Characters / Strontium Dog

Heroes

Johnny Alpha

• Afro Asskicker: Johnny has a fluffy 'fro crammed into that helmet, and is a most capable asskicker.
• Anti-Hero: While he's as virtuous and upstanding a person as can be expected in such a setting, he occasionally will do some pretty brutal things in order to survive. For example, he rescues a former comrade from the gallows in one jurisdiction, only to turn him in for the bounty in the next.
• Bounty Hunter: Like all Strontium Dogs. It's the only legal employment mutants can have.
• Cain and Abel: Has two half brothers, both of whom are staunchly anti-mutant.
• Came Back Wrong: Two examples. In one Strontium Dogs strip, he is back in constant pain until the Gronk gives him a Mercy Kill. During The Life And Death Of Johnny Alpha, he comes back with a parasitic spirit inhabiting him. Even when he gets rid of it, he's more ruthless than he was during his first life.
• Combat Pragmatist: Johnny's time as a guerilla soldier during the Mutant Uprising seem to have left him with a distinct aversion to anything remotely resembling a "fair fight". Knuckledusters, explosives, booby-traps and Time Travel weapons are regular parts of his arsenal.
• Compressed Hair: How that afro fits into that helmet, we'll never know.
• The Exile: One of the conditions for peace after the mutant uprising was that Johnny, as one of the leaders, is not allowed to set foot on Earth except in certain circumstances, such as a contract.
• Eye Scream: When scanning the mind of an Eldritch Abomination in "The Final Solution", the creature destroys both his eyes. One of Middenface's conditions for Johnny's resurrection is that Johnny's eyes be restored along with his life.
• Hand Cannon: Johnny's primary weapon is a Westinghouse Variable Cartidge Blaster, which is about the length of his arm and has the stopping power to boot.
• Helmets Are Hardly Heroic: Subverted. Johnny is rarely seen without his, and it does save his life on occasion.
• Heroic Sacrifice: Does this to allow the other mutants to escape at the end of The Final Solution and may have done it again at the end of The Life And Death Of Johnny Alpha.
• Mr. Fanservice: Especially seeing as most mutants are cosmetically deformed, Johnny can pass for a normal human, provided he keeps his eyes hidden. He gets a rather revealing Shower Scene in "The Kreeler Conspiracy".
• Nom de Guerre: "Alpha" is quite obviously an assumed name, and Johnny has good reason to not want people to know that his real last name is Kreelman. This comes back to bite him in "The Tax Dodge", as Orville Paxman starts auditing Search/Destroy Agents in alphabetical order.
• Power Fist: One of his signature weapons is a set of Elextronux, which he uses to subdue bounties through Shock and Awe.
• Rebel Leader: In his backstory, he was one of the most prominent members of the mutant uprising, despite only being in his teens.
• Stripped to the Bone: The Eldritch Abomination that kills Johnny in "The Final Solution" reduces him to a pile of bones in just a few panels. This gets retconned out later, though.
• Walking Armory: It's a minor Running Gag, but whenever Johnny's weapons are inspected by authorities, it's commented that he's carrying quite a lot of gear. Usually, there's so much, they never notice that he's able to tuck away a grenade or something to use later.
• Would Hit a Girl: Johnny has no problem taking female bounties, most of whom are more than willing to fight back. Credits are credits at the end of the day.
• X-Ray Vision: One of the many applications of Johnny's "alpha ray"-emitting eyes.

Wulf Sternhammer

• Badass Normal: A regular human, who works as a Strontium Dog because he likes hanging out with Johnny.
• Beard of Barbarism: As befitting a Viking, he has a massive blond beard.
• Blood Knight: He's a norm and a temporally displaced one, so he doesn't need to work as a Bounty Hunter, but does so because he loves the job.
• Boisterous Bruiser: He's a viking. What did you expect?
• Bounty Hunter: Unlike most S/D Agents, he's not a mutant, but partners with Johnny on contracts because he likes working with him.
• Came Back Wrong: He's briefly brought Back from the Dead as a zombie in "The Final Solution" via necromancy. His personality is not retained, though his manner of speech is, and he tries to kill Johnny.
• Character Death: He's killed by Max Bubba, something Johnny does not take well.
• Heterosexual Life-Partners: With Johnny. Though, Gordon Rennie believes it to be more than that.
• Fish out of Temporal Water: Turns out that he's an actual Viking who takes up bounty hunting because he likes working with Johnny. By the time the comics roll around, Wulf seems to have settled in quite nicely in the far future.
• I Call It "Vera": Der Happy Stick.
• Meaningful Name: His last name of Sternhammer is very fitting for a man who carries a massive sledgehammer around with him.
• Names to Run Away from Really Fast: Wolf, Stone and Hammer.

