Mortal Kombat’s Silliest Fatalities (All Games Included)

At its core, Mortal Kombat is a very silly franchise. The 1993 original features color-coded ninjas throwing fireballs and ripping out the spines of their opponents. The most recent games try to tell a story, but the developers at NetherRealm Studios very much know how bizarre that lore is. Zooming out even further, this is a game where kombatants brutalize each other over the smallest conflicts. A husband can kick off the head of his wife, a normal beat cop can conquer an interdimensional demon, and a thunder god can inexplicably summon a tiny version of himself for a dance party. This is Mortal Kombat‘s defining aesthetic, and that is most evident in its famously over-the-top fatalities.

The key feature that gave Mortal Kombat a bloody edge over Capcom’s Street Fighter series and its countless clones, fatalities are finishing moves that can range from setting opponents on fire to ripping them in half. Designed to be the ultimate bragging rights for a victorious player, the moves have evolved into the signature feature of the series, and they only get more and more complex as time goes on. While many will try to distinguish the goriest moves in the history of the Mortal Kombat, fatalities can also sometimes lean too hard into the absurd. Those moves can turn heads in a much different way, although they may enrage anyone who takes these fights seriously.

NetherRealm has introduced even crazier finishers beyond fatalities as well. From turning opponents into dinosaurs to the goofy “Friendship” maneuvers, these are a step beyond what’s normal in Mortal Kombat. If allowed, all of these moves would top the list, but there are plenty of moves meant to kill an opponent that also ends up stretching beyond Mortal Kombat‘s already lax “seriousness” standards. Here is a sampling of true fatalities (taken unless otherwise noted from KombatTubeHD) that show how bonkers this fighting game can get.

Mortal Kombat’s Silliest Fatalities – Quan Chi’s Neck Stretch

While it is true that stretching one’s neck to giraffe proportions would kill any man, the finisher of evil sorcerer Quan Chi from Mortal Kombat: Deadly Alliance just looks off. The sorcerer just jumps on his foe’s shoulders, pulls up their head to an absurd degree, and then watches as they stumble and fall to the ground. It’s a surprising end to a match, but not in a good way.

Mortal Kombat’s Silliest Fatalities – Johnny Cage’s Triple Punch Decapitation

One of the most memorable early fatalities is also one of the simplest. Johnny Cage hits an uppercut so hard that it knocks his opponent’s head clean off. In some versions of the game, Cage could even land the move multiple times, meaning that multiple heads appeared from nowhere. That silly glitch was canonized in Mortal Kombat 2 as seen in the above clip by kingcrimson234. It certainly makes for a cool but also ridiculous final blow.

Mortal Kombat’s Silliest Fatalities – Rain’s Power Washer

Rain’s Power Washer in Mortal Kombat 11 isn’t that silly in its execution at first glance. The water ninja destroying his adversary with a powerful spray of water is good stuff, but there is one bit that secures its place in silly Fatality history. After the initial strike, the camera zooms in and captures Rain posing.

There’s a guitar riff as the faces of several other Mortal Kombat ninjas appear, parodying a famous album cover by Queen. It turns what is otherwise a sensible deathblow into a full-blown joke, which accurately mirrors Rain’s trajectory in the series.

Mortal Kombat’s Silliest Fatalities – Lu Kang’s Arcade Drop

One of Liu Kang’s most famous fatalities is also a reality-warping bit of silliness. Appearing in the early entries in the series and in more recent entries as a hidden Brutality, Liu Kang summons a Mortal Kombat machine right above his victim and lets gravity sort it out. Much like the movie rendition of Rampage, having an arcade cabinet of a game appear in-universe is too meta to be anything but absurd.

Mortal Kombat’s Silliest Fatalities – Raiden’s Fergality

Only seen in the Sega Genesis edition of Mortal Kombat 2, Raiden’s Fergality turns his opponent into Probe Ltd. employee Fergus McGovern. There’s no real logic as to why that happens, and the move is only available after putting in a complicated code in the settings menu, so it’s likely just a way for the programmer to leave his mark on the franchise. Still, it’s quite the off-kilter addition to Mortal Kombat history.

Mortal Kombat’s Silliest Fatalities – Mileena’s Nail Shooter

Not only is it strange for Mileena’s Mortal Kombat 3 incarnation to settle on spitting nails as an efficient way to kill an opponent, but performing the Nail Shooter makes her look like a cartoon character playing the trumpet. It’s impossible to take seriously, even in the more laid-back arcade days of the franchise.

Mortal Kombat’s Silliest Fatalities – Johnny Cage’s Mr. Cage’s Neighborhood

Another entry from Mortal Kombat 11 comes from Johnny Cage’s repertoire. For this move, Cage rips off his opponent’s torso and then decides to start a ventriloquist act. An unseen audience even throws tomatoes at the corpse puppet because his jokes are so bad, a callback to a similar fatality from Mortal Kombat 4.

This is a fatality that straddles the line between finishing move and Friendship, a balance that only a character like Cage could pull off.

Mortal Kombat’s Silliest Fatalities – Hotaru’s Triple Neck Snap

In the era of early 3D Mortal Kombat, graphical limitations sometimes led to the developers getting creative with their flashy finishers. In Mortal Kombat: Deception, Hotaru’s Triple Neck Snap isn’t a bloodbath, but it is excessive in its violence. The warrior from Orderrealm decides that snapping his opponent’s neck once isn’t enough, so he preceded to do it two more times for no real reason.

Mortal Kombat’s Silliest Fatalities – Kabal’s Head Inflation

Kabal’s introduction in Mortal Kombat 3 has him wielding massive hook swords, but he doesn’t use them for his main finisher. Instead, he hooks his opponent up to a respirator and inflates their head a la Big Trouble in Little China. The enemy then floats into the sky before exploding in a rain of blood and guts. Pure nonsense, but that’s part of the fun.

Mortal Kombat’s Silliest Fatalities – Bo’ Rai Cho’s Flaming Fart

It’s fitting that one of the silliest Mortal Kombat characters would also have one of its silliest fatalities. Bo’ Rai Cho is the drunkard character who brought alcohol-induced flamethrowers and fart humor to the franchise, both of which combine nicely into his Flaming Fart from Mortal Kombat: Deception. The kombatant concludes the move by saying how “wet” or “stinky” the move was, just to really drive the point home.

Source: KombatTubeHd/YouTube

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