Top 10 Most Badass Fictional Fathers of All Time

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Fathers. You may love them or you may be super, super PO’d at them, but the fact remains: We wouldn’t be here without them.

                Unless ladies start figuring out how to reproduce like a hydra and just start having small people bud off of them.

                But completely reorganizing their bodies’ basic chemistry and makeup will probably take women, I don’t know, like a few years or something so we should be safe for a little while, fellas.  

                And so since women are stuck with us for the time being and since today is the day god ordained as a celebration of all things fatherhood, I decided it was the right time for a list.

                At first I was going to do, best fathers, but that would be too easy since my dad would win and I would come in second. Suck it Abe Lincoln, I’ve got two cats and they really like me.

                In order to make things a little more challenging, I went decided to go down the fictional father avenue. But not just best or most inspiring or something lame like that. Instead, I’ll be building my list on the most basic, cornerstone trait of any successful father: badass-ness.

                And so here they are, the Ten Most Badass Fictional Fathers of all time:     

          

10.) Ned Stark (“Game of Thrones”) Mufassa (“The Lion King”) tie  

                Each is a great and caring leader in a harsh world. They’re fierce when they need to be, but they also understand being a leader isn’t just about massacring gazelle or chopping off heads. The only problem? Both get killed off before they can complete the teaching process, leaving their sons to go off and finish learning those lessons on their own, in the real world. Sometimes that goes well and sometimes, you end up dead with a wolf’s head stapled to your neck.    

9.) Randy Marsh (“South Park”)

                Usually a couple of times a season something will go horribly wrong in the town of South Park, CO and only the world’s most notorious geologist can set it right. Randy’s highlights include, battling the fearsome and youth-sport obsessed Bat-dad, battling his demons and low prices at Wal-Mart and turning in to Jack Nicholson from “The Shining” after purchasing a Blockbuster.

8.) Homer Simpson (“The Simpsons”)

                Homer riding that motorcycle around the dome in “The Simpsons Movie” is pretty badass. Homer duking it out with Mike Tyson after coming down to the ring to the tune of “Why Can’t We Be Friends?” is also badass. But without a doubt, Homer’s most badass move is sacrificing his dream job to stay at the power plant so he can support his growing-family. Turning a sign his boss put up to crush his spirit (“Don’t forget, you’re here forever”)  into an uplifting message (“Do it for her”) is like a Mike Tyson punch to the soul.

7.) Michael Corleone (“The Godfather”).

Sure, everybody remembers Vito as the powerful crime lord from “The Godfather.” However, as badass as Vito was, Michael has him beat. Michael started the movie as a college boy, completely unversed in the ways of his family’s business. By the climax, he ends New York City’s mob war by killing off every one of his enemies, all without missing his own son’s christening.  

6.) Bryan Mills (“Taken”)

                Human-traffickers everywhere took note after this movie came out: Be careful not to kidnap the daughters of any former CIA operatives. Because if you do, he will single-handedly dismantle your entire organization in order to get her back. And by dismantle, I mean brutally maim, torture and kill. So yeah, background checks are an often-overlooked part of kidnapping.

5.) Man (“The Road”)

                This guy is leading his son through what can only be described as the bleakest, most post-apocalyptic-y landscape ever imagined. An unnamed event has destroyed the planet, society has broken down and this guy’s totally threw in the towel on like day two and killed herself. The man and his son forage for food, dodge cannibals and basically just try to survive. On top of that, the man does whatever he can to cling to any last threads of hope that everything will one day be OK, for his son’s sake, even if all the odds are stacked firmly against that.

4.) T-Rex (“The Lost World: Jurassic Park”)

                Switching gears slightly, high up on the list of dinosaurs’ whose kids you don’t want to mess with is the T-Rex. It’s big, it’s mean, it will destroy your fancy pants camper and totally through it off of a cliff in a rain storm without even breaking a sweat. The T-Rex from “Lost World” gains points because it could literally eat everyone else on this list in one bite. It losses points because there were two T-Rexes in the movie, and I couldn’t exactly be sure which one was the dad most of the time.

3.) Kyle Reese (“The Terminator”)

                As far as the process of actually becoming a father, you know, that whole mixing a sperm and an egg thing went, no one worked harder than Kyle Reese. The man traveled back in time to before he himself had even been born just to bang Sarah so she could give birth to humanity’s savior. Oh yeah, and while he was there, he went toe-to-toe with a heavily armored murdering robot from the future. Kind of puts that whole “Getting lucky in the back seat of a car” thing into perspective.

2.) Jack Bauer (“24”)

                For eight years Jack has balanced keeping his family and American democracy alive and well. That didn’t work out so great for his wife, but it worked out splendidly for his daughter, Kim. Jack has destroyed countless terror cells, he’s pissed off pretty much every country on the globe save for probably Canada and yet he’s still always able to find time to swoop in and drag Kim, sometimes kicking and screaming, out of danger.  

1.) Anakin Skywalker (“Star Wars” franchise)

Things between Anakin and his kids weren’t always very rosy. He started out torturing them, trying to kill them, cutting off limbs here and there. But once he warmed up to the idea of fatherhood, everything changed. He killed his dickhead boss, ended the galactic empire and sacrificed himself, all for their good. And let’s face it gents, if you showed up at this guy’s door for a date with his daughter and he’s sitting there polishing a lightsaber on the porch, you are going to be on your absolute best behavior all night. (“I sense a great disturbance in the Force, like someone forgetting where his hands belong during slow dances. By the way, did I tell you what I did to my own son’s hand? Have fun kids.”)