Johnny Cage, birth name John Carlton, is a martial artist and actor who enters Shang Tsung's Mortal Kombat tournament simply to prove that he does not rely on special effects in his films, and is the lone character therein who does not share a past history with any of the game's other characters. In the 1993 sequel Mortal Kombat II, Cage disappears from the set of his latest film after following Liu Kang into Outworld, where he joins forces with his fellow warriors who fight in a second tournament in an attempt to protect Earth against evil Outworld emperor Shao Kahn.