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"Everything that exists has a specific nature. Each entity exists as something in particular and has characteristics that are part of what it is. "A is A"... And no matter what reality he calls home, Luthor is Luthor."
Often a subset of Bizarro Universe, it is an Alternate Universe where Good and Evil characterisations are reversed, but is otherwise the same as the "real" universe - except where logically derived from this change in morality. As an example, in Bizarro World, the earth is a cube. In the mirror universe, the earth is a sphere, but The Captain has a cool eyepatch.
Occasionally, some other characteristic is reversed. Contrast with Dark World. The hero in the Mirror Universe functions as the Evil Twin. Expect the loyal soldier to become a blithering coward, the backstabbing bastard to become a peaceful negotiator, and the bridge bunny who normally gets no lines becomes a trash-talking, lingerie-wearing, gun-toting, bisexually hyperactive ball of unleashed id. Fan-artists, drawings of Maya Ibuki like this would be welcome.
From the Star Trek episode "Mirror, Mirror". In homage to this episode, it's common for an evil mirror equivalent have a goatee beard.
Examples:
Card Games
- The recent sets of Magic The Gathering involve a plane that transforms back and forth between its mirror opposites. Lorwyn is a bright, cheery world of eternal summer and daylight, filled with the stuff of whimsical fairytales. Then the world is abruptly transformed into Shadowmoor, stuck in perpetual twilight, and filled with the stuff of the Grimm brothers. Most inhabitants change with it, believing that they've always lived in whichever world it is (which could bring with it all kinds of metaphysical uncertainty about just how often the world changes its nature).
Comic Books
- Comics do this all the time. The DCU has its "anti-matter" Earth, wherein Ultraman, Superwoman, Johnny Quick, Power Ring, and Owlman (the Crime Syndicate of Amerika) are the evil duplicates of Superman, Wonder Woman, the Flash, Green Lantern, and Batman (the Justice League), and Lex Luthor was the only superhero left in the world. (A later story introduced the Justice Underground, a team of heroes led by Riddler's counterpart, the Quizmaster. And following Riddler's Heel Face Turn, Quizmaster had a temporary Face Heel Turn.)
- The trope originated in the Silver Age with Earth-3, which was destroyed in Crisis On Infinite Earths but was restored later. The antimatter universe was based on this concept.
- Grant Morrison's JLA: Earth-2, the graphic novel that re-introduced the "anti-matter" version of the Crime Syndicate, deconstructed the trope: even the Theory Of Narrative Causality was reversed in the mirror universe, so the Justice League's attempt to save it was as doomed as the Syndicate's attempt to conquer The DCU.
- Justice League also had the Justice Lords universe - a variation on the regular DCAU in which the death of The Flash resulted in the League/Lords becoming a totalitarism dictatorship.
- There was also one with Nazi versions of the Justice League - Superman becomes Ubermensch (the German term of which 'Superman' is one translation), Batman and Robin become Horned Owl and Fledermaus, Wonder Woman becomes Gudra the Valkyrie, Aquaman becomes Sea Wolf and Green Arrow becomes Usil.
- Exiles, of the Marvel Universe, had an issue where Galactus restored worlds instead of eating them, and the Silver Surfer was a power-hungry despot who had destroyed his own homeworld.
- The first issue of Exiles was in a universe where Magneto was the benevolent teacher who wanted mutants and humans to live in harmony, and Professor X believed there could only be peace when humanity was eradicated.
- Archie Comics' Sonic the Hedgehog comic has a Mirror Universe, called variously "The Reverse Universe", "Anti-Mobius", and "Moebius". In it Dr. Robotnik/Kintobor is a veterinarian, while the Freedom Fighters fight against freedom. The Anti-Freedom Fighters all dress in black leather, and acted like a bunch of juvenile delinquents until Anti-Sonic became "Scourge" and conquered Moebius.
- Subversion: In Phil Foglio's short story "Work Ethic" found in Grimjack #40, heroes from a world in which there is only pure good and pure evil (and the heroes always win), get transported to Grimjack's world, which has a more realistically varied moral spectrum. Thus, since they see that everything is not purely good, they begin to destroy the entire town of Cynosure until Cynosure's protector sends them back to their own dimension. (Incidentally, these heroes, the Heterodyne Boys, later became the inspiration for Girl Genius.)
- Transformers: Shattered Glass, where the Heroic Decepticons are fighting to protect Earth and Cybertron from the powermongering of the Evil Autobots. "Till All are Gone..."
