Badass Crew

Go ahead, just try to take 'em all on at once.

"I think that, because of this lack of a central hero, "El Eternauta" is one of my greatest works. The real hero of "El Eternauta" is a collective hero, a human group. Thus it reflects, even if it wasn't the original idea, my greatest belief: the only legitimate hero is the hero 'in a group', never the individual hero, the lone hero."

— Héctor Germán Oesteheld, about El Eternauta

"Me and my crew / We will deal with you"

— the Mountain Goats, "Aulon Raid"

A Badass Family, even if they're not related. This will turn up a lot when discussing the Superhero Team, The Squad, and the Five-Man Band. And a fair number of Sci-fi shows set aboard a ship, since normally, even the baddest hero can't run a whole Cool Ship on their own. This isn't a requirement though.

Some general conventions that apply to almost all Badass Crews are:

• They must include at least three people for obvious reasons. Two badasses might be Back-to-Back Badasses.
• A Crew typically has a recurring and more-or-less permanent roster; you can reasonably expect to see the same members over and over. Which is why this trope is a fixture of TV shows, comics, and other media which is made of recurring installments. You see this less in movie series, since they're often built around a central character who may have different supporters in each movie, e.g. Die Hard or James Bond. This is probably because it's easier to sign one actor for a film rather than three or five.
• Most heroes have some sort of support or backup, but in a Badass Crew, everyone must be capable of a Moment of Awesome. In fact a given episode may involve the least badass character doing something so awesome the jaws of the others drop in unison.
• There's usually one person who acts as The Leader of the bunch.
• In actual combat, on the battlefield, their combined badassery is indispensable. Not so much in their day-to-day applications on the home front; in fact, since they may also deal with lower-level antagonists that don't directly affect the other crew members, it can be downright messy and embarrassing. This is why, when not on the battlefield, they have to really watch what they tell each other.
• Most important: the crew must have a certain loyalty toward one another. Like a family. If one of them is hurt/kidnapped/killed the others will bring holy hell on those responsible, even (and especially) if it means violating orders. For this reason, all Badass Crews are a form of True Companions.

Since, unlike a Badass Family, none of the members were born into the Crew (though some of them might be blood relatives), some writers will use the story of the Badass Crew's formation as an interesting origin story. In most Action/Adventures and Sci-Fi/Fantasy stories, the team members come together to foil a Big Bad and/or save the world.

The members of the Crew may not have even liked each other at first or even been outright enemies, but they come together and join forces because a) none of them can defeat the Big Bad and his plot without total cooperation, b) they worked out their differences, c) they see the good in each other and recognize a kindred spirit, or d) all the above.

The Badass Crew may be or have been a Ragtag Bunch of Misfits. Amazon Brigade is an all-female variation of this. The logical extension of this is the Badass Army where they are essentially a gigantic Badass Crew. Almost invariably a Caper Crew doubles as a Badass Crew. Also overlaps with Criminal Found Family.

Also see Misfit Mobilization Moment, which is often an origin for the Badass Crew.

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Examples:

Anime & Manga

• Assassination Classroom: Class 3-E is a class full of students who are being trained to assassinate Koro-sensei, and thus compared to most kids their age they are at very least competent in various martial disciplines, including gunplay, CQB technique and Le Parkour. In fact, Koro-sensei at one point compares them as a special forces squad which they prove and some more in the final arc where they take on one in a Curb-Stomp Battle to their favor.
  • Their teachers are not pushover either, Koro-sensei himself is very fast, smart, and (if he can) powerful octopus-shaped mutant; the Physical Education teacher, Karasuma is a high-ranking government special forces agent with serious combat skills and Charles Atlas Superpower; while the English teacher, Irina is an assassination prodigy using both her intellect and sex appeal to accomplish her missions.
• Attack on Titan: Applies to Levi's quad, as both Eld and Gunther have high Titan kills, both in teams and solo. Petra, despite being the smallest and one of the younger members, has 48 kills as a team, meaning she has taken part in the most Titan killings in the squad, barring Levi. Oluo may act obnoxious and arrogant but he has the highest solo kills (39) out of the squad. And this is not mentioning Levi himself.
  • The 104th Trainee Corps is gradually being set up as the heroic crew that will ultimately save the day. However, to get there, they must 1:Survive and 2:Overcome horrific trauma, loss and betrayal.
• Berserk: The Band of the Hawk was a mercenary company of unrelated individuals as tightly knit as a family, united by their admiration of their charismatic leader Griffith. Everyone gets their turn to have a moment of awesome, and they are loyal to each other. Eventually, Guts' new party grows to the same level of membership, capability, and closeness, except for a few hangers-on like Magnifico.
• The Big O: Roger Smith has the distinction of being Paradigm City's top negotiator and the chosen pilot of the titular Megadeus. Joining him are R. Dorothy, who's a combat-capable android (and Roger's live-in robo-maid), and his butler, Norman. Apparently, the three of them are all the protection the city needs from Alex Rosewater and "The Union".
• The Lagoon Company of Black Lagoon, oh ho ho, borrowing the charisma of Cowboy Bebop with a bickering crew of badasses who start off as rather typical, but unleash wave after wave of terror on their opponents with each episode. And Balalaika's Vysotniki. As described by Benny in their first announced appearance: "They have enough talent to fight and win World War III."
• Bleach:
  • The Gotei 13 is an entire military of elite guards, captains, and lieutenants. Entry into their organization manadates that they be highly trained in various forms of Zanjtsu (sword fighting), Kidou (the Bleach equivalent of spellcasting), Hakudo (unarmed combat), and Hoho (flash stepping). They’re so skilled and so powerful that they can even defeat the strongest Hollows, Arrancars, and Quincy throughout the entire series.
  • The Sternritter are this by default considering how much sheer damage they inflict during their first blitz on the Soul Society. Even once the Soul Reapers are better prepared and equipped, they don't go down easily. This applies especially to the Schutzstaffel, who are so powerful that some of them are not even considered mortal, forcing the heroes to go to some extreme lengths to land definitive blows, and in the end, they couldn't even kill most of them. All four required the Soul Society to bring their absolute best, and in the end, one of them escaped and another only died because Yhwach decided he no longer needed them. The two that did fall only did so because they were up against Urahara and Mayuri separately, two of the smartest characters in the entire story.
• Cowboy Bebop: The quintessential badass crew of anime. They fight, they shoot, they fly spaceships, and they hunt bounties. Spike, Jet, and Faye all can hold their own in a fight. Ed hacks computers with ease and she has been able to catch criminals completely on her own as seen in "Mushroom Samba". Ein is a dog.
• Team Touden from Delicious in Dungeon. There's absolutely no denying the skill and strength of the entire party, which is doubly impressive because they're lacking one of the most critical things for a party - a cleric. Their original party would've killed the Red Dragon had it not been for severe hunger, and ex-member Namari outright admits to having killed dragons before.
• The Z-Warriors of Dragon Ball. By the end of the original series and onto Dragon Ball Z, each and every one of them is strong enough to blow up entire planets with their fingers! With the highest-tier ones (The Super Saiyans) reaching stellar-busting levels and beyond.
  • Later in Dragon Ball Super, 10 of the strongest fighters in Universe 7 (the universe where the series takes place) assemble together to face warriors from other universes.
• Nearly every guild in Fairy Tail. Taken to new heights for Team Fairy Tail on the final day of Grand Magic Games! Even cowering Sting into submission by simply giving him the Death Glare!
• Colonel Mustang's crew from Fullmetal Alchemist. They're so badass that when they made their move on the Promised Day, a platoon of five soldiers engaged with Central's forces without killing anybody; 60 injuries, no deaths.
• All versions of the Getter Team are like this, but special mention goes to the Go team. Go, Sho/Kei and Gai get along MUCH better than Ryoma, Hayato, and Musashi/Benkei.
• The Yorozuya from Gintama is this and a Comic Trio. The Shinsengumi also count.
• Gravion has the Gran Knights, who are formidable (in their own ways) in an out-of-titular mecha. The sequel brings us the Gran Troopers, who are the same, so much so that the leader of the first Badass Crew congratulates the second Badass Crew at one point.
• Highschool of the Dead quickly establishes that Takashi's group of survivors are more than ready to deal with the outbreak that overran their school, along with the rest of the world.
  • Takashi is the leader, Rei is his spear-wielding girlfriend, Saeko was captain of the school's Kendo Club, and prior to the outbreak, Hirano spent a month training at a Black Water firing range with the American military.
  • Saya and Ms. Shizuka are non-combatants, but Saya's analytical ability and planning has saved their skins on several occasions. So has Shizuka's driving skills, which made it possible for them to escape the school. And they found a place to rest and arm themselves thanks to her continued contributions.
• The Games Club of Higurashi: When They Cry become this during the final two arcs - their development into one was essential for beating Takano.
• Inuyasha has a group in which everyone except Shippo can excellently fight the evil youkai, and who are wandering around the country fighting exactly those youkai.
• The Elite Four from Kill la Kill, each member being hand-picked by Satsuki to join her inner circle to plan her coup d'état against her Mother, Ragyo. Now extended to the entirety of the Nudist Beach and Honnouiji Academy Alliance and their quest to save the world.
• The four Frenchmen from Le Chevalier d'Eon, three of whom are among the best swordsmen alive.
• Morgiana, Alibaba, and Aladdin from Magi: Labyrinth of Magic have already mastered many adventures and defeated villains, and they become stronger over time.
• Riot Force 6 of Magical Girl Lyrical Nanoha StrikerS. Even the White Mage of the group is someone you don't want to mess with.
  • The Wolkenritter (all of whom are members of Riot Force 6) were originally a Badass Crew in their backstory. But by the time of their introduction in A's, they've graduated to being a full-on Badass Family.
• The crew of the Murakumo in Maiden Rose is composed of a Military Maverick Colonel Badass, his three closest childhood friends, and a Cool Old Guy medic who is also the gunner of said tank.
• Class 1-A of My Hero Academia. They're the cream of the crop of a prestigious hero academy and have as much practical combat experience as students years above them. Though there's a vast difference in raw power between some of its members, they're all formidable combatants in their own right and each would fight tooth and nail to protect the others.
• Naruto: The Akatsuki consists of elite and pure badass-to-the-bone characters like Itachi Uchiha, Kisame, Orochimaru, Pein, Kakuzu, Sasori etc, all having Badass Longcoat. Also Team 8, Team Gai, and especially Team 10 all remain a close-knit family. Asuma even mentions this, in a flashback, when he gives all the members of his team earrings as a symbol of sticking together. And every single member of the Konoha 11 has their awesome moments (however short lived and/or superfluous it may be), even Ino, and especially Sakura, Shikamaru, and Naruto himself.
• Negima! Magister Negi Magi:
  • Ala Rubra, which had at least two members who are essentially invincible and a number of other members who aren't quite invincible, but still incredibly badass.
  • Negi's group, Ala Alba, is well on its way to this, as almost all the girls are drifting in an Action Girl direction. If one chooses to focus on the primary combatants (Negi, Kotaro, Setsuna, Kaede, and Asuna) it essentially is a Badass Crew with a bunch of people working the backup support positions.
• One Piece is a series about maritime pirates, so every pirate ship in the series is usually staffed with a colorful, closely-knit, and, of course, badass crew. In fact, the manga on the whole is FILLED with badass crews and is pretty much entirely about them. Some particular examples include:
  • The Straw Hat Pirates, a.k.a. the Protagonist Crew. One Image Song even mentions that even though they aren't related, they are still like a family.
    • The end of the Dressrosa arc exemplifies this when upon the defeat of the Donquixote Family, seven representatives from the Tontatta Kingdom, Happo Navy, and various other crews and countries come together to form the Straw Hat Grand Fleet.
  • The Whitebeard Pirates (pictured above) fit the criteria, even if they don't get as much focus as the Straw Hat Pirates. Besides their great numbers many of them are powerful Devil Fruit/haki users with massive bounties that put the Straw Hats to shame, and they are led by Whitebeard (considered to be the strongest man in the world) who considers them all to be his children and would tear the world asunder for them.
  • Shanks' crew are all made up of some of the best men in their respective fields. To further set them apart from the other crews, they are to a man Badass Normals without a single Devil Fruit user among them, not unlike the crew Shanks sailed under during his youth: Gold Roger's.
  • ...and lots and lots of others. In fact, the Straw Hats usually fight another Badass Crew at least once an arc.
  • In fact, of the cast, there are only two who avert the close-knit nature of the series crews. Gecko Moria, who used to have one, but after losing them to Kaido (in what was implied to be an extremely traumatic fashion), his insanity and heartbreak led him to declare he needed nobody's strength but his own before using his Devil Fruit power to create an army of expendable zombies. The only other people he has are the three people he absolutely needs to even have that army (while he can make zombies by himself, he can't do so at the same pace and power after Hogback, Absalom, and Perona leave, becoming a non-issue every time he appears after). The other one is Hawkeye Mihawk; no reason is given for his lack of a crew aside from an inherent nature as a loner, but unlike Moria who's crippled with no crew, Mihawk doesn't need one.
  • Despite being comprised of two individual crews, the Straw Hat and Heart Pirate Alliance is quickly becoming this after dethroning Doflamingo and destroying his entire black market trade. The respective captains of both crews have had their bounties dramatically increased to a whopping 500,000,000 beli, with their feat reaching the ears of their next target: 'Hundred Beast' Kaidou, one of the Four Emperors.
• Outlaw Star had the Badass Five-Man Band consisting of Badass Longcoat wearing Gene Starwind, his partner Jim Hawking, Robot Girl Melfina, Cat Girl Aisha ClanClan, and assassin Twilight Suzuka.
• Tsuna and his guardians, Xanxus and the Varia Squad from Reborn! (2004).
• The Newspaper Club in Rosario + Vampire has been moving toward becoming this, especially recently. As club president, Gin is technically their leader, but more often than not the de-facto role goes to Tsukune. Even Yukari has had her moments of badass. It's also implied that the club's previous generation was one of these, and a helluva good one if Gin and Sun are any indication.
• The Inner Sailor Senshi (the main characters who have defeated several powerful enemies on their own) of Sailor Moon and the Outer Senshi (who are considered more powerful than the Inners and defended the Solar System in their previous lifetimes) count as separate examples, but all ten of them can be considered one collective Badass Crew when they set aside their differences and work together, like in the SuperS movie.
• The Kurogane House from Shin Mazinger, a group of former Yakuza members who were saved from the verge of death by their current leader, Tsubasa.
• Soul Eater has several, with the meisters paired with their weapons. There's Soul and Maka, Black Star and Tsubaki, and Death the Kid with the Thompson sisters. And when all three teams join together to beat the Big Bad...well, they're a freakin' lethal team. The manga pairs up Maka's group with Ox's to form young elite unit, Spartoi. They get natty new uniforms and everything.
• Team Dai-Gurren from Tengen Toppa Gurren Lagann. There's nothing else that needs to be said. If a ground-based airship carrier doing a double roundhouse kick to an Airborne Aircraft Carrier doesn't tickle your fancy, then maybe brawling out in a galaxy-sized mech against a similar enemy mech will...
• UQ Holder! has the titular organisation comprised of immortal humans, vampires, robots, demons and various other immortal monsters.
• Askeladd's Crew in Vinland Saga, composed of The Berserker, a Genius Bruiser Magnificent Bastard, a teenage Determinator, a Scarily Competent Tracker and Those Two Guys. There's close to a hundred men in his crew, the number fluctuates, but those are the ones that stand out.
• The Darkness Dragon and the Happy Hungry Bunch from Yona of the Dawn are as badass as their name is silly.
• Team Urameshi from YuYu Hakusho have prevented The End of the World as We Know It more than once and are the current Dark Tournament Champions.

