Now, there has been a lot of controversy about Johnny Cage and Sonya appearing in Mortal Kombat X, mainly because he is now married to Sonya Blade and has a daughter, a new playable character named Cassie Cage. The point of making this is because there is so much hatred and controversy against Johnny Cage and Sonya Blade being in Mortal Kombat X. A lot of people are saying

“Oh Johnny Cage and Sonya should not be in the game because Cassie has the same moves as her parents and it would be completely pointless to have Johnny and Sonya in the game.”

Well, that’s not true, nor justice. Ed Boon and the team can make a character completely different if one has identical move sets or as some people call them, clone characters. Just because a character is related to another character doesn't mean that they will have exactly the same moves and become clone characters.

First, Ed Boon even said to the interviewer on TotalXbox.com that he wants Johnny Cage and Sonya Blade to appear in the game, because he wants Cassie to interact with her parents in some way. But this is not an official confirmation Johnny Cage or Sonya Blade will be playable.

“Part of the magic of introducing Cassie Cage is to see her interact with her mother, Sonya, and father, Johnny Cage. I think it would be, story-wise, a lost opportunity if we didn’t show that. So we haven’t announced the characters, but because Cassie Cage is in it doesn’t mean that her parents are not in the game.”

As far as we know from this, this isn’t an official confirmation stating Johnny Cage and Sonya will or won’t be playable. And we don’t know if they are a part of the story mode, but in my opinion, they will both make an appearance in story mode in some form, since they did survive Story Mode in Mortal Kombat 9. I would love to see them evolve throughout the years and watch them raise Cassie Cage.

So let’s cut to the chase, what if Johnny Cage and Sonya Blade ARE playable?

Well, as I said before, a lot of people believe Cassie Cage have direct moves inherited from her parents. Listen to the key word, “inherited”. Yes Cassie Cage may have some moves and variations from both her parents, but she is “inheriting” or “interpreting” her parent’s moves in her own unique style.

Before I give any scenarios, let’s compare what Cassie shares with her parents.

SONYA

Her overall appearance is in a military-like outfit, which she gets from her mother Sonya, only Cassie’s outfit is a bit more conservative and less revealing than her mother’s past outfits. Cassie Cage uses pistols, which her mother never used in a fight. She also has blonde hair only it is buzz-cut on the sides and put up in a bun, unlike her mother.

JOHNNY CAGE

Her “Brawler” Variation has glowing green hands, which she shares with her father Johnny Cage, but Johnny Cage didn’t have glowing green hands throughout the whole fight, just when he was developing his green orb power.

Her "Hollywood" variation just like Johnny, allows her to fight with a new shades, identical to her father’s MK1 pair of shades. The "Hollywood" style also contains a "nut punch" attack. Cassie does a nut punch, but with her Night Sticks, not her hands. However, she does a nut punch in her X-Ray as well, doing it into a split, just like her father. Cassie does a shadow uppercut, but using her knees, not straight up with her elbow like her father.

This X-Ray has also addressed concerns and drama about Johnny Cage being in the game. Now, consider this, Cassie Cage appears to be between 22-25 years old. Johnny Cage couldn’t have married Sonya and had Cassie too long after MK9 ended. At the time of MK9, Johnny was 29 years old (29 years old was his actual confirmed age as of Mortal Kombat 1). Advancing 25 years into the future would make Johnny Cage at least 54 years old). Johnny may be a little too old to jump into a split and burst somebody’s balls into oblivion, that is, I SAID, jumping into a split. I’m going to come back to this later on in.

Maybe Johnny Cage can still punch somebody in the nuts a different way for his X-Ray, or just straight up getting down on his knees and doing it. To make it more unique, maybe he’ll punch somebody so hard that the testicles will shoot all the way up to the brain instead of just bursting? If that idea fails, then Netherrealm Studios can just give Johnny a completely different X-Ray, not punching somebody in the nuts.

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So, let’s observe and summarize, what moves does Cassie share with her parents, and what does Cassie have of her own that is new and original, separate from her parents?

Johnny Cage shared Moves

Sonya Blade shared Moves

Cassie Cage Unique Moves

Nut Punch (Using Night Sticks)

Kartwheel (Backwards, not forward)

Missiles

Nut Punch (Going into a split) (X-Ray)

Pistols

Shadow Uppercut (With her knees)

Night Sticks

Bubble Gum (gimmick)

The bubble gum is a brand new gimmick, never used with a character in Mortal Kombat before, but it contributes to her father’s genes, making her a more of a comic-relief character like Johnny. I think her bubble gum in the head Fatality is epic by the way!

But if you observe the top chart, Cassie Cage gets most of her moves from her dad, Johnny rather than her mom Sonya. Cassie may have her mother’s looks, but she has practically one similar move to Sonya’s and that’s the Kartwheel kick, which kinda says something to me. There might just be a reason to why she only has one of her mother’s traits used in her fighting variations, and that will lead to scenario 2.

Cassie uses missiles, pistols, night sticks during her fight, which are 3 different things, just as much as she shares with Johnny. But if you count her bubble gum gimmick, that makes her slightly different from her parents.

She also has a ton of moves that she doesn’t have from her parents, and most of them are their signature moves.

So, Johnny and Sonya both have practically the same amount of moves that Cassie doesn’t have in her fighting variations. Johnny and Sonya both have 5 moves of their own they didn’t pass onto their daughter, and these are some of the big ones!

Now, let’s start with scenario 1

and that is if BOTH Johnny and Sonya are playable characters.

