Canon Character All Along / Western Animation

Warning: All spoilers will be unmarked.

Times where somebody was revealed to be a Canon Character All Along in Western Animation.

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• It's not outright stated, but in the Adventure Time: Distant Lands episode "BMO", Mr. M is heavily implied by his body type, skin tone, first initial and voice actor to be Martin (Finn's deadbeat dad) in a disguise.
• Animaniacs (2020): One segment features the Warners being hunted by a man named Walter Grubb, who has captured all of the cast from the original Animaniacs save for a few, explaining their absence in the reboot. However, the Warners notice one glaring omission from his collection and bring up said character being very unpopular with viewers to provoke him. Grubb loses his temper and turns out to be Chicken Boo, said character, in a costume; his plan was to remove all the characters out of spite for being left out.
• Arcane:
  • In the seventh episode, the mysterious masked leader of the Firelights unmasks himself as Ekko.
  • Early on, Silco is seen working with an unnamed doctor to create Shimmer. When Powder destroys Silco's base, the doctor is seen getting caught up in the explosion, but eventually turns up alive later with a far more familiar design that properly identifies him as the Mad Chemist, Singed.
  • Vander seems to be an original character to the series, acting as Violet and Powder/Jinx's adoptive father who tragically dies at the end of Act 1. However, a shot at the end of Season 1 shows his mutated body strung up in Singed's laboratory, which combined with several instances of Foreshadowing both in Arcane itself and League of Legends proper, heavily implies he's actually the original identity of Warwick.
  • An item variation is the project Jinx is working on for Silco after she steals the hextech gemstone, which goes unnamed and unseen for most of the show. In the finale, it's revealed she was making the one part of her in-game arsenal that hadn't appeared in the show yet; her rocket launcher Fishbones.
• Ben 10 (2016): In the first season finale, Ben unlocks a new alien, a Chimera Sui Generis he called "Gax". He meets another member of Gax's race named "Vil". Vil trains Ben to use his Gax form to its fullest but then absorbs Gax into himself. He reveals that the Omnitrix took his powers when it sampled his DNA, so he has regained his power and reveals his real name: Vilgax.
• Beware the Batman introduces Dane Lisslow, the head of the Special Crime Unit who becomes friends with Bruce Wayne. He later betrays him by attempting to assassinate him dressed up as Batman, framing him for random acts of terrorism. The real Batman catches up to him and Lisslow claims that he did it to save his son, who is held hostage by Deathstroke. Lisslow then seemingly dies in an explosion. Come the next episode, we find out that Lisslow faked his death, doesn't have a son, or even exist. It was a fake identity, in the form of a Significant Anagram, used by Slade Wilson a.k.a. Deathstroke himself.
• The final season of Castlevania (2017) introduces a vampire antagonist named Varney, seemingly a reference to the Penny Dreadful character of the same name. Towards the end of the season, he reveals himself as recurring Castlevania boss Death.
• Codename: Kids Next Door: In the second Galactic Kids Next Door teaser video, Numbuhs 3 and 4 are communicating with a plant like alien named Numbuh Vine. As she's yelling at them for posting the first video too early, her human disguise activates, revealing that she's actually Lizzie Devine, Numbuh 1's ex-girlfriend.
• Final episode of first season of Dragon Age: Absolution reveals a seemingly new Greater-Scope Villain, the Crimson Knight. The end of the same episode reveals that Crimson Knight is actually Meredith Stannard.
• The Drawn Together episode "Drawn Together Babies" features baby versions of the main cast with the seeming exception of Wooldoor Sockbat, alongside two new babies named Sid and Walter Saget. While Sid is nothing more than a quickly thrown away gag character in reference to Sudden Infant Death Syndrome, Walter sticks around, eventually getting turned into Wooldoor Sockbat himself by Captain Hero torturing him on a Sit 'n Spin and subsequently being flung into a door.
• DuckTales (2017):
  • Lena is a teenager who befriends Webby and helps her fight off the Beagle Boys in her debut episode. The end of that same episode also has us learn that she's Magica De Spell's niece, making her the show's equivalent of Minima De Spell (a character from the 1987 show's Recursive Adaptation). This turns into a double example when it's revealed Lena is also Magica's shadow, a one-time antagonist from the 1987 cartoon.
