John Rambo VS John McClane VS John Wick [YAVSB]

 

(TN by SystemOfAMob100)

"That survival instinct, that will to live, that need to get back to life again, is more powerful than any consideration of taste, decency, politeness, manners, civility. Anything."

- Danny Boyle

John Rambo, the Vietnam vet searching for peace

John McClane, the die hard NYPD detective

John Wick, the excommnicado underworld assassin

These one man armies embody different styles, eras, and tropes of the action movie genre. They also all have the same first name. It’s been done as a rap battle, but who wins in a no-holds-barred battle to the death?

Before We Start…

To establish what sources this blog will be drawing from, it was decided to mainly stick to the movie series for the characters. Bringing in alternate media like video games, cartoons, and books would be fun, but it’d also quickly make things unfair for Wick, who has far less history in other mediums than his two opponents.

If we brought in video games for example, Rambo would be able to summon giant flaming crossbows, temporarily become invincible, and turn people into frogs, and McClane would be able to increase his reflexes to the point time is slowed down to a crawl, passively regenerate health, and cut wires at near lightspeed, based on how fast electricity travels in wires. We really don’t need to get into how ridiculous some of Rambo’s cartoon feats are, either.

Full composites for each character would basically end up just being Composite Rambo VS Composite McClane instead of a proper three-way all-out gunfight… which could be fun, but is not what we’re looking to do here today. (Maybe another time.)

And no, “Fortnite scaling” for Wick wouldn’t really shore things up here, considering Rambo’s featured in Mortal Kombat, SMITE, and several other games too. And then McClane appears in several Call of Duty games alongside Rambo, and thus scales to all of his crossover scaling. In short, scaling characters from being in the rosters of crossover games is basically just a meme. It’s kinda like scaling Reptile to Shao Kahn just because you can pick them in the same game and have them fight in multiplayer.

However, since all three characters have comic book appearances that aren’t too far off from their canon portrayals, those will be included as a secondary source just for a little spice. (Keep in mind we’re talking about the American comics for Rambo, not the weird possibly non-official foreign ones you can’t find scans of anywhere.) The reason comics are being included over everything else is because it’s the only non-film medium all three characters share. Well, other than video games, which we’ve already established the issue with.

Oh, and we’re also not including vehicles. Cause if we did, Rambo gets a tank. He just kinda wins with no difficulty if we give him a tank.

Background

John Rambo

”Live for nothing, or die for something. Your call.”

John Rambo grew up in the small town of Bowie, Arizona, taught to train horses by his father Reevis at the family farm. He seemed destined for a simple but fulfilling existence as a rancher. But then the Vietnam War started.

When he enlisted in the U.S. Army at the age of 17, John felt like he was doing the right thing. His grueling training at Fort Bragg transformed him from an ordinary young man into an elite Green Beret killing machine, the pride of Colonel Samuel Trautman’s handpicked team. During his three years under Trautman’s command in Vietnam, John survived countless incursions behind enemy lines, racked up 59 confirmed kills, and earned himself 2 Silver Stars, 4 Bronze Stars, 4 Purple Hearts, a Distinguished Service Cross, and the Congressional Medal of Honor.

But awards weren’t the only thing that John got. He got to watch his friends get blown up, he got captured by the North Vietnamese and tortured in a POW camp, and when he came home, he got spat on and called a baby-killer. Rambo’s experiences in Vietnam left both physical and mental scars: the war may have stopped, but for him, nothing was over. Haunted by nightmares and flashbacks, unable to hold even the simplest job, John fell into the directionless, empty life of a drifter. He wandered the country, scraping by on the money he made from odd jobs and sleeping in whatever ditch was most comfortable.

That life would end when John arrived in a little town called Hope, Washington. Brought in by the police for vagrancy, the callous officers’ abuse would trigger a mental breakdown in the man. What followed was an explosive one man rampage of vengeance that left one man dead, many others wounded, and the town of Hope in flames. Rambo’s old mentor Sam Trautman managed to convince John to give up his personal war and turn himself in. Arrested by the National Guard, Rambo would be tried and sentenced for his crimes, sent to a labor camp prison.

But that isn’t where John’s story ended. Trautman pulled some strings and managed to get John out for another mission in Vietnam, this time assigned to locate some missing POWs left behind after the war officially ended. If he succeeded, he’d have his charges wiped from the record and earn himself back his freedom. Against all odds, including the Soviets getting involved and the unscrupulous CIA agent Marshall Murdock’s attempts to sabotage the rescue, John brought the soldiers back.

It was a clear cut, unambiguous victory, one of the few Rambo had ever experienced in his life. But something was still wrong. Disillusioned with his home country, Rambo decided not to return to the States and instead made a home for himself in Thailand, working as a handyman at a temple, then later as a snake catcher. Decades later, he’d return to his father’s ranch and continue training horses, just like he had done before in his youth.

As much as Rambo wishes he could live a quiet, tranquil existence, fate just isn’t on his side. Whenever he finds some tiny bit of stability, it’s always temporary, and he ends up getting dragged into another battle he never asked for. John has had to reactivate his deadly combat skills on new missions in Afghanistan, Burma, and Mexico. He’ll always be a warrior, and when it comes to war, they just don’t turn it off. It’s been a long road for John Rambo, but maybe someday he can find the peace he’s been searching for.      

John McClane

“McClane? I thought I killed you already.”

“I get that sometimes.”

Christmas Eve, 1988. Los Angeles, California. While a company Christmas party was underway on the thirtieth floor, a crew of European criminals led by the charismatic Hans Gruber would enter the Nakatomi Plaza office building. 

Their plan wasn’t to get together and have a few laughs. They were going to take the partygoers hostage, break into Nakatomi’s high-security vaults, and swipe the 640 million dollars in bearer bonds within. The final step of their plan was the most devious: they would lead the hostages to the roof and blow it all up to fake their own deaths while escaping with the bonds. After all, they were presenting themselves to the world as European terrorists with purely ideological motives. Who would ever figure out they were just common thieves?

It was a good plan. A great plan, even. But there was one factor Hans didn’t account for. And that factor was John McClane.

John had walked into Nakatomi Plaza a few hours before Hans and his gang. His plan was a lot less complicated, but far more difficult: reconnecting with his estranged wife Holly. She had landed a high paying job in the Nakatomi Corporation, but John wasn’t willing to leave New York to be with her. This wedge in the relationship kept him from seeing his kids, and he hoped they could find some kind of compromise and stay together as a couple. But when the criminals struck and started locking the building down, John found himself to be the one man equipped to take them on.

See, McClane’s no ordinary Irish flatfoot. As a seasoned police detective who made his bones on the mean streets of NYC, McClane was no stranger to kicking criminal ass. More impressive than his experience was his sheer willpower to survive and overcome. If he lived through Catholic school, he could take anything Hans threw at him. And he did. McClane proved to be the ultimate fly in the ointment to Hans’ scheme, despite the thieves’ overwhelming 12 to 1 numbers advantage. John would take a bullet, crash through a window, and even walk barefoot over broken glass while blinded, all to save his wife and send Hans falling to his death.

McClane’s victories wouldn’t end with the Nakatomi Plaza incident. He’d foil the turncoat colonel William Stuart’s plan to free drug lord Ramon Esperanza, stop Hans’ brother Simon from robbing the Federal Reserve Bank, put an end to the cyberterrorist Thomas Gabriel before he could irreparably damage America’s infrastructure, and… uhh… was there a fifth movie? Oh yeah, there was. He does something in Russia in that, I think. I don’t know. Nobody cares about that one.

While McClane could always save the day when the situation called for it, there was ultimately one thing he couldn’t rescue: his marriage. Yep, he’d walk barefoot over broken glass for Holly, but just couldn’t figure out how to communicate with her. For a while, his relationships with his children were strained too – he was always too consumed by his police work to spend time with them. But John’s been putting the pieces of his life back together, reuniting with his kids, strengthening those family bonds and building a happier life for himself.

There’ll be a day when John McClane will finally stop going and going and going… but when that day comes, he won’t go down easy; he’ll die hard.

John Wick

“Well John wasn't exactly the Boogeyman. He was the one you sent to kill the fucking Boogeyman.”

There are sad stories. There are tragedies. And then there’s the life of Jardani Jovanovich. The details are hazy, mostly traded in hushed whispers. But here’s what’s known for sure.

Born in Belarus, Jardani was left an orphan at a young age. Taken in by the Director, the mysterious leader of the Ruska Roma criminal organization, the boy was raised and trained into a brutally effective martial artist. At some point he left Ruska Roma, shedding his old affiliation to become a cold-blooded professional hitman, a ghostly, stoic figure that commanded both fear and respect.

It was in America that he made a name for himself. More than one, actually. The Wolf. The Ghost. The Devil. Baba Yaga. But his real new name, the one he chose for himself, was John Wick.

Ascending through the criminal underworld, Wick found himself in the employ of the Tarasov Mob as one of their most lethal and feared enforcers. Partnered with the Continental Hotel and given access to its vast armory, he was pretty much unstoppable. In fact, the only one who could stop Wick was Wick himself.

