DLC roster, which includes The Boys’ Homelander and Suicide Squad’s Peacemaker, as well as Kombat characters Quan Chi, Ermac, and Takeda.
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