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Doyle: He likes playing the hero. Walking off into the dark, his long coat flowing behind him in that mysterious and attractive way.
Cordelia: Is this a private moment? Cuz I could leave you alone.
A Longcoat is the ideal action-hero garment, more practical than a cape but infinitely cooler than a sport coat or no coat. In addition, a Longcoat of any level of 'billowy-ness' makes an ideal cover for producing any number of weapons, tools, supplies and whatnot. Certain styles of Longcoat are deliberately designed to distort the wearer's frame, making their wearer's access to Hammerspace almost believable to mundane eyes.
Like capes, longcoats capitalize on the dramatic effect of having something that flutters behind you. A variant involves jackets and excessively long shirts, but having less material to billow in the gusts necessarily makes such people seem less badass. And of course, when a the wearer of a Badass Longcoat takes the coat off, it's a sign that he's really serious about doing major damage.
The most common types of long coats are dusters ◊ and trench coats◊. The principle differences between the two are that dusters are longer overall, usually reaching nearly to the ankles, and since they're designed for horseback riding, have a long slit up the back as far as the waist. Dusters are also generally cut along fairly boxy lines. A trench coat, on the other hand, is usually more shaped, reaches to the knees or slightly below and the back slit generally only reaches mid-thigh or hip-level. Trench coats also usually feature a belt and epaulets. It should be noted that one way to tell if a trench coat indicates a spy or private investigator or is a Badass Longcoat is by whether it's buttoned and belted or not. A Badass Trenchcoat is never closed.
A third style is the great coat◊, a predecessor of the trench coat but usually much heavier, and with either a wider collar that can be turned up to protect against the wind or a short shoulder cape. Later great coats lost the cape, becoming a longer, heavier, double breasted overcoat, but retaining the name. Great coats were typically worn buttoned, losing some of their bad-assitude. They're most often associated with 19th Century naval officers and Russian soldiers. The Inverness cape◊ is a lighter garment with a very similar appearance to the caped greatcoat. The cape, however, is longer, reaching slightly past the wrist rather than only to the elbow.
There is of course a fourth variety, but it takes a very, very rare combination of personality traits to allow one to pull off the Badass Labcoat.
A less modern example would be the Badass Long Robe. Cool Shades are a nice accessory, as are tacking on a Nice Hat and mask to achieve the Coat Hat Mask Effect. The Badass Longcoat is often combined with a pair of guns for extra effect.
Longcoat-wearing heroes probably started with Westerns (for dusters) or Film Noir, (for the classic trenchcoat) but became especially common in the public mind after The Matrix. Odds are they'll become a Subverted Trope in a few years. Until then, enjoy it while it lasts.
The Badass Longcoat is closely associated with The Stoic. Not related to Badass Longcat. Not to be confused with Conspicuous Trenchcoat.
Examples:
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Anime and Manga
- Hellsing
- Alucard's signature longcoat is deep crimson.
- Luke Valentine, who wears a long white coat.
- Alexander Anderson, who wears a grey cassock.
- Integra sometimes wears one too; when he does, it's a brown one, styled somewhere between a trench coat and a greatcoat
- Major Montana. His is a grey military-style greatcoat.
- The Captain too, whose Badass quotient is enough to easily stand up to the Charles Atlas Superpowered Battle Butler and have his tails do the bat-wing flutter even though it's a fully buttoned, double-breasted affair.
- In Bleach, Ichigo's robes briefly transform into a long-sleeved, ankle-length black coat with red lining that is closed at his chest during Tensa Zangetsu, the final release of his zanpakuto. It's also noted, however, that many of the captains in this anime could be considered badass and do wear haori, a type of long coat — however, the captain coats are white.
- Ulquiorra Schiffer's Las Noches uniform, with two tails that sweep the floor dramatically.
- Subversion: Shunsui Kyoraku (Eighth Squad Captain) subverts this by being a powerful fighter with an incredibly "un-badass" pink, flowery haori over his uniform.
- Ichigo has recently claimed that his one functions as a kind of Mana Meter: if only half of it is left, that means only half of his power is left.
- Kyuzo in Samurai 7, an SF adaptation of Kurosawa Akira's original Jidai Geki film Seven Samurai. Unofficially is the most skilled of the samurai, possibly exceeding the group's experienced leader, and definitely the most deadly. Sports blonde hair and a distinctive crimson-red coat.
- Maka Albarn from Soul Eater sports a kickass black longcoat with two large buttons and defined shoulders that makes for awesome emphasis whenever she jumps around.
- Jo from Bakuretsu Tenshi is a Badass Longjacket, though she usually takes it off during combat.
- Ryoma Nagare from Getter Robo Armageddon combines this with Scarf Of Asskicking and Go Nagai Side Burns.
- Trigun's Vash the Stampede and Abel Nightroad from Trinity Blood wear Badass Longcoats, (Vash's is red duster; Abel's, a black-with-silver-trim greatcoat) but make their opponents think they're just harmless idiots.
- Vash has other reasons for the long coat: hiding the effects of heavily subverted Hollywood Healing and his black...leather...body-armour...stuff. You have to assume this stuff is really practical desert wear for some reason. Although he also just likes the coat.
- In all Yu-Gi-Oh series, some character will have an incredibly badass coat.
