The Psycho Rangers

One team is the Trope Namer. The other is the original. Guess which is which?

A regular Legion of Doom has members which oppose the heroes and are often their archrivals, but their powers are scattered all over the place, and they're not necessarily Evil Counterparts even if they have the same number of members.

The Psycho Rangers are the collective Evil Twin of the Five-Man Band. Each one's nature/powers mirror a specific hero and they work together as a group. The same way The Hero can get his True Companions together to fight the Monster of the Week, sometimes The Big Bad, The Rival, Evil Twin, Monster of the Week or Evil Counterpart can get himself a team made up entirely of Evil Counterparts to the main cast. As a result, if the team includes such specific characters as the Big Bad and The Dragon, they may also be a Five-Bad Band.

If they know all the moves of their heroic counterparts, the Psycho Rangers may be too strong for their duplicates one-on-one. The heroes can sometimes turn the tables by switching opponents and fighting each others' evil doubles. Without knowledge of the heroes' fighting techniques, the Psycho Rangers become much easier to defeat. (Unless they promptly switch back again.)

If one of the Evil Counterparts is a gender-flipped version of one of the heroes, you can expect to find some sexual tension between the two.

The most extreme, but not the most common, type of Psycho Rangers are literally evil clones or Mirror Universe counterparts of the heroes.

A Sub-Trope of Five-Bad Band and Quirky Miniboss Squad. May to various extents also be a Similar Squad. Can be part of a Geodesic Cast. Usually turns out to be an Evil Knockoff team. May lead to Counterpart Combat Coordination.

Examples of The Psycho Rangers include:

Trope Namer

  • The trope namer are the Psycho Rangers from Power Rangers in Space, a group of evil rangers that fought against the Space Rangers during the course of the series. Their counterparts in Denji Sentai Megaranger were the Jaden Sentai Nejiranger.
    • Super Sentai and Power Rangers are both fond of this very trope. More often than not the evil counterparts are usually one-off clones created by the villains that are quickly disposed by the end of the episode, but a few shows have actually featured their own recurring evil Ranger team to antagonize the heroes.
    • In Choudenshi Bioman, the five Beastnoids (a recurring group of human-sized monsters that fought the Bioman team in lieu of a traditional Monster of the Week) acted as an evil counterpart in The Movie.
    • The "Ginga Sentai Gingaman" (not to be confused with the later heroic Seijuu Sentai Gingaman) from Chikyuu Sentai Fiveman were the first truly recurring Evil Sentai within the franchise. They were evil space aliens who, at first, attempted to gain the trust of Earthlings by pretending to be heroes, but eventually they turned out to be villains.
    • The first season of Mighty Morphin Power Rangers featured two evil counterparts to the original Rangers. The first time in "A Bad Reflection of You" (which was an adaptation of a Kyoryu Sentai Zyuranger episode) featured putties which took on the Rangers' appearances in order to tarnish their reputation. The second time, in "Mighty Morphin Mutants" (which used so-called "Zyu2" footage), were straightforward evil counterparts to each of the Rangers (including the Green Ranger) and a Monster of the Week named Commander Crayfish, who served as a stand-in to the Red Ranger. Thanks to a certain Gag Dub by My Way Entertainment, this second episode is well known for naming this group "Gangsta Crizzab and the Grayside Gang".
    • The Dark Rangers from the second season of Mighty Morphin Power Rangers only appeared in the two-part episode "Green No More" and were exclusive to Power Rangers. They were classmates of the Power Rangers who were brainwashed to serve Lord Zedd, but they never actually fought their heroic counterparts since the costumes worn by the stuntmen, which were recolored Putty suits, were too delicate to withstand battle.
    • The Hana Kunoichi Gumi (the "Flower Kunoichi Gang", aka the Hanarangers) from Ninja Sentai Kakuranger were an all-female gang of ninjas who were actually stray cats that were transformed into women by Gashadokuro (Rito Revolto's Japanese counterpart). Unlike other evil Sentai teams, their colors were different from the good team and they were all female.
    • The "Boso Sentai Zokuranger" from Gekisou Sentai Carranger, who went so far as to have their own version of the opening theme. They became "Crash and the Creeps" in Power Rangers Turbo.
    • The "Goraijer" in Ninpuu Sentai Hurricanger (aka the Thunder Rangers in Power Rangers Ninja Storm) are played up as these to the male Hurricangers (Wind Rangers). In both cases, they're more antiheroes and soon ally with their more heroic counterparts (the Thunder Rangers fit in fairly seamlessly, but the Goraijers remained somewhat antagonistic).
    • The A-Squad from Power Rangers SPD was the first truly recurring evil Ranger team exclusive to Power Rangers. In contrast to previous evil rangers, they were actually the predecessors of the main heroes before they turned evil. Their helmets were recycled from Power Rangers in Space, with the Black Ranger's helmet being repainted into a green one.
    • Go Go Sentai Boukenger parodied the concept of evil Sentai teams in one of their Super Sentai history lessons. The main villain Gaja decides to form the "Gaja Dengekitai", with himself as "Big One".

