Bait-and-Switch Boss

Bigger isn't always scarier...

Vegeta: [on seeing Beefy Barbarian] Oh please, this guy ain't so bad.
[Barbarian Boss enters, crushing the Beefy Barbarian]
Vegeta: Oh.
Nappa: But his mama is ENORMOUS!

— Two Saiyans Play: Castle Crashers

A Bait-and-Switch Boss is those times when the apparent boss for the stage gets replaced by the real boss, who then steps up to the plate to challenge you. The primary version has the boss destroy the "bait" boss before he even attacks, but some games may have you fight the lesser boss for a bit before the real boss takes his place.

The real boss could be a Giant Space Flea from Nowhere. It could also be The Man Behind the Man, but it isn't a requirement that the real boss is in any way the real leader or in greater authority, aside from his presumed rank. If the new boss is a familiar face, then the story just got Hijacked by Ganon. If the bait boss isn't killed upon being replaced, you might end up fighting them for real later on.

If you actually have to finish the first boss off yourself, then go against another, it's a Trick Boss.

Compare The Worf Effect; Always a Bigger Fish. See also Disc-One Final Boss.

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Example subpages:

• Video Games

Other examples:

Animation

• BoBoiBoy: In the series finale, it initially seems that the heroes will have to take on Ejo Jo again, who has new battle armor and 5 times the battle robots since they last fought him. However, Captain Kaizo makes his entry by swiftly decimating his robots, defeating Ejo Jo and forcing the latter's ship to crash-land. Kaizo introduces himself by stating the purpose of his visit: to obtain the heroes' power bands. It takes one battle and a rematch in space for Kaizo to reveal that his team's true mission is to find worthy wielders of the power bands, which, by the time the finale ends, the main cast has proven themselves as such.

