Gray Fox (Metal Gear) - Appearances

Appearances

Gray Fox first appears in the original Metal Gear as a high-ranking agent of FOXHOUND (the "Fox" codename being the highest commemoration within the unit) who goes missing during a mission prior to the events of the game, his last transmission being a cryptic message simply saying "Metal Gear". Solid Snake's initial objective in the game is to rescue Gray Fox, who reveals the true nature of Metal Gear to the player.

Fox returns in Metal Gear 2, having left FOXHOUND and defected to Zanzibar Land to join Big Boss' side. Fox pilots the new model Metal Gear D and confronts Snake a few times, while secretly assisting him as an anonymous informant. Snake destroys Metal Gear D and ends up being challenged by Fox to a fistfight in the middle of a minefield. Fox's past is fleshed out in this game and his civilian identity is revealed to be Frank Jaeger (フランク・イェーガー, Furanku Yēgā?, "Frank Yeager" in the MSX2 version), Naomi Hunter being his foster sister. Metal Gear 2 also reveals Jaeger's relationship with Gustava Heffner (Natasha Marcova in the MSX2 version), a former world champion Czech figure skater who he met in Calgary, Canada, and fell in love with. She tried to seek asylum with him in America, but failed, and was stripped of her competition rights as a result. Following this incident, Frank developed a great deal of resentment for his superiors. However, he was unaware that Gustava later joined the StB (Czechoslovak State Security) and is present in Zanzibar as Dr. Kio Marv's bodyguard. During his first direct encounter with Solid Snake, Gray Fox while piloting the Metal Gear D destroyed the bridge leading to the detention camp where Dr. Marv was being held, which, ironically, became the cause of Gustava's death, unaware of her presence there.

In Metal Gear Solid, Gray Fox appears under the identity of the Cyborg Ninja (サイボーグ忍者, Saibōgu Ninja?), an assassin in a powered armor exoskeleton and armed with a high-frequency blade, who challenges Solid Snake to a fist fight, even though his ultimate goal is to help him. He also provides Snake cryptic advice via CODEC as a faceless contact named Deepthroat. After he destroys Metal Gear REX's radome with the use of a prototype railgun attached to his arm, Gray Fox is killed by Liquid Snake, piloting Metal Gear REX.

Metal Gear Solid: Portable Ops, a prequel set two decades before the events of the first Metal Gear, features a teenage Gray Fox as a masked machete-wielding assassin named Null (ヌル, Nuru?), one of the FOX members that Naked Snake faces in the game. Null is a teenage assassin subjected to a secret CIA project to be the "Perfect Soldier" and recruited into Gene's Fox unit. During their second fight, Naked Snake discovers that Null was a boy that he met four years prior in Mozambique, where the boy used his innocence as a cover to kill dozens of government soldiers with only one knife while speaking a little German so his enemies called him, Frank Jaeger (German for "Frank Hunter"). After defeating him twice, Snake sent Null to somewhere outside of FOX for help. In Metal Gear Solid: Portable Ops Plus, he was featured as a boss in "BOSS RUSH" mode (only known as "Null").

Despite Gray Fox's death in Metal Gear Solid, the Cyborg Ninja incarnation of the character would still appear in subsequent games in some form or another. The Ninja appears as a hidden character in the Metal Gear Solid: VR Missions expansion as a playable character for three special missions; and the character's exoskeleton is used as an alternate outfit for Raiden in the extra missions mode of Metal Gear Solid 2: Substance. The role of the Cyborg Ninja is taken by other characters in the subsequent Metal Gear Solid sequels, and his identity was assumed by Olga Gurlukovich in Metal Gear Solid 2: Sons of Liberty. In Metal Gear Solid 4: Guns of the Patriots, Raiden becomes a Cyborg Ninja as well.

Outside of the Metal Gear games, the Cyborg Ninja is featured as a player character driver in Konami Krazy Racers and as an assistant fighter in Super Smash Bros. Brawl. A Cyborg Ninja figure was released by McFarlane Toys in 1998. Another one was released by Konami in 2004. In 2007, a block-style figure was also released in the Kubrick line. In 2011, another Cyborg Ninja figure, as designed by Kojima himself, was announced to come from Square Enix's Play Arts Kai line of Metal Gear figures; it was released for the 25th anniversary of the Metal Gear series. The special editions of Metal Gear Rising: Revengeance will come with the Cyborg Ninja downloadable content (DLC) that features a Gray Fox-based new skin for Raiden.