Monster Mash is fun and all, but it's just a little too cheesy. Hey, we've got all these colorful historical figures, why not throw them all together as a Quirky Miniboss Squad?
Justified in different ways: They could be simulacra, clones, or magically reanimated. Or brought forward in time. A Super-Trope to History's Crime Wave and related to Jury of the Damned and Stupid Jetpack Hitler. Could be the result of superpowered historical figures teaming up.
See also Army of the Ages, for fighting forces composed of warriors from different eras who aren't famous figures.
Examples:
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Anime & Manga
- Drifters has this on both sides in a crapsack fantasy world - the good guys summoned there at the verge of death while the bad guys were those who historically died tragically.
- Fate/stay night and its prequel Fate/Zero is pretty much the mythological version of this, although some (like Gilles de Rais and Alexander the Great) were historical people.
- With some exceptions, the heroes summoned were all real people at some point. Their appearance and personality may change based on perceptions, however.
- Nobunagun has the E-Genes, the essence of famous figures ranging from Jack the Ripper to Oda Nobunaga to Mahatma Ghandi extracted at the point of death. Certain people in the present day have inherited these E-Genes and are able to draw out powers based on them (guns for Nobunaga, an axe for Geronimo, gravity control for Isaac Newton, etc.), while also communing with their spirit from time to time.
- Read or Die: The I-Jin are all made up of famous figures from the past, most notably Ludwig van Beethoven. They're cloned.
- Samurai Deeper Kyo's concept.
Comic Books
- In All-Select Comics #7, the sorcerer Terdu summons a group of villains from the past, whom he dubs the 'Men of Evil', to battle Captain America and Bucky. The Men of Evil were Captain Kidd, Jack the Ripper, Frank and Jesse James, Bluebeard, Gyp-the-Blood, and three gangsters (names unrevealed) who had died in the electric chair decades earlier.
- One iteration of the Lethal Legion villain team, enemies of The Avengers, was composed of history's greatest murderers, given superpowers by hell. They were Lucrezia Borgia, Lizzie Borden, Josef Stalin, and Heinrich Himmler. Lucrezia was codenamed "Cyana", granted blue skin, Absurdly Sharp Claws coated with poison, and a literal Kiss of Death. Lizzie was codenamed "Axe of Violence", granted light red skin, her right hand was replaced by a double-headed axe, and she carried two other double-headed axes used as throwing weapons. Josef was codenamed "Coldsteel", becoming a Chrome Champion with a body made of living steel, granting him Super Strength and Super Toughness. Heinrich was codenamed "Zyklon", granted a Powered Armor which allowed him to fly. He released Deadly Gas from his mask and gauntlets.
- A Justice Society of America comic has the JSA fighting what appears to be a band of villains out of history: Nero, Goliath, Captain Kidd, Cesare Borgia, Genghis Khan and Attila the Hun. It turns out to be one guy (a guard at a wax museum) masquerading as all these figures. However he succeeds in killing the entire male membership of the Society in that issue. They get better.
- Kid Eternity had could summon heroes from history as his superpower, along with invisibility. There was also his evil counterpart, Master Man, who could summon villains from history.
- In a crossover with Captain Marvel, Dr. Sivana revived several villains to oppose them. It didn't work out—Benedict Arnold betrayed him, as not even the British liked him for his treachery.
- In Knight and Squire #3, Richard III is resurrected and he proceeds to resurrect England's other 'bad' kings: William II, John, Edward I, and Charles I. The monarchs are granted genetically enhanced superpowers and each leads a criminal army to take over a different part of the UK.
- This was the gimmick of Marvel Comics villain Immortus. He would summon someone from out of the time stream (usually someone who could work as a suitable contrast to whomever he was fighting at the time) to act as his champions. The Fridge Logic that pops up when he summons Hercules, who's got an ongoing career as a superhero in modern times, got addressed by claiming they aren't really the historical characters, just duplicates. Also he's just a possible future version of Kang the Conqueror using advanced technology.
- Requiem Vampire Knight:
- Dracula keeps the heads of Napoléon Bonaparte, Alexander the Great, Julius Caesar, Saladin and a future Martian conqueror to plan his strategies.
