Characters / Twisted Metal

The list of drivers for the Twisted Metal series.

For characters from the TV show, see here.

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Recurring characters

Calypso

"I am Calypso. And I thank you for playing Twisted Metal!"

Calypso in the Reboot.

Voiced By: Mel McMurrin (2, 3, and 4), Dave Boat (Head-On)

Played By: Charles L. Simcoe (original), G. Russell Reynolds (reboot)

The mysterious host of the Twisted Metal contest. Few details are known of his Backstory, except his whole family died in a car accident years ago and his wish-granting powers were stolen from Minion, allowing him to survive. He's been holding Twisted Metal for 10 years, with the second game being the 11th entry. He's in all games, but only once as a car driver.

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• Adaptational Villainy: The 2012 reboot does not retain his above mentioned backstory, instead suggesting he's the devil. Also, the Twisted Metal tournament seems to exist just to satisfy his love for death and suffering. One of the locations involved is a shopping center during Christmas, because he loves watching innocents die horribly during a time when they should be happy.
• Alas, Poor Villain: Krista Sparks' ending in 2. Calypso is happy to be reunited with his daughter, but then sees she is a cyborg with a bomb built in to kill him. Instead of running, he embraces her before the explosion kills them both.
• Asshole Victim: Anytime he gets the tables turned on him. Subverted for the case of Grasshopper's ending in 2, which is more of an Alas, Poor Villain moment for him and comes across as a borderline case of You Bastard! towards the player.
• Badass Longcoat: He wears a black longcoat in Head-On.
• Bald of Evil: He does not have a single strand of hair on his head in Black. His hairline is also receding in Head-On.
• Big Bad: Of all games in the series except for 4, where Sweet Tooth (having stolen his powers) takes his place.
• Big "NO!": Minion's Twisted Metal 2 ending, where the demon just shuts him off before throwing him into Hell. Also Mr. Grimm's "Lost Ending", in which he ignores his pleas and reaps his soul.
• Bodyguarding a Badass: He has bodyguards in the first game and Head-On. Justified, since his powers are only limited to granting wishes.
• Butt-Monkey: In keeping with its Lighter and Softer theme, most of the endings in Small Brawl has Billy Calypso getting the short end of the stick for a change, with him getting into scenarios such as getting Eaten Alive by a Nuclear Mutant frog, mauled by his cat, or strapped to the front of an ice cream truck driven by Sweet Tooth in a high speed police chase.
• Characterization Marches On: In the the first game, Calypso was less of a Literal Genie and granted the contestants their wish without intentionally screwing them over (with the exception of Outlaw's, Spectre's^note only his "Lost Ending", and depending on how you interpret his ending, Thumper). He was quite a bit more cruel in the original FMV endings, however.
• Character Narrator: He himself narrates most endings in Twisted Metal 2 and all in 3.
• Cheshire Cat Grin: Several endings in Twisted Metal 2 feature shots of Calypso sporting a wicked-looking grin while he narrates how the winners of his competition get screwed over by their own wishes.
• Chick Magnet: He has a harem of beautiful babes in bikinis and shirtless guys toting guns in the first game's live-action endings and in Head-On (though the guys wear suits in the latter). And he apparently enjoys their company.
• Collector of the Strange: Mr. Grimm's middle cutscene in the reboot showcases several of Calypso's memoirs, including the Black Box Crimson Fury and Warthog were looking for in Twisted Metal, Sweet Tooth's machete, No-Face's boxing gloves from Black, Twister's helmet from 2, Kratos' chain-blades, and covers of War of the Monsters. Also there is a painting which is where Calypso imprisons those who get killed during his contests, including Preacher.
• Complete Immortality: In 4, he takes the souls of those who die in Twisted Metal to maintain his youth for over (at least) a couple centuries. As he survived being thrown off a skyscraper with little to no injuries visible, he's definitively unkillable by normal means.
• Consulting Mister Puppet: He speaks to his dead sister's doll as if it were her as well in the comic tie-in for 2, having convinced himself of that shortly after her death.
• Cool Airship: His blimp, which he uses as a hideout in both 2 and 3, and becomes an arena in the latter.
• Corrupt Corporate Executive: Depending on the game, he is presented as such. The reboot makes it more explicit by portraying him as the CEO of Calypso Industries.
• Cynicism Catalyst: As detailed in the comic tie-in for 2 (see Mysterious Past entry), his sister's death is what sets off the events that'd turn him into Calypso. She's also referenced by Minion in his ending.
  • Death Seeker: Following the above, having accidentally killed his sister made him this for most of his life.
• Deadpan Snarker: He is heavily sarcastic, especially in 2 and the reboot, of the Pungeon Master and bemused Literal Genie kind.
• Deal with the Devil: How he got his powers in the comic tie-in. After besting Minion in a race, the devil (a demolition derby fan) allowed him to return to Earth in exchange of doing annual competitions to give him and his cohorts plenty of souls to play with in Hell. Calypso himself grants wishes to the winners, but they almost never come out the way the winners want.
• Depending on the Artist: Calypso's appearance varies within the series. In the live-action endings to Twisted Metal, Calypso's facial burns are the most extreme, making his face look like hamburger meat wearing a wig. In 2, Calypso's facial scars are much less prominent, and his fingernails are more like elongated talons. In 3 and 4, His facial scars and talons are completely gone, and his red hair is (usually) recolored black), making him appear otherwise normal. Black is an alternate continuity, where his scarring is absent, but he's bald and has an irregular black left eye. In Head-On, his hairline is receding and once again has an irregular black left eye, looking like a cross between his 2 and Black incarnations. Finally, in the PS3 version, he is portrayed as being in his 30's with no scarring, both eyes intact, and a head full of shoulder-length black hair, becoming a mix of his Twisted Metal 2 and 3/4 appearances.
• Depending on the Writer: The source of Calypso's powers varies multiple times. In the original, the wish-granting was done by a demon named Black he stole from one of the contestant (the satan-like Mister Ash). In 2 and Head-On, he has stolen the powers from Minion, a demon from Hell. 4 handwaved it as a magic ring, probably as an easy way to explain how Sweet Tooth stole the wish-grating magic from him. Black and the 2012 game didn't provide any explanation, although the latter is heavily implied to either be or be related to the Devil.
• Dispense with the Pleasantries: In his ending in Twisted Metal 4, he shuts down Melvin's congratulatory speech to demand his ring and the competition back from Sweet Tooth.
• Even Evil Has Loved Ones: Calypso will screw up your well-intended wish, unless you happen to be his daughter...
• Even Evil Has Standards:
  • One of the few wishes he granted with no cruel twist was to grant Axel the strength to face his abusive father, and when he helped Mortimer return to his eternal sleep.
  • In a more traditional example, he calls Dollface crazy behind her back in the reboot when introducing the Iron Maiden to Mr. Grimm. He also is perplexed when Cousin Eddy enters his contest and killed people uninvited in Head-On.
  • According to Krista Sparks' bio in the TM2 manual, she is fifteen years old (too young to drive unsupervised in the US) but lied about her age to join the tournament. This implies Calypso requires all contestants to have a valid driver's license.
• Eviler than Thou:
  • Calypso got his wish-granting magic by stealing a demon's (Minion's) powers on the way to Hell, after the car crash that killed his family (apparently, the Devil is a big fan of demolition derbies).
  • Proves this to Sweet Tooth in 3 and 2012, screwing over his wish. The later is especially notable. He promised Sweet Tooth he would get to find where his daughter was hiding, and sent him into her grave.
• Evil Has a Bad Sense of Humor: A defining trait of his. He certainly gets a kick out of screwing people out of wishes and telling sick jokes as he does so.
• Evil Twin: Black's profile in TM: Lost appears to indicate this, with the "more colorful" Calypso sending him to pursuit and murder the Calypso from Black. And since he's no saint either...
• Face Death with Dignity: In Grasshopper's ending in 2, when she reveals that she's been implanted with a bomb specifically to kill him, and she's afraid that it will hurt, Calypso doesn't hesitate to hug his daughter close to comfort her in her final moments, even at the cost of his own life.
• Famed In-Story: In Black he's number 2 on the FBI's most wanted list.
• Faux Affably Evil: Calypso has an air of friendliness, and he tries to de-escalate most situations where his life is threatened. It's obvious that he is trying to lull the wish maker into a trap rather than any sincerity on his part.
• First-Name Basis: Regarding Krista being his daughter, you would think that Sparks would have been added to his name. The Reboot nullifies this with Dollface having the name instead, leaving Calypso as is.
  • According to the 2 comic tie-in, "Calypso" isn't even his birth name, and was given to him as a nickname when he was a young adult.
• Flat "What": He may sometimes express his disbelief whenever the wish itself is seemingly trivial (the Hammerhead drivers wanting a new set of tires or Sweet Tooth wanting a paper bag in 1) or when Calypso can't understand the wish at all.
• For the Evulz: While other games have given him different reasons to create the tournament (a deal with Satan, to maintain his immortality), the Reboot-version Calypso's motivation to create a bloody tournament which leaves destruction in its wake seems to be simply to cause as much death and suffering as possible.
• Gender-Blender Name: Calypso is the name of a female nymph in Greek mythology - and obviously, had nothing to do with cars. According to the comic tie-in for 2, it is not his actual name but a nickname his employer at the time gave him after confusing the rhythmic hammering he was doing as being Calypso-themed music.
• Good Scars, Evil Scars: In the first games, his whole face is burnt from the car accident. Black and Head-On scale back the damage to one sunken-in eye.
• Hypocritical Humor: While Caylpso is often completely taken aback by people who wish for mundane things (like Hammerhead's drivers asking for new tires in 1), this doesn't stop him from giving Axel a single pepperoni pizza for his wish in Head-On when he gets conveniently interrupted.
• Idiot Ball: Not him, specifically. But some of the contestants in Head-On would leave him wondering why they bother with the tournament. In Simon's case, he wondered why bother with resurrection when he can maneuver his own vehicle just fine in his current form. Again with Catfish, he wondered why bother asking for a one-on-one hunt with a man when the tournament had essentially fulfilled that desire.
• Inexplicably Awesome: In Black. Unlike other continuities there is no explanation for Calypso's powers or how he knows so many things about his contestants.
• Karma Houdini: Most of the time he does sit fairly pretty, all of Calypso's villainy is generally not unpunished. The games in continuity show Calypso goes unopposed year after year in hosting Twisted Metal, while the single-game continuities like Black and the reboot don't even have an ending where he loses or gets screwed at all (save Sweet Tooth's ending in the former).
• Karma Houdini Warranty:
  • With how many endings end with Calypso being screwed over though, it is clear he isn't totally immune to karma. In 2 alone he can get blown up, attacked by the souls of those he's killed, or thrown into Hell.
  • 4 is probably the biggest example of karma finally catching up to Calypso, especially due to being the last game in the original continuity. Not only is he dealt the humiliation of losing control over the Twisted Metal tournament to Sweet Tooth, but there is no way for him to win in the game, even in his own ending. Either someone else beats him in the tournament and gets their wish, or Calypso wins the tournament only for Sweet Tooth to back out on the deal. Calypso attacks him in fury to take back his ring only for their struggles to break it, trapping them both inside of it trapped forever in a perpetual tug-of-war.
• Kick the Dog:
  • Being a Jackass Genie, he screws over the drivers in most of their endings with gusto. A particularly cruel example is the Lost version of Spectre's ending in the first game, where he brings Scott Campbell back to life before shooting him dead again so he can compete next year.
  • The 2012 game not only has him screw over everyone's wish (although as they're all Villain Protagonists, it borders on Kick The Son Of A Bitch with the exception of Mr. Grimm), he also regularly mocks them when serving as Mission Control. In particular, he loves making fun of how Mr. Grimm's father died while hiding under a very unconvincing "Just Joking" Justification.
• Laughably Evil: He's a rotten bastard but it's impossible not to get a laugh out of some of the ways he twists wishes around to screw people over, among his other antics.
• Manipulative Bastard: Granted, he doesn't have to try very hard. Even knowing that he's a completely untrustworthy demonic trickster, people still do his bidding because his wish-granting power is too tempting to pass up.
• Mighty Glacier: In his playable appearance in 4, he uses a slow missile truck that has the most damaging special in the game.
• My God, What Have I Done?: Says this when he was forced to grant Cousin Eddy's wish in Head-On: to make his RV shinier.
• Mysterious Past: A comic tie-in for 2 revealed a large amount of info on his past. He was an unbalanced demolition derby driver with suicidal tendencies in life, and after the car accident, managed to outdrive Minion in Hell. The Devil allowed him to return to Earth, in exchange for Calypso running an annual contest, sending both drivers and bystanders alike to Hell.
• Non-Action Big Bad:
  • Calypso is the host of Twisted Metal but is never fought in game, outside of 4 where Sweet Tooth serves as the Big Bad and Calypso gets Promoted to Playable as a result. And, unless the wish he grants directly involves him, he tends to stay out of the winner's way after the wish is granted, letting the winner do themself in.
  • There are only a few instances where he directly tries to harm or kill the opponent, and most of them are by hiding and getting a cheap shot or two in, or in the case of Black, leaving a bomb for The Juggernaut to find and slow him down. It is implied that his supernatural powers are only limited to granting the wish.
• Offscreen Villain Darkmatter: Calypso has an endless supply of money. He owns a Cool Airship that in 3 is big enough to serve as an arena, on top of also having his own bodyguards. When he's usurped by Sweet Tooth in 4 he acquires a large missile truck to enter the contest and take it back.
• Off Stage Villainy: In Black. Agent Stone's intro has him state he had heard of Calypso and was familiar with his past crimes even though he didn't know about his contest, though we aren't told what his other crimes were. As seen with John Doe's ending, they are bad enough to make him the #2 spot in the FBI's most wanted list.
• Pet the Dog:
  • Rarely... very rarely, he doesn't actually screw over a winner in their respective ending. In Twisted Metal Head-On, he undeniably helps and praises Mortimer, now a wizened, exhausted zombie, when he chooses to return to the grave from which he was disturbed and finally rest again, as opposed to taking revenge on the punks who dug up his corpse. No tricks, no abusing the phrasing or alternate meanings of words... Calypso gives him precisely what he wanted and intended.
  • In 2, Axel wished for the courage to stand up to his father for trapping him in the vehicle. Calypso did absolutely nothing to screw him over and gave him his wish straightforward. Axel got his wish, disowned his father and left as a free man.
  • When Mike and Stu wished to be able to fly, he could've turned them into flies. Instead, he grants their wish by buying them plane tickets. Luckily they were refundable, since the two idiots leaped to their deaths thinking they could literally fly. Then again, this could be exactly what he was banking on.
• Phantom-Zone Picture: In the reboot, he keeps the souls of those who died in his contest trapped inside of the painting (which apparently leads to a hellish dimension) in his office, with their screams heard every time the camera passes by it. This later includes the preacher.
• Physical God: His powers allow him to fulfill any wish, from Time Travel to warping reality. He's, however, unable to use them to fulfill his own desires, and can't deny a contest winner his/her own, even if he doesn't want to or harms him. Fortunately for him, he can get around that most of the time...
  • However, there are things that are beyond even his powers. Taking Sweet Tooth's ending in Head-On for info, he doesn't seem to be able to cancel or undo a wish for the victor of the tournament. He MUST grant it. It usually always comes out evil for the drivers because of Be Careful What You Wish For; but there are times in which the wish was vague (Hammerhead's ending in Twisted Metal 2 springs to mind); and he enacted the wish, letting the victor find his/her way to hell.
  • Cousin Eddy's ending in Head-On also shows that he can't use his powers to defend himself from physical assault. Like when an angry inbred hillbilly threatens to strangle him to death, forcing Calypso to relent.
• Promoted to Playable: During Twisted Metal 4 he becomes a contestant and playable character with his own vehicle after losing his position as host to Sweet Tooth.
• Reality Warper:
  • Necessary to grant the wishes of the winners when it comes to impossible or downright magical stuff. Unfortunately for him, that's pretty much as far as his powers go.
  • Also muted some in Black, where many of the endings can be explained away with Calypso being a very well informed and connected criminal, just a few are outright supernatural.
• Red and Black and Evil All Over: His appearance in the PS3 reboot, both in clothing and in features.
• Red Eyes, Take Warning: His newest incarnation's eyes glow red when he grants wishes.
• Revenge: Out of all of the wishes he can grant, this is the only one he grants straight without fail. This is especially noticeable in Black, where no less than 6 characters wanted to take revenge on someone (Axel, Mr. Grimm, Raven, Dollface, No-Face and Billy Ray), and all of them are granted exactly what they wish for.
• Ring of Power: Twisted Metal 4 attempted to explain his powers with one, mainly as a way to easily explain how Sweet Tooth could grant wishes after taking over the tournament. The ring has never been seen nor mentioned again after Twisted Metal 4.
• Satan:
  • In the reboot, the preacher claims that Calypso is this. It's later heavily implied to be the truth.
  • The man himself appears in the 2 comic tie-in, granting Calypso a chance to return to Earth after besting Minion in order to setup the tournament and secure a large supply of souls (and entertainment) back to him.
• Screw This, I'm Outta Here: During Black's ending in Black, Calypso, seemingly knowing what he's capable of, refuses to even show up to congratulate him, instead setting up a time bomb in his place.
  Screw you! Love, Calypso
• Self-Made Orphan: According to the comic tie-in for 2. In his first attempt at suicide, he grabbed at his father's head and forced a multi-car accident, killing both his parents.
• Shock and Awe: Some games portray him using lightning as part of his wish-granting powers.
• Thanking the Viewer: Most endings in 2 and 3 finish with him saying "I am Calypso. And I thank you for playing Twisted Metal!"
• There Is No Kill Like Overkill: How do you know he's serious about winning in the fourth game? His special weapon is a nuke.
• Tragic Keepsake: In the comic tie-in for 2, he keeps (and talks to) the doll that belonged to his dead sister.
• Troll: The wishes he grants either come with a cruel price or twist at the winners' expense. He enjoys and laughs at the results.
• Voice of the Legion: He has this in the Lost Endings for the first game.
• The Voiceless: In Black, he's never shown speaking onscreen (or even moving, save for a brief instance in Sweet Tooth's flashback movie).
• You Are Not Alone: A villainous and tragic example. In 2, when the driver of Grasshopper, who is his own deceased daughter rebuilt by the LAPD and about to pull an unwilling Taking You with Me tells him that she is afraid, he gives her a comforting hug instead of running away.
• You Nuke 'Em: His Special in Twisted Metal 4 is a mini-nuke.
• Your Soul Is Mine!:
  • In Twisted Metal 4 it was revealed that his power to grant wishes was fueled by a magic ring that stole souls. The Twisted Metal contest was a ploy to collect the souls of the losers, though it was implied that this was known by previous contestant.
  • Though TM4 was officially orphaned, the reboot picked up half of this concept again, and Calypso takes the souls of the losers and the victim bystanders, though they don't appear to fuel his powers.

