Badass Beard



"He that hath a beard is more than a youth, and he that hath no beard is less than a man."

- William Shakespeare

Some badasses are not satisfied with just a Badass Mustache or Perma Stubble to show off their awesomeness. No, they choose to take it further. As opposed to facial hair growing above their upper lip, they won't be content until they have a full blown beard to show off. Many times, it works for them where a simple mustache would just look foolish or out of place. And when it does work, the gentleman in question is a bona fide tough guy, a man's man, a veritable buffet of manliness.

In short, it's what happens when the Badass Mustache gets cranked Up to Eleven.

Distinct from Growing the Beard, but the two can most definitely overlap. Same thing goes for Beard of Evil and Beard of Barbarism. Also see Stroke the Beard. Contrast with Beard of Sorrow, although they could overlap. Sometimes goes hand in hand with Wild Hair. Sometimes part of a Bald Black Leader Guy look.

Media in General

 * Dwarves, usually.
 * Some Half-Elves, who are like Elves. . . with a beard!
 * Every Viking ever (Hiccup gets a pass, though).

Advertisement

 * Used in a sidebar advertisement for a "Free Online MMO Trading Card Game" called Urban Rivals that appears on TV Tropes at the time of this writing. An initially wimpy-looking soldier character is shown growing increasingly more powerful through a series of stages, and his beard grows gradually at the same time.

Anime & Manga

 * Jet Black from Cowboy Bebop
 * Thorkell the Tall in Vinland Saga. It was dubbed the Beard of Awesome by fans.
 * Askeladd and Thors as well come to think of it.I
 * Gendou Ikari from Neon Genesis Evangelion.
 * In Hikaru no Go Hikaru has to play the loud, bearded Tsubaki in the first round of the Professional Exam, something he finds quite intimidating.
 * Hohenheim and  from Fullmetal Alchemist.
 * Oy! what about ?
 * As well as Sig Curtis and the patriarch of the Armstrong family
 * Shigekuni Yamamoto-Genryusai of Bleach sports a Badass Beard so long he has to keep it braided.
 * Kenji Harima of School Rumble grew a great big one for awhile till it was accidentally chopped off by Eri.
 * Kenshiro in the Fist of the North Star film had one for a moment, performing his usual badassery.
 * You Don't Fuck with Lordgenome. That is all.
 * General Cross Marian from D Gray Man.
 * Vladcard from Hellsing has the second nickname of Beardycard for a reason!
 * Kan'u Gundam from BB Senshi Sangokuden. Based on Guan Yu (see below), he's a Gundam with a beard. He makes it work.
 * From Naruto Hiruzen and his son Asuma, Shikaku Nara, the Third Raikage and his sons Killer Bee and A
 * King Neptune from One Piece has a very impressive beard.
 * How about freaking Black Beard?
 * A particularly notable example, since each time he shows up again he's become more powerful and his beard is darker and fuller
 * Also Brownbeard, whose beard defies explanation.
 * Lord Nightray from Pandora Hearts has a Rasputin-style beard. Uncle Oscar's beard also looks pretty badass.
 * Jigen from Lupin III.
 * The goatee (aka. the catbeard/kittybeard) of Kotetsu T. Kaburagi (the "Tiger" of Tiger and Bunny) has achieved memetic status - not only because it's impeccably groomed to the point of implausibility, but because it also looks like a pair of kittens.
 * Super Atragon: Captain Hayate, of the battleshp Ra sports a full beard.
 * Gundam AGE: Captain Grodek Ainoa. That is all.