He had found love. True love. And he wanted out of the murder business. But his boss, Viggo Tarasov, had one last job for him before he could leave, an “impossible task.” If he wanted to leave the mob behind, John would have to kill every last one of its enemies in a single night. Even Wick couldn’t accomplish such a feat alone; he had to enlist the help of an Italian mafia boss named Santino D’Antonio to get the job done. But when the sun broke through the clouds, the impossible task had been completed, and Tarasov released Wick to live a normal life. John buried his guns, hoping to never have to dig them back up.

For five years, John and his wife Helen shared a quiet, peaceful life. But all good things must come to an end. Helen was diagnosed with cancer, and eventually passed away. She left Wick a posthumous present to remember her by, a beagle puppy named Daisy. Wick was broken by his wife’s death, but still resolved to leave organized crime behind him.

And then, a few days after Helen died, Viggo’s son Iosef attacked John in his own home, stole his car, and murdered his dog.

As you probably expect, John Wick was thinking he was back after that.

Wick’s life has been a whirlwind since he dove back into the world of underground crime. He’s gotten his revenge on Iosef and the rest of the Tarasovs, been called on by Santino to repay his debt by assassinating his sister Gianna, and declared “excommunicado” and hunted down by his former hitman colleagues. All within the span of a week or two. And his adventures aren’t over quite yet - there’s a new chapter in his saga coming right around the corner.

Currently, John has his sights set on the High Table, the shadowy council that reigns over the international assassin community. Let’s just say there’s a bit of mutual animosity there. No matter what they have in store for him, Wick will burn down the whole damn underworld to get his vengeance.

Weaponry and Equipment 

A quick note before we get into this category: none of these characters have a consistent loadout of weapons. They use different equipment in each of their appearances, gaining and losing weapons over the course of the plot, and often stealing them from their enemies.

I’ve excluded some non-weapons that could hypothetically be used as a weapon but never are, such as the hatchet Rambo picks up in First Blood for two seconds and never fights anyone with, and the fire axe McClane picks up in Die Hard for two seconds and never fights anyone with. Otherwise, I’ve tried to be as comprehensive as possible.

John Rambo

Guns

As a former Green Beret, Rambo’s talented with guns and has used an NRA convention’s worth of them over the course of his ass-kicking career. He has no standard weapons that he prefers using over others, though in his adventures he’s usually ended up wielding assault rifles and machine guns commandeered from his enemies. He’s also utilized a number of stationary guns that aren’t portable but pack a punch, and has picked up a few guns but never actually used them on-screen.

Assault Rifles / Machine Guns

• M16A1

• M60

• AKM

• M60E3

• AMD-65

• AKMS

• Soviet PKM

• Norinco Type 56

• M4A1

Stationary Guns

• DShK heavy machine gun

• Browning M2HB

• Browning M2 Aircraft

Rifles / Handguns / Shotguns

• Winchester Model 88 lever-action rifle

• Remington 870 shotgun

• Customized Colt M1911A1 pistol

• Winchester 1892 Saddle Ring carbine

• Benelli M3 Super 90 shotgun

• Double-barrel sawed-off shotgun

• Pistol

• Shotgun

• M1 Garand semi-automatic rifle

Never Actually Used

• Remington 700 rifle

• M16 (SP1) rifle

• Heckler & Koch MP5A3

• SVD Dragunov sniper rifle

• Used in a deleted scene where Rambo picks off some Soviets with it, but not the movie proper. Has a range of a thousand yards

• Pistol

• M16A2 assault rifle

• Only seen in a trailer, not the actual movie.

Incendiary Shells

Crafted by Rambo himself and used in his double-barrel sawed-off shotgun, these magnesium incendiary shells light up enemies with bright white flames, on top of also hitting with the force of a normal shotgun shell. I guess shooting people just isn’t enough, sometimes.

Bows

Rambo’s most favored, commonly used weapon is the compound bow, perfect for silent kills. Rambo’s razor-edged arrows can pierce through heads and torsos with ease. He’s used several different models of bows over the years, including a few longbows on top of his usual compound ones. One of his compound bows had a flashlight attachment (it’s kind of hard to see in that clip, you might have to pause for it), and another had an attachment that held multiple arrows for easy access.

Explosive Arrows

These specialized explosive arrowheads can be screwed on to Rambo’s standard arrows to give them a little extra oomph. And when I say a “little extra,” I mean enough to blast a man to shreds or blow a helicopter out of the sky. The one flaw with the explosive arrows is that Rambo carries them in limited numbers and they must be individually assembled before use. However, Rambo has prepared and carried around multiple explosive arrows in advance of a fight in the past.

Knives

One of Rambo’s trademarks is his iconic survival knife. He’s used three different main knives over the course of the movie series. These knives differ in appearance, but generally have similar enough features: one wickedly sharp edge, serrated teeth on the other side for cutting through wire, and a secret compartment in the handle that hides a needle and thread or some matches. The cap of this compartment can also be used as a compass.

In addition, he also carries throwing knives for silent, long-range kills, usually stashed in his boots. He also brought along a pair of small, easily concealable push knives for his POW rescue mission in Vietnam, which are great for surprise stabbings.

Machete

After destroying his combat knife to symbolize how he was putting violence behind, Rambo inevitably got sucked back into the life of a warrior. To replace the lost weapon, he forged himself a small machete. It may not have the hidden compartment or serrated edge of his past knives, but it’s still a brutally lethal weapon capable of decapitating and disemboweling. In a pinch Rambo can use it as a ranged option too, throwing it so that it embeds in a man’s skull. A longer machete also showed up in his possession in the fifth film, but he never used the thing in a fight.

Other Melee Weapons

Though he prefers bladed weapons for close range combat, he’s used blunt ones before to great effect. He dual wielded escrima sticks in a money fight, defeated a Soviet soldier with a wooden rod, and took out all the men in a brothel with only a hammer. Some of the odder things he’s used include a makeshift spear crafted from his survival knife and a stick, another spear that he used to impale a man through the head, and a pickaxe that he swung right through a man’s chest.

Rocket Launchers

If the explosive arrows weren’t enough, Rambo’s also wielded not one, not two, but three rocket launchers. Two of them were RPG-7s, and the other was a smaller M72 LAW. Every time he’s used a rocket launcher it’s been to take down a vehicle, be it a Vietnamese pirate ship, a Mil Mi-24 gunship, or a large Soviet truck.

There’s also this really weird official art where he has, like, an M60-rocket launcher hybrid thing… what the hell is that? What’s the point of the bullets? And no, this isn’t some bootleg, if you were a kid in the 80s you could get an officially branded Rambo lunchbox with this artwork on it. Man, what an era.

M203 Grenade Launcher

During the events of Rambo III, the Soviets repeatedly attack Rambo with AKM assault rifles fitted with M203 grenade launchers. Never mind that the Soviets wouldn’t have had access to those kinds of grenade launchers, but, whatever. Rambo eventually took one of these guns for himself from a soldier he killed, using it to blast Soviet vehicles from long range. Since the AKM and M203 were never meant to be married like this, Rambo has to hold the gun in a kind of strange way.

Grenades

Rambo used grenades in both the second and third movies. In the second, he got M67 grenades off of a Vietnamese soldier and used them to fend off the guards chasing him down. In the third, we never actually see where he gets the grenades from, he just kinda pulls them out of nowhere. These ones are strong enough to break a small metal bridge, blast open a door, and kill a Soviet soldier dumb enough to fall for this obvious trap. A single grenade also appeared in the fifth movie as part of a similar trap Rambo constructed in his tunnels that took out a cartel operative.

In a flashback to John’s time in Vietnam in one of the comics, we see him wearing a few grenades on his belt, though we don’t get to see him actually use one.

Time Bombs

While preparing for his mission to rescue Trautman from a Soviet prison in Afghanistan, Rambo acquired a big box filled with detonators, plastic explosives, and cyalume glowsticks (they turn blue). Rambo and Mousa planted many of these explosives around the Soviet base, attaching them to walls. When the timers hit zero and the bombs went off, the explosions wrecked vehicles and smaller buildings all around the base. Later on, when trapped in the sewers being chased by Soviets, Rambo used another one of these explosives to collapse the tunnel’s ceiling on the pursuing soldiers.

Other Explosives

There’s a handful of other explosives Rambo has used throughout his movies. He tossed a Molotov cocktail at a Soviet tank in the third film and used an M18A1 Claymore mine against the Burmese Junta in the fourth film. Note that the Claymore here is setting off a Tallboy bomb left in the jungle during WWII. It’s not that powerful on its own. And obviously, we’re not going to be giving Rambo the Tallboy for this fight. How would he even carry it?

Rambo also utilized a few different types of explosives while setting traps around his ranch in Rambo: Last Blood. These included C4 (seen in that montage), a remotely detonated mine, and little makeshift mines made from bullets. He also somehow rigged the entire underground tunnel system beneath his ranch to explode at the flip of a switch, which I think may be the C4 at work.

John McClane

Guns

McClane has wielded his fair share of firearms. Most often, he starts off with whatever main handgun he’s using that time around, then picks up bigger guns later on for the final battle. He’s usually shown to keep his handgun in an underarm holster, along with additional ammunition. John also has a bad habit of taking guns and never actually using them.