Needles Kane

"Shut up and bleed, you motherf-!"

Voiced By: Fred Tatasciore (Head-On), JS Gilbert (Black, reboot, and PlayStation All-Stars Battle Royale)

Played By: Robert Goodens (original), Paul Vinson (reboot)

Driver of Sweet Tooth, an ice cream truck. A deranged Serial Killer dressed as a clown. A former mental patient that escaped and turned into a mad serial killer. He appears in all games. The reboot dwells more into his origins and his quest to find "the one who got away".

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• Arson, Murder, and Jaywalking: His profile for Black lists his disorders as Unspecified Psychotic disorder, homicidal tendencies... and insomnia.
• Art Shift: Dramatically shifted across the series. In the original, he wore a full clown getup with an exaggerated latex mask sporting green hair. The sequel gave him a simpler white suit with a ruffle collar and face paint with a red nose, and presented his iconic burning scalp (which was part of his car's imagery even back in 1). 3 and 4 gave him much more ornate costumes befitting of a circus ringleader. He was given a full redesign come Black, now sporting a mask instead of facepaint, gaining muscles and a gut belly and wearing polka-dotted pants with suspenders and no shirt. This design became his standard starting with Head-On (though his ending shows the mask as being expressive), used in all subsequent games and crossovers.
• Ax-Crazy: Since the first game he was described as a deranged mental hospital escapee-turned-serial killer, with his "Lost Ending" showing him as a screaming maniac spouting nonsense and 2 showing him with a dislocated expression and excessive drooling. His insanity was toned down and redirected fully into being a sadistic and unrelenting killer starting in Black, where he at one point expressed annoyance at all the people he hadn't killed yet.
• Bad Humor Truck: An invoked trope in Black, which claimed it was the "perfect lure" for his victims.
• Buried Alive: His fate in the reboot, when his wish to go to the place where his daughter is found to kill her ends up with him appearing inside her buried coffin.
• Butt-Monkey: Downplayed; In the reboot, he ends up as such given that he's dead at some point during Grimm and Dollface's campaign, but doubly moreso for the latter given that he doesn't even get to show up for his faction's bossfight. Even in his own ending, he ends up buried alive and defeated by Calypso.
• Catchphrase: "Boys 'n' girls" in Black and the reboot.
• Circus of Fear: Twisted Metal 4 has him running one, filled with Monster Clown lackeys.
• Creepy Child: In Small Brawl, despite being a kid, he still has psychopathic tendencies (though he doesn't murder anyone).
• Cursed with Awesome: In Black, his Flaming Hair is explained by it being a curse Preacher cast on him. While it looks wicked, this is not "awesome" for Needles as the fire is a constant source of pain and headaches, making the whole reason he entered the contest to find a way to turn it off.
• The Cameo: He appears as a secret character in War of the Monsters, Hot Shots Golf 2 and Star Hawk (as a DLC costume for the Main character) due to his unofficially being the mascot for Sony. His mask appears as DLC in PAYDAY 2.
• Decoy Protagonist: In the 2012 game, he appears on the cover and title screen and is the first character you play as in the story. However, he's betrayed by Calypso and promptly Killed Off for Real at the end of his arc, leaving Mr. Grimm and Dollface to take over later on.
• Defiant to the End: In his reboot ending, after realizing that Calypso had screwed his wish over and got him trapped in his dead daughter's coffin, buried deep underground, with no hope of getting out before the air runs out, he spent his final moments cursing at Calypso as he tried to escape, promising that he'll find him, kill him and 'cut his insides out'. He didn't make it, of course.

  Needles Kane: "You will fear me, motherfucker! You. Will. FEAR me...!"

• Enfant Terrible: In Small Brawl, despite being a kid like the rest of the cast, he's still rather psychotic. This is best shown by his ending: Needles simply asks for ice cream for his wish, and Billy gets some for him out of an ice cream truck. After Billy asks him why he wished for so little, we see Needles opening the door to the driver's seat, letting out an Evil Laugh… and we cut to Needles driving the truck (with Billy tied to the front) in a high-speed police chase.
• Eviler than Thou: Pulled this on Calyspo in Black. Sweet Tooth entered his tournament with the promise of getting the fire on his head removed, and figured he could always kill Calyspo later. In his ending when he's told he'd have to stop killing for the fire to go away he decides it's not worth it, rejects Calypso's offer and kills him. In Head-On, Sweet Tooth wishes to switch bodies with Calypso and Calypso has no choice but to grant it. After that Calypso is killed by his own guards.
• Evil Mask: In the 2012 game, Needles managed to overtake Marcus's personality only after Marcus carved the mask. His son eventually dug up the mask, and Calypso had one made for Sophie (using the now-deceased Dollface's mask) when he resurrected her.
• Evil Laugh: His iconic laughter in Twisted Metal, 2, and Small Brawl.
• Evil Sounds Deep: In Black and the 2012 game. His voice is much deeper than what you'd expect a Monster Clown's to be.
• Evil Versus Evil: He doesn't really like Calypso and wouldn't mind unseating him (which he does in 4 and his ending for Head-On) or outright murdering him (Black and also Head-On), but don't think if he took over that he'd be any more well-meaning than Calypso...
• Even Evil Has Standards: In one of his loading screen quotes in Black, even he finds Preacher's deeds to be reprehensible.
  Damn preacher. Pious bastard. Think he never did wrong? You dig up his past, you'll be sickened by the truth...
• Eye Scream: In his backstory for the 2012 game, he was stabbed in the eye by his daughter during his rampage, resulting in her escape. This turned his eye a nasty looking red.
• Fangs Are Evil: In a number of his appearances, most notably Head-On and as the mascot in 2 and 3, he has shark-like teeth.
• Find the Cure!: His wish in Black is a cure for his head-on-fire curse. In the ending, he changed his mind since he would have to stop killing for the cure to stick. He does have his priorities.
• Flaming Hair: Beginning with Twisted Metal 2, his head is perpetually on fire. Oddly enough, this was averted in 3 as he instead sports orange and yellow hair that looks like flames.
• From Nobody to Nightmare: Most versions are him starting as a pretty ordinary fellow who became more and more deranged as time went on. In 4 he was a simple boy whose town was visited by Calypso's Twisted Metal carnival one day, inspiring his latent destructive urges to join the fun, ultimately becoming the tournament's star contestant, and supplanting Calypso as its ruler. In 2012 he was an ordinary ice cream truck driver who slowly became unhinged by his monotonous life and career, before developing a split personality that eventually took over completely, turning him into a blood-thirsty serial killer.
• Imaginary Friend: His "best friend" in Twisted Metal, a brown paper bag named Crazy Harold the Wacky Lunch Sack. Calypso grants the wish straight, but not before questioning why he would wish for something so menial.
• In-Series Nickname: In the reboot, his name's still Needles Kane, but most people, including Calypso, call him Sweet Tooth, the name of his car (something that, out-of-universe, fans and non-fans alike had been doing for years at that point).
• It's Personal: Needles mentions before the Boss Fight in Black that Warhawk was the one who captured him 3 months ago. And he's not happy about that.
  "Well boys 'n' girls, it's payback time."
• I Will Find You: His motive in the reboot is to find "the one who got away" (Marcus's daughter Sophie) and kill her, finishing what he started. However, when he gets his wish, he learns that his daughter committed suicide a few years before the reboot game... by way of being Buried Alive in her coffin. He then screams this trope against Calypso while he desperately tries to pry himself from the coffin. And while he doesn't get to fulfill this promise, his son is all too willing to see it through to the end.
• Karmic Death: In the reboot, after hunting for his daughter the whole time, he only finds out too late that she was Dead All Along by killing herself. So, when he wishes to be "where she was all this time", it's naturally right in her grave.
• Killed Off for Real: In the reboot, although his son is there to take his place...
• Laughably Evil: Depending on the Writer. Up until Black he was this, being a mass murderer whose wishes included things like wishing to become an insect in the country, where he would murder more insects. Black and the reboot however depicted him as a serious character.
• Lightning Bruiser: In 4. Unlike other games, Sweet Tooth is extremely mobile on top of being much more durable than usual. That is without getting into his special, which almost a guarantee kill if you land an attack with it.
• Machete Mayhem: Wields a large, jagged machete as his weapon.
• Made of Iron: This guy survived the electric chair even before becoming a demon clown.
• Mental World: Marcus claims Black is all in Needles' head.
• Monster Clown: It varied in seriousness along the series, but Sweeth Tooth was always causing mayhem and destruction in his way.
• No Celebrities Were Harmed: His reboot version is a family man ice truck driver turned psycho clown serial killer. This seems to be a reference to John Wayne Gacy, a serial killer that was married twice and acted as a clown at fundraising events, parades and children's parties. Through this, Gacy gained the nickname Killer Clown.
• Pre Ass Kicking One Liner: Vs. The Brothers Grimm:
  "I've killed tougher than you, asshole! Don't get cocky, you're just the appetizer... before I find and slaughter the entree!"
• Red Eyes, Take Warning: After his Sweet Tooth persona takes him over completely, his remaining eye is a very unnatural, almost slightly luminescent blood red.
• Red Oni, Blue Oni: Red oni to Marcus' blue.
• Sadist: He takes enjoyment only in spreading death and havoc.
• Secret Character: Although he's considered the series mascot and he's been part of the starting roster in nearly every game, a couple of games in the series require him to be unlocked in order to be playable:
  • In 2, he's unlocked by inputting a cheat code on the character selection screen.
  • In 4, he's unlocked by either beating the game with any character, as well as inputting a cheat code.
• Series Mascot: Has been the iconic image for the franchise since the start.
• Sinister Sweet Tooth: In some incarnations has shown a great love for ice cream and other frozen treats.
• Slasher Smile: Constantly with his new clown mask. Not that he didn't show this before using makeup.
• SNK Boss: In 4, mostly due to his insane special that is extremely difficult to dodge and is likely to kill the player if it connects. He has the best stats in the game, but the main source of difficulty fighting him is his special.
• Split Personality: It's eventually revealed that he's the evil alter ego of Marcus Kane.
• Start of Darkness: The 2012 reboot finally gives him one.
• Sympathetic Murderer: Needles has been established as a ruthless Serial Killer as the series progressed, but the scenarists never really went into detail about the murders, or what kind of people Needles likes to kill. With this, the killer clown comes out favorably in the fandom. The PS3 reboot even gives him a backstory where he once was a nice family man and adored ice cream truck driver.
• Terms of Endangerment: Likes to address his audience as "Boys 'n' Girls".
• That Man Is Dead: In the reboot, he keeps pestering Marcus into personifying him as the clown mask. After he was done making the mask, Needles pretty much took over and declared that he killed him.
  • This exchange in particular:
    Wife: Marcus! No!
    Needles: Marcus does not live here anymore.
• Transforming Mecha: His car special in Black makes it turn into a giant clown-esque robot. The alternate special for the Sweet Tooth vehicle in the 2012 reboot keeps this.
• Unexplained Recovery: In 4. He acts the Final Boss, but after you destroy his truck he doesn't have a scratch on him in his ending.
• Unwitting Pawn: To Calypso.
• The Sociopath: He cares nothing about feelings, empathy or anything. All that matters is killing everything he sees.
• Vanity License Plate: ISKREEM in 1, SWEET in 2012.
• Villain Protagonist: He's easily the most popular and iconic character in the game. Emphasized even more in Black and the 2012 Reboot, where he's one of the most notorious and brutal Serial Killers In-Universe.
• Vocal Evolution: When voiced by J.S. Gilbert, Sweet Tooth went from the creepy but human tone used in Black, to the aforementioned raspy voice in the PS3 reboot. PlayStation All-Stars Battle Royale retains the raspy voice, but sounds more breathy and cartoonish at times.
• Would Hurt a Child: An interesting case as, despite the ice cream truck, this isn't normally brought up. In Black, he himself implies that he killed a little girl in his post-Minion cutscene. The reboot then makes this aspect of his character much more explicit, as in his backstory he kills one of his sons, and tries to kill his teenage daughter.

Marcus Kane

Voiced By: Bob Ayres (2), Fred Tatasciore (Head-On)

Played By: Paul Vinson (reboot)

Driver of Roadkill, a beat-up car made of spare parts. A homeless man who claims the world to be false, and enters the contest seeking to be released out of it. In Twisted Metal 2 and 3 he was played as a crazy man, but Head-On reveals he's the Split Personality of Needles Kane. In Black, he is revealed to be Minion's driver, trapped inside Needles' head.

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• All Just a Dream: His Twisted Metal 2 ending, where he wakes up from a coma after being in a multi-car accident that included all the other contestants. Calypso's ominous visage at the end, however, makes you wonder... was it a dream?
• Beard of Sorrow: He's often depicted with a large, disheveled beard, this help enhance the aura of depression he's often exhuding in his appearance.
• Bedlam House: He's sent to one in his Twisted Metal 3 ending when Calypso twists his desire to be among the pines in peace and sends him to a mental asylum named "Whispering Pines".
• Blue Oni: Of Needles.
• Breaking the Fourth Wall: In his Twisted Metal 2 profile, he addresses the player directly, claiming he can see the player sitting up in his living room playing his little video game. Justified by his story.
• But You Were There, and You, and You: In his ending from 2 once his wish is granted and he wakes up from a coma following a multi-car accident, he sees the other victims in nearby beds and notices they are the other drivers from his "dream".
• Crazy Homeless People: A diagnosed schizophrenic living in a beat-up junker. Admittedly, he is one of the more benevolent recurring characters.
• Cypher Language: In Black his loading screen texts are all written using a basic numbers cypher (1=a, 2=b, etc). According to one of his loading screens, he does this to prevent Needles from performing a complete Split-Personality Takeover.
• Dark Is Not Evil: In Black, he is wearing the skin of a dead animal and is the one driving Minion, the vehicle previously driven by literal demons. But he still is his usual Only Sane Man self, just that he is hiding from Sweet Tooth.
• First Contact: In Twisted Metal 3 he claims he got contacted by aliens who told him he's going to win the contest.
• Hobos: He's been living in his car for 10 years.
• I Just Want to Be Free: His wish in 3 is to be able to live away from society in peace. Unfortunately, poor wording on his part leads him to being stuck in a mental hospital.
• Mental World: He believes he is trapped into a nightmare in Head-On, and his wish is to wake up. In Black, he directly states the entire world is inside Sweet Tooth's head and he's trapped in it.
• Only Sane Man: As perceived by him. And he's correct since he's the only one (save Calypso, maybe?) who knows he's in a video game in 2 and the only one who realizes the world is a dream in Black and Head-On.
• Precision-Guided Boomerang: His special in 2 and Head-On. The boomerang would do triple damage if it hits the target on its way back.
• Split-Personality Takeover:
  • Marcus and Needles meeting within a field in their mind is the end result that led to the existence of Dark Tooth and Tower Tooth in Head-On.
  • What happens to him in the 2012 reboot, with Needles taking him over after convincing him to carve him (Needles) as a mask.
• Vanity License Plate: WAYKUP, alluding to his ending in 2.
• You Have to Believe Me!: No one does, because he's nuts. Ironically, despite suffering persecutory delusions, he's very much Properly Paranoid in this world.
• Your Mind Makes It Real: He's convinced the whole contest is in his mind in Head-On, and that the world in Black is inside Sweet Tooth's head.

Mr. Grimm

"I don't want to be the reaper of souls anymore!"

Voiced By: Bob Ayres (2), Chiara Zanni (3), Jeffrey Grellman (Black), Dave Boat (Head-On)

Played By: Kenyon Glover (reboot)

Driver of Mr. Grimm, a motorbike that shares a name with its driver. The Grim Reaper himself, who either seeks Calypso's soul or something related to his addiction to souls. Appears in all games, though not always is the same character story-wise. In 4, he's replaced by a skeletal pirate named Captain Grimm, who plays largely the same and drives a Cool Boat. In Black, he's a Vietnam veteran that became a cannibal after being forced to eat his friend during their time as POWs, and enters the tournament seeking revenge on the Vietnamese officer that drove him to do it. The reboot is another reinvention: Daniel Grimm is a stuntman turned gang leader seeking to go back to the past and save his father from a fatal stunt accident to prevent his own Start of Darkness.

