History Main / ImpersonatingTheEvilTwin

* The original ''ComicBook/FantasticFour'' Skrulls story has the FF pretend to be the Skrull spies. They get away with it, too, since apparently the Skrulls don't ask them to speak Skrullian, let alone to change back into Skrull form. They also convince the Skrulls that Earth has amazing defences by showing them a ''science-fiction comic book''. Reed explained that something about how they see compared to humans resulted in them believing that what they saw on the comics were actual Earth defensive monsters.
* In the original ComicBook/ShangChi series, ''ComicBook/MasterOfKungFu'', one of the final arcs reveals that his father has cloned Shang-Chi to create an equally deadly but more obedient son. Shang-Chi fakes his clone's facial scar and impersonates him to fool his father.
* In one storyline of ''Comicbook/TeenTitans'', the villain (mentally disturbed former Titan Jericho) can [[GrandTheftMe jump into people's bodies]], and was last seen occupying ComicBook/{{Cyborg}}, so to draw out another hero (the Vigilante) who is also looking for him, Cyborg pretends to still be possessed and fights his teammates... only to get the robot half of his head shot out for his trouble when the Vigilante shows up. Sometimes this works ''[[GoneHorriblyRight too]]'' [[GoneHorriblyRight well]]...
* Papa Smurf in ''ComicBook/TheSmurfs'' story "The Smurf Menace" attempts to impersonate his EvilTwin self the Great Leader after he, Jokey, and Hefty escape being imprisoned in the Gray Smurfs' prison camp in order to find the laboratory in the Grey Smurf Village and make the antidote that will cause the Gray Smurfs to disappear. The Gray Smurfs encountering Papa Smurf almost buy into the impersonation until Jokey accidentally lets slip a joke that gives them away.
* ComicBook/TheFlash: Detective Morillo impersonates Plunder, his MirrorUniverse evil duplicate, and takes the opportunity to bust on his partner.

* An odd variant in ''ComicBook/SonicTheHedgehogArchieComics''. Evil Sonic, prior to his change into Scourge, decides to have some fun and swaps places with Sonic, putting our hero at the mercy of his traitorous teammates while he decided to woo every girl in Knothole. It's also discovered that he had done that to his Antoine as well, swapping him with his heroic counterpart. This last bit was to explain away why Antoine TookALevelInJerkass after a TimeSkip.

* Pretty much all of the movie ''Film/FaceOff'' is a twist on this, with both Sean Archer and Castor Troy assuming the other's identity for different reasons (Archer to stop Castor's evil plot and Castor to mess with Archer's life royally). This is made easier through a process that allows them to switch faces, [[HandWave with body differences being taken care of as well]]. Archer has spent so much time pursuing Castor that he knows everything about him and as such can properly imitate his voice. Castor, on the other hand acts nothing like Archer, but given Archer was not liked by his coworkers or family, when Castor goes around acting as Archer, they are taken aback by his different personality like he found religion.
* This was the ultimate twist in the 1993 film version of ''The Man in the Iron Mask''.

* A non-twin variation is used in ''Series/The100'', where [[spoiler:Clarke, having been subjugated to a GrandTheftMe by Josephine for several episodes before purging her, has to impersonate being Josephine herself, claiming that "she" eliminated "Clarke's" mind. As the two had seen each other's thoughts and memories during that time, and even gained some of each others skills, Clarke can put on a near-perfect impersonation of Josephine.]]

* An episode of ''Series/{{Friends}}'' has Phoebe pretending to be her sister Ursula to break up with Joey.

* In ''Series/Batwoman2019'', following ''Series/CrisisOnInfiniteEarths'' a Beth Kane from a universe where she never became Alice ends up on Earth-Prime. She attempts to impersonate Alice to save Kate, but doesn't know about Alice and Mouse's TrustPassword.

