Expy Coexistence in Comic Books.
- The Sandman (1989):
- Roderick Burgess is clearly intended to be an expy of Aleister Crowley, but later issues establish that Crowley himself exists in the Sandman universe. Burgess himself has an offhand line that implies he and Crowley are rivals, with Crowley being the more successful of the two.
- One issue has a character discussing an in-universe comic book featuring expies of Superman and Bizarro, who are presented as wholly fictional. In the first Story Arc, however, Dream visited Supes' Justice League of America teammates Mister Miracle and Martian Manhunter. While this could be chalked up to Early-Installment Weirdness (later stories would present itself as more or less its own continuity on account of DC enforcing a mandate for the Vertigo titles to be distanced from the mainline DC books), Superman himself shows up at the end of the series.
- When it became clear the plans authors of The Sandman and Hellblazer had for Lucifer were incompatible, each series version of Satan became a separate character - Lucifer Morningstar for Sandman and First of the Fallen for Hellblazer. Fist has then been established as having ruled Hell before Lucifer showed up and having been pushed out to the outskirts by him.
- Legion of Super-Heroes:
- After Crisis on Infinite Earths retconned Supergirl out of existence, Laurel Gand (aka Andromeda) was created to fulfill the same role on the team, with the same powers and almost exactly the same look. She continued to do so even after Supergirl was reintroduced to continuity.
- Zig-zagged with Lar Gand (aka "Mon-El"), a relative of the aforementioned Laurel, who was originally introduced alongside Superman as a "Daxamite" (a race of aliens with identical powers to Kryptonians, but opposite weaknesses). After Superboy was retconned out like Supergirl, most of Superboy's roles in the Legion came to be filled by Mon-El. However, he also shared his position with Kon-El, the clone version of Superboy who sometimes joined the team on adventures, along with the original Kal-El after that version was reintroduced to continuity.
- Shazam!: Zig-zagged due to company rivalry. Captain Marvel (later known as "Shazam"), was created by Fawcett Comics as a very blatant expy of Superman. However, he proved to be more popular than the hero that inspired him, and also introduced the first Distaff Counterpart and Junior Counterpart: Mary Marvel and Captain Marvel Jr. To compete, DC Comics then introduced Supergirl and Superboy. In the meantime, DC Comics had a long-standing lawsuit against Fawcett and won, allowing them to purchase the Marvel franchise. In Superman vs. Shazam!, the Superman Family share an adventure with the Marvels for the first time. After Crisis on Infinite Earths rebooted The DCU, both hero families have appeared side-by-side ever since.
- WildStorm: Many Wildstorm characters were created as Expies of regular DC Comics characters. Apollo and Mr. Majestic are expies of Superman, and Midnighter is an expy of Batman, along with several others. These characters were all later brought into The DCU when DC Comics acquired Wildstorm, meaning that said expies now appeared along side the originals.
- The Elite was introduced to Superman as a parody of The Authority. Long after the Wildstorm characters were introduced into the DCU, Superman and the Authority had Manchester Black admit his team was "a cheap knockoff of the real deal" when he recruits Apollo and Midnighter. Apollo even admits he spent his early career modeling himself after Superman.
- Watchmen: The comic was originally supposed to star characters that DC Comics had recently acquired from Charlton Comics such as The Question, Blue Beetle, and Captain Atom, as well as other characters such as Phantom Lady – but upon seeing Alan Moore's story pitch, DC editorial realised it would make those characters unusable afterwards and ordered Moore to replace them with Expies. Watchmen existed in its own completely separate continuity up until 2016's DC Rebirth first indicated that it was part of the wider DC multiverse, which was later confirmed in Doomsday Clock. Additionally, Grant Morrison's The Multiversity had featured the Alternate Universe of Earth-4 which was populated by versions of the Charlton Comics characters heavily inspired by their Watchmen counterparts.
- DC's Elongated Man is an expy of DC's Plastic Man, allegedly because his creator didn't know that DC already had the rights to the character. They're occasionally depicted as resenting each other due to Superhero Speciation.