Handguns

• Beretta 92F

• Beretta 92FS

• Smith & Wesson Model 36

• SIG-Sauer P220R

• Beretta Px4 Storm

• Glock 22

• SIG-Sauer P220 Combat

• Revolver and Pistol, dual wielded

Machine Guns / Rifles / Shotguns

• Heckler & Koch MP5A3

• FN SCAR 17S

• 12 Gauge Double-Barrel Shotgun

• FN M249 SAW Paratrooper

• AK-104

• M16 (in a flashback to his time in Vietnam)

Never Actually Used

• MAC-10

• Heckler & Koch UMP-45 with attachments

• Suppressed Heckler & Koch P2000SK

• Remington 870 Police Entry

• Smith & Wesson M&P

C4

During the Nakatomi Plaza incident, John found and stole some of Hans’ C4 that he was planning to use in his scheme. McClane then used it to blow up an entire floor of the building, taking out just two of the thieves. Yeah, McClane simply does not give one fuck about property damage.

Grenade

During a fight in the fifth movie, McClane’s son Jack hooks him up with a single grenade. Just one. (And that’s still more than what John deserves from his kids.) Don’t let the size of the blast in that clip fool you - it’s lighting up some gas that makes the boom bigger than it would be normally.

Dynamite

Only seen in the Die Hard: Year One comic book. When some bad guys are holding a ship hostage, they plant dynamite all over it. McClane sneaks around gathering it all up, then tosses the bag of dynamite into their getaway sub. When it goes off, the sub explodes.

Chinese Rocket Launcher

The third movie in the series, Die Hard with a Vengeance, has an unused alternate ending where McClane hunts down Simon and forces him to play Russian roulette with a Chinese rocket launcher that’s had the directional arrows taken off. Naturally, it’s powerful enough to blast through Simon. McClane also has a Heckler & Koch P9S pistol in the scene that doesn’t appear in the actual movie. Since this stuff is only seen in an alternate ending that directly contradicts with what’s seen in the finished product, it’s kinda iffy if McClane should actually get the weapons or not. Fun fact though, this ending was kept in the novelization.

Zippo Lighter

You may think this is a funny haha joke entry. It’s not. Out of all the weapons McClane has in his arsenal, this is the one he’s taken the most lives with. When Colonel Stuart and Ramon Esperanza nearly escaped Dulles National Airport with a plane full of rogue soldiers, John blew up the whole operation by causing a fuel leak, then lighting the plane up with his Zippo. Respect the Zippo. Fear the Zippo. Worship the Zippo.

(Oh, and it also comes in handy when you have to crawl through an air vent.)

John Wick

Guns

John Wick uses guns. Lots of guns. He keeps his own stash of them, but will also pilfer them from his defeated enemies or acquire them from the Continental (before he was shut off from its services, of course). Wick has most often used handguns, but he’s equally comfortable with shotguns, sniper rifles, machine guns - you name it, he’s a master with it.

Handguns

• Heckler & Koch P30L

• Glock 26

• CZ P-09

• Glock 17

• Glock 19

• Glock 34

• Kimber Super Carry 1911

• Kimber Warrior

• SIG-Sauer P320

• Smith & Wesson SW1911SC "E-Series"

• Bond Arms Texas Defender

• Glock 19X

• TTI STI 2011 Combat Master

• Walther CCP

• Walther PPQ

• Remington 1875 (modified by John with pieces from a Colt 1851 Navy and a Colt 1860 Army)

Shotguns / Rifles / Machine Guns

• Kel-Tec KSG

• Benelli M4 Super 90 (TTI M4 Upgrade Package)

• Benelli M2 Super 90 (TTI M2 Ultimate 3 Gun Package)

• Coharie Arms CA-415

• DTA Stealth Recon Scout

• TTI TR-1 Ultralight

• SIG-Sauer MPX Copperhead

• TTI SIG-Sauer MPX Carbine

Never Actually Used

• Walther P99

• Colt Model 1903 Pocket Hammerless

• There are multiples of some guns above seen in his stashes that he never seems to use

Bulletproof Suit

Have you noticed anything missing from the other fighters’ equipment lists? Yep, armor. Rambo and Wick may be fine fighting in their wifebeaters, but Wick does things a little differently. This stylish suit isn’t just classy as all hell, it’s kitted out with silicon carbide discs, ceramic matrices, and accompanying laminates sewn between the fabric and the lining to make it bulletproof. While it may completely stop penetration, it still hurts like hell to be shot. If need be, Wick has also worn a bulletproof vest as well, for extra defense, and the suit’s belt can be used as a weapon.

Knives

John has owned or used a number of different knives throughout the movie series, like a switchblade he got from the Sommelier or the Microtech UTX-70 and ​​KA-BAR serrated Tanto seen in his weapons stash. He also used a number of knives taken from his surroundings during a fight scene set in an antique weapons shop.

Other Melee Weapons

Wick doesn’t just use knives for when he wants to fight up close. He uses garrote wire for stealth kills, and will occasionally take something from the environment to use as a weapon, blah blah blah killed three men with a pencil we all know the scene, though I won’t be listing all of those here. Like with his guns, he’s stolen weapons from his enemies to use against them, such as a Japanese sword when dealing with Zero and his students, or when he killed Ares with her own push dagger.

Incendiary Grenades

Taken from his cache of weapons, Wick used these black, cylindrical incendiary grenades to burn up Viggo’s big pile of money in the first movie. 

Explosives

Also from the first movie. These remotely detonated explosives are powerful enough to blow up cars.

Painkillers

If John can’t get through pain on his own, he carries medication he can take to make it all go away. In particular, it’s noted that the painkillers could give John full function even if his stitches tear and start to bleed.

Skills

John Rambo

Training and Experience

God didn’t make Rambo. Colonel Sam Trautman did. When John was just 17 years old, Sam personally recruited him, trained him into a Green Beret, and then commanded him for three years in Vietnam. Under the colonel’s tutelage, Rambo became an expert in guerrilla warfare, mastered fighting with guns, knives, and his bare hands, and was taught to ignore pain, ignore weather, and to live off the land. During his Special Forces training, Rambo specialized in light weapons, cross-trained as a medic, and got helicopter and language certified, too.

During the war, Rambo was part of Trautman’s elite eight-man special forces unit Baker Team. He survived countless incursions behind enemy lines, was in charge of million-dollar equipment, and once escaped a North Vietnamese prison camp even after extended torture. At the end of it all, he had 59 confirmed kills and won himself an absolutely massive amount of awards, including the highest military decoration you can get: the Medal of Honor.

Out of all of the soldiers he ever saw, Trautman considered Rambo the absolute best of the best of the best. During Rambo’s conflict with the Hope police force, Trautman was confident he could’ve killed every last officer if he wanted, and when Sheriff Teasle wanted to bring in 200 men from the National Guard to back him up, Trautman still thought Rambo had high chances.

Of course, Rambo’s time in Vietnam was far from the end of his career. After the war, he would later be recruited for a top secret mission to rescue some lost POWs, which he succeeded at despite a number of complications along the way. Later still, he’d go on another rescue mission to save Trautman from a Soviet prison in Afghanistan, though the military couldn’t officially sponsor it. And as a free agent, he fought alongside the Karen rebels in Burma to free captured Christian missionaries and personally took down the vicious Martinez cartel.

Marksmanship

Rambo’s skills with ranged weapons are second to none. He can drop five men in seconds with a pistol, hit four playing cards from across a barn with a bow, and nail men right in the throat with throwing knives. But while he can be incredibly precise when he wants to, Rambo really just seems to enjoy spraying wildly with machine guns from time to time. Who can blame him? Even when John’s just gunning away, he can still employ strategy, like when he fired through a ceiling to hit Sheriff Teasle from below.

Close Quarters Combat

While being shot to death isn’t exactly fun, you’d probably prefer it to a close quarters confrontation with Rambo. Whether with a knife or with his bare hands, the one word that describes his fighting style best is “brutal.” He’s snapped necks, chopped off heads, sliced open stomachs, torn apart throats, and pulled out hearts. He can fight his way through an entire police station while completely unarmed, defeat two Soviet soldiers at the same time even after extended torture, take out all the men in a brothel with just a hammer, and kill three security guards in quick succession while wielding knives.

There’s no specific martial art Rambo seems to use, though he’s shown proficiency in wrestling and escrima stick-fighting. When he’s outmatched in terms of strength he can be pretty creative, like the time he choked Kourov with a rope, pulled the pins on the grenades he was wearing, then kicked him down a hole in the ground so he was hanged and blown up at the same time.

Stealth

You may have noticed that Rambo seems to go on rescue missions a lot: saving POWs in Vietnam, Trautman in Afghanistan, and missionaries in Burma. This is because of his excellent stealth skills, which make him perfect for infiltrating bases and extracting prisoners. He’s snuck into a Soviet prison through a minefield before, even though it was under lookout, and successfully hid in the woods while 200 National Guardsmen were searching for him.

He’s a master at sneaking up on enemies to take them out from behind, using the environment for kills, as well as blending into his surroundings with camouflage. He can take out entire teams of Soviet commandos using these talents, even elite Spetsnaz special forces. When fighting Sheriff Teasle he intentionally shot out utility poles to use the resulting darkness as cover, and once used the heavy smoke from a helicopter he shot down to get to cover.

