Jet Black

The feature that sets Jet apart is his left arm, a synthetic robotic limb that adds to his strength and replaced the flesh one he lost when a syndicate gunman and a treacherous partner ambushed him. He is a big man, tall and thickly built, largely bald with hair kept only around the sides and back, and his sideburns run down into a beard. A small metal fixture sits beneath his right eye with no obvious function, and a scar cuts across the same eye without damaging his sight.

For daily work he lives in a flight suit, though he will put on smarter clothes when a job takes him to a casino or a nightclub. The various marks he carries fit a man who spent years chasing dangerous people first as a cop and then as a hunter.

As the oldest hand aboard the Bebop, Jet plays the mature and level-headed one, dispensing hard-won advice and absorbing his crewmates' recklessness with a patience that stretches furthest for Spike. Spike's habit of wrecking things during a chase regularly eats into their payouts, yet Jet keeps the ship running, keeps finding work, and does most of the cooking. The rest of the crew treat him like a father figure, a label that genuinely irritates him since it makes him feel older than his years.

Beneath the gruff surface sits a decent, caring man who buries his affection but clearly regards the others as family. Reliable, proud, and fiercely loyal, he can come off as a control freak, though never on purpose, and the crew tends to admit his calls are the right ones. He tends bonsai, adores jazz and blues, especially Charlie Parker, and reads Goethe. He looks after Ein almost single-handedly and dotes on Ed, while his early irritation with Faye slowly softens into a grudging friendship. With Spike he shares a brotherly bond deep enough that each is the other's closest confidant.

Born on Ganymede in late 2035, Jet grew up with blues from his mother and guidance from his grandmother and father. A strong moral streak led him into the Inter-Solar System Police, where he rose to investigator and earned the tag Black Dog for the way he clamped onto a case and refused to let go. He made friends among fellow officers and quietly helped a Blue Snake syndicate member, Pao Pu-Zi, who wanted out of that life. His steadying relationship with a woman named Alisa ended abruptly when she vanished, leaving only a farewell note and a pocket watch.

Investigating a mafia that had rotted much of the force, Jet chased the gunman Udai Taxim alongside his colleague Fad, not realizing the two were in league. Separated and blinded by a spotlight, he was shot so hard the blast took his left arm; he chose a mechanical replacement as a permanent reminder. Around 2064, the watch finally stopped, and a disgusted Jet walked away from both Ganymede and the ISSP, bought an old fishing vessel he named the Bebop, and set out hunting bounties.

In 2068 he met Spike Spiegel, and the pair grew into the most feared hunters in the system. They reluctantly adopted the uncannily clever dog Ein, later took on the opportunistic Faye Valentine, and gained the hacker prodigy Ed, whom Jet came to treat as a daughter. A return to Ganymede let him finally confront Alisa, who had wanted a life of her own choosing, and he left the planet a second time after throwing the watch into the water.

Later cases deepened his past. Fad lured him back to recapture the escaped Udai, only for Jet to learn that Fad himself had fired the shot years earlier; he killed his former friend in the ensuing gunfight and staged the scene to preserve the man's honor. He said a final goodbye to a dying Pao and helped Pao's daughter Meifa. When Ed and Ein eventually left the ship, Jet felt the loss keenly. In the end, wounded and outgunned as the Red Dragon Syndicate closed on Spike, he cooked his partner one last meal, listened to him tell his life as a fairy tale, and let him walk off to meet his fate.