Some of the best TV shows on the air are the ones that allow you to just occasionally sit back and say “holy shit, what WON’T this guy do?” Whether it’s extreme bravery, extreme evil or just general kick ass toughness, the following five characters are some of the most incredible bad asses ever to hit the small screen.  The kicker?  All five of these characters have died at least once in the show’s history.  When you can literally die and then still come back to kick some ass, you know you’ve got it made as a mondo bad ass dude. Read on to learn more about these bad ass television characters.

5. Gabriel Gray (Sylar)

Who is he?

Sylar is the bad guy from the TV show Heroes.  If you haven’t seen the show, you should watch it purely for this character, particularly the first season.  He is one bad ass dude.  He gets bonus points for having the brains to change his gay name from Gabriel Gray to Sylar, and for removing his gigantic coke bottle glasses and frumpy Donald Trump hair to become a sinister looking bad guy.

Why is he so bad ass?

Sylar has the ability to steal powers from other people which is pretty awesome because it means he ends up with a kick ass combination of really powerful shit that he can do.  It gets even more bad ass than that though because to steal the powers, Sylar has to cut off the top of the person’s skull and tinker with their brain, usually leaving them dead.  Sylar has a constant conflict between being good and being evil so aside from all that other cool stuff he’s just a generally great character to watch.

Oh, and Sylar killed his own mother and that makes him pretty ruthless in my books, so put another tick next to bad ass for that one.

4. Arvin Sloane

Who is he?

Arvin Sloane is the bad guy from Alias, that show with Jennifer Garner in it which ended up really shit after the second season.  Sloane is the director of SD-6, the shady underground organisation that the CIA is fighting against in Season 1 of the show.

Why is he so bad ass?

He was tortured by Quentin Tarantino and didn’t reveal a thing.  That’s right, Quentin Tarantino made him look at his squinty mongoloid head for a full minute and Sloane revealed nothing.  I’m kidding of course, although it was indeed Quentin Tarantino playing the ruthless McKenas Cole who managed to break into SD-6 and torture Sloane for information using what he calls “fire needles” which apparently burn incredibly hot when stabbed into someone’s skin.  It’s hard to appreciate how bad ass it is unless you’ve seen the particular scene, so you may just have to take my word for it.

3. Dr. Gregory House

Who is he?

Dr. Gregory House is the protagonist from the TV show House M.D.  Being a medical doctor and all, you probably wouldn’t expect to see him on this list, but read on to find out why he makes it.

Why is he so bad ass?

Dr. House has done some seriously fucked up, bad ass shit in the show’s five seasons, all in the name of saving lives.  As with Jack Bauer and Peter Petrelli, House has also died several times throughout the TV show.  When his friend Dr. Wilson’s girlfriend (Amber) was involved in a bus crash, House was there but too drunk to remember anything.  So when Amber becomes deathly ill it’s up to House to remember what symptoms she was displaying before the crash.  Here’s the bad ass bit: House allows his colleagues to dig into his brain with electrodes risking permanent irreversible brain damage in order to stimulate his memory and bring to light the details he had forgotten.  Now that takes some serious balls.

2. Jack Bauer

Who is he?

Jack Bauer is some dude from a fictional government organisation called CTU, from that awesome show 24.  Played by Keifer Sutherland (having a movie star play the character adds bad-assedness)  Jack goes through a bunch of complete and utter shit every season of 24 and still comes back to kick ass next time round.

Why is he so bad ass?

Jack Bauer has literally died several times in the show, one time in particular he was tortured to death and then brought back for a little more torture when the bad guys realised that dead people aren’t very useful when it comes to answering questions.

He was arrested by the Chinese and held in a Chinese prison for almost 2 years.  Luckily, the US government arranged to have him released from the prison, thank god right?  Wrong, they did this because a bunch of terrorists wanted Jack’s head, and the government couldn’t deliver that with Jack in the pen.  That’s right, after two years in a Chinese prison the US government finally gets around to freeing him so they can give him to terrorists who want him dead.  Of course, Jack takes this all in stride like a big fucking manly man and just kinda shrugs a bit before saying “Sure guys, whatever”.

1. Peter Petrelli

Who is he?

Peter is that guy from Heroes that you probably remember for his super emo hair.  Lucky for Peter’s likability, he lost the emo hair in Season 2 while simultaneously becoming completely bad ass.

Why is he so bad ass?

Okay so he started off with that whole emo fringe thing and was kind of a moody bitch, but Peter has really come into his own.  In the second season he realised he could shoot lightning out of his hands and shit, which is pretty fucking bitchin.  He also suffered from amnesia, meaning goody-two-shoes Peter was left behind and a more kick ass version was here to stay.