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• And I Must Scream: His ending in 2 has him wish for more human deaths to satiate his soul addiction. He gets his wish… but the human race ends up extinct, leaving him more or less alone with an addiction that's impossible to satiate.
• Anti-Villain:
  • In the original, while he kills a fair number of people to get there, he is ultimately just doing his job as Grim Reaper and going after the soul of Calypso. His ending also makes it clear he doesn't like the job and is unable to feel truly happy.
  • While each of the characters in the reboot are different flavors of Villain Protagonist, Daniel Grimm is the most sympathetic as he wishes to instead renounce his life of crime by saving his father's life and everyone he had killed.
• The Atoner: Daniel Grimm in the reboot wants to prevent his Start of Darkness and save his father and the people he's personally murdered after becoming a gang leader as a result.
• Badass Biker: Most incarnations, drawing pretty heavy inspiration from Johnny Blaze.
• Collector of the Strange: The first game states he's a collector of souls.
• A Day in the Limelight: Has his own chapter in the reboot, titled "Mr. Grimm's Dark Trip Back". Somewhat played with, as mentioned elsewhere, he is a completely new character in the game.
• Deal with the Devil: Implied to have one with Calypso in his Twisted Metal ending. Which he proceeds to break when he wins, claiming Calypso's soul as his prize.
• Didn't Think This Through: A large majority of his wishes backfire due to a lack of foresight on his part.
  • His wish in 2 has him wish for humans to die faster to fuel his soul addiction. However, he forgot the fact that humans need to live in order to create more. As a result, humanity goes extinct, which means Mr. Grimm now has an everlasting hunger that's impossible to sate.
  • In 4, his wish is a Duel to the Death with Sweet Tooth, with the winner receiving "the soul of the first one dead". Considering he's already dead, there's seemingly no way he won't come out on top… but Sweet Tooth ends up killing Captain Grimm's Pirate Parrot, thus making it the first one dead.
  • In his 2012 variation, he wishes to go back to save his father, but never specified where and when. This ends up backfiring as Calypso teleports him into the car his father and his younger self are in. Naturally, a Scary Black Man appearing inside your car out of thin air is going to cause more issues than it solves.
• Dreadlock Rasta: His latest incarnation sports this hairstyle.
• Expy: C'mon, Skeleton on a Motorcycle? Where have we seen that before? The only reason his skull isn't on fire is probably because that's Sweet Tooth's gimmick.
• Fantastic Drug: Souls are just that for him, with his wishes in 2 and Head-On playing with this the most: the former has him wish to satiate this addiction by having humans die faster, while the latter has him quit cold Turkey via passing the role of the Grim Reaper to someone else.
• Flaming Hair: The original's burning skull.
• Flaming Skulls: He throws these as his Special, described as being the souls of those he reaped.
  • Sinister Scythe: In Black, it's these. Still on fire though.
  • Chainsaw Good: In the PS3 game, he chucks these instead. Can also be on fire, if he drags it along the road first.
• Future Me Scares Me: His reboot ending has his past self murder him after he causes the car they're in to crash and kill their father, likely leading to his Start of Darkness.
  Mr. Grimm: I gotta admit, I'da shot that motherfucker, too.
• Glass Cannon: Drives the vehicle with the lowest defense — no surprise, given that he rides a motorbike and sidecar — but compensates it with high speed, great handling and the most damaging Special, making Hit-and-Run Tactics pretty much a necessity if you want to do well as him.
• The Grim Reaper: In the main continuity (1 through 4 and Head-On) he's the actual Death. He's a "normal" human being in Black, where he's a Shell-Shocked Veteran, and the 2012 game, where he's a former stuntman-turned-gang leader with the skull face paint being in honor of his late father, a daredevil who used the motif to claim "Death itself could not touch him".
  • According to the bios in TM:Lost, which explained what happened to characters after Black, it is stated that Grimm was starting to think he was The Grim Reaper due to good old Sanity Slippage...
• Halloweentown: His wish in Small Brawl is to go to "Halloween Land", where it's Halloween every day. After Mr. Grimm enters the "portal" Billy makes for him, it shows him terrified of what's inside… then it cuts to Billy knocking the "portal" over, leaving Grimm stranded there.
• I'm a Humanitarian: In his Black ending, Calypso offers him a mano-a-mano with the officer who put him in the situation to begin with... and Grimm realizes he acquired a taste for long pork. No explanation needed for what comes next.
  • No Party Like a Donner Party: Part of his Freudian Excuse: After being captured by the Viet Cong, he and his pal Benny were trapped in a hole with nothing to eat for days on end. The officer then told Grimm he'd "have to make do with what he found in the pit", and dropped a knife in; implying he wanted Grimm to turn on Benny and cannibalize him. Mr. Grimm initially refused, but after spending a week in starvation (and after Benny finally died from his untreated wounds), he gave in and ate what was left of Benny's corpse, saving and wearing his skull after as a grim reminder.
• In Name Only: Outside of name, vehicle choice and skeleton motif, the Mr. Grimm of the main series, the one in Black, and the one in the 2012 reboot don't have much to do with each other.
• Kill All Humans: In his Twisted Metal 2 ending, he asks Calypso to speed up the death rate so he can feast on plenty of souls. Calypso does so, engulfing the planet into senseless murder and conflicts, thus supplying Grimm with a flood of souls to feast on. This, however, only lasts so much and soon the Earth is left uninhabited and Grimm hungrily longing for more.
• Pirate: His Twisted Metal 4 rendition is a skeleton pirate that drives a Cool Boat with wheels, aptly named Captain Grimm.
• Recurring Element: Despite his various incarnations being rather different from each other, the recurring motif of skeletons is the main way to tell it's him. From actually being a skeleton when he's The Grim Reaper, his Black incarnation wearing Benny's skull, his Small Brawl incarnation wearing a plastic Halloween mask and his 2012 version having skull face paint on.
• Scary Black Man: His latest incarnation, who is a crime lord who wishes to Set Right What Once Went Wrong.
• Shadow Discretion Shot: When Mr. Grimm caves in and eats the corpse of his squadmate Benny in Black.
• Shell-Shocked Veteran: His Black incarnation is a Vietnam vet who underwent Sanity Slippage after being forced to eat his best friend after they were both captured by the Viet Cong.
• Skeletons in the Coat Closet: Black, as noted below.
• Shout-Out: There's an apparent one to Hell Girl in his Head-On ending, where he renounces his position as the Reaper, which is transferred to a girl wearing a sailor uniform.
• Stable Time Loop: In the reboot, he manages to find himself inside of his father's car and causing it to crash, killing his father by accident, before being shot dead by his past self.
• Steven Ulysses Perhero: Mr. Grimm, at least in the main timeline, is indeed The Grim Reaper.
• Token Good Teammate: While a murderer by admission, Mr. Grimm in the PS3 game is the only playable character with a benevolent wish in mind, and he speaks of his past actions with an air of disgust.
• Tragic Keepsake: In his Black incarnation, Mr. Grimm kept his friend's skull and wore it as a mask/helmet.
  • Consulting Mister Puppet: In his Lost bio, he's talking to the skull as if it was still Benny.
• Vanity License Plate: SOLTKR in 1 and YURNXT (You're Next) in 2.
• The Voiceless: Captain Grimm doesn't speak at all...
  • Talking Animal: ...It's his Pirate Parrot the one who does the talking. Huh.
• Your Soul Is Mine!: He feasts on souls, which are often treated as a Fantastic Drug, and his wish in 1 and 3 is to reap Calypso's soul. While he does get his wish straight in the former, Calypso uses Fun with Homophones to get out of it in the latter. The exact reason for why he reaps souls varies between games. In 1, he is a more traditional Reaper whose job is to collect the souls of the dead with no indication he eats them. In 2 and 3, he has to eat souls as they are food to him but he also finds it addictive. Head-On splits the difference: he is supposed to take souls to the afterlife, but tried eating one at some point and got addicted to the point that he wishes to stop being the Grim Reaper to cure his addiction.

Preacher (Jebediah)

Voiced By: Bob Ayres (Black)

Played By: Steve Marvel (reboot)

Driver of Brimstone, an El Camino truck. An evangelist who believes he became possessed by a demon during an exorcism, who then forced him to murder. Wants to get rid of it. TM:Lost has him return to his car after he killed himself searching for those who wronged him. He makes a couple of appearances in the 2012 reboot.

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• And I Must Scream: In the reboot, he becomes trapped in Calypso's painting after presumably dying in the contest.
• The Atoner: Massively deconstructed. Preacher's guilt complex traps him in a vicious cycle of deepening insanity, which of course drives him to feel even more depraved, which fuels his desperation for redemption to fanatical levels.
• Badass Preacher: Jebediah in "Black". Though also averted, as he admits in his intro:
  "I wasn't even a real preacher... I was just an evangelist, rejected by the church!"
• Back from the Dead: His bio in TM:Lost has him return from the death and possess his vehicle in order to drive again.
• Curse: He puts a curse on Sweet Tooth during his execution, causing his head to permanently burn with the fires of Hell.
• Decoy Backstory: According to himself, he was thrown into Blackfield Asylum because he murdered a church full of people after getting demonically possessed during an exorcism he was doing on a baby. In his ending, Calypso reveals that there was no demon, with the exorcism Jebidiah thought he was doing being just a baptism, and Jebidiah was just insane. Unable to cope with this, Jebidiah ends up jumping off a building and into traffic.
• Demonic Possession: In Black, he was sent to Blackfield after a demon took over his body and killed people while Jebediah was performing an exorcism. Subverted when it's he simply snapped during a baptism, not an exorcism and the demon was all in his head.
• Driven to Suicide: In his ending, after he discovers the bitter truth he decides to jump off a building into traffic.
• Foreshadowing: In the penultimate stage's loading screen, Preached remarks that he should drive off the edge, before saying that's the demon talking. In his ending, he finds out the demon isn't real, and does indeed commit suicide via dropping himself off a building.
• Hand Cannon: Sports a S&W 500 in some Black promo pics and in the character selection screen.
• Hearing Voices: The demon speaks in his mind.
• Holier Than Thou: Taken to unspeakable levels.
• I Am a Monster: His reaction to finding out he wasn't possessed by a demon but was instead genuinely insane in his ending.
  Preacher: It was Judgment Day in that church, and I was the Angel of Death!
• Only Sane Man: In the reboot, he's the only person onscreen who is aware of who (or what) Calypso really is. Which is why he then gets locked up in Calypso's painting.
• Phantom-Zone Picture: His fate in the reboot, as he ends up trapped in Calypso's painting alongside the souls of those killed by the tournament.
• Scary Shiny Glasses: A pair of round glasses that hide his eyes and gives him a sinister, soulless look.
• Sinister Minister: Played with on both counts. No church will ordain him, but he still feels called to evangelize so he acts like one anyway. And he's not evil, at least not intentionally, he just suffers from severe psychotic delusions that occasionally drive him to wanton violence. He also goes to pretty dangerous lengths with his fanaticism, seeing as his special attack is weaponized suicide bombers.
• Shout-Out: His appearance in the 2012 reboot has him wearing red shades similar to Alucard's. He also looks like Anderson, if Anderson had long hair.
  • The long white hair in the reboot may be an allusion to Ivan Isaacs.
  • Much like many of the other characters are based in comic book characters, the Preacher Jebediah may be based on Jesse Custer from the comic book (wait for it) Preacher. Never mind the obvious correlation between the two (being preachers), there's also the fact that Jesse is possessed by a demon/angel hybrid in a disaster that kills all of the people in his congregation and destroys his church. Sound familiar?
• The Killer in Me: When he's told the truth about the incidents.
• You ALL Look Familiar: His middle FMV uses Billy Ray (before his disfigurement) and his wife's models in place of a generic couple.
• Why Am I Ticking?: Brimstone's Special consists of throwing explosive-strapped followers into enemy cars.

Dollface

Voiced By: Maria Brady (Black), Annie Hayden (reboot)

Played By: Tara Darby (reboot)

Driver of Darkside. A young teenage girl who spilled coffee on important papers for her boss, and as punishment he nailed a mask onto her head. She wants to get rid of it. In TM:Lost she decides to keep it as it never ages, but since she's still growing up, its starting to press against her skull. In the reboot, Dollface is completely re-imagined as a supermodel obsessed with beauty and being the absolute best supermodel in the world. Things went screwy after she got into a car accident which left her with a minor cut in her cheek...

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• Adaptational Villainy: Dollface in Black and Krista Sparks from 2 and Head-On are arguably the most sympathetic characters in the series. Krista Sparks as Dollface in the 2012 game is an entirely different story.
• Animesque: She seems to have a strong anime vibe to her in the reboot, what with her having a pink hairdo and being the pilot of her own Humongous Mecha, Iron Maiden. The fact that she's pretty Ax-Crazy makes her look like some psycho anime chick you see in those rather gory ecchi animes/mangas.
• Ax-Crazy: The reboot's Dollface is a far cry from previous Krista Sparks and Dollface. She's completely and utterly unhinged to a murderous degree.
• Bad Boss:
  • Her former employer in Black, who sealed her face in the mask just for spilling coffee on his files. The fact he was working on a Sweet Tooth mask was probably meant to be a hint at how he was Evil All Along.
  • She is this in the 2012 Reboot, full-stop. She's not above sending her gang of Dolls to die in droves trying to take down Mr. Grimm, and after her final mission in her campaign she shot her Gunner in the face for daring to suggest "they" were both going to get "their" wishes.
• Abusive Parents: The manual for Black states her father blamed her for her mother's death. As seen in a prototype version of the game with early cutscenes, Mr. Kreel was originally her actual father, who is implied to have murdered her mother and then put the mask on Dollface because she was being noisy!!!
• Because You Were Nice to Me: Inverted in her Black ending - when given the Friend-or-Idol Decision mentioned below, she invokes the trope by asking "Why couldn't he (her boss) be nice to me?" Cue her grabbing the key, and sealing Mr. Kreel's fate.
• Becoming the Mask:
  • In Black, she elects to keep her mask on even though she just murdered her old boss to get the key (tossing away the key for good measure), and becomes a vigilante who seeks to Pay Evil unto Evil.
    "It doesn't cry, and it doesn't look scared, and it will always be pretty, even when I'm old and grey inside."
  • Her 2012 incarnation downplays the trope, believing that if she got the mask off, she'd be back to square one with competing with every other dime-a-dozen fashion model. But if she wished herself right to the top...
• Bright Is Not Good: The 2012 reboot version of Dollface, despite her bright pink body armor and matching hair, is a murderous Alpha Bitch with no redeeming qualities. In contrast, the character in Black is one of the nicer and more sympathetic contestants, despite being clad in black spiky armor.
• Clingy Costume: In Black her mask is kept in place with nails and a specially crafted lock. In the reboot, it's magical, and she can't remove it because she can't find the man who put it on her.
• A Day in the Limelight: Krista Sparks stars in the last chapter of the reboot: "The Madness of Dollface".
• Disney Villain Death: Gets one (actually two) in the reboot during Grimm's boss fight against her. After damaging the Iron Maiden enough, she loses control of the mech and ends up sending it crashing into the bridge. She manages to grab hold on to the bridge and the final battle begins there. Then after the battle, she starts to lose her grip and eventually falls to the depths of the canyon while screaming "FUCK YOU MR. GRIMM!" It then turns out to be a Rasputinian Death. In an obvious Shout-Out to Twisted Metal 2, the Iron Maiden's One-Winged Angel form is its head. Only after you destroy it does she play this trope straight, again.
• Disproportionate Retribution:
  • What her boss in Black did to her just because she spilled coffee on some spreadsheets. They must have been some pretty damn important files to justify locking an intern's head in a torture device.
  • She does this all the time in the 2012 reboot: A rival model is selected for a prize photoshoot? Beat her to death with a sledgehammer. A doctor claims he can't fix your (tiny) scar? Saw his head off with a hacksaw. Your Mook gets excited after winning Twisted Metal with you, and talking about how "we're" going to get "our" wishes? Shoot her in the face.
• Dysfunctional Family:According to the Black instruction manual, Dollface grew up in one with no siblings and both parents working 15 hours shifts. Her father even blamed her for the death of her mother.
• Exact Words: In the reboot, she makes a wish with Calypso to be on the world's biggest runway, the center of attention, and for him to watch her shine. Calypso does so by teleporting her to the middle of an airport runway. No guesses for what happens here.
• Friend-or-Idol Decision:
  • Slightly modified. In Black, she has to choose between the key for her mask or the life of the cruel maskmaker who put it on her to begin with. It didn't take her long to decide who to save.
  • Ironically, she chose to keep the mask on anyway, and simply tossed away the key she sacrificed her old boss for, claiming "It doesn't cry, and it doesn't look scared, and it will always be pretty, even when I'm old and grey inside.". It gets worse in Twisted Metal: Lost, which reveals she's still growing while the mask is not, which is now causing outright brain damage.
• It's All My Fault:
  • Blames herself for getting locked in the mask in Black, just because she "defied Mr. Kreel (her boss)". Her opening line in her story mode really hammers this trope home:
    "I was a bad girl one time... and now I'm gonna pay for what I did forever and ever and ever..."
  • Interestingly, this becomes a Defied Trope halfway through her story line; after being knocked out by Minion's explosion, Dollface had a flashback to the moment where Mr. Kreel locked her inside the mask — and then realized she didn't do anything wrong, and even if she had, Mr. Kreel's "punishment" was grotesquely disproportionate compared to her accident.
    "Now that I think about it... maybe it wasn't all my fault."
• Looks Worth Killing For: The reboot's version of Dollface will kill anyone she fears might be considered a more beautiful model than her. She even killed a doctor who fixed her face after an accident...because he left a minor, tiny and superficial scar.
• No Name Given: In Black we only know her as Dollface. The reboot version is given the name Krista Sparks, the name of an already established character.
• Pay Evil unto Evil: Her Black ending features this heavily - first, she seals her Bad Boss inside an Iron Maiden for him sealing her inside the mask, and then sets out to stop other men like him from doing bad things to good people.
• Psychopathic Woman Child: Implied at times in Black, as a side effect of being locked in a mask crushing her head, not to mention having both an abusive father, and an equally abusive boss, and being locked inside Blackfield Asylum almost as long as she was locked in her mask. It gets From Bad to Worse in the 2012 reboot, where Krista Sparks was already an Ax-Crazy, It's All About Me lunatic willing to kill her rivals even before getting locked inside her Dollface mask.
• Ramming Always Works: The special attack in Black takes what Darkside used to do in Twisted Metal 1 and adds a turbo function onto it. One can do extra damage with her special attacks by performing T-slides and such.
• Small Girl, Big Gun:
  • She is just a petite little girl who happens to drive a huge 18-wheeler which has a police cruiser for a bumper.
  • The 2012 reboot pairs her up with The Juggernaut. Similar to Darkside, but comes complete with a box trailer.
• Shout-Out: Her boss in the first game, Mr. Kreel, had the same name as the Big Bad of Warhawk.
• Token Good Teammate: In her Black incarnation, she was the only one who questioned whether her wish would be worth killing everybody else in the contest, and often expressed remorse and regret for her actions.
• Vague Age: Her age isn't listed in Black. Given that she had been locked in the mask for seven years, and mentioned that she just graduated from college when she got her job with Mr. Kreel, most fans believed she would've been at least 29 ^note since most people graduate college at 22, and 22+7=29.
• Womanchild: In her Black incarnation, most estimations of her age place her in her late 20s, at least, but she talks like she was a shy little girl sounding barely a day over 18. Having an abusive father, an even more abusive boss, and getting locked in a mask that's crushing her head as it grows within it probably had something to do with it. It's outright Invoked in her Lost profile, which states "This once young girl has become a young woman. While her body and skull grow bigger, the mask does not yield. The crushing pressure on her brain has begun to take its toll."
• White Mask of Doom: Her most defining feature, of course, and is the cause for all of her woe.
• Woobie, Destroyer of Worlds: Her Black incarnation. In the 2012 Reboot... well, not so much...
• You Remind Me of X: Her boss in Black reminded her of her father. In this case, it's not a good comparison to make.

