Composite Character



When adapting a project from either historical events or another fictional source, one may find that there are more individuals with significant or necessary contributions to the storyline than one has time to adequately present to the audience.

One solution is to invoke artistic license and compress two or more such figures into a single character with traits drawn from all of them.

This is frequently done in works Based on a True Story, since no medium can compete with the Loads and Loads of Characters featured in Real Life. While most of humanity's most interesting achievements have involved lots of people with different motivations, it suits the Rule of Drama to simplify things to a handful of characters with well-defined objectives.

Commonly involved in Adaptation Distillation and Adaptation Decay. See also Economy Cast. Sometimes a many-for-one Captain Ersatz / Expy is formed this way. Sometimes a cause of Adaptational Villainy.

Anime and Manga

 * Jou's (rarely seen) brothers Shin and Shuu became Jim in the American dub of Digimon Adventure (and dubs based on it). Hilariously enough, the final episode shows the two standing side by side; this is never commented on. Whether or not this was intentional or a translation error is unknown.
 * New Getter Robo has Benkei Musashiboh, the third man and The Big Guy of the Getter team. He has traits from both Musashi, the original Big Guy, and Benkei,
 * Atlas from The Eighties' Astro Boy. He is a composite of three different characters from the manga: the original Atlas, a minor villain with a new type of AI that allowed him to break the laws of robotics; Cobalt, Astro's "brother"; and the Blue Knight, who was basically the robot version of Malcolm X. The 2000s series featured the Blue Knight as his own character, but its version of Atlas was still a composite of Atlas and Cobalt.
 * Madame Sulliman from Howls Moving Castle is a combination of two characters from the book: Howl's old magic teacher, who was not affiliated with the king, and Wizard Suliman, the King's head wizard. He is a young man
 * In the anime adaptation of Death Note, the US president whom, is combined with the character of.
 * Mariel Lubie from the Code Geass Alternate Continuity manga Suzaku of the Counterattack combines aspects of three characters from the anime (Cecile's Gadgeteer Genius, Euphemia's being role as Suzaku's love interest, and Shirley's "girl next door" qualities) into a single character who meshes better with the story's setting.
 * A fairly minor one in Magical Girl Lyrical Nanoha The Movie 1st. Two of the more memorable Monster of the Week in the first season, namely the Hell Hound and the Mega Neko, were combined into one in this Adaptation Distillation, having the plot-important kitty grow into a demon panther that serves as the catalyst for Nanoha and Fate's first meeting.
 * The Shirogane Brothers of Go Lion, Takashi and Ryou, were melded in Voltron to become Sven. Interestingly, Ryou was introduced as Takashi's Backup Twin after the outcry over the latter's death six episodes in. So, because of the Never Say "Die" mentality, it seemed natural for WEP to adjust the script accordingly.
 * Anabel in the Pokémon anime is a combination of Anabel with Yellow of Pokémon Special.
 * Kris from the games and Marina from the anime are cross-canon counterparts, but Lyra from both is a completely separate character. In Special, Crystal was originally a counterpart to Kris, but once Kris was removed from the game series canon in the remakes of Gold and Silver and replaced with Lyra, Crystal became a counterpart to the latter.
 * Ash. He was originally just an anime counterpart of Red, the protagonist of the first generation. Starting around Pokémon Gold and Silver he started following the path of Ethan, the (first) protagonist of that generation. Ever since he has accomplished the protagonist of that generation's goals, though they usually interact with Ash at one time or another (with their roles not in relation to their game counterparts).
 * A few Pokémon Special characters are composite characters, usually mixed with minor characters. Falkner first appeared as the Police character in Elm's lab, for example.
 * Inverted in the anime version of KimiKiss. The game featured a main protagonist named Kouichi Aihara; this was split into two distinct protagonists: Kouichi Sanada (he gained his appearance) and Kazuki Aihara (he gained his soccer skills).
 * Jamil Neate from After War Gundam X can be seen as an amalgamation of Amuro Ray, Bright Noah, Kamille Bidan and Quattro Bajeena. The kicker is that he manages to stand out as a well-written character on his own.
 * Devilman vs Getter Robo manga combines different versions of probably all characters, aside Emperor Gore - Akira acts like his manga version but has powers of 70's anime Devilman, Ryoma and Hayato are their 70's anime incarnations with few traits of their manga versions and Silene seems to be a mix of anime version and later incarnations from different titles.
 * Shinn Asuka from Mobile Suit Gundam SEED Destiny is prety much one to both Amuro and Kamille, his Impulse is similar to The RX-78 Gundam a Combining Mecha consisting of legs as one section, upper body as another, and Space Fighter/Meta Mecha cockpit as the torso, and a very similar red-with-gold-cross design for its shield just like Amuro even his dub voice is Amuro's Zeta dub voice and he has Wangst Unstoppable Rage due to suffering through a Trauma Conga Line, and romantic troubles with their enemy-cum-love interest just like Kamille.

Comic Books

 * Done with the same character in every sufficiently late adaptation of the Incredible Hulk, sort of. In the comics, Bruce Banner has five different personalities and four different Hulk transformations which correspond with them. Adaptations usually shave off Joe Fixit, Green scar and Professor Hulk and make Savage Hulk the only form.
 * The 1990s cartoon has his powers altered (it's complicated); he becomes Fixit at times.
 * The Ultimate X-Men version of Proteus is a composite of the original Marvel Universe Proteus (Kevin McTaggart, son of Moira and Joseph McTaggart) and Legion (David Haller, son of Professor X and Gabrielle Haller). Ultimate Proteus is David Xavier, son of Moira and Professor X.
 * Inverted, however, with William Stryker, who becomes two characters. William Sr is an anti-mutant military leader, as in the second X-Men film, while William Jr is the religious extremist from the original comics.
 * The Ultimate Marvel version of Mary Jane in Ultimate Spider-Man is arguably an MJ/Gwen-composite, as she is more interested in science than her mainstream counterpart and there is a bridge scene Homage (although the mainstream Mary Jane had a few similar scenes too, including one where she was dropped of the Queensboro Bridge just like the MJ of the movies). Gwen is in the series, too, but is given a different role and personality than her mainstream counterpart.
 * Also in Ultimate Spider-Man, Liz Allan, who was mutant-phobic for a long time, discovers she's herself a mutant - this universe's Firestar. In a great twist of irony from the writer, she is helped to accept her newly activated powers by Spidey and Bobby "Iceman" Drake, in a story arc titled Spider-Man and His Amazing Friends.
 * Another Ultimate Marvel example--from Ultimate Human, a mini-series focusing on Iron Man and the Hulk, the Ultimate version of Hulk baddie, the Leader. The Ultimate incarnation the Leader combined elements of the Classic Leader with Peter Wisdom. The latter should not be surprising, considering the creator of the original Wisdom wrote it.
 * Yet another Ultimate Spider-Man example--the Hobgoblin in the Ultimate Universe is Harry Osborn, killing two birds of the Green Goblin's legacy (Harry following in his father's foot steps and the Hobgoblin) with one stone.
 * Ultimate Jessica Drew/Spider-Woman is an Opposite Sex Clone of Peter Parker, introduced in the Ultimate Clone Saga as the only Spider-Clone not to go completely mad, and who then sets off to forge her own identity. So she's a combination of the 616 Jessica and Ben Reilly/The Scarlet Spider.
 * In Daredevil Noir, Elektra and Bullseye are combined as Eliza, the Bull's Eye Killer.
 * Meanwhile, in X-Men Noir, Anna-Marie Rankin is a composite of Rogue and the Mimic, Calvin Rankin.
 * And in Iron Man Noir, Baron Zemo is a mish-mash of, well, Baron Zemo and.
 * In Threeboot Legion of Super-Heroes, Micro Lad/Colossal Boy is a combination of, you guessed it, Micro Lad (a villain from the original continuity who could shrink) and Colossal Boy (a hero from the original continuity who could grow). The twist is that this Micro Lad comes from Big City, where everyone is a giant, and his power is technically to shrink to normal human size. Virtually everyone but himself refers to him as Colossal Boy because the Micro Lad name is just too awkward and confusing to normal sized people.
 * When Devil's Due Publishing renewed the G.I. Joe comics during the 2000's, years after the original Marvel run was canceled, they merged Overkill, the leader of Cobra's Battle Android Troopers, with Robert Skelton, the formerly nameless S.A.W. Viper who killed several Joes during the early 90's.
 * In the original Supreme, Kid Supreme was more or less Supreme's sidekick. In Alan Moore's run, Kid Supreme was the superhero identity of a young Ethan Crane before he grew older and became Supreme.
 * Most incarnations of Two-Face in Batman stories from all media use the "obsessed with duality and primarily evil" personality of Paul Sloane, the second Two-Face from the Golden Age, but with Harvey Dent's background and name. The issue becomes a might confused when both versions operate within the same continuity, as they do now (though Sloane now calls himself the Charlatan).
 * In Supergirl: Adventures in the 8th Grade Linda Lee's Evil Twin Belinda "Superior Girl" Zee has a few obvious Bizarro elements, but is thematically closer to "Dark Supergirl".
 * On the animated version of Mortadelo Y Filemon, they had the Agente Bestiajez fulfilling the roles of many one-off characters in the comics, probably so they could reuse his design and voice actor.
 * The Amalgam Universe was naturally made up entirely of these.
 * In Fables several similar characters from different fairy tales are often revealed to be one person. Bigby Wolf was Big Bad Wolf in both Three Little Pigs and Little Red Riding Hood. With an exception of Jack Sprat, if there was a character named Jack in any fairy tale, it was really Jack Horner, and if there was a unnamed witch, it was Frau Totenkinder.
 * In the New 52, the Ravager known as Lightning is a combination of Teen Titans ally Lightning and Lightning Lass of the Legion of Super-Heroes.

