Respect Baraka: Mortal Kombat Malibu Comics

[u/lazerbem]

Baraka is a mutant, the most common race of the dimension of Outworld. Baraka is the strongest of his kind, and possesses unique arm blades with which to battle his enemies. Baraka served the emperor of Outworld, Shao Kahn(though Baraka would insist that his service was not servitude) and took part in Outworld’s defense when the wizard Zaggot and his Kombatant attacked it. After being thrown into the Mortal Kombat tournament, Baraka fought for Shang Tsung for a time before returning to Outworld.

At this point, Baraka’s loyalties changed and he began to follow the rebellion of Shao Kahn’s daughter, Kitana. Baraka’s pugnacious nature led to constant conflict with his allies, but he was truly loyal to their cause and did his best to follow it so that his people would not be saved from Scorpion’s army of the dead. Baraka would end up saving the a special child of his species from the undead, insuring that a future for his people. When Shao Kahn declared a tournament to end all tournaments, Baraka would side with Raiden and the warriors of Earth. Or at least until he was made privy to the amount of humans on the team, something that annoyed Baraka to the point of turning on his teammates and being unceremoniously shocked into submission by Raiden.

Baraka is a brute, and for the most part operates on instinct without much intelligence. He can reason, however, when the situation calls for it and has shown flashes of insight in strategic thinking, such as destroying a ghost’s power source rather than fight the ghost head on. Nonetheless, Baraka is ultimately a very animalistic warrior and his hatred for humans is unquenchable(even when it would behoove him to restrain himself).

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Durability

Baraka has a tough hide, able to handle powerful attacks without issue

• Reptile barfs acid on Baraka and Baraka is entirely unaffected by it besides having his clothes tattered

• Baraka survives a shadow kick from the Kombatant, though it knocks him out

• Baraka gets sucker kicked by Jax, someone strong enough to punch through the side of a plane, break into stone, and cause the ground to quake. Baraka is unharmed

• Baraka gets kicked in the crotch by Jax and is unaffected. He also comments that he can fight for days without rest

• Johnny Cage nut punches Baraka and Baraka says that it didn’t even hurt. A shadow kick from him has only barely more effect

• Kung Lao, someone who can punch down trees, hits Baraka in the face with his razor hat. Baraka is unimpressed

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Strength and Blades

Baraka’s favored fighting style is in melee combat due to his blades and strength

• He slices off the arm of the Kombatant, a creature that had the strength of Goro and Raiden. For reference, Goro could crush cars, bend lamp posts, and tank bolts of lightning that blasted through concrete walls and Raiden could lift a plane

• Baraka is able to force Goro backwards with the ferocity of his assault and slice into him

• He throws Kitana off of him easily enough, despite being in a disadvantaged position

• Baraka shatters a large block of ice covering Reptile in a single blow

• Baraka overpowers Reptile with one arm

• A backhand from Baraka knocks Sub-Zero entirely off of his feet. Baraka then goes on to easily rip through Sub-Zero’s ice ball when he’s prepared for it

• Baraka did so much damage to Jax’s arms with a single slash, that he was one shotted and lost all feeling in them. This event would lead to their amputation

• Baraka chops swords and skulls in two

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Speed

Baraka isn’t particularly known for his speed, but he is nevertheless an agile fighter.

• Baraka blitzes Goro and his arms leave multiple speed trails and lines as he slashes at him. Goro is able to tag exceptionally fast martial artists like Liu Kang from the air as a reference

• Baraka blitzes a group of undead warriors, not being tagged once by them

[u/MunitionsFrenzy]

That doesn't look like he "takes out" Goro at all, although we'd need later pages for context.

...nor is it a blitz, nor is the subsequent image

[u/lazerbem → u/MunitionsFrenzy]

He doesn't take out Goro, just pressures him for a little bit. The fight is interrupted by Jax kicking Baraka away.

And I was under the impression that a blitz was them overwhelming them with speed? Baraka seems to be doing that given the speed lines and Goro's inability to defend himself very well from Baraka's attacks.

[u/MunitionsFrenzy → u/lazerbem]

By that measure it'd be a blitz any time one character lands a hit past the opponent's guard...which has to happen at some point in any fight that ends.

Goro looks to be having trouble because he's blocking blades unarmed, but he does a fine job of protecting his vitals even so.

Don't get me wrong: moving at blur speed (as implied by the many afterimages of his arms that we see in the last panel) is still an impressive speed feat. But "blitzing" a character comes with a connotation of being so much faster than the other character that people can use the feat for speed-scaling, and I would definitely not scale Baraka off Goro's speed from that feat. The range and damage advantage from his blades is clearly a factor there.

[u/lazerbem → u/MunitionsFrenzy]

Fair enough.