In a World with supernatural dealings or superpowers, this character is the one who is able to keep being useful through intellect, martial arts abilities, general ruthlessness, or just being Crazy Prepared.
They notably have none of the fantastic enhancements, magic or special powers that others do. It might even be a sore point for them, but that just makes us encourage them more. Female versions are usually Action Girls with a Girl Posse or Lovely Angels.
It's become increasingly common for the Badass Normal to be a protagonist, in contrast to the ideal lead, as it supposedly makes him easier to relate to. However, in ensembles, they are usually the leader, or at least the brains of the outfit, to compensate.
Often overlaps with Costumed Nonsuper Hero in superhero settings — to the point that that trope page was made to help people avoid confusing the two concepts.
If a Badass Normal is capable of things that should only be superhuman, then they have a Charles Atlas Superpower. If Badass runs in their family, it's because Lamarck Was Right. If they are given superfluous superpowers (especially in Fan Fiction), you get a Badass Abnormal. If they only lost powers they actually used to have, they've been Brought Down to Badass.
The Badass Normal only happens in a world of superpowers, widespread genetic engineering or other artificial enhancements (like magic). Similarly, just dealing with the inhuman or strange (that's your zombies, orcs, Alien Invasion and other invocations of Puny Earthlings) doesn't suffice unless there was some other superhero who showed how they needed their powers for the same job. Just because someone was able to kill one Super Soldier out of ten in the world does not make them a badass normal. Likewise, this is not a character who is ill equipped with outdated technology, even if their enemies are top-of-the-line. By all means it should be a topic of debate with anyone they deal with (enemy, ally or even themselves) if their lack of superpowers is an issue with their usefulness. Please remember this when you put your favourite character in this page.
You may want to distinguish your favorites from the typical Badasses, but it doesn't make them less badass if they don't qualify for this particular trope. If they have strange or superhuman abilities, they are not normal. There is no "relatively" when it comes to Badass Normal. If you can "barely" lift a tank, your ki blasts can "only" level cities or your ability to alter the fabric of reality isn't as developed as others, tough; you're a badass with superpowers. Not everyone can be the Batman of the setting.
Often overlaps with The Team Normal (if this character joins a superpowered team).
A Sub Trope of Badass. Super Trope of Badass Bystander. By definition always on level 1 in Super Weight.
Compare Unfazed Everyman, Weak, but Skilled, Puny Earthlings.
Contrast with Overshadowed by Awesome, where a character is by reasonable means strong compared to regular people or even superpowerful, but can only be considered "normal" when compared to the people they hang out with, who are vastly stronger. Because of this they often Can't Catch Up. Brought Down to Normal arcs can show a super powered individual can be bad ass without their powers but that does not qualify them for this trope. This is a character type, not a plot trope.
Note for Tropers: This trope only applies if the setting possesses a significant number of characters with superpowers. In a setting where superpowers are very uncommon or nonexistent, Badass characters without superpowers are just badass. If you encounter an instance of a character in a setting without superpowers being called a Badass Normal, please remove or change it. For average people that are forced to be a badass by the situation, see Action Survivor. For costumed heroes without superpowers in general, see Costumed Nonsuper Hero.
Examples
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Anime & Manga
Guts from Berserk is just about as badass as a human can be, and eventually fights demons. At one point he has his arm cut off and keep fighting.
Reiji Takayama from Witchblade. Stony resolve in the face of an Ax CrazyPsycho Lesbian with an Artifact of Doom-level power is impressive, but what seals it is that his only words to his assistant in regards to whether they should help The Hero Masane Amaha, or run, were this: "BACK HER UP!!!" He then proceeds to pull out a shotgun and blast away, even managing an almost victory, despite being massively overpowered. Was damn near raped at the same time, but merely stared impassively at the crazy bitch, as if daring her to actually finish the job. Later, he commands an army barely a fraction the size of the force he's fighting and manages to waste a full eighth of an enemy mere mortals should have had a bitch of time even scratching, with weaponry that was unreliable at best. After he led his team to patch a whole hangar of robot tanks knowing they're about to go haywire and started a point-blank shootout with units that gone wild before they finished.
His assistant, Hiroki Segawa, despite being The Renfield incarnate, stands his ground with little more than a PISTOL and balls the size of small planets, especially considering said nutcase he was fighting could have killed him effortlessly, also qualifies.
The few characters of One Piece without devil fruit powers are that. Mainly the strawhats, Zoro, Sanji, Nami and even Usopp, as they beat the crap out of elite fighters with sometimes nothing more than a leg (which is mysteriously burning, at least).
Sanji and Zoro are proud owners of Charles Atlas Superpowers. Usopp's durability is easily superhuman, but otherwise he's nothing special, getting by on ingenuity and smarts rather than just hitting his opponents till they stop getting up. Nami likewise possesses no notable physical abilities, relying on her Clima-Tact weapon to see her through battles with massively powerful superhumans.
As a frame of reference for Usopp's ingenuity, he fights Luffy at one point. Even though Luffy was holding back, that scene makes it clear that Usopp is truly badass.
Vivi didn't seem all that impressive next to the Strawhat crew, but she did make it to a single-digit agent in Baroque Works, armed only with sharp pieces of jewelry on lengths of string...and probably undersold her abilities, too.
Not only did she make it to single digits, but during the climax of the Alabasta Arc, she singlehandedly defeated the Mr. 7 team, while she was only ranked as part of the Mr. 9 team while she was infiltrating Baroque Works.
Mihawk, the world's greatest swordsman, has no Devil Fruit Powers. Likewise, Silvers Rayleigh, the first mate of Gold Roger, is shown swimming at one point (indicating he doesn't have a Devil Fruit) and can fight against an Admiral despite being retired as a pirate for twenty years.
Shanks is a Handicapped Badass, able to cross blades with Whitebeard and walking away. And before he lost his arm, he was once rivals with Mihawk, the world's greatest swordsman, who had sought him out for fights.
Haki too.
Hugue de Watteau from Trinity Blood is characterized as being the only ordinary human in the main cast who can stand his ground and actually persevere in a fight against vampires, a proficiency stemming only from extreme training and fitness and reflexes honed to perfection.
It should be noted that Hugue is not entirely normal (he's got Artificial Limbs). A better example would be Leon Garcia de Asturias aka "Dandylion".
Gareki from Karneval is one; his sharpshooting skills are well-honed and exceedingly better than a top fighter of their nation's ultimate defense organization, Circus. Even when he acknowledges that his abilities are far inferior to that of those who own a Circus I.D., he is able to hold his own with a gun (that he's not actually allowed to have on him) next to the said top fighter in a fight against two psychos.
Jounouchi/Joey from Yu-Gi-Oh!! He's the only duelist in the core cast without a mystical Millennium item or reincarnation, but is still a pretty skilled player, regardless of what Kaiba thinks. (The only time he had a MacGuffin on his side would be during the Atlantis/Doma fillerarc.) He's also considered the third best player in the entire world by GX. He would likely have defeated the Big Bad during the Battle City Arc if not for his injuries.
That, and whereas the other prominent duelists are loaded with powerful cards, especially Kaiba, Joey's deck, ostensibly due to him being much newer to the game and a lot poorer for one, is littered with weak cards, along with chance-based cards whose effects can even things out when he gets lucky with the result. (He does get stronger cards throughout the series, most notably Jinzo.) As a result, he really has to fight for his victories, though fortunately for himself, he's one of the most driven duelists in the entire series.
Little Yugi, when up against Atem in the Ceremonial Duel, would be another. Whereas the latter is locked and loaded with all three Egyptian god cards and by this point the ability to will his topdecks with his Millennium powers, the non-magical Yugi takes him and his gods down with much weaker monsters augmented by strategic use of spells and traps, and in spite of Atem's ability to select what he draws every turn, Yugi manages to stay one step ahead, culminating in his calling out Atem's final strategy of revive Osiris. (Added in the anime version was Kaiba's presence, where he offers Yugi to choose among his rarest and strongest cards for help against Atem, but Yugi chooses to rely on his own cards. Not only that, he takes down all three god cards at once!)
To a lesser extent, you also have Mai Valentine in the Battle City arc. We only see her duel twice, but she defeats Jean-Claude Magnum pretty easily, and engages Marik in a duel, and fares exceedingly well against him. She only loses due to a trick of the Winged Dragon of Ra unrelated to dueling. She'd have beaten him handily without it. Atem and Kaiba were both exceedingly impressed with her.
Crow from Yu-Gi-Oh 5Ds was arguably badass right from his introduction. However, his recent defeat of a Dark Signer (even when faced with a Jibakushin), despite not being a Signer himself, proves that he is definitely qualified for this trope. He also has the series's only Riding Duel First-Turn Win under his belt, and has survived a day and a half inside an old fridge.
However with the Second Season Finale, the Crimson Dragon, probably wondering why the hell it didn't choose him in the first place, has given him the Tail Birthmark and made him into a Signer, which sadly means he can't be classified as a Badass Normal anymore.
Nenene Sumiragawa from the Read or Die TV series is one of the only normal humans in the series. However, she is the strongest-willed, and dealing with her leads to the fall of not one, but two Ancient Conspiracies. It should be noted that, as a popular and talented author in the world of the series, her ability to write is itself something of a "superpower".
In both the OVA and TV series, Drake Anderson is able to defeat several superpowered beings using only his army training and machinery.
Mireille Bouquet is one of the best assassins in the world, but compared to the rest of the cast of Noir is mundane. However, her refusal to bend ultimately brings down an Ancient Conspiracy (or at least, one branch of it).
Natsuko Aki in Re: Cutey Honey inspires Cutey Honey to fight, after laying siege to a villain's hideout with just the artillery on her back and sheer guts.
The "Nanaya Shiki" of Melty Blood. He's kinda like a fake copy of the protagonist and therefore does not possess the eyes that can potentially kill anything. Doesn't stop him from doing what he does best though.
Kiyone in the Tenchi Muyo!! Tenchiverse timeline had none of the exotic magical or Sufficiently Advanced powers enjoyed by most of the main cast, or even her partner Mihoshi's consistently extraordinary luck, but still managed to at least register on their scale thanks to great skills with her array of high-tech weapons and gadgets.
Nicholas D Wolfwood of Trigun. At least in the anime, he was basically just a regular if not well trained guy with a really big gun. Despite this he's able to go head to head with large groups of angry thugs, a killer robot and was at least Vash's equal in a quick draw tournament.
This is clarified a bit in the manga. Chapel raised Wolfwood on some steroid-like chemicals that made him incredibly strong with lightning fast reflexes, much like Vash. Unfortunately, the drug did a number on his pituitary and caused him to age rapidly. He's a teenager, but looks to be in his thirties. Actually, given that Chapel lets it slip that Wolfwood is 17 in the anime and his childhood is still kept pretty secret, the implication is that his backstory is the same in both versions: it's just not revealed in the TV show. You have to read the manga if you want to know all the details.
Integra Hellsing is fast and smart enough to hold off superhuman foes like Anderson and Nazi vampires attacking from the front despite being a fully un-powered human. Not to mention shooting a perfect cross of blessed silver bullets into the forehead of a moving vampire. With a Walther PPK. At 20 yards. In a crowded conference room.
Captain Pickman, a minor character only featured in the TV anime and not until the very last episodes, was the last of the Hellsing Redshirts when they were led into an trap at the Tower of London. Despite every single other Redshirt having been violently killed, he continued to fight at the side of Alucard with surprising success until a enemy offscreen mortally wounds him, and requests Alucard to kill him so he would die as a human.
Sir Penwood in the manga is initially one of the more useless knights that Integra has to deal with, being heavily biased against the organization's way of functioning. However, he gets one hell of an awesome ending.
And how have we gotten this far without mentioning Pip? Or Heinkel (at least before the end of the series) and Yumie?
Genjyo Sanzo in Saiyuki, while being a normal human, manages to keep up with and, if anything, outstrip his magical youkai companions' fighting skills.
Togusa from Ghost in the Shell is noted several times as being the only member of Section 9 who is not heavily cyberized. Despite this, he is a crack shot with his revolver, survives battles with several cyborgs, and manages to get critical data on the Laughing Man Case, among others.
Major General Olivier Milla Armstrong in the Fullmetal Alchemist manga is the older sister of Alex Louis Armstrong. She's also a sword-wielding maniac who terrifies the Elric brothers. Even though she has no alchemic abilities, and relies only on her sword, she has put more fear in them than the Homunculi, Scar, and Father combined.
And her whole garrison. Who did most of the work of taking over the country toward the end of the series.
Lt. Colonel Hughes is also badass normal to a particular degree, wielding push knives with deadly skill and holding his own against two Homunculi until a third one kills him.
Mustang's men are this trope personified, although special mention belongs to Riza Hawkeye. When the single most deadly alchemist in the entire military hand-selects a Gunslinger Girl to be his bodyguard, you know she's got to have some serious skills.
Sig proves that his muscles isn't just for show in the last arc when he kills Sloth alongside Alex Louis by throwing him on a spike.
Ling Yao before becoming the new Greed is quite the badass. While he has no knowledge of alchemy, he's quite skilled with his sword and at one point holds his own against Wrath while holding an injured comrade across one shoulder. His bodyguards Lan Fan and Fuu aren't too shabby, either.
Princess Mononoke title character. In a world containing spirits, gods, and some guy with a possessed super-powered arm, San is just a girl with a spear, knife, and wolf. Which are apparently enough to go over a thirty foot wall.
Lady Eboshi only has intelligence and restraint to think things through before she acts. By the end of the movie she pretty much defeated everyone with only minor casualties. At the same time! Things only turn bad when the actual god of the forest intervenes, but that actually takes place after she killed him in single combat!
Ein and the adult version of Bat from Fist of the North Star. While they don't have same martial arts training as Kenshiro and other martial artists in the series, they're capable on holding their own against the bad guys. The two of them working together managed to punch an entire fortress filled with goons to death. Some of the bad guys, like Jackal, may qualify for this trope as well.
Kai, David, and Lewis from Blood+ could fit the bill, seeing as they are ordinary humans who regularly wade into battle with powerful Chiropterans armed only with simple firearms (which the series establishes as being next-to-useless against them), and emerge almost unscathed every time. Out of all them, Lewis and Kai probably emphasize the "normal" aspect the most, since one is a fat, awkward slob, and the other is an ordinary teenage boy. David definitely fits the "badass" part, since he survives being shot, getting slashed by monsters, and jumping out of a helicopter moments before it exploded, despite requiring realistic medical treatment in each case, and when he infiltrated a secret research facility and found himself surrounded by armed guards, he escaped by grabbing a hostage and threatening to kill him with a ballpoint pen.
Kaneda himself is another example. Anyone who can face down a superpowered psychic psychopath with nothing but a laser rifle without getting splattered definitely qualifies.
In a school inhabited by super-powered Magical Girls, Haruka Suzushiro from Mai-HiME counts, if only for the fact that as the head of Fuuka Academy's Executive Committee, she has a whole legion of students at her direct command, and her utter refusal to take "no" for an answer even when faced with death after Yukino's CHILD is instantly destroyed by a freshly Face Heel Turned Shizuru, whom she chewed out and gave a very nasty headbutt just before she disappeared.
The most exemplary moment of Haruka's Badass Normal tendencies is during the Searrs invasion where she uses her brute strength to take out a pair of fully armed soldiers... and also kicking one of their tanks and somehow not breaking her foot. Wow.
While several of the characters in Baccano!! are immortal beings that have drank the elixir of life, many of the most amazing fights and other feats are performed by completely normal humans such as Claire Stanfield, Chane Laforet, Jacuzzi Splot, and Ladd Russo.
It's worth pointing out, however, that Ladd is Ax Crazy and Claire thinks he is immortal.
In the light novels, Claire takes this trope even further - he manages to best a vampire in a fight. The author of the novels has even stated that, if such a situation were to come up, Claire would be able to win against all of the many characters in the series with little effort; the reason the author plans to avoid such a fight is simply because should Claire be pitted against the rest of the cast, the story would come to a swift and uninteresting end. What's more, at the age of 90, Claire - still a mortal - continues his eccentric activities, traveling around the world and locating treasures merely to impress Chane.
The light novels themselves note that the only character that might match up against Claire in a fight is Ronnie Suchiart. To clarify, the resident demon/eldritch abomination has trouble fighting Claire Stanfield.
In Mahou Sensei Negima!!, most of the characters at the least use some kind of given magic or Ki. But some of them are at least able to touch ground with the more powerful people. Asakura showed sly cleverness — enough to manipulate anyone in the class — long before she got her spying device pactio weapon. Kuu Fei in particular was only recently able to properly utilize Ki, and even then hold her own against the more magically capable opponents. Although she rarely gets placed in a situation where it would become applicable due to her "clueless Muggle" status, Ayaka also proved herself capable of holding her own in battle during the school trip arc.
Negi's father also counts; even without his magic charging into an Anti-Magic valley filled with monsters is no problem if his woman is in danger.
Rosette from the Chrono Crusade manga is the only one in her group that doesn't have any magical or spiritual energy, just some special bullets, but she's still easily the biggest badass of her group. She's defeated countless demons with powers that make them much stronger than her, and in the final volume even shoots the horn on her brother's head, even though those horns give him superhuman speed and strength and the ability to stop time. All this while a demon is draining away her soul to supply his power. In the anime she eventually undergoes Chickification, but still manages to have some badass moments.
In the anime version of Mermaid Melody Pichi Pichi Pitch, Nagisa, despite being a Dogged Nice Guy with little to no knowledge of the Masquerade, has a few moments of his own... like resisting a spell to immobilize humans, attacking the person responsible and destroying the item he was using to do it, despite being one of the only two normals in the entire cast, simply because Hanon was in pain.
The Gundam multiverse is a difficult issue, as it depends on the universe, what you consider a super power. UC would go with psychic Newtypes and SEED with coordinators, G-verse is full of people with Charles Atlas Superpowers beating the crap out of others. Also in a mecha anime, you might consider fighting with a normal suit with or against way superior opponents a Badass Normal action. Examples (and also note that these characters also have to be directly compared to a newtype or coordinator, not just have them exist somewhere in that universe:
In a war where Newtypes are the only ones getting a hit on the enemy, Zeta Gundam's Jerid Massa and Yazan "I'm gonna violate you" Gable are at least able to put up a fight with their opponents, though they hardly if ever succeed.
Gundam ZZ is more difficult in the beginning, since much was just comedic and no Serious Business, but one person should be given credit: Masai, a young woman living in a desert, laying out some traps and fighting the whole Gundam team with an near ancient Gelgoog.
And Elle, who was pilot the outdated Gundam MK II who when compared to Emma only learned it from the Manual is a complete rookie, managed to survive the campaign in the mobile suit.
MS IGLOO. Oliver May in the Big Rang. 'Nuff said. To give you an idea, he was an engineer with no piloting experience who got inside a patched-up MA made of a Bigro attached to a custom-built support platform, and completely stomped Fed forces all over A Baoa Qu, to the point they thought he was Char.
In the second movie series, there's Ben Barberry, who has the highest MS kill count achieved on foot, and Arleen Nazon, who's team was pretty much the only support Big Tray needed in their ground assault on the Dabudes in Operation Odessa.
UC Aces have a number of well known badass normals aside from Jerid and Yazaan, Hughes to date is canonically the oldest Gundam pilot (32 years old!), the Twin Stars of Carnage are so badass that they punched out Amuro's G3 Gundam once.
Look further and you'll find Ramba Ral and his Earth-bound expy Norris Packard, who will show the difference between a merely good pilot and an Ace Pilot, and they won't be doing them in Zakus. Then there are Kou Uraki and Anavel Gato, from a Newtype-less show, they show off the power of growth and Character Development, and of nukes. The Universal Century is teeming with awesome normal guys, to the point where even the facelessred shirts get a representative in Gundam Unicorn, the Londo Bell veteran known only as Godspeed.
The 00 series features this a lot in many characters.
