History Main / MookCarryover

* ''WesternAnimation/TransformersPrime'': Not a exactly a textbook example, but when Airachnid was put in stasis, Megatron and the Decepticons were quick to appropriate her [[TheJuggernaut Insecticon]] hive for their own use.

* The character Ogre in ''Film/RevengeOfTheNerds'' shows up in the sequel in a different chapter of the Alpha Beta fraternity. The brothers he had in the original film are all gone, apparently defeated. Although later, [[spoiler: they ditch Ogre after he's served his purpose as dumb muscle, leaving him to join the all-accepting nerds as ''their'' dumb muscle]]

* Throughout the course of ''Film/TheDarkKnight'', many of the mobsters goons turn to SelfDemonstrating/TheJoker (after some "auditions").

Whether they are still effective or not depends on which they [[VillainForgotToLevelGrind remembered to keep their skills sharp,]] [[JokeCharacter assuming they were very skilled in the first place.]]

* In ''VideoGame/{{Overlord}}'' you're invoking this trope by taking control of the previous Overlord's tower and minions. [[spoiler: The final level sees him turn up to reclaim them, forcing you to regain their loyalty the old fashioned way.]] In fact there have been a whole chain of Overlords over the years, but they all use the same sort of Minions and even a couple of the same individuals

* ''Franchise/{{Bionicle}}'':

* The Beer City Bruiser took Dalton Castle's "[[PersonalMook Boys]]" in Wrestling/RingOfHonor, without them dropping any of the obvious [[AgentPeacock Dalton Castle traits]], much to TagTeam partner Silas Young's disgust.[[/folder]]

* The mooks of the ''ComicBook/{{Thunderbolts}}'' are just guys in cool armor with guns. When Swordsman bribes/hires a bunch of them for himself, while staging a coup against NormanOsborn, he spraypaints them in his colors. They don't last long, but they are mooks who get a palette swap and a new boss.

* Manute of ''SinCity'' goes to work for Wallenquist after Ava Lord's death.
* ''Comicbook/SuperiorSpiderMan'': After Franchise/SpiderMan [[spoiler:(ComicBook/DoctorOctopus in Peter Parker's body)]] kills members of his RoguesGallery, their surviving mooks seek employment and protection from [[NormanOsborn the Green Goblin]].

** ''Series/MightyMorphinPowerRangers'' has Lord Zedd usurp Rita Repulsa as the series villain, but he keeps all of Rita's old henchmen under his employ. He even upgrades the Putties to be [[EliteMooks tougher]], provided nobody hit the [[AttackItsWeakPoint obvious emblem target]] [[ForMassiveDamage on their chests.]]

* In ''VideoGame/BatmanArkhamCity'', after ComicBook/Batman defeats [[spoiler:ComicBook/ThePenguin]], his henchmen will join [[spoiler:ComicBook/TwoFace]]'s gang. They even change their style to match [[spoiler:Two-Face's by darkening half of their Penguin mercenary uniform]]. They are just as dangerous as before, since they kept their guns.

* In ''VideoGame/BatmanArkhamCity, after ComicBook/Batman defeats [[spoiler:ComicBook/ThePenguin]], his henchmen will join [[spoiler:ComicBook/TwoFace]]'s gang. They even change their style to match [[spoiler:Two-Face's by darkening half of their Penguin mercenary uniform]]. They are just as dangerous as before, since they kept their guns.

* In ''VideoGame/BatmanArkhamCity, after ComicBook/Batman defeats [[spoiler:ComicBook/ThePenguin]], his henchmen will join [[spoiler:ComicBook/TwoFace]]'s gang. They even change their style to match [[spoiler:Two-Face's by darkening half of their Penguin mercenary uniform.]]

[[folder:Toys]]
* ''Franchise/{{Bionicle}}'':
** A lot of Tuma's Skrall soldiers leave him after he's been humiliatingly beaten. When [[BigBad Makuta]] arrives to wreak havoc, they join his army.
** Roodaka actually attempted to set up such a scheme. She convinced Sidorak to put Vakama [[MookLieutenant in charge]] of his [[SpiderSwarm Visorak horde]], then [[TheStarscream betrayed her "king"]] and let Keetongu kill him. So now the horde belonged to Vakama, who has in secret been answering to her, not Sidorak. Except the Visorak stopped following Roodaka when they saw her abandoning their former leader, and Vakama also had a change of heart and returned to the good guys, promptly disbanding the Visorak horde and leaving Roodaka with no one to rule over.
[[/folder]]

* In ''DigitalDevilSaga'', Bat is originally a mook working for a Tribe you are fighting to defeat in order to form an alliance with them, but then later joins another Tribe and then kinda sort of does his own thing (becoming a Big Bad in his own right).

