After months of rumors, Mortal Kombat vs. DC Universe is official and heading for a fall release. We only got to run a fraction of our discussion with Mortal Kombat co-creator Ed Boon in the June 2008 issue, so here's a more detailed Q&A on continuity, compatibility, and crossing over with Street Fighter...

OXM: Where on earth did this idea come from? 
ED BOON: We’ve talked about teaming up Mortal Kombat with another franchise since we did Deadly Alliance but nothing really became of the team-ups we pursued. So after Armageddon we were all ready to start the next M-rated MK game when the DC opportunity was presented to us. A number of people on the MK team are HUGE comic book fans. I personally grew up reading comic books and clearly remember when the Superman vs Spiderman comic came out. I could barely contain myself because a cross-over was something I never thought I’d see. It was one of this big “event” and to this day I have that (very worn) comic in my office at work. Needless to say the idea of crossing over our universe with the DC universe was something that excited us and we really wanted to do something different for the next-gen debut of Mortal Kombat. So the more we thought about it the more excited we got and decided this would be a great match-up game to do.

OXM: What is DC’s involvement? Are they merely approving things and letting you guys run with it since you’re the game people, or are they involved at a design level? (And which level of involvement is preferable?) 
EB: We are designing the game here at Midway like we always do. Obviously DC gets approval rights on how their characters look and behave but the design is done here. We did, however, get two veteran comic book writers (Jimmy Palmiotti and Justin Gray) to help us write our game story explaining how the two universes clash. They have such a deep knowledge of the DC characters that was invaluable in laying out the events of our story. DC has been really good at letting us do our thing but they obviously have to protect their properties as well. I don’t suspect they would have been too keen on us ripping Batman’s head off! 


Crazy comic crossovers? Cue Capcom...

OXM: It’s hard not to look at this as a “response” to the Marvel vs. Capcom series; it’s certainly an understandable leap of logic. Are you concerned about it seeming “me too”? 
EB: Sure, I’ve played all the fighting games, including the Marvel/Capcom series. As much as I like some of the things they did with those games, we are definitely coming at this game from a different angle. We are shooting for a darker, more sinister presentation for this game than Capcom’s. Plus those games were so long ago that we thought it was a good time for a more modernized take on the VS game. We are trying to be a lot more serious, realistic, and especially more brutal. It’s like comparing the Spiderman cartoons to Batman Begins. Both are great in their own right, but are also very different.

OXM: MK has always embraced its intense gore, whereas superheroes never kill anybody. It seems like an awkward pairing of franchises. How are these worlds compatible? 
EB: They are NOT compatible! Which is what makes this pairing so exciting and that’s part of the conflict when they meet. Each side looks at the other as the enemy, the side that is “wrong,” which is cause for a lot of the discord they face. As far as the game is concerned, since it’s being designed by the MK team you can expect a good amount of brutality in it. We definitely want to push the envelope but again, we are not going to have Superman rip Sub-Zero’s arms off...as much as we’d love to! 


Is this going to be canon, or just another of those infinite Earths?

OXM: MK and DC both have intensely convoluted histories. DC always has an Elseworlds excuse and, um, Crises of various Earths and Zero Hours and other reboots to let them tell side tales and what-ifs, but MK has kept one continuity throughout. Will this game be “canon” for either or both worlds? 
EB: I don’t know if we are going to tie this story into the “ever-unfolding” MK Universe story. It might end up being a “what-if” scenario but at this time I don’t know for sure. I’m sure the response to this game is going to dictate how much further we may want to take this story but at the moment we are just focusing on making this match-up as exciting as possible.

OXM: And the obvious question: If you’re going to forge a joint project with another company’s franchise, why not cross over with Street Fighter? It’s every fan’s dream! 
EB: Like I mentioned earlier, the idea of crossing over Mortal Kombat with other universes has been on our minds for many years now. You can bet we’ve talked about many scenarios including a match-up with the Street Fighter characters. How could we NOT talk about it? There has been a rivalry between our two games since we came out in 1992 so it would only make sense. We’ve also talked about matching up with some of our more recent rivals like Tekken. As you might imagine there is a lot more involved with making something like that happen than just it being a cool idea...there are other companies involved too.