Due to Halloween an additional "BaddAss of the Week" is going to be posted...
dedication goes to fellow member Tiger
- Guest091813
- 10-29-2011, 11:37 AM
- Guest091813
- 10-29-2011, 11:42 AM
The Headless Horseman
Trick-or-treaters don't really do the whole "apartment building" thing, so this Halloween Andrea and I spent a nice quiet Tuesday evening watching Sleepy Hollow on network TV like the boring old people that we are. Now Tim Burton flicks generally function more as fashion guidelines for what goths should wear to prom, and generally aren't really good sources for Badass of the Week material, but the goddamned Headless Horseman is without a doubt a stone-cold untouchable badass. He's tough, he's unstoppable, and he's got some pretty sweet moves with his sword and axes. But if the concept of a gigantic fucking undead soldier riding a huge ass black horse across the countryside of rural New York lopping of random peoples' heads in the middle of the night isn't badass enough for you, I've put together a list of the top five things that make the Headless Horseman worthy of this list.
I should just end the article right here, because there isn't a soul on this planet who would ever question the badassitude of The Walken. Fuck, the fact that I was able to run this feature for two and a half years without ever mentioning a Christopher Walken character is enough to make me feel a little sick to my stomach, and I'm glad I'm finally rectifying that situation. The guy is high in the running for "creepiest man ever", and he is unassailably awesome in everything that he does. Add on the fact that in this movie he has fucking crazy-ass blue eyes, wild hair, a gigantor black-bladed broadsword and his teeth are filed into points and you've got one of the most menacing movie villains around. I mean just look at that picture; I sure as shit wouldn't want to meet this bastard in a dark cornfield somewhere.
read on
http://www.badassoftheweek.com/horseman.html
Trick-or-treaters don't really do the whole "apartment building" thing, so this Halloween Andrea and I spent a nice quiet Tuesday evening watching Sleepy Hollow on network TV like the boring old people that we are. Now Tim Burton flicks generally function more as fashion guidelines for what goths should wear to prom, and generally aren't really good sources for Badass of the Week material, but the goddamned Headless Horseman is without a doubt a stone-cold untouchable badass. He's tough, he's unstoppable, and he's got some pretty sweet moves with his sword and axes. But if the concept of a gigantic fucking undead soldier riding a huge ass black horse across the countryside of rural New York lopping of random peoples' heads in the middle of the night isn't badass enough for you, I've put together a list of the top five things that make the Headless Horseman worthy of this list.
I should just end the article right here, because there isn't a soul on this planet who would ever question the badassitude of The Walken. Fuck, the fact that I was able to run this feature for two and a half years without ever mentioning a Christopher Walken character is enough to make me feel a little sick to my stomach, and I'm glad I'm finally rectifying that situation. The guy is high in the running for "creepiest man ever", and he is unassailably awesome in everything that he does. Add on the fact that in this movie he has fucking crazy-ass blue eyes, wild hair, a gigantor black-bladed broadsword and his teeth are filed into points and you've got one of the most menacing movie villains around. I mean just look at that picture; I sure as shit wouldn't want to meet this bastard in a dark cornfield somewhere.
read on
http://www.badassoftheweek.com/horseman.html
Attached Images
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badass-horseman3.jpg (14.5 KB, 188 views)
badass-horseman5.jpg (59.9 KB, 194 views)
- MC
- 10-29-2011, 05:54 PM
I love Christopher Walken. I can still remember him and his crazy hair from Batman Returns (First movie I saw in theaters, I believe).
- Guest091813
- 11-05-2011, 07:07 PM
Daniel Inouye
This past week, November 1st, the surviving members of the American 442nd Regimental Combat Team traveled to Washington, DC, where they were awarded Presidential Gold Medals to honor their dedication to the timeless art of crotch-kicking the flaming shitfire out of Nazi Deutschbags across Italy and France during the Second World War. Now, while everyone who served in the war can absolutely be considered a badass, this elite fighting unit is particularly noteworthy in that it consisted entirely of Japanese-American soldiers – men who were fighting for their country (a country where they were viewed with suspicion as possible spies or enemy agents) in a no-holds-barred worldwide asskicking competition against the land of their forefathers – and not only did these guys go out and do their duty, but they all volunteered for the job. These were guys with a chip on their collective shoulder and a penchant for bayoneting Fascist fucks, and in two years of near-constant combat with tough-as-nails opponents the 12,000 men of the Four-Four-Two racked up 9,400 Purple Hearts, 53 Distinguished Service Crosses (19 of which were later upgraded to Medals of Honor) and seven Presidential Unit Citations, easily making them one of the most decorated combat units of World War II. This is some serious shit, and, with all due respect to fictional badass Mister Miyagi of Karate Kid fame, the most hardcore member of this celebrated unit is easy to identify – he's a face-crushing asskicker named Daniel K. Inouye, and his story is so over-the-top insane that if you saw it in a movie you'd think the screenwriter was totally full of shit.
Daniel Inouye was a second-generation Japanese-American living in Honolulu, Hawaii, when the Japanese fighter-bombers started hammering the fucking bejeezus out of the naval base at Pearl Harbor. The seventeen-year-old Inouye had been on his way to church when the shit hit the fan, and as Zeroes buzzed over the roof of his house he could clearly see the plumes of smoke from the burning American battleships in the harbor. Inouye was an aspiring physician and taught first aid at the local Red Cross station, so naturally he hauled ass down there and spend the next five sleepless days patching up wounded military personnel. Immediately after his marathon bout of tourniquet application, Inouye went down to enlist in the army and kick the shit out of the people who had just dropped bombs on his hometown. Unfortunately, even though this guy was a U.S. citizen, as a person of Japanese descent he was classified 4-C, meaning "Enemy Alien". Undraftable. Unable to serve. The Enemy. Possibly a Cylon.
read on:
http://www.badassoftheweek.com/inouye.html
This past week, November 1st, the surviving members of the American 442nd Regimental Combat Team traveled to Washington, DC, where they were awarded Presidential Gold Medals to honor their dedication to the timeless art of crotch-kicking the flaming shitfire out of Nazi Deutschbags across Italy and France during the Second World War. Now, while everyone who served in the war can absolutely be considered a badass, this elite fighting unit is particularly noteworthy in that it consisted entirely of Japanese-American soldiers – men who were fighting for their country (a country where they were viewed with suspicion as possible spies or enemy agents) in a no-holds-barred worldwide asskicking competition against the land of their forefathers – and not only did these guys go out and do their duty, but they all volunteered for the job. These were guys with a chip on their collective shoulder and a penchant for bayoneting Fascist fucks, and in two years of near-constant combat with tough-as-nails opponents the 12,000 men of the Four-Four-Two racked up 9,400 Purple Hearts, 53 Distinguished Service Crosses (19 of which were later upgraded to Medals of Honor) and seven Presidential Unit Citations, easily making them one of the most decorated combat units of World War II. This is some serious shit, and, with all due respect to fictional badass Mister Miyagi of Karate Kid fame, the most hardcore member of this celebrated unit is easy to identify – he's a face-crushing asskicker named Daniel K. Inouye, and his story is so over-the-top insane that if you saw it in a movie you'd think the screenwriter was totally full of shit.
