History Main / SendInTheClones

* ''CalvinAndHobbes'' had a storyline where Calvin builds [[CardboardBoxTechnology a duplicator]] with the intention of having his clone do his chores for him. He is surprised to find out that his clone, and the subsequent clones he makes, are as much of assholes as he is.

* In the "Army of One" chapter, we find out that the eponymous Doctor of ''TheAdventuresOfDrMcNinja'' had himself cloned during college, so that each clone could go out and spend 8 years learning a different medical or scientific discipline. Then, they would get recombined so that the "real" Doctor would [[OmnidisciplinaryScientist possess all the accumulated skills and knowledge]]. It actually works, but due to the intervention of a time traveller, at least one of the clones misses the appointment. Appropriately, this clone gets captured in the present by SkyPirates and must be rescued. Knowing the author, this potential ChekhovsGun is likely to be mined for endless hilarity in future chapters.

[[caption-width-right:250: It's like his own portable house of mirrors.]]

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* In ''GhostInTheShell: Stand Alone Complex'', the Tachikomas are reproduced along with their loveable AI, rounding out the [[StatusQuoIsGod status quo]] to wrap up the season.
** Justified, since they can simply be backed up at any time, and reuploaded to new bodies.

* [[ToAruMajutsuNoIndex Misaka Mikoto]] takes this UpToEleven. Actual army of clones, another {{loli}}-clone, yet another clone who is the first, original clone [[spoiler: and an upgraded clone army.]], plus a similar-looking mom, if that counts. Because getting her own SpinOff manga wasn't enough for her fans, it seems.

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** [[TheOnlyOne Wow!]]

* ''{{Valerian}}'': Valerian was cloned into dozens of short-lived copies in preparation for a particularly dangerous mission. Most of them were expended in one go when the mission manager dressed them up as German soldiers, and sent them to battle in a live-action reenactment of a WW1 trench charge.

* [[TheAuthority The Authority]] opens with the [[EvilGenius evil mastermind]] mass producing ''thousands'' of Superman clones for terrorist attacks.

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** No, it's actually consistent with real-world science (one of the few things in the film that is). Twins can be genetically identical but still have somewhat different phenotypes, especially if raised in different environments, and clones are never ''exactly'' the same as the original, there are always a few copy errors.

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* System Lord Ba'al in ''StargateSG1'' builds a small army and virtually immunizes himself from being KilledOffForReal by creating several dozen clones of [[strike:himself]] (technically) his host body, complete with cloned Goa'uld symbionts inside, who all carry the same memories and skills as the original (they're therefore more like officers than standard mooks). Surprisingly, despite the Goa'uld species' inherently backstabbing nature, the Ba'als actually cooperate extremely well (until the series finale, where Ba'al kills them all after upgrading himself by possessing superpowered DarkMessiah Adria).

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* The manga ''{{GUNNM}}'' (''Battle Angel Alita'') has its titular character's current chassis duplicated (complete with more 'reliable' ArtificialIntelligences) by the shady agency that supervises her around the end of the comic. In the sequel ''Battle Angel Alita: Last Order'' three 'clones' survive to be regular characters. One of them, Sechs, rebuilt herself into a SpearCounterpart of Alita; while the other two (Elf and Zwölf) went for the ElegantGothicLolita GenkiGirl CreepyTwins thing.

* FrankHerbert's ''{{Dune}}'' books: [[spoiler: Duncan Idaho. In a series that spans ten thousand years, Duncan Idaho is the only character to survive all six books, even though he dies in the first]].

* This was probably planned well before the character first appeared in the strip, but ''SchlockMercenary'''s Gav--a blue-haired physicist who cryogenically froze himself in the 21st Century to find out what the future would be like--saves his life (sort of) by cloning several million of himself just before the original gets killed. The major human demographic in the setting is now blue-haired physicists from the 21st Century.

* The AlternateUniverse CLAMP character counterparts in TsubasaReservoirChronicle fit the trope, featuring popular characters from past series. It's more [[AdaptationDecay prevalent]] in the anime which features six versions of [[YaoiGuys Toya and Yukito]] and almost as many of [[{{X1999}} Sorata and Arashi]]. [[BigBad Fei Wang Reed's]] clones aren't an example but he does send a lot of them out.

* The SoulSeries ''loves'' its clones; most secret characters borrow almost all of their moves from another fighter. For instance, in his first appearance, Hwang played almost exactly like Mitsurugi, with some of Seung Mina's moves thrown in. In the second game, he no longer played like Mitsurugi. {{Luigification}}? No, now he played like Xianghua, again with some of Mina's moves. Other copycats (when used as secret characters) include Rock (Astaroth), Mina herself (Kilik), Lizardman (Sophitia) and Siegfried (Nightmare, although only in the first ''Soul Calibur'').