- Kaiba in the original series has several long coats
- Manjoume in Yu-Gi-Oh GX wears a black trenchcoat
- Ryo adopts a black duster after his Freak Out transformation into Hell Kaiser
- Judai trades in his jacket for a longer coat after coming through his Break The Cutie arc. ** In Yu-Gi-Oh 5Ds, the requisite badass coat is worn by anti-hero Jack Atlus, who ironically spends more time in his skintight bodysuit rather then utilizing the full dramatic effect of his coat.
- Rika/Ruki in Digimon Tamers (Word Of God: one of her early character models was a character from The Matrix), and Captain Sampson/Satsuma and BanchouLeomon in Digimon Savers.
- Some high-ranking Marines in One Piece, since a large, white greatcoat is standard uniform issue for them: Admiral Aokiji when he was Vice-Admiral Kuzan, complete with Sinister Shades; Captain Hina and Vice-Admiral Garp, although the former usually takes her Marine coat off, and the latter does it when he gets serious. Admiral Kizaru, also complete with Scary Shiny Glasses (sort of, he's always cheery, but he's every pirate's worst nightmare); Fleet Admiral Sengoku: His white Marine greatcoat is oversized.◊
- In Witch Hunter Robin, the title character of the series was badass in her own right, and not coincidentally, she also wore a red long-coat.
- Kuroudou Akabane in GetBackers: long, black and very elegant. Ban Mido would fall under the "excessively long shirt" subset.
- Subverted in Mai-Otome with Garderobe headmistress Natsuki Kruger. She's not a badass, but her light-blue longcoat is. Miyu, with her long black duster and matching hat, fits this trope to the letter.
- Slayers NEXT's Gaav. He's not only extremely proficient with his chosen longsword, but at least seven foot tall at best guess looking at him, ungodly powerful both physically and in sorcerous power, and nigh indestructible and sports a suitably badass orange longcoat.
- Hei from Darker Than Black. The longcoat is even bulletproof, but only when he wears it.
- Jotaro Kujo from JoJo's Bizarre Adventure. A dark blue greatcoat style, with a tan or grey lining for added impact when it flairs out.
- When Seishirou and Subaru are introduced in "X1999", both sport badass longcoats, with Seishirou's in black and Subaru's in white.
- Fuuma appears to have a closet just full of a wide variety of stylish longcoats. Of note, he owns one that is both black and white (very appropriate to the character).
- Sola: Takeshi, who fights with a sword and darts that explode into light wears a long black trench coat.
- Van in Gun X Sword doesn't just wear a long coat, he wears a full tailcoat.
- The standard uniform of the Amestrian military in Fullmetal Alchemist is a badass greatcoat.
- Ed wears a red duster, but has yet to be dismembered while wearing it (his missing limbs were before the coat). Unless, of course, you count the number of times his automail has broken, but otherwise, he's good. He makes a point of wearing a red coat anywhere for various reasons (the biggest being to cover up his automail). In the most recent chapter, as his group is Heading for what appears to be the final confrontation, he buys a roll of red cloth and transmutes it into his signature jacket, most likely to show that he means business.
- The new Greed himself wears a black longcoat / changshan and Kimbley wears a badass white tuxedo.
- The Briggs Brigade had full longcoat for their standard uniform. In manga universe, there are reasons for it, since they stationed in cold permafrost of Briggs mountain, but for us, it shows that that they are the most badass group in Amestris army.
- Bolt Crank from Eat-Man sports a floor length trench coat while firing an assortment of 'uge freekin guns one handed.
- Mephisto of Demon City Shinjuku wears a long red coat which billows out dramatically in convenient winds.
- Aya and Yoji of Weiss Kreuz both wear long coats, but it's not until sequel series Weiss Kreuz: Gluhen that they upgrade to properly billowing Badass Longcoats.
- Chrono from Chrono Crusade While his normal outfit includes a long red coat, he appears to be a twelve-year-old boy, and the rest of his outfit is fairly dorky looking. However, when he goes into his badass, true form of a demon he loses the coat, his coat being replaced by wings. It's possible his coat is supposed to be a visual reference to the wings he has in his true form.
- The villain Aion, who is a truer version of the Badass Longcoat. His coat is white with a dark lining and a double belt.
- Joshua, who wears a long black coat with his suit that looks appropriately dramatic when he uses his demonic powers.
- Father Remington's exorcist uniform includes an odd skirt-like cape around his pants when, combined with a jacket, somewhat mimics the effect of a badass greatcoat.
- Anko Mitarashi from Naruto wears a cream-colored badass longcoat, though, much like other outfits in the Narutoverse, is not practical for a ninja to wear, but it does not necessarily make her a Highly Visible Ninja.
- Naruto and 4th Hokage both sported one of these at one time or another.
- In Nanoha Force, Nanoha, Fate, and Signum appear to sport trench coats as their regular attire.
- Gainax's OVA sequel to Gun Buster, Die Buster, features Dix-Neuf, a Humongous Mecha that wears a gigantic duster. Rule Of Cool to the max.
- Archer from Fate/Stay Night! The man they invented "GAR" for and very much deserving of it! Badassery aside, it's not a true longcoat; it's actually a pair of sleeves and a long battle-skirt-thing. Looks damn similar, though.
- Captain Bravo from Busou Renkin, who is entirely aware of how cool his longcoat makes him look.
- In Yami no Matsuei, Muraki Kazutaka is almost always seen in a white trench coat, while Tsuzuki Asato sports the black variety.
- Brandon "Beyond The Grave" Heat from Gungrave in both the anime and video game. He wears an intricately detailed purple coat with a large Gothic cross emblazoned on the back. Even in normal clothes he wears a black longcoat that is mostly prominent in the anime (in the game he's seen wearing it only in the opening and quickly changes to his "battle suit").
