Sub-Zero’s appearance in the issue was announced during the Jim Lee & Friends panel at New York Comic Con 2025 when the DC publisher and president was joined onstage by none other than Ed Boone, creator of Mortal Kombat.

“We thought it would be really cool to pull in characters from outside the DC multiverse and kind of spice things up,” Lee said about the character’s appearance in the current event. He also joked that fans should look out for the “Death of Sub-Zero Anniversary Special.” At least, we think it was a joke…?

While DC has previously published Mortal Kombat comic books, including 2015’s Mortal Kombat X — and, for that matter, the DC superheroes have previously battled the Mortal Kombat characters in the 2008 video game Mortal Kombat vs. DC Universe — this will be the first time a Mortal Kombat character has appeared in DC canon, never mind as part of a major DC comic book event storyline