It took more than 30 years but it's finally happening: Jean-Claude Van Damme is coming to Mortal Kombat

pcgamer.com:

The Mortal Kombat character Johnny Cage is very heavily inspired by real-world action star Jean-Claude Van Damme, to the extent that Cage's original appearance is basically a direct lift from the seminal JCVD flick Bloodsport. It took more than 30 years, but now the Mortal Kombat universe finally has the real deal: The Muscles from Brussels will be available as an optional skin for Johnny Cage in the upcoming Mortal Kombat 1.

Van Damme's appearance in Mortal Kombat 1 was revealed—of course—in a wildly violent trailer that concludes with a gratuitously brutal fatality that sees Johnny Cage go for a ride in one of JCVD's expensive European sports cars. (Most of him, anyway.) It's fairly typical Mortal Kombat fare, and almost restrained compared to some of the finishers we've seen over the years.

What I really like about the trailer, though, is the way Van Damme rolls with the inherent absurdity of the whole thing. Johnny Cage has always been played for laughs more overtly than other members of the MK cast, mainly because of the nature of the character: A fading Hollywood hero who's so desperate to reverse his fortunes that he joins a to-the-death fighting tournament that he clearly has no business being in. 

Thin-skinned movie stars might not find the portrayal entirely flattering—Cage is definitely what you could call the Komic relief—but Van Damme seems to embrace it. At the very least, he's willing to go along with it: He even emulates Johnny Cage's funniest moment from the brilliant "Old Skool vs New Skool" Mortal Kombat 11 trailer.

Interesting side note: Mortal Kombat was originally envisioned as a gritty take on Street Fighter starring Van Damme as the central character. When that fell through—Van Damme was just