In 1993, Malibu Comics published a short lived series which adapted the Street Fighter video games. Lasting just three issues, the series was pretty disastrous in terms of its content and the seeming lack of care taken with the characters, which led to the developer and publisher of the video games, Capcom, pulling the plug pretty swiftly.

In October 1994, Malibu Comics, undeterred by the unfortunate situation with Capcom, began publishing their first mini-series based on Street Fighter’s biggest rival: Midway’s Mortal Kombat.

The arcade game became an absolute sensation in 1992, and was ported to home consoles the following year. It became well known for its digitised visuals, with real actors having performed the in-game moves, as well as its then-shocking – not to mention highly controversial – extreme violence, with blood and ‘fatalities’ which showed characters tearing each other apart, pretty graphically by the standards of the time.

At the time, it was absolutely one of the hottest properties in video games, and Malibu, having likely learned some lessons from the Street Fighter debacle, were claiming to be working very closely with the game’s designers (with the video game’s co-creator John Tobias credited as Consulting Editor) when adapting the game to the comic book medium.

It really shows; this first issue is leagues ahead of the dross that Malibu churned out for Street Fighter. Though it’ll hardly be thought of as a masterpiece of comic book storytelling, the first issue of Blood & Thunder does a great job of introducing the concept of the Mortal Kombat tournament, as well as all of the principal players, without feeling like the writer doesn’t understand who everyone is and what their place in the story should be.

By the time the comic was published, the cast of the games had grown quite a bit too, considering that Mortal Kombat II had already hit the arcades. The comic was cannily timed around the launch of Mortal Kombat II for consoles as well, so Malibu Comics had even more incentive to get it right this time around.

Thankfully, it seems they did; their Mortal Kombat comics, this issue of Blood & Thunder included, seem to have really held their value and are still pretty collectable to this day, which also speaks volumes about their quality.

If you’re a fan, you might be surprised by a few of the slightly odd turns this comic takes, but on the whole it does right by the characters; writer Charles Marshall doesn’t do anything controversial for the sake of it, and penciller Patrick Rolo creates some really impressive visuals throughout. It’s just what the doctor ordered after reading Malibu’s bafflingly terrible Street Fighter comics.