** Weird example in ''VideoGame/MetalGearSolid2SonsOfLiberty'', as it was coincidental. Solid Snake dresses as a fictional Navy SEAL in order to get into an offshore cleaning facility without arousing suspicion. He encounters Raiden, who instantly recognizes him as being a dead ringer for Liquid Snake, another survivor of the [[CloningBlues cloning project]] which Solid Snake was born from -- because of this, he's unnaturally suspicious. It doesn't help that the disguise is paper-thin -- the director stated he wanted to make the disguise as transparent as possible to see how many players he could manage to fool nonetheless. (Add to this a third clone claiming to be Solid Snake while not even bothering to dress up, and you've got yourself a headache.) The game also credits the voice actor whenever a new character is introduced, so it doesn't take a rocket surgeon to put two and two together.

* Tom Lincoln in ''Film/TheIsland'' isn't necessarily evil. He's just a rich playboy whose philandering ways have resulted in him having a few months left to live. But when his "insurance policy", i.e. his clone Lincoln Six Echo shows up at his home, he appears to be glad to find out about it. He then immediately calls the cloning company and tells them about the clone. Tom Lincoln tells Lincoln Six Echo he will take him to the media to reveal this fraud but it's really a trap. At the end of the trap Lincoln Six Echo (conveniently wearing Tom's clothes) manages to slip his bracelet on Tom's arm, resulting in the latter's death. He further continues to imitate Tom by adopting his Scottish accent after hearing it for about an hour. Laurent, a trained mercenary, fails to detect any deception, even though the clone slipped the bracelet on Tom's arm in while Laurent was looking at them. Only later, while performing an autopsy on Tom's body, the doctor realizes that the bracelet is on the wrong arm. Meanwhile, the clone has infiltrated the cloning company as Tom (supposedly there to make a new clone), still using a Scottish accent and behaving like a rich playboy. Oh, and he says "shite" at one point, even though Tom never said the word in his presence.

* An odd variant in ''ComicBook/SonicTheHedgehogArchieComics''. Evil Sonic, prior to his change into Scourge, decides to have some fun and swaps places with Sonic, putting our hero at the mercy of his traitorous teammates while he decided to woo every girl in Knothole. It's also discovered that he had done that to his Antoine as well, swapping him with his heroic counterpart. This last bit was to explain away why Antoine had TakenALevelInJerkass after a TimeSkip.

* In ''Series/{{Alias}}'' after Anna Espinosa is "doubled" to look exactly like Sydney Bristow, Sydney kills and impersonates her to gain access to Prophet 5 and Arvin Sloane.
* In ''Series/BuffyTheVampireSlayer'' episode "Doppelgangland," Willow pretends to be Vampire Willow. She gets caught due to being insufficiently evil, which one supposes you could call an error in the impersonation. However, it initially works well, and has an effect on helping the Scoobies' strategy, because the MirrorUniverse EvilTwin's mooks don't know her much either and also are scared of her.
* On ''Series/KnightRider'', Michael Knight impersonates his evil twin, Garth, in "Goliath". Revealed when his BeardOfEvil is torn off.

** The only really good example of this in canon ''Series/{{Star Trek|The Original Series}}'' is the original Mirror Universe episode "Mirror, Mirror", where Kirk, Uhura, [=McCoy=], and Scotty switch places with their Mirror counterparts due to a teleporter accident (meanwhile, in the Prime Universe, their Mirror counterparts are swiftly unmasked and thrown in the brig by Spock). In ''[[Series/StarTrekDeepSpaceNine Deep Space Nine]]'' Mirror Universe episodes, counterpart visitors are either known to be counterparts or were replacing good guys, and in ''[[Series/StarTrekEnterprise Enterprise]]'' Mirror Universe episodes don't feature the main universe at all, so there ARE no counterparts. Non-canon novels, comics, and fanfics still feature this trope, though.