Fan Works

 * From Turnabout Storm, there's the Original Character Sonata. She's an unicorn that combines a lot of characteristics from Ace Attorney characters: Mia's look, Apollo's Perceive ability, Adrian Andrew's job type, and the ruthlessness of Manfred Von Karma and pre-Character Development Edgeworth.

Film
"Uhura: Why don't you tell me I'm an attractive young lady, or ask me if I've ever been in love? Tell me how your planet Vulcan looks on a lazy evening when the moon is full.
 * The live action Dragon Ball movie fused the two Piccolos (Daimaou and Ma Junior) into one. Although, technically, Ma Junior was Daimaou in the original, or at least his reincarnation.
 * Goku's character also acts suspiciously like the teenaged version of his son, Gohan, from one of the later arcs of Dragon Ball Z.
 * Spaceballs has several examples. Lonestar was a combination of Luke Skywalker and Han Solo. Colonel Sandurz was a mixture of the various Imperial officers that appeared throughout Star Wars. (He can be directly compared to Tarkin, though.) And Yogurt had traits of both Obi-Wan and Yoda. Of course, it's a parody, not a straight adaptation.
 * Interestingly, Luke and Han are based upon one single character from The Hidden Fortress.
 * In The People vs. Larry Flynt, Edward Norton plays a character named Alan Isaacman, after the lawyer who defended Flynt before the Supreme Court. This character essentially stands in for all the legal assistants Flynt had employed. For instance, he is wounded in the 1978 shooting attack on Flynt; that event happened to Gene Reeves, Jr.
 * Almost Famous, the pseudo-biography of director Cameron Crowe, features the fictitious band Stillwater as a composite of several groups Crowe toured with as a Rolling Stone columnist, including the Allman Brothers, Led Zeppelin, and the Who.
 * Ironically this inability to distinguish them reflects a shallowness of Rolling Stone's interest in music that musicians believed they always had. Not that they let it stop a hanger-on from giving them press coverage.
 * The Departed (based on Infernal Affairs): Dr. Madden is a combination of therapist Dr. Lee, the undercover cop's love interest, and Mary, the infiltrator's girlfriend, creating a Love Triangle where there had been none before.
 * Too many to count in The Lord of the Rings, which had to deal with the books' Loads and Loads and Loads of Characters.
 * In the books, the elf-lord Glorfindel saved Frodo at the Ford of Bruinen. In the movies, Arwen does it.
 * In the animated film, it was Legolas.
 * Patty Ryan in An American Crime is a composite of three real-life girls involved in the historical events - Darlene Mac Guire, Anna Siscoe and Judy Duke.
 * This induces Fridge Logic in The Wizard of Oz. At the beginning of the book, Dorothy meets the Good Witch of the North, who tells her to "Follow the Yellow Brick Road." At the end, she meets Glinda, the Good Witch of the South, who tells her that slippers her sister the North Witch saw her put on are the keys to get her home. In the movie, the characters are merged into Glinda, the Good Witch of the North, which leads you into thinking why she didn't mention the key in the first place. Older Than Television.
 * Webcomic Cheshire Crossing has Dorothy venting her feelings on this.
 * In the film, they Hand Wave this by insinuating that the shoes, as magical articles, wouldn't work until Dorothy learned for herself that "there's no place like home." Glinda is even asked why she didn't tell Dorothy the shoes power in the beginning and she laughs "she wouldn't have believed me. She had to learn it for herself." Of course, the film ends on All Just a Dream instead of the book's It Really Happened finale, so you could say Dorothy's child mind just didn't think of it.
 * This Cracked.com article says that Glinda was a villain in the movie (albeit unintentionally).
 * Each character in The Great Escape is a composite of several people involved in the real event.
 * A rare non-adaptation example: the first few drafts of Hot Fuzz had a love interest for Nick Angel. When her part was cut, the majority of her lines (as well as the peace lily subplot) were given to Danny Butterman's character, which resulted in quite a bit of intentional Ho Yay.
 * The PR guy (Ed Regis) and the lawyer (Donald Gennaro) in Jurassic Park were merged for the movie.
 * The nerdy black kid and the adventurous (and older) blond girl that were Levine's assistants/protegees in The Lost World were merged into Malcolm's black gymnast daughter for the film.
 * Also from The Lost World: "Doc" Thorne, Badass Bookworm and former scientist that now makes field systems for a living, was merged with Eddie Carr, his no-nonsense, smart employee. The movie version of Eddie has his own field systems company, but is much geekier. Even though he tries to rescue Sarah, Malcolm, and Nick from the falling trailer exactly as Doc Thorne did, he's torn apart by the T.rexes. The original Eddie is killed by raptors instead, while Thorne lives to lead the survivors off the island.
 * Also in The Lost World: the movie's Sarah Harding has elements of Richard Levine's character (for example, the incompetence - novel!Sarah was nowhere nearly as idiotic) and plays his role in parts.
 * In the first Spider-Man, the Mary Jane character was a composite of Mary Jane, Gwen Stacy, and Liz Allan from the comics. Like Liz, she went to the same school as Peter and was the girlfriend of his rival Flash Thompson at the time. She also got a version of Gwen Stacy's bridge scene from ASM #121, only with a different bridge and outcome, and had Gwen's "girl next door" status.
 * In the graphic novel Road to Perdition, the protagonists are pursued by several faceless goons. The movie combined them all into a single character, which the novel's author admitted was an improvement.
 * Just about any war movie ever made does this -- both ones based on actual wars/conflicts and ones based on novels.
 * Averted in A Bridge Too Far where there are named historical characters who don't even have speaking roles. In fact, the majority of the characters are based on real people (yes, even the guy with an umbrella).
 * A boy named Nigel from the later film adaptations of the Harry Potter series seems to be a composite of the two Creevey brothers (Colin and Dennis) from the books. Oddly enough, Colin did appear (with that name) in the second film. Word of God is that Nigel was created after Hugh Mitchell (who played Colin in the second film) went through a massive growth spurt and the filmmakers didn't think he'd be able to portray a character who was supposed to appear small and mousy anymore.
 * This is done surprisingly little, considering how many characters are in the series. But there is the odd case of minor characters being written out with their often only prominent scene given to a more important character. For example, the second film has Hermione ask Professor McGonagall about the Chamber of Secrets rather than Professor Binns.
 * Notoriously, Neville acts his role and replaces Dobby in the fourth film.
 * In the fourth film, the character of Ludo Bagman was removed and some of his characteristics combined into the character of Barty Crouch Sr., resulting in Crouch being more comical than his completely serious nature in the book.
 * Cho Chang takes on the respective roles of Marietta Edgecombe in the fifth film.
 * Bellatrix Lestrange is prominently involved in the battle at the end of the sixth film, but she was not even in the corresponding scene from the book. All her actions in the film version of the scene (coaxing Draco to kill Dumbledore, firing the Dark Mark into the sky, catching Hagrid's hut on fire) were performed by various Mooks in the book.
 * Due to actor Jamie Waylett's legal troubles, Crabbe was written out of Deathly Hallows, and his ultimate fate was given to Goyle instead. Blaise Zabini was then brought in as the third man of Draco's Power Trio.
 * In the second book, it's stated that Vernon paid someone to fit the bars on Harry's window. In the movie version, Vernon just does it himself.
 * In the film adaptation of Gypsy, Uncle Jocko and Herbie become the same person.
 * In the film adaptation of the Confessions of Georgia Nicolson series, Georgia's friends Ellen, Jools, and Mabs were initially replaced by a composite Token Minority character called Namita. Fans complained, and so Namita's scenes were redubbed and she became Ellen.
