Took A Level In Badass / Webcomics

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• For some of the more unconventional crossovers in the Hellsing fancomic And Shine Heaven Now, the characters from that crossover have done this. The prime example is Madeline from the books of the same name: a sweet schoolgirl in the books, a regenerating vampire hunter in Shine.
• Bastard: Jin after utilising Manny Kim's training to take down the second serial killer, Faye Kim.
• Lily from College Roomies from Hell!!! shows up to Dave and Mike's birthday party a full-fledged witch able to fly and summon ball lightning, swearing revenge for the death of her mother. Since the audience knows Margaret to have done this and Roger to have already forgiven her, and she hit it off with Diana at the party, her character arc is probably just getting started...
• Nin Wah, from Commander Kitty, spends her first two encounters with Zenith's Tagged goons either scared stupid or grabbed with ease. Third time's the charm, though when she fights off an entire room full of 'em before finally passing out from exhaustion.
  • Then there's Mittens, a general Butt-Monkey who would rather be watching TV than flying the ship. But after getting some words of encouragement and a spiffy outfit, he becomes the most competent character in the comic, even scaring the previous holder of the title, Ace.
  • Double Subverted with the Commander himself. After losing a tooth in the climax, he certainly thinks he's taken a level, only for Zenith's monster to beat the smut out of him again. But then when that's out of the way, he's the one hatching a plan to save the galaxy's digitized population, and goes to barking out orders for not only his own crew, but the Velvet Knight crew as well.
• Mal in Cthulhu Slippers. Mal starts off as an incompetent, mostly harmless CloudCuckooLander. But as time goes on he not only manages to weaponize his own incompetence against the monsters he works for, he starts to become a monster himself.
• Dragon Ball Multiverse: And how. A ton of characters in various universes have improved in both skill and power over their U18 counterparts. To form a list:
  • U3 Bardock, who keeps the future sight, has gone Super Saiyan, and has become older and wiser, and even took the Saiyan throne from Vegeta.
  • U4 Zen Buu, basically a Super Buu who managed to absorb everyone with a power in his universe.
  • U6's Bojack Gang, who actually defeated the Z-Fighters. And, without said Z-Fighters to stop him in his inevitable second coming, they may have actually defeated Broly as well, though the fact that Broly hasn't slaughtered them may simply be a plot-hole.
  • U7's Gast Carcolh... Who is basically the entire Namekian race fused with Nail, who defeated Freeza, Cell and Majin Buu in his universe.
  • U8's King Cold. In U18, he begged for his life like a coward when Trunks turned up. This time, despite knowing that he's outmatched by many fighters, he goes up to his true form anyway, which, had U18's version used in his fight with Trunks, would've allowed him to defeat him and Goku.
  • Nearly everyone in U9. Yamcha is an android, Tien easily defeats Sun Wukong, and Videl not only has the Z-Sword, she can use the Kaio-Ken and actually give King Cold a good fight in his intermediate form.
  • U10 shows off what Nail would be capable of had he actually helped fight the Ginyu Force on Namek — let's put this into perspective, this Nail could've defeated Recoome, who Vegeta couldn't defeat back then. Yes, Nail has been listed twice, but he is pretty awesome.
  • Future Trunks, from U12, actually managed to give U18 Vegeta a good fight, despite not being quite up to his level in power (U18 Vegeta has Super Saiyan 2, U12 Trunks can only use Super Saiyan Grade 3, a form Goku and Vegeta considered useless, but got more mileage out of it through clever usage).
  • U13 Nappa and Raditz, the latter of whom has a technique allowing him to become an Oozaru at will without a full moon (fake or otherwise), and in such a form actually managed to put up quite a fight against the U3 version of his father. Same with Nappa, who, while he can't quite keep up with his Super Saiyan comrades either, manages to mock the hell out of Freeza.
  • U16 has a couple — Vegito was ridiculously powerful in U18, sure, but here we see the true extent of his power against Broly, and it is awe-inspiring. Bra, being his daughter, isn't the girly-girl like her U18 counterpart (which is lampshaded in a side-comic), and is ridiculously powerful in her own right, even if she does have some serious anger issues.
  • U17 Cell, who defeated Gohan in their final clash, and slaughtered the Z-Fighters easily, and likely went on to kill the Bojack Gang and Majin Buu as well. And, much like U6's Bojack Gang, may have actually managed to kill Broly when the latter arrived on Earth (or this could simply be a plot-hole as well).