- Sven (while with the IBI), Train (while with Chronos) and Belze from Black Cat. Here, though, Train's long black coat isn't so much a symbol of his badassitude but of his place in Chronos as an assassin; during most of the series, he wears a cropped black jacket over a long shirt, even though he's still pretty badass. Significantly, he dons his old coat again for a major showdown.
- Tooya from Ayashi No Ceres wears a trench coat (with shades and stoicism, to boot) at the beginning of the series, while he's still working for the Mikages. Additionally, he wears a labcoat when he disguises himself as a doctor at Aya's school, pulling off a couple of wicked rescues while he's there.
- Eat-Man is the story of Bolt Crank, who wears a jumbo-sized longcoat, who interestingly doesn't actually keep anything in his coat. Instead, he just keeps all of his miscellanous BFGs, BFSs, bombs, and... steam train locomotives... in a sort of built-in Hammerspace inside of his body.
- In the 5th opening of Gintama, Takasugi is shown sporting a long dark trench coat while fighting hordes of aliens with Gintoki, Katsura, and Sakamoto in what appears to be a hopelessly one-sided battle. And he is kicking ass.
- Subverted in Black Lagoon with Lotton the Wizard. In a Badass series that lives by the Rule Of Cool, Lotton is trying so damn hard to look cool and act cool, all the way down to his Cool Shades and black, flairing badass longcoat. He fails so badly that even though Revy shoots him mid-entrance, she doesn't remember who he is later.
- A couple of episodes of Cowboy Bebop feature Spike wearing a badass duster. Notably, he tends to go for the duster when things really get serious (usually when Vicious is involved), and mainly so he can carry more weapons on his person.
- Radinov in the Gunsmith Cats anime wears a bulletproof one but can't be bothered to keep it closed even during gunfights - either because she carries most of her arsenal inside it or because she's batshit insane.
- Notable non-stoic examples in Tengen Toppa Gurren Lagann with Kamina and later on Simon, who both wear these kinds of clothing. Kamina's longcoat is an interesting example in that it technically is a cape, but he usually wears it like a longcoat kind of fashion. Both come off in more action-filled scenes.
- Pokemon Hunter J has one. (Note that she'd be more badass were she actually allowed to win. She probably does quite well when she doesn't end up meeting Ash.)
Comic Books
- Agent Shepperd from 100 Bullets wears brown trench coat as a signature piece of wardrobe and the guy proves why he's the only one in the series who can wear it.
- Dr Octopus has been doing this since before it was cool. After a while they changed his look into a high-tech looking jumpsuit (the Eighties), but the trenchcoat remained his "classic" look, up until they brought back the old style.
- John Constantine from Hellblazer. It's a wrinkled, beat-up looking khaki trenchcoat. It's still badass.
- The heroes of Frank Miller's Sin City have also been known to don the Badass Longcoat.
- Marv's longcoats tend to get ripped to shreds during big fights, requiring him to find another big longcoat, usually off a bad guy. There was actually a oneshot where he wakes up in a new coat, with no memory of where he got it, and tries to work out where it came from.
- Dwight McCarthy from "The Big Fat Kill" combines the badass longcoat with Guns Akimbo.
- Wallace habitually wears a trenchcoat that comes to his ankles.
- As noted in the Film section, Hellboy's outfit is a pretty obvious example of this.
- Dream of The Sandman. It's black, long enough to drag on the floor, and has a really great collar.
- Flint Henry's reincarnation of Grimjack has John Gaunt aka Jim Twilly make his entrance in a dark purple greatcoat with gold embroidery. The coat is later shown to hold about 50 lbs. of guns and edged weapons when he is busted by robot cops.
- Jonah Hex sometimes wears a classic duster and sometimes an Army greatcoat.
Film
- A good 75% of the characters in the Matrix trilogy wear them. Quite possibly they're the main reason for the current popularity of the Badass Longcoat. Most of them are black leather dusters, but The Twins wear white ones.
- The titular hero Hellboy of the movie Hellboy (2004) wore a brown duster over black clothes, possibly in a futile attempt at Clark Kenting the fact that he was a large, bright red-skinned demon with a tail and horns, but more likely just to look really freakin' awesome. Also, I think it's BPRD standard issue.
- He also wore the duster in the graphic novels of the same name. This, along with the filed-down horns (which resembled goggles on his head), were intended to play up the "Average, Blue-Collar Joe" image of the character.
- Mark and Ken Gor (both played by Chow Yun-Fat) from John Woo's A Better Tomorrow series, though both of them are less stoic than they might seem. Theirs are black fabric trenchcoats; the main bad guy of the first movie, Shing, wears a white badass longcoat.
- Ken's badass quotient is doubled by the fact he wears his twin brother's old bullet-hole riddled badass longcoat in the final action sequence of the movie.
- After the release of the first film wearing similar coats became a trend among young men in Hong Kong, and the style of coat is still sometimes referred to as "Brother Mark's Coat."
- Carlito Brigante with his black leather trenchcoat in Carlito'sWay.
- On a similar note, Jason Dean (Christian Slater) in Heathers sports a black longcoat throughout the entire film.
- Eric Draven (played by the late Brandon Lee) in The Crow. He takes it off Tin Tin, the first of the guys responsible for murdering him and his fiancee. He sets it aside when he finishes them off...and after it was filled with holes from about five hundred bullets.
- Selene in the Underworld films is an archetypal Action Girl who wears a leather longcoat.
