Mercenaries in popular culture

The manga and anime series Black Lagoon focuses on a group of mercenaries known as The Lagoon Company and pirates in present-day Southeast Asia.

The

The webcomic Schlock Mercenary follows the galactic adventures of a 31st-century mercenary company.

Slade Wilson, AKA Deathstroke is a mercenary in the DC Universe, and is an enemy of Batman and the Teen Titans. He appears in various media such as Teen Titans, Arrow, Batman: Arkham Origins, Injustice: Gods Among Us, Mortal Kombat vs. DC Universe, Batman: Arkham Knight and Batman: Arkham City Lockdown, among others.

Similarly, Floyd Lawton (Deadshot) is a mercenary sniper and killer in the DC Universe, enemy of Batman, Green Arrow and other characters; ha appears also in animated shows and videogames based on DC chars, as Justice League, Arrow, Batman: Arkham Origins, Injustice 2, Batman: Arkham City, Suicide Squad and others

Theatre

• George Bernard Shaw's 1894 play Arms and the Man, and its adaptations into the 1908 operatta The Chocolate Soldier and later films all center on the misadventures of a decidedly not soldierly Swiss mercenary in the Balkans of the later 19th century.

Films

See also

List of war films: Mercenaries in the third world

• US Marine Victor McLaglen hired to kidnap young prince Freddie Bartholomew but changing his mind and giving his employers notice that their services are no longer required by mowing them down with a water cooled Maxim gun
  fired from the hip.
• The General Died at Dawn is a 1936 film which tells the story of a mercenary who meets a beautiful girl while trying to keep arms from getting to a vicious warlord in war-torn China. The movie was written by Charles G. Booth and Clifford Odets, and directed by Lewis Milestone. It stars Gary Cooper, Madeleine Carroll and Akim Tamiroff.
• P-40s for China against the Japanese prior to Pearl Harbor
• For Whom the Bell Tolls (1943) - Based on the novel by Ernest Hemingway, Gary Cooper is a mercenary who finds meaning to life fighting in the Spanish Civil War alongside Ingrid Bergman
• China (1943) - Alan Ladd is a mercenary who finds meaning to life fighting against the Japanese in China before Pearl Harbor alongside Loretta Young
• gunslingers
  in the Western adaptation) who agree to protect an impoverished village from 40 bandits for sub-minimal wages
• Cinemascope
  being used in the confined sets of a submarine.
• Red China
  .
• The Professionals (1966) - Richard Brooks' film tells a fictional tale of 4 specialists, automatic weapons (Lee Marvin), explosives (Burt Lancaster), tracker (Woody Strode), and mule skinner (Robert Ryan) who are hired by a big businessman (Ralph Bellamy) to rescue his kidnapped wife (Claudia Cardinale) from a Mexican bandit (Jack Palance) at the beginning of the 20th century.
• Africa Addio/Africa-Blood and Guts (1966)-A documentary by the team behind Mondo Cane that filmed Africa in the early 1960s and featured mercenaires in the Congo Crisis
• Dark of the Sun/The Mercenaries (1968) - Based on the novel by Wilbur Smith originally titled Last Train From Katanga about mercenaries in the Congo Crisis and Katanga excitingly directed by Jack Cardiff starring Rod Taylor and Jim Brown, a score by Jacques Loussier, and filmed in Jamaica.
• Seduto Alla Sua Destra/Black Jesus (1968) - A fictionalised story based on Patrice Lumumba, played by Woody Strode
  , who is captured by mercenaries.
• El Mercenario/The Last Mercenary (1968) - A fictionalised account produced by and starring Ray Danton as a mercenary who travels from the Congo to work in Brazil.
• sub-Sahara Africa
  that was the directing debut of Mario Siciliano.
• Red China. Only the characters are based on John Sherlock's 1964 novel The Ordeal of Major Grigsby featuring a cast of Stanley Baker, Alex Cord, Richard Attenborough, John Thaw, and Honor Blackman
  .
• The Last Valley (1970) - A band of unemployed mercenaries take over an isolated valley during the Thirty Years' War. The film stars Michael Caine and Omar Sharif.
• High Velocity (1976) - Fictionalised account of former Vietnam War veterans played by Ben Gazzara and Paul Winfield living and working in the Philippines