 * Jason Stryker of X 2 X Men United is a composite of three comics characters: (1) Jason Wyngarde, the supervillain Mastermind, from whom he gets his first name and powers; (2) Reverend Stryker's unnamed mutant child from the God Loves, Man Kills graphic novel; (3) and David Haller, Professor X's autistic son, from whom he gets his mismatched eyes, multiple personalities, and insanity.
 * Colonel William Stryker in the X-Men movies is a composite of Rev. William Stryker from God Loves, Man Kills and Professor Thornton the man who gave Wolverine his Adamantium skeleton.
 * And let's face it, Wolverine in the X-Men movies is basically comic Wolverine with Cyclops's personality traits and attitudes grafted on, leaving no personality traits for Cyclops at all when Cyclops didn't have many to begin with.
 * Rogue is a composite of the comics Rogue (name and power) and Kitty Pryde/Jubilee (young girl who becomes a surrogate daughter to Wolverine). (Kitty Pryde goes on to appear in the films. Jubilee only cameos.)
 * Callisto of The Last Stand merges the powers of the comic characters Caliban and Quicksilver. Her leadership role and personality (which isn't all that fleshed out in the movie, but overall it's pretty consistent with the comics) are the only traces of the comics' Callisto.
 * Jean Grey and Phoenix were separate characters in the comics, but were rewritten into separate personalities in a single body for the movie. But whether Phoenix was a separate entity or just Jean's Super-Powered Evil Side depends on who's writing.
 * In X Men Origins Wolverine, Sabretooth is combined with Dog (James Howlett's half brother) and Rose (who helps him escape after Thomas Logan's death) from the comic Wolverine: Origin.
 * Although Dog was heavily implied to grow up to be Sabretooth in the original comic.
 * Sebastian Shaw in X Men First Class is a composite of Sebastian Shaw and Mr. Sinister, combining the former's powers and slick businessman persona with the latter's immortality and obsession with genetics.
 * In 2005's The War of the Worlds starring Tom Cruise, Ogilvy, the man who is trapped in a basement with Cruise's character and his daughter, is a composite of the astronomer of the same name, the artilleryman, and the curate from the original novel.
 * Christine merged the LeBay brothers into one character. This also served to completely invert one brother's personality and morals.
 * Based on a true story, October Sky merged Sherman Siers and Jimmy O'Dell into one character called Sherman O'Dell. (The original book, Rocket Boys, did not do this.)
 * In the film adaptation of To Kill a Mockingbird, the characters of Miss Rachel (Dill's alcoholic aunt) and Miss Stephanie (the town gossip) were merged so that Stephanie became Dill's aunt.
 * Burt in Mary Poppins is a merging of several minor characters from the original short stories.
 * The Postman has "Ford Lincoln Mercury", an amalgam of several characters. Abby is a mix of a minor one-chapter character named Abby, and the Love Interest who appeared later (in the chapters about the  sentient AI and the Super Soldier army that never made it into the film).
 * Street Fighter combined Blanka (the green man-beast from Brazil) and Charlie (Guile's combat buddy who was killed by Bison) into one character named Carlos Blanka, a combat buddy of Guile who gets captured by Bison and turned into a green man-beast. Even though Blanka's actual origin story in the games made it impossible for him and Charlie to be the same character, it didn't stop fans from speculating otherwise until Charlie debuted as a player character in the Street Fighter Alpha Prequel series.
 * In Raging Bull, the character Joey La Motta, played by Joe Pesci, is a composite of the real Joe La Motta and Jake La Motta's best friend, Pete Petrella. The infamous "You fuck my wife?" scene happened between Jake and Pete, not between the two brothers as depicted in the movie.
 * The protagonist of Lord of War is a composite of several real life arms dealers (five, according to IMDB).
 * The real Frank Abagnale Jr. wasn't chased by just one man - Carl Hanratty from Catch Me If You Can is an amalgam of several officers.
 * In the film Nick Fury: Agent of SHIELD (starring David Hasselhoff, not Samuel L. Jackson), Baron von Strucker is succeeded as the leader of Hydra by his daughter Andrea, aka Viper. In the comics, Viper/Madame Hydra is an orphan whose true name is unknown, and Andrea von Strucker is one half of the mutant Fenris Twins.
 * In Velvet Goldmine, Curt Wild is mainly supposed to be an Expy of Iggy Pop. A lot of the incidents involving him are based on other real-life figures, such as Mick Ronson, Lou Reed, and Mick Jagger.
 * Also, central character Brian Slade, while most ostensibly based on Bowie, is also a composite character and bears definite traces of Brian Eno, Marc Bolan, and Jobriath.
 * Michael Merriman (John Cusack's character in Fat Man And Little Boy) is a composite of two real Manhattan Project physicists, Louis Slotin and Henry K. Daghlian, Jr.
 * This is the treatment given to the Whiplash character in Iron Man II: he is a composite of the comics characters Crimson Dynamo and Whiplash/Backlash.
 * On-set stills from Iron Man 3 suggest that secondary villain Eric Savin/Coldblood will be wearing Norman Osborn's Iron Patriot armour at some point.
 * In Apollo 13, a whole team of astronauts and engineers working to figure out how to power up the command module again was rolled into Ken Mattingly and a couple of other guys.
 * Inverted with the team of engineers who figured how to make the Command Module's air filters fit the (incompatible) slots of the Lunar Module. In real life, only one engineer devised the solution, while driving to work.
 * Eric Bana, Ewan McGregor, Josh Hartnett, Orlando Bloom, and William Fichtner's characters in Black Hawk Down are all composites of various different US Army Rangers and Delta Force operators from the novel of the same name. Necessary, since hundreds of soldiers took part in the Battle of Mogadishu; making composite characters allowed the producers to cut the cast of dozens from the novel down to less than ten.
 * Warden Norton in The Shawshank Redemption was a composite of various characters from the novella; in that, Shawshank prison was run by several different figures with varying degrees of cruelty. The same goes for his henchman, Byron Hadley.
 * In the Russian movie Night Watch, Bear's real name is Ilya. In the books, Bear and Ilya are two different people. The Inquisition in the sequel Day Watch might also count: in the books they are a big group, basically a third Watch, while in the movie they are just two old Creepy Twins.
 * The incident at the beginning of the first film, with Anton going to a witch to get his girlfriend back happened to a woman in the Day Watch book and was part of a larger story. Additionally, Anton is not Yegor's father in the books and was recruited as a teen, not an adult.
 * The killer of Dark Others in the second film is revealed to be . In the books, they are different characters.
 * The Dark Knight Saga's versions of Loeb and Flass. Flass resembled Harvey Bullock more, being dark-haired, overweight, and unshaven rather than being blonde, fit, and clean-shaven, but he does have the comics' version's corruption. Loeb is a cross between the comics version and Michael Akins.
 * Henri Ducard  also fits this trope.
 * Subverted (or possibly even double subverted, if the Playing With is to be believed) in Donnie Brasco. Lefty in the movie is a composite of the real Lefty, the real Sonny Black, and several other wiseguys Joe Pistone met during his undercover work. Sonny Black appears in the movie, although In Name Only. Michael Madsen wasn't too happy about that one.
 * In the original Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles Mirage comic, Hamato Yoshi and Oroku Nagi fought over the love of a woman. Yoshi killed Nagi and the couple fled to New York. Years later Nagi's brother Saki avenged his brother's death by killing them and stayed in New York while calling himself The Shredder. The first movie simplified this by combining the two brothers: Saki is Yoshi's rival; Yoshi flees the country as a way to avoid having to fight him, but Saki follows them, and from there the story follows the comic.
 * It could be argued that the Lt. Uhura of 2009's Star Trek is a composite of Lt. Uhura, Yeoman Rand, and Nurse Chapel from the original series. Basically, they eliminated Rand and Chapel and folded Rand as the object of Kirk's lust and Chapel's love for Spock into Uhura's character.
 * Well, it wasn't that hard to do, with regard to the Uhura/Spock angle. From "The Man Trap":

Spock: Vulcan has no moon, Miss Uhura.

