Friday Throwdown! Bauer vs. Shephard!Aka: The Great Jack-Off!

In the last installment of Pop Culture A.D.D.’s Friday Throwdown, we witnessed Dwight Schrute narrowly edging out The Man Without Fear, Daredevil, for the inaugural Friday Throwdown crown.

This time out, we’ll be pitting two cultural icons against each other in a battle to see who the greatest Jack of all is:

24’s Jack Bauer

Lost’s Jack Shephard!

The winner of this battle can lay claim to being “The Reason Why North America Will Soon Be Overrun by Jacks”. Think that’s hyperbole? The power of the internet says otherwise, my friend. Check it out:

See? Jack Bauer was unleashed upon the population in 2001. Jack Shephard made his first appearance in 2004. Since those years, there has been a steady increase in the number of baby Jacks being born. By looking at the graph from the fascinating, time-wasting Name Voyager, Pop Culture A.D.D. can come to only one conclusion: by the year 2023, every baby boy born in North America will be named Jack… and for good reason. If Jack Bauer and Jack Shephard have taught us anything, it’s that if you want to live a long life despite continually being in wildly dangerous situations, your name had better be Jack.

So, with bragging rights for being the impetus behind entire generations of Jacks on the line, let the Friday Throwdown begin!

Backgrounds:

Jack Bauer went to UCLA prior to getting his Master of Science in Criminology and Law from UC Berkeley. After school, Bauer went on to work for the U.S. Army (Delta Force and Coral Snake), L.A.P.D. SWAT, the CIA and CTU.

Jack Shephard attended Columbia University before graduating at the head of his medical school class. After school, Shephard went to work for St. Sebastian Hospital in L.A. as a spinal surgeon (with time off to be a man-whore and punching bag in Phuket, Thailand).

Advantage: Jack Bauer. (Jack Shephard simply can’t compete against all those acronyms.)

Family:

The son of a freakishly tall former pig farmer, Jack Bauer was married to Terri Bauer and had one daughter, Kim Bauer. Terri Bauer was murdered at the hands of Nina Myers, who had been intimate with Jack Bauer while he and his wife were separated. Kim Bauer may possibly have the worst luck of any female on the planet.

The son of an alcoholic Red Sox fan, Jack Shephard married a former patient of his, Sarah, after helping her recover from a broken back. Sarah went on to cheat on Jack Shephard before leaving him. Unbeknownst to Jack, he is also the half-brother of Aussie hottie Claire Littleton and the uncle of kidnapping target Aaron Littleton.


Advantage: Draw. (Way to rock that Shakespearian tragedy, fellas.)

Friends:

Jack Bauer's best friends include Tony Almeida (deceased), Michelle Dessler (deceased) and President David Palmer (deceased).

Jack Shephard’s friends include a handful of hotties (Kate Austen, Dr. Juliet Burke, Sun Kwon), a former member of the Iraqi National Guard (Sayid Jarrah), a millionaire (Hugo “Hurley” Reyes) and a possibly deceased, formerly wheelchair-bound survivalist and ass-kicker (John Locke).



Advantage: Jack Shephard. (Remind us never to become friends with Jack Bauer.)

Love Interests:

Since his wife was murdered, Jack Bauer has been involved with Kate Warner and, more recently, Audrey Raines. (Sadly for Jack, the awesomeness of Audrey is balanced by the lameness of Kate… and we won’t even talk about him making out with Nina Myers.)

Since his wife left him, Jack Shephard has knocked boots with the skanky-yet-exotic Achara in Thailand, shown interest in the uber-pouty and thankfully deceased Ana Lucia Cortez, developed a relationship with Dr. Juliet Burke and formed a will-they-or-won’t-they relationship with Kate Austen. (Sadly for Jack, Kate vents her sexual frustrations with the island’s resident bad boy, Sawyer.)

Advantage: Jack Shephard. (We love Audrey, but come on, we’re only human.)

Special Skills:

Jack Bauer: Listing the Special Skills of Jack Bauer would cause the internet to crash harder than Nick Nolte at the wheel of a Ferrari Enzo. Since we have no interest in stopping the worldwide flow of pornography and comic book blogs, we’ll just list two: saying “damnit!” and breaking necks.

Jack Shephard: Performing miracle surgery, scheming against The Others, growing stubble, catching footballs, running stairs, ratting out drunk family members, seeing dead people, making motivational speeches, being a man of science, saving evil masterminds and rocking sleeveless t-shirts.



Advantage: Jack Bauer. (Come on. He can run up a concrete stadium tunnel wall to break a neck… who are we to argue with that?)

Final Scorecard:

Jack Bauer: 2.5
Jack Shephard 2.5

Considering our love for both Jacks at Pop Culture A.D.D., we would be fine leaving this one a well-fought draw. However, with bragging rights for future baby Jacks on the line, we don’t want to leave anything up in the air, so we’ll have to go to a tiebreaker.

Tiebreaker: Memorable Quote

Jack Bauer: “Let’s get one thing straight. The only reason you are conscious right now is because I don’t feel like carrying you.”

And with that little gem, this contest is over before Jack Shephard gets to say a word.

Congratulations to our latest champion, the neck-breakingest, damnit-sayingest, ass-kickingest, platform-shoe-wearingest Jack in the world, Jack Bauer.

That's right, Jack, show the world who's boss.