Old Master

Morihei Ueshiba, founder of Aikido demonstrating the Offhand Backhand technique.

"What I learned today is that really old wizards don't get that way by being easy to kill."

— Black Mage, 8-Bit Theater

Don't let his age (or his size) fool you; this guy is a force to be reckoned with. Despite being at least sixty years old, he (or she) is a formidable fighter who can take on several younger opponents at a time, clean the floor with all of them, and barely get winded. They may rely on years of training and deceptive strength, or cunning, but they get the job done. Obfuscating Stupidity comes as naturally to this guy as breathing. He might also have been a Badass Bookworm on the way there. Any physical decline he's suffered from advanced age simply won't matter, because he learned long ago how to defeat enemies who are physically stronger and faster than him. Often the Old Master will be more dangerous in his twilight years than he was at his physical prime because of this.

Break out the ^ sign on your calculator when this trope is applied to seasoned adventurers of any type; anyone who's managed to survive to a ripe old age while performing inherently dangerous work is obviously really damned good at it.

The Old Master is often the sensei to one of the main characters (often the name they give him), training them so they can pass on the torch to the new generation (and maybe earn themselves a break). To do so, the character typically prefers the Wax On, Wax Off approach to education and the When You Snatch the Pebble approach to final exams. Crueler or Good Is Not Soft classes of Old Masters, on the other hand, function as the Drill Sergeant Nasty, and those who study under him had better be prepared for Training from Hell. In short, this character can be of any moral alignment or ethnicity whatsoever.

Heavily overlaps with Hermit Guru and Stronger with Age. See also Old Soldier and When Elders Attack. They are likely to be Weak, but Skilled but that is an age-less trope. Retired Gunfighter is the western, weaponized version of this. Contrast with Older Is Better. In martial arts movies, especially, the Old Master tends to be a Magical Asian. In the Caper Crew makeup, he is the Legendary Thief. Don't be surprised if he's The Patriarch in a Badass Family.

Oh, there is one lesson that always tends to escape him: if his charges get hit enough times with any given tactic, they’re going to return it in full force… innocently and instinctively, at the worst possible moment.

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Example subpages:

• Anime & Manga
• Literature
• Video Games
• Western Animation
• Real Life

Other examples:

Advertising

• In one Mattel commercial from the 90s, an atypical Old Master teaches his young student how to play Othello (as in, the game) with the tagline, "a minute to learn, a lifetime to master".

Comedy

• And of course, one cannot forget the unnamed Master in The Frantics' legendary "Tae Kwon Leep" skit.

Comic Books

• Archie Comics:
  • He's not that old, but the students of Riverdale High underestimated Coach Kleats in several sports. The same thing happened, with the entire male faculty challenging the varsity basketball players to a charity game.
  • Mr. Weatherbee is no slouch, either.
• Stick from Daredevil. Even being dead doesn't stop him from coming back every couple of years, to dispense some sage advice.
• The Ancient One, mentor to Doctor Strange. He managed to stretch his lifespan to about 600 years and was still in reasonably good physical and mental health when he died.
• In the first few issues of Ninja High School, Ichiban fights her grandfather... Well, she challenges him anyway. Fight ends before it begins.
• Dr. Yagyu from Nth Man: The Ultimate Ninja is a Ninja master in his late 60s, but thinks nothing of stepping into a war zone with a satchel full of throwing stars and a machine pistol.
• O-Sensei, a master martial artist who trained Richard Dragon, Bronze Tiger and (depending on continuity) Lady Shiva, was well over one-hundred at the time of his death, there having been records of him as a young man in the 1890s.
• Tim's first martial arts teacher as Robin outside the Batfamily was the Rahul Lama, a very old Tibetan refugee living in Paris who was the last living master of an ancient fighting style and whom Tim noticed never seemed to run out of stamina.
• K'Kruhk qualifies as one in the Star Wars: Legacy series. Already a Jedi master during the clone wars, he is still active over 130 years after the Battle of Yavin.
• Splinter, to the Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles (and that includes the animated series). Splinter's former owner, Himato Yoshi also served as his master (though in some adaptations, the two are actually the same character.)
• Katsuichi-sensei, the hermit who taught Usagi just about everything he knows, is at least a Middle-aged Master.