Uhura: I'm not surprised, Mr. Spock."


 * Chapel does exist in the new universe - Bones calls for her at point, though she remains unseen. What role she'll be given in any sequels, what with Uhura having stolen her defining character trait, remains to be seen.
 * Since when has Kirk's lust only ever been directed to one single woman?
 * The made-for-TV movie Noah's Ark made Noah into a composite of himself and... Abraham, and made other changes, such as Noah living in one of the cities of Sodom and Gomorrah (In The Bible, Abraham explicitly didn't live in either, certainly not that close to their destruction; not to mention that those cities were post-flood), and Lot just being some guy Noah knows.
 * In the 2010 remake of The Wolf Man,  replaces the Gypsy's son, Bela, as
 * Vicky Vale in Tim Burton's Batman was actually a combination of the comic's Vicky Vale (in terms of name and occupation) with Silver St. Cloud (in terms of personality and characterization), a love interest of Batman from The Seventies who knew his secret identity.
 * The same film's version of The Joker gave him the defining role of
 * Batman Forever gives us a composite origin for Robin, who is Dick Grayson in name and occupation (circus acrobat, alongside his parents), but gets his origin combined with Jason Todd's (Two-Face responsible for parents' death, and wanting to kill Two-Face for it). Much less the case in Batman and Robin, although for most, the less said about that, the better.
 * In Bonnie and Clyde, C.W. Moss is a composite of two members of the Barrow Gang, W.D. Jones and Henry Methvin.
 * The 2010 remake of Clash of the Titans merged Acrisius (Perseus's father) and Calibos (Andromeda's disfigured would-be fiancee and Perseus's mortal rival) into the same person.
 * The Red Queen in Tim Burton's Alice in Wonderland is mostly the Queen of Hearts, with a few elements of the Red Queen from the second book.
 * This is also done in American McGee's Alice and The Looking Glass Wars.
 * In Disney Animated Canon's Alice in Wonderland, the Queen of Hearts is mainly the Queen of Hearts, but has the Duchess's bipolar personality and uses the Red Queen's line "All ways are mine". This makes less sense than it does when the Red Queen says it, since the Red Queen is a chess piece with the ability to go any way she wants on the board.
 * Prince of Persia the Sands of Time: Princess Tamina, judging by her actions and behavior, is a combination of all the female characters from the games (Farah, Kaileena, and Elika).
 * In the live-action Fist of the North Star movie, Shin's right-hand man Jackal takes his name from a gang leader villain in the manga, but his origin story as a villain who was disfigured by Kenshiro in the past resembles that of Kenshiro's evil adoptive brother Jagi. Neither, Jagi nor Jackal had anything to do with Shin, other than the fact that Jagi was the one who persuaded Shin to turn evil and Jackal was an underling of Shin in the TV series (but not in the manga).
 * In at least the 1940 and 2005 versions of Pride and Prejudice, Mr. Bingley's two sisters Caroline and Louisa are melded into the films' version of Caroline. The same goes for the Bollywood adaptation Bride and Prejudice and its character Kiran Balraj. Bride And Prejudice also has Lakhi stand in for the two youngest Bennets, Lydia and Kitty.
 * The Latter-Day Setting Update not only does this for Caroline and Louisa, but also reduces Charlotte's character to one scene, with Mary being the one marrying Collins, while Georgiana Darcy and Anne de Bourgh are merged into Darcy's sister Euphemiana.
 * Most film adaptations of Dracula eliminate at least one of Lucy's suitors (almost always Quincey Morris, and often Lord Godalming as well). Sometimes Lucy and Mina are combined into a single Distressed Damsel, and Jonathan stands in for all of her suitors.
 * In the parody Dracula: Dead and Loving It, Mel Brooks dispenses with all of Lucy's suitors except Seward, who becomes her much-older guardian instead. Harker basically takes over the role of all the four younger men.
 * It's mentioned that he liked Lucy, while being Mina's suitor.
 * Return to Oz, itself a composite of "The Land of Oz" and "Ozma of Oz", combines the (very different) characters Princess Langwidere, from "Ozma of Oz", and Mombi, the Wicked Witch of the North, from "The Land of Oz", into the evil Princess Mombi.
 * In Ghost Rider, Johnny Blaze not only takes on qualities of his comic namesake, but also his successor Danny Ketch (such as his chain weapon and Penance Stare). His father Barton Blaze also supplants "Crash" Simpson in
 * Also, Carter Slade and the Caretaker were two different characters in the comics.
 * In Daredevil, Wilson Fisk, aka The Kingpin, takes the place of Slade,.
 * Although both appear in the film, Roxy Richter in Scott Pilgrim vs. the World inherits quite a few traits from the comic book's version of Envy,  Interestingly, they were supposed to become one in the film's production, but later volumes convinced the film makers to include both characters.
 * Had they kept Roxy from the comic book as-is, they'd also have to include, who helps Scott beat her.
 * In the live-action 1996 version of Pinocchio, the villain Lorenzini is a merger of the characters Mangiafuoco (the Puppeteer) and The Little Man (Land of Toys coachman). Later, he is transformed into a giant sea monster, thus also merging The Terrible Dogfish into his character.
 * Benjamin "The Ghost" Martin in Mel Gibson's The Patriot was based primarily on Francis "The Swamp Fox" Marion, with elements of about four other Revolutionary War leaders mixed in.
 * The Blank of Dick Tracy makes the character also known as Faceless Redrum into the alias of another Dick Tracy regular:
 * Dr Langford Fife in the parody film The Norman Rockwell Code is a composite character of Dr Robert Langdon from The Da Vinci Code, and Barney Fife from The Andy Griffith Show.
 * North had the Fed Ex guy and Johnny Fingers from the book merged into one guy who appears to North randomly during his journey to find his parents.
 * In the Twilight films, the characters of Jessica Stanley and Lauren Mallory were merged into one character named Jessica.
 * In the second Death Note movie, Takada replaces Higuchi completely and has a few elements of Mikami mixed in. She performs the role of the third Kira almost identically to Higuchi's portrayal, down to the character's being.
 * In Water for Elephants, the roles of Uncle Al (evil ringmaster) and August (evil animal trainer and Marlena's husband), were merged together to create the film's version of August.
 * Occurs in the Transformers series. A few examples:
 * Sam is based mostly on Spike from the Generation One cartoon. However, his absorbing of the Allspark's energy and having visions due to it a taken from Buster of the Marvel comics.
 * Bumblebee combines elements of his G1 counterpart (the former Trope Namer), while his design takes cues from Autobots such as Prowl and Bluestreak.
 * Megatron takes elements of his Beast Wars descendant and original 1984 character.
 * Sentinel Prime is a combination of G1 Sentinel (former Autobot leader before Optimus), Alpha Trion (Optimus's mentor, as well as a scientific genius), and
 * R.J. MacReady in The Thing is based on the original story's McReady (The Hero, second-in-command of the base) and Van Wall (chief pilot).
 * The upcoming film adaptation of John Carter of Mars appears to have collapsed several minor characters into more major related ones. Notably, Tars Tarkas is chieftain of his own band of Tharks in the film, whereas in the book he was second-in-command to Lorquas Ptormel; Tardos Mors is Dejah Thoris' father in the film, while he was her grandfather in the book, thereby combining him with his son Mors Kajak; and film Sab Than is Jeddak (king) of Zodanga rather than prince, combining him with his father Than Kosis.
 * The 2005 version of King Kong reversed this. The original movie had the character Jack Driscoll; he was the love interest, the ship's first mate, and a swashbuckling square-jawed he-man. In the remake, these three character traits were given to three separate characters: Jack Driscoll, Mr. Hayes, and Bruce Baxter, respectively.
 * JFK does this here and there, most notably with Willie O'Keefe. Willie is a composite of several of Jim Garrison's witnesses, among them Perry Russo, the central witness of the case; he exists in the film largely so that Oliver Stone doesn't have to answer why Garrison chose not to use most of them in the trial (and to hide Russo's laughable unreliablity).
 * Moneyball merges several of Billy Beane's associates, particularly Paul DePodesta, into Peter Brand. DePodesta refused to have his name used in the film, which led to this.
 * In The Adventures of Tintin, this happens to several characters from the original comics. The film's version of Ivan Ivanovitch Sakharine shares the name of a minor character from Secret, but his more villainous characterization is drawn from the Bird Brothers from the comic, and he also inherits some traits of the comic's Omar Ben Salaad, such as his employment of Allan and his taking over the Karaboudjan.
 * In The Muppets Wizard of Oz, the Munchkins also serve the role of the Field Mice in The Wonderful Wizard of Oz, rescuing Dotothy and friends from Poppyfields and explaining to Dorothy how the Witch's magic cap works. Which makes sense, since they're played by the rats (with Rizzo as a composite of the Mayor of Munchkinland from the MGM film and a Gender Flipped Queen of the Field Mice).
 * Both film versions of The Girl with The Dragon Tattoo turn Anita Vanger into a Posthumous Character; the woman thought to be Anita turns out to be Harriet Vanger herself.
 * In Men of Honor, Robert De Niro's role as the hardline, racist Master Chief who makes Brashear's life hell, is an amalgamation of a couple different commanding officers the real Brashear had during his career.
 * In J-Men Forever, the multiple villains edited from the original Republic Film Serials became the singular Lightning Bug. To explain his radically changing appearance, The Lightning Bug was explained as a Master of Disguise.
 * In Dark Shadows, the characters of Victoria Winters and Maggie Evans are now one and the same. Also, Angelique, who is a combination of herself and rival fishery owner Burke Devlin.
 * In the novel Fast Times at Ridgemont High, the ticket-scalper character is separate from Mike Damone. The two were combined in the movie.