- DC's Mongul is an expy of Marvel's Thanos, who in turn is an expy of DC's Darkseid. During the Marvel vs DC crossover, the latter two met briefly and Darkseid said Thanos was a pale imitation of him. When the universes were merged into the Amalgam Universe, they were combined into Thanoseid.
- Initially averted, and later retconned into this trope, Marvel's Eternals are a group of immortal superhumans who are said to have been the inspiration for many of mankind's early myths, including the Greco-Roman Gods. Given that Norse and Greco-Roman gods were already canon to books like Thor, Jack Kirby wrote The Eternals to be set outside the Marvel Universe. This even applies to the names, with many of the Eternals having names similar to Greek and Roman mythological figures (Zuras/Zeus, Ikaris/Icarus, Sersi/Circe, Thena/Athena, Makkari/Mercury, ect.), and their hidden city being called Olympia (a play on Mount Olympus). Despite this, the Greek pantheon very much does exist in the Marvel Universe, as does Mount Olympus, meaning the Eternals exist in the same universe as the supposedly fictitious characters they inspired. This confusion has even been commented on in the Thor comics, with Thor wondering if Ikaris inspired the myth of Icarus, or vice versa. During Roy Thomas' "Eternals Saga" storyline, many of the Eternals even ended up facing off against their mythological counterparts after Odin and Zeus invaded Olympia.
- Inevitable with an All Stories Are True mashup like League of Extraordinary Gentlemen, but Century lampshades it. 1910 features a bunch of weird occultists from different sources who are all No Celebrities Were Harmed versions of Aleister Crowley. 1969 does the same with London Gangsters based on the Krays.
- Tempest has somebody mentioning the Marvelman Family when talking to Captain Universe. Marvelman and Captain Universe are both expies of Shazam! created by Mick Anglo. Universe then has to fight an enemy of Mr. Apollo, another Shazam expy who isn't allowed to transform any more because Shazam's lawyers threatened him.
- John Diggle was a Canon Immigrant from Arrow that appeared in the New 52 era of Green Arrow. However, season 7 of Arrow, between the Elseworlds crossover and "Spartan", revealed he's actually the Arrowverse version of Green Lantern John Stewartnote .
- Batman (Grant Morrison) includes Batman teaming up with, or even helping create, Expies of himself in various countries. It's also Lampshaded that the Man Who Laughs, an enemy of France's Batman Expy, seems very much like a copycat of The Joker, which he concedes:"Perhaps I am only an imitation, an homage, call it what you will. But every culture must have its jester, its fool. I am the distorted mirror in which you see the truth."
- The Bat-Man of China also has a Joker counterpart (Alpaca) amongst his enemies, along with a Bane (Anathema). The Knight of Britain's enemy Jarvis Poker, however, is a Harmless Villain who likes the look of the Crown Prince of Crime, but is nothing like him in personality.
- When the current Batwoman, Kate Kane, was introduced in 2006 she was understood to simply be a rebooted version of the old character this side of multiple Cosmic Retcon-inducing Crisis Crossovers. However, five years later the original Kathy Kane was brought back into continuity with her Silver Age history intact, with a reveal that her death in her final pre-Crisis appearance was faked and she'd been undercover ever since. Someone who happened to also be named Katherine Kane taking up her old superhero role in the meantime is pure coincidence; although it's later established that Kathy's late husband Nathan Kane was Kate's uncle (and Bruce Wayne's).
- New York City is an established real location in the DC universe, and the main setting for various superhero comics, despite the fictional cities of Metropolis and Gotham each being influenced by different aspects of it: Frank Miller once said that Metropolis is New York by day and Gotham is New York by night. Rather than taking the easy route and making them a 6th and 7th borough of New York City, eventually it was decided that the two cities needed their own established locations. DC settled on Gotham being in New Jersey and Metropolis in Delawarenote , on opposite sides of the Delaware Bay.
