Cast of Expies

The main cast of Drawn Together, consisting of: a Betty Boop parody, a Spongebob stand-in, a Spoofy-Doo member^note of the Josie And The Pussy Cats variant, a Link expy, a Disney Princess reject, a Web Animation refugee, a Superman Substitute and a Pikachu imitation.

While the Fountain of Expies is a character who has been frequently copied in other works, this is a work that features many characters similar to those in other works, whether any individual one counts as an Expy or a Captain Ersatz. This is common in metafictional works that intend to parody, deconstruct, reconstruct, or just reference entire genres or mediums.

Please note: To qualify, at least half of the work's major characters must be recognisable as derived from earlier ones. A work which has multiple Expies or Ersatzen simply because it has a large cast does not qualify.

Compare Monster Mash, which often features expies of classic horror movie monsters, Alternate Company Equivalent, and Spiritual Successor.

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Examples:

Advertising

• All of the characters from The Pizza Head Show commercials draw inspiration from Mr. Bill. Pizza Head is based off of Mr. Bill himself, being constantly injured just like him; the unseen human is based off of Mr. Hands, which is evident by the fact that only his hands are ever seen on-screen; and Steve the pizza cutter seems to be based on Mr. Sluggo, since both are silent antagonists. Justified as the commercials were, in fact, done by Mr. Bill creator Walter Williams.

Anime and Manga

• Cells at Work and Friends!: The main trio of cells are practically Shoujo counterparts to the ones from the main series. Killer T's the most blatant as he's a blonde Bruiser with a Soft Center, while U-2145 and IM1235 are more visual expies of U-1146 and AE3803 than characteristic.
• Cheat Slayer was infamous for the fact that its main antagonists, the Rebels Against God, were outright parodies of seminal Isekai characters only portrayed as much worse individuals than their forebears a la The Boys, which led to the manga being cancelled after just one chapter. Their ranks included parodies of Kirito, Aqua, Ainz Ooal Gown, Subaru Natsuki, Tanya Degurechaff, Rimuru Tempest, Shin Walford, Catarina Claes, and Aletta.
• Most of the cast of Dog Days are based off of characters from Lyrical Nanoha (Millhiore is Caro, Cinque is Erio, Leonmitchelli is Reinforce Eins, Eclair is Teana, Nanami is Subaru, Ricotta is Vivio, and Brioche is Signum). The fact that it's made by the same company might have something to do with it. They also ride around on birds that are clearly based off of Chocobos.
• As a love child of a Magical Girl manga and a Super Hero comic, Gamma is choke full with expies of various magical girls and superheroes, from Puella Magi Madoka Magica (Puella Magi Mika) to the movie versions of The Avengers (the Nano Mugen team).
• There's barely a character that exists in Goblin Slayer that doesn't reference a pre-existing character through design, personality, or both, such as Spearman referencing Lancer Cú Chulainn, Heavy Warrior referencing Guts, Witch referencing Sorceress, and many more. Half the reason for this is because the author used all of those characters wholesale as the placeholder designs and overall inspiration for the characters when making the original web novel, so when time came for official publication as a light novel, the author just tweaked the designs a bit while keeping it obvious to well-versed fans what the original references are.
• The cast of Kill Me Baby are all based off of Lyrical Nanoha characters. Yasuna is Nanoha, Sonya is Fate, Agiri is Suzuka, and the Unused Character is Vita.
• Lady!!: Mary and Thomas Waverly are Expies of Eliza and Neil Legan. Mary, like Eliza, is an Alpha Bitch who hates her step-sister and Thomas, like Neil, is her dim-witted Beta Bitch. While there are some similarities between Lynn and Candy, Lynn is more of a Fragile Flower and her pure, happy-go-lucky personality is more reminiscient of Annie.
• Several major characters in Lyrical Nanoha are based off of Mecha or their pilots. Nanoha is the RX-78-2, Fate is a copy of Char from Gundam, Vita is the Alteisen, Subaru is a walking Shout-Out to GaoGaiGar, etc.
• Maken-ki!: Based on some of Takeda Hiromitsu's character designs, he appears to be a fan of BlazBlue and The King of Fighters:
  • Himegami shares a lot in common with Rachel Alucard. They're both pettanko twin-tailed blondes who're childlike in appearance, yet centuries old, both dress in Elegant Gothic Lolita fashion, and travel with a group of familiars.