Carl & Jamie Roberts

Voiced By (Jamie): Jamie Bard (2), Kim Mae Guest (Head-On)

Voiced By (Carl): Christopher Nissley (2), Quinton Flynn (Head-On)

Drivers of Outlaw, a police car. Carl was Outlaw's driver in Twisted Metal, and sought to end the tournament's bloodshed once and for all, but was trapped in space after Calypso literally granted his wish. His sister Jamie, driving Outlaw-II, saved him during Twisted Metal 2. They drive together in 3 and Head-On, working to stop Calypso.

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• Back-to-Back Badasses: Their mugshot in 3 has them strike the pose.
• Badass Normal: In a contest filled with demons, ghosts, and Death himself, they not only canonically won their respective tournaments, but also survived Calypso's attempts to screw with them.
• Brother–Sister Team: They drive Outlaw together in 3 and Head-On following Jamie's rescue of Carl in 2.
• Crazy-Prepared: Jamie fitted her police cruiser with space flight technology because she knew Calypso would send her into space.
• Donut Mess with a Cop: In their 3 ending, Jamie is holding out a sign reading "will work for donuts".
• Exact Words:
  • In the first game, "A world free of Twisted Metal"... and everything else!
  • In Head-On, in a fit of rage, Carl yells, "I WISH YOU'D JUST SHUT UP!" at Jamie. Unfortunately, he says this in front of Calypso, who gladly takes the opportunity to grant that wish.
• Gone Horribly Right: Their ending in 3 saw them ask for a world free of crime, making them lose their job. After all, if there's no criminals, there's no need for law enforcement. Of course, they can always just get another job...
• Idiot Ball: A sad case in Head-On. Carl is about to shoot Calypso when Jamie tries to stop him. The two argue, and finally, blinded by his anger, Carl forgets he's standing in front of a Jackass Genie and uses the word "wish" in one of his statements.
• Ironic Name: Police officers who drive a vehicle called Outlaw.
• Legacy Character: In Twisted Metal 2, Outlaw-II was meant to be this. All following games simply reverted the car's name back to just Outlaw.
• Red Oni, Blue Oni: In Head-On, Carl is the impulsive red oni and Jamie the more level-headed blue oni.
• Shock and Awe: Their car's trademark Special: an electric bolt coming out of the car's siren which zaps any enemy on its radius.
• Sudden Name Change: For some reason, Twisted Metal 2 and 3 changed Carl's name to Buzz. Head-On rectified the mistake. Fanon usually splits the difference and considers "Buzz" to merely be a nickname.
• Vanity License Plate: The Outlaw car has DOWNTS in 1 (driven by Carl) and 202LYF (20 to life) in 2 (driven by Jamie).
• Wipe That Smile Off Your Face: Jamie in Outlaw's Head-On ending, which is an obvious Shout-Out to Neo's de-mouthing in The Matrix.

Axel

Voiced By: Peter Macon (2), Kevin Killebrew (3), JS Gilbert (Black), Scott MacDonald (Head-On)

Driver of Axel, a contraption formed by a platform and two monster truck tires, of which he's attached to. He's been living 20 years stuck in this machine, and enters Twisted Metal 2 wishing for the strength to face his father. In Head-On, he realizes he can't live outside his machine, and returns to it with the help of Dr. Zemu, who ask in return for his right to a wish should he win the contest. In Black, he's out to get Revenge over the one who killed his wife.

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• Abled in the Adaptation: Since he's the one who made the vehicle this time around, Axel in Black isn't actually stuck inside his vehicle and can exit it whenever he wants, such as when he shoots Sweet Tooth.
• Abusive Parents: Axel's father is the one who bounded him into his vehicle, because he was too stupid and needed to be taught a lesson.
• Agony of the Feet: The Black version of the vehicle is missing the platform between the wheels. This is intentional by design, as Axel himself lets his feet drag along the asphalt as additional penance for the death of his wife.
• An Arm and a Leg: In his ending in 2, Axel leaves his vehicle by tearing himself out of it, leaving both of his arms behind as a way to defy his father.
• Artificial Limbs:
  • In Head-On, he has his missing arms and feet replaced with mechanical implants, that also allow him to control his vehicle.
  • In his dummied ending from Small Brawl, the wheelchair bound Axel asks for giant robot legs.
• The Atoner: Becomes this in his Head-On ending, where he decides to use his wish to bring peace to the world as his way to atone for the destruction he caused. Unfortunately for him, Zemu had a remote to force him back into the machine and he was unable to finish his wish.
• Calling the Old Man Out: In his Twisted Metal 2 ending. Upon winning he visits his father at his place and demands him to release him of the machine. When denied and told he needs to be taught a lesson, he defiantly replies "let me show you what I've learned!" and proceeds to rip his arms off the machine, denounce his father and then calmly walk away.
• Car Fu: He has a secret special in Black, where he joins both of his truck tires together and then proceeds to ram his enemies.
• Cool Shades: In Black, later adopted in Head-On.
• Cyborg: Possibly in 4, since he appears coated in metal.
• Demoted to Extra: In the 2012 reboot. While Axel himself doesn't appear, his vehicle is available as Downloadable Content.
• Despair Event Horizon: His Black incarnation has given up all hope after his wife got killed, to the point where his Blackfield Asylum patient profile outright calls him a lost cause, a distinction only shared with Sweet Tooth.
• The Determinator: Shows some in his ending in 2, where upon his father's negative to release him, he tears his own arms away from the contraption. Ouch.
• Finger in the Mail: His Black self received his wife through mail, piece by piece courtesy of Sweet Tooth.
• Guide Dang It!: In 2, Axel has the highest amount of ram damage in the game by a significant margin. This additional power is not listed anywhere in the manual.
• It's All My Fault: In Black, he blames himself for his wife's death. He creates his vehicle and straps himself in it as self-appointed punishment for her death.
• Killed Mid-Sentence: In Head-On, although more like stopped. As he tried to declare his wish for peace, Zemu forced him back into the machine and zapped him, making him claim "Peac-AAAH!!!". Calypso took it as his wish and summoned pizza for his efforts. Dr. Zemu remarks that Axel always has next year's tournament… before asking someone (presumably Calypso) if they want a slice.
• Mad Scientist: Dr. Zemu from Head-On, who built mechanical limbs for Axel to return and control his vehicle in exchange of his wish if he won Twisted Metal.
• Meaningful Name: He is literally the axel between his two giant tires.
• Outliving One's Offspring: In the Black prototype's early cutscenes, Axel's son is the one murdered instead of his wife.
• Reluctant Warrior: It's been stated in both Twisted Metal 2 and Head-On he doesn't want to fight, but there's no other choice for him to escape his personal hell. His ending in Head-On has him trying to make up for all the chaos. It didn't work.
• Scary Black Man: Especially in 2 and Head-On.
• Shockwave Stomp: His recurring Special attack. Although it doesn't involve Axel stomping, the end result is the same: a shockwave that spreads from his car and damages/flips all enemies nearby.
• The Unreveal: What Dr. Zemu wants with Axel's wish should Axel win in Head-On is never revealed.
• Vanity License Plate: In 2, his vehicle somehow has a license plate and it's "REV13:10". It refers to a specific passage within the Bible's Book of Relevations that calls for endurance and faith in the most dire of situations. Situations like being trapped inside an infernal 2-wheeled death machine as Axel is are probably not what the writer of that passage had in mind, but when your life is a living hell, you need all the faith you can get.
• You're Not My Father: Axel claims as much in his ending.
  "And you're no longer my father!"

Minion

Voiced By: Peter Macon (2)

Driver of Minion, a Cool Tank. A demon whose powers were stolen by Calypso. He's the Final Boss in Twisted Metal and Mid-Boss in Twisted Metal 2, 3, 4 and Black (although replaced at the steering wheel by Marcus Kane).

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• Artificial Stupidity: An easy way to deal with him in Twisted Metal 2 is to get into one of the temples around the arena. The AI will just drive back and forth in front of it, exposing itself to the player's arsenal of weapons and specials.
• Composite Character: While in TM1 Minion wasn't given any sort of backstory besides being the previous tournament's champion, TM2 made him a mix of two of the first game's characters: his position as a demon from Hell pursuing Calypso for having something stolen from him comes from Darkside's driver Mr. Ash; while he being the origin of Calypso's wish-granting powers comes from Black, the demon Calypso stole from Mr. Ash and who actually made the wishes happen.
• Demon Lords and Archdevils: He's either the ruler or one of many rulers of Hell. The comic tie-in for 2 has him as a top demon subordinate of Satan himself.
• Ditto Fighter: In Twisted Metal, his car's Special throws every special in the game at once. Not as effective as it should be though.
• Face Framed in Shadow: His Twisted Metal 2 bio image has his face completely obscured.
• Final Boss: The very first game's final boss. All subsequent appearances demoted him to being a mid-game boss instead.
• Lightning Bruiser: Minion is usually one of the fastest and most durable vehicles in the game, with a powerful special attack. There's a reason why he usually has to be unlocked. His only weakness is sheer size can make him more vulnerable to hazards in certain levels.
• Hellfire: He's always surrounded by fire in Twisted Metal 2.
• Hell Gate: Opens one in his ending in 2 and throws Calypso into it.
• Hell Seeker: In 3, according to his ending (and despite what he claims in his profile).
• Homing Projectile: His Special after the original game consists of 3 missiles and a freeze missile (named "Serpent" in Twisted Metal 4), ALL homing on the target at once.
  • His "Serpent" has a possible chance of setting your car on fire if the freeze missile misses.
• Kick The Son Of A Bitch: His ending in 2. He sends Calyspo to Hell.
• Master of All: He is usually this, with top-class speed, handling, and armor plus a badass superweapon. His only (slight) drawback is his size, which makes him a larger-than-average target.
• Nerf: The playable version of him in 2 is much weaker than the boss version. Relativily speaking, he's still an overpowered character.
• No Origin Stories Allowed: In 1 he was given no backstory at all outside the fact he was the previous year's champion. According to a set of scrapped videos (from the same lot as the "Lost Endings"), Minion was originally a mind-controlled government tank stolen and driven by a three-man gang called "Apocalypse 9".
• Out of the Inferno: For a similar effect, he comes out from within lava in Twisted Metal 2.
• Place Worse Than Death: Minion tells Calypso that he wishes to return to Hell in 3. Calypso sends him to Hell… Michigan. Considering Minion specifically wished to spend the rest of eternity in Hell, he's most likely stuck there.
• Promoted to Playable: After the first game, he became a recurring secret character.
• Puzzle Boss: In Black, before being able to hurt him, you need to attack his shield's weak points.
• Revenge: Seeks out Calypso to make him pay for stealing his "birthright" (his powers).
• Secret Character: All his appearances starting with Twisted Metal 2 require a special code input to make him playable.
• SNK Boss: As a rule, he's fast, very durable, and in the original game he had every character's special weapon. After that he had an extremely powerful Homing Projectile that freezes the opponent. In Black he is protected by Deflector Shields that need to be broken down before he can be damaged.
• Tank Goodness: Drives a tank, except for Black where he uses a giant tanker truck.
• There's No Place Like Home: In 3, his wish to Calypso is "to spend the rest of eternity in Hell". Unfortunately for him, however, there just so happens to be a town in Michigan named that…

Bruce Cochrane

Driver of Thumper, a purple Impalla. A gangster from South Central that has been fighting all his life. Appears in the first three games, seeking first to stop the violence in his neighborhood and later to rule the world.

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• Adaptational Villainy: Assuming they are the same character, at least. In the first game, while Bruce was a Gang Banger, he had the noble goal of freeing his neighborhood of crime (or saving his girlfriend in the Lost ending). In 2, he instead wants to rule the world, and unintentionally killed everyone to get there.
• Cool Shades: Sports a pair of Blade-inspired shades in all of his appearances.
• Gale-Force Sound: In Small Brawl, he and his partner Vinnie want the biggest sound system ever composed. However, it's so powerful it sends them flying across the state.
• Gangbangers: Apparently, given his background and bio. Which gang is never specified, for obvious reasons.
• Gangsterland: His South Central neighbourhood, justified as the game takes place in Los Angeles.
• Leitmotif: In Twisted Metal 4, there is a beat that plays whenever you shoot his special attack.
• Lonely at the Top: His cruel ironic twist in 2, wanting to Take Over the World, but having no one left to rule over when he at the contestants had killed everybody.
• Musical Assassin: His car's Special in Twisted Metal 3: a soundwave blast.
• Nice Guy: In the first game, in both of his endings. In the official one, he wishes for the crime in his neighborhood to stop, while in the "Lost Ending", he just wants to save his girlfriend, even refusing the opportunity shoot the person responsible when Calypso gives him the opportunity.
• Pet the Dog: While Calypso usually screws everyone else over with his Literal Genie powers, Thumper was one of the few exceptions to be granted a genuinely satisfying ending (at least at face value with the text of the ending). Thumper explains how he's lived all his life in South Central under the shadow of violence in his neighborhood brought about by gang wars and such. All he wanted was for his neighborhood to be free of violence and hate. Calypso says he granted his wish, but Bruce is suspicious. Calypso tells him to go see for himself. He finds that, as the ending text puts it, "Calypso was not lying."
• Playing with Fire: His car's Special in the first two games: a flamethrower.
  • In TM4, it's a dual flamethrower: Complete with a Leitmotif!
• Pyrrhic Victory: His Twisted Metal 2 ending. His wish was to rule the earth, but during the tournament, he and the other drivers killed everyone else.
• Sawed-Off Shotgun: Carries one around in 2.
• Save the Princess: His original backstory as seen in the "Lost Videos" was to save his kidnapped girlfriend.
• Scary Black Man: A young gang banger from South Central LA who's seen some real shit and has the looks to match. He's arguably one of the more benevolent contestant, though.
• Side Kick: As seen in the "Lost Videos", Bruce was originally going to have a co-pilot with him, but for some reason he was removed. Going by Small Brawl, he may be named Vinnie.
• Take Over the World: His wish in 2.
• Token Minority: Only black guy in the first game.
• Tuckerization: He's named after one of the beta testers, Bruce Cochran.
• Video Game Flamethrowers Suck: Averted, specially in Twisted Metal 2. Thumper's flamethrower is one of the most powerful special attacks in the game.

Krista Sparks

"Daddy? It's me, Krista! I'm back!"

Voiced By: Jamie Bard (2), Tara Strong (Head-On)

The only driver of Grasshopper, a green dune buggy. At first presented as a girl looking to make her father pay, she's later revealed to be Calypso's daughter, thought to be dead in a car accident years ago. She debuts in Twisted Metal 2 and later returns in Head-On.

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• Action Girl: Double points for being a teenager right smack in the middle of a deadly demolition derby, and can win against ghosts, demons and The Grim Reaper himself.
• All Just a Dream: In Head-On, Krista asked for the accident that killed her to never happen, and is next viewed having a happy evening with Calypso on a park... only to be revealed she's actually in a coma at a hospital.
• Artificial Human: How she survived the accident. The LAPD turned her into a cyborg in order to get close to Calypso so they could detonate a bomb inside her and kill him.
• Back from the Dead: Returns as a ghost in Head-On.
• Calling the Old Man Out:
  • To Calypso in her Head-On ending:
  "What's the problem? You didn't want to help me! You just want another contestant to kill all those innocent people! You destroy everything and run around like you own the world!"
  • While Calypso had it coming, what he tries to explain to her is that he can only use his powers if he's granting a wish, but she doesn't listen.
• Car Fu: The most representative out of the whole cast; Grasshopper's special ability is to jump in the air and land on other cars.
• Conveniently Unverifiable Cover Story: Her ending in 2.
• Cute Ghost Girl: In Head-On, he returns as a ghost since Calypso is unable to bring her fully back from the dead unless she wishes for it herself.
• Improbable Age:
  • She's the first(?) teenage Twisted Metal combatant in the series, at age 15. But then age probably didn't matter to her, since she was a cyborg in 2 and a ghost in Head-On.
  • According to her bio in the manual for 2, she actually faked her age in order to participate.
• Missing Mom: Not much is known about her. According to the comic tie-in for 2, her name was Joanie, and was killed during one of Calypso's derbies after being hit by a bouncing tire.
• Morality Pet: To Calypso. She is the one person he appears to care about.
• Pet the Dog: Calypso knows she was sent to kill him and that she is set to explode. He still hugs her to comfort her and dies with her.
• Vanity License Plate: "JUMPIN", Grashopper's signature move.
• Why Am I Ticking?: The LAPD made her a human bomb to get rid of Calypso.

Simon Whittlebone

Driver of Mr. Slam, a bulldozer/loader. An architect fired from his job for attempting to build a tower tall enough to reach the heavens, he only desires to fulfill his greatest dream. He debuts in Twisted Metal 2 and later returns in Head-On as a ghost. Twisted Metal 4 has a version of his vehicle named Super Slamm, but its uncertain if he's the driver.