Anime and Manga

  • The Rude Noise from Samurai Pizza Cats are an evil Ninja Crow counterpart to the Pizza Cat's own Rescue Team. However they only actually took on their counterparts in one episode. In all their other appearances they directly took on the three main pizza cats.
    • There was also an early Monster of the Week in the episode 'Double Trouble for Princess Vi' who could morph into any of the three Pizza Cats and copy their weapons too. He was destroyed by Speedy before he could do anything clever or funny with that ability.
  • Blackbeard's Pirates in One Piece. Based on what we've seen here's how it goes:
    • Blackbeard: In many ways, he's a fully grown version of Luffy, but with completely opposite opinions. This can range from simple disagreements on food or drink to the best way to achieve a goal. Both stole their Devil Fruits: Blackbeard sought out a particular fruit while Luffy thought it was dessert.
      • Everything bounces off of Luffy. Everything sticks to Blackbeard.
    • Lafitte: Navigator of the Blackbeard pirates, he used to be a law enforcement official of some sort, manically/maniacally cheerful, and is very stealthy given his ability to sneak into a high security government meeting unnoticed. Nami, navigator of the Straw Hat pirates, is the adopted daughter of a Marine woman, has a more Tsunderish personality, and has spent the last eight years of her life as a sneak thief before joining Luffy.
    • Van Auger: A master marksman just like Usopp, but Cold Sniper to his Friendly Sniper.
    • Doc Q: A doctor like Chopper, but, of course, not so kind; he takes an active delight in foisting off apples on people that might well kill them in a gruesome fashion. Probably an excellent doctor when he needs to be, but doesn't seem to care about anybody besides his crewmates. His old age and guile also contrast with Chopper's youthful naivete.
    • Most recently we have Shiryu of the Rain, who makes a good counterpart for Zoro. He is also a swordsman and, much like Zoro in his role as Number Two, is the one who calls out Blackbeard after his recklessness nearly gets the rest of the crew killed. Blackbeard and Shiryu even met in a similar fashion, as the latter was on death row until Blackbeard came along.
    • In this case, it's still a little early to tell who's a counterpart of who. Especially now that the Blackbeard Pirates have doubled in size. One could easily argue that San Juan Wolf, the "Colossal Battleship", is the counterpart to the Thousand Sunny.
    • Any antagonist with a Quirky Miniboss Squad has shades of this, such as the Arlong Pirates or the CP 9. In the former example, we have Arrogant Kung Fu Guy Kuroobi vs Dance Battler Sanji, 6-swords user Hatchan against 3-swords Zoro, and Chew against Usopp, with Luffy and Arlong going at it in the end. For the latter, there's unashamed Large Ham Franky vs gossip-loving Fukuro the silent, figurative wolf Sanji vs literal wolf Jyabura, Chopper vs Kumadori, the Fan Service-laden battle between Nami and Kalifa, Lovable Coward Usopp sniping Dirty Coward Spandam, Zoro vs Kaku, and finally Luffy vs Lucci.
  • Naruto sets up a fairly traditional Psycho Ranger arrangement for the genin squad trying to rescue Sasuke:
    • Gentle Giant Chouji against The Brute Jiroubou. "Who are * you* calling fat?!" ensues.
    • Arrogant Kung Fu Guy-in-remission Neji versus Evil Genius Kidoumaru, who's an Arrogant Archery Guy, much to Neji's initial dismay.
    • Wild child Kiba and his tiny ninja Angry Guard Dog Akamaru go up against sadistic The Dragon Sakon whose secret weapon, his twin brother Ukon, lives in his body, making him bonus Creepy Twins as well, resulting in some rather literal Kick the Dog moments.
    • Brilliant but Lazy Smart Guy Shikamaru takes on Dark Chick Tayuya, who much like Shikamaru hides her substantial brainpower, but behind the Japanese equivalent of Cluster F Carpet-Bombing.
    • Taijutsu specialists face off when sick and dying yet still unbeatable Kimimaro meets still-recovering miniature Bruce Lee Clone Rock Lee.
    • Then the series proceeds to set Sasuke himself up as Naruto's very own Psycho Ranger. Right up to the point where Naruto and his charming spiritual freeloader start to psycho back...
  • Sailor Moon had a set of these guys in most seasons (in order of appearance: Shittenou, Ayakashi Sisters, Witches 5, Amazones Quartet and Amazon Trio). Each of these groups was made up of colour-coded and power-coded evil counterparts of the Four Guardians (Ami, Rei, Makoto and Minako). In the manga, the Witches 5 were even resurrected just to kill the senshi they copied!
    • Classic Sailor Moon: The Shittenou. Jaedite - Mars, Nephrite - Jupiter, Zoicite - Mercury, Kunzite - Venus.
    • Sailor Moon R / Black Moon: The Ayakashi Sisters. Kooan - Mars, Berthier - Mercury, Petz - Jupiter, Calaveras - Venus.
    • Sailor Moon S / Infinity: The Witches 5. Eudial - Mars, Viluy - Mercury, Tellu - Jupiter, Mimete - Venus.
    • Sailor Moon SuperS / Dream: The Amazones Quartet. Ves Ves - Mars, Palla Palla - Mercury, Jun Jun - Jupiter, Cere Cere - Venus. In the manga, we find that they actually become Chibiusa's equivalent of the Four Guardians in Crystal Tokyo.
      • In the manga, the minor Quirky Miniboss Squad, the Amazon Trio, had counterparts; Fish's Eye - Mercury, Tiger's Eye - Mars and Hawk's Eye - Jupiter; whereas Venus was targeted by the Monster Clown duo Zeolite and Xenotime.
  • Weiss of Weiss Kreuz run into no less than three teams of Psycho Rangers, with increasingly closer resemblances to the series' four protagonists: Schreient, who qualified as Psycho Rangers mostly just by being a team of four assassins opposing the protagonists; Schwartz, who draw a more direct comparison ("Weiss" and "Schwartz" are German for "white" and "black"); and La Mort, the four villains of Dramatic Precious, all-out Psycho Rangers who started out as a previous incarnation of Weiss themselves only to be driven Ax Crazy by the job.
  • Digimon Frontier's Dark Legendary Warriors. Notably, there's not as many straight match-ups as you think; Lobomon has a rivalry with Duskmon, as does Kazemon with Ranamon, but the other three per team aren't as clear-cut - the good guys tended to encounter just one of their dark counterparts at once, and they'd all team up against him.
  • In a recent chapter of Mahou Sensei Negima, while observing Floating Continent Ostia, Arch Enemy Fate has revealed that he has his own Pactio cards and a squad of partners to match the Ala Alba. It was also revealed that Nagi Springfield's team the Ala Rubra when they fought Fate had a similar set of opponents each to match their abilities: a martial artist, a Big Guy, a wide-spread destroyer, a barrier fighter and Fate himself to match the combat mage hero Nagi.
  • Mewtwo's Pokemon clones from the first movie. The Venusaur, Charizard, Blastoise and Pikachu clones sport markings to distinguish them from the originals but the rest all look the same. It's subverted when Ash gets killed in the crossfire and their tears revive him. In fact the movie might count as a deconstruction of this trope.
  • In Magical Project S, Pretty Sammy tried to challenge the Team Sexy Mrs. (AKA Team Lovely Madams in the subtitled version) to a battle, but she lost.