** In the Expanded Universe, Mirror Kira has now been replaced by a crazy Cardassian from the main universe, who was surgically alternated years ago to resemble the main Kira in part of a failed intelligence scheme. (Although this Cardassian was never seen in the series, an episode had Kira asserted to be her and surgically altered "back".) This attempt appears to have inexplicably worked, despite the replacement not being the correct species, from the correct universe, or even an alternate universe version of that person, and thus having obvious gaps in knowledge.
** And now, in ''[[Series/StarTrekDiscovery Discovery]]'', the good guys have to pretend to be their Mirror Universe counterparts again. The two best examples are Sylvia Tilly, whose {{Doppelganger}} is the ruthless captain of the ISS ''Discovery'' (i.e. everything Tilly is ''not'') and Michael Burnham, whose counterpart is the equally feared captain of the ISS ''Shenzhou''. Brunham easily slips into the role of her counterpart, while Tilly takes several tries to get it right. Also, while Lorca does pretend to be his own double, we're not told anything about Mirror!Lorca, other than his failed attempt at rebelling against TheEmperor, which could either indicate that he's a good guy (unlikely, given that it pretty much takes a KlingonPromotion to become a captain in this universe) or that he was simply making a play for the throne himself. Then again, Prime!Lorca is hardly a paragon of virtue, given his highly questionable actions of late (which gets explained when it turns out [[spoiler: the Lorca we'd been following through the series ''is'' Mirror!Lorca -- he crossed over after his coup failed and impersonated his Prime counterpart, covering up imperfections by pretending to have PTSD from the loss of his entire command]]). For bonus points, Lorca has his crew disguise the ship herself as her own EvilCounterpart, even repainting the decals to say "ISS ''Discovery''", and modifying the crew's uniforms to match the Terran ones, plus removing any aliens from the bridge.
* ''Series/{{Sliders}}''

* On ''Series/{{Charmed|1998}}'', "The Importance of Being Phoebe", the demon Kaia shapeshifted to appear like Phoebe, and Phoebe was able to impersonate Kaia in turn just by adopting some of her slutty mannerisms such as constantly playing with her hair.
* ''Series/ThePrisoner1967'' episode "The Schizoid Man". After his double is killed, Number 6 decides to impersonate him in order to escape from The Village. He fails due to a BluffTheImpostor trick by Number 2.

* Done in an episode of ''Series/StargateSG1'', when the team's counterparts from other realities started getting stuck in their world. One team was slightly eviler than the rest. Predictably, this situation resulted in a brain exploding amount of self-impersonations. Also, in an earlier episode, Teal'c pulled a KillAndReplace on his own doppelganger to fool Alt!Apophis, even though the original plan was to stun the double.

* This trope is pretty much the entire plot of Series/{{Ringer}}, although Bridget doesn't know that Siobhan is still alive [[spoiler:until the last episode of the first season.]] Bridget gets away with it most of the time, although [[spoiler:if on the occasions she's had to go to the police they'd thought of ''just taking her fingerprints'' the game would have been up a lot sooner...]]

** In "Gorilla Warfare", the Earth 2 Harrison Wells puts on his Earth 1 counterpart's Reverse Flash costume in an attempt to pacify Grodd, as Reverse Flash was one of the only humans Grodd liked. It fails because he's too nice; Grodd points out Reverse Flash never politely asks for anything and instead takes it.
** In "Enter Zoom", Linda Park impersonates her Earth 2 counterpart, Doctor Light, in an attempt to lure Zoom into a trap. Unfortunately, her [[BadBadActing acting skills are horrible]]. It's a moot point because Zoom takes the bait anyway to prove he's much more powerful than Flash and beats the crap out of him.
** In "Invincible," Cisco and Caitlin distract Black Siren by disguising themselves as their Earth 2 counterparts, Reverb and Killer Frost. The attempt fails, as she pulls a "think fast" trick on "Reverb", then reveals that Cisco's Earth-2 counterpart has a different dominant hand.

* ''Series/WonderWoman'': In [[spoiler:"The Deadly Toys". Wonder Woman faces off against the toyman's robot version of herself that has been designed to defeat Diana and take her place. The battle ends with Wonder Woman being knocked unconscious by the aforementioned robot, who then follows the bad guy to enact his evil plan]]. Or so it seems.
* In ''Series/{{Batwoman}}'', following ''Series/CrisisOnInfiniteEarths'' a Beth Kane from a universe where she never became Alice ends up on Earth-Prime. She attempts to impersonate Alice to save Kate, but doesn't know about Alice and Mouse's TrustPassword.