Fan Works

• Similar to the BlazBlue games, Jubei was this to Ragna in BlazBlue Alternative: Remnant, but this time, Ragna was also briefly mentored by Maria Calavera. He even brings up to Jaune that, despite being old and blind, she's still easily able to kick his ass.
• In The Butcher Bird, Dayavin Tenzin is one of these, despite his Dented Iron status due to his age making him fragile.
• In The Chaotic Three, Yoda is an obvious example of this, but the term also applies to the time-displaced Luke Skywalker; while he muses that he gets tired more easily than he did in the past, Luke is recognised by all of the Jedi of the past as being strong in the Force, to the extent that he defeats Palpatine in a duel.
• Child of the Storm has the canon examples of Albus Dumbledore, and the Senior Council of the White Council (though in the latter case, they get Stronger with Age, magically speaking, even if they do have to work at staying roughly in shape). However, the crowning example is probably Doctor Strange a.k.a. Taliesin, who despite looking somewhere in his mid-forties, was born over 1500 years years ago, and thanks to time travel, is actually more like 500,000 years old - and that's a guess. He stopped bothering to count after he turned 100,000. As a result of this, he's incredibly experienced, capable of keeping a Loki-level opponent at bay while multitasking, then absolutely flattening him once he returns his full attention to the matter at hand, and routinely manipulates, bullies, and outright terrifies most of the most powerful beings in the setting.
• A downplayed example shows with Tsume in Eroninja While "only" in her mid-40s, she's still well past her prime and it's noted a couple times that it's only her skill and experience that keeps her from losing challenges for Alpha of the Inuzuka clan. Though once she's bonded to Naruto, the reversion to her prime that comes with it has her mopping floors with the next several challengers.
• Koharu, Homura, and Danzo in the First Try Series are all noted as being easily stronger than pretty much everyone else in Konoha. Naruto tells his teammates that the only reason none of them are Hokage is because Sarutobi is that much more badass than all of them.
• In Incarnation of Legends, Hachiman exudes this feeling despite being immortal and eternally youthful as a god. His Divine Arms techniques are the envy of everyone in the Far East as the pinnacle of martial arts, leading others to join his familia in pursuit of them.
• Pokémon Reset Bloodlines features a few examples:
  • Eagun is Famed In-Story as one of the strongest trainers in the Orre region, to the point that while visiting Agate Village (one of the few safe havens from Cipher's influence), Team Rocket leader Giovanni is wary of taking him on.
  • Ultima in the Sevii Islands trains starter Pokémon to unlock the full potential of the Ultimate Moves. Her own Pokémon are not to be taken lightly.
  • Also Mabel, who in this story is a Kalos League Conference winner, and trains her (honorary) grandkids to master Mega Evolution.
• Unbiased takes things further than canon when it's revealed that the rigors of shinobi life mean most start developing arthritis and muscle weakness in their thirties. So those who make it to their fifties, let alone their seventies like Hiruzen and Oonoki, are rightly feared as being some of the most badass people around.
• Vow of Nudity: The old Firbolg slave who trains Haara in the flashbacks. Haara never learns his full power level, but his daily duties are always finished despite nobody ever seeing him working, he's able to seemingly appear anywhere he wants at any time, and nobody even knows the full roster of disciples he's tutoring at any given time. And this is all despite him wearing a magic-nullifying armband for being a known spellcaster.

Films — Animation

• Kung Fu Panda:
  • Downplayed a bit in where Shifu is the old master to the Furious Five and Po, but he himself has more to learn from both his own mentor, Master Oogway, and from Po's own insight.
  • Played straight with extremely pacifist and soft-spoken Oogway himself (who is about 1000 years old), to the point that he was originally able to take down the undefeatable Big Bad in less than a second. According to Shifu, Oogway is the one who invented kung-fu, so it'd make sense for him to know more than anyone else about it. We see more of his badassery in the TV series, such as when he completely floors the incredibly agile Monkey.
• Being a deconstruction of a standard hero quest, The LEGO Movie naturally has one of these. His name is Vitruvius, and he prefers the term "experienced."
• The Lion King (1994): Rafiki ends the film kicking some serious hyena butt.
• In Turning Red, Mr. Gao has had 50 years of experience as a shaman, and is implied to be the same age as, if not older than, Mei's grandmother.

