Ridley

"Kill as much as you want! Have fun!!" -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 game. He is usually the second to last boss before the final battle. Ridley's appearance is considered similar to a skeletal pterodactyl with lifeless, cold eyes. Due to his affiliation with the Space Pirates, some have come to know him as a "space dragon". Despite his fearsome and bestial appearance, Ridley is known to be highly intelligent and is shown to even be capable of speaking in the manga. The Metroid Zero Mission Manga also showed that he had a bloodthirsty personality and took enjoyment in destruction. Ridley is very defiant and persistent, and has always come back to fight again despite the large explosions, extreme heat, and enormous kinetic energy to his body that usually follow his battles with Samus. However, through scans found in the Metroid Prime sub-series, it can be inferred that Ridley is indeed the same from the manga to Corruption, despite all of his apparent "deaths". The manga also has revealed how Ridley gets resurrected over and over again. Apparently Ridley is capable of rebuilding his body by devouring dead bodies. This is confirmed by the manga in a part where Ridley states that he survived the destruction of his flagship by consuming the bodies and cells of the dead humans in K-2L.

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. 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, and also allows his soldiers to cut loose and destroy whatever they want. It is also on K-2L that Samus Aran (as a 3-year old) first encounters him. Samus attempts to befriend Ridley, but he then attempts to kill Samus. However, her mother pushes her out of the way of Ridley's attack at the cost of her life. Meanwhile, Samus's father destroys the supplies the pirates were after, and is also killed in the blast. Ridley also appears to be injured by the wreckage, but survives. However, he never imagined that he created his own worst enemy in Samus. 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 its 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 its surface. The GF was quick to send its 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 his flag-ship as well as the Space Pirate Mothership, to conduct 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 claw slashes. After Samus defeats him, she is allowed to leave with the Unknown item that had started the battle.

There is also a boss called Mecha Ridley, who serves as the end boss of Zero Mission. After Samus explores the Space Pirate Mothership and recovers her lost Power Suit, she eventually stumbles onto a mechanized version of Ridley, which she must destroy in order to leave the ship. After its destruction, it activates its self-destruct mechanism, which obliterates the mothership in a massive explosion. Fortunately, Samus is able to escape just before the ship detonates.

Ridley, after sustaining severe injury, was wounded beyond fighting capability. However, a scan in the Space Station Orpheon, in the latter Metroid Prime game indicates that he in fact survived the attack.

Space Pirates, by order of High Command, recovered his fatally-crippled body and infused it with machinery, reconstructing Geoform 187 into "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 engage each other in battle at the Artifact Temple. At its conclusion (after which his life-bar is depleted), the Chozo statues blast Meta Ridley and send him hurtling into the Phazon-infested Impact Crater.

Despite his fall, he somehow survived, possibly due to an initial Phazon mutation in the impact crater, or possibly due to the strength of his cyborg modifications. In any case, Meta Ridley reappeared on Norion during the Space Pirate attack on the Galactic Federation Marine Corps, where Samus fought him once again. This time, the environment of the fight favored him and he was too powerful for Samus. The latter was subsequently saved by Rundas, prematurely ending the battle. Ridley then went to the Pirate Homeworld and was attracted to the Leviathan (implied in the Infant Leviathan scan), where he was corrupted and made into "Omega Ridley." Samus later encountered the creature in the Leviathan and defeated him.

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 living 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 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. With the loss of the armor plating from his previous form, he is now much more vulnerable to attack. His previous form demanded that he be shot in the chest or mouth, but he is now vulnerable to both Missile launchers and Charge Beams from any angle, but Ridley has the ability to swat Missiles away with his whip-like tail. 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 claims that after the defeat of Omega Ridley in the core of the Leviathan, 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 once 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 before or after his initial defeat on Zebes.

Pragmatically, it should be noted that this problem simply arises because of the release order of the series. "Biological" Ridley had appeared in Super Metroid almost a decade before he became a cyborg in the Prime series, and the latter series did not provide an explanation to sort out the discrepancy. An official explanation or retcon may be provided in a later game or Manga.

Ridley-X
Ridley was somehow found in his original form by Biologic Space Laboratories. He was frozen and placed on board the Biologic Space Laboratories research station's Main Deck. It is possible that this was just an X Parasite mimicking another 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. It is more likely, however, that he and some Space Pirates invaded the B.S.L. prior to the appearance of the SA-X. This would explain why there were Space Pirate X there.

Weakness
In most Metroid titles, Ridley's weak spot is for some reason his lower jaw. With the exception of his first form seen in Metroid and Zero Mission, in which he was most likely much weaker due to him being younger and without upgrades. And the exception of Omega Ridley, in which his weak spot is revealed as a past wound. Why his major weak spot is located on his bottom jaw of all places in unknown.

Trivia

 * Ridley's name comes from Ridley Scott, the director of the first film of the Alien film series, from which Metroid games took a lot of inspiration.
 * Ridley is the only other character besides Dark Samus 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 the most common reappearing villain in the Metroid series, as he has appeared in every Metroid game to date except for Metroid II: Return of Samus, Metroid Prime 2: Echoes, and Metroid Prime Hunters.
 * Ridley was supposed to make an appearance in Metroid Prime 2: Echoes, I found an artwork of him wearing a Ridley-version of the Dark Suit.

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. Curiously in this appearance, Samus uses a machine gun like weapon instead of her Power Beam.
 * Ridley is on the box and cartridge art for Super Metroid, which also appears in Warioware: Smooth Moves on the Wii.
 * 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 Frigate Orpheon stage. In addition, he appears as a boss twice in the Subspace Emissary mode - once in his normal form when he ambushes Samus and Pikachu, and once as Meta Ridley when he attacks the Falcon Flyer.
 * Ridley occasionally appeared in the Captain N: The Game Master comic series, based on his original concept art. He once impersonated Judge Racklas, who is of his own species, after Mother Brain had all of her own crimes reattributed to Princess Lana.