Future Badass - Television Tropes & Idioms

Even stuffed toys will be badass in the future.

Ron: Why is everyone in the future so ripped?

Wade: Fighting an evil dictator will do that to you.

—Kim Possible: A Sitch In Time.

So never kick a dog, because it's just a pup -

You'd better run for cover when the pup grows up!

—Les Miserables (musical), "Little People"

The Bad Future has happened, meaning the Evil Overlord has won, it's The End Of The World As We Know It and they are unquestionably in charge and making questionable fashion choices. There is hope in this bleak Dystopia however; some brave people have formed La Resistance. Notably, these include most of the former Sidekicks, the Plucky Comic Relief, and even The Scrappy, with an occasional "main" character survivor; basically everyone you'd expect to be a loser in the future. But they're not the same characters we knew and loved (or hated), they're Darker And Edgier. It seems living under an iron fisted despot is a great personal motivator to get buff, and all those bombed out HotTopic stores are just begging to be used by actual punk freedom fighters. Effectively everyone's gotten a Badass Makeover and turned into fashionably scarred, goatee-sporting, longcoat-wearing, Shell Shocked Seniors and Genius Bruisers.

Even the mousiest, ditzyiest, flabbiest, slacker-iest characters straighten out and become deadly serious professionals. Even if we grow to like these new interpretations of the same characters more than the originals, the status quo and attachment for the originals is sure to undo this harsh future. At the very least it becomes somewhat ominous to know that, under the right (or wrong) circumstances the lovable Woobie can become a cold killing machine. They might make a future reappearance (if the future gets unfixed again) or return in the much more disturbing event that the character suffers a Heroic BSOD, or worse, gets pushed too far.

If they're lucky, the reappearance of the hero can set things right before the Big Bad is too entrenched to be removed. In some cases it can be All Just A Dream, a Time Travel made Alternate Universe, or a Mirror Universe with a tiny difference.

See also Future Me Scares Me, Bad Future. Compare with Ridiculously Successful Future Self.

Examples:

Anime and Manga

Tengen Toppa Gurren Lagann seems to begin with Simon leading the Dai-Gurren Brigade through a war with all the stars in the heavens which is theorized to be what would have happened if the Anti-Spirals won. This Simon, while similar in appearance, is a lot cockier and violent then his kinder canon self.
Tsukihime: According to several released small stories, in the future Tohno[/Nanaya] Shiki will become the Dead Apostle-slaying assassin Satsujinki, who has surpassed his past limits. One such story begins with him wiping out one of the 27 Dead Apostles, without him even noticing he was dead until it was far too late.
Katekyo Hitman Reborn: Most notably Lambo, going from crybaby incompetent toddler to crybaby slightly more-competent bishonen in 10 years, and turning into an overpowered beefy stud in 20 years.
- Yes. Lambo and... everyone else.
Dragonball Z's Android Saga features Future Trunks, who wiped out both Frieza and his father King Cold, who up until that time were considered the supreme Big Bads of the universe, on his first appearance. He traveled through time to get Goku and the gang ready to fight the Androids, which had all but destroyed the Earth in Trunks's future, as well as give Goku the cure for the heart disease that he got back on Planet Yadrat, which had killed him in Trunks's timeline before the Androids arrived. Note that "normal" Trunks only shows up after this, ironically turning out to be mostly useless in a fight and having horrible taste in clothing.
- Then again, Future Trunks himself turned out to be mostly useless in a fight past his introduction.
Noein had the Dragon Knights Karasu and Fukuro as Future Badasses for Yuu and Isami respectively. Karasu got into fights with almost all the other Dragon Knights, and became a Determinator, singlehandidly invading Shangri'la the timespace that had nearly destroyed La'Cryma to rescue Yuu(then Haruka) from Noein.
Shirou Emiya of Fate/stay night turns into the man they created the word "GAR" for.
- Also from Nasuverse - Waver Velvet, the Naive Newcomer in Fate/Zero, who eventually grows up to become Lord El-Melloi II, the man who dismantled the Fuyuki Grail after Fate/stay night.
Tekkaman Blade has Aki Kisaragi, who for the first season serves as the supportive figure of Takaya aka D-Boy, and eventually his Love Interest, who sometimes DO help him fight in piloting the not-quite-so-powerful ship. In the second season, after several years of Time Skip, she became a Tekkaman herself, and while lacking natural Tekkaman powers like flight or Voltekka, she still manages to be a Badass fighter on her own, and goes on tutoring Tekkamen blessed with natural Tekkaman powers.
The Melancholy of Suzumiya Haruhi has Asahina Mikuru's future self. She's clearly more self-confident, wiser (and bustier) than her present self, not to mention that she's actually her own superior.
The ending of Mahoromatic has the main character become this, much to the consternation of many fans.
Reversed, somewhat, in Violinist Of Hameln with Clari Net. Clari has yet to demonstrate any real prowess—only talk—when Trom and Flute come across a mirror that shows the past, and a scene with a pathetic-looking crying boy. The end of the flashback reveals the boy to be Clari. Cue adult!Clari taking out an army of dragons. Singlehandedly.
While the cast of Getter Robo were already supreme badasses, the After The End OVA Armageddon has the characters appear older and more rugged than before and ditch the old Space Clothes in favour of something more badass. Most notable is Ryoma, who gains a huge red Scarf Of Ass Kicking, a Badass Longcoat, chain belt and hand wrappings, and his sideburns go from "huge" to "have their own gravitational field."
In Psyren, the Elmore Wood kids, after dying repeatedly in the future, come back with a vengeance, all kicking ass and taking names.