Graham Acre is the biggest of them, being the first character in the series to come close to taking down a Gundam in a straight fight. Had his fight with the Eins continued, he would have literally chopped it to pieces with the beam saber he jacked from the same unit.
Ali Al-Saachez qualifies for the first part of the first season because he was able to at least put up a legitimate fight against Setsuna (but he loses due to Exia's sheer physical power). Subverted later on when he steals the Zwei and upgrades it into the Arche. After that he just becomes another Gundam Pilot.
Setsuna F. Seiei at the beginning of the second season when he performs a personal intervention against the A-Laws. Although he nearly gets killed in the fight, it should be kept in mind that his Gundam was essentially a lost one since it was a makeshift repair of a 5 year old model using outdated technology. To add the icing on the cake, his weapon couldn't thrust because it had no point and the cutting edge was beaten to pieces. This carries over to the 00 later on because although the Gundam is technically a Bigger Stick, it was no bigger a stick than the average enemy suits since it could not go Trans-Am, at least not until the Trans-Am Raiser was equipped. Then that title goes to hell.
Among the Gundam team we must not forget Lockon Stratos! Compared to the other pilots Setsuna was a child soldier in the Middle East, Al was a tykebomb, experimented with to become a super-solider and has a super powered evil side, and Tieria a creation that was meant to purge emotion and be a fighting machine, is just an ordinary guy. An ordinary guy who pilots a Gundam, is the unofficial leader of the four, could have any woman, or man, and near the end of the Season 1 was able to force back Ali, the guy who was whupping the main character once he got the Zwei, without trans-am! Mind you the Zwei was built for close combat and the Dynames meant for sniping and yet Lockon was winning in close combat without his dominate eye! BAD-ASS-NORMAL!
Another contender is Sergei Smirnoff, a middle aged man in a Sino-Russian mass production suit (which is just as crappy as that premise sounds) that nearly beats the main character in his Gundam, during his specialty, melee combat. How does he do this? By exploiting the impressive strength of his suit and nearly ripping the Gundams head off. Keep in mind that the same pilot in the same suit just curbstomped the ace of the AEU in their Super Prototype.
Cagalli Yula Atha of Gundam SEED and Gundam SEED Destiny. She's a Natural who repeatedly take on Coordinators (genetically altered humans) in combat and gets out alive. At one point she actually goes so far as to attack a mobile suit while armed with an RPG and a jeep. Ace PilotsMuLa Flaga and RauLe Creuset may also count, as neither has enhanced combat skills, and they both regularly fly grunt mechs against Gundams and come out on top. When all three finally do acquire Bigger Sticks, (upgrading to Badass Abnormal) slaughter ensues.
Geronimo from Kinnikuman. In his first fight, he's just an ordinary person, but manages to not only survive getting crushed and stabbed in the torso, but destroy his opponent by screaming at him, only stopping to make his stopped heart start beating again by reaching into his own chest and massaging it. The fact that he's not even technically a superhero at this point makes this even more amazing. After becoming a superhero, though, he never wins another fight. Apparently, super powers make you weak.
Jillas qualifies even better: he has no magic ability nor wields a special weapon, but with his bombs he sometimes manages to be quite badass.
Prince Phillionel, Amelia's ogrish father, is equally as worthy, as all he has to rely on his is hulk-like strength, which is powerful enough to defeat a lesser demon and even harm a low-ranked Mazoku/Monster.
While it's emphasized that usually only the characters smart enough to wear the Hunter suits are Genre Savvy enough to survive a game of Gantz, one of the facts that make Kurono such an utter Badass is his ability to not only survive playing without his suit (not by choice, he simply doesn't have access to it) but to thrive, regularly scoring more points than players wearing suits. That, combined with the time he killed almost an entire gang of vampire assassins with a homemade "sun gun", marks him out as the series ultimate Badass Normal.
Kaze technically qualities as well, having killed a few raptors with his bare hands before he gets to the point of wearing his suit. Of course, like Kurono, the act of donning the aforementioned Hunter suits puts him well above the average Gantz participant.
Gene Starwind of Outlaw Star can be seen as a Badass Normal. Certainly, he has some fancy tech and a space ship, but when his crew are made up of a ninja-esque assassin (capable of killing anything with a wooden sword), an alien catgirl who can turn into a beast form and is nigh-invincible already and his navigator is a bio-robot, it certainly makes the plain outlaw Gene look underwhelming.
Furthering this is the fact that the most common enemies Gene runs into are Chinese pirates who use tao magic on a regular basis, while Gene has none of that (aside from his Castor gun, which is magic in an increasingly-rare gun form).
Jim, who is a 13 year old kid (Gene himself only being about 17 in the series) whose only power is being brilliant.
Shimi of the Anten Seven is a grand example. Unlike his comrades, he doesn't use any special powers in combat but is no less deadly because of it. Before his showdown with Gene, he first fights Jim, Aisha, and Suzuka all at once using nothing but conventional weapons and beats all three of them within the span of a minute. He then proceeds to give Gene a thorough trouncing and probably would have killed him had he not decided that the only honorable way to finish his quarry was through a quick-draw shoot out. He lost this showdown due to a faulty pistol, but even being shot and then buried didn't stop him from surviving and digging himself out of his grave. Truly he is a manly man among normal men.
Many people consider Kyon from Haruhi Suzumiya already in this trope (if you include the novels, that is), as he still kicks everyone's ass without having any power at all. In the 4th novel, he courageously pwns the Data Overmind, threatening to use Haruhi to recreate the universe, should anything happen to Yuki Nagato. Pretty much Badass Normal, yeah.
Li Meiling from Card Captor Sakura, who has no magical powers at all, but still helps to take down the cards, even beating one in a straight up fight. Tomoyo would count, but she always stays out of the fights.
To fully get the picture on Meiling's Badass Normalness: Sakura is a Magical Girl. Syaoran is a pint-sized Bruce Lee Clone. Kerberos, Yue and Rubymoon are magic guardians. Meiling can't even see the Clow Cards properly... but she's still a Hot BloodedCute Bruiser, and once she's even vital in capturing The Twins card: whereas Sakura fails to synch her attacks with Syaoran's own, Meiling does it perfectly.
Kallen Kouzuki from Code Geass is one of the few major characters without a Geass or some sort of inhuman skill, and yet she's arguably the best pilot in the series. She's able to pilot the Guren S.E.I.T.E.N. after its creator stated that even Suzaku shouldn't be able to, then narrowly defeats Suzaku in his own custom built Lancelot Albion, despite him using his "live on" command through all of their fight.
Suzaku himself could also qualify at first, even though it verges on Charles Atlas Superpower at times (like kicking auto-tracking machine guns off ceilings).
By following the above example, Lulu would have counted...at least until halfway through the first episode.
The Obstinate Arrow task force from Scrapped Princess. Centuries ago, the Guardian Factor was seeded in human DNA to produce people with the strength and will to protect the Providence Breaker when she is born. None of these people are in the task force which confuses the hell out of Zefiris when they come to the Pacifica's rescue and join her side.
Demon slayer Sango is Inu Yasha's resident Badass Normal. Of the main Five-Man Band, she is the only one that doesn't have either demonic or spiritual power, instead relying purely on her enormous boomerang, extensive combat training, and nigh-encyclopedic knowledge about all manner of demons and their weakness. Sango is, notably, the second strongest combatant in the group, formidable enough to impress even Inu-Yasha himself. Miroku sums it up when he's forced to try to take her down while she's mind controlled - he pulls it off eventually, but not without incurring some nasty injuries, and she's clearly not fighting at full potential.
Miroku: You're truly a fearsome opponent... I'm just glad you're usually on our side!
Even Sailor Moon has a few of these, particularly Kino Makoto/Sailor Jupiter, who established her badass credentials in her debut episode by smacking around a bunch of thugs who were harassing Usagi, then doing it again later in the episode to Zoicite. This was before she awakened as Sailor Jupiter, mind you, and for that matter it was before Sailor Moon even knew she was an unawakened Senshi. When she did awaken and turned into a Badass Abnormal, she was one of the only Senshi to ever kill a Monster of the Weekwithout the use of Sailor Moon's Finishing Move.
Actually, Sailor Mars destroyed one in her debut episode.
The rest of the Inner Senshi also became this trope for a brief period during the Filler Arc of Sailor Moon R. Sailor Moon got her powers and memories reawakened in the first episode, but the other four Senshi still just think they're normal girls, because Luna and Sailor Moon wanted them to be able to live normal lives. When the Monster of the Week shows up, they jump into the fight without any powers or knowledge of their nature. And while they aren't perfect, they do better than the solo Usagi.
Mamoru Chiba/Tuxedo Mask. He doesn't have any of the finishing attacks of the Sailor Senshi but is usually the last one to go down, making great use of his tactical mind, physical strength (which is a little above average, but not that much), and a few key weapons. This guy is basically Japanese Batman.
Hubb Lebowski of Wolf's Rain starts the series as an ineffectual wuss with allergies, but by the time the world ends he's evolved into a badass that keeps up with the main characters out of sheer bloody-minded determination even after his wife dies. His refusal to die results in one of the most cringe-inducing parts of the series, since he lets himself fall off the side of what looks like the tallest mountain of the world and still lives long enough after the impact to try and smoke a cigar.
Psycho Busters has Kakeru, who, despite being the only one without psychic powers, is still able to kick ass by analyzing the flaws of each psychic and using it to his advantage. However, he may actually be a Badass Abnormal instead since he does have psychic powers sealed inside him, but he's unaware of it.
Chad of Bleach was this before his powers manifested, through sheer brute strength and a bit of determination. He takes a falling steel beam to the back without much more than saying 'ow'. Later, after Rukia tells him where a hollow is (he still can't see them at this point) he uproots a telephone pole and uses it as a baseball bat.
Mizuiro definitely counts as this. When he, Tatsuki, Keigo and Chizuru were being tracked down by Aizen (who was in his second most powerful form at the time), Mizuiro first threw a bottle at him to see its effectiveness. After he saw it disintegrate, he calmly lit a Molotov and threw it at Aizen, thus giving everyone time to run. From the time he woke up he didn't seem disturbed by the situation at all, it was quite unsettling. Actually, everyone in that group could count to a degree, they all survived Aizen's spiritual pressure when other humans where disintegrating being near him.
Claymore's Raki, post time-skip. Unlike the ladies, he has no Youki to increase his strength, no ability to sense demons beyond the regular five senses, and he certainly is a lot less durable... Not to mention he presumably heals at the same rate as a normal human. He's just a regular guy with seven years of sword training under his belt... And he easily kills the sort of youma that was giving Clare trouble at the beginning of the series.
Captain Bravo from Busou Renkin would seem to fit this trope. Although he does have a kakugane, it is simply a metal shield, however he is able to destroy the ground and kill people with a single punch, pull out of a spinning kick in mid air, etc.
Looker (Handsome in Japan) in Pokemon. He first comes off as a slightly bizarre detective, but he dares to actually fight bad guys HIMSELF instead of relying on any Pokémon.
Bad guy Domino in Pokémon: Mewtwo Returns held off and pushed a Scyther away herself among other things. She was one of the few human characters who did not have a Pokémon and did things herself quite well, of course, she was Crazy Prepared.
Looker and Domino both impressed in their worlds, but it's more common in the Pokémon Special manga for trainers to fight against Pokémon on their own, usually out of necessity. You could easily expect such out of Bruno and Chuck, but then there's Sapphire, who is first seen fighting a Seviper alongside her Torchic, and later has her Aron chew off a bit of a fountain before breaking it off herself to save another Pokémon trapped inside!
And in Best Wishes both of Ash's traveling companions, Iris and Cilan prove that they can battle a Pokémon without the need of using one. Iris has demonstrated many ninja like movements being incredibly fast compared to other Pokémon, has shown to dodge many attacks coming to her and was able to befriend Drilbur that later evolved into her powerful Excadrill because of it. As for Cilan, while he does more thinking than actual battling, he's shown to be a pro at fishing. He battled a Stunfisk just using his fishing rod and caught it after Ash caught his Palpitoad.
Hareta from Pokémon Diamond and Pearl Adventure! . He's abnormally athletic, and unusually strong, which blends well with his Hot Blooded personality. He's fought against Pokemon essentially trying to murder him on various occasions.
Yumi of Saki. She entered the last match of the finals without any of the insane hacks most other characters have (Evil Eye, Photographic Memory, Stealth Mode, etc), so many people assumed that she'd get steamrollered since her table included Saki and Koromo, two characters with the supernatural luck of a god or demon. Instead, we have Yumi being Dangerously Genre Savvy enough to realize that supernatural stuff was going on, whereupon she not only stops Saki's third Rinshan Kaihouin a row by changing her strategy to rob Saki out of her kan even if she knows that the chance of that happening is usually a Million to One Chance, but she was also able to put a stop to Koromo's Winds of Destiny, Change powered winning streak by intentionally playing into Saki's hand before Koromo gets yet another Haitei Raoyue. Compare her to Kana, the other normal in the table, who in the meanwhile could only watch in horror as her points dwindled to nothingness in the face of the two Mahjong demons
Jubei of Ninja Scroll, facing various mutants and mystical opponents with nothing but a sword and his skill with it.
Kodachi Kuno from Ranma ½, who is considered one of the most dangerous characters, despite being arguably the weakest character of the semi-regular cast as it comes to martial skill (even Akane is regularly able to divert her direct attacks). She combines levels of Manipulative Bastard, Fighting Dirty and Crazy Prepared. Often she makes use of her pet alligator and fellow St. Hebereke Gymnasts to wear down Ranma and others and keep them running around in her plots. Usually, she gets out of her storylines with little to no damage to herself and Ranma and Akane feel lucky to be alive.
Otoha of Karas is an interesting example, in that he is a Badass Normal compared to himself. He was originally a yakuza enforcer who liked killing gun-toting mooks with nothing but his sword, and was actually able to hold his own (if only barely) against a full-powered mikura. Then he turned into Karas, and anything he fought just kind of died.
Hei from Darker than Black was a Badass Normal until the end of Heaven's War, when he ended up with his sister's Contractor powers. As a teenager who had nothing more to go on than ninjutsu, he still managed to earn the nickname "The Black Reaper" from taking down so many Contractors.
Elfen Lied has soldiers that are mostly mooks that stand no chance against the super powered diclonius unless in large numbers; except for Bando who is a Badass Normal that puts up a good fight whenever he can get the chance to. Despite being augmented with high-tech prosthetics, these are actually still handicaps for him. He qualifies by being Crazy Prepared in that he will only face her in an open space on the beach that he keeps clean of debris for months by patrolling it daily. He is also very ruthless and skilled.
Minamoto from Zettai Karen Children is this trope. The protagonist of the series, he's the head of a level 7 three-person esper(ESP user) team. Not to mention he has to go up against freakishly strong espers every mission. Some of the things the espers can do is levitate fire trucks like they were nothing, ward off bullets, and read/screw up your mind. Despite this, he manages to constantly even the odds with superior tactics, usage of technology, and plain old kindness and understanding. No wonder he's respected by espers on both sides.
Domyouji from Kurogane no Linebarrel is a common human being who can fight toe-to-toe with nanomachines-enhanced individuals (who can easily punch normal people unconscious in a single blow, and have repeatedly done that).
In Soul Eater, Mifune is one of the few characters who is neither a witch, a magical weapon, or the wielder of a magical weapon. He's just really really impossibly good at swordfighting.
Bardroy of Kuroshitsuji is the most normal out of the whole house staff. He isn't a super competent badass like Sebastian, doesn't have super strength like Finny, and isn't a ridiculously skilled sniper like Mey-Rin. He gets by on his apparent strategical know-how and skill with a rifle.
Bunshichi Tawara from Tenjho Tenge stars in a series filled with formally trained martial artists, people with inherited super powers and the mortal incarnations of Amaterasu, Tsukuyomi, & Susanoo, yet still manages to be (arguably) the strongest fighter in the series without any kind of training or supernatural enhancement. Needless to say this has given him quite the reputation in series.
Mifune in Naruto. While the other leaders of the Shinobi Alliance can do stuff such as creating a sea of sand, obliterate mass, resurrect on a whim, manipulate lava and acid alike or just punch out demons, Mifune just wields his Katana and draws it fast enough to prevent those techniques to be used.
Lest we forget Tenten too. In a world rife with immortal ninjas, one girl seeks to take them all down with just about every type of weapon there is. The latest war arc has her turning into a full fledged Action Girl too. Her pluckiness is just too badass.
Fans of Voltron would know that Sven, the original Blue Lion pilot, is one. He survives being nailed in personal combat by a robeast, and survived a plunge from the heights of Castle Doom. Even after that, he was in good enough condition to fly Blue Lion again.
Makoto's father in Sacred Seven is a (sorta) ordinary butler in a series populated by extremely powerful monsters called Dark Stones. Any character who has ever fought one needed special powers of their own, a Mini Mecha, or a big lasergun. Yet, he managed to hold his own against one, however briefly, with only his barehands and two Hidden Weapons. He later managed to defeat it by blowing himself up.
In the manga Medaka Box, Zenkichi Hitoyoshi, one of the normal main characters, is able to hold own his against an Abnormal(one who has a special ability caused by their personality) and a Minus(similar to an abnormal but a minus is morally corrupt).
Yahiko Myojin from Rurouni Kenshin. While his idol, Kenshin is a master of a Sword Style that grants both Super Speed and Super Strength to the user and is a Shell-Shocked Veteran, and Sanosuke is a bullet timer brawler whose skin is so tough he can shrug off a direct stab from a normal human being with no damage, Yahiko is a 10/11 year old boy who took down a Juppongatana by riding the blast wave of his own bomb and smashing him with his shinai!
Batman fills this role when he's required to be in an ensemble. Despite having no inherent superpowers, he's earned a spot in the inner circle of the Justice League of America, fighting alongside the likes of Superman courtesy of a steel-trap intellect combined with a bit of a mean streak that means he can consider plans other members can't, and consider them well. Batman has the proven ability to develop the means to disable each of his fellow Leaguers — proven when those plans were stolen by villains and used to great effect. This has likely become a case of Memetic Mutation, as Batman's badassery has been stretched to ridiculous proportions, and many comic readers firmly believe that Batman is invincible. And some writers agree.
To put it another way, whenever a Justice League villain mockingly says of Batman, "He doesn't even have any powers!", get some popcorn.
An Elseworld Spectre has described him as "the zenith of human fortitude and ambition", while an in canon Superman described him more simply as "the most dangerous man on the planet".
Honestly, Batman's Badass Normal status is cemented by the fact that several high-profile beings (including the above mentioned Spectre and Superman) have such high regard for a "mere mortal". Harbringer once referred to him as "the Scourge of all Evil."
Batman is such a badass normal, current Batman writer Grant Morrison has stated that he actually does have superpowers. What is his superpower? Being Batman.
It got to the point where when Neil Gaiman wrote Batman's funeral in Whatever Happened to The Caped Crusader? it's stated that Batman's reward for his life isn't to die, but to be reborn again as Batman in another universe. He's so badass death doesn't stop him, and the laws of creation can't stop him in his quest to fight crime.
He actually JUDO-FLIPPED SUPERMAN across a god damned ROOM during World's Finest in Superman: the Animated Series, and Supes looked dazed. If that isn't this trope, then I'm a moron. However, Superman doesn't take it well and shoulder-rams Batman across the other side of the room, after which Batman gets right back up.
Nightwing (the original Robin's adult superhero identity) is likewise unpowered and is on par with Batman in most of Batman's skills. He surpasses him in leadership ability: he's about the only person in the world that every superhero would listen to without question. Heck, Nightwing is Batman now, so it comes full circle.
Cassandra Cain (the third Batgirl) is another example of this. Through physical conditioning alone, she has the ability to perfectly read body language and anticipate her opponent's next move. Not to mention she's been trained by Batman, and is arguably a superior fighter, having beaten the best martial artist in the DC Universe, Lady Shiva (another example of this trope).