• Dubious Company handled this very subtly. At first, they have trouble fighting anything other than Kreedor's rookies. Later, the pirates attack Mary and Sue, AKA: The Sues in their sleep and still need to fight dirty and outnumber them. Then during the rematch at Kreedor's castle, the pirates are barely holding their own going one-on-one. Later still, The Sues, Stus, and Tiren team up against a dragon. The pirates' Tiren holds out the longest.
• In El Goonish Shive, Justin, after entire arcs of being one of the only main characters without using amazing superpowers or wonderful toys, knocks back a flame golem with his bare fists then kicks it over a hundred feet into a river.
• Rumy from Fans!, like everyone else, had already come a long way from the Ordinary High-School Student with martial arts training by the end of the fifth book, but after the five-year Time Skip she comes off as a battle-hardened Lady of War.
• "Doc" Schweitzer in Flintlocke's Guide to Azeroth after he single-handedly kills Cheri and the Shadow Priest with the "Murder" macro written by the Wuff.
• Crest in Flipside, after being Demoted to Extra for nine real-world years, makes a comeback by roughing up the gang he was terrified of the last time he was a main character.
• Guilded Age has Penk, who starts out as a drummer and herald with strong ideals but not much else, and then becomes an avatar of his god, gaining increased strength, resilience, and senses, and takes on leadership of the World's Rebellion's response to the Gastonian Peacemakers.
• Carval Jarvoc from Heart Core took quite a level in badass considering what happened to him in his first fight against the protagonist, Ame Lashiec. In his first battle against her, he got defeated and knocked down by one single projectile, not even managing to cause any significant damage against her. In their second fight, he nearly managed to kill her until he got thrown from the top of a skyscraper. And then he fused together with his even stronger father...
• Homestuck:
  • John Egbert initially has troubles even lifting his hammer, but once he starts levelling up, and gets some easier to use hammers, he becomes quite the powerhouse. He takes another level when he learns how to do "the windy thing", and yet another when he and Vriska find Lord English's juju, giving him Cosmic Retcon powers, though he only learns how to use these powers after a devastating battle that leaves most of his friends dead, and a trial by oil from his planet's Denizen after he turns to them for help.
  • Jack Noir does this too when he kills the Glorious Monarch after he gets fed up with the ridiculous costumes that he's forced to wear and then takes her ring for himself
  • Kanaya when she comes back from the dead as a Rainbow Drinker, punts Gamzee off a cliff with a Dynamic Entry to the balls, sucker punches god-tier Vriska so hard she goes flying, and cleaves Eridan in two with her chainsaw.
  • The Parcel Mistress starts out as just a simple mailwoman who wouldn't hurt a fly. By the end of Act 5 she's a space-warping One-Man Army on a Roaring Rampage of Revenge, and one of the most powerful characters in the comic.
  • And then there's Jade, who was a competent, if underpowered latecomer to the game, and her Alternate Self Jadesprite — a depressed, completely ineffectual fussbudget. By the [o] intermission, Jade is easily holding her own against the Big Bad, partially because the spirit of her dead dog and surrogate parent won't let him fight her, and Jadesprite is in control of her emotions enough to deliver a tactically-critical piece of hardware to another character. In [S] Cascade, Jade and Jadesprite ended up merging into a combination of a God Tier Witch of Space, a First Guardian, and a Sprite — making her the most powerful heroic character at that point of the comic, and second only to Lord English in absolute power. This was downplayed in Act 6, where Jade spends most of her time using her new power to do rather normal things like shrinking her and John so they can watch movies together, and eventually finds out the hard way that her part-dog nature makes her susceptible to psychic attacks from brown-blooded trolls (a point that was foreshadowed in Act 5).
  • Here's an easy rule to remember: is this Homestuck character a badass? If no, they will be. If yes, they will become even more of a badass. Dave is another great example - at the beginning, he's thoroughly Cherry Tapped by Bro (who, admittedly, is a pretty amazing badass in his own right). A little later, he denies that he's a hero, guessing that he'll become a hero when he becomes 'future Dave'. By Cascade, he has already aided the other three kinds in innumerable ways, and in that flash he takes the final step to becoming God Tier.
  • And Aradia: she was already pretty powerful, but her ascent to God Tier made her powerful enough to stop Bec Noir in time. By the end of the comic, she's powerful enough to timestop Lord English.