  • Inaho is a dead ringer for Makoto Nanaya (minus the tail), due her chestnut hair and eye color, the animal ear-like hair bobbles atop her head, and her perpetual Playful Cat Smile. All of which gives her the appearance of a squirrel girl.
  • Demitra could pass for Leona Heidern's twin sister, minus the difference in hair color. Both have been emotionally repressed since childhood and eventually became mercenaries.
  • Otohime Yamato and her twin brother, Gouken, are much like Rose and Adelheid Berstein. Otohime and Rose look the same, including their hairstyles. Both are short-tempered, yet smug and manipulative, and each thinks the world of their brothers. Whereas Gouken and Adelheid are calm and reserved, well dressed young men, who favor martial arts.
• Me & Roboco has a cast primarily made of Doraemon expies. Yes, this includes Roboco herself (who fulfills the general role but nothing else of Doraemon), who even has her own Dorami expy.
• Just about every enemy or background character in Panty & Stocking with Garterbelt is taken from a different show. Panty and Stocking are basically The Powerpuff Girls gone wrong. Panty sleeps with Johnny Bravo, the Autobots and Decepticons turn the girls into robots for their side, etc.
• Plastic Memories main cast consists mostly of Neon Genesis Evangelion expies. The most obvious are Kazuki (who is a mentor and Hard-Drinking Party Girl like Misato), Isla (who is a quiet, sickly Heroic Albino like Rei), and Michiru (who is a Fiery Redhead who is tsundere for the brunette protagonist like Asuka).
• As Re:CREATORS is a series all about taking characters and seeing how they fare outside their home worlds, of course the ones that get pulled out share some similarity with something in our world. Mamika acts like a Cure, fights like a TSAB agent and experiences Puella Magi growing pains, Celestia takes on a role similar to Asuna, Alicetelia is a female Guts with a dash of Saber's ideals, Rui displays some Newtype behavior, etc. Even the Military Princess gets in on this, being an expy of an in-universe mascot character while her story is a send up to how offshoot franchises and original characters like Black★Rock Shooter got their start.
• Several of the designs in School-Live! for each member of the School Life Club not only match with an expected Schoolgirl Series archetype, they also suspiciously (or maybe intentionally) look like characters from other Manga Time Kirara series. To whit:
  • Yuki looks like Yuzuko from Yuyushiki.
  • Rii looks like Yuuko from A Channel.
  • Kurumi looks like Aya from Kiniro Mosaic.
• Starzinger is a retelling of Journey to the West, IN SPACE!.
  • Heroes: Jan Kugo is based on Son Wukong, Sir Djorgo is based on Sha Wujing, Don Hakka is based on Zhu Bajie and Princess Aurora is based on Tang Sangzang. Princess Aurora is also reminscient of a certain Disney Princess. Dr. Kitty is based on Guanyin.
  • Villains: King Gyuma is the Bull Demon King, Prince Gaima is his son, Red Boy, Queen Lacets is Princess Iron Fan, and Ginginman and Kinkinman are based on the King of Gold Horn & King of Silver Horn respectively. The only significant character that lacks a book counterpart is Bellamis.
• The cast of Space Patrol Luluco is basically a reunion of characters from past Studio TRIGGER and Studio Gainax series. There's Kaworu (Alpha Omega Nova), Haruko and Commander Amarao (Midori and Keiji), Inferno Cop who turns into Super Tengen Toppa Gurren Lagann (OVER JUSTICE), and Professor Ursula (Hisho). And that's not even counting the villains' side, which features Shiny Chariot (Lalaco) and a very Viral-esque Anti-Spiral (the Blackholian commander-in-chief), just to name a few enemies. Luluco herself would later turn out to be Trigger's mascot Trigger-chan. Not an expy of her, but the literal character.
• A self-referential variant shows up in the Yu-Gi-Oh! franchise:
  • The casts of each anime created after Yu-Gi-Oh! Duel Monsters clearly take inspiration from the DM cast. In Yu-Gi-Oh! GX, this was to parody the original, but now it's become something of a tradition. It works surprisingly well.
  • Once there were more than two series in the franchise, characters after DM became eligible to get expies of their own. For example, Edo Phoenix of GX is one of multiple expies of Seto Kaiba (a wealthy loner Ace rival of the hero who insists dueling isn't about having fun and was orphaned and adopted by a villain), and Sherry LeBlanc of Yu Gi Oh 5Ds took over as an expy of Edo (a wealthy orphaned loner introduced in Season 2 who always dresses all in white and is on the hunt for her parents' killer with physical skills and a modus operandi that bear a strong resemblance to Batman).