- William 'The Butcher' Cutter from Gangs Of New York wears badass frock coats in several colors. ** His similarly longcoated nemesis Priest Vallon◊ outshines him in the badass wardrobe department.
- The title character of the Blade series of movies has a longcoat that's so badass it's black on the outside and red on the inside.
- Mister Furious from Mystery Men wears a black overcoat, drives a black motorcycle and refers to himself as the "lone wolf".
- Played on in the film version of Starship Troopers, with Col. Carl Jenkins wearing a important S,S looking longcoat, when his key role came of finding out the brain bug was scared.
- Freddy Krueger in Wes Craven's A New Nightmare is the first and only time he appeared in a long coat, in addition to the usual striped sweater.
- Another villainous example, Spider-Man 2's Doctor Octopus wears a long coat and pairs it with Cool Shades.
- Lampshaded in Rustler's Rhapsody when the narrator notes that western villains always have thugs who wear raincoats in the desert. Technically, they're Badass Longcoats of the "duster" variety.
- Sgt. Mitch Hunter from the Mutant Chronicles movie and his incredibly shiny coat qualify.
- Believe it or not, Doc Brown in Back To The Future Part III, for his first appearance: shooting the rope hanging Marty, and forcing Buford Tannen and his gang to back down.
- The Shadow: His long black greatcoat is so badass it deflects bullets.
- Sergio Leone's Once Upon A Time In The West:
Cheyenne: Nobody around these parts got the guts to wear those dusters except Cheyenne's men...and Cheyenne's men don't get killed.
- Played with by Blondie in The Good, the Bad, and the Ugly. He wears a badass longcoat (in the form of a Confederate Army greatcoat) for most of the film, until he gives his coat to a dying soldier. Rather than disturb the corpse, he picks up a poncho and puts that on when he gets up to leave, causing him to make his biggest show of badassery while he's wearing (of all things) a poncho. Admittedly, it's a really cool poncho.
- Snake Eyes briefly gets a black badass longcoat for one scene in GI Joe: The Rise of Cobra. This being G.I. Joe, it's included in his action figure, too.
- Shockingly averted in The Punisher War Zone film, where Frank wanders through New York with all his holsters and guns and WHITE SKULL SYMBOL perfectly visible - even though his penchant for longcoats is an established comic book trait.
- The title character of the Samuel L. Jackson remake of Shaft wears a black leather trench coat that's every bit as badass as he is.
- Bryan Mills from Taken puts a black one on for most of the movie and some of the publicity material has him in it.
- Jade in Bulletproof Monk ends the movie in a Badass Longcoat. It helps that she has been kicking ass pretty much the entire movie but there is something about a bodyhugging red leather outfit complete with a red longcoat that is drool-worthy.
- Brotherhood of the Wolf. In one of the first scenes of the narrative, a pair of Great Coat-wearing badasses (with the added conceit of tricorner hats) lay waste to a group of trannie soldiers harassing an old man and his daughter. In fact, one of the badasses doesn't even bother getting off his horse and fighting, they're that awesome. The great coats make a few more appearances, but aren't integral to the badass-itude of the wearers.
- Lampshaded in Straight To Hell.
Get the longcoats, boys!
- The Octopus in The Spirit. In the denouement, he's wearing a badass long fur coat. Why? Cause he's Sam Fucking Jackson!
- The Dude's bathrobe fits this trope in a weird kind of way. As the movie is a parody of film-noir detective stories, that's probably intentional.
- In Escape From LA, Snake is given a special all-black outfit to wear for his mission, which includes a long black trenchcoat. Much squeeing ensued among the female audience.
- In A Fistful Of Dynamite early Irish nationalist John Mallory wears a longcoat packed with explosives on the inside.
- In Uncle Buck, the titular character has a long tweed overcoat, which he wears for some of his crowning moments of Badassery (like meeting Maizy's assistant principal and searching for Tia at the house party).
Literature
- Roland Deschain from The Dark Tower series (pictured above), though he seems to lose it at some point, as later books don't address anything of the sort.
- Harry Dresden famously sports a duster. He's enchanted it to be bulletproof and knifeproof, so almost never goes anywhere without it - no matter how unfashionable it is. It's not, however, impact-proof, as he notes on one occasion after being shoulder-checked by an enormous muscle-y brute, which demonstrates why it's an important measure but by no means a perfect one. He's gotten it to the point that the impact is spread out across his body, which any physics fanatic will tell you reduces the force of the impact. Though his shields do work better. It's also occasionally mentioned that before he was given the leather one, he wore a canvas duster.
- COMMISSAR! CIAPHAS! CAIN! in Sandy Mitchell's novels of the Warhammer 40K setting, who kicks ass and takes names while wearing a huge, red-sashed and gold-trimmed greatcoat, complete with natty cap.
- John Taylor from Simon R. Green's Nightside series wears a long white coat. He can also terrify enemies just by introducing himself.
- Let us not forget the SELF-DESTRUCT in Taylor's coat, which sends it up in flames if it gets too far from his body. Green gave a reasonably plausible justification (let a significant personal possession get loose, and you're likely to have all sorts of magic nastiness come down on you), but the reader suspects he had tongue firmly in cheek while writing that one...
- John's probably kidding when he tells servants he'd prefer they not take his coat because he hasn't fed it recently. Probably.
- Razor Eddie, also from Green's novels, wears a dirty gray longcoat and routinely cuts Cosmic Horror-caliber monsters into sashimi.