Daniel Inouye was a second-generation Japanese-American living in Honolulu, Hawaii, when the Japanese fighter-bombers started hammering the fucking bejeezus out of the naval base at Pearl Harbor. The seventeen-year-old Inouye had been on his way to church when the shit hit the fan, and as Zeroes buzzed over the roof of his house he could clearly see the plumes of smoke from the burning American battleships in the harbor. Inouye was an aspiring physician and taught first aid at the local Red Cross station, so naturally he hauled ass down there and spend the next five sleepless days patching up wounded military personnel. Immediately after his marathon bout of tourniquet application, Inouye went down to enlist in the army and kick the shit out of the people who had just dropped bombs on his hometown. Unfortunately, even though this guy was a U.S. citizen, as a person of Japanese descent he was classified 4-C, meaning "Enemy Alien". Undraftable. Unable to serve. The Enemy. Possibly a Cylon.
read on:
http://www.badassoftheweek.com/inouye.html
- offshoredrilling
- 11-05-2011, 07:57 PM
nice guy
- qixerotic
- 11-05-2011, 09:04 PM
I had the good fortune to hear him lecture when he was Senator from Hawaii. At least, thinkit was the same man.
- Guest091813
- 11-05-2011, 10:42 PM
damn qix..you encountered a real BadAss!!!!
next time i see ya..Im gonna rub up on ya just a bit more..
..just cuz..u you know..
same room as a BadAss and all...
next time i see ya..Im gonna rub up on ya just a bit more..
..just cuz..u you know..
same room as a BadAss and all...
- qixerotic
- 11-06-2011, 05:20 AM
Nita, i'm holding you to that. Aside from his badass cred, I can tell you he was an intelligent, knowledgeable and thoughtful speaker as well.
- Guest091813
- 11-13-2011, 08:42 AM
Sgt. Stubby
Sergeant Stubby was a stray, homeless mutt who saved more lives, saw more combat, and performed more badass feats of heroic awesomeness than most people could ever hope to accomplish even WITH the advantage of prehensile thumbs and the ability to utilize 100 percent of their brain power without exploding into a burst of ball lightning.
The American version of Voytek the Soldier Bear, this fearless, ass-destroyingly ferocious Pit Bull Terrier started his humble life as most stray animals do – hungry, cold, alone, and stranded in the town of New Haven, Connecticut. Living garbage can to garbage can without so much as a doghouse roof over his head, one day this poor dejected little canine happened to stumble onto the parade ground on the campus of Yale University, where it just so happened that the men of the 102nd Regiment, 26th Infantry Division were training for their eventual deployment to fight in World War I. The so-pathetic-it's-adorable little dog-creature was taken in by a soldier named John Robert Conroy, who named the pup "Stubby" on account of the thing's little stumpy gimp tail (or maybe this is a common trait of pit bull terriers, I have no idea). Conroy started leaving food out and let the little guy sleep in the barracks from time to time, and before long pretty much every dude in the 102nd thought this thing was omg totez adorbs, etc. The dog, for its part, was also like insane-as-hell smart, and I don't mean like, "Oh hey that dog thinks he's people because he sits in an armchair and licks beer coozies" stuff, but more like, "Holy crap balls Lassie's trying to tell us that Little Timmy fell down a well and is being slowly digested by a thousand rabid snakes sent forth from a rift in the Hellmouth," smart. After just a few weeks of hanging around the drill field, watching the soldiers do their thing, this friggin' dog/Battle-Cat hybrid learned the damn bugle calls, could execute the marching maneuvers with the men, and was – I shit you not – trained to salute superior officers by raising his forepaw to his brow in what I can only imagine was a sight so cripplingly adorable that nowadays it would be an obnoxious, long-running Internet meme on one of these I Can Has Catburger websites.
Private Stubby had free reign to drink out of any toilet bowl on the Yale campus during training, and when the order came down for the 102nd to ship out to battle Conroy just stuffed the dog into his greatcoat and smuggled him on board a ship bound for France. Once the transport was under way, Conroy brought the dog out onto the deck, and all the sailors all decided this dog was so totally flippin' sweet that they had a machinists' mate make him a set of dog tags to match the ones worn by the soldiers. When Conroy got a little sloppy and his weirdo covert dog smuggling operation was discovered commanding officer, Conroy gave the order to, "Present Arms," the goddamned dog saluted the commander. The officer was like "WTF ever" and from that point on Stubby was officially allowed to follow Yankee Division out to the battlefront.
This is where it gets good. Stubby became the official mascot of the American Expeditionary Force, and did his part to raise morale to the war-weary soldiers on the front lines. Ok, that's great, but during his tour of duty in Europe, Stubby also participated in 17 battles and four major offensives – including the St. Mihel, Meuse-Argonne, Aisne-Marne, and Champagne Marne campaigns. In February 1918, while fighting in a heated sector north of Soissons, Stubby found himself under constant artillery and sniper fire for over a month straight with no respite, responding by howling and barking in "a battle rage" every time gunshots started ringing out. He was wounded in action later that month in a chemical weapons attack, when the Germans launched some mustard gas that poisoned the little dog so hard it nearly died.
But this was a badass pit bull, and it would take more than a lung full of poison gas to slow him down. Instead of croaking, Stubby became more hardcore – he'd had his fill of getting the crap kicked out of him by chemical weapons, and thanks to his heightened sense of smell this little bastard could now sniff out mustard gas before it became lethal. From that point on, any time a gas canister exploded near American lines, the friggin' dog would run up and down the trenches barking and biting men until they put their gas masks on, an act that saved countless lives. Once his comrades were properly masked-up, Stubby would run and hide until the gas cloud cleared (because this was back in the days before they'd invented doggy chemical warfare hoods).
read on about this adorable badass pooch..
http://www.badassoftheweek.com/sgtstubby.html
Sergeant Stubby was a stray, homeless mutt who saved more lives, saw more combat, and performed more badass feats of heroic awesomeness than most people could ever hope to accomplish even WITH the advantage of prehensile thumbs and the ability to utilize 100 percent of their brain power without exploding into a burst of ball lightning.
