The cast of characters in the original Mortal Kombat game is one of ninjas, gods, sorcerers, and cyborgs - and then there's Johnny Cage. Perhaps the most "normal" character of the bunch, Johnny would go on to become the Mortal Kombat franchise's go-to comic relief character, always cracking jokes and making various references to his in-game film franchises.
His role in future installments of the Mortal Kombat series, and particularly in some of the most recent games like Mortal Kombat X, has only continued to grow, ascending from dedicated comic relief to one of the core protagonists of the entire franchise. Johnny Cage is now a full-fledged hero and a fan-favorite character to boot.
But Johnny Cage wasn't always going to be in Mortal Kombat, at least not in the form fans know him today. He started life under a different name: Michael Grimm.
Mortal Kombat's Michael Grimm
Mortal Kombat co-creator John Tobias took to Twitter recently to offer insight into the development of Mortal Kombat, particularly when it came to origins of its characters and storyline. He discusses at length the inspirations behind the game's lore and how the creation of Sub-Zero and Scorpion's rivalry came about. He then shared an image of a list of character names, each with a defining theme. On that list is the name Michael Grimm, who is described simply with the word "sidekick." When asked about Grimm in particular, Tobias shared a more in-depth concept idea for Grimm's character alongside a sketch.
A martial arts superstar trained throughout his life by Great Masters from around the world, Grimm uses his talents on the big screen. He is the current box-office champ and star of such movies as "Dragon Fist" and "Dragon Fist II", and the award-winning "Sudden Violence."
Fans will immediately notice how similar the character is to Johnny Cage. Grimm's description is also identical to that of Johnny Cage's biography in Mortal Kombat 1. For all intents and purposes, Grimm was/is Johnny Cage. He simply underwent a name change during preproduction. The character's look in the first game is modeled off of martial arts movie-star Jean-Claude Van Damme, and while the concept art for Grimm is seen wearing shades, the actual in-game model for what would become Johnny Cage doesn't actually wear sunglasses at all times. Cage instead only puts them on as part of a victory pose, but the sunglasses would go on to become a defining aspect of Cage's look in future Mortal Kombat installments. Cage's was the first character to be finished for the game, though he would also be the last character to receive a fatality.
Interestingly enough, there's not much of of the funny-man schtick that would come to define Cage in later Mortal Kombat games to be found in Grimm's original description. His primary archetype of "sidekick" perhaps hints at his future comic-relief status, but at least originally he seemed to be a more serious character (something that was perhaps reflected in the overly serious sounding last name of Grimm). Tobias didn't offer any specific insight into what caused the developers to change the character's name, but it is known the inspiration behind the character's stage name of Johnny Cage (his real name is "Johnathan Carlton") came from a fellow Midway developer by the name John Carlton.
It doesn't seem like Michael Grimm will ever be seen in Mortal Kombat proper (though stranger things have happened). Still, it's fun to think about what might have been had the character of Johnny Cage seen the light of day under a different name.