Comic Books

The X-Men story "Days of Future Past" had several of these, starting with Kitty Pryde—who is now called "Katherine", thank you.
- Also Bishop. And Cable. And everyone from the "Age Of Apocalypse" arc. Marvel really likes this trope.
In a 2004 arc in the Teen Titans comic, the Titans get warped to a Bad Future where the Justice League have all died and been replaced by their sidekicks, who are now uniformly deadly vigilantes: Robin has become Batman (and now uses a gun), Superboy has become Superman (and has no compunctions about ripping peoples' arms off), Beast Boy is the feral Animal Man, and so on. And they're all working for Lex Luthor. Overlaps with Future Me Scares Me.
Three Ultimate Marvel-examples, In a recent X-Men/FF crossover, future Cyclops lost his powers, but is still badass enough to be the new, 616-esque Captain America. Future Shadowcat (still caled Kitty though) develops the ability to become super-dense in addition to her intangibility, which allows her to bitch-slap Ben Grimm around; also, she has a copy of Spiderman's web-slingers. In another, earlier UXM-arc, future Wolverine lost his Healing Factor and an arm, no less, which forced him to become even more badass as a result - Ultimate Cable, Mo Fugga.
Seemingly normal high school student Victor joined the cast of Runaways after Gert came back from the future to warn the kids that he would someday kill every super hero on the planet. And not only was Future!Gert leading the Avengers, but she looked so different that the fifteen-year-old Gert didn't recognize herself.
A late arc of Impulse called "Dark Tomorrow" had Bart and his present-day then-girlfriend Carol transported to the 30th century after Bart's mentor Max Merucry "died." They discover that their future selves, living in a very Bad Future run by Bart's evil grampa, are quite Badass... and also fighting on opposite sides, with Carol working for President Thawne. Even though he's on the good side, Future!Bart is much more savage than the kid we all know and love.

Film

Future John Connor in the Terminator franchise is referred to as a brilliant, Bad Ass military leader of the human resistance. The fourth film shows him in action. He's being played by Christian "Batman" Bale...
- Kyle Reese in the first film. Among other things, he makes pipe bombs out of mothballs and a few other sundry household items. Bad. Ass.

Literature

One of the Animorphs books concerned Jake waking up in the future, where all his friends were battle-scarred screw-ups.