Continuing on the above, Lady Shiva and pretty much the whole League of Assassins are examples of this trope, considering how none of them have any special powers apart from halted aging due to the Lazarus Pits (and even then only a select few).
It's a bit of a stretch to call him normal, but the Joker is essentially this. In most portrayals, he doesn't actually have any powers, but he's still fully capable of going toe-to-toe with any superhero in The DCU, including Superman and Wonder Woman, and often will come very close to beating them.
The DC Universe's villain community includes such powerful beings as billionaire super-geniuses, nigh-immortal cosmic dictators, biblical-scale demonic entities and even literal gods. The fact that the villain that most scares the crap out of every single hero (and many of the previously mentioned villains) is a mere insane mortal who looks like a clown speaks volumes.
The Joker also has arguably the highest bodycount in the entire DCU outside of villains who are near godlevel like Darkseid, a far higher bodycount than almost any superpowered villains.
As one villain put it, "When super-villains want to scare one another, they tell each other Joker stories."
Minor Batman villain Catman used to be a walking joke, but now he's an incredibly dangerous mercenary for hire who lived with a pride of lions.
Superman's Arch EnemyLex Luthor glides under the radar on this one, but gets his due from time to time. Superman: Red Son outlines his whole get-up rather neatly: "What was the point of Lex Luthor? A human who dared challenge a god, surely he was the greatest of his kind."
Grant Morrison, in this exit interview for All-Star Superman, said of Luthor: "It’s essential to find yourself rooting for Lex, at least a little bit, when he goes up against a man-god armed only with his bloody-minded arrogance and cleverness."
Post-Crisis Lois Lane as well. A few abilities are due to her exposure to a lot of weapons and physical skills while growing up on military bases and all, but for the most part it's just that she apparently has cojones the size of Metropolis. Who has the luxury of being incinerated by that alien overlord or getting gunned down by a gang of mob members when you promised Perry White you'd get back to the Daily Planet with a front-page story before 8:00?
Weirdly double-subverted with Clark Kent — everyone who doesn't know he's also Supermanthinks he's this trope, since daring to muckrake around Lexcorp and Intergang would be badass as hell for someone who isn't invulnerable to bullets and doesn't have the ability to fight off frickin' Darkseid. On the other hand, he manages to survive this kind of Death Seeker-worthy behavior using ways that don't blow his secret identity, generating the weird conclusion that Clark Kent is a badass normal if there are people watching that prevent him from using any superpowers.
In the Marvel Universe, Hawkeye has no powers, just a bow. And, when alien invaders summon a zombie army to destroy the universe, guess who is one of the only two people standing at the end of it. Go on, guess. Not bad for a carny.
Plus Hawkeye II (also known as Golden Archer, Wyatt McDonald of Squadron Supreme) and Hawkeye III (Kate Bishop, jokingly called "Hawkingbird"). The latter's first appearance in the Young Avengers, all either superpowered or having fantabulous armor, involves her saving the team's bacon during a botched hostage situation, later to become the official "Bad Ass" member of the team.
Mockingbird. "I may not have the claws and the webs... but I know a thing or two about a thing or two. Yeah, that's right... run like a bitch."
Also Nick Fury (superpowers limited to halted aging). As proof of his badass normal credits, he's in charge of the world's biggest secret organization of, well, secret agents, he's in charge of the Avengers, a team that contains the greatest human-who's-still-only-human, the world's smartest man, the freaking Hulk, and a GOD, a living, breathing, lightning controlling GOD, he's not nearly as powerful as either of these but if he wanted to he could upside their heads. DO NOT FUCK WITH HIM! On another note, try saying I'm Nick Fury, Agent of SHIELD without sounding like a total badass, try it! American Dad even had a parody of him that had a freaking Alien develop a man crush on him.
Dum Dum Dugan, of SHIELD! He is the only person ever to be in a fist fight with Godzilla.
Most members of S.H.I.E.L.D even. Especially Sharon Carter.
Bucky, prior to the cybernetic arm and becoming Winter Soldier.
Black Widow: "world class athlete and gymnast, expert martial artist (including karate, judo, aikido, savate, various styles of kung fu, and boxing), markswoman, and weapons specialist as well as having extensive espionage training. She is also an accomplished ballerina." says Dr Wiki.
Almost every Daredevil villain. Of particular note is the (non-female) Bullseye, who started out as a professional baseball pitcher who somehow developed enough skill to turn anything he got his hands (or feet, or teeth) on into a lethal throwing weapon. While Bullseye generally plays this trope straight, it is occassionally subverted when he goes up against superhuman beings far out of his league. In one instance when the Hulk showed up Bullseye simply surrendered on the spot.
Daredevil himself, while possessing a Disability Superpower, is essentially a guy who likes to work out. He's tussled with Mr. Hyde, the Absorbing Man, and Ultron, villains who typically give the Hulk, Thor, and/or the Avengers trouble... and won.
The Punisher has no superpowers, but more than makes up for it with deadly martial arts skills, a brilliant tactical mind, and enough firepower to destroy a country. The skills of both the Punisher and Captain America are such that they've repeatedly tangled with superhuman foes and come out ahead by using their skills in clever and creative ways. (The MAX (mature readers) Punisher story Born may subvert this by implying that he may have made a deal with the Grim Reaper to continue to live in order to keep killing, but it is the only such hint in all of MAX Punisher. Otherwise, he's just a Badass Normal who looks his age and has been confined to bed rest multiple times from severe injuries.)
Notably, during an obligatory (albeit justified, insofar as Cap does not approve of Punisher's approach) tussle at the start of one of their team-ups, Punisher knocks Cap's flying shield down. Cap is shocked, to say the least.
In the Welcome Back Frank storyline, Punisher is about to take out a criminal with a sniper rifle when he is suddenly confronted by Daredevil. Punisher allows Daredevil to hit him a few times because, as he puts it, "Daredevil is about to have a very bad night." He then activates a device that generates an extremely loud noise, causing Daredevil to collapse in pain due to his enhanced sense of hearing amplifying it even more. Afterward Punisher beats and restrains Daredevil and finishes his assassination mission.
In The Punisher's Marvel Knights series he beat Wolverine by Slamming a baseball bat in to Wolvie's groin,then shot him in the crouch 9 TIMES with a submachine gun,then covers him in gasoline and is about to set him on fire before being interupted....AFTER blowing Wolvie's face off with a shotgun and at the end he runs Wolverine over with a steam roller so he loses Frank's scent and while only sustaining minor cuts from Wolvie.
Similarly, Marvel Comics' Kingpin uses both his powerful brains and even more powerful brawn to keep the costumed villains in their place, and screw over the heroes. Oddly enough, he started off as a Spider-Man villain where it was specifically stated that he had superstrength, the origin of which, was a mystery. It was to the point where it was all but stated he was stronger than Spidey who can life roughly 10 tons. Once he shifted over to a Daredevil villain, he had a Retcon, explaining that he was just a really strong human. After that, whenever Kingpin showed up in Spidey comics, he curiously turned into a master-manipulator type instead of the brawler he once was.
Alex Wilder, from Runaways, who's also team leader. It turns out he's The Mole, but that in no way reduces the badassitude of his actions.
Chase Stein, despite being considered the least intelligent of the group, has street smarts enough to figure out how to outwit the Gibborim while he also forcibly recruits the geek squad who worked for Wilder Senior.
Alex's father, GeoffreyWilder, is a villainous example in both his 1985 and 2000s incarnations. He's been the leader of The Pride (a group that includes Mad Scientists, aliens with Light Is Not Good powers, time-travelling criminals, Evil Sorcerers and Mutants) since day one on the force of personality alone, and took control of most of LA, while the rest of The Pride handled out of town affairs. When his 1985 incarnation is brought to the future he proceeds to give the Runaways a serious fight, ultimately kidnapping Molly and killing Gert before being banished back to his own time.
Mina Murray, from The League of Extraordinary Gentlemen, is the team leader by dint of her sheer force of personality. In the movie, Mina gains vampire powers, and the Badass Normal team leader mantle is handed off to Allan Quatermain. Considering that he's played by Sean Connery, it's arguably one of the few changes that works.
ThugBoy from Adam Warren's Empowered takes this trope a step further. He's a Mook who'd made a successful living at getting the better of both superheroes and villains alike. Unlike a lot of these, however, he really really likes guns.
Also from Empowered, the Goddamn Maidman, who is also Crazy Awesome and a Wholesome Crossdresser. He fights and acts like Batman...in a skirt, garters, and stiletto heels.
The Green Arrow family (Green Arrow, Green Arrow II, Red Arrow, and Speedy) are all unpowered. Improbable Aiming Skills and Trick Arrows aside, Green Arrow II is one of the best martial artists in the world, Speedy is an HIV-positive superheroine, Red Arrow is the fastest archer in the world, and GA himself is mostly a being of pure, unbridled moxie. He's one of the few people that are completely unafraid of Batman.
Considering that Green Arrow was originally conceived as a Captain Ersatz for Batman, this isn't surprising.
The Marvel character "MVP" manages to become the best human possible, by various exercise programs and diets. Yes, he ate his veggies and did his pushups in just the right combination and everyone thought he had superpowers.
Pretty much everyone in Jaime Reyes' supporting cast that doesn't have superpowers, especially Brenda and Paco, aka Anger Girl and Stick Boy.
And let's not forget Jaime's predecessor Ted Kord.
One issue of Superman, pastiching the Silver Age, had a story where practically everyone in Metropolis gained superpowers identical to Superman's, going so far as to don capes and costumes (and Superman himself having to don a rather tacky costume while still masquerading as Clark Kent) and the mayor proposing the city name be changed to Superpolis. Then Metallo shows up and exposes everyone to his kryptonite, and they start dying from it like Superman would... until Detective Dan Turpin (who appeared earlier and disparaged Superman over how real crime fighters don't need superpowers), dressed in normal clothes, walks out of the crowd, unaffected, and arrests Metallo and saves everyone. It turns out the whole situation was set up by Mr. Mxyzptlk to give everyone superpowers - along with a kryptonite weakness - but since the detective wholeheartedly didn't want to get powers, he didn't get kryptonite vulnerability either. Then he gives Mxyzptlk a note to read, tricking him into banishing himself to the fifth dimension again. In other words, several dozen superpowered people lay around gasping for breath while a portly detective in a bowler hat outwitted two major villains.
Dan "Terrible" Turpin is pretty much that badass in every adaptation, especially Superman: The Animated Series where he stood toe-to-toe with Darkseid and didn't blink. It cost him his life, of course, but he knew that going into it and still stood up to the Man.
His original Crowning Moment of Awesome, back in the original New Gods, was attacking Kalibak with nothing but a tommy gun and getting mauled within an inch of his life—all to keep Kalibak distracted until he could be fried with all the electrical power in Metropolis, knocking him out— so the son of Darkseid, god of evil, could be arrested.
Ultimate Marvel had a similar story where everyone had super powers because the Skrulls gave them a magic pill. Unfortunately, the pill would eventually kill everyone who took it, which was the Skrull's way of conquering worlds. The Skrull leader claims to be invincible because he wears a suit that copies the powers of anyone. Ben Grimm is the only one who didn't take the pill, and when the Skrulls inevitably kill all the supers they empowered, leaving the emperor with no one to copy except Ben-normal, he defeats the Skrull leader. Then it all got erased through time travel, but still.
New York in the Marvel Universe is both hero and villain central, so the NYPD came up with Code B.L.U.E., a police unit that uses training, tactics, Wonderful Toys, and brilliant improvisation to deal with superhuman beings. They've taken down Gods.
Also in the MU, Storm of the X-Men lost her powers for some time, made do as a Badass Normal, and still proved a great field leader of the team, beating out the powered Cyclops for the leadership position (although Cyclops was mentally influenced into losing by Madelyne Pryor). It even proved an advantage at one time, when the team was trying to stop the infamous massacre of the Morlocks. During that battle, a villain who could neutralize powers with his touch tried to do so with Storm, but she had no powers to affect and he left himself wide open for a knockout punch by her to put him out of action. She's also taken out Callisto and Crimson Commando in hand-to-hand combat, both of whose mutations make them nearly superhuman fighters, and she did so without using her powers.
The earliest Grendels all fit into this category, being only humans armed with an electrified Blade on a Stick who can take on Anti-Hero werewolf Argent.
Captain America would be this Depending on the Writer. The Super SoldierSerum turned him into what is referred to as a "peak human". Exactly what that means is up to interpretation, as the Super Serum can still be blamed if they ever need him to do something outside what even "peak normal" is. Furthermore, he is shown as being able to outfightBatman in a direct confrontation, where if he were merely a normal human at their physical peak, the two would be evenly matched.
Parenthetically, there's one fairly big caveat here: the outcome of the matches was decided by reader vote. All the Cap/Bats fight really tells us is that a lot of fanboys believe the super-serum takes him above and beyond Badass Normal territory and into the Low-Powered Super realm. (This doesn't, of course, mean they're wrong about that.)
Point of order: in Marvel vs. DC, the winner was decided by winner vote and Batman won. However, when the two faced off again in JLA-Avengers, Batman acknowledged that Cap was perfectly capable of beating him, though it would take a while.
The Ultimate Marvel version is, however, explicitly superhuman. Likely to avoid the continuity tangles that have occurred.
In Johnny Saturn, both Johnny Saturn I and II are badass normals. Indeed, in a world full of high-powered superheroes, non-powered vigilantes are referred to as Mystery Men. Mystery men get by on martial arts, toughness, and willpower.
Most of the heroes in Watchmen lack superpowers (the exception would be Dr. Manhattan) and yet are extraordinarily skilled fighters.
Rictor, after losing his powers during House of M/Decimation, has turned into this. Peter David describes him as the "moody former mutant who believes he’s useless and yet keeps happening to save the day." He's saved Siryn from a kidnapper, beaten the Isolationist and Arcade, programmed Danger Room technology to create a very convincing illusion, and helped stop Quicksilver from blowing up any more former mutants.
This trope isn't exclusive to heroes, either. the Evil AlbinoSpider-Man villain Tombstone originally had no powers, and was, in Spidey's words, "Just a guy." He was just a guy with a tendency to Neck Lift people while strangling them to death — one-handed. When he and Spider-Man finally fought after a several-issue storyline, Tombstone gave the overconfident superhero a No-Holds-Barred Beatdown at first using just his hands and then a metal pipe. Once Spidey realized that he was actually dangerous, he got serious and served up a Curb-Stomp Battle to the mob enforcer. Eventually he crossed over to become a Badass Abnormal with brick powers after his old "friend" Robbie Robertson trapped him in an airtight chamber filled with gaseous Applied Phlebotinum.
Obregon Kaine from Negation. He's a soldier trapped on a prison planet with a bunch of aliens, many of whom have incredible super powers. He wants to organize a jailbreak, but everyone hates his guts because they've become resigned to their fate and they think he's making a bad situation worse. Eventually he gets them to cooperate long enough to escape, and throughout the majority of the series, it's Kaine who holds the small group of super-powered fugitives together by being tougher, smarter and more dogged than anyone else, despite having no powers of his own.
Arwen from Sojourn, who at the beginning of the story attempts to hunt down and kill the undead Sigil-Bearer Mordath with no preparations, powers, or unusual equipment (yet). She fails, but it clearly establishes what kind of character she is, and even Mordath himself comments on her skill and courage.
Any human Green Lantern, deprived of his/her ring, pretty much becomes this by default.
This is helped by the fact that two of them (Hal Jordan and John Stewart) either serve in or have served in the armed forces.
Debatable, considering the nature of the universe they are in, but Dreamkeepers characters definitely have elements of this trope going for them.
German comic strip detective Nick Knatterton. Once he lifts a car! (He was angry at that time; and as the author pointed out, being a taxpayer, he's used to shoulder great weights.)
Wolverine once went to prison and remarked that when supervillains are in the pen, power-nullifying technology tends to be employed. This means that Badass Normals, like Batroc and the Kangaroo, are the big men nobody messes with - since they have the most straight hand to hand combat experience and ability.
Both Quantum And Woody qualify. Most notable in Woody's case, as he doesn't have the military training or combat experience Quantum has.
In the Star Wars "Infinities" comic for "A New Hope," Han joins Luke in going to face both the Emperor and Darth Vader, armed with nothing but his trusty blaster. While Luke does the vast majority of the fighting, Han does manage to take down an imperial guard, and very briefly wields a dual bladed lightsaber.
Gold Digger has a lot of them, but certainly the most prominent is Gina's mother Julia, greatest warrior of Jade Realm, who routinely takes down monstrously powerful supernatural opponents with nothing but her sword, martial arts, and her brain.
In All Fall Down, the Ghoul is revealed to be one of these.
Fan Works
BlackDragon6's Ranma ½ story Guardian features a character named Ken "Snake" Yakata, a Jewish gun nut who is routinely billed as the most deadly fighter in the Department of Abnormal Phenomenae Containment with the sole exception of Ranma. This is in spite of the fact his other officers are: a powerful psychic psycho capable of cutting the heads off powerful vampires, a superhuman capable of going toe to toe with cyborgs and the worst boss enemies in the Resident Evil series, and a bloody Zergling. All Snake has is a shotgun.
To further emphasise the extent of this, it should be mentioned that Snake terrifies every single one of his fellow officers, save Ranma. To an extent, anyway. They know he can't shoot them and thus they feel somewhat secure around him, but around his evil clones they are terrified.
Balian of Ibelin in The Chance Encounter series. While he has been rendered immortal, this only seems to prevent him falling ill or indeed ageing. He also fights alongside Achilles, Legolas and Will Turner (during his "undead captain of the Flying Dutchman" period) and holds his own easily. When he is briefly turned evil by dark magic, he even forces LEGOLAS into retreat. He also takes on many of King Richard I's soldiers at once and wins, with the King's spymaster not sure if the King (who was a noted warrior himself) would survive a head to head confrontation. Oh yes, and he wades through HELL ITSELF to save his dead-by-suicide wife, taking on Satan and...mostly getting the crap beaten out of him actually, but he stood up to the ultimate evil and survived!
Author Avatar Art of the Mass Effect self-insert Mass Vexations eventually becomes a good Soldier-class unit within Shepard's squad. This seems to fall into Badass Abnormal territory until you realize that he never got any of the genetic implants that most soldier-class units get in the Mass Effect universe. He also Took a Level in Badass considering he had never fired a gun in his life before entering the Mass Effect universe.
In the Transformers fic, They Just Don't Care Anymore, the character Alien spends a lot of time being criticized as a minor character who won't get to do anything important and will inevitably be the first to die when a horde of undead attacks... until a horde of undead actually attacks. In a Crowning Moment of Awesome, she announces that she's sick of being called a minor character, whips out a pair of kukris and single handedly takes down everything in her path, after which she proceeds to throw a guy into a quarry because he annoyed her.
Poké Wars has Samurai, a Pokémon trainer who lost his Pokémon early on in the war. Yet, he is more than capable of holding his own in a fight against them with only his katana.
Lt. Surge also counts. He was able to hold off a group of Electivire and Scizor with only a combat knife.
Gwenith Cousland and Theron Mahariel in the Dragon Age fanfiction Dragon Age: The Crown of Thorns qualify, although the latter's very sharp hearing could be seen as a Charles Atlas Superpower in its own right. Of course, seeing as how everyone else, especially Kallian Tabris, either came with or gained some power or another over the course of the story, it is unclear if this status will last for the human noble and Dalish. Leliana and Zevran still fit perfectly though,
Tatsu no Houho from the Tamers Forever Series is able to take on several ultimate level digimon with nothing but a Katana
Takeru has a similar scene later on
Films — Animation
The title character of Princess Mononoke. In a world containing spirits, some guy with a possessed super-powered arm, San is just a badass with a spear, knife, and wolf. Which are apparently enough to go over a thirty foot wall.