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• A God Am I: His Twisted Metal 2 ending has him claiming that after he finished his tower.
  • Pride Before a Fall: Leads to a literal case of this, as he slips and falls right from the top of his tower right when he declares himself to be a God.
• Art Shift: In 2 he had a long, square-shaped head with red hair and a Austrian accent. Come Head-On, his appearance was changed completely and he now looks like an stereotypical nerd guy with brown hair.
• Back from the Dead: Returns as a ghost in Head-On to take over his vehicle in an attempt to finish/protect his skyscraper from being torn down.
• Biblical Motifs: A pretty clear allusion to the Tower of Babel in the Book of Genesis.
• Determinator: Even after death, he still wants to complete his masterpiece.
  Simon: My soul burns with the need to finish my masterpiece!
• Dual Boss: Super Slamm is a version of Mr. Slamm who appears paired up with Super Auger as a boss battle in 4.
• Funny Foreigner: Well, not really "funny", but he's notably the only non-American contestant in Twisted Metal 2, supernatural beings not-withstanding.
  • Subverted in Head-On, where he loses his Austrian accent, and looks and sounds more like a stereotypical nerd from the United States. See Art Shift above.
• Idiot Ball: Defied. Upon winning Calypso's tournament, he wished to be reborn so he could finish the tower he died trying to complete. Calypso wondered why it was impossible for him to just do that in his corporeal form as Simon had no problem controlling his rig with it. Turned out, Simon was using too much of his energy to repel those trying to demolish Whittlebone Tower, and so he wanted to be brought back to life so they couldn't demolish the tower and finish the building.
• In Name Only: Super Slamm looks nothing like Mr. Slamm, being a much more mundane bulldozer.
• Mighty Glacier: As to be expected, his vehicle is slow, but durable and has a very strong special.
• Our Ghosts Are Different: He returns as a ghost in Head-On. According to him, his soul is bound to his incomplete tower, causing him to worry that he will disappear if he keeps up in protecting it.
• Shout-Out:
  • His Head-On ending is quite similar to Twisted Metal 3's Buster Cobb, the construction vehicle's driver who replaced him.
  • Possibly doubles as a Take That!: With Buster Cobb's ending, his wish for people to "see his inner child" wasn't even remotely HINTED at during his bio, since it only talked about Cobb getting Revenge on the Twisted Metal organization for destroying his buildings, while with Simon Whittlebone's ending his wish to be "reborn" was something he wanted, in order to finish the construction of Whittlebone Tower. With Cobb's ending, both his wish, and the subsequent "joke" of him becoming a baby was seen by the fans as a Big-Lipped Alligator Moment, while Whittlebone's being "reborn" as in infant who can't work on his tower as an adult, or protect it as a ghost was seen as the perfect punchline for Calypso to punish him with.
• Star Scraper: His wish in Twisted Metal 2 is to build Whittlebone Tower, a skyscraper that would dwarf all other buildings on Earth. In Head-On, he returns as a ghost to finish it.
  Simon Whittlebone: This tower will reach the HEAVENS! I will be less a man… than A GOD!

Captain Rogers

Driver of Warthog, a military HUMVEE. An old decorated soldier wanting to be young again. Appears in Twisted Metal 2 and 3.

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• Body Horror: When he wishes for the body of a 20-year-old, Calypso gives him one. Just the body, of course.
• Cool Old Guy: Apparently has no problem fighting as hard as he did in his glory days, despite pushing 100.
• Fountain of Youth: His desire is to be young again.
• Heroic Build: As his wish to be young is granted, he gets a muscular body...Unfortunately for him... he didn't ask for a matching young head.
• Homing Projectile: His "Patriot Missiles" special, a set of three homing missiles.
• In-Series Nickname: He used to be called "Old Iron Guts", but he laments that currently he's only called "Old".
• Losing Your Head: His Twisted Metal 3 ending, as a continuation of 2, has him asking for a head to match his 20-years-old body, and gets his head put in a jar for his troubles.
• Mighty Glacier: He has a powerful special and a durable but sluggish vehicle.
• Old Soldier: At 105/107 years old, and still kicking ass.
• Shell-Shocked Veteran: Played with. He doesn't appear to be traumatized by war so much as he's having some pretty serious problems coming to terms with his age and mortality.

Charlie Kane

"Sounds good to me, baby!"

^{Click here to see him and his son in Black}

"I control him now. Everbody thinks it's weird. They Don't Like it."

Driver of Yellow Jacket, a taxicab. He sought out his missing children in 1, and discovers it's Needles Kane. It's also implied he is the driver of Final Boss Dark Tooth in Twisted Metal 2 where he drives an ice cream truck the size a large house, as Dark Tooth claims to be Sweet Tooth's father. In Black, he's a zombie remote-controlled by his younger son (not Needles), seeking out a better life. In the reboot, Charlie is now presented as Marcus/Needles' son. The clown spared him knowing that he'd make a good replacement should anything happen to him. He's now the new Sweet Tooth.

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• Ax-Crazy: Twisted Metal "Lost Video" ending. He appears meek and rather disenchanted with everything as he claims he only wanted the thrill of one last drive, but once he drinks the vial Calypso offers him his expression goes crazy and he starts speaking very loudly.
• Came Back Wrong: His Black version gets shot in the head and turned into a non-speaking remote-controlled zombie by his son.
• Child Prodigy: His young son, who created a remote control to control his zombie father as an 8-year old!
• Continuity Nod: One to his live-action "Lost" ending in the 2012 game: the vial of red liquid he was given in the ending appears as part of Calypso's collection.
• Creepy Child: The young son thinks it's perfectly normal to turn his father into an undead, remote controlled people puppet, and can't quite understand why others see him/them weirdly.
• Hook Hand: He has one in the first game, for some reason.
• Jack of All Stats: All of Yellow Jacket's stats in Twisted Metal are 3/5.
• Lightning Bruiser: In 2. Dark Tooth is as durable as you would expect a giant version of Sweet Tooth to be. He is also FAR too fast for a giant ice cream truck, turns on the dime, and is armed with Sweet Tooth's special weapon in place of a machine gun as well having and endless of ricochet bombs. Even Minion will die quickly against his firepower.
• Improbable Age: His son in Black is only 8 years old, which is very young for a necromancer and a Twisted Metal combatant (Small Brawl notwithstanding).
• I Will Find You: His main goal in Twisted Metal is to find his estranged son.
• Molotov Cocktail: His Special in Twisted Metal is a simple molotov projectile thrown forward.
• No Name Given: The young boy who controls his corpse in Black is never given a name.
• One-Winged Angel: After destroying Dark Tooth in Twisted Metal 2, the player has to deal with the vehicle's flaming head as a second form boss.
  • Clipped-Wing Angel: Most players regard it as easier because it doesn't have any new attacks and has a lot less health than his truck.
• Papa Wolf: As Dark Tooth, he gets angered after claiming you killed Sweet Tooth. Alternatively, he was really close to his younger son in Black.
• Zombie Puppets: Black Charlie is a zombie reanimated and controlled by his young son.
• Practically Different Generations: His younger son is only 8 years old, and while his older son Needles (whose exact age is listed as "unknown" in his bio) is a grown man who looks to be in somewhere in his thirties or so. ^note Marcus Kane is indeed in his thirties in 2 and Head-On, but those are in a different continuity from Black.
• Ramming Always Works: His Black Special, which releases spikes all over his car, is better used through ramming than firing it as missiles.
  • When played as using hacks in 2, because he's not designed to be playable, he can't use normal weapons and is stuck ramming opponents, which is still a reliable way of killing them.
• SNK Boss: In 2. He is fast, takes a ton of damage before dying, and has the missiles Sweet Tooth using as a special as a machine gun weapons, so he can kill the player in seconds. While he dwarfs all the other cars in the game, the arena you fight him in doesn't provide many areas where his size is much of a weakness.
• Troubling Unchildlike Behavior: The son turned his father's corpse into a remote-controlled puppet and entered it in a contest where the objective is to kill the other contestants.
• Villainous Lineage:
  • In TM:Lost, both Charlie and his younger son decide to kill Needles and then themselves, to stop their line of psychopath murderers.
  • In the reboot, Charlie becomes Needles' successor. Apparently he was spared as he was the perfect replacement.
• What Happened to the Mouse?: So far, there has been no mention or reference to the young son in later sequels.

Mortimer Scharf

"What he took from them can never be forgiven or replaced. What they have hired me to do is their only hope, they are in the back right now and resting quite peacefully, but I promise, they will have their revenge."

Driver of Shadow, a purple hearse. A mysterious graveyard keeper that carries missions of revenge for the souls of the deceased. Appears in Twisted Metal 2 and Head-On, where he's awakened from his eternal slumber and desires to go back to it.

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• Back from the Dead: In Head-On, simply because his resting place was disturbed.
• Casting a Shadow: His special is a remote-controlled bomb shadow.
• Creepy Crows: Has one always perched on his shoulder.
• Downer Ending: Mortimer holds the distinct honor of never suffering one of these in all three of the games he's been in. 2 and Small Brawl have him screw over Calypso instead of the other way around, while Head-On has Calypso grant his wish without any strings attached. Shadow might be lucky, because Raven from Black got off pretty well, too.
• Evil Takes a Nap: He rests in his grave when he isn't wreaking havoc on Earth. When he wins Head-On, he admits that he was woken by accident and uses his victory wish to go back to sleep, so Calypso tucks him in his coffin with a bedtime story.
• Grave Robbing: In Head-On, two guys robbing his own grave awoke him.
• Ominous Pipe Organ: Every time his car's Special is launched.
• Revenge:
  • He carries out revenge for those who died.
  • Defied in Head-On, where he refuses to exact revenge on the Grave Robbers who woke him up, instead wanting to return to his slumber.
• Tropey, Come Home: His motive in Small Brawl is to rescue his pet frog from Billy. When he wins, he decides to let Billy keep it… because it was exposed to radiation, and ends up eating Billy alive.
• Vanity License Plate: KREMATYU (Cremate You), since he's a mortician.
• You Don't Look Like You: Looks extremely different between his two appearances. In 2, he has a cartoonishly thin face with a Sinister Schnoz and wears Scary Shiny Glasses and a top hat. In Head-On he's relatively normal-looking (though old and decrepit) and no longer dons the aforementioned accessories.

Amanda & Miranda Watts

Drivers of Twister, an Indy racing car. Amanda is in Twisted Metal 2, a racer obsessed with speed who wishes to drive at the speed of light. Her twin sister Miranda came in Head-On looking for her disappeared sister.

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• Backup Twin: From a gameplay perspective, Miranda is this to Amanda.
• Blow You Away: Twister's Special makes her car spin around, creating a tornado that throws other cars away. With a dose of Spectacular Spinning. In Small Brawl, it simply generates a tornado above her car.
• Broken Faceplate: Miranda's biggest Identical Twin ID Tag compared to Amanda is her broken helmet. In her profile and the intro cinematic, there's only a small crack in the glass that reveals one of her eyes, but by the time of her ending, it's broken enough to show her entire face.
• Came Back Wrong: In Head-On, Miranda Watts uses her wish to bring back her twin sister and gets a zombie, as Amanda had died millions of years ago, as her car traveled back in time after passing light speed.
• Faster-Than-Light Travel: Amanda's wish, as she's obssessed with breaking limits.
• Fragile Speedster: Twister is even faster than Spectre, but his armor is really weak. Fortunately for her, the car's frame is low enough that sometimes attacks misses it.
• I'll Kill You!: Miranda says this outright when confronting Calypso after winning, but Calypso calmly tells her that she still has her wish.
• I Will Find You: Miranda's goal is to discover what happened to her sister after the 2nd game.
• Not Drawn to Scale: Miranda's height is listed as 5'2" on her character bio, but appears to be a bit taller than that.
• Speed Demon: Amanda is obsessed with speed, which is why she makes the wish to travel at the speed of light.
• The Smurfette Principle: Twister's driver in Small Brawl is the only girl shown on screen. Mime is also said to be driven by a girl, but she's never actually seen.
• Tornado Move: Twister's signature ability is spinning around to create a twister.
• Trapped in the Past: Amanda's fate. She wished to travel at the speed of light, but neglected the fact her car needed fuel to function, and once the tank's empty she finds herself trapped in prehistory. Cue Giant Foot of Stomping, courtesy of a T-Rex.
• Vanity License Plate: Twister has LHYTSPD, which is Amanda's wish in 2.

From Twisted Metal

Mr. Ash

Driver of Darkside, a black semi-truck. A mysterious figure from Hell, bent on recovering what rightfully belongs to his. He returns as a Mid-Boss in Twisted Metal 3. An interview with series creator David Jaffe confirmed that Mr. Ash is in fact Satan.

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• Continuity Nod: In the intro of Twisted Metal 2, a beaten-up Darkside appears on the side of the road. He's also seen in the background of the options menu.
• Demoted to Extra: He's an unplayable boss (unless you use a GameShark) in the third game after being a regular character in the first. In fact, the only reason you know that he's still behind the wheel is that the manual says so.
• Energy Weapon: His Special in 1 is a white beam that deals little damage. Fortunately, he has better ways to injure others.
• Mighty Glacier: An extremely powerful truck that is snail-slow and handles terribly.
• Ramming Always Works: More like the only option for him.
• Retcon: Twisted Metal has Mr. Ash claiming as his prize Black, a powerful demon Calypso stole for himself and whose powers he uses to grant the wishes, while Minion is just said to be the previous tournament's winner. Come Twisted Metal 2, Minion claims Calypso has stolen his powers 11 years ago.
  • Potentially double-retconned in the 2012 reboot, where Calypso is heavily implied to be Satan himself.
• Sinister Silhouettes: He's represented as that, even though his Lost ending had him as a normal, if sinister man.
• Swiss-Army Weapon: His special in 3 is both a Freeze Ray and a Fire-Breathing Weapon.
• Video Game Flamethrowers Suck: In 3 if you are frozen by his special, then it's averted. Otherwise, he can't do much with it.
• Wake-Up Call Boss: In Twisted Metal 3. He's not as bad as the later two bosses but his special being able to set you on fire while freezing you means he can do a lot of damage.

Agent Stone

Driver of Crimson Fury, a red sports car. He's seeking an object that could "liberate the world".

---

• Energy Weapon: His Special.
• Expy: Of James Bond. Played more obviously in Small Brawl.
• The Faceless: His "Lost Video" ending was filmed in P.O.V. Cam (in a similar manner to James Bond nemesis Ernst Blofeld), though he's fully seen entirely in the player-select screen. Also applies to his vehicle, which doesn't appear at all, likely due to the high cost of renting such an expensive car against the blatantly-cheap production budget.
• Fragile Speedster: Holding the spot with Spectre in the first game. The car's really fast, but goes down in seconds if caught.
• La Résistance: He's hired by an underground freedom organization, with the finished game ending suggests they're from England.
• McGuffin: The item he looks for.
• The Rival: Commander Mason.

Dave & Mike

Driver of Hammerhead, a monster truck. Two college drop outs who are participating only for the thrill of battle.

---

• Bowdlerise: Comparing their wish in the early "Lost Video" to the finished game ending. In the first they ask for girls (after thinking for a moment since they hadn't actually thought about a wish), prompting Calypso's harem to get into Hammerhead; the latter has them ask for... a new set of tires, because they are expensive.
• The Big Guy: Granted Hammerhead is a monster truck, but it is HUGE compared to the other characters. Future installments tone down the size.
• Those Two Guys: Completely unremarkable except for being a pair of delinquents.

Angela Fortin

Driver of Pit Viper, a dune buggy. A mysterious woman with a double life who wants a million dollars.

---

• Action Girl: When she reveals her true objective.
• Briefcase Full of Money: In her "Lost Video" ending.
• Dropped a Bridge on Him:
  • Pit Viper is the only one of the twelve original cars to have never returned in a sequel. With her "Lost Video" ending even having her shot down by Calypso.
  • Also, her car had its special and color scheme changed to become Grasshopper.
• Guns Akimbo: In her "Lost" ending.
• Hollywood Acid: Her special.
• Professional Killer: Her true identity is revealed as Agent Amanda X, freelance assassin. Hired by the people of Los Angeles to kill Calypso.
• The Smurfette Principle: Angela is the only woman in the first game, aside from Calypso's harem who make a very easily missed cameo in the arena duel.
• Why Don't You Just Shoot Him?: As opposed to most other drivers using wishes to kill Calypso or wish the tournament away (which naturally almost never goes right), Angela is genre-savvy enough to wish for a million dollars first, and then assassinate Calypso thereafter. In the "Lost Ending" though, this fatally backfires on her.

Captain Spears

Original driver of Roadkill. A former military man filled with grief as he feels that his own cowardice led his squadron into an enemy trap back in the "Jungle Wars of South America". He wants to be able to set the past right.

---

• A Father to His Men: Cared deeply for his men, and is haunted by their loss.
• Bittersweet Ending: His LOST ending does have him successfully save his team by telling them not to enter the forest and to await his return. However, he never gets the chance to reunite with them as he gets ambushed by an enemy just as he cuts communication.
• The Captain: Of a commando unit, apparently.
• My Greatest Failure: He lead his platoon into a trap and lost 25 of his men during the war. He's desperate for an opportunity to fix his mistake.
• My Greatest Second Chance: He wishes to be sent back in time to the war where he can set things right. He is so caught up in realizing that his wish was granted that doesn't realize he is in the middle of a battle, and is promptly killed by a South American soldier.
• Set Right What Once Went Wrong: He tries, but gets himself killed and most likely the rest of his platoon. Zero gain there buddy.

Scott Campbell

Driver of Spectre, a white sports car. A man recently killed who wants to live again.