Comicbooks

 * Aquaman, in nearly every incarnation in which he's an elderly King of Atlantis. Not only does he had a white beard to rival Poseidon's, but it makes him sufficiently Darker and Edgier to make the reader know that no one fucks with him. Ever. Even Superman in Kingdom Come treats him with kid gloves.
 * Leonidas, king of the Spartans, in Three Hundred
 * Green Arrow. Come on, that beard is awesome.
 * Wulf Sternhammer in Strontium Dog is a Viking, and has an impressive beard to match.
 * For quite some time, The Mighty Thor wore a beard, and lo, it was epic.
 * Fellow Avenger Hercules normally has a beard as well, and of course he never passes up a fight. The one notable time Herc didn't have a beard came during The Nineties, when he decided he'd rather look more like Kevin Sorbo.
 * Lucas Orion of the Atari Force first series, though his character was mostly a pacifist that won't fight.
 * Captain Haddock in The Adventures of Tintin. Because: Hey, what is a sailorman without his badass beard?
 * His beard is pretty impressive in the recent motion-captured film, as well. Behold! Both him and the antagonist sport beards- between this and Lord of the Rings, you get the impression Peter Jackson has a thing for them.

Fan Fiction

 * The dwarven noble in Dragon Age the Crown of Thorns has a very elaborate style, reaching as low as the sternum. It has three intertwined braids in front, plus an extra one on each side. His mustache is also long, arranged neatly in two long strands that reach the level of his collarbone. His long-dead action girlfriend invented it, and the same style was since shamelessly copied by Lord Harrowmont, the Assembly Steward, etc. To compound it all, due to an event that gave the prince his status, all his hair is snow/silver white (that includes the spiked short cut on the head). Badass much?

Film

 * Ivan the Terrible: Ivan's beard defies gravity. And boyars.
 * Miraz in The Chronicles of Narnia: Prince Caspian is surrounded by bearded badguys, but his beard is the baddest one.
 * Rohirrim in The Lord of the Rings: look particularly at Éomer and Théoden (interestingly, local Wormtongue is clean-shaven).
 * That's because in Middle Earth, shavin's fer SISSIES!
 * Did you just insult the entire Elven race?
 * But do Elves even need to shave?
 * Well, Cirdan Shipwright has a long, grey beard in the novels.
 * How dare you include mention of The Lord of the Rings and not mention Gandalf?
 * Even the f*cking TREES have beards! It's beardier than a bearded pile of beards!
 * And Aragorn. And Faramir. And Boromir. And Gimli. All the Dwarves, in fact. And the King of the Undead. In fact, just about everyone who is badass and is not a) a hobbit b) an elf or c) a woman has a beard in these films.
 * Colour Sergeant Bourne from Zulu, who's 'tash and sideburn combo is so awesome it is simultaneously Badass Mustache and Badass Beard!
 * Desert warrior Ardeth Bey, played by Oded Fehr, in The Mummy Trilogy.
 * Jack Sparrow of Pirates of the Caribbean fame. Come on - his beard has beads in it! That's pretty awesome.
 * Davy Jones had an octo-beard, in that it was made up of tentacles. He could literally kill someone with it. Beards don't get much more badass than that.
 * Blackbeard has them all beat by virtue of being introduced with the ends of his beard smoldering with smoke. (Truth in Television: The real Blackbeard did things like that to terrify people.)
 * While better known as a comic character, Tony Stark's beard in Iron Man is more individualistic than his relatively generic comic counterpart's.
 * Maximus.
 * Alan from The Hangover
 * Star Wars: Many Jedi, most noticeably Qui-Gon Jinn, Obi-Wan Kenobi and Ki-Adi-Mundi. Dooku's would also count.
 * Hiccup's father Stoick from How to Train Your Dragon sports one.
 * This is probably intentional, given that he's voiced by Gerard Butler in a similar manner to his version of King Leonidas of SPAR-TA.