Anime & Manga

• Dragon Ball:
  • In the original series, for most of the Red Ribbon Army arc, the ultimate antagonist has been built up as Commander Red. Then when Goku begins raiding the Army HQ, Red reveals that he's been gathering the Dragon Balls for the sole purpose of making himself taller rather than world conquest. Disgusted that their leader wasted everyone's lives and resources over such a meager pursuit, 2nd-in-command Adviser Black shoots Red dead just minutes before Goku arrives, leaving the final showdown to occur between the two of them instead.
  • In Dragon Ball Z, the Androids arc starts off with Android 19 and 20 (a.k.a. Gero) as starter antagonists, then 17 and 18 before finally ending to Cell as the Big Bad for the remainder of the arc.
  • The entire Future Trunks Saga of Dragon Ball Super is built around defeating Goku Black and saving Future Trunks' world. In the end, the Final Boss ended up being Merged Zamasu, the fusing of Future Zamasu and Goku Black.
• In Gamaran:
  • At the beginning of the second part of the tournament, it seems that Gama's gonna fight the Kanasemanji School leader Muraku Matsumoto, but then he decides to step back and let Gama fight with Saizou Fujibayashi, leader of the Tamagakushi Ninja School. In a slight subversion, Muraku is actually much more dangerous than Saizou, all things considered.
  • During the later Muraku arc, Gama is protecting his wounded comrades against an assault corps of the Muhou Ryuu, and their leader prepares to enter the fray. However, he's killed by Muraku before he can even reach the battlefield, and the delayed duel between Muraku and Gama takes place.
  • During the final arc, it seems that Gama has to defeat Jinsuke's strongest warrior Shungaku...but instead has to fight his disciple, Eima Yakushiji. Again, the "bait" boss was arguably stronger.
  • Zenmaru's final duel in the series is seemingly an hopeless Dual Boss agaisnt his own Aloof Big Brother Kai and his former, strongest senpai Mario Kujo. However, Kujo turns out to be a traitor, Kai is actually honorable and both brothers end up fighting Mario, one after the other.
• Gantz:
  • The first target is the Onion Alien, a scrawny, panicky little man who can do little more than say "Onions are enough for me". The hunters corner him, taunt him, and then blow his head up...at which point a much larger, much brawnier alien walks up. He bears a slight resemblance to the Onion Alien (one hunter suggests he's the first one's dad), and he's really pissed off. This one slaughters all but four of the hunters before the survivors kill him.
  • This actually seems to happen almost habitually in all their hunts. That is, Gantz gives them one or a few targets, and then more keep showing up. Think of the Buddha statues battle, for example.
• In one of the bigger Wham Episodes of HuGtto! Pretty Cure, it looks as if the Cures are about to fight the haughty Daigan, however, he is suddenly attacked and incapacitated by another debuting villain, Dr. Traum. Traum then does some upgrades to the Monster of the Week Daigan had summoned and has that attack the Cures. Eventually, the Cures get a proper fight with Daigan in the Halloween Episode, so it’s no big deal.
• To stop a camp of orcs raiding nearby farming villages, Shibata Genzo of Kemono Michi strides right in and challenges their leader to a fight. A menacing orc with an eyepatch answers his challenge, and is promptly knocked aside by an even bigger orc.
• Kill la Kill sets up Uzu Sanageyama as the final opponent in the Naturals Election arc. When Ryuko steps up to fight him, however, Nui Harime drops from the sky, effortlessly destroys Sanageyama's uniform with her pinky finger, and sets herself up as the true opponent.
• In the manga The Law of Ueki Plus, when the main characters start their siege on the Big Bad. Plus, four generals are introduced as his guards. They are immediately dispatched by the main group on the next page, being run over by a T-rex. It's just as awesome as it sounds.
• During the Magic Academy Arc of Mushoku Tensei: Jobless Reincarnation, Rudeus becomes the boss of two delinquent Beast girls Lynia and Pursena. This means trouble for Rudeus because when mating season for the Beast Races begins, dozens of potential suitors flock from all over the world to challenge him for the right to court the girls. Rudeus manages to defeat one suitor with ease, but decides to dodge all the others. When Rudeus believes they have cornered him at the library did he decide to finally face them all, only to learn someone else already took care of them for him: Demon Lord Badigadi, who also came to the academy to fight Rudeus, but for different reasons entirely.
• In One Piece, everyone is originally led to believe that Franky is the main antagonist of the Water Seven arc, but then the Wham Episode comes showing that CP9 is the real enemy here. Franky, meanwhile, undergoes a Fire-Forged Friends experience and ends up joining the Straw Hats.
• Pokémon: The Series
  • In Pokémon Red and Blue, the eighth and final Gym Leader is Giovanni, the Big Bad of Team Rocket. In the anime, Giovanni leaves his duty at the exact same moment that Ash was at the Gym's doorstep, ready to challenge him. Although Gary unintentionally had a hand in this, as he wanted to challenge Giovanni just to beat Ash to the punch, when he really doesn't need to do so anyway. If it weren't for Gary's interference, Ash would have actually fought Giovanni. Instead, Ash has to face off against Jessie and James, who Giovanni temporarily left in charge.
  • The Alola League is supposed to end with an exhibition match between its newly-crowned champion and the Masked Royal. Before the match could take place, several Guzzlords show up to disrupt the ceremonies. However, in a subversion, after taking care of the Guzzlords, the exhibition match will still be held regardless.
• Puella Magi Madoka Magica has a rather interesting example in that the title character is — or rather, can be — the boss. Sure, she's the only person capable of beating the extremely powerful witch Walpurgisnacht, but doing so causes her to become an even more powerful witch capable of planetary annihilation. She's done it in at least two alternate timelines, and preventing it for good is Homura's goal in life.
• In the Trigun anime, Vash initially starts fighting with E.G. Mine, only for Rai-Dei to quickly come in, kill Mine, and take over the fight from there.