- Similarly, Star City (home of Green Arrow) has at various times in the publication history been an Expy of both Boston and San Francisco (both seen as appropriate locations for a wealthy and outspokenly left-wing political superhero), but both of those cities still exist in the DCU and Star City eventually was established as being just north of the Bay Area in California. And Green Lantern Hal Jordan's home of Coast City was an Expy of Los Angeles, until it got retconned up to northern California (just south of the Bay Area) so that the real Los Angeles could also feature in the DCU.
- Averted in the case of Central City and Keystone City (home to most of the Flashes), which outright replace Kansas City, Missouri and Kansas City, Kansas in the DCU. Complete with the iconic Gateway Arch being in Central City. Currently, these are the only city Expies in the DCU that don't coexist with their real life inspirations.
- Judge Dredd already featured a Xenomorph Xerox species called Raptaurs before actual Xenomorphs showed up in the Intercontinuity Crossover Judge Dredd: Incubus.
- Jason Hart, the Protector, was created in a Teen Titans PSA because they couldn't use Robin (he was licenced to a different cookie company than the one sponsoring the ads). Much later, he was introduced to regular continuity as part of Beast Boy's short-lived 2000 incarnation of Titans West.
- Due to the varying degrees of Exiled from Continuity in Vertigo Comics, writers had a tendency to create their own versions of characters they weren't allowed to use. Since it was never the case that Vertigo officially wasn't part of the DCU, these characters are this by definition. They include Willoughby Kipling (Doom Patrol) and Ambrose Bierce (Stanley and His Monster), both members of the Trenchcoat Brigade, with the latter even calling it an assembly line, and - on the other side of the equation - various superheroey characters in Mark Millar's run on Swamp Thing such as the Traveller (The Phantom Stranger), the Black Box (Golden Age Green Lantern) and the Word (The Spectre). Eventually the embargo was lifted sufficiently that Millar could have the Stranger, and promptly pitted him against the Traveller, while the Word at one point refers to the Spectre as his brother.
- Cluemaster is a Batman villain who is seen as a cheap copy of the Riddler in-universe, a suggestion he bitterly resents, claiming that puzzles and riddles are completely different. And then there's the Baffler, who's not only a copy of a copy (having been inspired by Cluemaster) but is an idiot whose clues are terrible.
- Much like John Stewart and John Diggle, a miniseries starting Aquaman's arch enemy, Black Manta has Devil Ray, an expy created for Justice League Unlimited thank to issues with the failed Mercy Reef pilot, become a Canon Immigrant as a rival for Manta.
- Marvel Comics villain the Yellow Claw, archenemy of Jimmy Woo, was an expy of Fu Manchu. Fu Manchu was himself introduced to the Marvel Universe in Shang-Chi: Master of Kung Fu, and while they're no longer allowed to call him that, he's still part of the setting too. At various times, the three claim descent from Genghis Khan, Fu Manchu even had an ancestor named Shaka Kharn who was clearly inspired by Khan.
- Iron Man villain the Mandarin is also a Fu Manchu expy, and coexists with the other two.
- Spider-Man and His Amazing Friends has Firestar, a female Fire User. The writers wanted to use the Human Torch but the rights were held up. She would later have her own existence in the comics.
- Between being on the The Doom Patrol and New Teen Titans, Beast Boy starred on a cheesy sci-fi show called Space Trek 2020. In a comic recapping his origin, he claims the show was canceled after being sued for ripping off Star Trek and Space: 1999 but claims that the lawsuit was meritless.
- Power Girl was originally the Earth-2 counterpart to Supergirl. When Crisis on Infinite Earths got rid of all the alternate Earths and all surviving Kryptonians except Superman, Power Girl (with a reworked origin) became the combined universe's "blonde female Flying Brick" character. Then they brought back Supergirl. In one Leaning on the Fourth Wall scene, PG says that people somehow managed to see her as a knockoff Supergirl before there was a Supergirl.
