A
Story Arc or season which features an
expansion of the general cast, such as other groups of protagonists working in other locations for similar goals. Allows a new pool of characters for writers to pick from rather than constantly having to make new ones, so stories can occasionally focus on them and give the main folks a break. Often, characters from one-shot episodes are brought back as part of the new group.
Also useful as subtle
filler and potential
spinoff material. Can very easily lead to
Loads And Loads Of Characters. See also
Green Lantern Corps,
West Coast Team.
Examples
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- The "World Tour" arc of Digimon Adventure 02.
- The foreign Gatekeepers in Gatekeepers.
- Pokemon Special. Each arc (and region) introduces new heroes into the story, with previous protagonists arriving later to aid the current ones. As of the current storyline, the number of the protagonists ranks up to 13; 10 of them appeared in the latest resolved storyline, and fans wonder how long it will take until the latter three are joined up by the rest.
- Bleach... just Bleach.
- In Naruto, the Chuunin Exam arc introduced, in addition to the Rookie 9 (the classmates of the main characters), Team Gai from the year above, Team Sand from the Sand village, and Team Sound from the Sound village, and Kabuto and his teammates. Each team consists of three Genin and one Jounin sensei, making a total of 24 new characters. And that was only the beginning of the arc, and does'nt include Big Bad Orochimaru, Special Jounin like Ibiki, Anko, Hayate and Genma, Jiraiya, and the Sound 4. This Troper has probably missed some characters out. To be fair, a handful of these characters died. Also, the Anime tones this down slightly by introducing some of Naruto's classmates in the first episode. The Chuunin Exam is only the second story arc.
Comic Books
- The Legion Of Superheroes.
- Warren Ellis's Global Frequency is like this from the start. The only characters who recur regularly are Aleph and Miranda Zero.
- The proposed TV adaptation would have added two extra regular characters, Sean Flynn and Katrina Finch, who would join up with the rotating cast of each episode. Only the pilot was ever made though, so they're both one-shot characters after all.
Live Action TV
- Lost tends to do this each season.
- The second season added the characters from the tail section of the wrecked plane to the cast.
- The third season added Desmond and a few of the Others to the main cast.
- Season four introduced the crew of the freighter.
- The fifth season introduces time travel, allowing the entire Dharma initiative to be added, as well as the survivors from the second plane crash that brought the Oceanic six back to the island.
- Heroes made this their policy from the very beginning.
Video Games
- The purpose of Mass Effect 2, which involves Shepard recruiting a team of mostly-new Badasses on a suicide mission.
Western Animation
- Justice League Unlimited, naturally.
- The Avalon Tour arc of Gargoyles, where Goliath and the others happily discovered the other gargoyle clans still surviving in the world.
- And again in the comic books: "Clan-Building" ends with the main cast nearly doubling in size, as not only do Coldstone and Coldfire join, but Brooklyn goes on a time trip and comes back with a wife, a kid (with another on the way), and a "dog".
- Teen Titans (Titans East, and most of the 5th season.)
- As Kids Next Door progressed, it was revealed that the KND was a massive global operation. And despite the main characters being assigned operative numbers 1 through 5, they were not at the top of the command structure.
Web Original
- The Whateley Universe has grown like this. The original six main characters have grown to around 20 main characters and another dozen or so who have gotten A Day In The Limelight or Character Focus or just a lot more facetime than originally planned. This is only possible because the original half dozen (or so) canon authors have grown to over twice that.