Asian Animation

• Look closely enough at the main characters' personalities in Bread Barbershop, and you might notice similarities with SpongeBob SquarePants.
  • Master Bread is Mr. Krabs, owning a successful business and doing everything he can to appease customers, but often more for the money than other things.
  • Wilk is SpongeBob, the enthusiastic, hyperactive employee whose has had a lifelong dream of working in a business establishment (the Krusty Krab in SpongeBob's case, and the Bread Barbershop in Wilk's case) and looks fondly on his job.
  • Choco is Squidward, working as a cashier who couldn't care less about her job.
  • Chip is Plankton; he runs his own business right across the street from the main barbershop and uses evil plans to be the top barbershop, similar to how Plankton tries to make his restaurant popular.
• The entire cast of the Indian cartoon Pakdam Pakdai is an expy of the cast of Oggy and the Cockroaches. It's worth noting that Pakdam Pakdai as a whole is a rip-off of Oggy, making the whole show an Oggy expy in and of itself.

Comic Books

• Astro City has the Confessor, the Samaritan, the First Family, and numerous others. The work is a massive Genre Deconstruction, of course.
  • Astro City has enough characters that some characters are split into multiple Expies. For example, Samaritan is the main Superman Substitute, while Atomicus and the first Starbright are as well, but with emphasis on different aspects ("world's greatest hero," "alien trying to be human" and "All-Loving Hero," respectively).
• Pretty much any supe in The Boys. Like the above, it's a huge Genre Deconstruction, so this is kind of a given.
• Another sector of the DC multiverse gives us the Retaliators, who are an expy of The Avengers. The roster includes Behemoth, Machinehead, Wundajin, Ladybug, Deadeye, Red Dragon, Kite, and Major Max, lead by American Crusader and opposed by the villainous Lord Havok. This universe is also home to the Battlin' Bug "the hero you hate to love", and the G-Men or Zen Men, a group of genetic freaks protecting a world that hates and fears them led by Uni-Orb, and also including Windrider, Night-Troller, and others.
• The title character of Dr. Blink: Superhero Shrink and his colleagues and family are originals, but virtually all of the superheroes and villains appearing are parody expies, because that's the point.
• Fantastic Four: In Fantastic Four #541 (During the Civil War crossover), Ben Grimm decides to skip the hero-vs-hero infighting and flies to France. There he meets the Parisian super group "Les Héros de Paris" ("The Heroes of Paris"), a collection of Justice League pastiches: Comte de Nuit (Night Count; or Batman); Anaïs (a combination of Catwoman and Wonder Woman), La Lumiére Bleue (The Blue Light; the Green Lantern of the team); Le Vent (The Wind, or Flash), and Detective Fantôme (Phantom Detective; the Question expy). There is also Docteur Q, the armor-wearing, technology enhanced member; Le Cowboy, and Adamantine.
• Continued with Moore's aborted run on Glory. Glory continues to be Wonder Woman, the Danger Damsels are the Holiday Girls, Gloria West is Diana Prince, Howard Henry is Steve Trevor, Demeter is Queen Hippolyta, Madame Manacle is Paula von Gunther, Lord Silverfall is Ares, and Lilith is Circe.
• Practically every character in Marshal Law is a parody of some superhero comics character or other. Of Marshal Law's major enemies, the Public Spirit is Superman, the Private Eye is Batman, and the Persecutor is The Punisher. In relation to groups of characters, the patients in the New York mental hospital are all parodies of the big name Silver Age Marvel Universe heroes, the zombies in "The Hateful Dead" are the Justice Society of America (plus Captain America), the Secret Tribunal are Dark Age Marvel heroes, and the "League of Heroes" group of "heroes" in training are the Legion Of Superheroes. Marshal Law himself is based on Judge Dredd.
• Planetary. Almost every character except for the members of the central team is a Captain Ersatz of a character from superhero comics or wider pulp fiction.
• The Powerpuff Girls story "Steal A Meal" (DC Comics, Cartoon Network Block Party #26) has Him bringing three cereal mascots to life to steal all the cereal in Townsville. The mascots are expies of the Trix rabbit, Lucky the Leprechaun (Lucky Charms) and Twinkles the Elephant (Twinkles cereal, an obscure 1960s entry).
• Practically every character in The Pro except for the protagonist is a parody of a DC comics character. The protagonist has some visual similarities to Power Girl, but a very different personality and backstory.
• In PS238, many of the important adult heroes (including some parents and teachers) are Captain Ersatzes, most obviously Ron's dad Atlas for Superman and Tyler's mentor the Revenant for Batman. Many of the kids are, too. Because of the large cast this goes beyond the more obvious examples—for example, we have a M.O.D.O.K. (bratty kid Zodon), Genesis (friendly Malphast) and Morpheus (loopy Murphy).
• Squadron Supreme began as a Marvel parody of the Justice League of America for a single two-part story in The Avengers, but remained an obvious team of Ersatzes when they got a mini-series to themselves, and when they were reimagined in Supreme Power.
• When Alan Moore wrote Supreme, he turned it into a blatant tribute to Silver Age Superman, in which, apart from a few Rob Liefeld characters who survived the retcon (namely Diehard of Youngblood (Image Comics) fame), and a couple of guest-starring Erik Larsen characters, pretty much everybody is a barely-disguised version of a Silver Age DC hero or villain: Supreme is Superman, Supremium is Kryptonite, Suprema is Supergirl, Professor Night is Batman, Twilight is Robin, Darius Dax is Lex Luthor, Diana Dane is Lois Lane, Billy Friday is (a Jerkass parody of) Jimmy Olson, Judy Jordan is Lana Lang, Emerpus is Bizarro, Shadow Supreme is the Reverse Flash, Optilux is Brainiac, Glory is Wonder Woman, Doc Rocket is The Flash, Black Hand is the Golden Age Green Lantern, Roy Roman is Aquaman, the Fisherman is Green Arrow... And even the Larsen characters, Superpatriot and Mighty Man, are used as an Ersatz Captain America and an Ersatz Captain Marvel respectively.
• The Red Ten: The main cast and victims of the murder-mystery is a collection of expies from the Justice League.
• Top 10, about cops in a city where everybody is a superhero or supervillain, is an odd example. Many of the minor characters are copies or parodies of well-known superhero comic characters, but for some reason most of the regular characters are easily recognisable expies of characters from Hill Street Blues reimagined as superheroes.
• Wanted was originally an official Darker and Edgier Legion of Doom reboot. It's pretty apparent who everyone is: Fuckwit is Bizarro, Shithead is Clayface, the Fox is Catwoman, etc.
• The central cast of Watchmen are all expies of Charlton Comics characters that had been recently acquired by DC at the time of writing. Nite-Owl is Blue Beetle, Rorschach is The Question, The Comedian is Peacemaker, Silk Spectre is Nightshade, Dr. Manhattan is Captain Atom, and Ozymandias is Thunderbolt. In fact, the story was originally conceived as being about the original Charlton characters and taking place in the Charlton Comics universe, but DC put the nix on this as they wanted to make those characters residents of the mainstream DC universe and Moore's intended plot would kill several of them and make others unsustainable as ongoing characters. As a result Watchmen was rewritten to be about Charlton expies and taking place as a stand-alone continuity.
  • Comes full circle with The Multiversity: Pax Americana, a story from one of DC's many alternate universes, which features alternate versions of Blue Beetle, The Question, Peacemaker (deceased), Nightshade, and Captain Atom, and also Tiger (another Charlton hero who has no analogue in Watchmen) whose appearances and backstories are much closer to those of their Watchmen equivalents, effectively making them expies of expies of themselves.
• X-Man: The last arc of the series, issues #71-74, had a team called the People's Protectorate, created by Warren Ellis. Its members were clearly based on The Authority: Nightfighter on Midnighter (dark-clad hero with a nocturnal nickname), Thor on Apollo (burly, strong mythical-named hero), White Bird on Swift (winged aerial combatant), Citydweller on Jack Hawksmoor, and Technocrat on the Engineer (technopath).
• And Moore's version of Youngblood (Image Comics) was Teen Titans. Suprema and Twilight were still Supergirl and Robin/Nightwing, Shaft was Speedy/Arsenal, Big Brother was Cyborg, and Doc Rocket II was a genderflipped (Kid) Flash. There was also a possible-timeline earlier incarnation that included Skipper (another Speedy, being the Fisherman's sidekick), Lamprey (Aqualad), Glory Girl (Wonder Girl, but the version that was a projection of Wonder Woman's younger self), and Dandini (Joker's Daughter/Harlequin).

