People are always looking for heroes in tv and the movies – someone who fights crime, kicks a lot of tail, saves the good guys, and waxes the bad guys. Superheroes are great, because they always have crazy-cool powers like the ability to melt your face with one dirty look, climb all over the place on any surface and shoot webbing, shoot lightning from the fingers, and especially the ability to fly. But those types of heroes are NOT the ones I’m referring to today.
Today I’m talking about the best-of-the-best in original badassery. Men with no help from super powers. Men who have been (although fictionally) trained and tested again and again, yet still manage to look danger square in the face, give it a big middle finger, and then proceed to kick it square in the nuts and put it in a sleeper hold until it passes out. They are efficient, have no fear, and never hesitate to put their lives on the line for what is right.
The question is: who is the baddest of the bad? No funky gadgets, no radio intelligence, no stupid made-up weapons or abilities. Which one of these men has the most raw ability to kick the others’ asses into next Friday? I’m about to tell you why Jack Bauer would eat Jason Bourne AND James Bond for lunch, and even save room for dessert. First, let’s look at each résumé just to show that I’m [kind of, but not really] trying to be neutral about this.
Born in Pennsylvania in 1966, Bauer quickly realized that following his (backstabbing) father, Philip, into the family business was not for him. He earned his Bachelor’s Degree in English Lit. and Arts from UCLA, and a Master’s Degree in Criminology and Law from UC Berkeley. After that, he joined the army, and after a few years, was accepted into the army’s most elite unit, the 1st Special Forces Operational Detachment – Delta, more commonly known as Delta Force. During his time with Delta Force, Bauer earned the Silver Star, Purple Heart and the Legion of Merit; all extremely honorable, and all earned at extremely high stakes. As if that wasn’t bad ass enough, Jack decided that he should retire from the Army before the world ran out of bad guys to kill in such a quick way. He prefers taking out his enemies slowly and methodically, most of the time involving torture He ALWAYS gets the information he needs, if he’s allowed to interrogate uninterrupted. I digress. After retiring as a Captain and [unofficially] the best Delta Force member ever, Jack moved to Los Angeles’ SWAT team, where I’m sure he killed a whole lot more bad guys, saved a whole lot more innocent people, and struck utter fear into the heart of any would-be criminal in that God-forsaken city. He then moved back up to the CIA, where he served as a case officer in the clandestine service. I can only imagine that he worked in secret because if criminals knew he was still out there, they would undoubtedly stop committing crime, putting thousands upon thousands of law enforcement officers out of business. Jack did this as a favor to us all. Thank you, Mr. Bauer. During his time in the CIA, Bauer was recruited to CTU, the USA’s most elite stateside counter-terrorist organization. He worked in the Los Angeles branch, (undoubtedly the craziest one, obviously because they made a television show about it). During his time at CTU, Bauer was repeatedly referred to as their “best agent.” Jack is extremely proficient in the usage of any and all types of firearms, explosives, various forms of technology, tactical knowledge/execution, resistance to interrogation, interrogation techniques, amongst many other things. He also speaks Russian, Spanish, and Serbian; and can fly a plane and a helicopter, probably both at the same time.
Born as David Webb, much of this guy’s past is a mystery, which only leads me to believe he doesn’t have a history worth noting. It only makes sense. Here’s a likely back story for Jason Bourne/David Webb. He grew up in a regular suburban home with regular parents. They made him do ridiculous things like ballet class to help his terrible posture due to the scoliosis he probably suffered from for nearly his entire childhood. Here‘s a good idea of what he probably looked like as a child because of that scoliosis. He also probably took sewing classes, cooking classes (not that either of those are gay, just not typical of a “bad ass” person’s résumé), and I bet, judging by his fighting style, he took a breakdancing class or two.
