Popinjay was a real detective and he’d be great in the right story with the right cast (like that actor who can shape change) but he’s not terrible compelling as a character.
Croyd is interesting no matter what he’s doing. With The Sleeper the situation can be mundane and completely relatable but interesting as hell because the person we’re observing is interesting as hell.
And Jay was a primary in only a couple of stories (at least in the original volume) and not mentioned much in the rest of the work but Crenson is legend. When he re-infected half of J-Town that’s worthy of an entire second season right there.
For thinking of a lead I went with the list of characters who carried multiple good stories and/or had entire books with them as protagonist, and who were utilized by multiple authors.
Tachyon (Could work as a Greg House character, but that show already happened)
Captain Tripps (I’d love it, but no fucking way would it happen)
The Sleeper
The Turtle (I love him, you love him. How much of his actual story is internal self loathing, and how do you make a TV show out of that?)
Shad (great character and could work as well as CC, but less well known)
Fortunato (a pimp mystic that looks like Sinestro when he retains semen. You have to be kidding me.)
Modular Man (sympathetic, but most of his story is about him learning to bone and an abusive creator. Good for one plot arc. Not much else)
Yeoman (Too much like Arrow and Daredevil)
Now there are plenty of characters worthy of a show, like Father Squid would be a great center of attention protagonist or Hiram Worchester playing the same role in his restaurant rather than in a Jokertown church of Christ the Joker. Even the original Aces like Golden Boy and Braintrust and Envoy and Black Eagle would be great in a retro show that leads up to the HUAC shit.
Who will play Jetboy for the twenty minutes where he bravely did the wrong thing?