---

• Back from the Dead: What he wants.
• Big "NO!": After Calypso cruelly takes his life away after having just regained it in his "Lost Ending".
• Downer Ending: His "Lost Video" ending, where Calypso brings him back to life, and then shoots him for no real reason. Subverted in the game's actual ending, Scott is brought back to life and Calypso allows him to leave.
  "I givith, and I taketh away. Try again next year, driver!"
• Family Man: Has a wife and child that he left behind; he seeks life once more so he can be with them.
• Homing Projectile: What'd become the trademark special of the car, the "Ghost Missile" will track the target wherever it goes, even going through walls to get to it. To balance this, the missiles themselves are very weak.
• Our Ghosts Are Different: The restless spirit of a man randomly killed by a serial killer. He doesn't seem to have much problem interacting with the world, though.
• Tuckerization: He's named after the game's producer.

Commander Mason

Original driver of Warthog. Seeks the same item as Agent Stone under government orders.

---

• Armies Are Evil: He and the military are certainly portrayed as "evil" in their search of the item. Even in his "Lost Video" ending he sends a platoon as a back up measure should Calypso fail to fulfill his wish.
• Brown Note: The Black Box of a plane shot down by aliens. For the U.S. government, the world's not yet ready for it.
• Dirty Coward: In his "Lost Video" ending. After acting all high and mighty in front of Calypso, he runs away in fear after seeing what he did to the squad team he sent to get him.
• Government Conspiracy: Avoiding said item to fall into the hands of Agent Stone and his freedom organization is Mason's main directive. He's also content knowing people will sleep peacefully, completely in the dark about things they're not yet able to understand.
• The Rival: Agent Stone.

From Twisted Metal 2

Mike & Stu

New drivers of Hammerhead. Much like before, two high school dropouts with much free time.

---

• Cruel and Unusual Death: In their ending, after Calypso "grants" their wish, they test it out by jumping off a skyscraper... slowly realizing the folly of their actions as they plummet to their deaths. Bystanders crowd around them and murmur as their corpses lie there. Though judging from the very confused-looking Calypso left standing there with plane tickets for the two, it seems the pair were a bit too Literal-Minded.
• Flight: Their desire, but only so they can see down women's shirts.
• One-Steve Limit: Possibly averted, though its hard to say whether the Mike from the first game and this one are the same guy.
• Those Two Guys: Exactly like the previous drivers of Hammerhead.
• Too Dumb to Live: In their ending, they wish to fly. Calypso says "Wish granted." The pair runs off the nearest cliff... and promptly falls to their deaths, as a dumbfounded Calypso stands there with a pair of plane tickets in his hand and hopes that they're refundable.

Ken Masters

"Please Calypso, you gotta make me famous. Make it so the entire world knows my face!"

No, not that one. New driver of Spectre. An actor who wants to be famous.

---

• Body Horror: His wish is for Calypso to make it so the world knows his face. Calypso does this by stretching his face around the entire planet.
• Continuity Nod: In Small Brawl, the kid controlling Spectre gets, as his wish, the keys of his father's vehicle. The keys were stored in a watch with Ken's picture on it, and the vehicle itself is revealed to be the Spectre from 2. Likely not intended to be taken as anything canonical, as canon as Small Brawl could be considered anyway.
• Homing Projectile: The Ghost Missile from the first game returns, with the same ability to perfectly hit a target as it goes through walls.
• Opaque Lenses: In his bio pic.

From Twisted Metal: Black

No-Face (Frank McCutcheon)

"Must've been years I've been left alone in that darkness. But when you look like I do, it's probably for the best."

Driver of Crazy-8, a rally bug. A small-time boxer who was beaten to the point of needing surgery in one match, and could only afford a back alley doctor that he was told was a fan of the fights. However, the doctor, unbeknownst to Frank, lost a considerable sum of money betting on him and sewed his eyes and mouth shut (and eyes and tongue removed). He's out seeking good ole' Revenge. In TM:Lost, he's trying to restore his face (by removing the parts off others he deems evil) so he doesn't scare his baby daughter.

---

• Anti-Hero:
  • He's one of the more sympathetic contestants in Black. He was a small-time boxer who got his life destroyed and his face horrifically mutilated by a Back-Alley Doctor who was bitter over losing money on No-Face's fight. It's pretty understandable why No-Face wants payback on the guy. Although he's still a criminal due to the fact that he accidentally killed six people in a fit of Unstoppable Rage.
  • This is more emphasized in Lost, as his backstory reveals he's been targeting and killing those he considers evil to get their eyes and tongues so he can fix his face and look at his baby daughter without her crying in horror.
• Bond One-Liner: Gives quite a darkly hilarious one right after punching Dr. Hatch in the face with a boxing glove covered in sharp objects:
  No-Face: You know, that was the first time I ever knocked someone out with one punch.
• Brooklyn Rage: Has a distinctively New York accent, and was a boxer before going on a Roaring Rampage of Revenge.
• Charged Attack: Crazy 8 has the ability to boost its electric shocks by charging up beforehand.
• Crazy Homeless People: It's implied he ended up as one of these after Dr. Hatch destroyed his face.
• Curb-Stomp Battle: His last official boxing match had his opponent beat him so badly that he needed surgery to fix his face. He himself described it as one-sided.
• Disproportionate Retribution: Poor Frank is the victim of this trope at the hands of Dr. Hatch, who viciously mutilated the poor boxer's face for no reason other than anger over losing a twenty thousand dollar bet from Frank's last fight. Keep in mind, there's no way Frank could have know about said bet and just needed help. Needless to say, Dr. Hatch had his beatdown coming.
• Disability Superpower: The explanation for how he drives; he somehow senses his surroundings and those around him.
• Extreme Mêlée Revenge: His ending. Once winning the tournament, he gets his wish of Revenge on Dr. Hatch, and the next scene shows the doctor bound and gagged, while No-Face puts on a boxing glove with dozens of Hatch's own scalpels and knives taped to it. As No-Face rears up for a haymaker to the doctor's face, the screen cuts to black just before his fist makes contact.
  No-Face: I've seen fear in a man's eyes before, but this was different, this was special. I think that doctor... he knew that payback was gonna be brutal. It's funny... even after all these years, I've still got some snap in that left hook of mine.
• Eye Scream: Due to being soundly beaten by his opponent, he needed surgery to fix his face, unfortunately Dr. Hatch does something worse to him. Taking away his eyes and then sewing his eyelids shut.
• Facial Horror: When Dr. Hatch was done with him, the results were far from pretty, which Frank himself acknowledges.
• Graceful Loser: While Frank's last opponent messed his face up in a brutal knockout loss, he surprisingly doesn't hold any ill will towards him. Likely due to all his anger being focused on Dr. Hatch for taking it even further and utterly destroying his life over a particularly petty reason.
• In-Series Nickname: He's adopted "No-Face" as this.
• Mad Doctor: Dr. Hatch, a Back-Alley Doctor who was pissed at losing $20,000 on No-Face's last fight, and mutilated his face out of spite.
• Mouth Stitched Shut: After taking away his eyes and tongue, Dr. Hatch then stitched his eyelids and mouth shut.
• Nightmare Face: The result of Dr. Hatch getting some disproportionate revenge on him, he even comments that with a face like his it's good that solitary confinement doesn't have much light.
• Pay Evil unto Evil: Becomes this in TM:Lost, attacking bad men to gather the parts he needs to restore his face.
• Power Fist: A slightly mundane and rather sharp variety, Calypso gives No Face a boxing glove with all sorts of sharp objects attached to it. Then shows him a boxing bag with a Dr. Hatch attached to it, and it's easy to see where this is going.
• Red Boxing Gloves: In his ending, he gets a single custom one with dozens of surgical implements latched on it to give Dr. Hatch a one punch knockout.
• Shock and Awe: His Special, which works similar to the other game's Outlaw.
• Tongue Trauma: Had his tongue surgically removed by Dr. Hatch as part of his mutilation.
• Unstoppable Rage: Recovering from his horrific surgery, he falls into a blind (literally in his case) rage and inadvertently kills six innocent people while looking for Dr. Hatch, landing him in Blackfield Asylum afterwards.

Agent Stone

"I was going to have to live with it for the rest of my life, and nothing I could do would ever take away the pain... until now."

Driver of Outlaw, now a SWAT truck. A police sniper who let anger get the best of him and got a mother and her daughter killed alongside his target. He's seeking a second chance to fix his mistake. In TM:Lost, he's trapped in a loop after he won the tournament, and is forced to relive that day every night.

---

• Accidental Child-Killer Backstory: Stone killed a mother and her daughter by accident when in an Unstoppable Rage as he shoots down the terrorists.
• Cold Sniper: He should be, but rage got the best of him in the past.
• Driven to Suicide: He attempts this right after he realizes his mistake, but...
  • Bungled Suicide: ...his rifle was out of bullets.
• Empathy Doll Shot: The bloodied teddy bear. Calypso tosses it in his direction to let Stone know that he knows what he wants.
• Fighting Your Friend: Personally knows the pilot of Warhawk, and is distraught to think he has to kill him in order to reach his goal.
• "Groundhog Day" Loop: According to TM:Lost, after winning the tournament, he's trapped in reliving that fateful day every night, with him saving the family but not killing the thug in time before he puts a bullet into his head.
• Improbable Aiming Skills: His Black ending. Unfortunately, it wasn't in Stone's favor. He gets shot in the head by the terrorist he hadn't killed, when said terrorist had a pistol, was heavily wounded, and Stone was far enough away from the building to require a sniper rifle.
• Last Breath Bullet: In his ending, the dying thug is able to put a bullet in Stone's head through the scope of his sniper.
• More Dakka: His Special Attack, a machine gun frenzy on a single, locked-on enemy.
• My Greatest Failure: Shooting that family forever haunted him, landing him in Blackfield.
• Pink Mist: "All units! Target is not down! Target is still hot!". *Boom, Headshot!*
• Scary Black Man: Averted, despite the setting. Well, unless you're one of the competitors.
• Set Right What Once Went Wrong: Averting the accidental killing he committed. In the end, he succeeds, but at the cost of his own life.
• Token Good Teammate: Out of the characters in Black, he is one of the few characters who didn't kill an innocent bystander (intentionally) and doesn't become a murderer at the end of his story. Even compared to John Doe, another Token Good Teammate, Doe shows that he is quick to consider violence when interacting with Calypso and according to his psychological profile.
• Unstoppable Rage: What clouds his judgement and leads to tragedy.

Billy Ray Stillwell

"If I win this game, I get my revenge. Heck, maybe I'll even get lucky and get my old face back too..."

Driver of Junkyard Dog, a tow truck. Billy was a simple farmer who worked a second job as a nighttime tow truck driver, helping out stranded motorists. He was married to his high school sweetheart Annie and lived a pleasant life.

However, one day, while checking out his crops, a crop-dusting plane flew over and sprayed both the crops and Billy, who passed out. Billy survived, but was disfigured by the chemicals. When he made his way back to his home to get help from Annie, he found out Annie was cheating on him with a pilot, and both had attempted to kill Billy and collect the life insurance. Enraged, he beat her to death with a garden hoe though the pilot escaped. He now wants to find the pilot and make him pay too. In TM:Lost, he's just taken a liking to killing, but even if he wants to he's yet to kill another human 10 years after.

---

• Black Widow: Annie has her pilot lover attempt to kill Billy by spraying some chemicals over him as he's checking his crop, so they can later cash on the life insurance.
• The Corrupter: Billy eventually believed that Annie was innocent (or at least didn't deserve the Extreme Mêlée Revenge he inflicted on her), and that it was the pilot who had swayed her into the plan.
  Billy Ray: " My poor, sweet Annie! I don't blame her no more.]] It was that damn pilot done steered her wrong!"
• Evil Feels Good: In his ending he finds he likes killing after getting revenge on the pilot, and decides to become a serial killer in TM:Lost.
  Billy Ray: It may have only been the second time I've killed someone… but it felt so damn good.
• The Grotesque: Due to crop-duster chemicals sprayed on him it turned him into what can be described as a living zombie.
• Hillbilly Horrors: Zigzagged. Ray's a rare sympathetic version of this trope, while he is a physically-deformed former farmer with Ax-Crazy tendencies. Stillwell used to be a normal man until he snapped after his own wife attempted to kill him in a horrific way. However, he decides to fully embrace violence at the end of his story after fulfilling his revenge.
• Improvised Weapon: He uses a garden hoe as a weapon to kill his wife.
• Love Hurts: And it kills.
• The Noseless: After the chemicals warped his appearance, he only has his nostrils instead of a nose.
• Tragic Villain: Stillwell was just a normal farmer who genuinely loved his wife, unfortunately for him she was also cheating on him with a cropduster pilot. The two tried to kill Billy so they could collect the life insurance and be together. However, Billy survived, albeit badly disfigured, and discovered their plan when he tried to go to her for help. No wonder he snapped.
• Visual Pun: He kills his cheating wife with a gardening hoe.
• You Don't Look Like You: The Billy Ray in the cutscenes looks very different from the Billy Ray in the character selection screen.

John Doe

"I don't think I like the man I'm turning out to be."

Driver of Roadkill. An amnesiac man looking for his identity. TM:Lost reveals there's a police unit of identical John Does that seeks Calypso's downfall.

---

• Amnesiac Dissonance: He finds out in the end that he's an undercover FBI agent, and saved dozens of lives in a bombing incident. He is, in fact, a hero... and he's standing in front of one of the world's most wanted criminals, who shoots him dead.
• Amnesiac Hero: Wakes up in the asylum with no memory of his identity or past.
• Big Damn Heroes: The reason of his amnesia.
• Clone Army: According to TM:Lost, there's a whole division of the police made up of clones for John Doe, each set to kill Calypso.
• Cult: He was part of one. Well, not really...
• Dark Is Evil and Dark Is Not Evil: Both tropes are played on for him. He invokes the first believing he's not a good guy because of his appearance, and turns out that's Justified. He assumed that appearance to infiltrate a terrorist group, making him a example of both.
• Depopulation Bomb: The cult set up a bomb within the city's Disease Control Center, claiming its destruction would spread diseases all over the world.
• Expy: His appearance has a striking resemblance to Derek Vineyard from American History X. ^note This was done intently because it was meant to invoke the stereotypical Neo-Nazi image. His beta model even has a tattoo on his left arm that says "One race, one country"; this was obviously cut to avoid any major controversy about the game promoting this sort of ideology.
• Fatal Family Photo: It is shown to the player just after he's shot...
  • I Have a Family: His last words.
• Heel Realization: Subverted. When he's starting to regain his memories he isn't liking the man he's turning to be, remembering how the Cult he was part of wanted to bomb the Disease Control Center and spread destruction across the world For the Evulz. When he regains his memories he realizes that he actually stopped their attack.
• Laser-Guided Amnesia: He doesn't remember anything before a certain point before he was sent to the asylum.
• Macross Missile Massacre: His special, a rack of 12 missiles that can be charged up for more damage.
• The Mole: Is revealed to have been one in the Cult he was running with.
• No Name Given: Is given the pseudonym "John Doe", since he can't remember his own name and none of the asylum doctors know who he is either. Even he learns of his identity, his real name isn't revealed to the audience.
• Oh, Crap!:

  "That's right, I am a hero. A hero undercover agent standing in front of #2 on America's Ten most wanted list. In other words, a dead man."

• Quest for Identity: His storyline and reason for competing in Twisted Metal, after Calypso reveals he knows his past. He begins to remember on his own after the fight with Minion.
• Shout-Out: His character looks like Derek Vinyard, while the gang/Cult he ran with seems to ape Project Mayhem.
• Tattooed Crook: The tattoos were the only hints to John's past before Calypso showed up... and they didn't paint a pretty picture.
• White Gangbangers: What John's gang was before they jumped to full-on Doomsday Cult.

Bloody Mary

"No one as pretty as me deserves to be alone."

"Finally! A man who loves me? And all I have to do is win this contest? For true love, I can do anything!"

Driver of Spectre. A woman with a past of rejections, who experiences a psychotic break at her friend's wedding, killing the bride and donning her bloodied dress. Enters to ask for the perfect man. In TM:Lost, she has lost her hold of reality and just wants to find someone who'd kill her.

---

• Ambiguous Situation:
  • Regarding her bad luck at finding love. She's not ugly by any stretch yet she has a lot of... problems that would make many men find her repulsive. However, her ending has Calypso give her a man who was completely lobotomized to unconditionally love her and she was still refused. This could really imply that she may be cursed.
  • For that matter, when the man Calypso lobotomized said he would never love Mary, did Calypso really fail to grant her wish or did he actually find someone who would love Mary but removed those feelings?
• Ax-Crazy:
  • She is a little unstable.
  • Up to Eleven in Lost, where her backstory states she's lost all grip on reality and is just driving and killing because it's so natural for her.
• Blood-Splattered Wedding Dress: An interesting case where she not only killed the bride but also took her dress. Never washing it and keeping her friend's blood on it.
• Daddy's Girl: Her father's view on women's beauty (not to mention killing Mary's mother) seems to be partly responsible for Mary's own screwed-up mentality.
• Death Seeker: Becomes this in TM:Lost, with the realization that not even a man lobotomized to love her will actually do so. She now kills and drives so she could finally find someone that can put her out of her misery.
• Homing Projectile: The car's signature perfect-aim Ghost Missile returns once again, somewhat fitting for her, considering her "quirks".
• In Love with Love: She wants a husband but isn't in love with any specific man. She just wants a marriage due to her jealousy and insecurity.
• Love Makes You Evil: And Crazy She's a psychotic woman who's wish is to find someone that she loves to love her back. Unfortunately, not even Calypso's magic can do so.
• Psycho Knife Nut: Her snapping is punctuated by her taking the wedding cake knife and using it on her friend Kristen.
• Rage Breaking Point: Mary freaked out each time she heard about someone she knew getting married, but she kept out of trouble (to some degree) until serving as a bridesmaid at her friend Kristen's wedding. It was Kristen throwing the bouquet in Mary's direction that finally drove her over the edge, Mary seeing the gesture as underscoring her own failure to find a husband, and she murdered Kristen and stole her wedding dress.
• Shoot the Shaggy Dog: Her reward for winning the tournament is to be given a man who will love her without question... because he was lobotomized. Even that doesn't work - the only words he ever says to her are "I will never love you." She promptly snaps, kills him, and drives away.
• Yandere: Probably one of the most extreme examples. Unlike other yanderes, Mary doesn't have a specific lover. All she wants is a man to love her, be it a rich guy, a family man or even a hobo off the streets. True to being a yandere, rejecting her love would only piss her off. After coming to the realization that not even Calypso can grant her the love she wants, she goes completely off the deep end.