- One arc of Hitman featured a very unflattering Batman parody named Nightfist, who was depicted as little more than a costumed thug who went around at night beating up homeless people. Hitman was published by DC, and Batman made several guest appearances in it.
- The Boys contains an example that is ironically not superhero-related. The superheroes in the story are all created by a company called Vought, which has been in business since before World War II. At the time, they were known mainly for their extremely shoddy products, not the least of which was an absolute death-trap of a fighter plane. Vought, however, was also the name of a real aircraft company, and it's shown that they also existed in this world— in a flashback we see that pilots were "begging to have their Hellcats and Corsairs back." The Corsair was manufactured by the real-world Vought company, meaning that both the real and fictional companies with that name existed in the world of The Boys.
- Santa Versus Dracula features two characters known as Wintry and Rumspringer. They are blatant stand-ins for Frosty the Snowman and Rudolph the Red-Nosed Reindeer, but it's also implied that Frosty and Rudolph exist in this universe as unauthorized retellings of Wintry and Rumspringer's stories that had the names changed to avoid owing them royalties.
- The Light originated in Young Justice as a renamed version of the existing organization the Secret Society of Super Villains. As of Dark Crisis, the Light have officially been made canon in the comics, despite the Society having appeared as recently as DC Rebirth.
- Archie Comics' Sonic the Hedgehog has an example that crosses with Canon Immigrant. The video game Sonic Chronicles: The Dark Brotherhood featured story elements and characters that were heavily inspired by those from the Archie continuity. The most notorious of them were the Nocturnus Clan, a group of ancient echidnas who had been trapped in another dimension before the events of the game, similar to Archie Sonic's Dark Legion, with one such character, Shade the Echidna, bearing a number of similar traits to Julie-Su. The game's elements, including Shade and the Nocturnus Clan, were later retrofitted into the Archie continuity as a part of its long echidna history, coexisting alongside their inspirations. Although, their existence was only established in companion material such as the official Encyclopedia and Sonic Super Special Magazine's "Mobius Timeline" feature; they never got to be formerly introduced before the infamous lawsuit between Archie and the Dark Legion's creator, Ken Penders, resulted in both groups being Exiled from Continuity by the forced Cosmic Retcon.
- In the original Moon Knight comics, the title character's love interest was Marlene Alrune, the daughter of an archeologist who had been killed during Marc Spector's origin story. The Moon Knight TV series replaced Marlene with an Expy named Layla El-Faouly, who, despite the name change and Race Lift, still had a highly similar backstory, right down to her father being a murdered archeologist. In 2023, Layla was introduced into the comic canon, even though Marlene still exists and had even appeared in the most recent Moon Knight run at the time. Consequently, parts of Layla's backstory were altered in order to better differentiate the two women.
- The post-Ultimate Invasion reboot of Ultimate X-Men (2024) reimagines the team as a group of teenagers from Japan. While this includes a Japanese take on Storm called Maystorm, the original Storm, Ororo Munroe, was also introduced as a separate character in the Ultimate Black Panther series.
- Superman: The Animated Series replaced Cat Grant with a new character named Angela Chen, who took her place as both the Daily Planet's star gossip columnist and Lois Lane's workplace rival. As of DC Rebirth, Angela now exists in the comics as well, though the writers have gotten around any potential redundancy by mostly focusing on her as a television reporter and host rather than a print journalist like Cat.
- British publisher L. Miller & Son Ltd. got around being unable to continue publishing licensed comics of Captain Marvel after Fawcett was sued by DC by creating a more sci-fi-influenced replacement called Marvelman, which notably lacked a Mary Marvel counterpart. In Alan Moore's Darker and Edgier revival Miracleman, it is revealed that the Miracleman Family were actually given their powers as part of a secret government project to create living weapons and that their adventures in the original 1950s and 1960s comics were just a simulation created by Dr. Emil Gargunza to condition them. One panel shows what is clearly a Captain Marvel comic when Gargunza mentions that he was inspired to create the fantasy world by a children's comic book.