  • In Katekyo Hitman Reborn, this is explicitly the setup of the Vongola Rings arc. The seven Rings themselves are introduced as a device to set the hero's core "party" in stone (complete with specific character/elemental characteristics identified with each one)... and no sooner have they been introduced than the Varia shows up - a rival team aiming to usurp the heroes' position, with a matching party set up – one for each one of the Rings. The corresponding party members each then have to duel one another in a high-stakes Tournament Arc, predictably leading up to a final showdown between the two leaders. Specifically:
    • Boxer Ryouhei goes up against fellow martial-artist Lissuria with kicking battle style.
    • Lambo, whose immunity to lightning is revealed in this fight, faces fellow lightning-user Levi A Than.
    • Bomber Gokudera is matched with fellow mid-to-long-range fighter Belphegor, who uses knives and wires.
      • They both also heavily abuse Hyperspace Arsenal, pulling out ridiculous amounts of knives/bombs out of nowhere.
    • Swordsman Yamamoto has to face fellow swordsman Squalo.
    • Chrome Dokuro faces fellow illusion-user Mammon (as a bonus, both characters had been shrouded in mystery up until their fight).
    • Hibari faces Gola Moska... but since Hibari's defining characteristic is being a complete Wild Card, the match is over in seconds, and he moves on to challenge the opposing team's leader without batting an eyelid; the leader chooses this moment to reveal that this was all part of his Xanatos Gambit, and the entire tournament threatens to devolve into utter chaos.
    • Finally, Tsuna himself is, naturally, paired up against the opposing team's leader, both flame users and rightful heirs to the Vongola Family, in a match designed to showcase their leadership philosophies. Except that Xanxus is not a rightful heir, which is revealed when he won
      • Xanaus didn't win, he lost utterly. He just had a backup plan in the event he did lose. Of course all his efforts were rendered moot when the rings rejected him.
    • Then they do it all again with the Real Six Funeral Wreaths, whose personalities and actions are complete opposites of the element they are supposed to represent.
    • Its happening for a third time with The Shimon Family and their Rings/Flame of the Earth as opposed to the Vongola's Sky Rings/Flames.
  • Saiyuki has Affably Evil gang Kougaiji-ikkou to oppose Sanzou-ikkou, with the ring leader Kougaiji, the polite-but-deadly Yaone to Hakkai, the Badass Adorable Lirin to Goku, and the Big Guy Dokugakuji to Gojyo. They are all provided with solid backstory and personalities distinctive enough from the main characters to hold their own in the storyline. Both teams even work together on one occasion.
    • The Kougaiji-ikkou are almost a play on the trope, as they fit every criteria except being evil. For that matter, although Kougaiji is technically Sanzo's counterpart and Lirin is Goku's, it's Kougaiji and Goku who have the "Worthy Opponent" brawl whenever they meet, while Sanzo shoves food into Lirin's mouth until she shuts up.
  • The Shinigami captains vs the Espada in the Hueco Mundo arc of Bleach
    • Mayuri vs. Szayel. Mad Scientist vs. Mad Scientist.
    • Kenpachi vs. Nnoitra. The former just wants a good fight, and even gives himself handicaps so fights will last longer. The latter simply enjoys killing things and thinks nothing of using dirty tricks or attacking weakened opponents. Also, Kenpachi is considerably nicer to little girls.
    • Byakuya vs. Zommari. Both very skilled in shunpo/sonido, Byakuya's pride and devotion to the laws of Soul Society is mirrored by Zommari's zealous worship of Aizen. Zommari even tries to call Byakuya out on his flaws, saying he's only fighting because he believes Shinigami are inherently superior to Hollows. Byakuya then shows off his Character Development by saying he doesn't give a damn about the Shinigami/Hollow thing; Zommari tried to hurt his little sister, and that's more than enough reason to kill him.
    • Unohana vs. Rudbones. As captain of the 4th squad, Unohana's job is to find the wounded and heal them. As captain of the Exequitas, Rudbone's job is to find the wounded and kill them. Not to mention that Rudbones isn't actually strong enough to be an Espada, while Unohana is implied to be one of the strongest captains. The power gap makes it pretty obvious why they didn't actually fight.
    • Kyoraku vs. Starrk. Both proved to be Brilliant but Lazy Crouching Moron, Hidden Badass type characters, although Starrk's backstory reveals he's not so much an Evil Counterpart as a neutral (and fairly sympathetic) counterpart to Kyoraku that considered the other Espada his group of friends.
    • The clones in the filler Invasion arc. They are stronger and more violent than the originals. And the filler Big Bad has cloned most of the captains. Fun times.
  • The tail end of the last episode of the first season of Galaxy Angel showed a team of evil counterparts to the Angels, one of whom was a spy that the real Angels just helped release. Unfortunately, this is all we ever see of them.
  • In Berserk, the "reborn" (for lack of a better term) Griffith creates a new Band of the Hawk (comprised mostly of Apostles like himself) that has counterparts to the group of friends formed by Anti-Hero Guts
    • Grunbeld is a massive warrior who wears similar armor and has an Arm Cannon like Guts
    • Irvine and Locus are Bishounen Noble Demon characters who are obvious counterparts to two nobles (literally and figuratively) on Guts' side, Serpico and Roderick
    • Sonia, a young oracular Anti-Villain to Cute Witch Schierke
    • New Band Of The Hawk seems to be made of evil counterparts to the members of original Band of The Hawk most of who are already dead.
  • The Yes! Pretty Cure 5 movie features a Dark Cure team. In what is perhaps a bit of Genre Savviness, the first thing they do when they face the Pretty Cure team is to warp their counterparts off to different locations so they can't use the "switching opponents" trick.
  • The Garuru Platoon from Keroro Gunsou. Giroro's counterpart is Garuru, Dororo's counterpart is Zoruru, Kururu's counterpart is Tororo, Tamama's counterpart is Taruru, and Keroro's counterpart is a child-aged clone of himself from before he met Fuyuki and Natsumi.
  • Deconstructed, like so many other tropes, in Angel Densetsu, the various evil (and often spear) counterparts to the Five-Bad Band (no, that's not a typo) are not a cohesive unit, but come in bit and pieces, you have to think on it a bit to see all the similarities. Oh, and of course zig zagged too, the heroes are a Five Bad Band, so their enemies are... delinquents too. It Makes Sense in Context.
  • Eyeshield 21 had traces of this in both Shinryuuji amd Ojou. Hiruma, Unsui, amd Takami are all physically average quarterbacks who compensate with their dedication and intelligence, Kurita, Yamabushi, and Ootawara are all incredibly large noseguards who cry at the end of their games, Monta, Ikkyu, and Sakuraba are all recievers determined to be the best who have one area of specialty, and Sena, Agon, and Shin are the "aces" of their team.
  • Panty and Stocking With Garterbelt has the two rule-obsessed demon sisters Scanty and Kneesocks, whom are also the Big Bad's daughters. Respectively they battle their counterparts with revolvers and scythes.


