History Main / CastSpeciation

'''Other Black guy:''' Oh damn! Shit!\\
'''Both at the same time:''' It's whack!\\

'''Othe Black guy:''' Oh damn! Shit!\\

->''"We don't need'' two ''stretchy guys down there!"''
-->-- '''John Stewart''', ''WesternAnimation/JusticeLeagueUnlimited'', "[[Recap/JusticeLeagueUnlimitedS1E7TheGreatestStoryNeverTold The Greatest Story Never Told]]"

-->-- '''John Stewart''', ''WesternAnimation/JusticeLeagueUnlimited''

* [[TropesAreTools Unfortunately]] averted in the old ''{{WesternAnimation/Superfriends}}'' series, [[http://www.seanbaby.com/superfriends/hawkman.htm as Seanbaby notes]]. Hawkman and Hawkgirl could fly, but so could most of the other heroes on the show (even Flash when the animators were forgetful).

* In the American version of ''Series/TheAmazingRace'', they tend to split the eleven teams between couples (usually a few dating and a few married), family members (usually siblings), and friends. They also try to keep an equal balance between two men teams, two women teams, and man/woman teams. In the tenth season, Peter and Sarah who were called a dating couple weren't even dating, they were friends/colleagues. During the casting process, they were told that there wasn't room for another friends team but they needed another couple. The producers and the two of them cut a deal that they'd say they were originally friends who just started dating to get on the show. Sarah is actually now married to a man named Peter ironically enough. Season 26 was an experiment with all same "types" of teams , dating couples, that ended up not being the disaster many had feared but is seen as boring from a lack of variety in teams. Compared to most reality competition shows ''TAR'' is more about being able to work with your partner rather than working against the other teams. Since the teams all didn't know each other as well as, say, spouses or siblings would, there was a lot of that sort of dynamic missing. People were a lot less willing to call their partners out on their BS or telling them that they were being idiots.

* Wrestling/TheRockNRollExpress were put together as a PrettyBoy {{Fanservice}} TagTeam to take advantage of RickyMorton's ability to [[TheatricsOfPain sell]]. The "problem" was that the Wrestling/NationalWrestlingAlliance already had a well known fanservice tag team known as The Fabulous Ones. So The Rock 'n' Express were promoted to teenagers while the Fabulous Ones were meant to appeal to older women. This only half worked, as The Rock 'n' Roll Express proved to be [[PeripheryDemographic unexpectedly popular with college students]] to the point they became [[EnsembleDarkhorse more popular]] than The Fabulous Ones. Also, The Fabulous Ones were presented as tougher than The Rock 'n' Roll Express, as the latter team was intended to mostly work {{B show}}s, but this also worked in The Rock 'n' Roll Express' favor because many fans began [[FanOfTheUnderdog to support them for being underdogs]].

** In ''VideoGame/FinalFantasyV'', Lenna's special thing is that she loves animals and will do anything to help wind drakes. When Krile, who can ''talk'' to animals, joins the party, Lenna comes off as a lot less impressive in comparison. Possibly lampshaded when ''both'' she and Krile end up romantically passing out wading through poisoned grass to help a dragon (which should be a job for one of them at most), and Bartz complains that everyone here seems really highly strung.

** ''VideoGame/FinalFantasy'' expects you to play with a mixed party of four different Jobs, so a very common SelfImposedChallenge is to get through the game with all four Heroes of Light of the same Job. The game's already difficult, but doing this will make it ridiculously hard. (Unless you go for [[GameBreaker four Fighters, which will [[BoringButPractical merely make the game boring]].)

** ''VideoGame/FinalFantasy'' expects you to play with a mixed party of four different Jobs, so a very common SelfImposedChallenge is to get through the game with all four Heroes of Light of the same Job. The game's already difficult, but doing this will make it ridiculously hard.

** Played straight as well, with Aquaman, and with just as unfortunate results. While Aquaman is strongest around open water, he still has super strength and resilience out of water. Apparently worried that he would make Superman obsolete (yeah, right), the writers downplayed his non-aquatic powers to the point that he became basically helpless. Spending most of his time as a [[DistressedDude male version of the Damsel In Distress]] quickly dropped him to [[TheScrappy Scrappy status]]. It didn't help that censorship also restricted him fron punching, which is the main thing you'd want to do with SuperStrength. Sometimes he did demonstrate actual strength, but [[ForgotAboutHisPowers most of the time even the writers forgot about this.]]