Literature

 * Sometimes, Gilgamesh of The Epic of Gilgamesh fame is depicted with a really long beard. It helps that he's 2 parts Divine and one part Human.
 * Just check him out in Civilization IV.. Look at this!
 * Guan Yu from Romance of the Three Kingdoms is infamous for his impressively long and full beard and he's one of the top badasses of the story. So impressive, the Designated Villain Cao Cao gives him a beard-bag to protect its luxuriousness. A mere display of his beard makes Mooks go weak at their knees and beg to join him.
 * He was known by his contemporaries as "Lord of the Magnificent Beard", which rather attests to its badassery.
 * The Han Emperor once said what roughly translates into, "Damn, that is one bad ass beard!"
 * If an older man has a beard in a Kafka novel, you can assume he's a terrifying, castrating authority figure. Case in point: The Trial.
 * One of the ways in which Our Dwarves Are All the Same is in having impressive beards. Another is in being badasses.
 * Gandalf and Saruman: big beards --> big badassness.
 * Saruman was described as having little grit and pluck; he wasn't one made to deal with the mess up-close and personal. Of course, this is a common theme running through Tolkien and his Heterosexual Life Partner Lewis; administrators, advisers, committees, and organizations are bad; heroes go in and get the job done themselves. Saruman makes an effective dragon with his ability to create, organize, delay the White Council, and so on, but this dragon has no claws when the heroes are on him. Even when he ruins the Shire out of spite, he does it by rallying ruffians and scum and corrupting Hobbits.
 * Gimli! Effectively competed with an elf no less!
 * Cìrdan, anyone?
 * Given to the presumption that elves do not grow facial hair...
 * Beorn. The climactic battle in The Hobbit is going badly for the good guys until he shows up late in the day and wins it more or less single-handed. Admittedly being able to turn into a giant bear immune to weapons has its advantages...
 * Similar to Guan Yu, El Cid Compeador is described in The Poem of the Cid as having a magnificent beard, as befitting the archetypal Badass Spaniard.
 * Belgarath of Belgariad had a beard, often depicted in art as being long and flowing, but was described in the books as being cropped close to his face. Barak, the Big Guy from the series' Viking Fantasy Counterpart Culture who turns into a bear on occasion, never shaved in his life.
 * Kurik in The Elenium is noted as having a mighty beard, as well as the 25,000 member strong Order of the Genidian Knights (with the exception of Sir Ulath).
 * Väinämöinen in the Iron Druid Chronicles has a badass beard which Atticus duly notes. In fact it is later found that he has a kit of knives strapped and concealed beneath his massive face bear.
 * Dumbledore, once describe as reaching down to his knees.

Live-Action TV

 * During the writers' strike in '07-'08, late night talk show hosts David Letterman and Conan O Brien sported "beards of solidarity" (also noteworthy: they paid their crews out of pocket and kept their shows on the air throughout).
 * Conan re-grew his since he left The Tonight Show. For his show Conan on TBS, he kept it from November 8th, 2010 to the day Will Ferrell wanted it gone when he guest-starred on May 2nd, 2011.
 * The late Billy Mays from Pitchmen and innumerable advertisements.
 * Doyle Bennett from Justified.
 * Commander Riker on Star Trek the Next Generation is, for the most part, a poor man's Kirk. The beard is what makes him Riker-er.
 * This wasn't always the case.
 * Jayne Cobb.
 * Marcus Cole of Babylon 5.
 * Sheridan grows a beard later in the series.
 * In Doctor Who, the Eleventh Doctor gained one between "The Impossible Astronaut" and "Day of the Moon" and shaves it off later.
 * He grew another one in "The Wedding of River Song", but shaved it off during the episode.
 * Half the cast of Sons of Anarchy, being bikers have beards, with varying degrees of badass and evil backing them up. Probably the most badass is the beard belonging to Tig Trager, the club's Sergeant-at-Arms and assassin of choice although Jax's beard in Season 4 bids fair to rival it.
 * Morgan Grimes from Chuck