Literature
- In Andre Norton's Star Gate (1958), the human colonists of Gorth, seeking an Alternate Universe version of their beloved adopted planet that has no native intelligent life, accidentally stumble into a version in which their own counterparts have used their advanced technology to enslave the inhabitants.
- The Dark Reflections Trilogy features a literal mirror universe.
Live Action TV
- In "Inferno", the Doctor was transported to a world where Britain was a military dictatorship and the UNIT characters were either evil (like Brigade Leader Lethbridge-Stewart and his Eyepatch Of Power and Platoon Underleader Benton) or resignedly following orders (like Section Leader Liz Shaw and Doctor Petra Williams). The location and plot were the same (an attempt to drill into the Earth's mantle), but penetration was reached and the world was destroyed. The Doctor was able to escape in time and stop his Earth's version of the project.
- Subverted in Stargate SG-1. A whole shipload of alternate SG-1 teams from various universes arrives. One team ends up hijacking the Prometheus. Mitchell says to his double, "You don't have beards, so I know you're not from the Evil Twin Universe". It turns out that this particular team comes from a universe in which Earth does not have a working Zero Point Energy module and needs one to power their defenses. So out of desperation they've contrived the conditions that caused the dimensional travel so they can steal someone else's. You'd think they'd just get all the Samanthas to work on the problem.
- That's actually pretty much how they solve the problem of sending everyone back.
- Charmed had a Polar Opposite World, where good and evil were reversed. The characters had to forge an alliance with their "evil" selves to get both worlds back into balance.
- An imbalance that occurred when these universes crossed caused a total Flanderization of their respective moralities; in the 'good' universe, even the most minor of infringements of law or courtesy was enough to have you (cheerfully) shot, whereas so much as the slightest gesture of kindness in the 'evil' universe would incur the same consequence. Also, it was always day in the good world, and always night in the evil one.
- The Star Trek Mirror Universe started out (in the Star Trek The Original Series that introduced it) as identical to the main universe, except that for the moral inversion between the Federation characters and their evil Empire counterparts. When the Mirror Universe was revisited in Star Trek Deep Space Nine, the correspondences were less straightforward — the Empire had been overthrown, humans were downtrodden slaves, and the station was run by Kira's evil counterpart.
- And, despite being the Trope Codifier, slightly subverted it - Spock was, as the show put it, "A man of honor in both worlds", and not strictly evil in the mirror universe despite clearly being on the side of the angels in the primary reality. Further, the Aliens Of The Week were Actual Pacifists in both the 'normal' universe and in the Mirror Universe.
- When the prequel series Enterprise revisited it in "In A Mirror Darkly," it also completely changed its opening credits' entire mood from "Vapid Naive Hope" to "War! Conquest! Exploding Frickin Laser Beams!" And then someone declares themselves new ruler of the Empire.
- THIS, if not actually technically the originator of the "Opposite Universe" concept (DC had at least one before Star Trek) it's certainly the one that the trope is named after, and most Mirror Universes are directly satires of the Star Trek mirror universe. The most noteable signs that a Mirror Universe is a satire or rip-off of this one is Spock's beard and Uhura's exposed belly.
- In an episode of Power Rangers Ninja Storm, Tori is sent into a parallel universe where the other rangers are the bad guys and the villains are good guys (the shallow, fashioned obsessed villainesses are even hippies in this universe).
- One of the many, many sphere malfunctions in Seven Days, rather than sending Parker into a Mirror Universe, actually inverted the real universe (Since the existence of parallel universes was disallowed by the show's Applied Phlebotinum), changing Never Never Land into the seat of a tyrannical dictatorship, Ramsey into a spaced-out hippie, and reversing all writing. Parker, being morally ambiguous to begin with, was immune.
- Also, all text in this "inverted universe" is mirrored. Get it?
- Wasn't the whole episode shot mirrored? I seem to recall, La Paglia has a noticeable mole on the, er, right, could be left, side of his face, which was on the other side during this episode. Might recall incorrectly.
- The Middle Man: In "The Palindrome Reversal Palindrome", the alternate-universe Middleman goes from all-American Boy Scout type to less-than-altruistic Anti Hero, Pip goes from selfish brat to Catholic priest working to help the helpless, Lacey is a stripper, with Noser as her muscle, the entire world is a dystopia ruled by Fatboy Industries, and Wendy is the Big Bad. Oh, and all the male characters have beards.
- Red Dwarf played with the concept a few times without quite playing it straight. "Parallel Universe" had a universe where everyone's gender was swapped. "Angels and Demons" had both good and evil versions of the crew triplicated into existence. "Only the Good..." had a universe where everything was reversed, much like the DCU's Bizarro World.