** Played straight as well, with Aquaman, and with just as unfortunate results. While Aquaman is strongest around open water he still has super strength and resilience out of water. Apparently worried that he would make Superman obsolete (yeah, right) the writers downplayed his non-aquatic powers to the point that he became basically helpless. Spending most of his time as a [[DistressedDude male version of the Damsel In Distress]] quickly dropped him to [[TheScrappy Scrappy status]].
* ''WesternAnimation/BatmanTheBraveAndTheBold'' has both ComicBook/PlasticMan and ComicBook/ElongatedMan, who are rivals and accuse each other of being the other's PoorMansSubstitute who Batman only asks for help when the other is busy. Plastic Man even refers to Elongated Man as his "D-list doppelganger".

* Latter-day ''Franchise/TransformersGeneration1'' comics tend to do this a lot with faction leaders that replaced Optimus and Megatron in other continuities, retooling them to find a niche in an environment where those two are basically [[StatusQuoIsGod always going to be in the driver's seat.]] In IDW, for instance, Galvatron became a DecompositeCharacter from Megatron and had his servitude to a dark power played up to the point that he wasn't even a Decepticon for years, Thunderwing was pretty much locked into his "unstoppably mad villain" phase, Scorponok and Jhiaxus developed MadScientist inclinations, Dai Atlas and Metalhawk were unaligned (and Dai Atlas a religious leader), Overlord turned traitor and became far more violent, Fortress Maximus lost a lot of his power and became far more violent, Deathsaurus turned traitor and became far ''less'' violent, and Star Saber (most infamously) ended up as a psychotic religious zealot.

* Latter-day ''Franchise/TransformersGenerationOne'' comics tend to do this a lot with faction leaders that replaced Optimus and Megatron in other continuities, retooling them to find a niche in an environment where those two are basically [[StatusQuoIsGod always going to be in the driver's seat.]] In IDW, for instance, Galvatron became a DecompositeCharacter from Megatron and had his servitude to a dark power played up to the point that he wasn't even a Decepticon for years, Thunderwing was pretty much locked into his "unstoppably mad villain" phase, Scorponok and Jhiaxus developed MadScientist inclinations, Dai Atlas and Metalhawk were unaligned (and Dai Atlas a religious leader), Overlord turned traitor and became far more violent, Fortress Maximus lost a lot of his power and became far more violent, Deathsaurus turned traitor and became far ''less'' violent, and Star Saber (most infamously) ended up as a psychotic religious zealot.

** The JLA used the rule of "no two people can have the same power" to keep Hawkgirl/Hawkwoman out of the League for over a decade. Her husband eventually put his foot down about it. Of course, under that rule (as Scott Tipton once put it), the entire League should consist of [[FlyingBrick Superman]], [[GreenLanternRing Green Lantern]], [[GadgeteerGenius the Atom]], Wonder Woman (only for the whip of truth) and ''possibly'' [[TheChessmaster Batman]] (the Atom's already pretty damn smart, [[BatmanGambit but not in the same way]]).
*** Diana has an unbreakable lasso, which in some versions can be used to compel truth-telling; a bit more than a "whip of truth." (There are also versions in which she is highly fire-resistant, is possibly immortal, has access to perfect regeneration technology, can travel to realms of myth and story, and/or can communicate with birds.)

* In the ComicBook/FantasticFour both Reed Richards (Mr. Fantastic) and Ben Grimm (The Thing) are highly intelligent and honored scholars and scientists, but everyone likes to focus on Ben's physical strength rather than his brain and the result is that the Thing very often comes off as BookDumb.

* In the American version of ''Series/TheAmazingRace'', they tend to split the eleven teams between couples (usually a few dating and a few married), family members (usually siblings), and friends. They also try to keep an equal balance between two men teams, two women teams, and man/woman teams. In the tenth season, Peter and Sarah who were called a dating couple weren't even dating, they were friends/colleagues. During the casting process, they were told that there wasn't room for another friends team but they needed another couple. The producers and the two of them cut a deal that they'd say they were originally friends who just started dating to get on the show. Sarah is actually now married to a man named Peter ironically enough.