Films — Animation

• The main 6 rubber bands in Bands on the Run are all ripoffs of characters from The Brave Little Toaster: Roxy is Radio, the plane is Toaster, the lightbulb is Lampy, the TV is Radio again, the flower is Blanky, and Stretch is Kirby.
• This is one of the many reasons why Foodfight! is so reviled. Its creators had planned to use many famous advertising mascots in its cast in the same way that Wreck-It Ralph uses video game characters. They could not afford the rights to the characters they had hoped to use, so rather than write them out, they created ripoffs. Vlad Chocul is, for example, a Captain Ersatz of cereal mascot Count Chocula.
• The main characters of The Incredibles are similar to the Fantastic Four, though Word of God says that this was unintentional. The Underminer, whom they fight at the end, is also similar to FF enemy Mole Man. This also extends to some of the minor superheroes we hear about like Gazerbeam (X-Men's Cyclops).
• Monsters vs. Aliens: Captain Ersatz versions of the Fifty-Foot Woman, the Fly, the Blob, the Creature from the Black Lagoon, and Mothra are gathered together to whoop alien butt.
• Titanic: The Legend Goes On is an obvious ripoff of numerous Disney and Don Bluth films. Angelica is Cinderella crossed with Anastasia, for example. The Batty-styled dog is often compared to a bat, and there's a Gaston-styled man named... Gaston.

Films — Live-Action

• Murder by Death. Each one of the main characters is an Expy of literary detectives: Inspector Sidney Wang and son (Charlie Chan and his Number One Son), Dick and Dora Charleston (Nick and Nora Charles from The Thin Man films, based on Dashiell Hammett's novel), Milo Perrier (Agatha Christie's Hercule Poirot), Sam Diamond and his secretary Tess Skeffington (Dashiell Hammett's Sam Spade and his secretary Effie Perine) and Jessica Marbles (Agatha Christie's Miss Marple).
• Most of the major characters in Escape from L.A. fill the roles of the major characters from Escape from New York; Malloy stands in for Hauk, Cuervo Jones takes the role of the Duke, Map To The Stars Eddie fills in for Cabbie and so on. The one major character who isn't filling a role that someone else played in the first film is Snake himself.

Literature

• Leo Bruce's A Case For Three Detectives is about a mystery investigated by Lord Simon Plimsoll, Monsieur Amer Picon, and Monsignor Smith, all of whom come up with convincing solutions which mirror the kind of solutions that would be found in their respective stories. Then, the actual solution is provided by the humble Sergeant Beef.
• In the Ciaphas Cain series, just about every named character that doesn't have a Meaningful Name is a reference to a real or fictional character: Chaos Warmaster Varan the Undefeatable (a short demagogue with a ridiculous mustache), Imperial Navy Admiral Jaymstea Flint, Arbitrator Foreboding, Wynetha Phu... Cain himself is a combination of Flashman and Captain Blackadder.
• The Devil’s League was written as a story involving the Universal Monsters: The Underlord, Adam Chamberton and his son, an invisible assassin, a strange creature from a mysterious lagoon, an age-old living mummy, and a werewolf protagonist all being hunted by a crazed poacher with a lot of free time.
• The Refrigerator Monologues by Catherynne M. Valente parodies on sexist tropes in superhero comics. As such, all six of the main characters are extremely transparent Ersatzes of dead or otherwise maltreated female characters from DC or Marvel:
  • Paige Embry is Gwen Stacy from Spider-Man.
  • Julia Ash is Jean Grey from X-Men.
  • Pauline Ketch is Harley Quinn from Batman.
  • Bayou is Mera from Aquaman.
  • Daisy Green is Karen Page from Daredevil.
  • Samantha Dane is Trope Namer Alexandra DeWitt from Green Lantern.
  • All of the male characters they are involved with are similar Ersatzes, such as Grimdark and Mr. Punch.
• In Shimoneta, SOX is both an expy and a parody of the SOS Brigade, from Haruhi Suzumiya. Not only are the initials similar, so are the characters that comprise both groups.
  • Ayame is their equivalent of Haruhi, herself, in that they initially seem pushy, but generally mean well. They're also the leaders of their respective clubs, who each drafts Tanukichi and Kyon as their first recruits.
  • Tanukichi fills Kyon's role as the Supporting Protagonist/everydude who gets dragged along with Ayame and Haruhi's schemes. Both serve as the voice of reason for the girls and provide commentary on SOX's/the SOS Brigade's activites.
  • Oboro's case is likely unintentional, but is still a gender bent version of Azumanga Daioh's Sakaki. The two are near identical in appearance and mannerism, including having Japanese voice actresses in the anime adaptation who even sound alike^note Oboro's Japanese voice is Sumire Uesaka, while Sakaki's is Yuu Asakawa.
  • Lastly, White Peak is a parody of Makoto Shishio from Rurouni Kenshin. Each is the main antagonist, except White Peak wears a bodysuit of white panties that've been sewn together, whereas Shishio is covered head-to-toe in bandages.
• The Bernice Summerfield novel Ship of Fools by Dave Stone has Benny trapped on a Closed Circle space-liner with a bunch of Clueless Detectives based on Hercule Poirot, Miss Marple, Sherlock Holmes and Charlie Chan.
• Already a parody of most comics genres, Super Folks blends its cast of Expies with a few comics cameos and Public Domain Characters. The protagonist is meant as an expy of Superman, Captain Mantra is an expy of Captain Marvel, and Elastic Man is an expy of Plastic Man, with various other supporting cast members acting as expies of Lois Lane, Lana Lang, Perry White, etc.
• Enforced with the Nikki Heat novels, due to being a defictionalization of a fictional novel series in the Castle TV show that is very loosely based on In-Universe true stories. Jameson Rook is an Author Avatar of Rick Castle, Detective Nikki Heat is a Hotter and Sexier version of Detective Kate Beckett, Missing Mom backstory and all, and Those Two Guys Detectives Raley and Ochoa are based on Beckett's sidekicks Ryan and Esposito. And that's just the core cast.
• Al Ewing's El Sombra series in the Pax Britannia setting stars a working-class Zorro, and the second novel has him meet Hugo Donner/Doc Thunder (Doc Savage with elements of Hugo Danner) and Blood Spider (The Spider with elements of every other Coat, Hat, Mask killer vigilante, and a dash of Spider-Man). The third one extends this even further, including a Ragtag Bunch of Misfits in which every single character is an expy from a completely different source, while the team itself is based on Sgt. Fury and his Howling Commandos.

