Killer Instinct/Characters

Introduced in Killer Instinct

Chief Thunder

During the previous Killer Instinct tournament, Chief Thunder's brother, Eagle, was one of the combatants. When Eagle did not return, Thunder entered the next tournament hoping to either return or avenge Eagle.

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• Badass Native
• Braids, Beads, and Buckskins
• Drowning My Sorrows: His ending.
• Dual-Wielding: Uses two hand axes
• Home Run Hitter: His Axe Uppercut No Mercy.
• Put on a Bus: After the first game
• Shock and Awe: His Rain Dance No Mercy.
• Two Axes To Grind

Cinder

Ultratech promised they would release Cinder from prison early if he would allow them to experiment on him. When their chemical weapons experiment failed, it mutated him into living flame. If he wants to become normal once more, he must defeat Glacius.

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• Captain Ersatz: He's basically an evil Human Torch.
• Death Seeker: According to the comic, Cinder wishes for death due to what he has become.
• I Just Want to be Normal: The instruction manual states Ultratech will return him to normal if he kills Glacius. Though it subverted in the actual game and his ending where he wants to stay in current form.
• I'm Melting!: His Lava Pool No Mercy.
• Kill It with Fire: His Meltdown No Mercy.
• Killed Off for Real: Glacius kills him in the tournament.
• Names to Run Away From Really Fast
• The Rival: To Glacius.
• Visible Invisibility
• Wreathed in Flames

Fulgore

A prototype cybernetic soldier created by Ultratech. He was put into the Killer Instinct to test his abilities. If he proves effective, mass production will begin. He was killed by Jago in the tournament, but robots don't die that easily.

After the original's death, Ultratech builds a new, deadlier Fulgore. When Ultratech HQ is sent into the past, he is released with one order: kill Jago.

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• Death Is Cheap: Death doesn't stop this robot from returning in the sequel.
• The Dragon: In the first game, he is always the second-to-last opponent.
• Eye Beams: His Eye Laser No Mercy.
• Frickin' Laser Beams
• Glowing Eyes of Doom
• Invisibility: Starting in the second game.
• Kill Sat: One of his No Mercies in the 2nd game.
• Ludicrous Gibs: One of his No Mercies.
• More Dakka: His Gun 'em Down No Mercy.
• Shock and Awe: Mainly for show.
• Shotoclone
• Teleport Spam: One of his combo enders uses it
• Villain Teleportation: Starting in the second game.
• Wolverine Claws: Well, not the metal variety, but you get the idea.
• Younger Than They Look: Justified in that he's a robot.

Glacius

An alien from who-knows-where captured by Ultratech and forced to fight in Killer Instinct, supposedly to prove aliens' inferiority. He eventually defeated Cinder and escaped to his homeworld.

But 2000 years in the past, the remaining combatants have been thrust back in time, and Glacius's ancestors are all trapped on Earth. One of them, also named Glacius, seeks to free them and return home.

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• Alien Blood: Purple.
• An Ice Alien: Though he sadly lacks any kind of stun move
• Extreme Omnivore: Possibly one of his finishers.
• Impaled with Extreme Prejudice: His Ice Pick No Mercy.
• Legacy Character: The one in the second is not the same as the one in the first.
• Literally Shattered Lives: One of his finishers.
• Metronomic Man-Mashing
• Shapeshifting

Jago

A Tibetian monk mentored by the Tiger Spirit who believes it his destiny to destroy Ultratech.

• Anvil on Head: His Falling Car No Mercy.
• Arch Enemy: Fulgore.
• Estrogen Brigade Bait: His skintight and tastefully ripped outfit, showing off his lean muscles with about 1% body fat, were a blatant attempt at reaching for this.
• Heroes Prefer Swords
• Impaled with Extreme Prejudice: His Sword No Mercy.
• Katanas Are Just Better
• Kill It with Fire: His Charring Fireball No Mercy.
• Jago, You Are My Brother: With Orchid.
• Nice Job Breaking Gargos Free Hero!
• Ninja
• Playing with Fire
• Shotoclone
• Turned Against Their Masters: When the cult you were following is idolizing a Humanoid Abomination who murdered your parents and then used you to free himself from his dimensional prison, there aren't many other options...

