Jax (Mortal Kombat)
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Major Jackson Briggs, better known as Jax, is a character in the Mortal Kombat fighting game series.
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[edit] About Jax
Jax was the first African American character in the Mortal Kombat series and made his debut in the second game. He is portrayed as an archetypical American hero. In the chain of command of the Special Forces, he is Sonya Blade's direct superior and clearly the catalyzing force of Sonya's impulsiveness. Jax is clear-headed, careful, and always keeping a watch on what his men are doing. When the need arises, he is a beast on the battlefield with the attitude and ferocity of a lion. He unscrupulously makes use of the most advanced technology to improve both himself and his unit.
[edit] Storyline
Jax made his first chronological appearance in Mortal Kombat II, though, in terms of the storyline, his first adventure is depicted in Mortal Kombat: Special Forces. This game opened depicting a prison break at Special Forces' detention facility. Jax, driving along a highway, received a transmission from his fellow Special Forces operative Gemini detailing the escape and the escapees: No Face, Tasia, Jarek and Tremor. She informed him that they had escaped to a warehouse on the town's south side, likely receiving assistance from an outside source. Jax surmised that source to be Kano. He received another transmission from one Lieutenant Sanchez, whose squad had arrived at the warehouse. After the transmission was cut off at the source, Jax arrived at the scene to find the squad destroyed. For this, he swore he would achieve vengeance against Kano. Using prototype bionic implants on his arms in order to enhance his strength, Jax set out to find his enemy.
Infiltrating the warehouse, Jax confronted No-Face and dispatched him. Proceeding into the sewers, he did likewise to Tasia. At this point, Gemini contacted Jax again and informed him that the Black Dragon were using a corporate building as a front for their base of operations. At the building, Jax confronted and defeated Jarek. His investigation then led him to the town of the lost city of Sin Kiang. There, he defeated Tremor and discovered a portal to Outworld. Surmising that the portal was linked to Kano's plans of global domination, he entered. Jax caught up with Kano, who had acquired an artifact called the Eye of Shitian. Through this artifact, Kano could acquire great power. After an exchange of words, the two fought and Jax emerged the victor. He used the Eye's power to bring them both back to Earthrealm and brought Kano into custody, only to have the criminal escape at a later date. At this point, Jax ceased using his bionic implants.
Jax's first appearance on a fighting game was in Mortal Kombat II. Jax first came across the Earthrealm warriors when he found Johnny Cage in the waters close to the Special Forces Agency. Jax began interrogating him. Cage explains his story and although is not trusted at first, is eventually set free. Jax doesn't believe the story of Johnny Cage until he receives a video signal from Sonya, whom is temporarily working with Kano to escape the Outworld. As an apology for Jax not believing Cage, he visits him at a commercial shoot where Johnny is being attacked. Jax participates in a short battle with Kintaro here. The battle is interrupted when the Earthrealm warriors arive to help. After they save Johnny from the intruders, they travel into Outworld to compete in the tournament and save Sonya. Soon Jax came to learn of the Emperor's dark plans for Earthrealm. As soon as he had freed Sonya (and inadvertently Kano), he headed back home to warn his government of the impending danger. He would find himself frustrated, however, as not only did Kano escape back into Outworld, but the government did not believe the major.
Jax began to prepare for war covertly and once more outfitted his arms with bionic implants. After helping foil Shao Kahn's attempt to permanently claim Earth as his own, Jax became the commanding officer of the Outer World Investigation Agency (OIA). They operated from an underground bunker and had scouts in various realms. Not only did they explore and map these realms, but they also looked for and destroyed inter-realm portals that could lead to Earth.
He briefly assisted Raiden in the defeat of Shinnok after he found out that Sonya was in Edenia. It was during these events that both he and Sonya would find the Lin Kuei cyborg Cyrax, malfunctioning and trapped in a desert. Returning with him to their home base, they reversed the automation process, restored his humanity, and gained a new ally.
Years later, trouble would occur again. Not only were his agents Kenshi and Cyrax lost in Outworld, but the OIA underground facility was nuked into oblivion by the traitor Hsu Hao. When, soon after, Raiden summoned the Earthrealm warriors to the abandoned island of Shang Tsung and asked them to travel with him to Outworld to bring down the Deadly Alliance, Jax didn't hesitate. He used this trip as a cover to track down Hsu Hao and kill him by tearing out his artificial heart.
