| Shao Kahn |
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Shao Kahn is a Fictional Boss and recurring Playable Character from the '' Mortal Kombat '' Fighting Game series. ABOUT SHAO KAHN One of the primary villains in the ''Mortal Kombat'' series, Shao Kahn (frequently misspelled as Shao ''Khan'') is the Emperor of Outworld . He resembles an Asian warrior-king in many respects, and embodies Evil in many forms. He is known for his godlike strength, extreme callousness, brutality and his fondness of personal executions, but rises above the level of a mere Warlord through his intelligence and knowledge of Black Magic . Like his subordinate Shang Tsung , he has the power to consume other souls. His greatest strength is probably his ability to work towards his goals with great tenacity and his ability to organize, but his greatest weaknesses are his arrogance and his overconfidence. STORYLINE Shao Kahn originally served as an advisor to Onaga when the latter ruled Outworld as the Dragon King. Onaga's Empire had become the most powerful in the realms and so he began searching for a way to become immortal. Before his goal could be realized, Shao Kahn made his move by poisoning Onaga and taking his kingdom. Leading whatever troops that remained loyal to the Dragon King, Kahn continued many of the former emperor's plans. He continued to add lesser realms to Outworld, either through direct conquest or through ''Mortal Kombat''. 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 Queen Sindel as his wife, raising her daughter, Princess Kitana , as his own. He had the young princess trained as his personal guard and as an 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. Many years later, Kahn chose Earthrealm as his next conquest. He sent Shang Tsung and eventually Goro to Earthrealm to prepare it for an invasion in the event of Goro maintaining his position of champion. A turning point came when Prince Goro defeated the Great Kung Lao and started a winning streak that would last for 500 years. Shang Tsung, a Shapeshifter , supervised the tournament. The tenth ''Mortal Kombat'' however, saw the defeat of both Goro and Shang Tsung by a Shaolin Monk , Liu Kang , ruining five hundred years of Tsung's investment. Shang Tsung begged Shao Kahn for his life, and came up with a plan to lure Earth's chosen warriors to Outworld for a second tournament. Shao Kahn spared Tsung's life and restored his youth. If Earthrealm's champions could be killed, they would not be able to cause further damage to Kahn's plans. With the captured Kano and Sonya Blade as bait, and enraging Liu Kang by sending Baraka and his troops to destroy the Shaolin temples, they confidently waited for the Earth warriors to fall into the trap. Despite Kahn's vast power, Liu Kang's determination saw him through, and he defeated the despot. Unwilling to accept defeat, Kahn called his armies to destroy the Earthrealm warriors. They fled back to Earthrealm, out of Kahn's clutches. By this time, Shang Tsung was able to resurrect Queen Sindel in Earthrealm, and Kahn would be able to cross the border to claim her. Kahn had Tsung proceed, and once he invaded Earthrealm, he began to merge it with his own realm of Outworld. Nearly every living being in Earthrealm had their souls ripped from their bodies by Kahn, claiming them as his own. Kahn's day finally seemed to have come. Kahn sent extermination squads to hunt them down and kill the remaining survivors, but Lord Raiden had protected the souls of a handful of warriors. It would be their task to try to stop Kahn, and return Earthrealm to its normal state. In the ensuing fights, Kahn was confronted by Kung Lao , another Shaolin monk and descendant of the warrior Goro defeated to become champion of Mortal Kombat, but Kahn crushed him. It was Liu Kang who again managed to defeat Kahn. Worn down from the battle, Kahn recalled his squads and retreated back to Outworld. This stopped the merger with Outworld, and restored Earthrealm to its original status. To make matters worse for Kahn, many of his loyal soldiers had abandoned him, and Kitana had succeeded in turning Sindel to her side, restoring Edenia as an independent realm. The emperor was now greatly weakened, and would remain so for a period of several years, remaining inactive during '' it is revealed that Kahn did not die, and that it was a clone that Quan Chi and Shang Tsung killed. The real Kahn appeared to the wounded Goro and, using what little power he had left, revived him, thus gaining Goro and the Shokan as allies once again. In the events of '''', Shao Kahn is the Emperor of Outworld once again. It was revealed in the bios of Shang Tsung and Mileena that Shao Kahn had regained power after Onaga's defeat, by storming his own fortress (then under the command of Mileena who had earlier deceived and used Kitana 's Edenian force to capture the fortress) with the aid of Goro and Shang Tsung. When he succeeds in using his own brute force to storm the throne room, Mileena surrenders to him and Shao Kahn becomes Outworld's ruler once more. Later on, he would go on to form an uneasy alliance with Quan Chi , Shang Tsung , and Onaga in the hopes of defeating Blaze and seizing his God-like powers. In his ending, Shao Kahn makes his way to the top of Argus's Pyramid for the final confrontation with Blaze. Shao Kahn proved to be too powerful for Blaze and easily defeated him. Shao Kahn's armies destroyed what was left of his enemies, and with the power Shao Kahn received from defeating Blaze, he merges all the realms with Outworld. With his main goal completed and having complete control over all the realms, Shao Kahn grew mad with boredom, as he had nothing else left to conquer. Shao Kahn's ''Armageddon'' info at Mortal Kombat Warehouse COMBAT CHARACTERISTICS Signature moves