Creating Traps

When matched against a numerically superior enemy, one strategy Rambo often falls back on is creating a trap. These can range from small constructions like a scarecrow to mislead gunfire or a swinging spike trap made from sharpened wooden poles, to larger scale misdirections that let him take out tons of soldiers at once. These can get pretty creative, like the time he took out combined Vietnamese and Soviet forces by tricking them into following a trail of chicken blood they thought was his. It led them deep into a field of high grass that he had doused with fuel. When they reached the end of the trail Rambo lit the gas up with a match, trapping them in smoke and flames while he fired on them with explosive arrows.

Inarguably Rambo’s greatest feat of booby-trapping was when he Home Alone’d his ranch in advance of an attack from the cartel. But we’re not talking about heated door knobs, motorized Michael Jordans, or Christmas ornament caltrops. We’re talking about mines that take out trucks, moats of burning gasoline, this funnel thing that’s almost too ridiculous to describe, and an underground tunnel system littered with swinging blades, explosives, hidden guns, fall-away floors, and even a sound system so that Rambo can rock out while he’s killing.

Keen Senses

While this trait of his is never explicitly pointed out or emphasized, Rambo seems to have a good pair of ears on him. He heard a snake quietly slithering up behind him, catching it before it could bite, and picked up that the Burmese Junta was tracking him down with dogs from a long distance. The soldiers and their tracking dogs were pretty much inaudible to the audience when it cuts to Rambo, but Rambo and his mercenary pal both heard them. In the comics, while he was inside a cabin, he managed to hear a soldier step on a small twig in the woods outside.

Wizardry

(This is what you get when you Google search “Rambo wizard”)

Rambo sometimes does things that just… aren’t possible. Literally. They defy physics. He’s picked up a single grenade from a man’s body, then used multiple of them. He’s switched guns between scene transitions when there’d literally be no time for him to do so. And most bafflingly, he once cauterized his own wound by pouring gunpowder into it then igniting it, which would've actually just futher damaged his internal organs.

Rambo’s a wizard. There’s no other rational explanation for these things. They must teach sorcery at Fort Bragg or something. Alternatively, these could just be continuity errors and artistic license. But that sounds an awful lot like downplay to me.

John McClane

Training and Experience

Before the events of the first movie, McClane had been part of the NYPD for eleven years, starting in 1977. He presumably received all the training ordinary police officers do. He worked with the LAPD for two years before eventually returning to the NYPD between the second and third movies. And of course, he’s been through five films worth of crime-fighting adventures. In Live Free or Die Hard, we get a look at his police records that list a number of accolades, some of them referencing his accomplishments from past films. (You also get to see his SSN, if you wanted to steal this fictional character’s identity for some reason.)

McClane’s experience as a police officer has given him a knowledge of police codes, common scams, and the ability to tell a well-forged ID from a cheap one, which proved crucial in figuring out Hans Gruber’s plot. He can also identify special porcelain guns that otherwise look completely ordinary, and somewhere along the line picked up how to hotwire a car. He also took helicopter lessons at some point, but missed a few classes.

The comics expand on his history a little, establishing that he served in Vietnam as a Marine, making the rank of Sergeant. He did see some active combat while deployed, going off this flashback scene and a reference to a gunfight with the Vietcong later on. However, the comics don’t give us any details on his training, how old he was when he fought in the war, or how long he served. 

Marksmanship

John’s a crack shot with a pistol, having impressively good grouping while practicing at a target range. He can land shots right between the eyes and shoot men on speeding snowmobiles from a distance. Probably his most impressive feat of marksmanship in the movies was when he precisely shot a thin cable so that it would swing down and take out Simon’s helicopter.

In the comics, McClane is said to be a medal winner on the police firing range, and manages to drop two guys with one shot each while dangling off a ledge.

Close Quarters Combat

Though McClane seems to prefer ranged combat, he has no problems getting up close and personal with his enemies. He doesn’t favor any particular martial arts style and likes to mix in gunplay even at close range, once shooting through his own holster and shirt to hit a man behind him. One strategy he’s used commonly is luring someone in, hiding away, then getting the jump on them. He’s done this against Tony, Karl, a random goon, and Grant.

While he has employed more complicated close range combat tactics on occasion, he often just resorts to disarming, then savagely pummeling his enemies. And if you ever get in a fight with him, watch out: he bites.

Resourcefulness

McClane is a master of using his surroundings to his advantage. If there is an object in his vicinity that can be weaponized, it will be weaponized, and to devastating effect. He has managed to make effective combat use of a golf club, a can of hairspray, a bicycle, a big bag of money, a fire extinguisher, a fire hydrant, and even elevator cables. He’s hanged a man with a chain, stabbed another dead with an icicle, and took a little inspiration from Hans when he shot the glass himself. And let’s not forget that one of his greatest victories was won thanks to a roll of Christmas present tape.

Intelligence

John’s an experienced detective with a keen eye for clues. Most of his victories can be chalked up not to his physical talents, but rather his well-honed deduction skills and impressive memory. When wiping out the thieves in Nakatomi, he looted their bodies and memorized their names to discern their numbers, origins, funding, and level of experience from clues like their clothing and preferred cigarettes. He also managed to piece together the complicated schemes of both William Stuart and Simon Gruber from disparate pieces of information, something a lot of people watching the movies probably couldn’t do. (Seriously, it’s hard to keep track of what those guys’ plans actually were.)

McClane’s also incredibly perceptive. He was able to see through Hans’ “Bill Clay” disguise and intentionally gave him an unloaded gun for when he inevitably tried to shoot him. Disguises generally don’t fool McClane: he once figured out a group of policemen were actually impostors by remembering the badge number of an officer he had met briefly before and noticing that one of the fakes was wearing it. This let him take them out before they could make a move against him. There was also the time he located a bomb on board a train that was disguised as a phone, something nobody else on the train had picked up on.

Bending the Rules

John’s no dirty cop, but that doesn’t mean he won’t get his hands messy if the need arises. His most famous act of psychological warfare was when he sent Tony Vreski’s body down to the rest of Hans Gruber’s team to threaten them, complete with festive decorations. He was also perfectly fine with shooting one of Gabriel’s men while talking to him over the phone as an intimidation tactic, and used a man as a human shield on one occasion. There was also the time he threw a dead body onto Al Powell’s cop car, then shot it up just to get his attention. And if he can’t beat you fair and square, he’s totally fine with stealing a car and running you over with it.

McClane’s pragmatic willingness to flaunt conventions extends to less violent situations. He’s gifted at finding the quickest way from point A to point B, such as when he just paid off a laundry guy to help him sneak into a guarded hotel instead of going through with a more complicated plan, or when he cleared up traffic on his way to stop a bomb by just calling in an ambulance at the right spot. And uh, maybe we shouldn’t mention the time John lied about a bomb being planted in Harlem to trick a black guy into teaming up with him. That was just kinda weird.

John Wick

Training and Experience

Thanks to the Director, Wick has been training in martial arts since a young age. He has worked as a hitman for most of his adult life, and barring the five year gap where he was allowed to live with Helen, has basically done nothing besides kicking ass. After the events of the first movie, he’s been on the run fighting other hitmen for days straight, including Cassian, Ernest, the mute Ares and her team, and Zero and his ninja students.

It’s commonly speculated Wick was in the Marines due to a tattoo of a particular Marine regiment’s motto on his back. The tattoo reads “fortune favors the bold” in Latin. It’s worth noting that the tattoo uses a different Latin translation of the phrase than what the regiment actually uses - Fortis Fortuna Adiuvat versus Fortis Fortuna Juvat. The films never confirm this fan theory, and the director has confirmed that details on Wick’s past are kept deliberately vague. 

Any military background for Wick is only ever directly established in his appearance in the video game PAYDAY 2, of all things. Apparently Keanu himself confirmed it as well, but I can’t find the quote. Still, Wick’s incredibly lethal hand-to-hand and firearms talents are certainly above the paygrade of any average soldier.

Marksmanship

Wick’s mastery of firearms is beautiful in the most terrifying way. He can make short work of entire crowds of enemies with handguns, once taking out seven men in four seconds. He’s similarly effective with shotguns, sniper rifles, and assault rifles. He can easily land headshots, and specifically target basically any part of the body he wants. Wick’s even a master at loading his guns, able to outspeed two assailants in reloading, and even reload his pistol with one hand while he’s getting choked.

This skill with firearms extends to knowledge of how they function. He was once able to cobble together a working franken-revolver from pieces of other guns. He’s also got good aim with not just guns, but thrown knives and axes as well.

Close Quarters Combat

Wick’s eclectic martial arts style blends tons of individual forms and skills into a combination that is equal parts graceful and deadly. Behind the scenes, Wick’s style is referred to as “gun-fu,” due to how he’s able to seamlessly mix in firearms with hand to hand strikes. These close quarters skills can be effective while he’s riding a motorcycle or even on horseback.

Wick uses blades with the same fluidity and skill as he does with his bare hands, and can improvise weapons on the fly, most famously a pencil. He’s also made use of a pipe with just as much lethal effectiveness, once killed a man using a book, and performed a stealthy kill with garrote wire. His quick thinking doesn’t end at improvising weapons; he’ll even let himself get stabbed to get the upper hand in a fight.

