Bounty Hunter: Difference between revisions

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Sometimes the '''Bounty Hunter''' is a villain, a sadist who profits off the death and suffering of others. Sometimes he's a [[Glory Seeker]] who wants to bring down the toughest targets. More often, though, he is a just a working stiff who tries to do the right thing—or something close to it. Buried deep within his grizzled, world-weary exterior is still an idealist with a heart of gold. Because there is nothing that prevents a '''Bounty Hunter''' from taking both legal and shady bounties, this character is usually a [[Lawful Neutral]].

The '''Bounty Hunter''' is increasingly popular in [[Speculative Fiction]] ever since [[Star Wars|Boba Fett]] made it cool. It helps that space is thought of as ''another'' [[The Final Frontier|"frontier"]], and Western tropes [[Space Western|go well with science fiction]]. And since it's so cool, most often bounty hunters in fiction are depicted as extremely skilled individuals and will prove a challenge for the main characters unless they are either there just to show us how overpowered our hero is or if the bounty hunters are themselves the main character(s).

When in the company of actual bounty hunters, you will speak of them as [[Insistent Terminology|"bail agents"]].

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* The ''[[Gunsmith Cats]]'', Rally Vincent and Minnie-May Hopkins (and friends), spend most of their time as bounty hunters when they're not running their titular gun store.

** And according to Minnie-May, Rally earns far more money from bounty hunting than from selling guns.

** Rally and Minnie-May hold the distinction of being one of the most accurate portrayals of real-life bounty hunters that can be found in anime, or at least getting a lot closer to the real thing than most shows do. Unlike most other hunters, they maintain very close ties with their local police forces and are ''not'' regarded as being above or outside the law by any means; on one memorable occasion, a crook managed to kidnap Minnie-May because his and Rally's high-speed chase caught police attention and ended with Rally being arrested for breaking traffic laws.

** There's also an instance where Rally drives past a serious hostage situation, and stops to chat with her cop friends, but since none of the perps have jumped the bail, she has no legal right to intervene in any way, and goes on her way.

* ''[[Vampire Hunter D]]'' is a sort of the old west-style bounty hunter - [[Vampire Hunter|albeit of a very specific type of quarry]]. Though as the books and [[The Movie]]s went on he evolved from bounty hunter to a mercenary, or even an odd-job man. There's other bounty hunters in the canon, but they're usually of the sadistic type.

* In ''[[Hyper Police]]'', all law enforcement in their post-magical-apocalypse world is handled by private companies of bounty hunters. The main characters make their money by claiming bounties. Licensing procedures are exacting and complex. And ''anyone'' can stick a bounty on the internet and expect the person to be delivered.

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* ''[[Outlaw Star]]'' has Gene Starwind along with his kid partner, Jim.

* The Warriors of the Organization in ''[[Claymore]]'' function a lot like the example of ''[[Vampire Hunter D]]'' above. When a yoma preys on a settlement, the citizens round up money and make a request to the Organization. They dispatch a Warrior who slays the yoma and one of the handlers appears later to pick up the money. Reasonably, if the Warrior is slain, the Organization does not collect the fee until another Warrior successfully completes the mission. Blurring the lines of the trope however is the fact that while the Warriors do seem to have money (Clare once dumped a huge sum on Raki's lap when she was assigned to fight an Awakened One and Theresa could afford rather fancy clothes for a certain [[Tagalong Kid]]) they do not actually seem to want or even need the money. Their job is to kill yoma, its what they do. Various motivations have been shown but a pure mercenary motive has yet to be evident in any of the Warriors.

* Almost all ninjas in ''[[Naruto]]'', good or evil, are this in one way or the other.

* In ''[[Mahou Sensei Negima]]'', after the case gets [[Clear My Name|wrongly accused of blowing up a Gateport]], they have occasional encounters with bounty hunters who want to bring them in. The one group that appears on screen, the Canis Niger hunters, nearly capture Nodoka before being [[Curb Stomp Battle|utterly annihilated by Negi]].

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== [[Comic Books]] ==

* [[DC Comics]]' [[Lobo]] catches interstellar fugitives, whether they run from the law or just rich crime lords. It's a job that basically allows him to be a complete ass to everyone around him and still get paid.

** DC also had a comic called ''Manhunter'' about a superpower bounty hunter that retrieved super villains who jumped their bond, strictly for the money.

* In the ''[[Preacher (Comic Book)]]'' series of graphic novels, the Saint of Killers spent a while working as a Headhunter in the old west, long before transmuting into the [[Implacable Man]] he is today...

* ''[[Jon Sable Freelance]]''

* [[Jonah Hex]], discussed in the [[Western Animation]] examples below, first appeared as a [[The Western|Western]] character in [[The DCU]].

* Johnny Alpha the protagonist in the ''[[Strontium Dog]]'' stories from the British [[Anthology Comic]] ''[[2000 AD]]'',

* [[Deadpool]] was employed to hunt down unregistered superheroes, for about an hour, during [[Civil War (Comic Book)|Civil War]]. Then he was sacked, mainly thanks to Cable.

