Spike Spiegel (Netflix)

Spike sports a tousled mop of black hair and dark eyes. His everyday look leans on a blue leisure suit worn over a pale beige-yellow shirt, echoing the wardrobe of the animated original he is based on.

Much like the animated version that inspired him, this Spike leans on dry sarcasm and quick, wry remarks to carry him through both his idle days and his fights.

Working the bounty circuit with Jet Black, Spike takes down a string of targets across the system: the drug-runner Asimov Solensan, the serial bomber Teddy, the disguise-wearing Abdul Hakim, the child-leading Maria Murdock, and the mind-stealing racket behind Cy-Baba. Along the way Faye Valentine forces her way onto the crew after stealing his ship, and the trio slowly settle into an uneasy partnership.

Beneath the hunts lies Spike's buried history. Years earlier he operated as a syndicate killer called Fearless, paired with Vicious under the watchful capo Stax. The two courted trouble while a rising singer named Julia caught both their eyes, though it was Vicious who won her. A diamond deal with the Neptune Cartel collapsed when Vicious murdered the broker Ka-Ching, and the elders ordered Fearless to kill his partner. He refused, wiped out the cartel instead, and planned to flee with Julia, only to be ambushed and left for dead at their rendezvous.

Spike survives, saved through Gren's intervention, but his past detonates the present. Vicious seizes Jet's daughter Kimmie to force a trade, the exchange proves a trap of holograms, and the crew is dragged into a church showdown. Faye's timely arrival lets Jet escape with Kimmie, while Spike cuts down Shin and Lin before facing Vicious. Julia turns on him, sending him crashing through a stained-glass window into the water below. He lives, but Jet severs ties with a warning never to return. Alone and broken, Spike drifts to a bar, then collapses in an alley where a stranger named Edward tries to hire him for a bounty on Vincent Volaju, the details lost as he blacks out.