Live Action TV

When Cordelia wished an Alternate Universe into being in Buffy The Vampire Slayer, random classmates and Giles are forced to fight the vampires sans Slayer. Xander and Willow get a Gothic Punk makeover as The Dragons of the Big Bad. Even Buffy is scarred.
- Willow's creepy alternate was also alluded to when she snapped following Tara's death, using the alternate's creepy "Bored now." line, with the same delivery, right before using her powers to flay Warren, Tara's killer, alive.
Heroes has its own alternate future, with various side-switching and bad-ass-ifications. The most jarring one is Hiro, who goes from scruffy-looking, broken-English-speaking comicbook nerd to Badass Longcoat-wearing, hair-slicked-back, contemplative-yet-badass street samurai. And is pissed about it.
- What's really amusing about Badass!Hiro is that he's so exactly what Original!Hiro would have thought of as a Badass—it's unclear that he did it consciously, but he's the perfect incarnation of what Original!Hiro wanted to be. And is pissed about it nonetheless.
- This was actually requested by the actor as a nod to Future Trunks from DBZ.
- Let's not forget about mild mannered Peter Petrelli either, who turns into a jaded, bitter Badass Longcoat with a huge scary scar and "hasn't had a good fight in years."
- Claire Bennett gets this in Season 3, with a large helping of Face Heel Turn or Knights Templar
- Humorously inverted in Season 3 with Sylar, who ends up the only person in the Dark Future version 2.0 who's pleasant, well-adjusted, and not wearing black leather.
  - At least until his son gets killed, at which point he promptly goes nuclear.
Sideways Buffy The Vampire Slayer example: the Slayer's Handbook supplement to the RPG describes an alternate setting called Hellworld, in which Glory's portal wasn't closed, unleashing a demonic apocalypse on Earth. One of the last remaining enclaves of humanity is defended by a group of grizzled demon fighters led by a horrifically scarred, nearly psychotic Alexander 'Call me Xander and die' Harris.
- In the same scenario, there are rumours filtering in from the wasteland about someone called "Ripper" who hunts down demons with a combination of magic and mundane weapons...
This happened in It's a Very Muppet Christmas Story. During their Its A Wonderful Life segment, Beaker — normally Dr. Bunsen Honeydew's hapless assistant — is a buffed bouncer. With a tattoo.
A lot of people couldn't stand Captain Kathryn Janeway's moralistic hand-wringing and rule stickling in Star Trek Voyager. Her alternate future counterpart, Admiral Kathryn Janeway stomped the rule book and then blasted it with a torpedo for good measure. She willingly violated all kind of regulations and swindled the Klingons; and then laughed it off. Badass Grandma if there ever was one.
Trance from Andromeda actually switched places with her future badass self in one episode. The change was permanent, but we also got a brief look at badass future Becca.
Supernatural: In the Season 5 episode "The End," which is one giant homage to 28 Days Later (though also a great episode in its own right), Dean has become even more badass and left all of his Woobie-ness behind (and he's highly reminiscent of Major Henry West, Christopher Eccleston's character in 28DL), and Sam is possessed by Lucifer. Slightly inverted in that Castiel has become a relaxed, stoned hippie/love guru, but even that is just a cover for his transformation into a Nietzche Wannabe.
An interesting twist on this in Stargate SG-1, the episode Moebius. Although it was really an alternate timeline, when the Different Timeline!SG-1 encounters Regular Timeline!Daniel, it's implied that they see him sort of as a Future Badass, since in their world, SG-1 had never existed and Daniel was somewhat of a wimp. But for the audience, that's Daniel as we know him, so we're not surprised.

Tabletop Games

Critical Shifts brought about by bad guys in Feng Shui are the game's version of the Bad Future. Usually, people who the characters have met do much the same thing they did in the original timeline, but sometimes, the people go through changes as a result of the timeline. In one fan-written Feng Shui adventure, a Distressed Damsel that the PCs rescued from a Serial Killer in a previous adventure goes Sarah Connor as a result of a Critical Shift where the demons of the Underworld have overrun the mortal world and leads La Resistance against the demons.
This troper fondly recalls a Dragon Magazine Forum letter from a DM who'd cured his players of wanting to switch to an Evil campaign with this trope. Sent to a parallel world, the P Cs found that the goblinoids had taken over the planet using sci-fi technology, the good-guy demihumans were virtually extinct, and the Future Badass versions of the players' own retired P Cs were practically the only heroes left outside of a graveyard. A few sessions of living like fugitives (and fleeing from monster-race adventurers!) convinced them that's what they were really looking for in a campaign, not Evil player characters per se.