* Completely Averted in the ''Franchise/DragonBall'' franchise. Every character has the same powers, with only one or two special moves differentiating them. But by the end of the series, everyone has either taught each other their unique moves, or developed something that essentially does the same thing. Whoever has the highest PowerLevel is the best in speed, power, endurance and Ki attacks. There are some fighters who are particularly fast/strong/durable ''for a being with their power level'' (i.e. Burter's exceptional travel speed,Frieza's ungodly endurance) but even so rule of thumb is that this can be rendered irrelevant by having sufficiently stronger Ki.
** In ''Anime/DragonBallZ'', there are still some deviations, such as Dabura having magical abilities, Guldo having Time-stopping powers, Majin Buu's unique body texture, and Ginyu's body switch, but generaly these are secondary tools to assist them in their flight-and blast based fighting style.
** In short, besides color and hand motions, there's virtually no difference between a Kamehameha, Gallick Gun, Final Flash, or Masenko. The damage they inflict has little to do with the technique itself, instead it's all about how much Ki the user can pour into it. This is averted somewhat with Krillin's signature move, Destructo Disk, which can slice virtually anything in half, even things that Krillin should generally be too weak to destroy, like parts of Frieza's body. However, it's pretty slow and unwieldy and generally misses unless its target is distracted, thus making it a bit of a MightyGlacier in that world.

* Completely Averted in ''Manga/DragonBall''. Every character has the same powers, with only one or two special moves differentiating them. But by the end of the series, everyone has either taught each other their unique moves, or developed something that essentially does the same thing. Whoever has the highest PowerLevel is the best in speed, power, endurance and Ki attacks. There are some fighters who are particularly fast/strong/durable ''for a being with their power level'' (i.e. Burter's exceptional travel speed,Frieza's ungodly endurance) but even so rule of thumb is that this can be rendered irrelevant by having sufficiently stronger Ki.
** In ''Z'', there are still some deviations, such as Dabura having magical abilities, Guldo having Time-stopping powers, Majin Buu's unique body texture, and Ginyu's body switch, but generaly these are secondary tools to assist them in their flight-and blast based fighting style.

** ''Dragon Ball Super'' plays the trope straight, however, by introducing many characters with unique, more esoteric abilities. For instance, during the Universe 6 VS 7 tournament, only ''two'' of the Universe 6 fighters fit the "profile" of a traditional fighter, while the three others have unique impact absorbtion, Time- Skipping, and mecha-fueled powersets. Goku Black and Future Zamasu, [[spoiler:despite being the same person,]] have extremely different strengths. The later Universe Survival tournament also makes a point of showcasing the different fighting styles of the mechanically-similar team Universe 10, while every other Universe plays this completely straight and showcases a lot of unique abilities, strengths, and weaknesses. WeakButSkilled has its day more than once, while the final enemy of the arc is a OneManArmy the likes of which the series has never shown before. Goku and Vegeta both gain another SuperMode, but for once it's ''completely different,'' with Vegeta getting a further upgraded version of Super Saiyan Blue he can call on command, while Goku gains the ''much'' more powerful but also much more ''[[DefenceMechanismSuperpower limited]]'' Ultra Instinct. Among the other main players of team Universe 7, Android 17 just makes the full usage of the power he has and infinite energy to remain integral to the team long after every remaining fighter is leagues above him in terms of raw power, while Frieza has ironed out the weaknesses of his own Golden form and become much more of a CombatPragmatist. Among the less important six-tenths of their team, Gohan is BoringButPractical, Piccolo continues to embody WeakButSkilled to effective usage, Master Roshi does so ''even moreso'' and makes good usage of his decades of experience and more unconventional techniques, and Krillin makes a point of developing new and interesting techniques for the tourney. Android 18 is admittedly a slightly less effective version of 17, but still pulls her weight, while Tien still ''has'' his multi-form technique and tri-beam... but that's all that can really be said about his extremely limited contributions.