Assassination

There’s a lot of individual talents needed to be a truly effective assassin. Researching targets, infiltrating guarded locations, cooperating with other members of the criminal underworld, focus, commitment, sheer will… as a legendary hitman, Wick has all these skills in spades. His knowledge of the human body lets him ensure the wounds he inflicts will be fatal, and not even the police will interfere with his work. He’s also incredibly stealthy, able to disappear into crowds like he was never there in the first place. This is doubly impressive when you consider that Zero, a talented ninja, wasn’t even able to track him.

Wick completed Viggo Tarasov’s impossible task of taking out all the mob’s enemies in one night, though he did require assistance from Santino for this feat. And while he ultimately didn’t end up being the one to kill Gianna D’Antonio, we saw during his attempt against her the kind of planning and effort it takes to pull off an assassination on a high profile target. 

Feats

John Rambo

Overall

• Fought in the Vietnam War as a Green Beret

• Was awarded the Congressional Medal of Honor

• Escaped from a Vietnamese prison camp after prolonged torture not once but twice

• Waged his own personal war against Sheriff Teasle’s small town police force and nearly won before the National Guard and Sam Trautman intervened

• Saved several American POWs from a Vietnamese prison camp despite Soviet intervention and sabotage from Marshall Murdock

• Rescued Trautman after he was captured by the Soviets in Afghanistan

• Assisted the Karen rebels in their fight against the Burmese Junta, rescuing several captured Christian missionaries

• Single-handedly wiped out Hugo Martinez, Victor Martinez, and scores of their cartel operatives as revenge for the death of his adoptive daughter Gabriela

• Has a total on-screen kill count of around 490

Power

Unarmed

• Wrestles a mountain lion

• Tears out a man’s trachea

• Breaks the side of a crate with a kick

• Kicks a man in the chest, then throws him out a window

• Kicks a man into a shelf hard enough to knock it over

• Pushes back against Kourov, flips him, and wrestles with him, choking him with a rope, then kicks him into a hole in the ground

• Wrestles Yushin inside a helicopter, eventually throwing him out of it

• Slams a man's head into a wall hard enough to either KO or kill him

• Snaps a man’s neck, again, again, again, this time using a vine

• While injured, pulls up a metal grate from the ground with one arm, and later pulls a metal window grate out of a wall after loosening one corner by bashing it with a gun

• In the comic adaptation, he bends the metal bars apart

• While building traps around his ranch, lifts up a large, heavy funnel using a pulley, drags around a bed of steel spikes, and lifts a thick piece of wood with nails and metal embedded in it overhead, lodging it into the ceiling

With Melee Weapons / Other Objects

• Cuts into Hugo’s chest and rips his heart out

• Disembowels Tint with a machete

• Decapitates a man, again

• Stabs a man through the head

• Stabs a man, then tears out his collarbone

• Stabs through a thatched roof while being choked out

• Stabs a man through the head with a spear, cuts another man's foot off with a machete, then finishes him with a stab to the neck

• Impales a man with a pickaxe, and smashes a wooden support pillar with that pickaxe, causing a cave-in

• Throws his knife hard enough to embed in a wall

• Kills a man with a throwing knife, again, again, again

• Splits a metal chain with his knife

• Splits a soldier's stomach with a knife, then grabs his body and uses it as a human shield while running, then stabs another soldier in the chest

Weaponry

• Sawed-off shotgun blows apart a man’s head, again

• M60 machine gun damages electrical transformers, wrecks a storefront, wrecks a police station, and shots pierce through the underside of a roof

• M60E3 machine gun blows away soldiers, shoots the lock off a cage, and wrecks the command room of the Army base

• Single explosive arrows blow up huts, blow up vehicles, blow a man to bits, blow up a helicopter, and kills three men at once

• RPG-7 heavily damages an enemy boat and kills several men with one shot, and another shot damages a large Soviet vehicle

• M72 LAW blasts a Soviet gunship into scrap metal with a single shot

• M203 grenade launcher heavily damages vehicles from a distance

• Single hand grenades break a metal bridge apart, and blast apart doors

• Time bombs create explosions over a Soviet base, and cause part of an underground tunnel to collapse

• A mine used as a trap in his tunnels blows men to chunks

• Explosives set in his tunnels are able to collapse the entire system, though this required prep to set up

Speed

Avoiding Gunfire

• Rambo has repeatedly avoided gunfire, though whether these are genuine bullet dodges, aim dodges, or just misses is often unclear

• Avoids a rifle shot from a cop

• Ducks to avoid a sniper shot

• Gets to cover while under fire from Zaysen

• Jumps out a window to avoid a pistol shot from a Vietnamese guard

• Quickly gets down into cover when a soldier starts firing at him

• Runs from helicopter fire, again 

• Pulls a man over in time to use him as a human shield

• Finds cover twice while in a gunfight with some Soviets

• Drops down as someone starts firing at him through a wall, but it's unclear if any of the bullets are even passing through

• Ducks down into a tunnel as Hugo and his men start firing at him

• Ducks to avoid a line of bullets, possibly avoids more bullets, though it isn’t clear, and gets to cover while under fire by Soviets, appearing to duck or crawl under a line of shots at one point

Avoiding Other Projectiles

• Gets behind a corner before a Soviet can fire his grenade launcher at him, and ducks underwater to avoid a grenade launcher shot

• Manages to run deeper into a mineshaft to avoid a rocket launcher shot; though we don't see that he made it out there, he's fine when they cut to him next. | Here's a scene where you can better see the distance between where the National Guard was and where Rambo was initially in the mineshaft

• Manages to run away before a Soviet helicopter can drop a bomb on him. It seems like he gets propelled by the edge of the explosion as he's diving away, but he managed to escape the brunt of the blast

• While chased by a helicopter, manages to get to a hole in the ground before they drop a bomb on him. He's able to roll out of the way of the explosion's descending flames after dropping into a cavern

• Comic adaptation version

Other

• Shoots one guy, then shoots his partner before he can shoot back

• Draws his gun and fires on five pirates before any are able to react or fire back

• With an injured leg, rolls to a gun and shoots two Soviets before they can shoot him, though they're busy climbing out of a tank

• Manages to jump out from a body of water up onto a helicopter flying just above the surface

• Gets out of sight before a Soviet guard peeks around a corner

• Ducks underwater to avoid the blast of a timed explosive he set

Durability 

Beatings

• [NSFW] Takes getting beaten with a baton, then blasted with a hose

• Recovers after getting choked by a cop

• Gets into a wrestling match with Yushin, who slams him around and chokes him, and comes out on top

• Takes tons of kicks and escrima stick blows during a money fight; this man was able to break apart wood with a missed swing

• Gets into a fight with Kourov, who chokes him, throws him around, kicks him in the face, and bearhugs him. He's able to keep going despite the blows and ultimately defeat him

Impacts

• Gets back up and into cover after leaping off a tall cliff and into a tree, smashing into branches; though he's left with a wound he’s able to recover quickly, and eventually stitches up the wound

• Gets hung up while parachuting out of a plane, getting dragged and slammed against the side of the plane before cutting himself loose; we see that he's fine after

• He's alright after being inside a crashing helicopter

• He's alright after dropping into a cave from up high

• Tumbles down a cliff while wrestling with a soldier

Explosions

• He's inside the opening of a mineshaft when it gets shot with a rocket, though he runs away for a bit before it hits; we don't see him immediately after the mineshaft entrance collapses, but when it cuts to him, he's fine

• Gets strangled with a rope and frees himself, then also gets launched by an explosion, though it's not a direct hit. He's able to swim to shore after

• Maybe gets damaged by this explosion here, though he obviously avoids most of the blast by diving off a cliff into water. All it really does is propel him since he's by the edge of it. He's fine afterwards

• Takes a grenade blast that propels him across a room and impales him with a long shard of wood. After snapping off part of the shard, he's able to get back up and keep going

• Even while impaled, he's able to go through an entire action sequence; after that, he escapes on a horse, and makes it back to a cave within that same night

• Pulls the shard out of himself, and using gunpowder, ignites his own wound to cauterize it

• After cauterizing his wound at night, we next see him during the day. He's able to climb up a tall cliff in the desert despite his injury

• Takes being inside a tank that crashes into a gunship, causing a huge explosion that wrecks both. He's able to climb out of the wreckage

• Gets blown down a hill by the shockwave of a Tallboy bomb. He was very far away from the bomb when it went off, so it's not like he's taking the full blast here; when we see him next after he tumbles down that hill, he's fine

Gunshots

• Gets thrown off a horse, then shot in the leg with a machine gun. Despite this, he's able to get up and keep fighting, though his leg clearly hinders him somewhat

• Gets shot across the shoulder with a machine gun, thrown back by the force. Still, he's able to get back up and keep fighting

• During the final battle, gets shot in the stomach and keeps going, then gets shot in the shoulder and still keeps going

• In a flashback, manages to get back up to his feet, punch a Vietcong, and shoot Valane after taking a bullet to the leg

Other

• Two Soviets subject Rambo to electrical torture. This lasts for possibly several hours, given that there's still sunlight out when they begin and it's dark after a scene transition; after shocking him another time, Podovosky says that Rambo's the strongest he's seen; after they force him to make a radio call, Rambo’s able to beat up the two Soviets and stage an escape from the Vietnamese base