Literature
"Huck Finn is drawn from life; Tom Sawyer also, but not from an individual—he is a combination of the characteristics of three boys whom I knew, and therefore belongs to the composite order of architecture."
 * The novelisation of the Doctor Who serial The Invasion of Time combines the characters of Jasko and Ablif into a single character. The character in the book is named, appropriately enough, "Jablif".
 * Nellie Oleson in the Little House on the Prairie books was a composite of three different girls Laura Ingalls Wilder knew growing up: Nellie Owens, Genevieve Masters and Stella Gilbert. There is some speculation that Mr. Edwards was a composite, as well, since pinning down his historical personage has proved confusing.
 * Many adaptations of Alice in Wonderland conflate the Queen of Hearts with the Red Queen. The first is from "Adventures in Wonderland" and is a playing card; the second is from "Through the looking glass" and is a chess piece.
 * In Arthur Miller's The Crucible, the utterly vile Danforth stands for several different judges who presided over the witch trials. Miller initially worried that he had made Danforth too one-dimensional ... only to find that the real judges were even worse.
 * Joseph Conrad's Under Western Eyes begins with the assassination of a Tsarist official, de P___, who is a composite of Konstantin Pobedonstev and another P-named official who really was assassinated. The implication was that Conrad hoped that the fate of the latter would happen to the former.
 * Also by Conrad, Kurtz of Heart of Darkness is a combination of a number of sadistic Mister Danger types in the Belgian Congo, although his name in particular references Georges Antoine Klein (Kurtz is German for short and Klein is German for small) who had just died when Conrad was in the Congo.
 * Another Conrad example which could fit is the character of Verloc in The Secret Agent. Verlac is a police spy and agent provacateur and his name is a reference to that. Eugene Vidocq was a French criminal who reformed and eventually became the head of the police, and there are a lot of stories of him doing some fairly underhanded things as a cop, starting from Framing the Guilty Party and moving on from there. Vidocq inspired a number of fictional characters (including both Valjean and Inspector Javert in Les Misérables), and one of them was Balzac's master criminal Vautrin, who eventually becomes head of the police himself. The name Verlac is essentially a combination of Vautrin and Vidocq.
 * Sultan Mehmed of Count and Countess is a mix of the real-life Sultan Mehmed and his father.
 * It's common for modern-day adaptations of Pride and Prejudice to remove Kitty and/or Mary Bennet and transpose elements of them into Lydia, since fewer families have five children than in Austen's day, and they are the only sisters that don't end up with husbands by the end of the book.
 * From the preface to Tom Sawyer:

Live Action TV

 * The Tudors : Henry VIII in Real Life had two sisters, Mary and Margaret. The character portrayed in the show is given the biography of Mary, but the name of Margaret; creator Michael Hirst said this was to reduce confusion on the set, since Henry's daughter Mary was a major character. (There are a number of Thomases in the show, but they're almost always referred to by their last names or titles--Cromwell, More, Wolsey, etc.)
 * Also in The Tudors, Edward Seymour's wife Anne Stanhope has a storyline which is basically an altered (and expanded) version of his historical first wife's antics. This one doesn't have even a flimsy plot excuse, it's simply for the sake of more random sex - oh, and ensuring the complete lack of functional marriages in the show.
 * Gia, the made-for-television biography of model Gia Carangi, has several of these characters, most significantly, her makeup artist turned girlfriend.
 * Seinfeld - Elaine was a composite of various ex-girlfriends of Jerry Seinfeld and Larry David. (The other main characters were directly based on Seinfeld, David, and David's neighbor Kenny Kramer.)
 * In the 1996 revival of The Liver Birds, Polly James reprises the role of Beryl, except Beryl has become a composite of the Beryl she played in the first four seasons and Carol, Beryl's replacement in seasons 5-9. Most notably, Beryl has somehow acquired Carol's family.
 * Horatio Hornblower (mini-series): Archie Kennedy is a composite of various minor characters throughout the series of novels it is based on. He notably given actions of an unnamed sailor in Even Chance by, and Lt. Bracegirdle's lines in The Wrong War.
 * The TV adaptations of Sharpe have a tendency to do this, in order to avoid Loads and Loads of Characters, with many recurring characters from the books becoming one-off characters and/or suffering Chuck Cunningham Syndrome. For instance, the company of men that follow Sharpe in the books are reduced to half a dozen key characters. Two specific examples occur in Sharpe's Revenge to avoid bringing back characters from Sharpe's Siege: Maillot is a composite of Maillot (the officer guarding Napoleon's treasure) and Lassan (Lucille's brother), while Wigram is a composite of Wigram (the officer in charge of Sharpe's court martial) and Bampfylde (the officer Sharpe fights a duel with).
 * Done, kind of, in Robin Hood. At the end of Season Two, Marian, Will Scarlett, and Djaq the Saracen are written permanently out of the show. The next season introduces Kate, who fills all their niches in the group and show, as well as aspects of their personalities. She takes the place of Marian as Love Interest and Tsundere, Djaq as Token Girl, and Will as the representative of the suffering peasantry. She also experiences the murder of her brother (like Allan), has a tempestuous relationship with her parent (like Marian) and is separated from her family (like Little John). Naturally, she was considered an instant Replacement Scrappy and ended up a Creator's Pet in record time.
 * In the Sky 1 adaptation of Going Postal, Crispin Horsefry becomes Reacher Gilt's second in command, representing the entire board of the Grand Trunk in the novel. Also Mustrum Ridcully is given Professor Pelc's role as Mr. Exposition.
 * Technically, the rangers in Power Rangers with more than one ranger identity (I.E., Tommy) fall under this trope. Some season-unique examples:
 * Inverted in Mighty Morphin Power Rangers: The normal version of Zyuranger's Dora Franke became the Frankenstein monster, while his second and third forms Zombie Franke and Satan Franke became two different forms of the same character, Mutitus.
 * Inverted again in Zeo: Prince Buldont of Ohranger, who later grew into an older form, Kaiser Buldont, became the characters Prince Sproket (younger) and Prince Gasket (older).
 * Astronema melds together two villains from Megaranger: Dr. Hinelar (The Dragon and The Starscream, creator of The Psycho Rangers plot) and Shibolena (cyborg Dark Magical Girl, surrogate daughter of a villain). Her brother, Andros, melds Mega Red together with Dr. Kubota (The Mentor, had prior history with Dragon-in-Chief).
 * Inverted once more in the conversion of Gingaman to Lost Galaxy. The Big Bad Captain Zahab was split off into Scorpius and his more direct counterpart, Captain Mutiny.
 * And then there's borderline example Furio: He has the costume of Dr. Hinelar's final form, but Sanbash's role in the story. (Sanbash's costume, not available at the time, was later used for a new character named Villamax.)
 * Another borderline example comes in Trakeena: She fills in the role of Shelinda, but also has traits of Illies (her successful plot against Treacheron, using many of the monsters Illies used). Her accidental One-Winged Angel form in the the next season's Crossover Special was originally the Infernal Dark Hell Beast summoned by Gil.
 * Inverted twice when converting Timeranger to Time Force. The costume of Big Bad Don Dolnero was used for comic relief character Gluto, and the Big Bad with some of Dolnero's role was original-design Ransik. Meanwhile, the rangers' commanding officer Captain Ryuya was split into Captain Logan and, more directly, Alex.
 * Also done semi-straight: Lucas melds the ex-racer backstory of his Sentai counterpart, Ayase, with the womanizer side of Katie's Sentai counterpart, Domon.
 * Princess Shayla is a composite of Gaoranger's Priestess Tetomu and her grandmother, Murasaki.
 * Master Org also supplants Shuten and Ura during their tenures as Big Bad, while claiming their combined form with Rasetsu, Senki, as his own.
 * Cam, the Green Samurai Ranger, is a composite of Oboro (snarky techie offspring of the Rangers' Sensei) and Shurikenger (the Sixth Ranger) from Hurricaneger. Also inverted with Motodrone: he's based off the adult form of Manmaruba, while Eyezak, a Monster of the Week he used, is actually Manmaruba's One-Winged Angel form.
 * The multiple users of the Cursed Armor in Abaranger became the singular cyborg henchman Zeltrax in Dino Thunder. However, the role of the second user of the cursed armor is picked up by Elsa in the last few episodes.
 * Due to Trent turning good far sooner than Mikoto did, Abare Killer's remaining stint as a bad guy was fulfilled by a White Ranger clone.
 * Sam, the Omega Ranger is a composite of Sixth Ranger Deka Break and one-shot guest star Hikaru of Dekaranger. The latter grows up to be the former and arrives via Time Travel. Bridge, meanwhile, melds Deka Green/Sen-Chan with the psychic powers of Z's Sentai Counterpart, Jasmine.
 * Mora/Morgana owes as much to Abaranger's Rije/Rijewel as she does to Succubus, the villainness her sentai footage comes from.
 * Mystic Mother is a composite of Magiel and Bandora (aka Rita Repulsa) from Zyuranger, by virtue of being said to have once been referred to as Rita. Both of these characters were played in Super Sentai by the late Machiko Soga.
 * Operation Overdrive has two in its adaptation from Boukenger:
 * Tyzonn, the Mercury Ranger, mixes in Bouken Silver (It's Personal against the Ashu/Fear Cats), one-shot guest star Ragi (human transformed into dragonman), and even Bouken Red (backstory with deaths of former team).
 * Kamdor directly parallels Yami no Yaiba, and Maboroshi no Gekkou (the latter being the Big Bad of the third faction and the monster maker and enlarger). Also, Miratrix mostly has Shizuka's role, but her monster form is Gekkou's. Shizuka's monster form becomes a one-off monster earlier in the series.
 * You could argue that they had a third example: the Sentinel Knight is a counterpart to one of the Precious, but has the traits of Aka Red, since they're both borderline-Physical Gods who are important players in the Milestone Celebration crossover.
 * Inverted again in Jungle Fury: Long, the ultimate Big Bad of Gekiranger, was split into Dai Shi (inheriting his Big Bad status and One-Winged Angel form) and General Scorch (inheriting his Phantom Beast form and Treacherous Advisor status).
 * Also, RJ takes two roles. As the Rangers' mentor, he's part Sha-fu. As the accidental Wolf Man and later Wolf Ranger, he's part Gou.
 * Although original to RPM, Big Bad Venjix uses battle bodies that in Go-onger were the characters Hiramechimedes and Yogoshimacritein.
 * Deker in Power Rangers Samurai is directly based on Fuwa Juzo, with his backstory being based on Shinza.
 * Power Rangers' sister show, VR Troopers, also had its examples:
 * Dark Heart is directly based on Top Gunder of Choujinki Metalder, but his backstory as  also merges not only Dr. Koga from Metalder, but Dr. Bio from Jikuu Senshi Spielban.
 * Grimlord, while directly based on God Neros from Metalder, effectively supplants Queen Pandora and Kubilai as the main villain of the entire conglomerate. Slightly subverted in that counterparts for both villains did appear, but were Demoted to Extra, Kubilai (aka Oraclon) becoming Grimlord's monster-maker and Pandora (aka Desponda, Despera's sister) becoming a one-shot guest villain.
 * Ryan Steele, by virtue of his two armored forms, is a composite of Metalder and Shaider.
 * J.B. Reese and Kaitlin Starr were composites of Spielban and Diana Lady, as well as Metalder's two human friends, Hakko and Mai (despite the fact that Spielban was the hero of his own show, J.B. was more of a sidekick to Ryan like Hakko was to Ryusei, while Kaitlin was a reporter like Mai). When footage of Spielban's sister Helen Lady (who wore the same suit as Diana Lady) was adapted into VR Troopers, she became a mirror image of Kaitlin who could be summoned in battle, essentially making Kaitlin a composite of three characters.
 * Meanwhile, Hellvira, Helen Lady's Brainwashed and Crazy form, became the separate one-off character Red Python.
 * In Kamen Rider Ryuki, three unnamed characters were possessed by Kanzaki, and turned into Kamen Rider Odin. In Kamen Rider Dragon Knight, they became the singular Vic Frasier (Kamen Rider Wrath). Of course, Wrath was possessed by Xaviax, so we still have the Rider form as the Big Bad's avatar throughout both series.
 * Also Ryuki's two main females, Reiko Momoi, Intrepid Reporter and senior to Shinji, and Yui Kanzaki, the only non-rider who could see the mirror world were combined into one character in Maya Young.
 * Our hero himself is an example and an inversion at once. We have Kit as Dragon Knight (aka Ryuki, Shinji's shiny suit) until his  alternate self takes over after his Disney Death. Kit becomes Onyx (aka Ryuga, evil alternate Shinji's shiny suit.) However, we first saw Onyx in a dream of Kit's involving him taking Xaviax's lure. This means Dragon Knight is a composite of Ryuki and Ryuga, but Onyx is splitting Ryuga into two guys.
 * There's also some of Len's counterpart Ren in Kit. There's a Rider whose greatest desire is to see a certain loved one restored. Said loved one is brought out of coma just long enough to try and tempt said Rider. So, are we talking about Kit's dad or Ren's fiancee, now?
 * The two Alternative Riders (former colleagues of the Big Bad who developed their own powers to thwart him) were merged into Eubulon the Advent Master, who also supplants Kanzaki as the creator of the Rider powers.
 * The Kamen Rider Agito Alternate Universe visited in Kamen Rider Decade did this with its version of protagonist Shoichi, who was a composite of Even his name is a composite: ].
 * Also, the Kamen Rider 555 arc has a friend of Takumi whose name is Yuri (half Yuka and half Mari, at least in name - she's little like either character.)
 * In the Kabuto arc, Tendou's  are combined into one character, Mayu. To get her, we combine Hiyori's   The storyline happens in a much more satisfying way than it did in Kabuto due to the lack of sudden actor departures.
 * The 1998 Merlin series does this at least twice, combining Morgan le Fay with Morgause into a single character that isn't much like either of them simply called Morgan le Fay, and also combining two different Elaines (there's a lot in Arthurian Mythology) into a single character of that name.
 * In Legend of the Seeker, Cara was primarily the character of the same name from the books with traits of two other Mord-Sith from the third book on thrown in, and was darker than any of them. Nicci filled the roles of three distinct and very different Sisters of the Dark; the schemer Liliana who tried to deceive Richard and steal his magic, their leader and strongest Ulicia, and the Anti-Villain Nicci who didn't become important until much later in the series. Curiously, Ulicia did show up briefly, only for Nicci to kill her and absorb her Han.
 * The 1990s Justice League pilot. Ice is Tora Olafsdotter, but has Sigrid Nansen's origin. The Flash is Barry Allen but has Wally West's personality, and Green Lantern is called Guy Gardner, but has elements of Hal Jordan and Kyle Rayner.
 * Believe it or not, Robert Barone from Everybody Loves Raymond is one of these. His main mannerisms (being a cop, being divorced, jealous of his brother, doing "crazy chin", etc.) are taken from Ray's brother Richard, but his name is taken from Ray's other brother Robert. (When asked why the TV Ray didn't have two brothers like the real one, Ray claimed the real Robert was "the normal one" in his family, and therefore felt he wasn't interesting enough for the show).
 * Smallville featured Tess Mercer, a combination of Mercy Graves (Lex Luthor's assistant from Superman the Animated Series), Miss Tessmacher (One of Lex's underlings from Superman), and
 * The made-for-tv adaptation of Stephen King's The Stand merges Nadine Cross and Rita Blakemoor into one character. In the book, it was Rita who Larry Underwood met in New York, who was somewhat older than him. He only met Nadine later.

