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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 unleased id.

From the Star Trek episode "Mirror, Mirror". In homage to this episode, it's common for an evil mirror equivalent have a goatee beard.

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Examples:

• Doctor Who also did a variation of this in "Inferno" where the Doctor was transported to a world where Britain was a military dictatorship and the UNIT characters were either evil or resignedly following orders. 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 warn the normal world of the consequences.
• 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.
• 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.
• Comics do this all the time. The DCU has its "anti-matter" Earth, wherein Ultraman, Superwoman, Johnny Quick, Power Ring, and Owlman are the evil duplicates of Superman, Wonder Woman, the Flash, Green Lantern, and Batman, 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 seems to have had a Face Heel Turn.)
  • 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.
  • 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.
• Comics, subverted: 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.)
• The World's Greatest Superfriends had such an episode, "Universe of Evil", which has its own Wikipedia entry.
• 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.
• Webcomic example: 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.
• 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."
  • The same game featured the "Amerika Korps", who were from an Alternate History where, you guessed it, Hitler conquered and occupied the US.
• 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.
  • 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.
    • You're skipping the ninety minutes of magnificent bastardry on the part of Archer and Hoshi.
  • THIS, if not actually technically the originator of the "Oposite 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.
• 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).
• Swat Kats The Radical Squadron episode 'The Dark Side of the SWAT Kats' featured the titular team being warped to a dimension where they're evil. 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.)
• 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..."
  • And yes, Evil Rodimus has a goatee◊.
• Megas XLR 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.
• McAwesome is apparently a mirror shop of Shortpacked.
• RPG example: 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.
• 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).
• 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.
• 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, the entire world is a dystopia ruled by Fatboy Industries, and Wendy is the Big Bad. Oh, and all the male characters have beards.
• In the League Of Intergalactic Cosmic Champions, the LICC Universe is mirrored by the KILL universe.
• 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.
• 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, Goslyn 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 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.
• 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.
• 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.
• 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.

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