[[folder:Web Comics]]

* ''WesternAnimation/DarkwingDuck''

** Weird example in ''VideoGame/MetalGearSolid2'', as it was coincidental. Solid Snake dresses as a fictional Navy SEAL in order to get into an offshore cleaning facility without arousing suspicion. He encounters Raiden, who instantly recognises him as being a dead ringer for Liquid Snake, another survivor of the [[CloningBlues cloning project]] which Solid Snake was born from -- because of this, he's unnaturally suspicious. It doesn't help that the disguise is paper-thin -- the director stated he wanted to make the disguise as transparent as possible to see how many players he could manage to fool nonetheless. (Add to this a third clone claiming to be Solid Snake while not even bothering to dress up, and you've got yourself a headache.) The game also credits the voice actor whenever a new character is introduced, so it doesn't take a rocket surgeon to put two and two together.
* ''VideoGame/{{MOTHER 3}}'': [[spoiler:Lucas was accidentally allowed into several Pigmask complexes after the Pigmasks mistake him for his twin brother Claus, aka their commander the Masked Man. The Pigmasks even gave him "his" uniform and provided Pigmask ones for his friends! Lucas had no idea that his brother was still "alive", much less the commander of the Pigmasks, so he was probably thoroughly confused by the incidents.]]

* ''WesternAnimation/ThePowerpuffGirls'' episode "Bubble Boy" has Bubbles impersonating her SpearCounterpart Boomer. However, she actually does have trouble with Boomers mannerisms (which apparently includes eating cockroaches) and Brick is almost immediately suspicious of her. [[PaperThinDisguise And of course, there's still the question of how she manages to look exactly like Boomer just by putting down her hair...]]

The situation where EvilTwin is reversed -- the Evil Twin isn't pretending to be the character, but instead the character is pretending to be the Evil Twin. Never mind that the original character hasn't studied the Evil Twin's typical mannerisms, knows nothing of his background and may not have his abilities. Never mind that the Evil Twin may be wearing a mask or equivalent which the real character can't take off since it's his real face. They look alike, so it has to work, right? In fact, it works more often than it should, often stopped only by gross problems (such as the real Evil Twin walking through the door or [[IfYoureSoEvilEatThisKitten being put in a situation where they'd have to commit a truly evil act]]), not by the dozens of flaws in the impersonation that nobody notices. Frequently it works because even if the Evil Twin's {{Mooks}} might notice that their boss is NotHimself, they are often ultimately [[BadBoss too scared of him to question his changes in behavior]].

* A major twist in ''VisualNovel/DanganronpaTriggerHappyHavoc'' is that the Junko who was killed at the beginning of the game was actually her older twin sister, Mukuro. Before the [[DeadlyGame killing game]] began, the two pulled a TwinSwitch so that Junko could [[BigBad mastermind the game from the guise of Monokuma]]. The plan was supposed to include Mukuro having [[FakingTheDead her death faked]] so that she could continue to help Junko from behind the scenes, but Junko had other plans and murdered Mukuro ForTheEvulz.

* In ''Series/CrisisOnEarthX'', Oliver impersonates his Earth-X Nazi counterpart to infiltrate their base. The ruse falls apart when he is asked to execute the counterpart of his love interest Felicity. Naturally, Quentin-X is ProperlyParanoid and doesn't give him a loaded gun. He instead slaughters everyone else in the room and frees her.

** And now, in ''[[Series/StarTrekDiscovery Discovery]]'', the good guy shave to pretend to be their Mirror Universe counterparts again. The two best examples are Sylvia Tilly, whose {{Doppelganger}} is the ruthless captain of the ISS ''Discovery'' (i.e. everything Tilly is ''not'') and Michael Burnham, whose counterpart is the equally feared captain of the ISS ''Shenzhou''. Brunham easily slips into the role of her counterpart, while Tilly takes several tries to get it right. Also, while Lorca does pretend to be his own double, we're not told anything about Mirror!Lorca, other than his failed attempt at rebelling against TheEmperor, which could either indicate that he's a good guy (unlikely, given that it pretty much takes a KlingonPromotion to become a captain in this universe) or that he was simply making a play for the throne himself. Then again, Prime!Lorca is hardly a paragon of virtue, given his highly questionable actions of late (which gets explained when it turns out [[spoiler: the Lorca we'd been following through the series ''is'' Mirror!Lorca -- he crossed over after his coup failed and impersonated his Prime counterpart, covering up imperfections by pretending to have PTSD from the loss of his entire command]]). For bonus points, Lorca has his crew disguise the ship herself as her own EvilCounterpart, even repainting the decals to say "ISS ''Discovery''", and modifying the crew's uniforms to match the Terran ones, plus removing any aliens from the bridge.