Films — Live-Action
The Star Wars film series includes Jango Fett, who fights Obi-Wan and his Jedi powers using gizmos and gumption. Jango gets the worse of the combat, but his gadgets last just long enough to allow a quick escape. Later he manages to kill a distracted Jedi with some blaster sharpshooting. This must have gone to his head, because he ultimately tries to take on Mace Windu and gets rather anticlimatically curbstomped.
His clone/son Boba wasn't a weakling either. Not many people can survive being swallowed by a sarlacc threetimes.
The Transformers Film Series has an interesting example of how a group of characters grow into the role of Badass Normal. When they start off human soldiers were completely helpless against the Decepticons, as they would shrug off .50 cal machine guns and anything lower with no problem. Lennox and Epps managed to discover (almost by accident) that they were vulnerable to high-heat propelled grenades, which they fired from hand-held weapons, as well as the reallyheavy weapons fired from artillery platforms. But due to difficulties mobilizing support crafts and hand-held weaponry not capable of extensive enough damage, they were still relying heavily on Autobot support during the course of ROTF. By DOTM you see soldiers training directly with Autobots in how common infantry soldiers can do real damage against the big robots: using trip wires, blinding them with parachutes or sniper rounds, planting grenades on their feet to disable them... basically using Badass Normal strategies over heavy firepower. In the final battle of DOTM it effectively becomes Bash Brothers with equal footing with the Autobots and Human Soldiers just decimating the Decepticon ranks.
League Of Extraordinary Gentlemen is being run by an ordinary one - he doesn't even have Nemo's "mad science knack" for him. But seeing how it's Sean Connery, obviously he kicks as much and more ass then various immortals and Hydes.
Several examples from the Marvel Cinematic Universe, which may cross over with comics examples listed above:
S.H.I.E.L.D. agents Phil Coulson, Clint Barton, aka Hawkeye and Natasha Romanoff, aka Black Widow. They all serve under undisputed Badass Normal Nick Fury, director of S.H.I.E.L.D.
Cheradenine Zakalwe from Iain M. Banks' Use of Weapons epitomises this trope. He gets a little less cocky about it after being decapitated, though.
"Gentleman" Johnny Marcone in Jim Butcher's The Dresden Files. Managed to bring Chicago's organized crime under his (relatively organized) reign, and has gone to ground with the things that go bump in the night on multiple occasions. White Night ends with him becoming a recognized body in the supernatural community, able to defend his rights if any signatories to the Unseelie Accords infringe on them. There are twenty such bodies throughout the world, and Marcone's the only mortal. His biggest moment has to be when he was hung upside down and managed to kill a werewolf with a throwing knife. In the dark.
Correction: He severed the rope, which allowed Dresden and co. to escape from the pit. The loup-garou cannot be killed with a throwing knife.
On that note, Karrin Murphy from the same series. She's faced down rampaging werewolves, vampiric minions, and an army of ghouls, despite being a squishy mortal. It does help that she's an experienced cop and damn good at aikido, though.
She's also described as looking like "someone's favorite aunt" and a cheerleader, with a button nose, blue eyes, and blonde hair. Five feet and a hundred pounds of Bad Ass.
However, if she's wielding one of the Holy Swords, she moves up into the Badass Abnormal category.
Charity Carpenter was once a practitioner of magic, but gave it up after Knight of the Cross Michael Carpenter rescued and married her. In Proven Guilty she takes on the Badass Normal (and Mama Bear) role in the team assembled to rescue her daughter Molly from Arctis Tor. She uses no magic, only the muscles and skills she has built up as her husband's armorer and sparring partner.
Must run in the Carpenter family. The latest book, Ghost Story, has Daniel Carpenter, Charity and Michael's oldest son, who holds his own in a knife-fight with a magically-powered adversary on the basis of the training from his parents.
Marcone's bodyguard Hendricks also qualifies, managing to come through fights with super-ghouls and Denarians basically unscathed.
Kincaid claims to be as human as the protagonist, and spends his first appearance in Blood Rites taking down multiple Red Court vampires with a golf bag filled with disposable shotguns with Dragon's Breath rounds. In his next appearance he's revealed to be several hundred years old and a definite supernatural of some kind, though exactly what kind is unknown.
Kyja of " Farworld" is the only person in her entire world who can't do magic. she learns to kick ass with a sword, and when the other hero shows up, he can't do ANYTHING because he can't control his magic. the first book is mostly kyja saving his sorry and crippled butt from baddies.
Tavi in Jim Butcher's other series, Codex Alera. He is uniquely powerless in a world in which all humans can control elemental spirits called Furies, though he compensates for this near-crippling deficiency by becoming a courageous, insightful, empathetic, and generally badass leader. This may be a slight exaggeration of this trope, as while he is normal by our standards, in his world he is considered a (sub-normal) freak. By the end of the third book, it is explicitly stated in-story that he is far more capable than most people with great Fury-powers. And then he becomes a Badass Abnormal with the full furycraft ability of the First Lord.
Carmela in Diane Duane's Young Wizards series seems to qualify, given that she destroys the Lone Power's body in Wizards at War.
Geoffrey Spazmo from Ben Elton's Gridlock. Spastic, but smart and brave as a lion. Kills two professional assassins with a coffee maker and a bottle opener. Still dies in the end... sniffle...
Superhuman the book by Michael Carroll (the author of the The New Heroes trilogy), takes place in a world where not everyone has superpowers, but people with powers, both villains and heroes alike, aren't a new occurrence. The book details the efforts of four kids' efforts to stop a four thousand-year plot to resurrect and evil king, Out of the four kids there are two girls and two boys. Three of the kids have amazing superpowers. The first child to be introduced in the book, however, is the only one without powers. This boy, Lance, is presumably the youngest in the group, being only 14-years-old. However, his manipulative skills and way with words made him boarder on Magnificent Bastard status. Even those that didn't like him at first admitted that they needed his help off the battlefield.
Steven Erikson's Malazan Book of the Fallen has a number of these, with the assassin/warrior Kalam Mekhar being perhaps the most obvious.
In the Conclave of Shadows trilogy, orphan Talwin Hawkins was trained in a wide variety of skills to become a medieval fantasy version of James Bond. He managed to kill his sworn enemy in a public sword-fighting tournament in a legitimate way, also winning the title of the best swordsman in the world. Which is a gambit to get himself hired by one of the most cunning ruler in the world, passed his magical lie-detectors, got his hands cut off and magically regrown, and killed a powerful necromancer with only his wits, sword, and a well-aimed steel ball.
Waylander from David Gemmell's Drenai books is the epitome of this trope. Despite being rather mediocre with a sword, his nerve, accuracy and ruthlessness (and a nifty double crossbow thing) mean he is the world's foremost assassin. In the later books he becomes known as "The Gray Man" (apparently one of the embodiments of death) and leads the resistance against a bloody demonic invasion despite being an octogenarian.
Arguably three of the other recurring characters of the series (Druss the Slayer, Skilgannon the Damned and Talisman/Ulric) would easily qualify, as each one of them can only be described as a force of nature incarnate but as they, individually, at some point have received magical weapons/enchantments which have made them stronger than before.
Although, in the cases of Druss and Skilgannon, they were massively badass both before the magical weapons and after they had put aside their weapons (Skilgannon), or taken a terrifying jaunt through hell that rid their weapon of its power (Druss).
In Walter B Gibson's novels about the Shadow, the Shadow relied on the techniques of Houdini (which Gibson had gotten the permission to use and write about from the estate of same) to rescue himself.
Chase from Terry Goodkind's Sword of Truth series has no magical ability, but can outfight pretty much anybody on the planet, and in the beginning of the series has a day job that involves him fighting demonic hounds that hunt by the sound of human hearts. He's mentioned as being "far tougher than he has any right to be", and carries enough weapons to equip a small army. Not surprisingly, his adopted daughter becomes a Little Miss Badass later in the series.
Roran from The Inheritance Cycle. In a world where elves have the strength of ten men, dragons grow to the size of large hills, and magicians tear castles apart with their minds, Roran is armed with only his determination and a metal hammer. When his village becomes condemned by The Empire, he uses his potent charisma to convince his people to flee their homes and travel from the northern tip of Alagaesia to the sun-drenched country of Surda in the far south, avoiding Galbatorix's troops all the while. He joins the Varden, kills the Twins (two extremely powerful magicians) with his hammer, kills 193 men in one go, survives being given 50 lashes to the back by Nasuada for insubordination and is up and fighting again a few days later, journeys across Alagaesia to rescue his kidnapped girlfriend from the mountain lair Helgrind, wrestles a battle-crazed urgal to the ground until the beast surrenders and acknowledges Roran as the stronger, and rises his way up to a commander in the Varden after only a couple of months of service. And he does this all without any magic whatsoever. Yeah, Eragon doesn't look so impressive next to that, does he?
Lampshaded by Katrina's, Roran's love who he marries in Brisingr, who remarks that the feats Roran accomplished without magic require greater courage than anyone else in Alagaesia has.
In C. S. Lewis C.S.' Chronicles of Narnia the two Pevensie brothers (Edmund and Peter) are subtly shown to be examples of this trope. Peter fights Jadis the White Witch hand-to-hand without instantly dying (despite the fact she is immortal, ageless and can tear iron bars "like barley sugar"). Edmund is given a "stunning blow" across the face by the same Jadis and his reaction is to feel sorry for someone else. He also fights his way through "three ogres" to reach Jadis and break her wand. Not bad for two pre-teens.
Susan gets an upgrade into this for the movie as The Archer.
Keladry of Mindelan, the only one of Tamora Pierce's primary protagonists without magical powers. Liam Ironarm, the Shang Dragon, also counts, although he's not a main character.
Tisiphone (and her late partner Katrina) from S. M. Stirling's Emberverse series. They're ninja-style spies and assassins, but portrayed as being normal humans whose only abilities come from intensive training. Occasionally they skirt the edge of Charles Atlas Superpower, but never quite slip over.
Alexander Storm from the Deathstalker series. He was one of the few characters not either a cyborg, super-gladiator in disguise, or afflicted by an ancient alien maze, and yet he still managed to survive half the fights that hit him, right up until his Face Heel Turn.
Edward from the Anita Blake series has no superpowers whatsoever and regularly goes up against vampires and shapeshifters for money and at one point against a creature that turns people into pulp for no apparent reason. Similarly, the members of RPIT, most notably Dolph and Zerbrowski, are at least acknowledged and often feared by members of the supernatural community.
To explain a little further, Anita is a Federal Marshall, necromancer, succubus, licensed Vampire Slayer, and part of a triumvirate with the master vampire of St. Louis and leader of the local werewolf pack, not to mention the mess of lycan blood she has in her. Edward...is a guy in his early thirties. Monsters call Anita The Executioner, they call Edward Death.
Earth-born Hari Michaelson in Matthew Stover's The Acts of Caine is, in his Caine persona, a superstar in a D&D-inspired parallel universe. He goes up against the most brutal warriors of a fighting species, thaumaturgists, humans channelling the powers of their gods, and, well, gods. He beats them all through a combination of training, a few semi-magickal meditative disciplines, his knives, and, when he's physically incapable of anything else, extraordinary tactical ability and a healthy dose of badassery.
Several in Quantum Prophecy including BatmanExpy Solomon Cord and most notably Razor, teenage delinquent, Gadgeteer Geniusand by book 3 de facto leader of the New Heroes.
In book three, Stephenie Cord also becomes a badass normal.
Dioxin also becomes a badass normal after he loses his powers.
Rod Gallowglass (a.k.a. Rodney [too many middle names to list] D'Armand) is the Badass Normal in Christopher Stasheff's Warlock of Gramaraye books, or at least until around the end of the third book.In a World where everyone is at the very least a latent telepath, a few thousand people are full-blown, teleporting, levitating, telekenetic, you-name-it-it's-there telepaths. All he has is an advanced knowledge of Science and History, an epileptic robotic horse, training in all types of weapons, and an 8th degree black belt. He still manages to fulfill his role as The Chessmaster in guiding the planet towards democracy, plus raise the four most powerful telepaths to be born... ever. Even after he discovers his own "witch-powers" he prefers to rely on the skills he learned beforehand.
Later in the series, Yorick becomes the Badass Normal. Specifically in The Warlock Is Wandering. Isn't it amazing how well a Neanderthal, who can't manipulate symbols due to a lack of prefrontal lobes, can manipulate the rules and people around him?
Even later, in the semi-spin-off Wizard series, Magnus Gallowglass takes on a partner, Dirk Dulaine, who is decidedly a Badass Normal. Hell, you don't get much more "normal" than Dirk's genetics. His entire ancestry comes from maybe 100 individual people, who were then cloned. A few centuries later, and the servant population bears a striking resemblance to each other.
The Seekers Of Truth have a couple. Trigger uses technology and an eagle eye, and Grizzly has lived in the woods for the last twenty-five years honing his body and his instincts, until he can read the sounds of every animal in his woods.
As explained on the relevant page, the pilots of Rogue and Wraith squadrons. In a galaxy where Jedi and trained commandos struggle, pilots still hold their own. Wedge Antilles might not be as physics-defying as a Force-Sensitive pilot, but he's counted with them as the best pilot alive, and is at the very least notable for being the only person to survive both attacks on a Death Star.
Let's not forget, he is Blackmoon Eleven. The greatest pilot of all time.
Samwise Gamgee. A gardener at the beginning of the book. By the end of the trilogy... well, I know it's the film, but Shelob's lair is his CMOA. I mean, seriously. Sauron and Morgoth had trouble containing Shelob and Ungoliant, and Morgoth was the most powerful of the Ainur and Sauron the most powerful of the Maiar, but Sam goes and punches out Cthulhu.
It's even more awesome in the books; in the film, he and Frodo just use the Phial of Galadriel as a torch during his battle, but in the books, Sam actually uses it as a weapon. His willpower alone makes it burn so bright that Shelob's eyes are damaged, causing her to retreat.
In the books Sam's badassness is really only visible in Shelob's mind. In the film where it's harder to show that sort of thing, depicting the physical actions only would have made it look like any schlub with a good flashlight could have done the same thing. However, a short time later Sam goes into a fortress filled with orcs. Alone. He comes back out again, too... with the guy he went in there to rescue. Definitely badass.
The orcs who find Frodo's body after the battle know that there's been a SERIOUS badass through there. They think it's some ancient Elf warrior with a huge sword and probably an axe, too. The fact that it's a halfling who until a few months before hadn't thought of an axe as anything but a tool to cut wood with and had probably never SEEN a sword only makes it all the more badass.
In an earlier encounter with Shelob Frodo also applies (he also has other badass moments throughout the book, such as the wight encounter, the defiance of the Riders at the Ford, and the attack on the troll in Moria). Neither he nor Sam can see what is chasing them, and they are both running away, when Frodo decides that running is useless, turns round and goes to face whatever it is, and ends up using his will to subdue Shelob. Pity that all of Frodo's badassness was cut in transition from print.
When Sam and Frodo are trapped in the fortress of Cirith Ungol by the supernatural Watchers, they use the Phial of Galadriel as a focus and break the wills of the guardians, long enough to get through! And of course, the biggest badassery of it all, Frodo carries the One Ring to the very lip of the Cracks of Doom, in the Chambers of Fire where the power of Sauron is strongest in all the world. Only there, only there, weakened by over a year of worry, hunger, thirst, torture, labor, travel, and the cumulative burden of the Ring, only there where Sauron and the One Ring are strongest in all the world, is Frodo Baggins finally overcome by the Ring. Frodo does ultimately fail in his quest, and has to be rescued by the Mercy of God, acting through Smeagol, but Tolkien has said specifically that nobody else in the world east of the Sea, nobody, would have gotten nearly as far as Frodo did.
On the subject of the worlds of Tolkien, let's not forget Beren son of Barahir. A Man, mortal born and mortal doomed, who fought with the last band of guerilla warriors led by his father after Morgoth's forces overran his lands, last survivor of the ambush the slew them, and then he waged a one man war that was so successful that eventually Morgoth set a price on his head equal to the High King of the Noldor. Even then, most of his forces would flee if the rumor had him in area rather than try to capture or kill him. So Morgoth finally sent an army to track him down, with balrogs. Think about that, he had become enough of a nuisance to rate that. Finally forced to flee from that magnitude of a threat, Beren became the first Man to enter Doriath, successfully penetrating Queen Melian's defenses that had held off Morgoth's forces for centuries. Then, in order to win the hand of his lady love, he is successively tortured by werewolves, defeats two sons of Feanor in battle with them mounted and him on foot, narrowly escapes death repeatedly, with his lady he penetrates Thangorodrim itself to take a Silmaril from the crown of the greatest evil power of all time, then he is slain and becomes one of the only Men ever to return to physical life (briefly) after his physical death. As an afterthought he leads an army of Ents to overcome an army of Dwarves after a massive charlie foxtrot incident that led to the destruction of Doriath. Beren was, very probably, the greatest badass in the history of Middle-earth other than some of the Ainur.
In the Young Wizards series, Kit's sister is definitely badass normal when she manages to not only make an intergalactic voyage, chat with Aliens, learn The Speech, and wound the series antagonist in his plan of the week in Wizards at War, but she does so without any skill in wizardry at all, just by hanging out with Kit and Juanita.
In the same series, Juanita's mother sends the series antagonist back despite having no wizardry powers... all she just does is because it's inside her mind, give him 'all the pain she experienced in her life. This includes childbirth. Too bad you didn't get to see her pwn him again...
Repairman Jack goes against things straight out of Lovecraft's worst nightmare with little more than healthy dose of righteous anger, resourcefulness and enough firepower to singlehandedly wage war on a small country. The results aren't pretty but awesome all the same.
A slightly skewed version is Bahzell Bahnakson in David Weber's The War Gods series. Among his own people, Bahzell is a Badass Normal at the beginning of the books. He is chosen by the God of War to be a Champion because of this.
Roland in The Dark Tower. Pretty much the whole Ka-tet become Badass Normal by the end of the book including Oy, the Team Pet.
In BIONICLE, Vezon, although never actually fighting, manages to remain a main character, not dead, unbelievably unscathed after being captured by the worst torture master in the MU (with the building collapsing), and unmutated by Pit Mutagen, and all without powers! And plus he's got practically no mind, so he might even be considered handicapped...
In the Wild Cards novels, a character who was never infected with the Wild Card virus is called a "nat" (short for natural). In the first book, a nat named Yeoman managed to take down a teleporting Ace.
RotTK features more Chinese generals than you can shake a stick at. One who stands out even though he has no special qualities or strengths is Liao Hua. He starts out the story as a Yellow Turban and not only miraculously survives that ordeal, he joins up with LiuBei. While the "Heroes" of Shu rapidly die out this guy stays alive to distinguish himself before dying of old age.
In the Discworld novels, Commander Vimes has fought a dragon, outwitted a vampire, outran a pack of werewolves and is the only person to have bested the Summoning Dark which is an ancient evil that works by corrupting and controlling men's minds. He does all this even though he is a middle-aged man with no powers whatsoever, going as far as to refuse magical help from wizards.
Vimes has survived nine assassination attempts by the Assassin's Guild without any injuries. After that, they basically gave up and started using him to test their trainees.
Tiffany Aching was revealed in I Shall Wear Midnight to be naturally a normal girl. Her magical powers are from her sheer determination to put an end to witch hunts. She's such a Badass Normal that she turned herself into a Badass Abnormalby willpower alone.
Despite living on the planet Petaybee, where most people have adapted to perform well in very low temperatures, Yana Maddock, who was born off-world, still stands out as one of the most badass characters in the series.
Niko Leandros from Rob Thurman's Cal Leandros series has a vampire love interest, a half-human, half evil-fae brother, and is friends with Robin Goodfellow. He has weapon skills worthy of Ghengis Khan and Alexander the Great according to his brother and he's one of the only humans respected by the supernatural world in New York City. He also had Heroic BSOD when he thought his brother was dead and killed 5 Ccoa, 15 Cadejo, and a Gualichu single handedly with only his katana.
Robles demonstrated this by having Lucretia take apart a combat drone. It took the superhuman but untrained Lucretia several minutes to take out that one alone. Robles then took out ten of them with only her bare hands in roughly 10-30 seconds without even being tagged.