- Carl Hollywood, a secondary character from Neal Stephenson's Diamond Age, would not even come close to being described as a bad ass for most of the book. He is for all intents and purposes the manager of a theater, and the job mostly fits his personality. He was, however, also raised essentially as a cowboy. So, at one point toward the end of the book while clad in a leather cowboy duster complete with hat and boots he proceeds to (with a small group of others) fight his way through a future Shanghai in the middle of a war zone.
- While not a long coat exactly, Gerald Tarrant of the Coldfire Trilogy wears calf-length, medieval-style tunics, and he's fairly badass.
- The Marquis de Carabas, from Neverwhere, wears what is somewhere between a trench coat and a frock coat.
- Sherlock Holmes was known to pull this off, so much so that a billowing Inverness cape is frequently associated with images of him.
- The same coat keeps turning up in Steven Brust's novels, usually on coachmen. The best description is in Freedom & Necessity: "Last week I found my most treasured item of clothing ... a vast and possibly antique driving coat, rusty black, with deep turned-back cuffs and a high-standing collar, and a pair of pockets so large that I could drop one of Mr Colt's pistols in each and hardly grudge the room. It swallows me up nearly to the ankles.... As his boots were to Puss, so this coat is to me. I assure myself that I seem a latter-day Dick Turpin when I've got it on, though I may in fact look a quite modern scare-crow."
- American Gods with the "new god" of the Internet. He wears a black longcoat in a Shout Out to The Matrix but is an unpleasant, physically weak nerd.
- The Asha'man in The Wheel of Time are often identifiable only by their long, black coats.
- An entire civilization of them in Sherwood Smith's Inda series. All Marlovan warriors wear long, gray dusters designed for riding.
- Carmen Sandiego has that awesome red one!
- Crystal Rain and its sequels by Tobias Buckell features the immortal cyborg killing machine Pepper, who's preferred garment is a trenchcoat.
Live Action TV
- Duncan MacLeod in Highlander The Series.
- In the Firefly universe, a long brown coat was part of the standard uniform for Independent soldiers during The War (hence "Browncoats"). An entire faction of Longcoats, Badassitude optional. They did lose, but The
South Outer Planets will rise again!
- Captain Mal Reynolds in Firefly. Though he physically is pretty much human, he makes up for it by having a nigh-indomitable will.
- Zoe's browncoat appears in "Out of Gas", in the flashback where she and Mal first buy Serenity, and yes, definitely badass.
- Angel and Spike on Buffy The Vampire Slayer: In Spike's case, the coat was an explicit symbol of his badass-ness, taken from Slayer Nikki Wood when he killed her. In fact, one of the marks of Spike's Badass Decay was that he put the coat away towards the end of the sixth season. In mid-season 7 episode of Buffy he realizes that he's turned into a wimp, so he pulls the old coat out and promptly starts kicking ass. He's never without it again, his Badass Decay briefly halted by the act.
- Towards the end of the show, Buffy herself adds a long coat to her Unlimited Wardrobe.
- Spoofed in season 7 with Andrew, who wears a longcoat similar to Spike's, but, decidedly, is not a badass. He's still a bit of a wimp and later gets bitchslapped by Willow (and not even the Evil One) in an alley. She does this with a lecture, without ever actually laying a hand on him, scares him shitless, and takes him prisoner. While he's wearing the longcoat. So Yeah.
- And in Angel, Angel's black leather longcoat is badass enough to stay that way even when it's being worn by a muppet-Angel in the episode "Smile Time".
- Doctor Who
- The Sixth Doctor wore a long-cut coat, but it lost a bit of its badass by being a multicolored patchwork.
- And of course, David Tennant's Tenth Doctor, who sports a camel-colored trench coat◊ as part of his iconic look.
- Torchwood Captain Jack Harkness wears a Royal Air Force Greatcoat as part of his iconic 40ies ensemble. Rhys Williams refers to him as "That bloke with the coat." several times.
- Farscape
- John Crichton's increasing badass-ness on Farscape is symbolized by his abandonment of his IASA civvies and taking up of a Peacekeeper long black coat.
- Scorpius, who's practically a walking Crowning Moment Of Awesome in his badass tailcoat
- Parodied in the Stargate SG-1 episode "200", when Teal'c imagines himself as a Badass Longcoat detective.
- In the Season Six episode 'Nightwalkers' Carter, Teal'c and Jonas Quinn show up in a small Oregon town all three wearing long, dark leather coats. Way to go, guys, could we look any MORE threatening and sinister?
- Omar Little in The Wire uses a duster to conceal his kevlar vest and double-barreled shotgun while robbing drug dealers.
- In Its Always Sunny In Philadelphia parodies the longcoat on several occasions. In one episode, Charlie remarks how cool Frank's trenchcoat looks and wants one of his own. In another episode, Mac buys a black leather duster because he thinks it makes him tough. At one point he thinks it will help him kick down a door. When Charlie wants a try at the door, he demands to put the duster on first. Mac ends up hitting Charlie against the wall while Charlie wears the duster. In a third episode, Mac's will demands that his duster be burnt after his death, but Dennis insists on keeping it for himself.
- Edward Woodward, The Equalizer. Standard light-tan tranch coat. Almost never closed unless he was out in bad weather.
- The Badass Longcoat is part of a Makai Knight's standard uniform in the Toku series Garo. The title character wears a very cool white longcoat when he's not in armored mode.
- Wraith officers in Stargate Atlantis tend to wear long black coats. And what can be more badass than an alien that can hardly be killed and feeds on your life force?