Comic Books

• Black Moon Chronicles: Back when Ghorgor Bey was part of a traveling circus, one of their shows was offering Real Men a chance to prove their worth against the circus' best fighter, while a glowering dwarf stood next to the announcer. Naturally, every musclehead in the audience signed up, only for the dwarf to reveal he was only the curtain puller. Which curtain he then pulled, revealing a very happy Ghorgor (who was an adolescent half-ogre back then, and thus only around eight or nine feet tall). Curbstomping ensued.
• The Flash: even with all the Rogues fighting in Rogue War, it was obvious that Wild Card Zoom is going to be the biggest threat the Flashes have to deal with. The real twist, however, is that Zoom has joined forces with a returning Professor Zoom.
• In The Mighty Thor, Thor spends some time fighting one of the three-thousand-foot-tall Celestials, Arishem the Judge, who threatens a planet Thor was on. Just after he finally gets Arishem's attention, Exitar the Exterminator, the even larger Celestial whose job it was to actually wipe out the dominant species on the planet (Arishem, per his name, only judged whether they should be wiped out), shows up.
• The first issue of Rat Queens sees the Queens sent to clear out a goblin den. Then they're ambushed by an assassin, but as they square off he's squished by a thirty-foot-tall troll. The real boss fight ensues.

Fan Works

• Chapter 16B of Digimon Re: Tamers within Citadel of the Heart, fittingly titled "Bait and Switch", reveals that Brondramon as shown in Chapter 16 was not even real, nor was the damages it caused to the city; it was all a simulation ran by Jiang-yu on Grandis after the latter had been brought to him by Henry and Ryo, in circumstances that oddly match the description of Chapter 16's ending. It's quickly realized by Grandis that Enigma, the Starter Villain of the fic thus far, has always been the true threat from the beginning, because now it's been witnessed that Enigma's power is so immense that it can cause Reality Breaking Paradoxes to occur by so much as being able to sense Enigma's presence nearby. As a result, everyone just barely avoided having Brondramon show up for real, and Enigma has now made itself Public Enemy #1 assuming it wasn't already this.
• In The Fifth Act, Hollander kidnaps Cloud to experiment on him under the guise of helping Angeal. After a chapter or so, he's killed offscreen and Hojo takes Cloud for his own experiments. Despite Cloud being the protagonist Peggy Sue, Cloud turns out to be the Final Boss to Sephiroth, Zack, and Genesis.
• In the IWBTG fangame I Wanna Be The Boshy, you beat King Dedede at a Simon-like minigame and he grows bigger, apparently ready for round two. Suddenly, Meta Knight appears slicing Dedede in two and lunging at you...and before the fight can start, he is taken out by a Hadouken from offscreen, heralding a boss fight against Ryu.
• During the Invictus Arc of The Last Daughter, the Simurgh tricks the Protectorate into thinking that it will attack Paris. As the nature of the Simurgh thins out the ranks considerably for Endbringer fights, the defenders are even less prepared than usual when Behemoth appears instead.
• Marriage of Heaven and Hell begins to set up the Rating Game with Riser Phenex in Volume 2. However, this time around, he declines because his sister, Ravel, had been kidnapped and the Engagement Challenge is instead to find and rescue her.
• Missing (Miraculous Ladybug): Hawkmoth sends out an akumatizing butterfly targeting the heartbroken Nino, intending to exploit their outrage over a painful revelation that left them feeling betrayed. However, his intended target manages to talk it out and calm down before the butterfly can reach them. Unfortunately, there's another person nearby grabbling with their own emotional turmoil: Alya, who's just gotten framed for 'attacking' Lila and suspended.
• One of the levels in the Project Arrhythmia custom level collection The Peer Gyntening, Feet Gyrn, starts with the intro to another level by its creator. Before its boss Wave can attack, he gets killed by the actual boss Lazer Gost who goes on to mention it:

Lazer Gost: You really thought it would be that stupid boss? TOO BAD. Now he's DEAD. And I'M gonna kill you now.

• In Seven Days in Sunny June, Divine Right messes up his plan to summon Grogar, and gets Chernabog instead; the very demon that possessed Sunset in My Little Pony: Equestria Girls.
• Chapter 10 of Sonic Generations: Friendship Is Timeless makes you think that Sonic will be battling Shadow like in the original game, but then Queen Chrysalis and her army of changelings show up... Shadow having a question mark next to his name in the chapter title is kind of a hint to this.

