History Main / CloneAngst

* ''Anime/{{Daltanious}}'' takes place in a world where clones are treated like slaves, as they're often abused, mistreated and killed for their organs. Almost all the alien empires ([[spoiler:Helios]], Zaal, Marios, Proxia) [[FantasticRacism treat them like shit]] and call them disgusting. [[spoiler: Supreme Commander Kloppen of Zaal has a mental breakdown when he finds out he's a clone, tearing down the Zaal flag and begging Dolmen to hear his cries. He gets nothing in response.]]

* In ''Anime/GhostInTheShell1995'', this is a factor in Motoko's detachment from the world, in which she wonders about her significance given her entirely artificial shell. In [[AloneInACrowd one particular scene]], she notes that even mannequins look like her, and that she has duplicates nearly everywhere. In particular the chosen shell of the Puppet Master is also quite similar to Motoko.

** This continues into Season 2, as Cleon XVII (the current Brother Day) is shown to have developed a MortalityPhobia due to [[spoiler:the corrupted Imperial genome]] making him lose faith in the LegacyImmortality provided by the Genetic Dynasty. To compensate, he's become obsessed with having children to procreate like a normal person.

* ''ComicBook/{{Outsiders|2003}}'': The clone of Metamorpho created by Monsieur Mallah and the Brain is recruited first as an amnesiac Metamorpho. Later, he's faced by the original one and revealed to be a clone of him. He renames himself Shift and stays on with the team. Metamorpho wants to assimilate Shift back with himself, but eventually realizes that this part of him had made a life for itself. During this time, Shift finds himself soul-searching and trying to find meaning to his life.

* In the penultimate ''ComicBook/{{Druuna}}'' album, "Clone", Druuna herself is cloned by a group of machines residing on Earth AfterTheEnd who are trying to understand humanity. The clone [[TomatoInTheMirror discovers the truth by the end]], and immediately starts angsting about whether or not she's really human.
* Fred Perry's ''ComicBook/GoldDigger'': Brianna, the third Diggers sister, is actually a clone/MixAndMatchCritter of Gina and Brittany. After her accidental creation, she quickly goes nuts and tries to eliminate her "sisters" (due to a curse that was the reason for the process that created her), though they eventually manage to talk her down. Even then, for several issues afterward, Brianna has something of an identity crisis. "Several issues" meaning about fifty or so, on and off.
* ComicBook/IronMan's 2019 series had the revelation that Tony did die in the second superhero Civil War and the Tony apparently revived from the coma is actually a backup of Tony's brain in a reconstructed body. He struggles with having all of Tony's memories while feeling he's not the original at all. During the events of ''ComicBook/IronMan2020Event'', as he sides with the robot revolution, he embraces his status as an artificial being and [[MeaningfulRename renames himself Mark One]] until an intervention by [[GirlFriday F.R.I.D.A.Y.]], who assures him that he's still human where it counts, leading to a HesBack moment for Tony.

* ''ComicBook/PS238'' inverts this. [[spoiler:Tyler is afraid that his parents will love his clone, Toby, more than they love him, because Toby has superpowers, just like his parents always wanted.]] This thankfully won't ever happen [[spoiler:since Toby used his powers to make sure Tyler's parents would still love him. Unfortunately, thanks to the EquivalentExchange nature of his powers, Toby had to sacrifice any chance of being friends with Cecil.]]

* The ''ComicBook/SpiderMan'' storyline ''ComicBook/TheCloneSaga'' features this as a major premise, as it opens looking at how the man who came to call himself Ben Reilly reacted when he realised that he was the clone of Spider-Man created by the Jackal rather than the original. Ben went so far as to declare that he wasn’t even a person, and had to go on the road and spend five years establishing his own identity before he felt ready to return to New York. The manipulations of the Jackal [[spoiler:and the Green Goblin]] made it increasingly confusing whether Peter or Ben were the ‘real’ Spider-Man, culminating in Peter having a breakdown when evidence emerged indicating that he was the clone. The two eventually overcame this, settling into a dynamic where Peter Parker lived his life despite being the apparent ‘clone’ while Ben made his own existence even if tests confirmed he was the ‘original’, but this culminated in [[spoiler:the Green Goblin revealing that Peter was the original and Ben the clone, with all contrary evidence an elaborate deception]]. Since [[spoiler: Ben’s return to life, he is generally content with his current identity, but the manipulation of the Beyond Corporation have led to him becoming convinced that Peter abandoned him]].