Here’s a big problem that I have with Jason Bourne/David Webb. There is so much confusion and inconsistency in his story, I don’t know what to believe, so we’ll go strictly from the “movie” Jason Bourne. In the book, it has David Webb participating in the Vietnam War. In the movie, David Webb is born right in the middle of it, in 1970. He joined the army (no college degree) and eventually was recruited to be a Green Beret (not as good as Delta Force). Then things got dark for Webb/Bourne. He was recruited to do this black-ops mission for the corrupt government, basically killing whoever they told him to kill, no questions asked. He turned cold and hard. As the last part of training to do this terrible deed, he was ordered to kill a man who was sitting in the corner with a hood over his head. Webb was tortured until he followed the order and stopped asking questions. He didn’t even know who the guy was; he just killed him because he was told to. No concept of right and wrong. Anyway, that is when he “became” Jason Bourne. It’s a surprise this man isn’t schizophrenic. Working with the CIA, he became proficient in hand-to-hand combat; there’s no arguing with that. He also speaks more than half a dozen languages fluently. Congratulations, Mr. Bourne/Webb/Whoever-you-want-to-be-today, you can ask anybody to pass the salt in just about any region of the world. He also knows how to use many weapons, just like Jack Bauer; and also, just like Bauer, has shown MacGyver-like improvisational abilities when faced with a tough situation. Enough about this douchebag for now.
If you click the link, you’ll notice that the James Bond that I chose is the Daniel Craig version. Admittedly, I am no James Bond expert. I didn’t grow up seeing Sir Sean Connery grace the silver screen as the 007 Agent, but I have seen some of those movies, and in my personal opinion, he just doesn’t fit the image of James Bond that I have in my head. I think he was too old at the time. Pierce Brosnan showed a lot of promise, but then his movies sucked. Daniel Craig, however, is young, fit, a smooth talker, handsome, and quite cocky in his role as Bond. To me, he embodies all that is “James Bond, 007.” Anyway, I just wanted to address that.
While he is the consummate gentleman (and that, he is), this one is pretty simple. Formally, Commander Sir James Bond is an agent in the British Secret Intelligence Service, aka MI6. He is easily the most fictional of these three characters. He is an ideal spy, created as a result of blending desired qualities from many different points of inspiration. He has all kinds of crazy gadgets that, to my knowledge, don’t practially exist in any form – classified or not. Without these gadgets, Bond is simply a man with significant military training, significant fitness, and he’s also pretty smart. Nowhere near, however, the level of Jack Bauer or even Abdul al-Assir, aka Giussepe Contina, aka John Davidson, aka David Webb, aka Jason Bourne. Make up your damn mind. Yes, I made those all up.
Bond does, however, have a few character traits that bump him back up to this level. First, he drinks martinis, and he knows how he likes them. Martinis are a classy man’s drink. There’s simply nothing like Gin (or vodka, Bond enjoys vodka martinis on occasion, and even vodka with gin martinis), vermouth, and an olive (or lemon peel). Personally, the peak of this all is the Vesper, the drink created by Bond, named in honor of Vesper Lynd, the Bond-Girl in Casino Royale (and ironically enough, the ***** that double crossed Bond and shattered any chance of him ever having feelings again). Second thing, and this goes along with the previous parenthetic phrase, he is a cold-hearted bastard and kills whoever needs to be killed. He never gets clouded by emotion, unless that emotion is rage. He is efficient, sometimes bends the rules to accomplish what needs to be done – and he pays the price – but he always finishes his missions. Lastly, he always, always, ALWAYS gets the girl, or should I say, girls. While womanizing isn’t a practice that I support or participate in, for some reason, people believe it makes men more manly. If that were the case, James Bond would be the manliest man to ever fictionally grace the Earth with his presence.
These things, however, do nothing for Bond in this argument, so he is eliminated, probably by Bauer and Bourne at the same time.
