Hellbeast
He/Him- 4,925
- 4,458
Introduction
So Mk 2021 was something huh? A new reboot of the most iconic fighting game series of all time and surprisingly a film that had a decent opening at the box office (poor legs but man is that opening weekend impressive for an R rated adaptation during Covid). Some loved it, some hated it (I thought it was fun but had a lot of flaws despite the stellar cast) but that’s a discussion for another day (or not ig). The reason I’m making this thread is because we actually have a few pages for the Kast in this but they’ve got some issues I’m hoping to fix.Tiers
Sub-Zero The GOAT
First off I have to ask, why the **** are we scaling everyone to Sub-Zero’s ice powers? Like really why? The page simply mentions his ability to freeze human bodies whole (which in fairness he does do) but it completely ignores one key bit of context. This is a Bi Han who is over 400 years younger then the Sub-Zero we see in the rest of the film and the opening seems to imply he has a much more limited experience with his Ice Manipulation. He has this moment where he cuts himself with his ice and the whole fight with Hanzo is a pretty good point of comparison. Notice how he’s much more reliant on physical blows and martial ability in the first battle with Hanzo and then compare that to the fight with Scorpion; where he actively creates hazards and weapons with his Ice (even using it to freeze the Revenant).Even ignoring the experience stuff there are two additional problems; the first of which being Sub-Zero’s standing among the characters. While Bi-Han is typically a lower - to mid tier fighter (before and after his death), the reboot’s Sub-Zero is very explicitly one of the most fearsome kombatants, not just for Outworld, but the whole live action Kast. He completely dominates Jax in the first act before leaving him for dead, may well have killed Liu Kang if not for Kung Lao, overwhelms a Cole Young who unlocked his Arkana (the same Cole beats ******* Goro) and it’s caimed outright by Jax in the third act of the film that “no one’s taking him one on one” with Cole and the Chosen Ones planning to jump him together.
The only character who does anything to Sub-Zero is Kung Lao, who pretty easily sends the Kryomancer flying (though notably less damage then he did to Nitara). The point being it’s very clear that Bi Han is “built different” and is nothing short of a top tier in this movie, sitting right across from Scorpion and maybe being surpassed only by Raiden and Shang Tsung. So that should throw scaling everyone to him out the window but there’s also the second factor; universal energy.
Arkana Shenanigans
While all the characters use Arkana to use their powers; there’s not really any sign this would scale their abilities to their physical attacks. A casual fireball from Liu Kang pretty easily drops Kano, Sonya easily tears through Mileena with her energy blast and Cole goes from being dominated by Goro to tanking everything like a champ (which might be a result of absorbing kinetic energy) and Scorpion’s hellfire (which might be Arkana?) easily murdering Sub-Zero. I’d also note the Sonya and Scorpion examples also show the characters being relative to their respective enemies (Mileena and Sub-Zero) so the idea that Arkana is > a character’s physicals is pretty clearly established in the film and that is ignoring how a decent amount of the plot is dedicated to unlocking the Arkana.So Sub shouldn’t physically scale to his Ice Manipulation and not many characters should scale to him in general because he’s an aforementioned top tier. Scorpion is probably the only real exception to this because he is really the only one to tango evenly with Bi Han in the whole film. Not even Cole scales because he accomplished basically nothing in the final fight; seriously Scorpion is carrying this fight. Raiden and Shang might but I’d personally list them as Unknown since they don’t really fight (Raiden does have impressive scaling with his force fields and his lightning bolt should be calced)
Replacements
As mentioned before the Kast seems pretty consistently within the bounds of Street - Wall level with characters regularly performing feats on that level such as:- Hanzo cleaving a man’s arm off
- Hanzo piercing armoured skulls
- Hanzo punching out a chunk of head with his spear
- Sub-Zero smashing a frozen gun
- Sub-Zero smashing Jax’s frozen arms
- Kano tearing out Reptile’s heart
- Sonya being smashed through wooden stakes
- Pre-Arkana Cole smashing through a wooden beam (I’d note it was already coming apart)
- Kung Lao slicing through Nitara like a ******* savage
- Goro’s miles of stuff
- Is depicted as tearing a human apart (sorry for the video but it’s the only example I can find)
- Goro smashing through a wall
- Goro threatens to tear out Cole’s spine
- Goro smashing beams
- Goro flattening a car roof
- Goro tearing off a car door
- Jax tearing Reiko’s hammer in two
- Jax smashing Reiko’s skull (this might be 9-C)
- Sub-Zero getting smashed through a railing
Lifting Strength
Currently everyone is scaled to Jax lifting a huge boulder; this seems fine but I’d note this could be higher based on Mehcad Brook’s height. Ignoring that I’m unsure if this even applies to anyone, nobody outmuscles Jax when he has his Arkana and he even outright overpowers the physically imposing General Reiko. The very scene where he performs the feat also shows Sonya being pinned and unable to move which makes no sense considering she is able to match Kano. The only route here is that the average Chosen Ones and Kombatants shouldn’t scale to Jax; Arkana Cole probably can since he matches Goro in strength (who ripped off a car door) and Sub-Zero actually manages to hold him in place.Hax
Cole Young
- Awakened Power
- Literally a plot point that he has to awaken the Arkana in him
- Absorption
- Is described here by Lewis Tan as “absorbing energy from Goro’s strikes)
- You can see his armour glowing in response to Goro’s strikes
- He can seemingly focus this into his strikes
- Weapon Creation
- Cloth Manipulation