- Also the series' most memorable human villain, Acastus Kolya, who wears a long black coat when not in uniform.
- Hell, just watch the episode Trinity: Ronon and Teyla in black coats, I shit you not. Let's recount: the show's two most badass characters in long, black coats - simply badass. Though while everyone wears BDUs offworld, Ronon wears a coat instead.
- Michael from La Femme Nikita. Sometimes others, as the situation demanded.
- Wyatt Cain in Tinman is a good example of this as well as Glitch.
- The Mooks are specifically called "Longcoats" for their...long coats.
- Barnabas Collins from Dark Shadows was an Inverness cape wearing vampire.
- Castiel, the ass kicking warrior of God from Supernatural, is modeled after John Constantine wardrobe-wise (trench coat and all). Being an angel, Castiel’s clothes have the added bonus of self-repairing damage from gunshot blasts and stabbings, not to mention magical dry cleaning for blood stains.
- It's probably anachronistic, but Arthur's brown coat in Merlin definitely qualifies, and it looks in the set pictures like Uther might be going to wear one in season two.
- Adam Lambert on the Season 8 American Idol performance finale wore a long, black trench coat◊ with fog machines while singing "Mad World". It didn't necessarily make him badass, though.
- In Season 9 of Smallville, Clark Kent takes to wearing one of these with an all black ensemble - badass but not his colour, how about someting figure hugging in red and blue!
- John Druitt from Sanctuary is rarely seen without his black leather longcoat.
- He's not really that badass, but Eric Van Helsing wears one when he goes slaying in Young Dracula.
- Malcolm Tucker from The Thick Of It wears one, most notably when vowing to his Number 10 colleagues "YOU WILL SEE ME AGAIN! YOU WILL FUCKING SEE ME AGAIN!"
Music
Professional Wrestling
- Many wrestlers have adopted the longcoat to improve their image as badasses; among them are The Undertaker, Sting, Edge (one of the earliest adopters), and Christopher Daniels (who ups the badass quotient by wearing a sleeveless Badass Longcoat).
- Although, really, Chris Daniels's Badass Longcoat kind of loses its badass quotient when you notice that Trevor Murdoch wears the exact same coat.
- Matt Hardy recently started sporting a very nice Badass Longcoat, though at the moment he might be a subversion of the associated trope.
Tabletop Games
- Imperial Commissars in Warhammer 40000, who have absolutely no qualms with summarily executing their men for cowardice, disobedience, incompetence, fighting amongst themselves, drinking on duty, looking at heretical materials, wearing the wrong cap-badge, sneezing on the Emperor's holy icons....
All *cough* Ciaphas Cain *coughcough* I mean most Commissars are also Badass enough to scare their underlings more than whatever horrors are faced. As mentioned in the Literature section above, though, some Commissars are more Badass than others.
- The Imperial Trenchers in Mutant Chronicles universe are both specialized in trench warfare and wearing badass trenchcoats styled after the early 20th century British military (which they're a Fantasy Counterpart of). Retired Badass Jake Kramer and The Stoic Cybertronic Overseer Cyril Dent also wear those.
- Badass longcoats are also very popular in Cyberpunk RPGs, like Shadowrun or CP 2020. Especially since you can use them very well to hide guns under them.
- Shadowrun actually has a fun bit of flavor text in the Street Samurai's Catalog supplement about how Securetech's kevlar-lined trenchcoat has become something of a standard-issue uniform among runners.
- Note that Shadowrun's use of longcoats pre-dates the present fad for putting Badass action heroes in them, as the game's designers were trying to capture a "Wild West" feel for Awakened Seattle.
- Dead Lands, being inspired by Westerns and requiring a good deal of Badassitude from at least some character classes, are a kind of natural habitat for BadassLongcoats too.
- Also very popular among players in the World Of Darkness games, to the point that someone appearing in one, particularly if he uses a katana sword, is an utter, utter cliché.
- Going by the artwork in the books, trenchcoats are Standard Issue among ''Dark Champions'' vigilantes.
- In the game Dogs In The Vineyard, a Badass Longcoat is standard issue to every player character. Depending on how the GM decides to run the game, they can even deflect bullets.
- Just about every faction from Warmachine and Hordes has someone wearing an incredibly badass longcoat.
- Carmen Sandiego has that awesome red one!
Theatre
- In the 10th Anniversary Dream Cast of Les Miserables, Javert gets one when he's undercover as a spy among the revolutionaries.
Video Games
- Parodied in the browser MMORPG Urban Dead, where characters with overly "badass" description, especially the ones with long coats, scars, katanas (and other weapons not in the game) etc. are mocked to no end. The term "trenchcoater" also a negative term for the Munchkins of the game. This also exists in the MMORPG Nexus War, which was founded and played by a lot of Urban Dead Players.
- Carmen Sandiego has that awesome red one!
- Antonio Guster in the F-Zero games wears a long lab coat over his combat outfit.
- The character of Setzer from Final Fantasy VI wears an overcoat, drinks, gambles, and pilots both of the only flying machines (The Blackjack and the Falcon) to appear in the game.
- Gamov from the remake of Ninja Gaiden represents a subversion; despite having a long green coat, Cool Shades and a capacity for Offscreen Teleportation, he never does anything wow-inducing.