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And then there were two…
So here’s what we have left. Two men. Both highly trained in hand-to-hand combat. Both with extensive munitions training. Both with extremely exceptional improvisational skills. Both men are able to think laterally, to see a situation beyond the present. Both will risk his life for a just cause. What can separate these two? Well, a few things. What kind of quality person are we dealing with when we consider each one individually? Let’s break it down one last time…
Most people in any season of 24 consider Jack a rogue agent, a wild card with unpredictability beyond belief. Those people are ignorant. Currently, on season 7, FBI Agent Larry Moss is that person. He continues to piss me off every single episode with his disregard for Jack being right, albeit unorthodox. The point of that argument is this: Jack Bauer’s judgement is unsurpassed. He has been hardened by years of torture – physical and mental. While he still is a compassionate person, when it comes to getting any job done, Jack Bauer has proven again and again – to multiple presidents – that he is the man to call upon. The best part is that he keeps the number of civilian casualties to a bare minimum. Sure, that may not have an impact in a Bauer vs. Bourne fight, but we’re looking at intangibles here. I firmly believe that is all that can separate the two at this point. Next, Jack Bauer fights for a purpose. Research (that I made up) shows that people who fight for a purpose have a 98.7% success rate (Hitler failed eventually, although his purpose was terrible, it was still a purpose); as opposed to a mere 14.4% success rate for those who just fight to “figure out who they are.” Look at the numbers, Bourne. Read ‘em and weep. Not only does Jack fight for a purpose, but his purpose is good, and he always manages to get the mission accomplished… which is the perfect segue to my next point. How does Jack Bauer always seem to work things out? The answer is easy. He surrounds himself with the right people. He only trusts a certain [very] few people, and those people rarely fail him. George Mason gave his life saving Jack’s and a lot of people’s in LA as well. Chloe and Morris O’Brien are Jack’s go-to tech people. And when Jack is looking for someone to have his back in the field, it doesn’t get much better than Tony Almeida or Bill Buchanan (who courageously gave his life in the most recent episode to save the president and many hostages, including Jack. Whose plan was it? Jack’s plan. Rest in peace, Bill). Jack Bauer is not only more-than-able physically, he possesses many intangible “x-factors” as well which give him quite an advantage. To be fair, let’s consider the intangibles of Jason Bourne…
In response to the previous paragraph, you may be thinking “Jason Bourne is fighting for a purpose: to figure out who he is and kill the people responsible for making him such a monster.” To that, I say, “How selfish could someone be???” Jack Bauer fights for a purpose outside of himself; the most patriotic purpose: his country. Jason Bourne fights people for two reasons: 1. to get to the guy responsible for his apparent schizophrenia. 2. out of self defense because every other person he sees is trying to kill him. I can’t blame him for the second reason, but seriously, the first reason is sort of selfish. Just get over yourself, bro. On to my next point… I’ll pose a question. What is the fastest way to get killed when you’re in a hostile environment? I will answer that question with another question. What do your parents tell you if you’re going to be out late or in a shady part of town? There is strength in numbers. They don’t just make this stuff up. I can understand the mantra of many, stating ”if you want something done right, do it yourself,” but Bourne takes it a little too far, I think. He goes alone with almost everything, except for that Julia Stiles girl helping him out, I guess, but she just creates diversions. Pretty sure my cousin’s two-year-old could do that. In any military environment, when in the course of history has any person commanded a marine/soldier/seaman (yes i said it) to do anything alone??? I’ll tell you when. Never. Even USMC scout snipers have partners (spotters). You get my point. And I can even predict your next argument. Jason Bourne is still alive, isn’t he? Sure he is. So was Jack Bauer after the sixth hour of his first season. Think about this. Sure, Jason Bourne hit the silver screen not once, not twice, but thrice. That’s great. That makes, what, about 6, maybe 7 hours of screen time. The rest is left up to our imagination. I am forced to assume that any time that passes off-screen or in between movies, Jason Bourne is somewhere either eating, sleeping, or taking a dump. If it were anything more important than that, it would have made it on-screen. Jack Bauer, on the other hand, has had 157 hours (6 seasons plus 13 hours thus far in season 7) of screen time. Actually, if you count 24: Redemption, the made-for-tv movie, Jack has 159 action hours. Jack has just as many seasons of a show (which, obviously, each season is 24 real-time hours) as Jason has hours on the big screen. I wonder which one is doing more interesting things…
“But wait. There were 2251471 books written about Jason Bourne! Those take much longer to read than watching 7 seasons of 24.” Who cares? Nobody reads that much anymore. If this were a debate about which book character is better, I wouldn’t even be writing it, because it wouldn’t matter! Nobody cares about those books, and if you are holding on to that argument as your trump card, you lose. This is my blog. Deal with it.