Music

 * Both Dusty Hill and Billy Gibbons of ZZ Top (no coincidence since one of their biggest hits is Sharp-Dressed Man). Ironically, their drummer Frank Beard has a Badass Mustache instead.
 * Les Claypool from Primus.
 * Zakk Wylde of Ozzy Osbourne's band and Black Label Society.
 * Mark Morton of Lamb of God.
 * Rob Halford of Judas Priest
 * Kerry King of Slayer.
 * Frank Zappa
 * 'Dimebag' Darrel Abbot of Pantera.
 * John Petrucci of Dream Theater is known to have sported one from time to time.
 * James Hetfield ever since the late 80's, with a few breaks.
 * Scott Ian of Anthrax.
 * Nick Oliveri, Kyuss member and formerly of Queens Of The Stone Age.
 * Metal Hammer's countdown of the 21 best beards in Metal.
 * Jim James of My Morning Jacket
 * Ian "Lemmy" Kilmister of Motorhead.
 * Shavo Odadjian of System of a Down is famous for his braided beard.
 * Johan Hegg of Amon Amarth is about as well known for his long, Viking-inspired beard as for his vocals.
 * Beards are all over the place in Country Music, but some particularly badass ones include:
 * William Lee Golden of The Oak Ridge Boys.
 * Jamey Johnson.
 * Charlie Daniels.
 * And of course, Hank Williams Jr, who gets extra Badass points for having grown it to cover up facial scars that resulted from him falling off a mountain.
 * Commander, Murphy, the 'late' Demon Barber, and the Keymaster of The Protomen. The band even wrote a song about beards.
 * Ian Anderson of Jethro Tull, especially in The Seventies.
 * Adrian Smith ever since he rejoined Iron Maiden.
 * Each of The Beatles grew these at various points, with Paul McCartney and George Harrison arguably achieving the most successful results.
 * Four out of five Fleet Foxes.
 * Mike Patton's scrub brush during the Angel Dust period.
 * Neil Fallon of Clutch.
 * Taken to High Octane Nightmare Beard levels in the "Burning Beard" video.
 * All five members of The Band sported beards, or at least some form of facial hair. They were successful at it, too!
 * Garth Hudson's was particularly Badass, however.
 * [[media:Mike_Wengren_x_60cc2f06_4354.jpg|Mike Wengren]], drummer for Disturbed. How else would he create those tribal beats without one?
 * Guitarist [[media:Dan_in_chair_9622.jpg|Dan Donegan]] may also count.
 * Mick Jagger and Brian Jones of The Rolling Stones briefly donned these in the late '60s, as can be seen here.
 * Mike Love of The Beach Boys grew a beard in the late '60s, although this arguably counts more as a Beard of Evil (since we are, after all, talking about Mike Love).
 * Brian Wilson also sported a beard at one point, though admittedly not one as Badass as his baseball namesake's (see Real Life, below).
 * Marco Hietala of Nightwish could easily pass for a viking warrior.
 * Producer Rick Rubin, whose beard has practically taken over his body:

Professional Wrestling

 * Stone Cold Steve Austin.
 * Bill Goldberg.
 * Travis "Tyson" Tomko, whose beard, tattoos, bald head, and black ring attire make him look like a total badass.
 * The Undertaker
 * Randy Savage Oooooh yeah!
 * Hillbilly Jim really went the extra mile to fit the look.

Religion & Mythology

 * Santa Claus, of course.
 * Many representations of the Judeo-Christian God. Also, the literal patriarchs: Abraham, Moses, Noah, etc.
 * And let's not forget Jesus. Blame it on the art and especially on Robert Powell's iconical portrayal in Jesus of Nazareth.
 * Sure, he may not have looked exactly like he does in those portraits, but he almost certainly had a beard.
 * Most of the Norse Gods particularly Odin, Thor, and Tyr are commonly depicted and described as having some truly epic facial hair.
 * Certain gods in Classical Mythology also count, including Zeus, Poseidon, and Ares (interestingly, Hades has often been depicted as lacking a beard, unlike his two brothers (whom he is older than)).
 * Leviticus 19:27

Tabletop Games

 * Warhammer Fantasy Battle has weaponized beards on the part of the Dwarves, who sometimes braid blades into their facial hair and use it as a weapon.
 * Chejop Kejak of Exalted, the oldest and most powerful Exalt in existence, possesses one of these. As well as Badass Long Hair.

Toys

 * G.I. Joe. It started in the 70s with the 12" Adventure Team member Joe Colton with realistic flocked facial hair as a selling point, and despite the fact that facial hair is still against military regs in most branches, a lot of Joes started sporting Badass Beards, Including Shipwreck, Snowjob, Frostbite, Clutch, Outback, Rock & Roll, and most recently Bench Press. On the other side, Dreadnoks Ripper, Torch, and Monkeywrench as well as Iron Grenadiers Voltar and General Mayham have their own.