• I'm the Grim Reaper: Brook finds this out, to his displeasure, that after over a month of being a reaper and finding a link to her humanity in Chase, Scarlet has become considerably stronger, although she still barely has control over her demon. Because of these reasons, he finds her to be a legitimate threat and is determined to take her out and send her back to hell, at least until her demon form rips him to shreds.
• While already badass before their sex changes, the T-Girls of Jet Dream also received Bio-Augmentation and extensive training in Combat Femininity, making them into an Amazon Brigade and quite effective in their new feminized bodies and roles.
• Kill Six Billion Demons
  • Allison starts out as a clueless victim, then levels up to at least be determined about what she's doing, even if she's still no more than an Invincible Incompetent. There's an even bigger jump between books 3 and 4, where she trains up during the Time Skip and becomes a full-fletched Action Girl.
  • Zaid starts out as a shallow jerk of a young man turned Distressed Dude who's mostly not shown in the story for a long time while Allison's quest is to save him. After he's been rescued, and he's vanished out of sight again for a long Time Skip, he returns as a formidable Dual Wielding army general, possibly showing how he could have been the Chosen One and Multiversal Conqueror of the prophecy that was redirected to Allison.
• Liquid in The Last Days of FOXHOUND, right about here. Possibly multiple levels. Though it's more like regaining the levels he lost before the start of the comic.
• The character Cale'Anon from the webcomic Looking for Group. He starts the series off rather clueless and useless, and in the first comic gets blasted to cinders by Richard. By the third or fourth issue, he's changed a little and very soon is pulling stunts like this and this.
• In Narbonic, the character Seth was a pimple-faced girl-shy role-playing nerd. Then he got sent to hell, where he fought his way out after obtaining the demonic axe Zürrr by defeating the devil queen Sh'zk'ra. And picked up a Badass Longcoat somewhere along the way.
  • In a more plot important example, Dave, the nerdy, chain-smoking everyman grows more and more badass over the course of the series, finally ending in his becoming the most powerful Mad Scientist in the series, curb-stomping Helen, Mell, and Madblood with ease and coming pretty close to destroying the world.
• Done in The Order of the Stick, where Elan takes a level in badass — or, rather, in the Dashing Swordsman Prestige Class. As long as they make puns while attacking, a Dashing Swordsman can use their Charisma score as a bonus to their damage. Given that Strength was Elan's Dump Stat, this turns him from a vulnerable Support Party Member into someone who can easily hold his own against multiple enemies.
  • Vaarsuvius also does this (albeit only temporarily through a Deal with the Devil) in order to save their children from a really pissed off dragon.
  • And in a less literal sense, Elan has also become somewhat less incompetent at using his regular Bard abilities over time. Despite Dashing Swordsman giving him a lot of advantage, he still also takes levels in Bard for the support mechanics that can help his party, like Cure spells (which usually only divine casters have access to) or Neutralize Poison.
  • Roy took a level too. In the beginning, he was just a snarky team leader. The only time he showed his inner awesome was rescuing Elan from a situation he wouldn't have been in if he hadn't abandoned him in the first place (and him taking down Xykon, but that was via deus ex machina). After his little trip to heaven, he suddenly becomes more serious, has a worldly air around him, beats on a half-dragon-half-ogre, most of a bar in a barfight, gets ranked top of the list after beating Belkar (whose awesome used to be far above him) and bopped Haley's uncle across the room. Aside from asking Belkar to find him a cartographer ("...this is a cart of gophers, isn't it?"), after being resurrected Roy went for a decent while without making any leadership foibles until not trusting Belkar about vampire!Durkon being evil.
  • Belkar, but more like regained his level of badass. He comes down with a curse caused by his mark of justice. Then when the curse is broken, this happens. Complete with a kiss at the end!
  • O'Chul is a minor supporting character until he falls prisoner to Xykon, and his subsequent survival and escape have led to a meme all of its own, namely: O'Chul does not have levels in badass - badass has levels in O'Chul.
  • Redcloak took a literal level in badass in this strip and the two following, showing off his newfound powers by soloing the entire Resistance and leveling its base.
• Lamia from Sidekicks makes takes several levels of badass after Darkslug transferred both the First Prana and his powers into her. She is now on the same level as her former master, and he was overwhelmingly powerful.