Comic Books

  • The Dandy featured The Jocks & The Geordies; A strip about two Five person teams doing everything possible to abuse, beat up, insult and undermine the other team.
  • The Blitzkrieg Squadron in the Marvel Universe were created as a Nazi counterpart to the heroic Howling Commandos.
  • Deathstroke's "Titans East" of recent Teen Titans comics, which included The Match, an evil clone of Superboy (who had, by this point, degenerated into as good a clone of Superboy as Bizarro is of Superman); Inertia, an evil clone of Kid Flash, and Kid Crusader, who is...the only person Slade could find who had ever heard of Kid Devil while also wanting to kill him. They also had Joker's Daughter, Enigma (both chose to style themselves after their inspirations the same way Tim Drake sought out Batman, although Deathstroke probably didn't know that), and a brainwashed Batgirl for Robin and Risk (a former Titan who lost his arm and decided against a prosthetic) for Cyborg.
    • Later on there was Clock King's Terror Titans, made up of original characters who used power suits and modeled themselves after older villains. As it turned out, none of them had any connections to the Teen Titans, except for Dreadbolt, who was the son of Bolt, a Blue Devil villain, making him a sort of rival to Kid Devil.
    • The animated series has the "H.I.V.E. Five" (later six members), though the connections aren't quite as direct. The most obvious would probably be Jinx for Raven. Both have similar skin tones (gray), unusual hair, wear gothic clothing, have fairly serious attitudes, and shoot rays of energy that differ apparently only in the color.
  • Most incarnations of the Masters of Evil in Marvel Comics are constructed in this manner.
  • The New Avengers arc of JMS's Spider-Man featured a team of evil Avenger doppelgangers working for HYDRA. Their costumes were basically green and yellow palette-swaps of the originals with the HYDRA octopus logo added on. "Militant" for Captain America, "Tactical Force" (though he prefers Karl) for Iron Man, "the Hammer" for Thor and "the Bowman" for Hawkeye. Spidey, of course, pointed out how done-to-death the evil twin thing was. None of them were captured, but they haven't shown up since then.
  • The Legion of Super Heroes has the Legion of Super Villains, which features some original villains, but in all incarnations features Lightning Lord, the older brother of Legionnaire Lightning Lad. The comic versions usually also feature Cosmic King and Saturn Queen, counterparts of Cosmic Boy and Saturn Girl, and, rarely, Chameleon Chief and Sun Emperor, counterparts of Chameleon Boy and Sun Boy. Micro Lad's shrinking complements both Shrinking Violet and Colossal Boy, and in the current series, Micro Lad is Colossal Boy, a giant who can shrink to six feet.
  • The DCU's Sinestro Corps is an Evil Counterpart to the Green Lantern Corps, and most of the members of the former are Evil Counterparts to individual members of the latter (sometimes to a ridiculous level).
    • And taken even further with the reveal of new Lantern Corps. Mildly subverted in that while a few are obviously evil, a handful (Blue Lanterns, Indigo Tribe, even Star Sapphires) are friendly, or at least neutral to the Green Lanterns.
  • The DCU loves these. Lex Luthor's Injustice Society was made up entirely on one-for-one matches with the Justice League of the time.
  • The Black Marvel Family, Black Adam's equivalent to Captain Marvel's group of friends (even though Isis had a very different relationship with Adam than the one Mary Marvel has with Marvel) -- although, while they existed, Black Adam was on a Heel Face Turn, so they weren't Evil Counterparts so much as Dark Counterparts.
  • In Marvel Comics, the U-Foes are explicitly described as Psycho Rangers to the Fantastic Four, with identical origins, although they usually fight the Incredible Hulk.
    • The Frightful Four, despite its ever-changing roster, was created by the Wizard (a Mad Scientist Evil Counterpart to Reed Richards) to be Psycho Rangers to the Fantastic Four. In its second-to-latest incarnation, it featured the Wizard (Mr. Fantastic), his friend the Trapster (the Thing), his ex-wife Salamandra (Invisible Woman), and someone unrelated to him who just happened to be Hydro-Man (the Human Torch). Eventually he forces his daughter Cole to join the group and basically throws out the Trapster to make room. Cole, who is a love interest to Johnny Storm, then takes up the Human Torch role while Hydro-Man fills the Thing space.
      • Carried to its ultimate extreme in Ultimate Fantastic Four, where the Frightful Four are the counterparts of the regular (read Ultimate, in this case) FF from another universe, just with fifteen more years of experience. Oh yeah, and they're flesh-eating zombies.
  • In the Silver Age, DCU (again) introduced the alternate Earth of Earth-3, where the counterparts of the JLA were known as the Crime Syndicate. After massive retcons, there are two versions of this - the Crime Syndicate from the Antimatter Universe, and a new Earth-3 with the Crime Society, which are more like the JSA than the JLA.
  • The Shadowpact (DCU again) had the Pentacle, set up by a witch called Strega, which "just happened" to feature counterparts to the magical heroes. (Strega herself was the counterpart to the Enchantress; Jack of Fire to Blue Devil [and turned out to be his brother]; Sister Shadow to Nightshade; Bagman to Ragman; Karnevil to Detective Chimp (kinda); and White Rabbit to Nightmaster.)
  • In Batman and the Outsiders, Maxie Zeus formed a team called the New Olympians with each member being a counterpart to one of the Outsiders. Specifically:
    • Antaeus = Geo-Force
    • Diana = Katana
    • Nox = Halo
    • Proteus = Metamorpho
    • Vulcanus = Black Lightning
  • The Incredible Hulk's Evil Twin, the Red Hulk, joined forces with the Evil Counterparts of the other Defenders to form the Offenders: Red Hulk (Hulk); Baron Mordo (Doctor Strange); Tiger Shark (the Sub-Mariner); and Terrax (the Silver Surfer).
    • Now there's also a Red She-Hulk in the mix.
  • Norman Osborn, the Villain with Good Publicity formerly known as the Green Goblin, led two groups of Psycho Rangers, as part of Dark Reign:
    • The Dark Avengers are an interesting example; a supposed hero team who are actually posing as their counterparts. In addition to Ares and Sentry as themselves (going along with it because one's morally ambiguous and the other's just plain nuts), the line up includes Venom as Spider-Man, Moonstone as Ms Marvel, Noh-Varr as Captain Mar-Vell, Bullseye as Hawkeye and Daken as Wolverine. Norman leads the team as the Iron Man-Captain America (comics) mashup Iron Patriot.
      • Osborn later revived the Dark Avengers concept with a new team featuring Skaar, Son of Hulk (The Hulk/Red Hulk); Hawkeye's brother Trickshot (Hawkeye, duh); The Gorgon, Wolverine's deadliest enemy (Wolverine); Ragnarok, the infamous clone of Thor (The Mighty Thor); Ai Apaec, a sinister Spider-man (Spider-Man); June Covington, a deranged geneticist Osborn met in prison (Scarlet Witch); and Dr. Monica Rappaccini, AIM's Scientist Supreme (Ms. Marvel). At the end of the issue introducing them Osborn asks if anyone knows where he can get a decent suit of armor, hinting that he'll once again act as "Iron Man".
    • The Cabal are Psycho Rangers to Iron Man's Illuminati: Norman himself takes Tony's place, and the rest are Emma Frost (Professor X); Doctor Doom (Mr Fantastic); Loki (Black Bolt of The Inhumans); The Hood (Doctor Strange); and the Sub-Mariner (er, the Sub-Mariner).
      • Then come Utopia, Emma and Namor reveal their intentions and leave the Cabal, so Osborn has to pick up someone to fill the spot. Apparently the Taskmaster was the next best option.
  • Dark Reign gave us Dark Young Avengers, whose members are the Psycho Rangers to the original Young Avengers.
    • Patriot, the determined leader is met by the doubt-filled, insecure Melter.
    • The gay magician Wiccan's counterpart is the female sorceress Enchantress.
    • The Action Girl Hawkeye II meets the Executioner II, a Psycho for Hire; both are Badass Normals.
    • Stature faces Big Zero, a Badass Bookworm Legacy Character against a Dark Action Girl and racist. Both are size-changers.
    • Vision and Egghead are both robots.
    • The funny Sixth Ranger Speed faces Coat Of Arms, a crazy fangirl.
    • For unknown reasons, Hulkling doesn't have a counterpart in the other team. The Dark Young Avengers are somewhat unusual, because the Dark Young Avengers were not gathered together to fight the original Young Avengers, but just want to be heroes. However, they will probably end up under Osborn's control. What's more, some relationships between the members of the Dark Young Avengers mirror those in the Young Avengers. just like Stature and Vision love each other, Big Zero has a crush on Egghead.
    • The title of the story arc; "Young Masters", combined with their names, offers a pretty big clue as to where it's going.
  • In one of the X-Men First Class issues, the random kids in the coffee shop who correctly guess the team's orders before they're made (and just-so-happen to resemble the team greatly) turn out to be Skrull imposters that have been masquerading as the X-Men and causing havoc.
  • The original Soviet Super Heroes team primarily featured clear counterparts to The Avengers team they often opposed. Perun, the Slavic god of thunder, was the Thor counterpart; Sputnik/Vostok, a calculating android, was the Vision's counterpart; the Red Guardian, uber-patriotic Soviet supersoldier, was the Captain America analogue; Surge, a man in a suit of Powered Armor, was Iron Man; Sabercat was the Beast, Vanguard was Hawkeye, Darkstar was the Scarlet Witch, etc.
  • Another case of the Psycho Rangers not actually facing their counterparts (because they're dead) is the team of knock-off New Gods that have bedeviled the Justice League of America: Dr Impossible, the evil Mr Miracle from an early storyline, is now joined by Hunter (evil Orion); Neon Black (evil Lightray); Chair (evil [and dumb] Metron); and Tender Mercy (evil Big Barda).
  • The Liberators from volume 2 of Marvel's The Ultimates are an Axis of Evil counterpart to the title team. The Colonel being the Iranian counterpart to Captain America, Abomination the Chinese Hulk, Crimson Dynamo the Chinese Iron Man, Perun the Russian Thor, Hurricane the North Korean Quicksilver, and Swarm the Syrian Wasp.
  • In Rawhide Kid: The Sensational Seven, when the Big Bad learns that the Rawhide Kid and the Seven are coming for him, he recruits a team composed of villainous counterparts of the Seven.
  • The White Lions were the Nazi counterpart to the heroic Blackhawk Squadron.
  • Inverted in The Flash with the Renegades, a group of 25th century policemen who model themselves after the Rogues, since the 25th century's most dangerous criminal is the Flash's Evil Counterpart.
  • In the Archie Comics version of Sonic the Hedgehog, there's at least three groups. The first is the Suppression Squad, Mirror Universe counterparts of the Freedom Fighters. The second is the Destructix, a group of mercenaries lead by Scourge the Hedgehog, Sonic's Mirror Universe counterpart, and his girlfriend Fiona Fox (which may be a jab at Sonic and Sally being unable to stay together). Recently, Eggman's unleased a series of Metal-series bots comprised of Metal Sonic, Metal Tails, Metal Knuckles and Mecha Sally.