Films — Live-Action

• Creed II: Ivan Drago has become one of these in his old age, as he came out of his fight with Rocky without any significant injuries, is still in great shape and exercises every morning in Kiev. This is in contrast with Rocky who is worn out inside and out due to injuries, brain damage from said fight and recovering from cancer.
• Crossworlds stars Rutger Hauer as one of these.
• Gangster Squad has Max Kennard as a gunslinger type of these, an aging but skilled gunhand who's able to shoot a can in the air half-a-dozen times before running out of bullets. He takes young cop Navidad Ramírez under his wing and his skills noticeably improve, culminating in Navidad helping Kennard take out The Dragon before he can kill O'Mara just before Kennard dies from his wounds.
• The white-haired old monk in Hong Kil Dong, who is not only a master martial artist but has magic powers. He leaps into a crowd of bandits, defeats them all singlehandedly, and saves young Hong Kil Dong and Kil Dong's mom from being murdered.
• Deconstructed in Ip Man 2. While Master Hung is kickass enough to hold his own against Ip and the Twister at first, the length of the exhibition match causes exhaustion to start setting in leading to his death.
• In a similar vein as above, Master Wan from Ip Man 4 counts. US Marine Gunnery Sergeant Geddes single-handedly trashes all the other masters at the Chinese Benevolent Association. When he challenges Wan, the tai chi master uses his opponent's momentum and throwing techniques to manhandle the larger American and knock him down several times. Wan is able to match the Marine's ferocious blows, until he eventually succumbs to Geddes' sheer brute force and bone-breaking strength.
• The most famous example is, without a doubt, Mr. Miyagi from The Karate Kid.
• Pai Mei in Kill Bill: Volume 2. He's more of a cruel and evil master than the kindly Mr. Miyagi type and according to the film's mythology was responsible for the destruction of the Shaolin Temple because a Shaolin monk that he passed on the road didn't return the slight nod that he gave him. He's been known to snatch out the eyes of those who look on him with defiance and snap the backs and necks of those who give him sass like they were twigs. This eventually gets him killed when he snatches out Elle Driver's right eye for calling him a "miserable old fool," and she retaliates by poisoning his fish heads. He hates Caucasians, despises Americans and has nothing but contempt for women. So of course his greatest student, the only one he teaches his Five Point Palm Exploding Heart Technique, is a blonde American woman who also learns to love him as a father, joyfully snatching out Driver's left eye as vengeance for him. (Of course, it's entirely possible that Pai Mei simply hated everyone until they proved themselves to him. About the only thing he seems to like are fish heads.)
• The Last of the Mohicans: Chingachgook, the eldest of the Mohicans, is a skilled combatant and good shot (his foster son Hawkeye is famed for his prowess with the long rifle hence his moniker "La Longue Carabine"). This is put on full display during the climax when Chingachgook's son Uncas is quickly killed by Big Bad Magua and Chingachgook cuts through his warriors while barely slowing down; when he reaches Magua, he dismantles the war captain in seconds.
• The Mask of Zorro has Don Diego de la Vega, the original Zorro; he's getting along in years and has spent 20 years in prison by the time of the present events, but he has lost none of his skill, training Alejandro to become the next Zorro and trading blows with his Arch-Enemy Don Rafael.
• Red (2010) appears to be this, with a team of retired black-ops investigating their former employer. The designation itself stands for Retired, Extremely Dangerous.
• Remo Williams: The Adventure Begins subverts this by making its old Korean mentor capable of assorted miraculous feats but also a blatant racist and sexist. He is from a different generation.
• The guardian of the Wall in Stardust. "The man must be 90 years old." "Well, then, he's had plenty of time to practice, hasn't he?"
• Star Wars:
  • Grand Master Yoda, especially his first appearance in The Empire Strikes Back. 900 years old, he is; kick your ass, he still can. Thanks to CGI, fans get to see him in action in Attack of the Clones and Revenge of the Sith, as well as the "micro-series" Star Wars: Clone Wars and a few episodes of Star Wars: The Clone Wars.
  • Also Count Dooku in Attack of the Clones, who, while established as a ex-Jedi early in the film, is only revealed as a master swordsman when he neatly trounces Obi-Wan and Anakin during the final battle — until the arrival of the other Old Master, of course. And even then he holds his own.
  • From The Phantom Menace, Qui-Gon Jinn. Played by the future trainer of Batman and leader of the A-Team, Qui-Gon is the first maverick master seen on-screen (chronologically), at odds with the Jedi Council but respected nonetheless. He trained Obi-Wan and was the person most accountable for introducing Anakin Skywalker to the way of the Jedi. All things considered ...
  • Obi-Wan in Episode IV, Sidious in III, and the Emperor in VI, is introduced as a physically frail old man who unleashes previously unseen powers or abilities by the end of the film. Obi-Wan literally "become[s] more powerful than you can possibly imagine".
  • Luke Skywalker reaches this point in the sequel movies. Despite being old and somewhat out-of-practice, he's still powerful enough to utterly embarrass his former student and nephew.
• As of Top Gun: Maverick, Mav has become this. With over forty years of piloting experience under his belt, he's good enough to fly circles around his students; after deciding the young hotshots need to be taken down a peg, he proceeds to thrash them two-on-one... again, and again, and again. All while set to the glorious strains of The Who's "Won't Get Fooled Again".