Kali demonstrated this by just short of killing Lucretia.
To some degree, all of Lucretia's guard detail and the bank robbers she interferes with are this.
In the Xanth books there's Bink. In a land where everyone has a magic talent (unless they've mutated further away from human and are inherantly magical, like Chameleon) and man-eating trees (several varieties...), dragons... let's just say that Xanth in the early books is a Death World and leave it at that, Bink has no magical power whatsoever and has been forced to become a Badass Normal because of this. Subverted when it's revealed that Bink's talent is that he can't be harmed by magic: it manipulates all magic around him into acting in his best interests, combining Plot Armor and Magnificent Bastard, and by concealing itself it protected Bink by making him appear harmless and forcing him to become a Badass Normal. Double Subverted at the end of the second book, when an Eldritch Abomination reverses his talent, causing it to manipulate all magic around Bink in order to harm him and Bink is able to survive due to his skills.
Percy's mom and stepdad actually battled a huge horde of monsters once. When Percy asked Sally (his mom) when she learned to fire a shotgun, she replies, "About two seconds ago."
To make it even better, at least Percy's mon can, like Rachel Elizabeth Dare, see the monsters. His stepdad can't.
Boba Fett is shown to be quite the badass in spite of lacking Jedi powers. He's extremely physically strong and able to handle a lightsaber much like a Jedi. He even fights Mace Windu to a standstill in a novel as a 14-year-old boy! As quoted by Han Solo himself: "There are six, maybe seven people in the entire galaxy who can beat Boba Fett in a fair fight... and I'm not one of them."
The Mandalorians in general are known for being Jedi killers during the many wars that dealt with Force-users.
Han Solo of course qualifies as a Badass Normal himself. Just shooting Darth Vader off Luke's tail in the first movie would have done that, let alone everything else he manages in the Expanded Universe novels...
[[Dragaera Vlad Taltos.]] He's a fairly good witch and a rudimentary sorceror, but this world has Dragaerans who live for maybe 3000 years, are stronger and taller, and at least three of the ones he hangs out with have "Great Weapons", and are very skilled at sorcery. This is before he gains Lady Teldra/Godslayer.
Conan the Barbarian does not have any magical abilities, but he regularly overcomes evil wizards and supernatural horrors with his strength, speed, toughness, and natural cunning.
Live-Action TV
Several examples in the Buffy the Vampire Slayer verse. But there are a few other examples, survive long enough near a main character in a Joss Whedon show and it starts to rub off. Would your high school graduating class have engaged an army of vampires in close range combat?
On Angel, Gunn is the epitome of the Badass Normal in the first four seasons. He's the only one who's received no special training, isn't a centuries-old demon or magically empowered in some other way. He's been fighting vampires since he was fourteen and, in the fourth-season episode "Players," he took out six Asian warrior monk-types without getting hit once.
Gunn and the street-gang members he used to lead fought vampires with more success and less casualties, using improvised melee weapons, than the US government's secret black-ops demon-fighting organization was able to manage even using chemically-augmented super-soldiers and energy weapons. Admittedly, the government wasn't just hunting, but studying...
Xander Harris is an example as well. He faced down Angelus while Buffy was in the hospital and faced down a zombie with a bomb. By Season 7 he's also able to go toe-to-toe with vampires, demons, and all sorts of nasty beasties, and even acquired a badass eyepatch. He's a seven-year war veteran of battles against everything from vampires to GODS, and he's made it out alive. That's more action than a lot of Slayers see.
Halfway into the second season (exhibiting signs as early as the Season 1 episode "The Ring") Wesley started to evoke some measure of usefulness besides being The Smart Guy and hit his stride in the third season while growing a Perma Stubble. Wesley may have had special Watcher training, but he apparently wasn't good at it, or whoever trained him sucked. It's a pretty big achievement to go from being the male Distressed Damsel, to being a Badass Normal. By the fifth season he would shrug off almost anything short of Angel's level.
Until the series finale, when he suffered a mild case of being stabbed to death.
Fred, who, in the later years of her short life, was very adept with a flamethrower (despite being a good ol' southern girl). Cordelia could also qualify as this before her demonization; she could corner Angel without much of an effort after a couple of training sessions.
James Tiberius "Enormous Steel Ones" Kirk. Take away the Cool Ship and the ray guns, and what do you have? Someone who can stand against sword-wielding aliens, giant lizard monsters, genetically-engineered supermen, world-killing robots, and Physical Gods with nothing more than sheer willpower and brains. And after he beat all those guys up, he boned their women, Such is the Power of Kirk.
In Star Trek: Deep Space Nine, you have the character of Michael Eddington. Originally a Mauve Shirt extra, he defected to the renegade Maquis organization, later completely screwing with the station's systems in the process. Sisko later lamented the fact that Eddington outwitted him so completely despite the fact that he was just a human, not a timeless wormhole alien or a changeling with thousands of years of experience that Sisko usually tangles with. Kind of justifies the Roaring Rampage of Revenge that Sisko goes on later.
Noah Bennet in Heroes. He has defeated superpowered people simply by knowing how they work and going around them. He thought in Japanese to counteract telepath Matt Parkman's mind reading, arranged an escape from a prison meant to contain superpowered people, and kept an electrically-powered super under control by soaking her in water. In one of the online comics available, he defeats a man who can destroy things with his hand by grabbing him by the wrist and beating him unconscious with a baseball bat. Why not shoot him? It was inconvenient to figure out a way to go get his gun which was near his family.
During the two-parter Eclipse coupling, he became the most powerful character in the show after all the others lost their powers. Suffice to say quick wits, extensive knowledge of powered individuals and a handgun are all he needs!
And a box cutter.
Season Five seems to be topping the sundae that is Bennet's badassness. Gut sliced up by speedster assassin? Silly Edgar, you can't kill Noah Bennet. Bennet's up and walking again by the end of the week. He gets his revenge in "Let It Bleed", locking Edgar in an industrial freezer for an indefinite amount of time, then tying him to a chair and spending several hours practicing the Jack Bauer Interrogation Technique on him.
Pretty much the entire Bennet family is pretty Bad Ass (even Claire, but she is superpowered), considering Sandra goes with her daughter on a rescue mission to save Meredith and Lyle goes after Ted with a baseball bat and throws a bucket of water on Elle, in the style of dear old dad.
Ando, Hiro's best friend and somewhat-sidekick with absolutely no powers whatsoever. In the first three volumes at least. "Somewhat-sidekick" because Ando's common sense and steadfast loyalty to his geeky, Idiot Ball carrying buddy has a tendency to save the day more often than any superpower.
Volume 4 gives us Emile Danko, a veteran soldier who, while he does occasionally need some help from the likes of Noah or Sylar due to his inexperience at dealing with superpowered people, proves to be a very dangerous adversary due simply to his cunning and creativity (like framing a hero as a suicide bomber). You can basically call him the Anti-Bennet, due to having the same amount of badassness, but far looser moral standards.
Peter Petrelli in Season 3 when he lost his powers. He still managed to get into Pine Hearst, and would have killed his Too Powerful to Live father.
Many of the recurring non-supernatural characters in True Blood, but particularly Jason Stackhouse (less so in Season 1); he defeats Steve Newlin with a paintball gun, chucks Bill out of his house when he starts getting uppity, and saves Tara from an insane Yandere vampire.
Xena: Warrior Princess has Autolycus and Gabrielle. Autolycus is the King of Thieves and Gabs Took a Level in Badass from being a village girl who dreams of adventure to taking Xena's place in the series finale, with no suspect ancestry.
Xena herself wanders in and out of this trope. It's possible that she doesn't apply at all, because it's implied but never confirmed that she's Ares' daughter. The standard assumption in-universe is that she's 100% mortal, and she can kick ass and take names with the best of them but it can verge on Charles Atlas Superpower at times.
Iolaus from Hercules: The Legendary Journeys, which shares a verse with Xena, qualifies too. The man hangs out with Hercules and regularly aids him in combat, and saves his ass more than a couple times.
Supernatural gives us Dean Winchester. When the guys he stops the Apocalypse with include an angel, an archangel, a demon bigwig, a much more experienced hunter and his brother who can exorcise demons with his mind and you're STILL the most awesome, you're pretty badass.
Bobby Singer could also be included as this, especially after he ends up in a wheelchair.
While the Doctor of Doctor Who is not quite normal, many of his companions fall into this category, particularly Leela, Jamie, Barbara, Ian, Martha and Jack (at least before the whole "immortal" thing).
Ace can arguably lead the pack of the companions, being of a quick temper and always carrying with her a backpack full of homemade explosive charges that she's not afraid to use. The woman took out a Dalek with a powered-up baseball bat. And dispatched another with a rocket launcher.
The Doctor: You killed it! Ace: I aimed for the eyepiece.
From "The Next Doctor" Jackson Lake. An amnesiac Victorian gentleman who believes himself to be the Doctor and does very well, to the point of saving the real Doctor from Cybermen with a hastily improvised weapon at least twice.
Davros. The man is a blind cripple with one working arm, but his enormous intellect, horrific cruelty, and sheer tenacity had the fandom calling him the Doctor's greatest enemy after his first appearance.
A lot of the one or two episode based companions serve as this in comparison to the more seasoned TARDIS travelers.
In series six, there's Canton Everett Delaware III. If the name isn't enough, there's always the following: he tells off the President of the United States from the get-go, runs into the TARDIS without a second thought to keep on top of the Doctor, pulls off lying to the FBI for three straight months while presumably keeping Rory, Amy, and River out of their cross-hairs, shoots down a Silent, tricks said Silent into dooming his race, works future technology to send the message of the Silent to the Doctor and Apollo 11 and to top it all off, comes out to President Nixon in the Oval Office.
Rory Williams. Think he's just a nurse? You're wrong.
While physically human, he "lived" for 2000 years as a plastic centurion, alone, to keep Amy safe. He infiltrated a Cyber-Ship demanding his wife, he withstood House and the Minotaur's mind rape, fought off the Headless Monks at Demon's Run, encountered more of the Silence over the course of three months than any of the other characters, and punched Hitler.
Semi-lampshaded in Power Rangers Operation Overdrive for the series' 15th anniversary Reunion Show. Four recent rangers with civilian form-only extra powers were teamed up with Adam from season two. After a straight martial arts fight scene, Adam commented, "It may be old school, but it gets the job done." Considering how the fandom has complained about civilian powers and the fact that the actor's face was always visible (to assure the audience that no stunt double was being used), probably overlaps with Fanservice.
Most every ranger has some badassitude without their powers, showing them fight the mooks of the season is supposed to help the transition to the Super Sentai costume footage.
Honourable mentions go to Takaoka Eiji from Go Go Sentai Boukenger. Before he becomes BoukenSilver, he is so badass that in his human form he can beat up two Ashu demons, whom the five other Boukengers together, in their Ranger form, were unable to defeat.
Kung Lao, Siro, and Taja, the protagonists of Mortal Kombat: Conquest, are all ordinary human beings who regularly face off against supernatural opponents who can shoot ice, throw fire, teleport, devour souls, re-animate the dead, etc. Not only do they stand toe to toe against these enemies but they usually win. In one episode Tsang Tsung, Kung Lao's primary rival, destroys an entire military encampment with his powers because he was just that pissed. Had he thought of doing that when he faced Kung Lao in Mortal Kombat, Earth Realm would have been doomed before the series even began.
When Quan Chi and Kung Lao first fought, Quan Chi attempted to use his sorcery but was immediately stopped by Raiden in the name of "a fair fight."
Just about every character in the Merlin series (the one starring Sam Neill) who doesn't have magic is this. King Vortigern rips through a platoon of enemy soldiers, has dealings with the queen of The Fair Folk, and unflinchingly faces a powerful wizard in single combat. Frik manages to take down numerous opponents, survive a war, and work against Mab even after he lost all of his magic. Ambrosia regularly acts unimpressed by magical beings such as Mab, insults them to their faces, and even declares that one point that, magic or no magic, if Mab harms Merlin in any way, "I'll have her guts for my bootlaces."
Logan of Dark Angel manages to come to the rescue of the genetically engineered protagonist more than once despite not only lacking superhuman abilities, he's also in a wheelchair.
Oliver Queen on Smallville isn't an alien, a cyborg, an Atlantian, or a metahuman. But between his training and resources, he holds his own rather well.
Elena Gilbert, protagonist of The Vampire Diaries, is one of an increasingly dwindling number of major characters who don't have superpowers, but she shows herself to be able to hold her own and gain control of situations where she is physically the underdog on numerous occasions.
On Merlin Arthur and the Knights of the Round Table.
Myths & Religion
Ajax from The Iliad. All of the other mighty warriors have either gods helping them or are nearly invincible to begin with. Not only does he never get help from any of the gods, he also singlehandedly holds off the Trojan army during their assault on the Greek ships. He also fights Hector to a draw, twice.
Patroclus' badassery is sadly under-appreciated. Not only is he completely mortal and not aided by any gods, but when he leads the Myrmidons into battle on Achilles' behalf, he beats the Trojans back from the ships, across the beach, and all the way to the walls of Troy, slaying several god-assisted heroes on the way, including Sarpedon, who is the son of goddamn Zeus (though that isn't an incredibly difficult achievement). And then, when he tries to take Troy itself, it takes the physical intervention of Apollo to slow him down long enough for two — two! — Trojan heroes to finally kill him. He even tells Hector, just before the man delivers the killing blow, "You are only my third slayer." And you thought he was just Achilles' boyfriend.
Achilles's father. Because any son that Thetis bore would be stronger than his father, Zeus set her up with a rather weak mortal. He held onto Thetis, and in order to shake him off, she changed into several hideous forms but he continued to hold on through sheer determination. Thetis was so impressed with this she consented to marrying him - and Achilles certainly became much stronger than his father!
Odysseus. Probably one of the best known Greek heroes after Heracles and Achilles, and unlike them, he wasn't the son of a divine parent (although he was the great-grandson of Hermes). Came up with the idea of the Trojan Horse, survived the wrath of Zeus, Poseidon and Helios (the sky, the sea and the sun respectivly) using just his wits and luck, and even impressed Athena, the goddess of cunning herself, with his brains and wit.
Atalanta. Usual for an Ancient Greek hero in that she has no divine parent and also the fact that she's a girl. Left to die because her father wanted a son, she survived, grew up in the wilderness raised by a bear, she was attacked by two centaurs at the same time, and killed them both. She later joined a group of heroes (most of them the sons of gods) in the hunt of the Calydonian boar, a giant monster sent by Artemis and was the first to wound it. When she was reunited with her father, he told her she had to marry. She agreed, but would only marry a man who beat her at a footrace. She was beaten, but her opponent, Melanion, had to get help from Aphrodite, the Goddess of Love. According to some sources, she was even one of the Argonauts!
Flash Gordon faces off against all the weird beings of Mongo with nothing but his strength and his wits. (Some versions have claimed Mongo is a lower-gravity world, so Earthlings have marginal super-strength there.)
The Imperial Guard of the Warhammer 40,000 universe, consisting of ordinary men and women, regularly take on all varieties of horrific Aliens and Monsters, including swarms of alien locusts like the Tyranids, hordes of Orks, the endless legions of the lost and the damned, backed by gibbering daemons and power-armoured Chaos Space Marines, the Necrons - an undead, implacable race of zombie robots - and technologically advanced Eldar, with little more than a flak jacket, a lasgun, and gigantic balls of steel. And they sometimes win.
The Tanith First and Only from Dan Abnett's Gaunt's Ghosts line of Warhammer 40,000 novels. They're just as squishy as any other Guard regiment, yet that doesn't stop them from pulling off feats that would get other Imperial Guard units annihilated. Most of these feats consist of winning against vastly superior numbers of Chaos forces. Individual characters and squads have been known to kill all sorts of things that could easily wipe away enemies and units that could potentially destroy entire armies of Imperial Guardsmen all by themselves. These include, but are not limited to: numerous Chaos warlords, a Dark Eldar assassin, high-level psykers, a Chaos Dreadnought, and an entire squad of Chaos Space Marines.
This is made even more impressive because the Ghosts are NOT a standard Guard regiment - they're LIGHT INFANTRY. No tanks, no artillery, and less body armour than most other regiments. They're actually MORE squishy than most of the already quite squishy Imperial Guard. Ironically, since their specialties lie in the stealth and dirty tricks department, having less armour (and a colossal dose of badass) has actually made them more survivable.
Ciaphas Cain, HERO OF THE IMPERIUM!, in Sandy Mitchell's novels, who has managed to defeat everything from psykers and Greater Daemons of Slaanesh to Necron warriors, Dark Eldar Reavers, an Ork Warboss, Khornate Berserkers, and Tyranid Hive Tyrants, Broodlords, and Genestealers, along with countless mooks and minions of all of the above.
He does generally outwit them first, and his ultimate goal is to not be fighting at all; he just fights with the desperation of a cornered rat.
His motives don't change the fact that several of those victories (an Ork Warboss, a great many Genestealers, two and a half Khornate Berserkers (one was killed by Jurgen with his trusty meltagun, but Cain still fought it to a stand still) and the Greater Daemon of Slannesh) were in single combat and all he had was a laspistol and chainsword. He's also taken on at least one Inquisitor and managed to live long enough for reinforcements to arrive.
He's described by Vail to be one of the best marksmen and duelists she's ever known. Coming from an Inquisitor, that's extremely high praise.
Commissar Yarrick, a perfectly human man who had his arm torn off by a massive Ork warlord and responded by tearing off said Ork's own cyborg arm, attaching it to himself, killing the hell out of the Ork and leading his army to victory before allowing himself to pass out. And he's only got harder since then.
This is a man who, upon hearing that his enemies were so afraid of him that they believed he could kill them with an angry glare, replaced his eye with a laser so that he could actually do so.
Ghazghkull Mag Uruk Thraka considers Yarrick to be a Worthy Opponent. As in, the largest and most influential Ork in the entire galaxy who has personally led two of the largest and most destructive Ork WAAAGH!s in Imperial history considers a "skwishy humie" to be as good as him. That, ladies and gentlemen, is this trope.
In the related video game, La'Kais probably qualifies as well. Sure he's an alien, but he's a Tau, which means he's shorter lived and physically weaker than even the average human. And yet, according to the One-Man Army page, on his first day of live fire combat, he personally killed "several battalions of the Imperial Guard, large numbers of Space Marines and several Dreadnaughts, a good deal of Chaos Marines and several Daemons, and he does it all within the timespan of twenty four hours." Alas, he breaks down after that.
The Tau in general managed to survive an Imperial crusade, a Tyranid splinter fleet, defeated an Ork WAAAGH! and supposedly killed a daemon prince. The last in particular is quite an accomplishment since killing a daemon prince without the proper warp killing tools at hand is still an admirable effort.
As for the Demon Prince, it might have helped that the Tau have no warp presence whatsoever.
Although no longer canon, there is probably the biggest example in 40k, Ollianus Pious, a Guardsman that decided to fight a stupidly powerful being that was already at demi-god status before the Chaos Gods decided to use him as a recepticle for all of their power. He was swiftly killed for his troubles, but damn.
The Horus Heresy novels also contain a fair amount of them. The one that stands out particularly was the mute bodyguard Maggrad, who was by the standards of ANY universe containing Space Marines, an extremely proficient killer. This was further emphasized later when he was able to almost best an extremely experienced Space Marine captain. Dinas Chayne, another bodyguard, was also an incredibly talented soldier who was, even more amazingly, capable of briefly matching a Primarch in term of swordplay. Many of the Imperial Army soldiers of the era were also pretty badass.
Maggrad, having fought waves of mutants to a standstill to protect his charge, is actually congratulated personally by Horus. The giant, superhuman, galaxy-bestriding Primarch and Emperor's favourite who he practically worships actually tells Maggrad that he admires him. Cue the closest thing to Squee in Maggrad's life.