  .
• Mike Hoare acts as technical adviser and is directed by Andrew V. McLaglen
  , son of Victor.
• setpieces
  from The Red Berets reappear in the film that was made by the same director.
• Cuban revolution in 1959. It was directed by Richard Lester
  .
• A.E. Housman
  's poem Epitaph For an Army of Mercenaries being sung over the end titles.
• POWs, including his own son, from a prison camp in Laos
  .
• Under Fire (1983) - A fictional account of a comedy relief mercenary in Nicaragua meeting journalist Nick Nolte
• Code Name: Wild Geese (1984) - Lewis Collins and Lee Van Cleef in a fictionalised account of mercenaries in the Far East
• Commando Leopard (1985) - Lewis Collins again is a mercenary up against rival mercenaries led by Klaus Kinski
• Flesh & Blood (1985) - The story of an insurgent mercenary band in Renaissance Italy, featuring Rutger Hauer
  as the band's leader.
• Men of War (1994) - John Sayles wrote a film about a group of mercenaries led by Dolph Lundgren who are sent to an unnamed Asian country on behalf of big business interests, When they empathise with the locals, their employers have to hire another mercenary group to destroy them.
• high school
  by day and fighting a drug ring in his off time.
• The Lost World: Jurassic Park (1997) - The corporation InGen hires several mercenaries and hunters to capture dinosaurs on Isla Sorna.
• Ronin (1998) - Robert De Niro, Jean Reno, Natascha McElhone, Sean Bean and Stellan Skarsgård play mercenaries.
• terrorist bomb attack in Paris that leads him to plot revenge, escape prosecution by joining the French Foreign Legion then leaving to become a mercenary in Bosnia
  where he rediscovers his lost humanity.
• Jurassic Park 3
  (2001) - three mercenaries named Cooper, Nash, and Udesky infiltrate the island of Isla Sorna to find a missing boy named Eric Kirby only to be eaten by a Spinosaurus and a pack of Velociraptors
• Atlantis: The Lost Empire (2001)- The main antagonist, Lyle T. Rourke (voiced by James Garner) turns out to be a ruthless mercenary who is out to steal a crystal from Atlantis to make tons of money only to be crystallized and shattered into a million pieces at the end.
• Man on Fire (2004) - Denzel Washington plays a former mercenary hired as a bodyguard for a young girl in Mexico City who subsequently gets kidnapped. Christopher Walken plays his buddy and fellow mercenary who currently runs a bodyguard service in Ciudad Juarez.
• blood diamonds". Especially notable is one of the movie's later scenes, which depicts a private army of ruthless South African mercenaries launching an assault on one of Sierra Leone
  's many dangerous conflict zones in search of rare pink diamonds.
• Ray Stevenson
  plays a mercenary who is hired to protect a mysterious businessman in a war-torn eastern-bloc country with a crack team of ex-soldiers.
• Rambo (2008) - John Rambo, the main protagonist of the series, played by Sylvester Stallone joins a team of mercenaries, on a mission to save a group of volunteered missionaries, who are held captive in Burma.
• Babylon A.D. (2008) - Vin Diesel stars as a mercenary hired to protect a mysterious girl named Aurora to New York.
• The
  Kyle Katarn and the infamous Boba Fett
  .
• Predators (2010) - Royce, the protagonist of the movie, is a mercenary.
• The Expendables series of movies about a group of elite mercenaries, starring Sylvester Stallone, Jason Statham, Dolph Lundgren, Jet Li, Mickey Rourke, Randy Couture, Steve Austin, Terry Crews, Bruce Willis, Arnold Schwarzenegger, Jean-Claude Van Damme, Liam Hemsworth, Chuck Norris, Antonio Banderas, Wesley Snipes, Mel Gibson, Harrison Ford, Kelsey Grammer, Ronda Rousey, Tony Jaa, and 50 Cent.
• Mercenaries (2011) - A war drama film starring Billy Zane and Kirsty Mitchell about a group of Mercenaries sent to the Balkans to rescue the US ambassador and his aid.
• League of Shadows
  ) are portrayed as mercenaries. In addition, the newly resurrected League of Shadows is made up of a band of mercenaries under Bane's command.
• Justice League: The Flashpoint Paradox (2013) - also features an altered Deathstroke fighting against Aquaman and Wonder Woman.

