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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.
Doyle: I'm not saying I'm attracted....Maybe I'm a little attracted.
Just what the world's been waiting for. The Charge of the Trenchcoat Brigade.
Longcoat-wearing heroes probably started with Westerns or Film Noir, but became 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.
A Longcoat is the ideal action hero, not quite wearing a cape but a cool black or red coat called a "duster". He may have martial arts skills, but more often than not just absurd, godlike proficiency with weapons. 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.
They usually have some quirk to humanize them, to avoid falling into the Mary Sue category. The ones who wear red have a tendency to get dismembered, but they're so badass it doesn't slow them down much.
A long coat is closely related to cape wearing heroes, except they are more hardcore. Both, however, realize the dramatic use 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.
The most common types of long coats are dusters and trench coats. The principle difference between the two is that dusters are designed for horseback riding and thus have a long slit up the back. While a trench coat may also have a slit, it's usually only to the knees or lower thighs, not all the way to the waist as with a duster. Trench coats also usually feature a belt and epaulets.
A third style is the great coat, a predecessor of the trench coat but usually much heavier, with a wider collar that can be turned up to protect against the wind. Great coats were typically worn buttoned, losing some of their bad-assitude, though prior to the 20th Century they often featured a cape. They're most often associated with 19th Century naval officers and Russian soldiers.
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.
Usually a subtrope of The Stoic, but need not always apply. Not related to Badass Longcat.
Examples:
Anime
- Alucard in Hellsing. Luke Valentine, who wears a long white coat, and Alexander Anderson, who wears a grey cassock, are variations on this. Although none of them are particularly stoic, they are all distinctly Badass. Integra sometimes wears one too, as does Major Montana. There's 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 thing even though it's a fully buttoned, double-breasted affair.
- Subverted with the normal members of Iscariot and the Nazi vampire mooks, who are more of a Redshirt Army.
- Randal Oland from Pumpkin Scissors is an extremely Badass Longcoat who can take out a tank single handed.
- In Bleach, Ichigo's robes intriguingly and 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.
- Subversion: Shunsui Kyōraku (Eighth Squad Captain) subverts this by being a powerful fighter with an incredibly "un-badass" pink, flowery haori over his uniform.
- 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.
- Jo from Bakuretsu Tenshi is a Badass Longjacket, though she usually takes it off during combat.
- A pair of double-subversions: Trigun's Vash the Stampede and Abel Nightroad from Trinity Blood are infamous for deliberately subverting the trope to make opponents think they're harmless morons.
- 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, and 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 (depending on which translation you use) in Digimon Tamers, and Captain Sampson/Satsuma and BanchouLeomon in Digimon Savers.
- Gene Starwind in Outlaw Star. While it's really more of a big cloak, Gene is still an outlaw, a bounty hunter, and a gunslinger, so it counts.
- Plus, it was shown to have a practical use, since it was revealed in an episode to have four rocket launchers inside it that go off if he pulls off the coat fast enough.
- Alex Rowe on Last Exile. The only time he does show emotion is when Maestro Delphine is present, at which point Rowe turns into a raving homicidal madman.
- Amon on Witch Hunter Robin made a lifestyle out of being utterly unflappable, keeping his allies in the dark (for no particular reason), and always being a hat drop away from killing series lead and best friend/partner Robin because he thought she might fall prey to With Great Power Comes Great Insanity (again, despite knowing her well enough to discount that out of hand).
- Kuroudou Akabane in GetBackers. Ban Mido would fall under the "excessively long shirt" subset.
- Subverted in Mai-Otome with Garderobe headmistress Natsuki Kruger, who is about as far from badass as is mortally possible in her standard, coat-wearing outfit. Miyu, with her long black duster and matching hat, fits this trope to the letter.
- Reversed somewhat in Slayers NEXT with 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 he sports a suitably badass orange longcoat. The catch? He's the penultimate villain of the season, not a hero. He's also a character in a fantasy world setting where the trenchcoat look is rather out of place, to say the least.
- Hei from Darker Than Black. The longcoat is even bulletproof.