The American version of Voytek the Soldier Bear, this fearless, ass-destroyingly ferocious Pit Bull Terrier started his humble life as most stray animals do – hungry, cold, alone, and stranded in the town of New Haven, Connecticut. Living garbage can to garbage can without so much as a doghouse roof over his head, one day this poor dejected little canine happened to stumble onto the parade ground on the campus of Yale University, where it just so happened that the men of the 102nd Regiment, 26th Infantry Division were training for their eventual deployment to fight in World War I. The so-pathetic-it's-adorable little dog-creature was taken in by a soldier named John Robert Conroy, who named the pup "Stubby" on account of the thing's little stumpy gimp tail (or maybe this is a common trait of pit bull terriers, I have no idea). Conroy started leaving food out and let the little guy sleep in the barracks from time to time, and before long pretty much every dude in the 102nd thought this thing was omg totez adorbs, etc. The dog, for its part, was also like insane-as-hell smart, and I don't mean like, "Oh hey that dog thinks he's people because he sits in an armchair and licks beer coozies" stuff, but more like, "Holy crap balls Lassie's trying to tell us that Little Timmy fell down a well and is being slowly digested by a thousand rabid snakes sent forth from a rift in the Hellmouth," smart. After just a few weeks of hanging around the drill field, watching the soldiers do their thing, this friggin' dog/Battle-Cat hybrid learned the damn bugle calls, could execute the marching maneuvers with the men, and was – I shit you not – trained to salute superior officers by raising his forepaw to his brow in what I can only imagine was a sight so cripplingly adorable that nowadays it would be an obnoxious, long-running Internet meme on one of these I Can Has Catburger websites.
Private Stubby had free reign to drink out of any toilet bowl on the Yale campus during training, and when the order came down for the 102nd to ship out to battle Conroy just stuffed the dog into his greatcoat and smuggled him on board a ship bound for France. Once the transport was under way, Conroy brought the dog out onto the deck, and all the sailors all decided this dog was so totally flippin' sweet that they had a machinists' mate make him a set of dog tags to match the ones worn by the soldiers. When Conroy got a little sloppy and his weirdo covert dog smuggling operation was discovered commanding officer, Conroy gave the order to, "Present Arms," the goddamned dog saluted the commander. The officer was like "WTF ever" and from that point on Stubby was officially allowed to follow Yankee Division out to the battlefront.
This is where it gets good. Stubby became the official mascot of the American Expeditionary Force, and did his part to raise morale to the war-weary soldiers on the front lines. Ok, that's great, but during his tour of duty in Europe, Stubby also participated in 17 battles and four major offensives – including the St. Mihel, Meuse-Argonne, Aisne-Marne, and Champagne Marne campaigns. In February 1918, while fighting in a heated sector north of Soissons, Stubby found himself under constant artillery and sniper fire for over a month straight with no respite, responding by howling and barking in "a battle rage" every time gunshots started ringing out. He was wounded in action later that month in a chemical weapons attack, when the Germans launched some mustard gas that poisoned the little dog so hard it nearly died.
But this was a badass pit bull, and it would take more than a lung full of poison gas to slow him down. Instead of croaking, Stubby became more hardcore – he'd had his fill of getting the crap kicked out of him by chemical weapons, and thanks to his heightened sense of smell this little bastard could now sniff out mustard gas before it became lethal. From that point on, any time a gas canister exploded near American lines, the friggin' dog would run up and down the trenches barking and biting men until they put their gas masks on, an act that saved countless lives. Once his comrades were properly masked-up, Stubby would run and hide until the gas cloud cleared (because this was back in the days before they'd invented doggy chemical warfare hoods).
read on about this adorable badass pooch..
http://www.badassoftheweek.com/sgtstubby.html
- Guest091813
- 11-19-2011, 02:27 PM
Trấn Hưng Đạo
Trấn Hưng Đạo is the national hero of Vietnam and one of the greatest unsung heroes of military history. A bone-crunching asskicker who would rather have unhesitatingly suffered a violent, horrific death at the business end of a pack of gigantic man-sized demon leeches than dishonor his badass reputation in the most trivial sort of way, this guy forged a rag-tag band of untrained citizen-soldiers into the world's first guerrilla army, and then led them head-first into an all-out war with the Invincible Mongol Horde during the height of the Khans' power. And, amazingly, thanks to his unstoppable military genius, a couple flaming boats, and a few thousand bamboo poles tipped with iron spikes, he won.
Trấn , who I will from here on out refer to as Tran Hung Dao (yes, I realize this is a total rape and pillage of the Vietnamese language, but if I have to navigate the Character Map for those letters every time I want to write the dude's name it's going to take me a month and a half to write this thing), was one in a line of Vietnamese shitkickers who didn't let idiotic bullshittery stand in the way of their quest for badass awesomeness. His great uncle had been the Imperial Regent for the Vietnamese Ly Dynasty (meaning that he was basically like Jaffar from Aladdin), and when Uncle Tran decided that Emperor Ly was a total waste of human skin surrounding a vapid core of solid congealed dumbass, he usurped the throne, forced the Emperor to become a monk, married the Princess off to his nephew , and then spent the next couple years surfing the corpses of his vanquished political rivals out of Saigon on a river of blood (Note: This was back when Charlie still surfed). Tran Hung Dao therefore became a Prince, and this stone-cold stunner's no-bullshit attitude and ability to bend a pair of scissors in half with his biceps made him perfect for the job of Supreme Military Grand Warlord Commander of Vietnam.
Well things in 'Nam were going fine until the year 1271 when Kublai Khan – grandson of Genghis, Great Khan of the Mongols, and scourge of English Literature students everywhere – completed his mission to drive over the armies of Imperial China with a steamroller and install his own dynasty on the throne of what had up until recently been the world's wealthiest empire. Now, of course, if you know anything about the 13th century Mongols, you know that they weren't exactly a laid-back group of individuals who were content to sit back with infinite wealth and chill in their gold-plated mansions when there were still people out there that needed killing, and it wasn't long before the emissaries of this unstoppable, seemingly-invincible Mongol Horde came knocking on the doors of the Vietnamese capital with a simple offer – surrender or die.
read on...
http://www.badassoftheweek.com/tranhungdao.html
Trấn Hưng Đạo is the national hero of Vietnam and one of the greatest unsung heroes of military history. A bone-crunching asskicker who would rather have unhesitatingly suffered a violent, horrific death at the business end of a pack of gigantic man-sized demon leeches than dishonor his badass reputation in the most trivial sort of way, this guy forged a rag-tag band of untrained citizen-soldiers into the world's first guerrilla army, and then led them head-first into an all-out war with the Invincible Mongol Horde during the height of the Khans' power. And, amazingly, thanks to his unstoppable military genius, a couple flaming boats, and a few thousand bamboo poles tipped with iron spikes, he won.
Trấn , who I will from here on out refer to as Tran Hung Dao (yes, I realize this is a total rape and pillage of the Vietnamese language, but if I have to navigate the Character Map for those letters every time I want to write the dude's name it's going to take me a month and a half to write this thing), was one in a line of Vietnamese shitkickers who didn't let idiotic bullshittery stand in the way of their quest for badass awesomeness. His great uncle had been the Imperial Regent for the Vietnamese Ly Dynasty (meaning that he was basically like Jaffar from Aladdin), and when Uncle Tran decided that Emperor Ly was a total waste of human skin surrounding a vapid core of solid congealed dumbass, he usurped the throne, forced the Emperor to become a monk, married the Princess off to his nephew , and then spent the next couple years surfing the corpses of his vanquished political rivals out of Saigon on a river of blood (Note: This was back when Charlie still surfed). Tran Hung Dao therefore became a Prince, and this stone-cold stunner's no-bullshit attitude and ability to bend a pair of scissors in half with his biceps made him perfect for the job of Supreme Military Grand Warlord Commander of Vietnam.
