Hey there, people. We're back with another Kharacter of the Week to dive into and divulge their strengths, flaws, and hilarious quirks, laid bare for all to see, admire, and thoroughly mock.

We've been through Sheeva, Nightwolf, Mileena, Smoke, Shang Tsung, Stryker, Reptile, Sonya's boobs, Sonya Blade, Sektor, Johnny Cage, Baraka, Kabal, and Rain.

Admin Edit: Please be encouraged to direct new replies to this thread.

This week, we cover our favorite net-tossing hotdog condiment-derived mustard-yellow black robot ninja person, Cyrax.

WHO IS CYRAX?
Cyrax, also known as Unit LK-4D4, is a Lin Kuei warrior who endured the cyber initiative to be turned into a deadly cyborg.

Or sometimes he's a Special Forces agent working with Jax and Sonya to hunt down the Black Dragon.

Or sometimes he's a Shaolin Monk who seeks a life of peace and redemption.

Geez, Cyrax signs up for every club on the campus, doesn't he? I guess he's trying to build up a good resume for his dream job.

(My resume is FAR more impressive, but NRS has yet to call me back...)

Strip all his prior jobs away and Cyrax, at heart, is just a good man who's done some bad things, got to a breaking point, and decided he'd had enough... only for the ghosts of his past to come back and haunt him. And by "haunt" I mean "turn him into a robot."

(not literal ghosts, mind you)

Cyrax is easily the most opinionated of the cyborgs, being very open about his preferences and distaste for certain things and people. He objected to the Cyborg Initiative, he left his clan out of disgusted, and he hated "Ninja Mime" with enough passion that he nearly killed Johnny Cage because of it.... Huh, I wonder why he took it so personally...

(Now if only I could do this to Michael Bay for ruining my childhood)

WHY IS CYRAX IN THE SERIES?
Cyrax debuted in MK3 during the robot-fad that MK had after they'd had their fill of ninjas (however temporary that was). During pre-production, before he had an official name, he and Sektor were codenamed Mustard and Ketchup, respectively.

(Doesn't matter which version you pick. They both taste like blood and motor oil.)

For some odd reason, they decided that "Mustard" wasn't threatening or tech-y enough, so later on he was given the very computer-ish name of "Cyrax". I don't know, I'd like to have heard others call him "Mustard".

(I always demand my mustard fear me before I put it on any of my burgers. It needs to learn it's place, after all.)

Cyrax left a strong impact and was one of the more popular characters of MK3. He was the second of three prototype cyborgs hunting Sub-Zero, and he was, at the time, the most mysterious of the group. I mean, we didn't even know he was black until MK4.

(though we seem to have forgotten Ermac was as black as Jax was at the time....)

Cyrax's popularity caused his initial absence in MK4 to be sorely felt, though to be honest, MK4 quite foolishly didn't include ANY of the new MK3 fighters in the game.

(but it's okay. We got Jarek instead. He's much better than all those MK3 duds, right?)

MK Gold rolled around and Cyrax was back, and not only was he back, he had his soul restored. Not only was his soul restored, he was one of the good guys. And not only was he good, he was black! Thus, Cyrax became the coolest black cyborg ever.

(This guy doesn't know kung-fu)

CYRAX'S STORY-
Cyrax's bio states that he was once a poor Motswana warrior with mystical Motswanian chi powers that joined the Lin Kuei... either because he was abducted as a kid or because he saw an ad at a recruitment station somewhere in his village.

(But would you be a Chinese Ninja Warrior with a heart SOOOOO cold?)

Fast-forward several years. In the original timeline, Cyrax didn't show up until MK3, where he was one of two cyborgs hunting down the now-rogue Sub-Zero. In this timeline, Sub-Zero beat Cyrax senseless and reprogrammed him to kill Shao Kahn. Only problem is that Liu Kang did that before Cyrax could, and in typical computer logic, he just stood around in Jade's Desert waiting for new orders that never came.


Yeah, Cyrax was there a long time, apparently...

("Should I move? Nobody told me I could move. This kinda sucks. See, this is why robots always become self-aware and take over the world.")

Eventually, he was found by the Lin Kuei but he seemed different, forcing Sektor to keep tabs on him. Later, the Special Forces encountered him during the events of MK4 and, somehow (through the power of deus ex machina) they managed to restore Cyrax's humanity through the power of friendship and love or something.

(the Special Forces' most feared weapon)

Cyrax then joined the Special Forces and served as a scout to Outworld... only he was attacked by Reptile, who damaged his transporter, and misled by Nitara into finding an orb to help separate her realm from Outworld in exchange for being sent back to Earthrealm.

He then strangely vanished from the series until Armageddon, where his only noteworthy deed was getting tossed around by Sheeva and dying.

Hit that reboot button, Jimmy.


In this new timeline, we discover that both Sektor and Cyrax were at the MK1 tournament as paid fighters on Shang Tsung's payroll, along with the original Sub-Zero, Bi-Han.

They... actually don't do much except pad out the story mode arbitrarily, though it does give us insight into Cyrax's character and personality. After picking a fight with Scorpion (and losing), and seeing Sub-Zero burnt to a crisp, Raiden decided to do what he does best and meddle in the affairs of other people who never asked for his help or wished for him to hang around.