Films — Live-Action

• At one point in Ace Ventura: When Nature Calls, Ace has to go up against the Wachootoo tribe's best warrior. A big, burly guy appears in front of him...only to then squat, drop the real boss from a backpack he carries and run away terrified.
• Throughout Captain America: Civil War, a threat is being built up in the background in the form of five more Winter Soldiers, each of whom is able to trump the original Winter Soldier in single combat and together are able to destabilize governments within a single night, and it's implied that Zemo is using the titular Civil War between the Avengers in order to distract them from this threat. When it comes time for the heroes to confront this threat, however, Zemo is revealed to have executed them in their cryotubes, having had no use for them, and once he lures Steve, Bucky, and Tony all in his bunker, he expertly manipulates Tony into a rage by revealing that a brainwashed Bucky killed his parents and Steve hid this information from Tony. In essence, the Final Boss of this film is not this ensemble of Winter Soldiers, but is instead Iron Man.
• A sports version in Stick It: at the national gymnastics competition, the movie plays up the rivalry between Haley and her Evil Former Friend Tricia. As the competition unfolds, the true villain emerges in the judges who use obscure rules to punish coaches via their competitors. Tricia joins Haley's rebellion.
• A rare heroic version in Once Upon a Time in Hollywood. The film builds up towards the Manson family's fated murder of Sharon Tate. At the climax, they set out to do the deed, but Rick confronts them to complain about their loud car. They promptly decide to switch targets to Rick, and it's ultimately Cliff and Rick who face the final confrontation.

Literature

• In the Eighth Doctor Adventures book Alien Bodies, a devastating superweapon from the relative future of the Whoniverse is put up in an Auction of Evil, with the greatest powers being invited to bid. Much to the Doctor's horror, a Dalek saucer approaches the auction and opens...revealing the Krotons, who have become an utterly ferocious warlike race since last time he'd seen them. And the Kroton has eaten the Daleks.

