Jou's (rarely seen) brothers Shin and Shuu became Jim in the American dub of Digimon Adventure (and dubs based on it). Hilariously enough, the final episode shows the two standing side by side; this is never commented on. Whether or not this was intentional or a translation error is unknown.
In a much more minor example, 02's dub also made Adventure's Digitamamon and his cousin who ran a Chinese restaurant, the same character.
Atlas from The Eighties' Astro Boy. He is a composite of three different characters from the manga: the original Atlas, a minor villain with a new type of AI that allowed him to break the laws of robotics; Cobalt, Astro's "brother"; and the Blue Knight, who was the robot version of Malcolm X. The 2000s series featured the Blue Knight as his own character, but its version of Atlas was still a composite of Atlas and Cobalt.
Due to the time constraints of a feature film, the Angels Zeruel and Armisael were merged into one character in the second Rebuild of Evangelion movie. Notably, Zeruel did not display the ability to absorb and assimilate victims in the original anime, a trait that instead belonged to Armisael.
Also, Sahaquiel's appearance. Being more eldritch than in the original, its first form shown, as a big immaterial floating ball of black and white eye-spots takes some hints from Leliel and Matarael, who, naturally, didn't show up in Rebuild.
Madame Sulliman from Howl's Moving Castle is a combination of two characters from the book: Howl's old magic teacher, who was not affiliated with the king, and Wizard Suliman, the King's head wizard. He is a young man transformed into a dog, who ends up marrying one of Sophie's sisters.
In the anime adaptation of Death Note, the US president whom Mello blackmails, and later dies ,with Word Of God stating that it's "believed Kira disposed of", is combined with the character of his replacement from the manga.
Mariel Lubie from the Code GeassAlternate Continuity manga Suzaku of the Counterattack combines aspects of three characters from the anime (Cecile's Gadgeteer Genius, Euphemia's being role as Suzaku's love interest, and Shirley's "girl next door" qualities) into a single character who meshes better with the story's setting.
Kris from the games and Marina from the anime are cross-canon counterparts, but Lyra from both is a completely separate character. In Special, Crystal was originally a counterpart to Kris, but once Kris was removed from the game series canon in the remakes of Gold and Silver and replaced with Lyra, Crystal became a counterpart to the latter.
Ash. He was originally just an anime counterpart of Red, the protagonist of the first generation. Starting around Pokémon Gold and Silver he started following the path of Ethan, the (first) protagonist of that generation. Ever since he has accomplished the protagonist of that generation's goals, though they usually interact with Ash at one time or another (with their roles not in relation to their game counterparts).
A few Pokémon Special characters are composite characters, usually mixed with minor characters. Falkner first appeared as the Police character in Elm's lab, for example.
Inverted in the anime version of Kimikiss. The game featured a main protagonist named Kouichi Aihara; this was split into two distinct protagonists: Kouichi Sanada (he gained his appearance) and Kazuki Aihara (he gained his soccer skills).
Jamil Neate from After War Gundam X can be seen as an amalgamation of Amuro Ray, Bright Noah, Kamille Bidan and Quattro Bajeena. The kicker is that he manages to stand out as a well-written character on his own.
Devilman vs Getter Robo manga combines different versions of probably all characters, aside Emperor Gore - Akira acts like his manga version but has powers of 70's anime Devilman, Ryoma and Hayato are their 70's anime incarnations with few traits of their manga versions and Silene seems to be a mix of anime version and later incarnations from different titles.
Kira Yamato is a mix of Amuro and Loran Cehack, even borrowing Loran's story/romance arc (e.g., Kira/Loran's relationships with Fllay Allster/Sochie Heim and later, Lacus Clyne/Dianna Soriel, with the latter being a platonic couple).
Athrun Zala is a mix of Char Aznable and Heero Yuy. Some of Char's traits that appear in Athrun include him piloting red mobile suits and served as Kira's main rival in both shows. Similar to Heero, Athrun pilots transformable mobile suits, and has a tendency to self-detonate his mobile suits.
Dana Sterling in Anime/Robotech is a composite of Komilia Maria Fallyna Jenius and Jeanne Francaix. She's the daughter of Max and Milia/Miriya, appearing as the former in the first part of the series; she grows up into the latter in the second part.
Mallanox in Eagle Riders, the Cut-and-Paste Translation of Gatchaman II and Gatchaman F, is an example. In Gatchaman II, Leader X employed Gel Sadra as his lieutenant, who was replaced by Count Egobossler in Gatchaman F after the former peacefully died. To transition between both shows, Gel Sadra's original death scene was altered to have Cybercon (Leader X) transform Mallanox into a new form: Happy Boy (Count Egobossler).
Oda Nobukatsu is a composite of the namesake aka Oda Nobuyuki, his son Tsuda Nobusumi (which explained his name change, as historically Nobukatsu was killed by Oda Nobunaga when Nobusumi was still an infant), and then Oichi, Oda Nobunaga's sister. Yes, he was sent off, crossdressed, to Asai Nagamasa.
Saitou Yoshikatsu is a composite of the namesake and his son Tatsuoki.
Himiko is the composite of the three Japanese emperors that may be on throne in the latter half of 16th century.
Escaflowne: The Movie writes out Emperor Dornkirk and makes Folken the leader of Zaibach in his place.
Comic Books
Done with the same character in every sufficiently late adaptation of the Incredible Hulk, sort of. In the comics, Bruce Banner has five different personalities and four different Hulk transformations which correspond with them. Adaptations usually shave off Joe Fixit, Green scar and Professor Hulk and make Savage Hulk the only form.
The 1990s cartoon has his powers altered (it's complicated); he becomes Fixit at times.
The Marvel vs. Capcom series of games actually had Hulk in his Professor Hulk incarnation, fighting like a savage hulk but speaking normally and generally being intelligent in between battles and in his endings. Along rolls Marvel vs. Capcom 3 and he assumes the Savage Hulk incarnation again. The game officially takes place after all the other games, so it seems as though he has multiple personas in the series as well, but those two are the only ones seen.
The Ultimate X-Men version of Proteus is a composite of the original Marvel Universe Proteus (Kevin McTaggart, son of Moira and Joseph McTaggart) and Legion (David Haller, son of Professor X and Gabrielle Haller). Ultimate Proteus is David Xavier, son of Moira and Professor X.
Inverted, however, with William Stryker, who becomes two characters. William Sr is an anti-mutant military leader, as in the second X-Men film, while William Jr is the religious extremist from the original comics who later becomes Ultimate Universe Master Mold; gigantic Sentinel.
The Ultimate version of Lady Deathstrike had a past history as a thief alongside Storm, apparently borrowed from Earth-616's Yukio, who is close friends with Storm and has a past history as a thief alongside Gambit.
The Ultimate Marvel version of Mary Jane in Ultimate Spider-Man is arguably an MJ/Liz/Gwen-composite, as she is a highschool classmate of Peter's who knows him since childhood, she is more interested in science than her mainstream counterpart and there is a bridge scene homage (although the mainstream Mary Jane had a few similar scenes too, including one where she was dropped of the Queensboro Bridge just like the MJ of the movies). Gwen is in the series, too, but is given a different role and personality than her mainstream counterpart.
Also in Ultimate Spider-Man, Liz Allan, who was mutant-phobic for a long time, discovers she's herself a mutant - this universe's Firestar. In a great twist of irony from the writer, she is helped to accept her newly activated powers by Spidey and Bobby "Iceman" Drake, in a story arc titled Spider-Man and His Amazing Friends.
Yet another Ultimate Spider-Man example—the Hobgoblin in the Ultimate Universe is Harry Osborn, killing two birds of the Green Goblin's legacy (Harry following in his father's foot steps and the Hobgoblin) with one stone.
Ultimate Jessica Drew/Spider-Woman is an Opposite-Sex Clone of Peter Parker, introduced in the Ultimate Clone Saga as the only Spider-Clone not to go completely mad, and who then sets off to forge her own identity. So she's a combination of the 616 Jessica and Ben Reilly/The Scarlet Spider.
In The Ultimates, Pluskommander Geheneris Hala´son Mahr Vehl serves the role of Captain Mar Vell, but his name includes a varient of "Genis", Mar-Vell's son's name.
The Ultimate version of Alpha Flight has two examples. Sasquatch has Rahne Sinclair (Wolfsbane in the mainstream continuity) as its human form, rather than Walter Langkowski, while Vindicator is John Wraith (a member of Weapon X) rather than James Hudson.
Ultimate Doc Ock was the Mad Scientist behind the Clone Saga, taking the role of 616's Jackal.
In Daredevil Noir, Elektra and Bullseye are combined as Eliza, the Bull's Eye Killer.
Meanwhile, in X-Men Noir, Anna-Marie Rankin is a composite of Rogue and the Mimic, Calvin Rankin.
And in Iron Man Noir, Baron Zemo is a mish-mash of, well, Baron Zemo and Howard Stark.
In Threeboot Legion Of Super-Heroes, Micro Lad/Colossal Boy is a combination of, you guessed it, Micro Lad (a villain from the original continuity who could shrink) and Colossal Boy (a hero from the original continuity who could grow). The twist is that this Micro Lad comes from Big City, where everyone is a giant, and his power is technically to shrink to normal human size. Virtually everyone but himself refers to him as Colossal Boy because the Micro Lad name is just too awkward and confusing to normal sized people.
When Devil's Due Publishing renewed the G.I. Joe comics during the 2000's, years after the original Marvel run was canceled, they merged Overkill, the leader of Cobra's Battle Android Troopers, with Robert Skelton, the formerly nameless S.A.W. Viper who killed several Joes during the early 90's.
In the original Supreme, Kid Supreme was more or less Supreme's sidekick. In Alan Moore's run, Kid Supreme was the superhero identity of a young Ethan Crane before he grew older and became Supreme.
Most incarnations of Two-Face in Batman stories from all media use the "obsessed with duality and primarily evil" personality of Paul Sloane, the second Two-Face from the Golden Age, but with Harvey Dent's background and name. The issue becomes a might confused when both versions operate within the same continuity, as they do now (though Sloane now calls himself the Charlatan).
In Supergirl: Adventures in the 8th Grade Linda Lee's Evil Twin Belinda "Superior Girl" Zee has a few obvious Bizarro elements, but is thematically closer to "Dark Supergirl".
On the animated version of Mortadelo y Filemón, they had the Agente Bestiajez fulfilling the roles of many one-off characters in the comics, probably so they could reuse his design and voice actor.
In Fables several similar characters from different fairy tales are often revealed to be one person. Bigby Wolf was Big Bad Wolf in both Three Little Pigs and Little Red Riding Hood. With an exception of Jack Sprat, if there was a character named Jack in any fairy tale, it was really Jack Horner, and if there was a unnamed witch, it was Frau Totenkinder.
In DC's Ame-Comi line, Duela Dent's father is Jack "the Joker" Dent, a combination of Harvey Dent and the Joker in the form of a relatively mundane gangster. This is probably to justify the fact that she's better known as the Joker's Daughter despite never actually being that in any other continuity.
Because there are no male superheroes in the setting, several heroines receive elements of their Spear Counterparts — for instance, Power Girl is best pals with Jimmy Olsen, who alerts her with his signal watch at the first sign of trouble. Furthermore, Natasha Irons is Steel and the resident Gadgeteer Genius of the hero set, and Jesse Chambers (here The Flash rather than Jesse Quick) now has a characterization reminiscent of Bart Allen. Jade (in addition to now being Chinese) also has parts of Hal Jordan's origin.
DC's New 52Earth 2 has the Atom as a composite of the Golden Age Atom (the name Al Pratt and the atomic powers), his son Damage (elements of his costume), his godson Atom Smasher (the power to grow in size), and the unrelated Captain Atom (employed by the military).
And the fact Earth-2 Alan Scott is gay is taken fom his son Obsidian, since writer James Robinson felt bad that de-aging Alan was removing a gay character from existence.
Red Tornado is a Fem Bot, combining elements of the Golden Age Red Tornado, Abigail Hunkel (or more likely her granddaughter Cyclone) and the male robot version.
Lee Travis, the original Crimson Avenger, is now an African Americanwoman like Jill Carlyle, the second Crimson Avenger.
In the 1940s, Jack Kirby created "Brooklyn" of the Boy Commandos, a tough Brooklynite kid in a derby hat. In the 1970s he created Superman and New Gods supporting character Dan "Terrible" Turpin, a tough Brooklynite police officer in a derby hat. In Post Crisis comics Turpin is an adult Brooklyn (in his original New Gods appearances, Turpin seems to have been a police officer since before World War II; another officer talks about "the old days, when you took the tommy guns away from the gangs!", which suggests the 1920s.)
