- The eponymous character of The Adventures of Dr. McNinja. Ninja status aside, when you're a (relatively) normal human that can punch Dracula in the face without flinching, you know what you are. His Sidekick Gordito on the other hand is a Badass Normal among Badass Normals, a twelve-year-old gunslinger able to hold his own among a family of ninjas. As the Doctor himself notes, he doesn't bring a twelve-year-old along for his lack of experience with girls.
- The Doctor also punched out DEATH. Between that and Gordito's growing a Mustache from force of will alone, we have this trope somewhere over... Must resist obvious joke.
- On the other hand, neither ninjas nor doctors
are considered normal in the Dr. McNinja universe. The fact that it runs so much on the Rule of Cool, even in-universe, as well as Rule of Funny as seen in that linked comic, means that being badass is liable to make you more than normal in itself.
- Anyone in Antihero for Hire not relying on truly epic amounts of Applied Phlebotinum, particularly Shadehawk.
- Awful Hospital: Fern, an ordinary human who is just getting used to the extremely alien environment she was placed in, has proudly defeated multiple strong monsters, even using the remains of one as a weapon. She has made allies with many powerful creatures, some of which assist her in battle.
- Rocket Hat in Basic Instructions is a comedic example, being a superhero who owns a rocket-powered hat. With no other superpowers, he nevertheless dishes out continuous one-sided beatdowns of the Moon Men's emperor.
- While Roman in Beyond the End isn't technically human, he is just a normal centaur without any standout powers. But, when push comes to shove, he'll still throw himself in the action with kicks powerful enough to offset demons.
- Hunters in Blonde Sunrise normally lack any powers, but can go toe to toe with various monsters and win.
- In Bob and George, which is a show with two elemental gods, three Authors, loads of nigh-invincible androids, two Demons, a Jedi Multiversal Conqueror and a ninja cyborg, Dr. Light and Dr. Wily really stand out.
- Nanashi from Earthsong. She's now in possession of All Your Powers Combined, but before that, she attacked the physical incarnation of a planet. With a stick.
- In El Goonish Shive, Grace assures Sarah that Tedd can equip her with magic-powered technology in order to compensate for her lack of magic power enabling her to be this.
- Emergency Exit has Saya. She shows up a demon with a (shootable) video game zapper.
- While the world of Errant Story is filled with powerful time ninja, mages, elves and other overpowered sorts running about, Jon Amraphel is just good at shooting things with a gun. While his relative lack of power is something he complains about often, it hasn't stopped him from killing or subduing many of those mentioned above with the skills he has.
- The title character of The Fancy Adventures of Jack Cannon. One character put it best: "Jack is like the toughest guy in the universe and he will kick your nancy arse if you try anything." And just so you'll know, this was said to a freakin' Reality Warper.
- It later turns out he's not so normal after all: He has Anti-Magic that gives him an edge over such reality warpers. The rest, however, is all training.
- More so, Max Facepuncher. The most powerful agent in Mega Intelligence, an agency that fights the supernatural, paranormal, and the just plain freakin' bizarre. His "superpower"? He can punch people in the face. And monsters. And robots. And ghosts. And mummies. And giant squids. And, in the story he was original created for, the moon. That one took both hands. He's not actually super strong, or made of iron. He's just insanely good at punching.
- The main cast of characters from Fans! before they all got implanted superpowers. To start out, the only real muscle they had on their side was a quiet martial arts expert and a big bruiser. The leader was scrawny and two others had/have severe weight problems. Nevertheless, they hold their own against demigods, vampires, government agents, just plain stab-happy psychopaths, time-traveling warlords, frost giants, mental-brainwashing...the list just goes on. Granted, they did tend to grab their enemies weapons and unleash a wave of energy-blasts but that is just common sense. And the returning threat against all this is a simple rapist/cult leader. Badass normal villain. The 'Faans' make gods run in fear but this creepy bastard has scored some nasty wins.
- Flipside introduces Bernardette by having her take out the most sorcery-boosted thug in town. It is later revealed that she does not use sorcery.
- Alice of FreakAngels is an ordinary human smuggler who falls in with a group of godlike psychics. When one of them uses mind-control to rape a human girl, and nearly kills two of his superpowered bretheren, she uses her superior knowledge of the terrain to hunt him down and take him out with nothing more than her trusty shotgun.
- Girl Genius has a plethora of badass normals.
- Airman Third Class Axel "The Unstoppable" Higgs seemingly takes the cake though he is actually a Jäger which was revealed years after his introduction. He may be a nobody in the Baron's fleet without any special training, fancy gadgets, or a mysterious family past, but he's so badass that his introduction is awesome.
- Moloch von Zinzer is more of an Action Survivor, but he briefly ascends into badassery by having a trained (if by her own admission rather inept) ninja go wow over his survival skills.