I’ve been getting a lot of drama saying that having Johnny and Sonya would be a waste of 2 slots, which are better suited for other potential characters. Well, there is only one way to fix that! What if Johnny Cage and Sonya Blade were put in as a team, like Ferrah/Torr or even Noob/Smoke? Huh? If they make both of them in one slot, that would save a spot for another character! If that were to become true, I could see it happening like this...

Variation 1 - Fight as both Johnny and Sonya together

Variation 2 - Fight just as Johnny

Variation 3 - Fight just as Sonya.

or...

If you want them both to fight together, each of their variations could be their evolvement throughout the years, like Variation 1 = Older Johnny Cage and Sonya, Variation 2 = Middle-aged Johnny Cage and Sonya, Variation 3 = MK9 aged Johnny Cage and Sonya, and each age variation could have different powers, perhaps?

After all, the same German Magazine that leaked Kano as being a playable character revealed that Johnny Cage, Sonya Blade and even Liu Kang are playable in the game, with their ages throughout the years as playable, but Ed Boon himself hasn’t actually confirmed this yet, which leads me to scenario 2.

http://testyourmight.com/threads/new-info-from-german-gamepro-translated.45193/

What if Netherrealm decided to have one or the other, Johnny or Sonya appear in the game, at least being playable? Well, considering Kano being included on the playable roster, I think it would be best to keep Johnny Cage and leave out Sonya Blade. Why? Let’s say in the story, what if Kano ended up murdering Sonya after all those years? If that were to happen, it would be up to Johnny Cage and Cassie to team up to kill Kano as payback, or at least have Johnny train Cassie to bulk up enough to kill Kano herself in the story? To me, that seems like a more legitimate way to go. I think it would give Johnny a more important role in the story, and it also leads me back to the chart…

Johnny Cage shared Moves

Sonya Blade shared Moves

Cassie Cage Unique Moves

Nut Punch (Using Night Sticks)

Kartwheel (Backwards, not forward)

Missiles

Nut Punch (Going into a split) (X-Ray)

Pistols

Shadow Uppercut (With her knees)

Night Sticks

Bubble Gum (gimmick)

Johnny Cage appears to have more shared moves with Cassie Cage than Sonya Blade. There must be a reason for it, and the scenario I just provided could perhaps be a clue to why Cassie uses more of her father’s moves than her mother’s.

Maybe Sonya could have been murdered when Cassie was an adolescent, and she was raised by her father the rest of her life and be trained by Johnny throughout the rest of the story? To me, that would make Johnny Cage more important than what the haters think, it would give purpose to why Cassie Cage is the way she is in the game, and that to me would make a good reason why Johnny should be one of the classic returning characters to be playable.

Now, another issue I’ve come across with fans is that they are saying “Oh Johnny is too old to fight since 25 years have passed.”

As I said before, at the time of MK9, Johnny was 29 years old (29 years old was his actual confirmed age as of Mortal Kombat 1). Advancing 25 years into the future would make Johnny Cage at least 54 years old).

That’s not considered that old to fight for a human character, considering we have Shujinko who still fought after 70 years. And if you look at Kano, his age was 35 at the time of Mortal Kombat 1 & MK9. Kano is confirmed as a playable character now and if you add 25 years after, that would make Kano at least 60 years old in Mortal Kombat X! That’s about 6 years older than Johnny Cage and Kano is still fighting!

How can Johnny be different from Cassie if he were to be playable? Like I said, he’s already different when it comes to the move sets, considering he has most of his major moves missing from Cassie’s move list. Since Cassie uses her night sticks to give a nut punch, Johnny using his hands would make it slightly more diverse. But what if Johnny’s Mortal Kombat 9 ending came true, with him becoming Seido before Cassie was born? He can have a whole new background with the Realm of Order, with his powers being more mystical, yet still maintaining his classic moves? I would love to see a Seido Johnny Cage and it would make a completely different twist on his moves than the past games, and that’s just my opinion again.

Also, another issue fans have been having is that they’re saying “You can’t have Johnny Cage or Sonya Blade playable in MKX becau se they can’t perform a fatality on their own daughter.” Yeah, say that to Sindel…

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8oBfcGlGSH8

We’ve got 4 different sources from Netherrealm already saying Johnny and Sonya should make an appearance in Mortal Kombat X.

The interview on TotalXbox where Ed said “Part of the magic of introducing Cassie Cage is to see her interact with her mother, Sonya, and father, Johnny Cage. I think it would be, story-wise, a lost opportunity if we didn’t show that. So we haven’t announced the characters, but because Cassie Cage is in it doesn’t mean that her parents are not in the game.”

http://www.totalxbox.com/80584/ed-boon-basically-confirms-johnny-cage-and-sonya-for-mortal-kombat-x/

This video of Ed Talking about Cassie performing fatalities on relatives

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tZpR3IlQn04

Now, all I’m saying is that I would like to see Johnny Cage and Sonya Blade just fight for one more Mortal Kombat game, especially since how popular they were in MK9, mainly Johnny Cage, they both have been here since day one and they are iconic characters in my biased opinion, and I’m trying to think of good reasons to why Johnny or Sonya should make a spot in the playable roster. I would love to see both Johnny and Sonya Blade playable in today’s graphics, especially since the new engine they are using for MKX allows them to do Fatalities and other features they couldn’t do before.

Again, the point of this is to just stop the hate towards Johnny Cage and Sonya, I mean really, it’s just a game!