Revisit The Saga Of The Warrior King

has shone a light on one of the strangest cartoon crossovers of all time, The Saga of the Warrior King. In November of 1996, Wing Commander fans excited to see the eighth

of

were treated to an odd surprise when the show was deferred for a half hour so that an episode of Mortal Kombat could air instead. What nobody realized at the time was that four different shows had inexplicably collaborated so a space viking voiced by Michael Dorn could hop through Street Fighter to Savage Dragon to Mortal Kombat and finally Wing Commander while chasing a mysterious object. There was never any promotion nor apparent reason for the bizarre tie-in, and Wing Commander fans have long regarded it as an enigmatic oddity of Saturday morning cartoon history. Author Gavin Jasper has done a good job recounting the entire tale at DoG

. For more background, check out the CIC's

.

Iâm going to level with you. I donât know much about Wing Commander. Flight games arenât my thing. I know that itâs about future space stuff where humans take on evil Thundercats via cosmic dog-fighting and the third game was groundbreaking for its use of cutscenes with real deal actors like Mark Hamill and Malcolm McDowell. Thatâs about as far as my knowledge goes on the subject prior to watching this episode.

There are two big things I notice from the start. First, the animation is very crisp for this era. It makes the other three shows look all clown shoes. Second, it pulls no punches. Death happens on-screen and itâs important. Enemy ships are blown up in space and itâs not like GI Joe where we see parachute escapes to assure us. Those cats are dead.

The pilot Gwen actually goes through emotional turmoil from killing and openly talks about how she loses a bit of herself every time she blows up a Kilrathi ship. Thatâs really unique to me. Iâm so used to seeing cartoons sidestep murder that seeing the ethical and emotional repercussions talked about is mindblowing.