When I saw the title, my first thought was, Tom Brady.
Well, Archie Goodwin claims it is Saul Panzer.
My wife says Doug Marcaida .
Myself- Doc Savage.
Brigitte Bardot. (50s vintage).
Gandalf.
Yes indeed!
I was going to mention him also in a specialized set circumstances. There is also a guy who talks to his wristwatch and his car becomes sentient and comes to the rescue; there might even be a time when that is your best bet! But for a fact if I am ever trapped in a sealed room containing only benign and boring objects I would for certain want McGyver to help me escape before any of these muscle bound warriors!
I hope someone starts a linked thread where a story similar to the one I will link below can be created. It can have eight thousand chapters, all set in a different reality that is rather tailored to the skill of that chapter’s star. Just based upon the very first sentence of this thread I will suggest:
Reacher knew it was 10:28 am when the driver pulled over and let him out in North Florida and he wondered how long it would take him to hitchhike to slip F-18 in Lauderdale. An old buddy from the US Army told him there was a man there who had access to the information he needed to right a grievous wrong. Calculating complex mathematical problems was easy for Reacher and sometimes he performed math in his head to amuse himself while in transit.
Just then a nun escorting four orphaned children dodging gunfire ran across the rural highway screaming for help. Although unarmed, Reacher decided this group would be safer in Ft. Lauderdale where he was headed anyway so he disarmed the two gunmen [someone else needs to expand this section] who were more than eager to loan Reacher their automobile indefinitely by the end of the fight if the fight could just end right there before any more bones were broken and any more elbows hit them.
It turned out the nun was a dependable driver and was good at following directions. He dozed in the passenger seat as the orphaned children eyed him with a combination of gratitude, admiration, and just a little fear. They were very happy to be leaving that area because . . . . .
I’ll vote for Davenport. He’s a survivor and very resourceful.
For a physical fight…Captain Americ
For a physics/science fight…Mr Fantastic(Reed Richards) of the Fantastic Four
For an all out superhero fight …either Dr Manhattan or X-Man(Nate Grey). Both are reality warpers but I think Grey might have the edge because he has telepathic abilities as well.
I’ll go with Q since he seems to be able to manipulate the laws of physics.
Well, sure; but he’s also your go-to guy out in the wilderness, if you need someone who can improvise well enough with salt water and bamboo and vines and sap and so on as to thrive on Gilligan’s Island (and if he already has so much as some fishing line and a Swiss Army knife and a piece of jewelry, then he already got the job done while I was typing this sentence). Granted, he’s the guy you want stuck with you on an airplane that suddenly develops landing-gear woes during the flight; but put him on a city street, next to a locked car with a dead battery, and he’s hotwired his way to driving off in little more time than it takes him to separate a wrapper from the chewing gum.
Or put him in front of a medical emergency, and he’ll rig up a makeshift defibrillator and stethoscope while repurposing photographic chemicals as an antidote — unless he’s already got medicine, in which case he’ll repurpose it upon winding up in front of a situation that calls for explosives or gas grenades or whatever. Or put him in a murder mystery, and he’ll play around with magnets and iron filings and maybe some nylon until he’s cracked the case — unless he needs to do criminal-type stuff, as a diversion-creating safecracker who bypasses security systems easy as he taps phone lines, in which case he’s as effective at that as he is at playing impromptu firefighter or using what’s at hand to cheat at a casino.
MacGruber parodies the character; but you can’t really parody his over-the-top omnicompetence, since it’s kind of the whole point…
Dr. Henry Walton Jones Jr., because he is an educated, enligtened brawler, able to punch, grind, and shoot Nazis without flinching. Fer chrissakes, he stowed away on a U-Boat. The dude’s got stone cajones that even Forrestal coudn’t pack.
Tripler
I mean c’mon. . . who wouldn’t wanna punch a Nazi?
Oh Mr. T definitey.
(and if he’s not available - doing his pilates, or whatever) then if some random psycho is trying to give me a hard tme, instead of engaging in a physical confrontation that could result in my contracting hep C or scabies (or bedbug transferreal - eeewww!), I’ll just get my trusty ol’ buddy Gary Busey to come along and totally rassle him down.
Drinking? Has to be with Carl.
Sorry - no idea at all where season 4 escaped to.
Repairman Jack.
Superman springs to mind.
If too high-powered, Shego, or Kim Possible, from that series.
for Science–Tom Swift Jr.
Overall, James T. Kirk.
I was thinking of the original one played by Richard Dean Anderson (who also became unrealistically successful-- although at the beginning of the series he was just clever and well versed in science), are you thinking of the current guy? The one who is too young and is always smirking? Because I gave up on that guy midway through the second episode.
Are you possibly conflating Mr. T with Billy Blanks? Because we have no record him ever winning in a skirmish, but he can Tae Bo all day long and look good doing it! Despite his lack of record I would rather have Billy than whoever the modern day equivalent of Wally Cox is.
Gary Busey and Nick Nolte might have teamed up to make one hell of a security detail at one time. That time has probably passed however. The Drunk Tank Hall Monitors just isn’t going cut it on today’s modern streaming services (unless Depends is looking for some content to sponsor).
Didn’t anyone here read The Destroyer series in their youth? The man with unusually thick wrists often seen in the company of a slow, fragile looking, very old Asian man?? 'Cause man, Remo and Chuin kicked some serious ass while working for a US agency that didn’t exist.
Every example in my post was Anderson.
Good choice but he dodges out on you too often, on “wizard business”.
Seriously???
With all the wit and talent on this board (not to mention genuine published authors) is no one going to pick this up and write a few chapters where Reacher meets McGee and they solve the nun/orphan thing together then Reacher becomes a kind of second banana while Travis and his crew find a reason to climb off the boat and look into some matter or other before handing the baton to (I don’t know the other characters in the OP). Please someone continue this! Or scrap it and start a better one! Perhaps I will chip in again if Sherlock Holmes or Boston’s Spenser become involved.
I have read stuff here before written by various posters in a serialized format and really enjoyed it. I would really like the chance to do so again and this seems like the ideal circumstance. You can set the rules as you see fit; I don’t actually recall the parameters but I recall that each poster got one page or one complete scene each and then had to wait for two other posters before posting again. It was something like that.
Please, please introduce me to YOUR hero through your fan fiction You have to show their quirks establish their universe. You should also transition them from the previous adventure to your adventure then make a hand off easy for the next poster. Please try this!
Well, it did get a little crazy as it went on season after season. I must have had some pretty low standards back then – but hell, I used to enjoy the A-Team!
Apologies for prolonging this hijack a moment longer, but I believe each of those MacGyver bona fides were established in the first two seasons.
(Which, in retrospect, makes me especially glad I didn’t mention the guy later duct-taping bamboo to some garbage bags and — what’s that, a tarp, maybe a tent and part of a wheelbarrow? Plus the engine from a lawnmower, or at least a cement mixer? — anyway, combine whatever’s at hand into an ultralight aircraft, and fly the rescuee to safety with moments to spare.)
Not a bad choice, except Q has no sense of loyalty. He’ll be on your side when it benefits him, and then abandon you when it doesn’t.
I’m going with Commander Data. He’s got superhuman strength and speed, plus no need to eat or sleep or breathe or use the toilet.
Clifford, the big red dog.