- The elite vampires (people who committed great atrocities in life) include Elizabeth Báthory (Dracula's wife), Nero, Attila the Hun, and Maximilien Robespierre. If you're wondering why Adolf Hitler isn't there, he's a kind of superweapon: when killed, all his victims Ascend to a Higher Plane of Existence.
- Ghouls did evil while persuading themselves they did good. Their ranks include Edgar J. Hoover and Oppenheimer.
- The Archeologists did evil For Science!, it's implied one of them was Josef Mengele.
- The Seven Soldiers of Victory once fought a villain with a time machine who brought forward Alexander the Great, Nero, Genghis Khan, Attila the Hun, and Napoléon Bonaparte to serve as commanders in his army of conquest.
- He deserves credit for effort, though Nero is perhaps not the most obvious of choices.
Fan Works
- In Mother, May I (Take Over The World)
(MSTing here), a hilariously bad Fan Fic, the world's most evil people — among them Saddam Hussein, Hitler, Pikachu, and an increasingly bemused Martin Luther King, Jr. — take over the world.
- XCOM Resurrection has the XCOM Project bringing back historical warriors in order to fight aliens. The first squad consists of Joan of Arc, Simo Häyhä, Genghis Khan, and Ragnar Lothbrok. They also get Nikola Tesla to head up the science department.
Films — Live-Action
- The second Night at the Museum movie features animated statues of Ivan the Terrible, Napoléon Bonaparte, and Al Capone as henchman to the Big Bad, an Egyptian King. Darth Vader and Oscar the Grouch tried to join in as well, but are rejected (Vader because of aesthetic and Oscar because he isn't actually evil).
Literature
- The Night's Dawn Trilogy features an invasion from The Legions of Hell in a Space Opera setting... A disproportionatly large portion of whom hail from the 20th century, potentially leading to massive Narm on the reader's part. There were enough people from other eras (past and future) so that (apart from the multiple Elvises) it could plausibly just be a statistical blip. And one of them's Al freakin' Capone.
- In "Sorcerer Conjurer Wizard Witch", the villain magically animates waxworks from Madame Tussauds' Chamber of Horrors, including Burke and Hare, Dr Crippen, Charlie Peace, George Joseph Smith (the "Brides in the Bath" killer) and — this being the Diogenes Club universe — Rodger Baskerville and Varney the Vampire.
- In TimeRiders, the team are joined by the likes of Abraham Lincoln and the apparent Robin Hood. However, they can't stay permanently.
Live-Action TV
- One episode of Lois & Clark involved clones of Al Capone, as well as Bonnie and Clyde and John Dillinger. They were cloned by a scientist who wanted to prove evil wasn't genetic, and apparently turned out to be wrong.
- Red Dwarf: The episode "Meltdown" features a war between robot duplicates of the greatest and the worst people in history in an abandoned theme park.
- Star Trek: The Original Series episode "The Savage Curtain". The Hero team is Captain Kirk, Mr. Spock, Abraham Lincoln and Surak of Vulcan. The villain team is Genghis Khan, the Klingon Kahless, Colonel Green and the Mad Scientist Zora. Everyone except Kirk and Spock are actually alien rock creatures masquerading as humanoids.
Tabletop Games
- In the Gamescience adventure The Future King, Doc Holliday, Nostradamus, Bruce Lee, Harald Hardraada, Owen Glendower and Cyrano de Bergerac are gathered together to find and wake King Arthur.
Video Games
- The Fallout 3 expansion "Mothership Zeta" has you team up with several cryogenically-preserved warriors on the alien spaceship: a military doctor from Operation Anchorage, a contemporary slaver, a wild west cowboy, and a samurai.
- In The Legend of Zelda spin-off game Hyrule Warriors, Time Travel lets an incarnation of Link and Zelda battle alongside heroes (and villains) from the Era of the Hero of Time, the Era of Twilight, and the Era of the Sky. The developers have said it's basically Zelda's version of The Avengers.
- Toukiden has Mitama, the spirits of heroes devoured by oni across the ages that have been freed by Slayers. Slayers can commune with these spirits to gain special powers and the Player Character has the uniquenote power of communing with a very large number of them.