Videogames
"NPC: "Whoa, nice sideburns!""
 * Gordon Freeman from the Half-Life series.
 * The Vanguard bloodline and Engineer within Bloodline Champions. The officer outfit for the Igniter has this as well.
 * Ganondorf from Zelda, only after The Legend of Zelda Ocarina of Time, in which he was clean shaven.
 * Darmani/Goron Link definitely qualifies. An NPC shopkeeper even comments on it.


 * Gorath from Betrayal At Krondor has a Badass Beard despite being an elf - which is supposed to be impossible, but according to the manual is possible because he's half-human - which, in turn, is also supposed to be impossible in Midkemia canon. In short, the designers probably just gave him the beard to emphasize his "badass dark elf leader" image.
 * Solid Snake's beard in Metal Gear Solid 2 Sons of Liberty is not much worth talking about. But Naked Snake/Big Boss in Metal Gear Solid 3 Snake Eater has a Badass Beard that is a sight to behold. Snake single handedly made the beard sexy again for an entire generation.
 * On top of that, it gets longer in Peace Walker, especially in the comic-style cutscenes.
 * Jack Cayman of Mad World. It helps that he looks a lot like Jet Black.
 * Agent Chieftain of Elite Beat Agents.
 * Max Payne in the latest installment.
 * Kyle freakin' Katarn.
 * It's Official: There is no chin behind Kyle Katarn's beard, just another Bryar Pistol.
 * Hector in Fire Emblem 6, showing how badass he still was after all those years.
 * Also, Athos the Archsage in Fire Emblem 7 had a pretty spiffy beard.
 * Duncan from Dragon Age has one. This has led to Memetic Mutation on the Bio Ware forums.
 * First Enchanter Irving has one as well, though his also gives him a Memetic Molester reputation.
 * The default male version of Hawke in Dragon Age II sports one.
 * Lampshaded in Tales of the Abyss, where Anise insists that Van's beard is the source of his power.
 * Also Largo
 * In Assassin's Creed II, Ezio Auditore da Firenze has such a beard in the final Memory Block, at the age of forty. Downloadable Content added two Memory Blocks before the final one, and Ezio can be seen growing the beard in them.
 * Returns in Assassin's Creed Brotherhood, starting just after AC II ended.
 * Taken up a notch in Assassin's Creed Revelations. Ezio is now is his early fifties and sports an even fuller beard.
 * And in the newest trailer for Desmond in Assassin's Creed Revelations there is a short shot of Desmond sporting one of these.
 * in Modern Warfare 2. Gaz in the first Modern Warfare game also had one. Soap, meanwhile, favors Perma Stubble.
 * Slayer from Guilty Gear.
 * Kratos from God of War.
 * In Mortal Kombat 9, when Kratos is the victim of a Babality (turned into a baby), he keeps the goatee. It's just that badass.
 * Basch from Final Fantasy XII
 * Jecht from Final Fantasy X. His badassery gets ramped up even further in the Dissidia games, where he actually gets to show off his moves outside his
 * Cid, Tellah, and FuSoYa from Final Fantasy IV.
 * Dr. Light of Mega Man.
 * Team Fortress 2: The Demoman's facial hair straddles the line between a Badass Beard and a Badass Mustache. (He's trimmed off everything on his chin except for a small triangle beneath his lip. The man is stylin'.)
 * The Spy can also have a beard. Well, a fake one with a "hidden" camera in it.
 * Jak and Daxter deserves a special mention for making a traditionally evil goatee look heroic.
 * more like anti-heroic.
 * LeChuck from Monkey Island. His beard is so badass that it gets used to reanimate the rest of his body.
 * Jed, as a reward.
 * Jorge-052 from Halo Reach.
 * The Point Man of FEAR, formerly The Faceless, has one in the third game.
 * The Monk of Diablo III counterpoints his Bald of Awesome with his mighty beard.
 * Gouken from Street Fighter.
 * And Gen. Definitely Gen.
 * Zangief also has a Badass Beard.
 * Isaac in Golden Sun Dark Dawn sports one 30 years later after saving the world in the previous game. A NPC comments that Isaac is quite the looker for his age and many women are attracted to him. He's only 47! see for yourself.
 * Forty-seven apparently going on twenty-seven, due to Alchemy.
 * also grew a mighty long beard in the last thirty years. His son favors the Perma Stubble look.
 * Bill Overbeck from Left 4 Dead. Francis could also count.
 * Obligatory Touhou example: Unzan. The fact that he's a cloud really helps.
 * Youki Konpaku tends to be depicted this way in fanarts.
 * Adam Jensen from Deus Ex Human Revolution.
 * Putting a beard on a male Player Character was possible in The Elder Scrolls III Morrowind, but Oblivion reduced your options to five-o'clock shadow. Bethesda brought true beards back for Skyrim, And the Fandom Rejoiced.
 * Putting a beard and/or mustache on male non-elf player characters in Neverwinter Nights 2 is as easy as clicking "Toggle Facial Hair" during character creation.
 * Among non-player characters, we have the bald, bearded Khelgar Ironfist, and mustache/goateed Ammon Jerro. Storm of Zehir adds Septimund and Ribsmasher.
 * Jinpachi Mishima from Tekken. Just...WOW. The Mishima Family is pretty much known for their outlandish, pointy hairstyles (a bonus from having electric attacks or the Devil Gene, maybe?), but the original progenitor definitely takes the cake for his beard alone.