The New 52Superman character H'el appears to take aspects of the Eradicator (obsessed with rebuilding Krypton), Bizarro (chalky skin, reversed S-symbol), Superboy-Prime (S-shield scar), and possibly the Golden Age character Halk-Kar (name, connected to the House of El but not exactly a member of it).
Some DC Comics Elseworlds do this; for instance in Speeding BulletsKal-El's rocketship is found by the Waynes and he becomes Batman, while Lex Luthor is in a chemical accident and becomes The Joker. In Darkest Knight, Bruce Wayne becomes Green Lantern, and faces a Sinestro who's absorbed the Joker's mind, Selina Kyle as Star Sapphire, and Harvey Dent as Binary Star (Evil Star with Two Face elements).
Image ComicsAltered Image #2 "Everybody Smoosh Now!" was a single-continuity pastiche of Amalgam Comics starring Dragaxx (Savage Dragon/The Maxx), ShadowSpawn(Shadow Hawk/Spawn, and Witchestic (Mr Majestic/Witchblade). Trying to correct reality in the face of Smooshed teams like CyberC.A.T.S., they managed to resmoosh themselves as DragonSpawn, ShadowBlade, and Maxxestic, before eventually sorting things out.
Similarly, there was a storyline in Superman Batman in which they visited an alternate reality where the world's heroes were the Justice [Titans, based in Gothamopolis and led by Hal Grayson, NightLantern. (Amusingly, The Flash looks unchanged, until you learn his real name is Wally Allen). Their archenemies, the Brotherhood of Injustice are composites of Batman and Superman's Rogues Gallery, led by Lex Joker. It turns out to be one of Dr Destiny's dreamworlds.
In Nobody Dies the character of Mari Illustrious Makinami is combined with Asuka's unnamed half-sister from the manga. It should be mentioned this was an Epileptic Tree for Rebuild of Evangelion.
In The O.C. story "A Very Different Country", Alex Kelly is herself and a Gender Flip of Ryan at the same time.
Always Having Juice features Gaia Mercury, a combination of the Werehog from Sonic Unleashed and the ghost girl from the Night of the Werehog short created to promote the game. Dark Gaia as well is a combination of Mephiles the Dark from Sonic the Hedgehog (2006) and its namesake, also from Unleashed.
Pony POV Series has several characters that are reincarnations/fusions of G3 characters. Most notable is Twilight Sparkle, either a straight reincarnation or a fusion of G3's Minty and G1's Twilight.
The sequels to Rainbooms And Royalty have indulged in this: In May the Best Friends Win, Trixie combines her canon personality (from "Boast Busters", anyway) with Gilda's role as Rainbow Dash's abrasive friend. Then Hot Heads, Cold Hearts and Nerves of Steel has Sombra combine the backstory and little personality canon gave him with aspects of G1 villain Grogar.
In Mega Man Reawakened, Robert Light has traits from all versions of Mega Man as well as a ponytail like Zero.
Fallout: Equestria has the character Red Eye, who combines attributes of many characters from the various Fallout games, including the Lieutenant, John Henry Eden (he even uses Eden's speeches), Ashur, and the Lone Wanderer.
Film
Dragonball Evolution fused the two Piccolos (Daimaou and Ma Junior) into one. Although, technically, Ma Junior was Daimaou in the original, or at least his reincarnation.
Goku's character also acts suspiciously like the teenaged version of his son, Gohan, from one of the later arcs of Dragon Ball Z.
Spaceballs has several examples. Lonestar was a combination of Luke Skywalker and Han Solo. Colonel Sandurz was a mixture of the various Imperial officers that appeared throughout Star Wars. (He can be directly compared to Tarkin, though.) And Yogurt had traits of both Obi-Wan and Yoda. It's a parody, not a straight adaptation.
In The People Vs Larry Flynt, Edward Norton plays a character named Alan Isaacman, after the lawyer who defended Flynt before the Supreme Court. This character essentially stands in for all the legal assistants Flynt had employed. For instance, he is wounded in the 1978 shooting attack on Flynt; that event happened to Gene Reeves, Jr.
Almost Famous, the pseudo-biography of director Cameron Crowe, features the fictitious band Stillwater as a composite of several groups Crowe toured with as a Rolling Stone columnist, including the Allman Brothers, Led Zeppelin, and the Who.
The Departed (based on Infernal Affairs): Dr. Madden is a combination of therapist Dr. Lee, the undercover cop's love interest, and Mary, the infiltrator's girlfriend, creating a Love Triangle where there had been none before.
Patty Ryan in An American Crime is a composite of three real-life girls involved in the historical events - Darlene Mac Guire, Anna Siscoe and Judy Duke.
This induces Fridge Logic in The Wizard of Oz. At the beginning of the book, Dorothy meets the Good Witch of the North, who tells her to "Follow the Yellow Brick Road." At the end, she meets Glinda, the Good Witch of the South, who tells her that the slippers her sister the North Witch saw her put on are the keys to get her home. In the movie, the characters are merged into Glinda, the Good Witch of the North, which leads you into wondering why she didn't mention the key in the first place.
In the film, they handwave this by insinuating that the shoes, as magical articles, wouldn't work until Dorothy learned for herself that "there's no place like home." Glinda is even asked why she didn't tell Dorothy the shoes power in the beginning and she laughs "she wouldn't have believed me. She had to learn it for herself." The film ends on All Just a Dream instead of the book's It Really Happened finale, so you could say Dorothy's child mind just didn't think of it.
Each character in The Great Escape is a composite of several people involved in the real event.
A rare non-adaptation example: the first few drafts of Hot Fuzz had a love interest for Nick Angel. When her part was cut, the majority of her lines (as well as the peace lily subplot) were given to Danny Butterman's character, which resulted in quite a bit of intentional Ho Yay.
The PR guy (Ed Regis) and the lawyer (Donald Gennaro) from Jurassic Park were merged for the movie.
The nerdy black kid and the adventurous (and older) blond girl that were Levine's assistants/protegees in The Lost World 1995 were merged into Malcolm's black gymnast daughter for the film.
Also from The Lost World: "Doc" Thorne, Badass Bookworm and former scientist that now makes field systems for a living, was merged with Eddie Carr, his no-nonsense, smart employee. The movie version of Eddie has his own field systems company, but is much geekier. Even though he tries to rescue Sarah, Malcolm, and Nick from the falling trailer exactly as Doc Thorne did, he's torn apart by the T.rexes. The original Eddie is killed by raptors instead, while Thorne lives to lead the survivors off the island.
Also in The Lost World: the movie's Sarah Harding has elements of Richard Levine's character (for example, the incompetence - novel!Sarah was nowhere nearly as idiotic) and plays his role in parts.
In many adaptations of Jane Eyre Helen Burns is combined with Julia Severn, the girl who has her hair cut off as punishment for curling it (making the character even more tragic - she has all her hair cut off and then dies of tuberculosis a few scenes later). In some versions the haircutting happens to Jane herself. Also a few adaptations combine the kindly Miss Temple with Miss Scatcherd.
In the 2002 Spider-Man, the Mary Jane character was a composite of Mary Jane and Liz Allan from the comics. Like Liz, she went to the same school as Peter and was the girlfriend of his rival Flash Thompson at the time. She also got a version of Gwen Stacy's bridge scene from ASM #121, only with a different bridge and outcome.
The sequel gave her Tsundere tendencies, which some see as similar to the ones displayed by Gwen in some of her earliest appearances. By that time however the movie Mary Jane had little to nothing left of the original character in the comics, resulting in quite a bit of hate from fans of the character. Likewise, when Gwen is introduced in the third film, she has MJ's status as 'love rival' from the comic and career as a model.
Although in the comics Gwen started as 'love rival' (to Betty Brant) and was introduced as a high school beauty queen. Also, when Peter Parker went to the Savage Land for the Daily Bugle, Gwen was taken along as a bikini model.
Likewise, Gwen Stacy in The Amazing Spider-Man. She has Gwen's Tsundere tendencies, interest in science (but far more played up, lending from Gwen's Spectacular self and from Debra Whitman), blond hair/headband and relationship to Captain Stacy, but had Liz Allan's status as his high school crush, Betty Brant's status as first love interest, and from MJ, everything (flirtly/feisty attitude, playful sense of humour, Genre Savvy tendencies, ability to defend herself and assist during Super Villain attacks, knowledge of his dual identity, etc). She's almost every Spidey love interest. Essentially, she does what they tried with MJ in the first films, but did it with far less trouble.
In the graphic novel Road to Perdition, the protagonists are pursued by several faceless goons. The movie combined them all into a single character, which the novel's author admitted was an improvement.
Any war movie ever made does this — both ones based on actual wars/conflicts and ones based on novels.
Averted in A Bridge Too Far where there are named historical characters who don't even have speaking roles. In fact, the majority of the characters are based on real people (yes, even the guy with an umbrella).
A boy named Nigel from the later film adaptations of the Harry Potter series seems to be a composite of the two Creevey brothers (Colin and Dennis) from the books. Oddly enough, Colin did appear (with that name) in the second film. Word Of God is that Nigel was created after Hugh Mitchell (who played Colin in the second film) went through a massive growth spurt and the filmmakers didn't think he'd be able to portray a character who was supposed to appear small and mousy anymore.
This is done surprisingly little, considering how many characters are in the series. But there is the odd case of minor characters being written out with their often only prominent scene given to a more important character. For example, the second film has Hermione ask Professor McGonagall about the Chamber of Secrets rather than Professor Binns.
Notoriously, Neville acts his role and replaces Dobby in the fourth film.
In the fourth film, the character of Ludo Bagman was removed and some of his characteristics combined into the character of Barty Crouch Sr., resulting in Crouch being more comical than his completely serious nature in the book. His commentary is taken up by Cornelius Fudge during the Quidditch World cup. His exclusion is likely due to much of the scenes involving him being cut so what little remained was given to others.
Cho Chang takes on the respective roles of Marietta Edgecombe in the fifth film and Katie Bell in the sixth.
Bellatrix Lestrange is prominently involved in the battle at the end of the sixth film, but she was not even in the corresponding scene from the book. All her actions in the film version of the scene (coaxing Draco to kill Dumbledore, firing the Dark Mark into the sky, catching Hagrid's hut on fire) were performed by various Mooks in the book.
Luna Lovegood takes over Tonks' role of finding Harry on the Hogwarts express in The Half blood Prince
Due to actor Jamie Waylett's legal troubles, Crabbe was written out of Deathly Hallows, and his ultimate fate was given to Goyle instead. Blaise Zabini was then brought in as the third man of Draco's Power Trio.
In the second book, it's stated that Vernon paid someone to fit the bars on Harry's window. In the movie version, Vernon just does it himself.
In the film adaptation of Gypsy, Uncle Jocko and Herbie become the same person.
In the film adaptation of the Confessions Of Georgia Nicolson series, Georgia's friends Ellen, Jools, and Mabs were initially replaced by a composite Token Minority character called Namita. Fans complained, and so Namita's scenes were redubbed and she became Ellen.
Jason Stryker of X2: X-Men United is a composite of three comics characters: (1) Jason Wyngarde, the supervillain Mastermind, from whom he gets his first name and powers; (2) Reverend Stryker's unnamed mutant child from the God Loves, Man Kills graphic novel; (3) and David Haller, Professor X's autistic son, from whom he gets his mismatched eyes, multiple personalities, and insanity.
Colonel William Stryker in the X-Men movies is a composite of Rev. William Stryker from God Loves, Man Kills and Professor Thornton the man who gave Wolverine his Adamantium skeleton.
And let's face it, Wolverine in the X-Men movies is comic Wolverine with Cyclops's personality traits and attitudes grafted on, leaving no personality traits for Cyclops at all when Cyclops didn't have many to begin with.
Rogue is a composite of the comics Rogue (name and power) and Kitty Pryde/Jubilee (young girl who becomes a surrogate daughter to Wolverine). (Kitty Pryde goes on to appear in the films. Jubilee only cameos.)
Callisto of The Last Stand merges the powers of the comic characters Caliban and Quicksilver. Her leadership role and personality (which isn't all that fleshed out in the movie, but overall it's pretty consistent with the comics) are the only traces of the comics' Callisto.
Jean Grey and Phoenix were separate characters in the comics, but were rewritten into separate personalities in a single body for the movie. But whether Phoenix was a separate entity or just Jean's Superpowered Evil Side depends on who's writing.
In X-Men Origins: Wolverine, Sabretooth is combined with Dog (James Howlett's half brother) and Rose (who helps him escape after Thomas Logan's death) from the comic Wolverine: Origin.