- Jotaro Kujo from JoJo's Bizarre Adventure. Over the course of his adventures, he beats up the fake captain of a ship who can hold his breath under for six minutes while underwater, a perverted orangutan who could completely control the ship he was fighting on, buried underground to stop himself from being burned to death by a gas shooting car, stopped a zombie controlling mist by breathing it in, beats down the guy who put him in humiliating situations because the villain had Jotaro's grandfather in a "hit me and your grandfather feels it" bond for three full pages, defeats a sicko who turns people into children after being turned into a kid, outfoxed a man who's power made him the perfect gambler in a poker game by not looking at his cards, beat the gambler's brother who could read minds in a baseball videogame, defeats a vampire, avoids getting crushed by a road roller being dropped on him by said vampire, stops time for the vampire, and to top it all off when Jotaro gives the reason for why he won against the vampire he says "I won, because you pissed me off."
- When Seishirou and Subaru are introduced in "X1999", both sport badass longcoats, with Seishirou's in black and Subaru's in white. Subaru also appears to have had an Important Haircut, and is significantly more badass than when he appeared in Tokyo Babylon (though after all that's happened to him, it's not all that surprising.)
- Gally in GUNNM.
- Takeshi in Sola.
- Van in Gun X Sword doesn't just wear a long coat, he wears a full tuxedo. It's the one he wore on his wedding day, when the Claw killed his bride.
- The standard uniform of the Amestrian military in Fullmetal Alchemist is a badass greatcoat.
- Edward Elric of Fullmetal Alchemist fame 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 broke, 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.
- Rin Asougi from Mnemosyne takes to always wearing a male's business suit. Which makes sense, as she's a business woman. However she often gets into fights with it, and generally looks like a badass while doing so. Unfortunately, her business suits are black, and she has a distinct tendency to get shot up and blown up and spray blood everywhere. Even worse, villains love catching her while she's actually not in her business suit and off-guard.
- Bolt Crank from Eat-Man sports a floor length trench coat while firing an assortment of 'uge freekin guns one handed.
- Dr. Black Jack almost invariably wears a black cloak and tuxedo when he's not in scrubs. As for how Badass he is, he once used a scalpel to deflect bullets.
- Mephisto of Demon City Shinjuku wears a long red coat which billows out dramatically in convenient winds. It's hard to say which of his moments is more badass: the one in which he smoothly diverts and calmly destroys a demon which is stalking the hero, or the one in which he shows up at the final battle and informs the Big Bad in all seriousness that he had better see a fair fight.
- 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 might be a bit of a subversion. 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.
- And then of course, there's the villain Aion, who is a truer version of the Badass Longcoat.
- Hitomi Landsknecht from ICE.
- Wilhelm from Mahou Sensei Negima.
- Simon Post-Time Skip in Tengen Toppa Gurren Lagann.
- Anko Mitarashi from Naruto wears a 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]]. Though one would assume the swooshing a proper badass longcoat would make from jumping around would decrease stealth, but, eh...
- Zest and Signum from Magical Girl Lyrical Nanoha. The former took out Vita while she was Unisoned. The latter killed the former.
- 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.
- Let's not forget D from Vampire Hunter D.
- Dr Stein from Soul Eater, rocks the rare Badass labcoat.
Live Action TV
- Duncan MacLeod in Highlander The Series.
- Captain Mal Reynolds in Firefly. Though he physically is pretty much human, he makes for it by having a nigh-indomitable will.
- He's also too pretty to die, and that should count for something.
- Angel and Spike on Buffy The Vampire Slayer and Angel. In Spike's case, the coat was an explicit symbol of his badass-ness, since he took it from the body of one of the Slayers he killed.
- 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.
- Captain Jack Harkness is an example of this trope, as is the Tenth Doctor: definitely a badass, and practically epitomizes this trope. Both are from Doctor Who as well as Torchwood.
- Donna Noble wears a long coat in the episode Turn Left during which she is the only one who can save the world.
- 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.