Guardsman Hawke. In Graham McNeill's Storm of Iron, he escapes the initial assault (blowing away a couple of Chaos Space Marines with an assault cannon as he does), hoofs it to an orbital torpedo silo, and takes out half of the Iron Warriors Chaos Space Marines besieging the Citadel. He's also the only Imperial to survive the whole war, not counting slaves hauled off to Medrengard. To put that in perspective, he had been written off by his superiors as a useless, foul-mouthed, insubordinate and ill-disciplined Guardsman barely worthy of the name prior to the attack.
Any high point GURPS Character will be this, if they didn't load up on lots of fancy exotic advantages.
Pretty much any high-level martial character in any edition of Dungeons & Dragons. Fighters? Yes. Warlords/Marshals? Yes. Rangers? Yes. Barbarians? Yes. Rogues? HELL yes. Barbarian/Fighter/Frenzied Berserker? OHSHI—
In 4.0 there is an epic destiny for Rangers and Rogues called Godhunter. So yes, your halfling armed with shurikens and a dagger may in fact one day murder Tiamat.
Why stop just there? In 4th edition, there are 14 Epic Destinies, counting the Godhunter, restricted to Martial characters alone (that is, Fighters, Rangers, Rogues and Warlords — Barbarians are Primal in 4e). The Adamantine Soldier is a Fighter or Warlord who has become such a master of heavy armor that they are Nigh Invulnerable; nothing hurts them, nothing can get past them, and they will never be broken in body or spirit. The Beastlord is a beastmaster Ranger who becomes so close to his animal companion that they become a single mind and soul. The Dark Wanderer is a Rogue or Ranger who has wandered so long and so far that they have outrun fate itself. The Eternal Defender is a Fighter who becomes an immovable object in battle, whose courage and duty leads to them taking up arms to protect the world or even The Multiverse for all eternity. The Legendary General is a Warlord who goes on to fight in the greatest battles the planes have ever seen, and if they so desire, may conquer all of reality itself. The Martial Archetype is a multiclassed Martial character who bcomes the ultimate warrior. The Perfect Assassin is a Rogue so skilled at dealing death that even Death itself will not dare to approach them before the Perfect Assassin is ready to die — they may even slay the God of Death and take the throne for themselves. The Undying Warrior is the ultimate Fighter, immortal and unkillable. The Warmaster is a Warlord who becomes so skilled that there is no challenge left in reality — defeating armies of demons or outwitting the gods themselves becomes trite, forcing them to seek the Eternal War, the mythical arena where all of the greatest military leaders who have ever lived spend eternity testing their skills against each other. The Dragonheart is a Martial character who reveres dragons as the ultimate embodiment of martial virtue, devoting themselves to those concepts with such fervors that they transcend their original nature and become dragons in body and soul. The Invincible Vanguard is a Martial character is a warrior who yearns to face the greatest threats ever, and who goes on to defeat them all. The Legendary Sovereign is a Fighter, Ranger or Warlord who goes on to found a kingdom, or perhaps an empire, that will never be forgotten. And the Star-Favored Champion is destined to become, simply, one of the greatest heroes ever known. And each and every last one of these characters has no special gimmicks, no magic, nothing at all mystical. They are just. That. Bad Ass.
In the New World of Darkness, the Hunters from Hunter The Vigil are (for the most part) the ordinary humans who take on the supernatural. And then there are the Slashers, humans that can be just as dangerous as horrors...
The Sourcebook "Mirrors" introduces the Extraordinary Mortals template, which gives characters access to "Skill Tricks", specialized abilities within their mundane Skills. The best of these verge on Charles Atlas Superpower.
Any of the non-super OOC from Rifts, but in particular the Rogue Scholar. For people whose sole class ability is "Knowledge is Power", they sure do have quite a reputation with the Coalition. And by reputation I mean "KILL HIM NOW! Now, HE'S the biggest threat!"
Iron Heroes basically thrives on this, with 9 out of 10 classes having no magical talent at all. Even the magical one could half-fulfill this trope, since spellcasting could horribly backfire and they tend to learn how to fight with weapons anyway.
Video Games
In the SNES RPG Earthbound, all of your party has access to powerful psychic attacks except for Jeff. However, he is the only party member who thinks to use a bazooka.
Likewise, most of the cast in the sequel, MOTHER 3. Both Flint and Duster posses no PSI like Lucas and Kumatora, but are still able to take on the same powerful enemies as them. If it counts, even two of the oldest men on Nowhere Island - Alec and Old Man Wess - are able to provide plenty of backup for fighting against mechanized dinosaurs, giant water snakes, and fortified army tanks; at least until the new society deems them useless and throws them in a retirement home.
Also from the first game, Pippi. Yes, she's a little girl, but she boasts insane stat boosts with each level up that are about on par with Teddy's. It's pretty funny to watch her do near double the damage Ninten can do... until, tragically, you have to return her home to advance the plot.
Bloodline Champions has the Vanguard, Gunner, Engineer, Ranid Assasin, Alchemist, Astronomer, Spear Master, Nomad and Ravener bloodlines seem to be this from their backgrounds, but the last three are a bit unclear considering their in-game capabilities and the naming of some of those abilities.
Kain Highwind of Final Fantasy IV was a Badass Normal for much of his existence. Heck, he's a Memetic Badass at that despite having no magical powers and just being really, really good at abusing Jump Physics. The sequel The After Years upgraded him into a HolyDragoon, so his status as a normal has been removed. However, that was more than a decade after his original game and his badassery was famous well before The After Years came out.
The game also gives us Cid, who's just an old engineer with a hammer that jumps out of an airship riding a bomb, falls into the underworld and survives. Less than a week later he's tuning up your new ship.
Yang also has nothing but training.
In Final Fantasy VII and the rest of the compilation, there's more than a few badasses with no powers. Tifa and Rude get by on martial arts training, Yuffie with ninja skills, Red XIII with natural prowess, Cid with a spear and dynamite, Tseng and Eleni with handguns, Cissnei with an oversized shuriken and Reno with a big ol' stun baton.
Although he spends half of Final Fantasy IX portrayed as the Butt Monkey, Steiner is the only character in the game (if not the entire planet) who isn't either a Super Prototype creature, a Half-Human Hybrid that can call destruction from the heavens, a petting zoo person with natural gifts, or some chi master who can jump 100 feet in the air and throw fireballs at people. He just hits people really hard with swords, and is the only party member who can hit for max damage unaugmented.
Given the huge prevelence of Magitek in Final Fantasy XII, it's hard to tell who's fighting without some sort of magic/technology backing them up. Most of the Arcadian Judges, though, fight using only their swords and various physical attacks, while Mad Scientist Cid battles with assorted BFGs, and all of them are bosses and are much more dangerous than the abyssal demons and behemoths you've seen on the way up to them. Vayne then shows them up in the final battle - after spending the game battling through armored soldiers wielding BFSes, Vayne takes the party on in his day-to-day wear and fights using nothing but his bare hands. Well, the cinematic attacks show him sending energy bursts at the party, but if the name of one such attack ("Force of Will") is an indicator, Vayne is such a Badass Normal he can bend the laws of physics through sheer willpower. Then of course as is par for the series, he goes One-Winged Angel and uses nothing but magic.
Ramza shows qualities of this in the very first battle of Final Fantasy Tactics, in attitude if nothing else.
Ramza: Silence! Surrender or die in obscurity!
In the sequel to Dissidia: Final Fantasy, Dissidia 012, Laguna Loire of Final Fantasy VIII definitely qualifies. Unlike every other character in the game who all at least minor magical skills, Laguna uses no magic or any other supernatural powers at all. Instead he's a Multi Ranged Master with a Hyperspace Arsenal of shotguns, machine guns, rocket launchers, and a BFG based on an airship. Even his Limit Break is nothing more than a Combination Attack of all his weapons at once.
Kai Kitamura (and arguably Katina Tarask and Russel Bagman) in Super Robot Wars Original Generation, who are implied to fight through several major battles against rebels and alien invaders in grunt-level mecha, as opposed to the many Super Prototypes and Super Robots used by the other heroes. When Kai can get a badass Humongous Mecha of his own in the second game, even that drives the point home, as it looks exactly like his old grunt unit (in OG Gaiden, he officially gets another mecha, which is literally just a customized version of his grunt mech). One of his battle quotes handily sums up the role of a badass normal: "One fist may not be able to destroy the world... but it can certainly destroy you!"
In a way, Elzam von Branstein (also known as Ratsel Feinschmecker) also applies. Most of the more skilled Real Robot Genre pilots generally have some variety of psychic powers, and characters who don't generally balance this out by piloting the more powerful but generally less maneuverable Super Robots. Elzam, however, pilots the Huckebein Mk-II and Mk-III — both Real Robots designed for use by psychics — far better than any of the psychic characters ever could. He's just that good. When he finally does receive a Super Robot Genre, he loses some of what makes him "normal", but gains the equivalent in pure Badass. And he still dodges better than the psychics.
He introduced himself to America as this in typical mind-blowing fashion: In the very first mission of Original Generation 1 for the Gameboy Advance, he takes out a squad of alien beings humanity has never seen before A) all by himself, B) with the weakest mech available in the game, the basic Gespenst, and C) while that Gespenst has absolutelyNOweapons on it whatsoever. He solidifies himself as a Badass Normal from the start.
Kyosuke Nanbu also fits here. Unlike his colleagues he doesn't have any psychic powers and he isn't chosen by any guardians or anything like that. He manages to fight and win his battles by pure skill and a little luck. Want proof of this? How about the fact that his mech, the Alteisen Riese is considered to be an impractical mech, is so top-heavy that it requires a tesla drive (which normally enables flight on a mech) just to stand without falling over and has no special weapons (just guns and pellets). Yet he still manages to kick plenty of ass with it.
The only thing that's really abnormal about him is unusual luck that has allowed him to survive (with minor injuries) attacks/accidents that should have killed him. In the past, he was the only survivor of a shuttle crash full of cadets; In OG he walks away from a utterly destroyed prototype after a traitor sabotaged it and caused it to crash; and in OG 2 he survives having his mech literally ripped apart by Axel.
Outside the OG Series, there's also Judgment's Calvina Coulange. While most of the originals here (friends or enemies) are of the Fury race in general (including Touya, who is Half Fury), she just happens to be a normal human, who used to be a genius Ace Pilot. And when presented with a mecha designed to be ridden by Furies... all she needs is just a little adjustment and then she resumes her old days of metal ass-kicking, piloting something she's supposedly not be able to drive.
Given the...nature...of the other two primary combatant species, the marine character from the Alien vs. Predator PC games qualifies
Lady from Devil May Cry 3 has no demonic powers to call her own but slaughters lower demons easily, has sufficient agility to dodge and survives brief clashes with the Sons of Sparda.
In the Fire Emblem series some of the best units are from classes that are "grunts" (Soldiers and Mercenaries). In addition, Leaf in the 4th game doesn't get one of the game's Game Breaker legendary weapons, but is still one of the better characters in the game, although the fact that he promotes into a Master Knight (one of if not the most broken classes in the series) might void him from qualifying as a Badass Normal.
Leaf definitely qualifies for this trope in Thracia 776. He's exactly the same after promotion as he was before. Even story-wise, Leaf feels inadequate next to other resistance leaders, like Celice, Shanan, and Sety, who carry legendary weapons. Sety, Leaf's Obi-wan, tells him his struggles are what makes him a Holy Warrior.
Ike, from the Radiance arc, may count. He first appears as nothing more than an honest, if blunt, young man who happens to be rather skilled with the sword. So skilled, actually, that not only does he grow into one of the best characters in both games, mobilize the Crimean Liberation Army to victory over Big Bad Ashnard, and take command of one of the greatest mercenary companies in history, but eventually ends up slaying a goddess. That's pretty badass for the first main Fire Emblem character to not be a royal.
If we're talking about Fire Emblem: Genealogy of the Holy War, Jamuka can't be left out. He's one of the few main characters from the first part of the game who has no Holy Blood, but he's still a very solid unit with or without his Killer Bow.
If we go for normal, it's hard to get any more normal amongst the main characters than Sothe in Radiant Dawn. A number of endgame bosses expresses their surprise at seeing "a shabby little burglar" amongst the heroes.
Sephiran: Hello, child... I'm a little surprised to see an ordinary boy like you, fighting for the world. This day is full of surprises! Sothe: No one's more surprised than me. I can't read people's feelings like Micaiah... I'm not invincible in battle like Ike... Between all these laguz kings and great beorc heroes, I don't really belong here.
Ayla from Chrono Trigger. Most of the party has powerful magic granted to them by the God of War. Ayla beats the crap out of things with her fists. And yet, she's a strong contender for the best party member.
At higher levels, her fists upgrade to the point where she deals the damage cap on a critical. And by most of the party getting magic, we mean all but her, the laser-spewing robot, and the guy who already had magic to begin with.
Chrono Cross has a Badass Normal in the form of Miguel. Many people get hung up on fighting him and die countless times to him. What's his claim to fame in the Chrono Cross universe? He was the main character's neighbor when the main character was a child. That's it.
Gordon Freeman, an untrained scientist who gets caught in an alien invasion, fights his way through literally miles of aliens and the US army armed with nothing but a crowbar and the guns he finds lying around, goes to space, kills the Big Bad, gets locked in another dimension, returns 20 years later, and overthrows a military force that defeated all of earth's armies in seven hours. Mostly alone.
"This is not some agent provocateur or highly trained assassin we are discussing. Gordon Freeman is a theoretical physicist who had hardly earned the distinction of his Ph.D. at the time of the Black Mesa Incident. I have good reason to believe that in the intervening years, he was in a state that precluded further development of covert skills. The man you have consistently failed to slow, let alone capture, is by all standards simply that — an ordinary man."
Even though it's primarily a spy series starting in the late Cold War, the Metal Gear Solid is full with superhuman character who possess incredible psionic powers, genetic modifications, and technical gadgets. However, some of the most badass characters don't have any of those:
The prime example is the series Big Bad Revolver Ocelot. Starting with MGS2 he also leaves the normal territory, but in MGS1 and the prequel MGS3 he's just an extraordinary normal and has many of his greatest moments.
In MGS3 there's the Boss, the leader of the Cobras and the only member of the team without any supernatural powers. Yet, she's by far the most powerful fighter in the whole series. Though she has an incredibly powerful gun with infinite ammo, she barely uses it and instead beats up many of the worlds deadliest soldiers with her bare hands.
The same goes for her apprentice Naked Snake, the only man who ever manged to defeat her though it's possible the Boss let him. In fact he was so Bad Ass that his natural DNA was used in several programs to create genetically modified super soldiers. His soviet partner EVA also puts most people to shame without any powers or gadgets, and continues to do so at the age of 78.
And a very unexpected and unusual case appears at the end of MGS4 with Johnny. For most of the game he seems to be a huge failure of a super soldier enhanced by cybernetic augmentations and with quite a collection of gadgets of his own. However, he admits he successfully chickened out of having the augmentations done, making him about the only normal human in any combat unit anywhere. His performance still is lacking way behind, but the fact that he was able to almost keep up with an elite team of super soldiers and even saved the others single handedly on several occasions is treated as being damn impressive.
Urban Chaos Riot Response. The player character served in the marines for three years and joined T-Zero because his father was killed by the "Burners". Halfway through the game he has arrested over three hundred gang members (not including the ones you do on screen), saved thousands of civilians, and at one point shoots a burner through the neck to save a firefighter. With a pistol, over fifty feet away.
In City of Heroes, you begin your early career fighting demonically powered street gangs, work your way up through fighting psychic robots, hordes of demons, eight-feet-tall genetically altered supersoldiers, cyborg criminals, and lab grown supervillains. The final, and most difficult enemy faction of the game however, is a group of normal humans armed with tasers and six-shooters.
And their allies, basically Ninjas to the max. Not to mention the "Natural" origin for heroes or villains was originally intended for, and is still used by, player characters whose concept is a Badass Normal.
However, Natural simply means "nothing my species can't normally do" — if the player character is an alien, those "natural" abilities can go a long way. Like, say, if you're Kryptonian.
Within the lore of the game itself, there's one of the iconic heroes, Justice Leag- I mean, Freedom Phalanx member Manticore. Similarly to Batman, he is the only member on the aforementioned team who has no supernatural power granted to him by the gods, was not experimented on by evil scientists, and was not born with any great psychic ability. His real claim to fame? Really, really good aim with a bow and arrow. Although having more money than God probably helped. Also, the first arc of the Top Cow comic series gave him teleportation ability, which he can use with clever results such as shooting explosive arrows into a room half a mile away. Despite this new ability, however, he's still perceived as nothing special in terms of power compared to his teammates, and yet he's often the one they turn to when their leader is out of commission. Not bad.
Word Of Godreveals that Manticore can teleport because he has hacked into the city-wide Emergency Teleportation Network.
B.B.Hood (Bulleta) in Darkstalkers is the only one who doesn't use supernatural abilities, but she still manages to take down monsters with nothing more than heavy weaponry despite being a young human girl.
She does basically the same thing as one of the Darkstalkers representatives on the Capcom side in the Marvel vs. Capcom series.
Luca Blight from Suikoden II fights with only a single sword and heavy armor in a world where magic is pretty commonplace. He ends up tearing through the protagonist's army when they try to target him in a battle. He is nearly undefeatable, only dying when he is ambushed by the 18 strongest members of the opposing army (protagonist included) plus some archers. He's riddled with cutscene arrows, fights six party members, riddled with some more cutscene arrows, fights six more party members, fights six MORE party members, gets riddled with more cutscene arrows, then finally dies in a duel against the protagonist. This is generally considered his best CMOA, although there are several more.
Almost the entire Nanaya clan of demon hunting assassins in Tsukihime. They're supposed to have some psychic abilities, but otherwise fight demons and half-demons with pure physical talent. Shown very well in a Kagetsu Tohya side story with Nanaya Kiri (Shiki's real father) and his hit on a certain demon-blooded family, kicking much ass, up to and including disassembling his primary target when backed into a corner... wielding nothing but a pointed stick (metal, granted, but still).
Shiki, the main game's protagonist, comes close to this trope. His ability to keep up physically with supernatural opponents (mostly vampires) is the result of ingrained training... but his ability to kill literally anything he can reach is decidedly abnormal (not just supernatural, though unique).
The playable characters in Xenosaga include a cyborg, a robot, a Realian, a URTV, the handmaiden of Mary, the universe's fail-safe, and Jin. Though he is a thoroughly ordinary human, Jin manages to slice Humongous Mecha in two, stop a blade with his bare hands, hold off waves of gnosisbefore his Heroic Sacrifice, finish off one of these gnosis after being impaled with a BFS, and be an all-around badass.
Allen of all people gains elements of this in the third episode. When confronting Kevin Winnicot, he takes several lightning blasts that would kill any normal person, then gets back up, all while telling Kevin—who is a supernaturally powerful Testament—how pathetic he really is. Also, in a scene after that, he pounces on an end-game level Gnosis, bludgeons it with his gun, and shoots it point-blank in the face. It's safe to say he would have made a full transition into a Badass Normal if there had been a fourth episode.
Two characters from Raidou Kuzunoha vs. The Soulless Army. First, the obvious: Satake, leader of the local Yakuza gang. He beat up one of the game's heavily-armored Super Soldierswith his bare hands, only suffering some broken ribs. Second, the not-so-obvious: Raidou's perfectly un-supernatural employer, Shouhei Narumi. He somehow got to the end of a dungeon crawling with demons he can't see, and Super Soldiers that, while he could see them to fight, are heavily armored. And by the end, he was injured, but still standing and able to walk.
Kyle from Lunar: The Silver Star. He can't use the legendary Dragon Magic like The Hero Alex, use healing powers like his girlfriend Jessica, or rain down destructive magic like Mia or Nash, but give the man a sword, and he could singlehandedly cut down a thousand bandits/monsters/whoever forgot to pay their "protection fee" that day.