Television

• The
  Daleks and The Master on the science fiction series Doctor Who, most famously in the episodes "Day of the Daleks" and "Frontier in Space
  ".
• Soldier of Fortune (1955) had
  adventurers
  ; however, none of the episodes involved them being hired to wage war.
• Have Gun Will Travel (1957–1963) featured Richard Boone as "the man called Paladin" whose services were hired in each episode, answering a requesting telegram pr a newspaper article with a business card bearing the title of the show (although Paladin was hired more as a "problem solver" than as a professional soldier). Paladin's symbol was the knight piece in chess, which would explain his unexpected moves during the episode. In one episode of the later television show The Richard Boone Show
  , Boone played a modern version of Paladin.
• The A-Team is a 1980's series about a team of benevolent mercenaries. The violence was usually "toned down" to an almost cartoonish level to make the series acceptable for prime-time viewing (everybody shoots, no one gets hit).
• The anime television series Area 88 portrays fictional mercenaries in a country called Asran where foreign freelance pilots of all nationalities are assembled in Area 88, an isolated air force base that houses the military's only mercenary unit to fight in Asran's civil war.
• dissolution of the Soviet Union
  .
• One of the major antagonists in the TV series Jericho is a mercenary group called Ravenwood, which is alleged to be inspired by Blackwater Worldwide. They are a subsidiary of a large government contractor and are often operating on private agendas.
• The character
  Jayne Cobb
  in the Firefly series is a career mercenary who joined the crew of the Serenity after his previous employer hired him to track their ship only to switch sides when offered a larger percentage and better perks. When later offered a bribe to again switch sides, Jayne refuses. When confronted, he explains that he would have but, "The money wasn't good enough." Despite questionable loyalty, Jayne remained more or less loyal to the Serenity crew until the end of the series.
• The comedy machinima series Red vs. Blue uses the mercenary premise regularly, usually around Tex and Wyoming, who themselves, were freelance mercenaries.
• The soap opera
  Steve Johnson
  , into serving as his agents.
• In
  The Island, kidnap Ben Linus, and kill everyone on the Island in order to completely secure it for their employer, Charles Widmore
  , so he can exploit the Island's mythical properties for his own gain.
• Shadow Company is a documentary directed by Nick Bicanic and Jason Bourque and narrated by Gerard Butler. It is an introduction to the mercenary and private military company industry, concentrating on the role the industry has been playing in recent conflicts. It was released on DVD in August 2006.
• In
  drill sergeant, to search and find Osama bin Laden
  .

Music

The song "Mercenary Song" off the album Train A Comin' by Steve Earle is about a pair of mercenaries.

The song "Roland the Headless Thompson Gunner" by Warren Zevon recounts the exploits of a Norwegian mercenary in the Congo. Similarly his track "Jungle Work!" does the same, citing "le mercenaire" directly in the lyrics.

The Song "the Hero" by the death metal band Amon Amarth is about a (dying) mercenary. Also their 2016 released album "Jomsviking" is about a historic company of Viking mercenaries.

The song "Straw Dogs" by The Stiff Little Fingers (as they say themselves in an interview on the re-release of their album Nobody's Heroes "a dirty nasty song about a dirty nasty subject") is about mercenaries.

John Cale recorded a song titled "Mercenaries" on his album Sabotage/Live in 1979.

British death metal band Bolt Thrower released an album entitled Mercenary in 1998.

British heavy metal band Iron Maiden has a song titled "The Mercenary", on their album Brave New World. The song's lyrics appear to be inspired by the film Predator.

Irish band Thin Lizzy included a song titled "Soldier Of Fortune" on their album Bad Reputation 1977. The soldier of fortune that appears in the lyrics is Costas Georgiou also called Col. Callan who was executed after the Luanda Trial in 1976.

American singer-songwriter Harry Chapin recorded a song entitled "Mercenaries", which first appeared on his 1977 album Dance Band on the Titanic. A live version of the track appears on 1998's The Bottom Line Encore Collection.

Board and card games

In

Mercadian Masques, in 1999. The Mercadian Masque mercenary cards were colored black

, representing entropy, darkness, or selfishness. Many of these cards could expedite bringing smaller Mercenaries into play.

In

Bretonnians) to field Dogs of War units. These units include the Regiments of Renown

.

The

roleplaying game material, and most of the various BattleTech and MechWarrior

videogames, are focused on the exploits of mercenary commands, allowing players the freedom to determine their own paths and to move between different government and Great House factions as employers, as an easy way to explore the various areas and cultures of the setting.