Well things in 'Nam were going fine until the year 1271 when Kublai Khan – grandson of Genghis, Great Khan of the Mongols, and scourge of English Literature students everywhere – completed his mission to drive over the armies of Imperial China with a steamroller and install his own dynasty on the throne of what had up until recently been the world's wealthiest empire. Now, of course, if you know anything about the 13th century Mongols, you know that they weren't exactly a laid-back group of individuals who were content to sit back with infinite wealth and chill in their gold-plated mansions when there were still people out there that needed killing, and it wasn't long before the emissaries of this unstoppable, seemingly-invincible Mongol Horde came knocking on the doors of the Vietnamese capital with a simple offer – surrender or die.
read on...
http://www.badassoftheweek.com/tranhungdao.html
- Guest091813
- 11-26-2011, 09:57 PM
Im very Proud to Present:
Running Eagle
Even before she was dancing around on the silver screen belting out beautiful melodies with Mel Gibson and some random, questionably-historically-accurate cartoon raccoon, it's pretty safe to say that the Indian princess Pocahontas is the most famous Native American woman in history. Ok, fine. I can live with that. I won't talk shit about Pocahontas, and sure, she was great at the whole stopping a war by preventing her comrades from clubbing John Smith's brains in and then going off, getting captured and being shipped back to England to die of European diseases thing, but with all due respect to the Virginia Algonquin (and perhaps Sergeant Esparza of Generation Kill fame), I typically tend to prefer women who spent more time bathing in the blood of their slain enemies and less time spinning around in a forest getting in touch with the spirits of the wilderness. But that's just me. And probably you, considering that you've chosen to read a website called Badass of the Week and not Adorable Kitty Cat of the Week.
So, long story short, for my money it doesn't get any better than Running Eagle – the Piegan Blackfoot Indian asskicking warrior-princess who routinely led war parties screaming into battle and once moked out two badass-as-fuck Crow warriors by riding full-throttle towards them on horseback with one rifle under each arm, guns blazing, until all that was left was a vapor trail of blood and an oil-slick of bullet-riddled human entrails where her dipshit enemies once dared to stand against her.
Even before she was dancing around on the silver screen belting out beautiful melodies with Mel Gibson and some random, questionably-historically-accurate cartoon raccoon, it's pretty safe to say that the Indian princess Pocahontas is the most famous Native American woman in history. Ok, fine. I can live with that. I won't talk shit about Pocahontas, and sure, she was great at the whole stopping a war by preventing her comrades from clubbing John Smith's brains in and then going off, getting captured and being shipped back to England to die of European diseases thing, but with all due respect to the Virginia Algonquin (and perhaps Sergeant Esparza of Generation Kill fame), I typically tend to prefer women who spent more time bathing in the blood of their slain enemies and less time spinning around in a forest getting in touch with the spirits of the wilderness. But that's just me. And probably you, considering that you've chosen to read a website called Badass of the Week and not Adorable Kitty Cat of the Week.
So, long story short, for my money it doesn't get any better than Running Eagle – the Piegan Blackfoot Indian asskicking warrior-princess who routinely led war parties screaming into battle and once moked out two badass-as-fuck Crow warriors by riding full-throttle towards them on horseback with one rifle under each arm, guns blazing, until all that was left was a vapor trail of blood and an oil-slick of bullet-riddled human entrails where her dipshit enemies once dared to stand against her.
The story of history's only female war chief is one of the most famous tales of heroic awesomeness among the people of the Blackfoot Tribe. Unfortunately, as is the case with many badass historical war stories that spent the first couple decades of their existence being passed down orally from generation to generation (huh huh), by the time this warrior-chick's tales of legendary face-obliterating asskicking were finally written down there naturally ended up being some minor discrepancies and nit-picky bullshit. Basically, we have two written versions of her story – one written by a white dude who was adopted into the Blackfoot tribe and claimed to have known her personally, and another by a warrior brave from a rival tribe who claimed he knew a guy that used to ride with her once and was allegedly friends with her brother's sister's cousin's former college roommate. Naturally, neither of these versions are totally reliable, and neither of them really sync up in any appreciable way, so I'll do my best to re-tell this story by taking the most bitchin' parts of both stories and fusing them together like a Lamborghini and a Ferrari being mashed into a solid brick by a junkyard car-crusher.
Running Eagle was born with the name Brown Weasel Woman, which is a significantly less flattering and graceful-sounding name than the one by which we currently know her, but hey, we all gotta start somewhere I guess. She was the eldest child of a respected warrior, though, naturally, as a woman, she got stuck with all the bullshit housework chores like washing dishes, doing laundry, and skinning buffalo carcasses with a knife so they could be cooked up on the Foreman grill. As you can probably imagine, our heroine quickly decided that this was the most bullshit thing of all time, and one day she went out to Warrior Practice and told her Dad to hit her up with a bow and arrow so that she could show those douchebag wannabe warriors the true meaning of badass archery. Dad was like, "OK dude whatevs LOL", and then immediately shit a brick when he realized that this teenage girl was the most dead-eye crack shot since Liam Neeson stone-cold capping that weirdo pedophile dude at the end of Taken. Despite the non-stop protests of her mother telling her to get her ass back in the kitchen, Running Eagle kept punking out on the dishes to take target practice, and before long the warriors of the tribe had adopted her as one of their own. By the time she was fifteen, this chick was already going out on buffalo hunts with the tribe, taking down the dangerous creatures with stone-cold efficiency and easily proving herself as competent as any warrior in the Great Plains.
One day, while out on a buffalo hunt, the small band of Blackfoot hunters were suddenly ambushed by a huge force of rival Flathead Indians, who came out of nowhere and started raining bullets and arrows on Running Eagle's party like a bunch of fucking assholes. Badly outnumbered and surrounded by flying death, the Blackfoot hunters turned and ran for it, but as they were hauling ass out of there some jackass shot Running Eagle's father's horse out from under him, sending her dad face-first to the turf at high speeds in an accident that either did or did not kill him (the sources differ on this, which is interesting because it hardly seems like the sort of detail you fuck up when you re-tell a story). Either way, Running Eagle knew she couldn't just waltz back home while her dad was out there surrounded by scalp-collecting enemy warriors, so, amazingly, she pulled the e-brake, banged a 90-degree U-turn on her horse, and ran back into the middle of the charging enemy, guns and/or arrows blazing. Once she'd driven the enemy back with a hail of projectile destruction she quickly dismounted, grabbed her father, chucked him on her horse, and then tore ass out of there with bullets and arrows and tomahawks whizzing past her head. Oh yeah, and she not only saved her dad, but she also remembered to unpack the fucking buffalo meat from his saddlebags and load it into hers so that she wouldn't come home empty-handed while the jackasses who capped her dad were off enjoying delicious buffalo jerky strips.
