Thanks to the irrepressible actor's Pirates of the Caribbean film franchise, the fourth edition of which washes up Friday On Stranger Tides, pirates — which mocking head Stephen Colbert recently labeled "sea terrorists" — are seriously back in pop-culture style.

It's an ironic convergence. Our era's increasing militarism and conformity seems decidedly at odds with the criminality and terrorism of stateless pirates thumbing their noses at dominant social and political orders. Whether it's the U.S. Navy crowdsourcing gamers to stem the tide of real pirates or the paranoid trials of download titans like The Pirate Bay, the global village seems to have no room for rebellion.

But the inverse has been true when it comes to the world of culture and entertainment, which evidently hates normalcy and propriety with a delicious fervor. Sail through our rogue's gallery of worthy sea and space pirates, and list your favorite buccaneers in the comments below. Are you a fan of The Pirates of Dark Water, FLCL's Atomsk, Makoto Kano's Metroid or Aardman Animation's forthcoming 3-D stop-motion feature The Pirates! Band of Misfits? Drop anchor below, you scurvy internet swine!

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Based on Disneyland's world-beating ride featuring animatronic pirates killing, fighting, raping and pillaging high society blind, this lucrative fantasy film franchise is galvanized by Johnny Depp's infinitely wobbly yet magnetic presence. With the first three films' snoozy love story out of the way, On Stranger Tides is free to roam phantasmagoric seas swollen with zombie quartermasters and vampire mermaids. Unless, of course, another lame love story gets in the way.