Computer and video games

This article may contain irrelevant references to popular culture. Please remove the content or add citations to reliable and independent sources. (November 2020)

• Age of Empires III: The War Chiefs
  allow the player to hire foreign mercenaries.
• Armored Core features a mercenary organization consisting of mecha pilots.
• Army of Two and Army of Two: The 40th Day focus on a pair of mercenaries.
• Batman: Arkham City features a specialized team of highly trained mercenaries, contracted from clandestine private security agency "Tyger".
• Mercenaries from the board game
  MechWarrior
  games.
• In Bladestorm: The Hundred Years' War, the player commands a group of mercenaries.
• In Borderlands, players control one of four mercenaries and traverse the fictional planet of Pandora in search of a mysterious "Vault," which is said to contain priceless riches.
• In Call of Duty: Black Ops II, narco-terrorist Raul Menendez uses Cuban and Central American mercenaries to attack China and NATO.
• In Call of Juarez: The Cartel, a bankrupt PMC known as Peacekeepers International becomes a rogue group that supplies weapons to the Mendoza Cartel.
• In Chromehounds, mercenary organization Rafzakael guides the player throughout the story mode and the online mode.
• In
  arms dealer
  .
• In the Treasures of Aht Urgan expansion for Final Fantasy XI, players are recruited into the "Salaheem's Sentinels" mercenary company, for which they can take on various missions called "Assaults" to receive rewards.
• In Final Fantasy VII, protagonist Cloud Strife works as a mercenary.
• In Fire Emblem: Path of Radiance and Fire Emblem: Radiant Dawn, protagonist Ike is the leader of a mercenary group employed by other kingdoms. Additionally, most games in the series feature the "mercenary" as a basic sword-wielding character class.
• Several different mercenary groups appear in the 2008 video game Fallout 3; most are presented as antagonists to the player.
• Grand Theft Auto V features the private military company "Merryweather Security".
• In the
  Halo universe, the Kig-Yar (Jackal) species are employed as mercenaries and privateers
  and commonly deployed as scouts, snipers, or special infantry.
• Jagged Alliance focuses on a team of mercenaries carrying out several missions in fictional underdeveloped nations.
• In Killzone: Mercenary, players take on the role of a mercenary who fights for both the "Interplanetary Strategic Alliance" (ISA) and the "Helghan Empire".
• In
  Russian Mafia. In the sequel, Mercenaries 2: World in Flames, which is set in Venezuela, the three mercenaries accept contracts from new contractors being underwritten by the contractors from the first game, while assembling a private military company
  of their own.
• Metal Gear Solid 4: Guns of the Patriots and Metal Gear Solid V: The Phantom Pain both feature PMCs.
• In Mount & Blade and its sequel Mount & Blade: Warband, the player character can hire mercenary units at taverns in all cities. They cost more than normal units recruited from villages both in initial cost and upkeep.
• In
  Zero
  , players may participate as mercenary pilots.
• In Team Fortress 2, the player controls one of nine mercenaries in a corporate war.
• In Red Faction, "mercs" are used by the corporation ULTOR to kill rioting miners before the Earth Defense Forces arrive.
• Mercenaries are featured across the
  Jack Krauser
  .
• In Resident Evil: Operation Raccoon City, "Wolfpack" is a mercenary group employed by Umbrella Corporation. They are dispatched into Raccoon City to run various missions on behalf of Umbrella's interests ranging from destruction of physical evidences to assassination of incriminating eyewitnesses.
• Soldier of Fortune depicts a Capitol Hill conspiracy involving specialized mercenaries hired by G8 and the United Nations.
• In
  Splinter Cell: Conviction
  , Sam Fisher encounters ruthless private military company "Black Arrow".
• In Strike Commander, the player runs a mercenary air force.
• In the Total War series, battalions of mercenaries can be hired at inns, such as in Medieval: Total War 1, or in the field, such as in Rome: Total War.
• In Xenoblade Chronicles 2, Vandham ran a mercenary group in Garfont Village before his death, with the position being passed to Rex afterward. In-game, Blades can be sent out on Merc Missions, which grant various rewards.

A toast

A mercenary toast: "Vive la mort, vive la guerre, vive le sacré mercenaire" (Long live death, long live war, long live the sacred mercenary) was used in the novel and film The Dogs of War (1980).^[1] It is also mentioned in a couple of books.^[2][3] There is a similar toast to the French Foreign Legion which pre-dates the film "Vive la mort, vive la guerre, vive la Légion Etrangère".^[4][5]

See also

• Yojimbo (film)

References

1. ^ Trivia for The Dogs of War Archived 2017-03-09 at the Wayback Machine, Retrieved 2009-02-11
2. ISBN 978-0-86975-258-6
   p. 31.
3. ^ Walter Wolter, Gefallene Männer: 13 Stories Haffmans, 1997 SBN 3251003542, 9783251003549. p. 116.
4. ^ The Last Beau Gesfe Archived 2008-06-15 at the Wayback Machine, Time magazine 16 February 1970.
5. ISBN 978-0-595-36594-4 p. 12