Live-Action TV

• The Benny Hill Show longform sketch "Murder on the Oregon Express" features parody versions of several TV detectives including McCloud, Ironside, Cannon, Kojak and his supporting cast, Hercule Poirot (all played by Hill), Police Woman, Columbo, and Barnaby Jones.
• The cast of the 1979 television movie Murder Can Hurt You! was based on television detectives, such as Kojak and Columbo.
• Glee: The new kids joining the glee club in season 4 are all expies of the original kids (Marley = Rachel, Ryder = Finn and Sam, Jake = Puck, Kitty = Quinn and Santana, and Unique = Mercedes and Kurt).
• The Boys (2019): Most of the main superhero characters' abilities and costumes are similar to those of established comic book superheroes.

Tabletop Games

• Warhammer 40,000 has quite a few, though some are In Name Only or only there for a Shout-Out gag. "Sly" Marbo, Solar Macharius, Kruellagh the Vile....
• All "classes" in Monster of the Week are not-even-thinly veiled expies of popular Monster of the Week series' protagonists, right down to their Signature Moves. Even the book itself admits that the Chosen is basically Buffy Summers from Buffy the Vampire Slayer, the Spell-Slinger is Harry Dresden from The Dresden Files, and so on.
• The characters in the card game Sentinels of the Multiverse are expies of Marvel and DC superheroes. However, each character has a distinct background and gimick behind them that makes them more than just “X character with a different look.”
  • And besides, I, Guise, am totally not based on any specific character. Especially not some guy named Deadpool.
  • This also extends to the teams, to a degree, with the Freedom Five being a bright, shining heroic force that includes a Flying Brick, a speedster and a stealthy detective resembling the Justice League, the Prime Wardens being a largely distant team of offbeat heroes along the lines of the Defenders, and the Southwest Sentinels/Void Guard being a clear reference to the Fantastic Four, with a glowy energy dude who can fly (Dr Medico/Human Torch), a scientist with a fluid and stretchy body (Mr Fantastic/Writhe), a big chunky super-strong dude who's associated with stone (The Thing/Mainstay), and a lone female member who can use telekinesis (Invisible Woman/Idealist).
• Mutants & Masterminds:
  • Freedom City's Freedom League is about 70% Justice League to 30% Avengers. Most obviously, the late Centurion is the Superman Substitute and the retired Raven I is Batman (the setting developing in real time). Meanwhile the Atom Family are loosely the Fantastic Four, the Next Gen are the Titans with X-Men elements, and so on. The Atlas of Earth-Prime follows suit with the heroes of other countries, sometimes in unexpected ways (the heroine of Botswana is Mma Ramotswe from Number One Ladies Detective Agency with super-senses).
  • Halt Evil Doer!'s Patriots are also a JLA/Avengers mix, although it's closer to 50-50. The Tomorrow Syndicate is the X-Men led by Scarlet Witch, and in addition there have been various other "Tomorrow" groups paralleling X-Factor, X-Force, etc. Jack Union's Psychotic Seven is roughly Manchester Black's Elite, although it also includes the Swamp Thing, Aquaman/Namor and Black Panther expies... and, more surprisingly, Hecate, the Troia counterpart.