Webcomics

 * In Dominic Deegan, resident Badass / Determinator Dex Garrett grew a beard. Sadly, it's long gone by the time he
 * Hall from Supernormal Step has a pretty sweet one that just reaffirms his badassery.
 * O-chul in Order of the Stick combines this with Bald of Awesome to great effect.
 * Mr. Thorn from Gunnerkrigg Court. Games teacher and dragon-slayer for the previous generation, and owner of an epic beard.
 * In the "Oceans Unmoving" arc of Sluggy Freelance, Calix grows a massive beard after, and afterward becomes much more ruthless and determined, growing up from the skilled but innocent boy he was.
 * In The Adventures of Dr. McNinja, Franz Rayner Double Subverted this with his neckbeard. While normally the complete opposite of this trope (and it just led to him getting humiliated when compared to Dan's Badass Mustache) it's capable of blocking ninja punches.
 * King Radical, on the other hand, wins the award for most ridiculous beard that still manages to look badass. He also gave a bunch of orphans beards just because he loves all things awesome.
 * The Ultimate Diplomat is a Badass Pacifist example.
 * Sandford Fleming in this Hark! A Vagrant strip.
 * Callous, a minor villain from Wright As Rayne, sports one of these.
 * Ryan and Jason of Remus each sport one. The badassery of Jason's is debatable, but Ryan's... not so much.

Web Original

 * In The Gamers Alliance, Belial, Khasra III, Orestes, Pronin, and Taliesin have these. Refan also had it for a while, but he eventually cut it off to signify his newfound determination.
 * Post-Mission That Dude in The Suede.
 * Harley Morensein's grew in during the run of EPICMEALTIME.
 * Yamauchi-sensei in Greek Ninja has one.
 * The Angry Video Game Nerd has grown one recently.

