Mortal Kombat vs. DC Universe: Mashup Madness

Last night, I sat down to watch the recently released Alien Vs. Predator: Requiem movie on DVD with my girlfriend. About an hour later and a bag of popcorn less, she was asleep and I was asking myself, “Did the Pred-Alien really just barf up a baby Alien?” I went to bed wondering why these mashups never seem to work, only to wake to news of Midway’s upcoming Mortal Kombat Vs. DC Universe.

The fighting genre isn’t new to the mashup. In fact, there are numerous examples: the Capcom Vs. SNK series, Battletoads and Double Dragon, or the Super Smash Brothers series. Many fighting games also have exclusive cameos, such as Nicole the Spartan in Dead or Alive 4 or Darth Vader and Yoda in the upcoming Soul Calibur IV. Pondering why these examples work while other genres and media don’t, I came to a realization: Fighting games are one genre that is truly perfect for the mashup.

Let’s take as our example the aforementioned Mortal Kombat Vs. DC Universe. The story is as ridiculous as you would expect from a fighting game: A cataclysmic force merges the conquerors of two universes into one, who must then battle to the death…pretty preposterous. But who cares?

The trailer shows everything you need for the game. Flash beating up Sonya at super speed, Scorpion yelling, “Get over here!” as he spears Batman right in the chest, Catwoman clawing Sonya’s face off, and at the end, the biggest bomb is dropped when the announcer proclaims “Finish Him” as Scorpion engulfs the Flash in flames. Screams ensue. Which brings me back to my epiphany:

As cool as this might seem, you have seen and played this before. The Mortal Kombat series has been wading in mediocrity since its supposed fourth iteration renaissance when it went 3D. As of right now — I took a straw poll consisting of Mike, the guy that lives on my neighbors’ couch, and myself — the series is the fifth best 3D fighting franchise, behind the likes of Soul Calibur, Virtua Fighter, Tekken, and Dead or Alive. Reorder those anyway you like, but MK falls behind all of them, regardless.

So what do you do when your fighting engine is vastly inferior to your competitors? Make a mashup. Apparently, the best way to shine a turd is to add more characters from a wholly different universe. Now you can forget that you have done this all before as you button mash your way through Superman. Brilliant! All we have to do now is find out if you can use a fatality on the Man of Steel.