Comic Books

• Most, if not all, Super Teams are badass crews at some level. Any lone superhero is usually capable of holding his own in a fight, so a group with several of them fighting together is serious stuff.
• Asterix: Asterix and the Gauls of his village are all super-powerful thanks to the magic potion of the druid Getafix. A single Gaul can take down a whole Roman military base by himself, so if they are angry enough to go all at once, then the Romans are really boned.
• Blaze of Glory is half about getting one of these together to save the town of Wonderment from being destroyed. Given that this is a Bat Family Crossover of nearly all of Marvel's western heroes, you bet your six-shooter they're all badass.
• Jawbreakers: Lost Souls: The "Jawbreakers" are a group of former superheroes who now do mercenary work. And fight giant gorilla monsters.
• In Red Daughter of Krypton Guy Gardner leads a group consisting of Supergirl and three Red Lanterns. All of them are badass fighters armed with the most powerful weapon of The DCU. And her Kryptonian member is one of the most triumphant examples of Flying Brick.
• The Transformers (IDW):
  • Team Rodimus in The Transformers: More than Meets the Eye, including Rodimus himself, legendary fighters, brilliant scientists and engineers, one of Cybertron's best medics, and Megatron - yes, that Megatron. Oh, and the Transformers' God. At one point Rodimus lists off their accomplishments as a threat, including freeing planets, finding mythical figures, fighting super-soldiers, time travel and stealing a moon.
  • The Wreckers are a deconstruction. Most Wreckers are hard-as-nails fighters who are willing to be sent to their certain death for the greater good...but "certain death" actually means something in Wreckers stories in IDW '05, so the lineup rarely stays stable for long, and those who stay in it for a while tend to start racking up traumatic experiences or just straight-up lose it.
• Wonder Woman (1942): The Holliday Girls is a sort of pseudo-commando unit of young women led by Etta Candy who track down and fight Nazi spies, aliens, supervillains, and common crooks. Individual members include Blood Knight Bobby Strong, Girly Bruiser Glamora Treat, highly adaptable Virginia True and the Trickster Heyday triplets. It's telling that both Steve Trevor and Wondy herself prefer to work with them rather than actual military units.

Fan Works

• In the Firefly fanfic Forward, there was a team of mercenaries/hitmen named the "Six Rifles" consisting of a professional group of six killers. Then they met a young Jayne Cobb, and they're not around anymore...
• Shows up in the Kalash93 stories, Shell Shock, and Racer And The Geek. Implied in Welcome To The Brothel.
• Ace Combat: The Equestrian War has the Mirage squadron.
• The World of the Creatures: The company, which contains characters such as Buffy Summers, Batman, and the Doctor among its more normal members. Together, they're a potent force.
• In the Facing the Future Series, Team Phantom, having initially consisted of the Power Trio and Danny's sister, is now growing into one of these with the additions of Danny's parents, Valerie, Danielle, Wulf, and Sam becoming Danny's half-ghost partner.
• In Fractured (SovereignGFC), a Mass Effect/Star Wars/Borderlands crossover and its sequel Origins, we have:
  • Samantha Shepard's squad (Garrus, Tali, Legion, Samara, Zaeed, Thane, Vega, Williams, Alenko, Wrex, Grunt, and more)
  • The Vault Hunters (Maya, Maya, Axton, Lilith, Alt!Roland, Gaige, zer0)
  • Aria's hired guns (a mix of ex-Alliance soldiers and other species)
  • Sarah and her oddly-named acolytes (Zera Zelit, Urthula Shurken, Drythlyn Narb, Venera Sola)
  • When not part of Shepard's squad, Jack and Brick are generally leading their own students in battle
  • The Master Chief and Cortana
• Kaiju example from The Bridge with the various factions walking the line between this and Badass Army. Special mention goes to Gigan, Megalon, and Irys, who manage to tag team against, sufficiently fight off, and wound the nearly unstoppable Grand King Ghidorah.
• In The Butcher Bird, the Nightmare Pirates serve as the primary example of this, and in a somewhat more literal fashion than usual due to it being a One Piece fic. Their captain is a Mad Scientist, the first mate is a ghoul, and every single member of the crew will back them to the hilt.
• Child of the Storm:
  • The Avengers, the biggest badasses in a World of Badass. Alone, each of them is formidable. Together, they're almost unbeatable.
  • The First Class of X-Men, though they've drifted apart by the time the story starts, were described as being this, with Fury mentioning that he would've given the Avengers even odds against them.
• The God Squad is this in spades. The Sun and Moon Princesses. The Goddess of Love and the greatest soldier Equestria ever made. The reformed Queen of the Changlings. The God of the Sea and of War who is also one of the Elder Gods. The Lord of Chaos. The cunning schoolgirl who nearly took over another realm of existence. Don't mess with the Squad.
• Harry Potter: Pokémon Master has three:
  • The Marauders. The well-known four (including a Peter who never betrayed his friends) adds Lily and Severus to the mix. The brightest minds of their generation.
  • The Pack. Jack and Jonas Kenway, Clair and Lance Blackthorn, Diantha Delacour, and Cynthia Malfoy. Between the six they, at one point, were (in all but name) the rulers of three different regions, racked up a boatload of League Championships, and were/are the masters of the Dragon Lords, the Veela, and the Speakers.
  • The Pride. Harry Potter, Hermione Granger, Ron and Ginny Weasley, Neville Longbottom, Luna Lovegood, and Jasmine Kenway. The next generation of badasses includes the strongest Veela in all of existence, the Princess of Johto, several future Gym Leaders, the brightest girl in her generation, the greatest hacker in all the world, and Harry Potter the Master of the Deathly Hollows himself.
• Hellsister Trilogy has the Legion of Super-Heroes, a super-team of nearly thirty super-beings, some of them with planet-crushing powers, to fight evil sorcerers and eldritch abominations.
• In The Night Unfurls, there's Kyril and his apprentices (or the Five-Hunter Band). All heavy-hitting badasses, stronger than any soldiery, and as per Sanakan's words, "a big happy family of misfits". Justified, because the four apprentices are Talented, but Trained, and their mentor is Strong and Skilled.
• Persona: The Sougawa Files has the main characters, The Freedom Fighters, who regularly combat eldritch Shadows and even the most dangerous crime lord in the city.
• Power Rangers GPX: It's usually a given for Power Rangers teams to be this, and the crew here is no exception. However, taking down aliens, elves and alchemists is just another Monday for these guys.
• The Superpower Research Initiative in The Secret Return of Alex Mack assembles a team composed of a mixture of top-notch soldiers and various superpowered individuals they come across (and several of the soldiers turn out to be enhanced humans, too), to respond to superpowered threats.
• As in canon, in This Bites!, the Straw Hat Pirates are a powerful crew, this version being expanded from 9 members^note Jinbei hasn't been recruited yet to 24 members due to the influence of the SI character.
• The Victors Project:
  • Lupus and his circle of Career trainee friends (Cato, Clove, Cute and Psycho Samaire, and wrestler Ben).
  • The Nightfoxes, a group of District 5 rebels led by the brother of Foxface who cripple Panem's energy sources by blowing up or hacking into power plants.
  • Nolan's Five-Man Band (Nolan himself, a Stealth Expert, an archer, a career defector, and a tough guy from 12).
  • Nearly all of the surviving victors allied together for the Rescue Arc along with relatives of several victors, Gale, and plenty of soldiers who served in the Rebellion.
  • Enobaria and her fellow (high-rated) career trainees Declan, Pat, and Maura.
  • Haymitch, Cotton, and Abram when they fight peacekeepers together through the streets.
  • Honorius, Virtus, Silk, Dido, Cerulea, Briesis, and Jules when they gather together to Hold the Line abasing the peacekeepers.
  • Granyte and his alliance of the Tributes from 7, 9, and 10. Downplayed though, given that he uses the others as Cannon Fodder.

Films — Animation

• The Forty Thieves from Aladdin and the King of Thieves. To quote Fasan:
  Fasan: They fight like demons!
• Kung Fu Panda's Furious Five — Tigress, Monkey, Mantis, Crane and Viper — are China's top kung fu masters, and the films show you exactly why. By the second film, their Badass Crew is the Furious Five plus Po, who earns his way in after enduring the Training from Hell.
• The Penguins from Madagascar definitely count. Just as an example: They broke into Fort Knox to celebrate a birthday.
• Andy's toys from Toy Story. Kidnap or threaten one of them, they'll show you just how incorrect you are. In the first Toy Story, the Mutant Toys are the Badass Crew. Andy's toys don't play this trope until Toy Story 2.
  Mr. Potato Head: Prepare to meet... Mr. Angry Eyes!