Fan Works

  • A rather interesting case in Pretty Cure Perfume Preppy. The Akutare brothers, managers of the Sunday Scent Shop, oppose the girls in episodes 16 and 17... But the girls are five, so neither Ayameko nor Hanae have counterparts.
  • In the "All Things Probable" series of Kim Possible fanfics, Team Probable [dead link] is a group similar to Team Possible, except that they assist villains for pay rather than stopping them for free. Its members (except the Team Pet) are the opposite gender from their respective counterparts.
  • In My Little Avengers, Loki eventually assembles a team of Dark Avengers to combat Thor's Avenger team, selecting ponies whose powers make them Evil Counterparts to the heroes, with Loki himself serving as Thor's counterpart. The only standout is Loki's apprentice Trixie, who has no counterpart among the main characters—though this admittedly becomes a moot point by the Final Battle, as by then, Trixie's failed an attempt to double-cross Loki and has fled for her life, and in any case, all the Avengers (except for Thor, who still takes on Loki) swap opponents in order to get an advantage.
  • The Axem Rangers X in Part 2 of Clash of the Elements

Film

Literature

  • In the Suzumiya Haruhi novels, the whole SOS Brigade is diametrically opposed by the Anti-SOS brigade, a team consisting of a time traveler, an alien humanoid-interface, an esper, and a depowered version of whatever Haruhi is. Ironically, Mikuru's opposite more closely resembles an Evil Counterpart to Itsuki (something Kyon even comments on), while Itsuki's opposite would be more suited as an Evil Counterpart to Mikuru. Pointedly, the only thing missing is a Kyon-counterpart. The Anti-SOS make several attempts to recruit Kyon, instead, believing him critical to their plans and fueling a great deal of Wild Mass Guessing. However, this trope is ultimately subverted, in that the Anti-SOS Brigade are not in any sense a coherent group, and its members do not actually care about each other at all, as shown by the fact that there are four of them but are split into at least three factions. In fact, Sasaki disagrees completely with what the other three want, so much so that she tries to help Kyon oppose the others.
  • The City of Heroes Expanded Universe novel The Freedom Phalanx has the Tyranny Legion, Psycho Rangers for the not-yet-formed Phalanx. The armored hero Positron has his old boss, Doctor Null, who's stuck inside his armor; Synapse, who got his powers from one of Null's experiments, has Revenant, his ex-friend who was turned into a zombie through a similar experiment; Sister Psyche, the mutant psychic, has the Shadow Queen, whose psychic powers come from a possessed mask; Manticore, a Batman-esque vigilante, has Protean, the shapeshifter who killed his parents; and, of course, Statesman has Lord Recluse, whose rivalry the entire game revolves around.
  • Tom Clancy's Op-Center series (which, as the Pothole implies, was ghostwritten) has the titular crisis command headquarters and its Russian counterpart, Mirror Image. Sometimes they cooperate, sometimes not.
  • Sherman Alexie's horror novel Indian Killer features two Power Trios, one of white guys who harass Indians and one of Indians who harass white people. The leaders of both gangs are out for revenge because of some perceived slight. (The Indian leader's white father abused him, and the white leader thinks his brother was killed by Indians.) There is one guy who is mostly neutral. And there is one guy who ultimately says What Have I Become? and turns himself in to the cops. It's all part of the He Who Fights Monsters theme.
  • In Animorphs, David's ultimate plan for the blue box was to use it to create a gang of morphing criminals to counter the Animorphs. The Animorphs were able to defeat him before he could put this plan into action.