Although Dog was heavily implied to grow up to be Sabretooth in the original comic.
In 2005's The War of the Worlds starring Tom Cruise, Ogilvy, the man who is trapped in a basement with Cruise's character and his daughter, is a composite of the astronomer of the same name, the artilleryman, and the curate from the original novel.
Christine merged the LeBay brothers into one character. This also served to completely invert one brother's personality and morals.
Based on a true story, October Sky merged Sherman Siers and Jimmy O'Dell into one character called Sherman O'Dell. (The original book, Rocket Boys, did not do this.)
In the film adaptation of To Kill A Mockingbird, the characters of Miss Rachel (Dill's alcoholic aunt) and Miss Stephanie (the town gossip) were merged so that Stephanie became Dill's aunt.
The Postman has "Ford Lincoln Mercury", an amalgam of several characters. Abby is a mix of a minor one-chapter character named Abby, and the Love Interest who appeared later (in the chapters about the fakesentient AI and the Super Soldier army that never made it into the film).
Street Fighter combined Blanka (the green man-beast from Brazil) and Charlie (Guile's combat buddy who was killed by Bison) into one character named Carlos Blanka, a combat buddy of Guile who gets captured by Bison and turned into a green man-beast. Even though Blanka's actual origin story in the games made it impossible for him and Charlie to be the same character, it didn't stop fans from speculating otherwise until Charlie debuted as a player character in the Street Fighter Alphaprequel series.
In Raging Bull, the character Joey La Motta, played by Joe Pesci, is a composite of the real Joe La Motta and Jake La Motta's best friend, Pete Petrella. The infamous "You fuck my wife?" scene happened between Jake and Pete, not between the two brothers as depicted in the movie.
The protagonist of Lord Of War is a composite of several real life arms dealers (five, according to IMDB).
The real Frank Abagnale Jr. wasn't chased by just one man - Carl Hanratty from Catch Me If You Can is an amalgam of several officers.
In the film Nick Fury: Agent of SHIELD (starring David Hasselhoff, not Samuel L. Jackson), Baron von Strucker is succeeded as the leader of Hydra by his daughter Andrea, aka Viper. In the comics, Viper/Madame Hydra is an orphan whose true name is unknown, and Andrea von Strucker is one half of the mutant Fenris Twins.
In Velvet Goldmine, Curt Wild is mainly supposed to be an expy of Iggy Pop. A lot of the incidents involving him are based on other real-life figures, such as Mick Ronson, Lou Reed, and Mick Jagger.
Also, central character Brian Slade, while most ostensibly based on Bowie, is also a composite character and bears definite traces of Brian Eno, Marc Bolan, and Jobriath.
Michael Merriman (John Cusack's character in Fat Man And Little Boy) is a composite of two real Manhattan Project physicists, Louis Slotin and Henry K. Daghlian, Jr. Both died as the result of separate criticality accidents involving the same "demon" bomb coreafter the Hiroshima and Nakasaki bombings.
This is the treatment given to the Whiplash character in Iron Man 2: he is a composite of the comics characters Crimson Dynamo and Whiplash/Backlash.
To an extent, J.A.R.V.I.S. can be seen as a composite of Edwin Jarvis and H.O.M.E.R., Tony's armor-building AI assistant in the comics.
Iron Man 3 has War Machine wearing Norman Osborn's Iron Patriot armour. He also goes by that moniker, but makes it clear he preferred War Machine.
Aldrich Killian is a composite of the eponymous scientist who created Extremis and The Mandarin.
In Apollo 13, a whole team of astronauts and engineers working to figure out how to power up the command module again was rolled into Ken Mattingly and a couple of other guys.
Inverted with the team of engineers who figured how to make the Command Module's air filters fit the (incompatible) slots of the Lunar Module. In real life, only one engineer devised the solution, while driving to work.
Eric Bana, Ewan McGregor, Josh Hartnett, Orlando Bloom, and William Fichtner's characters in Black Hawk Down are all composites of various different US Army Rangers and Delta Force operators from the novel of the same name. Necessary, since hundreds of soldiers took part in the Battle of Mogadishu and so making composite characters allowed the producers to cut the cast of dozens from the novel down to less than ten... and because one of the real-life counterparts would later be convicted of rape and child molestation.
Warden Norton in The Shawshank Redemption was a composite of various characters from the novella; in that, Shawshank prison was run by several different figures with varying degrees of cruelty. The same goes for his henchman, Byron Hadley.
In the Russian movie Night Watch, Bear's real name is Ilya. In the books, Bear and Ilya are two different people. The Inquisition in the sequel Day Watch might also count: in the books they are a big group, a third Watch, while in the movie they are just two old Creepy Twins.
The incident at the beginning of the first film, with Anton going to a witch to get his girlfriend back happened to a woman in the Day Watch book and was part of a larger story. Additionally, Anton is not Yegor's father in the books and was recruited as a teen, not an adult.
The killer of Dark Others in the second film is revealed to be Kostya's father. In the books, they are different characters.
The Dark Knight Saga's versions of Loeb and Flass. Flass resembled Harvey Bullock more, being dark-haired, overweight, and unshaven rather than being blonde, fit, and clean-shaven, but he does have the comics' version's corruption. Loeb is a cross between the comics version and Michael Akins.
Henri Ducard alias Ra's al Ghul, also fits this trope.
Lucius Fox's role was expanded to fill his normal role as CEO along side the role of tech support, which was occasionally filled by others or left unexplained and filled in gaps about how Batman uses Wayne Corp resources in his crimefighting. In the comics, he doesn't know the secret identity and doesn't work at all with Batman.
John Blake has elements of the first three Robins. He grew up on the streets like Jason Todd, he deduced Batman's identity as a teen like Tim Drake and he's an orphan who becomes a police officer as an adult and Batman's eventual successor like like Dick Grayson, . His real name being Robin is a neat nod.
Subverted (or possibly even double subverted, if the Playing With is to be believed) in Donnie Brasco. Lefty in the movie is a composite of the real Lefty, the real Sonny Black, and several other wiseguys Joe Pistone met during his undercover work. Sonny Black appears in the movie, although In Name Only. Michael Madsen wasn't too happy about that one.
In the original Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles comic, Hamato Yoshi and Oroku Nagi fought over the love of a woman. Yoshi killed Nagi and the couple fled to New York. Years later Nagi's brother Saki avenged his brother's death by killing them and stayed in New York while calling himself The Shredder. The first moviesimplified this by combining the two brothers: Saki is Yoshi's rival; Yoshi flees the country as a way to avoid having to fight him, but Saki follows them, and from there the story follows the comic.
It could be argued that the Lt. Uhura of 2009's Star Trek is a composite of Lt. Uhura, Yeoman Rand, and Nurse Chapel from the original series. They eliminated Rand and Chapel and folded Rand as the object of Kirk's lust and Chapel's love for Spock into Uhura's character.
Well, it wasn't that hard to do, with regard to the Uhura/Spock angle. From "The Man Trap":
Uhura: Why don't you tell me I'm an attractive young lady, or ask me if I've ever been in love? Tell me how your planet Vulcan looks on a lazy evening when the moon is full. Spock: Vulcan has no moon, Miss Uhura. Uhura: I'm not surprised, Mr. Spock.
Chapel does exist in the new universe - Bones calls for her at point, though she remains unseen. What role she'll be given in any sequels, what with Uhura having stolen her defining character trait, remains to be seen.
The made-for-TV movie Noah's Ark made Noah into a composite of himself and... Abraham, and made other changes, such as Noah living in one of the cities of Sodom and Gomorrah (In The Bible, Abraham explicitly didn't live in either, certainly not that close to their destruction; and those cities were post-flood), and Lot just being some guy Noah knows.
In The Wolfman 2010, Sir John Talbot replaces the Gypsy's son, Bela, as the werewolf responsible for giving Laurence his curse.
Vicky Vale in Tim Burton's Batman was actually a combination of the comic's Vicky Vale (in terms of name and occupation) with Silver St. Cloud (in terms of personality and characterization), a love interest of Batman from The Seventies who knew his secret identity.
Batman Forever gives us a composite origin for Robin, who is Dick Grayson in name and occupation (circus acrobat, alongside his parents), but gets his origin combined with Jason Todd's (Two-Face responsible for parents' death, and wanting to kill Two-Face for it).
In Bonnie and Clyde, C.W. Moss is a composite of two members of the Barrow Gang, W.D. Jones and Henry Methvin.
The 2010 remake of Clash of the Titans merged Acrisius (Perseus's father) and Calibos (Andromeda's disfigured would-be fiancee and Perseus's mortal rival) into the same person.
In Disney's Alice in Wonderland, the Queen of Hearts is mainly the Queen of Hearts, but has the Duchess's bipolar personality and uses the Red Queen's line "All ways are mine". This makes less sense than it does when the Red Queen says it, since the Red Queen is a chess piece with the ability to go any way she wants on the board.
At one stage of that film's development, Dinah and the Cheshire Cat were merged into a single character.
In the live-actionFist of the North Star movie, Shin's right-hand man Jackal takes his name from a gang leader villain in the manga, but his origin story as a villain who was disfigured by Kenshiro in the past resembles that of Kenshiro's evil adoptive brother Jagi. Neither, Jagi nor Jackal had anything to do with Shin, other than the fact that Jagi was the one who persuaded Shin to turn evil and Jackal was an underling of Shin in the TV series (but not in the manga).
In at least the 1940 and 2005 versions of Pride and Prejudice, Mr. Bingley's two sisters Caroline and Louisa are melded into the films' version of Caroline. The same goes for the Bollywood adaptation Bride and Prejudice and its character Kiran Balraj. Bride And Prejudice also has Lakhi stand in for the two youngest Bennets, Lydia and Kitty.
The Latter-Day Setting Update not only does this for Caroline and Louisa, but also reduces Charlotte's character to one scene, with Mary being the one marrying Collins, while Georgiana Darcy and Anne de Bourgh are merged into Darcy's sister Euphemiana.
Most film adaptations of Dracula eliminate at least one of Lucy's suitors (almost always Quincey Morris, and often Lord Godalming as well). Sometimes Lucy and Mina are combined into a single Distressed Damsel, and Jonathan stands in for all of her suitors.
In the parody Dracula: Dead and Loving It, Mel Brooks dispenses with all of Lucy's suitors except Seward, who becomes her much-older guardian instead. Harker takes over the role of all the four younger men.
It's mentioned that he liked Lucy, while being Mina's suitor.
Liked, not LIKE-Liked.
Van Helsing: It must be done by one who LOVED her in life!
Harker: I only LIKED her!
Van Helsing: Close enough, here! (hands him the stake and mallet.)
Return to Oz, itself a composite of "The Land of Oz" and "Ozma of Oz", combines the (very different) characters Princess Langwidere, from "Ozma of Oz", and Mombi, the Wicked Witch of the North, from "The Land of Oz", into the evil Princess Mombi.
In Ghost Rider, Johnny Blaze not only takes on qualities of his comic namesake, but also his successor Danny Ketch (such as his chain weapon and Penance Stare). His father Barton Blaze also supplants "Crash" Simpson in being the one whom Johnny tried to save with his Deal with the Devil.
Also, Carter Slade and the Caretaker were two different characters in the comics.
Elektra's origin has almost nothing in common with that of her comic counterpart, and is much closer to that of Echo, another female martial artist who tried to kill Daredevil after he was framed for the murder of her father. Interestingly enough, Echo appears in the movie's video game adaptation as a villain.
Although both appear in the film, Roxy Richter in Scott Pilgrim vs. The World inherits quite a few traits from the comic book's version of Envy, including her weak point. Interestingly, they were supposed to become one in the film's production, but later volumes convinced the film makers to include both characters.
Had they kept Roxy from the comic book as-is, they'd also have to include Knives's overprotective dad, who helps Scott beat her.
In the live-action 1996 version of Pinocchio, the villain Lorenzini is a merger of the characters Mangiafuoco (the Puppeteer) and The Little Man (Land of Toys coachman). Later, he is transformed into a giant sea monster, thus also merging The Terrible Dogfish into his character.
Benjamin "The Ghost" Martin in Mel Gibson's The Patriot was based primarily on Francis "The Swamp Fox" Marion, with elements of about four other Revolutionary War leaders mixed in.
The Blank of Dick Tracy makes the character also known as Faceless Redrum into the alias of another Dick Tracy regular: Breathless Mahooney.
Dr Langford Fife in the parody film The Norman Rockwell Code is a composite character of Dr Robert Langdon from The Da Vinci Code, and Barney Fife from The Andy Griffith Show.