- Future Hiro, Future Matt and Future Peter in Heroes
- Supervillain Sylar also upgrades to an iconic badass trenchcoat at the end of Season 1 for the final battle.
- Mick-St.John in Moonlight
- In the Sci-Fi channel's Tin Man, the Mooks are literally called "longcoats" on screen, though this is in reference to their Gestapo fashion.
- Parodied in the Stargate SG-1 episode "200", when Teal'c imagines himself as a Badass Longcoat detective.
- Omar Little, the trenchcoat-wearing drug thief on the HBO series The Wire. Not only does he carry a "duster" (double-barreled shotgun) with him, but he also robs drug houses with a crew. Even when he dies near the end of the series (a homage to Jesse James), he is revered as a legend by the populace, when he was gunned down by an inexperienced child.
- Utterly, utterly parodied on Its Always Sunny In Philadelphia. Mac buys an old, beat up black duster and starts wearing it constantly. At one point, his newfound badassness causes him to try to kick down a door. Try. When another character makes an attempt, he even demands to put the duster on first.
- Villainous version: the Huntsman of The Tenth Kingdom.
Film
- A good 75% of the characters in the Matrix trilogy.
- John Preston in the movie Equilibrium. He starts the movie literally feeling no emotion, but by the end, when he goes off the emotion-inhibiting drug, he feels the full spectrum of human emotion while having to hide it from his superiors. Subverted only as far as the stoic part, though, since he doesn't lose any badass-ness.
- This troper thinks that he totally stops being cool when he goes emo (pun intended) and therefore does not longer count as badass.
- 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.
- More likely just to look really freakin' awesome. Also, I think it's BPRD standard issue.
- 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. 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.
- Castor Troy, the main bad guy of John Woo's Face Off, also dons the Badass Longcoat, this time in black.
- Jim (played by Leonardo DiCaprio) in The Basketball Diaries, in the classroom shooting dream sequence.
- 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 Badass Longcoat Action Girl. That she is a vampire and effectively a demigod in the second movie only adds to her badassery.
- Technically, Jedi wear robes, but the difference largely amounts to the fact that they have hoods and longer sleeves. The costume designers apparently tried to compensate for Lucas's writing and directing resulting in a lack of badass for what should have been the most badass character in Episodes II and III, and had Anakin dress in a lot of black leather under his plain brown robe.
- William 'The Butcher' Cutter from Gangs Of New York appears in the opening scene not only in a super-badass longcoat, but a silver false eye in the shape of the Federal Eagle.
- 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 tries to pull this off. He wears a black overcoat, drives a black motorcycle and refers to himself as the "lone wolf". Thing is, he's not really more Badass than any other team member, he just has a very short fuse.
- Freddy Krueger in Wes Craven's A New Nightmare, which is more of an antihero / villain type, but it 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.
- Pick a Sergio Leone western, but especially Once Upon a Time in the West.
- Gabriel Van Helsing in the movie Van Helsing.
- Lampshaded in Rustler's Raphsody.
- Silent Bob has a little bit of the badass longcoat in him, especially the Hyperspace Arsenal bit.
- In the Samuel Fuller movie Baron of Arizona, Vincent Price plays a conman who spends most of the movie dressed like this (he dresses as a monk to alter the history of royal land grants). He doesn't do anything particularly Bad Ass, but women throw themselves at him and he's as tall as all the other characters standing on each other's shoulders.
- Somewhat Played For Laughs with Detective Billy Rosewood in Beverly Hills Cop II. There are several instances in the movie which shows that Billy (who's hardly a stoic character) leaning towards this, concluding when he pulls a bunch of guns and a long trenchcoat from the back of his car before heading off to meet with the bad guys.
[Taggart sees Rosewood take two shotguns and an overcoat out of his trunk]
Sergeant Taggart: Billy, what are you doing?
Billy Rosewood: I've been wanting to wear this for a while, Sarge.
Sergeant Taggart: What are you, nuts? Jesus Christ, Billy! We gotta talk! What the hell is this?
Billy Rosewood: You can never have too much firepower.