The situation where EvilTwin is reversed -- the Evil Twin isn't pretending to be the character, but instead the character is pretending to be the Evil Twin. Never mind that the original character hasn't studied the Evil Twin's typical mannerisms, knows nothing of his background and may not have his abilities. Never mind that the Evil Twin may be wearing a mask or equivalent which the real character can't take off since it's his real face. They look alike, so it has to work, right? In fact, it works more often than it should, often stopped only by gross problems (such as the real Evil Twin walking through the door or [[IfYoureSoEvilEatThisKitten being put in a situation where they'd have to commit a truly evil act]]), not by the dozens of flaws in the impersonation that nobody notices. Frequently it works because the Evil Twin's {{Mooks}} are [[BadBoss too scared of him to question his changes in behavior]].

** The only really good example of this in canon ''Series/{{Star Trek|The Original Series}}'' is the original Mirror Universe episode "Mirror, Mirror", where Kirk, Uhura, McCoy, and Scotty switch places with their counterparts due to a teleporter accident (their evil counterparts are swiftly unmasked and thrown in the brig by Spock). In ''[[Series/StarTrekDeepSpaceNine Deep Space Nine]]'' Mirror Universe episodes, counterpart visitors are either known to be counterparts or were replacing good guys, and in ''[[Series/StarTrekEnterprise Enterprise]]'' Mirror Universe episodes don't feature the main universe at all, so there ARE no counterparts. Non-canon novels, comics, and fanfics still feature this trope, though.

The situation where EvilTwin is reversed -- the Evil Twin isn't pretending to be the character, but instead the character is pretending to be the Evil Twin. Never mind that the original character hasn't studied the Evil Twin's typical mannerisms, knows nothing of his background and may not have his abilities. Never mind that the Evil Twin may be wearing a mask or equivalent which the real character can't take off since it's his real face. They look alike, so it has to work, right? In fact, it works more often than it should, often stopped only by gross problems (such as the real Evil Twin walking through the door), not by the dozens of flaws in the impersonation that nobody notices. Frequently it works because the Evil Twin's {{Mooks}} are [[BadBoss too scared of him to question his changes in behavior]].

* An episode of ''Series/TheAvengers'', "Two's a Crowd" had foreign agents groom an unscrupulous male model who closely resembled Steed to murder and impersonate him. He didn't do a good enough job of the "murder" part, resulting in Steed infiltrating the spy ring. Essentially the same concept was reused in ''The New Avengers'' episode "Faces."

** The only really good example of this in canon ''Series/{{Star Trek|The Original Series}}'' is the original Mirror Universe episode "Mirror, Mirror". In ''[[Series/StarTrekDeepSpaceNine Deep Space Nine]]'' Mirror Universe episodes, counterpart visitors are either known to be counterparts or were replacing good guys, and in ''[[Series/StarTrekEnterprise Enterprise]]'' Mirror Universe episodes don't feature the main universe at all, so there ARE no counterparts. Non-canon novels, comics, and fanfics still feature this trope, though.

* Also from ''WesternAnimation/JusticeLeague'', the League members are sent to a AlternateUniverse where their counterparts, known as the Justice Lords, [[ThePsychoRangers eventually went rogue]] and took the WellIntentionedExtremist route. There's a point when the League members (excluding Batman) try to enter the alternate universe Arkham by pretending to be their counterparts, which they fail to pull off due to not following the secret password procedure correctly.

* Creator/BetteDavis did this in two different movies. In romantic melodrama ''Film/AStolenLife'', Kate is accidentally mistaken for her now dead EvilTwin sister, Pat. She passes off as her easily enough but soon everyone around her knows something is off. In ''Film/DeadRingers'', which is played more for tragic drama, Edith murders her EvilTwin sister Margaret and assumes her identity. Once again (of course), things go wrong.

* In ''Film/AStolenLife'', Kate is mistaken for her now dead EvilTwin sister, Pat. She passes off as her easily enough but soon everyone around her knows something is off.