  • The dark, skull-faced demon from the Title Sequence and the episode "McMystery at McDuck McManor!" turns out to be the ghost of Duckworth.
  • An odd version with Jim Starling, a washed-up actor who played Darkwing Duck on an old Show Within a Show and is even voiced by DW's original voice actor Jim Cummings. You just take it for granted that eventually, he's going to become Darkwing Duck for real. Then, in "The Duck Knight Returns!", it turns out he's a different Canonical Character All Along when he goes insane and becomes Negaduck.
  • Also in "The Duck Knight Returns!", a new actor is cast to play Darkwing Duck for the grim 'n gritty film reboot of the series, but after the events that lead to the movie's cancellation, Launchpad spurs him on to take up the mantle of Darkwing for real. When he autographs Launchpad's poster at the end, his name is finally revealed as Drake Mallard, Darkwing's civilian name from the series (the actual series, not the Show Within a Show, since Launchpad says he's never heard that name before).
  • The Season Two finale "Moonvasion!" reveals that Scrooge's board of directors, led by Bradford Buzzard, are in fact the F.O.W.L. High Command. Also, the Funzo employee from "Daytrip Of Doom!" is revealed to be the Phantom Blot.
  • The three-part Grand Finale "The Last Adventure!" reveals one of the main characters to be another character from the Disney Ducks Comic Universe. Specifically, Webby is April, one of Daisy Duck's three nieces from the comics. She, May and June (who were just introduced in these episodes) are not related to Daisy in this continuity—rather, they're related to Scrooge himself through F.O.W.L.'s cloning (May and June being indirect clones, having been created through a feather Black Heron took from Webby during the events of "The Split Sword of Swanstantine!").
  • Not to be outdone, Manny the Man Horse reveals himself to be this universe's version of Goliath, complete with the show's theme song and the voice of Keith David.
• The Iron Man: Armored Adventures episode "The X-Factor" revolves around the kids befriending a mysterious New Transfer Student named Annie Claremont, who is being hunted by Magneto. At the end of the episode, Annie reveals that she has been using an alias; her real name is Jean Grey.
• In one episode of Justice League Action, Space Cabbie is seen talking to his GPS, who has a very familiar voice. Come the end of the episode, and it's all but confirmed that the AI in question is none other than Aya.
• The Legend of Vox Machina had quite the mass guessing going on when the Briarwoods put their victims on the Sun Tree, as the one mutilated to look like Vex is a dead ringer for Laudna in Critical Role's third campaign. This was later confirmed, though it's unknown if the design was deliberate given production was underway before that campaign started.
• In LEGO Star Wars: The Padawan Menace, a ten-year-old orphan stowaways with some Padawans on a field trip. Since everyone else is wearing name tags, he finds some letter decals and puts "IAN" on his shirt. It's only at the end of the episode that Yoda addresses him by that name, at which point he looks down and realizes that he put the "H" in his name sideways. His name is Han Solo.
• The plot of MODOK revolves around A.I.M. being bought out by a hip tech company called Grumblr. Near the end of the season, it turns out that Grumblr is actually part of Hexus the Living Corporation, an obscure antagonist from Grant Morrison's Marvel Boy mini-series.
• Downplayed in Miraculous Ladybug. The episode 'Rocketear' sees a character named Rena Furtive aiding the heroes at the beginning of the episode. When Ladybug meet up with her, it's revealed that she's Alya, but with a different costume and identity. Not that it wasn't easy to guess.
• The early episodes of My Adventures with Superman feature unnamed robots that serve as the foot soldiers of Task Force X. The machines are seemingly an original creation of the show until episode 6, in which it's revealed that these are actually the series' version of the OMACs.
• The New Batman Adventures:
  • One particularly sad episode has Tim Drake befriending a lost, frightened young girl who he names "Annie", as she can't remember where she came from. It's later revealed the girl is actually Clayface, or rather a fraction of him he formed from his body that suffered amnesia and adopted a new identity. She then remerges with the rest of Clayface to save Tim, something he doesn't take well.
