Shao Kahn

"I am Shao Kahn, Konqueror of Worlds! You will taste no victory!"

- Shao Kahn to an enraged Liu Kang in the Story mode of Mortal Kombat (2011).

"An anemic effort from ineffectual deities! Today, I become THE Elder God!"

- Shao Kahn to Raiden and the Elder Gods.

"Bow to me!"

- Shao Kahn

Shao Kahn, also known as self in-title "The Konqueror", is the main antagonist of Mortal Kombat series. He was the all-powerful and dangerous emperor of Outworld.

Pre-Mortal Kombat
Shao Kahn was originally selected by the Elder Gods to protect the realm of Outworld. He served as the chief 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 over his kingdom. Leading whatever troops that remained loyal to the Dragon King and formed his own army, Shao 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, Shao Kahn invaded the realm. On the battlefield, Shao Kahn killed King Jerrod, and took Queen Sindel as his wife through forced marriage, 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 what she believed was eternal subservience to the Emperor. Unwilling to let his new consort go so easily, Shao Kahn held her soul in Outworld, stopping her transition to the afterlife.

Mortal Kombat II
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 Liu Kang, ruining five hundred years of Tsung's investment. Shang Tsung begged 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.

Kahn concocted a plan to lure the Earthrealm champions to Outworld; if they could be killed, they would not be able to cause further damage to his plans. He captured Kano and Sonya Blade to use 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.

Mortal Kombat 3
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. But not all hope was lost, as Lord Raiden had protected the souls of a handful of warriors (and some like the robots Sektor and Cyrax had no souls to take and he also couldn't detect them) Kahn sent extermination squads to hunt them down and kill the remaining survivors. It would be these chosen warriors 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.

Mortal Kombat: Deadly Alliance
In Mortal Kombat: Deadly Alliance, Shao Kahn was approached by Quan Chi and Shang Tsung, who pretended to offer themselves as servants. However, the two attacked the weakened Shao Khan and slay him.

Mortal Kombat: Deception
It was revealed that the Shao Kahn killed by Shang Tsung and Quan Chi was actually a clone and that after being weakened from his attempted takeover of Earthrealm, Kahn had created the clone to rule Outworld for him, while he recovered. Shao Kahn found his former servant, Goro, mortally wounded and healed him, regaining the allegiance of the Shokan. The two set out to overthrow Onaga, so as to let the emperor regain his control over Outworld.

Mortal Kombat: Armageddon
Shao Kahn had become the ruler of Outworld again and joined forces with Quan Chi, Shang Tsung, and Onaga in an uneasy alliance so as to gain the god like powers of Blaze. In his ending, Shao Kahn defeated Blaze and claimed his powers, destroying all of his enemies. He eventually conquered all other realms and joined them with his own. However with nothing left to conquer, Shao Kahn went insane from the boredom.

Mortal Kombat vs. DC Universe
Main Article: Dark Kahn

At the beginning of the game, Shao Kahn had been defeated and met in a graveyard with his secret ally, Quan Chi. He was blasted into a portal by a blast of lightning from Raiden, causing him to combine with Darkseid and transform into Dark Kahn. After his defeat, Kahn ended up in the DC universe, rendered powerless. Kahn was then imprisoned in the Phantom Zone by Superman.

Mortal Kombat Vs. DC Universe Ending
In his ending, while the Phantom Zone weakened the others imprisoned there, the magical nature of Kahn's powers made it have the opposite effect on him. It restored his power, allowing him to escape the Phantom Zone along with an army made up of all the others imprisoned there, who swore him their allegiance in gratitude and joined Kahn in his quest to take control of both universes.

Mortal Kombat 9
"My venom spreads... It is the end of all things. Armageddon."

- Shao Kahn preparing to end all reality.

At the beginning of the Story Mode of Mortal Kombat 9, every character (presumably) dies during the Battle of Armageddon. The only ones who were left standing were Raiden and Shao Kahn. Before Raiden was killed by Shao Kahn's hands, the thunder god showed glimpses to his past self so he can alter the future and gives one message, that "he must win!"

After Liu Kang won the the original Mortal Kombat tournament, Shang Tsung told Shao Kahn that if he called for another tournament and wins, he could escape the Netherrealm. During the tournament, he was planning to execute Kitana after she found out what he was planning; creating a "perfect daughter" to replace her. Another thing that Shao Kahn did during the tournament is that he killed Kung Lao dishonorably after he defeated both Quan Chi and Shang at the same time. Enraged, Kang jumped in and fought Kahn. Even with his strength, Kahn lost and nearly died in the process. Everyone thought he was dead, but Raiden's Amulet was still cracked. It turns out that Quan Chi accelerated his healing.

