Striker

**Striker** is a former farmhand at Rough n' Tumbleweed Ranch and a hitman hired by Stella to assassinate Stolas during the The Harvest Moon Festival in the episode of the same name.

He is a major supporting antagonist in *Helluva Boss*.

## Appearance

Striker is a fairly tall Imp, even rivaling Blitzo in height. He possesses a serpentine/lizard-like face with a large gold tooth in his sharp-toothed mouth. He has pale red skin, bright yellow eyes with green rings, a small black mustache, 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 accompanied by 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 little hesitation to mock and belittle those he views as being beneath him, both physically and mentally, as evidenced 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's sexual plaything when he could do much better than that, to subsequently suggest they 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.

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 singlehandedly 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

### **Natural Abilities**

* **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.

### **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, such as the knife used to kill the hog and the blessing-tipped rifle.
* **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.

### **Unique Abilities**

* **Enhanced Durability:** Striker has a great pain tolerance, as he was able to take multiple stabs from Millie (who is a specialist in close-ranged weapons) 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 knocking 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.

## Trivia

* 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 his design came from Rattlesnake Jake from *Rango*, Snidely Whiplash from *The Rocky and Bullwinkle Show*, Angel Eyes from *The Good, the Bad, and the Ugly*, and the 1970 Mexican film, *El Topo*.
* Striker is one of three characters in the *Hazbin Hotel* franchise to feature a gold tooth, a trait he shares with Angel Dust and Valentino.
* Striker seems to possess reptilian-like traits, such as creating crocodilian/snake sounds and possesses a reptilian snout like facial features, that appear unique to him and opposing to the other imps.
	+ This is reinforced by his tendency to hiss like a snake or crocodile, and his tail making a rattling sound when moved a certain way, similar to that of a rattlesnake's.
	+ He is also the only imp so far to have a spiral pattern accompanying the pupils of his eyes, similar to the hypnosis eyes of Kaa from *The Jungle Book*, furthering his snake-like theme.
	+ In a stream, it was confirmed that Striker is actually a hybrid, making him the only imp, so far, to be a hybrid of different Hellborn demons. Although, whether or not he is a half imp or part imp is not disclosed.

## References

1. ↑ Tweet by Carolina Páez
2. ↑ Tweet by Carolina Páez
3. ↑ Tweet by Carolina Páez
4. ↑ Cite error: Invalid `<ref>` tag; no text was provided for refs named `hybrid`

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