* After [[She Hulk]]'s disbarment in her most recent series, she became a Bounty Hunter employed by a bail bonds company owned by her former law firm.

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== Films -- Live-Action ==

* ''[[Star Wars]]'' features a number of bounty hunters. Greedo shows up first, trying to capture Han Solo and cash in on the bounty Jabba the Hutt has placed on him. The Empire eventually hires the services of a number of bounty hunters, most notably [[Ensemble Darkhorse|Boba Fett]]. Fett became [[Ensemble Darkhorse|so popular]] that his whole family and Mandalorian culture have been greatly elaborated upon in the Expanded Universe. Both contain quite a few more bounty hunters.

** Fett was so popular that Expanded Universe material established that Fett did not die in the Sarlacc, [[Back From the Dead|but escaped]]. He remains a major character in the franchise today.

** And these appearances extend to these guys (Boba, Dengar, Bossk, 4-LOM, Zuckuss, and IG-88) all being the go-to bounty hunters in the [[Expanded Universe]] (except for Greedo, whose ignominious death caused him to be depicted as an egotistical wimp or a cowardly bottomfeeder.)

*** Or Zuckuss, who is something akin to the [[Butt Monkey]] of the intergalactic bounty hunting community.

** Bounty hunters are not only important characters, but also a major institution in the [[Expanded Universe]]. They have they own chart. And it's a job of choice for the marginal, chosen by two ex-Dark Jedi (Zekk and Tahiri) as a [[Redemption Quest]].

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* Beck, the main character of ''[[The Rundown]]'' is a "retrieval expert" hired mainly to collect debts or other stuff that his boss wants from people, or in the case of the main plot of the movie, track down people who have cut and run and bring them back to him. He's described in many summaries as a "bounty hunter."

* Steve McQueen plays the story of a bounty hunter in ''The Hunter'' where he gives Levar Burton, a fugitive who can't believe the guy can just up and grab him off the street, a copy of the quote from the U.S. Supreme Court decision in ''Taylor v. Taintor'' (please see the [[Bounty Hunter/Quotes|quotes page]]), which Burton, incredulously reads out loud. The movie is about a real-life bounty hunter, Ralph "Papa" Thorson (who can be seen in a cameo serving Steve McQueen a beer).

* In ''[[Blade Runner]]'', Rick Deckard and other "Blade Runners" who hunt down and kill replicants on Earth are essentially bounty hunters. In [[Literature/Do Androids Dream Of Electric Sheep|the original novel]], they are in fact called bounty hunters.

* Over-the-top [[Badass Biker]] Leonard Smalls in ''[[Raising Arizona]]''.

* Domino Harvey from the eponymous Tony Scott film, ''Domino''. A case of [[Truth in Television]], sort of.

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* In ''[[Artemis Fowl|Artemis Fowl and the Lost Colony]]'' Holly and Mulch are forced to become bounty hunters in order to pay the rent for the offices to their PI business. Unusually for this trope, the bounty hunting is portrayed accurately, in that they're searching for a criminal who has skipped bail and are forbidden to carry weapons.

* In [[Michael Crichton]]'s ''Next'', a bounty hunter is trying to grab a relative of a man from whom they had obtained the right to own his gene sequence, but when it was lost, they are of the impression they can obtain a DNA sample from one of his relatives, by suing her, then filing for a writ to have her brought into the court where they were located.

* ''[[The Witcher]]'' novels introduce a character of Leo Bonhart, who is really good at his job and so [[Complete Monster|utterly vile]] at the same time that he makes [[Firefly|Jubal Early]] look like a puppy.

** The titular Witchers also qualify to a degree, taking out monsters with bounties on their heads.

* Lots of Richard K. Morgan's characters, including but not limited to Takeshi Kovacs from the ''Altered Carbon'' series and Carl Marsalis from ''Thirteen,'' fall into some flavor of this trope. Kovacs is an ex-UN Special Forces operator who works as a private investigator, mercenary and general hired gun, while Marsalis is ex-British Special Forces who specializes in hunting down genetically modified people on behalf of the government. Neither is a particularly nice guy, but then again they don't inhabit very nice worlds either.

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== [[Live Action TV]] ==

* The eponymous star of ''[[The Adventures of Brisco County Jr]]'' was a Bounty Hunter hired to capture the outlaw gang who murdered his father. His rival, Lord Bowler, was also looking to collect the bounty on those outlaws.

* ''[[MacGyver]]'' frequently crossed paths with the Coltons, an entire ''family'' of bounty hunters. They only all appeared together in the [[Poorly-Disguised Pilot]] for an aborted [[Spin-Off]].

* Sam leapt into a Bounty Hunter in one episode of ''[[Quantum Leap]]''.

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* Ben Crowley on ''[[Chase]]''.