Tabletop Games
- As a direct homage to DC's Crime Syndicate, the Freedom City setting for Mutants And Masterminds has a Mirror Universe (Anti-Earth) in which the city is called Empire City and the Freedom League is replaced by the Tyranny Syndicate.
Video Games
- City Of Heroes has the "Praetorians", evil world-conquering versions of the "normal" world's main heroes. Of course, it's up to the player character(s) to defeat them and ensure that they don't extend their conquests to other worlds.
- They have a Greek name, and Tyrant wears Greek-style armor, because of a legendary Real Life incident: when told of the existence of alternate universes, Alexander the Great wept: "So many worlds, and we have not yet conquered one."
- Also as a foil to the heroic Freedom Phalanx.
- The expansion Going Rogue (not to be confused with Sarah Palin's book) looks to be giving them a Retcon into more 'Justice Lords' than 'Crime Syndicate', there incidentally there is also a Syndicate in Praetorian Earth. There's also good versions of several villain groups; the soul-stealing Carnival of Shadows are the heroic Carnival of Light, and the Resistance seem to be based on the Freakshow.
- The same game featured the "Amerika Korps", who were from an Alternate History where, you guessed it, Hitler conquered and occupied the US.
- Clumsily Ret Conned into the Council Empire later on, though Issue 15 brings back the most memorable character of the Amerika Korps...
- Kirby and the Amazing Mirror. However, it's similar to most of its predecessors, aside from the sidekick Kirbies that wander around.
Web Original
- In the League Of Intergalactic Cosmic Champions, the LICC Universe is mirrored by the KILL universe.
- AH Dot Com The Series has the Mirror Crew, though we never see their home universe. They're stereotypical pure evil much like the Star Trek original, but the dynamic is quite different because the primary AH.com crew are scarcely angels themselves, it's more a case of The Same But More.
- In Protectors Of The Plot Continuum, the mirror multiverse is dominated by the Sunflower Emperor and its Suvian legions, the Enforcers of the Plot Continuum.
- Also, Makes-Things had a Beard Of Evil. The Black Cats' doppelgängers were Reverse Moles. No word on any Mysterious Somebody, last time this troper checked.
- The RPG Net message boards recently featured
 a wonderful idea for a Discworld mirror universe. The Disc is torn by war between the scarily charismatic Last King, ruler of Ankh-Morpork and the Plains, and the all-powerful Crone, who controls the Ramtops. Between them are the Crone's former apprentice Magrat, Havelock the assassin and Samuel King-killer. And their leader, the last survivor of the Silver Horde, Rincewind Spellholder.
- Later additions included the Wizard-Killer, a bestial creature that haunts the library of the abandoned UU; Susan the Vain, who plays both sides, seeking to replace her grandfather as Champion of the Auditors; the History Monks, who presumably have decided this is all meant to happen for reasons of their own; the Chalkland Hag, who seeks to challenge the Crone and has turned a society of harmless brownies into an unstoppable army; Lady Sybil, who breeds war-dragons for the Last King and seduces others to her own ends; and Reginald Shoe, who has fled Ankh and turned Pseudopolis into an undead police state. Amongst others.
- Gaia Online recently featured a literal Mirror Universe in the form of the Dark Reflection random item generator. Unlucky Everygirl Kanoko get sucked into a bizzaro Gaia, and Gaians have to venture through the mirror to rescue her. Bizzaro Gaia features strange versions of the most famous Gaian NP Cs. Some of these are fairly basic changes. (Agatha and Rina swapping ages, Moria and Sasha swapping clothing styles, Ian and Rufus swapping species), while others are a bit more bizarre. (Scheming con man Nicolae is now a priest, Liam has become a woman, his yaoi-bait roommate Gino has become his boyfriend, and Edmund has become a huge nerd.). Various inversions of items are present as well. (Gaia-Tan has become Gaia-Sama, Grunny has become Prunny, etc...)
- The Allen And Craig Show, in Episode 12, features two gangsta counterparts to Allen and Craig that share many similar characteristics but have a more "urban" edge.
Webcomics
- In this strip of Dinosaur Comics, where every comic is the same six images every time, an early story arc involves a mirror universe that is the same six panels... mirrored. Also, every character has goatees.
- Irregular Webcomic's "Cliffhangers" theme had a visit by an alternate Kolonel Haken from a mirror universe where the Nazis were good and Monty were evil. Eventually he was killed in single combat by the main-universe Haken, so the only good Nazi was a dead Nazi.
- Following the history reboot, there have been two forays to the evil mirror universe. Thus far, the only visible differences are the beards, the arrangement of the panels, and Dr Jones Sr.'s dislike of sausages and avoidence of puns.