Live Action TV

  • Big Bad Beetleborgs features the Mantrons, which are not Psycho Rangers to the Beetleborgs but rather to the Beetleborgs' allies, the Astralborgs.
  • Stella featured an episode where Michael Showalter and Michael Ian Black leave the group, leaving David Wain to find his own new comedy-triad. He changes his name and ditches the Stella-trademark business suit and moves in with two completely normal roommates, who are so mundane as to be eerie in comparison to the creepy and latently-homoerotic Stella group. At the end of the show, the new roommates flee to Italy in a sequence similar to the Sicily sequences in The Godfather.
  • An episode of The A-Team had a group of bad guys put together their own squad to beat the heroes.
  • In the Leverage episode, "The Two Live Crew Job", the team squares off against a group of thieves who are just as skilled as they are in their specialties.
  • The murderer and the murdered in the "Butterflied" episode of CSI are Grissom and Sara's evil counterparts. The Miniature Killer and Ernie Dell are also clearly intended to be evil mirror-images of Grissom and Sara.
    • CSI does the evil-counterpart thing rather frequently. There was an episode where Grissom was interviewing a suspect, and the actor had been carefully styled and lit so that from certain angles he looked like a mirror-image of Grissom. The suspect was a shrink who turned out to have been administering some BDSM therapy to one of his patients, who then turned up as the corpse-of-the-week.
  • Kamen Rider has the Shocker Riders of the original series, a group of evil copies of Kamen Rider 2. Subsequent Showa era series use evil copies of main Riders fairly often. Later series forgo this in favor of newly designed evil riders.
    • Kamen Rider Spirits redesigned the Combatroids from Kamen Rider ZX into ZX-styled Shocker Riders; additionally, the Big Bad Judo could also qualify, since he has the ability to transform into any of the Kamen Riders preceding ZX and use their powers.
    • Kamen Rider Decade has the same powers as Judo above, except that the Riders he can transform to span Kamen Rider Kuuga to Kamen Rider Kiva. Also, one of the worlds his crew visited was the Negative World, where evil Riders and Kaijin rule supreme and normal humans are killed on sight, all but extinct. There was no evil doppelganger of Decade himself, but instead he fought against evil Riders from past series - Ryuga, Orga, Dark Kabuto, and Dark Kiva. Dark Kiva himself is an Evil Twin of a heroic character from Kiva, and acts as the group's leader.
      • The video game Climax Heroes introduced the non-canon Dark Decade, a black, gray, and gold Evil Twin of Decade who fulfills the aforementioned Dark Riders' role in the game's reimagined version of the TV series plot.
  • During the Angel Season 4 finale, each member of Angel Investigations is given a tour of the rebuilt Wolfram & Hart by a somewhat dark mirror of each member:
    • Lorne's guide is Preston, a slick, fast-talking talent agent.
    • Gunn gets Lacey Shepherd, a mysterious afroamerican woman who mysteriously vanishes.
    • Fred's tourguide is Knox, a morally ambiguous geeky scientist... he worships an Eldritch Abomination and will eventually cause her death.
    • Wesley's guide is Rutherford Sirk, a former Watcher.
    • Angel gets Lilah.
  • The season six finale of Charmed featured an alternate universe where the role of good and evil were switched with the humans/witches as evil and the demons good. The sisters met their evil counterparts as well as counterparts for Chris and Leo. They tried fighting them but of course came to a draw. A subversion then happened where they decided to work together for their respective greater good/evil.
  • By the end of the second season of The Sarah Connor Chronicles, Weaver, John Henry, Ellison and Savannah were the morally ambiguous, if not dark, mirrors of Sarah, John, Derek and Cameron.
  • The Big Bad in The Legend of Dick and Dom creates Evil Twin versions of all the heroes, to do evil deeds that the heroes will be arrested for. They are fairly easy to spot, however, as they all have a highly unconvincing black goatee, including the woman in the group.

Toys

  • Bionicle had the Shadow Toa, illusory copies of the Toa that could only be defeated when the heroes acknowledged that the darkness was a part of themselves.
    • Smilarly, the Bohrok Kal and Piraka Gang are seperate groups with elemental powers. The Piraka Gang almost managed to pass themselves of as the real deal (It helps that the townsfolk in question had never seen a Toa before).
    • The Makutas of the Karda Nui saga were the closest in toy form. They even came with their own "evil" matoran, who could latch on and connect to them in the same way as the Toas from the set and were the first villains to feature Kanohi Masks. Originally there was to be a genuine Shadow Toa set, but it was cancelled in the prototype stage.