Films — Live-Action

• 6 Underground: The Ghosts are a Vigilante Militia operating internationally to combat oppressive governments and terrorists. The Ghosts' lineup for most of the film (after the opening scene that is) is as follows: a genius billionaire philanthropist, a former CIA agent, an ex-sicario, a thief who knows Le Parkour, a doctor (the token Non-Action Guy who can do field surgery), and an ex-Delta Force sniper.
• Animal House: The members of Delta House.
• DC Extended Universe:
  • Suicide Squad has Task Force X, comprising special forces Colonel Rick Flag, Deadshot (a hitman with Improbable Aiming Skills), Harley Quinn (an all-around good brawler), Captain Boomerang (who uses, well, a variety of boomerangs), El Diablo (who's the host of a fire spirit), Killer Croc (who has some degree of Super-Strength) and Katana (who's a Master Swordswoman.
  • The eponymous Justice League, a Super Team of some of the strongest and most heroic meta-humans on Earth, including Superman, Batman, Wonder Woman, Flash, Aquaman, Cyborg and Green Lantern.
• The Expendables: Not just Sylvester Stallone's team, everybody in the whole friggin' movie.
• The Ghostbusters.
• The Massachusetts 54th Regiment as shown in Glory.
• The team of Allied commandos assigned to blow up the Nazi cannons on the Greek island of Navarone in The Guns of Navarone.
• Similarly, Thorin's Company, even more than in the book.
• Dom Cobb's crew in Inception.
• The impromptu Power Trio and their back-ups in Independence Day.
• The VIPER assassination squad in Kill Bill before their dissolution.
• The Fellowship of the Ring. Even those hobbits will bust your ass should you trifle with them or their pals. One of their greatest moments of collective badassitude is in the Mines of Moria when the company find themselves completely surrounded by thousands of Orcs - and are completely ready to take them on.
• The Losers, in both the movie and the comics, though the loyalty is particularly pronounced in the movie.
• Subverted in MacGruber when the clueless titular hero rejects the appointment of (the qualified) Piper in favor of assembling his own team. He spends the next five minutes recruiting enormous burly dudes played by WWE wrestlers to accompany him on his mission. He then promptly kills them when the van they were in explodes due to his negligence.
• The titular seven gunslingers from The Magnificent Seven.
• Marvel Cinematic Universe:
  • Captain America and the Howling Commandos.
  • The original six members of The Avengers consists of a Super Soldier from World War II with an indestructible shield and well-honed tactical instincts, a genius billionaire playboy philanthropist in a high-powered suit of armor, a Physical God with a mighty hammer who can control lightning, one of the smartest scientists in the world who can turn into an "enormous green rage monster" in battle, and two master assassins and spies, one with unmatched martial arts skills and one whose primary weapon is a bow and arrow that can fire Trick Arrows. Once they finally figure out how to work together, the mere six of them are able to protect the entire city of New York from an Alien Invasion.
  • In Avengers: Age of Ultron, the team expands beyond the original membership, incorporating both new and old members with each hero bringing something special to the crew. The new members are Iron Man's best friend, who wears a similarly high-powered and well-armed suit of armor, Captain America's close friend, a former Air Force paratrooper with a literal winged harness, specializing in rescue missions, an artificial human created by Thor's lightning and one of Iron Man's AI programs, with an Infinity Stone embedded in his head, and a pair of twins, one of whom has a wide array of mental abilities such as mind control, telepathy, and telekinesis, and one with super-speed and reflexes (though sadly, the latter only gets to be part of the team for the final battle before he dies).
  • The Guardians of the Galaxy count as well, consisting of a thief and outlaw who's also a Guile Hero and skilled with a blaster (Star-Lord), an assassin who's the adopted daughter of Thanos himself and known as the "deadliest woman in the galaxy" (Gamora), a mechanically altered talking raccoon and Gadgeteer Genius (Rocket), a One-Man Army tree-creature (Groot), and maniacal, bloodthirsty Psycho Knife Nut (Drax the Destroyer). They've taken out armies who are feared throughout the rest of the galaxy and saved numerous planets from destruction, emerging (mostly) intact each time.
• Master and Commander: Captain Jack Aubrey's crew. When even the doctor and a one-armed 13-year-old grab swords and kick ass, you know your crew is badass!
• The eponymous Mystery Team by the final scene.
• Ocean's Eleven: Daniel Ocean's crew. The precision point schemes they pull off make them badass, but what makes them family is made clear when Reuben is hurt; they put on a heist not to make a fortune, but just to spite the guy who hurt him.
• The members of the 1960 Ocean's 11.
• Pirates of the Caribbean: The crew of the Black Pearl.
• The Wolverines in Red Dawn (1984)
• The crew of Serenity from Firefly In the movie alone, each member shows just how badass he/she can be... although Book's moment of awesome badassery happens off-screen.
• The crew of the Enterprise in Star Trek (2009) most definitely qualifies. Even 150-year-old Spock Prime and Team Dad Captain Pike get cool moments. The movie was essentially an Origins Episode of how the original Trek Badass Crew came to be.
• The main characters of the Star Wars original trilogy.
• The combined Special Forces/Autobots team from Transformers: Revenge of The Fallen.
• The movie version of The Untouchables (1987). Even the nerdy tax accountant (tax accountant for crying out loud!) achieves CMoAs. Even more badass in real life, considering that unlike the film, they all lived.
• The Warriors: a small, obscure gang from Coney Island, yet pound-for-pound the toughest gang in New York.
• X-Men Film Series
  • X-Men: The X-Men consists of Cyclops, Jean Grey, and Storm. They all view Professor X as their father figure, who trained, educated, and cared for them when they were younger, and this has reinforced the team's familial-like connection over the years. The crew also gets another badass when Wolverine joins them.
  • X-Men: The Last Stand: The line-up has changed from the first two movies, so now the team members are Storm, Wolverine, Beast, Iceman, Kitty Pryde, and Colossus.
    Bobby Drake: There's only six of us, Logan.
    Logan: Yeah. We're outnumbered. I'm not gonna lie to you. But we lost Scott. We lost the Professor. If we don't fight now, everything they stood for will die with them. I'm not gonna let that happen. Are you?
    (Bobby shakes his head)
    Logan: Then we stand together... X-Men, all of us.
  • X-Men: Days of Future Past:
    • In the Bad Future, the remaining X-Men are Professor X, Magneto, Wolverine, Storm, Kitty Pryde, Iceman, and Colossus. In The '70s, it's just Charles Xavier, Hank McCoy, and Logan.
    • According to Viral Marketing, Bishop founded the resistance group Free Mutants in 2018, and by 2023, the only survivors besides himself are Warpath, Blink, and Sunspot.
  • X-Men: Apocalypse: Beast, Cyclops, Jean Grey, Nightcrawler, Mystique, Quicksilver, and Moira (as the Token Human teammate) comprise the X-Men. Storm joins them later.

Gamebooks

• In Blood Sword, you can have between 1 and 4 characters to make up your party. Playing as 4 characters, then each character are the friends of each other and they have grown ever closer since their debut as the champions of that year's Battlepits of Krarth.
• In Demons of the Deep, your poor sailor who was tossed overboard, can go after the pirates who did that by collecting Black Pearls which can summon a skeleton each. If you use enough pearls, that the pirates are outnumbered - they'll immediately surrender and train your skellies how to sail before accepting exile. So now you are the owner of a pirate vessel and a crew of skeletons.
• In Seas of Blood, your Villain Protagonist is the pirate captain of the Banshee. Your crew of blood-thirsty cutthroats are usually a match for any opponent coming their way, especially if you help them out.
• In Gary Gygax's Sagard the Barbarian series, it's Downplayed in one of the books that has Sagard becoming a pirate captain whose ship and crew he took while escaping from slavers. Depending on how he got the crew, whether they were innocent men or the deposed pirate captain's own scallywags - they'll have differing levels of loyalty and may even mutiny if they haven't gotten enough treasure collected. Additionally Sagard was only with his crew for a short time, before he needed to continue his quest to save his fiance.

Literature

• The Animorphs from the series of the same name, a crew of shapeshifters.
• In the WWI novel of the Anno Dracula series, The Bloody Red Baron, the Baron himself leads a squad of German fliers who are all vampires and aces, much like the real-life Jagdgeschwader 1 the Baron led. Except not only are they vampires (making them excellent night pilots) to match up to the Allies' slightly better squad of aces (which includes Expies of The Shadow, Biggles, and Captain Midnight, along with real-life British ace Albert Ball) the squad is modified by science and elder vampire blood into giant bat fliers wearing machine-gun rigs.
• Jacuzzi and Nice's gang from Baccano! is a group of Street Urchins who still manage to fend off The Mafia.
• Brother Band: 'The Herons' — a pretty decent example of Ragtag Bunch of Misfits turned awesome.
• Burke's True Companions from the books of Andrew Vachss.
• The Crush revolves around Dragon Saffron, a paramilitary squad of soldiers with Elemental Powers who are regarded as some of the best in their business. They're also willing to risk their lives and careers just to make good on promises to each other.
• Force Recon Team Sidewinder in the Cut and Run series. They later unofficially adopt Special Agent Zane Garrett into their crew as well. The last book has an even larger crew when Zane and Ty's FBI coworkers and Sidewinder join forces (plus a couple of ex-military hitmen).
• The crew of the Dame Fortuna in Dawn of Steam which contains England's foremost heroes of the Napoleonic war as well as assorted other badasses and action girls.
• From the Discworld:
  • Vimes, Carrot, Angua and Detritus, and the rest of the Ankh-Morpork City Watch form one of these.
  • The Silver Horde. Seven very old men. Six of them are Barbarian Heroes, the most dangerous occupation on the whole Discworld (and considering what some people do for a living, that's saying something). Their primary skill is NOT DYING. They've made quite a habit out of it, and don't plan on breaking that habit.
  • The Wizards of Unseen University are NOT the sort of people you want to find yourself squaring off against, either. It doesn't matter how you might try, either.
    Ridcully: Please try to sue the University! We have a POND full of people who've tried to sue the University!
• Doc Savage and the Fabulous Five.
• Magpie, Talon, and the crows from Faeries of Dreamdark. They kill demons. Lots and lots of demons.
• The main character of the Fortunes of War duology and her fellow Starfleet officers are not only analogues to several of Enterprise's senior officers, in Dreadnought! they fall into important roles once they are integrated into the crew on Star Empire, with Scanner in engineering manning sensors, Sarda at tactical, Merete in sickbay, and Piper at the helm and taking over as captain when the original captain is injured. They are reunited (eventually) in Battlestations! to try to solve the crisis of the transwarp threat.
• In Gathering the Enchanted, it would be our main crew. You've got fire hot enough to melt bullets mid-shot, deadly poison breathing, and magical leg armor just to name a few.
• Gaunt's Ghosts: The guardsmen of the Tanith First-And-Only. When you're the last 2,000 survivors of a planet destroyed by Chaos, you have to be badass.
• Sasha and "her team" in Greek Ninja.
• Half's Saga: When King Half assembles a crew in order to go sea-raiding, he only takes men who have lifted a certain large stone in the king's courtyard off the ground. He also refuses to take anyone "who got scared […], or who spoke despondently, or who winced at wounds". Only 23 men in all of Half's kingdom meet his requirements, but of those "not one […] had less than twelve times the strength of an average man".
• Harry Potter:
  • Dumbledore's Army. Though it's just a bunch of teenagers, they're a group of very skilled, passionate, and ferocious teenagers, who fight side-by-side with their older counterparts in the Order of the Phoenix (see below).
  • The first and second Order of the Phoenix. They are the best. Veteran aurors, the youngest ever auror (before Harry Potter), some of the most powerful wizards of their generation (Sirius Black, James and Lily Potter, Remus Lupin) and Albus Dumbledore — the only wizard Voldemort ever feared.
• In a way, the SOS Brigade, led by Haruhi Suzumiya.
  • The leader can bend reality to her will, and once gave the time traveler the ability to fire lasers from her eye while filming a movie. The next character is a data-manipulating android that can't be killed, even with 6 spikes and 2 energy tentacles the size of a ship's mast through her body. After that, we have an ESPer, who can move into alternate dimensions created by the leader, usually to fight her inner demons. Following that, we have a time traveler, who grows up to become The Chessmaster that jump-started the events that implanted the ideas of aliens, time travelers, and ESPers into Haruhi's mind. The last character is completely normal, as verified by 2 factions. However, said character managed to blackmail one of the factions into not terminating his friend.
  • The condensed version: You piss off any one of them, and chances are, someone will come in and kick your ass. Or head, as the Computer Club President realized.
• The seven demigods from The Heroes of Olympus definitely qualify for this. They travel the world on a flying ship, regularly fighting against giants, monsters, and undead.
• There are certain groups in High School D×D that would fit this trope like the Occult Research Club, the Student Council, and Vali's group to name a few.
• Several Familia in Is It Wrong to Try to Pick Up Girls in a Dungeon?:
  • Members of the Loki Familia currently listed in the character sheet are all badasses. Take an example: why did Aiz happen to pass by a Mind Down-affected Bell in Book 3/Episode 5? Turns out she, Riveria, Tiona, Tione, and Fynn finished a 46-hour crawl on the 37th floor. For fun. They are at least Level 3 (Lefiya), average at Level 5, and maxes at Level 6. To note, due to the universe's Anti-Grinding system, most adventurers are Level 1.
  • While we were only told the strength of the Freya Familia is on par with Loki's, we know that Ottar, the single adventurer with the highest Character Level, is in this familia.
• The Companions of the Hall from R.A. Salvatore's The Legend of Drizzt.
• In Lord of the Night Sky Colonel Crane has one on call. They're all extremely skilled heavily armed specialists, and they've spent years working together in dangerous missions.
• The Fellowship of the Ring is made up of some of the greatest warriors of Middle-Earth, and even the passive Hobbits manage to survive against the full might of the Dark Lord and his vast armies.
• The Electroclan is definitely this. With the sole exception of Jack, they are all 15-year-olds who have destroyed billions in Elgen buildings, research facilities, and transportation. They are all implied to have prices on their heads ranging into the millions and they are considered a legitimate threat to the aforementioned corporation which has entire countries under its control.
• The Mortal Instruments shows Jace, Simon, Clary, Alec, and Isabelle. A vampire and four shadowhunters who rely on each other in battle and hunt demons.
• The Nancy Drew Files and The Hardy Boys Casefiles were a Darker and Edgier version of the stories that made both of their respective casts a Badass Crew. They also had a crossover Spinoff, the Nancy Drew-Hardy Boys Supermysteries, in which Frank, Nancy, Joe, and various combinations of Bess, Chet, George, Biff, Tony, etc., taking down everybody from corrupt CEOs to terrorist cells.
• The titular Oathsworn in Robert Low's Viking series.
• Orcs by Stan Nichols. After defecting from Jennesta's army, they decide to wreak holy hell on everyone that gets in their way, invading underground cities, defeating crime bosses, launching a raid into an UNDERWATER city, laying down the smack on a church militant army, and sending demons screaming back to hell. The sequel novels get even better, with them annihilating an army using...cows. Styrke and his Wolverines = Badass Crew.
• The five core members of the Embryon Tribe in Quantum Devil Saga: Avatar Tuner. Having only started off with The Leader Serph and The Lancer Heat, they managed to take control of one of the six large areas of the Junkyard with under fifty people that were all recruited by force (including the other three). It is noted that the five of them as a group have the greatest battle ability and potential in the entire Junkyard, and sure enough, those five manage to take over the entire Junkyard, with two of them usually sitting on the sidelines (though they did have help by the two Sixth Rangers).
• The Jack Ryan novel Rainbow Six gives us Rainbow, headed by John Clark (Rainbow Six) which happens to be a multinational force of some of the baddest asses from the world's most deadly special forces units, albeit presented in a very realistic and very mortal fashion.
• The Saga of Tanya the Evil has the 203rd mage battalion or the "Pixie" battalion, the titular character's personnel troops who in their first mission, route an army of about fifty thousand men so easily, their commander refers to it as a simple live fire exercise, despite being made of only forty-eight mages and pretty much defeating an entire country in the same night with no casualties on their end.
• Shake Hands with the Devil Dallaire's entire team, save the Bangladeshis.
• To a man, the crew of the Blue Jay in Starship's Mage come to rescue Damien from prison (after he breaks the laws of magic to save them all from pirates), even though they'll be fugitives from then on.
• Star Wars Legends:
  • Any X-Wing squadron led by Wedge Antilles. Rogue Squadron boasts twelve of the absolute best pilots in the New Republic, who capture the enemy capital planet as part of one mission, then take a break to wage a guerrilla campaign to liberate another world. Wraith Squadron is a bunch of oddballs and misfits who can get the bridge of their support vessel blown off, smash a capital ship in half with a sucker-punch, and continue infiltrating the enemy without breaking cover. And Red Flight is nothing but four comrades with the combined skill and experience of a starfighter wing.
  • The four stormtroopers in Survivor's Quest, Unit Aurek-Seven of the 501st. Cloud, Grappler, Watchman, and Shadow. They are unspeakably badass.
  • Delta Squad probably takes the cake for the most Badass Crew from the Galaxy far, far away.
  • The "Hand of Judgment", a quintet of stormtroopers who deserted from the Empire and used a stolen Imperial Security Bureau undercover transport to become highly effective vigilantes, exposing and dealing with corrupt Imperial officials across the galaxy and then eluding capture. Eventually future Grand Admiral Thrawn recruits them to help found and train the incarnation of the 501st Legion that Unit Aurek-Seven belongs to.
• The Stormlight Archive:
  • Bridge Four started out as the unluckiest of a very unlucky group of slaves and disgraced soldiers. Then Kaladin got a hold of them...
  • According to the Stormfather fighting six windrunners by themselves is something that the average herald can pull off without a problem. And during the worst desolations, they more or less had train bring entire civilizations (both in technology and military skills) to fight the fused.
• Time Scout: The residents of time terminal eighty-six. You can find an expert in every little thing, and even the food vendors know how to survive if a random Time Portal opens into the middle of the Battle of Orléans.
• Treasure Island: The crew of the Walrus prior to the events of the novel. They are never seen operating as a crew in the story, but given the levels of badassery they show individually, it is not particularly surprising that a crew with Jeremiah Flint as captain, Billy Bones as first mate, Long John Silver as quartermaster, Israel Hands as gunnery chief and foremast jacks built along the lines of Ben Gunn, Black Dog and Pew were able to amass 750000 pounds in gold and terrorize the Spanish main for nearly a decade.
• Twelve Houses has this — the True Companions formed around Senneth is made up of two elite fighters, two shapeshifters, a mind-reader, and Senneth herself, who is not only the most powerful mystic ever, full stop, but is so good at sword-fighting that she can beat the Lirren boys. All of them can hold their own in a fight, and then some.
• The Dendarii Mercenaries of the Vorkosigan Saga. From Handicapped Badass Miles Vorkosigan, to Action Girls Elli Quinn and Taura, to Hermaphrodite Deadpan Snarker Bel Thorne, the Dendarii are awesome.
• Zero Sight has Lambda Squad, a group of mages and a vampire who are resistant to mind manipulation, can cast death ray, invisibility, and teleportation spells, and cut down trolls and werewolves using a box cutter.