• Survived torture while captured in Vietnam, including being trapped in a pit and covered with waste, and was eventually able to escape the prison camp; we see the scars he got from this torture, as well as flashbacks to it in the first movie

John McClane

Overall

• Fought in the Vietnam War as a Marine Sergeant

• Thwarted Hans Gruber’s plan to rob Nakatomi Plaza

• Stopped Colonel Stuart’s plot to escape America with Ramon Esperanza

• Freed New York after Simon Gruber took the city hostage with his bomb game

• Foiled Thomas Gabriel’s plan to devastate America’s infrastructure and steal billions of dollars

• Helped his son Jack stop Yuri Komarov from obtaining weapons-grade uranium

• Defeated the wannabe eco-terrorist Alan Douglas and put an end his extortion scheme

• Helped stop the Rice brothers’ streak of robberies during the NYC blackout of ‘77

• Tracked down the serial killer Mr. Moviefone

• Has a total on-screen kill count of around 74

Power

Unarmed

• Punches a shark

• Knocks out a man with one punch

• Knocks Karl's gun out of his hand, then shoves him into some barrels hard enough to knock them over and continues to pummel him

• Kicks a large metal vent cover out of its frame

• Punches through a thin wall to hit a guy on the other side, then pulls his head forward to break more of the wall

• Pushes over a tower of scaffolding

• Pushes over a fridge

• Bites off part of Stuart’s finger

• Throws a man out of a truck with one arm

• Throws Mai into some shelves, breaking them

• Appears to break some wood planks with a stomp, but they could just be giving way beneath him. They look pretty shaky either way

• Smashes a subway train window with a kick

• Holds up a woman tied to a chair while treading water for some time

With Melee Weapons / Other Objects

• Busts a metal grate out of its frame with a gun

• Cuts into a metal elevator door with an axe

• Stabs a wooden shard into Targo's leg and takes him down by whipping him with a chain

• Smashes a skyscraper window with a chair

• Crumples a metal canister filled with bees shut by slamming it with a chair

Weaponry

• The Beretta 92F, in the hands of Karl Vreski, blows holes through a metal door

• MP5A3 shots leave bullet holes in the hood of a cop car, and McClane is able to break a lock by shooting it

• The Beretta 92FS shoots through the door of a truck, and breaks a lock

• The Chinese rocket launcher kills Simon in one shot

• A SIG-Sauer P220R shot makes a fire extinguisher explode

• The one grenade he uses causes a large explosion, though this is mostly due to a gas leak

• His bag of gathered-up dynamite causes a large explosion that destroys a submarine

• C4 wrecks an entire floor of the Nakatomi Plaza office building

Speed

Avoiding Gunfire

• McClane has repeatedly avoided gunfire, though whether these are genuine bullet dodges, aim dodges, or just misses is often unclear

• Outruns thieves and avoids their bursts of gunfire, again

• Moves his head out of the way when a man fires at him from close range with a pistol

• Gets to cover while being fired on, again

• Outruns a line of gunfire from a helicopter, again, again

• Moves his head out of the way of a window when a man fires at him

• Ducks just in time to avoid getting hit by rapid gunfire from a fighter jet

• Ducks to avoid a gunshot. The guy shooting was noted to have bad aim, so it's possibly just a miss, but it's also mentioned that they're at a range where skill isn't an issue

• Pulls a guy over in time to use his body to block gunshots

• Appears to jump out of the way just as a man starts firing an Uzi at him through a door, and appears to avoid bursts of Uzi fire from close range later

• Appears to jump out of the way of a pistol shot, and appears to move his head out of the way of a pistol shot, though this one could just be a miss

• While dangling on a ledge, flips back over it to avoid getting shot

Other

• Jumps back as a C4 explosion runs up an elevator shaft, avoiding the blast

• Flees an exploding building

• Ducks a kick from Stuart

• Avoids and deflects knife strikes

• Pulls Matt out of the way of a car, ducks under another car that's careening through the air, and gets to cover before another car hits him

• Ducks under a speeding subway train

• Jumps onto a moving subway train, and smashes a window and gets inside before he slams into a lamp

• Manages to disarm Rand, who was avoiding his gunshots with parkour

• Manages to spin his car in time to avoid an RPG rocket

Durability 

The Nakatomi Plaza Incident

• Within the span of a single night, John goes through all of the following…

• Gets smashed into walls hard enough to break them and metal bars hard enough to knock them over, and gets slammed against a door hard enough to break it off its hinges by Tony Vreski

• After being blinded with a flashbang and surrounded with broken glass, has to navigate his way out without shoes on, getting shards of glass stuck in his feet

• After some time spent cleaning and tying up his wounds, he’s able to get on the move again, and even get into extended physical fights

• Gets thrashed by Karl Vreski and shot across the back with his own pistol, and keeps fighting the entire time

• Smashes through a window and recovers quickly, going on to save the day

Beatings

• Takes hits from Grant and Stuart, including being stabbed in the shoulder, then gets thrown off an airplane as it’s speeding down the tarmac, and still manages to come out on top

• Takes a brutal beating from Targo

• Takes a thrashing from Mai, including being thrown into a desk and through a glass pane, continuing to fight the whole time; she then kicks him out a window, sending him crashing to the street below. He hits a metal vent hard enough to dent it on the way down. Despite all of this, he’s able to get going again and eventually defeat Mai

• Takes getting knocked around by Rand

Impacts

• Recovers after falling from up high onto a shipping container

• Tumbles through a ruined sixteen wheeler, landing on a jet, then jumps off that jet and recovers after

• Keeps going after getting hit by a spinning car. He’s also hit by another car in the next movie, though it’s not going too fast

• Jumps through a window, crashing through the glass, landing on some scaffolding below. Right after that, he falls down a length of pipe, then crashes through some floors of scaffolding

• While hanging from a car dangling from a helicopter, gets launched through the air and through a window. After that, he jumps out of another window, crashes through a sheet of glass, and falls into a pool below. He's alright after all of this

Crashes / Explosions

• Recovers after being launched off a snowmobile as it crashes and blows up

• Gets caught in a large explosion that derails a train and causes tons of destruction. He's pretty much fine after, but it’s unclear if the blast really hit him directly, though he was very close to the epicenter

• Takes a car crash and is alright after, again, again

• Gets launched off a boat by an explosion and is able to swim to safety after, though it’s possibly just propelling him and he’s not actually getting hit by most of the blast

• Survives being inside a van that gets launched through a wall by a massive explosion

• Gets caught in the middle of a large fireball from a grenade blowing up and igniting some gas, though he was under cover and mostly shielded

• Survives a ceiling collapsing on him due to an explosion, and being close to another large explosion

Other

• Keeps fighting while being swarmed by bees and stung repeatedly

• Takes getting slashed on the arm by a knife-wielding dummy with a robot arm

• Gets shot through the shoulder, then shoots himself through his own wound to kill the man behind him. He needs medical attention after this, however.

• Possibly comparable to Mai Linh, who was able to keep fighting even after getting slammed by a car at high speed, crashing through sheets of glass and a wooden barricade 

John Wick

Overall

• Trained in multiple martial arts since childhood

• Made a name for himself as a legendary hitman

• Completed Viggo Tarasov’s impossible task

• Got his revenge on the Tarasovs after Iosef killed his dog

• Regularly defeats entire groups of armed men, often with little difficulty

• Successfully infiltrated the Red Circle

• After being declared excommunicado, has fended off attacks from numerous other hitmen

• Is set to wage a war against the High Table, the most powerful group in the underworld

• Has a total on-screen kill count of around 299

Power

Unarmed

• Slams an assassin and himself through a sheet of bulletproof glass

• Snaps a man’s neck with a swing

• Snaps another neck and another

• Kicks a man through a glass display

• Can throw people around

• Throws one man into another hard enough to knock them over

• Smashes through a mirror wall

• While injured, wrestles with Ms. Perkins and smashes her through glass

With Melee Weapons / Other Objects

• Knocks out Calamity with the butt of a gun

• Kills a man with a pencil

• Throws an axe into a man’s skull

• Kills a man with a thrown knife, again

• Stabs a man through the skull, then stabs another in eye

• Kills Ernest with a book, breaking his jaw and neck

• Cuts off his own finger

Weaponry

• Numerous guns shoot through walls

• The Benelli M2 Super 90’s armor-piercing slugs can pierce High Table body armor and blow up heads. For reference, several other powerful guns couldn’t affect High Table body armor

• Incendiary grenades burn up a large pile of money

• Remotely detonated explosives heavily damage cars

Speed

Avoiding Gunfire

• Wick has repeatedly avoided gunfire, though whether these are genuine bullet dodges, aim dodges, or just misses is often unclear

• Avoids gunshots from Ms. Perkins in their fight

• Outruns a line of gunfire, though the people firing at him couldn’t see him at first

• Ducks behind a car when a man starts firing on him

• Rolls to avoid a gunshot

• Probably comparable to Kirill, who’s avoided gunshots from Wick 

Other

• Leaps over a car

• Evades a speeding taxi

• Leaps from roof to roof

• Draws his gun and shoots seven men in three seconds

• Has several other feats of quickly dispatching groups of enemies with his guns

• Vanishes into a crowd, and seems to disappear twice when Zero looks away

Durability 

Bulletproof Suit

• Suit blocks bullets, but it still hurts to get shot

• Wick has taken plenty of bullets in the suit, and manages to keep going despite the pain

