Raul Menendez

"Come, my friends. 'Tis not too late to seek a newer world."

- Raul Menendez, quoting the poem Ulysses.

Raul Menendez is the main antagonist of Call of Duty: Black Ops II. He is a Nicaraguan political activist and the leader of Cordis Die, as well as an old nemesis of Alex Mason and Frank Woods. He takes over hundreds of the U.S.'s own automated drones and uses them to attack its major cities, as well as cities in China such as Beijing, Shanghai, and Hong Kong in an attempt to ignite a worldwide uprisings. He has a large scar, and burn mark on his right eye.

Raul is apparently extremely charismatic and influential; according to trailers, he is called "The Messiah of the 99%" and has a subscriber count on his Cordis Die YouTube channel in the millions and views in the hundreds of millions. According to Admiral Briggs, "People in America... idolize him", despite being the one responsible for the blood spilled on U.S. Soil.

Biography
Raul Menendez was born in Nicaragua on September 5, 1962. According to JSOC Operative Salazar, Menendez spent the first part of his childhood during his country's tumultuous years in the Nicaraguan Revolution. Seeing first hand the horrors the American-backed Contras conducted on his fellow countrymen would sow the seeds for his hatred of the west. After the 1972 earthquake of Nicaragua, Menendez's family lost most of all they had, including their home. A year after the quake, his sister Josefina was horribly disfigured and crippled from a warehouse fire the two were seeking shelter in. The warehouse was burned down by its American owner for $11,000 in insurance money; this tragedy would further embitter Menendez towards America and its capitalist culture.

When Menendez entered into his teenage years both him and his father, Jose Luiz Menendez, started over by selling drugs for easy money. As time passed they became rich and powerful. Their height of power was so great that the Menendez Cartel had an almost god like status in the criminal underworld. This was of great concern to the United States to the extent that the CIA assassinated Menendez's father in a U.S. sanctioned assassination.

Fueled by his anger for the U.S., in 1986 Menendez began to run guns into Afghanistan for his own private army. On July 6, 1986, Menendez was in Angola supplying the Cuban backed Communist insurgengy group the MPLA with arms. It was also the same time in which Alex Mason and Jason Hudson were in Angola to rescue one of Menendez’s victims the recently captured Frank Woods. Alex Mason ran into Menendez after breaking into his hut, while the gun runner was relaying propaganda on his radio. As his men entered the hut, Menendez wrestled with Mason after pulling a grenade. Mason overpowered Menendez and shot him in the right side of his face, destroying his eye and leaving him permanently disfigured. Mason then escaped the hut as the grenade exploded. This drew the attention of the CIA who sent in Alex Mason, Frank Woods, and Jason Hudson to investigate. Unbeknownst to the trio, the leader of the Mujihadeen in which they considered their ally, Mullah Rahmaan, was one of many in which secretly worked for Menendez. It was this same time in which Menendez also dealt with Lev Kravchenko, who sold the arms dealer Soviet weapons and arms in exchange to money. Sending the arms into third world countries such as Cuba and Angola, Menendez began to fund and arm many anti-Western rebellions and revolutions in the hope to bring down corrupt capitalist nations.

With the help of General Manuel Noriega, the dictator of Panama, the CIA in conjunction with the Panamanian Defense Forces conducted a raid on Menendez’s compound in Nicaragua. During the raid Frank Woods accidently throws a hand grenade into Menendez’s sister’s room, killing her and presumably Menendez himself. However, unknown to the U.S. or the CIA, the corrupt General Noriega made a deal with Menendez offering him sanctuary in Panama. Before the U.S. invasion into Panama in 1989, Menendez, with the help of his moles within the CIA, kidnaps the young David Mason and brings him to Panama just ahead of the the elder Mason’s mission to capture General Noriega. Around this same time Menendez’s men kidnap Jason Hudson and forced him to relay information to Frank Woods to kill what was believed to be Menendez. After taking the shot, the man shot was not Menendez but instead Alex Mason. To further punish the now grief-strickened Woods, Menendez kills Hudson and shoots out both of his knees crippling him for life. Still not content with his revenge, Menendez allows Woods and the young David to live and vows that in due time he will return to finalize his revenge.

During the course of the next thirty years Menendez hides in the shadows working to gather the men and resources needed to begin his world revolution. To generate funds for his private army, Menendez used the wealth he made in drug trafficking and invested heavily in various weapons tech including Tacitus Corporation. On June 22, 2014, Menendez began his campaign by creating Cordis Die, a social networking group drawing in billions of followers to his cause of ending the the corrupt capitalist 1% nations, using the alias Odysseus. With his followers unaware that their leader was a Narco-Terrorist, the members of Cordis Die organized into armed insurgent groups such as the Mercs and the Militia.

Trivia

 * He was voiced by Kamar de los Reyes.
 * Menendez's name was originally Martinez.
 * Menendez in his youth bears a striking resemblance to David Mason in his youth - right down to the hairstyle, polo-styled striped shirt, and facial features.
 * Menendez appears alongside Frank Woods in the music video for the song "Carry On" by Avenged Sevenfold.
 * Also, Menendez's shirt on the back shows the dates and locations of concerts, which reference the locations and dates of Future Missions.
 * In "Time and Fate", Menendez plays very differently from a normal Call of Duty player character. He moves noticeably faster than normal, deals so much melee damage he can actually dismember enemies with his machete, can reload the starting SPAS-12 shotgun nearly instantly if he has fired more than three rounds and gets a 16-round magazine on it, and has infinite ammunition for any weapon he uses. He can also take an extremely high amount of damage (at least as much as a player-controlled Juggernaut), and his health regenerates much faster than normal.
 * Menendez is multilingual, as he speaks Spanish, Russian and English.
 * Menendez was ranked #1 on GameInformer's list of top 10 villains of 2012.
 * Ironically, Cordis Die has an agenda against the rich, but Menendez is rich himself. ◾ However, Cordis Die most likely holds Menendez in a high regard because he initially grew up very poor and later became rich on his own merits as well as tolerates his wealth due to the fact he uses it to fund them.
 * Menendez's favorite weapon in 2025 is the Executioner revolver; in the 1980's, his favorite weapon appears to be the SPAS-12, as he stole Noriega's in "Time and Fate" and had his own in "Suffer With Me". Due to this, it is possible he may have a fondness for shotguns.
 * If Menendez survives and Chloe Lynch is killed or captive, after he kills Woods, and is at his sister's grave, his hair has grown back out, which means that a significant amount of time passed after he killed Woods.
 * When Menendez is about to kill Woods (Player-determined), he appears to have his right eye back, however it's more likely a fake one.
 * If Menendez is killed in "Judgment Day", his tongue will roll out.
 * In "Pyrrhic Victory", Menendez uses a SOG Knife, which is strange, since he was never a part of SOG. He most likely took it from Woods or a member of his team when they were captured.
 * If Graphic Content Filter is enabled, and if the player gets the ending where Chloe lives and Menendez is captured, when he slams his head on the TV in his prison cell, Menendez's entire body, including his face, is censored.
 * In "Time and Fate", it's possible to kill Menendez. The player should equip the Storm PSR (however, the player must finish the campaign first in order to use the future weapon in past mission), and when seeing Menendez at the barn, the player will need to wait for being able to use the weapons again, then look for Menendez and kill him. However, this does not change the game, and Menendez is seen in the house later in the mission.
 * Despite having only one eye, Menendez's field of vision is exactly the same as any other character's when he is playable. This is likely an intentional developers' choice not to limit the player's vision of his surroundings.