(Like this, only without a laugh track or a stock audience faking applause)

Cyrax already carried doubts about the fallen honor of the Lin Kuei with the Cyborg Initiative underway, but he then realized that they were playing right into the hands of their enemies. When he tells Sektor this, they both rationally and calmly discuss the situation and use their intelligence and intuition to do the smart thing and dissolve their ties to Shang Tsung....

Nah, I'm just kidding. Sektor's an idiot that thinks "thinking" is overrated and decides to fight Cyrax after he fails to kill Johnny Cage, leading Cyrax to beat him unconscious and quit the Lin Kuei.

(Nothing tells your boss "I quit" better than a boot to the head. Remember that.)

Now, here's the part of the game with Cyrax I think they screwed up a tad. See, Raiden's messing with time and ruining things for pretty much everyone. In this case, however, we see Cyrax quit the Lin Kuei before the events of MK3 rolled around. That would've been a great opportunity to get him to join up with the Special Forces during the MK2/MK3 era, as a human perhaps, or do give him the "on the run" rogue storyline that Sub-Zero once had that his game utterly ignores.

But... nope. Next time we see Cyrax, he's not only with the Lin Kuei again, he's doing his best Inspector Gadget impression.

("Go Go Gadget Buzzsaw!")

Cyrax then becomes a punching bag with none of the humanity or personality or, well, appeal that his human version had. None of the witty banter, none of the internal conflict, none of the cocky confidence. I mean, yeah, he's a robot now, so that makes sense, but you know what else that makes him, character-wise?

(Bland, boring, and generic)

There's a pretty good reason the MK team gave him his humanity back over 10 years ago, and gave Cyrax a chapter in the game when it would've benefited the story and so many other characters to have one. Cyrax is a good character, but his robot roots held him back from being an expressive, characteristically memorable character. The "soulless robot villain" role is already filled by Sektor, so what could Cyrax offer that was any different?

(Well, besides nets, buzzsaws, bombs, and being a black ninja in pee-yellow armor...)

Anyway, Cyrax becomes a grunt, gets beat up in the finale, and disappears before the end of the game without any mention of what happened to him. So that means...

CYRAX'S FUTURE-
Cyrax will be back. Beyond the fact his tournament presence has been profound, he endured the Story Mode's "great purging" and is still on the loose, allied with the Lin Kuei.

The question is not whether he'll be back or not; the question is whether he'll be good again with a soul or still a mindless, soulless killing machine. Unlike before, this game doesn't have him being reprogrammed or reawakened by anyone, and Cyrax didn't show any signs of any lingering soul coming back or any burgeoning self-awareness.

("I'm scared, Dave. Will I dream?")

Cyrax's Arcade ending, however, just skips that whole "find a way to give him his humanity back" and has him with his mind and soul restored and joining the Shaolin Monks as a warrior of Light. That's... quite a difference from how Story Mode left him.

(Pictured: Cyrax not wantonly turning everything around him into a bloodbath)

NRS has made no secret of the fact they find Cyrax with his humanity restored a more interesting character (given that they've done this about three times with him now, in some way, shape, or form), so it's entirely possible we'll retread old ground again and have Cyrax get his humanity restored in a sequel...

... Or he'll stay on as a Lin Kuei lackey doing what Grandmaster Sektor wants him to do and being a potent threat to the remaining Earthrealm heroes.

(all, like, three of them)

Overall, I liked Cyrax, but at the same time I found him extremely lacking in other areas. Unlike nearly every other hero, we never get a sense that Cyrax cares about anything or anyone other than himself. He has conflict with Sektor, and mild hints that he was friends with Bi-Han, but he never really mourns his comrades, never really makes friends with anyone, never really expresses any outside desire to do well by anyone but himself, and that limits his appeal. All the other heroes have someone or something else that's driving them forward, whether it's Jax rescuing Sonya, Smoke looking out for his friend Sub-Zero, Stryker concerned about Kabal, the brotherly bond of Liu Kang and Kung Lao... Cyrax, however, is all alone and has nothing and no one driving him forward.

(Forever alone)

At least in the prior games, he had friends and allies with the Special Forces, which was somewhat unique. His Arcade ending has him joining the Shaolin Monks, but all the major Shaolin Monks in this game are dead, so there that plot-thread goes.

I don't know. I know Cyrax is coming back, but I struggle with what can be done with him. We've already had his humanity shown, taken away, restored, reverted to original state, turned again, and potentially restored in an ending. He keeps going through that cycle, and it's getting a bit old. I don't want him to stay a villain, but I don't want them to keep restoring his good side either.

Cyrax, despite being ALIVE, is probably one of the least predictable and least stable characters in the franchise. He joins organizations at random, gains and loses humanity like chips at a casino, and nothing he particularly has ever done or had done to him feels natural or sensical. Cyrax, whenever he appears, is always different, acting different, looking different, and allied with different groups and people on every spectrum of the good and evil scale. For a "machine" man, he's less stable than Windows Vista. Whoever programmed Cyrax did a terrible job.


Still, he's popular, and alive, and a strong contender to return in a sequel.

So speak up! What should be done with Cyrax? Good? Evil? Neutral? Humanity restored? Soulless machine? The Lin Kuei? The Special Forces? The Shaolin Monks? Is he better as a human or machine? Did you like his original storyline, or do you prefer his new one? Or do you simply think he took Smoke's old storyline and it's just a bland rehash now?

Let me know, and let me know who should be next on the chopping block!

Okay folks. Been fun. Garlador out.