Jade (Mortal Kombat)

Jade is a video game character from the Mortal Kombat series. She debuted in Mortal Kombat II (1993), at first as an unplayable secret character and became a player character in Ultimate Mortal Kombat 3. Eventually, Jade became one of stalwart supporting characters, usually linked to Princess Kitana, and is also featured as an evil-alligned character in some of related media in the Mortal Kombat franchise. Jade received mostly positive critical attention, largely due to her sex appeal. She is also noted to be one of most powerful characters in the series gameplay-wise.

In video games
In Mortal Kombat II, Jade was a mysterious hidden character with no part in the game's storyline whatsoever. In Mortal Kombat: Shaolin Monks, the 2005 beat'em-up retelling of MKII, she appears to fight against Liu Kang and Kung Lao alongside Mileena and the brainwashed Kitana; once defeated, she is stabbed in the eyes with Mileena's two sai by the player's character and killed.

Jade returns in Ultimate Mortal Kombat 3 (1996) in which her backstory as a fellow Edenian and long-time friend of Kitana is revealed. She once served as Shao Kahn's elite assassin along with his adopted step-daughter Kitana (and later also Mileena). After Kitana was put on trial for Mileena's murder and escaped to the Earthrealm, Jade was ordered by Kahn to bring Kitana back to Outworld alive. However, he also sent Reptile with Jade, ordering him to kill Kitana if necessary. The two located Kitana and Jade narrowly prevented Reptile from killing her. Convinced by Reptile's actions and Kitana's words, Jade turns against Kahn and aids Kitana in freeing her resurrected mother, Queen Sindel, from Kahn's mental control. The three later join with Kitana's Earthrealm allies to help defeat Shao Kahn.

After they liberate Edenia from Outworld, Jade serves Sindel and Kitana for years. Sometime after the events of Mortal Kombat: Deadly Alliance (2002), she witnesses the death, resurrection, and capture of Kitana and her allies by Onaga under an enslaving spell. In Mortal Kombat: Deception (2004), Jade rescues Sindel from imprisonment in the Edenian palace dungeon. They escape to Outworld, attempting to free Kitana from Onaga's sorcery. Jade also attempts to seek revenge against the traitorous Edenian Tanya. In the game's Konquest story mode she orders Shujinko to bring the Edenian traitor Rain to her.

In Mortal Kombat, the 2011 retelling of the series, Jade became an Outworld assassin partnering Kitana. Jade is a member of Edenian noble family that served Shao Kahn once he conquered their realm, and she was given to him as tribute when she was a child. After years of rigorous training and service as an assassin, Jade has earned a reputation as an agile and stealthy warrior, and was awarded the position of a bodyguard to Princess Kitana, whom she became close friends for centuries. Jade's confident, self-assured and sassy personality stands in contrast to Kitana who struggles to fulfill Kahn's expectations and begins doubting her origins. Under orders from Kahn and Shang Tsung, the two of them initially fight the Earthrealm warriors. Later Jade suspects that Kitana is not following orders and unsuccessfully attempts to stop Kitana from learning the truth about her heritage. After learning the truth from the recently-created clone Mileena, Jade switches her allegiance and helps the Earthrealm fighters to free Kitana from captivity. Later, Jade joined also the Earthrealm warriors during the invasion of Earthrealm. However, Jade was killed by the arriving Sindel, who ripped out her stomach. She was last shown as one of the warriors resurrected and enslaved in the Netherrealm by Quan Chi.

Design
Jade first appeared in Mortal Kombat II as one of the game's hidden characters along with Noob Saibot and Smoke, at first as a green palette swap of Kitana with darker skin (except for the Sega Genesis/Megadrive and Sega Saturn where she had Kitana's skin color) and gold-colored fans instead of silver. The green color scheme of the yet-unnamed character was an idea of Mortal Kombat II actress Katalin Zamiar during a brainstorming session regarding a concept to introduce a new fighter to the game. In Ultimate Mortal Kombat 3 and subsequent titles where the three Edenian female ninja appear, while Mileena's skin color is sometimes mildly darker than Kitana's, Jade's skin is consistently the darkest of the three.