Live-Action TV

• The Angel Investigations staff in Angel are the best example of this trope in any Whedon show. Anyone who joins is guaranteed to develop into a badass within one season. And Gunn's crew.
• The appropriately named The A-Team. Despite being four dissimilar soldiers thrown together by circumstances, they are a very closely knit group, to the point where the mother of one actually characterizes the others as being her son's family. All of them are awesome in their own way.
• God help you if you mess with certain officers, officials, and crewmen of the Battlestar Galactica. Yes, they're an exceedingly dysfunctional crew and are [literally] at each others' throats repeatedly, but mess with them, and the only question is which one of them is going to destroy you and how flashy that destruction will be. Certain Cylon models exhibit this quality. But that situation is... complicated...
• Bones, Booth, and all the squints—increasingly so as more and more of them get out of the lab and into the field.
• The Burn Notice True Companions, made up of ex-spy Michael Weston, ex-IRA Trigger-Happy Tsundere Fiona Glennane, retired Navy SEAL Sam Ax, and Cool Old Lady Maddie Weston. Michael's brother Nate occasionally gets a look-in, but his badassness isn't as pronounced (he usually ends up being the Distressed Dude). As of Season 4, we get Sixth Ranger Jesse, a recently burned counter-intelligence agent, which causes a lot of problems.
• The Scooby Gang of Buffy the Vampire Slayer became this eventually. They are a handful of humans and vampires that keep all the nasties in the Hellmouth from overrunning the world.
• Chilling Adventures of Sabrina has a group of five teenagers. A warlock, a half-witch, and three more or less ordinary teenagers. And they managed to stop the armies of the devil.
• The Operation Bartowski team from Chuck.
• The study group as a whole in Community episode "Modern Warfare," for surviving as long as they did in such hellish conditions.
• The BAU team from Criminal Minds, from no-selling Team Mom Hotch to Badass Bookworm Reid, you don't ever mess with them.
• The Grissom team from CSI. The teams of CSI: NY and CSI: Miami as well.
• The crew of the Raza from the Dark Matter series.
• The crew of Moya from Farscape.
• The literal crew of Serenity in Firefly.
• The Fringe team has faced impossible things together, up to and including fractures in the fabric of the universe itself. They meet every obstacle with good humor, solidarity, and (fairly) calm acceptance. So the world's falling apart again—what's new?
• The new Hawaii Five-0 team. Moreso than the original squad.
• Dr. House's team. All extremely competent doctors, all competitive, all willing to bend rules to save a patient. And though it sometimes seemed they hated each other, their loyalty has actually lasted even though they've all gone their separate ways.
• The Kaizoku Sentai Gokaiger, doubly appropriate because they're Space Pirates. Also Marvelous' previous team with Akared and Basco Ta Jolokia, the Red Pirates. When you're just three people and are considered to be the greatest threat the Zangyack ever face and having a bounty bigger than the Gokaigers, you have to be one. Not to mention they just started collecting the Ranger Keys when they started their adventure, meaning they face off against the Zangyack without the key's powers.
  • Any Sentai team would count.
• Team DenLiner from Kamen Rider Den-O.
• The Sword of Logos from Kamen Rider Saber, especially since they're effectively a Sentai team of super strong Kamen Riders.
• The entire crew of Leverage. Each with their own specialties, each one the best at that particular art. And also an awesome example of True Companions.
• Magnificent Bastard Mario Santos and his crew from the Argentine TV show Los Simuladores. They even made The FBI their Unwitting Pawns. Yes that FBI.
• The core team of Knights of the Round Table in Merlin. Sirs Gwaine, Lancelot, Elyan, Leon, and Percival took on an army of immortal soldiers...and won. Or at least, survived long enough for Merlin to save them all...
• The Metro-Dade Vice Squad of Miami Vice. Believe it or not, Crockett and Tubbs were not the only great cops working in Miami.
• The Impossible Missions Force of Mission: Impossible.
• In the 2014 BBC version of The Musketeers, Athos is The Master Swordsman amongst a whole regiment of Master Swordsmen, Aramis is the standout marksman, Porthos is near unbeatable at hand to hand combat, D'Artagnan starts out as a promising recruit (and it is predicted that he will one day surpass them all) and they all report to the revered veteran Captain Treville.
• The Gibbs' Team on NCIS. Goes for the main teams on JAG, NCIS: Los Angeles and NCIS: New Orleans as well.
• Any given Power Rangers team more than qualifies. Stand out examples include the original teenagers with attitude, the space explorers who defeated every villain of the Zordon Era, demon-slaying rescue workers, time traveling cops from the future, the roaring defenders of nature, ninjas who command the elements of nature and the last stand for humanity.
• The Bannerman Road from The Sarah Jane Adventures. Think three (sometimes two; once four) kids, an older lady, a sentient computer, and occasionally a robot dog can't turn you into alien slime? Think again.
• The Justice League of America in Smallville. You've got The Fastest Man Alive, Victor Stone, a Cyborg with both Super-Strength and Hollywood Hacking abilities (Genius Bruiser much?), Aquaman, who manages to hold his own despite the whole What Kind of Lame Power Is Heart, Anyway? situation, and Black Canary, an Action Girl with Super-Scream abilities. All headed up by Green Arrow, the biggest Badass Normal in the whole show. And that's when Superman and the Martian Manhunter aren't helping them.
• The team from Soldier Of Fortune, essentially The A-Team for grown-ups done by Jerry Bruckheimer. The team was headed up by ex-Delta Force major Matt Shepherd and contained ex-Marine Scout/Sniper Benny Ray Riddle (played by former Ranger Tim Abell), ex-CIA officer Margo Vincent, former SAS Staff Sargeant and electronics/EOD specialist CJ Yates with Jason "Chance" Walker (ex-USAF SOAR)as the pilot. The team was run by a spooky government-type called Xavier Trout, himself an ex-military type, when he/the US government needed deniable ops done.
• Stargate-verse:
  • Stargate SG-1: The titular SG-1. Entire alien races have attacked Earth just to kill O'Neill, Carter, Jackson, and Teal'c. The four of them have probably saved the planet more times than even they can count.
  • The primary team from Stargate Atlantis.
• Every version of Star Trek features a version of this:
  • The brave, loyal, and hypercompetent crew of the USS Enterprise on Star Trek: The Original Series. Always ready, willing, and able to do whatever their Captain requires of them to complete their mission, no matter how crippled their ship or desperate their circumstances. As we are often shown sister ships to the Enterprise failing where they ultimately succeed, the obvious implication is that they are the winning variable that makes the Enterprise the legend she ultimately becomes. The senior staff become True Companions and remain this throughout their careers, and even the hapless Red Shirt crew members never waver in their duty.
  • The crew of the Enterprise-D on Star Trek: The Next Generation. Even decidedly non-action types like Wesley and Troi got their moments to take the spotlight.
  • On Star Trek: Deep Space Nine, thanks to the phenomenal Character Development, even supposedly minor characters wind up kicking ass at some point. In "The Way of The Warrior", for example, the station has to fight off a small fleet of Klingons. A montage shows minor recurring characters engaging in one-on-one fights with the Klingons, Garak (the freakin' tailor) picking them off with a phaser, and even their otherwise sworn archnemesis, Ax-Crazy Gul Dukat beating them up with a bat'leth.
  • And on Star Trek: Voyager, the ship repeatedly shows up to new alien worlds in the Delta Quadrant only to find that their reputation for whooping the ass of everything standing between them and the Alpha Quadrant already precedes them. This is without any backup from the Federation and with the ship repeatedly running out of supplies and energy. And yes, even sweet, gentle two-year-old young woman Kes is capable of ripping you apart with her mind.
  • The Star Trek: Enterprise crew uses their badassitude to save not only Earth but the entire Milky Way from trans-dimensional invaders. They're also responsible for the formation of The Federation.
• The kids (and later teens) Mike, Will, Dustin, Lucas, Max, and Eleven in Stranger Things have both made a government conspiracy, as well as taken up with Eldritch Abominations.
• Supernatural has Team Freewill: Sam, Dean, and Castiel.
• The good people of Torchwood Three from Torchwood.
• Ultra Series:
  • How badass the human defense team varies from series to series, but all of them have their moments. The most badass crews would have to be GUYS from Ultraman Mebius, the Night Raiders from Ultraman Nexus, XIG from Ultraman Gaia, Xio from Ultraman X, and the Ultra Garrison from Ultraseven.
  • The Ultras themselves have their examples. The original Ultraman, Zoffy, Ultraseven, Ultraman Jack, Ultraman Ace, and Ultraman Taro form one called the Ultra Brothers; and Ultraman Zero leads the multiverse protection crew known as the Ultimate Force Zero.
• Rick Grimes' group in The Walking Dead (2010) don't initially count as one, since only half the group show any combat prowess let alone willingness to fight. During the second season, more members of the group begin to take up arms, but the majority remain Action Survivors (especially the women and children who actively avoid combat). However, in the second season finale, Rick decides that enough is enough and over the next several months turns his group into a force to be reckoned with. Everyone now pulls their weight in the group, and Rick has also ended all conflict and petty cliques largely due to the end of his conflict with Shane since he killed him in self-defense. They only become more badass as the series goes on, and in the fifth season, they number at least fifteen strong and all but one of them qualify as a badass solely because she's an infant! They've come a long way from that group of people huddled around a fire eating fish like it was an extended camping trip.
• The senior staff in The West Wing may be a bunch of paper-pushing bureaucrats, but they chart national policies and negotiate with world-class politicians on a daily basis. You can try to threaten them with physical violence, but it'll do little to scare them, and they'll just get the Secret Service to kick your ass.
• Zero Zero Zero: Manuel's squad of elite Mexican commandos is pitted against The Cartel and uses equally brutal tactics. Manuel behaves like a big brother to his comrades. But there's more going on in this squad than meets the eye.