Video Games

• Broforce's playable cast consists entirely of Lawyer Friendly versions of famous action heroes from the '80s and '90s, such as Rambo or Snake Plissken to name a couple.
• City of Heroes, as part of its homage to superhero comics.
• Champions Online, both as a homage to to superhero comics and a Spiritual Successor to City of Heroes. The choosable character classes are even parallels to numerous heroes: the Fist, the Grimoire, the Disciple, and the Unleashed are just a few.
• The Dune games by Westwood Studios use this for every faction except House Ordos.
  • In Dune 2000, Noree Moneo is a hammier Thurfir Hawat while Hayt de Vries is an incredibly blatant Captain Ersatz of Piter de Vries as he was portrayed in the David Lynch movie and the Non-Entity General has Paul's place in a Bene Gesserit prophecy.
  • Emperor: Battle for Dune goes all out since it portrays more characters than just Mentats:
    • House Atreides is lead by Duke Achillus, who is a mix of Leto (a patriarch who wants to ally with the Fremen) and Paul (he eventually becomes Emperor in his own campaign) and assisted by the Mentat Kolinar Koltrass, who is a more blatant copy of Thurfir Hawat than Moneo.
    • House Harkonnen is lead by Baron Rakan, who is a healthier and heterosexual Vladimir, and his two sons Gunseng and Copec, who resemble Vlad's nephews Feyd-Rautha and Glossu Rabban but hate each other, and is assisted by Yanich Kobal, who is a less blatant copy of Piter than Hayt.
  • Both games have Emperor Frederick Corrino as a less intelligent stand-in for Shaddam Corrino IV and Lady Elara as a version of Lady Jessica who's concubine to the Emperor instead of Duke Leto.
• Freedom Force, yet another homage to superhero comics.
• King of the Monsters' roster is basically every kaiju Japanese cinema ever made, plus King Kong.
• Tech Romancer: The game is a love letter to many old Super Robot anime and as such it contains a lot of expies to them, such as the G-Kaiser to Mazinger Z or Rafaga to Macross. It also has an Ultraman expy named Pulsion.
• RosenkreuzStilette: as a Mega Man clone, this game features many expies from said game, such as main heroine Spiritia being one to Mega Man or Iris being one to Dr. Wily. There are also some Castlevania expies such as Thanatos (Death) and Count Zeppelin (Dracula).
• In Them's Fightin' Herds, this is intentionally invoked with the main cast. Originally, the game was being made as a fangame of My Little Pony: Friendship Is Magic, but when Hasbro sent the creators a Cease & Desist order, they were forced to forfeit using the My Little Pony characters. However, Lauren Faust, the creator of Friendship Is Magic, decided to help them out. And thus, six characters resembling the cast of MLP:FiM were created, each one redesigned and renamed in a way that bypasses the copyright issues.
• As Guilty Gear's Spiritual Successor BlazBlue features a lot of these, such as the main protagonists Ragna and Jin being expies of GG's Sol and Ky respectively, while Tager and Arakune are expies to Potemkin and Zato-1.
• Star Gladiator is a Star Wars clone and as such its characters are references to SW''s ones, like Hayato for Luke, or Bilstein for Darth Vader.
• Harvest Moon games feature many expies of characters from previous titles. Harvest Moon: A Wonderful Life features several from Harvest Moon: Mark is a Pete expy in terms of design and role (brunette farmers from out of town), Celia has both qualities of Nina and Ellen (the looks of Ellen but a love of plants and minor Cloud Cuckoolander traits similar to Nina), Muffy is an expy of Eve (troubled blonde bartenders in red dresses), and Vesta looks like Ellen's mother.
• Mega Man started out as a licensed game for Astro Boy. Naturally many expies exist in Mega Man (Classic):
  • Rock is a Robot Kid and Kid Hero similar to Astro (and looks similar to him out of gear).
  • Rock has a younger sister robot named "Roll", similar to how Astro has Uran.
  • Dr. Wily looks like an older version of Dr. Tenma and plays a similar antagonistic role.
  • Dr. Light is a large set, white haired father figure to Rock similar to how Professor Ochanomizu adopted Astro after Dr. Tenma abandoned him for not being a proper Replacement Goldfish to his son.
• The main cast of characters in Street Fighter are based on fictional characters in other media as well as real life celebrities.
• Super Fighter: As a bootleg game made by the Taiwanese company C&E based on Street Fighter II (even tracing the animations of various characters and using the unaltered sound effects and music scores), the entire cast (with one or two possible exceptions) are basically "Poor man's Ryu, Ken, Chun-li," etc. Though the developers try to hide their blatant infringement on Capcom's Intellectual Property rights by way of employing Composite Character (e.g. Phoenix (the Chun-li ersatz) does some of M. Bison's moves), Red Man (the Blanka ersatz) has Dhalsim's color scheme and M. Bison and Sagat's mannerisms) in an effort to make them seem unique.
• Mortal Kombat: The series borrows heavily from popular martial arts fiction. Sonya Blade is Cynthia Rothrock, Johnny Cage is Jean Claude Van Damme (especially as he appears in Bloodsport), Liu Kang is Bruce Lee's character from Enter the Dragon, and Shang Tsung, Raiden, and Scorpion/Subzero/et all resemble characters from Big Trouble in Little China. Kano the cyborg is also based on the T-800.
• Being a Spiritual Successor to Banjo-Kazooie made by many of the original developers, most of the characters of Yooka-Laylee are functionally very similar to the characters of that game. The protagonists in particular are blatant copies of Banjo and Kazooie, sharing near-identical personalities.
• Dragon Master: Much like the Super Fighter example above, this South Korean made equivalent to Street Fighter II also features characters are ersatzes of those from that Capcom property, some of which include Baekun Dosa and Klaus Garcia (Ryu and Ken), Gloria (Chun-li), Jackie (Guile), and Dark Man (Blanka).
• As Palworld is an Affectionate Parody of Pokémon, most of the game's mons draw inspiration from various Pokémon such as Anubis being an Egyptian-themed Lucario, though they are not restricted to that reference pool. Surprisingly for a lot of these creatures, the developers did a lot of research and inspired designs from the vast majority of existent Pokémon with clear homages to them as a direct result with some designs even drawing from Dummied Out Pokémon, showing a lot of love and care for the source material.
• Pokémon Black and White: Since the games were meant to serve as a soft reboot of sorts, the developers decided to have the Unova Dex consist of 150 new Pokemon, the total number being a sendup to Gen I. They bit off more than they could chew though, and many of the "new" Pokemon ended up following very similar design cues. Outside of the ones that get expies in every game (think your regional birds and rats and such) some of the notable ones include:
  • A living rock that evolves at level 25, then by trade; Roggenrola, Boldore, and Gigalith (based on Geodude, Graveler, and Golem).
  • A pure Fighting-type that evolves by level-up, then by trade; Timburr, Gurdurr, and Conkeldurr (based on Machop, Machoke, and Machamp).
  • A dual-type bat that appears in caves; Woobat and Swoobat (based on Zubat and Golbat).
  • A pure psychic-type, tapir-like Pokemon with dream-related powers that evolves once; Munna and Musharna (based on Drowzee and Hypno).
  • A living metal Steel-type that adds more parts to its body as it evolves; Klink, Klang, and Klinklang (based on Magnemite, Magneton, and Magnezone).
  • An equine whose element is woven into its design; Blitzle and Zebstrika (based on Ponyta and Rapidash).
  • An aggressive, territorial Normal-type bovine that does not evolve; Bouffalant (based on Tauros).
  • A rare, pink Normal-type with a White Mage playstyle that yields high EXP when defeated and is associated with Pokémon Center Nurses; Audino (based on Chansey)
• In the H-Game Season Of The Sakura each of the heroines is an Expy of a 90s anime heroine. They have the Magic Knight Rayearth girls, the Neon Genesis Evangelion girls, and the Kaitou Saint Tail girls.
• Vampire Survivors is basically bootleg Castlevania. The Belpaese family are a clear analogue to the Belmonts, the supposed main villain is a Dracula Expy, and the spritework, items, and general aesthetics are stylized after the games. As a matter of fact, the earliest versions of the game used assets directly taken from Castlevania fangames.