Since Ultimate MK3, Jade's weapon became a magical steel bō staff (featured heavily in her Fatalities; in Deception it was turned into a spear) and bladed boomerang projectiles, her Animality being a black cat. One of her new UMK3 attacks, a smoking kick, is a variant of Johnny Cage's classic Shadow Kick. In the Sega Genesis and Super NES versions of the game, Jade's fighting stance is Mileena's and Kitana's, respectively. Jade's moves, along with these of Mileena and Kitana, were also used to create the composite character Khameleon in Mortal Kombat Trilogy (who has Jade's moves if her name bar letters are green).

Like their male ninja counterparts in the series, the female ninja have evolved considerable from their original palette swap and now the three of them have distinct costumes. Jade's MK2011 costume is a black thong leotard with a laced-chest opening and a side green stripe. She also wears a green loincloth around her waist, black boots with a green knee-pad, green gloves, and a green mask with a black stripe. She is adorned with gold chains and her hair is tied into a braid. Jade and Kitana are the only characters to have two additional "Klassic" costumes in the downloadable content for MK2011 (from MKII and UMK3 ).

Gameplay
When she was first introduced as a secret opponent in Mortal Kombat II (in the Amiga version of MKII, Jade is a regular CPU-controlled character), Jade was extremely fast and possessed immunity to projectile attacks but otherwise her moves were identical to Kitana's. Jade has become playable since Ultimate Mortal Kombat 3, but she is non-playable in Shaolin Monks. In UMK3, Jade was a powerful character and her unique invincible to projectiles was kept, becoming a special move.

Jade has been often ranked as one of the most powerful and easiest to play characters in the various games in the series. According to Sega Saturn Magazine, in UMK3 "Jade's variety of projectile attacks makes her a difficult character to get near, and her invincibility can make her tricky to get away" while she also "has got some devastating combo attacks" and is especially hard to play against the CPU-controlled opponent. According to Total 64, "with a wealth of special moves, some bloody death moves and some easy combos, Jade is the hardest bird on the block" in Mortal Kombat Trilogy. According to GameSpot, Jade and Noob Saibot in Trilogy are "incredibly overpowered, with moves that run from rendering projectiles ineffective to making characters momentarily powerless." Prima Games' official guide for Armageddon rated her overall 7/10 (better than both Kitana and Mileena). According to Prima's official guide for the 2011 Mortal Kombat, "Jade's speed, safe attacks, and savvy combo abilities put her near the top of the cast."

In other media


In Malibu Comics' 1995 Mortal Kombat miniseries Battlewave, the comics version of Jade is an evil assassin serving Shao Kahn. Although she appears identical to Kitana save for the colour of her costume (she has no dark skin in the comic) and also uses steel fans, the characters have no ties with each other. Instead, Jade is always paired with Smoke, unsuccessfully trying to kill Jax and then Johnny Cage. Introducing herself as "Jade, storm warrior", she also attempts to redeem herself by slaying Raiden during the comic book miniseries Rayden [sic] and Kano, also appearing along with Smoke.



Jade was originally set to appear in the unfilmed scene in the first live-action Mortal Kombat movie's original screenplay. In it, Jade is described as "a diminutive woman dressed in an ornate Kabuki kimono", whose weapon is a stiletto hidden in her hair bun. Jade duels Sonya Blade and quickly loses. Jade appears on screen in the second movie, Mortal Kombat: Annihilation (1997), portrayed by the Siberian-born model Irina Pantaeva in a role of "a beautiful refugee from Outworld". The film version of Jade secretly remains loyal to Shao Kahn and her relationship with Kitana is not explored at all. Jade appears to test Liu Kang and attempts to seduce him, later leading the other Earthrealm warriors to an ambush. When she fails to defeat his enemies, Shao Kahn has her eaten by a gargoyle in his palace.