- If you stretch it a bit, this is basically the concept of the Warriors Orochi series — bringing together legendary warriors from China's Three Kingdoms Period, others from Japan's Warring States Era, and a few guys from mythology for good measure — just so Orochi can have a decent challenge. Certainly, a teamup of Masamune Date, Lu Bu and Sun Wukong invokes the same sort of feeling...
- The Nexus in Heroes of the Storm does this, pretty much literally, but with simulacra of characters from Blizzard's various IPs. Their fighting skills, personalities and such are translated into the Nexus albeit somewhat imperfectly. They have been chosen to fight these battles on behalf of the shadowy rulers of the Nexus: such as the Grave Keeper and the Lady of Thorns. You and your friends can assemble your Quirky Miniboss Squad, to fight with an opponent's similar squad. To make your squad extra quirky, you can summon alternate-universe versions of some characters: which may have very different looks and themed powers, or even different voices. The alternate universes tend to have wacky themes like Professional Wrestling, Christmas, or Robots: meaning even the characters from more Grimdark settings can get silly skins. Other times a character will get a new skin because of Ascended Fanon: like Jaina's Dreadlord skin.
Web Comics
- The eponymous Chitra of Chitra is rewarded for completing quests in the RPG-Mechanics Verse she's been isekai'd into with coupons for pulls in The Gods' Exclusive Gacha System. Prizes from the gacha are attractive male supporters to aid her in administering and expanding her territory. The high-level prizes are all in-universe famous warriors, mages, and strategists from the past; like Radelk the famous Warrior Butler, Tyrex the Battle Mage, and Tornian "the genius war strategist and military tactician". (While its not made clear how so many historically important figures ended up sealed away in magical gems dispensed as prizes from a celestial slot machine, awaiting the day when a new master would summon them into service, there are also various average soldiers and tradespeople from the past available as lower-level prizes.)
- In the old comic Life of Riley, when Jezebel strikes against her opponents in an all-out paintball war (it's a long story), she uses the memories of various souls that have fallen to her over the ages. The first few eras - your Caesars, your Napoleons, et cetera - weren't all that effective against modern tactics. Eventually, though, she moved onto blitzkriegs, which ... also weren't that effective in the end, but for different reasons.
Western Animation
- This is the idea behind Clone High: The Omniscient Council of Vagueness has cloned many of history's greatest leaders to rule the world somehow.
- Played with in Futurama when the Holo-shed malfunctions and Attila the Hun, Jack the Ripper, Professor Moriarty, and Evil Lincoln become real and attack Kif and Amy.
- Johnny Test had an episode where Johnny brought back several historical figures, including Attila the Hun and a caveman, to create the most powerful hockey team.
- The Simpsons:
- Parodied in a Treehouse of Horror short, where Billy the Kid leads a gang of historical villains, including the most evil German in history — Kaiser Wilhelm!
- Another Simpsons example, though this one's just a brief throwaway: when Homer and Mr. Burns are stuck in a cabin together, Homer says he has "power... political power!" and we see a ghostly team of historical figures (including the Actual Pacifist Mahatma Gandhi) brandishing weapons.
- An episode of Spider-Man (1967) has a bad guy bring wax figures of Jesse James, Blackbeard, and an old-timey executioner to life to fight Spider-Man.
- In one episode of The Super Globetrotters, the Time Lord assembled "the greatest criminals in history" into a gang.
- There's an episode of The Tick titled "Leonardo da Vinci and His Fightin' Genius Time Commandos!", featuring a team of famous inventors, including da Vinci, Thomas Alva Edison, Johann Gutenberg, George Washington Carver, and the cavewoman who invented the wheel.
- The Venture Bros. episode "Escape to the House of Mummies Part II" has the Venture crew inexplicably team up with Caligula, Sigmund Freud, and Edgar Allan Poe (and a time-duplicated Brock Samson). It's never quite explained how the team-up happened, as it is the second part of an episode for which the first part was never made.
- Xiaolin Showdown had these as Jack Spicer's army in a time travel episode: Attila the Hun, Blackbeard, most likely Billy the Kid or some other famous western villain, and Jack Spicer's first-grade teacher. (Don't be fooled, she's the worst of the bunch.)