Web Animation

• Hunter: The Parenting's main cast is transparently based on characters from If the Emperor Had a Text-to-Speech Device — namely the Emperor, Kitten, Dorn, Magnus, and Boy. The two shows were made by the same crew and HtP was created in response to TTS being Screwed by the Lawyers.
• RWBY has most of its cast being an homage to another existing character, mostly fairy tales (the four main characters are Little Red Hiding Hood, Snow White, Beauty and Goldilocks, villain Cinder is Cinderella), along with other themes like crossdressers (team JNPR is Joan of Arc, Achilles, Thor and Mulan), The Wizard of Oz (Ozpin = Oz, Qrow = Scarecrow, Leonhart = Cowardly Lion, Ironwood = Tin Man, Glynda = Glinda), and Robin Hood (Robyn Hill and her Happy Huntresses).
• Society of Virtue: The cast of the shorts is comprised of parodic versions of famous superheroes from Marvel Comics and DC Comics.

Web Original

• Les Kassos is about a bunch of thinly-veiled popular culture icons seeing a social worker about their various hang-ups. For example: Aimanto and Miss Trique's marriage troubles, Lieutenant Gadjette's anger issues, and Sandy's sex addiction.
• In Teen Lit Wasteland, virtually every major power is taken from various YA dystopian novels, trying to find some way to make them all fit in the same universe while also finding ways to make their societies plausible. The most notable examples are the Confederacy of Panamerica, based on Panem from The Hunger Games, and the Scientific State of California, based on Chicago from Divergent, as two of the main powers of western North America; the third, The Remnant of Canada in British Columbia, is a reimagining of District 13 from The Hunger Games and, more broadly, the morally cloudy rebel factions of many YA dystopian novels.
• Barring Gun, Song and the Speaker enemy, everyone from Sheriff Domestic is an Affectionate Parody of a pre-existing Petscop character.
• Fire Emblem on Forums:
  • Chains of Horai: The Cursed (and Rin) are expies of the cast of Fruits Basket, specifically the Sohma clan.
  • Demon Soul Saga: Many of the Hermelin and Amamiya students are expies of characters from high school anime to varying degrees to fit the setting.
  • Solrise Academy: A lot of the cast are Expies from high school anime or other similar genres (for instance, Theodora and Andreas are drawn from RWBY while Himiko and Joel are drawn from Kaguya-sama: Love Is War).