[[folder:Comics]]
* The mooks of the ''{{Thunderbolts}}'' are just guys in cool armor with guns. When Swordsman bribes/hires a bunch of them for himself, while staging a coup against NormanOsborn, he spraypaints them in his colors. They don't last long, but they are mooks who get a palette swap and a new boss.

* ''Comicbook/SuperiorSpiderMan'': After SpiderMan [[spoiler:(DoctorOctopus in Peter Parker's body)]] kills members of his RoguesGallery, their surviving mooks seek employment and protection from [[NormanOsborn the Green Goblin]].

[[folder:Film]]

* The character Ogre in ''RevengeOfTheNerds'' shows up in the sequel in a different chapter of the Alpha Beta fraternity. The brothers he had in the original film are all gone, apparently defeated. Although later, [[spoiler: they ditch Ogre after he's served his purpose as dumb muscle, leaving him to join the all-accepting nerds as ''their'' dumb muscle]]

* ''Franchise/StarWars'' has an interesting one. The clones were created by the Jedi, and they continued to serve the [[strike: Republic]] Empire, and one Jedi in particular. Also, pretty much all the Imperials in the ExpandedUniverse who don't fall under DefectorFromDecadence.

* In the ''SwordOfTruth'' series, after Darken Rahl, ruler of D'Hara, is killed in the first book, large portions of his armies end up working as the expeditionary forces for the BigBad for the rest of the series.

* In ''{{Mistborn}}'', after [[spoiler: [[EvilOverlord the Lord Ruler]]'s]] death, many of his most powerful minions, notably [[OurOrcsAreDifferent Koloss]] and [[ImplacableMan Inquisitors]], start working for new BigBad [[spoiler: Ruin]]. Justified in this case because the Lord Ruler created these beings and built a psychic "back door" into them so that he could always control them; with him out of the way, the far more powerful [[spoiler: Ruin]] was equally capable of exploiting said "door". His human minions are a much more mixed bag, with some joining the heroes and others various BigBadWannabe kings.

[[folder:Live Action TV]]
* ''Series/MightyMorphinPowerRangers'' had Lord Zedd usurp Rita Repulsa as the series villain, but he kept all of Rita's old henchmen under his employ. He even upgraded the Putties to be [[EliteMooks tougher]], provided nobody hit the [[AttackItsWeakPoint obvious emblem target]] [[ForMassiveDamage on their chests.]]

** The Bibi soldiers from ''Series/TensouSentaiGoseiger''. [[spoiler:Except here they were all actually underlings to the ''real'' BigBad, who was working under all three of the show's baddies.]]

[[folder:Multiple Media]]
* ''Franchise/{{Bionicle}}'':
** A lot of Tuma's Skrall soldiers leave him after he's been humiliatingly beaten. When [[BigBad Makuta]] arrives to wreak havoc, they join his army.
** Roodaka actually attempted to set up such a scheme. She convinced Sidorak to put Vakama [[MookLieutenant in charge]] of his [[SpiderSwarm Visorak horde]], then [[TheStarscream betrayed her "king"]] and let Keetongu kill him. So now the horde belonged to Vakama, who has in secret been answering to her, not Sidorak. Except the Visorak stopped following Roodaka when they saw her abandoning their former leader, and Vakama also had a change of heart and returned to the good guys, promptly disbanding the Visorak horde and leaving Roodaka with no one to rule over.
[[/folder]]

[[folder: Webcomics]]
* Webcomic/TheOrderOfTheStick: Tarquin and Malack are the general and high priest of the Empire of Blood, but they have served these roles many times under previous countries and rulers. [[spoiler: Secretly invoked and subverted: they and four others all work in shifting pairs to appoint puppet leaders that keep them out of the spotlight, kill them, find a new puppet, and change country names so people don't realize. By this method they are now the de facto rulers of a third of the continent. Only a few people have noticed that amid the general chaos of conquest increasingly large amounts of territory belong to three countries, and the same six people keep showing up as advisers to their rulers.]]