Music
"Susanna Hoffs: Interestingly, a character sort of developed in the song. We had all just read Girls Like Us, the book about Carly Simon, Carole King and Joni Mitchell, and we were inspired by it. We sort of made up a portrait of a person based around those women -- it's kind of mythical."
 * The Bangles created "Anna Lee" as a composite character on their 2011 album Sweetheart of the Sun, for the song "Anna Lee (Sweetheart of the Sun)":

Mythology & Folk lore

 * This is done often in mythology and its various adaptations as a result of both time constraints and general mixing of the stories. For example, in Arthurian Literature, the role of the mother of Mordred (who may or may not be Arthur's son) is frequently given to Morgan Le Fay; the original mother (Morgause) is either absent or given a different role.
 * Morgan is also often mixed with Nimue. Also the various Elaines are often combined, and may be further combined with the relatively more modern Lady of Shalott.
 * The reverse can also happen; some scholars believe that Gawain's brother Gareth started out as a spelling error for his brother Gehris.
 * There is some debate, naturally, but some historians believe that Arthur himself is a composite of several Briton (pre-England) kings who fought against the invading Saxons and Angles (and Jutes, and Frisians, and maybe the Picts and Vikings...).
 * The American Santa Claus is a composite of several European myths and folk lore.

Professional Wrestling

 * The WWE's Randy Orton is a strange example. He has the snake motif of Stone Cold Steve Austin, with a similar fighting style and devil-may-care whoop-your-ass attitude, but he's also the youngest world champion in WWE history and a third-generation superstar. Sound familiar?

Radio

 * In the Quintessential Stage of The Hitchhikers Guide to The Galaxy, Van Harl, the Vogon who's taken over the Guide in Mostly Harmless, is combined with Zarniwoop, who was the editor-in-chief in the Secondary Phase and The Restaurant at the End of the Universe. This does not appear to have been done to simplify the story (it doesn't); they simply liked Jonathan Pryce's portrayal of Zarniwoop and wanted him back.

Theatre

 * In productions of the opera The Magic Flute, the role of the Speaker has been merged with that of the old priest Tamino encounters in the first act finale for so long that few people know that they originally may not have been the same character.
 * In Bernard Pomerance's The Elephant Man, Ross is a composite of Tom Norman (Merrick's manager when Treves met him, and a fairly decent guy as far as P.T. Barnum types go) and the Belgian showman who abandoned him and robbed him of his life's savings.
 * You're a Good Man, Charlie Brown has Patty, whose lines and scenes come not only from the original comic strip's Patty (not to be confused with the later Peppermint Patty), but also Violet, Frieda, and Sally (enough of Sally, in fact, that the Broadway revival went ahead and re-identified the character).
 * Inverted in the video production of Cats; on stage, the character of Gus is usually depicted as a young cat but becomes an older cat for his big number. This number usually segues into another number with the younger version, "Growltiger's Last Stand". The older version was played by Sir John Mills, who was far too old, and blind, to do the required singing and dancing. So, they split both versions into two characters, with the younger Gus now named Asparagus.
 * Which itself is the reversal of a straight example: in Old Possums Book of Practical Cats there's no connection between Gus and Growltiger.
 * In the Opera of All the Kings Men, entitled Willie Stark, Stark's aide Jack Burden supplants his love interest Anne's brother, Adam, in ultimately
 * In Frank Wildhorn's musical of The Scarlet Pimpernel, Percy's eighteen strong League of The Scarlet Pimpernel (aside from Percy himself and brother-in-law Armand), was folded up into nine men: Dewhurst, Elton, Farleigh, Ben, Hal, Ozzy, Hastings, Neville, and Leggett. Later revisions cut the later three men out and give their lines to the first six.
 * Almost every adaptation of The Phantom of the Opera transplants most aspects of the Daroga's character into Madame Giry.
 * Happens too often to count in Shakespeare's history plays, and not just characters, but also with battles and other events.
 * In Dreamgirls, Effie White is not only patterned primarily after "third Supreme" Florence Ballard, but also after Etta James and Aretha Franklin.
 * In Les Misérables, Thenadier's henchman Brujon takes his name from a minor criminal who only associated with Thenadier. His status as The Brute comes from the novel's Gueulemer. The musical also does away with Thenardier's second daughter, giving her plot points to Thenardier's wife.
 * Billy Flynn, "the silver-tongued prince of the courtroom" of Chicago, was a composite of William Scott Stewart and W. W. O'Brien, the real life attorneys of Belva Gaertner and Beulah Annan (the real life Velma Kelly and Roxie Hart).
 * In the musical version of Reefer Madness, Jimmy Harper is a composite of the original film's protagonist Bill Harper and his girlfriend Mary's kid brother Jimmy.
 * Anthony Burgess combines Cyrano's best friend Le Bret with his Captain Carbon de Jaloux in his adaptation of Cyrano De Bergerac.
 * Cirque Du Soleil's Japan-only tour Fascination combined acts from Le Cirque Reinvente and Nouvelle Experience; appropriately, the Ringmaster here was a composite of the Reinvente Ringmaster and the Great Chamberlain of Nouvelle, who served similar emcee functions in their source shows. This Ringmaster had the Reinvente costume and backstory of a transformed "Ordinary Person", but was played by Nouvelle's actor (Brian Dewhurst) and from there participated in the latter show's slackwire act.
 * Part of the reason that The Threepenny Opera is Darker and Edgier than the original Beggars Opera is because of this trope. In the original, Macheath is a fairly sympathetic (if lecherous) example of The Highwayman, and Peachum is a corrupt thief-taker (basically, he works both sides of the law- he conspires with criminals, but also turns those criminals in for a reward when they're outlived their usefulness to him). In Brecht's version, Peachum, while still corrupt, is the head of a beggar's guild, and Macheath is a much more unpleasant gangster. This version of Macheath is a "grass" and he gets the lines of the original Peachum when he treacherously plots to turn the loyal members of his gang to save his own skin.
 * Shadowlands combines Joy Gresham's two sons into one. This is also done for the film version; the original teleplay kept both sons.
 * The musical Show Boat combined two characters from Edna Ferber's novel, the heavy Frank and the juvenile lead and Elly's husband Schultzy, into Frank Schultz. Ike Keener, the sheriff of Lemonye, and Vallon, the police chief of New Orleans, were similarly combined into Ike Vallon. The 1929 film version of Show Boat made Hetty Chilson, a character from Ferber's novel that was eliminated from the musical, an alternate identity of Julie.
 * Pseudolus from A Funny Thing Happened on the Way to the Forum, an amalgam of various trickster servant characters from the works of Roman playwright Plautus.
 * Mimi in La Boheme merges the characters of Mimi and Francine from the original novel, La Vie de Boheme.
 * Rodolfo from the same Opera merges the novel's Rodolfo and Jacques.
 * Joanne in La Boheme's Setting Update, Rent, is a female version of Alcindoro, but also inherits some traits from Marcello (the Mark character).
 * The stage version of Newsies replaces reporter Brian Denton and Jack's love interest Sarah with Katharine Plummer, a reporter who becomes Jack's love interest.
 * In Wicked, Fiyero and Boq, via spells by Elphaba and Nessarose, are transformed into the Scarecrow and the Tinman. In the original novel, they were all separate characters.

