Anyone who knows me know how much I love fictional characters. Below is a list I have compiled of 10 of the greatest tough-guy, grim-and-gritty, take-no-prisoners, characters currently appearing in comic books. They all have a kind of pulp fiction vibe and if you are not reading their books, I would recoment that you seek them out.
And now, without further ado, here is the list of the characters in no particular order...
1) John Gaunt AKA GrimJack (IDW): This character is a great fusion of Sam Spade and Conan the Barbarian and he resides in the cool pan-dimensional city of Cynosure.
"When they come to me, they're in trouble, or they want some. I bust people out of prison, hunt down vampires, fight alien Gods--All the fun jobs people are too squeamish or too polite to do themselves. Call me a mercenary. Call me an assassin. Call me villain. I am all that and more. My name's John Gaunt, but out on the streets of Cynosure, I am called... GrimJack."
--GrimJack, (Vol 1) #1 (Comic Book), John Ostrander
2) Hellboy (Dark Horse): The worlds greatest paranormal investigator (and by "paranormal investigator" I mean that he beats the holy bejesus out of paranormal stuff).
"I never deal with what I am. I don't think about it. I just do my job, which usually involves me beating the crap out of things a lot like me.
--Hellboy, The Right Hand of Doom (Trade Paperback), Mike Mignola
3) The Goon (Dark Horse): He routinely beats the crap out of zombies and monsters with his fists. If there are too many of them, he grabs a wrench.
"The nameless man, the zombie priest, had come to town to build a gang from the undead. But even the undead fear... The Goon."
--The Goon, Rough Stuff (Trade Paperback), Eric Powell
4) Conan the Cimmerian (Dark Horse): As a child, he tore out a wolf's throat with his teeth. Nuff said.
"Between the years when the oceans drank Atlantis and the gleaming cities... there was an Age undreamed of, when shining kingdoms lay spread across the world like blue mantles beneath the stars... Hither came Conan, the Cimmerian, black-haired, sullen-eyed, sword in hand... to tread the jeweled thrones of the earth under his sandalled feet."
--The Coming of Conan, the Cimmerian (Novel), Robert E. Howard
5) Red Sonja: the She Devil With a Sword (Dynamite Entertainment): This chick slaughters her enemies wearing a chain mail bikini. That makes her one tough broad in my book.
"Know also, O'prince, that in the selfsame days that the Cimmerian did stalk the Hyborian Kingdoms, one of the few swords worthy to cross with his was that of Red Sonja, warror-woman out of mystic Hyrkania. Forced to flee her homeland because she spurned the advances of the a king and slew him instead. She rode west across the Turanian steppes and into the shadowed mists of legendry."
--Red Sonja, the She Devil With a Sword, #0 (Comic Book), Michael Avon Oeming & Mike Carey
6) Snake-Eyes (Dynamite Entertainment): From the pages of G.I. Joe this silent ninja is the badest bad-ass in a battalion of bad-asses.
" ... "
--Just about any issue of G.I. Joe.
7) Cal McDonald (IDW): This foul-mouthed, alcoholic, drug addict is also a hard boiled L.A. detective who screws with the supernatural daily.
"Cal McDonald has made a career helping and hunting the dark creatures that haunt the world and has made as many friends as he has enemies. Among the docile ghouls of the city he is a friend. But to most, those who prey on innocent human lives, Cal is a sworn enemy."
--Savage Membrane: A Cal McDonald Mystery (Novel), Steve Niles
8) Doc Frankenstein (Burlyman): The wonderful premise of this comic book is, what if Dr. Frankenstein's creature survived into modern times to become a Doc Savage-like pulp hero.
"I, the miserable and the abandoned, am an abortion, to be spurned at, kicked at, and trampled on."
--Frankenstein Or, The Modern Prometheus (Novel), Mary Shelley
9) Frank Castle AKA the Punisher (Marvel): No super powers. No fancy, high-tech gadgets. Just guns, guts and an endless pit of rage.
“Been walking the streets all night. But the city's dead. Times Square is filled with tourists. The park is filled with cops. Not five years back I could've gone to either and been up to my eyes in scum. Tonight I may as well have stayed home.....Giuliani's got a lot to answer for."
-- Punisher, (Vol. 3) #5 (Comic Book), Garth Ennis
10) Jonah Hex (DC): This hatchet-scared, ex-confederate, western bounty hunter makes Clint Eastwood look like a pansy.
"Twilight faded when the desert finally went silent…In full light of the moon, James Ronnie’s face showed all the contortions of a coward who has lost the resolve to continue masking his fear. And yet, he still clung to hope…like a drowning man with a fistful of straw. The irony stood marked by the fact that it was James Ronnie’s guns that aligned with Hex on the side of justice earlier that night. But as any man, woman, or child knows, he had no friends, this Jonah Hex…but he did have two companions……one was death itself……and the other, the acrid smell of gunsmoke."
--Jonah Hex, #1 (Comic Book), Justin Gray & Jimmy Palmiotti
There you go! What do you think? I was going to put down the Batman and Wolverine, but then I thought that they get enough exposure.
--Johnny D. (Anti-Hero)
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