Big Boss

Big Boss is the codename of the legendary soldier who founded the special forces unit FOXHOUND. He also served as the founder of the private military contractor Outer Heaven in South Africa and later founded the nation of Zanzibar Land in Central Asia. Big Boss was considered by some to be the "greatest soldier in the 20th century" and a brilliant military leader. He was hailed as a war hero by admirers and feared as a tyrant by his enemies. As a result of the Les Enfants Terribles project, he is the "father" of Solid Snake (his subordinate and later nemesis) and his clone brothers, Liquid and Solidus.

Prior to earning the codename Big Boss, he served as a field operative for the FOX unit under the codename of Naked Snake during the Cold War. Big Boss' real name is classified - he has been known to introduced himself as John and has been called Jack by his close acquaintances.

Early Years
Big Boss's history prior to joining the armed forces and becoming a disciple of The Boss is a complete mystery. His military career dates back to 1950, in which he joined the Green Berets and became The Boss' apprentice. In 1956, Jack was involved in the Bikini Atoll testing of the first airborne detonation of a hydrogen bomb. During Jack's time under The Boss' tutelage, she taught him everything about combat, weaponry, survival, espionage, destruction, psychology and foreign languages like Russian. They also developed CQC together. The Boss and Jack went their separate ways on June 12th, 1959, and later met for the first time in five years during Jack's first field mission in the FOX unit, on August 24th, 1964.



In 1964, he was recruited by the fledgling FOX (Force Operation X) unit, and underwent an operation entitled the Virtuous Mission, in which he was to rescue a defecting Soviet scientist named Nikolai Stepanovitch Sokolov. It was during this mission that Jack was given the codename "Naked Snake."

However, this mission failed, due to the defection of The Boss. (it was later discovered that The Boss had not truly defected, but that she was acting as a double agent to retrieve the Philosophers' Legacy from Volgin).

A week later, FOX unit and Snake were assigned Operation Snake Eater, in which the objective was to eliminate The Boss and her new Soviet ally, Colonel Volgin, rescue Sokolov & destroy the Shagohod. It was during this mission that Snake came across the prototype designs for the Metal Gear TX-55 bipedal tank from Granin, who was sending them to a colleague in America. This colleague was presumably the grandfather or father of Hal Emmerich, aka Otacon

During this mission, Snake had his right eye accidently damaged by the muzzle flash from Ocelot's Colt Single Action Army, while in captivity for torture, in order to save EVA's life. However, he succeeded in completing the mission, and killed The Boss and Colonel Volgin. For this, he was awarded the code name Big Boss and the Distinguished Service Cross by President Lyndon Johnson.

Big Boss, however, was heavily affected by Operation: Snake Eater, thanks to the fact that he had to kill his old mentor, The Boss. Because of this, he decided to retire from FOX.

When direct American involvement in the Vietnam conflict started the following year, Big Boss participated in Long Range Reconnaissance Patrol (LRRP) along with teams of Green Berets and Army Rangers. His skills in combat earned him the "great legendary soldier" moniker. Once the conflict had ended, Big Boss took part in more than 70 missions attached to groups such as the SOG (Studies and Observation Group), the Wild Geese (a mercenary unit), and the Delta Force (an elite counter-terrorist unit created in 1977). He also met up with a war orphan named Frank Jaeger at Mozambique in 1966, and escorted the child to an orphanage where he could be taken care of.

It was around this time that Big Boss was found to be infertile due to the Bikini Atoll testing he had taken part in years earlier.



In 1970, the FOX unit was considered rogue after it´s members organized a revolt and took over a base in South America known as "La Peninsula De Los Muertos". Big Boss was taken prisoner by Cunningham (a member of FOX).

Meeting a member of the Green Berets who was sent to take care of FOX going by the name of Roy Campbell, the two managed to persuade various members of the Red Army which FOX were commanding, to join forces with them and rise up against the renegade members, forming the early beginnings of what would become FOXHOUND. Para-Medic and Sigint also helped Boss in defeating FOX and clearing their names, aswell as Major Zero's (who were all partially blamed for the up-rising). Afterwards, Big Boss officially formed FOXHOUND, to carry on the tradition of the FOX unit and to give a home to the soldiers he had recruited during the San Hyeronimo Incident.