  • Another one introduces a gavel-wielding vigilante named the Judge, who enacts violent justice on Gotham's underworld, including Two-Face. The ending reveals the Judge is a new third personality of Harvey's created by the conflict in his own mind.
• Rise of the Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles:
  • The episode "The Gumbus" features an internet celebrity named "Stockboy" attacked by the titular ghost. When Mikey, Leo, and April investigate, it turns out Stockboy is just making a hoax with advanced robots he built to attract subscribers. He vows revenge on them for foiling his plot, announcing his full name as Baxter Stockboy, revealing him to be the series' take on long-time Turtles' villain, Baxter Stockman.
  • There is a movie star named Lou Jitsu whom the Turtles idolize and emulate. It is later revealed that Lou Jitsu is a stage name, and he is actually Hamato Yoshi, the human form of Master Splinter.
  • Flashbacks explaining the Shredder's history show him being defeated by a mysterious woman. "Shreddy or Not" reveals she's the series incarnation of Karai.
  • A female member of the Foot, simply listed in the credits as "Foot Recruit" is ultimately revealed in the finale to be a Gender Flipped version of Casey Jones. The thing is, Casey himself still exists - just not in the present day, but rather in the Bad Future, as the Big Damn Movie indicates.
• The Simpsons managed to pull this off within its own series. One episode features a documentary filmmaker interviewing Springfield residents as children. At one point, a lot of focus is placed on a random girl named Eleanor, who strives to become a lawyer and a doctor. She actually pulls this off, but the burnout turns her into the Crazy Cat Lady.
• Spider-Man: The Animated Series:
  • The "Six Forgotten Warriors" storyline introduced the Red Skull having a son named Rheinholt Schmidt, who disguised himself as Russian police chief named Rheinholt Kragov. Upon freeing his father and finding a doomsday weapon he built, Red Skull uses it on his son, granting him electrical powers and giving him a new identity, Electro. (If you're wondering why they did this, the unmade James Cameron Spider-Man movie planned to have Electro and Sandman as major villains and were declared off-limits. While Sandman was replaced by Hydro-Man, Electro was included in this altered form, since by the time the episode was produced, it was clear Cameron's movie wasn't going to happen.)
  • Earlier in the same arc, viewers are introduced to Omar Mosely, Robbie's old college professor. He initially seems to be a new character, but turns out to be the retired Golden Age hero Black Marvel.
• Stretch Armstrong and the Flex Fighters: Only Stretch Armstrong and his Arch-Enemy Stretch Monster are pre-existing characters, everyone else is an original character created for the series. However, Stretch's boss and benefactor, Jonathan Rook, turns out to not be as original as perceived. He's revealed to be Stretch Monster's civilian identity.
• In Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles (2003), Agent Bishop creates a half-cybernetic clone of himself called the Slayer. At the end of his introduction, the Slayer is left defeated and is washed underground, but returns in the following season as the show's incarnation of the Rat King.
  • Famously inverted with the Shredder, who is not Oroku Saki, but rather an Utrom named Ch'rell who took on Saki's name and likeness.
  • Hun was an original fan favorite character, who eventually mutated into this show's version of Slash, in all but name.
• Done routinely on Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles (2012). Most of the major mutants in the franchise have had their origin stories totally revamped. Characters will get slimed by mutagen and the Turtles (particularly Mikey) will give them a nickname that matches an established mutant from another continuity.
  • The Shredder's apprentice Chris Bradford undergoes two mutations. At first he's a mutant named Dogpound, but upon a second exposure to mutagen he becomes the slimmer, more wolf-like mutant Rahzar from the first film series.
  • At first, the Pulverizer appears to be an Expy of Zach, a character from the 1987 series who idolized the Turtles. However, he's exposed to mutagen and becomes an acidic blob that Mikey later dubs Mutagen Man.
  • Raph's pet tortoise Spike becomes the mutant Slash after walking into mutagen.
  • A nameless garbage worker frequently appeared as a hapless victim to mutants before season 3, where his name is revealed as Garson Grunge, turning into the mutant Muckman.
  • Ivan Steranko, a Russian arms dealer, and Anton Zeck, a master thief, were recurring enemies to the Turtles before Shredder had them mutated. Zeck became a warthog while Steranko became a rhino. In the next episode, Mikey calls them Bebop and Rocksteady.