North had the Fed Ex guy and Johnny Fingers from the book merged into one guy who appears to North randomly during his journey to find his parents.
In the Twilight films, the characters of Jessica Stanley and Lauren Mallory were merged into one character named Jessica.
Plus Eric Yorkie is himself plus Ben
In the second Death Note movie, Takada replaces Higuchi completely and has a few elements of Mikami mixed in. She performs the role of the third Kira almost identically to Higuchi's portrayal, down to the character's being disposed of by Light.
In Water for Elephants, the roles of Uncle Al (evil ringmaster) and August (evil animal trainer and Marlena's husband), were merged together to create the film's version of August.
Occurs in the Transformers series. A few examples:
Sam is based mostly on Spike from the Generation One cartoon. However, his absorbing of the Allspark's energy and having visions due to it a taken from Buster of the Marvel comics.
Bumblebee combines elements of his G1 counterpart (the former Trope Namer), while his design takes cues from Autobots such as Prowl and Bluestreak.
Megatron takes elements of his Beast Wars descendant and original 1984 character.
Sentinel Prime is a combination of G1 Sentinel (former Autobot leader before Optimus), Alpha Trion (Optimus's mentor, as well as a scientific genius), and G1 Nova Prime (Becomes evil, and boasts about the superiority of Cybertronians over all life).
John Carter, the film adaptation of John Carter of Mars appears to have collapsed several minor characters into more major related ones. Notably, Tars Tarkas is chieftain of his own band of Tharks in the film, whereas in the book he was second-in-command to Lorquas Ptormel; Tardos Mors is Dejah Thoris' father in the film, while he was her grandfather in the book, thereby combining him with his son Mors Kajak; and film Sab Than is Jeddak (king) of Zodanga rather than prince, combining him with his father Than Kosis.
The 2005 version of King Kongreversed this. The original movie had the character Jack Driscoll; he was the love interest, the ship's first mate, and a swashbuckling square-jawed he-man. In the remake, these three character traits were given to three separate characters: Jack Driscoll, Mr. Hayes, and Bruce Baxter, respectively.
JFK does this here and there, most notably with Willie O'Keefe. Willie is a composite of several of Jim Garrison's witnesses, among them Perry Russo, the central witness of the case; he exists in the film largely so that Oliver Stone doesn't have to answer why Garrison chose not to use most of them in the trial (and to hide Russo's laughable unreliablity).
Moneyball merges several of Billy Beane's associates, particularly Paul DePodesta, into Peter Brand. DePodesta refused to have his name used in the film, which led to this.
In The Adventures of Tintin, this happens to several characters from the original comics. The film's version of Ivan Ivanovitch Sakharine shares the name of a minor character from Secret, but his more villainous characterization is drawn from the Bird Brothers from the comic, and he also inherits some traits of the comic's Omar Ben Salaad, such as his employment of Allan and his taking over the Karaboudjan.
In the film version of Cloud Atlas, the characters Chang and Hae-Joo Im were combined to create the much more sympathetic character of Hae-Joo Chang, with whom Sonmi-451 falls in love with.
In Men of Honor, Robert De Niro's role as the hardline, racist Master Chief who makes Brashear's life hell, is an amalgamation of a couple different commanding officers the real Brashear had during his career.
In J Men Forever, the multiple villains edited from the original Republic Film Serials became the singular Lightning Bug. To explain his radically changing appearance, The Lightning Bug was made into a Master of Disguise.
In Dark Shadows, the characters of Victoria Winters and Maggie Evans are now one and the same. Also, Angelique, who is a combination of herself and rival fishery owner Burke Devlin.
In the novel Fast Times at Ridgemont High, the ticket-scalper character is separate from Mike Damone. The two were combined in the movie.
The film version of The Relic does this with their version of Lt. Vincent D'Agosta, mixing characteristics of both his novel counterpart and that of Special Agent Aloysius Pendergast.
The film's take on Peggy Carter combines the inherent Action Girl-ness and relationship to Sharon Carter of her namesake, along with the appearance and role of Lt. Cynthia Glass from the Adventures of Captain America: The Sentinel of Liberty miniseries released in the early 90s.
Montgomary Falsworth, the pencil-moustached, red-bereted British officer in the movie's Howling Commandos, is an amalgam of Montgomary Falsworth, the costumed hero Union Jack, and Percy Pinkerton, the pencil-moustached, red-bereted British officer in the comic's Howling Commandos. In fact, given it contains Falsworth, Cap and Bucky Barnes, the Commandos could be considered an amalgam of the comicbook Commandos and The Invaders.
Sheryl Yoast, Coach Bill Yoast's daughter in Remember The Titans. In real life, Sheryl was one of four daughters Coach Yoast had. Though the other daughters were okay with it.
In the 1969 film of The Prime of Miss Jean Brodie, the "Brodie Set" is reduced from six to four. In the absence of Joyce and Rose, Mary is the one who dies in the Spanish Civil War and Jenny is the one who Miss Brodie wants to have an affair with Mr Lloyd in her place.
The film version of Animal Crackers merged two love interests, Mary and Arabella, into a single character named Arabella.
The 1935, 1952 and 1998 versions of Les Misérables either diminish the role of, or remove entirely, Enjolras, giving his role as leader of the Friends of the ABC to Marius.
Jin-e is given characteristics of several other Rurouni Kenshin villains in the live-action film. He takes Aoshi's role as Kanryu's bodyguard, as well as Gohei's role as the impostor Battōsai.
In Phoenix Wright Ace Attorney, Red White is merged with the character of April May. He murders Mia after learning she's uncovered certain evidence, but also is the one who wiretapped her phone to begin with and acts as the witness who accuses Maya of the murder. There's a more minor example later. While both Gumshoe and Larry are in the movie, Gumeshoe's role in loaning Phoenix the metal detector so he can look for "Gordy" is given to Larry, who owns the detector and is the only one to use it until the end of the last trial.
In the sequel to Kick-Ass, Jim Carrey plays a character called Colonel Stars and Stripes, a composite of Colonel Stars and Lieutenant Stripes from the comic.
In The Film of the Book of TheStand, Nadine Cross and Rita Blakemoor were merged into a single character. In the book, Larry meets Rita in New York, but she kills herself a few days after they leave the city. He then meets Nadine in Maine. But in the movie, he meets Nadine in New York. And although she has Joe/Leo with her in the book, it's Lucy who has Joe in the movie.
Also, Dr. Dietz in the Atlanta CDC facility and Elder in the Vermont CDC facility were combined into Dr. Dietz in the series who appears in the Vermont facility. Basically, Dietz in the novel was a kind, honest, hardworking doctor who was making a sincere but doomed effort to stave off Captain Trips, before succumbing to it himself; after the Atlanta facility was compromised, Stu Redman was moved to Vermont, and when Elder caught Captain Trips he tried to kill Stu because he didn't want Stu to live while he died. These two characters were combined in the TV Series. Also, Dietz's bedside interaction with Stu was markedly different in the novel from how it was in the TV series; in the TV series, Dietz was nasty and arrogant to Stu while in the novel he was friendly. This difference is exemplified most in how in both adaptations Dietz told Stu "you son of a bitch," but in a different tone in each adaptation; in the TV series, Dietz said it in a very nasty, defensive tone, while in the novel he said it "with a sense of wonder," implying a non-insulting tone.
Queen Of The Damned combines a number of characters in the novel, while many others are simply removed. Aaron Lightner, the man who recruited Jesse into the Talamasca and was her mentor for a time, is merged into the role of his friend David Talbot. Magnus, Lestat's maker, and Marius are merged into just Marius. Maharet in the novel has a twin named Mekare, and it's Mekare the one who kills Akasha and takes her place as the Queen. In the film, Maharet is never mentioned to have a sister, and she is the one who finishes off Akasha. The roles of makers are also shifted. In the film, Lestat turns Jesse instead of Maharet, and Marius turns David instead of Lestat. The film itself appears to be an amalgamation of the plots of The Vampire Lestat and Queen of the Damned.
In the film version of My Left Foot, the character Dr. Eileen Cole never existed. She was supposed to represent an amalgam of several people who helped the main character.
Rex Lewis/The Doctor/Cobra Commander is a merging of Doctor Mindbender and Cobra Commander.
In G.I. Joe: Retaliation Roadblock's background has several elements taken from Stalker in the comics, such as being involved with a gang when growing up in the city, being best buddies with Snake Eyes, and having kids.
The Red Baron: "During WWI many Jewish pilots fought for the German Empire. ... They are represented by the fictional character of Friedrich Sternberg." Whose plane is identifiable by the Star of David in its Nose Art.
Literature
The novelisation of the Doctor Who serial The Invasion of Time combines the characters of Jasko and Ablif into a single character. The character in the book is named, appropriately enough, "Jablif".
Nellie Oleson in the Little House on the Prairie books was a composite of three different girls Laura Ingalls Wilder knew growing up: Nellie Owens, Genevieve Masters and Stella Gilbert. There is some speculation that Mr. Edwards was a composite, as well, since pinning down his historical personage has proved confusing.
Many adaptations of Alice in Wonderland conflate the Queen of Hearts with the Red Queen. The first is from "Adventures in Wonderland" and is a playing card; the second is from "Through the looking glass" and is a chess piece.
In Arthur Miller's The Crucible, the utterly vile Danforth stands for several different judges who presided over the witch trials. Miller initially worried that he had made Danforth too one-dimensional ... only to find that the real judges were even worse.
Joseph Conrad's Under Western Eyes begins with the assassination of a Tsarist official, de P___, who is a composite of Konstantin Pobedonstev and another P-named official who really was assassinated. The implication was that Conrad hoped that the fate of the latter would happen to the former.
Also by Conrad, Kurtz of Heart of Darkness is a combination of a number of sadistic Evil Colonialist types in the Belgian Congo, although his name in particular references Georges Antoine Klein (Kurtz is German for short and Klein is German for small) who had just died when Conrad was in the Congo.
Another Conrad example which could fit is the character of Verloc in The Secret Agent. Verlac is a police spy and agent provacateur and his name is a reference to that. Eugene Vidocq was a French criminal who reformed and eventually became the head of the police, and there are a lot of stories of him doing some fairly underhanded things as a cop, starting from Framing the Guilty Party and moving on from there. Vidocq inspired a number of fictional characters (including both Valjean and Inspector Javert in Les Misérables), and one of them was Balzac's master criminal Vautrin, who eventually becomes head of the police himself. The name Verlac is essentially a combination of Vautrin and Vidocq.
Sultan Mehmed of Count and Countess is a mix of the real-life Sultan Mehmed and his father.
It's common for modern-day adaptations of Pride and Prejudice to remove Kitty and/or Mary Bennet and transpose elements of them into Lydia, since fewer families have five children than in Austen's day, and they are the only sisters that don't end up with husbands by the end of the book.
Huck Finn is drawn from life; Tom Sawyer also, but not from an individual—he is a combination of the characteristics of three boys whom I knew, and therefore belongs to the composite order of architecture.
The title character in Carrie was based on two different girls whom Stephen King went to school with growing up, both of whom had difficult lives and died young.
"The life of the man N. S. Rubashov is a synthesis of the lives of a number of men who were victims of the so-called Moscow Trials. Several of them were personally known to this author. This book is dedicated to their memory."
In Philip José Farmer's Wold Newton family, he sometimes does this to tie characters together. Most notably, the Duke of Holdernesse and his illigitimate son James Wilder, from the Sherlock Holmes story "The Adventure of the Priory Road School", are combined with John Clayton, Earl of Greystoke and Clark Savage Sr, to make Tarzan and Doc Savage cousins.
In the Anno Dracula short story "Castles in the Air", the vampire hippy guru Khorda from the 1973 film Deathmaster turns out to be one of Dracula's hangers-on from the earlier books, General Iorga. This is a gag on the fact that Robert Quarry, who played Khorda, had previously played the title character in Count Yorga, Vampire and The Return of Count Yorga, and many people consider Deathmaster to be a Spiritual Successor.
Live Action TV
Tuvix on Star Trek: Voyager is a literal example—a blend of Neelix and Tuvok, created by a transporter accident.
The Tudors : Henry VIII in Real Life had two sisters, Mary and Margaret. The character portrayed in the show is given the biography of Mary, but the name of Margaret; creator Michael Hirst said this was to reduce confusion on the set, since Henry's daughter Mary was a major character. (There are a number of Thomases in the show, but they're almost always referred to by their last names or titles—Cromwell, More, Wolsey, etc.)
