Top o’th’mornin’ to ya, me bloggies! Or the afternoon. Or even Sunday, depending on when you’re reading this. Throw back a pint in the name of your favorite geek Internet blogger! I’ve got a little bit of Irish in me, and that sure comes in handy on this, the holiest of the green holidays! It’s St. Patrick’s Day!

Kiss him, he's an Irish superhero

And like all things, whether it be holidays or the judicial system, I like to attach superheroes to it! So here’s my list of the Top 6 comic book characters who also have a little Irish in them. Oddly enough, I couldn’t find any superhero named ‘Leprechaun’. Somebody get Marvel Comics on the phone! Have I got an idea for them!

6. Black Tom Cassidy

Flaming shillelagh attack!

This super-villain is so Irish that he wields a shillelagh! And he doesn’t even bother with a proper super-villain name. He just added the word ‘Black’ to the front of his own name. That’s usually only reserved for actual black people. But for some reason it sounds perfectly evil and Irish. Black Tom was an adversary of the X-Men whose super-power involved doing freaky stuff with wood. I’m pretty sure the writers who created him thought ‘shillelagh’ first and then tried to think of a way to make it work.

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5. Hellstrike

Green flames? Close enough!

Who the hell is Hellstrike? Your guess is as good as mine. For one thing, he is one of the results when you Google the phrase ‘Irish superheroes’. According to the knower of all things, Wikipedia, he’s a member of Stormwatch who has energy-based powers. He was also born in Belfast, so he counts!

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4. Hitman

Tommy's got a gun

Tommy Monaghan is a hard-drinking, hard-smoking son of a bitch who likes killing super-villains and other metahumans for money. This has brought him in conflict plenty of times with the likes of Superman and Batman, always to their detriment. Tommy even tried out for the Justice League once, but only so he could use his X-Ray vision on Wonder Woman. Now that’s a superhero!

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3. Shamrock

When superhero writers give up

Come on! They’re not even trying to be subtle with this character. They may as well have just called her ‘Irish Lady’. But she’s real, and she’s fantastic! Molly Fitzgerald is the daughter of a member of the IRA, and her only real superheroic claim to fame was appearing in Marvel’s Contest of Champions! Her powers are quite possibly the freakiest super-powers ever: Shamrock is possessed by the displaced poltergeists of innocent people who died during war, many from Ireland, and that these souls manifest themselves in split second intervals to give Shamrock good luck. Which means, and I’m not kidding, she’s been credited as having the ‘Luck of the Irish’. This is what happens when you create superheroes by throwing a dart at a map.

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2. Banshee

A superheroine's costume is never complete without a boob window

A personal favorite of mine, Theresa Cassidy has red hair, freckles and talks with an Irish brogue. Being Irish has been a major part of her character since her inception. It may be the most defining characteristic she has! Why don’t we also add ‘Catholic’ and ‘being a drunk’ to her list of personality traits. That would make her more Irish, right? The writers at Marvel Comics sure thought so. Heck, the only superhero more Irish than Theresa Cassidy is…

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1. Banshee

'What's an Irish thing? A banshee? Perfect, make all Irish superheroes like banshees!' ~ someone in the X-Men Office

Her father! The original Banshee, Sean Cassidy, is so Irish that he practically created an Irish franchise in X-Men comics. There’s his daughter, Theresa, and then his cousin, Black Tom Cassidy. Remember him? Sean Cassidy has long carried the torch of being so Irish it hurts when it comes to superheroes. His bright red hair is almost first and foremost part of his look, and writers go out of the way to write his dialogue with as much Irish brogue as humanly possible. He even owns a castle in Ireland, so his family is part of the country’s ancestral history. If Banshee was any more Irish, he’d be carrying around a shillelagh. Oh wait…