Live-Action TV

• For Season 8 of 24, Jack of all people ends up being this in the finale. The entire last act of the season cements him as just as much of a threat as the other villains of the season on his quest to make them pay for their actions over the course of the day. Then the final episode comes in and Chloe convinces him to stand down by the end of the first act. Charles Logan recements himself as the main villain of the season after being played against Jack for much of the last act until that point, with everyone now working to stop Logan before he finally finishes his political play to make himself look like a hero, and has Jack finished off for good.
• Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D. does this in Season 4. After dealing with the Disc-One Final Boss, the season seems to be setting up Aida as its new Big Bad. Then it turns out that she was still loyally serving her creator, Dr. Radcliffe, who has been driven insane by the Darkhold. And then Aida betrays Radcliffe and goes on to become the fourth season's final Big Bad.
• This is what happens to the Raiders, who were the Disc-One Final Boss on Babylon 5. They're last seen on board their mothership, gloating about how between the ancient relic they've captured and the Centauri nobleman they're about to ransom, they're going to get enough money to buy a whole fleet of warships, rendering their losses in previous episodes inconsequential — and then a Shadow warship drops out of hyperspace and vaporizes them with downright contemptuous ease.
• Buffy the Vampire Slayer:
  • Season 2:
    • Anointed One, the first big bad of season 2. Until Spike got bored and toasted him.
    • Spike and Drusilla were continuously built up as the main antagonists for that year, making it all but guaranteed the season would climax with a big showdown with them. Then Angel winds up losing his soul...
  • In Season 4, Spike is watching Buffy from a balcony, giving a speech about how he's back and this time he's going to kill the Slayer, but is interrupted by being tazered and surrounded by the season's real villains, The Initiative. Then it happens again seven episodes later with Initiative professor Maggie Walsh and Adam.
  • A quick version from season 1's "Angel": The Master decides to call in The Three. Smash Cut to three intimidating bikers...who are immediately scared off by a trio of 7 foot tall vampires in medieval armor.
• The Law & Order series has done this on several occasions; of course, it's easy to see coming when they manage to try and convict a person in the first half hour.
  • In the season 5 finale of Law & Order: Special Victims Unit, a male urophiliac potty-peeper who installs hidden cameras in ladies' bathrooms is quickly and easily apprehended by police. With an overwhelming pile of evidence incriminating him, he folds quickly, about a quarter of the way into the episode's length — but not before offering up video footage of what turns out to be a far more disturbing crime, which becomes the actual plot of the episode.
  • Some of the teasers do this. In one example, the episode begins with a pretty young woman walking into her apartment building late at night. It's completely empty, and after she presses the button for the elevator, we see a young man staring at her from the shadows. The music plays ominously as he slowly approaches her...at which point the young woman turns around and cheerfully greets him. It turns out the two are neighbors who live in the same building! They even joke about his scaring her — and that's when the elevator doors open to reveal a bloody body at the bottom of the shaft.
• For the finale of Let's Go Kamen Rider, Kamen Rider OOO has defeated the Great Leader of Shocker, blasting him into the distance. Out of the rubble emerges King Dark, ready to fight the Riders not unlike what happened at All Riders vs. Dai-Shocker. However, the Great Leader returns, going One-Winged Angel to become the Great Colossus, a monstrosity that's even larger than King Dark himself. The Colossus quickly deals with Dark and the rest of the surviving members of Shocker, so the Riders have to deal with him instead.
• NCIS:
  • Subverted when they capture the mole's boss, and it's someone whose wife is being held hostage. Double subverted when the team realizes that he had killed his own wife and was the actual Big Bad.
  • The woman who stabs her ex-fiance in the opening is arrested in about 5 minutes... only for a woman in the crowd to attack Ducky, kickstarting the main plot.
• The penultimate episode of Ninpuu Sentai Hurricaneger sees Tau Zant assume his Ultimate Form, setting up a fight between him and the Hurricanegers. Just as Tau Zant begins the final stage of his evil plan however, he's betrayed and killed by Sandaaru, who promptly moves to finish off the Hurricanegers and their allies. Tau Zant does get a chance to fight the Hurricanegers in the finale when he's brought back by the Evil Will and becomes the Final Boss.
• Once Upon a Time in Wonderland: Episode 6 sees Alice walk into a brightly lit grove while trying to walk through the Black Forest. There she meets the creepily smiling Carpenter, who more literate fans will recognize as an unsavory type from "The Walrus and the Carpenter"... only for Alice to start forgetting everything and getting all... "mimsy" because of the Boro Grove, which is the real trouble of the episode.
• Person of Interest's first season finale has Alicia Corwin hunt down Finch and confront him, but before she can do anything she's shot dead by a recurring villain who proceeds to kidnap Finch.
• Supernatural: In the S6 finale, Crowley and Raphael team up against Castiel. Then Cas blows Raph to smithereens and goes totally off the deep end.

Visual Novels

• You know Zouken Matou, big bad of the Heavens Feel route in Fate/stay night? Yea, turns out Sakura wasn't as brain dead as he assumed. Cue bridge drop with Saber vs. Shirou and Sakura vs. Tohsaka, while the real Big Bad, Kotomine, shows up. And then after that, Shirou still has to beat what is essentially the devil.
• In the final chapter of Socrates Jones: Pro Philosopher, the Arbiter is about to summon Friedrich Nietzsche as Socrates's next debate opponent...until Socrates makes an offhand comment that accidentally qualifies as giving an answer to the Arbiter's challenge about finding the nature of morality, which leads to the Arbiter himself becoming Socrates's next opponent instead when Socrates disputes his judgment that his answer is incorrect.
• In the final case of Phoenix Wright: Ace Attorney – Justice For All, it's initally set up that Franziska Von Karma will be the prosecutor for the final case, ready to enact her revenge on Phoenix. Then she gets shot in the shoulder by someone trying to protect Pheonix's client, and Edgeworth takes over instead.