Black Orchid

• Action Girl
• Baleful Polymorph: Her finisher in which the fighter is turned into a frog and stomped on.
• Brown Note / Death by Sex / You Can Leave Your Hat On: Her flashing finisher. Subverted when performed in a mirror match, as the other Orchid...just throws a temper-tantrum, really. She lacks this fatality in the second game where there are two other females.
• Combat Stilettos
• Dual Tonfas
• Dual-Wielding
• Hurricane Kick
• It's Personal / You Killed My Father: All There in the Manual states that she, as a grown-up, saw the murder of her (and Jago's) parents during the events of 2, something which made her hatred of the Fulgore cyborgs to be extremely intense.
• Jiggle Physics
• Luke, I Am Your Father: She's Jago's older sister.
• Ms. Fanservice
  • Biketard of Power
  • Orgasmic Combat
  • Stripperiffic: Her skin-tight Spy Catsuit.
• Nice Job Breaking It, Hero: After she destroyed UltraTech, the surviving characters from the first game are thrown into a time vortex in the second.
  • Oh, and she also got rid of Gargos's competition by killing Eyedol.
• Shotoclone
• Thong of Shielding: Shown in full glory by her cartwheel and slide attacks in the second game.

Riptor

• Extreme Omnivore: One of his finishers.
• Hollywood Acid: His Acid Spit No Mercy.
• Killed Off for Real: By TJ Combo.

Sabrewulf

• Aristocrats Are Evil: Until his transformation.
• Butt Monkey: He got the crap beaten out of him in the tournament.
• The Cameo: He's loosely based on a character of the same name, invented by Rare for a puzzle-platformer they had released for computers (and remade for the Game Boy Advance) known as Sabre Wulf.
• Extremity Extremist: Relies on more beastly moves like clawing and biting.
• Jack of All Stats: He has a decent mix of strength and speed.
• Magic Pants: Subverted with his ending. He's only shown from the waist up after returning to human form. One guess as to why.
• Our Werewolves Are Different: Unless the ability to throw flaming bats has become standard.
• Painting the Fourth Wall: He has a finisher which smack his opponents into the screen.
• Was Once a Man
• Wolf Man

Spinal

• Dem Bones: He's a sword-and-shield-bearing skeleton who effectively broke Nintendo's longstanding taboo against undead protagonists. He's rather unique with his magical attacks, some of which require the expenditure of a flaming skull; three encircle his body and they must be cast ahead of time. No other character has a mechanic like this.
• Eye Pop: A totally ridiculous one if Orchid uses her flash No Mercy finisher on him.
• Mega Manning: He could include copies of his current opponent's moves in his combo finishers.
• Pirate: He was one 200 years ago. He even had a ship and a huge crew of fellow skeletons!
• Shield-Bash: Taken to ridiculous extremes. He can stab, levitate, and electrocute people with his shield.
• Shout-Out: Along with Eyedol, to The 7th Voyage of Sinbad
• Sub Boss: He is always third-to-last on the ladder in the first game.
• Teleport Spam: His Skeleport.

T.J. Combo

• A Twinkle in the Sky: One of his finishers.
• Bare-Fisted Monk: Even though Jago is an actual monk, TJ fits this particular trope better as a heavyweight boxer and the only fighter without an obvious weapon or superpower. His arms contain cybernetic enhancements, but he's often overlooked in favor of the flashier characters despite his strengths.
• Combat Pragmatist: His backstory shows that he uses cybernetic implants. He also has a Machine Gun!
• Estrogen Brigade Bait: Like Jago, he too is quite ripped in both muscle and clothing.
• Expy: Of Balrog, Jerkass and everything. His movesets are also an expy of Guile taken up to eleven, as EVERY move requires the player Charge back or forward (except the Super moves).
• Extremity Extremist: He's a boxer, after all.
• Fallen Hero: He fights in the first tournament to get his heavyweight title back.
• Jack of All Stats: He has a decent mix of strength and speed.
• More Dakka: See Combat Pragmatist.
• Neck Snap: One of his finishers.
• Painting the Fourth Wall: He has a finisher which smack his opponents into the screen.
• Sociopathic Hero: In the comic book, he's not above quite brutally maiming foes, threatening non-fighters to get what he wants and cheating in tournaments. He also reacts with confusion when he sees Jago choosing not to kill an opponent. He's one of the protagonists.