Video Games

  • Sailor Moon: Another Story introduced a plot "between" seasons of the anime, and had the Opposito Senshi, evil counterparts to the Sailor Team named after Babylonian and Mesopotamian gods (which, in turn, were the names of the corresponding planets in those cultures). Despite appearing almost to be twins of the Senshi, the game passes off their similar appearances and corresponding names as a coincidence.
    • Sin is Sailor Moon's counterpart (named for the Babylonian god of the moon, Sin, not the English word "sin").
    • Nabu, named for the Mesopotamian god of Wisdom, is the brainy Sailor Mercury's counterpart.
    • Nergal, named for the Mesopotamian god of war, is the counterpart of Sailor Mars.
    • Marduk, Sailor Jupiter's counterpart, is named for the leader of the Babylonian gods.
    • Ishtar, in addition to being a bad movie, was the Babylonian goddess of love, and a fitting name for Sailor Venus' counterpart.
  • Star Wolf in Star FOX, though mostly in Star Fox 2 and Star Fox 64 (Wolf is the leader, and the team is named after him, like Fox - also, both the wolf and the fox are canines - ; Leon is implied to have had run-ins with Falco in the past, probably when the latter was still a gang member; Pigma was a member of the original Star Fox team, like Peppy; and as for Andrew, well... apparently there was only Slippy left for him). In later games, the team was splintered; currently, only half of the original group remains, and the new members don't have a clear counterpart in Star Fox (what with Krystal briefly joining them in Command after leaving Star Fox).
  • The Sonic the Hedgehog games played with this trope a few times. In Sonic Adventure 2, Team Dark consisted of Shadow, Eggman and Rouge: three villains with the same powers and move sets as Sonic, Tails, and Knuckles respectively. They'd return with some adjustments as antiheroes in Sonic Heroes: Rouge moved from Knuckles' counterpart to Tails', and Eggman was replaced by new character Omega, who filled the "Anti-Knuckles" slot.
    • Similarly the Babylon Rogues in Sonic Riders.
    • They had a set of Psycho Rangers as early as the Saturn era. In Sonic R, there were Metal Sonic, Mecha Knuckles and the Tails Doll whom Robotnik created to give Sonic and friends a hard time.
      • The first ones mentioned got even more psycho counterparts: Eggman Nega, Mephiles, and Shade, although they never met.
  • The Handsome Men in Killer7 are an obvious evil parody of the Super Sentai.
    • Who in turn are the Psycho Rangers (if you consider the main characters to be protagonists to the Killer7.
  • Vize, Faina and Anita in Skies of Arcadia Legends.
  • The Hell Hounds in Galaxy Angel, a group of mercenaries that just happened to have a grudge or other fixation with each of the specific Moon Angels. In the second game, they were replaced by actual robot duplicates of the Angels, foreshadowed by the brief presence of a robotic Tact in the first game. The fake Angels were the only villains to carry over to the Galaxy Angel anime, although they only appeared for one episode.
  • The God-Generals of the Order of Lorelei in Tales of the Abyss; with the exception of Sync, all the God-Generals are a clear Evil Counterpart of one of the party members, be it by abilities or role, personal relationships (Largo, Legretta) or both (Dist).
    • To drive the point further, the counterparts actually share certain artes with the party members. Some of them are justified, as Legretta personally trained Tear, Luke and Asch had the same mentor, and Anise and Arietta were both trained to be the Fon Master Guardian. But when you have Largo shooting a giant electric beam from his scythe/axe...
    • Sync also serves as a second counterpart to Anise, given his connection with her as well as having some of her FOF change-artes as Arcane artes.
    • Storywise, Sync's an Evil Counterpart to Ion. Pity that Ion isn't playable, though.
      • They could both use Akashic Torment (a mystic arte), but Ion's is only an extension Luke's Mystic Arte and isn't even named.
    • Sync is actually Guy's counterpart, although this is more by virtue of everyone else being taken than anything else.
      • Storywise, there is a time when Sync and Guy conterpart each other, when Sync puts the curse mark on Guy.
  • The Cocytus members in Wild ARMs 2 are three-fifths of the way there - Brad and Ptolomea as ex-military heavies, Tim and Caina as underage summoners, Lilka and Antenora as more traditional, more female fireball-slingers - but the other two in each group don't quite fit, since Kanon has a very different feel than Judecca, and enemy leader Vinsfield is an obvious Evil Counterpart for the PCs' Mission Control, Irving.
    • Don't forget the villains of Wild ARMs 5. Everyone has a rival character that acts as an opposite to them. Light-hearted and idealistic leader Dean has the defeated dog of the villains Nightburn, The Chick Rebecca ends up rivals with Dark Chick Persephone, family man Greg fights his family's killer and Ax Crazy Kartikeya, Avril has story reasons for rivaling dark leader Volsung, small but heavily armed Carol fights against her former caregiver and muscular Elvis and Chuck rivals the surprisingly noble Fereydoon.
  • The Praetorians in City of Heroes are the evil other-universe counterparts of the Freedom Corps heroes.
  • Advance Wars has the Black Hole army, with Hawke for Andy or Eagle (The first because both heal their own men and have no weaknesses, the second because of their names and appearance), Flak for Max (both are very formidable in a straight fight), Lash for Sonja (both have abilities related to terrain and are intelligent young girls), Adder for Grit (again mainly going by appearance, but both aren't particularly trustworthy and have similar tastes in clothing) and, arguably, Sturm for Olaf (skilled in slowing terrain, with "hurt everybody" CO powers).
  • Alter Echo pits the heroic shaper Nevin and his teammates, the gruff gun-toting Stome and the blade-wielding Action Girl Arana against the evil shaper Paavo and his bodyguards, the idiotic gun-toting Gherran and the blade-wielding Psycho for Hire Kess.
  • Jon Irenicus in Baldur's Gate II is powerful enough to create a group of identical copies of your party with one spell, although they are relatively easily defeated because they lack many of the originals' more special powers.
  • Team Fortress 2's savage Builder's League United (BLU) forces are a carbon copy of noble Reliable Excavation Demolition (RED) armies created to snatch corporate and industrial dominance away.
    • Or is it the other way around? I can never remember.
  • In Ultraman Fighting Evolution Rebirth, a trio of evil Ultras are introduced. Chaosroid U, a clone of Ultraman, Chaosroid S, a copy of Ultraseven, and Chaosroid T, Taro's counterpart. While they're fought one by one by their counterparts, they attack Nebula M78 as a team and capture two important artifacts of the Ultras, Chaosroid S stealing the Ultra Key and Chaosroid T steals the Ultra Bell while Chaosroid U comes close to stealing the Plasma Spark. In addition to the powerful weapons they steal, S has the ability to split his Eye Slugger into a huge number of weapons and Chaosroid U is more powerful than Ultraman, until the Plasma Spark reenergizes him and let's him blow U away with the Giga Specium Beam.
  • In Battle Realms the Serpent clan is the yin counterpart of the yang Dragon clan.
  • Hexen has Zedek, Traductus, and Menelkir, a trio of Dragons who are clones of the three player character classes. Each uses the most powerful weapon of his class.
  • The Star Wars: X-Wing games tend to do this. Especially Star Wars: X-Wing vs. TIE Fighter, since some training exercises come both in Rebel and Imperial versions: Z-95 Headhunters correspond to TIE fighters, X-wings to TIE interceptors, Y-wings to TIE bombers, and B-wings to TIE defenders.
  • The Dark Aeons from Final Fantasy X are evil versions of all the Aeons that can be obtained in the game and boast higher HP, super powerful attacks and evil colour schemes. Though they are fought separately, the Dark Magus Sisters are fought together thus invoking the trope. Your normal Aeons will take on the appearances of the Dark Aeons at the end when Yu Yevon possesses them. They reappear in the sequel as possessed once again.
  • In Ultima IV, the final fight is against the "evil yous", a team of evil copies of your party.
  • The ASIC's Four Felons in Hyperdimension Neptunia mk2 can be considered as the Psycho Rangers to the CPU Candidates. CFW Magic and CFW Judge act opposite Nepgear, the former for being the one who held Nepgear and the CPUs hostage, the latter for being the first actual enemy for Nepgear to fight. CFW Brave acts opposite Uni, even arguing with her about happiness gained from playing illegally-obtained games, especially in the case of children doing such a deed. CFW Trick acts opposite Rom and Ram due to his unhealthy obsession with children.

Web Comics

  • In Shortpacked, a minor character who was fired instead of a major character forms a team of other minor characters into a league of minor evil.
  • The Linear Guild in Order of the Stick, were deliberately chosen by their leader to be this. This gets to the point that he's unwilling to face the Order of the Stick without a full team of evil counterparts, because he's invested so much time and effort into cultivating that identity of them as a team.
  • Sven's Gang in Cwen's Quest appear to be this having a counter part to each of Cwen's friends and allies. Overlaps with Evil Counterpart a bit, although Cwen's isn't exactly a hero.
  • Inverted in in 8-Bit Theater with the Real Light Warriors who are the strong, brave, wise and merciful warriors destined to save the world, contrasting with the team of jerks we follow. Except they don't. A team of four white mages saves the world
    • There are two other examples that follow the trope a bit more closely, as well. First there's the Dark Warriors, with the technically-a-villain-but-actually-really-nice Garland (as opposed to Heroic Sociopath Black Mage), the haughty dark efl Drizz'l (as opposed to haughty regular elf Thief), incalculably stupid pirate Bikke (as opposed to incaculably stupid Fighter), and LARP fan Vilbert (as opposed to pen & paper rollplaying enthusiast Red Mage).
    • Finally, there are the Other Warriors, made up of the shady and unethical Rogue (Thief), the rule-bending Ranger (Red Mage), the normally friendly but incredibly vicious Berserker (Fighter), and Cleric (Black Mage). Cleric doesn't fit quite as well as the others until you notice that he deliberately plays the Gods themselves against each other to increase his own power.
  • The T-Girls of Webcomic Jet Dream face off against another all-girl flying team, Raven Red and her Dynamic Dare-Dolls. Each of the Dare-Dolls fits a national stereotype that isn't "covered" by one of the T-Girls.