Also in The Tudors, Edward Seymour's wife Anne Stanhope has a storyline which is an altered (and expanded) version of his historical first wife's antics. This one doesn't have even a flimsy plot excuse, it's simply for the sake of more random sex - oh, and ensuring the complete lack of functional marriages in the show.
Gia, the made-for-television biography of model Gia Carangi, has several of these characters, most significantly, her makeup artist turned girlfriend.
Seinfeld - Elaine was a composite of various ex-girlfriends of Jerry Seinfeld and Larry David. (The other main characters were directly based on Seinfeld, David, and David's neighbor Kenny Kramer.)
In the 1996 revival of The Liver Birds, Polly James reprises the role of Beryl, except Beryl has become a composite of the Beryl she played in the first four seasons and Carol, Beryl's replacement in seasons 5-9. Most notably, Beryl has somehow acquired Carol's family.
Horatio Hornblower (mini-series): Archie Kennedy is a composite of various minor characters throughout the series of novels it is based on. He notably given actions of an unnamed sailor in "The Even Chance" (AKA "The Duel") by having a seizure during a raid, forcing Horatio to knock him out to keep him quiet, and Lt. Bracegirdle's lines in "The Frogs and the Lobsters" (AKA "The Wrong War").
The TV adaptations of Sharpe have a tendency to do this, in order to avoid Loads and Loads of Characters, with many recurring characters from the books becoming one-off characters and/or suffering Chuck Cunningham Syndrome. For instance, the company of men that follow Sharpe in the books are reduced to half a dozen key characters. Two specific examples occur in Sharpe's Revenge to avoid bringing back characters from Sharpe's Siege: Maillot is a composite of Maillot (the officer guarding Napoleon's treasure) and Lassan (Lucille's brother), while Wigram is a composite of Wigram (the officer in charge of Sharpe's court martial) and Bampfylde (the officer Sharpe fights a duel with).
Done, kind of, in Robin Hood. At the end of Season Two, Marian, Will Scarlett, and Djaq the Saracen are written permanently out of the show. The next season introduces Kate, who fills all their niches in the group and show, as well as aspects of their personalities. She takes the place of Marian as Love Interest and Tsundere, Djaq as Token Girl, and Will as the representative of the suffering peasantry. She also experiences the murder of her brother (like Allan), has a tempestuous relationship with her parent (like Marian) and is separated from her family (like Little John). Naturally, she was considered an instant Replacement Scrappy and ended up a Creator's Pet in record time.
In the Sky1 adaptation of Going Postal, Crispin Horsefry becomes Reacher Gilt's second in command, representing the entire board of the Grand Trunk in the novel. Also Mustrum Ridcully is given Professor Pelc's role as Mr. Exposition.
Technically, the Rangers in Power Rangers with more than one Ranger identity (I.E., Tommy) fall under this trope. Some season-unique examples:
Inverted in Mighty Morphin' Power Rangers: The normal version of Zyuranger's Dora Franke became the Frankenstein monster, while his second and third forms Zombie Franke and Satan Franke became two different forms of the same character, Mutitus.
Inverted again in Zeo: Prince Buldont of Ohranger, who later grew into an older form, Kaiser Buldont, became the characters Prince Sproket (younger) and Prince Gasket (older).
Divatox melded Gynamo's position as the Big Bad with Zonnette's design and backstory about her being Dimitria's older sister.
Astronema melds together two villains from Megaranger: Dr. Hinelar (The Dragon and The Starscream, creator of The Psycho Rangers plot) and Shibolena (cyborg Dark Magical Girl, surrogate daughter of a villain). Her brother, Andros, melds Mega Red together with Dr. Kubota (The Mentor, had prior history with Dragon-in-Chief). Likewise, Ecliptor himself also melds Hinelar's fathery affection toward Shibolena with Yugande.
Inverted once more in the conversion of Gingaman to Lost Galaxy. The Big Bad Captain Zahab was split off into Scorpius and his more direct counterpart, Captain Mutiny.
And then there's borderline example Furio: He has the costume of Dr. Hinelar's final form, but Sanbash's role in the story. (Sanbash's costume, not available at the time, was later used for a new character named Villamax.)
Another borderline example comes in Trakeena: She fills in the role of Shelinda, but also has traits of Illies (her successful plot against Treacheron, using many of the monsters Illies used). Her accidental One-Winged Angel form in the the next season's Crossover Special was originally the Infernal Dark Hell Beast summoned by Gil.
Inverted twice when converting Timeranger to Time Force. The costume of Big Bad Don Dolnero was used for comic relief character Gluto, and the Big Bad with some of Dolnero's role was original-design Ransik. Meanwhile, the Rangers' commanding officer Captain Ryuya was split into Captain Logan and, more directly, Alex.
Also done semi-straight: Lucas melds the ex-racer backstory of his Sentai counterpart, Ayase, with the womanizer side of Katie's Sentai counterpart, Domon.
Master Org also supplants Shuten and Ura during their tenures as Big Bad, while claiming their combinedform with Rasetsu, Senki, as his own. His costume is also taken from Dairanger's Gorma XV.
The multiple users of the Cursed Armor in Abaranger became the singular cyborg henchman Zeltrax in Dino Thunder. However, the role of the second user of the cursed armor is picked up by Elsa in the last few episodes.
Due to Trent turning good far sooner than Mikoto did, Abare Killer's remaining stint as a bad guy was fulfilled by a White Ranger clone.
Sam, the Omega Ranger is a composite of Sixth Ranger Deka Break and one-shot guest star Hikaru of Dekaranger. The latter grows up to be the former and arrives via Time Travel. Bridge, meanwhile, melds Deka Green/Sen-Chan with the psychic powers of Z's Sentai Counterpart, Jasmine.
Mora/Morgana owes as much to Abaranger's Rije/Rijewel as she does to Succubus, the villainness her sentai footage comes from.
Mystic Mother is a composite of Magiel and Bandora (aka Rita Repulsa) from Zyuranger, by virtue of being said to have once been referred to as Rita. Both of these characters were played in Super Sentai by the late Machiko Soga with the two being unrelated in their respective shows.
Tyzonn, the Mercury Ranger, mixes in Bouken Silver (It's Personal against the Ashu/Fear Cats), one-shot guest star Ragi (human transformed into dragonman), and Bouken Red (backstory with deaths of former team).
Kamdor directly parallels Yami no Yaiba, and Maboroshi no Gekkou (the latter being the Big Bad of the third faction and the monster maker and enlarger). Also, Miratrix mostly has Shizuka's role, but her monster form is Gekkou's. Shizuka's monster form becomes a one-off monster earlier in the series.
You could argue that they had a third example: the Sentinel Knight is a counterpart to one of the Precious, but has the traits of Aka Red, since they're both borderline-Physical Gods who are important players in the Milestone Celebration crossover.
Inverted again in Jungle Fury: Long, the ultimate Big Bad of Gekiranger, was split into Dai Shi (inheriting his Big Bad status and One-Winged Angel form) and General Scorch (inheriting his Phantom Beast form and Treacherous Advisor status). Da Shi possesses Jarod so in a way Long's Power Ranger counterpart is also Jarod who is also Rio's counterpart.
Also, RJ takes two roles. As the Rangers' mentor, he's part Sha-fu. As the accidental Wolf Man and later Wolf Ranger, he's part Gou. Sha-fu also has Master Mao as a counterpart as well, but since he dies early on RJ takes the bulk o his role.
Although original to RPM, Big Bad Venjix uses battle bodies that in Go-onger were the characters Hiramechimedes and Yogoshimacritein.
Deker in Power Rangers Samurai is directly based on Fuwa Juzo, with his backstory as Dayu's lost love, and the indirect catalyst for her becoming a Nighlok being based on Shinza.
Dark Heart is directly based on Top Gunder of Choujinki Metalder, but his backstory as Ryan Steele's father, Tyler also merges not only Dr. Koga from Metalder, but Dr. Bio from Jikuu Senshi Spielban.
Grimlord, while directly based on God Neros from Metalder, effectively supplants Queen Pandora and Kubilai as the main villain of the entire conglomerate. Slightly subverted in that counterparts for both villains did appear, but were Demoted to Extra, Kubilai (aka Oraclon) becoming Grimlord's monster-maker and Pandora (aka Desponda, Despera's sister) becoming a one-shot guest villain.
Ryan Steele, by virtue of his two armored forms, is a composite of Metalder and Shaider.
J.B. Reese and Kaitlin Starr were composites of Spielban and Diana Lady, as well as Metalder's two human friends, Hakko and Mai (despite the fact that Spielban was the hero of his own show, J.B. was more of a sidekick to Ryan like Hakko was to Ryusei, while Kaitlin was a reporter like Mai). When footage of Spielban's sister Helen Lady (who wore the same suit as Diana Lady) was adapted into VR Troopers, she became a mirror image of Kaitlin who could be summoned in battle, essentially making Kaitlin a composite of three characters.
Meanwhile, Hellvira, Helen Lady's Brainwashed and Crazy form, became the separate one-off character Red Python.
In Kamen Rider Ryuki, three unnamed characters were possessed by Kanzaki, and turned into Kamen Rider Odin. In Kamen Rider Dragon Knight, they became the singular Vic Frasier (Kamen Rider Wrath). Wrath was possessed by Xaviax, so we still have the Rider form as the Big Bad's avatar throughout both series.
Also Ryuki's two main females, Reiko Momoi, Intrepid Reporter and senior to Shinji, and Yui Kanzaki, the only non-rider who could see the mirror world were combined into one character in Maya Young.
Our hero himself is an example and an inversion at once. We have Kit as Dragon Knight (aka Ryuki, Shinji's shiny suit) until his disloyal alternate self takes over after his Disney Death. After his return, Kit becomes Onyx (aka Ryuga, evil alternate Shinji's shiny suit.) However, we first saw Onyx in a dream of Kit's involving him taking Xaviax's lure. This means Dragon Knight is a composite of Ryuki and Ryuga, but Onyx is splitting Ryuga into two guys.
There's also some of Len's counterpart Ren in Kit. There's a Rider whose greatest desire is to see a certain loved one restored. Said loved one is brought out of coma just long enough to try and tempt said Rider. So, are we talking about Kit's dad or Ren's fiancee, now?
The two Alternative Riders (former colleagues of the Big Bad who developed their own powers to thwart him) were merged into Eubulon the Advent Master, who also supplants Kanzaki as the creator of the Rider powers.
The Kamen Rider AgitoAlternate Universe visited in Kamen Rider Decade did this with its version of protagonist Shoichi, who was a composite of the three main Riders of the original Agito show, having been G3 until his powers started developing, turning him into Gills before he finally reaches the "perfect evolution" of Agito. Even his name is a composite: his surname Ashikawa comes from Ryo Ashihara (Gills) and Makoto Hikawa (G3)].
Also, the Kamen Rider 555 arc has a friend of Takumi whose name is Yuri (half Yuka and half Mari, at least in name - she's little like either character.)
In the Kabuto arc, Tendou's two sisters are combined into one character, Mayu. To get her, we combine Hiyori's turning out to be a Worm with Jyuka's being an adorable teenage girl who idolizes her bro. The storyline happens in a much more satisfying way than it did in Kabuto due to the lack of sudden actor departures.
The 1998 Merlin series does this at least twice, combining Morgan le Fay with Morgause into a single character that isn't much like either of them simply called Morgan le Fay, and also combining two different Elaines (there's a lot in Arthurian Mythology) into a single character of that name.
Averted in the television series of the same name: not only are Morgana and Morgause separate characters (half-sisters), but so were Vivienne (their mother), the Lady of the Lake (a druid girl called Freya) and Nimueh (an evil sorceress), three very distinct characters that are usually conflated in various retellings, and the source material itself. There was also another character called Vivian who had no relation whatsoever to the above characters.
In Legend of the Seeker, Cara was primarily the character of the same name from the books with traits of two other Mord-Sith from the third book on thrown in, and was darker thanany of them. Nicci filled the roles of three distinct and very different Sisters of the Dark; the schemer Liliana who tried to deceive Richard and steal his magic, their leader and strongest Ulicia, and the Anti-VillainNicci who didn't become important until much later in the series. Curiously, Ulicia did show up briefly, only for Nicci to kill herand absorb her Han.
The 1990s Justice League pilot. Ice is Tora Olafsdotter, but has Sigrid Nansen's origin. The Flash is Barry Allen but has Wally West's personality, and Green Lantern is called Guy Gardner, but has elements of Hal Jordan and Kyle Rayner.
Believe it or not, Robert Barone from Everybody Loves Raymond is one of these. His main mannerisms (being a cop, being divorced, jealous of his brother, doing "crazy chin", etc.) are taken from Ray's brother Richard, but his name is taken from Ray's other brother Robert. (When asked why the TV Ray didn't have two brothers like the real one, Ray claimed the real Robert was "the normal one" in his family, and therefore felt he wasn't interesting enough for the show).