Eyedol

• The Dragon: Ultratech likely sees him this way, since they freed him to fight in their tournament.
  • Dragon-in-Chief: He would also be Dragon with an Agenda if we saw him ever having one.
• Evil Versus Evil: In his backstory, we find he was imprisoned while fighting another warlord. This is revealed to be Gargos in KI2.
• Final Boss
• Humanoid Abomination: Besides his two-headed appearance, he is also described as a mystical warlord from ancient times.
• I Am Legion: Well, maybe. When he speaks in his ending he first uses "I" and "My", but then at the end switches to "we".
• Sealed Evil in a Can: Ultratech breaks him out.
• Secret Character
• Shout-Out: In the first part of his ending, a woman in purple approaches him claiming that he's her long lost son Billy, lost in a car incident. This is almost the same scene which mirrors the ending of Blanka. (Also note that Blanka's real name is Jimmy... Billy? Jimmy? Anyone?)
  • It also doubles as a shoutout to Billy Idol.
  • He also really resembles the cyclops from The 7th Voyage of Sinbad, something that did not go unnoticed at the time.
• SNK Boss

Introduced in Killer Instinct II/Gold

Kim Wu

• Bare Your Midriff
• Captain Ersatz: It's hard not to see her appearance and not to think on Chun-Li with a pink dress.
• Playing with Fire
• Waif Fu: Her fighting style.

Maya

• Anvil on Head: Or an elephant, in this case
• Boobs of Steel
• Darkskinned Blonde
• Dual-Wielding
• Foot Focus
• Friend to All Living Things: Uses an elephant in one of her finishers
• Fur Bikini
  • Battle Bikini
• Innocent Fanservice Girl
• Jungle Princess
• Official Couple: With Tusk. They get married!
• Reverse Grip

Tusk

• Ambiguously Brown: It's unclear if Tusk is supposed to be non-Caucasian of if he's just really tan.
• Anvil on Head: Actually a giant meteor
• BFS
• Darkskinned Blonde
• Expy: Of Conan the Barbarian.
• Friend to All Living Things: Has a dinosaur eat his opponent as a finisher
• Furry Loincloth
• The Jimmy Hart Version: His theme music sounds an awful lot like the Conan theme.
• Mr. Fanservice: He came along in 2 to show the boys how it's done.
• Official Couple: With Maya. They get married!

Gargos

• Big Bad: Of KI2...
  • The Man Behind the Man: ...and arguably KI1
• Demonic Possession: To Saberwulf's corpse in some of Orchid's endings, and arguably to Jago in KI1, though Jago didn't realize it as such
• Evil Versus Evil: Eyedol's rival from before their imprisonment. And then Orchid killed Eyedol, letting him win by default.
• Guide Dang It: The only way to defeat him is to trigger the Stage Fatality. Otherwise, he'll just keep fighting at zero health and will even win if the timer runs out. Good luck figuring this out on your own.
• Humanoid Abomination: Again, mystical warlord from ancient times, like Eyedol.
• Lethal Joke Attack: His taunt has a hidden property. That is, he reflects your projectiles by laughing.
• Sealed Evil in a Can: Thanks for letting him out, Jago!
• Secret Character
• SNK Boss
• Treacherous Advisor: He's the Tiger Spirit who sends Jago on his quest, then uses Jago to escape his imprisonment.
• Winged Humanoid: He's a gargoyle.