Top Five Fictional Characters to Help You Survive the Zombie Apocalypse

Suggested by: Stephen

The Rules:

• No more than one character per film/franchise! (No fair stocking up on characters from “The Walking Dead”!)
• Individual characters only – no groups! You can pick Shaun or Ed from Shaun of the Dead, but not both!
• No superheroes!  (It’d be over too quickly and that’s not fun!)  TV or film characters are fine as long as they aren’t classified as superheroes or one of their ilk.  (And, yes, this includes Batman and the Punisher!)
• As an added challenge, rather than providing a ‘ranked’ list, we assigned each member of our respective teams one of the following five designations: the leader, the muscle, the firepower, the wild card, and the brain.

Stephen’s Top Five

5.) Dr. Sarah Bowman (Day of the Dead)
The brain.  She’s my ‘default’ pick from this franchise because it’s actually the only installment I’ve seen.  Still, I like the idea of my team having a thinker, someone who is committed not only to survival, but to curing the cause of the zombie outbreak.  Plus, Bowman is a survivor, so there’s no reason to think she can’t get into the gritty when the situation calls for it.

4.) Tallahassee (Zombieland)
The wild card.  Sure, Zombieland wasn’t a great movie, but Harrelson stole the show as the Twinkie-obsessed zombie-hunting machine.  Why is he a wild card? Because he’s completely unpredictable… especially when Twinkies are in play.

3.) Cherry Darling (Planet Terror)
The firepower.  I mean, come on!  She’s got a machine gun for a leg!  Again, I’m not the biggest fan of Grindhouse in general or of Robert Rodriguez’s Planet Terror in particular, but I’d be remiss if I didn’t include a slot for Cherry, whose leg combined with her ‘dance moves’ makes her a formidable zombie killer.

2.) Buffy Summers (“Buffy the Vampire Slayer”)
The muscle.  (And, to be clear, this is the TV Sarah Michelle Gellar Buffy, rather than the movie Kristy Swanson Buffy.)  Sure, Buffy is more used to slaying vamps than killing zombies, but she’s not without experience with the undead and her fighting prowess and experience battling the paranormal makes her perfect for this team.

1.) Ash Williams (The Evil Dead franchise)
The leader.  He’s fought the undead in a cabin in the woods… twice.  He’s fought the undead in another dimension. He’s fought the undead in a department store.  No one has more experience fighting the undead than Ash Williams and, with his chainsaw arm and patented ‘boomstick,’ there’s no one else I could possibly consider to lead this team agains the zombie hordes.

Brett’s Top Five

5.) Ellen Ripley (Alien franchise)
The brain.  Ripley may have started as a simple warrant officer mostly in charge of security on The Nostromo but she became one of the most badass characters in all of cinema. I chose her as the brain because she has always been the best at adapting to her surroundings. She’s regularly the smartest person in the room and that’s just because she knows how to take experience and turn it into solid knowledge. She regularly outsmarted what many people in the Aliens universe considered to be the perfect killing machine. Sure, a lot of those people worked for Weyland and were crazy, but they weren’t wrong!  She can also handle a flamethrower in a pinch, so there’s that as well. She’s a survivor and a damn intelligent one.

4.) Ash Williams (The Evil Dead franchise)
The wild card.  I won’t rehash a lot of what you said but I’m putting him as the wild card because he’s more of a reluctant leader. He’s always been out for himself and will cut corners whenever he can. Sure, when push comes to shove he’ll get the job done like only he can but I wouldn’t trust him with my life like I would anyone else on this list.  

3.) Leon S. Kennedy (‘Resident Evil’ franchise)
The firepower. Leon Scott Kennedy dealt with the Raccoon City outbreak on his first day of police duty 20 years ago. Since then he’s gotten extensive Secret Service and Special Forces Training. He’s rescued the president’s daughter from a biological murder cult in Spain, stopped multiple global biological terrorist plots on French and American soil. He’s gotten extensive training with every type of firearm imaginable. Handguns, Shotguns, Magnums, Rifles, Experimental Weaponry, and Rocket Launchers. He’s become the grizzled “Old Man Logan” type who day drinks and is generally over this shit but will always pick up the cause for someone in need.

2.) Dean Winchester (“Supernatural”)
The muscle. Dean and his brother Sam have fought every kind of other worldly being you can think of. From Demons to Gods, from Wendigos to Shapeshifters. They’ve died multiple times and it just didn’t take. They’ve accidentally started the apocalypse and then ended it just as easily. They’ve watched countless friends die and suffered the worst tortures imaginable in the pits of Hell. The reason I went with Dean over Sam is because Dean is much more “no-nonsense”. He carried the literal “Mark of Cain” for a while and did some time as a demon. Sam is able to move on from the life of a hunter because he never wanted it to begin with. Dean, however, loves it and could never imagine a life that didn’t involve “saving people and hunting things.”

1.) Rick Grimes (“The Walking Dead”)
The leader.  This man has been fighting undead for years. He has seen his best friend, wife, son, and newborn daughter all die. He’s lost a hand (in the comics) and lead countless people to safety in one form or another. All while keeping the undead at bay. As much as I didn’t want to include Rick since it felt like a bit of a “cop-out”, I couldn’t argue with his resume’. Sure Daryl and/or Michonne are the “badass” fan favorites but Rick is the glue that holds everything together.

The Recap:

Categories	Stephen	Brett
The Brain	Dr. Sarah Bowman (Day of the Dead)	Ellen Ripley (Alien franchise)
The Wild Card	Tallahassee (Zombieland)	Ash Williams (The Evil Dead franchise)
The Firepower	Cherry Darling (Planet Terror)	Leon S. Kennedy (‘Resident Evil’ franchise)
The Muscle	Buffy Summers (“Buffy the Vampire Slayer”)	Dean Winchester (“Supernatural”)
The Leader	Ash Williams (The Evil Dead franchise)	Rick Grimes (‘The Walking Dead’ comics)

What five characters would you want to help YOU survive the zombie apocalypse?  Let us know in the comments below!