  • At first, the scientist Victor Falco appeared to have no real relevance in his introduction and seemed to be just a one-shot villain. In his second appearance, an explosion during an experiment with mutagen turns him into the series' take on long-time TMNT villain, the Rat King.
  • We learn early on that prior to Splinter's mutation, he had a daughter named Miwa who supposedly died alongside his wife in a fire. In the first season finale, it is revealed that she is still alive and has been raised by The Shredder under the name Karai.
• Transformers: Animated:
  • A Whole Episode Flashback introduces Longarm, an Autobot who Bumblebee was in boot camp with. At the end of the episode, back in the present day, he is revealed to be a deep-cover Decepticon spy and this continuity's version of Shockwave, disguised by use of a second robot mode (which itself sort of makes him a villainous version of Punch/Counterpunch).
  • From the same episode, Wasp (the first character in the franchise with that name) ends up imprisoned and goes insane. In a later episode, he is transformed into a large wasp-like machine and goes by the name Waspinator, same as the character from Beast Wars.
  • The episode "Velocity" introduces a mysterious character who appears in a cyan racing car, and they aid Bumblebee at the end of the episode by saving him from Blitzwing. "A Bridge too Close, Part 1" reveals this mysterious blue racer to be none other than TFA's version of Blurr.
• Transformers: Robots in Disguise (2015): The High Council is led by an Autobot who would be revealed to be named Cyclonus. One would think the name is just a coincidence, as it's quite common for names being reused in the franchise for characters who have little in common with each other. The final arc reveals the High Council are actually Decepticons, and Cyclonus himself looks exactly like his G1 namesake, thus making him an actual depiction of the character.
• In the final season and Finale Movie of Transformers: Cyberverse, Megatron's Alternate Self Megatron X has Decepticon supersoldiers all resembling Tarn of the Decepticon Justice Division from the Transformers IDW comics. Eventually, one of them, all badly scarred and missing an arm, gains sentience, and is actually named Tarn.
• In the X-Men: The Animated Series four-parter "Beyond Good and Evil", when Bishop gets trapped in the timestream, and discovers Apocalypse has set up a fortress there, he is continually annoyed by a crazed, ragged figure called Bender, who claims to be the janitor of the timestream. After everyone has left, Bender reveals himself to be Immortus, and laughs to himself about the show he put on to get Bishop where he needed to be.
• Young Justice:
  • The first season introduces a device called Sphere, which turns out to be the Super-Cycle device used by the team in the comics.
  • In the second season, Jaime Reyes has a Canon Foreigner friend named Tye Longshadow. Tye and a group of other teens are later kidnapped by the Reach, who are experimenting on human children in order to activate their dormant superpowers. After Tye and some of the other teens are rescued by the heroes, he is revealed to be the show's version of Apache Chief (though a hint is given in the fact that his last name is that of the Justice League version of the same character, down to having the same voice actor), with the other survivors turning out to be Static (due to the fact Black Lightning, whom Black Vulcan was a Captain Ersatz of, already exists as a separate hero in-universe), El Dorado and Samurai (the last one being a Gender Flip). Ed Dorado, the El Dorado Expy fully became this in the revival, Outsiders, taking up the codename "El Dorado".
  • Speaking of the third season, the episode "Rescue Op" depicts a mysterious red ninja working for Ra's al Ghul who ends up fighting Nightwing when he and the team go in to rescue Halo, Geo-Force, Forager, and Sphere. After the heroes leave, Ra's asks the ninja if his memories have returned after fighting Nightwing, to which ninja remarks "Gray...son". Coupled with the fact that the credits list him as "Red Hooded Ninja", and it's all but confirmed he is Jason Todd.
  • In Season Four, the time traveler who interfered with the gene bomb and got Superboy trapped in the Phantom Zone is revealed to be Lor-Zod, son of the infamous General Zod.
  • A torture device used by Lor-Zod in his mission, the Kaiser Thrall, was taken to Oa, revealed to contain a metahuman boy from Earth, and returned to Earth. When Miss Martian established telepathic communication with the boy, she revealed his name: Danny Chase.

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