The Gronk

• Took a Level in Badass: In Strontium Dogs, he becomes far more aggressive and capable due to a head injury.
• Pluralses: How he speakses.

Strontium Dogs

Durham Red

• '80s Hair: When drawn by Carlos Ezquerra.
• Bounty Hunter: Like most mutants, she hunts criminals for credits.
• Breakout Character: She got her own spin-off comic, some of which is set even further into the future.
• Combat Stilettos: Wears them as part of her Stripperific attire.
• Ms. Fanservice: Tends to wear very revealing outfits. In the final part of her far future story, she suffers clothing damage during the final battle.
• Fiery Redhead: She's a very capable fighter and, due to her mutation, has a literal bloodlust, which can cause her to lose control when she needs to feed.
• Our Vampires Are Different: Immune to diseases and toxins and doesn't age. She has long fangs and uses them to drink blood from people and animals, which she needs to survive. Red's condition is a strontium 90-induced mutation and in no way supernatural, and is never treated like anything else. As such, she's immune to the usual vampiric countermeasures and she actually likes garlic.
• Red Baron: Being the most prominent female character, she's known amongst the fandom as the Strontium Bitch. Her vampirism also has led to her being known by nicknames such as "The Blood Woman".
• Stripperific: As close to a futuristic Chainmail Bikini as is possible.
• Vampires Are Sex Gods: She's actually a mutant with a condition resembling vampirism, but she's also Ms. Fanservice.

Archibald "Middenface" McNulty

• The Alcoholic: Sort of comes with the territory when you're a Glasgow hard-man. After Johnny's death, he falls into a deep depression and drinks even more heavily.
• An Arm and a Leg: In the newer stories, he loses an arm.
• Badass Normal: Cosmetically mutated and no powers. Still very capable when it comes to giving laldy.
• Bounty Hunter: Being a mutant, he's unemployable in a regular capacity, so his only employment option is as a Stronitum Dog.
• Funetik Aksent: Exaggerated: He not only speaks in a thick Glaswegian accent, he writes in it too.
• Glasgow Kiss: A perennial favorite.
• Handicapped Badass: Losing an arm makes him no less capable of givin' laldy.
• In-Series Nickname: No-one ever calls him Archibald.
• Nom de Guerre: During his time as a Rebel Leader, Middenface was also known as The Tartan Terror
• Only Known by Their Nickname: No-one ever calls him Archibald. His gran calls him Archie, to the rest of the world he's "Middenface".
• Raised by Grandparents: Middenface was raised by his gran, a tough old biddy in the best Glaswegian tradition.
• Rebel Leader: Was General of the Scotland division during the Mutant Uprising.
• Violent Glaswegian: Grew up in the Glasgow ghetto, works as a bounty hunter, and loves a good Bar Brawl.

Allies

King Clarkie II

• The Good King: Spacey and politically naïve, but can always be counted on to do right when prodded into action.

Enemies

Nelson Bunker Kreelman

• Archnemesis Dad: Having a mutant for a son was a real problem for him, given how he came to power on the back of anti-mutant policies. Given how he abused Johnny growing up, it's little wonder that Johnny rejected the Kreelman name and joined the mutant uprising.
• Big Bad: Even though Kreelman himself is relegated to a back-burner quite early on, the racist legislation he pushed and his followers are reappearing antagonistic forces.
• A Nazi by Any Other Name: Replace "Jews" with "Mutants" and you are on the money. He even provides the page picture.
• President Evil: He comes to power on the anti-mutant ticket, slaughtering them as much as possible. In the original stories, he becomes British Prime Minister. In the modern stories, it's noted that he was President of Earth.

Nelson Culliver

• Bastard Bastard: Every bit as evil as his namesake father, he was the product of one of Kreelman's affairs and Kreelman was more proud of him than his legitimate son, due to Culliver being a norm.
• Cain and Abel: He's Johnny's half brother and, like his father, hates mutants, trying to stir up anti mutant sentiment again to finish his father's work.
• The Unfought: Johnny intends to kill him at the end of "Traitor To His Kind", but meets his children and changes his mind stating that "I could do it to him, I just couldn't do it to them."