- JC Denton in Deus Ex wears a dramatic long black coat; this is Lampshaded by Agent Navarre in an interview: "I do not expect you to perform as well as Agent Hermann, but the mission will require us to do more than frighten the NSF with our baggy coats that make us look bigger than we really are." His brother Paul wears such a coat as well, as does Walton Simons. That is to say, every nano-augmented person in the world wears a Badass Longcoat. And that is badass.
- From Mugen no Frontier: Super Robot Wars OG Saga, we have Harken Browning, with his black and red longcoat.
- Shinjiro of Persona 3, unlike the rest of the party, only has one outfit. And it's a Badass Longcoat. The protagonist's usual outfit can also sometimes display some aspects of the Badass Longcoat without being one.
- Which member of the Belmont clan succeeded in killing Dracula off for good? Julius, in his longcoat.
- Soma Cruz has a white long coat that manages to be badass, especially with the pimp qualities. The 21st Century is obvious the era of Badass Fashion.
- Also, in Curse of Darkness, Trevor Belmont wears a belt with the lower part of a trench coat on it, just because it looks cool.
- The not-all-there, blood-splattered trenchcoat wearing villain Walter Sullivan of Silent Hill.
- Metal Gear Solid series.
- Liquid Snake, Revolver Ocelot and Psycho Mantis all wear the same style: brown leather with wide epaulets.
- Fortune wears hers simply draped over her shoulders, giving her the best of both a Badass Longcoat and a Cape.
- In the superhero MMORPG City Of Heroes (and its sister game/expansion City of Villains), trench coats are unlocked for an account that's been active for over three months. They come in several types (long, short, tattered, split) and take up the 'back' slot used for capes or wings. Like all costume pieces in the game, they have no effect on gameplay besides looking cool.
- Two sorts of Elite Mooks (Theron Guards and Kantus) in Gears Of War are distinguished first and foremost visually by their long dark coats.
- Not-So-Elite Mooks (Helghast Stormtroopers) in Killzone: Liberation also wear distinguishing black coats.
- Ganondorf in Wind Waker wears a pretty cool longcoat, the sleeves being so large that he actually has a sword hidden in each.
- Caleb of the Blood series wears a brown one.
- Sly Boots, the protagonist of Anachronox, is a Film Noir detective. In a trenchcoat.
- Fallout 3 gives you the chance to wear at least two different types of dusters, both of which look badass.
- Also, Colonel Autumn wears a trenchcoat and gives a pretty good show of being evil.
- Also take note of The Regulators, a law enforcement group with standard issue dusters.
- The Mysterious Stranger also wears a trench coat in the private eye tradition.
- Combine with Shady Hat, obtained from a bonus objective completed in one of Moira's quests, for maximum effect.
- Hell, grab the overcoat of General Chase (either from Operation Anchorage via console command or from Mothership Zeta's Cargo Hold).
- For a while, the standard garb for Swordmasters in Fire Emblem gave them the appearance of a Badass Longrobe (or Long-Slitted-Skirt for female characters), until Lloyd from FE7, whose sprite was edited to reflect the longcoat he wears in his character art. As of Radiant Dawn, the longcoat is the signature garb of the Trueblade.
- Crimson Viper from Street Fighter 4 has a longcoat as her alternate costume. It's badass on its own, even before factoring in the taser gloves and flamethrower shoes.
- The as-of-yet unknown protagonist of Red Steel 2. All we know about him so far is that he wears a longcoat, and that he's chosen to take on the town of Corona all by himself. And he wields a katana and a revolver.
- Ricardo from Tales Of Innocence: black and double-breasted. What he wouldn't do for his little brother...
- Albert Wesker in Resident Evil 5 and Resident Evil: The Umbrella Chronicles. Both his spiffy black trench-coat and his entire tight-fitting outfit are completely made out of leather. He just knows how to look cool.
- Lewton from Discworld Noir: Brown trenchcoat with leather added over the shoulders, and a matching fedora.
- Daniel from Exit Fate, a freeware RPG: Black with gold trim.
- In the first Shin Megami Tensei, although the Chaos Hero sports an urban camo trenchcoat and a brash demeanor, he is physically weak and openly admits to such, constantly relying on other characters for help. Although that may not be the case during gameplay...
- Fable 2 allows you to wear a variety of coats, two of which stand out as badass: the Noble Gent's Coat and the Highwayman Coat.
- The Godfather game outright tells you in the menu hints that the enemy gangsters with longcoats are superior to those without.
- Sengoku Basara's Katakura Kojuurou wears a brown duster that sweeps to the ground. It's utterly anachronistic, but hey, what's history when compared to badassery, right? And he's so badass that they made him playable in the expansion pack.
- Mickey Mouse in Kingdom Hearts. Seriously. Also anyone else wearing Organization XIII's uniform. All 13 or 14 of them. And Riku.
Webcomics
- Riff from Sluggy Freelance is a classic example. Usually he wears a brown trenchcoat, but he's been known to level up. His humanizing quirk is the tendency of his inventions to only mostly work, prompting his Catch Phrase: "Let me check my notes."
- Donovan Deegan of Dominic Deegan has a badass long coat...made even more badass in that said long coat is pink.
- Charlie from The Zombie Hunters punches in a zombie's skull, but later loses the labcoat.
- Metal Gear Solid webcomic The Last Days Of FOXHOUND has them, of course, but it's not just Liquid who wears them.
- Baron Klaus Wulfenbach, the Anti Villain dictator of Europa in Girl Genius. While his is more of a great coat than a trench coat, it does serve to make his already imposing figure more so. An early version shown here. It's sufficiently Badass that it makes him look imposing even from the back, with a baby in a backpack.