• Has worn other bulletproof armor that defends against bullets

• The assassin Ernest managed to stab him in the soldier, despite the suit’s protection

• Gets repeatedly shot, then knocked off a rooftop, hitting several things on the fall down to the street. He survived this, but every bone in his body was broken, and he was taken out of commission for a while

Impacts

• Gets hit by a car, again, again (though this knocked him out), again twice, again like four times

• Recovers after a car crash, again

• Thrown off a balcony and recovers

• Smashes through glass unaffected

• Gets kicked around and slammed through glass displays, continues to fight

• Recovers after a tumble down some stairs

Stabbings / Gunshots

• Keeps fighting after Ernest stabbed him in the shoulder

• Intentionally stabs himself in the gut during a fight

• Keeps going after getting shot twice and digs the bullets out of his wounds

• Keeps fighting after getting shot in the chest

• Keeps fighting after getting shot in the leg

• Takes two shots to the chest

Other

• Cuts off his own finger

• Toughs out getting an open wound burned

• Gets knocked out by, but survives, getting blasted out of his house by an indirect grenade launcher shot

• Several of his injuries listed above have occurred over the course of a week or two, and yet he keeps going mostly unhindered

Weaknesses

John Rambo

Rambo’s mental state fluctuates. Certain situations are shown to trigger him, such as being in small, enclosed spaces or having knives close to his face. However, he can usually get over these problems in the heat of battle, such as when he was perfectly fine fighting Soviets in a tight sewer tunnel in the third movie, or when he didn’t break down during torture when the Soviets scarred his face with his own blade. 

Additionally, while Rambo is… well, fucking Rambo, he’s still been overpowered before and has had to resort to traps or other creative methods to win.

John McClane

McClane is a skilled hand-to-hand fighter, but only to a point. In almost every single movie, he’s shown to seriously struggle against opponents who have either a training, strength, or size advantage, and needs to pull a trick out of his ass in order to score a victory:

Die Hard: Karl was beating John before he managed to hang him with a chain.

Die Harder: Colonel Stuart straight up won against John thanks to his martial arts expertise (the guy practices naked, that’s how you know he’s good). Of course, John just blew him and his whole plane to bits right after, but Stuart still undeniably beat him in hand-to-hand.

With a Vengeance: Similar to Karl, Targo was thrashing John before he started using his surroundings against him.

Live Free: The martial artist Mai beat the shit out of John when they fought, and he had to steal a car and ram her with it, then choke her out with elevator cables to beat her.

Out of the box strategies are John’s greatest strength, but he can tend to over-rely on them. If his surroundings aren’t ideal, that could seriously hinder him.

John Wick

Despite his stoic surface Wick can be overconfident and overemotional, which has negatively affected him several times. As an example, he couldn’t keep himself from killing Santino in the Continental, breaking one of the hotel’s most sacred rules. Due to this failing, he was labeled excommunicado, stripped of his privileges with the establishment, and had a higher bounty placed on his head.

Similar to the other two fighters, there have been points where Wick has been outmatched by his opponents and forced to resort to shooting them or other alternate strategies. While Wick’s armored suit is certainly impressive, it’s not totally infallible. It leaves important areas like the head and hands exposed, and doesn’t completely negate gunfire. Also, for some reason he can’t stop getting hit by cars.

Summary

John Rambo

“Are you insane? One man against trained commandos… who do you think this man is? God?”

“God would have mercy. He won’t.”

Advantages:

• Comparable physically to his opponents

• Has the most numerous and easiest to use explosive weaponry

• His broad, multi-disciplinary Green Beret training is likely superior to McClane and Wick’s training

• Possibly the most experienced, definitely more than McClane but we don’t know the exact details of Wick’s hitman career to judge there

• Stealthiest and best at making traps

• Keen hearing could counter attempts at sneak attacks

• Got his own cartoon

Disadvantages:

• His fluctuating mental state could be taken advantage of

• Many of his strongest weapons aren’t portable

• Generally the most straightforward in melee combat

• Depending on surroundings, stealth and traps possibly won’t be usable options

• Has some of the worst sequels of the bunch

John McClane

"Do you really think you have a chance against us, mister cowboy?"

"Yippee-ki-yay, motherfucker."

Advantages:

• Comparable physically to his opponents

• Has tagged an aim dodger before

• While he has the least weapons, he still only needs one clean shot to kill either opponent

• Out of the box thinking could help him score a win despite his disadvantages

• The best of the three at improvising weapons and using the environment to his advantage

• Has the most surviving relatives

Disadvantages:

• Smallest arsenal out of all three fighters

• His explosives are hard to use in direct combat

• Heavily relies on his environment to be effective

• Arguably the worst at close quarters combat

• Probably the least stealthy

• The other fighters have their fair share of creative thinking feats as well

• BALD

John Wick

"Whoever comes, whoever it is, I'll kill them. I'll kill them all."

Advantages:

• Comparable physically to his opponents

• Only fighter who bothers wearing armor 

• Has trained since childhood, though whether that training is superior to Rambo’s Green Beret training is debatable

• Most well-defined martial arts skills

• Youngest out of the three

• Far more kills than McClane…

• Still getting sequels

Disadvantages:

• Armor doesn’t cover his head or completely negate gunshots, can be stabbed through

• Strength and martial arts advantages may not be that important when both other fighters can fight well at a distance with their guns

• Least powerful explosives

• Has been knocked out by things that the others have recovered more quickly from

• …But still less kills than Rambo

• Reddit likes him the most

Verdict

Preamble

I did most of the work on this one myself, and I have to say, I really want to see Death Battle tackle more characters that are “man with guns.”

I know people tend to prefer matches where you get to cover a jillion different powers, haxes, counters, counters to those counters, detailed analyses of the cosmology of both ‘verses, how many omniverses the characters can juggle, etcetera etcetera. But I don’t really know, that stuff has just never really interested me. I can get into that sometimes, but I just like it when there’s sweaty, muscly guys with no shirts on shooting hot loads at each other. Oh, and I also like street tier gunfights.

Will this matchup ever happen on Death Battle? No, definitely not, like this is 100% a never ever. Cole VS Alex has a better chance of happening. Avril Lavigne returning my calls has a better chance of happening. I want it pretty badly, but yeah, I’ve accepted it’s not gonna happen. But what are the chances of each character getting on the show? Or in Wick’s case, getting back on? And what matches could happen? 

Rambo is an inevitability, I feel. I mean, he’s just so iconic. “Ronald Reagan talked about him in his speeches” iconic. If it’s one season from now or five seasons from now, he’ll be on at some point. I have a feeling that when he does show up, they’ll either have him fight Wick or some random Arnold Schwarzeneggar character. Personally, I dislike both of those ideas.

Like okay, if they do Rambo, they’ll do a full composite. You saw how they treated James Bond. Do we really need to bring Wick back just to feed him to another composite character with decades more history and few actual connections? And then for the Schwarzeneggar option, that’s just like… okay, I get it. The Sly-Schwarzeneggar rivalry is iconic. But all the options are just so lame. The one I see tossed around the most is John Matrix, which is just kind of… ugh, really? He has one movie, Rambo smokes him like a cigar. Dutch from Predator is probably the best option out of the Ahhnold roster cause I know he has some stuff in spinoff material to even the gap, but it’s still just not very appealing to me.

And then I know they’ve talked about “Composite Stallone VS Composite Schwarzeneggar,” which would be good as a joke episode, way more interesting than just another “cartoon character wins fight with Le Funnie Toonforce™” episode. But if it means Rambo gets wasted, then I really don’t want it. It wouldn’t lock him out of the show of course, but if it happened first it would mean we’d have to wait a while for him to get on for real. My preferred opponent for Rambo would be McClane, as McClane is kind of the only other long-running 80s action character that has the breadth of material to stand up to Rambo. The connections are rather thin I’ll admit, but the character interactions alone would be fun enough to carry it.

As for McClane’s chances on the show, I think the chances of him showing up are slim to none. I have a feeling the people behind the scenes of the show would think Die Hard is too “niche” or “obscure” to get an episode, which it isn’t in my opinion. It’s very mainstream, actually. There’s entire episodes of TV shows dedicated to parodying Die Hard. Die Hard spawned an entire genre of “Die Hard on an X” clones. McClane was on ERB like, last year, and that got plenty of views. People still debate to this day whether or not Die Hard is a Christmas movie. People know what Die Hard is, and if they don’t know McClane’s name they’ll still see Bruce Willis’ face in the thumbnail and that’ll probably register with them. Just cause the most vocal section of the fanbase are zoomers who don’t know about any piece of media that isn’t anime or superheroes doesn’t mean the episode won’t get clicks.

But who knows? Maybe I’m totally misreading the tea leaves here. For all I know there’s some diehard Die Hard chads behind the scenes who’ll jump at the chance to give McClane his due.