Web Original

  • The League of Intergalactic Cosmic Champions went up against their other-dimensional counterparts the King's Interstellar Lethal Legionnaires.
  • While outnumbered and outclassed, Trey and Troy, the "bad" Dimensional Guardians from the web fiction serial Dimension Heroes, go out of their way to pick fights with the protagonists.
  • The Insane Quest played with this trope by introducing Doosh, a band of Bizarro World-type counterparts to the members of Smoosh: Ice Person Frost fights an enemy that can manipulate fire, cunning but physically weak vampire Eddie goes up against a powerful but dim-witted werewolf, and so on.
  • The Knights of Good of The Guild has the Axis of Anarchy, led of course, by Wil Wheaton.

Western Animation

  • Almost every subgroup has a counterpart team on the opposite side in Transformers. The Triggerbots and Triggercons, the Protectobots and the Combaticons, the Aerialbots and the Stunticons, etc.
    • The G1 origins of the Aerialbots and Stunticons are an inversion, with the former created by the heroes to counteract the latter.

"Megatron wants to battle us on the roads. We'll fight him in the skies!"

      • What's ironic about this is that the Stunticons themselves are a type of Psycho Rangers for the Autobots as a whole. They were created by Megatron because he wanted a unit of car-based warriors to counteract the Autobots, the vast majority of whom had car-based alternate forms.
    • Due to a shortage of Autobot combiners, however, the Constructicons and Predacons never had exact opposites. The Dinobots and/or Omega Supreme were the arch-enemies of the former, and Sky Lynx was the enemy of the latter. (Despite being small compared to Predaking, Sky Lynx has defeated them more often than not. Because he's that good. And knows it.)
  • The Rowdyruff Boys in The Powerpuff Girls.
    • The Powerpunk Girls also fits the role in the comics too.
  • The villains in Captain Planet made an attempt toward this after they got the rings to create Captain Pollution.
  • The H.I.V.E. in Teen Titans, particularly once they became the H.I.V.E. F.I.V.E. (even though there were six of them (in their second appearance)...).
    • Also in Teen Titans, Trigon created evil versions of Starfire, Beast Boy, and Cyborg. The clones proved to be too much for their original counterparts to defeat (and provided interesting banter on topics the show had and hadn't touched before, including the death of Cyborg's mother in the accident which forced his father to give him his prosthetics), until the Titans switched opponents, which allowed them to come out on top.
  • Two counts in Recess, though neither was exactly evil: once when Lawson decided to put together his own crew to rival TJ's, and once when the main characters went to a school that was full of kids who paralleled the students at Third Street School and had to play kickball against their own doppelgangers.
  • The Legion of Low Tide from Sushi Pack.
    • Also, in one episode Oleander created her own team of living food fighters to counteract the Sushi Pack. Unfortunately, she made them too much like the Pack, and the two teams were able to see past their differences. That, and she tipped her hand too early (she was planning on eating both teams), so they all teamed up to defeat her instead of each other.
  • The Anti J-Team in Jackie Chan Adventures, comprised of criminal counterparts of Jackie, Jade, Viper, El Toro, and Tohru.
  • The Delightful Children From Down The Lane in Codename: Kids Next Door look eerily similar to Sector V. The movie reveals that they were once the lost team from Sector Z.
  • CHYKN in WITCH. Formerly the team that did the job WITCH does now, Season 2 Big Bad and Fallen Heroine Nerissa used them to go up against the current team. Of course, for her to pull that off, she ended up having to capture and brainwash three of her former allies (Kadma, Halinor and Yan Lin), create an Altermare of one of the three so she could be evil (Yan Lin, which lead to her granddaughter Hay Lin's Heroic BSOD) and resurrect a fourth whom she killed many years ago (Cassidy). Of course, this didn't mean much: they were defeated a few episodes after their reunion and put back inside the Seal of Nerissa for the rest of the season, until she was defeated by WITCH.
    • CHYKN was technically stronger than WITCH because they had two Amplifier Artifacts to their one, but because they were mind-controlled their reliance on Nerissa meant they were screwed if she was distracted. Nerissa, being Dangerously Genre Savvy changed tactics and later used them to attack WITCH when they were split up and not transformed.
  • One of the Big Bads of Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles: Fast Forward created mutated clones of the turtles, one for each, and they were even called the "Psycho Turtles". In a reversal of the above Titans mention, the Turtles used knowledge about themselves to defeat their evil counterparts without switching opponents, although typically they do switch opponents. Also, like the original "Psycho Rangers", these clones lasted past the end of the season.
  • In the Original Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles Series, the Punk Frogs are a notable subversion. While Shredder did (indirectly) mutate them from ordinary frogs, going as far as to teach them how to fight as well as even naming them based off his heroes such as Napoleon Bonaparte and Genghis Khan, he had to trick the frogs into believing that the Turtles were the bad guys in order for the Frogs to fight them. When they find out the truth, the Frogs instantly turn against him.
  • Played straight and subverted on Justice League. In the original, there were three versions of the Injustice Gang. However, only the third was made of any form of counterparting to the seven members of the League (and even then, the relations were stretched at best), and the fights for each tended to trade off who fought who every time. In Unlimited, the various Injustice League members merged into the Legion of Doom, which had grown in response to the Justice League's growth. It should be noted that the villain The Shade has the distinction of being on all four Injustice Leagues. (He points this out at the third Injustice League formation, to which the villain recruiting him replies "Third time's the charm".)
  • 6teen has a darker Six-Student Clique that are friends of Tricia's that tried to take over their favorite lunch spot.
  • ReBoot featured a game where the heroes had to fight game sprite copies of themselves in the final level.[please verify]
  • Clones of the protagonists from Gargoyles. Subverted in that only Goliath's clone Thailog was actually evil. But they did have the same fighting their doubles problem.
    • In the comic book continuation, Lexington's clone Brentwood chose to stick with Thailog. He's portrayed, like the rest, as more gullible and naive than actually evil.
  • One episode of Class of 3000 features the Westley kids going up against their counterparts from Eastley, all of whom wear red and black Reich-style uniforms. Coincidentally their teacher looks nothing like Sonny.
  • The Shadow Avengers were MacBeth's attempt to create her own version of the Invisible Network of Kids.
  • In seson one of Alpha Teens On Machines, Payne and his two henchmen goes through Terrible Interviewees Montage to find somebody they can hire to fight titular team. After few failures they finds out five maniacs who happens to have similiar skills and opposite personalities to the members of A.T.O.M.. Seson two has Mu-Team, A.T.O.M.'s evil clones mixed with animals whose natural abbilities could improve their skills. Shark's clone was mixed with an actual shark to make him even better swimmer, Hawk's with hornet and bee so he can use his piloting talent to control himself while flying, King's with rhino to make him stronger, and Axel's and Lioness' with snake and cat respective, to increase their agility.
  • The Real Ghostbusters; in the episode "Citizen Ghost", Peter Venkman recounts how Slimer first came to stay with the Ghostbusters after the Gozer incident. They received new uniforms to replace their original uniforms, which were heavily contaminated with ectoplasm. The ectoplasm later animated the old uniforms, creating four ghostly doppelgangers of the Ghostbusters, out to take down the originals, until Slimer ended up saving them.
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