Since Shao Kahn lost the Mortal Kombat tournament, he could not invade Earthrealm. However, Quan Chi recommended invasion anyways, saying that the Elder Gods' rules were fake. In order to start an invasion, Sindel needed to be revived, which Quan Chi did. During the invasion, almost every hero died, except for, Raiden, Sonya Blade, and Johnny Cage. After Johnny and Sonya retreated with a mortally wounded Liu Kang, Kahn entered Earthrealm and fought Raiden. During the final battle between Kahn and Raiden, the Elder Gods granted Raiden some of their power to help him fight back. With the help of the Elder Gods, Raiden managed to kill Shao Kahn, leaving only his helmet.

Mortal Kombat X
Shao Kahn was seen in arcade endings and in some flashbacks of Mortal Kombat X. Also, there is some of his remains in the Netherealm in Quan Chi's base suggesting that Quan Chi was trying to turn Kahn into a revenant. According to some personal intro dialogue and Ermac's concept art, it is revealed that Kahn now resides in Ermac's body as his prison after his death.

Mortal Kombat
At the end of the film Mortal Kombat; Raiden, Liu Kang, Sonya Blade, Johnny Cage, and Kitana witness a giant storm cloud. There, they see a translucent version of Shao Kahn. Kahn declares that Earthrealm belongs to him, but Raiden replied, "I don't think so."

Mortal Kombat: Annihilation
Shao Kahn appears before the heroes along with Motaro, Sheeva, and other evil fighters. He kills Johnny Cage by breaking his neck. Raiden implies that he and Kahn are brothers and that they are the sons of Shinnok. Kahn managed to, presumably, kill off Raiden, but was ultimately defeated by Liu Kang.

Personality
Shao Kahn is ruthless and driven to his goals, yet also possesses a strange sense of humor, laughing maniacally all the time. He desires only power and will do anything to make sure he has it, showing great paranoia at times. Kahn is also extremely arrogant and cruel and desires only to conquer other realms and add them to his own. He also shows compassion and romanticism in some media, such as the live-action series (as he seduces and charms several women in the series, including two of Quan Chi's undead female slaves) and shows a fatherly, caring relationship with Kitana despite the fact that she is covertly working against him.

Jeffrey Meek's role is more interesting when one considers that he played Raiden on the same show, occasionally opposite himself. In episode 21, "Stolen Lies," he deceives a society of people called the Shaakans into believing that he is their god; every aspect of their culture (Farland = Outworld, children pretending to steal souls, a six-armed Shokan warrior and Kahn's henchmen on the scarf, a skull on the head of a Shaakan warrior) reflects this blind worship of the Outworld emperor.

In Battlewave, Shao Kahn would arrange a different plan to open the portals. He kidnaps Sonya and, by means of hypnosis and brainwashing, convinces her to marry him. The marriage would weaken the barriers between realms enough to allow 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. In the comic, he claims to not be the romantic type, but he also states that Sonya is very beautiful as his bride. However, he soon comes to realize that both Outworld and Earth would be in turmoil as a result of the wedding.

Powers and Abilities
Shao Kahn is extremely powerful, able to utilize superhuman strength and magic. He wields the powerful Wrath Hammer, which can send opponents flying with one strike, and he seems to have some knowledge in cloning, as seen in Deadly Alliance. Kahn's moves include a powerful shoulder barge, a green star-like fire ball that he fires from his facial area, an uppercut that both generates a shield against projectiles and knocks opponents off their feet, and a rising knee attack that generates a streak behind him. He is also shown to be an expert on several Chinese kung fu, including Tai Tzu and Lui He.

Trivia

 * Shao Kahn was the main villain in the movie, Mortal Kombat: Annihilation, where he was depicted as Raiden's brother.
 * The villain layout for the Mortal Kombat franchise is along these lines: Shao Kahn is the supreme antagonist, Shang Tsung is secondary, Shinnok is tertiary and Quan Chi is quaternary.
 * He always appeared with a cape in official depictions by Midway, which he took off for fights and it was not until Deception that he wore it in combat.
 * Shao Kahn was originally going to be unmasked with large, fang-like teeth since everyone in Outworld was originally going to be of Baraka's race, the Tarkata. However, in Mortal Kombat: Shaolin Monks, he appeared for the first time unmasked after he threw his hammer at the player, but it was thrown back into his face, smashing his helmet. His appearance was like that of the Mortal Kombat II comic.
 * Shao Kahn was digitally redesigned to be taller in Mortal Kombat II, so he was much taller than other characters. However, his portrayer, Brian Glynn, was actually quite short, proving shorter than Ed Boon, one of the games creators, as seen in a photo that was taken of them.
 * In more recent games, Shao Kahn has been scaled down in terms of both size and build.
 * In a strategy guide in 1993 published for MKII in the UK, he was stated to dress like a 70's disco queen.
 * Shao Kahn was voted number four on the Top 10 Mortal Kombat Kharacters list made by Screwattack.