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Power Grid

8 Great Monster Hunters

by The Mary Sue Staff | 12:26 pm, October 24th, 2012


Buffy Summers

Buffy Summers

You can’t have a list of supernatural hunters without Buffy. She who hangs out a lot in cemeteries. Slayer, comma, The. Killing vampires, thwarting demon plots and averting the apocalypse is Buffy’s calling, but I’ve never understood why it wasn’t her literal job. As in, why the heck does the Watcher’s Council not pay her for it?! Buffy might not have needed health benefits—super healing powers tend to render hospital visits for things like broken bones and stab wounds unnecessary—but would throwing a weekly stipend her way be too much to ask? She saved the world multiple times (or “a lot,” as her tombstone says), but as far as I can tell the Council never sent a dime her way so she wouldn’t have to get a part-time job after her mom died (pause for wretched sobbing… OK, I’m good now).

Really, paying their slayers would be a practical decision for the Council. A slayer without any financial obligations is free to devote herself to killing baddies 24/7, and without the stress that dogged Buffy throughout season six she’d have been much better able to concentrate. Plus, with the exception of Buffy, slayers don’t tend to live that long. It’s not like most of them would collect retirement benefits.

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  • http://www.geeky-guide.com/ Geeky Guide

    No Supernatural?

  • http://www.crimsontear.com/ Crimson Tear

    Supernatural is the last one.

  • http://www.youruinedmychildhood.com crosberg

    Sorry Mary Sue, I’mma let you finish, but the Hero Twins, Monster Slayer and Born of Water, are the best monster hunters of all time: http://www.firstpeople.us/FP-Html-Legends/MonsterSlayerandYeiitsoh-Navajo.html and http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Din%C3%A9_Bahane%CA%BC#The_Monster_Slayer_Twins

  • http://www.geeky-guide.com/ Geeky Guide

    Oh weird, I guess I double-clicked as I went through the list.
    Stupid fingers.

  • Terence Ng

    Re: Buffy, considering that the Council PAID Watchers, it is indeed bizarre that Slayers didn’t get a salary…

  • http://twitter.com/Kea_Alwang Kea Alwang

    Okay, I’m all about having Ellen and Jo on the list…but without my Winchester boys? I think you need a top 10 list, with Sam and Dean each having their own number. (And I love their super codependency….and your list despite their absence!) ;}

  • http://www.facebook.com/elffan Rachael Hixon

    Ah, no Vampire Hunter D. I guess it’s too obscure.

  • Anonymous

    God I love Nextwave.

  • Anonymous

    My head canon for Season 6 is that they were paying(just not while she was dead, hence the emergency needed money in Flooded) and she was still in debt, so had to take a temporary part time job at the DMP to make ends meet.

  • Rebecca Pahle

    I like that head canon! It always bugged me that Willow or Tara didn’t get a part-time job, though. Were they living with Buffy rent-free?

  • Rebecca Pahle

    OK, but then we’d have to include Ash, because honestly. He’s Ash. And also Bobby. We’ve gotta leave room for other shows!

  • Anonymous

    I think traditionally the Slayers would usually live with their Watcher rather than having an independent life of any sort. And apparently it didn’t occur to Buffy to ask for a salary when negotiating with the Council in season 5.
    What I don’t get is why Willow and Tara couldn’t have gotten part-time jobs and paid some dang rent. Jeez.

  • http://psychotronicvortex.tumblr.com/ Psychotronic (Michael F.)

    An honorary mention for Abslom Daak, the Dalek Killer from the Doctor Who comic strips.

  • http://shiftercat.livejournal.com/ ShifterCat

    So glad Teen Wolf got a shout-out.

  • Anonymous

    Actually, I think she was being smart. Taking money from someone gives them power over you.

  • TKS

    Thematically, I think that was the point.

  • TKS

    The more I watch Adventure Time, the more it feels like Twin Peaks.

    Speaking of cartoons that feel like Twin Peaks, I’m a bit sad that Dipper and Mabel from Gravity Falls didn’t make the list.

  • http://www.facebook.com/people/Duck-Linsenmayer/100001495960900 Duck Linsenmayer

    Anita? I know the series has gone downhill, but without her, 90% of those would never have been made.

  • Mark Wyman

    Rhedan Monster-hunter? I mean it’s right there in the name!

  • http://www.youruinedmychildhood.com crosberg

    Whoa, whoa, seriously? You think the Anita Blake series impacted “90%” of this list? Which ones? Because I see basically no similarities between what amounts to soft core lit porn (nothing wrong with that) and these.

  • Terence Ng

    I don’t know. Nikki mentions that her Watcher lived separately from her, which is why Robin was always on patrol with her and she could choose to take him to stay at her Watcher’s place.

    In the present era, it’s also rare that a Slayer wouldn’t have a family, since she’s likely to be a teenage girl who has to undergo the Tento di Cruciamentum. If the Slayer has some sort of quality of life dependence on the Watcher, it’d be strange for it to also have to be a secret from the Slayer’s family, or for the Slayer to keep her identity a secret from her family or the general public. (And the Underworld eventually knows who the Slayer is, anyway…)

  • Anonymous

    Ash Ketchum.

    In a world populated by monsters, some sentient enough to speak, and some so powerful they are near gods, he heads out into the world to catch them, and then use them as tools to catch more. Fighting an international criminal cartel, battling dojo leaders, and competing in tournaments against the best in the world.

    Starting at the age of TEN.

    Hardcore.

  • http://profile.yahoo.com/SDWDDT5FJIXQ6HXBVQT2EQNCJU Sean

    Aww….No Alucard from Hellsing….

  • http://www.facebook.com/ann.sulaiman.1 Ann Sulaiman

    You left out the BPRD and Troll Hunter’s Hans.

  • http://www.facebook.com/rebecca.borah Rebecca Sutherland Borah

    What the ?!?!? You mention Hellboy, but he’s not on the list???

  • http://www.facebook.com/profile.php?id=644462089 Victoria Fletcher

    Not to mention a chunk of this list came before Anita Blake.

  • Blase Villano

    Watchers probably have a better Union rep.

  • http://www.facebook.com/profile.php?id=593031234 Chris Kelley

    No Fullmetal Alchemist? Please, I’d love to hear how homunculi aren’t monster-y enough to qualify. oo OOO!!! PLEASE tell me more about teenagers and werewolves! Sorry Teen Wolf, but I’ve already had several lifetime’s worth of secret werewolves and teenage love stories, and I should know, I’m The Doctor!*

    *This statement may only be true within my own reality.

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