his "shoulder and power charge moves [used] to knock down" opponents and his uppercut being "an excellent move to counter jumpers." Other media Nightwolf is a main character in the 1996 cartoon series Mortal Kombat: Defenders of the Realm, voiced by Tod Thawley. He serves to offer spiritual and technical help to the Earthrealm warriors and is depicted as having expertise in computer technology. He has a pet wolf named Kiva who could merge with Nightwolf to increase his power. Nightwolf briefly appeared in the 1997 film Mortal Kombat: Annihilation, and was played by Native American rapper and actor Litefoot. Nightwolf breifly appeared in a flashback as one of the film's version of a Revenant in the 2022 film Mortal Kombat Legends: Snow Blind. Nightwolf has not been featured in other MK alternate media, but stunt coordinator Larnell Stovall stated in a 2011 interview with ShogunGamer that he had wanted the character added for the 2013 second season of the Mortal Kombat: Legacy web series, describing him as "too cool due to his powers, knives and that axe!" Merchandise and promotion An action figure of Nightwolf was released by Jazwares in July 2012. It came in two versions, 4-inch and 6-inch. Reception Ethnic representation Nightwolf has often been unfavorably discussed in the context of the portrayal of Native Americans in video games. Boon's 1995 description of the character to VideoGames provoked a comment from the magazine: "For a character described by Midway as a 'nontraditional Indian,' he certainly has all the trappings of one. Let's see, he wears feathers and war paint, swings a hatchet, shoots arrows...could there be a 'Scalp' Fatality?" Complex, in 2012, deemed Nightwolf the top stereotypical character in all video games, describing him as "the epitome of every red-skinned, feather-wearing sports mascot and old cowboy movie serial ... [he] has warpaint on his face, a feather in his hair and the sleeveless vest as if Geronimo himself just gave it up." David Wong of Cracked included Nightwolf as an example of an ethnically-stereotypical game character in a 2012 feature about racial prejudices in video game design. Hardcore Gaming 101 said of the character's role in the Mortal Kombat series, "In the mid-'90s, it was practically an unwritten law that every fighting game had to have either a Bruce Lee clone, [or] a Native American ... Nightwolf takes up the latter slot." This belief was concurred by