Expy Cleanup Thread

Mr Klaymen added this poorly written sub-bullet to Sonic the Hedgehog on Expy.Video Games:

• Staple Team Dark members, Shadow the Hedgehog and Rouge the Bat bare resemblance to secret playable characters from Final Fantasy VII- Vincent Valentine and Yuffie Kisaragi respectively. First is part of governmental project who was put asleep for long period of time and both Shadow and Vincent got their third-person shooter spin-offs for PlayStation 2, that discover details for their origins and their rivalry with governments. Also both Shadow and Vincent have black color with red parts. Rouge and Yuffie both have passion for gems- Chaos Emeralds and Materia respectively, and both are skillful ninjas. But Yuffie hunts for treasures to restore pride and spirit of her Japan-inspired homeland, and become independent from megacorporation.

Bringing up the following examples from Irredeemable:

Expy

• The Plutonian is one of Superman, albeit gone very, very wrong, and with almost none of Superman's weaknesses. He's also very evocative of Supreme, Miracleman, and the Homelander in appearance. In fact, his costume is nearly identical to Apollo's from Grounded.
• Alana Patel is Lois Lane working at a radio station instead of a newspaper.
• Samsara curiously seems to be a loose Expy of Jimmy Olsen.
• Modeus is one of Lex Luthor with elements of Brainiac thrown in. His and the Plutonian's relationship is deliberately similar to Batman's with The Joker. He also has duplicates built in his image designed to look and think exactly like him while thinking they're the real Modeus, a clear nod to Doctor Doom, right down to being called Modeusbots; the only difference is that someone else built them.
• Batman has two characters written to emulate him.
  • The Inferno covered the surface-level traits — the Secret Identity as a millionaire, the secret mancave hideout which he decorated with weapons and equipment taken from his enemies as trophies, being a Badass Normal and a detective and possibly a similar backstory of fighting crime to avenge his parents. Personality-wise he wasn't much like Batman at all, though, being completely blindsided by Plutonian going rogue and finding himself unceremoniously Killed Offscreen due to not having any way to take him down, although he did at least have the foresight to develop a Self-Destruct Mechanism for his hideout, and had a computer system in it very similar to the Batcomputer.
  • The Hornet is also very similar to Batman, while also being much closer to him in terms of personality. Also a Badass Normal, his base of operations was a "cave" located under his house, he relied on skills and gadgets to get by, was Crazy-Prepared in his decision to make a deal with the Vespans to secure Betrayal Insurance, was friends with Tony à la Superman/Batman and demonstrated detective skills in noticing subtle clues weeks before that the Plutonian was going to break down sooner or later.^note For example, Tony asked about the Hornet's wife by name, a piece of information Hornet never shared with anyone, leading him to realize Tony was spying on his teammates. The annual also showed they were in many ways Vitriolic Best Buds and that Plutonian considered them to be perfect Foils, and that an impromptu team-up between them was the inspiration to set up the Paradigm, a reflection of the more modern take on Superman and Batman's friendship.
• Bette Noir is a Colour Character who uses trick ammunition and has Improbable Aiming Skills, a lot like Green Arrow. Except that whereas it's occasionally suggested that Green Arrow's skills are a result of a latent superpower, Bette's are unambiguously revealed to be just that in the final act. Also, she's Ms. Fanservice, has black in the name and usually fights without her powers, due to their destructive nature, all of which could make her one of Black Canary. Bette's dynamic with Tony before he fell from grace, the reveal that she cheated on Gilgamos with him, and how she ends up spending the apocalypse in the lap of luxury surrounded by attractive men might be nods to Oliver's characterization as a wealthy, carefree, and philandering socialite (if only when he's out of costume) in canon.
• Gilgamos is Hawkman if you take the Egyptian motif away and replace it with a Babylonian one.
• Hilariously, Volt is perfectly aware he's an Expy. As a black man with electrical super-powers, he's all too conscious that he's one of maybe a half-dozen other people with that exact description (Static, Black Lightning, Thunder Fall, Coldcast), and frequently bemoans it.
• The superhero Qubit is a rather unusual case of this, being based on a non-comics, non-superhero character. He's clearly based off of the Doctor, particularly the Tenth Doctor, but also has similarities to Mr. Fantastic and Forge from the X-Men.
• Max Damage combines elements of Metallo (especially the frustration at losing his senses when he powers up) and Giganta. Silver Age Giganta got stronger and tougher, but less intelligent when she grew - Max loses brainpower more indirectly, through the severe sleep deprivation necessary to bring him up to full strength. Following his Heel–Face Turn, his Badass Biker-evoking design, crude habits, status as a brutal Anti-Hero and rugged looks also come off as nods to The Punisher and Lobo. His habit of taking on much younger female sidekicks happens to allude to The Joker.
• Max's sidekicks combine thematic elements of Harley Quinn and Robin, serving as both the Perky Female Minion and girlfriend to a nasty supervillain and then the sidekick of a grim, brooding and violent Anti-Hero. Each serves to demonstrate different aspects and Robins, however:
  • Jailbait represents Dick Grayson and Harley's Undying Loyalty to the Joker — Max's first and most devoted sidekick, but his coldness and lack of team spirit end up making her leave only to come back later, similar to Grayson's decision to become Nightwing and Harley's on-again-off-again relations with Mr. J.
  • Headcase represents Jason Todd and Harley's Mad Love/Yandere tendencies — Max's second sidekick, the loss of her family has poisoned her like it did Jason, and she is more brutal and violent than Jailbait; she also has a dash of Ignored Enamored Underling, which Harley often is to the Joker, and becomes a Clingy Jealous Girl who tries to kill Armadale for supposedly coming between her and Max. In place of her dying like Jason did, however, Max realises her issues run too deep for him to do anything about them and has her taken away.
  • Hatecrime represents Tim Drake and Harley's independence from the Joker — Max's third sidekick, she is the only one with no romantic interest in him and by far more sane and level-headed than her predecessors. She has an Atrocious Alias, something Tim would know something about too, and is much closer to Alana, reflecting Harley's bisexuality.
• Orian is one of Mr. Myxztplk, albeit stripped of any comic relief qualities. A touch of General Zod is thrown into the mix as well, particularly his Manipulative Bastard qualities and his ultimate plan being to draw in an invasion force from Another Dimension. Also, some elements of Lobo are added too, in the sense that he is a hunter with a dark and crude sense of humor who is (in Orian's case, ambiguously) extraterrestrial.
• Lieutenant Armadale is basically Commissioner Gordon with a lower rank.
• Scylla and Charybdis are a grab-bag of traits from various Sibling Teams throughout comic history. They have the opposite-personalities dynamic of Hawk and Dove, a power set similar to the Marvel Family and power-sharing mechanics that borrow from the latter and the Wonder Twins. They might even be nods to the Summers Brothers, especially considering the reveal that they have a third brother living as a monk, which might be alluding to the subplot of a third Summers Brother in X-Men.
• The Eleos are Proud Scholar Race Guys with an Alien Non-Interference Clause, similar to the Watchers from Marvel while possessing a size and physiology very similar to Galactus. Then we find out they are the Plutonian's birth parents — after a fashion — which makes them loose counterparts to Superman's birth parents Jor-El and Lara Lor-Van.