Western Animation

• Batman Beyond:
  • The episode "Heroes" had a team of three expies of the Fantastic Four. 2D Man was based off Mr. Fantastic, Freon was an ice-based Invisible Woman, and Magma was a combo of the Thing and the Human Torch (and was the most Blessed with Suck of all of them, not even being able to touch Freon without hurting her). Given that the episode in question was essentially a Deconstruction of the Fantastic Four, things do not end well for them, especially when their creator betrays them.
  • Many of the newly invented Rogues Gallery are basically knockoffs of Spider-Man villains, which isn't too surprising since the show was made to try and cash-in on Spider-Man's demographic of "high school-aged hero". Spellbinder is Mysterio, Stalker is Kraven the Hunter, Blight is Norman Osborn, Inque is Venom, Shriek is Shocker, Cuvier is the Lizard, and Willie is Doctor Octopus.
• Drawn Together is an animated Reality Show parody with expies of cartoon characters living together, including Superman, a Disney Princess, Link, Pikachu, Betty Boop, and SpongeBob SquarePants.
• Tiny Toon Adventures is about a bunch of kid Looney Tunes expies training to become like their idols. They vary how much they resemble their counterparts: Plucky and Dizzy greatly resemble Daffy Duck and the Tasmanian Devil, for example, while Elmyra is both a Gender Flip and Contrasting Sequel Antagonist to Elmer Fudd (as she comically hurts animals by accident instead of comically failing to hurt them on purpose). Bugs Bunny is decomposited into two expies, with Buster Bunny emphasizing his Deadpan Snarker traits while Babs Bunny tends to be wackier.
• Loonatics Unleashed has a cast that is based off of the original Looney Tunes characters, specifically Bugs Bunny, Lola Bunny, Daffy Duck, Taz, Wile E. Coyote and the Road Runner.
• My Little Pony: Friendship Is Magic:
  • The Mane Six are expies of G1 My Little Pony characters, with elements of Lauren Faust's headcanons added in. This is because she had intended for them to actually be the characters however had to use My Little Pony (G3) characters instead due to Hasbro not holding the copyrights for most of the G1 cast at the time:
    • Twilight Sparkle is physically similar to (unicorn) Twilight. As a Mythology Gag, her mother Twilight Velvet is the original Twilight except with her pink pelt toned down to a grey colour.
    • Pinkie Pie is heavily based on Surprise, but is an Earth Pony instead of a pegasus. They're both energetic party-loving pranksters.
    • Rainbow Dash is Firefly with a paint job and a more brash nature. They're both heroic and headstrong speedsters.
    • Fluttershy is similar to Posey, however she's a pegasus instead of an Earth Pony. Fluttershy focuses on animals more than plants, while Posey was a florist and wasn't a Shrinking Violet.
    • Rarity was originally intended as a new version of Sparkler (though Lauren Faust has stated that Glory, whose color scheme she shares, was an inspiration too) however her fur is a near-white shade of blue. They're both gem stone related, though Rarity uses it in her designs while Sparkler collected gems.
    • Applejack and Spike are the only two who aren't expies. Hasbro had their names due to reusing them in G3. (G1 AJ was a bit role in the show and known for her extreme clumsiness in the comic; not much beyond her look caries over to the FIM version; meanwhile, Spike was Majesty's assistant in the comic much as in FIM, and "Spike's Search" is based on a G1 episode, but personality-wise, he's gone very much in his own direction. Applejack's brother Big McIntosh is likely a reference to Applejack's G3 design.)
  • Even though they were planned as those G1 characters until trademark issues reared their heads, some of the FIM ponies do take after their G3 counterparts as well:
    • Twilight Sparkle gets her colors from Twilight Twinkle more than Twilight, and of course there's the name, a slight variation.
    • Pinkie Pie gets a lot of her skills from G3 Pinkie Pie - some of the wackier reality-bending stuff (a surprise, given G3 Pinkie being less wacky) included - and her skills at things like event planning speak of being able to think quite like her early 2000s counterpart did. G3 Pinkie also once goes through a series of rapid costume changes that will really make you wonder which Pinkie you're watching.
    • If you read the G3 comics and are unfamiliar with the show, you'll be surprised that G3 and FIM's Dashes are considered total opposites.
    • Sweetie Belle and Scootaloo are quite similar in personality to their past counterparts, and are basically more fleshed-out versions of them. The main difference is that G3 Sweetie is a Supreme Chef and FIM Sweetie is a Lethal Chef. As for Apple Bloom, they're not a trio in G3 (perhaps lampshades by their FIM introduction, already knowing each other when Apple Bloom meats them) but Apple Spice does look much the same.
    • Cheerilee is a partial example. In G3, the unicorn Cheerilee was leader of the unicorns and the mentor to Rarity, while the earth pony Cheerilee, Scootaloo's older sister, was The Smart Guy due to liking to read, so they're both a different flavor from FIM's schoolmarm (not to mention each other). But a purple pony named Cheerilee in charge of dumping exposition on us and wrangling rambunctious kids is now a triply familiar sight.
    • AJ and Spike are again the odd ones out, G3 Spike being serious and scholarly and G3 AJ being a background character with little to tell us what she's like. Rarity also has little in common with her G3 self.
  • The Mane Six resemble characters from another Lauren Faust project, her Milky Way and the Galaxy Girls toy-line. This is likely in part due to Faust having attempted to pitch an Animated Adaptation of the toys when she was asked to create G4 of My Little Pony. Twilight is Uranus, Rainbow Dash is both Pluto and Mercury, Rarity is Venus, Fluttershy is both the Moon and Jupiter, and Pinkie is Mars. Spike has laid-back qualities similar to Neptune, with the added bonus of him being Twilight's little brother figure like Neptune is Uranus' little sister.
• The Venture Bros. is a Deconstructive Parody of old "boys' adventure" stories like Doc Savage and Jonny Quest, and most of its cast are riffs on classic characters of the genre. Doc Venture and Brock Samson are an adult Jonny and Race Bannon (although the real Jonny and Race also exist in this setting), and the titular brothers are ersatz Hardy boys. Then there's the Blue Morpho, Colonel Gentleman, Doctor Orpheus and many more.
• The four human leads of the Scooby-Doo franchise are all expies for the leads on The Many Loves of Dobie Gillis, with Shaggy as Maynard, Daphne as Thalia, Velma as Zelda, and Fred as Dobie himself.

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