From sex-crazed gods to ravenous monsters, Ben Thompson brings legendary titans to life in tales of adventure, bloodlust, and unrelenting badassitude.

Since the beginning of human history people have created myths, tall tales, superheroes, and arch-villains—men and women who embarked on insane adventures, performed extraordinary feats of unparalleled awesomeness, and overcame all odds to violently smite their foes into bloody pulp. In Badass: The Birth of a Legend, Ben Thompson compiles these fantastical tales from the beginning of time to today and tells them in the completely over-the-top manner in which they were intended, including:

Rama
The Indian god-king who led an army of monkeys against the King of All Demons

Thor
The Viking god of thunder and awesome hair, who crushed the skulls of giants with a ridiculously huge hammer

Beowulf
An Anglo-Saxon hero so hardcore he could arm-wrestle monsters' joints out of their sockets

Moby-Dick
The hate-filled literary behemoth who obliterated ship hulls with his face

Skuld
The Norse necromancer queen who summoned a horde of zombie berserkers

Dirty Harry Callahan
The prototypical modern-day antihero and very embodiment of badass