Smallville featured Tess Mercer, a combination of Mercy Graves (Lex Luthor's assistant from Superman: The Animated Series), Miss Tessmacher (One of Lex's underlings from Superman), and Lena Luthor (Lex's sister from the comics).
Also Chloe, often regarded as an Expy of Lois Lane, but is actually this trope being a combination of Lois Lane (intrepid reporter) and the comic version of Lana Lang (Unlucky Childhood Friend from high school) and she spent most of high school trying to uncover Clark's secret much like Lana and Lois tried in the Silver Age. Then again, Lana Lang started off as an Expy of Lois, so its no wonder.
For that matter, the version of Green Arrow appearing in Smallville is essentially Oliver Queen filling Bruce Wayne's role in the DC Universe. Like the comics' Green Arrow, he's a Badass Normal vigilante from Star City with a Robin Hood-themed M.O. and an arsenal of deadly arrows. Like Batman, he's the main force behind the founding of the Justice League and Clark's closest ally in the superhero community. note This was likely done because the producers of Smallville couldn't get the television rights to Batman. The only made Smallville in the first place because they couldn't make a series about a young Bruce Wayne, as they'd originally intended.
The made-for-tv adaptation of Stephen King's The Stand merges Nadine Cross and Rita Blakemoor into one character. In the book, it was Rita who Larry Underwood met in New York, who was somewhat older than him. He only met Nadine later.
In the first episode of Black Mirror, Michael Callow is a composite character of real Prime Minister David Cameron, and his Deputy Prime Minister Nick Clegg - taking a fair amount of qualities and mannerisms from both.
Once Upon a Time has too many characters to list. Notable examples include:
Cora (The miller's daughter from Literature/Rumpelstiltskin and The Queen of Hearts from Alice in Wonderland.
The 2005 Hallmark Minines "Hercules" has Antaeus who is a combination of Antaeus, Zeus, the Cretan Bull and Cerberus. Antaeus is Hercules' enemy and a Son of Mother Earth, Hercules' father, a bandit leader called the Cretan Bull and is the one present when Hercules goes down to the gates of Hades instead of Cerberus.
Elementary, Moriarty turns out to share qualities with Irene Adler. Actually, forget "shares qualities", they're the same person.
Music
The Bangles created "Anna Lee" as a composite character on their 2011 album Sweetheart of the Sun, for the song "Anna Lee (Sweetheart of the Sun)":
Susanna Hoffs: Interestingly, a character sort of developed in the song. We had all just read Girls Like Us, the book about Carly Simon, Carole King and Joni Mitchell, and we were inspired by it. We sort of made up a portrait of a person based around those women — it's kind of mythical.
Jesus Christ Superstar has Mary Magdalene combine elements of herself with those of the unnamed woman whose "waste" of costly perfume on Jesus in Bethany was condemned by the disciples in the New Testament, but just by Judas Iscariot in the rock opera. However, Mary Magdalene has been traditionally identified with the unnamed woman of Bethany for centuries, so this wasn't the first time it happened.
!HERO: The Rock Opera's Maggie is Mary Magdalene combined with the Samaritan woman at the well.
Mythology, Folklore and Religion
This is done often in mythology and its various adaptations as a result of both time constraints and general mixing of the stories.
Older Than Print: In Arthurian Literature, the role of the mother of Mordred (who may or may not be Arthur's son) is frequently given to Morgan Le Fay; the original mother (Morgause) is either absent or given a different role.
The reverse can also happen; some scholars believe that Gawain's brother Gareth started out as a spelling error for his brother Gehris.
There is some debate, naturally, but some historians believe that Arthur himself is a composite of several Briton (pre-England) kings who fought against the invading Saxons and Angles (and Jutes, and Frisians, and maybe the Picts and Vikings...).
The American Santa Claus is a composite of several European myths and folk lore.
In Christian traditions going back at least to the middle ages, Mary Magdelene was identified both with the nameless adulteress brought before Jesus (who then said: "Let him who is without sin cast the first stone") and the nameless woman of Bethany who perfumed him.
The identification of the Serpent from Genesis with Satan can be seen as this.
Medieval legends about saints occasionally mixed up saints bearing the same name, e. g. Dionysius (Dénis), martyred bishop of Paris (3rd century), with the Dionyisius the Areopagite (converted by St. Paul).
Professional Wrestling
The WWE's Randy Orton is a strange example. He has the snake motif of Stone Cold Steve Austin, with a similar fighting style and devil-may-care whoop-your-ass attitude, but he's also the youngest world champion in WWE history and a third-generation superstar. Sound familiar?
Puppet Shows
In The Muppets Wizard Of Oz, the Munchkins also serve the role of the Field Mice in The Wonderful Wizard of Oz, rescuing Dotothy and friends from Poppyfields and explaining to Dorothy how the Witch's magic cap works. Which makes sense, since they're played by the rats (with Rizzo as a composite of the Mayor of Munchkinland from the MGM film and a Gender Flipped Queen of the Field Mice).
In The MuppetMusicians of Bremen, the cruel former owners of the animals are also the bandits they scare away from the house.
Radio
In the Quintessential Stage of The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy, Van Harl, the Vogon who's taken over the Guide in Mostly Harmless, is combined with Zarniwoop, who was the editor-in-chief in the Secondary Phase and The Restaurant at the End of the Universe. This does not appear to have been done to simplify the story (it doesn't); they simply liked Jonathan Pryce's portrayal of Zarniwoop and wanted him back.
Theatre
In productions of the opera The Magic Flute, the role of the Speaker has been merged with that of the old priest Tamino encounters in the first act finale for so long that few people know that they originally may not have been the same character.
In Bernard Pomerance's The Elephant Man, Ross is a composite of Tom Norman (Merrick's manager when Treves met him, and a fairly decent guy as far as P.T. Barnum types go) and the Belgian showman who abandoned him and robbed him of his life's savings.
You're a Good Man, Charlie Brown has Patty, whose lines and scenes come not only from the original comic strip's Patty (not to be confused with the later Peppermint Patty), but also Violet, Frieda, and Sally (enough of Sally, in fact, that the Broadway revival went ahead and re-identified the character).
Inverted in the video production of Cats; on stage, the character of Gus is usually depicted as a young cat but becomes an older cat for his big number. This number usually segues into another number with the younger version, "Growltiger's Last Stand". The older version was played by Sir John Mills, who was far too old, and blind, to do the required singing and dancing. So, they split both versions into two characters, with the younger Gus now named Asparagus.
Which itself is the reversal of a straight example: in Old Possum's Book of Practical Cats there's no connection between Gus and Growltiger.
In the Opera of All The Kings Men, entitled Willie Stark, Stark's aide Jack Burden supplants his love interest Anne's brother, Adam, in ultimately killing Stark.
In Frank Wildhorn's musical of The Scarlet Pimpernel, Percy's eighteen strong League of The Scarlet Pimpernel (aside from Percy himself and brother-in-law Armand), was folded up into nine men: Dewhurst note Who also inherits the novel's Ffoulkes position as The Lancer, Elton, Farleigh, Ben, Hal, Ozzy, Hastings, Neville, and Leggett. Later revisions cut the later three men out and give their lines to the first six.
Almost every adaptation of The Phantom of the Opera transplants most aspects of the Daroga's character into Madame Giry.
Happens too often to count in Shakespeare's history plays, and not just characters, but also with battles and other events.
In Dreamgirls, Effie White is not only patterned primarily after "third Supreme" Florence Ballard, but also after Etta James and Aretha Franklin.
In Les Misérables, Thenardier's henchman Brujon takes his name from a minor criminal who only associated with Thenardier. His status as The Brute comes from the novel's Gueulemer. The musical also does away with the Thenardiers' second daughter, Azelma, giving her plot points to Madame Thenardier (which is not difficult, since the point of the character was that she was growing up just like her mother).
Billy Flynn, "the silver-tongued prince of the courtroom" of Chicago, was a composite of William Scott Stewart and W. W. O'Brien, the real life attorneys of Belva Gaertner and Beulah Annan (the real life Velma Kelly and Roxie Hart).
In the musical version of Reefer Madness, Jimmy Harper is a composite of the original film's protagonist Bill Harper and his girlfriend Mary's kid brother Jimmy.
Anthony Burgess combines Cyrano's best friend Le Bret with his Captain Carbon de Jaloux in his adaptation of Cyrano de Bergerac.
Cirque du Soleil's Japan-only tour Fascination combined acts from Le Cirque Réinventé and Nouvelle Experience; appropriately, the Ringmaster here was a composite of the Reinvente Ringmaster and the Great Chamberlain of Nouvelle, who served similar emcee functions. This Ringmaster had the Reinvente costume and backstory of a transformed "Ordinary Person", but was played by Nouvelle's actor (Brian Dewhurst) and from there participated in the latter show's slackwire act.
Part of the reason that The Threepenny Opera is Darker and Edgier than the original Beggars Opera is because of this trope. In the original, Macheath is a fairly sympathetic (if lecherous) example of The Highwayman, and Peachum is a corrupt thief-taker (he works both sides of the law- he conspires with criminals, but also turns those criminals in for a reward when they're outlived their usefulness to him). In Brecht's version, Peachum, while still corrupt, is the head of a beggar's guild, and Macheath is a much more unpleasant gangster. This version of Macheath is a "grass" and he gets the lines of the original Peachum when he treacherously plots to turn the loyal members of his gang to save his own skin.
Shadowlands combines Joy Gresham's two sons into one. This is also done for the film version; the original teleplay kept both sons.
The musical Show Boat combined two characters from Edna Ferber's novel, the heavy Frank and the juvenile lead and Elly's husband Schultzy, into Frank Schultz. Ike Keener, the sheriff of Lemonye, and Vallon, the police chief of New Orleans, were similarly combined into Ike Vallon. The 1929 film version of Show Boat made Hetty Chilson, a character from Ferber's novel that was eliminated from the musical, an alternate identity of Julie.
The stage version of Newsies replaces reporter Brian Denton and Jack's love interest Sarah with Katharine Plummer, a reporter who becomes Jack's love interest.
In Wicked, Fiyero and Boq, via spells by Elphaba and Nessarose, are transformed into the Scarecrow and the Tinman. In the original novel, they were all separate characters.
Some productions of Twelfth Night cut Fabian and give his role in Act II, Scene V to Feste. In fairness, it's almost too easy to do this, since Maria earlier tells Toby, Andrew and Feste to show up for the said scene, and Fabian never appears until that moment, when he's introduced as a whole new character who has inexplicably been invited to join the fun, while Feste is nowhere to be found. Some analysts have speculated that Fabian was invented for some practical reason or other, and that Feste was originally supposed to appear in the scene.
Video Games
The Proto Man in Mega Man Battle Network is based not only on the original Proto Man (name and general appearance), but Zero (long hair, prefers close combat, specifically swords) as well.
Meanwhile, Zero is the carrier of the Maverick Virus, the real cause of the war in the Mega Man X series. When a version of Zero actually appears in Battle Network, he isThe Virus himself.
The Emperor Zul in Super Robot Wars Destiny is a combination of God Mars's Emperor Zul (has his appearance, personality and empire), Daltanias's Emperor Dolmen (because of the Kroppen cloning plot) and the King of Vega (he led the attack that destroyed Planet Fleed))
In the NES version of Double Dragon II: The Revenge, the enemy character Abore is a combination of two different enemies from the arcade version. His moves are similar to the ones used by the Mission 2 boss from the arcade version (who was given the name "Abore" in the Mega Drive version), but his appearance resembles that of a recurring sub-boss (a Head Swap of Bolo/Abobo named "Oharra" in the Mega Drive version).
In the first Marvel vs. Capcom, Ryu could change his fighting style and palette mid-fight to match those of Ken's and Akuma's. This is because he is not meant to be a standard incarnation of Ryu, but a combination of himself, Ken, and Akuma representing the entire Street Fighter series. This is why his theme music in the game is the Street Fighter II title tune instead of his usual theme and why he is labelled as "Complete Change Ryu" in the PS1 version. A more subtle example is Zangief, who can switch between his regular self and his alternate Mecha-Zangief form, who was originally an alternate character in Marvel vs. Street Fighter.
Haggar fits gameplay wise. He was supposed to be a character in Street Fighter 2, but was replaced with Zangief. He appears again in Marvel vs. Capcom 3 as a standalone character, using moves he already had and a couple of nods to Zangief. His theme is also a composite of Cody and Guy's themes from Street Fighter IV.
