Characters / Bionic Commando

Nathan "Rad" Spencer

Voiced by: Mike Patton

• Artificial Limbs: Artificial Arm.
• Badass Decay: From a sunglasses-wearing One-Man Army to a melancholic mess.
• Empowered Badass Normal: In addition to his arm, Spencer has a number of secondary bionic improvements that, for example, provide armor, weaponize his adrenaline, allow him to jump superhuman heights and fall hundreds of feet without injury, and more. He looks mostly human, but he is far from it.
• Manly Facial Hair: An action hero who grows a thick, American police chief-worthy manly moustache in Rearmed 2.
• Majorly Awesome: In the 2009 game, according to the Intel.
• One-Man Army: In the NES version, he's the sole representative of the "FF" Double Force, wielding a Bionic Arm as a unique grapple wire. Expanded storylines explain this as him being an experimental soldier supplied by the TASC bionics division. Averted somewhat in Chain of Command and Rearmed 2; TASC has a period where their bionic technology is in great demand following the Imperial Incident, leading to Spencer training the next generation of bionic commandos as a Major.
• Retractable Weapon: The wire part of his Bionic Arm.
• The Right Hand of Doom: The Bionic Arm, though it originally looked rather ordinary and was covered by his clothing.
• Role Called: While debatable in the arcade game, he is considered the "original" Bionic Commando in-universe.
• Super Drowning Skills: Spencer's bionic arm is extremely heavy, and almost completely shuts down when exposed to water. Spencer therefore cannot swim in water as his arm drags him down.
• Took a Level in Jerkass: Went from a typical cocky action hero in Rearmed to a brooding anti-hero in the 2009 game.
• You Don't Look Like You: The original design, Rearmed, Chain of Command and Rearmed 2 all at least seem like different stages of the same character — his Game Boy and 2009/Marvel vs. Capcom 3 appearances look entirely different without any explanation whatsoever.

Joseph "Super Joe" Gibson

Voiced by: Steve Blum

• Badass in Distress: In the original Bionic Commando games, where he's captured and Spencer must save him.
• Bash Brothers: With Spencer in every game they appear together.
• Big Bad: Of the 2009 sequel.
• Cutscene Boss: Technically the Final Boss of the 2009 sequel, but the fight against him boils down to a simple Quick Time Event.
• Deuteragonist: When he's not the protagonist, of course.
• Distressed Dude: In the NES game and its Game Boy and Rearmed counterparts. This also applies to his expy, Commander Joe, in Bionic Commando: Elite Forces.
• Evil Former Friend: Goes from Spencer's comrade to a Dirty Coward and an overall jerk in the 2009 game AND he's the Big Bad, of course.
• The Man Behind the Man: Turns out Groeder wasn't the Big Bad. He is.
• Mission Control: He got promoted to TASC director after his rescue. According to Bionic Commando: Chain of Command, his correct title is even Supervisor, Joint Operations Executive.
• Rogue Protagonist: The protagonist of the original game and several other titles and the main antagonist of the final game.
• Sudden Sequel Heel Syndrome: Besides his major role in the original Bionic Commando, Joe was the player character in at least three other Capcom games back In the 1980's and 1990's. He then became the Big Bad of the 2009 game.
• Walking Spoiler: It's pretty difficult to talk about him without mentioning his role in the 2009 game.
• We Used to Be Friends: You'd think that after everything did for him and the adventures they shared together he wouldn't use manipulate him for his own purposes and blame everything on him.

Hal/Haley

• Composite Character: The Rearmed version of this character combines the original role of the nameless helicopter pilot and a minor (but important) soldier (which the Game Boy version instead combines with Super Joe).
• Gender Flip: The NES character was a male soldier named Hal, which was changed to a female pilot named Haley in the Rearmed remake.
• I'm Dying, Please Take My MacGuffin: Or in this case, a bazooka, although we never actually see the character die in the NES version.

