How Reptile From Mortal Kombat Should Really Look

Warner Bros.' long-awaited "Mortal Kombat" adaptation has finally kome to kinemas, and the franchise's enthusiastic fan base has a lot of feelings. Among the more divisive choices in the feature film is the remarkably brief inclusion of Reptile, the Saurian kombatant with a history that goes all the way back to the first game in the series.

We won't dive too deeply into the lizard man's controversial fate, though it's worth remembering that the movie is called "Mortal Kombat" and not "Kongenial Konversation." Instead, let's focus on the way that the character is portrayed in the film — as a very large iguana, one who's not Godzilla-large, but bigger than you'd feel comfortable seeing in an exotic pet store at a strip mall.

YouTube reaction videos posted in response to Reptile's new look have run the gamut from excitement to #notmyReptile. All of this begs the question, how should the character have actually looked? Did they get him right or not?

The answer — based on decades of video games, comic books, and Hollywood movies — seems to be that there's really no wrong answer.

"Mortal Kombat" has featured dozens of colorful characters throughout the years, and their aesthetics shift from one incarnation to the next. Reptile? He's probably the most dramatic example of this phenomenon, starting out in the first "Mortal Kombat" game as a secret boss that looks suspiciously like a color-swapped Scorpion/Sub-Zero knockoff and boasting the signature special moves of both.

In "Mortal Kombat 2," players could get a glimpse of what seemed to be Reptile's true form when he performed a fatality, removing his human mask and revealing a scaly green face underneath it. "Mortal Kombat 4" saw him rocking an emerald visage full-time, and by 2002's "Mortal Kombat: Deadly Alliance," he'd gone 100% Curt Connors, boasting a tail, spines, and an elongated dinosaur face. Then there was 1995's Paul W.S. Anderson-helmed "Mortal Kombat" movie, where Reptile looked like the Geico Gecko's cousin who keeps stealing copper wire out of housing developments. In short, he's a creature of many forms. 

Still, if you're looking for a definitive answer to the question "what should Reptile look like," you might consider that his only real constant is his ability to turn invisible, so the most accurate representation of the character might be the one standing next to you, staring at you, right this minute.