• Torg of Sluggy Freelance has always been a goofy Cloud Cuckoo Lander, but with the comic taking on more serious themes in addition to the goofy ones, he's had to cope with more and more dramatic and dangerous situations. The real shift happens in "That Which Redeems", a story during which he's stuck for months on an alternative Earth fighting against invading demons — he both learns how to fight for real and finds out that the fancy sword he'd picked up during time travel to the past is magical and can be Powered by a Forsaken Child to become powerful enough to cut like a lightsaber and literally kill a god. After that, he remains goofy, but is quite capable of getting dangerous when needed.
  Riff: "Dude! When did you learn to kick ass?"
  Torg: "I've been taking an internet college correspondence course in kickass."
  Riff: "You have not."
  Torg: "But I so want to teach one!"
• Stand Still, Stay Silent:
  • A Photo Montage showing characters from the Hyperlink Story prologue bracing themselves for The End of the World as We Know It includes the Nice Guy from one of the segments learning to use a rifle. In an After the End portrait, the same character is casually holding a rifle.
  • In the main story, Reynir after he manages a functionning anti-ghost rune, and someone else notices the best way to use it is to draw it really big on the ground. The fact that the thing catches fire when it activates helps a lot.
• Many characters go step up the levels in Tower of God.
  • The biggest is Bam who has taken many, many levels over the course of the story. During season 1, he could barely do anything on his own and was one of the more weaker characters. Come season 2, and he's easily one of the most powerful Regulars on his level, curb-stomping most Regulars that challenge him. The levels only keep increasing after he gets the Thorn. At the end of Season 2, he levels up even more ridiculously in one go, and after a Time Skip and more training leading up to Season 3, he can take on Rankers, who are way more powerful than any other Regular like himself.
  • Most of Bam's friends from the Second Floor take a few levels in badass after the Season 2 timeskip and have even gained some fame doing so. The most notable is Shibisu, who barely made it through Lero-Ro's test on the Second Floor but now leads a team full of badasses despite being the weakest (but cleverest) member.
  • The members of Sweet and Sour took some levels too after Workshop Battle arc.
• Agatha takes several levels of badass in Girl Genius as she evolves from from the hopeless klutz of Polygnostic University to a Spark at or above the level of any previous Heterodyne.
  • Gil's evolution from a bored pupil constantly tested by his father for basic worth into a man capable of facing down his father, and an army of war clanks, is a clear example. See here for evidence.
  • More recently, Boris, the Baron's personal secretary, has suddenly shown his ability to not only take down a Jaegermonster, but actually beat him until he gives up classified information. This is actually a classic example, in that there was no on-screen intermediate development.
  • Tarvek either Took a Level in Badass or been playing Obfuscating Stupidity, surprising even his cousin-cum-bodyguard Violetta with his competence. Likewise, it appears Wooster, Gil's "valet", was doing much the same thing, as was Zola. Never mind The Unstoppable Higgs. All the major and secondary characters in Girl Genius started as badass, Took a Level in Badass, or aren't very important characters...yet this strip makes it pretty clear.
• Sebastian of True Villains was cursed by a spell that drains his life force. After the spell is lifted, well... He can punch through swords.
• Unordinary: During his Wellston years before the start of the series, Blyke's ability powered up from 3.6 to 4.5.
  • Following his multiple losses to Joker, Blyke's been steadily practicing his Energy Beam in an effort to power up his ability, such as practicing his ability on his hand to increase the amount of finger beams he can create. By Season 2, he starts taking on vigilante missions to practice his ability against villains.
    • His vigilante mission in the Newside district results in Blyke's ability powering up to the point of allowing Blyke to release a discharge of energy that knocks back everyone around him.
    • By the end of his vigilante mission in the Grasshill district, Blyke's new stats are shown where he's now officially entered the realm of high-tier. His Power Level has gone up from 4.5 to 5.0, and his Energy Beam has upgraded to Energy Discharge. As a result of achieving high-tier, he also gains a passive ability where he seems to have quick self-regeneration to the point of cuts healing over night.
• Katherine Gilchrist, the spooky-eyed, introverted, generally strange fabrics expert at the museum where protagonist Monica Villareal works in Wapsi Square has leveled up after her Mesa Verde adventure, to the point where she seems to be perfectly willing to scream at The Library, which has the power to jerk Titans around.
• In Yokoka's Quest, Yokoka specifically asks Lady Pachi to teach her "to be this badass" after she leads a team to defeat a tunnel dweller. Yokoka then spends the next couple of chapters receiving combat training.

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