Pinballs

• Black Rose has Captain Rose and her pirate crew, who are shown boarding an enemy ship en masse with cannons firing.

Puppet Shows

• The Captains in Captain Scarlet and the Mysterons, to an extent (more so in fanon).

Roleplay

• The Castle Crew of AJCO grow into one of these. Their leader Nights is a highly skilled scientist proficient in both medical and mechanical fields, her second-in-command Will is a Genius Bruiser with an instinct for machinery, there are no less than four mages — Krauzer, Curls, Blue, and Ranger — wielding various types of magic and their youngest member Egg came close to single-handedly taking down AJCO without ever laying a finger on them. The moment that Nights cracks after a trip into the Friendship Chamber of the Silo they start to break up, however: Egg has finally left for good despite being one of the Crew's founding members and Will and Krauzer are at odds to decide who should be the new leader.
• Fire Emblem on Forums: Most player groups that last long enough become this by default, but there are some standout examples:
  • Whereabouts of Drink and Coin: The Wharf Street Warriors are notable for starting the game as this; they are the third strongest adventuring guild in the city, and even only eight of them (with some help) manage to cleave their way through effectively every gang in Ishim. In a single night. Their reputation as The Dreaded is not unearned.
  • Death to Traitors: The player characters, a black ops crew sent into Govitz to retrieve Joi Heart and the Nullification Tomes, due to being a collection of spies, assassins, warriors, and a few Boxed Crooks, start as this by default.
  • Wonderful Blessing: Team F, the player characters, evolve from a Ragtag Bunch of Misfits to this, having taken down multiple Demon Generals, fought toe to toe with multiple Goddess Dragons and having earned the friendship of Demon Generals and Goddess Dragons alike.
  • Mortal Transgression: Virtuous, Kane's squad, was also assembled for the purpose of taking down the corrupt system of Purgus through acts of thievery.
• The protagonists of Panopticon Quest turn from a Ragtag Bunch of Misfits into this, becoming fire-forged friends and a wacky family after running several missions together.
• We Are All Pokémon Trainers:
  • The main group, aka the J-Team, regularly coming up on top versus a number of dangerous opponents and containing some of the most skilled trainers in the RP's universe.
  • The PEFE Founders, particularly during their takedown of Pokefutures Inc.
  • The Extras of Orre, a group of vigilantes fighting off Cipher with minimal resources.

Sports

• The 1972 Miami Dolphins; who won every game that season, up to and including the Super Bowl.
• The New England Patriots of the 2000s and 2010s. They won the Super Bowl in three out of four years and are the only team to go 16-0 in the regular season. Since 2001, they've not had a single losing season, have made the playoffs every season save for two (2002 and 2008), and have won at least ten games almost every season (2002 being the sole exception). Starting in 2012, they appeared in eight straight AFC championship games, winning five and going on to win three Super Bowls, including three in five years from 2014-2018. Aside from the celebrated 16-0 2007 team, the 2016 showed how badass the Patriots were when, deprived of Tom Brady serving a four-game suspension for DeflateGate, they still grasped a commanding 3-1 record without him, including two games where the backup to the backup QB had to be called. Then Brady was back and the rest of the AFC was subjected to a brutal ass-kicking as the Pats posted an 8-0 record on the road.
• If we're talking football, then look no further than the Pittsburgh Steelers and Oakland Raiders of the '70s. Not only did they win consistently, they faced off each other for AFC supremacy every year and had legitimate bad blood, leading to extremely physical, emotional, dirty games. The Steelers typically were the designated good guys, due to their classy owner, blue-collar roots, and disciplined team ethic. The Raiders were always the bad guys, in part because of their Jerkass owner, rowdy fans, and perhaps, even rowdier players. Also note the Raiders were made up of a bunch of guys with Names to Run Away from Really Fast, guys like Jack "The Assassin" Tatum, Ken "The Snake" Stabler, and Skip "Dr. Death" Thomas. Incidentally, both the Steelers and Raiders only achieved full-blown Badass Crew status because they first had to take that mantle from the waning Dolphins, who not only had that undefeated season but repeated the next year with a team some experts believe might have actually been better than the '72 Dolphins.
• The University of Miami Hurricanes football team, particularly in the 1980s and 1990s. The Canes, which won five national championships and appeared at several more title games, developed a "Thug U" reputation due to its "Catholics vs. Convicts" rivalry with Notre Dame, the players appearing at a national championship pregame banquet in combat fatigues (and losing to underdogs Penn State the next night at the 1987 Fiesta Bowl), the on-field taunting by the team (which led to the NCAA adding "the Miami Rule" addressing excessive celebration), the team's alleged payments from Two Live Crew's Luke Campbell, and many of the recruited players being from urban areas (unprecedented at the time, now somewhat the norm).
• The 1955 Brooklyn Dodgers, who, after years of winning the league pennant and always coming up short in the World Series, succeeded in winning the World Series against the New York Yankees. The '55 Dodgers, which included Jackie Robinson, Pee Wee Reese, and Gil Hodges, solidified their legend in baseball. After the 1955 World Series, the Brooklyn Dodgers won one more pennant (but losing in seven games to the Yankees in the World Series) before moving to Los Angeles.
• The 1990 UNLV basketball team, led by Jerry "Tark the Shark" Tarkanian. They dominated basketball, beating Duke to win the championship, while their coach defied the NCAA (he was notorious for saying "The NCAA got so mad at Kentucky they decided to give Cleveland State two more years of probation."). The next year, the UNLV team almost had an undefeated season but lost to Duke in the Final Four.
• The Michigan "Fab Five" teams of the 1990s. They popularized baggy shorts and brought swagger to college basketball, despite being the NCAA runner-up twice. Unfortunately, Ed Martin, a booster for the Michigan team, was found to have provided benefits to the team in violation of NCAA guidelines, and as a result, Chris Webber was found ineligible and the Fab Five title appearances were vacated.
• The mid-70s Philadelphia Flyers, aka "The Broad Street Bullies." Were the first expansion team to win the Stanley Cup (winning it twice in a row), became beloved in Philadelphia and loathed by traditional hockey fans for their success through intimidation and violence. They were also known for their skirmishes against the Soviet "Red Army" teams.
• The early-90s Pittsburgh Penguins, led by Mario Lemieux and Jaromir Jagr. The Penguins won the Stanley Cup for the first time in 1991, led by coach "Badger Bob" Johnson. Sadly, "Badger Bob" died of cancer shortly after winning the Cup, and he was replaced by the season by legendary Blues/Canadiens/Red Wings coach Scotty Bowman, who, in his first of two seasons as their coach, led the Penguins to their second consecutive Cup.
• The Pittsburgh Pirates, in spite of their current state of mediocrity, fielded a few of these in their heyday.
  • The 1960 Pirates that upset the Yankees in the World Series after Bill Mazeroski's walk-off home run in Game 7.
  • The 1971 Pirates, who defeated the Phillies in September using an all-black starting lineup, before winning the World Series a month later. Chuck D claimed that this was the reason he fell in love with the team and started the trend of wearing a Pirates cap. The team included Roberto Clemente, one of the most beloved baseball players of all time, as well as Dock Ellis, more well-known for his LSD no-hitter the previous year.
  • The 1979 Pirates, who won the World Series between the Pittsburgh Steelers winning two Super Bowls.
• Other 1970s Badass Crews in baseball included:
  • The 1972-1974 "Swingin'" Oakland A's, which included Reggie Jackson, Catfish Hunter, and Rollie Fingers, winning three consecutive World Series
  • The 1970s Cincinnati Reds, aka "The Big Red Machine," including Johnny Bench and Ken Griffey Sr., led by Pete Rose. They appeared in four World Series (losing one to the aforementioned A's), winning two in a row (beating the Red Sox and Yankees)
  • The "Bronx Zoo" Yankees of the late 1970s, known for conflicts between players, then-new owner George Steinbrenner, and manager Billy Martin (repeatedly fired and rehired by Steinbrenner). The team not only consisted of Reggie Jackson and Catfish Hunter, who both played in the Swingin A's, but also pitcher Thurmon Munson and Bucky "insert Boston-appropriate language here" Dent. Narratives of the team including The Bronx Is Burning depict the Yankees lifting the morale of a city crippled by an economic shutdown, the Son of Sam killings, and crime lingering in the city then. The Bronx Zoo era, which included the Yankees winning two consecutive World Series (beating the Dodgers twice), ended in 1979 after Munson was killed crashing his private plane.
• The New York Islanders ice hockey team, which won four straight Stanley Cup titles between 1980 and 1983.
  • Several Montreal Canadiens teams accomplished similar feats in several decades.
    • The Canadiens won five straight from 1956-1960, and four straight from 1976-1979. However, the Islanders played in an expanded league (the Canadiens of the 50s played in a six-team league; by 1980, when the Islanders finally won, the NHL had 21 teams) and had to win more games to get to the finals, which is why those Islander teams hold the record for most consecutive playoff victories (19). Also in the Islanders' favor is the fact that no team since in any of the four major North American professional sports leagues (MLB, NBA, NFL, NHL) has won four consecutive championships. (They reached a fifth straight final)
    • The Islanders dynasty itself was ended by another badass crew, the Edmonton Oilers, led by Wayne Gretzky. The Oilers won the Cup four times with "The Great One" and won a fifth time after Gretzky was traded (Gretzky himself never won the Cup again after the trade).
• The 1996 Chicago Bulls, with their 72-10 winning streak and fourth NBA championship, would qualify. Notable players, led by Phil Jackson, included all-stars Dennis Rodman, Scottie Pippen, and Tony Kukoc, as well as a certain guard from North Carolina.
• Shaq and Kobe's Lakers, particularly the 2001 team. The Lakers were Badass with 3 straight titles, but the personality clashes between Kobe and Shaq didn't exactly make for a good working environment.
• Magic Johnson's Lakers.
• Isiah's Pistons. Like the Broad Street Bullies that terrorized the NHL in the 1970s, the "Bad Boys," which also included Bill Laimbeer, Dennis Rodman, and Joe Dumars and coached by "Dream Team" coach Chuck Daly, were beloved in Detroit and despised by traditional basketball fans by winning two consecutive championships through violence, intimidation, and lack of sportsmanship (when the Pistons lost to the Bulls in the 1991 playoffs, the Pistons players refused to shake hands after the game).
• 2006 Miami Heat.
• Tim Duncan's Spurs.
• The 2008 Boston Celtics.
• The 1983 Philadelphia 76ers who only lost 1 game on the road to the championship.
• The 1986 Boston Celtics championship team, featuring 5 future Hall of Famers (Larry Bird, Robert Parish, Bill Walton, Dennis Johnson, and Kevin McHale).
• Ahem. The Dream Team. Forget any city's team, forget the All-Star game, this is the crew sent to compete at the highest level in the Olympics. The first one especially, consisting of Magic, Bird, Jordan, Robinson, Ewing, Malone, Barkley, Stockton and others, is considered the greatest team in basketball, maybe even in any team sport.
• The Geelong Cats, an Australian football team, from round five 2007 to the 2009 grand final, which is seventy-three matches by the way, they lost seven games in total and became the only team to win eighteen or more games in three consecutive seasons. Some commentators have called them the greatest team of all.
• The SANFL team the Central Bulldogs, they've won all but two grand finals since 2000 and came second in the years where they lost.
• The English Rugby Union team of 2003. Wilkinson, Dawson, Johnson...
• The Liverpool football team of the late '70s/'80s. Ian Rush, Kevin Keegan, Kenny Dalglish, Mark Lawrenson, Alan Hansen, etc.
• Brazil's national football team that won the 1958, 1962, and 1970 World Cups. Not only had the best player ever (Pelé), but also a full roster of talented players: Garrincha, Zagallo, Tostão, Gerson, and more. The 1982 team is also considered to be one of the best teams in Brazil's history, even if they didn't win the WC that year (contrast with the teams that won in 1994 and 2002, both considered very inferior to the others).
• In the 2006 World Cup, Italy was this. Won the Cup, without ever losing a match, right when Italian football was trying to tame the storm of the Calciopoli match-fixing scandal. In the 2012 European Cup, they even managed to tame the ultimate Badass Crew of this generation of association football, Spain, with a draw. However, in the final of the tournament, they got crushed by Spain, with a 4-0 as result. In 2018, they suffered a severe case of Badass Decay as they outright failed to qualify for the World Cup in Russia; however, they have recently returned to their old ass-kicking ways under Roberto Mancini, going over thirty games unbeaten, reaching the 2021 Nations League Final Four, and even winning Euro 2020 beating England on penalties at Wembley in the final.
• Speaking of Italian football, the crowning example definitely has to be Torino in the second post-war, which won 5 back-to-back home titles from 1943 to 1949^note Serie A wasn't held from 1943 to 1945 due to Italy's involvement in World War II and pretty much were the backbone of the Italian national football team. These achievements hallowed the team with the name of "Grande Torino", and is often considered one of the most powerful club sides in football history. However, the entire team died in 1949 in a plane crash near the Basilica di Superga after a friendly against Benfica.
  • Serie A in The '80s was all about this trope; almost all of the teams were examples back then, and as a result, the Italian top tier was widely regarded to be the best in Europe back then. Examples include Michel Platini's Juventus, Diego Maradona's Napoli, Jurgen Klinsmann's Inter Milan, Carlo Ancelotti's AS Roma (yes, that Ancelotti), Zico's Udinese, Osvaldo Bagnoli's Hellas Verona, and — arguably the single most well-known of them all — Arrigo Sacchi's AC Milan.
• Right now regarding association football national teams, Spain definitely qualifies. Current winner of the European and World Cups, beaten the former Badass Crew Italy for an incredible 4-0 in the 2012 European Cup finals held in Kiev, Ukraine, and the under-21 national is currently the European champion, beating Italy for a second time. Ouch.
  • Not scared enough? Their nickname is The Red Fury. Very fitting nickname for a Badass Crew like that.
• The English Premier League has six crowning examples of this trope: Manchester United in the 1998/99 season — which won the continental treble after an incredible last-minute victory against Bayern Munich in the 1999 Champions League final; Arsenal in the 2003/04 season — which went an entire 38-game league campaign unbeaten to the Premier League title; Liverpool in the 2004/05 season — which came back from 3-0 down in the 2005 Champions League final against a heavily favored AC Milan, and then won on penalties; Leicester City in the 2015/16 season — which defied all expectations by winning the title after seriously risking relegation the previous season; Manchester City in the 2017/18 season — which broke numerous league records (including highest points tally, longest winning run, and most goals scored) on their way to the title; and finally, Liverpool again between 2018 and 2020, which not only won the club's sixth Champions League in 2019, but also won the English league title in 2020 after a 30-year-long wait.
• 2010-2012 FC Barcelona. They trampled everyone in the Champions League; they made their biggest rival Real Madrid their bitches on several occasions; and the match against Santos in the FIFA World Championship is considered to be one of the most one-sided games in the history of the tournament (even counting games against African, Asian, North/Central American and Oceanian teams, usually weaker than South American/Europeans ones). When you take the best South American team and keep the ball under your control for 72% of the game time, you're being some badass indeed.
• Another footy example is the Celtic side that won the 1967 European Cup (today's Champions League) in Lisbon against heavily favored Inter Milan. All but one of their 15 players were born within 10 miles of Celtic Park, Glasgow, and in that same season, they also won 4 other trophies - including the three main Scottish competitions. Their nickname? The Lisbon Lions.