Live-Action TV

• In Battlestar Galactica (2003), the main character, Commander Bill Adama is an Old Master. His morals and ethics dictate the conduct of the rest of the crew (i.e. characters remarking on more than one occasion "Cmdr. Adama would/would not do this"), and he openly regards many of them like children to him (which is extremely worrisome when you consider his terrible relationship with Lee, his actual son). This does not change the fact that, as we see in the season one episode "Kobol's Last Gleaming, Part 1", and the season three episode "Unfinished Business", Bill's capable of stepping into the boxing ring the crew has set up and beating the stuffing out of said "children" should he feel the need. He's pretty handy with a flashlight, too.
• Breaking Bad: Mike Ehrmantraut is in his 60s or 70s and has been on both sides of the law. In addition to being able to effortlessly beat down crooks half his age, Mike understands the criminal underworld and how to navigate it like no one else in the business. Any task that his boss, Gustavo Fring, hands to him will be accomplished with the utmost precision and nearly flawless execution. Even when things do go wrong, he can be expected to act in the most utterly professional way possible to solve the problem.
• Cobra Kai: John Kreese at around 70 can still stand toe-to-toe with his middle-aged best student Johnny Lawrence.
• Game of Thrones:
  • Ser Barristan Selmy's age grants him a wealth of experiences unmatched by almost anyone living.
  • Rodrik Cassel is old and the man of arms for Winterfell.
• Knightfall has Master Talus, an elderly Knight Templer who is the Master of Initiates in charge of training and evaluating all potential knights. When King Philip begins The Purge of the Knight Templar, Talus is one of the few knights to escape and he leads a daring rescue of the other knights. He then performs a You Shall Not Pass! so people under his protection can escape. We then see him a few minutes later as he is sheathing his swords and the street behind him is covered in dead enemies. Despite his age, he is probably the deadliest Knight Templer shown in the show.
• Grasshopper, Master Po from Kung Fu (1972), surely one of the Trope Makers of the Old Master, and owner/operator of a Disability Superpower to boot. Or The Ancient One from Kung Fu The Legend Continues, who might have been several hundred years old.
• NCIS:
  • In "Worst Nightmare", the team has a difficult time keeping up with the grandfather of a missing girl.
  • Gibbs' former boss and teacher Mike Franks should easily qualify.
  • And, of course, Gibbs himself.
• Power Rangers:
  • In Power Rangers Lightspeed Rescue, Chad's former mentor Tomashiro was a guy like this, but he and Chad weren't exactly on good terms. Tomashiro was sorely disappointed that his student had chosen his current occupation (as a Ranger) rather than take the role as his successor. This led to Tomashiro foolishly accepting the demon Cyclopter as a student, who naturally turned on him after learning enough. (Chad eventually won back his mentor's respect.)
  • Both played straight and averted in Power Rangers Jungle Fury; some of the masters and teachers from the Order of the Claw are indeed old masters. However, in the first episode, when the rangers are sent to the Jungle Karma Pizza restaurant to find their new master, they see a man who looks like your stereotypical old master and immidiately assume he must be the one they are searching for, only to find out he is just a customer and the real master is the much younger owner of the restaurant.
• Stargate SG-1:
  • Master Bra'tac. In his first appearance in the series, started off by complaining about his old age, then promptly incapacitated Colonel O'Neill in an embarassingly short fight sequence. Continues to refer to himself as an old man during the entire 10 seasons despite the fact that he is obviously one of the most skilled warriors in the galaxy. Some other Jaffa make the mistake of confusing his age with weakness. Too late and to their sorrow do they realize that a prominent man living a century and a half in an entire society of expendable warriors should have been a clue as to his badassery. Bonus points for being called "Master" by virtually every Jaffa and on some occasions even Humans, seemingly an honorary title given only to Bra'tac out of respect for his wisdom.
    Kinsey: Which is why I've taken it upon myself to come on down and hear what Mister Bra'tac has to say personally.
    O'Neill: Master Bra'tac. Master.
  • Due to his 50 years spent in a time warp in SG-1's final episode, Teal'c is even older than Bra'tac now. As of that episode, he's nearly 160 in subjective years. That makes him physically about 5 years Bra'tac's senior, though he doesn't look it.^*  Turns out, the time warp being 50 years was the result of a makeup error that couldn't be corrected before the deadline. The writers originally intended it to be "merely" around 20 years, so that Teal'c would still be a quarter century younger than Bra'tac. Teal'c lived and practiced for those fifty years, and still kicks so much rear after it.
• Star Trek:
  • A non-combat example from Star Trek: The Next Generation is seen in Unification, when Spock instantly and accurately figures out the details and major players of a Romulan plot before Picard — or even Data, who is arguably more intelligent than Spock — even have a chance to draw a breath. It helped that he'd been immersed in their culture for years instead of trying to pick up the whole situation in a few hours.
  • Star Trek: Deep Space Nine shows the later years of Dahar Master Kor, who despite suffering dementia, is able to hold off a fleet of Jem'Hadar fighters with a skeleton crew on a crippled bird-of-prey long enough for Martok's task force to get away.
  • Fellow Dahar Masters Kang and Koloth — with the help of Jadzia Dax — defeat the albino's army with little effort in Blood Oath.