* In some ways, Kamen Rider Birth from ''[[Kamen Rider OOO]]'' could be seen as a Bounty Hunter. He was hired to retrieve a huge amount of Cell Medals, and in order to get them, has to destroy Yummy or Greeed. This had shades of real world bounty hunters, who are, by law, technically hired to retrieve the bail, which is physically represented by the criminal they're capturing.

** Likewise, Keisuke Nago from ''[[Kamen Rider Kiva]]'' was a bounty hunter shortly before becoming Kamen Rider IXA.

* In ''[[Castle]]'', [[Love Interest|Beckett]]'s former mentor and flame returns as a bounty hunter. He tries to get her to work for him to catch crooks, get better pay, and avoid the red tape. She refuses. {{spoiler|He is later killed, causing Beckett to go on a [[Roaring Rampage of Revenge]]}}.

* Josh Randall from ''[[Wanted: Dead or Alive]]''.

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* The Stranger of ''[[Oddworld]]: Stranger's Wrath'' starts out as this, capturing/killing enemies in order to earn Moolah (currency of Oddworld) for a life-saving operation. Later on, after {{spoiler|The Stranger is [[Tomato Surprise|outed as a Steef]], a [[Last of His Kind|beast hunted to near extinction]]}} the townsfolk automatically turn against him and he spends the game helping the Grubbs (the Native American [[Fantasy Counterpart Culture]]) retake their land from [[Corrupt Corporate Executive|Sekto]].

* ''[[Popful Mail]]'' often goes after big-time criminals (the bigger the reward, the better), but never manages to ''catch'' any of them.

* Inverted by Wrex of ''[[Mass Effect]],'' who describes himself as a mercenary, but his actual role tracks much more with that of a bounty hunter. The jobs of his that you see or he describes in-game usually involve tracking down and kidnapping or killing one person (Fist, Aleena, the unnamed volus, etc) at the behest of a private employer.

** He's also done bodyguarding and space piracy according to his stories, so he's pretty much an all-around hired gun. However, he found bodyguarding to be boring (but easy money, naturally) and prefers to work in smaller groups or alone, so he's arguably a Bounty Hunter foremost.

** The sequel plays it a little straighter while still being flexible in the form of Zaeed Massani. The guy is described as the best bounty hunter in the business. Even when Shepard first meets him, he's cornered a Batarian bounty. (As well as shooting him in the back of the knee when he tries to run.) That said, Zaeed also co-founded the Blue Suns mercenary corporation and has fought in many battles as a soldier for hire. Ultimately, Zaeed burns this trope's candle at both ends. The only difference being if the contract in question says "capture" rather than "kill", "secure", "breach" or other more strategic terms.

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* ''[[Metal Saga]]'' is entirely about this.

* The Regulators in ''[[Fallout 3]]'' are bounty killers who target evildoers and turn in their [[Fingore|fingers]] for caps. Players with very good karma can join them.

* In [[Fallout: New Vegas]] the player can pursue bounties for [[~~Always Chaotic~~ Evil|Fiend]] leaders for the NCR, who will pay for their heads. The catch being that the player must leave the head intact and recognizable (IE no [[Boom! Headshot!|headshots]] or any attacks that [[Ludicrous Gibs|gibs]]/disintegrates them) or else the Major in charge of the bounties can't verify them and cannot pay you full price.

* In [[Fallout: New Vegas]] the player can pursue bounties for [[Exclusively Evil|Fiend]] leaders for the NCR, who will pay for their heads. The catch being that the player must leave the head intact and recognizable (IE no [[Boom! Headshot!|headshots]] or any attacks that [[Ludicrous Gibs|gibs]]/disintegrates them) or else the Major in charge of the bounties can't verify them and cannot pay you full price.

* Many [[MMORPG]]s have a large proportion of their [[Sidequest|Side Quests]] involve collecting bounties on named monsters or NPCs.

* ''[[Vampire: The Masquerade Bloodlines]]'' has a small tree of sidequests where the player takes the role of Bounty Hunter while working for a somewhat sleazy bail bondsman in Santa Monica. Unusually, part of the quest line is finding out what happened to said bondman's regular bounty hunter, and then {{spoiler|freeing him from the basement where his would-be quarry is torturing him}}.

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* Clark and Tonya from ''[http://www.shapequest.net Shape Quest]'' are bounty hunters.

* A Bounty Hunter picks up the girls' [[Distress Call]] in ''[[Girls in Space]]'' and tracks them back to Earth

* [[Those Two Bad Guys|Ganji and Enor]] from The ''[[The Order of the Stick|Order of the Stick]]''.

* The Ambis Empire in the comic ''[http://www.drunkduck.com/Jix/ Jix]'' has a lot of bounty hunters, however the only two seen are Pratos (who is really named Aranis, Jix's cousin), and Maricax. Both of which hunted the main characters.

* Feral in ''[[Strays]]''.