I feel like Wick will probably get reused at some point thanks to his evergreen popularity, Keanu’s perpetual meme status, and the fact he’s got a few more movies on the way to keep him in the spotlight and justify a re-analysis. I’m pretty happy about that. Even if I don’t particularly like the character or the movies, he deserves a lot better than his treatment in James Bond VS John Wick, or as I think it should properly be titled, James Bond is Really Cool and Awesome (featuring some guy called John Wick). For god’s sake, they were making James Bond references in John Wick’s analysis. I get it, I really do, Bond is an infinitely more fun and interesting character to talk about than Wick, but come on, it just seemed so lopsided. Of course, they’ll probably put Wick up against Rambo instead of the Bride or Agent 47, which sucks as I’ve explained before, but whatever.

Anyways, enough bitching about hypothetical future episodes of a YouTube show mostly watched by 12 year old Naruto fans. I think this fight is pretty interesting to think about because of the “three-way” aspect, which kinda shores up some of the “they’re just guys with guns”-ness of it. Plus, they’re all actually rather close when you look at it, which always makes a fight better in my eyes. Let’s start comparing our Johns.

Physicals

Strength is kinda not that relevant of a stat here, since they’re all going into the fight with an arsenal of guns, explosives, and other weapons. I want to say Wick is the strongest, going off the bulletproof glass feat, then Rambo with all his neck snaps and decapitations and organ removings, then McClane who really doesn’t have a whole lot. Still, the gap is not so great that anyone is getting completely and totally overpowered. Not to mention that all three characters have beaten opponents who physically dominated them by using strategy.

Durability is also pretty close. I’d personally give the edge on that to McClane because of his two big explosion feats and his ridiculous pain tolerance, though it’s very tough to judge. These guys all have very similar feats of surviving kabooms, taking gunshots, getting stabbed, vehicle crashes, what have you. However, durability is also something that is kinda tertiary here. All the characters have been harmed by bullets before, and would definitely die if they got shot in the head. Again, they’ll all still be able to harm and kill one another.

Even Wick with his bulletproof suit… the thing doesn’t cover his head. Both McClane and Rambo have opened fights with headshots before, and they’re both smart enough to aim there if an initial shot to the chest or a limb proves unsuccessful. This is also a three-way fight, so McClane could figure out the suit’s bulletproof from Rambo failing to wound Wick and vice versa. Sure, Wick can lift up part of the jacket to cover his head, but that limits his visibility and keeps him from using one hand. It’s also not a completely infallible defense; it still hurts Wick to get shot and it’s been stabbed through before, which, when Rambo’s got bladed weapons for days, is not a good thing.

Speed? They basically all have the same level of speed if you ask me, which is “won’t get shot speed.” What is “won’t get shot speed?” It’s the speed most action movie characters are. They’re not bullet dodgers, sometimes they’re not even aim dodgers really. But they won’t get shot. People will fire at them and they’ll be able to get away and won’t get shot. Unless of course, it’d be dramatic for them to get shot in that scene, in which case they will get shot. That’s the tier of speed I think these three characters inhabit.

I’m sure there’s arguments to get them higher, and I think those would end up favoring McClane maybe? I mean he has the best bullet dodges in the comics if you choose to use those (which is mostly because comics aren’t a medium where there’s actual motion going on and you can interpret things more generously because of that), and I think some people might try to call him “explosion timing” because of this feat. But aimdodging seems like the most consistent depiction to me. Still, with equal leeway given, they’re probably all going to get in the same ballpark of speed no matter what.

Weaponry

So if physicals won’t be the deciding factor of this bout, let’s move on to weaponry. All the fighters have used a wide assortment of guns, but Rambo and Wick are both above McClane in this department. His arsenal simply isn’t as wide as the others, though it’s not like his bullets won’t be able to kill Rambo or Wick if he scores a headshot. Rambo and Wick also beat out McClane in the category of melee weapons, since McClane doesn’t really use any.

In terms of explosive weaponry, Rambo is the clear winner. He’s got his explosive arrows, rocket launchers, and both a grenade launcher and hand grenades. These can all wreck vehicles, even helicopters, and would hit with a wide AOE that isn’t easily dodged. He’s got mines as well, though they take a bit of time to set up.

McClane does have a rocket launcher of his own, but… well, should he really get it? It’s from a non-canon alternate ending. Either way, it doesn’t have the feats to put it on par with Rambo’s explosive weaponry. And when it comes to McClane’s C4 or dynamite, I don’t think they’d be very reliable in this match. They both could harm him as much as they could harm his opponents, and I don’t see him just tossing them out like grenades. He’d have to find a way to set them up, then flee so he doesn’t blow up or roast himself. Easier said than done when he has two of fiction’s most notorious badasses trying to kill him.

Wick’s remotely-detonated explosives also have the same ease of use issues as McClane’s. He’d have to find a way to set them up in the heat of battle. And then the incendiary grenades wouldn’t be that useful either, since they take a while to get going and don’t blow up or anything, just spray flames. Both opponents could just easily dodge or knock away the incendiary grenades with little trouble or possible injury.

Skill and Strategy

Usually, strategy is the least important section in blogs like these. This time however, it’s gonna be pretty crucial for determining the winner.

So, with all skills taken into account, Wick is easily the best fighter out of the three competitors. It’s barely even a contest. He has the best martial arts, the most precise aim, and lightning-quick gunplay. McClane won’t be able to keep up in that last department, but Rambo does have a feat that, while similar to Wick’s seven men in four seconds feat, isn’t quite as good. McClane and Rambo both outdo Wick in niche areas, but overall, he dominates this category.

Strategy is kind of where McClane’s chances for winning really drop to zero for me. I like him the best out of the three, and he’s easily top five on my personal all-time favorite characters. But even I have to admit he’s last place here. He is a character that is hard carried by “plot armor” and using his surroundings. In the assumed “neutral environment” that is generally used in versus debating scenarios, all of that evaporates.

In this fight, with the ability to use his environment or pull something out of his ass taken out of the equation, you’re just left with a guy that keeps up in stats, but has worse guns, worse aim, worse hand to hand skills, worse pretty much everything. If this was a Die Hard movie, McClane could grab a nearby stapler and a stick of bubble gum and figure out a way to beat Rambo and Wick at the same time with them. But this is a fictional debate where we have to give his opponents - who also have feats of using the environment against their enemies - all the same opportunities McClane has.

Rambo is also hit by the neutral environment rule. He’s probably not going to have everything he needs to bullshit up a booby trap that’ll take Wick down. His stealth may also not be a viable option either. However, I don’t think this crushes him as much as it does McClane. I’ve already mentioned that he’s close to being as quick on the draw as Wick. In regards to aim, while he doesn’t have as many precision feats as Wick does, he does have some pretty ridiculous ones like the “uses playing cards as archery targets” feat that I think should be comparable enough.

Conclusion

So I’ve laid out pretty much everything. McClane takes third place due to his lesser skill and more unreliable weaponry, but that leaves gold and silver to be handed out. And, taking into account all factors, I have to go with John Rambo as the ultimate winner of this battle royale.

Wick may have an advantage in martial arts, superior armor, and possibly higher strength, but Rambo has much harder hitting weaponry, good enough aim to target Wick’s weak points, and the speed to avoid Wick’s gunshots and make use of his advantages. 

Rambo doesn’t even need to land a headshot; even with his bulletproof suit, I don’t see Wick staying conscious after an RPG shot, an explosive arrow, or a grenade. In fact, we’ve seen him taken by surprise and knocked out by an indirect grenade launcher blast before. Compare that to Rambo, who took a grenade launcher shot and kept fighting far quicker. When he’s on the ground, Rambo won’t need to aim to finish Wick for good. And in a three way fight where there’s another opponent Wick will have to deal with if he wants to win, that could give Rambo the opening he needs to use his explosive weaponry.

Of course, Rambo could find an opening regardless. All the characters here are fast enough to avoid gunfire, but Wick actually is the least consistent in that category - he’s dodged the least and been hit the most. By the way, all three characters having multiple feats of avoiding bullets is why I don’t think any character just insta-headshotting the others is that much of a possibility. Though if you were to argue that could happen, I would say Wick probably has the best chance of pulling that off, followed by Rambo.

This fight is incredibly, incredibly close. Any of the three characters could feasibly win, especially when you take into account there’s more than two fighters. For example, McClane could run and hide while Rambo and Wick fight it out, then mop up whoever's left. Or, Rambo could blast Wick and McClane with an explosive arrow while they’re wrestling on the ground. Or, all three could fight, Wick could get knocked away and assumed dead, then recover in time to take Rambo by surprise.

There may be thousands of possibilities, but if you ran this fight a hundred times, I think Rambo would come away with the highest number of victories. He might not score first blood, but what’s important is scoring last.

But that’s just my take. Certainly people will have their own. If you enjoyed this blog, maybe check out my respect threads for Rambo and McClane over on Reddit. Yeah I know, Reddit, the site sucks, but it’s got an established community and actually has pretty good post formatting tools for making RTs. If you’re wondering why so many clips for Rambo and McClane are hosted there, that’s why. (It’s also to get past limitations on other sites - Gfycat doesn’t do clips over 1 minute, YouTube takes down things for copyright all the time, Streamables are temporary unless you pay for an account, and MEGA is too inconvenient.)

I’d like to thank the G1 Death Battle Fan Blog and /u/iwasAfookenLegend for their repositories of Wick gifs, which came in handy when making this post. I would’ve clipped my own, but cutting dozens of clips from 10 other movies kinda felt like enough.