Mythology

• Literature/Mahabharata:
  • Devavrata, better known as Bhishma ("the terrible"), was the patriarch of the Kuru royal family. In his youth, Devavrata studied archery from the sage, Parashurama, and obtained celestial weapons from Indra, the king of heavens. Despite being over five generations old, Bhishma killed over 10,000 soldiers and 1,000 chariot warriors each day, when he was the commander of the Kauravas during the Kurukshetra war. This man was so strong, he could literally decide the time he wished to die. In fact, Bhishma engineered his own death by telling the Pandavas how to kill him. Even then, he got shot with so many arrows that the arrows jutting out of his body hold him up off the ground. He basically laid there in a bed of arrows for fifty one days, quietly enduring the pain of the arrows and chose to die on an auspicious day, because he's that badass. During that time, he passed down his entire knowledge to Yudhishthira, which forms the content of two of the largest volumes in the Mahabharata.
  • Dronacharya was the eminent master of archery and weapons, who single-handedly taught an entire generation of kings and princes in the arts of war. By the time of the Kurukshetra war, when most of his pupils are old enough to have grandchildren, Dronacharya is still one of the greatest warriors on the battlefield, alongside the Kuru patriarch, Bhishma. It was said that Drona was near-invincible as long as he wielded the bow. He did suffer a few defeats owing to old age, but nevertheless, he couldn't be killed in a straight fight. The Pandavas had to resort to deceit to make Drona drop his weapons. Drishtadyumna, the man born to kill Drona, could never defeat him in battle, and was only able to kill Drona when the master was sitting in meditation.