Well if Dad didn't die by GSW to the back of the skull, he did die shortly after this event of some other cause, leaving young Running Eagle alone to tend to her sickly mother, as well as her two brothers and two sisters. But as we've seen, this chick wasn't super-pumped about the whole housewifery thing, so she did something you don't usually see outside of the Northeastern states – since her display of balls-out awesomeness (probably not the right adjective, but you know what I'm trying to say) had earned her warrior brave status among her tribe, Running Eagle decided fuck it, I'm just going to take a "wife" to take care of my house for me while I'm out doing badass shit. So she hired a local widow (a woman who had been physically abused her now-dead husband and had no real interest in remarrying) to run shit on the homefront so Running Eagle could spend her time worrying about manly shit like hand-sharpening obsidian daggers, cleaning her rifle, and spitting tobacco juice while grabbing her crotch. Running Eagle actually never ended up marrying a man – she was worried that taking a husband would strip her of warrior cred, and since she was so badass in battle and on hunts nobody really fucked with her about it.
The closest anyone ever got was some random chieftain of the Blood Indians (which is a fucking rad name for a tribe, BTW), but when the two warmongering shit-stompers went on a raid together, Running Eagle captured 15 horses, killed three warriors with a knife, and came back with their scalps displayed prominently on her clothing, while Chief Blood only captured 10 horses and failed to kill a single enemy in battle. After seeing this miserable display of ball-sucking craptasm from a supposedly-hardcore war chief, Running Eagle basically just laughed in the dude's face and was all like, "Whatever chump, you're way too much of a raging wussbag to handle this hot sauce." According to legend, the dude spontaneously died of excruciating lameness shortly thereafter.
Carrying her dead father's rifle on the warpath in a Inigo Montoya-style homage to her fallen mentor, Running Eagle led the Blackfoot on dozens of war raids against notoriously-hardcore rival tribes like the Flathead and the Crow. One of her first real fights was against the Flatheads, who had snuck into Running Eagle's camp in the middle of the night and ganked a bunch of awesome horses. Running Eagle got revenge by leading a vengeance party to the edge of the enemy's base, sneaking in by herself, stealing 11 thoroughbred chargers, and then riding out singing awesome songs about how much she kicked ass. When the warriors of the tribe came riding hard after her, she twisted around on the horse, capped one dude with her rifle, then rode over to the guy's body, took his rifle, and started riding after the enemy dual-wielding rifles in a badass display of frontier asskicking. They ran for it, Running Eagle returned home victorious, and you know those three War Chief requirements that Joe Medicine Crow hit during World War II? This chick had just hit them all in the span of about fifteen minutes.
After this, and about a dozen more episodes involving blasting through enemy bases and riding home with the scalps of enemy warriors hanging from her stolen warhorses, this badass chick was sent on a spirit quest, and was given a man's name – this is when she officially became Running Eagle (she was Brown Weasel Woman up to this point, but since I prefer Running Eagle that's what I've been using), though as the only woman in the history of her tribe (and the only Native American woman I've ever heard of) to achieve this honor, she was also known as Holy Woman, Sun Dances, Girl Chief, and Medicine Girl – although the Flathead just called her Crazy Woman, which is still actually pretty awesome. Needless to say, she'd achieved true badass street cred with her peeps and enemies alike, which is admirable.
Running Eagle died a few years before 1850. She had been leading a war party against the hated Flatheads, and had become embroiled in a huge melee in the middle of a Flathead camp. After her five bravest warriors went down in combat, she was clubbed in the back of the head while knife-fighting another guy, dying on the spot. A few days later her allies rode out and killed six Flatheads in her honor.
The Blackfoot named a waterfall after her in Glacier Park, Montana, near the site where she saw her vision during her spirit quest. The waterfall was of course renamed by the white dudes who "discovered" it a few years later, but nowadays it's only known as Running Eagle Falls. It remains a sacred place to the people of the Blackfoot Tribe.
pic of running eagle is below,,,,
I posted her life here..she was a great woman of Indian Heritage,,she deserves at least this..
they all dooo. they were here first we took from them...this is their land..all of it..the whole of the us belonged to them..
show respect ..show respect..peacefully..show respect...
for those that wanna see pics..here..of others...
http://www.badassoftheweek.com/runningeagle.html
there ya go..
Running Eagle
Even before she was dancing around on the silver screen belting out beautiful melodies with Mel Gibson and some random, questionably-historically-accurate cartoon raccoon, it's pretty safe to say that the Indian princess Pocahontas is the most famous Native American woman in history. Ok, fine. I can live with that. I won't talk shit about Pocahontas, and sure, she was great at the whole stopping a war by preventing her comrades from clubbing John Smith's brains in and then going off, getting captured and being shipped back to England to die of European diseases thing, but with all due respect to the Virginia Algonquin (and perhaps Sergeant Esparza of Generation Kill fame), I typically tend to prefer women who spent more time bathing in the blood of their slain enemies and less time spinning around in a forest getting in touch with the spirits of the wilderness. But that's just me. And probably you, considering that you've chosen to read a website called Badass of the Week and not Adorable Kitty Cat of the Week.
So, long story short, for my money it doesn't get any better than Running Eagle – the Piegan Blackfoot Indian asskicking warrior-princess who routinely led war parties screaming into battle and once moked out two badass-as-fuck Crow warriors by riding full-throttle towards them on horseback with one rifle under each arm, guns blazing, until all that was left was a vapor trail of blood and an oil-slick of bullet-riddled human entrails where her dipshit enemies once dared to stand against her.
Even before she was dancing around on the silver screen belting out beautiful melodies with Mel Gibson and some random, questionably-historically-accurate cartoon raccoon, it's pretty safe to say that the Indian princess Pocahontas is the most famous Native American woman in history. Ok, fine. I can live with that. I won't talk shit about Pocahontas, and sure, she was great at the whole stopping a war by preventing her comrades from clubbing John Smith's brains in and then going off, getting captured and being shipped back to England to die of European diseases thing, but with all due respect to the Virginia Algonquin (and perhaps Sergeant Esparza of Generation Kill fame), I typically tend to prefer women who spent more time bathing in the blood of their slain enemies and less time spinning around in a forest getting in touch with the spirits of the wilderness. But that's just me. And probably you, considering that you've chosen to read a website called Badass of the Week and not Adorable Kitty Cat of the Week.
So, long story short, for my money it doesn't get any better than Running Eagle – the Piegan Blackfoot Indian asskicking warrior-princess who routinely led war parties screaming into battle and once moked out two badass-as-fuck Crow warriors by riding full-throttle towards them on horseback with one rifle under each arm, guns blazing, until all that was left was a vapor trail of blood and an oil-slick of bullet-riddled human entrails where her dipshit enemies once dared to stand against her.