Video Games

In Pokemon Mystery Dungeon: Explorers of Darkness/Time, the player character, as a human, was a future badass! And to up the ante, his or her partner in the future was GROVYLE.
In Fire Emblem: Genealogy of the Holy War, a tragedy occurs in the first half of the game. Fast forward 17 years later, two former Tagalong Kids eventually evolve into two Badasses:
- Shanan, who was formerly Ayra's Morality Pet and even started out as a James Bondage, evolved into an ass-kicking Sword Master, and when combined with the Balmunk Sword, which grants him crazy dodge rates... he's one of the game's Game Breaker.
- Oifaye, though his significance wasn't as big as Shanan and was even given the Jeigan Character position, manages to hold on his own, protecting Celice through years of hardships, eventually creating a sub-section of a Non-Useless Jeigan: The Oifayes.
City Of Heroes has a few examples. The final goal of Operation: DESTINY is to prevent your villain from turning into a Future Badass capable of taking down both the Freedom Phalanx and Arachnos single-handedly (as killing Lord Recluse in this future literally costs your right arm). Mender Silos may be another example, what violating the underlying laws governing time travel and generally being an mysterious benefactor with hidden, layered plots, and certainly commanding a more impressive set of capabilities and army than that modern-day brozned poser Lord Nemesis.
The Legend of Zelda: Ocarina of Time is an example of this, with emphasis on Link, Zelda, and the Sages.
Chrono Trigger inverts this with Magus (also known as Janus back in his own past). A full arc after crossing blades with the Fiendlord, you come upon a Creepy Child who informs you that one of your own (Crono) will die. It's after the Kingdom of Zeal crumbles that Magus lets them know of his past, and the party makes the connection at that point; a savvy player should see this much sooner.
Edward, yes that Edward, in Final Fantasy IV: The After Years.
"I am the white void. I am the cold steel. I Am the just sword. With blade in hand shall I reap the sins of this world, and cleanse it in the fires of destruction! I am Hakumen! The end has come!" — A major improvement over his previous life as the Ambiguously Gay Yandere. Jin Kisaragi.