- Amazingly enough, he does kick quite a bit of ass, even if at times he borders on Idiot Hero.
- 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.
- Doc seems to favor long coats in general during the trilogy -- he wears a trenchcoat during the famous scene at the Clock Tower, and a long black coat while in 1985-A (and again in 1955, while searching for Marty). The Old West duster, though, is definitely the most badass of them.
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.
Video Games
- Dante from Devil May Cry is notable for being both a Badass Longcoat and a White Haired Pretty Boy. So is his twin brother Vergil, as the third title revealed. So was their father Sparda, as is newcomer Nero too.
- Subverted with Credo; though his high-collared white getup looks pretty sleek, he never displays the swordsmanship that supplementary materials say let him climb the Order's ranks.
- Somewhat subverted 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.
- Grit in the Advance Wars series.
- Gilder in Skies Of Arcadia.
- 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.
- Villainous example: Sephiroth of Final Fantasy VII, who also bears the distinction of being the White Haired Pretty Boy of the game.
- Final Fantasy X's Auron, who also sports some Cool Shades in keeping with the fairly modernish world. Though he doesn't exactly take much damage like most wearers of red Badass Longcoats do, it turns out that he died after the last attempt to destroy Sin.
- Final Fantasy VIII's Seifer Almasy, the Rival Turned Evil for Squall, wears the Badass Longcoat in light grey.
- 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. In the endgame, The Man Behind The Man chops him up before he can defend himself. In NG: Sigma, he was made a boss with Handguns Akimbo, but unfortunately a rather ineffectual one. It didn't help that he had an annoying laugh.
- Keats from Folklore - especially when he activates his hidden powers.
- Endorph from Soul Nomad And The World Eaters and Walnut from Phantom Brave. They're the same person.
- Vermilion from the Battle Arena Toshinden series, who's also a Gunslinging Blood Knight.
- 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.
- Mickey Mouse in Kingdom Hearts 2. Yes, you read that right.
- Most of the members of Organization XIII fit into this trope as well (Demyx, not so much).
- Sanger Zonvolt from the Super Robot Wars series wears his Badass Longcoat even in space. If his cockpit suffered a hole or he needed to eject he would die but he would looks badass while doing it.
- His alternate universe twin manages to out badass him, however, by cutting apart an entire army of mecha in one sword swing. General blows up. Army behind him blows up. Entire building blows up. This happens directly after a sword fight between Sanger and his twin broke open a building designed to survive armageddon.
- From Mugen no Frontier: Super Robot Wars OG Saga, we have Harken Browning, with his black and red longcoat. How badass is he? He wields a machine gun/katana/pile bunker with one hand and a long-barreled revolver/Wave Motion Cannon with the other, and often juggles and spins them through the air. Officially, he's an Expy of Kyousuke Nanbu, but he may or may not have a bit of Sanger in him as well.
- Technically, Altair of Assassins Creed wears a robe, but the central vent gives it a coat-ish billow.
- 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.
- The Medic from Team Fortress 2. Of course, he's more of a Mad Scientist in personality and Staff Chick in role, so that part of the trope doesn't quite apply.
- Which member of the Belmont clan succeeded in killing Dracula off for good? Badass Longcoat Julius.
- Soma Cruz has a White Coat that manages to be badass, despite the pimp qualities. The 21st Century is obvious the era of Badass Fashion.
- So where does the not-all-there, blood-splattered trenchcoat wearing villain Walter Sullivan of Silent Hill fit into this trope?
- Clive from Wild Arms 3.
- Liquid Snake, Revolver Ocelot, and Fortune from the Metal Gear Solid series.
- Croix from La Pucelle Tactics, with the added bonus of blowing about in a nonexistent wind when he rises to a god-like level of badass.
- Technically, the Shaper class in the Geneforge series wear robes and aren't supposed to do much fighting, but given that the robes are open at the front and they're very good at creating giant monsters to fight for them, that just means they get to be a Badass Longcoat with a hood.
- In the superhero MMORPG Cityof 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 affect on gameplay besides looking cool.