The unmasked version of Sub-Zero was among the list of characters that were cut out from the Nintendo 64 version of Mortal Kombat Trilogy. However, most of his Special Moves and Finishing Moves were instead given to the masked Sub-Zero.
In Dissidia: Final Fantasy, the Warrior of Light and Onion Knight are both single characters that represent the four-man AFGNCAAP team from their respective games. The Onion Knight was especially strange, as there was already a DS remake of III that gave identities to the heroes.
Exdeath has the appearance of his humanoid and armored form, yet he wants to return everything to the Void, which is what Neo-Exdeath's goal was.
Some people make a compelling case for Kuja, the Big Bad of Final Fantasy IX, being a composite of a bunch of different villains in the Final Fantasy series. Especially viable since he's the villain in a game intended to be an anniversary celebration chock full of shout outs.
Garland from Final Fantasy I gets a separate character named after him, but it's worth noting that FFI Garland kidnaps Princess Sarah. Kuja does this too - we just don't know that Garnet's real name is Sarah at that point.
He borrows a lot of his deportment - before he snaps after figuring out he's mortal - from Final Fantasy II's Emperor, staying relatively snooty and cool for most of the game. They also both kidnap a woman named Hilda.
From Kefka in Final Fantasy VI we get the way he kills Garland, booting him off a ledge in Terra; Kefka pulled the same thing on Gestahl. Both villains also boast an initial status as an underling to an Emperor/Queen who eventually rises to Big Bad status. Oh, and a large part of both their plans involves Eidolons.
He totally borrows Sephiroth'sWhite-Haired Pretty Boy aesthetic, although he brought only about half the clothes with him. They're also both genetically engineered, though Kuja to a much greater extent than Sephiroth. They both also pull a MacGuffin Delivery Service on the heroes, although Sephiroth resorts to sneaky tactics while Kuja just abducts the party outright.
It's been suggested that Saika Magoichi is a combination of Suzuki Shigehide (who sided with Hideyoshi in SW1-2) and Suzuki Shigetomo (Who sided with Masamune in the latter half of SW2 and SW3), both men who held the title of "Saika Magoichi", which is treated as the composite character's.
Kunoichi stands in for the historical Sanada Ten Braves, while Kotaro Fuma may also be a composite character for the Fuma ninja clan.
Mr. Game and Watch from the Super Smash Bros series primarily looks like the random jumping civilians from the Game and Watch game "Fire", but he has many weapons based on many other Game & Watch games.
In the first X-Men Legends, Allison Crestmere (Magma of the New Mutants) is given a personality and background similar to Kitty Pryde and the powers of her mainstream counterpart. The developers admitted that they wanted to use Kitty Pryde, but her powers don't translate well to an action RPG.
This also applies to most of the characters that appear in the game, as they appear with their mainstream "Earth 616" personalities and backstories, but start by default with their Ultimate appearances. The sequel also adds Age Of Apocalypse into the mix.
It's really hard to combine AOA and 616 Sabretooth. Blink sees him as a Jerk with a Heart of Gold because "Mr. Creed" rescued her once (purely out of the goodness of his heart. In character for AOA.) Your character is more familiar with a 616 Sabretooth, saying "If he's got a good heart, it's because he ripped it out of someone's chest!" It really is as if you've met two different Victor Creeds. All the other cast members, though, are the straight-up 616 versions wearing the Ultimate Marvel costumes.
Haken Browning and Kaguya Nanbu from Endless Frontier take after both the Original Generation character they share the name of, and the one they share the sex of. Overall, Haken is more like Kyosuke, but inherits Excellen's combat style and flirtatiousness, while Kaguya takes more after Excellen, but inherits Kyosuke's more down-to-earth personality (but not his intelligence) and a combat style much more like his — though not identical.
When the Touhou game moved from the PC-98 to Windows things changed. One of the striking examples is Marisa, who really only kept the basic theme and appearance of the PC-98 character of that name. Her new personality is much more similar to (the now absent) Mima's.
The Master System version of Golden Axe ditched the three main characters from the arcade game and introduced a new one named Tarik, who is a renamed Ax Battler with the abilities to use the magic powers from all three of the arcade game's heroes.
Dan Hibiki from Street Fighter Alpha is essentially the two main characters from Art Of Fighting combined into one, looking a lot like Robert Garcia, but wearing Ryo Sakazaki's gi.
A literal example from Rockman 4 Minus Infinity: the Chimerabots are combinations of Robot Masters from the firstthreegames: Cut Man and Elec Man for the first, Wood Man and Quick Man for the second, and Needle Man and Gemini Man for the third. Each robot is the body and weapon of one Master with the AI and weapon path of the other.
A Composite Character Class example is from later Battlefield games. Battlefield 2 had seven different player classesnote Assault, Medic, Anti-Tank, Support, Special Forces, Engineer, and Sniper. Later games trimmed the number down and compiled gadgets, weapons, and bonuses from classes that were to be cut into classes that remained - both Battlefield 2142 and Battlefield 3 removed the Medic kit and gave their medical supplies to Assault.
When Lea in Kingdom Hearts comes Back from the Dead, it's as a Composite Characterof himself. He keeps Axel's clothing, weapons, powers, and memories, but regains his original memories and insists on being called Lea.
Umineko no Naku Koro ni manages with a in-universe example of this trope with Yasu who created his/her Beatrice persona based upon the ghost legends surrounding Beatrice on Rokkenjima, the rumors about Kinzo's secret lover, her mother's and grandmother's identities and her self.
Web Comics
Something Positive does this with it's Life Embellished cast, featuring at least a few people who are based off of various people the author has met, merged into one person.
El Goonish Shive merged a background character unofficially called Shy Girl with a minor character named Rhoda who then became more of a supporting character.
Web Original
A variation occurred in There Will Be Brawl: While fans were still awaiting Young Link and Toon Link to finally show up or be mentioned, like every other character in Super Smash Bros, it's eventually revealed that Link also is Young Link and Toon Link. They were compressed into one character. Link looks at a photo of his younger self. This photo includes both, Young Link/Toon Link, implying that they are both the same guy during the same period of time. Link is just their grown-up version.
Crinoverse The Crinoverse, existing as it does as a combination of multiple superhero universes, has a few of these. There's the Justice Avengers, a combination of the JLA and the Avengers, and a few others-Psimon is a combination of the Champions character and the DC character of the same name.
Parodied in The Simpsons when Bart claims his comic character "Angry Dad" is not based purely on one person, but is a composite of his dad, Lisa's dad, and Maggie's dad.
Disney does this frequently. The most notable example would be Aladdin, in which they did it twice: condensing the two genies (magic ring and lamp) into one (lamp), and combining the sorcerer who wanted the genie with the vizier trying to discredit Aladdin after his rise to wealth.
In fact, the two Aladdin examples mentioned above are commonly done in most adaptations of the story. Many readers aren't even aware of the fact that there are two genies in the story until they read the original.
Interestingly enough, at one point there were plans for both genies to appear.
In the book The Hundred and One Dalmatians, there are two female Dalmatians: the mother of the original litter of puppies, referred to only as "Mrs. Pongo" or "Missus," and a liver-spotted Dalmatian rescued by the family and named Perdita. The Disney film adaptation combines their roles, as well as the roles of the two Nannies.
Disney also inverted this trope in The Hunchback of Notre Dame. In the book, Archdeacon Claude Frollo is a tragic Anti-Villain. In the Disney film, the Archdeacon is a sympathetic character while Frollo is a separate character and outright evil.
Played straight, however, with the Disney version of Clopin, who is a composite of Hugo's Clopin (the psychotic King of the Gypsies) and Gringoire (the goofy troubadour).
The Fates from Hercules are a composite of the Fates from Classical Mythology (the youngest Fate spins a thread representing a person's life, signifying his/her birth; the middle weaves said thread, therefore determining how long that person will live; and the oldest cuts the thread, therefore killing the person the thread represents) and the Gray sisters (they all share a single eye).
They also merged Hades with Hera, and Hera with Alcmene.
In The Black Cauldron the characters of The Horned King and Arawn are combined. In Lloyd Alexander's five-part book series, Arawn is the Big Bad and The Horned King is The Dragon. The movie keeps "The Horned King" as his name and general appearance, but has Arawn's role as "the Dark Lord".
In Tarzan Kerchak is a composite of Burroughs's Kerchak (leader of the Mangani during Tarzan's childhood) and Tublat (mate of Kala who is vaguely resentful of Tarzan, but not a villain). To confuse things further, The Legend Of Tarzan introduced a character more like the book version of Kerchak (violent killer ape seeking revenge on Tarzan) ... and called him Tublat.
Ursula from The Little Mermaid is actually a composite of the Sea Witch from the original Hans Christian Andersen fairy tale and the woman who ended up marrying the prince instead of the Mermaid, and therefore prompting her to commit suicide.
The 1990s Discworld animated series replaces the unnamed Mended Drum barman in Wyrd Sisters with Hibiscus Dunelm, the new proprietor in Soul Music. Soul Music also gives Adrian "Big Mad Drongo" Turnipseed all the lines belonging to the other two students at the High Energy Magic Building, Skazz and Tez the Terrible. He's also given Skazz's Blinding Bangs.
In the Direct-to-Video movie Superman Doomsday, there's only one replacement Superman, who has elements of three of the replacements in the original The Death of Superman arc: he's a clone like Superboy, he has a zero-tolerance approach to crimefighting like the Eradicator, and he's secretly working for a villain like the Cyborg.
The spikes on him are reminiscent of Doomsday. The pale skin may be a shout out to Bizarro as well.
Robin from the Teen Titans is an amalgam of the first three characters who went by that name, although he is mainly implied (and later confirmed in the tie-in comics) to be Dick Grayson.
Tim Drake, the second Robin in the The New Adventures of Batman, has Jason's Todd's origin and some of the attendant attitude (plus similar luck with the Joker), but had Tim Drake's name and, judging by his future career as a communications engineer, his intelligence. Typical Robin wisecracking came from both. Perhaps as a result of being partially based on Jason Todd, Tim also had some of young Dick Grayson's traits as well, though Dick himself appears in the series.
In Wolverine and the X-Men, Marrow appears in the Bad Future, where she befriends Rover the Sentinel and takes on the role of Tom Skylark in the comic book Bad FutureHere Comes Tomorrow, only without the Technopathy that explained how Tom had made friends with a Sentinel. Instead, she was given it by Polaris.
The show's version of Arclight is a male like the Age Of Apocalypse characters, but sported the powers of the classic Marvel version who's a woman and wears a Spear Counterpart version of her costume.
In the original Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles comic book, Splinter was the pet rat of ninja master Hamato Yoshi, who gained anthropomorphic qualities after exposure to the mutagen. In the 1987 animated series, Splinter was Hamato Yoshi himself, who gained rat-like qualities due to the mutagen.
The 2012 cartoon reboot does the same thing, making Splinter and Hamato into the same person once again.
Arguably, Ch'rell (Utrom Shredder) from the 2k3 animated series is an amalgam of the comic version of Oroku Saki and Krang from the previous animated series.
In Turtles Forever, one could argue that the movie Shredder was added to the mix (In his insanity to take revenge on the Turtles to the point of Murder Suicide).
The 2012 show reintroduces Krang, but as a species of aliens called "The Kraang", who wear human disguises and operate covertly, combining the character with the alien species of the Utroms.
In X-Men: Evolution, Avalanche seems to be a combination of the comic book Avalanche (name, role with the Brotherhood) and Rictor of the New Mutants (appearance, the details of how his powers work, occasional consideration of a Heel Face Turn). The hotheadedness comes from both of them.
In The Spectacular Spider-Man, Montana of the Enforcers and the Shocker (originally Herman Schultz in the comics) are now a single character. His partner in the Enforcers, Fancy Dan, becomes Ricochet (a hero in the comics continuity). The Ox also gets a power suit, but stays the Ox.
Their boss, Lonnie "Tombstone" Lincoln, also uses the alter-ego "Big Man," originally Frederick Foswell in the comics. (Interestingly, Foswell was in the series; it's unclear if something would have developed with this, had the show not been Screwed by the Lawyers.) As a billionaire Villain with Good Publicity he's also far more reminiscent of the Kingpin than thug-for-hire comic Tombstone, or even the original Big Man, who was more of a street gang leader. Word Of God says they were originally going to include the Kingpin as "the Big Man of Crime," but had to Write Around Trademarks since they were only allowed to use official Spider-Man characters. Kingpin is technically a Daredevil villain, so Sony didn't have the rights to him.
