A Mortal Kombat fan has an amazing theory about the past of Mortal Kombat’s resident cowboy, Erron Black.
If there’s one character in Mortal Kombat history that’s hard to read, it’s Erron Black. On the one hand, he’s almost a throw-away character that seems like NetherRealm Studios just one day decided to shoe-horn a cowboy into the franchise. On the other hand, cowboys are cool, okay? Just ask John Marston.
(We’re going to ignore the far greater role that Black has in the Mortal Kombat comic books for now and just stick with the main series games).
But it turns out that Erron Black might have a far greater role in the Mortal Kombat universe than anyone could have expected.
We’ve got Reddit user et37 to thank for this genius connection between actual history and a piece of lore from Mortal Kombat X.
After beating the game with Black, a short scene reveals that Black owes his virtual immortality to Shang Tsung after he was hired to kill an Earthrealm warrior. Since Mortal Kombat X was released in April of 2015, we go back 250 years to April of 1865--the same month and year that Abraham Lincoln was assassinated.
But what about the fact that Black’s target was an “Earthrealm warrior”? "During his life Abraham Lincoln was a prolific Wrestler, competing in roughly 300 matches with only one loss,” et37 explains. “Such talents would likely serve him well in tournaments with otherworldly beings.”
It’s a bit of a leap to go from Greco-Roman wrestling to ice-magic-spewing ninjas and cyborg assassins, but we’ll give et37 the benefit of the doubt.
“Therefore we can infer that Honest Abe was a fierce Earthrealm Warrior. A man so dangerous that Shang Tsung feared him enough to hire an Assassin. Erron pinned the assassination on John Wilkes Booth, and gained immortality as his reward."
It all wraps up so nicely that even if it’s not official canon within the MK universe, it damn well should be. And, as the top commenter on the Reddit thread points out, this provides the perfect excuse for an Abe Lincoln DLC character.
The only question is what would Honest Abe's fatality be?