Mortal Kombat : Earthrealm INVADED By Outworld, Lui Kang & Kitana Looking For Cyber Lin kuei

Mortal Kombat: Defenders of the Realm (also known as Mortal Kombat: The Animated Series) is an animated series based on the popular Mortal Kombat fighting game series. It aired on the USA Network's "USA Cartoon Express" animation block for one season of 13 episodes from September to December of 1996.

The characters and their back-stories are mostly continuous with the movie Mortal Kombat albeit with some minor differences. The characters’ designs are modeled after how they looked in Mortal Kombat 3 the Arcade game. The series takes place in Earthrealm, Outworld, and various other realms after the events of the first movie and the plot has very little to do with the plot of any of the games. Perhaps the most notable aspect of the show was that it provided the debut appearance of Quan Chi, who became a key character in the MK series, namely in Mortal Kombat 4 and Mortal Kombat: Deadly Alliance.

The show was focused on a group of warriors assembled by Raiden to defend Earthrealm from invaders of various other dimensions that entered through portals. The assembled warriors included Liu Kang, Kurtis Stryker, Sonya Blade, Jax Briggs, Kitana, and the younger Sub-Zero, with Nightwolf functioning mostly as tech support. The warriors operated out of a hidden base from where Nightwolf and Raiden monitored portal openings; the warriors would fly dragon-shaped jets to deal with disturbances. Shao Kahn was something of an arc villain throughout the series, being responsible for allowing other realms to invade Earthrealm. The finale involved Kitana leading a rebellion from Outworld against her stepfather, Shao Kahn.