- Benjamin generally wears a police trenchcoat, though he also pulls off the rare badass labcoat, in A Miracle of Science.
- Briefly used in Gunnerkrigg Court. In Chapter 19, Antimony is wearing a Gunnerkrigg uniform trenchcoat when she gets pulled into Zimmy's Black Bug Room. When Zimmy flips out and attacks her, Annie uses her Judo-ish skills to very quickly incapacitate her attacker. Coincidence?
- Julio Scoundrél of the Order of the Stick. He is a "Dashing Swordsman", of course, but knowing how to work the flowing brown (or black, or crimson) longcoat is part of it
- Fetch Quest: Saga of the Twelve Artifacts has Lionel "the Lucky" and his black jacket. It's especially apparent when it makes him more intimidating than he really is.
- Both of the Villain Protagonists of Suicide For Hire wear black trenchcoats.
- In Charby the Vampirate, vampire hunters Vic and Blaine both wear long coats when they go out a-slaying. Nebbish boss Blaine wears a black, buckled coat over his office attire. Vic sported a plain grey coat for the longest time but recently had an upgrade to a dark grey long coat with red trim. Charby himself prefers long coats with lots of expressive tendrils of shredded cloth at the bottom.
Web Original
- In Survival Of The Fittest, Jacob Starr of v1 and Julie Mikan of v3 wear trenchcoats. Jacob started with a suit, but when the jacket was damaged in a gun battle he took the trenchcoat off of one of the people he killed.
- Big Boss wears one of these in Stray, and another character comments on the garment's dramatic value.
- Parodied by Travis Boles in Three In The Afternoon—he wears a bathrobe. Which, according to one of his foes, "smells".
- In Ms Paint Adventures the Problem Sleuth story contains multiple characters donned in trecnhcoats. The most notable of whom are Problem Sleuth, Ace Dick and Pickle Inspector.
Western Animation
- Hard Drive, a villain from Swat Kats, derived his data-hacking/teleporting/electrical powers from his "Surge Coat". Why not just a form-fitting data-suit or a backpack and goggles? Because the Surge Coat looks badass.
- Lampshaded in Roswell Conspiracies, when the totally unbadass Fritz is overjoyed at the opportunity to borrow the Hero's "cool coat".
- The Spectacular Spider Man' villain Doctor Octopus pairs his long coat with goggles.
- Macbeth in Gargoyles. It came in handy when he fought Goliath, as he was able to quickly slip out of it and escape the gargoyle's clutches.
- Broadway tries to employ this trope when he's playing trenchcoat-detective. This ironically tends to backfire, when it comes to looking Badass — he's more intimidating when he doesn't hide his gargoylish build — although it does help him blend in a bit.
- Carmen Sandiego had that awesome red one!
- In The Great Mouse Detective, Basil wears an Inverness cloak much like Sherlock Holmes.
Fan Fiction
Other
- Being that he's a parody of film-noir detectives, obviously Nick Danger from the Firesign Theatre has one.
Real Life
- Admiral Nelson in his naval uniform.
- George Early, an American Gentleman Adventurer in the Balkans during World War II . He considered himself a super-spy and always wore a trenchcoat everywhere, presumably to announce himself to the Germans. The OSS was so exasperated that it simply yanked his clearance and used him for the rest of the war as no more then a decoy. Oddly enough, he showed some insight occasionally, once picking up a rumor about the atomic bomb.
- The statue of Sir Robert Borden at the Parliament of Canada is wearing an overcoat which, combined with his awesome moustache and its location at the edge of a hill overlooking Wellington Street, makes for one badass statue. Picture◊!
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◊ and trench coats
◊. The principle differences between the two are that dusters are longer overall, usually reaching nearly to the ankles, and since they're designed for horseback riding, have a long slit up the back as far as the waist. Dusters are also generally cut along fairly boxy lines. A trench coat, on the other hand, is usually more shaped, reaches to the knees or slightly below and the back slit generally only reaches mid-thigh or hip-level. Trench coats also usually feature a belt and epaulets. It should be noted that one way to tell if a trench coat indicates a spy or private investigator or is a Badass Longcoat is by whether it's buttoned and belted or not. A Badass Trenchcoat is never closed.
A third style is the great coat
◊, a predecessor of the trench coat but usually much heavier, and with either a wider collar that can be turned up to protect against the wind or a short shoulder cape. Later great coats lost the cape, becoming a longer, heavier, double breasted overcoat, but retaining the name. Great coats were typically worn buttoned, losing some of their bad-assitude. They're most often associated with 19th Century naval officers and Russian soldiers. The Inverness cape
◊ is a lighter garment with a very similar appearance to the caped greatcoat. The cape, however, is longer, reaching slightly past the wrist rather than only to the elbow.
There is of course a fourth variety, but it takes a very, very rare combination of personality traits to allow one to pull off the Badass Labcoat.
A less modern example would be the Badass Long Robe. Cool Shades are a nice accessory, as are tacking on a Nice Hat and mask to achieve the Coat Hat Mask Effect. The Badass Longcoat is often combined with a pair of guns for extra effect.
Longcoat-wearing heroes probably started with Westerns (for dusters) or Film Noir, (for the classic trenchcoat) but became especially common in the public mind after The Matrix. Odds are they'll become a Subverted Trope in a few years. Until then, enjoy it while it lasts.
The Badass Longcoat is closely associated with The Stoic. Not related to Badass Longcat. Not to be confused with Conspicuous Trenchcoat.