* ''WesternAnimation/JackieChanAdventures'' had the Enforcers; Finn, Ratso, and Chow (and sometimes Hak Foo), who were always brought in by the current season's BigBad. Valmont, Shendu (possessing Valmont), Daolon Wong, Tarakudo, and finally Shendu's son Drago. The latter [[AvertedTrope averts it however]], by firing them not long after.

* In ''WesternAnimation/{{WITCH}}'', at the end of season 1, a large number of Phobos' orcs defect to rebels, as Phobos didn't treat them terribly well, either. Come season 2, and the orcs now make up a major part of Elyon's army.

* Not a exactly a textbook example, but when [[WesternAnimation/TransformersPrime Airachnid]] was put in stasis, Megatron and the Decepticons were quick to appropriate her [[TheJuggernaut Insecticon]] hive for their own use.

*** The most bizarre example being the Shy Guys and Bob-Bombs shifting allegiance from Wart to Bowser, mainly because Wart and his army only existed within a dream world.

** Roodaka actually attempted to set up such a scheme. He convinced Sidorak to put Vakama [[MookLieutenant in charge]] of his [[SpiderSwarm Visorak horde]], then [[TheStarscream betrayed her "king"]] and let Keetongu kill him. So now the horde belonged to Vakama, who has in secret been answering to her, not Sidorak. Except the Visorak stopped following Roodaka when they saw her abandoning their former leader, and Vakama also had a change of heart and returned to the good guys, promptly disbanding the Visorak horde and leaving Roodaka with no one to rule over.

* ''SuperiorSpiderMan'': After SpiderMan [[spoiler:(DoctorOctopus in Peter Parker's body)]] kills members of his RoguesGallery, their surviving mooks seek employment and protection from [[NormanOsborn the Green Goblin]].

* Revolver Ocelot. Throughout the first three games (''VideoGame/MetalGearSolid'', ''VideoGame/MetalGearSolid2SonsOfLiberty'', and ''VideoGame/MetalGearSolid3SnakeEater''), he is working for the BigBad as TheDragon. And at the end, he reveals that he was really working for someone else (and the Third game is a {{Prequel}}, so he's be at this for a while. This changes in ''VideoGame/MetalGearSolid4GunsOfThePatriots'', where he finally decides it's time to be the big bad himself. [[GoodAllAlong Except he's not.]] It's complicated because it's Ocelot.

** This is actually a pretty common trope in the Mario series. Oftentimes you'll notice SuperMarioBros mainstay mooks working for {{BigBad}}s that have deposed Bowser as the game's antagonist. In a variation, they may just be [[UndergroundMonkey different versions]] of these same enemies themed for the new antagonist in question.

[[BigBad Big bads]] die. That is a fact of a story......[[TheBadGuyWins most]] [[DownerEnding of]] [[YankTheDogsChain the]] [[InvincibleVillain time.]] That being said, when the BigBad dies too early in the story's narrative, when due to the SortingAlgorithmOfEvil, a KlingonPromotion, or being on the wrong end of EvilerThanThou, it quite expected that a new guy will somehow take his place, usually with his own {{Mooks}} to do his dirty work.

** ''MahouSentaiMagiranger'' has Vancuria, who was immortal and couldn't be killed anyway. So when a new villain took control of the Infershia army, she always stuck around. In fact, because of said immortality, and a HeelFaceTurn, she outlasts almost all of them. The other Dragon, Wolzard, was similar, though he did go rogue a few times, and the various Infershia leaders used the same army of {{Mooks}}. ''Series/PowerRangersMysticForce'' did the same thing.
** The Bibi soldiers from ''TensouSentaiGoseiger''. [[spoiler:Except here they were all actually underlings to the ''real'' BigBad, who was working under all three of the show's baddies.]]
** In ''Film/KaizokuSentaiGokaigerTheMovieTheFlyingGhostShip'', nearly all the mooks from all over the SuperSentai franchise appear as a single army to fight the Gokaigers.

* The mooks of the ''{{Thunderbolts}}'' are just guys in cool armor with guns. When Swordsman bribes/hires a bunch of them for himself, while staging a coup against Norman Osborn, he spraypaints them in his colors. They don't last long, but they are mooks who get a palette swap and a new boss.