Is a "visual expy" a thing? Where Character A's appearance is blatantly based on Older Character B, but the similarities pretty much end there.

Could be a subversion of expy? By their appearance you'd expect them to act like their original source character... and then they don't.

To be honest, I don't think it's a good idea to allow subversions of Expy. It's going to lead to examples of "This character seems like an Expy of another character, but there are some differences". It's just going to lead to shoehorning.

Well that's Not a Subversion anyway. A subversion would involve the character obviously looking like an expy at first glance, then revealing themself to have traits that strongly contradict their source character. If they had those traits to begin with then they were probably not actually an example.

Not that it'd stop people, but the Expy tropes are so misused anyway that it's happen regardless.

...you can cut this. It's absurd.

Vincent did not invent the black and red color scheme, for starters.

I just made a page for Polyroll, which I don't know if anyone else here has played, and I'm wondering if the main character can be considered an Expy of Sonic the Hedgehog: Large eyes, similar body shape, no clothes other than white gloves and shoes and rolls into a ball. The Steam page has some gameplay footage you can check.

The gameplay footage is very 2D Sonic, is it said to be inspired by those games from the creators? It'd be nice to have Word of God though it's not always necessary.

Edited by ReynTime250 on Jun 2nd 2021 at 3:20:41 PM

I haven't found any Word of God confirming it so far.

I removed that bad Sonic example.

From Characters.Clarence Supporting Characters for Belson Noles:

• Expy: Similar to Nelson Muntz insofaras starting off antagonistic but having Hidden Depths and being a jerk, but not ouright evil, he shares many similarities, although there's less Villain Decay and no "Ha ha!" catchphrase that would make him a Captain Ersatz.

I've not found Word of God on this, but would he count as an expy?

