Shao Kahn

Shao Kahn is a boss and recurring playable character from the Mortal Kombat fighting game series.

The main antagonist in the Mortal Kombat series, Shao Kahn (often misspelled as Shao Khan) is the Emperor of Outworld known for his godlike strength, extreme brutality and knowledge of black magic. Like his subordinate Shang Tsung, he has the power to consume others' souls. Later in the series, his abilities are toned down to make other bosses appear superior.

In video games

Origins

A milestone in his military victories was the merging of Edenia with Outworld. After his warriors had won in Mortal Kombat, Kahn invaded the realm. On the battlefield, Kahn killed King Jerrod, and took his Queen Sindel as his wife, raising their daughter, Princess Kitana, as his own. He had the young princess trained as his personal guard and assassin. Sindel took her own life in an attempt to escape subservience to the emperor. Unwilling to be denied, Kahn held her soul in Outworld, stopping her transition to the afterlife. Kahn had also instructed his sorcerer Shang Tsung to create a Tarkatan-based clone of Kitana, called Mileena, so that she could watch over her and make sure Kitana does not jeopardize his rules. As Kitana grew up, she would not remember her past, and assumed that she and Mileena were Kahn's twin daughters.

Mortal Kombat II

Mortal Kombat 3

Deadly Alliance and Deception

Armageddon

The alliance faltered and Kahn was carried away from Blaze by Onaga after Tsung nearly knocked him off Blaze's pyramid. Kahn managed to escape and fought Raiden, the last remaining kombatant.

Mortal Kombat vs. DC Universe

In Shao Kahn's ending, the Phantom Zone, known for neutralizing it's inhabitant's powers, has no effect on him due to his magic, instead the opposite happens, and the zone returns his powers to him, whereby he frees an army of Kryptonian villains. In gratitude they swear allegiance to the emperor, and plan to help him conquer all of the universes.

Mortal Kombat (2011)

The story then proceeds to concatenate the stories of all of the previous games into a cohesive plot that includes all of the main characters from the past games. Raiden eventually realizes that Kahn's efforts to merge the realms must not be stopped, because by doing so, the Elder Gods take action against Kahn. Liu Kang tries to defy Raiden's order to not fight Shao Kahn, and as a result is killed by Raiden in a twist of events. By stopping Liu Kang it causes Shao Kahn to continue to break the rules and merge the realms before completing his victory in Mortal Kombat between Outworld and Earthrealm. This enrages the gods, causing them to give Raiden their power and destroy Shao Kahn completely.

In other media

In film

Shao Kahn appears in both Mortal Kombat films. In the 1995 first movie he is referred to simply as "The Emperor"and makes a brief appearance at the end, as a special effect and voiced by Frank Welker.

Kahn (his name, incorrectly hyphenated in the closing credits of Annihilation, was additionally misspelled as "Shoa-Kahn" on the DVD release's fight scenes menu), played by Brian Thompson, is the main antagonist in the 1997 sequel, . He kills Johnny Cage in the film's opening scene, and then Raiden (later brought back to life) near the end prior to his final climactic fight with Liu Kang. In addition, Kahn and Raiden were portrayed as brothers, with Shinnok as their father, though neither of them shared any relation in the games (with the exception of Mortal Kombat vs. DC Universe in which Raiden's biography states that the two are brothers, although the game itself is non-canon). The only subplot taken directly from the games' storyline was his past relationship with Kitana and Sindel; a segment in the film featured Kitana, imprisoned in Kahn's fortress, mentioning the destruction of her family and Sindel's subsequent suicide under his rule.

Thompson's performance in the movie was poorly received by both fans and critics.

Television

He also made several appearances in the animated series , playing his usual role of Outworld's emperor and leader of the enemy troops. He was voiced by John Vernon and Michael Des Barres in separate episodes.

Comics

Character design

Kahn's attire for Mortal Kombat II was developed by Mark Runion. Kahn started out unmasked and with large gnashing teeth similar to Baraka, since everyone from Outworld was originally to be of Baraka's race. The idea of all inhabitants of Outworld being Tarkata was later dropped.

In MKII, Kahn was digitally resized to a taller height to make him tower over the playable characters. Ironically, the actor who played him, bodybuilder Brian Glynn, was not nearly as imposing in comparison; a photograph published in GamePro issue of May 1994 of Glynn and Mortal Kombat co-creator Ed Boon standing side-by-side, which was snapped during production of the game, showed that Boon was taller.

It was originally stated that Shao Kahn is a demonic character, and his monstrous visage from the official comic books, as well as lends credibility to that. However, in the most recent games he appears to be more along the lines of a large, powerful human. His face has only appeared in Shaolin Monks, in which he is hit with his war hammer and his helmet breaks.

In many official depictions of Shao Kahn made by Midway, he is shown wearing a cape, though he never wore one in his original digitized appearances. Mortal Kombat: Deception was the first time in which he wore the cape in-game. In Mortal Kombat Annihilation, he once throws it at Liu Kang as a weapon. Mortal Kombat sound designer Dan Forden explained that the reason for Kahn not wearing the cape in earlier games, in addition to Kabal not being able to wear a trenchcoat in Mortal Kombat 3, was that loose flowing clothing took up memory.

Gameplay

Shao Kahn's special moves consists of things such as shoulder dashes and attacks from his wrath hammer. In Mortal Kombat 3 and it's updates, his moves cause the opponent to stun if they're blocked.

Reception

References

External links

Category:Fictional characters introduced in 1993 Category:Fictional deities Category:Fictional emperors and empresses Category:Fictional dictators Category:Fictional mass murderers Category:Fictional warlords Category:Fictional wushu practitioners Category:Film characters Category:Male video game characters Category:Mortal Kombat characters Category:Video game bosses

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