Tabletop Games

• Dungeons & Dragons: Monks eventually gain Timeless Body, which means that, while they still visibly age, they take no penalties for aging and remain every bit as physically powerful as they were at their prime. At the level a monk gains that ability they are also not to be trifled with.
• Exalted: Sidereals will eventually become this, if they aren't already. They know the best Supernatural Martial Arts there are (that only they can learn), they rely on subtle but masterful measures, their non-martial-arts powers require esoteric wisdom to make good use of, and they keep low profile— though that last one is a magically enforced rule of reality.
• Feng Shui: The Old Master archetype has the highest starting Martial Arts and Chi scores of the whole archetype list and five Fu Schticks, and though he only starts with a Body score of 4, his Unique Schtick allows him to use unarmed attacks to wallop characters with 10 base damage (equivalent of Body 8 or 9). You just know it's a bad move to mess with him.
• In Nomine: The Archangel Michael is the second or third oldest angel in the universe — and, since he's also the Archangel of War, he can take down just about any opponent or group of opponents you care to name. After he personally booted his older brother Lucifer out of Heaven, the rest of the demonic army decided to show itself out.
• Mutant Chronicles: Sebastian Crenshaw is 55 years old in a universe where average life expectancy is 40, but still the Solar System's most skilled assassin, swordsman and martial artist.
• Sentinels of the Multiverse:
  • Mister Fixer is a devastatingly skilled martial artist who Word of God holds is the most skilled martial artist in the setting (other people might hit harder, but they usually use superpowers to do it) - and being blind doesn't slow him down. Originally conceived in-universe as a Blaxploitation / kung fu Fad Super when those were the new hotness, Reimagining the Artifact positioned that as the exuberance of youth, with the years since then having left him as a beaten-down old man with a few extra decades of regrets, coming out of retirement to take on the crime syndicate poisoning his city - with his skills as sharp as ever, even though he's set aside his bo staves and nunchaku in favour of tyre irons, jack handles and crowbars.
  • John Rhodes, aka The Scholar, is a friendly-looking older man who typically wears a bathrobe and gives off strong Jeff Bridges vibes. He's over a hundred years old, not that he looks it, and is possibly the most skilled true alchemist in the world.
• Warhammer 40,000
  • Chapter Masters of the Space Marines only get there by earning the respect of an entire chapter of super soldiers. Usually done by, at the very least, surviving and distinguishing yourself in centuries of battle against nightmarish odds in a crapsack universe. After first growing up on and proving yourself Badass by the standards of a Death World where one is considered an Old Master if they live to thirty, then surviving the Training from Hell and augmentation surgeries needed to be turned into a Super-Soldier.
  • The oldest actively serving Space Marine is Dante, Chapter Master of the Blood Angels, clocking in at over 1,400 years (the Blood Angels in general have a reputation of living longer than average if the Black Rage doesn't claim them).
  • The oldest Loyalist Marine is Bjorn the Fellhanded, now interred in a Dreadnought and thus kept in a chemically induced coma most of the time. By the best reckoning, he is well over 13,000 years old, old enough to remember the original Legions, fought in the Great Crusade, and most impressively fought alongside the Emperor himself. Yet, when the call is given, he can still kick ass with the best of them.

Web Animation

• Maria Calavera from RWBY is a very elderly and blind huntress who was once the Grimm Reaper. Through both her skill and her immensely powerful silver eyes, she rose to become a legendary huntress, until she was blinded and went into retirement following an encounter with mercenaries implicitly hired by the Big Bad. She doesn't do much fighting, but gives Ruby advice on how to use the power of her silver eyes. She does eventually fight in volume 8, taking on Neopolitan, who up until that point has been one of the show's best fighters. Maria fights her off with one arm behind her back, laughing like she's having the time of her life.

Web Comics

• Master Surya from The Beast Legion.
• Dragon Ball Multiverse: Krillin from U9.
• In El Goonish Shive, this is invoked.
  Greg: For alas it is my greatest of shames as an anime martial arts master that I am not an old man or a pervert!!!
• Dr. Sun Jen-djieh from Girl Genius. When Baron Wulfenbach bypassed his medical order of staying in bed by building a bed into a Humongous Mecha, Dr. Sun destroyed that mecha. By hand.
• Thaco from Goblins.
• Dr. Herb from Gold Coin Comics.
• Master Fei of How I Killed Your Master certainly counts.
  Ji Jiao: Everyone knows you haven't fought in ten years. You're out of practice, out of touch—
  Ji Bao: — And outnumbered.
  Master Fei: Not by my reckoning.
  (One Curb-Stomp Battle later...)
  Master Fei: It's been ten years since anyone spoke of my fights because no-one has walked away from them in that time.
• Ten Winds of Keychain of Creation. Ten's a Terrestrial Exalt, the weakest Exalted type - but he's badass enough to make other, nominally more powerful Exalted think twice about facing him.
• In Latchkey Kingdom, Willa's grandfather, "Old Man" Dragonfly, has been continually adventuring since his youth. The kingdom is full of adventurers and wannabe heroes eager to take care of monsters, but when things get out of hand, they call up Old Man Dragonfly. His character bio says that he's saved the kingdom dozens of times.
• Karl Tagon, Captain Tagon's father from Schlock Mercenary. He might be in his 70s or 80s, but that doesn't prevent him from being both a brilliant senior officer and a good soldier.
• Feng from Sluggy Freelance. His fight with Kusari would have been a tie if it weren't for her Healing Factor.

Web Original

• This RPG-motivational invokes the obvious.
• The Old Man and Prof. Oak from Pokémon, according to this video.
• Sensei Ito of the Whateley Universe. He is a little old man without powers who teaches martial arts to teens who are mutants with superpowers. In his first appearance (the first day of classes), he schools Flying Brick Lancer. In later stories, we learn that Lancer was the fourth superpowered teen he clobbered that day.

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