Shao Kahn is a boss, announcer, and recurring playable character from the Mortal Kombat
fighting game series.
Introduced in Mortal Kombat II in 1993, he is the primary antagonist of the video game
series and extended franchise.
Shao Kahn is depicted as a brutal warlord who is the Emperor of the mystical realm Outworld.
Feared for his godlike strength and knowledge of black magic, he seeks to conquer all of
the realms of the Mortal Kombat universe and merge them with Outworld.
Shao Kahn is one of Mortal Kombat's most celebrated villains.
While he is noted as a difficult boss, publications and critics have praised his design, in-game
abilities, and mannerisms--particularly his quirk of mocking and taunting players.
Appearances Mortal Kombat video games
Prior to the events of the game series, Shao Kahn was Outworld's protector and an advisor
to the realm's ruler, Onaga.
Eventually, Shao Kahn poisoned Onaga, claiming his throne and his armies.
Kahn continued to add lesser realms to Outworld, including Edenia, whose queen Sindel and princess
Kitana were forced to be Kahn's wife and personal assassin, respectively.
Sindel killed herself to escape Kahn, who keeps her soul in Outworld.
Kahn first appears in Mortal Kombat II as the game's final boss and main antagonist.
After the crooked tournament Grandmaster Shang Tsung and his warriors lose to Earthrealm
in Mortal Kombat Kahn invokes a tournament rematch clause which will allow him to take
Earthrealm immediately if he wins.
Though he lures Earth's warriors to Outworld to kill them, he is defeated by the Shaolin
Monk Liu Kang, which halts his plans.
Mortal Kombat 3 features Shao Kahn as the final boss again.
The game's story sees Shang Tsung resurrect Queen Sindel in Earthrealm, allowing Kahn
to cross the dimensional borders to claim her.
This ploy allows Outworld's to invade Earth, which is normally a violation of Mortal Kombat
tournament rules.
Billions of people die as Kahn strips their souls to empower himself and begins to merge
Earthrealm with Outworld.
Kahn sends extermination squads to kill the chosen few who were protected from this fate.
Eventually, Liu Kang again trounces Kahn, and he and his Outworld armies retreat, restoring
Earth and Edenia to normal.
After being absent from Mortal Kombat 4, Shao Kahn has a brief cameo in Mortal Kombat: Deadly
Alliance.
The Emperor, weakened from battle with Edenia and abandoned by many of his finest soldiers,
is killed by the titular Alliance of Shang Tsung and Quan Chi.
He makes a playable appearance in the Nintendo GameCube version of Mortal Kombat: Deception
where it is revealed that the Deadly Alliance killed a decoy.
Kahn sets out to reclaim his empire from a resurrected Onaga.
In Mortal Kombat: Armageddon, Shao Kahn is playable once more.
In the game's story, he is the ruler of Outworld again after Onaga's defeat.
He forms an uneasy alliance with Quan Chi, Shang Tsung, and Onaga to defeat Blaze and
seize his godlike powers.
Though the alliance falters, Kahn outlasts all other Kombatants, kills Blaze, and takes
the ultimate power, causing Armageddon.
In 20ll's Mortal Kombat reboot Shao Kahn is once again the main antagonist and unplayable
final boss of the game's Arcade Ladder and Story Mode, the latter of which concatenates
the plots of Mortal Kombat, Mortal Kombat II, and Mortal Kombat 3 into a cohesive story.
After gaining the power of Blaze, Kahn kills Raiden, but not before Raiden sends prophetic
messages to his past self using his broken talisman.
The talisman periodically informs the younger Raiden of his progress in preventing Armageddon.
As Shao Kahn invades Earthrealm, Raiden decides not to stop Kahn's attempts to merge Earth
with Outworld.
Kahn pummels a surrendering Raiden until the Elder Gods, enraged by Shao Kahn's violation
of Mortal Kombat rules, empower Raiden which allows him to kill the Emperor.
This prevents Armageddon and returns Earthrealm to normal.
Crossover appearances Shao Kahn and Darkseid are the key villains
in the crossover game Mortal Kombat vs. DC Universe, though both are playable characters.
In the game's plot, a defeated Shao Kahn limps into a graveyard where he meets with his secret
ally Quan Chi.
They are confronted by Raiden, who uses a lightning bolt on Shao Kahn, which knocks
him into Quan Chi’s portal.
This event, along with a parallel one between Superman and Darkseid in the DC Universe,
results in the creation of Dark Kahn, who serves as the main antagonist in the game.
After Dark Kahn is defeated, Shao Kahn ends up in the DC Universe's Darkseid's throne
room, where he discovers he has lost his powers.
He is promptly imprisoned in the Phantom Zone.
Design and gameplay
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 supposed to be of Baraka's race.
The idea of all inhabitants of Outworld being Tarkatan was later dropped.
It was originally stated that Shao Kahn is a demonic character, and his monstrous visage
from the official comic books, as well as Mortal Kombat: Shaolin Monks 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 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 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.
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.
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.
Shao Kahn originated as an unplayable boss character in MKII.
He is fought as a boss in most of his appearances, but became a player character for the first
time in the home ports of MK3 as an unlockable character.
He would also be playable in the home ports of Ultimate Mortal Kombat 3, Mortal Kombat
Trilogy, the Nintendo GameCube and PlayStation Portable versions of Mortal Kombat: Deception,
Mortal Kombat: Armageddon and Mortal Kombat vs. DC Universe.