Western Animation

 * The Monarch from The Venture Brothers.
 * Action Hank, one of Dexter's idols in Dexters Laboratory. In "Beard to Be Feared", Dexter comes to the conclusion that Hank's beard is what makes him "rugged", and in an attempt to become tougher, uses an invention to give himself a fairly impressive beard. After Hank helps Dexter defeat a band of villains who use their own bad-ass facial hair as weapons, Dexter learns "It doesn't matter if you have the beard on the outside, as long as you have the beard on the inside."
 * In Ego Trip, Dexter takes a few Levels in Badass when growing up, and gets a Badass Beard in the process. He also goes bald. Elderly Dexter is beardless so he presumably shaved it off when his one-man La Résistance days were over.
 * While not a true character, Sokka's alter-ego Wang Fire is generally held to be incredibly badass.
 * Also Ozai, Sozin and Azulon.
 * And Hakoda.
 * In Season 2, Iroh grows out his goatee and Hotblooded Sideburns into an amazing beard, and keeps it that way.
 * Special Mention goes to the Order of The White Lotus, an organization full of them.
 * The Legend of Korra: Tenzin.
 * In a similar vein, flashback adult Aang and Sokka (though not to Wang Fire degrees).
 * Santa Bot. Whether you have been naughty or nice. Also, his pal the Hanukkah Zombie. Kwanzaabot is badass, but alas, no beard.
 * While no attention is drawn to it, Hank Scorpio would be far less awesome without his.
 * In ThunderCats (2011) King Claudus and General Grune, the Big Good and The Dragon respectively, both sport expansive versions of these, while Court Mage Jaga has a slightly more downplayed badass Wizard Beard.
 * Count Dooku In the Clone Wars Television series has a particularly badass beard.
 * Also Obi-Wan