While there, Big Boss once again met Frank Jaeger, this time going under the code-name Null. The two fought on a number of separate occasions and after the incident Big Boss adopted Null and recruited him to FOXHOUND under a new code-name, "Gray Fox".

Sometime after these events Big Boss was found in a coma and the U.S. Government brought his unconscious body to a lab where his genes were extracted to make genetically enhanced soldiers. This project would be known as "Les Enfants Terribles project." Liquid Snake, Solid Snake, and Solidus Snake were produced in this program, and were known as the "Sons of Big Boss."

Ocelot and "The Man With The Same Code-Name as Null" later extended an invitation to Big Boss to join them in the forming of a new organization known as "The Patriots." Whether Big Boss accepted the invitation or not is currently unknown...

"Solid Snake! I will not die alone! You will join me!"

- Big Boss to Solid Snake, Metal Gear

Big Boss later completely dropped the code-name Naked Snake, and fully embraced his title of Boss.

In the 1990's, Big Boss used the exorbitant amount of money he had collected over the years (possibly even a part of the Philosophers' Legacy, a large part was also the money handed to him by Gene)  to covertly create the fortress nation Outer Heaven, an organization opposed to the Western Powers (and, by proxy, the Patriots who controlled them), all the while ostensibly remaining the commander of the U.S.'s elite FOXHOUND unit. Big Boss also funded the development of the "first" Metal Gear prototype, called Metal Gear TX-55. It was a weapon system designed to give Outer Heaven military supremacy over the West.

When FOXHOUND was commissioned by the U.S. to infiltrate Outer Heaven and destroy Metal Gear, Big Boss first sent in his most trusted soldier, Gray Fox; once Gray Fox was captured, Big Boss sent in Solid Snake, at that time FOXHOUND's greenest, least experienced member. Big Boss figured that there was no way that a rookie like Solid Snake could fulfill such a mission, that his efforts would delay further action by the West and buy Big Boss enough time to complete Metal Gear's development (it is unknown whether or not Big Boss knew that Snake was one of his "sons" at this point, though he did know by the end of the Zanzibar Land incident [see below]).

However, much to Big Boss' surprise, Solid Snake succeeded in disbanding Outer Heaven, recovering the Metal Gear research data, and destroying Metal Gear itself. Faced with the failure of his plans, Big Boss confronted Solid Snake in the heart of Outer Heaven, and revealed his identity as Outer Heaven's mastermind. After Big Boss activated the base's self-destruct countdown, the two of them engaged in one-on-one combat, with Big Boss dodging between crates and firing at Snake with a machine gun. Even in his advanced age, Big Boss proved fast and dangerous, but Solid Snake eventually managed to apparently kill him.



In reality, Big Boss managed to escape Outer Heaven. In 1999, he took control of another nation known as Zanzibar Land. Recruiting war orphans from across the Third World and raising them as soldiers, Big Boss hoped to create a nation by and for soldiers, where soldiers were honored and not treated as tools. Big Boss also recruited Gray Fox to his cause. To ensure Zanzibar Land's success, Big Boss once again commissioned the creation of a more advanced Metal Gear prototype, known as Metal Gear D. This time, Dr. Petrovich Madnar (the scientist who was forced to developed the original TX-55 model in Outer Heaven) developed the new model on his own free will, after being institutionalized into an asylum in the US. It is rumored that Dr. Petrovich also provided Big Boss with cybernetic body parts due to his injuries in Outer Heaven.

Solid Snake once again managed to infiltrate the enemy nation and destroy Metal Gear. Snake eventually defeated Fox in unarmed combat and, bruised and unarmed, was once again confronted by a machine gun-wielding Big Boss. Having spent his entire life on the battlefield, Big Boss could not conceive of a world without war, and attacked Snake in one final battle.

