Striker

"Not every ring is some fancy-ass city, with some fancy-ass mansion, that only fancy-ass royals get to live in. Some of us have hard lives to live, and some of us have everything we care about taken away by fuckers like you."

- Striker, to Stolas

Striker is a hitman and a major supporting antagonist in Helluva Boss who made his debut in "The Harvest Moon Festival".

Introduced as a farmhand at Rough n' Tumbleweed Ranch, Striker was actually secretly hired by Stella to assassinate Stolas. Later during his second assassination attempt on Stolas, the hit was called off on Andrealphus' orders as having Stolas alive would have more benefits than having him dead, much to Striker's own chagrin.

As of "Oops", Striker had been hired by Crimson as his mafia needed someone for a big score.

Appearance
Striker is a fairly tall imp, rivaling Blitzo in height, and has pale red skin. He possesses a pair of bright yellow eyes with green rings, and a serpentine-like face with a large gold tooth in his sharp-toothed mouth. He has a small black mustache and ivory white hair with a pair of black and white-striped horns.

Striker's horns point upward and, compared to other imps, the stripe pattern is more jagged. His tail has four black stripes at the base, with eight spines lined up on them, and one on his tail fork.

Striker's attire resembles that of a southern cowboy, with a stereotypical large grey sun hat, cowboy boots, and a light red bandana around his neck.

He wears a black turtleneck shirt with a dark grey vest and a light gray jacket with dark gray cuffs and black tassels below. He wears black fingerless gloves and ivory white pants that are ripped by the thighs. Striker is also commonly seen holding a straw of wheat in his mouth.

Personality
Striker is an arrogant, prideful, violent, ruthless, and sadistic individual. He views himself as superior to most of his own kind, having no hesitation to mock and belittle those he views as being beneath him, both physically and mentally, as shown by his constant humiliation and torture of Moxxie.

He holds a deep hatred of the nobility of hell, deriding them as bluebloods who treat Imps as a lesser class. Because of this, Striker gleefully takes the opportunity to assassinate demons of a higher social standing to prove himself as superior, such as accepting the job to murder Stolas, and mocking him while conversing with Blitzo.

His violent nature belies his sadism. When confronted by Moxxie after his discovery of Striker's blessing-tipped rifle, he chose to corner and attempt to slowly strangle Moxxie to death rather than dispatching him in a faster or less cruel manner. He is also not above random acts of violence against innocents, such as assaulting a by standing Imp for simply getting too close to him.

However, Striker is a cunning, socially smart, manipulative, and fearless person who is willing to show respect towards those he views as acting decisively, even with the odds stacked against them. As demonstrated when he admired that Blitzo was able to start a assassination business in spite of his assertions that Imps rarely succeed in operating businesses in Hell. His manipulative manner is evidenced when he was able to make Blitzo lower his guard by psychologically manipulating him; stating that he was working for lower classes that couldn't care less about him and wasting his great potential by limiting himself to be Stolas' sexual plaything when he could do much better than that, to subsequently suggest that they should work together.

He is able to maintain a aura of fearlessness such as being able to keep a cool head when Blitzo stopped him trying to assassinate Stolas, even cornering the latter against a wall in spite of being held at gunpoint.

He as also been shown to be a highly ambitious individual as he has aspirations above being an assassin and seeks to use his job and connections to gather powerful weapons, with a stated desire to be able to murder powerful hellish entities such as Overlords and demonic nobility. Although he hypocritically has to rub shoulders with "bluebloods" such as Stella to accomplish this goal, which he has shown to be respectful and reserved when conversing with. In "Western Energy", Striker shows hatred for demon royalty as he expresses not only eagerness to kill Stolas, but also a personal vendetta against royals, believing all they do is they only talk over lesser demons and take away everything they have.

