Of what measure is a badass?

[seawasp]

We're having a discussion of badassery. My wife disagrees that Steve Austin, the Six Million Dollar Man, is a badass. I think he is.

What do the rest of you think, and why?

Comments

[jeriendhal.livejournal.com]

Badass. Parachuting out of a helicopter above an exploding killer Venus probe doesn't get much more than that.

[xander-opal.livejournal.com]

Badass. He keeps pushing on, even when his body tries to quit on him-- ie, extreme cold or near-space radiation making his cybernetics weaken or go haywire.

[brownkitty.livejournal.com]

Kinda. He seems too nice to be a badass, but as far as the physical abilities and the lack of hesitation, definitely a badass.

[kengr]

This.

[dsrtao]

He has the writers on his side too much to be a badass. He might have been one before the crash and cyborg conversion, though.

All three of the leading men in _Human Target_ were badasses. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Human_Target_%282010_TV_series%29

Ramirez, the Kurgan and MacLeod were all badass.

Schwarzenegger's peak badass was in _Predator_.

John MacLain was a badass in the first Die Hard.

[sinanju.livejournal.com]

I'd say that Steve Austin is a badass. On the other hand, I'm strongly influenced by the Steve Austin of Martin Caiden's novel, Cyborg. A novel I'd still recommend, even all these years later. THAT guy was definitely a badass. The tv incarnation isn't quite as badass, but he's close. Military pilot, test pilot, astronaut (last man to walk on the moon, per canon), survivor of a horrific crash*, was able to recover, adapt to having *extensive* modifications of his body, and resume working for the US government as a field agent? Yeah. Badass.

*I still am amazed to know that the guy who actually piloted that flying brick they showed crashing in the opening credits of the show week after week...walked away without a scratch.

**In the novel they replaced most of his ribs (crushed in the crash), reinforced his skull, replaced teeth, and on and on and on. And in the novel, as opposed to the series, his bionic eye looked real and tracked with his other eye, and functioned as a (still image) camera, but he couldn't actually see out of it. One of the big plot points in the novel was Steve's first flight after the crash, when he had to adjust to his new lack of stereo vision.

[seawasp]

Actually, he was rushed to a hospital and while he recovered, he did lose one eye (staphylococcal infection after injury).

The Steve Austin in the book was something more of a jerk, too.

[sinanju.livejournal.com]

Yeah? I guess I remembered wrong, but still he mostly survived it. Which is still amazing.

As for book-Steve being a bit a jerk, yeah. But he was a macho fighter/test pilot, so a bit of that isn't surprising.

[anton-p-nym.livejournal.com]

He was a hotshot pilot with a lot of personal vanity. After the crash, he developed huge, huge body image issues which fuelled a lot of the jerk behaviour. IIRC TV-Austin experienced some of the same in the first season but, as did book-Austin after the first book to a lesser degree, mellowed out after coming to terms with the advantages that came with the changes.

-- Steve remembers the TV show's opening sequence scared the crap outta him as a kid; it was too easy to this Steve to put himself into that Steve's surgical gown, and pain hurts.

[julesjones]

My reaction as well. Also that book-Austin was a bit of a jerk, with some reason.

[Amazons] Rats. I'd like to read the book again, but not 20 quid's worth of liking.

[doug grimes (from livejournal.com)]

Moderately badass, but then you read about reallife badasses, and it all goes away - http://www.badassoftheweek.com

[dragoness-e.livejournal.com]

He could have been, but he was played by Lee Majors, who is way too bland white bread to properly convey "badass" to me.

Now a character I do consider badass with an actor that pulls off badassery is John from "Person of Interest".

[isleburroughs.livejournal.com]

I agree with your wife. He kicked badass's asses or is it badasses' asses:D