Western Animation
- Caleb in WITCH.
- 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.
Comic Books
- 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, I think), but the trenchcoat remained his "classic" look, up until they brought back the old style.
- The Punisher, particularly by Garth Ennis.
- The Boys, which is written entirely by Ennis.
- The Saint of Killers from Preacher, also written entirely by Ennis.
- Nextwave, where the longcoat is an issued part of the uniform for the main characters (who still wear tights underneath)
- Other examples of the Badass Longcoat Over Tights (see also Civvie Spandex):
- Gambit of X-Men fame.
- Take a good, long look at Gambit one of these days, by the way, and mentally take off the coat. What the hell is that costume?
- Static (whose baggy coat in the comics somehow manages to look more badass than the neatly-tailored one from the cartoon)
- Blade, as also mentioned in Film.
- Midnighter of The Authority.
- Rogue wore one for a while, having apparently taken a fashion cue from Gambit.
- John Constantine from Hellblazer.
- Also Mr E, Dr Occult and, according to Constantine, the Phantom Stranger (although his does seem to be more of a cape). While John invented the term "The Trenchcoat Brigade" as a joke, it's the title of their Books of Magic spin-off miniseries.
- 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.
- As noted in the Film section, Hellboy is a pretty obvious example of this.
- Dream of The Sandman.
Literature
- 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.
- Commissar Ciaphas Cain 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. This is rather ironic, as Cain, despite being a certified Bad Ass, is a complete coward who runs away from battle far more readily than he charges into it.
- Well, for most time it's exactly the other way 'round, as if Cain's long (and often very painful) experience had ever taught him anything, it's that in 40K Crapsack World it is much safer to run into the battle, not from it. He hangs a lampshade on it himself, musing in The Traitor's Hand that he finds it much easier to fight and eliminate the threat, rather than wait for it to grow and come after you.
- Commissar-Colonel Ibram Gaunt is a more straight example; he and the Tanith First-And-Only have triumphed over forces that most other Imperial Guard units would be rolled over by.
- 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...
- 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 trenchcoat is frequently associated with images of him.
Webcomics
- Shadehawk from Antihero for Hire
 is at least partial subversion. All his moments of badassery (which are numerous) are mixed with just as numerous moments of screwing up hilariously. Sometimes in one strip.
Shadehawk confronts a Tyke Bomb assassin, who had earlier smashed his glasses
Tyke Bomb: Whoa, that would've been totally badass if your face didn't look like shit.
Shadehawk:'' Well, that isn't exactly my fault now, is it!?
- Dr. Mc Ninja of The Adventures Of Doctor Mc Ninja has yet to be seen without his white coat. In the past, he's tried to emulate Batman by handling it like a cape.
- 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.
- Vic from Charby the Vampirate did a 180 going from a comic villain & Team Rocket of one to The Hunter kick butt vampire killer archtype as shown when he kill a vampire with his bare hands, of course this hasn't helped him with the ladies.
- 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.
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.
- Of course, no one should forget Commissar Sebastian Yarrick, he of the laser eye and Power Klaw.
- Commisar Cain chooses to go the route of convincing the troops he serves with actually have a chance and that he cares about them. Of course, being Warhammer 40000, he has his own reasons for it.
- I can just imagine how employment works. "congratulations commisar. Here is your lisence to kill, your bolter pistol, your uniform and your cloak." "What is the cloak for?" "It is kevlar- it will keep your men from shanking you."
- Only if your men aren't catachans, who use knives the size of small swords and whose commisars have a 50% chance of not showing up due to being fragged.
- Badass longcoats are also very popular in Cyperpunk RPGs, like Shadowrun or CP 2020. Especially since you can use them very well to hide guns under them.
- 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.
- Or worse, they'll somehow justify having more firearms than North Korea under their coat. This would be comical if the character's Strength is less than 3, but no stroyteller this troper has known has thought to make characters justify how they can so much as move..
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. Julie is a slight subversion in that, though she started off as a Bad Ass player, she soon realized she just wasn't capable of murder on the sheer scale playing the game would require.
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