Viktor Reznov

Captain Viktor Reznov (Russian: Виктop Peзнов) is the overarching protagonist of the franchise's Black Ops sub-series.
He was a Red Army officer who participated in pushing the Nazis back to Berlin, and was later promoted to captain for his services during World War II. When assigned to capture a Nazi scientist by the name of Friedrich Steiner, Reznov and his right-hand, Dimitri Petrenko, were betrayed by their commanders Nikita Dragovich and Lev Kravchenko. Losing Dimitri to Steiner's nova gas, Reznov plotted his revenge while being a prisoner of Vorkuta. He found his chance in reprogramming the CIA agent Alex Mason to kill Dragovich, Kravchenko, and Steiner. 
When escaping from the prison, he helped Mason escape while sacrificing himself so Alex could fulfill his goal in killing Dragovich, Kravchenko and Steiner. Though Reznov never appears in person after the events, Mason would see Reznov as a hallucination during his missions in Khe Sanh due to his reprogramming. Reznov's goal to get revenge on his enemies succeeded, as Mason eliminated Dragovich, Steiner and later Kravchenko (determined by the player) during his service with the CIA. During the 2040s, Reznov was brought back to life by Project Blackout alongside Mason, Frank Woods, Jason Hudson, and Raul Menendez as part of the "Archetypes".
He was voiced by , who also portrayed James Gordon in the Christopher Nolan Batman trilogy, Sirius Black in the Harry Potter films, Count Dracula in the 1992 Bram Stoker's Dracula, and Jacob Marley, Bob Cratchit and Tiny Tim Cratchit in 2009's A Christmas Carol. 
In Call of Duty: Black Ops 4, he was voiced by Piotr Michael, who also voiced Jason Hudson in Call of Duty: Black Ops Cold War and Call of Duty: Warzone, Sarge in Kingdom Hearts III, and Albert Reynolds in The Loud House.
==Biography==
===Early Life===
Viktor Reznov was born on April 20th, 1913 in Saint Petersburg, Russian Empire to unnamed parents, and his father was a talented musician. During the Siege of Stalingrad, Viktor's father played the violin, which was seen as a symbol of hope for his countrymen, and defiance to the Nazis. The Naziss slit his father's throat while he slept, causing Viktor anguish and anger towards the Nazis.
At an unknown time, Viktor joined the Red Army presumably to serve the Soviet Union and get his revenge on the Nazis for killing his father.
==World At War==
===World War II===
Reznov first appeared in World at War, as a Sergeant in the Red Army. He appeared throughout World at War 's Soviet campaign as a compatriot of the player-controlled Dimitri Petrenko, thus acting as the deuteragonist of the campaign alongside Sergeant Roebuck of the Pacific campaign. 
During the battle at Stalingrad, Reznov was assigned as a sniper and wanted to elimiante Heinrich Amsel, who was the cause of Stalingrad's misery. During the battle, he asked Nikita Dragovich for reinforcements, which never arrived. This resulted in the massacre at Stalingrad, and caused Reznov not to trust Dragovich or his right-hand, Lev Kravchenko. Reznov and Petrenko lead the Red Army's assault on Stalingrad and were instrumental in the death of Nazi General Heinrich Amsel, and later were heavily involved in the Red Army's advance through Germany to Berlin. During the Battle of Berlin, Reznov watched Petrenko raise the Soviet flag atop the Reichstag after stopping a Nazi officer from killing.
==Black Ops Series==
===Operation Olympus===
Months after the end of World War II, both Reznov (now promoted to Captain) and Petrenko were members of Unit 45 of the 3rd Shock Army during Operation Olympus. He was under the command of Major General Nikita Dragovich and Colonel Lev Kravchenko, to capture Friedrich Steiner, an ex-Nazi scientist who developed a deadly nerve agent known as Nova-6. However, they were betrayed, and Dragovich tested the poison on Petrenko and several of Reznov's made as he watched, then made off with Steiner and the Nova-6. Reznov managed to escape alongside fellow teammate Nevski, but Petrenko was not so lucky, and soon succumbed to Nova-6 inside the chamber. He was captured and sentenced to Vorkuta, a Soviet labor camp, and spent eighteen years there.
===Black Ops===
Reznov was later captured and imprisoned in the Vorkuta prison camp. After spending nearly two decades in Vorkuta, Reznov befriended Alex Mason, a former U.S. Marine and CIA operative, who'd also dealt with Dragovich, Kravchenko, and Steiner; he had, in fact, been brainwashed and was intended to become a Soviet sleeper agent able to understand numbers broadcasts, and with the goal of assassinating the American President, John F. Kennedy.
