Big Boss

Big Boss appears in Metal Gear and Metal Gear 2 Solid Snake, Metal Gear Solid 3: Snake Eater as a playable character under the alias Naked Snake. He's also rumoured to be in the upcoming Metal Gear Solid 4: Guns Of The Patriots.

History
Big Boss's history prior to joining the armed forces and becoming a disciple of The Boss is a complete mystery. According to some sources, Big Boss was born as a third generation Japanese-American in Hawaii. After the attack on Pearl Harbor, he lied about his age and joined the United States Army, and first saw action fighting in France. After the war, he remained in the military, and fought for it again in the Korean War. In 1956, Jack was involved in the Bikini Atoll testing of the first airborne detonation of a hydrogen bomb. In between the Korean and Vietnam Wars, he fought alongside the Green Berets, as well as served under The Boss. During this time, he helped her develop CQC.



In 1964, he was recruited by the fledgling FOX (Force Operation X) unit, and underwent an operation titled the Virtuous Mission, in which he was to rescue a defecting Soviet scientist named 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. 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, as well as rescue Sokolov. It was during this mission that Snake came across the prototype designs for the Metal Gear REX bipedal tank from Granin, who was sending them to a colleague in America. This colleague was the father of Hal Emmerich, aka Otacon, first introduced in Metal Gear Solid.

During this mission, Snake lost his right eye to a bullet from Ocelot's Colt Single Action Army, while enduring torture. However, he succeeded in completing the mission, and killed The Boss and Colonel Volgin. For this, he was given the title of Big Boss by President Johnson.

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 mythological soldier" moniker. Once the conflict had ended, Big Boss took part in more than 70 missions attached to groups such as the SOG (Special Operations Group), the Wild Geese, and Delta Force. He also adopted a war orphan named Frank Jaeger (who would later become FOXHOUND member Gray Fox).

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 disbanded, and the following year, Big Boss formed his own unit, FOXHOUND, to carry on the tradition of the FOX unit. In 1972, Big Boss was found in a coma after a wild mission. 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." Liquid Snake, Solid Snake, and Solidus Snake were produced in this program, and were known as the "Sons of Big 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)  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, but his efforts would delay further action by the West and buy Big Boss enough time to complete Metal Gear's development.

However, much to Big Boss's 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 defeat him.

In reality, Big Boss managed to escape Outer Heaven. Years later, he took control of another nation known as Zanzibar. Recruiting war orphans from across the Third World and raising them as soldiers, Big Boss hoped to create a nation dedicated to the ideals of warfare and battle. 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 infilitrate 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. 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 western 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.