Spike Spiegel

About Spike Spiegel

Spike is a laid-back bounty hunter travelling through space on the ship Bebop in Cowboy Bebop. He is cool under pressure and a master of smooth, flowing fighting moves. Behind his relaxed style is a past he cannot fully escape, which gives the series its famous bittersweet tone.

Appearance

Spike is tall and lean, 185 cm, with a mop of fluffy dark-green hair and reddish-brown eyes, one of them artificial and slightly lighter than the other. He dresses like he fell out of a jazz club: a loose blue lounge suit over a yellow shirt, a skinny black tie and pointed boots, usually with a cigarette in hand. He moves loosely and lazily, all long limbs and shrugs, which makes the speed of his fighting style, sudden, fluid and precise, a genuine surprise to everyone who underestimates him.

Personality

Spike hides almost everything behind a grin. He is cool, sarcastic and allergic to effort, drifting through bounty hunts as if life were a dream he expects to wake from. Underneath, he is loyal, brave to the point of recklessness and quietly haunted: he jokes about death because a part of him never expected to survive his old life. He hates kids, dogs and women with attitudes, and ends up living with all three. When someone he cares about is threatened, the lazy act drops instantly and the ex-syndicate enforcer underneath shows through.

Background & Story

Spike was born on Mars and grew up into the Red Dragon Syndicate, one of the most feared crime organisations in the solar system, where he worked as an enforcer alongside his partner and friend Vicious. He fell in love with Julia, a woman connected to Vicious, and tried to leave the syndicate life behind, a betrayal the syndicate answered with violence. Badly wounded and presumed dead, Spike survived, lost an eye, and reinvented himself as a bounty hunter, drifting until he teamed up with ex-cop Jet Black aboard the Bebop. As the series begins, he chases bounties across the solar system with Jet, insisting his past is finished, while everyone watching can see it is anything but.

Powers & Abilities

• Jeet Kune Do-Style Martial Arts: Spike fights in a smooth, flowing style modelled on Bruce Lee's Jeet Kune Do, slipping punches and answering with fast kicks and throws that look almost like dancing.
• Marksmanship: A former syndicate enforcer, Spike is an expert shot with his Jericho 941 pistol and stays calm and accurate in the middle of a firefight.
• Piloting the Swordfish II: Spike flies a converted racing ship, the Swordfish II, with the reflexes of a street racer, out-flying police and rival bounty hunters alike.
• Sleight of Hand: Spike is a skilled pickpocket and card sharp, using quick hands and quicker talk to cheat, steal and bluff his way out of trouble.

Key Relationships

• Jet Black: His partner aboard the Bebop and the closest thing he has to family, the one person Spike trusts with pieces of his past.
• Faye Valentine: A fellow bounty hunter he bickers with constantly; beneath the insults sits a grudging, growing respect neither will admit to.
• Vicious: His former syndicate partner and friend, now his deadliest enemy, the two men were torn apart by betrayal and by Julia.
• Julia: The woman he loved in his syndicate days and tried to escape that life with; her memory shapes almost every choice he makes.
• Edward: The feral child hacker who invades the Bebop and his peace and quiet in equal measure, much to his loud dismay.

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