- And "Ol' Man Death" was "pretty good" at fighting (and still is):
- Likewise, despite being an elderly seneschal, Carson von Meekhan rode with the Jaegers in his younger days.
- Wooster is upping his levels as well, from an Offhand Backhand to Bangladesh Dupree to Fast-Roping into an airship window and leaving the same way. Dolokov in the same scene is a borderline case, as he started as a baseline human but...isn't anymore.
- Zeetha would also qualify (even if she is daughter of Klaus, she's neither a Spark nor construct herself).
- Zola is not a Spark, but she is a fully-trained Smoke Knight who carries an arsenal of heavy weapons and, when those don't win the game for her, improvises like nobody's business. She's one of the finest fighters in the series and one of the existing candidates for Big Bad.
- Vespiary Squads — their job (aside of rounding up revenants) is fighting slaver wasp warriors, which is a challenge even for superhumanly strong constructs. Observe a Ruxala outnumbered by these things and "distraught". Very efficient, too.
- Airman Third Class Axel "The Unstoppable" Higgs seemingly takes the cake though
- Grem of the Viper Clan in Goblins has no adventurer levels like the GAP and Saves-A-Fox, nor unusual body enhancements like Dies Horribly, nor racial disposition for badassery like K'seliss, a Lizardman/Ogre hybrid. He is by all means an ordinary goblin, but he still manages to pull his own weight in battle.
- Grrl Power: While ARCHON is most famous for its supers, there are plenty of combat personnel who have no powers whatsoever. Peggy gets the most attention; she normally acts as Maxima's sniper, using guns big enough to give even bulletproof supers a run for their money. And then there's Math. In theory he's just a martial artist, but he's such a ridiculously good martial artist that even Maxima says that distinguishing between his abilities and actual superpowers is a futile exercise.
- Heroine Chic: In a world where superheroes are commonplace, it's still a little strange to find out that totally powerless fashion designer to supers Umbra Langoustine of all people can go toe-to-toe with Garmento's elite "Vowel" ninja squadron (some of whom are minor superheroes themselves). As Umbra puts it, "All it takes is dedication and training — and a flair for the dramatic. And no carbs. Ever."
- This is what distinguishes Burk of Hero Oh Hero from the rest of the cast. Despite being (in his own words) "100% Burk", with no magical powers, he can move fast enough that he appears to be flying and hit hard enough to one shot powerful opponents.
- Quite a few Trolls in Homestuck have Psychic Powers of some sort. But Terezi still manages to outmanuever both the Mind Controlling Vriska, who has possession of an ancient relic that predicts the future, AND a Humanoid Abomination Chessmaster at the same time with no special abilities whatsoever other than her knowledge of which buttons to press.
- Dad. He's a normal suburban businessman and the only guardian who isn't connected to Sburb in any way, and yet he kicks a ridiculous amount of ass, managing to break out of the Derse prison system because it was too much trouble keeping him locked up.
- And then there's his post-Scratch counterpart, who, after spending most of Act 6 either confused at what's going on or locked up in a Luxury Prison Suite, joins the final battle by punching out the prison walls and then taking on a green giant who can literally punch people through time, with nothing more than baked goods and his bare fists, and dominates.
- Karkat has no psychic powers, and never realized his game powers either, leaving him just an average troll with only mutant blood as a unique trait, but yet he still somehow managed to get a team of eleven others to work together and survive the game instead of all violently murdering each other, just through sheer force of will.
- The Raccoon of The Incredible and Awe-Inspiring Serial Adventures of the Amazing Plasma-Man is a vigilante without super-powers in a city of superpowerful heroes and villains.
- Agent Luke Chase in IronGate leads, and fights alongside, a group of people with supernatural powers using only his wits and marksmanship with a pistol.
- Jason Chesterfield of It's Walky! is about the only character who's a normal human, and yet also among the only ones who's never had a severe mental incident. In the finale, he's gotten so annoyed with people telling him he and the human species have to wait for their god-like protector to show up, he knocks out the person who claims this, takes command, rallies everybody to fight an unstoppable extraterrestrial invasion with his commanding voice, takes control of the conspiracy that was trying to kill him minutes before with a bit of charisma and a well-placed kick, and is the only one who isn't moved by the climax. And he never stopped being snarky.
- Allison in Kill Six Billion Demons manages it in exactly one scene; the rest of the time she's either helpless or empowered. But she genuinely beats an top-tier devil in a drinking contest filled with demonic liquors with nothing but her... college experience. Cio did give her a way to magically cheat, but she forgot to use it.
- In Kuro Shouri, the human cast of fighters (Hisaki and Kakon) rely on their own strength to battle, while the demon characters are usually stronger or able to use magic.
- Kakon was tortured by a demon and thus is no longer able to feel pain, but his normal strength was not augmented in any way.