The story of history's only female war chief is one of the most famous tales of heroic awesomeness among the people of the Blackfoot Tribe. Unfortunately, as is the case with many badass historical war stories that spent the first couple decades of their existence being passed down orally from generation to generation (huh huh), by the time this warrior-chick's tales of legendary face-obliterating asskicking were finally written down there naturally ended up being some minor discrepancies and nit-picky bullshit. Basically, we have two written versions of her story – one written by a white dude who was adopted into the Blackfoot tribe and claimed to have known her personally, and another by a warrior brave from a rival tribe who claimed he knew a guy that used to ride with her once and was allegedly friends with her brother's sister's cousin's former college roommate. Naturally, neither of these versions are totally reliable, and neither of them really sync up in any appreciable way, so I'll do my best to re-tell this story by taking the most bitchin' parts of both stories and fusing them together like a Lamborghini and a Ferrari being mashed into a solid brick by a junkyard car-crusher.
Running Eagle was born with the name Brown Weasel Woman, which is a significantly less flattering and graceful-sounding name than the one by which we currently know her, but hey, we all gotta start somewhere I guess. She was the eldest child of a respected warrior, though, naturally, as a woman, she got stuck with all the bullshit housework chores like washing dishes, doing laundry, and skinning buffalo carcasses with a knife so they could be cooked up on the Foreman grill. As you can probably imagine, our heroine quickly decided that this was the most bullshit thing of all time, and one day she went out to Warrior Practice and told her Dad to hit her up with a bow and arrow so that she could show those douchebag wannabe warriors the true meaning of badass archery. Dad was like, "OK dude whatevs LOL", and then immediately shit a brick when he realized that this teenage girl was the most dead-eye crack shot since Liam Neeson stone-cold capping that weirdo pedophile dude at the end of Taken. Despite the non-stop protests of her mother telling her to get her ass back in the kitchen, Running Eagle kept punking out on the dishes to take target practice, and before long the warriors of the tribe had adopted her as one of their own. By the time she was fifteen, this chick was already going out on buffalo hunts with the tribe, taking down the dangerous creatures with stone-cold efficiency and easily proving herself as competent as any warrior in the Great Plains.
One day, while out on a buffalo hunt, the small band of Blackfoot hunters were suddenly ambushed by a huge force of rival Flathead Indians, who came out of nowhere and started raining bullets and arrows on Running Eagle's party like a bunch of fucking assholes. Badly outnumbered and surrounded by flying death, the Blackfoot hunters turned and ran for it, but as they were hauling ass out of there some jackass shot Running Eagle's father's horse out from under him, sending her dad face-first to the turf at high speeds in an accident that either did or did not kill him (the sources differ on this, which is interesting because it hardly seems like the sort of detail you fuck up when you re-tell a story). Either way, Running Eagle knew she couldn't just waltz back home while her dad was out there surrounded by scalp-collecting enemy warriors, so, amazingly, she pulled the e-brake, banged a 90-degree U-turn on her horse, and ran back into the middle of the charging enemy, guns and/or arrows blazing. Once she'd driven the enemy back with a hail of projectile destruction she quickly dismounted, grabbed her father, chucked him on her horse, and then tore ass out of there with bullets and arrows and tomahawks whizzing past her head. Oh yeah, and she not only saved her dad, but she also remembered to unpack the fucking buffalo meat from his saddlebags and load it into hers so that she wouldn't come home empty-handed while the jackasses who capped her dad were off enjoying delicious buffalo jerky strips.
Well if Dad didn't die by GSW to the back of the skull, he did die shortly after this event of some other cause, leaving young Running Eagle alone to tend to her sickly mother, as well as her two brothers and two sisters. But as we've seen, this chick wasn't super-pumped about the whole housewifery thing, so she did something you don't usually see outside of the Northeastern states – since her display of balls-out awesomeness (probably not the right adjective, but you know what I'm trying to say) had earned her warrior brave status among her tribe, Running Eagle decided fuck it, I'm just going to take a "wife" to take care of my house for me while I'm out doing badass shit. So she hired a local widow (a woman who had been physically abused her now-dead husband and had no real interest in remarrying) to run shit on the homefront so Running Eagle could spend her time worrying about manly shit like hand-sharpening obsidian daggers, cleaning her rifle, and spitting tobacco juice while grabbing her crotch. Running Eagle actually never ended up marrying a man – she was worried that taking a husband would strip her of warrior cred, and since she was so badass in battle and on hunts nobody really fucked with her about it.
The closest anyone ever got was some random chieftain of the Blood Indians (which is a fucking rad name for a tribe, BTW), but when the two warmongering shit-stompers went on a raid together, Running Eagle captured 15 horses, killed three warriors with a knife, and came back with their scalps displayed prominently on her clothing, while Chief Blood only captured 10 horses and failed to kill a single enemy in battle. After seeing this miserable display of ball-sucking craptasm from a supposedly-hardcore war chief, Running Eagle basically just laughed in the dude's face and was all like, "Whatever chump, you're way too much of a raging wussbag to handle this hot sauce." According to legend, the dude spontaneously died of excruciating lameness shortly thereafter.
Carrying her dead father's rifle on the warpath in a Inigo Montoya-style homage to her fallen mentor, Running Eagle led the Blackfoot on dozens of war raids against notoriously-hardcore rival tribes like the Flathead and the Crow. One of her first real fights was against the Flatheads, who had snuck into Running Eagle's camp in the middle of the night and ganked a bunch of awesome horses. Running Eagle got revenge by leading a vengeance party to the edge of the enemy's base, sneaking in by herself, stealing 11 thoroughbred chargers, and then riding out singing awesome songs about how much she kicked ass. When the warriors of the tribe came riding hard after her, she twisted around on the horse, capped one dude with her rifle, then rode over to the guy's body, took his rifle, and started riding after the enemy dual-wielding rifles in a badass display of frontier asskicking. They ran for it, Running Eagle returned home victorious, and you know those three War Chief requirements that Joe Medicine Crow hit during World War II? This chick had just hit them all in the span of about fifteen minutes.
After this, and about a dozen more episodes involving blasting through enemy bases and riding home with the scalps of enemy warriors hanging from her stolen warhorses, this badass chick was sent on a spirit quest, and was given a man's name – this is when she officially became Running Eagle (she was Brown Weasel Woman up to this point, but since I prefer Running Eagle that's what I've been using), though as the only woman in the history of her tribe (and the only Native American woman I've ever heard of) to achieve this honor, she was also known as Holy Woman, Sun Dances, Girl Chief, and Medicine Girl – although the Flathead just called her Crazy Woman, which is still actually pretty awesome. Needless to say, she'd achieved true badass street cred with her peeps and enemies alike, which is admirable.
Running Eagle died a few years before 1850. She had been leading a war party against the hated Flatheads, and had become embroiled in a huge melee in the middle of a Flathead camp. After her five bravest warriors went down in combat, she was clubbed in the back of the head while knife-fighting another guy, dying on the spot. A few days later her allies rode out and killed six Flatheads in her honor.