* An episode of ''BatmanTheBraveAndTheBold'' ends with Batman visiting several {{AlternateUniverse}}s to gather a half-dozen counterparts of ''himself'' to defeat a large gang of villains (including his EvilTwin) and rescue the captured heroes. Cue BattleRoyaleWithCheese. For added Awesome the other Bats were all {{Shout Out}}s to several ''{{Elseworlds}}'' comic versions of Batman.

** The comics averted it in a better way, all the Eustace Fargo clones (Dredd, Rico, ect) look the same but all wear differnet mast and outfit, or are badly disfigured, as in Rico's cast who was heavy cyberized

* Comedically done with Rufus (the naked mole rat) in the first ''KimPossible'' movie, ''A Sitch in Time''.
* ''ToyStory 2'' introduced a second Buzz Lightyear action figure, to recreate the "toy who doesn't realize he's a toy" humor of the first movie and highlight how much the first Buzz has [[CharacterDevelopment grown]].
** Not to mention that it made the brilliant [[spoiler:LukeIAmYourFather]] parody possible.
* The ending to the first ''{{Futurama}}'' movie, "Bender's Big Score" features [[spoiler:an army of time-duplicated Benders (with collected loot), who promptly explode out of sheer TemporalParadox]].
** A classic episode has an army of robo-Lucy Liu.

* In ''Pyramids'', a {{Discworld}} tomb-designer's two sons (Ptaclusp IIa and Ptaclusp IIb, which could be foreshadowing) take advantage of the time-loops that form around the Great Pyramid when it's under construction. Before the week is out, both the brothers and the hired laborers have looped themselves so many times that a painter claims he's owed two years' pay for Tuesday, and a mason beats himself up for sleeping with his wife.

* ''ToyStory 2'' introduced a second Buzz Lightyear action figure, to recreate the "[[RaisedByWolves toy who doesn't realize he's a toy]]" humor of the first movie and highlight how much the first Buzz has [[CharacterDevelopment grown]].

[[TheMatrix http://static.tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pub/images/Smith_Clones.jpg]]
[[caption-width:250: It's like his own portable house of mirrors.]]

** When viewing that episode, [[{{Septimus}} This Troper]] wondered "What would happen in the Legion of Batmen were to clash with the Army of Wolverines from the Exiles comic?" One would imagine that such a conflict would cause message boards to go alight with [[NegativeSpaceWedgie a cosmic proto-energy storm]] of such epic proportions that it would have a FanBoy death toll in the tens of thousands.
*** To this troper, the important question in this scenario would be What side would DarkClaw takes, seeingas he his an amalgam of both Batman and Wolverine?
*** And if some how a phalanx of Yodas got involved, we may lose a contenent from the resulting tear in FanBoy reality.

* [[MarvelComics Marvel's]] ''Exiles'' featured a storyline where an entire group of alternate reality [[WolverinePublicity Wolverines]] has to battle an ''army'' of alternate reality Wolverines led by a near omnipotent alternate reality Wolverine.

** The clones kept refering to each other and to the original as "brothers", and had no problem with sacrificing themselves to allow a clone brother to carry out a task or escape, hinting that they saw each other as interchangable because they were literally the same person with dozens of bodies.

-->'''El Maestro de Ceremonies''': Sensei Ping! You have selected your…champion. Now meet your opponent. The one, the only, the dread Cien Máscaras!
-->'''The Middleman''': What's the matter? I can take him. Cien Máscaras means a hundred masks. It's just one guy with a hundred masks, right?

* The ''Up the Long Ladder'' episode of ''[[{{StarTrekTheNextGeneration}} Star Trek: The Next Generation]]'' was originally named ''Send In the Clones'', and the episode does feature an entire colony populated by clones of 5 original colonists.
** In fact, one of the characters says the trope name verbatim.

* The SoulSeries ''loves'' its clones; most secret characters borrow almost all of their moves from another fighter. For instance, in his first appearance, Hwang played almost exactly like Mitsurugi, with some of Seung Mina's moves thrown in. In the second game, he no longer played like Mitsurugi. {{Luigification}}? No, now he played like Xianghua, again with some of Mina's moves. Other copycats include Rock (Astaroth), Mina herself (Kilik), Lizardman (Sophitia) and Siegfried (Nightmare, although only in the first ''Soul Calibur'').

* The manga ''{{GUNNM}}'' (''Battle Angel Alita'') has its titular character's current chassis duplicated (complete with more 'reliable' ArtificialIntelligences) by the shady agency that supervises her around the end of the comic. In the sequel ''Battle Angel Alita: Last Order'' three 'clones' survive to be regular characters. One of them, Sechs, rebuilt herself into a SpearCounterpart of Alita; while the other two (Elf and Zwölf) went for the ElegantGothicLolita GenkiGirl CreepyTwins thing.

* [[{{Alien}} ''Alien'']] was followed by ''Aliens.''