Tabletop Games

• Both Blades in the Dark and Scum and Villainy feature player characters who start out as this. In the former, you are a gang of criminals in a haunted industrial fantasy city. In the latter, you are the crew of a starship, traveling the galaxy to ply your trade as outlaws.
• The titular heroes of Crimestrikers are an elite team of international supercops, each of whom is very formidable in his/her own way. They work together to save Creaturia, a World of Funny Animals, from supervillains on a regular basis.
• Most Dungeons & Dragons adventuring parties. Groups of (traditionally four) people who depends their lives on each other, fill specific roles, fight violent monsters, and generally perform superhuman feats of heroics (or villainy, as the case may be). Upon reaching a certain level of power, dying doesn't become so much a worry for these people as an inconvenience.
• Exalted perfect circles tend to fall under both this trope and Five-Man Band at the same time. Which character is occupying which role in the latter tends to vary with the situation.
• The Weatherlight in Magic: The Gathering is crewed by some of Dominaria's greatest badasses. And Squee.
• Sentinels of the Multiverse:
  • It has a badass crew in the form of the heroic Sentinels. Unlike most heroes, the Sentinels have one hero deck and four hero character cards. Many of their cards help protect and support the entire team.
  • The villainous La Capitan also has a Badass Crew, one she assembled from people who hail from different time periods, due to her time-traveling pirate ship. As per any Badass Crew, they work well together.
  • On a lesser note, The Crackjaw Crew also are a Badass crew, though not as badass as the Sentinels or La Capitan.
• By necessity, any crew of 'Runners in Shadowrun will usually end up becoming this once they survive their first few 'runs together.
• By the same token, any group of soldiers in Warhammer 40,000 must be a Badass Crew if they are to have any hope of survival in the grim darkness of the far future. More specific examples would be the gangs from the decaying underhive of Necromunda, who scavenge and battle in conditions that would give Batman trouble; a Rogue Trader's crew, who explore and exploit strange new worlds, frequently through Gunboat Diplomacy; an Inquisitor's retinue, who wages a shadow war for humanity's survival; a Death Watch kill-team, recruited from Space Marines with a particular aptitude for annihilating aliens; and even the power-mad cultists and Chaos Space Marines willing to undertake any challenge for a chance at godhood.