Raven

"They killed Kelly. But they won't get away with it. When I win, I'll find them both...and I'll kill them."

Driver of Shadow. A gothic girl who's put in the Asylum after witnessing her friend's death by drowning. Wants to get even at the two guys who caused it. In TM:Lost, she has turned into a night vigilante, killing the evildoers of the city.

---

• Antagonistic Offspring: Has expressed a desire to kill her parents (mostly for institutionalizing her in the first place) if she ever runs into them and keeps the voodoo dolls around for just that reason.
• Dark Is Not Evil: Compared to the other contestants, Raven is still a legitimate Anti-Hero. Her Lost profile expands this further, where she uses her Voodoo Dolls and the spirits in Shadow to fight the other Serial Killers in Midtown.
• Deadly Prank: What sets things off; two boys testing if her friend, mocked for her like of occultism, is a witch by throwing her down the pier and seeing if she floats.
• Goth: A mix of the gloomy and psycho type. Although the psycho part is understandable considering the trauma she went through,
• Heterosexual Life-Partners: Describes Kelly as her "soul mate." David Jaffe confirmed in an interview that Raven and Kelly were in fact a lesbian couple.
• A Hero To Her Hometown: Her Lost profile states she has become a hero to Midtown, by protecting the innocent, and hunting down the freaks and killers cursing the city.
• More Dakka: She has a hidden special which copies the same game's Outlaw.
• Pay Evil unto Evil: She saw her best friend murdered so she wants to get back on the men who did it. In Lost she the went onto hunt the serial killers plagueing Midtown as a night vigilante.
• Revenge: Her reason for entering the contest. Her best friend Kelly was tossed off a pier. Neither Kelly nor Raven could swim, so Raven had to watch her drown.
• Tarot Troubles: Including the obligatory Foreshadowing by drawing the "Death" card.
• Took a Level in Badass: Her Lost profile has her use her occult powers to battle evil in Midtown, and became a celebrated urban legend.
• Voodoo Doll: She gets a pair of voodoo dolls after she makes her wish. She uses it to gouge out the eyes of the two boys.

Cage

"I've been killing for 12 years. It's my passion. But something's wrong… every time I do it… it breaks my heart…"

Driver of Warthog, now a stationwagon attached to tank threads. A Serial Killer who feels remorse every time he kills. He participates seeking to have the part of his brain that makes him feel sorrow removed. In TM:Lost, he attempted to overthrow Sweet Tooth as the biggest Serial Killer, but only gets his arms and legs chopped off.

---

• An Arm and a Leg: He gets them torn off after challenging Sweet Tooth to a duel, along with his legs.
• Artificial Limbs: A bonus he gets from Calypso.
• Ax-Crazy: He wants to be a Serial Killer but is held back by his empathy, so he wants to get rid of it. In his ending he eagerly goes off on a killing spree that he is certain will overshadow even Sweet Tooth.
• Bald of Evil: A serial killer and nary a speck of hair on the head.
• Blade Below the Shoulder: He's given two blade hands by Calypso to enhance his killing power.
• Breaking Old Trends: Unlike the drivers of Warthog before and since, Cage isn't in the military, and is instead a Serial Killer.
• Evil vs. Evil: Wants to outdo Sweet Tooth in being the most notorious Serial Killer in Midtown, to the point of him directly challenging him in Lost. It doesn't end well for him.
• Fire-Breathing Weapon: Warthog's Flamethrower Special.
• In Name Only: Compared to all the other cars, Warthog looks the least like its previous incarnations. Justified in that invokedoriginally it was an unrelated car named "White Knight".
• Lack of Empathy: An interesting case where he's a serial killer that does have empathy... his only problem is that he just wants to get rid of it.
• Lampshade Hanging: In TM:Lost it is said how no one is sure how a head and torso due to having his arms ripped off by Sweet Tooth is able to drive a vehicle^note Then again we have No Face and Severed Sam so it isn't completely far fetched.
• Red Eyes, Take Warning: For some reason, his eye-color turns red in a few shots, particularly after the surgery.
• Sinister Shades: A serial killer who wears what appears to be a cross between sunglasses and goggles. For some reason, they're completely absent in the ending cutscenes.

Black

"...Name..................Black.............k..ll...............l.....Calypso...."

Driver of Manslaughter, a dump truck. A mysterious monster that's out to get Calypso. TM:Lost states he comes from another world ordered by another "more colorful" Calypso to kill his darker self.

---

• Ambiguously Human: While Black appears to be human at first glance, it definitely doesn't act like one, is seemingly unkillable and claims to have been created for the express purpose of winning the contest. It wears a mask that reveals only its eyes, possibly to hide any inhuman features. If this Black really is the same one from the original Twisted Metal, then it is a demon.
• Another Dimension: He comes from one according to TM:Lost.
• The Brute: It can barely say intelligible sentences, and is strong enough to completely No-Sell an explosive Calypso left for him.
• Continuity Nod: Shares his name with the demon Calypso used in the first game to grant wishes. Whether he's the same one or not is debatable.
• The Dreaded: Implied. Rather than facing in person when Black came around, Calypso ran away and set up a bomb. Considering he survived said bomb without a scratch, it's safe to say Calypso was right to be cautious.
• Dumb Muscle: It can barely say intelligible sentences.
• Hulk Speak: It can barely say intelligible sentences.
• Immortality: Apparently incapable of dying. Calypso takes this seriously enough to avoid even trying.
• Inexplicably Awesome: We don't know what he is, but he appears immortal. Calypso sets a bomb to kill him and doesn't leave a scratch.
• The Juggernaut: His bio states he apparently can't die, and Calypso even decided to run rather than face him.
• Mighty Glacier: Manslaughter is extremely sluggish with poor controls, but has great protection with a powerful special.
• Nigh-Invulnerability: Able to withstand explosions without even a scratch.
• No-Sell: Calypso setting a bomb to kill him failed to scratch him.

Warhawk

"You're in violation of Midtown City Code 4432! Step out of your vehicle and surrender peacefully! ...Time's up!"

The Final Boss of Black and pilot of the eponymous Warhawk, a hi-tech helicopter who's flown by a police officer in an attempt to stop the contest.

---

• Animal Motifs: Clearly a hawk (hence the said helicopter's name).
• Boss-Arena Idiocy: Had he NOT brought those mini-Minions along with him, the last contestant would literally have no way to put a scratch on him.
• Cool Helmet: His unused portrait features him wearing a black helmet with a red visor (pictured above).
• Dark Is Not Evil: A dark-colored helicopter with menacing design resembling glowing red shades... however all Warhawk did was to stop the rampage of the protagonist.
• Disney Villain Death: After defeating him, the cutscene has him being blasted out of his helicopter screaming, and cuts to black just before he presumably impacts on the ground.
• Hero Antagonist: He's probably the closest thing Black has to an unambiguously heroic driver, and he only wants to put an end to the contest that's already claimed dozens of innocent lives... and he has to die for every single character's ending. John Doe, Dollface, and (especially) Agent Stone are not thrilled about having to do the deed.
• Lightning Bruiser: He pilots a giant helicopter that is the largest vehicle in the game. As you can expect given that it's a helicopter, it's extremely fast despite its size. Not to mention it has an endless supply of missiles.
• No Name Given: The cop piloting it.
• No-Sell: Due to the Warhawk's airborne nature, it can't by hit by Darkside's ramming special.
• Puzzle Boss: His shield can only be deactivated by blowing up Minion mock-ups, which the player has to defeat first, as he flies over them.
• Red Eyes, Take Warning: Has two glowing parts that resembles red-tinted shades.
• Shout-Out: Warhawk was a 1995 PlayStation game created by SingleTrac.
• Stop, or I Will Shoot!: His pre-fight intro video has the officer say the following line captioned above.
• Super Cop: That helicopter of his probably isn't a Midtown P.D. standard-issue aircraft. He was also the officer who caught Needles Kane, aka Sweet Tooth.

Severed Sam (Sam Boomer)

Driver of 12-Pac, a racing car. Exclusive for Twisted Metal: Lost, he's a racer who was decapitated in a big car crash. He now looks for the crazed fan who took his head in the incident.

---

• Headless Horseman: Well a headless racecar driver but close enough.
• Loony Fan: He has one who ended up stealing his severed head, and Sam is in the contest to find both.
• Off with His Head!: He lost his in a car crash during a race.
• Macross Missile Massacre: His Special attack, a rack of up to 10 missiles aimed directly at the enemy.
• Our Ghosts Are Different: Somewhere between zombie-like and able to function with a lack of a head.

From Twisted Metal: Head-On

Agent Shepherd

Forget it, Calypso! The name's Secret Agenst Shepherd of the FBI. You're under arrest.

New driver of Crimson Fury. An FBI agent out to get Calypso who doesn't even entertain the idea of getting a wish from him.

---

• Badass in a Nice Suit: He has entered the contest using quite a nice black suit.
• Energy Weapon: His Special has him aiming a reticle and shooting a red laser beam.
• Fragile Speedster: Crimson Fury returns from the first game, and is as fast and fragile as ever.
• The Men in Black: Invoked, given his appearance is based on Agent K.
• Only Sane Man: As seen in his ending, he really only wants to put Calypso behind bars. Unlike Outlaw's drivers, he doesn't waste any time and has him arrested with some backup.
• Shut Up, Hannibal!: Delivers a great one in his ending.

Catfish

New driver of Hammerhead. A hunter that wants to hunt the best prey: humans.

---

• Be Careful What You Wish For: If he wins the tournament, Calypso grants his wish... only for the "prey" to turn out to be Calypso himself, who distracts Catfish with a decoy and then guns him down, taking Catfish's head and prized rifle as trophies.
• Egomaniac Hunter: His entire characterization is built around this, along with a heavy dose of Deep South.
• Karmic Death: He's an Egomaniac Hunter who has hunted several kinds of illegal game and wishes to hunt humans. He ends up getting hunted himself and gets his head mounted on a wall.
• Hunting the Most Dangerous Game: He thinks humans are the only worthy game left for him to hunt, having defeated every other worthwhile quarry on the planet.

Chuckie Floop

Voiced By: Dave Wittenberg

New driver of Spectre. Actually just guy who won Specter as a prize from a radio station contest. He joins the Twisted Metal tournament but isn't sure what he wants yet.

---

• Casanova Wannabe: Implied by his Imagine Spot during his ending where he is surrounded by beautiful women in bikinis. It's likely that’s what he was planning on spending all that cash on.
• Greed: He ends up wishing for a lot of money… and ends up drowning in it.
  Chuckie: It all comes back to cash, bro. The greenbacks, the dead presidents, simoles! CLAMS! HAHA, YEAH! THAT'S RIGHT, BABY! MONEY!
• Homing Projectile: Ghost Missile, a Spectre classic.
• Naïve Newcomer: Due to winning Spectre in a radio station contest, he isn't entirely sure how the contest works or what the prize is, and is somewhat nervous around Calypso.
  Calypso: Congratulations, Mr. Floop. You have won this year's Twisted Metal.
  Chuckie Floop: (Awkwardly) Here I am! Okay, winner, right? Big time? Not a loser, winner.
• Unfazed Everyman: He's just a normal guy who happens to win a ticket (and also the appropriate car) into the contest.

Angel

Voiced By: Kim Mai Guest

New driver of Thumper. Wants to outshine her brothers and friends with the best customized car.

---

• Be Careful What You Wish For: Her wish for a car that can "shake the world" results in it literally shaking the area around her as she's driving, causing her to get flattened by a building.
• Berserk Button: She doesn't like being called "little girl" or "sweetheart".
• Bullying a Dragon: Sure, Angel, constantly insult and threaten Calypso, who is a Reality Warper capable of seemingly doing anything, before he grants you your wish he can easily twist against you. See where that gets you.
• Cool Car: While Thumper is already pretty cool, she wants it to be even cooler.
  Angel: See my car here? But I want more. More lift, more bounce, more thump. And I don't just want it louder. I want it bigger, I want it badder, I want something that can shake the world, yo!
• Playing with Fire: It's Thumper after all.
• Pretty Fly For A White Gal: She's a female jive turkey.
• Video Game Flamethrowers Suck: Averted- again, it's Thumper.

Colonel Hall

Voiced By: Brett Pels

New driver of Warthog. A military man that wishes to get the ultimate weapon, a weapon that'll allow him to stop the evildoers of the world.

---

• Drugs Are Bad: While he wants to kill all evildoers, he especially has a bone to pick with drug lords for corrupting the nation's youth.
• Homing Projectile: Keeps the "Patriot Missiles" special.
• Infinity +1 Sword: He basically asks for one as his wish.
• Pay Evil unto Evil: His goal is to kill every evildoer in the world. It's a little intense, but given the kind of world he lives in…
• Scary Black Man: A little different than normal, given that this one is just a frighteningly angry military officer.
• Wouldn't Hurt a Child: Unfortunately, the children don't have the same reservations against shooting him in his ending.

Gene Ruttish

Driver of ATV. One of Cousin Eddy's colleagues that enters separately. He wants to become the "most desireable man on the planet".

---

• Chick Magnet: His wish comes true in his ending. It's much more effective than he expected... or wanted.
• Coming and Going: Very fucked up version, he gets all women wanting to ravish him, but instead of sex alas he gets killed by suffocating by the mass of ladies.
• Dragon with an Agenda: Well, not quite Cousin Eddy's dragon per se, but he does go behind his back and enters the contest to get his own wish.
• Fragile Speedster: Possibly even more than Mr. Grimm. While as fast as Grimm, his armor is pretty much non-existent, and he goes down even faster than the motorcycle guy. And unlike Grimm, he doesn't have the power to back it up.
• Joke Character: He has even less health than Mr. Grimm and, unlike Mr. Grimm, his special weapon is nowhere near strong enough to make up for it. If you consider Head-On too easy, ATV is the vehicle for you.
  • Glass Cannon: That being said, he'll become this when you upgrade his special weapon, replacing the wimpy shotgun with bundles of dynamite, which are powerful, home in on enemies and are quite spammable.
• Mook: The Cousin Eddy mid-boss includes a fight against 4 ATVs.
• The Unintelligible: The guy has to be inspired by Boomhauer. The game even provides complimentary subtitles (that "translate" his dialogue rather than transcribe it) for him, although Calypso seems capable of understanding him without any issue.

Cousin Eddy

Driver of Cousin Eddy, a beatup RV. A foolish hillbilly that likes two things: shiny stuff and breaking things. Serves as the Mid-Boss of the game after he invaded the contest uninvited.

---

• Attention Deficit... Ooh, Shiny!: Shiny stuff is about the only thing he likes.
• Badass Normal: Similar to Minion from Twisted Metal 2, he's able to get away with intimidating Calypso into giving him what he wants (both of them Neck Lift him, too). Unlike the powerful demon Minion, Eddy is a Dumb Muscle hillbilly with no special powers.
• Blood Knight: He didn't even know there was a contest going on, and just joined in because he found the explosions entertaining.
  Cousin Eddy: I've seen… your demolition derby! I saw you shootin' each other… (chuckles, pointing at his RV) I built this!
• The Brute: He forced everyone in his town to set up his RV by brute strength.
• Dumb Muscle: His ending reveals that Calypso didn't invite him to tournament, he just entered because he thought it looked fun, and when Calypso refuses to give him anything for winning, Eddy Neck Lifts him and threatens to pummel if he doesn't.
• Expy: He serves a very similar role to Minion's depiction from Twisted Metal Black, including the same Special Attack and Puzzle Boss battle.
• Fat Bastard: A big, fat brute who gets off on breaking things.
• Manchild: His brain stopped developing at age 3.
• Mooks: Before fighting him, one has to deal with 4 of his hillbilly friends riding ATVs.
• Punctuated! For! Emphasis!: In his ending, when he finds out the demolition derby was a contest, he excitedly asks what he wins. When Calypso tells him he gets no prize because he wasn't an official contestant, Eddy lifts him up into the air and asks again: "What. I. Win?"
• Refuge in Audacity: In his ending, he more or less joined a tournament uninvited, killed everyone else in said tournament, threatened to choke the reward giver when he refuses to give the intruder the reward, gets it without any strings attached, and leaves without any repercussions.
• Simple-Minded Wisdom: Granted he may not realize it himself, his wish was so simply worded and unopen to interpretation (He pointed at his RV and said "Make it better.", there's not really many ways that could be interpreted.), He not only gets his wish without Calypso screwing him over at all, he gets EXACTLY what he wished for, to Calypso's lament. Could probably count as an Achievement In Ignorance.
• Surprisingly Realistic Outcome: During his ending, Calypso refuses to grant his wish because he never entered the Twisted Metal competition officially. Fortunately for Eddy, the hillbilly has other ways to get what he wants.
• Too Dumb to Fool: Calypso can't cheat his wish as it's too simple and straightforward for him to twist.

From Twisted Metal 3

Amber Rose

Driver of Flower Power, a beetle car. An environmentalist that seeks to "cover the world in flowers".

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• Fanservice: There's a special code to turn her mugshot profile into an ass-shot.
• Granola Girl: She's an environmental activist. Apparently she's so committed that she even collects the scrap metal from previous tournaments.
• Green Aesop: Subverted, obviously. Her wish to fill the world with flowers ends up with monstrous carnivorous plants swamping the entire planet and eating her alive.
  Calypso: I picked my favorites. Aren't they beautiful?
• Homing Projectile: A rose-shaped missile that homes in the enemy.
• Police Are Useless: She claims so in her profile.

Buster Cobb

Driver of Auger, a construction vehicle with a drill on its front. He's pissed off at the tournament bringing down his buildings, but he wish others to see "his inner child".