Jade appears in the novelizations of both feature films. Her role in the 1995 Mortal Kombat novel by Martin Delrio is very minor as Jade (described as a long-haired Asian woman in a green silk dress with and covered in tigera and dragon tattoos, wielding two half-moon daggers) is killed with a single kick by Sonya Blade after being tricked into returning the bow of respect (this happens at the same time as when Liu Kang fights Kitana). Jade's role in Jerome Preisler's 1997 novelization of Annihilation is similar to this in the film, as she first tries to seduce Liu Kang and later lures the Earthrealm warriors into a trap. In it, Jade is described as "absolutely, stunningly beautiful", as "bulky animal skins in which she was wrapped only seemed to accentuate the long, seductive, length of her body", and turns out to be Kitana's former lover. In the end, she is put to death by the enraged Shao Kahn, who first strangles her and then feeds her to a living stained glass window monster.

Cultural impact
Jade is referenced in the novel Everything Fish by Joe Taglieber.

Promotion
In 2005, Jade represented the cast of Mortal Kombat: Deception in G4s program Girls Gone Wired, making "a special virtual appearance" in the form of a CG-graphics Jade hosting the show and introducing herself as of being better than Pamela Anderson. In 2011, a "free exclusive Jade character costume download" for the PS3 version of the reboot game was featured as part of promotional content in the Blu-ray Disc release of the two (sold separately) Mortal Kombat feature films. Live-action version of Jade, cosplayed by Evgeniya Rukavitsina, was featured in a Russian advertising of the PlayStation Vita version of Mortal Kombat.

Merchandise
A figurine of Jade in Mortal Kombat II came with a special issue (featuring also the cover story "Jade: a warrior of mystery" ) of Argentinian magazine Top Kids in 1995. Two different action figures (basic and 10-inch models, each with different featured weapons) were released by Toy Island in 1996-1998 as part of the collections for Mortal Kombat: Trilogy. A 1/6 scale limited-edition statue of Jade in her primary costume from MK2011 was released in the Mortal Kombat Enchanted Warriors line by Syco Collectibles in 2012. She is also featured in the collectibe card games Mortal Kombat Kard Game as a common character (depicted as having curly hair ) and in Epic Battles as one of the rare characters.

Reception
The character received a mixed but mostly very positive critical reception. In G4's 2005 Video Game Vixens beauty pageant's contest "Sexiest Finish", Jade won the third place out of five contestants (the winner being Summer from Outlaw Golf 2 ) and was awarded the score of 8.7/10. In 2008, Jade "just barely missed the cut into" GameDaily's list of the 50 "hottest game babes". In 2010, Game Informer included one of her finishing moves in Deception, dubbed "Head Gymnastics", on the list of the best Fatalities so far. In 2011, when comparing the Mortal Kombat characters to the seven deadly sins in Dante's Inferno, GamePro chose Jade to represent Lust. Complex ranked her as number one in the 2011 list 25 "best looking sideline chicks in games", stating their preference of her over Kitana, Mileena and Sonya, also featuring her on the list of top "beach-ready bikini babes" in video games the next year. Her breasts were ranked the third finest in video games by GameFront in 2011 and as the seventh "best pairs of boobies" in gaming by Complex in 2012. GameFront's Phil Owen noted her popularity among the more attractive cosplayers, stating, "Jade, I love you," and Kotaku's Mike Fahey described himself as a "big fan of Jade." In 2012, UGO.com ranked Jade as 21st top character in the series, calling her "one of the greatest heroes in the universe of Mortal Kombat".

On the other hand, some criticized what they perceived as oversexualization of the character, io9 including her costume among 2011's "sluttiest and weirdest" store-bought Halloween costumes. According to UGO.com, "Jade seems to fetishize Eastern culture. She is a paradox: equal parts exotic slave girl and Asian princess, her most powerful weapon being her sexuality. She's the mystical, foreign black widow, a relic of post-war pulp novels." In 2012, Complex chose her and Kitana to represent the "women who fight" stereotype on the list of the 15 most stereotypical characters in video games, as embodying "half-naked skanks who can fight, hurl lasers and perform aerobatic attacks while wearing thongs, high-heeled boots and keeping their giant breasts under scarves." In 2010, Game Informer also listed them among the "palette swap characters" not wanted by them in the future Mortal Kombat games (the only exceptions were made for Scorpion and Sub-Zero).