During the final attack on the Deadly Alliance, Jax along with the other Earthrealm warriors were killed (He, Sonya and Johnny Cage were overwhelmed by the Deadly Alliance's Tarkartan warriors). After Onaga defeated Raiden and the Deadly Alliance, he resurrected Jax and his Earthrealm friends as his slaves. Jax returns in Mortal Kombat: Unchained, and it is revealed that Jax is saved, thanks to the efforts of Ermac and the spirit of Liu Kang, as shown in Ermac's Deception ending. Jax also returned in Mortal Kombat: Armageddon.
In his ending for Unchained, he brutally pounded Onaga senseless (Shujinko failed despite absorbing Jax's fighting styles but lacking the raw anger needed) his strength propelled by unexplained rage. As an encore, he embedded the Netherrealm Kamidogu in the Dragon King's head.
Sonya's Mortal Kombat:Armageddon biography briefly mentions Jax as being part of a search team deployed by her to search for survivors after destroying a Tekunin warship. Jax disappears afterwards, with Sonya assuming that he had been captured, noting that his arms' bioscanners were giving her strange readings about his health before winking out entirely. In his ending for Mortal Kombat: Armageddon, Jax becomes a full cyborg after defeating Blaze, and leaves the Special Forces. He then takes control of the Tekunin by defeating Sektor, an apparent act of revenge after discovering a neural control chip implanted in his brain by the Tekunin leader. The ending also states that, after this, it is unknown if Jax would ever return to the Special Forces.[1]
[edit] Combat characteristics
[edit] Signature moves
- Ground Pound: Jax punches the ground, shaking the arena and causing the opponent to stagger. (MKII, MK3, UMK3, MKT, MK4, MKG, MK:SF, MK:DA, MK:U, MK:SM, MK:A)
- Back Breaker: Jax grabs the opponent down on his shoulder, cracking their spine (MKII, MK3, UMK3, MKT, MK4, MKG)
- Gotcha!: Jax grabs his opponent by the neck and delivers a punch to the face. (MKII, MK3, UMK3, MKT, MK:SM)
- Multi-Slam: Jax quickly performs his standard throw four times. (MK3, UMK3, MKT, MK4, MKG)
- Dash Punch: Jax lunges at the opponent, fist first. (MK3, UMK3, MKT, MK4, MKG, MK:SF)
- Single Fireball: Jax fires a blast from his bionic arm. (MK3, UMK3, MKT, MK4, MKG)
- Double Fireball: Jax fires two quick blasts from his arms. (MK3, UMK3, MKT)
- Piston Punches: Jax moves forward and punches the opponent multiple times. (MK:DA, MK:U, MK:A)
- Machine Gun: Jax pulls out a machine gun from his back and shoots at his opponent, pushing them back. (MK:DA, MK:U, MK:A)
[edit] Recurring fatalities
- Head Clap: Jax claps his hands violently over his opponent's head, crushing it. (MKII, MKT, MK4, MKG)
- Arm Rip: Jax grabs the opponent's arms and rips them from their body. (MKII, MK4, MKG)
[edit] Appearances in other media
[edit] Film
Jax (misspelled in the closing credits as Jaxx) makes a brief appearance in the first Mortal Kombat movie, in which he advises Sonya not to board Shang Tsung's ship after accompanying her on the raid on Kano's club near the beginning of the movie. He was played by Gregory McKinney.
In Mortal Kombat: Annihilation, Jax (played by former American Gladiators actor Lynn "Red" Williams) sided with Sonya and her friends against Shao Kahn. During the final battle, he chose to take on Motaro (played by fellow Gladiators alumnus Deron McBee), but his cybernetic arms were rendered useless against him. Jax chose to take on Motaro in an all natural hand-to-hand combat, and surprisingly defeated Motaro quite easily. Even though his ambiguous relationship with the technological enhancements he uses is explored a bit, he is overall a tough-talking, African American stock character.
[edit] Television
Jax appeared in the cartoon Mortal Kombat: Defenders of the Realm as one of the leading characters, in which he was voiced by Dorian Harewood. He has a lead role in episode 3 Acid Tongue, in which he loses his cybernetic arms and self-confidence, and episode 12 Abandoned, in which he retires tired of the constant battles. In these series, Jax is portrayed as a cool-minded character, almost always in a good mood.