Video Games

• That's the way most RPGs work: if the heroes are a Ragtag Bunch of Misfits at first, by the end of the game and after taking several dozens levels in badass, they usually end up at being roughly 50% of the world military power by themselves.
• In most First Person Shooters, the online cooperation mode has the players become this. Special mention goes to Doom and Serious Sam.
• Ace Combat:
  • The Wardog Squadron, a.k.a. the Four Wings of Sand Island, in Ace Combat 5: The Unsung War. They started out as rookie flight cadets that were forced to fight as frontline units at the beginning of the war. By the middle of the war, you all become known as the Demons of Razgriz, and your very presence on the battlefield scares the enemy shitless. The enemy gets a short respite when your unit is forced to play dead, but upon your comeback, the enemy absolutely freaks out, and your unit not only becomes dubbed the Ghosts of Razgriz, but you all fly in a wicked awesome black color scheme. Yes, the Razgriz are a flying unit of badass.
  • Two words — Galm Team. Your squadron in Ace Combat Zero: The Belkan War is exactly two man strong: a team thrown together by chance in the last ditch attempt at Back from the Brink. You succeed. Soon enough, the Player Character becomes known as the Demon Lord of the Round Table and his wingman is the same guy who had his right wing shot off from the hull and still landed his plane safely during an intense battle.
• The cast of pilots in Air Force Delta Strike are this.
• Borderlands and its sequel feature the Vault Hunters, a collective band of thieves and mercenaries, as well as their allies.
• Burning Rangers is about a team of elite futuristic firefighters who work together in order to rescue civilians during raging fire outbreaks, no matter the odds.
• Dante, Trish, and Lady make up the original Devil May Cry agency which specializes in hunting demons. Though Dante serves as the leader, all three of them have a deep respect for each other and are equally capable of eliminating their enemies. As of Devil May Cry 5, Nero and Nico also tag along with them, but the two have their own mobile version of the Devil May Cry business.
• All of the playable characters in Don't Starve are badass, as you would have to be to survive in a world where everything wants you dead. The crew bit gets even more amplified in Don't Starve Together.
• The Embryon from Digital Devil Saga are so badass they reunite in the afterlife to defeat God.
• The End Times: Vermintide: The bloody Ubersreik Five^note or Four, doesn't matter...!
• The four Genohunters from Evolva are able to fight an entire army of aliens by themselves.
• One literally called The Crew in Evolve. Originally a group of twelve, and eventually a group of twenty, every member of the group is both willing to put their life on the line to stop the Monsters and capable enough to survive doing it. Though they have their differences, especially with their newer recruits, they function like a surrogate family to one another.
  • Prior to the game, Bucket and Cabot were in another one called The Leading Edge. They helped newly colonized planets by decreasing the numbers of deadly wildlife, though Cabot didn't think much of the name.
  • Parnell, Abe, and Sunny were in another one as crew members of the Sword, with Parnell as The Captain. They worked as a group of morally good mercenaries until its destruction.
• Every party line-up in a Final Fantasy game, but Dissidia Final Fantasy is the best example, being an Intercontinuity Crossover that brings the main heroes and villains from the rest of the series together to fight, and each and every one of them is just as Badass as they were in their original games. And if, like Garland or Laguna, you weren't particularly badass in your original game, don't worry, you get to be an Adaptational Badass.
• There is at least one of these in every single Fire Emblem game, but possibly the most standout example would have to be at the beginning of Fire Emblem: Path of Radiance and after part 2 of Radiant Dawn: the Greil Mercenaries, and their eventual growth under badass into a Badass Army. Eventually the band of six or seven mercenaries grows into a 50-character strong army led by a more mature, wiser, and altogether completely awesome Four-Star Badass Ike, complete with Ragnell, his Wave Motion Sword.
• Gears of War.
  • Delta Squad are often split up into pairs, but when the four of them get together, they're practically unstoppable.
  • The 26th Royal Tyran Infantry, or "Two-Six RTI", which is the regiment that many of the main characters were part of, including Marcus and Dom. Known as "The Unvanquished", they have yet to prove that name wrong.
• In the Updated Rereleases of The Godfather: The Game, you can pick up a crew of mobsters to help you. In the game of Godfather II, you can raise a properly customised bunch to help you out.
• This commercial for Golden Sun has a badass crew of musicians.
• In Granblue Fantasy, the crew of the Grandcypher recruits people from all over the Phantagrande Skydom who all have their own kinds of power (warriors, wizards, ninjas, assassins, shamans) and talent (ace pilots, marksmen, and even fighting dress-makers, children, and blacksmiths) to contribute to their adventures. There is also the group of "The Eternals" — ten feared warriors who are known for mastering their chosen weapon proficiencies (i.e. Swords for Siete and Axes for Threo).
• Halo:
  • The Spartan-IIs. Members see their fellow Spartans as their only family (they were recruited at the age of 6 and trained together ever since). There's a possible slight subversion in that they were slightly more numerous than the norm — there were over thirty of them at the program's height, but they become a more typical Badass Crew after most of them die towards the end of the Human-Covenant War.
  • The player's squads in Halo 3: ODST and Halo: Reach are also exemplary Badass Crews.
  • In Halo 3, the Master Chief, Cortana, Sgt. Johnson, and the Arbiter also count as a Badass Crew, as the Chief is the muscles, Cortana is the brains, Johnson is the sniper, and the Arbiter is the stealth-specialist.
  • This concept also figures into gameplay with the franchise's various co-op modes, with particularly tight Gameplay and Story Intergration with regards to Halo 3 (where each player is a different character; the Chief, the Arbiter, and two special forces Elites), Halo 4's Spartan Ops campaign (where up to four people play as the Spartan-IVs of Fireteam Crimson), and Halo 5: Guardians (where each player is a different member of Fireteam Osiris / Blue Team).
• The eponymous Killer7 of the Smith Syndicate count.
• Knights of the Old Republic: Look at the first crew: Badass Normals Carth and Canderous, Little Miss Bad Ass Mission, The Big Guy Zaalbar, Old Master Jedi Jolee Bindo, Boisterous Bruiser assassin droid HK-47, Jedi Cat Girl Juhani and Jedi Action Girl Bastila, and T3-M4 with hidden pistols.
  • And Knights of the Old Republic II: The Sith Lords: Canderous and HK-47 (still badass), T3-M4 (who took a few levels in Bad Ass between the games), Evil Mentor Kreia, Sociopathic Hero and Determinator Atton Rand, Badass Bookworms Bao-Dur and Mical (the latter for Female Exiles only), Action Girls Brianna (Male Exiles only), Visas, and Mira (Light Side only), Goto, and The Big Guy Hanharr (Dark Side only). And all of them (besides the droids and Hanharr) can become Jedi if they aren't already.
• The Resistance Group from The Legend of Zelda: Twilight Princess. Unlike most of the other games in the series, this one actually gives Hyrule some citizenry who are willing to do something to help themselves instead of relying solely on the efforts of the green-clad Chosen One. They even help him break into the castle toward the end.
• The final chapter of Live A Live allows you to make a Badass Crew out of each of the earlier chapter's heroes minus Oersted, who is the villain. A Badass Crew that can include a caveman, a Chinese monk, a demon-slaying ninja, a cowboy, a streetfighter, a psychic delinquent, and a robot.
• In the Mass Effect games, it's explicitly mentioned that the real potential of Commander Shepard lies not in his/her potential as a fighter, however awesome it may be, but rather in his/her ability to take a Ragtag Bunch of Misfits and, through both individual approach and leading by example, mold them into True Companions capable of doing the impossible on a regular basis, up to and not limited to killing ancient mechanical gods.
  • The Asari have "quality over quantity" as their standard approach to warfare. They lack the numbers to field a true Badass Army (like turians, krogan, and humans), but their individual special operation commando units are repeatedly stated to be the most lethal bunch of fighters in the entire galaxy that don't include anyone named 'Shepard'.
  • One of Shepard's dialogue options during the climactic final battle in Mass Effect 2? "No one gets left behind."
  • Mass Effect 2 in particular has assembling one of these as a primary goal rather than a matter of due course. It pays off: you're repeatedly shown that every single person who you recruit for your mission is extremely good at what they do — as long as you've earned their loyalty.
  • Mass Effect: Andromeda introduces a new starship crew of explorers venturing into the deadly, unknown frontiers of the Andromeda galaxy.
• Your crew in Neverwinter Nights: Hordes of the Underdark isn't very large, but among the four (possibly five) people on the team are a part-dragon kobold, a former drow assassin, a slightly insane tiefling, and potentially the ghost of an elf paladin. Led by whatever you feel like making the player character. And the player and two of your compatriots get to beat up Mephistopheles in the end.
• In Neverwinter Nights 2, you have a Boisterous Bruiser (Khelgar), a Kleptomaniac Hero (Neeshka), a White Mage (Elanee), your Token Evil Teammate (Bishop), a Knight in Shining Armor as contrast (Casavir), an insane pyromaniac (Quara), a Badass Bookworm (Sand), a Badass Normal (Shandra), Zhjaeve, Ammon Jerro, Grobnar, and potentially a giant metal automaton with swords for arms. Your crew in Mask of the Betrayer is smaller but no less badass. You have a new Badass Bookworm (Safiya), whatever One Of Many is, a fallen angel (Kaelyn), and a Hagspawn The Casanova (Gann). Who go on to thwart the works of the god of the dead.
• Octopath Traveler: Individually, the travelers are all shown to be strong enough to take on powerful villains and monsters. Together, they form a dream team with a wide range of skills and abilities. Besides their in-battle prowess, each is also often the best at what they do for a living compared to those around them. In particular, the Rogue characters (Cyrus, Therion, Olberic, and Primrose) have few or no peers when it comes to their chosen skills (academics, thievery, warfare, and dancing, respectively). By contrast, the Noble characters (H'aanit, Alfyn, Tressa, and Ophilia) are all introduced with specific people in their field they either look up to or aspire to surpass (and eventually do).
• In Planet Alcatraz, the Vampire reconnaissance and sabotage team. To elaborate, they are 4 guys who are dropped into a planet inhabited by prisoners with no equipment and support, then kill everything in their way to complete their mission. Also, they are only cadets fresh out of the academy. Successful completion of the mission will make them eligible for consideration for promotion to Private.
• The Pokémon games revolve around creating a six-strong crew of badasses. And at the end you use them to fight against the Elite Four and Champion, the trainers with the strongest crews in the region.
• The Van der Linde gang in Red Dead Redemption 2 repeatedly go up against gangs much larger than they are and not lacking for guns either, and they still come out on top. Dutch attributes it to the close bond between the gang members as well as the diverse sets of skills that they possess: their chief rivals, the O'Driscolls, just pick up anybody who can ride a horse and shoot a gun, and Dutch is quite sure Colm O'Driscoll himself doesn't even know the names of all the guys who follow him. Later in Chapter Six, the van der Linde gang fight an entire regiment of US Army soldiers... and they win.
  • Special mention goes to the assault on Braithwaite Manor. After Jack is kidnapped, Dutch and the rest of the gang go on a Roaring Rampage of Revenge. Eight of the gang's best gunslingers^note Dutch, Arthur, John, Hosea, Charles, Lenny, Javier, and Bill ride right up to their enemies' home in the heart of their territory. Eight of the gang's best gunslingers versus about thirty or forty armed Braithwaites. After about ten minutes, the Van der Linde gang has no casualties, and the Braithwaites have no survivors.
• The Third Street Saints, from Saints Row, more than qualifies. By the end of the series, its members have come to include (among others) a man who enjoys killing and starting fights for laughs, a Hard-Drinking Party Girl — turned — Dark Action Girl, a Masked Luchador, a pimp with vocoder that uses Auto-Tune, an MI6 agent, Keith David, and the President of the United States.
• Shin Megami Tensei:
  • Every Persona game stars a band of superpowered misfits who become Fire-Forged Friends:
    • Class 2-B from Persona, who were really only acquainted with each other. They actually break down into two groups: those that fought the Snow Queen and those that destroyed SEBEC Corporation.
    • Persona 2 features two of these: Innocent Sin has a squad of Forgotten Childhood Friends and Eternal Punishment has a group of troubled adults that normally wouldn't be within ten miles of each other.
    • S.E.E.S. from Persona 3, whose only criteria for joining was having the potential to summon a Persona.
    • The Investigation Team from Persona 4, who met each other at school but really banded together by being — or knowing — victims of murders and kidnappings.
    • The Phantom Thieves from Persona 5, who were all connected to a despicable criminal in one way or another.
  • The Demon Tamers led by the heroes of Devil Survivor and Devil Survivor 2 are also worthy of mention, especially in the routes where the protagonist is able to prevent them from falling out with each other.
  • The Embryon Tribe in Digital Devil Saga. You have up to five team members with only three of them active. Those five alone take down several military units by themselves and prove themselves — to quote Cielo — "da Kings of de Junkyard".
• Sonic Heroes is all about this, giving you the opportunity to play with three characters at a time.
• Star Wars: Republic Commando, normal clones are badass, Delta Squad turn badass Up to Eleven, they were born and bred for badassery. Taking out a droid production facility, retaking an acclamator-class ship from a group of trandoshan slavers, and then defending said ship against an army of droids, each one of this four-man team is crazy awesome, but together they are one badass crew.
• Suikoden III has the 12th Unit of the Harmonian Southern Frontier Defense Force. Consisting of Geddoe, Ace, Joker, Queen, Jacques and Aila, even if the last one is a trainee. None of them are related, and a good number of them argue frequently when they aren't drunk, or even when they are. But, they are all extreme badasses, having fought and won in several wars.
• The Alpha Numbers. You'd think a crew with Shinji Ikari in it would lose serious badass points. You'd be wrong.
  • In the Original Generation canon, we have smaller versions of this. The SRX/ATX Teams, The Aggressors, and they smash themselves together into a mega Badass Crew/Coterie when they join forces.
  • ZEUTH is very badass as well, as is Warter.
  • ZEXIS in Z2 has Kamina, Batshit Insane Ryouma from Getter Robo Armageddon, Zero, Chirico, Celestial Being and the list goes on and on.
• Subspace Emissary has multiple examples in Super Smash Bros. since all the characters for most of the game are separated into groups. Marth, Meta Knight, and Ike were arguably the most badass group, though, and the only ones to stop a detonator from going off.
• Tales of Zestiria has The Scattered Bones, an assassins guild comprised of various people that all treat each other like family. Unlike most examples of assassins, they're actually the good guys and specifically target anybody that tries to instigate wars or kill innocents for profit. While they themselves are assassins they never go after innocent people regardless of the profit and will work for relatively cheap if they deem the job necessary. Furthermore, if you're stupid enough to try to trick them into killing an innocent they'll turn around and come after you instead.
• Team Fortress 2: RED and BLU. The mercs get even more badass when the two join forces to fight Gray Mann's robot army and prevent him from wiping out Mann Co.
• In Utawarerumono, every single retainer of Hakuoro is an utter badass. So much so that when he returns to his original form as a stupidly powerful Physical God and begs them to destroy his insane side forever, they proceed to punch out the equivalent of Cthulhu meets Godzilla to honor his final commands as their commander.

Visual Novels

• Though she never actually does go through with her plan, Tohsaka in the True End of Heavens Feel in Fate/stay night has a plan like this. It goes like this: Wait a few years until all necessary materials and abilities are gathered. Then, take her with Zelretch's sword, Shirou's Reality Marble, Sakura with the power of the Grail, and Rider with... being Medusa and having an infinite mana supply. Then they'll go and enter tournaments for huge cash prizes because jewel sorcery is not for the poor. And roflstomp everyone because that combination is essentially all-powerful. And yes, they are all most definitely capable of stand alone. It's too bad the story ends before she can go through with it and the sequel eats continuity for breakfast.
• By the end of Princess Waltz, Badass Normal Arata Fukamori is leading a Badass Crew consisting of the titular princesses. And yes, they do smite ungodly amounts of ass.
• Yo-Jin-Bo has your team of six bodyguards. The starting team of wanderers Yo, Jin, Bo, and Mon-Mon could also count.

Web Animation

• Red vs. Blue:
  • The Reds and Blues, when they're not standing around and talking, each eventually take a level in badass and come together to defeat enemies stronger and more skilled than they are on multiple occasions.
  • There's also the Freelancers, who were an extremely badass group of super soldiers in the prequel arcs.
  • Even the group of Insurrectionists the Freelancers were fighting would count (or at least the ones that aren't Mooks)

Web Comics

• El Goonish Shive also has a badass crew who are a very tightly knit group of teens... and they became so in about 2 or so months.
• Girl Genius:
  • Da Boyz are a group of three "wild" Jägermonsters who fight very effectively together and whose long-term separation from the rest of the Jägerkin on their Suicide Mission has left them sharper than most of their brothers, taking into consideration that they, like their brothers are Blood Knight Super Soldiers who are each over 200 years old. They also complete a mission that was thought to be hopeless.
  • Master Payne's Circus of Adventure has shades of this. Mainly because they're able to survive in the countryside populated by giant robots, monsters, and God knows what else. By themselves. And the occasional glitchy Death Ray.
• The Midnight Crew from Homestuck is this, even clownish Club Deuce has killed his fair share of adversaries. The main characters are quickly becoming this, as well.
• Looking for Group: A nigh unstoppable warlock, an extremely skilled archer/swordsman, a cleric capable of reviving the dead as long as she has MOST of the ashes, an axe-wielding dwarf, and a guy who tackled/wrestled a dragon and is actually smarter than he is strong.
• Mushroom Go: The crew of the Chainless includes a teenage prodigy Pianta, a six-foot-something chain-smoking raven and apparent master of martial arts, a Shyguy with a knack for chainsaws and a militant Koopa captain. They're pirates. In a desert.
• As of chapter 180, in Noblesse there is RK-4,^note Raizel Knights made of Tao, Takeo, M-21, and Regis. They easily take out hordes of Knights, a group made of elite vampires.
• The Order of the Stick has the titular order. Even without their most powerful member, with one of their warriors half-dead, and with their remaining spell casters out of spells, they pose a serious threat to an entire army that has them surrounded.
• The main cast of Sluggy Freelance has gradually morphed into an unstoppable team over the years. At first Torg and Riff were the only real close friends, and Bun-Bun was the sole badass, but as time went by the bonds between them grew stronger, as did their individual badass levels. Gwynn acquired some freaky magical powers, Riff showed everyone what a Mad Scientist with too much time on his hands can do, Torg's become a master swordsman, and Zoe has done pretty well against zombies, vampires, and psychotic assassins. The only character without a sheer moment of awesome at this point is Kiki, unless you count her hyperactivity being used to fuel a ferret bazooka. Bun-Bun wielding the Ferret Bazooka would be of a "Moment of Awesome" for both of them.
• Tower of God has a few.
  • Shibisu's team after the first timeskip. They've gained fame for their strength (having two powerful Princesses does help). They're so famous that Cassano defeating "that Hatz guy", one of their members, seems to be a major accomplishment.
  • Team FUG during the Workshop Battle. With Jue Viole Grace, Reflejo, Yuto, Sia Sia, Beniamino Cassano, Khun Ran and Nobic, they were a force to reckon with and only the team above could match them.
  • With the recent Hell Train timeskip, Sweet and Sour are slowly becoming one thanks to all of their members taking a level in badass.
  • Rachel's Hell Train group is made up of formidable Regulars from FUG, even moreso now that Hoaqin has joined them.
• The main group of Weak Hero. You have Gray, the hero of the story and the most brutal, cunning fighter in it; Ben, a juggernaut with near-unmatched strength; Alex, a fearless brawler who fights with speed rather than strength; Gerard, unmatched in his footwork; Teddy, a former bully turned formidable ally; Rowan, a one-trick pony who nevertheless prevails with his killer elbow and endless bravado; and Eugene, who makes up for his complete lack of fighting skills by being incredibly knowledgeable and always determined to stand up for his friends, regardless of how badly he's beaten down for it. The more that they fight together, the deeper their friendship grows, until their loyalty is unmatched by any of the other fighting groups.
• In Whispers in the Wind the main antagonist is Bailey, the captain of one badass crew. The story focuses more on them starting chapter 6 as the first one being presented is David, an ex-street brawler with incredible strength and brutality. The others' special skills are yet to be discovered.