* ''Franchise/XMen'':
** ComicBook/JeanGrey's clone [[Characters/MarvelComicsMadelynePryor Madelyne Pryor]] didn't take it very well when she found out she was a clone created by Mister Sinister for the sole purpose of having Cyclops's baby, since Sinister believed he could create an extremely powerful mutant by combining Cyclops and Jean Grey's genes. The revelation [[GoMadFromTheRevelation drove Maddie insane]] and she tried to kill her and Cyclops's infant son and after failing killed herself. After that, the newly-resurrected Jean adopted Baby Nathan with Cyclops, since they were dating and he was genetically her son anyway. And then the baby got into his own cloning problems...
** ComicBook/{{X 23}}, a TykeBomb OppositeSexClone of Wolverine's 'I'm not real!' angst is downplayed, as it's discarded approximately an issue after first feeling a twinge of it. As such, Laura has always been treated as completely separate character from Logan, with her angst coming from being artificially created to be assassin rather than being a "copy" of her dad. In ''The Killing Dream'', the first arc of her solo series, a demon possessing [[spoiler: ComicBook/{{Wolverine}}]] attempts to bait her into serving him by telling her she has no soul because she's a clone. [[spoiler: It takes a BattleInTheCenterOfTheMind where she encounters the personification of the fragment of her humanity the Facility failed to destroy--or possibly even ''[[ComicBook/CaptainUniverse the Enigma Force]]''--to give her the power to break the demon's hold over her.]] Nonetheless, the idea she may not have a soul ''does'' rattle Laura quite significantly, to the point that she even questions Miss Sinister about whether clones possess a soul [[spoiler: while the latter was in the process of ''[[GrandTheftMe trying to steal her body]]'']]! She later asks Blackheart, ''another demon'', whether or not she has a soul, figuring that someone who tortures souls as a hobby would know. Blackheart mockingly assures her that she does have a soul, since he wouldn't be able to hurt her if she didn't. Then again, demons are notorious liars.
** Laura's clone sidekick Gabby doesn't express much angst about being a clone. That changes in [[ComicBook/XMen2019 the Krakoa era]]: When Madelyne Pryor is killed, the Quiet Council uses her clone status to justify not resurrecting her. Gabby is worried that the same exemption might apply to her, making her a sort of "second-class mutant." There are counter-examples to consider, though: The two dead Cuckoos (see below) were resurrected through the now-standard Krakoan process. [[spoiler:When Gabby is killed by the Shadow King, her friends decide [[ScrewTheRulesImDoingWhatsRight to take a chance and resurrect her themselves]], leading to an encounter with The Five, the ones in charge of resurrections. Upon learning the complete vagueness of the rules on clones and resurrections, they tell the Quiet Council that those like Pryor deserve to live and to change the rules so that only clones of active mutants can't be created.]]

** Several years earlier, Gav (originally from ''Webcomic/{{Nukees}}'' and having since appeared all over the place) found himself cloned several hundred ''million'' times in an effort to rescue the also-cloned captives of an F'Sherl'Ganni Bu'uthandi. (It's okay if you can't pronounce it. The transliteration is off anyway, and it's a bowlderization of a [[https://www.schlockmercenary.com/2002-03-09 much longer phrase.]]) Anyway, while many of them are just as happy to be themselves as always, some take towards extraordinary means to differentiate themselves, such as full-body mods and even ''brain mods'' which give them different skills and personalities, even different genders. [[spoiler:This eventually turns out to be extremely troublesome when the Gavmunity over on the Oisri artifact becomes a high-profile target.]]

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** And then it's revealed in the first season's finale that [[spoiler: the entire Genetic Dynasty of Cleons is fundamentally flawed, as the original Cleon's preserved body, used as the template for all later Cleons, has been corrupted at some point in the past few centuries, meaning all successive Cleons are imperfect duplicates of the first... and the entire concept of the Genetic Dynasty is that they're supposed to be perfect copies.]]
** This continues into Season 2, as Cleon XVII (the current Brother Day) is shown to have developed a MortalityPhobia due to [[spoiler: the corrupted imperial genome]] making him lose faith in the LegacyImmortality provided by the Genetic Dynasty. To compensate, he's become obsessed with having children to procreate like a normal person.

** Cleon XVIII (the Brother Dawn of Season 2) also finds himself heavily affected by Day's actions, as discontinuing the Genetic Dynasty in favor of normal procreation not just robs him of his status as heir, but renders him outright obsolete, and leaves him so morose that [[spoiler: Queen Sareth is able to emotionally manipulate him into agreeing to her plan to cuckold Day (as petty revenge for Day assassinating her family), as being the true father of her child will give him the purpose and legacy he's desperate for.]]

* ''Series/StarTrekVoyager'': In the episode "[[Recap/StarTrekVoyagerS4E22Demon Demon]]", two crewmembers come into contact with a fluid substance on a previously uninhabited planet which causes the substance to gain consciousness. In the end, ''the whole crew'' allow themselves to be perfectly copied so that the clones can build a life on this planet. "[[Recap/StarTrekVoyagerS5E17CourseOblivion Course: Oblivion]]" reveals that the clones quickly forgot their true identity, assumed the identities of the Voyager crew and tried to "get home" to Earth as well. A new technology causes their bodies to destabilize, which leads to their memories resurfacing and lots of angst.