The Blackfoot named a waterfall after her in Glacier Park, Montana, near the site where she saw her vision during her spirit quest. The waterfall was of course renamed by the white dudes who "discovered" it a few years later, but nowadays it's only known as Running Eagle Falls. It remains a sacred place to the people of the Blackfoot Tribe.
pic of running eagle is below,,,,
I posted her life here..she was a great woman of Indian Heritage,,she deserves at least this..
they all dooo. they were here first we took from them...this is their land..all of it..the whole of the us belonged to them..
show respect ..show respect..peacefully..show respect...
for those that wanna see pics..here..of others...
http://www.badassoftheweek.com/runningeagle.html
there ya go..
- Guest091813
- 12-05-2011, 09:44 AM
I agreed it a wonderful idea to dedicate this weeks BadAss to the 12 fireman that appeared at my building during our wire meltdown!! Thankyou for being crazy in a good way to come in and make sure we were all in one piece and making sure my family and neighbors felt safe and secure!!!!!Not only do you rock but your pretty f*ckin hott too!!!!!!! 
Ryan Cooper
As much as I love to write about hardcore, ball-shattering military commanders who completely flipped out and slaughtered tens of thousands of enemy combatants using nothing more than a claw hammer, a loaf of incredibly-stale French bread, and their own uncontrollable blood rage, it definitely bears mentioning that pretty much every human being on the face of the planet universally recognizes the fact that firefighters are unequivocally some of the greatest (and toughest) heroes alive. Seriously, have you ever heard anyone ever say something like, "I don't know man, firefighters are kind of pussies?" Hell no! That's because even though these guys don't spend their days punching fugitives' faces off, everybody knows that when the shit hits the fan and then spontaneously combusts into a massive fireball, these are the folks who are going to swoop in, plow through your front yard in a bright red truck, smash your window out with an awesome giant ladder, and save you from a painful, Joan of Arc-style demise.
I suppose it's probably inaccurate to say that firefighters "kick ass", since the main difference between firefighters and Vikings is that when you see a firefighter coming after you with a giant axe you generally feel relieved rather than terrified (that's usually a good thing), but the fact remains that these are the men and women who show up at the scene of pretty horrific shit, kick in the door with their giant fire-proof boots, and run screaming into a raging inferno of flaming to and save innocent people from pretty nasty cases of fatal smoke inhalation and/or death by burning. Sure, rescuing people from crushed automobiles, wrenching idiot swimmers from riptides, and plucking frightened housecats out of neighborhood trees doesn't always make for as interesting a story as the afore-mentioned master of baguette-related homicide, but nobody can deny the fact that while any dumbass with a set of matches and a can of lighter fluid can start a fire, it takes real cast-iron guts and ball-busting courage to run into a burning building, throw a bunch of injured and dying people out the window, escape with your life, and then turn around and fight the towering, out-of-control Conflagration of Death armed with nothing more than an oversized rubber hose and a thin plexiglass face shield.
Plus, I have it on pretty good authority that most women think that firefighters are pretty hot, and I'm not just talking about the dudes who are standing in the middle of these burning buildings. This may not have any bearing on anything, but I thought I'd throw that out there anyways, because it's my unsubstantiated assumption that firemen probably have little to no trouble meeting girls. I mean, there just aren't a whole lot of professions out there that can make you instantly attractive simply by going to work, so when you do come across something like that it's generally worth noting.
read on...
http://badassoftheweek.com/cooper.html
Ryan Cooper
As much as I love to write about hardcore, ball-shattering military commanders who completely flipped out and slaughtered tens of thousands of enemy combatants using nothing more than a claw hammer, a loaf of incredibly-stale French bread, and their own uncontrollable blood rage, it definitely bears mentioning that pretty much every human being on the face of the planet universally recognizes the fact that firefighters are unequivocally some of the greatest (and toughest) heroes alive. Seriously, have you ever heard anyone ever say something like, "I don't know man, firefighters are kind of pussies?" Hell no! That's because even though these guys don't spend their days punching fugitives' faces off, everybody knows that when the shit hits the fan and then spontaneously combusts into a massive fireball, these are the folks who are going to swoop in, plow through your front yard in a bright red truck, smash your window out with an awesome giant ladder, and save you from a painful, Joan of Arc-style demise.
I suppose it's probably inaccurate to say that firefighters "kick ass", since the main difference between firefighters and Vikings is that when you see a firefighter coming after you with a giant axe you generally feel relieved rather than terrified (that's usually a good thing), but the fact remains that these are the men and women who show up at the scene of pretty horrific shit, kick in the door with their giant fire-proof boots, and run screaming into a raging inferno of flaming to and save innocent people from pretty nasty cases of fatal smoke inhalation and/or death by burning. Sure, rescuing people from crushed automobiles, wrenching idiot swimmers from riptides, and plucking frightened housecats out of neighborhood trees doesn't always make for as interesting a story as the afore-mentioned master of baguette-related homicide, but nobody can deny the fact that while any dumbass with a set of matches and a can of lighter fluid can start a fire, it takes real cast-iron guts and ball-busting courage to run into a burning building, throw a bunch of injured and dying people out the window, escape with your life, and then turn around and fight the towering, out-of-control Conflagration of Death armed with nothing more than an oversized rubber hose and a thin plexiglass face shield.
Plus, I have it on pretty good authority that most women think that firefighters are pretty hot, and I'm not just talking about the dudes who are standing in the middle of these burning buildings. This may not have any bearing on anything, but I thought I'd throw that out there anyways, because it's my unsubstantiated assumption that firemen probably have little to no trouble meeting girls. I mean, there just aren't a whole lot of professions out there that can make you instantly attractive simply by going to work, so when you do come across something like that it's generally worth noting.
read on...
http://badassoftheweek.com/cooper.html
- offshoredrilling
- 12-05-2011, 10:27 AM
ya I felt like that yesterday in fact. But the danger was of a different type. And not as bad.
- Guest091813
- 12-21-2011, 07:23 AM
Im gonna do a few throughout the holiday season..just for shits and giggles... I like to call them classics...
- Guest091813
- 12-21-2011, 07:27 AM
Darth Vader
Darth Vader - the Darth Vader that I grew up with – the diabolically evil cyborg killing machine from the Original Star Wars Trilogy – was one of the meanest, most sinister, badass motherfucking characters in the history of cinema. Before the prequels went and gave him some fruity bullshit backstory, The Dark Lord of the Sith was universally feared and respected by anyone who was a fan of science-fiction, movies, or things that don’t suck, and his mere presence was enough to make friend and foe alike tremble with awe and maybe even urinate themselves a little bit.
One of the greatest things about Darth Vader was that he was so mysterious. Nobody knew what lurked beneath his black helmet, how he became the robotic monster that he was, or how he was corrupted to the Dark Side, and nobody really gave a shit. It was more than enough for us that this fucking seven foot-tall, hulking behemoth barely resembling a man showed up in his black armor, threatened people in James Earl Jones’ imposing voice, and choked the fucking life out of any motherfuckers who displeased him while awesome music played in the background. He was powerful, scary, and certainly not to be trifled with.