Miles Edgeworth counts, in the Ace Attorney protagonist department. Phoenix Wright has a secret detecting magatama, Apollo Justice is a living lie detector, and Edgeworth has...logic.
While in most Tales Games, magic is hinted at being quite normal and can be matched by the physical arte users, the only game in which this trope can exist is Tales Of Phantasia, and it counts for Cless, Chester, and to some extent Suzu. Magic is needed to defeat Dhaos, and Mint's magic is only healing so obviously, they have to get Arche and Klarth, who are rarities outside of elves in that they are able to use magic. (Klarth is one of the few humans who can use magic because he makes pacts with spirits, Arche is half-elf.) Cless, Chester, and Suzu are left to their own weapons and their own strengths, not being blessed with such power, but they do compensate for their powerful techniques, some of which border on magic. (As for Suzu, she learns her techniques through ninja scrolls which may be counted as magic).
Special mention on Chester - in the original game, he takes things out simply with his bow and arrow. He needs no technique.
In the game's prequel where magic is limited to those with elven blood, angels, or the chosen, Sheena has hinted that she, Regal (And maybe Zelos despite being a chosen) have elven blood distantly because they use magic. But meanwhile Presea (despite being modded with expheres) is able to pull extremely heavy stuff with one hand despite being smaller than Genis and she and Lloyd are the only ones with no magic skills whatsoever.
Note: She's wrong. There's more than one type of magic: Standard magic (I.E. like Fire Ball), the Healing Artes (Encompasses most Light Magic as well- E.G. Photon, Ray, and oddly Divine Saber), Angel Skills (Angel Feathers, Holy Song, Judgment, etc.), and lastly, Summoning. Of those, only the first is true magic- and ONLY those with Elven Blood or have ingested the special ore Aionis can use it. Healing Artes use a different type of energy (the Chi that Regal uses is a subset of Healing Artes). Angel Skills are directly caused by use of a Cruxis Crystal. And summoning is something else entirely.
Also worth noting is Tales Of Rebirth's Milhaust Selkirk. He is the only Huma who doesn't have a Force, but he is still the highest ranking character amongst the Karegia Kingdom and makes other Force users bend to his will and order. That being said, he is also powerful enough to beat the crap out of Veigue (although he was mentally distraught that time). And when both duke it out in full force, Milhaust was beaten... but even Veigue admitted Milhaust held back and there's no telling what the outcome will be if Milhaust was serious.
Dragon Quarter has three main party members. One of which is an extreme rarity in that he bonded with a dragon, another of which was a girl with wings modded by surgery to make her into a walking air purifier, with magic. The third...is the leader of a rebellion with only her guns. Badass Normal Award of this game goes to Lin.
The short-lived series Loom implies Rusty being the most badass normal out of all the characters who were intended to be playable. (Bobbin is a weaver and thus able to use magic, Fleece is a shepherd who can sing magic like Bobbin's.) But since They Wasted a Perfectly Good Plot, we'll never know if he could have found a way to use magic or was just able to compensate by being a smith or able to make things to fight off the Dead and Chaos.
Ray from Disaster: Day of Crisis is this trope incarnate. This guy survives two volcano eruptions, an earthquake, two tsunamis, a flood, and a hurricane, and he still comes out smelling like roses, all while saving people and taking out countless mooks from an incredibly elite former elite special forces unit. God damn. And apparently he stops a meteor.
The Soldier, Engineer, and Infiltrator classes that Shepard can take in Mass Effect. The Soldier's only real "superpower" is that they have a number of implants and genetic modifications that improve their abilities in subtle ways (marginal increase in strength and cellular regeneration, reduced muscle degenerecy in zero gravity, etc.) which is pretty much standard across the setting for nearly every soldier. The Engineer, meanwhile, doesn't have access to the heavy weapons that a Soldier does, but makes up for it by having exceptional technical and medical knowledge, making them able to heal squadmates, repair damage, disable enemy shields and weapons, and so on. The Infiltrator is a specialist is sniping, and uses technical knowledge to disable enemy shields and weapons. In Mass Effect 2, the Soldier-class Shepard becomes a bit of a Badass Abnormal, as s/he gains access to Bullet Time powers, while the Engineer remains just a very skilled specialist in technology that can now shoot fire from his/her wrist-mounted omnitool, as wella s spam combat drones. The Infiltrator gains access to a very powerful Invisibility Cloak.
Several squadmates also count. Garrus Vakarian, Ashley Williams, and Tali from the first game, are essentially an Infiltrator, Soldier, and Engineer respectively. In the sequel, three other squadmates count as well. Mordin Solus' only real special ability on a ship laden with powerful biotics, genetically engineered supersoldiers, and hyperadvanced synthetic assassins is that he's a well-trained special forces operative and exceptionally-skilled scientist (who happens to have very powerful omnitool-based fire, cryo, and neurotoxin attacks). The two DLC characters, Zaeed Massani and Kasumi Goto, are also examples. Zaeed's only special ability is that he's one of the most experienced soldiers in the galaxy and a tough bastard who survived getting shot in the head. Kasumi, meanwhile, is a Classy Cat Burglar who is an expert at theivery and infiltration, and Assassin-like parkour skills and stealth.
First among them is Canderous. Mandalorians in general are great example of this trope. Canderous gets points here for showing up in both KOTOR games, and being probably the best damage sponge of the lot, especially if you upgrade his BFG or give him the biggest BFG you can scrounge. He's the only human(oid) of Exile's party that you can't cross class, and you don't NEED to.
Carth Onasi also counts, being a damn good soldier if chosen instead of Canderous or HK-47. Give him a double sided sword and the appropriate feats, and he kicks Dark Jedi ass!
While it may or may not be accidental, there are several hints in-game (being able to see/understand Ajunta Pall, incredibly strange luck, uncanny intuition) that Carth might be a closet-case Force Sensitive.
Jolee Lampshades the usefulness of the soldiers in his banter with Bastila.
Jolee: I want to stop Malak as much as anyone. But I don't have to join the Order to do it. Look at Carth, or Canderous. They're with us in this quest, but they aren't Jedi.
Star Wars: The Old Republic: There is the Bounty Hunter class, sure, but the Republic Trooper can go toe-to-toe with a Sith with melee weapons, and sometimes just his bare fists and a single grenade. Meanwhile, the Smuggler has even ''less' firepower, and even resorts to such things as kicking his opponent in the nuts.
Orgrim Doomhammer and Anduin Lothar, the leaders of the Horde and Alliance respectively in Warcraft II: the Tides of Darkness (and later retellings of the Second War). In a world war with dragons, undead sorcerer knights, paladins, ogres, magi, ogre-magi, submarines and countless other magical and technological weapons and persons of mass destruction, the Warchief and Grand Marshal still stand out as the two most dangerous beings present. Doomhammer gets additional props for being one of the few orc leaders who did not drink demon blood to gain super strength and Lothar gains extra props for being sixty.
In the following games, there's also Varian Wrynn, king of Stormwind, as well as rogues, warriors and hunters in general.
Among the playable classes in World of Warcraft, the warrior class certainly qualifies as they fight exclusively with physical weapons and have no notable magical abilities. Although rogues and hunters also fight exclusively with physical weapons, unlike warriors, they do possess other "magical" skills. Rogues are able to turn invisible at will, even mid-battle. Meanwhile, hunters can befriend and permanently tame a suprisingly wide variety of wild animals within a matter of seconds and are able to magically heal (and even resurrect from the dead) their animal companions from several feet away.
Some other characters that qualify would be both Saurfangs (and Brox, a relative, from the novels), Muradin Bronzebeard and pretty much every notable Nightelf character that neither used magic nor druidic/divine powers.
Also, Sig the Wastelander mercenary. When you can survive being taken down by a giant Metal Head centipede monster and appear in all future games, you qualify as a Badass Normal.
In SaGa Frontier 2, one of the two main characters, Gustav XIII, is an exiled prince who is incapable of channeling and using magic. This is significant because, in a world where people are so dependent on magic that they have to use wooden swords and armor to channel their energy for combative use, he conquers the known world by simply using iron equipment (which negate magic powers).
Resident Evil is packed with these. None of the protagonists have any special powers besides army training, and one (Claire) is just a college student. They bring Action Survivor to a whole new level.
Claire's badassness grows in CVX where she single-handedly breaks into an Umbrella base, outruns a chopper that's shooting up the hallway with a chaingun, and uses clever thinking to destroy an entire firing squad. The only reason she got captured was because she ran out of bullets. And this is from a 19 year old college girl.
Most of the villains tend to go One-Winged Angel; however, Nicholai from 3 is quite possibly the most badass Badass Normal in the series, walking through Raccoon City with just a hangun and knife, and surviving.
He's also the only human antagonist to survive the game he's in.
Hunk also count, being badass in mook clothing and all.
In keeping with the above, the survivors of Left 4 Dead count. 4 regular humans against a horde of zombies backed up by superp-powered sub-boss zombies.
While every person in Shadow Hearts has their own unique skills such as being trained in a specific art or being in possession of a magical camera that reveals enemy's stats, the first Shadow Hearts game gives Margarete, who is nothing more than a spy armed with a pistol and got a few weapons... even though quite a bit of them are "Given" to her as every time she uses a skill, she presses a button and says "Yeah I can use some help here".
Despite setting out to skewer every Silver Age trope going, it took until the sequel for the Freedom Force series to roll out some Badass Normals with the Wartime Heroes, capable of standing toe-to-toe with the worst Energy-X powered monstrosities Blitzkreig can devise.
Though Sky King uses a jetpack, body armour and chain guns, Blackjack gets by with a pistol and homemade bombs, and Tricolour has just a rapier. Not even body armour.
In Nexus War the Eternal Soldier's power come from being a Bad Ass; he compares favorably with angels, demons and powerful wizards.
Final Fantasy VI's General Leo is a highly accomplished swordsman, has the sweet "shock" ability, and he holds the same high position in the Empire that Kefka and Celes once did. And guess what, not only does he not have magical powers, but he refused the magitek infusion that would have given them to him!
Final Fantasy VI abolishes this trope with Leo, however. Leo is killed off, and after this everyone that's not a minor NPC can learn magic except sasquatches (and sasquatches are hardly normal!)
Viking Battle For Asgard has the main character leading one of these. Against whom you ask? The Queen of the Underworld and her Undead army, and they win.
In the Disgaea series, pick a human, any human (game play). The strongest example is Sapphire (both in and out of game play). Subverted with Adell, who thinks he's human (he's not).
Amy Rose has really grown into one of these after Sonic Adventure 2. She has become a very skilled fighter with her hammer.
In Starcraft, being Badass Normal is the hat of the Terrans.
Leliana of Dragon Age is the resident Badass Normal. The rest of the party consists of two Grey Wardens, two mages, a warhound, a Proud Warrior Race Guy explicitly stated to be stronger and tougher than any human, a dwarf (same qualifications), an elf trained from childhood by the deadliest order of assassins in the land, and a war golem. Leliana is an ordinary young woman whose training was about seduction and espionage rather than combat, and she can hold her own against any of her fellow party members.
Not to mention Shianni, one of the only elven alienage-dwellers aside from possibly the City Elf Warden who's completely unafraid of sticking up for her community. Her first Crowning Moment of Awesome is potentially bashing Bann Vaughan over the head with a bottle in one of the origins, and she gets another even bigger one if you let her fight alongside you when the darkspawn invade Denerim. She's definitely no Grey Warden, but man can she hold her own. She goes on to become the alienage elder, according to the game's epilogue.
The player character before undergoing the joining, is always an absolute badass, especially if their origin involves a Roaring Rampage of Revenge.
Nathanial Howe. Even before the joining it took four Grey Wardens to subdue him.
Rogue or Warrior Hawke, Aveline, and Carver in Dragon Age 2 are survivors of Ferelden's Redshirt Army, with relatively little military training. Aveline becomes Captain of the Kirkwall Guard, Carver either dies, becomes a Grey Warden, or rises to high rank among the Templars, and Hawke is Hawke.
Kairu from Black Sigil was born without magic in a land where everyone has magic. The entire party are also all Magic Knights. Despite all that, he still manages to be the most useful and the most powerful member of his group.
Invoked in the endings to Tatsunoko Vs Capcom: Ultimate All-Stars. Several of the Tatsunoko heroes are downright inspired by the Street Fighter characters and Batsu, for being able to hang with them in a fight through nothing but their training, and resolve to grow stronger themselves.
Let's not forget Frank West, a freelance journalist who is able to kick thousands of zombies' asses with only a camera (which is not even a weapon) in his hand from the start in Deadrising, and is able to swing things around crazy from the mart. Now that he is put into Tatsunoko Vs Capcom which is full of heroes with special martial arts or superpowers, hell, big credit for Frankie!!
Chris Redfield counts as one in Marvel Vs Capcom 3, He's able to hold his own against super mutants, robots, demons, and even gods with nothing more then military training, a bunch of time in the gym, and his own personal arsenal of weapons.
Haggar could qualify, too, since he can do all of the above through wrestling prowess alone.
And then there's Phoenix. No, not that Phoenix. The other Phoenix. Of the Wright variety. He doesn't have any training to rival the above, he's just the resident Iron Butt Monkey of his world, who happens to take whatever punishment he's delivered.
InSystem Shock 2, the player has military grade cybernetic augmenations (and is acctually in the military), but Dr. Marie Delacroix, whoes logs showing her one step ahead of the player with similar objectives can be found in various locations, lacks such implants or even military training, but seems to do rather well from said logs at least untill SHODAN feels she is no longer needed and leaves her to die.
A rival of MapleStory called Wonder King has the Gunner/Gunslinger class. In a game where even warriors and ninjas call upon magical powers, a Gunner's skills consist of acrobatic maneuvers and using a variety of different weapons. Examples include a gatling gun, a bazooka, and a missile launcher.
Leather Goddesses Of Phobos parodied this with plucky sidekick Trent (or Tiffany, depending on the path chosen by the player at the beginning) who wrestles alien threats on a hostile planet. Though his/her tragic demise is a Running Gag, he/she keeps returning due to toughness, persistence and bizarre luck.
BlazBlue gives us Bang Shishigami, a character who, in a game full characters with Lovecraftian Superpowers, Magical Super Weapons, or at the very least innate powers and abilites, has only hard work and training to thank for his own power. While he DOES possess one of the afformented magical superweapons, he doesn't know how to use it. Oh, and he's one of the best characters in the second game.
Although she is a squirrel girl, Makoto Nanaya also qualifies. She has no known Nox Nyctores or armagus, nor is she tapping into the power of the Boundary like Arakune or Litchi, nor is she using the power of science like Tager, nor is she one of the Six Heroes, yet she's very strong and capable in a fight. The only other character in the game that can claim all of this is the aforementioned Bang (who does have a Nox Nyctores but doesn't know how to use it).
Who is Travis Touchdown? Just some loser Otaku from Cali who's into masked wrestling and sword fighting who doesn't get the Infinity+1 Sword or Chosen One status: he just buys a Beam Katana off the internet. Not only that, he's broke and jobless. What's the first thing this stain on society's panties does? Kills the 11th highest ranking assassin for walking-around-money. What follows is a legendary slaughter of thousands of Mooks, along with such merits as; out-maneuvering Desert Eagles; fighting Superheroes; fighting up-hill against Special Ops; charging an earthquake generator; charging a Wave Motion Gun; fighting a couple Eldritch Abomination; piloting a Giant Mecha; charging another earthquake generator; flanking giant energy dragons; dodging .50 caliber sniper shots; taking down a Kill Sat; and jumping on top of a so-called "Travesty". All this and more from an Otaku who lives in a shoddy motel with nothing but a sword.
Touhou contains some of the most horrifically powerful beings imaginable, including-but-not-limited-to the creator and ruler of an entire demon world, a ghost that can kill anyone, a vampire that can annihilate anything, an oni that can create black holes and tear apart mountains with her bare hands, an ancient Reality Warper, a Judge of the Dead, two absolute immortals, a crow that wields nuclear fusion, and even a character with literal, actual, impervious Plot Armor. Then there is Marisa Kirisame, a young girl without any inherent skills or abilities and only managed to use magic after studying really hard (and stealing various magical books and artifacts), who has not only fought all of the above but commonly wins.
And in the PC-98 exclusive Phantasmagoria of Dim.Dream, we have Yumemi Okazaki, who doesn't even have that going for her; she comes from a world without magic, and relies on a scientific imitation. She's also the series's only human endboss, as of 13.
In Mortal Kombat, most of the characters have superpowers or cybernetic enhancements of some kind. The most glaring exception is Kurtis Striker, a cop whose fights demons and cyborgs with a billy club, a taser, some grenades, and a gun.
Katarina is one of the two manaless champions in the game who lacks any sort of magical weapon given to her, all of her abilities come from pure bloodthirsty violence which only grows when she takes down more enemy champions.
Toad from Super Mario Bros.. He's the only hero (unless you count Diddy Kong of Donkey Kong Country) in the entire series who isn't one of the star children.
Armored Core is a universe where giant robots are commonplace, but a notable thing about the gifted pilots known as Ravens is they are mostly cybernetically upgraded. Of all of the pilots, only you were not a Human Plus and in the end wind up as the Last Raven standing in the plot of Armored Core 3
Many NPCs in Rift, especially Defiant-side. Dacia Ultan especially stands out.
Or if he has something to throw. "Hey, guys. I just killed a Bronze Colossus, and you'll never guess how." He decapitated it with a thrown fluffy wambler.
Not to mention Kraden, a recurring fan favorite. Even if he has no combat capability or powers whatsoever, he will walk across monster-infested war zones and through trap-filled, monster-infested dungeons if there are some Adepts in need of plot exposition, and somehow he always makes it to his destination unscathed. In the fandom and to a lesser degree in-universe, he is a Memetic Badass for this.
Septerra Core has Maya and Corgan as these, oh so very much.
There are countless hazards, many magical in Lordran in Dark Souls. One of your most effective allies, among sorcerers and clerics, is Solaire of Astoria, who has no magic, he's just very good at fighting.
Souichirou Kuzuki from Fate/stay night is a normal man with no knowledge of the supernatural world and no magical abilities whatsoever, who still participates in the Holy Grail War. His position with his Servant is reversed, in that he fights while his Servant supports him with spells. With an enchantment on his fists and his own unconventional martial arts style, he manages to temporarily overwhelm Saber, the best close-range fighter, and rips out Rider's throat during his most prominent route.
Servant Assassin is a Badass Normal by the standards of the Servants. He has no famous name or legend and no Noble Phantasm. He never defeated armies or monsters (his 'legend' only consists of him losing to Miyamoto Musashi), knows no magic and has no beasts, armies or anything apart from his trusty no-dachi and his own finely-honed skill to call upon. Furthermore he turns out to be the result of a forbidden summon; he isn't a true heroic spirit at all, just the spirit of some nameless samurai called upon to fill the role of Sasaki Kojirou, who never existed here. He still manages to repel and almost defeat Saber twice and is sufficiently skilled to unnerve Lancer, and knows a sword technique on the level of an anti-personal Noble Phantasm.
The Trader Emergency Coalition of Sins of a Solar Empire. They didn't even have a proper military before the war, yet they can go toe to toe with The Advent and The Vasari with nothing more than converted civilian spacecraft, amongst which are a bulk Freighter and a cruise ship, by virtue of excessive armor plating, More Dakka, Macross Missile Massacres and sheer numbers.
Not to mention that their battleship, the Kol, which is explicitely the first true military ship in over 700 years. It is probably the best battleship amongst the three factions by virtue of sheer durablility.
In a world where various fireball-throwing, flying, mook-spawning, mook-reincarnating, rocket launcher- or minigun-enfused hellspawn are out to viciously murder you and all you hold dear, while fighting you in only the most malevolent and alien locales, it goes without saying that the hero from Doom, comparatively just a man with a lot of guns (disregarding that some of them are very large), would be this.