Western Animation

Interesting variation in the Teen Titans series- in the episode "How Long is Forever?" Starfire is pulled into a future where the Titans broke up after she vanished. While Cyborg is reduced to living in the ruins of Titan tower attached to a crude power generator, Beast Boy has locked himself into a cage at a freak show and Raven appears to have lost her mind, Robin on the other hand has become Nightwing.
The Made For TV Movie of Dexters Laboratory, Ego Trip. In the dystopian future version of himself, he comes to resemble his hero Action Hank: big brawny, and bearded, and his Mad Scientist pseudo-Germanic accent is replaced by an Arnold impression.
- This trope is also averted in Dexter's other two future versions, a wimpy office drone and a hilarious old man.
Kim Possible's three-parter "A Sitch in Time" (that's spelled right): When Shego uses the Tempus Simia (time monkey) to take over the world, all of Kim's allies, her little brothers, Wade, Monique, and a gaggle of ripped Rufus clones, become buff freedom fighters. Ron even references the trope, as above. Doctor Drakken also benefits from it.
Re Boot had this happen twice to Enzo. First in the episode where Dot is given a "Its A Wonderful Life" vision of what the future would be like without her, and Enzo is a bitter, scarred, leather wearing teen badass, and then later in season 3 when the show went Darker And Edgier, they had Enzo develop into the fully grown, bitter, scarred, leather wearing badass Matrix.
- Re Boot also put this trope wonderfully in its place when they brought Young Enzo back to exist alongside Matrix (the system got rebooted, okay?) — at first Enzo is extremely envious of his older self, who is indeed a leather wearing badass with a hot girlfriend. He tries to act more like Matrix, only to discover that the horrors Matrix went through that drove him to become that way have left him emotionally wrecked and fairly miserable. The episode ends not only with Enzo resolving to just stick with being a happy-go-lucky innocent, but with Matrix deciding that he needs to be more like Enzo.
In The Fairly Odd Parents Made For TV Movie, the beginning shows Timmy's geeky friends Chester and AJ as buff adults, fighting against a bunch of Mooks. Later, Timmy's Bad Ass future self also shows up.
An episode of Godzilla: The (Animated) Series had the protagonist travel to the doomed future, meeting (among others) a Bad Ass Mendel and his war-N.I.G.E.L.
An episode of Ben 10 has Ben and Gwen meet their future, adult selves. In the future, Ben has mastered the Omnitrix and become a Jerkass who dislikes receiving help from others (well, moreso), and Gwen has become proficient in magic spells.
- A follow-up episode shows the future, adult version of Ben's Evil Counterpart nemesis Kevin 11, who has grown up from what was essentially a short-tempered, mutated bully into a truly deadly DNA-absorbing sociopath somewhat akin to a cross between Sylar and Naraku.
  - Although, like many of the examples on this page, it never comes to happen according to Alien Force.
An episode of Samurai Jack ended with a guardian who had just spared Jack's life looking into a time portal, seeing Jack's future self and saying "Not yet Samurai. Not yet." Make note that Jack is already a Badass dwelling in the future. Alas the image never came to fruition, as the series was cancelled.
- And here's the image◊.
Gargoyles applied this trope in the episode "Future Tense," with Brooklyn and Alexander "Fox" Xanatos as the Future Badasses (Brooklyn even managed to hook up with Demona), and Lexington as the secret Big Bad.
Xiaolin Showdown had a rare villainous exemple, by having Omi travel to the future via self-imposed cryogenics, only to discover that Jack Spicer, of all people, had conquered the world, imprisonned the rest of the Xiaolin monks, enslaved his rival villains, and now ruled with an iron fist. And all it took was for Omi to be missing.
One episode of Invader Zim had Dib receive superpowers, after which he proceeded to expose all the paranormal beings he wanted to expose, becoming a world-wide celebrity over the next twenty years, saving the entire Earth from an Irken invasion and was awarded the "Greatest Person Ever To Live" award, all with an Improbable Hairstyle. A brutal subversion however, as it was only a Lotus Eater Machine concocted by Zim who wanted Dib to admit he threw a muffin at his head.
Like the Fairly Odd Parents example above, the Timeline-based Danny Phantom TV movie has several Future Badasses. The biggest is Dark Danny, who is now the most powerful ghost on the planet or as Sam puts it "...okay, you're really a jerk." Well, that is certainly a mild way to put it-he becomes a rampaging Sociopath who kills people and destroys things apparently just for kicks. The episode in which Danny sees what he would become and is extremely horrified is one of the darkest, yet most highly acclaimed episodes of the series.
- The Box Ghost, who can now generate powerful boxes of energy to throw at people.
In The Grim Adventures Of Billy And Mandy, with Irwin being the leader of La Resistance after Mandy takes over the world and is a ripped mercenary, too.
In Megas XLR, when Coop visits an alternate future he's become an evil overlord, lost his gut and become ripped, Kiva is his emotionless cybernetic lieutenant, and Jamie is a Badass leader of La Resistance.
Superjail did it, gloriously. Even Jared somehow becomes badass.
Codename: Kids Next Door featured future badass Numbuh 4 in a two-part episode that had a time traveling villainess succeed in committing wholesale gendercide and conquering the world. The second half of the story picks up several decades later: former Boisterous Bruiser Numbuh 4 is now a grim, battle-hardened old man leading the Boys Next Door, while using a custom mecha/wheelchair to get around.
The Ninja Turtles' 2003 incarnation gets a Bad Future episode - "Same as it Never Was." Donatello is sent 30+ years into the future to find that without him, the Turtles fell apart as a team, Splinter was killed saving his remaining sons, and Shredder not only took over the world but is poised to take over the universe.
- First encountered and least recognizable is Michelangelo - who within the first couple minutes not only takes out an entire patrol on his own (with spiked nunchaku, no less), but destroys several tanks and a helicopter with one of the goons' own guns. He is then found to be missing an arm, disturbingly accepting of the fact that the world sucks, and thoroughly willing to bawl Don out for "abandoning" them. This contrasted with the bubbly, hyperactive, superhero-idealizing version of Mike present throughout the rest of the show. It's a little jarring and yet completely Awesome.
- April O'Neil is actually in charge of La Resistance... and during the course of the episode gets to fire a bazooka.
- Raphael is missing an eye and wears a bomber jacket.
- Leonardo gets a cool trenchcoat and might even be blind.
  - But for all that, present Donatello manages to be the biggest badass, ultimately ending the war that they were fighting in the course of about a day.
In an unusual case to not involve time travel, Ravage from Transformers: Beast Wars. In the centuries since we saw him last, he became bipedal, gained the ability to speak English, and proved himself incredibly Badass. Maybe he was before, but the whole "couldn't talk and looked like a metal kitty" got in the way before.

Web Comics

Eight Bit Theater recently revealed that Sarda is the Future Badass version of Onion Kid, Black Mage's serial victim.

Web Animation

Parodied in a Homestar Runner Flash Forward Easter Egg in the Strong Bad Email your funeral, in which the emo-ish, nerdy Strong Sad is shown as a grizzled, scarred fighter in a Zombie Apocalypse. Pom Pom is also even cooler than usual.

Fan Fiction

In the Star Wars Expanded Universe Fan Fic Love Ignites the Galaxy: Star by Star by polgarawolf, the Tahiri Veila from Legacy Of The Force uses Darth ~~Idiot~~ Caedus' flow-walking technique to travel back to the events of Star by Star and save the Jedi strike force from the disaster ahead. She proceeds to rig the Yuuzhan Vong's voxyn grove to explode, get the drop on the entire Myrkr strike force, neutralize Lomi Plo and Welk, all the while evading the Yuuzhan Vong, and generally makes it clear that she's seen the future of this timeline, and nothing is going to stop her from insuring that future Does. Not. Happen.