- "Commander Kickass" from Looking for Group. The first time we see him, he defeats most of the hero party by turning a table on them and disarming their caster with a thrown helmet. From all we know, he's just a standard human (or half-elf).
- The webcomic Magellan follows a group of students at the worlds most exclusive Superhero School — the one which trains the heroes who become members of Force Magellan, the front-line defenders against the world's most dangerous threats. The main protagonist, Kaycee Jones, gains admittance to this academy with no powers whatsoever.
- Mob Ties has Sidney Burns who, In a World… filled with cyborgs, werecats, dragons, and worse, he only needs his two fists to solve most problems. This is because he's a former soldier and a former cop. And as a soldier, he was once tortured for several months straight when he was taken captive during the war in Afghanistan/Iraq. This torture included repeated beatings, electro shock to his privates, and being forcefed gasoline to the point that it ended up giving him a stomach condition that would later allow him to breathe fire. Word of God is that Sid only managed to keep his toes during that time by using his legs to snap the neck of anyone who tried to cut them off.
- In No Rest for the Wicked, the Prince Charmless does at least have the prowness to rescue princess after princess without any signs of magical enhancements. Red may also be this — at least, her abilities thus far are limited to powerful ability to wield an axe — though her Mysterious Past has hints of the magical.
- Many of the heroes from One-Punch Man are relatively ordinary people with no greater ability than Charles Atlas Superpower.
- Master Bang is a tough old martial artist who happens to be the third-ranked S-class hero in the Hero Association.
- While early on Saitama defeated a crab monster by ripping off one of its eyestalks with his necktie, he defies this for most of the comic. He believes his immense strength, speed, and durability are due to his training regimen. While his regimen is pretty intense for a Salaryman, it is definitely lower-impact than that of any professional athlete, let alone individuals aspiring to Charles Atlas Superpower. This is immediately apparent to everyone except Saitama.
- The Order of the Stick: Roy, Belkar and Haley are all martial fighters, in a system where spellcasters easily overpower the warriors. On the villain side, Tarquin most definitely qualifies: he was able to fight nearly the entire Order of the Stick simultaneously alone.
- Purple Hyacinth: Pretty much most of the characters. Each cop has to have some level of fighting ability. But of course, the Purple Hyacinth is the most obvious example of this trope; he is the city’s most notorious assassin, after all.
- Shadowgirls has a few. Patrick Sawyer slayed a vampire with his sidearm. Then there's everyone's favorite, Lindsey, who'll attack any monster that's threatening her BFF. If it weren't for her paranormal powers, Charon would qualify, with her "Bitch"-stamped knuckle-dusters and a willingness to deal out untold amounts of pain to whomever so much as utters an unkind word about her daughter.
- Skin Horse: Dr. Tip Wilkins is on a team with an unkillable zombie and a genetically engineered battle-dog, yet people keep forgetting that he was a decorated U.S. Army captain in Afghanistan, just because he's also a Wholesome Crossdresser and Kavorka Man. He rescued his teammates from a town of werewolves after being handcuffed to a bed. He stopped a rampaging clockwork mechanoid that had a nuclear weapon, and he did it with therapy puppets.
- Night, Renegade, and Desert Fox of Supermom all lack powers, but operate as heroes.
- Lucas from Two Keys. Despite being normal he's able to hold his own against an occult sorcerer/bounty hunter.
- Unholy Blood:
- Detective Hwang, a star member of the police's anti vampire taskforce may not have any powers but can still kick vampire ass.
- Father Michael is a Badass Preacher who despite being human is able to fend off multiple vampires on his own.
- Val in Val and Isaac is allergic to cybernetics and has not learned magic, yet is very talented at kicking ass and rarely shows up without eight guns. Former enemy Space Dread (who's something like 50% cybernetics and 40% black magic) is rather ticked off to learn that the only target she ever failed to kill is not only augmentation-free, but literally only has one eye.
- Walking on Broken Glass gives us Kennedy Parker, prior to the current arc she was just an informed Badass, because a pack of werewolves respects her authority. Now in the current arc she has taken on a supernatural shadow creature with her bare hands and informed it that she will dial the pain up if it doesn't cooperate, which it currently is not, guess what the last two scenes of that page look like. She pulled off the barehanded Curb-Stomp Battle while a pack of transformed werewolves and a Squishy Wizard were having trouble fighting them.
- Alex Rayne of the comic Wright as Rayne gets this twice. In his original identity, he's a very talented super-hero who gets by on his wits and fighting skills. When he's forced into the boy of Dorothy Wright, he's again forced to be a badass normal, but is a little miffed that he didn't get sent into the body of someone with actual powers.
http://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/BadassNormal/Webcomics
FollowingBadass Normal / Webcomics
Go To
