The actor who claims to have co-created Mortal Kombat

Enlarge / Design artist of the legal claims of some Mortal Kombat Actors who have sought "co-creator" status in court.

Today, on the 30th anniversary of Mortal Kombat, we bring you a long excerpt from the upcoming book Long Live Mortal Kombat by David L. Craddock. The book, slated for release this fall, goes behind the scenes to reveal untold stories from the killer franchise's arcade era and explores its impact on popular culture. This clip details the exaggerations and lies of one of the original game's most prolific actors. Anthony Marquez was at a martial arts tournament in Florida when he heard the news.

It was 1994, and Mortal Kombat was exploding. Midway's game had become the highest-grossing coin-op of the summer of 1993, then lit up console sales, selling more than 3 million cartridges worldwide in the first three weeks of the "Mortal Monday" event. from Acclaim in September.

Daniel Pesina held court before Marquez and their other friends, martial artists who had portrayed characters in Mortal Kombat and Mortal Kombat II. Pesina said he was told by John Tobias that a Mortal Kombat movie was coming, along with tons of merchandise. It was alongside the inevitable home versions of Mortal Kombat II, which had been inhaling quarters since its fall 1993 release. in exchange for Midway's use of their likenesses and performances, dreamed up action figures and t-shirts emblazoned with their digital characters.

"We're going to be rich," Daniel Pesina told them.

The leader

When Pesina spoke, the martial artists listened. It was a habit that for many started in childhood. Growing up in Chicago, Pesina was 10 years older than Richard DiVizio. Marquez considered him an older brother. John Parrish, Dr. Philip Ahn and Katalin Zamiar also deferred to him. Ahn was quiet, while Pesina was loud and outspoken. Ahn, Parrish, and Zamiar felt they owed him their work; Ed Boon and John Tobias had hired them to play characters in Mortal Kombat II, but Pesina had been the one to pull them out of the gym and introduce them to the co of MK . -creators.

"Danny has always been our leader," says Zamiar. "I always called him that. He was the one who kind of held the band together. He was the oldest. When you're in your 20s and someone's in their 30s, it's so much older than you, so much more experienced and wiser."

Pesina repeated a message over and over: as Mortal Kombat became a worldwide phenomenon, Midway took care of the characters, as the band called it (and often still refers) to themselves. "It was Danny who told me they were going to take care of us," DiVizio explains.

"Nothing was set in stone," Marquez says of Pesina's promises of wealth. "It all came from Danny."

But the "characters" didn't know everything about Pesina's relationship with Tobias and Boon.

Enlarge / Dan Pesina as Johnny Cage in Mortal Kombat.

Recording of Mortal Kombat characters began in the fall of 1991 and continued through early 1992. There were six recording sessions for the first game, each lasting a day or two. With the exception of the Johnny Cage shoot, one of the performers was present to assist the one in front of the camera. Boon and Tobias agreed with this arrangement; it gave Tobias's friends some extra cash and a mar...