And the Cat, Black Cat's Gentleman Thief father, is combined with Uncle Ben's killer, which in turn makes Black Cat combined with Jessica Carradine.
There's also Sable Manfredi. Her role as the loyal daughter of the elderly crime-lord Silvio "Silvermane" Manfredi comes from Alisha Silver in Spider-Man: The Animated Series. Her name and appearance are clearly based on Nazi-hunter and occasional Spidey ally Silver Sable (Silver Sablinova).
A minor example, the treacherous business partner who stole Adrian Toomes's inventions and drove him to become the Vulture got folded into Norman Osborn's character. Word Of God also suggests that Norman invented Globulin Green himself, while in the comics it was made by his mentor, Mendel Stromm.
Liz Allan's brother Mark has a gambling addiction, much like Betty Brant's brother in the comics.
Young Justice has Artemis, who shares the name and backstory of her counterpart, but also has elements of Arrowette and Mia Dearden thrown in. Notably, the chest emblem on Artemis' costume comes from Mia's Speedy costume.
Match is also given elements from various Bizarros (backwards S, insanity due to the difficulty of copying kryptonian DNA) and Superboy-Prime (carving an S-symbol into his own chest, having black eyes, status as the "original" Superboy).
Mark Desmond/Blockbuster gets his role as control-freak Cadmus boss who created Superboy from Director Westfield.
Klarion the Witch Boy's status as an insanely powerful and evil Lord of Chaos comes from The Child, a foe of Hawk and Dove and the JSA. Also, in "Misplaced" he takes the role of Bedlam in JLA: World Without Grownups.
Red Tornado's siblings Red Torpedo and Red Inferno both believed themselves to be human and became superheroes during the Golden Age. Red Torpedo's human identity was the original Red Torpedo from Quality Comics, and Red Inferno was the All-Star Squadron character Firebrand.
Inverted: The Roy Harper we know turns out to be a clone of the original, who was abducted before the show even began. Eventually the original is recovered and the two wind up splitting elements of Roy from the comic: the clone keeps the name Red Arrow and has a relationship and child with Cheshire, while the original lost his arm and takes the name Arsenal.
Blackarachnia is a combination of her Beast Wars namesake and Elita One from Transformers Generation 1, with her design featuring elements of all of Blackarachnia's appearances in the Beastera.
The Japanese dub actually did this to everyone by making them all the same characters as the ones in the live action movies. Especially Bulkhead, who was actually even renamed "Ironhide".
However, that's a very informed trait that doesn't show up in the series itself. In fact, comedic elements were added to that particular character that make "Ironhide" even less like Movie Ironhide than Bulkhead was.
Inverted (or something; we're not quite sure what) with Skywarp and Cyclonus. In Transformers Generation 1, Cyclonus may or may not be an upgraded Skywarp (blame error-prone animation for a confusing Transformation Sequence.) The Animated version, however? Skywarp is one of several clones of Starscream, each with one trait of the original taken Up to Eleven. Skywarp represents his cowardice. As for Cyclonus, he's a brief cameo, but All There in the Manual tells us that his "internal chronometer" is way off, he is seeking someone named Galvatron (that's Megatron's upgraded form in G1 and several other series), and he has some circuitry in common with Starscream, particularly his (now disabled) self-preservation instinct. This hints without saying that Cyclonus is from the future and used to be Skywarp.
In The Batman, Dr Hugo Strange is initially introduced as the morally ambiguous director of Arkham Asylum, who views the insanity of Batman's villains (and Batman himself) as a fascinating riddle. While he soon becomes the Mad Scientist of the comics, the early appearances owe more to Dr Jeremiah Arkham.
In the final season, Firefly becomes this, when he came into contact with an isotope and gained the powers and (partly) the codename of minor Batman baddie Doctor Phosphorus.
Alan Burnett said the Flash was Barry Allen, but the character has a personality more in line with Wally West and Bart Allen.
Ethan Bennet/Clayface is a combination of Two-Face (friends with Bruce, anger issues) and Clayface (name, powers).
And funnily enough, the Clayface from Batman The Animated Series is also a composite, in this case of the original three men to bear the name in the comics. He's an actor (Basil Karlo) named Matt Hagen who gained shapeshifting powers (Matt Hagen) but consequentially became horribly disfigured (Preston Payne).
Count Vertigo from Batman The Animated Series is a composite of Ebeneezer Darrk and the Green Arrow foe Count Vertigo. His name, powers, and Eastern European heritage come from Count Vertigo, while his status as a pupil of Ra's al Ghul and a turncoat member of the League of Assassins comes from Darrk.
Similar to Venom is Firestorm in Batman The Brave And The Bold. The original Firestorm was an amalgam of slacker student Ronnie Raymond and physicist Martin Stein, then Raymond and Mikhail Arkadin, then Raymond on his own. After his death the new Firestorm was teenager Jason Rusch, who would combine with whomever happened to be nearby but would eventually combine with his friend Mick Wong, then Stein, then Firehawk, then his girlfriend Gehenna. The animated version was formed by a combination of gym teacher Ronnie Raymond and his student, a pre-teen Jason Rusch (now a science whizz-kid to provide Stein's atomic knowledge). As of Brightest Day and the New 52, the Rusch/Raymond combo is in the comics as well.
The Music Meister is a composite of DC villains named The Fiddler and the Pied Piper who also used mind control through music. His appearance and name are very similar to a character featured in a Justice League episode named "Music Master" who himself was an Expy of the Fiddler.
The TB&TB incarnation of Damian Wayne combines elements of three separate children of Bruce Wayne from different continuities - obviously he gets his name from Grant Morrison's Batman, but the story he appears in is more like the Golden Age "Imaginary Stories" with Bruce Wayne Jr. (complete with the Framing Story of Alfred writing fiction). And his mother isn't Talia, like comics Damian, or Kathy Kane, like Bruce Jr., but Catwoman like Helena Wayne of Earth-2, who became a vigilante in order to avenge the death of her mother, and continued on, taking her father's place after his subsequent death.
The Weeper in "Joker: The Vile and the Villainous" is based on a Golden Age character who was a foe of Bulletman, but the story itself is based on a team-up between Joker and a character called Willy the Weeper. The composite character has the original Weeper's real name and appearance (and is shown fighting Bulletman in flashback), but like Willy is an Ineffectual Sympathetic Villain who cries genuine tears for his victims.
Krull the Eternal is mostly Vandal Savage, but his name and appearance come from Captain Marvel's caveman enemy, King Kull. He also takes visual cues and a voice actor from Darkseid's son Kalibak.
The Hunter's name and appearance come from the Faceless Hunters who appeared in Strange Adventures. His role as humanoid frontman for Starro is loosely based on Cobi from R.E.B.E.L.S.
Equinox is two Justice League of America villains: Libra (balance-obsessed, cosmic-powered villain) and the Gray Man (embittered and crazy ex-agent of the Lords of Order).
OMAC enemy General Kafka is combined with the completely unrelated character Shrapnel, for no reason that's easy to figure out.
Dilbert revived LOUD HOWARD, a character who'd proved quite popular with readers of the strip but who the author thought was too flat to make much use of. To make him more interesting, the show merged him with Nervous Ted and had him shout constantly about trivial worries.
Greedy Smurf from The Smurfs is a composite of both Baker Smurf and Chef Smurf and the original comic book version of Greedy.
Rasputin as he appears in Anastasia is actually a mix between the historical character, and a character from russian folklore Koschei the Deathless.
In Transformers Prime, Airachnid at first appears to be an Expy of Blackarachnia. However, personality-wise, she appears to be more a combination of Lockdown and Tarantulas, with just a little bit of the Predator thrown in.
Arcee looks and acts more like Chromia than her G1 counterpart, who was pink, Team Mom and The Chick rather than being blue, an Action Girl and Lady of War.
Shockwave combines the logic-driven mad scientist characterization of his G1 incarnation with the hulking death machine appearance of his Movie counterpart.
A few of the My Little Pony: Friendship Is Magic ponies are Composite Characters with other ponies, due to loss of trademark on the G1 ponies that were meant to be used. Surprise became Pinkie Pie, Firefly got turned into Rainbow Dash, Glory became Rarity, Twilight became Twilight Twinkle (though her name was changed to "Twilight Sparkle"), and Posey became Fluttershy.
The Flash in Justice League and Justice League Unlimited was the Wally West incarnation, but also had elements of his predecessor Barry Allen (such as being a police scientist rather than a mechanic). His foe Mirror Master was the Sam Scudder version but possessed the amped up, supernatural abilities of his successor.
Also in Justice League Unlimited Steven Mandragora is a combination of Tobias Whale, Black Lighting's Arch-Enemy and Stefano Mandragora, the man murdered the Huntress parents. Steven Mandragora has Tobias Whale's look and physical strength, but has Mandragora's name and status as the man who murdered Huntress' parents.
One brief gag during the episode The Greatest Story Never Told had Booster Gold see what appears to be Superman fall from the sky, only for "Superman" to turn towards Booster, showing the other is Batman, and addressed Booster with the voice of Wonder Woman.
Along those same lines, Mockingbird is given most of Spider-Woman's plot from Secret Invasion, right down to getting kidnapped and replaced by Veranke, the Skrull Queen.
Baron Zemo is another one, mixing first Zemo (fought Cap during World War II and leads Masters Of Evil) with his son, the second Zemo (costume and personality, and the fact he's disfigured due to the actions of Captain America).
Viper combines her comics namesake with Skrull Elektra.
There is also Hulk, who takes from different versions of himself at different periods of time, mixing his original personality, well-known Savage Hulk and recent Green Scar Hulk.
William "Crossfire" Cross is given his cousin Darren Cross's role in Scott Lang's origin story.
In the original G.I. Joe animated series, the General Flagg that appears in the original "MASS Device" mini-series has the same name and role as the General Flagg from the comics, but his character design resembles that of General Austin, General Flagg's adviser from the comics.
In Iron Man Armored Adventures, the Blizzard has the real name of Donny Gill, the better-known Blizzard II in the comics. But his backstory as an embittered ex-Stark scientist who created the cryosuit comes from Gergor Shapanka, the original Blizzard.
And Justin Hammer is Titanium Man.
When Nickelodeon re-introduced America to Winx Club in 2011, they crammed the first two seasons into four, one-hour specials. The season two special, "The Shadow Phoenix," merged Lord Darkar with Professor Avalon by making the latter a disguise. In the original full season, the Avalon the Winx met was an imposter working for Darkar. The change caused a Plot Hole in the third season, since the real Avalon had arrived at Alfea by then.
In W.I.T.C.H. comics Nerissa's Dragon Shagon and bestial Kor were random man and his dog turned into her servants. In the cartoon this fate is given to Will's boyfriend Matt and his pet rat.
Batman: Mask of the Phantasm was adapted from the Batman: Year Two storyline. In the comic, the Reaper was Judson Caspian, whose daughter Rachael was in a budding relationship with Bruce Wayne. In the movie, Andrea Beaumont was both the Phantasm and the love interest.
In Ultimate Spider-Man Harry becomes Venom. In most continuities he becomes the second Green Goblin while Venom is a separate character named Eddie Brock.
The origin of the Venom Symbiote also comes from Carnage's origin in Ultimate Spider-Man. The only major difference is that in the original comics, Curt Conners was the one who created the Symbiote from Peter's blood, rather than Doctor Octopus.
Electro starts off in his normal Earth-616 form (complete with the classic costume), but transforms into his energy-based Ultimate counterpart after an accident.
The Power Man used is the original Luke Cage version, but his costume is heavily based off that of Victor Alvarez, the modern Power Man.
Hector Ayala, the original White Tiger, is merged with his own father so that he becomes Ava Ayala's dad (he's her older brother in the comics).
The Falcon from Avengers Assemble has elements of James Rhodes, namely he was initially intended to pilot the War Machine armor before deciding on the Falcon suit instead.
This was a shrewd method of giving the lead character more roles in early episodes of Thomas and Friends adapted from The Railway Series novels. Whenever the original novels utilized a generic or unadapted engine, Thomas would be used in it's place. For example, he is the engine that tries to pull Henry out of the tunnel in "The Sad Story of Henry", or the rude engine that fetches James' trucks in "Troublesome Trucks", both of which were unnamed background characters in the original books.
In the Ellipse-Nelvana adaptation of the Tintin book "Coke in Stock", sheik Bab-El-Ehr's part as the rebels' leader is absorbed into Mull Pasha's (Bab-El-Ehr himself had no screen time anyway in the book).
Johnny Test has Hank Anchorman in every season following the first; he looked much different in the first season before his design was changed to a human version of the one-off robot anchorman from "Sonic Johnny".