* In The Kingdom's [[Wrestling/RingOfHonor home promotion]], Mike Bennett and Matt Taven were {{heel}}s who drew heat by imitating past ROH acts such as Wrestling/CMPunk and the [[Wrestling/MattHardy Hardy]] [[Wrestling/JeffHardy Boyz]]. While the latter was halfway justified in Wrestling/MattHardy being a former member of the group, Wrestling/{{New Japan|ProWrestling}} already had heel PowerStable called Wrestling/BulletClub that not only represented "[[Wrestling/EagleLand American]]" style wrestling but frequently imitated older acts such as the Wrestling/{{n|ewWorldorder}}Wo and Wrestling/DGenerationX. Furthermore, Bullet Club had soared in popularity in the United States to the point of being booked as faces in their Ring of Honor appearances at the time — and said appearances including a feud with The Kingdom. So when New Japan took in The Kingdom, it presented them as baby {{face}}s to continue the feud between the two stables, and despite being among the most reviled groups of ROH, ''[[GermansLoveDavidHasselhoff it worked]]''.

NotSoSimilar is the super trope. Compare DivergentCharacterEvolution, which happens gradually and isn't as deliberate. See also {{Chickification}}, a common cause of which is this trope.

* From the [[TheBible Book Of Revelations]], the Four Horsemen were Conquest, War, Famine and Death, in that word. None were explicitly named, however, except Death. In part because Conquest and War overlapped, but also because of the Black Plague, Conquest was replaced with Pestilence.

* As noted above, there's been a running gag in Franchise/TheDCU over the years about the Franchise/{{Justice League|of America}}'s two "stretchy guys," Plastic Man and Ralph "Elongated Man" Dibny, who have the same powers and similarly light-hearted personalities. (The Elongated Man was created as a CaptainErsatz of Plastic Man, whose creator was unaware that DC had acquired the rights to Plas) DC separated the characters by emphasizing that Elongated Man was also a brilliant detective, and exaggerating Plastic Man's fun-loving side to the point of outright lunacy (at one point Plas says about Ralph, "Nice guy, but someone left the door open and his personality just bolted"). DC seemed to be doing away with the confusion by making Ralph darker and moodier, arguably to the character's detriment, before concluding this character arc by having him die in a HeroicSacrifice. And more recently, [[spoiler:Ralph and his wife have returned as crime-fighting ghosts]]. Which is ... quite different indeed.

** The whole Plastic Man/Elongated Man thing is lampshaded in ''WesternAnimation/BatmanTheBraveAndTheBold'', where the two are fighting baddies together while arguing which one of them Batman likes more. In the end, Batman shows up and says that he doesn't really like either of them.

* Back during UsefulNotes/{{the Silver Age|of Comic Books}}, Superman and the Flash were almost equally fast, with the Flash only winning a race with Superman after two draws. Modern comics have made the Flash much faster than Superman to balance out Superman having a lots of other superpowers besides just running fast. Flash [[http://i49.tinypic.com/2cg0kgl.jpg makes it clear that he wasn't even close to going all-out at the time]].

* ''WesternAnimation/YoungJustice'' started off with a team of three, Aqualad the [[MakingASplash hydrokinetic]], Kid Flash with SuperSpeed and Robin the BadassNormal PlayfulHacker. This also seems to be the cause of AdaptionalWimp for Superboy and Miss Martian, to keep either from making the other redundant, as his major focus is SuperStrength (lacking in flight, eyebeams, and telekinetic abilities common to the character) while she keeps her flight, shapeshifting, and psychic powers at the cost of her own strength. When Artemis is introduced it's mentioned that after Speedy refused membership in the team that they could use an archer to fill a gap in the teams skillset, though they also mention that they don't have a quota on archers and will happily accept Speedy/Red Arrow back into the group if he ever wants to join them. It's later shown that Aqualad's limited magic leaves another skill gap, which is later filled with Zatanna.

** ''Dragon Ball Super'' plays the trope straight, however, by introducing many characters with unique, more esoteric abilities. For instance, during the Universe 6 VS 7 tournament, only ''two'' of the Universe 6 figters fit the "profile" of a traditional fighter, while the three others have unique impact absorbtion, Time- Skipping, and mecha-fueled powersets.