Basic Trope: A crossover with Serial Numbers Filed Off versions of characters from another company/series.
- Straight: Batman faces off against the Samurai Tortoises.
- Exaggerated: Bagman is the one fighting the Samurai Tortoises, so neither side has real characters.
- Downplayed:
- The Samurai Tortoises are recurring expies of the Ninja Turtles DC has previously used in the past and have acquired their own identity by this point, so readers are less likely to view it as a dressed-up crossover.
- A Lawyer-Friendly Cameo or Crossover Punchline.
- Justified: The 'crossover' is published in a comic book series that has Batman fighting various expies of other famous icons as its gimmick.
- Inverted: DC has acquired the license for the Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles and are publishing a crossover featuring them alongside not Batman, but Bagman, for whatever reason.
- Subverted: At first Batman is dealing with the Samurai Tortoises, but in the middle of the fight, a familiar Sai pierces the head of one of them, and the real TMNT appear. The Samurai Tortoises turn out to just be robotic Evil Knockoffs.
- Double Subverted: ...Except they never say the names of the four turtles in the comic, and their design is noticeably different. They are turtles, though, that's for sure.
- Zig Zagged: And then those turtles are promptly slain by Deadpool, who is the star of the actual crossover, finally.
- Parodied: Batman fights a villain who is turning other companies' characters (who are never fully shown or named) into Captain Ersatzes.
- Averted: A regular old Intercontinuity Crossover.
- Enforced:
- Talks of a normal crossover fell through, but the comic has already been drawn, so DC creates the Samurai Tortoises to recoup their losses.
- Even though they have the ability to do a real crossover, DC decides to use these expies instead, either to gauge the audience's interest in the idea or simply to avoid the problem of not being able to reprint the story later down the line.
- Lampshaded: "Samurai Tortoises?? Never heard of them! Are you sure you're not thinking of some other, more Ninja-y quartet? No?"
- Invoked: Bat-Mite decides that crossovers, even fake ones, will boost Batman's readership, so he summons a slew of expies to fight against him, complete with vague allusions to who they're supposed to be to make sure that the readers get it.
- Exploited: Batman decides the only way out of this is to call a lawyer to sue Bat-Mite for the very clear copyright infringement he's causing. It works.
- Defied:
- Bat-Mite was going to enact the above plan, but decided he respects his hero too much to relegate him to fighting knockoffs.
- Deadpool leafs through the script for his latest comic. When he discovers that it involves dolled-up versions of another company's characters, he quits his job at Marvel in outrage over not being considered good enough to make the effort for an actual crossover. The story instead ends up being about 'Pool finding a new gig.
- Discussed: "Sorry, we couldn't get the licenses for the guys we wanted to use, so we had to replace them. -Ed"
- Conversed: "You know why the comics where The Avengers fight the Squadron Supreme are so enjoyable? Because if you unfocus your eyes a little bit you can pretend they're fighting the Justice League."
- Deconstructed: The replacement characters know they are just substitutes that will probably be cast aside after the crossover, so they plan to enact a Hostile Show Takeover to make sure they continue to exist.
- Reconstructed: The author takes pity on the poor Captain Ersatzes and promises to give them a spinoff comic soon, despite the dangers of copyright infrigement.
- Played for Laughs: There are plenty of sneaky gags and "cowabunga" shouts around the appearances of the Tortoises, and they receive little characterization aside from their purpose as a joking reference to another property.
- Played for Drama: Due to the crossover being repurposed from a real one, the Tortoises are treated the same as their original counterparts, just under another name. Batman proceeds to team up with them to defeat their enemy, the Mulcher.
- Implied: The other side's characters are only seen in shadow, making it uncertain whether it's this or Fake Crossover.
Back to Spiritual Crossover.