One last intangible. Jack Bauer has character and spares innocent lives as best he can. I’ll quote my brother, Jeremy. He’s a marine. (so he knows his stuff). ”I have to go with Jason Bourne. Jack Bauer gets all the props in the world but just like you said, Bauer’s weakness is that he has values and would risk himself to save others. Bourne is an expert in buddy f***ing or as we call them blue falcons, just to save his own ass so in the end he would look out for himself and kill Jack Bauer and probably a busload of deaf school children in the process.”
It’s hard to disagree with that logic, especially from a marine, but I think it would go a little bit differently. Jack Bauer’s weakness – or in this situation, his strongest advantage – is his set of values. He doesn’t let innocent people die if he is directly involved. Jason Bourne would “kill” Jack Bauer, and that busload of deaf school children. But what he doesn’t know, is that Jack is faking his death (yet again), and the busload of deaf school children is a decoy, filled with mannequins (hence the appearance of them being deaf). As Bourne is walking away into the sunset, or whatever, Jack Bauer would wait until the moment presents itself, and he would rise from his own ashes, take Bourne by surprise, and kill him in such a way that I can’t describe it, for fear of the federal government reading this blog and coming to my house to arrest me. He just can’t be stopped. It’s a good argument, Jeremy, but it goes against my argument. And in my argument, Jack Bauer wins. And I’m the one writing this. So, I’m sorry.
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Sure, the amount of action one has experienced in the past might not have much bearing on what they would do in a fight against one another, but it kind of does. Experience is important. Jack has much more in that category. Jason Bourne has been ordered to kill a lot of people. Jack Bauer does it to accomplish a mission. If you live through a Jack Bauer encounter, it’s because he wanted it that way. I think I’ve finally made my point, but I’ll leave you with two final, related thoughts. Let’s look at the actors representing these characters.
1. Jack Bauer - There is only one Jack Bauer, and that is Kiefer Sutherland. Sutherland has been in all kinds of bad-ass roles from his role as David the vampire in The Lost Boys to Doc Scurlock in Young Guns and Young Guns II to KKK member Freddie Lee Cobb in A Time to Kill to the crazy caller/killer in Phone Booth; and then to the consummate role of Jack Bauer. Pretty impressive résumé, Mr. Sutherland. Not to mention he is notorious in Hollywood for being one of the craziest actors around and probably needs serious AA intervention. That may be a bad thing, but watch this and tell me you’re not amused/impressed. Also, his dad is Donald Sutherland, and he is pretty cool too.
2. Jason Bourne - This one is kind of funny. I’ll start with the most recent. Obviously, in most people’s mind, Matt Damon is the real Jason Bourne. I think that, alone, should tell you something. He has played many roles in bad-ass movies. The problem is, he was never really the “bad-ass.” In Good Will Hunting, I’ll admit, he was good. It’s in the name. He needed saved in Saving Private Ryan, he was the bastard, dirty cop in The Departed and (*spoiler alert*) he died in the end, deservingly. He was in the Oceans movies, but all they did was rob some casinos or whatever. Not nearly the résumé of my man Kiefer up there. There is, however, one fact I shant overlook. There have actually been two Jason Bournes. Matt Damon played him in the modern movies, but in the made-for-tv verson of The Bourne Identity from 1988, the original Jason Bourne was played by a gay guy. If nothing else in this entire argument has swayed your decision, that fact should. I mean come on.
If you still think Jason Bourne is the baddest dude ever, and you’ll probably argue with this scene in mind, I will never believe you. Sure, that scene is an amazing fight scene. To me, though, it just looks like two evenly matched guys. They are great fighters, don’t get me wrong, but the only reason it lasts so long is because they are almost equal (obviously Bourne wins the fight). Jack Bauer would have killed the guy before he even entered the room. Don’t ask me how. I don’t know, because I’m not Jack Bauer. But I’m glad someone is. The (fictional) world is a safer place with him around.
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Footnote – Apparently, one of the requirements for being such a badass includes having the initials JB. I was so close. But I guess almost doesn’t count. And apparently, everybody knows that.
