While we love the relentless comic book film release schedule as much as any pop-culture fanatic, sometimes we crave heroes (and heroines) cut from a slightly different cloth. Everyone knows the best heroes aren’t necessarily chiselled to the point of implausibility (sorry, Superman and Batman), or even the most talented at their chosen craft (Neville Longbottom, this one’s for you).

Instead, our fave super-humans are often hiding in plain sight and in the last place we look: away from the spotlight, toiling away at the stuff no one else wants to do, demonstrating utmost integrity and loyalty all the while.

Here, we tip our proverbial fedoras to those everyday guys and gals doing it tough to prove their worth. The pop culture landscape is undeniably a more interesting place with these unexpected heroes in it.

#1 Jack Ryan, Tom Clancy’s Jack Ryan

Say hello to your good but awkward AF friend Jim Halpert from the US adaptation of The Office. Though, this time, he’s far from it. In the forthcoming action-packed political thriller Tom Clancy’s Jack Ryan, John Krasinski plays the titular character who’s plucked from a cushy desk job at the CIA and thrust into a whirlwind investigation into an international terrorist threat against the United States.

Though he’s best known for his work on The Office, this won’t be the first time we’ve seen Krasinski in the typical hero role – he played a family man desperate to protect his wife and children against vicious, aurally sensitive extra-terrestrials in the 2018 horror hit A Quiet Place.

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#2 Neville Longbottom, Harry Potter

Ahh, Neville. What Longbottom lacks in suaveness (it’s a lot, unfortunately), he makes up for in loyalty, perseverance, and bravery when and where it counts. Plus, he got hot, so there’s that.

Longbottom is trustworthy, kind and humble – a Gryffindor through and through – and is most definitely the one you want on your side during The Battle for Hogwarts. The best part is he doesn’t feel the need to harp on about it, he just gets the job done: he pulls Godric Gryffindor’s sword out of the sorting hat and literally destroys that last friggin’ horcrux because he is Neville Longbottom and that’s how he operates. It’s gumption, plain and simple.

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#3 Miranda Hobbes, Sex And The City

While star of the show, Carrie, is not-so-subtly going to pieces, spending questionable amounts of money on footwear and chasing Mr Big, the oft-overlooked but seriously fierce Miranda Hobbes is quietly proving herself as a force to be reckoned with. Career-minded, refreshingly cynical and decidedly feminist, Miranda has finally taken her rightful place as a pop culture icon and a hero for all kinds of women – anyone who owns a “We should all be Mirandas” t-shirt will argue as much.

Thankfully, we’ve graduated from the school of viewing Miranda as a bit of a shrew; she’s now seen as strong, independent, and the ‘cool’ one of the SATC quartet. She’s even running for governor of New York City this September – so excuse us while we vote for Miranda.

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#4 Mrs Maisel, The Marvelous Mrs Maisel

In The Marvelous Mrs Maisel, the charming Rachel Brosnahan plays Miriam ‘Midge’ Maisel, a contented Upper West Side housewife who harbours an untapped talent for stand-up comedy. Her husband, Joel, is actually a comic, but a largely underwhelming one.

What’s stopping Joel and Midge from doing a little career switcheroo, born out of mutual respect for one other’s hopes and dreams? For starters, this is 1950s New York, when gender norms were even more of a pain in the behind than they are today. But Mrs Maisel isn’t one to be told she can’t do something.

So begins one rambunctious, occasionally foul-mouthed, fun-loving woman’s tale of standing up by doing stand-up, cloaked in witty dialogue, complex character profiles and rich production design. We’ll hedge our bets that you fall in love with Mrs Maisel in no time.

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#5 Frodo, The Lord of The Rings

A four-foot guy with hairy feet taking on an angry spiders, wizards, orcs and cave-dwelling, ring-stealing creatures in a quest to save the world doesn’t sound like the most plausible of set-ups, but it’s nevertheless the premise of J.R Tolkein’s famed fantasy series, The Lord of The Rings. Frodo has been enshrined in popular culture as the ultimate unlikely hero, in part because of his height and strength, but also due to the almost crippling self-doubt he entertains throughout the entire series.

Just like Longbottom, Frodo does some serious soul searching as he’s marching through Tolkein’s expansive landscapes – and he realises that correlating bravery with size is a total construct. If Frodo the Hobbit can throw a ring into the middle of a fiery mountain hole, you can almost definitely go to work hungover.

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(Lead image: HBO)

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