Spoilers below for anyone who hasn’t yet entered the tournament and watched Mortal Kombat II, so be warned!
2026 has already been a pretty solid year for video game adaptations, with several promising options still set to release in 2026. Will any hold a candle to the massive flames brought forth by Ludi Lin’s Liu Kang? Only time will tell, but I can almost guarantee that none of them will feature an equal number of pop culture nods to DC heroes, Harry Potter characters and more. For all that this high-stakes sequel is about fantastical and brutal fights between characters from multiple realms, it’s surprisingly referential to real-world projects.
Mortal Kombat II is currently crushing it at the box office, even if it didn’t heart-rip its way to #1. (The Devil Wears Prada’s Miranda Priestly is the ultimate Final Boss.) Which presumably means lots of other fans like myself are also celebrating the bizarro comic and fantasy jokes, quotes and visual references. Wait, no, there weren’t any actual Bizarro references, but…
Those DC Comics Nods Were Great
When Mortal Kombat fans first meet Karl Uban’s live-action Johnny Cage, he’s sitting alone behind a merch-filled table at a comic convention where nobody seems to give a crap about the B-movie actor. (Which is ridiculous, because that kind of actor would absolutely be mobbed at such an event.) But it’s not even Johnny himself that had me cheering the hardest. Rather, the references to DC Comics fare had me hyped.
First up, we have the booth directly to the right of Johnny Cage, which is promoting the Birds of Prey character Evelyn Crawford. Then we have multiple displays for The Question, the mask-wearing investigator that inspired Rorschach and absolutely deserves his own placement in James Gunn’s upcoming DCU lineup. (Particularly the Jeff Lemire miniseries.) In other shots, you can see a booth dedicated to Black Orchid, Neil Gaiman and Dave McKean’s superhero fantasy miniseries, as well as one for the almighty Swamp Thing.
Do these references break this universe, given the existence of 2008 video game Mortal Kombat vs. DC Universe? Probably not, since none of the above were playable characters.
At the point in Mortal Kombat II when Johnny Cage is tasked with destroying the amulet keeping Shao Kahn immortal, Kano goofily tells him to check the back of the ring for guidance. Which sparks Cage to bring up a memorable Lord of the Rings quote. As he put it:
Oh, here it is, ‘One ring to rule them all, one ring to find them…’
An amusing line in context of the scene, all things considered, but also amazing given the fact that Karl Urban himself co-starred in the second two films of Peter Jackson‘s LOTR trilogy as the Riders of Rohan’s leader Éomer. I would love to see Johnny watching those sequels to see his face when Éomer shows up.
Kano Is Apparently A Harry Potter Fan
Josh Lawson’s Kano was killed off in the first movie, but was brought back to life for the sequel because he’s so hilarious. Every line out of his mouth is a banger in this movie, so a Standing O for everyone involved with that decision. In any case, some of Kano’s best lines come at the expense of Damon Herriman’s Quan Chi.
The best jab against the goth-leaning Quan Chi is almost definitely when he compares the villain to “Voldemort’s nutsack.” Funny how death didn’t affect Kano’s ability to make super-quick quips about Warner Bros. villains.
Nods To A Kurt Russell Classic And A Netflix Original
There are two other one-liner references that I was also quite fond of. Johnny Cage gets to show off more of his fandom power when he asks Tadanobu Asano’s Lord Raiden if he’s cosplaying as someone from Big Trouble in Little China. Presumably one of the Storms, given the similar hat sizes.
Earlier, when Johnny Cage is being told the rules of the fighting tournament, he verbally backs away from it, saying it sounds like a real-life Squid Game scenario. Just in case anyone thought that ALL of the references made here would be from Warner Bros. projects.
Find Mortal Kombat II in theaters now, and rewatch the first movie via HBO Max subscription.