---

• Expy: The driver of Slamm in Small Brawl looks much closer to a younger Buster than Mr. Slamm's original driver, Simon Whittlebone.
• Dual Boss: Together with Super Slamm in Twisted Metal 4.
• Fountain of Youth: His wish to "connect with his inner child" results in Calypso turning him into a baby.
• Mighty Glacier: Auger is crazy slow, but very tough and very strong.
• Motive Decay: His bio states he's entering the tournament because he's angry at it for destroying his buildings. Out of nowhere his ending has him want others to see "his inner child."
• This Is a Drill: His Special.

Club Kid

Driver of Club Kid, a micro car. Some dude who wants to party all night.

---

• The Computer Is a Cheating Bastard: While most cars in Twisted Metal 3 are certainly cheaters in the Insane Difficulty setting, not all have a Special Attack as irritating as him. His Special consists of a whirling void that attracts all nearby cars to its center, spinning them around for damage before exploding. Considering that he spams 4-5 as he drives by, and how all other CPU cars keep on firing at random even while trapped, you can stay trapped on this all the way from full health to death.
• Evil Brit: He's the only non-american contestant, hailing from London.
• "Have a Nice Day" Smile: He and his car have this painted all over.
• No Name Given: Unless we're supposed to believe his name is actually Club Kid.

Damien Coles

Driver of Firestarter, a hot rod. A pyromaniac.

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• Evil Redhead: A pyromaniac and serial arsonist with flaming red hair to match.
• Playing with Fire: The only reason Thumper got cheated out of his original Special.
• Spontaneous Human Combustion: According to the manual, he mastered this art. Don't ask how/why.
• Video Game Flamethrowers Suck: Unlike Thumper, Firestarter's Special isn't that much useful. Though using more than one with rear attacks while the enemy is frozen is a very effective tactic.

Lance Wylder

Ex-New driver of Spectre. Wants to be famous.

---

• Badass Longcoat: He looks quite cool on his portrait. His 3D model, on the other hand...
• The Casanova: He comes out as this in his biography.
• Expy: He looks very similar to the previous Spectre driver, Ken Masters, even wishing for the same thing (albeit worded differently).
• Homing Projectile: The Ghost Missile in this version acts pretty much as always, homing in on a target and going through everything to get to it.

Granny Dread

Ex-New driver of Hammerhead. Wants to stop the contest from disturbing her neighborhood's peace and interrupting her TV watching.

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• Batter Up!: She has one in her bio pic.
• Be Careful What You Wish For: In classic Twisted Metal style, if she wins, Calypso straps her to a chair with eye-opening gizmos à la A Clockwork Orange and forces her to watch daytime television endlessly. Even worse, she's given nothing but SMPTE color bars, and can't change the channel. It's so tedious that she ends up begging Calypso to make it stop.
• Never Mess with Granny: She drives a monster truck, has a pet pit bull, and entered the tournament to kill everyone who wrecked her home town and stopped her from watching her TV shows.
• Ramming Always Works: Her Special was turned into this: using it propels Hammerhead forward with great force.

Primeval

Final Boss of the game, driving a hunting jeep. Only addressed as an acquaintance of Calypso.

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• Bald of Evil: No hair and, unlike some of the other demons, no horns.
• Diabolus ex Nihilo: There is barely any description given as to who this guy is or where he came from.
• Ditto Fighter: Sort of. His special is a mesh of Roadkill, Mr. Grimm, Warthog and Flower Power's Specials. The manual, however, claims he has the power of all other contestants.
• Homing Projectile: His special. It's next to impossible to dodge on top of dealing a ton of damage.
• Lightning Bruiser: Despite what you'd expect from a jeep that offers no protection to the driver he's far more durable than any of the playable vehicles. On top of that he'll spam a very powerful Homing Projectile.
• SNK Boss: His Special is deadly powerful, painfully homes in and has such pushback force that it makes your car slide all over the place. He's also prone to spam it like there's no tomorrow, and combined with his aggressive AI, there's little chance of survival on a face-to-face confrontation. Fortunately there's also that lovely lower floor opening into open sky.

From Twisted Metal 4

Melvin

One of Sweet Tooth's clown minions, and the one that does most of the talking to the winners of the completion.

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• Evil Gloating: The endings where the winner's wish backfires often conclude with him mocking their plight with a one-liner.
• Gangsta Style: In Quatro's ending, he brandishes a pistol against the alien in this manner.
• Hypocritical Humor: In Microblast's ending, Melvin makes a Hurricane of Puns at the poor leprechaun's expense… completely ignoring the fact that they're practically the same height.
• Monster Clown: Just like his boss.
• Oh, Crap!: He has this reaction when Meter Maid gives him a Shockingly Expensive Bill for all the parking fines Sweet Tooth and his gang have accumulated.
  Melvin: This fine is in the millions! This can't-!
• Rage Breaking Point: After getting fed up with the Joneses constantly making addendums to their wish, he immediately orders them to Get Out!.
  Melvin: GRANTED FOR THE SAKE OF ALL THAT IS SANE! THAT'S IT! It's parked outside, someone will see you out. BYE!
• Sophisticated as Hell: He can be surprisingly verbose depending on who wins.
• Tom the Dark Lord: He's a Monster Clown and the Big Bad's spokesman… and he's also called Melvin.
• Villainous Breakdown: When Calypso starts fighting with Sweet Tooth over the ring in his ending, Melvin can only beg them to stop before screaming in terror as their battle causes the souls inside the ring to escape in a massive explosion.

Orbital

A British secret agent who wants to restore his face after being half-deformed. Drives a sleek sports car.

---

• An Ice Person: His Special is a spherical ball which pulls the enemies into it and freezes them.
• Expy: Clearly based on James Bond with a bit of Two-Face thrown in for some reason. This also makes him very similar to Crimson Fury's driver Agent Stone.
• I Just Want to Be Normal: His motivation to enter the contest. Unfortunately, poor wording on his part ends up with him turning most of the agency he works with into Two-Faced freaks like him. Essentially making his disfigurement "normal".
• Idiot Ball: He specifically states that he "[doesn't] want to be the only one on the planet with only half a face" (emphasis added) when making his wish. No points for guessing how Sweet Tooth spins this.
• Two-Faced: A rare non-villainous one, half of his face is literally a skull thanks to a bio-weapon created by his archenemy Dr. Rhoemer horribly disfiguring him.

Pizza Boy (Conner Nazang)

A pizza delivery boy/street racer who wants the most powerful car that he can use to beat all street racers. Drives a Rice Burner.

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• Beware the Silly Ones: Despite a being Totally Radical pizza delivery boy, he's also apparently extremely rich via extorting customers using heavy machine guns.
• Deadly Disc: His special fires a pair of buzzsaws that home into the target, referred to as pizza cutters in the manual.
• Disproportionate Retribution: Apparently shot up a person's bird bath for the owner not tipping well, causing him to be sentenced to… 1000 hours of community service of delivering pizza to Twisted Metal tournaments.
• Nitro Boost: His wish is to have a highly tuned car so powerful he could easily win races. Said car was equipped with a Nitro Boost so powerful that it caused his car to fly off out to space and into a blackhole.
• No Celebrities Were Harmed: A blond, white Hip-Hop guy. Sounds familiar?
• Pretty Fly for a White Guy: He's an expy of Eminem, all the way down to trying to rap. He's not quite as good at it.
• Totally Radical: Constantly spewing out painfully awkward 90s hip-hop slang.
• The Unintelligible: Due to the aforementioned speech patterns, you'd be forgiven if you had absolutely no idea what he actually wished for in his own ending.

Quatro

A four-armed alien cop tasked to apprehend Sweet Tooth. Drives a Xeon hoverbike.

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• Badass Biker: A very skilled, very courageous cop on a sweet hovercycle.
• Big Damn Heroes: When Quatro was obviously outgunned and outnumbered by Sweet Tooth's gang, an Inter-galactic police department hovercar suddenly appears outside telling the gang that they're surrounded and ordering them to surrender. The Clowns promptly drop their guns and put their hands above their heads.
• Bond One-Liner: Right after the clowns surrender,
  Quatro: "Your move, Sweet Tooth."
• Bounty Hunter: Described to be one by Sweet Tooth's assistant.
• Expy: A weird three-way. Story-wise, as a police character who wants to arrest the host of the Twisted Metal tournament, he's one of Outlaw's drivers. Gameplay wise, he's a a Glass Cannon biker a la Mr. Grimm and he has a similar shockwave special to Axel.
• Genre Refugee: The only alien character in the series.^note Although Crimson Fury and Warthog's endings in the first game involves a black box which reveals that an airplane was shot down by a UFO.
• Guns Akimbo: Pulls of a double guns akimbo when he confronts Sweet Tooth and his gang.
• Multiarmed And Dangerous: He has four arms, holding a gun in each.
• Numerical Theme Naming: Quatro means "four" in Italian, Spanish and Portuguese, fitting for a Multi-Armed and Dangerous Super Cop.
• Shout-Out: To RoboCop, a lot of his lines in his ending reference Murphy.
  "One way or another, you're coming with me."
  "Your move, Sweet Tooth."
• Super Cop: An alien one sent to arrest Sweet Tooth, Calypso, Grimm, and Rob Zombie.
• The Unintelligible: He speaks in some sci-fi alien effect, which requires subtitles in his ending to be understood.

The Joneses (Ralph, Meg, Mitch and Tammy)

A family of Twisted Metal fanatics who want to take Sweet Tooth on a holiday with them in a new RV. Drives a station wagon.

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• Big, Screwed-Up Family: One could only wonder what Mr. and Mrs. Jones taught their kids that made them fans of a Blood Sport.
• Expy: Its special, "Hornets", is practically Warthog's old Patriotic Missiles.
• Shout-Out: The family themselves are very reminiscent of the Bundys from Married... with Children, while their car is a dead ringer for the Wagon Queen Family Truckster from National Lampoon's Vacation.
• Taking You with Me: An annoyed Sweet Tooth drives the family's RV off the cliff, possibly killing himself and the family.
• Too Dumb to Live: In what may be the single most brazenly foolish wish in the entire series, one of the features they request for their trailer is Sweet Tooth as their personal driver. They're lucky he at least makes their deaths quick.

Microblast

A leprechaun who has grown tired of everyone bullying him due to his small size and wants to get back on them by being bigger. Drives a life-size toy car.

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• Joke Character: He is among the weakest (or possibly THE weakest) in the game, having little armor and a special weapon which is just Speed missiles with laughing sound effects. He does make up for this with his agility.
• Kaiju: He became a giant and terrorized the city. Unfortunately, before he could wreak havoc, he became a giant statue.
• The Napoleon: Melvin really loves riling him up about his size in his ending.

Trash Man

A garbage man who wants to turn the whole world into a habitat his pets could live in. Drives a garbage truck.

---

• The Brute: A great big, barely articulate bruiser.
• Dumb Muscle: Doesn't really have anything intelligent to say.
• Fat Bastard: He is pretty big.
• Mighty Glacier: He himself is a giant wall of muscle, but this is especially true of his truck, one of the biggest, heaviest, beefest in the game. Its top speed is about average, but its handling is extremely sluggish.

Meter Maid (Zanita Corbett)

A sexy parking attendant who wants Sweet Tooth to pay his parking summons. Drives a 3-wheeled meter car.

---

• Bait-and-Switch: Sweet Tooth plays along and agrees to Zanita's conditions, thinking he's going to have sex with her only to realize at the last minute that she's actually making him take driving classes as an alternative to paying his hefty parking tickets.
• Big Damn Heroes: She manages to make the Monster Clown Sweet Tooth, the crazy guy staging the tournament, do a little bit of community service by taking up driving lessons. And she didn't even get screwed over whatsoever, unlike other cops (except Quatro).
• Expy: Of Outlaw, Twisted Metal 4 being the only game to lack the otherwise recurring vehicle. Unlike Quatro, she's less bounty hunter, and more of a conventional real world cop, albeit a meter maid. She drives an official police vehicle, and even has a multi-targetting lighting move like previous Outlaws.
• Honey Trap: Uses her status as a Ms. Fanservice to trick Sweet Tooth into attending driving lessons to pay off his parking tickets.
• Ms. Fanservice: She certainly is compared to Jamie.
• Shock and Awe: Her special weapon, the Electro Ray (adapted from Outlaw's Tazer), which has an additional ability to suck the health of opponents into her own.
• Shockingly Expensive Bill: Her goal is to get Sweet Tooth to pay for the millions of dollars in traffic tickets he and his crew have acquired. Of course, he can pay in another way… that being driving lessons.
• Stripperiffic: Though she is a real meter maid, you would be forgiven for mistaking her for a stripper dressed as a meter maid due to her skimpy attire.
• Take a Third Option: Her ending has her giving parking summons to Sweet Tooth worth millions. She does, however, promise him that she'll clear the summons if he did a little "service". Rather than paying the fines and thinking he's getting lucky, Sweet Tooth unwittingly does what actually turns out to be actual community service in the form of driving lessons.
• Traffic Wardens: It's right there in her name. She entered the tournament just so she could fine Sweet Tooth for staging the Twisted Metal tournament and all its related traffic offenses.

Goggle Eyes

A pest exterminator who wants to kill all bugs. Drives a pest exterminator van.

---

• Ax-Crazy: Downplayed, but his hatred of bugs is so strong he created the most lethal pesticide known to man in collage, and he's rather serious about his goal to cause mass bug extinction.
  Goggle Eyes: My wish is to trap the bugs so I can KILL THEM ALL!
• Goggles Do Nothing: Presumably they're protective goggles, but he never wears them over his eyes, so it's a moot point.
• Jack of All Stats: His states are all 3/5, although his special weapon is 4/5.
• Orifice Evacuation: Happens in his ending, when all bugs in the world come out of his body as he wished to "contain them all" to catch.
• Video Game Flamethrowers Suck: Mighty averted, although its not really a flamethrower. The Greentox has fairly long range, does a quite a lot of damage and it sets opponents on fire.

General Warthog

An old-fashioned army general who dislikes the army's usage of computers and electronics for modern warfare. He wants to command a powerful old-schooled army unmatched by any modernized military. Drives a World War I tank.

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• Authority Equals Asskicking: He's a general who entered Twisted Metal tournament, showing he's no slouch in combat himself.
• Hypocrite: Dislikes computers and electronics in modern warfare, uses a Kill Sat as his special.
• Kill Sat: His special weapon, the Ion Blast has him planting a marker in which could be detonated like a remote bomb. This causes an ion cannon satellite to shoot at where the marker was planted. A direct hit (difficult to pull off) sets the unlucky bastard on fire. The weapon itself might be a Shout-Out to Command & Conquer.
• The Neidermeyer: Constantly shouting like he's giving orders, constantly referring to himself in the third person, massive chip on his shoulder, and dreams of subjugating the world with a massive army. Yep.
• Schizo Tech: He drives a WW1 tank filled with an arsenal of modern weapons and has a futuristic Kill Sat as his special weapon.
• Tank Goodness: It may be ridiculously outdated by now but that is a Mark IV tank he's driving there. He probably chose this tank to fit in with his 'old-schooled military' persona. In Warthog's ending, Melvin oddly refers to the tank as Trojan.

Drag Queen (Dennis Flanders)

A Drag Queen who wants to become a pop star. Drives a tricked out Camaro hot rod.

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• Camp Gay: Textbook definition.
• Dude Looks Like a Lady: Naturally. He's a Drag Queen.
• Earn Your Happy Ending: He gets to perform in drag to a sold-out crowd in his ending.
• Enormous Engine: A flamethrower even shoots out from the blowers!
• Fat Bastard: And he seems to be able to fit in that hot rod of his somehow...
• In-Series Nickname: "Ms. Petunia", according to the manual.
• Meaningful Name: As explained here. Also Drag Queen's car is modified for drag racing (as seen in Pizza Boy's ending).
• Performance Artist: As seen in his ending, though what's actually going on could be considered vague at best.
• Video Game Flamethrowers Suck: Averted. This one's a little closer to Thumper in terms of effectiveness.

Rob Zombie

A.K.A Mr. Zombie. An undead musician who wants the world to hear his awesome music. But you've probably already heard a good number of his songs since 3...

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• As Himself: Well, himself as an actual zombie, but yes.
• Expy: Stats-wise, he's very similar to Orbital. His special weapon is also the same, except that instead of freezing you on explosion, it scorches you.
• Mundane Made Awesome: He says his wish is to "let this world hear the wails and war cries of a dead man's soul". Cue music video.
• Our Zombies Are Different: It's not entirely clear what his deal is, but he's clearly very different from Mortimer, who is a restless spirit.
• Playing with Fire: His Special's shockwave sets enemies on fire.
• Shout-Out: He drives the Munster Koach from The Munsters. Oddly though its called the Dragula (the other awesome lookin' hot rod in the show) ingame. The Munster Koach was used in Rob Zombie's music video for the aptly titled Dragula. Coincidentally, Hot Rod Herman's remix of that song is used for the Construction Yard arena.
• Signature Headgear: His trademark top hat.
• Species Surname: A zombie named, well, Rob Zombie.
• The Voiceless: He has his floating head henchman speak on his behalf.

Crusher, Moon Buggy and RC Car

Three new cars that appear as stage bosses in tournament mode. Neither of them are given an actual driver or any backstory, they are just there. Crusher is a tank-threaded scrap crusher, Moon Buggy is a 6-wheeled moon trekker and RC Car is a life-size... RC car.

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• Energy Weapon: The RC Car's Special is this.
• Fragile Speedster: RC Car. Pretty good speed, very little armor.
• Frickin' Laser Beams: RC Car uses an enhanced version of the Laser Special available to custom cars, only this one has much longer range and hits really hard.
• Lightning Bruiser: Moon Buggy is quite fast for a car his size.
• Mighty Glacier: Crusher is as slow as a large tank tread-driven scrap crusher would be, but takes a fair amount of punishment before going down.
• Shock and Awe: Moon Buggy's Quasar Special launches three whirling balls of energy that last a long time, have persistent tracking, and not only zap nearby targets with devastating lightning damage, but also jostle them around helplessly in the air.

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