[edit] Comic books
Jax makes his first appearance in the Malibu Comics series in Goro: Prince of Pain 1st issue. He's unchanged from his game's story, being the Major of the Special Forces and Sonya's friend. He has a tendency to make jokes and puns during fights, much like Spider-Man, but remains mostly faith to his game's characterization. During Goro's miniseries, Jax sets to find Sonya, who disappeared while chasing Kano into Shang Tsung's island. Shang Tsung uses him to find the missing Goro, telling him that Sonya was held hostage by Goro in Outworld (a lie). In the series' epilogue (Tournament Edition issue) he reunites with Sonya and captures Kano.
During the second series, Battlewave, Jax is attacked by Goro and left on a coma. In the 2nd issue he heals by sheer will to live, foiling Jade and Smoke's attempt at his life, and joins Johnny Cage in a travel into the Outworld after Sonya went missing while investigating in Shang Tsung's island. In the Tournament Edition II series' epilogue, Jax is gravely injured by Baraka in his arms, and later states he would need cybernetic arms when they return to Earth; despite this, however, a comic adaptation of Mortal Kombat III was never realized.
Jax, alongside Sonya and a team of exclusively-created Special Forces agents, has a 2-issue miniseries entitled U.S. Special Forces, in which the team engages Black Dragon member Rojack in his attempt to get treasures from a dimensional gate to another dimension.
[edit] Appearance
Like Liu Kang and/or Johnny Cage, Jax is known for wearing pants only with no shirt, he's also known for changing the color of his pants throughout the series.
In MKII, his outfit is similar to Liu Kang's, as he wears black pants with red stripes, in MK3, the color of his pants changed to purple and now he possesses new bionic arms, in MK4, his primary costume is similar to his MKII outfit (Except that he still possess his bionic arms), while one of his alternates is similar to his MK3 outfit, in MKDA, his look at one point changed completely, he now wears green pants, sunglasses, large boots, as well as a new red beret.
[edit] Character development
Before Sonya existed, Jax was originally conceived as a character and possessed her scenario for the first Mortal Kombat. However, since there were no female characters in the original roster at the time, Sonya was created and she inherited his story line of pursuing Kano and entrapment on Shang Tsung's island.
His original name was going to be Kurtis Stryker. Midway later recycled that name to create a new character in Mortal Kombat 3. Jax was also originally conceived as simply a kickboxer, but the idea was scrapped due to potential similarities to Balrog and Sagat from the Street Fighter series. Then he was given a yellow martial arts gi and big metal hands that clanged upon impact. However, the outfit concealed much of the impressive physique of actor/bodybuilder John Parrish, so he simply went shirtless with long black tights. Game footage was actually shot with Jax wearing the yellow costume, and Parrish accidentally split the pants during filming. He had the bionic implants painted onto his arms for MK3.
In the very early screenshots of Deadly Alliance, Jax was seen in his classic MK3 attire, however, it is later decided to give Jax a new look.[1]
There has been confusion as to whether Jax is simply wearing armored arms or had his arms replaced all-together in MK:DA.
[edit] Trivia
- In the MKII comic book, he challenged Kintaro in battle.
- According to early production shots of Special Forces, Jax's code name is "Cobra." In the first movie it was "Cardinal."
- Even when selecting his alternate costume in Mortal Kombat: Deadly Alliance (the costume without the bionic arms), the impact of Jax's punches still sound off with the "clang" sound-effect as if he were wearing his armor plating or maybe hinting that he still has bionic arms but with artificial skin, or maybe it's a glitch.
- The game programmers mistakenly outfitted Jax with a red beret instead of a green one; a red beret represents Army Airborne units like the 82nd Airborne or 101st Screaming Eagles, whereas green is worn by the members of Army Special Forces.
- The first two issues of Malibu's MK comic book series featured a non-canon Special Forces character with one metal arm, one year before MK3 was released (1994), therefore possibly serving as the source of Midway's inspiration for Jax's metal arms.
- Jax goes out of his way to state that he was raised by his mother, Wanda Lee Briggs, in one of Malibu's storylines. However, in the animated series, he said that he was raised by his grandfather. He was also described as being the fattest kid in his school, with the nickname "Blubberbutt," in the cartoon as well. Neither of these subplots are canon, though, since they have never officially appeared in the MK storyline.
![[1]](http://ps2media.ign.com/media/news/image/midway/mk1.jpg){kind=link}