Spiritual Crossover vs. Expy

I found Spiritual Crossover the other day. It's defined as when characters encounter Expies of characters from another franchise. How is this different from Expy?

Oh, that's fun. "Expy" and "Spiritual X" tropes are among the messier and more contentious pages on the wiki, and now there's a crossover between them. Yay.

First, the description should probably refer specifically to Captain Ersatz and not Expy - Captain Ersatz is meant to be a character from another IP with the serial numbers filed off for copyright purposes, while an expy simply emulates another character's most interesting design and personality traits, but has their own backstory, relationships with non-expy characters, etc. (You could think of it as, in the absence of copyright law, would this character still have a different name from the one they're copying? A repeatedly-used Captain Ersatz can develop into an expy as they grow more distinct in their new setting, though - Herlock Sholmes is the classic example.)

The second distinction is that an Intercontinuity Crossover has a specific recognisable plot structure, starting with tropes like Let's You and Him Fight, The Ultimate Showdown Of Ultimate Destiny, and Red Skies Crossover. So a Spiritual Crossover is a crossover-structured event, but where you'd expect to see characters from another franchise, there are Brand X versions instead.

So let's say someone writes a Captain Ersatz of James Bond. If that character only existed to be a Shout-Out to James Bond, it wouldn't count as a Spiritual Crossover. But if that character interacted more with the main cast (i.e. aiding them, teaming up with them, fighting them), that would count as a Spiritual Crossover. Is that how this trope works?

Edited by SharkToast on Sep 19th 2022 at 3:23:14 AM

Something like that, I think. Interaction with the main cast as a supporting protagonist or antagonist seems important, but might not be sufficient.

The test case I'm contemplating are the pair of episodes from Inside Job where a blatant James Bond ersatz shows up, saves the day, then turns out to be Entitled to Have You to the protagonist and has to be taken out of the picture by teaming up with his Blofeld. That's Spiritual Crossover levels of interaction, but I have a hard time calling it that when it's more of a Deconstructive Parody - I think because there's no way it could be a real crossover, the James Bond rights owners would throw a fit about their IP being treated so disrespectfully. So I don't know. I feel like a lot of the page examples that aren't Marvel, DC, or Doctor Who are a bit shoehorned.

I think there's a trope for that but you'll have to go to Trope Finder to be sure.

If the Inside Job example shouldn't count because it doesn't seem like a crossover that Eon Productions would allow, should this trope then be YMMV? Otherwise, based off of your description, the Inside Job example should count because it involves a Captain Ersatz that interacts heavily with the main cast.