"Whoever wins, our battle does not end. The loser is free from the battlefield, but the winner must remain there and the survivor must live his life as a warrior until he dies."

- Big Boss to Solid Snake, Metal Gear 2: Solid Snake

Snake managed to cobble together a makeshift flamethrower using a can of hair spray and a cigarette lighter and used it to incinerate Big Boss. And thus the "world's greatest soldier" died an ignoble death, as many would consider it, burnt to a crisp by a can of hair spray.

Big Boss's corpse was recovered by the U.S. Government, and his genome was used to discover "soldier genes", which the US government gave to the Next Generation Special Forces via gene therapy.

Miscellaneous
Big Boss also appears as the second-to-last boss in the NES sequel to the original Metal Gear, Snake's Revenge. He guards the final fortress where Metal Gear is located. At first, he fights with a machine gun just as he did in the original Metal Gear. After being shot several times, Big Boss reveals that he survived his injuries from Outer Heaven through surgeries that turned him into a cyborg; he then transforms into a 12-foot tall RoboCop-like robot, and proceeds to chase Solid Snake around while spitting fireballs at him.

While Snake's Revenge is non-canonical, it should be noted that the final battles against Big Boss in Snake's Revenge and Metal Gear 2 are quite similar. In both games, Big Boss can use doors to chase the player around from one screen to another. The only difference between the two games' sequences is that Big Boss doesn't transform into a cyborg in the canonical sequel, Metal Gear 2.

In Metal Gear 2: Solid Snake, when the player calls George Kessler during the final battle, he mentions a rumor about Big Boss receiving cybernetic "snatcher" organs from Dr. Petrovich after losing his limbs, right ear and right eye (which was already missing in the original game) in battle. While some fans interpret this as a jab directed at Snake's Revenge, it's a reference to Kojima's previous game, Snatcher. Dr. Petrovich appears in Snatcher as the founder of the snatcher project.

A possibility to Big Boss' cultural background is that he is in fact partially Mongolian. In Metal Gear Solid, Vulcan Raven speaks to Solid Snake of a shared ancestry, explaining how Snake as well as himself had ancestors who were raised on the "barren plains of Mongolia", also telling Snake that "blood from the east flows within your veins". As Solid Snake is a clone of Big Boss it is possible to assume that the statements relate to Big Boss' heritage. This however may have be an assumption by Vulcan Raven on Snake’s bloodline, or a simple metaphor, signifying that Snake and Raven are equal as warriors.

According to Big Boss' biography in Prima's official Metal Gear Solid Strategy Guide, Big Boss was born a third generation Japanese American in Hawaii but fought for the United States shortly after the start of World War II.

Metal Gear Solid 4
Big Boss has been rumored to appear in the next Metal Gear Solid game, Metal Gear Solid 4. This is because of a promotional picture released for the game, which contains pictures of several characters, in which one is a withered (due to being dead) old man with an eye patch. In a recent interview with Game Informer, Hideo Kojima was questioned about the image of Big Boss. When asked if Big Boss would appear in the game he replied: "I cannot say. That wasn't my idea. The artist just drew it. So I have no comment on that..." In one of the MGS4 trailers Solid Snake speaks of how war has changed. This works into Big Boss' dream of a world that needed soldiers like him as they did in the Cold War.

Cameo Appearences
Big Boss appears in Super Smash Bros. Brawl as both a trophy (as Naked Snake) and sticker. His trophy description is as follows: "As a member of the special-forces unit FOX, Naked Snake assassinated The Boss and ruined the Shagohod, a Soviet nuclear weapon. Years later, he was used to plant the seeds of Les Enfants Terribles, a project designed to create cloned super soldiers. The three Snakes--Liquid, Solid, and Solidus--were thus born. He would then embrace his name, Big Boss, and duel Solid Snake."

Also, his Naked Snake camouflage suit appears as one of the color swaps for Solid Snake (given that Snake's look in this game seems to draw directly from Naked Snake's design).