- In Wilys Defense takes place in a universe where Dr. Wily would like a less exciting lifestyle, Cut Man's the hero, Dr. Light is an egotistical megalomaniac, and X is Ax Crazy.
- McAwesome is apparently a mirror shop of Shortpacked.
Western Animation
- South Park parodied the Star Trek episode with their own Mirror Universe, from which visited an alternate Cartman. Exactly like the alternate Spock in "Mirror, Mirror", the alternate Cartman was bearded — but being the moral opposite of the "real" Cartman, he was of course kind, soft-spoken, polite and gentle.
- Darkwing Duck had the Negaverse where Darkwing Duck's Evil Twin Negaduck may or may not have come from, but where he apparently rules with an iron fist. In that world, Gosalyn and Tank are sweet, Honker and the Muddlefoots are psychotic killers, and that world's version of the "Fearsome Five" are called the "Friendly Four".
- In Batman The Brave And The Bold, Batman travels to one of these when the Red Hood, an alternate version of the Joker, needs his assistance. He seems to enjoy repeatedly punching out the alternate version of Green Arrow a little too much...
- An episode of Arthur plays with this trope when Arthur's third grade class from Lakewood Elementary, taught by Mr. Ratburn, goes to a Renaissance Faire and meets the third grade class from Glenbrook Academy, taught by Mr. Pryce-Jones, Mr. Ratburn's favorite teacher from his school days. Mr. Pryce-Jones is basically is a really snooty, much meaner version of Mr. Ratburn, who is just a goofy, nerdy, but well-meaning guy who has an affinity for giving a lot of homework to challenge his students' minds; Mr. Pryce-Jones seems intent on producing a bunch of snobby learning-machines, and his students behave as such, with an evil Big Eater opposed to Buster, an evil Smart Guy for the Brain (his counterpart is called "I. Q."), an evil Rich Bitch for Muffy, and an evil Unlucky Everydude for Arthur (named "Chester"). Arthur and Buster even Lampshade the trope's use:
Arthur: They look familiar. Did we play soccer against those guys?
Buster: No way! I'd remember a bunch of goofy-looking kids like that.
- An episode of Recess had the same idea, when Principal Prickley makes them compete against a kickball team from the school where his brother is the principal. There is a nerdy kid like Gretchen, a typical-loser kid like Gus, a super-athletic kid like Vince, etc. This means that they are perfectly matched and it seems like one team will never beat the other. However, instead of one side being clearly "good" and the other "evil" the kids all conclude at the end that both of the principals are nuts and go off to play on the jungle gym, "Big Crusty" (which looks exactly like "Old Rusty" from the other school).
- The 6th-season Simpsons episode Lemon of Troy did the same swap, between two towns (Springfield and Shelbyville) instead of two schools. Bart and his friends all had Shelbyville counterparts, although they weren't so much evil (since Bart is not exactly good) as just antagonistic to our heroes. Milhouse and his counterpart even made friends.
Milhouse2: But Milhouse is my name!
Milhouse: But I thought I was the only one!
- The Swat Kats episode "The Dark Side of the SWAT Kats" featured the titular team being warped to a dimension where they're evil (and so is their ally, Deputy Mayor Callie Briggs). The universe wasn't entirely swapped however - some major characters retained their 'correct' moral alignments. (There were other more subtle changes as well, such as the Enforcers using fixed-wing aircraft rather than helicopters.)
- MegasXLR has a version of this in its two-part "Rear View, Mirror Mirror" storyline. In this timeline, main character Coop abandoned the titular Megas shortly defeating the series' Big Bad - losing his mind as boredom and battlelust sank in, culminating in the conquest of earth and several solar systems. Coop seems more offended at his alternate self being athletic and muscular (as opposed to...large) rather than evil, though.
- The World's Greatest Superfriends had such an episode, "Universe of Evil", which has its own Wikipedia entry.
- Buzz Lightyear Of Star Command had as a minor villain the imaginatively dubbed and yes, goateed, Evil Buzz Lightyear who came from a parallel universe that he had conquered.
- Codename Kids Next Door had one in which even the acronyms were reversed - the counterparts to the Delightful Children From Down The Lane were the Little Traitorous Dudes From Children's Defence, who opposed the iron grip of the Destructively Nefarious Kids, who were led by Numbuh -4, who had attained a goatee to make himself look even eviller. Fortunately, since the regular Numbuh 4 is brave to the point of recklessness and a strong physical fighter, Numbuh -4 was a coward and weakling. Also, Numbuh -86 was a sweet girly-girl.
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