Edited by Merseyuser1 on Jun 11th 2021 at 9:31:58 AM

I've got a question about the scope of Expy.

Does this situation count as Expy.

A minor, one-shot character in a work is designed with the remit of "look like his son (a main character) but older". By the time the design team has finished creating the character, it accidentally looks like a character from another work. The entire production team decide to just embrace the similarity and run with it, and therefore ever-after point out that this character is X from the other work.

That seems valid to me because a choice was made to deliberately embrace the similarity and make it official instead of rejecting it and insisting it's coincidence.

Metroid Dread

• Expy: From promotional material and Nintendo Treehouse footage, the E.M.M.I are a dead ringer to AMEE, having a similar name, design, and general purpose as a planet-exploring machine that went Killer Robot.

While the similarities do seem striking, I have to assume it's a coincidence and that the Spanish developers aren't actively referencing a poorly-reviewed 21 year old American Box Office Bomb. There's also the fact that from what I can tell, AMEE is a singular robot and the E.M.M.1.'s are line.

I brought it up on the Discussion page and the responses didn't indicate any explicit connection.

Any thoughts?

Edited by Larkmarn on Jun 17th 2021 at 2:13:03 PM

This is a rare case where I may advocate for an association-based Hilarious in Hindsight entry for Red Planet, since it's seemingly quite obscure but will bring to mind the character from the more popular franchise.

Edited by mightymewtron on Jun 17th 2021 at 1:08:10 PM

Bump. Found this in Dainslief's profile on Characters.Genshin Impact Khaenriah.

• Expy: As a blond, one-eyed Bishōnen who is unable to let his desire for vengeance go with an antagonistic relationship with a former friend who seeks to overthrow the gods, Dainsleif is one of Dimitri. Both of their Dark and Troubled Pasts are linked to the fall of their kingdom's royal family, as well.

Is this misuse? miHoYo has never admitted to this being intentional, and while there are coincidental similarities between the two characters, this is more fan musings than anything. Plus, fans call Dainslief "Dimitri" anyway in FanNickname.Genshin Impact.

From Friendship Is Magic: Pinkie Pie:

• Expy:
  • Of Surprise, a G1 pegasus who loved fun things
  • G3 and G3.5 Pinkie Pie who also loved parties. Cemented with the first thing she says: "Surprise!" the catchphrase of said pony.
  • She also shares many traits with G1 Fizzy; her relentlessly Genki Girl personality.

Suggestions on what to do?

Those would probably fit better under Composite Character.

I don't know enough about MLP to give a clear answer, but regardless none of them currently fit the criteria for expy. Surprise and Fizzy are both too vague to tell if either is actually and expy. For Pinkie Pie, I don't think a character can be an expy of themselves, but also an expy can't be two versions of a character either.

Composite Character might be more appropriate.

Thirding Composite Character. I'm pretty sure she's confirmed to be inspired by Surprise personality-wise, but her design and name are based off G3 Pinkie Pie. Also chop the Memetic Mutation pothole cuz it's not really relevant.

Edited by mightymewtron on Jul 5th 2021 at 6:25:40 AM

Found a couple in the Assassin's Creed characters.

Assassin's Creed Syndicate

Jack the Ripper

• Expy:
  • Of Abbas Sofian from Assassin's Creed: Revelations. Like Abbas, Jack usurped control from his mentor and committed terrible crimes, especially against his Assassin brothers, because of the loss of a parent.
  • Jack is also an expy of Michael Myers given that he was put in a mental asylum, escaped, and later becomes a masked serial killer who uses the knife as a weapon.

Given that the Jack the Ripper in the games is based off the real life serial killer, I'm not sure either of these apply; and the connections themselves seem to be thin. __________________________________________________________________________

Maxwell Roth

• Expy:
  • He's one for William "Bill the Butcher" Cutting, as played by Daniel Day-Lewis in Gangs of New York, especially apparent in the Alhambra sequence, which borrows from Satan's Circus. He also borrows more than a few cues from The Joker with his For the Evulz personality and theatricality.
  • He could also be seen as one for Majd Addin from the Assassin's Creed. Like Addin, Roth is a Token Evil Teammate in a group of Well-Intentioned Extremists whose only reasons of for his actions are For the Evulz.

Edited by Hello83433 on Jul 6th 2021 at 5:50:55 AM

An Expy can't be based off of multiple characters.

Yeah, I knew they both break the another qualification, I was also wondering if any of the points are better or have a more solid case for Expy, but looking at them again I don't think so.

I'll go ahead and remove them both, just wanted to get some other opinions .