Gottfried Groeder

Voiced by: Scott MacDonald

• Arch-Enemy: To Spencer, being the only villain he fights multiple times and taking his survival in the 2009 game very personally.
• The Dragon: Generalissimo Killt's most powerful, loyal and trusted soldier.
• Dragon Ascendant: Went from Generalissimo Killt's dragon in Rearmed to the co-leader of BioReign in the 2009 game.
• Evil Counterpart: Depicted as this in Rearmed, pitting an Imperial bionic against a FSA one.
• Evil Laugh: He has a strong tendency to laugh during his boss fight.
• Faux Affably Evil: He is polite enough to Spencer, but Groeder also makes it clear that he considers him an inferior version and takes great pleasure in trying to kill him.
• Feed It a Bomb: How he's ultimately killed. Not willing to take another chance of Groeder returning again, Spencer shoves a grenade into his mouth and pushes him off of BioReign's Base on Legs.
• Final Boss: Of the 2009 sequel. While you technically still have the fight with Super Joe after him, that encounter is more of a Cutscene Boss than a proper boss fight.
• Giant Mook: He originally appeared in the NES and Game Boy games as the otherwise unnamed "Giant Soldier".
• One-Winged Angel: He morphs into a taller combat form for his final fight with Spencer in the 2009 game.
• Post-Final Boss: In the NES game and Rearmed, as he's technically the last boss encountered before the end of the game, but the fight is so inconsequential that there is nothing stopping you from simply exiting the arena and leaving Groeder to his fate.

Generalissimo Killt

• Adaptational Villainy: His counterpart in the Worlds of Power adaptation of the NES game is far worse.
• Big Bad: Of the NES game and its remake.
• Bond Villain Stupidity: Go ahead, Killt, revive a notoriously power-hungry dictator without any means to keep him in line. That'll go well for you.
• The Generalissimo: It's in the name.
• In the Back: Is killed this way in Rearmed, where Hitler stabs him in the back with a knife when Killt tries to shut down his life support.
• Non-Action Big Bad: He prefers to let his minions do the fighting for him. Whether he has any combat experience at all is uncertain, since Hitler kills Killt before Spencer can get his hands on him.

Adolf Hitler/Master-D/The Leader

• Adapted Out: Neither of the Game Boy games feature him.
• Clean Dub Name: Outside of Japan, he is renamed Master-D. He still clearly resembles Hitler. Rearmed simply opts to call him The Leader (a literal translation of Hitler's title of Führer) internationally.
• Final Boss: Of the original game and Rearmed, though in the former he's merely a Cutscene Boss.
• Hero Killer: Shoots down Haley's helicopter in Rearmed, who dies of her wounds shortly after.
• Hijacked by Ganon: He quickly takes over Killt's operation after being resurrected.
• Stupid Jetpack Hitler: After being revived, he takes to using a weapons platform and a modern helicopter pretty readily.
• Your Head A-Splode: It's what Bionic Commando's famous for.

Emily Spencer

Voiced by: Vanessa Marshall

• Dead All Along: Possibly as the process of creating the bionic arm has been never been explained so if she's truly dead isn't said.

Jayne Magdalene

Voiced by: Gabrielle Carteris

• Cutscene Boss: In the Gardens, Joe goes into a boss arena with her and it looks like she's going to be a boss fight, but then he takes her out with one punch in a cutscene.
• Face–Heel Turn: A retroactive example; she's first seen as a BioReign terrorist in the 2009 game, then in the prequel Rearmed 2 we see her back in the day as a Lieutenant and ally of Spencer's.
• Moral Myopia: Considers civilians to be legitimate targets and their mass murder an act of "self-defense" because of the government's (admittedly pretty evil) treatment of Bionics in the Purge. She never reconsiders this, and only helps Spencer and turns against the BioReign leader Super Joe at the end because she felt he was just using her and the other Bionics as pawns.
• "Not So Different" Remark:
  Spencer: You're not a freedom fighter, you're just like me. A killer.
  Mag: Then why I haven't shot you yet?

---