THE PREQUEL TO THE VIDEO GAME PHENOMENON IS HERE! For years, a tenuous peace has existed between the realms, time enough for old champions to fall and a new generation to rise. But peace can never last for long . . . The Thunder God Raiden has seen visions of a great evil entering our world, one so powerful it could change the very face of the universe. The one hope to stop the sinister force lies in six ancient relics, mystical blades imbued with the Blood Magick of the One Being—the Kamidogu daggers. But Raiden and his allies are not the only ones searching for the all-powerful weapons. Another has spent years acquiring each blade through cunning and guile. For not only can the Kamidogu daggers contain a god, they also have the power to create one . . . Kombatants old and new will fight for the future of our realm and the realms beyond in this red-hot debut by writer Shawn Kittelsen. Together with artists Dexter Soy (DC UNIVERSE VS MASTERS OF THE UNIVERSE) and Veronica Gandini (JUSTICE LEAGUE BEYOND 2.0), they’ll start this action-packed newest chapter in the Mortal Kombat saga off with a bloodbath!

The quest for the Kamidogu daggers continues…fight! Great changes are coming to Outworld and Earthrealm alike. Whether they seek to protect the worlds of gods and men or to rule them, Kombatants new and old are heading toward bloody conflict. Hoping to thwart the coming evil, Raiden has conscripted Hanzo Hasashi-Scorpion-and his charge, Takeda Takahashi, to gather the mystical Kamidogu daggers. Their journey leads them to an old foe, who holds one of the powerful cursed weapons-Kuai Liang, the ninja known as Sub-Zero! With Sub-Zero corrupted by the Blood Magik of the dagger and Scorpion's deadly thirst for vengeance, the two will lock in a Mortal Kombat for the ages! Elsewhere, Kotal Kahn faces a challenge to his rule from the scorned tribe of the Shokan. King Gorbak is leading an army of Shokan and Oni warriors powerful enough to decimate the Emperor of Outworld. Though Kahn refuses to unleash his Kamidogu's Blood Magik again, he has an unlikely group of allies in the Earthrealmers Johnny Cage and Sonya Blade. The pair only wishes to rescue their daughter from the clutches of Reiko, but first they'll have to help Kahn protect his throne-which means an alliance with Kano and the Black Dragon! Writer SHAWN KITTELSEN continues his epic debut with the help of artists DEXTER SOY (DC UNIVERSE VS MASTERS OF THE UNIVERSE), IGOR VITORINO (Green Hornet) and DANIEL SAMPERE (BATGIRL), as they paint the blood-soaked story that leads into the video game phenomenon in MORTAL KOMBAT X: BLOOD GODS! Collects issues #5-8.

As the daughter of Johnny Cage and Sonya Blade, Cassie Cage thinks she's seen it all. But when she finds herself in an illegal MMA deathmatch, Cassie must decide if she's ready for her first taste of Mortal Kombat!

"Originally published as MORTAL KOMBAT X 9-12 and online as MORTAL KOMBAT X Digital Chapters 25-36."

Webcomics. Comics as eBooks. Plain old fashioned printed comics. Does anybody actually make any money off this stuff? Believe it or not some people actually do, though it's not as easy as you might think it is. Economics of Digital Comics walks the reader through the history and business models of the modern comics world, starting with the "traditional" print formats and progressing through the new digital formats, then compares what is necessary to hit revenue benchmarks in each format. "I'm simply admitting that I set out in that world bereft of a map and--my hand to God--I would be lost without Todd Allen. The book you're (literally or figuratively) holding in your hands at this moment is testament to that." - Mark Waid, from his introduction. "With a veritable mountain of footnotes, citations and original reporting at his disposal, Todd Allen has pulled back the curtain on digital comics. If you truly want to understand the trajectory of the the comics industry for the last 10 years - not to mention the next ten years - then you're going to want to read this book." - Josh Elder, Founder of Reading With Pictures and Comics Ambassador for the US State Department

Upon its premiere in 1992, Midway’s Mortal Kombat spawned an enormously influential series of fighting games, notorious for their violent “fatality” moves performed by photorealistic characters. Targeted by lawmakers and moral reformers, the series directly inspired the creation of an industrywide rating system for video games and became a referendum on the wide popularity of 16-bit home consoles. Along the way, it became one of the world’s most iconic fighting games, and formed a transmedia franchise that continues to this day. This book traces Mortal Kombat’s history as an American product inspired by both Japanese video games and Chinese martial-arts cinema, its successes and struggles in adapting to new market trends, and the ongoing influence of its secret-strewn narrative world. After outlining the specific elements of gameplay that differentiated Mortal Kombat from its competitors in the coin-op market, David Church examines the various martial-arts films that inspired its Orientalist imagery, helping explain its stereotypical uses of race and gender. He also posits the games as a cultural landmark from a moment when public policy attempted to intervene in both the remediation of cinematic aesthetics within interactive digital games and in the transition of public gaming spaces into the domestic sphere. Finally, the book explores how the franchise attempted to conquer other forms of media in the 1990s, lost ground to a new generation of 3D games in the 2000s, and has successfully rebooted itself in the 2010s to reclaim its legacy.