Recurring fatalities
APPEARANCES IN OTHER MEDIA Film ''. ]] Shao Kahn appears in both ''Mortal Kombat'' Movies , although he is played by different Actor s. In the First Movie , he is referred throughout the movie only as "The Emperor". He appears briefly at the end, but only as a special effect. In the second movie, '''', Kahn is played by Brian Thompson ; he is ultimately defeated and killed by Liu Kang. In ''Annihilation'', as an attempt to shock the viewer, Raiden announced that Shao Kahn was his brother and Shinnok their father. He bore the same tattoo on his right shoulder as a sign of their family that Raiden wore. This has never been made official in the MK Canon (nor even mentioned for that matter), and most fans have dismissed this as another example of how far removed from the games ''Mortal Kombat: Annihilation'' was. Thompson, because of the movie being a box office flop, was often accused of overdramatizing his character in many scenes. Other criticisms include Thompson only wearing Kahn's signature mask twice, as well as the small size compared to the game Kahn. Television Shao Kahn appears in '''', played by Jeff Meek , who also played Raiden. Despite having lost much of his physical stature from the games and movies, he has a much more threatening disposition. The Emperor of Outworld is the mediator of the Mortal Kombat matches; it was this role that first drew his attention to Shang Tsung , and earned him personal vendetta against Kung Lao, despite not fighting the monk himself. Though he rarely interacts with the heroes of the series (due to his inability to travel to Earthrealm), Shao Kahn is ruthless and influential from the Outworld throne. He employs the services of many fighters from Outworld, Earthrealm, and others in unsuccessful attempts to bring down Kung Lao. As the series continues, paranoia overtakes him as invaders from many realms converge on Outworld, seeking to take it for their own. Shao Kahn is also forced to defend his realm from former allies and numerous traitors from his own ranks, who have begun working against him. Meek played opposite himself in the series finale, where Shao Kahn battled Raiden in a void seemingly between the realms. The foil was that Kahn had successfully lured the Thunder God into Outworld itself, leaving Earthrealm vulnerable to the invasion of Kahn's Shadow Priests. With Kung Lao dead, Shao Kahn forced Raiden into submission and commenced full military assault on Earthrealm. The series was discontinued following this event. Shao Kahn also appeared in several episodes of '''' playing his usual role of Outworld's emperor and leader of the enemy troops. Comic books Shao Kahn makes his first appearance during the ''Battlewave'' series of Malibu Comics , though he already was present during 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. During the two series, he never appears wielding his trademark helmet, instead always shown with his visible face and design taken from the official ''Mortal Kombat II comic'' written by John Tobias. However, in ''Kitana & Mileena'', a comic about Kitana's past, Shao Kahn does appear wearing his helmet. Shao Kahn appeared during ''Blood & Thunder'' while communicating with Shang Tsung by means of a big red orb. He became disgusted by Shang Tsung's hold of the tournament, so he used his powers to bring all the kombatants into Shang Tsung's palace, triggering the big fight shown in the ''Tournamend Edition'' final issue. In ''Battlewave'', Shao Kahn would arrange a different plan to open the portals. He kidnaps Special Forces agent 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 (and make Sonya the queen of both realms and his wife). During the wedding ceremony held, however, the wedding would be crashed and he would be stopped by the Earthrealm warriors' interruption, ending with Sonya becoming free from Kahn's influence. Shao Kahn then would devise a tournament of sort: a race to reach a Medallion high into a frozen cliff. Two teams were arranged, with the ultimate victor being Sub-Zero for Earthrealm. CHARACTER DEVELOPMENT 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. 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. Though Kahn's monstrous face has been displayed in one game and several types of related media (both official and unofficial), Shao Kahn's face has never been seen in the actual continuous fighting game series. 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 '' magazine of Glynn and Ed Boon standing side-by-side, which was snapped during production of the game, surprisingly showed that Boon was taller. In many official depictions of Shao Kahn made by couldn't wear a Trench Coat in MK3, as Dan Forden explained that loose, flowing clothing took up memory. GAME INFORMATION Kahn was never seen unmasked in a game until '''' where, once he loses half his health, a scene plays in which he pulls out a hammer and throws it at the player, which the player throws back at him and smashes the mask to pieces. His height has been changed considerably since the 2D ''Mortal Kombat'' games, in which he towered over most of the other opponents. His physical appearance has also been altered; Kahn had formerly been bigger proportionately than his foes. Shao Kahn's voice, provided by Midway employee '', which featured ''Mortal Kombat'' themes. It is amusing to note that due to Shao Kahn being the announcer, he will say "I win" whenever victorious in ''Mortal Kombat 3''. Shao Kahn's Ridicule quotes in ''Unchained'', the GameCube version of ''Deception'', and ''Armageddon'' are taken directly from ''Mortal Kombat II'', with only a few from ''Mortal Kombat 3''. TRIVIA
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