But after Mason was thrown into Vorkuta, Reznov sabotaged Mason's programming and re-programmed him to go after the three. Reznov and Mason would rally the other prisoners and would successfully overthrow Vorkuta. However, after using motorbikes and later a hijacked truck to escape the prison, Reznov told Mason to jump onto a nearby train, and despite the latter's insistence he join him, Reznov declined, and drew the pursuing guards away, where he was later supposedly captured and gunned down.
Five years later, however, in 1968, Mason (now a member of the MACV-SOG) begins seeing visions of Reznov, first believing him to be a Soviet defector in Hue City, Vietnam. The imaginary Reznov accompanies Mason during his entire quest to eliminate Dragovich and his men, in Vietnam, and into Laos, where they encounter Kravchenko.
After Kravchenko's apparent death, "Reznov" accompanies Mason on an authorized assault of Rebirth Island, location of Steiner's Nova-6 research and development laboratory. Upon locating Steiner, Mason apparently witnesses Reznov shoot Steiner to death. However, CIA operatives Jason Hudson and Grigori Weaver, who had arrived on Rebirth Island earlier to retrieve the doctor, witnesses Mason shooting Steiner, proclaiming and believing he is Reznov.
During Mason's interrogation, Hudson and Weaver revealed that the real Viktor Reznov had been supposedly dead for five years, having been killed in the escape from Vorkuta. Having brainwashed Mason, Reznov was able to complete his personal objective of killing Dragovich, Kravchenko and Steiner; leading Mason to become obsessed with pursuing them in spite his other objectives, inadvertently continuing Reznov's posthumous legacy. The Reznov witnessed by Mason was a guardian angel-like hallucination, possibly developed by multiple personality disorder.
After Mason finally killed Nikita Dragovich, he heard the voice of Reznov commending him for doing what Reznov himself could not do and for completing his legacy.
===Black Ops II===
In 1986, Mason encounters Kravchenko once again. This causes Reznov's brainwashing effect to kick in, urging Mason to kill Kravchenko. Mason is finally freed from the brainwashing effects once Kravchenko is killed by him or Woods (players choice).
After his death, Mullah Rahmaan betrayed Mason and his team, and they are left to die in the desert. Mason claims that it was Reznov and another on a horse coming to rescue them. 
However, when they were discussing about the Afghanistan operation in 2025, Woods tells David that while they never did find out who rescued them, all of them (except Mason) knew it couldn't have been Reznov, as Woods believed the Soviet would have stuck around to 'explain a few things'. Not only that, but not only had Reznov apparently been dead for decades, but had he still lived, he would have been 73 years old. Given that Mason never suffered any more relapses, it is likely that, with the death of Kravchenko, Reznov's hold over Mason was finally over.
===Black Ops 4===
In the 2040s, Reznov was brought back to life by Project Blackout alongside Mason, Frank Woods, Jason Hudson, and Raul Menendez. He was first archetype to be created, but the motivation behind the creation of him and the others are currently unknown.
==Call of Duty: Mobile==
Reznov appears as a playable skin in Call of Duty: Mobile, as he was added in the season nine conquest pass. He also appears as a featured character in the Mobile comics, where he's a member of the United Anti-Terrorism Coalition and helps them fight against the Five Knights.
==Quotes==
==Trivia==
*He is about 5’11" and 216 lbs.
*He is the Red Army announcer for multiplayer in World at War.
*Though intel states that Reznov was born in St. Petersburg, but another report states that he was born in Moscow, Russia.
*There is foreshadowing to Reznov being a hallucination:
**When first introducing Reznov to Woods and Bowman, they don't greet him, or say anything about/to him at all.
** When in the rat tunnels, Swift will question Mason before his death.
**He has his right index finger, except in "Rebirth", where he doesn't have it. This is probably due to Mason being Reznov himself.
**In gameplay, there is no friendly fire penalty for Reznov except for "Vorkuta", the only mission he appears alive in.
**It's also assumed that enemies killed by Reznov were eliminated by Mason.
*Gary Oldman's performance as Reznov shares similarities with one of his earlier performances as Egor Korshunov (who is also a Soviet Russian combatant driven by vengeance, sports a similar-looking beard like Reznov and his Russian surname ends with a "-nov" also like Reznov, but conversely is a villain then the heroic character that Reznov is here) in the film Air Force One (where Oldman had acted before with Lev Kravchenko's portrayer Andrew Divoff, who played Boris Bazylev, one of Korshunov's henchmen who had his neck broken by President James Marshall in a scuffle).
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