In Mortal Kombat, Shao Kahn is once again a non-playable boss.
He is also the final boss in the beat 'em up spin-off, Shaolin Monks.
Shao Kahn's special moves consist mainly of powerful shoulder barges, magical projectiles,
and attacks with his signature giant maul, the "Wrath Hammer".
In some of his appearances as a boss, blocking Kahn's attacks will stun the player.
Since his debut, the character's main quirk has been taunting players before, during,
and after rounds with such statements as "Feel the power of Shao Kahn!", "Bow to me!" and
"It's official, you suck!"
Other appearances
Shao Kahn makes his first appearance in MK comic books during the Battlewave miniseries
by Malibu Comics, though he already was present in the first, Blood & Thunder.
Shao Kahn remained mostly faithful to his game counterpart, being the Emperor of Outworld
and attempting to take Earthrealm for himself.
In Battlewave, Shao Kahn would arrange a different plan to open the portals.
He kidnaps Sonya Blade and, by means of hypnosis and brainwashing, convinces her to marry him;
the marriage would weaken the barriers between realms enough to allow Shao Kahn to seize
Earth easily.
During these two series, he never appears wielding his trademark helmet, and he is seen
wearing his helmet only in the comic Kitana & Mileena.
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, played by Brian Thompson, is the main antagonist in the 1997 sequel, Mortal Kombat:
Annihilation.
In the film he fights Raiden, Johnny Cage and Liu Kang.
He brutally kills Johnny Cage in the film's opening scene, murders his own allies Rain
and Jade in cold blood and then Raiden near the end prior to his final 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.
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.
He was played by Jeffrey D. Harris and Ted Nordblum in the 1995-1996 stage show Mortal
Kombat: Live Tour.
A Shao Kahn action figure was released in 1996 by Toy Island in the Mortal Kombat Trilogy
series.
He was also one of the characters featured in the collectible card game Mortal Kombat
Kard Game.
Shao Kahn was played by Jeffrey Meek in the TV series Mortal Kombat: Konquest.
Despite having lost much of his physical stature from the games and movies, the character has
a much more threatening disposition, serving as the mediator of the Mortal Kombat matches.
Meek played opposite himself in the series finale, where Kahn battles Raiden in a void
seemingly between the realms.
With Kung Lao dead, Shao Kahn forces Raiden into submission and commenced full military
assault on Earthrealm.
The series was discontinued following this event.
He also makes several appearances in the cartoon series Mortal Kombat: Defenders of the Realm,
in his usual role of Outworld's emperor and the leader of enemy forces.
He was voiced by John Vernon and Michael Des Barres in separate episodes.
Aleks Paunovic portrayed an unmasked Shao Kahn for the web series Mortal Kombat: Legacy
two-part episode "Kitana & Mileena", dealing with his early rule over the conquered Edenia
and an alternate version of his relationship to Sindel, Kitana and Mileena.
Reception
Shao Kahn has been nominated to Nintendo Power Awards '94 and '95 in the category "Worst
Villain" of the year, coming second place for 1995.
In the eliminations of GameSpot's vote poll for the title of "All Time Greatest Game Villain",
Shao Kahn won against Officer Tenpenny from Grand Theft Auto: San Andreas but barely lost
to General RAAM from Gears of War.
GamesRadar also praised Shao Kahn's role as an antagonist, putting him in their 2013 list
of the best villains in video game history at number 24, and including him among the
12most unfair gaming bosses in 2014.
Complex ranked Shao Kahn from Mortal Kombat II as the "coolest" boss in fighting game
history in 2012, stating that "in the history of fighting games, no boss has ever been cooler
or more exciting to lose against."
In ScrewAttack's Death Battle battle of the fighting game bosses episode, Shao Kahn defeated
M. Bison from the Street Fighter series, overcoming him due to his battle experience of over ten
thousand years in addition to the absorption of billions of souls, all of which grant him
power.
In 2011, ScrewAttack ranked Shao Kahn as the fourth best Mortal Kombat character.
On the other hand, GamePlayBook ranked him as the fourth worst Mortal Kombat character,
criticizing him for looking like "he failed WWE training camp".
In UGO's 2012 list of the top Mortal Kombat characters, Shao Kahn placed as 16th.
In their retrospection listing of MK characters, UGO stated most favorite thing about him was
the fact that "his speaking voice is the voice of the announcer heard throughout the series."
Complex placed him seventh on her 2013 list of most brutal fighters in Mortal Kombat,
adding that "he was brutal not only in his strength but his cunning, too."
He was voted the series' ninth greatest character in a poll by Dorkly that same year.
In 2010, Game Informer featured him on their list of gaming's "crappiest" fathers, commenting
he "is more like an abusive, drunken stepfather than a crappy biological father [and is] also
a terrible husband."
The character's incarnation in the 2011 Mortal Kombat has been criticized for how hard it
is to defeat him to the point of frustrating gamers; that same year, CraveOnline included
him on the list of top five "bosses you want to kill but can't".
The fight against Shao Kahn in Mortal Kombat 3 was also noted for its difficulty; in 2013,
Complex ranked it as the 23rd hardest boss battle in video games.
References
External links Shao Kahn - The Mortal Kombat Wiki