SPIKE SPIEGEL
Age: 27
Blood type: O
Height: 185 cm
Birthday: 6.26
Birthplace: Mars
Weapon of Choice: Jericho 941 custom
Vehicle of choice: Swordfish IIHigh speed Asteroid MonoRacer
Plasma Gun
Machine GunSeiyuu: Kouichi Yamadera
"Where is that stupid, lying, shameless scum of a bounty hunter?"
Spike Spiegel is the charismatic twenty-seven-year old bounty hunter with a dark past, who lives by a someone fatalistic credo: "Oh, well, whatever happens happens."
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Three years ago he abdicated his membership in the Red Dragon tong because he fell in love with a pretty, incredibly street-smart blonde named Julia, who happened to be the girlfriend of his brother-in-the-tong, Vicious.
He was nearly killed for his desire to be free. He wanted to leave the Red Dragon and he wanted her to come with him. But she stayed behind, because she loved him, but she loved herself more. In the first session, Asteroid Blues, Spike says that he's been dead once before. And all for the love of a woman, it seems.
Spike: "Hey, isn't it bad for you to drink it in one shot, Annie?"
Annie: "You coming back to life is worse on me than this glass."
Spike: "What terrible treatment."
Annie: "The words of the dead are meaningless."
Spike: "But I'm alive."
Annie: "No you died three years ago! That's how things work here. ... You know I won't say anything bad to ya. Don't get yourself involved with Vicious. Although I know saying this is useless."
Spike: "Sorry."
Annie: "You never listened to what others say. On top of that, you're a stubborn showoff! It can't hurt you to listen to your elders once in a while."
Spike shrugs.
Annie: "About Mao. He had a lot of people looking for you after you were gone. He said that you still had to be alive. You're finally back...."Because he left the Red Dragons on bad terms, he hoped to keep people believing that he was still dead. Or else his katana-toting nemesis with the self-fulfilling name and the big black peacock perched on his shoulder would be after him.
But Vicious knew all along that Spike was alive and well. Vicious once told him, "I'm the only one who can keep you alive. And I'm the only one who can kill you."
Born on Mars, a place of great wealth and grand cities, Spike grew up a thief, a street tough, an escape artist. Without the means to subsist alone, he ended up joining the Red Dragon. It was a desperate move to save himself and would later prove to be his destiny to deal with the results of a decision made in his youth.
He quickly attained a status equal to Vicious's and probably would have surpassed him in the Red Dragon, if he was willing to give up the ability to make his own decisions. For a time, he has immediate subordinates who worked under him, like Lin, who later had to work under Vicious.
It is clear that he was well respected in the organization by everyone. So well respected that Vicious believed only Spike was on the same level of skill as himself.
So well respected that one of the higher members of the tong, Mao Yenrai, with his dying breath, tells Vicious that things would be different if Spike were still in the organization.
So well respected and feared that the Clan Elders decided he needed to die when Vicious staged a coup against them.
So well respected that when the Red Dragon moves against him, Shin, Lin's brother helps him to escape to face Vicious.
So well respected that when he walks away from his last encounter with Vicious, the other members of the organization only watch in awe.
"Just like watching a dream …"
His rough way of living endangered his life more than a few times. His right eye is cybernetic and is slightly lighter than the other, allowing him a range of perception far beyond the norm. According to Julia when you look into his eyes, you get a strange feeling, because they don't make. Spike once told her that his left eye sees the past.
During the last fight in Space Land with Tongpu in Pierrot le Fou, Spike's right eye reflected light like a cat's and disrupted the aim of the mad villain with the superhuman fighting skill and the regressing mind of a six-year-old.
But he was never a bad person. Duhan, an eccentric aeronautical mechanic gave Spike the Swordfish II when he was a kid of 17. It seems he was always an expert pilot. Just about everyone who ever encountered him cared about him and were changed in some way, usually for the better.
Vicious: "Angels that are forced from heaven have to become demons. Isn't that right, Spike?"
Spike: "I'm only watching a dream I never awakened from."
Vicious: "I'll wake you up right now."
Spike: "Don't be anxious Vicious. It's our first meeting in a while, right?"
Vicious: "A plea for your life?"
Spike: "Hardly. Something like that doesn't work on you, remember? After all, you even kill those who've saved your life."
Vicious: "He was a beast who lost his fangs. That's why he's dead. The same goes for you."
Even Vicious was a good friend to him before Julia. Vicious actually warns Spike to stay clear of her, because women can't be trusted. Not that Vicious trusted men either -- except for Spike. But then Vicious has always seen him as his secret sharer, his equal and opposite, his other self. The fact of this spells the doom of the three who once loved each other.
As the hero, Spike is expected to change and grow, does he? Despite what critics might say, he does grow and change.
He has no great epiphany and maybe that's where others have a problem with him. But if Spike can speak to a blind girl and help her to regain her lost sight, or teach a young man a philosophy of life and help him to know friendship for the first time, or meet a female thief and in a few words make her see the error of her ways, or befriend four lonely, bruised souls and create a kind of family, then how much more need he change?
Just because the hero doesn't sing the Hallelujah chorus all day does not make him any less a hero. Why is it better to give than to receive? Because you grow from the experience, you become stronger than you were before.
It is not until the later sessions when you come to understand that Spike cares deeply about the others on the Bebop. When Jet is shot during the Red Dragon's plan to off Spike, he is upset and later he feels guilty. He tries to take care of him. And Faye. He calls her back to the Bebop, not just for Jet, but for her sake as well.
And he is not without his faults. Despite his incredible skill in hand to hand combat and with guns, he is not a violent person, but he can be annoyed. On Callisto, when he is referred to as Vicious, he becomes pissed off. But when that same person says that the name Julia sounded like a woman of easy virtue's name, he hits the guy in the face.
"You shall shed red tears."
And Spike must grow with each encounter because he cannot face Vicious without becoming different, without leaving a part of the beast they shared behind. The younger Spike ran from Vicious and the Red Dragon, hiding and licking his wounds. That Spike could never stand to see his beloved hurt and not crumble himself. That Spike could never defeat this dark half of himself.
Spike was defeated by Vicious each time he faced him, but each time he came closer to finding Julia and himself.
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