Web Original

• In "Caelum Lex", the crew of the Dionysian each has their own specialty and each member can kick ass in their own right. They're all loyal to each other and act more like a family than a pirate crew.
• Critical Role:
  • Mess with anyone in Vox Machina and you are in for a world of hurt. Everyone is a certified badass of some variety in their own right, and they do not take kindly to anyone they care about getting hurt. Even the party bard, you ask? Especially the bard.
  • Similarly, the Mighty Nein became badasses of various flavors who will deal out retribution to anyone trying to hurt the party, ranging from a stern lecture (the Bad Luck Bandits) to a Fate Worse than Death (Caleb's abusive former mentor Trent Ikithon). Kind and gentle Yasha, perpetually chill Caduceus, All-Loving Hero Jester, polite and mild-mannered Fjord, anxious and shy Caleb, flamboyant and charismatic Molly, skittish and nervous Nott later returned to her original form of Mama Bear Veth make for a Ragtag Bunch of Misfits that one would be extremely unwise to cross. They've taken down feared crime rings, foiled gods' evil plans, rooted out corruption, and saved the world many times over.
• The main cast of Everybody Loves Large Chests. Starts with Boxxy, a mimic who went From Nobody to Nightmare, through a trio of centuries-old demons that are masters of fire magic, melee combat, and assassination, ending in an Ax-Crazy metal golem who is so strong it was nicknamed "The Rustblood Juggernaut".
• Hero House has Batman take a stab at assembling a crew. His attempt has...questionable results.
• The League of S.T.E.A.M. take on ghosts, zombies, werewolves, vampires, and all manner of supernatural creatures; each member of the team specializes in a particular supernatural entity but all are competent as part of the team.
• The original Grand Lake Heroes League in the Legion of Nothing. The current team is working its way there, but it's a little difficult when the badasses in training are also precocious teens.
• The Museum has The Band of Wax. Starting out as a small band of monster-slaying roughnecks in service to a local lord, they end up going on a realm-spanning quest that sees them purge dozens of Blighted Thralls from the land, defeat several undead Weremammoths capable of paralysing their prey, and eventually overthrow the corrupt rulership. Then the citizenry install them as the Realm's new rulers, something that does absolutely nothing to stop them slaying more thralls. And they do all of this without any supernatural powers or weapons, just a tonne of grit, determination, and camaderie.
• The Aurinko Crime Family of The Penumbra Podcast definitely qualifies as this as of season 3, despite Buddy's assertion that "none of them are the best at what they do". Two master thieves with decades of successful heists under their belts, a grizzled army medic who also specializes in assassinations, a skilled con man with hundreds of identities (and a former freedom fighter who singlehandedly almost destroyed his homeworld's oppressive government as a teenager), possibly the best hacker in the entire solar system... and Juno Steel, former P.I. to the rich and famous who's saved Mars at least twice.
• The Reconstruction Series has Team Benjamin, who form into this almost immediately upon meeting each other.
• The Antarctic Empire of SMPEarth is this — they even end up taking over the world on Day 8, by overtaking a large amount of the map. They are the most feared faction on the server.
• Team Kimba of the Whateley Universe. They may just be teenagers at Whateley Academy, but they've already taken out The Necromancer. And his Children of the Night. And the mercenaries he hired just in case Team Kimba showed up again.
• In Worm, the Undersiders gain this status somewhere between when they pull off a successful attack on the headquarters of the local superhero teams and when they track down and attack the Siberian — a legendarily invincible supervillain. They eventually become Famed In-Story for their power and skill.

Western Animation

• The titular heroes in Adventures of the Galaxy Rangers. The colony worlds love 'em, the core worlds barely tolerate 'em, and they're always just this close to going rogue... but everyone agrees that they're the best weapon the League of Planets has against the Queen of the Crown's superior numbers.
• Avatar: The Last Airbender:
  • The main cast of the original Avatar: The Last Airbender eventually attains this status; by the end of the show, we have a superpowered Kid Messianic Archetype (Aang), a powerful waterbender (Katara), the world's best earthbender and first metalbender (Toph), a powerful firebender and highly skilled swordsman (Zuko), and two Badass Normal warriors (Sokka and Suki). The Order of the White Lotus probably also qualifies, being a group of powerful old men that retake Ba Sing Se, while the Fire Nation has the advantage of Sozin's Comet backing up their entire army.
  • In the Last Airbender sequel series The Legend of Korra, there are two examples:
    • New Team Avatar, while more a Ragtag Bunch of Misfits than the main cast of the prequel show ^note in part because the unique skills possessed by the Gaang are not as unique by Korra's time, definitely qualify. Korra is the Avatar and had learned how to bend three elements by the age of four, later learning to metalbend and being the first Avatar to do so. Asami is a Badass Normal and Combat Pragmatist, while also being an incredible driver and skilled pilot. Mako is a skilled firebender that managed to get the better of Amon and is the only member of the team to outright kill onscreen. Bolin eventually learns lavabending and becomes incredibly devastating when he learns to use it.
    • The Red Lotus, although they are a villainous version of the trope. Their leader is recently turned airbender Zaheer who uses airbending to asphyxiate his victims and was previously a threat equal to his peers without any bending, the lavabender Ghazan, combustion bender P'Li, and psychopathic waterbender Ming-Hua, who is armless and uses waterbending to create lethal limbs.
• The Centurions. No, not the Ancient Roman soldiers^note although they qualify too, but the futuristic heroes who are experts in their fields even without the high-tech weapons that let them battle the forces of Doc Terror.
• Darkwing Duck and crew certainly belong here. We have Darkwing as Badass Normal, Morgana as Black Magician Girl, Gosalyn as Future Badass, Launchpad as Gadgeteer Genius Ditz, and Honker as Tagalong Child Prodigy.
• The Planet Express delivery crew from Futurama have saved the Earth numerous times and all of them have their badass moments.
• Dethklok from Metalocalypse. They may be dumb as a box of particularly dim hammers and they may fight and bitch at each other all the time, but when it really counts, they're thick as thieves (even if they don't admit it). Many of the awesome moments in Metalocalypse double as heartwarming because they're all at their most badass when they're looking out for each other.
• The Mane Six from My Little Pony: Friendship Is Magic are all about this, as well as Badass Adorable. These six have repeatedly taken down enemies even Princess Celestia herself was only able to temporarily seal away, and the Season Five Finale showed that every possible alternate future where they never became friends is a war-torn post-apocalyptic nightmare.
• The Fireside Girls from Phineas and Ferb. Some of their exploits include building a time machine, and moving a mountain.
• Ready Jet Go!: Jet, Sean, Sydney, Mindy, Sunspot, and Face 9000 (with some assistance from Zerk and Jet 2) all prove to be this in "Back to Bortron 7", where they combine their efforts to save Carrot and Celery's presentation. Highlights include Zerk chauffeuring them to the headquarters in record time, Jet, Sean, and Sydney doing acrobatic stunts to get past Eggplant, Sunspot and Face 9000 saving the PowerCube, and Mindy and Jet 2 unintentionally causing an eclipse which distracts the townspeople from noticing that the Propulsion house is gone.
• T.J. and his gang in Recess are a Badass Adorable Crew.
• The titular heroes from Skysurfer Strike Force. They surf the skies while saving the world from Cybron and his Bioborgs.
• Steven Universe: The Crystal Gems, formerly a Badass Army, now only consist of 4 members,(recently revealed to be five, then six.) but still have managed to save humanity from corrupted gems for millennia.
• The Transformers franchise gives us countless examples, including:
  • Transformers: Cybertron: The Autobots, consisting of Optimus Prime, Vector Prime, Jetfire, Scattershot, Landmine, and Hot Shot. All of them can, when it counts, crack open a can of whup-ass. Especially Optimus Prime. Four words: "Optimus Prime, Super Mode!"
  • The original Maximal crew from Beast Wars. Their scientist/medic guy dual wields chainguns.
  • The Dinobots are this in every continuity they appear in. Sometimes even before becoming the Dinobots.
  • Team Prime.
• Team Venture from The Venture Bros., the original version at least.
• The entire first season of Young Justice (2010) is about how you can take a Ragtag Bunch of Misfits and turn them into a hypercompetent fighting team worthy of their mentors' Justice League. By the five-year Time Skip, the team has grown into this full-time.

Real Life

• Journalists and their crews control their emotions to bring us news in times of tragedy and disaster, periodically risking their lives in the process.
• Any military Special Forces unit with a roster that isn't quite large enough to qualify as a Badass Army.
• 101st Airborne, 506th PIR, E Company. Applies to most units of World War II, really.
• The crew of the USS Enterprise CV(N)-6, the most decorated ship of World War II and the seventh vessel in the history of the US Navy to bear the name. She saw combat in every major campaign of the war in the Pacific and survived the war (though she had to be put in dry dock thanks to a kamikaze strike in the Battle of Okinawa). In fact, she was the only aircraft carrier available to the US Navy for some time after the USS Yorktown and the USS Hornet were sunk at Midway and Guadalcanal, respectively, which meant that she would bear the brunt of the Imperial Japanese Navy. She and her crew held on.
• The crew of the naval unit Taffy 3 especially the crews of the USS Johnston and USS Samuel B Roberts. This tiny collection of tin can ships took on a huge fleet of Japanese Battleships and made the Battleships cry uncle. Particularly of note is the crew of the destroyer USS Johnston as under the leadership of Ernest E. Evans they took on the Japanese Fleet by themselves TWICE without orders. The second time while heavily damaged!
• The crew of Apollo 13. Complete with The Captain, Mission Commander James A. Lovell, Number Two Fred Haise, Ace Pilot Jack Swigert, and featuring the two Cool Ships the Aquarius and the Odyssey. Definitely True Companions, as training to be an astronaut will force you to see the man next to you as family. The crew was so badass, they were able to get back home even after their Cool Ship got busted in mid-flight.
  • Though a lot of the credit also should go to their Voice with an Internet Connection, the Mission controllers who diagnosed the problem from the telemetry, figured out the rocket burns required to get the crew on a trajectory to return to Earth (using just the Aquarius' engine, since the integrity of Odyssey's could not be determined), developed kludged-together procedures to keep the crew alive, and then worked out how to power the Odyssey back up and bring the crew through re-entry on less power than was thought possible. Badass the crew was, but they were not alone in being badass.
• The Zeezura Club was devoted to the exploration of the Egyptian and Libyan deserts in 1930. Contained many a badass such as Bagnold, Almasy, and Wingate.
• The VF-84 and VF-103 Jolly Rogers fighter squadrons. They are one of the most recognized squadrons in the world, with their sinister skull & crossbones emblem and bold paint schemes. They made the F-14 Tomcat famous, and was the inspiration for the iconic fighter in Super Dimension Fortress Macross/season one of Robotech.
• The crew of a Chinese cargo ship fights off pirates using beer bottles.
• During the Aleutian Islands Campaign of World War II, the quaintly named 1st Alaskan Combat Intelligence Platoon (Provisional) (aka Castner's Cutthroats) was a unit of just sixty-five men selected to perform reconnaissance missions in the Aleutian Islands during the war. The men — Aleuts, Eskimos, sourdough prospectors, miners, hunters, trappers, and fishermen — were chosen for their hardiness and ability to thrive in the harsh cold of the Aleutians. The fact that they survived both the War and the frozen hell of the Aleutians themselves (1481 Americans and 4350 Japanese didn't) is testament enough to their badassery.
• During the German campaign to take Norway, a Norwegian army unit managed to hold the German army at bay for eleven days at a certain point alongside the lake of Mjøsa in eastern Norway. The Wehrmacht! Consider that the Germans had airborne support.
• Any and all pack-hunting predatory animals. Be it hyenas, wolves, Harris Hawks, Deinonychuses...they're all awesome.
  • More recent studies have shown that T. rex may have gotten in on the action too, as fossils have been found of badly-injured individuals having been nursed back to health.
• Anyone who says the Poles went down without a fight has never heard of the Battle of Wizna. Anywhere from 350 to 720 Poles vs 42,200 Germans. And they held out for three days until they ran out of ammo! There's a reason the Sabaton song based on the battle was called 40:1. And that's a vast understatement.
  • Love, we ''never'' go down without a fight.
• The Chasseurs Ardennais who took part in heavy fighting when Germany invaded Belgium on 10th May, 1940. They were supposed to hold off the Germans until given the order to retreat. That order never came. In the end, just 40 men held off the entire combined German forces, fighting so hard and so bravely that when captured after their ammunition ran out, the Germans asked "Where are the rest of you?" The response of the Chasseurs was "Rest of us? We're all there is." Rommell was so impressed he said of them "They are not men, they are green wolves." The Sabaton song "Resist and Bite" is dedicated to them.

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