Web Animation

• In the Street Fighter YouTube Poop Leet Fighters, a spinoff to the Frollo Show, while Guile and M. Bison were in Hell during the episode "Daring Death", they accidentally free Hans Frollo from a prison cell. Hans then breaks open the cell next to him before escaping. That prisoner that was broke free was Konata who was killed and eaten on a pizza by Guile and Bison in the first episode. She rants about getting revenge on them and starts powering up... only for Ronald McDonald to arrive behind her and snap her neck, and then he starts to transform. Fortunately, Guile and Bison abandon ship and escape through Hell via Gaston's spring. In the next episode, Konata peeks through a window of the Leet Fighters' apartment, still wanting payback. She's quickly taken out again — albeit accidentally — this time by Mormon Jesus, who is then swept aside by T. Hawk. Luckily, he's friendly.

Webcomics

• In 8-Bit Theater, Chaos does this to Sarda, when his Phlebotinum Overload transforms Sarda's body into a portal to Chaos' realm.
• Katamari: Towards the end of the tournament arc, Lucha and Opeo advance to the finals in the tournament, where their final opponents are apparently two generic grapplers. Lucha comments that the opponents lack flair and intimidating aura, and that they are not excessively menacing, yet strangely appropriate foes. That's when a wrestler and a mummy drop down and pull a Super Street Fighter II Turbo by laying the smack-down on the grapplers, leading to the wrestler and the mummy being the true final opponents.
  Lucha: Ah, there we go.
• One-Punch Man: The Sky King's appearance seems to set up another arc like the preceding ones with the Subterranean King and Sea King. However, he and his associates get torn apart in seconds by the alien invaders led by Lord Boros, the true villains of the arc.
• In The Order of the Stick, Xykon and Redcloak confront the Order at the just-destroyed Desert Gate, and it looks like they're about to issue a Curb-Stomp Battle until the Monster in the Darkness convinces Xykon that the Order is actually a distraction for O-Chul. On their way out, Redcloak, unconvinced, talks Xykon into letting him cast "one single spell" — Summon Monster IX, pitting the Order against a massive Silicon Elemental.

Web Original

• In the Dragon Age episode of TableTop, the first enemy the Grey Wardens encounter is an Avar barbarian who leads a group of bandits and tries to get the Wardens to pay a toll to travel his road. He and his bandits are quickly killed off by a Shriek Darkspawn.
• Outside Xbox has "7 Bosses That Were Immediately Killed by a Much Scarier Boss", which is about this trope. It has seven examples, all of which are on this page.

Western Animation

• In Ben 10: Ultimate Alien, Aggregor is the Big Bad for most of the first season, and later, he's within inches of acquiring Physical God levels of power when a desperate Kevin powers up directly from the Ultimatrix and beats him to a pulp — but thanks to how Kevin's powers work, suffers from great insanity in the process, becoming a villain again and Big Bad to boot.
• Ducktales 2017, in “Mystery at Mc Duck Manor”, the duck kids had to solve the mystery of who kidnapped Scrooge, but as soon as all the three suspects were taken away, that left one more suspect, Dark Arts Beagle. As he worked with MA Beagle to steal the deed from Scrooge, but his true intentions were to summon a demon to take out all her enemies, and then take out herself as well. However as soon as he commanded his demon to attack the kids, the demon had actually turned on him, and sent him away as well.
  Dark Arts Beagle: Oh no…I’m not as good as I thought I was!!!

The Demon would chase the kids themself, until, Huey would figure out that Scrooge was never kidnapped, as it was all an act to teach the kids that he hates parties, as the spirit themself was the spirit of Duckworth.