Real Life

 * Epic Beard Man
 * France's most famous rugbyman.
 * King George V
 * Frederick I Barbarossa, Emperor of the Holy Roman Empire might just have the most badass of them all.
 * So badass that it grows either all the way around or through the table he is sitting at.
 * Chuck Norris is not, in fact, the reincarnation of Jesus. His beard, on the other hand, is.
 * In fact, there is not a chin under Chuck Norris's beard. There is only another fist.
 * Chuck Norris doesn't has a beard. It just his overgrown moustache growing all over his body.
 * Wolf Blitzer of CNN.
 * Alan Moore. Bloody 'ell, that's a beard!
 * Abraham Lincoln, because a little girl sent him a letter asking him to grow a beard, then he did.
 * George Carlin
 * Anders Friden, the vocalist for the heavy metal band In Flames, definitely qualifies. Just look at that thing. Oh, and when he was younger, he also had some pretty cool dreadlocks as well.
 * Jewish guys seem to be able to grow these effortlessly.
 * Including Jon Stewart.
 * Also the Amish (who only grow them once they get married).
 * Henrik Ibsen
 * George Bernard Shaw
 * Charles Darwin's image is made instantly recognizable by his epic beard. This is even more impressive because he didn't grow the iconic beard until well after he published Origin. Beard of science, indeed.
 * Karl Marx. And we can't forget his less-famous co-author for the Manifesto of the Communist Party, Friedrich Engels
 * Che Guevara also had a badass beard, best shown off in his classic and much replicated portrait. You are not a real communist until you have awesome beardage.
 * Beards seemed to be particularly popular with the Bolsheviks (Lenin, Trotsky, Kamenev, Kalinin... Stalin also had a beard, but later shaved it off and adopted his famous full-mustache look).
 * King Gustav I, the first renaissance king of Sweden, was a badass tyrant who sat 37 years on the throne and made a state in a modern sense out of a fractious medieval realm. His beard was as badass as himself.
 * Ivan the Terrible.
 * Crown Prince Haakon of Norway married the love of his life, Mette-Marit Tjessem Høiby, despite her less than regal background, and afterwards grew a beard to show that he was a real badass who'd done the right thing.
 * Aversions: The Neckbeard.
 * It protects the neck from ninjas.
 * Either way, it's downright disturbing.
 * Richard Stallman. For a Nerd King, that's a helluva beard.
 * Bill Hicks, as seen on the cover of Arizona Bay.
 * Edward Teach, a.k.a. Blackbeard himself, whose name derived from his huge, braided beard which had lit fuses woven into it.
 * Ernest Hemingway.
 * Fr. Edward Sorin, C.S.C., the founder of the University of Notre Dame. Shouldn't expect anything less from a priest who almost singlehandedly built ND in the middle of Nowhere, IN, and after it burned down in 1879 swore to rebuild it even larger. Also, he's an honest-to-God doppelganger of Albus Dumbledore--check if you don't believe me.
 * It's a hockey tradition, at least in the NHL, that players grow a playoff beard when entering said part of the season. Most players do not shave until they either win the Stanley Cup or get eliminated. Thus the length of the beard is usually directly proportional to how deep the team is in the playoffs and thus how badass it is. However, some players elect to not follow that tradition and some others trim their beards after a loss to change their luck.
 * W.G. Grace The most famous beard to ever grace Victorian cricket fields.
 * Many officers on both sides of The American Civil War had quite impressive facial hair. Also Badass in the sense that these men would often lead their men from the front lines.
 * Brigham Young, who led the Mormons into the desert and eventually founded settlements from Canada to Mexico, defied a fifth of the US Army, and became known as the "American Moses."
 * Morihei Ueshiba, founder of modern aikido.
 * San Francisco Giants closing pitcher Brian Wilson has his own new all-black beard and a nice following of its own fans.
 * Jimmy McMillan of the Rent Is Too Damn High Party.
 * Alfred Molina when his character has one.
 * Canada's army Pioneers: hybrid infantry / military engineers: dozer blades on their APCs and training in explosive demolitions (among other things). Referred to as "Lumberjack Commandos" in the linked pic.
 * The sappers ("sapeurs") of the French Foreign Legion, for that matter. I mean, look at them! An Axe is apparently a part of their dress uniform!
 * Nicholas Flamel and Dr. John Dee the famous alchemist and supposed discoverer of a way to live forever and turn metal into gold and coal into gems and the man who was Queen Elizabeth's right hand man, personal astrologer, spy, and the man who gave James Bond his codename. and both had awesome beards.
 * Brian Blessed.
 * Grigori Rasputin.
 * John Brown.
 * Ned Kelly, an Irish-Australian outlaw.
 * Fidel Castro. So bad ass a beard, the CIA actually tried a plot to slip him a drug for the express purpose of making it fall out. And failed.
 * Emperor Hadrian of the Roman Empire. Brought single-handedly beards back into fashion after hundreds of years of clean-shavedness enforced by tradition on the Roman aristocracy. As an avid proponent of the martial virtues and an openly homosexual man, this also made him the first Bear in recorded history.
 * Julian the Apostate is another noted bearded Roman emperor, again, against the prevailing fashions of the time. However, he was less successful in promoting beardliness than Hadrian, although not for lack of effort, since he wrote a satire of Christianity known as "Beard Hater," referencing Eastern Christians' making fun of his facial hair.
 * Dr. Robert T.Bakker - The Deadpan Snarker of paleontologists with the face of Santa Claus. His research propelled the theory of dinosaurs as warm-blooded animals into mainstream paleontology.
 * Brett Keisel of the Pittsburgh Steelers.
 * Egyptian Pharaohs, full stop.
 * A subversion: for a long time the fashion was to be clean-shaven, and then wear a fake beard (one about as realistic as the one in the linked image).
 * Bashir Shahib II "The Great", Emir of Lebanon. He ruled Lebanon in the name of the Ottoman Empire, and played a minor role in thwarting Napoleon's Egyptian Campaign. However, this will be forever overshadowed by his truly epic beard/moustache combo. So epic, that you'd be forgiven for believing that the lining of his robe is part of it.
 * Lots of Ottomans had especially badass beards. Good examples would be Muhammad Ali of Egypt and Hursid Pasha
 * Mark Bunker, aka "Wise Beard Man". His words are wise, his face is beard.
 * Mark Levin
 * The Beards, an Australian band
 * Photos of Special Forces Operators (Delta Force, SEALs etc.) and their colleagues from around the world often show them with fullgrown beards, supposedly so they can blend in with the local population more easily (who, in recent times, are generally inhabitants of Iraq or Afghanistan, where men commonly have beards). Also, being Special Forces, they can get away with the additional facial hair other troops would be admonished for.
 * Alfred Von Tirpitz, commander of the German Navy during World War I. The eyebrows and Bald of Awesome only help matters.