As an assassin, he has shown competency in making usage of ranged projectile firearms, however he is also highly proficient in close-range combat as evidenced by him single-handedly defeating Moxxie and Millie in melee combat, in spite of Millie ambushing and stabbing him in the back several times with a knife, as well as being able to hold his ground against Blitzo.

Abilities

 * Animalistic Noises - Striker has a tendency to produce hissing sounds similar to that of a snake or crocodile. His tail can make a rattling sound when moved a certain way similar to that of a rattlesnake.
 * Ocular Illumination - Like many imps, Striker's eyes emit a light glow in dark areas.
 * Charisma - Given his skills, strength, charm and good looks, Striker can win the good graces of those around him.
 * Enhanced Durability - Striker has a great pain tolerance, as he was able to take multiple stabs from Millie from behind and still being able to overpower her while appearing to be unfazed by the wounds. Another example is when Blitzo elbowed his face for almost shooting Moxxie and was able to briefly knock him down later, even being able to quickly escape from the scene despite having received a brutal beating from him, who showed to be strong enough to break a wall with a single punch.
 * Enhanced Strength - Despite his slim physique, Striker has shown an impressive amount of physical strength. During "The Harvest Moon Festival", Striker was capable of immobilizing and pinning Moxxie, breaking Millie's arm and throwing both of them with ease. He was also able to make Blitzo fall with a single punch during his fight near the end of the episode. In "Western Energy", showed he was able to break Stolas' leg by just stomping on it.
 * Prehensile Tail - Striker is shown to be able to use his tail to wield certain weaponry proficiently, such as when he uses Millie's zweihander to attack and defend in the fight against Moxxie and Millie in "Western Energy".

Skillset

 * Hand-to-hand Combat - Striker is shown to be surprisingly proficient in hand-to-hand combat, being able to defend himself from the I.M.P staff, he also uses his tail for unarmed combat as well.
 * Weapon Mastery - He's shown to be skilled with handling various types of weapons especially weapons to kill demons with high status, such as the Carmine-Crafted Blessing-Tipped Rifle. He is also seen being able to use his rope to grab and throw stalactites at Moxxie and Millie.
 * Rope Mastery - Striker is extremely skilled at using ropes with various methods. Such as capturing and using it as a melee weapon.
 * Horse-riding - Striker is shown to be good at horse riding, as shown when he is riding Bombproof at the beginning of their debut episode.
 * Musical Talent - Striker is shown to have a talent for singing, as shown when he sang his victory tune after he was one of the winners of the Harvest Moon Pain Games.
 * Guitar-playing - As well as singing, Striker has been shown as being a very good guitar player.

Gallery

 * Striker/Gallery

Trivia

 * Striker seems to possess snake-like traits, such as his tail making a rattling sound when moved a certain way, similar to that of a rattlesnake's, and possessing a snakes snout-like facial features that as an imp appear unique to him and opposing to regular imps.
 * He has a tendency to produce hissing sounds similar to that of a snake or crocodile, a trait that Blitzo once displayed in "Seeing Stars".
 * He also has a circular pattern accompanying the pupils of his eyes, similar to the hypnosis eyes of Kaa from The Jungle Book, furthering his snake-like theme. This trait is shown to be shared only with the race of shark-like demons.
 * In a stream, it was confirmed that Striker is actually an imp hybrid, although, whether or not he is a half imp or only part imp was not disclosed.
 * It is shown in "Western Energy" that there are wanted posters of Striker in the Pride and Wrath rings that say " WANTED PREFERABLY DEAD PLEASE ", signifying that he is a wanted man throughout at least some of the Rings of Hell.
 * According to Fizzarolli in "Oops", Striker has terrible breath.

Development

 * Striker's appearance went through several drafts and phases in development. His preliminary design was a rough combination of Blitzo and Moxxie's, with later passes shifting to a reptilian/snake-like direction.
 * Inspiration for Striker's design came from Rattlesnake Jake from ', Snidely Whiplash from ', Angel Eyes from ', and the 1970 Mexican film, '.