There are several in the Saints Row universe, but two deserve special mention. The first is Johnny Gat. While he was pretty badass in the first game, in the second this gets taken up to new levels. He punches a man's head through a tombstone, rips a sword out of his stomach and at one point ties up the whole of Stilwater's police department by himself with an AK. Saints Row The Third kills him off primarily to show how powerful the new gang is. The second is you. The Boss has taken out nine different gangs, a multinational corporation and an elite U.S Military organization nearly on his/her own and mows down hundreds if not thousands of gang members and police along the way, who on occasion are supported by helicopter gunships, jets and tanks. One of the endings of Saints Row The Third has him/her lead the Saints into taking over the city of Steelport and seceding it from the United States of America after sinking both a conventional and a flying aircraft carrier.
Also, 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. Please note, he's not actually super strong, or made of iron. He's just insanely good at punching.
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.
Jason Chesterfield of It's Walky! is about the only character who's an entirely 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 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.
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.
Girl Genius has a plethora of badass normals, but Airman Third Class Axel "The Unstoppable" Higgs takes the cake. 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 a Crowning Moment Of Awesome.
To expand, for those who don't want to look at the pretty pictures: He is awakened from a peaceful sleep (in a ship that had previously been hit by cannons) by the alarms set off by getting shot, rather than the shot itself. He then finds the crewmates he was summoned to assist were totally dead in the first place. He dual-wields wrenches to fight off the Sturmhalten-sewer-native monsters and finds an unconscious Baron von Wulfenbach. Then, while attempting to get the Baron to safety, he goes through the following: he encounters Bangladesh DuPree, who breaks his arm and who he knocks out, breaking her jaw in the process; MacGyvers an autopilot for the escape gig; gets his leg broken by DuPree; is bitten by her; lands in a farmer's pond; has his other arm broken by an angry swan; and is shot in the leg by soldiers who mistake him for a Revenant. His resolute disposition only breaks after he has had a great deal of rum, at which point he very agitatedly informs his maimers and rescuers just what he has been through in the process of rescuing these two.
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.
Ol' Man Death: No. Listen to me. I'm just a human. Rode with the Jägers. Never. Lost. A. Fight. Zeuxippe: Ah... Ol' Man Death: Yeah. "Ah." This old hat has become the stuff of legend.
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 repelling into and 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.
Unless we learn there's more to her parentage than human genes, Zeetha would also qualify.
"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 main cast of characters from Faans! 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.
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.
Dr. Tip Wilkins of Skin Horse. He's on a team with an unkillable zombie and a genetically engineered battle-dog. Yet he's the one with the CMoA's. 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.
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 take him out with nothing more than her trusty shotgun.
Tyler in PS238 is the only student in the school who doesn't have superpowers, and has to learn to be badass very quickly just to survive. Despite his unwillingness to be a superhero he's usually the one who winds up getting his powered collegues out of trouble.
His mentor and Batman Expy Revenant would also count, as he relies almost completely on wits and gadgets. Revenant mentions that other superheroes generally don't like Badass Normals because they feel the heroing should be left to the special people.
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.
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.
Walking on Broken Glass gives us Kennedy Parker, prior to the current arc she was just an informed Badass, due to the fact that an entire 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 to Eleven if it doesn't cooperate, which it currently is not, guess what the last two scenes of that page look like.
For the above I forgot to mention that she managed to pull off the barehanded Curb-Stomp Battle while a pack of transformed werewolves and a Squishy Wizard were having trouble fighting them, now can you honestly say someone like that doesn't belong here.
Toys
From BIONICLE: Mazeka is "just" a Matoran, but he can kick any ass he wants.
And lest we forget the person who is probably the most badass being in the whole Bionicle universe; Hydraxon. In fact, he was so badass, a new version of him was what the Mask of Life chose the Matoran Dekar to be transformed into.
Web Original
In The Gamers Alliance, several heroes and villains have no special or magical powers and yet they've shown their skills many times against stronger opponents.
Several staff members of the SCP Foundation are (with the marked exception of Dr. Clef) humans without paranormal abilities, but they can take down or capture dangerous abnormal objects, and in some cases kill Reality Warpers.
Tech Infantry is a world with vampires, mages, werewolves, and eight-foot insectoid alien killing machines, and yet Erich von Shrakenberg, Icarus Hicks, James Welthammer, and the entire personnel of Earth Fleet and the Light Infantry manage to hold their own.
The forum RP Insane Cafe 3: The Curse of the Haunted Hotel has a a group of characters known as the "Pelvanida Group". They are a group of scientists and soldiers who kill an entire group of very powerful mages with nothing more than a shitload of guns and explosives.
Sensei Tetsuo Ito, martial arts instructor at Whateley Academy in the Whateley Universe. A little old man, he starts every term's aikido classes by picking the most dangerous mutant in the room and demonstrating that he can kick said mutant's ass.
In Darwin's Soldiers, the nonpowered heroes (villians) usually put up a decent fight against the augmented villians (heroes). They sometimes win.
Any analytical player with the Villager role in Comic Fury Werewolf arguably counts. If they catch the Werewolves, they almost certainly do. If they consistently catch the Werewolves, they definitely do.
As such, Ranger used to be one, but later lost his touch.
Marvels RPG has rules for making your character one of these.
Sokka is the only non-bender of the main group. Despite his near-uselessness in battle and lack of spirituality (and role as the comic relief), as the show progresses, we see his engineering and strategy prowess improve to the point where he is openly labeled as the "idea guy" of the team. More recently, his inferiority in combat spurred him to seek out training in that area, plus he acquired a unique sword, making him even more badass despite the fact that he is still inherently normal.
Also, he took down Combustion Man, a Determinator so mean that the Bender part of the team could barely slow him down.
Early in the second season, we are also introduced to Mai, an elegantshuriken specialist, and Ty Lee, a Kyusho Jitsu user and acrobat/gymnast, both non-bending Dark Action Girls. Both have been able to take down elite fighters and even the main characters with little difficulty numerous times.
There is also the Lady of War Suki, who kicks all kinds of ass even without weapons or bending powers. She gets Charles Atlas Superpower, though.
Of the Order of the White Lotus members who we see fight, only one is a non-bender, Piandao, who, not so incidentally, is the one who gave Sokka his training, and more than holds his own. To reiterate: a foot soldier in the Fire Nation achieved the rank of swordsmaster, then retired—and successfully resisted all attempts to unretire him. A force of 100 soldiers was sent after him. He sent them all back.
When you think about it, pretty much any non-bender who wants to be taken seriously in this world needs to be this trope, because in a world where people can shoot fire out of their freaking hands, it must take a lot to get noticed.
Considering how tiny the Southern Water Tribe is, and that they lack waterbenders, it's quite something that Hakoda's group survived for over two years to mount an attack with Team Avatar on the Day of Black Sun. The Chief seems to be a very smart and respected Badass Normal himself.
A curious example is the Blue Spirit, who is able to bypass and defeat dozens of Fire Nation troops without using any bending at all. The curious part is that the Blue Spirit is actually Zuko, who simply isn't using any firebending while in the Blue Spirit disguise to hide his identity.
If Zuko counts whenever he deliberately chooses to use his swords to fight instead of his firebending, then Azula during DOBS, when she is incapable of firebending, most certainly does. She uses She Fu that rivals Ty Lee's skills to dance just out of attack range, and pulls one of Mai's knife out of her sleeve too smoothly to suggest she doesn't know how to throw it accurately enough to take out Sokka had Toph not pinned her first.
There's even Badass Normalmooks in the form of the Yu Yan Archers. These guys actually managed to capture Aang by themselves, with nothing but their own impressive archery skills.
Speaking of archers, Longshot is pretty Badass Normal. Actually, all of the Freedom Fighters can be considered this.
Especially Jet. Yes, he's a well-intentioned extremist, but he's incredibly skilled with his Twin Tiger hookswords, to the point where he can defeat an (admittedly in-training) Avatar. If Katara hadn't gotten involved, Jet would have won. He's smart, he's cocky, he can hold his own against powerful benders, and he gives us one of the best fight scenes in the entire show (a personal favorite of Mike and Bryan's) when he has a hooksword vs. double broadsword battle with an incognito Zuko. We still don't know who would have won if the Dai Li hadn't interfered.
Get Ed has Ol' Skool, the old Mentor of the main group of heroes. Every other character has high tech Hoverboards, Jetboots, Jetpacks, etc. and top-of-the-line protective gear to use. Ol' Skool has a conventional skateboard & a simple construction helmet. With just these things he is able to outrace pretty much anything in the series without getting hurt or breaking a sweat.
Monster Allergy has Elena Potato even though she only has the Sight Dom.
Winx Club: whether or not the Specialists fit under this trope seems to depend on the plot.
WITCH: Caleb never has any more powers than your basic fit young man, yet he somehow is just as effective in a fight as the main girls who, kinda, control the essence of the five elements! By the end of the second series, even Will's pet dormouse has more powers than him, and he still manages to hold his own in a fight. If that isn't badass, nothing is.
Hell, Caleb is sometimes more effective than all of the main girls put together. That'sBad Ass.
In the first season, Will more or less is a Badass Normal, as her powers hold no use in battle, unlike in the comic. So the writers have to improvise, giving her what nonmagical actions she needs to fight the bad guys. However, in the second season, once she gains the power of Quintessence, she no longer fits this trope.
Robin from Teen Titans, though it frequently escalates into the Charles Atlas Superpower level. Slade is a villainous Badass Normal, except in the fourth season where an intergalactic demon resurrects him and grants him fire powers, removing the "normal" - until his powers are removed again, and he returns to Badass Normal status by killing a flaming-axe-wielding guardian of the underworld with nothing but tactics and martial arts.
There's an episode where he takes down the rest of the team just by being Crazy Prepared, Batman would've approved.
Hobgoblin in Spider-Man: The Animated Series. In this universe, he predates the Green Goblin, and while his weapons came from Norman Osborn there was no strength-enhancing formula involved. Unfortunately for him, when the Green Goblin does turn up, he's at least as strong as the comics version.
Justice League Unlimited made sure the normals were all badass in their own way. Though it was a sore spot for Wildcat, believing that just with no superpowers besides being an excellent fighter made him obsolete in the League. He even said that while Black Canary was mostly a Badass Normal fighter, the fact she had the canary cry sonic scream made her much more useful to the team.
Another notable one is The Question, who is often nearly as many mental steps ahead of everyone as Batman. He's a consistently paranoid conspiracy theorist, but he lives in a world where conspiracies are a lot more likely.
Note that all his theories that were actually put to the test on-screen turned out to be right. He's 3-for-3 so far, who's to say he's wrong about the rest?
He's also right that Baskin Robbins had a secret 32nd flavor. The significance of this isn't quite clear.
...Yet.
In the episode "Tabula Rasa" of Justice League, the Justice League battle Amazo, an android with the ability to copy any superpower. He defeats the Justice League one by one. Possessing Superman's powers, he turns to Batman to scan him:
Amazo: You don't have any special powers. Batman: I have this. (pulls out kryptonite) It's a package deal. You get our strengths; you get our weaknesses.
In the episode "Patriot Act", a tribute to the Seven Soldiers of Victory, and Badass Normals in general.
"Panic in the Sky", too, where not only do three of the League's badass normals take out at least five clones, including a super-sized Apache Chief wannabe, but the Watchtower staff fights a T. rex. The jury's out on whether or not they survived that, but the mere fact that they tried is badass incarnate.
"Taskforce X" uses this trope to help make the Villain Protagonists of the episode more sympathetic. Even if they are evil, watching four normal people (with a fifth as mission control) infiltrate the Watchtower and make off with a giant magical suit of armour is still sort of cool.
Speaking of which: Rick Flag, asskicker extraordinaire. Of the four members, three carry weapons. Flag does not. When questioned about this, the simple explanation is "he doesn't need a weapon." He more than lives up to that hype.
Special mention needs to be given to the head of Cadmus Amanda Waller. Not only is she able to intimidate Batman, she has absolutely no combat training, and yet still goes up against Brainthor along with the original seven with nothing but a handgun, even pulling a brief Back-to-Back Badasses with Green Lantern.
Band manager Charles Foster Ofdensen of Metalocalypse, who can kick the ass of a man twice his size and be thrown from a top story window and land like a cat. He also runs the seventh largest financial empire in the world.
Transformers Animated: Captain Fanzone gets an honorable mention here for managing to hold off one of Meltdown's mutated monstrosities by himself (while the other one gave the robot ninja trouble). Despite his trouble with technology and usual Butt Monkey status, he's still a brave and competent police chief who doesn't let his early prejudice against the Autobots get in the way of upholding the law.
And on the organophobic Cybertron he's perceived as a walking bioterrorism weapon, something he puts to good use to interrogate a robot four times his size.
Mighty Max and his allies Virgil and Norman all count, as they often had to defeat super-powered villains while possessing no actual powers of their own aside from Norman's great strength and swordfighting skills.
Although Norman is a LOT older than he looks and is immortal (but not invulnerable), so whether or not he qualifies as normal is debatable.
Jackie from Jackie Chan Adventures. He pulls off many stunts including the classic Improvised Weapons and a great deal of other things that would be impossible if he weren't a cartoon character. He also doesn't use the magic on the show as much as other characters, using his own skills instead. Lampshaded by Ratso when Chan ran back up a train as it was falling off a cliff.
"No way he's human."
Uncle, Tohru, Viper, El Toro, Valmont and Chi Fu also have moments of badass normalcy.
No love for Captain Black? He gets bonus points for being the show's resident skeptic.
Jake's Dad in American Dragon Jake Long is this. Jake is a dragon, Rose is a born dragon hunter Action Girl, Spudis the embodiment of a Genius Ditz, and Trixie just has street smarts. Jake's Dad is a Cougar Scout, has extreme parent insticts, and that's it. However, he unknowingly defeated the Jersey Devil with a trombone and a can of bear spray. He also held his own against Bad Ass dragon blood drinking vampires for over four minutes with his bare hands in the episode, "Bite Father, Bite Son". During the final episode, he used a vase to kill an army of demons. Pretty good, considering he did it without knowing his son was a dragon (except the last one of course and even then he had just learned). All the above had powers, he didn't.
Arguably, the Huntsclan considered themselves normals.
Elisa Maza in Gargoyles. She can't fly, break rocks with her fingers, zap things, or even have access to high technology like practically everybody else, but all she needs is her handgun, a running start, and an attitude to help take down characters with far more advantages than she has. Sure, she loses quite often, but then so does pretty much everybody.
Macbeth nearly qualifies as he is able to deal with the gargoyles even without his suit on some occasions. (But being unkillable kinda renders him out of the running for this trope.) But probably the best example is King Arthur Pendragon, who manages to defeat Macbeth with his powered suit in outright combat one on one, something Goliath was never able to do despite his physical advantage. Note that he did this without Excalibur, just an ordinary mace.
In WildCATs Grifter is the only member of the team who is full-blooded human, while the rest have superpowers due to being descendants or full-blooded members of an ancient alien super-race. His only powers are trickiness, good aim, and general badassery.
In the original comic, Grifter was a member of Team 7, and all of Team 7 were experimental super soldiers with super abilities. The powers seemed to not be used much later, except for Backlash.
One episode made fun of this trope. It featured Darkwing going to a planet where everybody had superpowers except for one normal guy. As he is one himself, he is told to take on the role of the normal guy. Normal Guy eventually shows up and builds a machine to steal everyone else's superpowers.
Silver Sable and Black Cat are both examples of this from The Spectacular Spider-Man. Tombstone is possibly an example- he is never explicitly stated to have superstrength, but he is shown to be able to trounce Spider-man effortlessly when taking the latter by surprise, and be a match for him even a straight fight. Hammerhead is a partial example- he mostly relies on his strength and skill at brawling, but uses his steel-plated skull to absorb any punishment a normal man couldn't take. The Enforcers also qualify in their first appearance, though later they get upgraded with Powered Armor. Kraven was one, but has now acquired superpowers.
Red Witch's fanfic "Tangled Web" uses this to great effect. In the fight against the Black Rose, The Dragon factored in bionics, psionics, and biodefenses...only to have the hacker hand him his ass.
There's also Ambadassador Zozo. He's from a race of Hobbits, stands about a meter high, very cheerful, looks utterly harmless...but he's wicked fast, a great shot, and very sneaky.
Danny Phantom. In a World where ghosts roam every corner, nearly all the ghost hunters shown are incompetent... except Valerie Gray who stands out among them as a normal gal packing (anti-ghost) heat. Sam Manson gets a few of these moments throughout the series as well, but not Tucker. He's more of the Action Survivor.
Danny's mom probably qualifies. And she does it without breaking her matronly demeanor! Jazz has also proven curiously capable at piloting her dad's powered armor, so it must run in the estrogen.
Even Jack has his moments. He defeated Plasmius to save his family in "Million Dollar Ghost" and saved Danny from Skulker in "Girls' Night Out".
Terry McGinnis in Batman Beyond. Yes, he has the suit. But he has taken on explicitly superpowered villains without it, including psychics, shapeshifters, aliens, and mix-and-match creatures, even when he is at a distinct disadvantage. And won. He, armed only with one of his mentor's utility belts, also went up against his own suit when it was taken over by a rogue AI. He won that, too.
Hell, it's been stated in series that Terry is a better Batman than Bruce.
Special Agent Fowler from Transformers Prime, who can last a few minutes on Soundwave in a fight with just a helicopter, and who survived being tortured repeatedly with an energon-powered transformer-sized cattle prod and still had enough badass in him to mouth off to his torturer.
In Freakazoid!, Cosgrove is so Badass Normal that all he has to do is point and say "Hey, cut it out!" to stop someone, from a burglar to a pterodactyl to the Warner siblings*
in a crossover comic
.
In the final episode, we find out that Norm Abram, host of The New Yankee Workshop, is also this, holding his own against Freakazoid's Rogues Gallery. Not that Freakazoid minded.
Lt. Dwayne Hunter in Big Guy And Rusty The Boy Robot proves his military skills in Double-Time part one, rigging up a pair of Arm Cannons powered by an Iron Man style chest piece in an abandoned mechanics shop to take out four Seek and Destroy scouts from Legion Ex Machina after the Big Guy suit has been heavily damaged.
Xiaolin Showdown brings us self proclaimed boy genius Jack Spicer, who is generally too incompetent to be holding a lot of the show's MacGuffins, too lazy to learn physics bending Xiaolin arts or Heylin sorcery, and about as fit as you'd expect from someone who travels exclusively by helicopter backpack. Now -WHO- actually ends up taking over the world in the alternate future?.
Kim Possible. Especially during So The Drama and any time she fights someone with superpowers, such as her generally mopping the floor with Team Go in Stop Team Go, her fight against Team Impossible in the episode of the same name, and she even goes toe to toe with an Eldritch Abomination for a few seconds before he kicked his magic in on her.
Megan from the original My Little Pony is just a normal preteen girl, surrounded by magical talking Ponies and other fantasy creatures. She's surprisingly resilient, especially in the Pilot where she fights a giant dragon with her bare-hands. Earth Ponies also typically count.
Six. In a world of Nanite-created EVO monsters he's just an ordinary human, but with his ninja skills and Magna-Blades he's able to hold his own against them all, even briefly fending off the Big Bad, Van Kleiss, along with his Pack.
The KND are a paramilitary organizating entirely of kids, who fight villians who either have superpowers, or use technology that's to be considered alot more advanced (or at least more sophisticated) when compared to the KND's 2x4 technology. While the KND, on the other hand, use strictly military training and the aforementioned 2x4 tech when engaging in combat.
Applejack from My Little Pony Friendship Is Magic, despite not having any magical or reality-bending talents, can keep up with the rest of the Mane 6 and often surpasses them with her physical prowess, ropesmanship, and herding skills that she gained through pure hard work and practice.
Earth ponies in general can qualify. Pegasus ponies can fly and control the weather, and unicorn ponies can use magic. Earth ponies? Well, it's strongly implied in the series (and directly confirmed by Word Of God) that Earth ponies are better than all the others at growing crops and dealing with animals. (though there are exceptions, of course)