• Justice League Unlimited pulls this twice in consecutive season finales. First Luthor sets himself up as the ultimate villain of the Cadmus arc, only for Brainiac, of all people, to come in from nowhere in a plot twist tied to an episode of Superman that aired eight years before. Then in season five, after an entire arc dedicated to Luthor's attempts to revive Brainiac, it looks like he's finally succeeded...until it resurrects Darkseid instead.
• My Adventures with Superman: Though Task Force X lurks in the background, "You Will Believe a Man Can Lie" primarily seems to focus on Superman's encounter with Heat Wave, retaining the series's Villain of the Week format... until Slade Wilson, donning his Deathstroke armor and wielding twin katanas, freezes Heat Wave solid midway through the fight.
• Throughout the final season of My Little Pony: Friendship Is Magic, it was looking like things were building up to Twilight and her friends taking on Grogar as the final antagonist of the series. Then, in the finale, Tirek, Chrysalis, and Cozy Glow double-cross Grogar and use the Bewitching Bell to steal his magic...revealing that he had actually been Discord in disguise, who had actually been setting up the villains for Twilight to defeat so that she could gain the confidence needed to rule Equestria. As a result, this meant that the villainous trio were the true final threat of the series.
• Rick and Morty, in “Vindicators 3: The Return of Worldender”, the plot is building up to an epic fight with Rick, Morty and the Vindicators against this powerful villain known as “World Ender”, but just as soon as the they enter his main base, they stumble across his whole army brutally slaughtered, and later they find Worldender’s dying corpse, hanging from his guts. As Rick is quick to call the mission off, Morty points out that there must be a bigger enemy in their path, as soon as the base is locked shut, the heroes are trapped, and a monitors reveals a pre-recorded video of the culprit behind this trap, Rick while he was blackout-drunk. So now. The Vindicators are trapped in this Saw-like puzzle, or else they’ll die.
• The Spectacular Spider-Man builds up Tombstone through the first season and most of the second as New York's resident Magnificent Bastard crime-king Big Bad, with it seeming that the series will come to a head with him against Spidey, but then he's deposed by the Green Goblin's Evil Plan, and Gobby's the final villain instead.
• One SpongeBob SquarePants episode, "The Fry Cook Games", has Plankton call in the Chum Bucket's contestant. In walks an absolutely enormous individual...who's carrying the real contestant, Patrick, on his back.
• Throughout the first season and most of the second season, the main recurring threat in Stretch Armstrong and the Flex Fighters is Stretch Monster/Jonathan Rook, who keeps the heroes in their toes. During the last four episodes of the series, the Tech Men take over Rook Unlimited and its resources to enact their Evil Plan, with Rook's head of security, Malcolm Kane, being revealed as their leader.
• In the Netflix animated series Trollhunters, during a trip to the marshlands of Florida, our heroes questing for an important stone run afoul of a bad Troll known as the Fake-King Blungo. Despite what the flow of the episode seems to dictate, this fake king sticks around just long enough to non-lethally antagonize one of our heroes for a bit, before quickly and unceremoniously getting petrified by the much more menacing and pertinent threat of Angor Rot and his poisoned dagger. He takes over as the main threat for the remainder of the episode.
• Happens twice in succession during the climactic episodes of Western Animation WITCH 2004. Knight Templar Chessmaster Nerissa was Big Bad for most of the season, but near the end former Big Bad Phobos returns, steals her Amplifier Artifact, and seals her inside it, resuming his Evil Overlord throne. And then in the last episode, Phobos's previously loyal Dragon Cedric senses opportunity, goes all Scaled Up, and eats both Phobos and the artifact, acquiring both Phobos's throne and nearly limitless power.
• In Wolverine and the X-Men (2009), a little mutant girl is released from a stasis box by Juggernaut. The first (apart from the manner of keeping her in stasis) way of demonstrating her powers? She flings said Totally Unstoppable Juggernaut a few miles away, knocking him out completely.
• The second season of Young Justice builds up the Light and the Reach as a Big Bad Duumvirate, with the former led (more-or-less) by Vandal Savage and the latter by the Reach Ambassador. As of the season's penultimate episode, the Light has suffered a major setback, with many of its members captured, incapacitated, or forced to withdraw from the field, and after a string of failures results in the Ambassador having a Villainous Breakdown Black Beetle forcibly removes him from command, takes over as head of the Reach invasion force, and decides to destroy the Earth, cementing him as the final villain for the season.

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