Vader also epitomizes badassitude in that when it’s time to lay the smack down he doesn’t fuck around for any reason. He doesn’t do crazy backflips or spin kicks or any of that ridiculous showy bullshit – he’s just big, tough, and strong. His fighting style utilizes his massive size and unmatched strength to beat down his enemies and batter their defenses until they are unable to continue fighting. You can kind of see this in how Vader wipes the floor with Obi-Wan (“your powers are weak, old man!”) and in how he toys with Skywalker at the end of Empire – Luke goes into Bespin thinking that he’s really hot shit, but it’s obvious that Vader could ruin his ass in an instant if he wanted to. Instead he decides to let Luke live (he does lop his hand off just to show Luke where his fucking place is) and tries to see if he can turn his son to the Dark Side of the Force so that together they can rule the Galaxy. This is a perfect example of why Vader is the ultimate badass villain; Sure, it’s one thing to just destroy this kid for foolishly thinking he can take you on, but it’s a whole new layer of evil to seriously wound him, crush his entire world by revealing your paternal relationship to him, and then use his severe emotional distress as a means to turn him over to the side of evil.
Of course even though Vader knows it’s more strategically advantageous to convert your enemy over to your side, he certainly doesn’t have any compunction about callously crushing the sack of anyone who crosses him. Vader’s ultimate evil and mastery of the Dark Side is another means of showing how much fucking ass he can kick. Seriously, Force Choke has to be one of the coolest fucking powers around. I know that Force Lightning is the sexier power amongst most nerds out there, but you can only shock the crap out of someone who is in the same room as you – Vader can Force Choke a guy through a goddamned cameraphone, which is fucking NUTS! Plus, his strength makes him a tough matchup for most Jedi Knights when it comes to one-on-one lightsaber duels, as would be evidenced by the fact that Darth Vader is alluded to as being pretty much solely responsible for the destruction of the entire Jedi Order. Basically, Vader is big, intimidating, and deadlier than an underwater electric chair.
Darth Vader is eventually redeemed when he turns on his master and hurls the Emperor into Mount Doom in order to save his son from death by painfully-slow electrocution. Sure, turning traitor isn’t exactly badass, but the end of Jedi when the half-melted head of Anakin Skywalker tells Luke that there was still some good left in him is probably the most touching scene in cinema history, and goes to show that Vader is more than just an imposing visage and the physical embodiment of pure evil. Plus, now that he’s redeemed he gets to party in the afterlife with Yoda and Obi-Wan, which is awesome. I bet Yoda makes awesome margaritas.
Darth Vader is an enduring icon of what it means to be badass, and a character that still conjures up feelings of respect, awe, and fear thirty years after his first appearance on the screen. He hacks people’s limbs off, he chokes the life out of anyone who fucks with him either with his bare hands or through the medium of the Force, and he doesn’t fuck around when it comes to serving as the vengeful hand of the Galactic Empire bent on exterminating all who would dare oppose its glorious reign. He fucking rocks.
Darth Vader - the Darth Vader that I grew up with – the diabolically evil cyborg killing machine from the Original Star Wars Trilogy – was one of the meanest, most sinister, badass motherfucking characters in the history of cinema. Before the prequels went and gave him some fruity bullshit backstory, The Dark Lord of the Sith was universally feared and respected by anyone who was a fan of science-fiction, movies, or things that don’t suck, and his mere presence was enough to make friend and foe alike tremble with awe and maybe even urinate themselves a little bit.
One of the greatest things about Darth Vader was that he was so mysterious. Nobody knew what lurked beneath his black helmet, how he became the robotic monster that he was, or how he was corrupted to the Dark Side, and nobody really gave a shit. It was more than enough for us that this fucking seven foot-tall, hulking behemoth barely resembling a man showed up in his black armor, threatened people in James Earl Jones’ imposing voice, and choked the fucking life out of any motherfuckers who displeased him while awesome music played in the background. He was powerful, scary, and certainly not to be trifled with.
Vader also epitomizes badassitude in that when it’s time to lay the smack down he doesn’t fuck around for any reason. He doesn’t do crazy backflips or spin kicks or any of that ridiculous showy bullshit – he’s just big, tough, and strong. His fighting style utilizes his massive size and unmatched strength to beat down his enemies and batter their defenses until they are unable to continue fighting. You can kind of see this in how Vader wipes the floor with Obi-Wan (“your powers are weak, old man!”) and in how he toys with Skywalker at the end of Empire – Luke goes into Bespin thinking that he’s really hot shit, but it’s obvious that Vader could ruin his ass in an instant if he wanted to. Instead he decides to let Luke live (he does lop his hand off just to show Luke where his fucking place is) and tries to see if he can turn his son to the Dark Side of the Force so that together they can rule the Galaxy. This is a perfect example of why Vader is the ultimate badass villain; Sure, it’s one thing to just destroy this kid for foolishly thinking he can take you on, but it’s a whole new layer of evil to seriously wound him, crush his entire world by revealing your paternal relationship to him, and then use his severe emotional distress as a means to turn him over to the side of evil.
Of course even though Vader knows it’s more strategically advantageous to convert your enemy over to your side, he certainly doesn’t have any compunction about callously crushing the sack of anyone who crosses him. Vader’s ultimate evil and mastery of the Dark Side is another means of showing how much fucking ass he can kick. Seriously, Force Choke has to be one of the coolest fucking powers around. I know that Force Lightning is the sexier power amongst most nerds out there, but you can only shock the crap out of someone who is in the same room as you – Vader can Force Choke a guy through a goddamned cameraphone, which is fucking NUTS! Plus, his strength makes him a tough matchup for most Jedi Knights when it comes to one-on-one lightsaber duels, as would be evidenced by the fact that Darth Vader is alluded to as being pretty much solely responsible for the destruction of the entire Jedi Order. Basically, Vader is big, intimidating, and deadlier than an underwater electric chair.
Darth Vader is eventually redeemed when he turns on his master and hurls the Emperor into Mount Doom in order to save his son from death by painfully-slow electrocution. Sure, turning traitor isn’t exactly badass, but the end of Jedi when the half-melted head of Anakin Skywalker tells Luke that there was still some good left in him is probably the most touching scene in cinema history, and goes to show that Vader is more than just an imposing visage and the physical embodiment of pure evil. Plus, now that he’s redeemed he gets to party in the afterlife with Yoda and Obi-Wan, which is awesome. I bet Yoda makes awesome margaritas.
Darth Vader is an enduring icon of what it means to be badass, and a character that still conjures up feelings of respect, awe, and fear thirty years after his first appearance on the screen. He hacks people’s limbs off, he chokes the life out of anyone who fucks with him either with his bare hands or through the medium of the Force, and he doesn’t fuck around when it comes to serving as the vengeful hand of the Galactic Empire bent on exterminating all who would dare oppose its glorious reign. He fucking rocks.