Ridley

Ridley (リドリー, Ridorii) is a high ranking Space Pirate and is one of the most common recurring characters in the Metroid series, appearing in almost every Metroid. Ridley's appearance is considered similar to a skeletal pterodactyl with lifeless eyes. Due to his affiliation with the Space Pirates, some have come to know him as a "space dragon". Despite his fearsome appearance, Ridley is known to be highly intelligent and is shown to even be capable of speaking in the e-manga. Ridley is very defiant, and has always come back to fight again despite the large explosions, extreme heat, and enormous kinetic energy to his spine that usually follow his battles with Samus. However, it is unknown if this is the same Ridley ressurected, or if it's an entirely different Ridley altogether. Although "Ridley" is the codename given to Geoform 187, it is likely that Ridley is always the same Ridley; it was intended as the same creature before Meta Ridley. However, through scans found in the Metroid Prime sub series, it can be deciphered that Ridley is indeed the same from the e-manga to Corruption. The gap between the Prime series and Super Metroid is unexplained though. This is explained further into this article.

Biography
Geoform 187, codename 'Ridley', is one of the few remaining Space Dragons left alive after a series of mass genocide programs, carried out by the Galactic Federation, nearly brought his species to extinction. He is also the only surviving native of Zebes; it is believed that he was part of a colony that lived in Lower Norfair. This is supported by the plethora of reptilian-faced totems located throughout the caverns. Next to nothing is known of his pre-military background (if in fact he even had any), but it is safe to say that he made his way up the ranks until finally he was bestowed the designation of 'Supreme Commander of the Space Pirate Confederation'. He also appears to have considerable favor amongst High-Command. Ridley's introduction takes place on a Terran-established Colonial Planet, known simply as K-2L; where he conducts a massive raid in order to restock fuel and supplies and plunder. It is also on K-2L that Samus Aran (as an infant) first encounters him. Ridley and his soldiers destroy defense forces and do the thing that would haunt their plans. They would orphan Samus Aran. Years later, Ridley returned to Zebes, by order of High-Command, to establish a Central Command Center beneath the planet's surface. His forces annihilated the native Chozo Colony established on it's surface before carrying out these orders. Up until this time, the GF disregarded Zebes as a low priority, class XIII Wanderer Planet. This changed when the Space Pirates stole a specimen of the dangerous Metroid and word came that the Pirates planned to clone an army of the creatures in their base of operations beneath it's surface. The GF was quick to send it's fleets into battle, in order to remove the threat. Ridley personally led many battles against Galactic Federation's forces, over control of the planet, and defeated everything the Federation Police had to attack with. However, some time after these battles, he left Zebes on the Avenger, his flag-ship as well as the Space Pirate Mothership, to conduct with other, more personal matters, only to later receive a distress signal from Zebes and return to do battle with Samus Aran, a bounty hunter the Federation had sent to destroy Mother Brain. Ridley eventually confronted Samus. In Metroid, this battle took place in MiniBoss Hideout II, whilst in Zero Mission, it took place in Ridley, an area named after him. Both are the same area, just renamed for Zero Mission. In Metroid, Ridley is about Samus' height, if slightly taller, and merely hops around throwing zig-zagging fireballs at her. Samus can fire almost anything at him and he gets hurt. Once Samus defeats him, 75 missiles are added to her maximum amount. In Zero Mission, however, he is much more difficult. Ridley flies around and tries to kill Samus with his "classic" attacks - tail swipes, plasma breath, fireballs, and scratches. After Samus defeats him, she is allowed to leave with the Unknown item that had started the battle.

Reconstruction
Ridley, after getting hurt enough, was wounded beyond fighting cabability. He did survive the attack though, as stated by a Metroid Prime scan in the Space Station Orpheon.

However, Space Pirates, loyal to their leader, recovered his crippled and barely alive form and infused his body with machinery to reconstruct Geoform 187, now calling him "Meta Ridley". On Tallon IV, Meta Ridley apparently visits many of the Space Pirate bases, first going to the Phendrana Drifts to see the Pirate base, and then flying off towards the Phazon Mines, where he presumably remains until Samus arrives. They later battle at the Artifact Temple. After long battle (after which his life-bar is depleted), the Chozo statues blast Meta Ridley and sent him falling into the phazon infested impact crater.

However, he somehow survived the fall, and reappeared on Norion, where Samus battled him once again and defeated him once again. Samus later encountered him a second time on the Pirate Homeworld, now known as "Omega Ridley".

Resuscitation
Even after these devastating battles, though, Ridley manages to rise again from the dead, this time with a purely organic body (possibly due to the fact his previous defeats as a cyborg left him wary of robotic abilities.) This time, he destroys the Ceres Space Colony and steals the last Metroid from it. He and Samus have yet another skirmish, and Ridley, this time, escapes before she can prevail. He flies off to the rebuilt Space Pirate base on Zebes, where they plan to clone Metroids and make an army of them for galactic domination.

Ridley is once again is equipped with his "classic attacks" (as a matter of fact, Super Metroid was the first to feature these attacks) when Samus finds him in his lair of the deep, central part of Norfair. Samus must defeat him again as one of the bosses to unlock access to Tourian. Like in Zero Mission and Prime, his only weak spot is his chest. After Samus defeats Mother Brain, Zebes explodes, but apparently, the explosion is not powerful enough to destroy all of the great dragon.

The fact that Ridley is fully organic in this game is a call for theories from many fans of the games. After the events of Metroid Prime 3: Corruption, a common theory to come by is that after the defeat of Omega Ridley in the core of the Leviathan, the massive phazon exposure from the explosion recreates his organic tissue. Of course, this is after planet Phaaze "dies" and all phazon and the things it corrupted are cured. Another, much simpler theory, is that the Pirates cloned their leader after his defeat as a corrupted organism. Or that the Pirate group that stayed on Zebes cloned him from DNA from before or after his initial defeat on Zebes.

Another theory revolves around simply when the games were released. Since Super Metroid was released long before Metroid Prime 3: Corruption, it is speculated that a retconning is in the near future.

Nevertheless, the way Ridley became fully organic after being a cyborg shall not be known until specific info in a game, interview, or e-manga is released.

Ridley-X
Ridley was somehow found in his original form by Biologic Space Laboratories. He was frozen and placed onboard the Biologic Space Laboratories research station's Main Deck. It is possible that this was just an X Parasite mimicking a Space Dragon. He is eventually infected with an X Parasite and is one of the last bosses Samus battles aboard the station. Equally plausible, if not more so, is the possibility that the Galactic Federation had samples of Ridley's DNA and the X cloned him from that, as the game speculates the X are fully capable of doing.

Trivia

 * Ridley's name may come from Ridley Scott, the director of the Alien film series, which Metroid took a lot of inspiration from.
 * Ridley is the only other character besides Metroid Prime (under its Dark Samus alias) to best Samus in a fight. In the Super Metroid intro, Ridley is able to incapacitate Samus long enough to steal the last Metroid and accomplish his mission.
 * Ridley is one of the most common reappearing villains in the Metroid series.

Cameo appearances

 * In Super Smash Bros., Ridley (in his purple Super Metroid guise) can sometimes be seen flying on the background in the Zebes stage.
 * In Super Smash Bros. Melee, Ridley appears briefly fighting Samus in the opening cutscene. Ridley can be seen holding the infant Metroid from Super Metroid in his talons. The game also has a Ridley [trophy].
 * In Super Smash Bros. Brawl, a remixed version of the fight music with Ridley from almost all Metroid games is included in the game along with the Norfair stage. In addition, he appears as a boss twice in the Subspace Emissary mode - once in his normal form, and once as Meta Ridley.