Video Games

 * The Proto Man in Mega Man Battle Network is based not only on the original Proto Man (name and general appearance), but Zero (long hair, prefers close combat [specifically, swords]) as well.
 * Meanwhile, Zero is in the Mega Man X series. When a version of Zero actually appears in Battle Network,
 * In Fullmetal Alchemist :Bluebird's Illusion, rather horrifyingly,, it's horrifying when you stop and think about it. Of course, this was at the point where  , so this composite was likely unintentional.
 * The Emperor Zul in Super Robot Wars Destiny is a combination of God Mars's Emperor Zul (has his appearance, personality and empire), Daltanias's Emperor Dolmen (because of the Kroppen cloning plot) and the King of Vega (he led the attack that destroyed Planet Fleed))
 * In the NES version of Double Dragon II: The Revenge, the enemy character Abore is a combination of two different enemies from the arcade version. His moves are similar to the ones used by the Mission 2 boss from the arcade version (who was given the name "Abore" in the Mega Drive version), but his appearance resembles that of a recurring sub-boss (a Head Swap of Bolo/Abobo named "Oharra" in the Mega Drive version).
 * In the first Marvel vs. Capcom, Ryu could change his fighting style and palette mid-fight to match those of Ken's and Akuma's. This is because he is not meant to be a standard incarnation of Ryu, but a combination of himself, Ken, and Akuma representing the entire Street Fighter series. This is why his theme music in the game is the Street Fighter II title tune instead of his usual theme and why he is labelled as "Complete Change Ryu" in the PS1 version. A more subtle example is Zangief, who can switch between his regular self and his alternate Mecha-Zangief form, who was originally an alternate character in Marvel vs. Street Fighter.
 * The unmasked version of Sub-Zero was among the list casualties that were cut out from the Nintendo 64 version of Mortal Kombat Trilogy. However, most of his Special Moves and Finishing Moves were instead given to the masked Sub-Zero.
 * In Dissidia Final Fantasy, the Warrior of Light and Onion Knight are both single characters that represent the four-man AFGNCAAP team from their respective games. The Onion Knight was especially strange, as there was already a DS remake of III that gave identities to the heroes.
 * Samurai Warriors:
 * It's been suggested that Saika Magoichi is a combination of Suzuki Shigehide (Who sided with Hideyoshi in SW1-2) and Suzuki Shigetomo (Who sided with Masamune in the latter half of SW2 and SW3), both men who held the title of "Saika Magoichi".
 * Kotaro Fuma may also be a composite character for the Fuma ninja clan, and Kunoichi one for the Sanada Ten.
 * Mr. Game and Watch from the Super Smash Bros series primarily looks like the random jumping civilians from the Game and Watch game "Fire", but he has many weapons based on many other Game and Watch games.
 * In the first X Men Legends, Allison Crestmere (Magma of the New Mutants) is given a personality and background similar to Kitty Pryde and the powers of her mainstream counterpart. The developers admitted that they wanted to use Kitty Pryde, but her powers don't translate well to an action RPG.
 * This also applies to most of the characters that appear in the game, as they appear with their mainstream "Earth 616" personalities and backstories, but start by default with their Ultimate appearances. The sequel also adds Age of Apocalypse into the mix.
 * It's really hard to combine AOA and 616 Sabretooth. Blink sees him as a Jerk with a Heart of Gold because "Mr. Creed" rescued her once (purely out of the goodness of his heart. In character for AOA.) Your character is more familiar with a 616 Sabretooth, saying "If he's got a good heart, it's because he ripped it out of someone's chest!" It really is as if you've met two different Victor Creeds. All the other cast members, though, are pretty much the straight-up 616 versions wearing the Ultimate Marvel costumes.
 * Haken Browning and Kaguya Nanbu from Endless Frontier take after both the Original Generation character they share the name of, and the one they share the sex of. Overall, Haken is more like Kyosuke, but inherits Excellen's combat style and flirtatiousness, while Kaguya takes more after Excellen, but inherits Kyosuke's more down-to-earth personality (but not his intelligence) and a combat style much more like his -- though not identical.
 * When the Touhou game moved from the PC-98 to Windows things changed. One of the striking examples is Marisa, who really only kept the basic theme and appearance of the PC-98 character of that name. Her new personality is much more similar to (the now absent) Mima's.
 * The Master System version of Golden Axe ditched the three main characters from the arcade game and introduced a new one named Tarik, who is a renamed Ax Battler with the abilities to use the magic powers from all three of the arcade game's heroes.
 * Dan Hibiki from Street Fighter Alpha is essentially the two main characters from Art of Fighting combined into one, looking a lot like Robert Garcia, but wearing Ryo Sakazaki's gi.

Web Comics

 * Something Positive does this with it's Life Embellished cast, featuring at least a few people who are based off of various people the author has met, merged into one person.
 * El Goonish Shive merged a background character unofficially called Shy Girl with a minor character named Rhoda who then became more of a supporting character.

Web Original

 * A variation occurred in There Will Be Brawl: While fans were still awaiting Young Link and Toon Link to finally show up or be mentioned, like every other character in Super Smash Bros, it's eventually revealed that Link also is Young Link and Toon Link. They were compressed into one character.
 * To clarify, Link looks at a photo of his younger self. This photo includes both, Young Link/Toon Link, implying that they are both the same guy during the same period of time. Link is just their grown-up version.
 * Crinoverse The Crinoverse, existing as it does as a combination of multiple superhero universes, has a few of these. There's the Justice Avengers, a combination of the JLA and the Avengers, and a few others-Psimon is a combination of the Champions character and the DC character of the same name.
 * Also present on this very wiki - Trope Pantheons have Hercules, who is composite of Hercules from Hercules: The Legendary Journeys, Disney Hercules, Hercules from God of War, Berserker from Fate/stay night and Incredible Hercules. And probably all other versions of the character.

Western Animation

 * Parodied in The Simpsons when Bart claims his comic character "Angry Dad" is not based purely on one person, but is a composite of his dad, Lisa's dad, and Maggie's dad.
 * Disney Animated Canon does this frequently. The most notable example would be Aladdin, in which they did it twice: condensing the two genies (magic ring and lamp) into one (lamp), and combining the sorcerer who wanted the genie with the vizier trying to discredit Aladdin after his rise to wealth.
 * In fact, the two Aladdin examples mentioned above are commonly done in most adaptations of the story. Many readers aren't even aware of the fact that there are two genies in the story until they read the original.
 * Interestingly enough, at one point there were plans for both genies to appear.
 * The film One Hundred and One Dalmatians does this to the two female dogs in the book The Hundred and One Dalmatians (Missy and Perdita) as well as the two Nannies.
 * Disney also Inverted Trope this trope in The Hunchback of Notre Dame. In the book, Archdeacon Claude Frollo is a tragic Anti-Villain. In the Disney film, the Archdeacon is a sympathetic character while Frollo is a separate character and outright evil.
 * Played straight, however, with the Disney version of Clopin, who is a composite of Hugo's Clopin (the psychotic King of the Gypsies) and Gringoire (the goofy troubadour).
 * The Fates from Hercules are a composite of the Fates from Classical Mythology (the youngest Fate spins a thread representing a person's life, signifying his/her birth; the middle weaves said thread, therefore determining how long that person will live; and the oldest cuts the thread, therefore killing the person the thread represents) and the Gray sisters (they all share a single eye).
 * They also merged Hades with Hera, and Hera with Alcmene.
 * Also done in Treasure Planet; Squire Trelawney and Doctor Livesey of the original Treasure Island are combined into Doctor Delbert Doppler.
 * In The Black Cauldron the characters of The Horned King and Arawn are combined. In Lloyd Alexander's five-part book series, Arawn is the Big Bad and The Horned King is The Dragon. The movie keeps "The Horned King" as his name and general appearance, but has Arawn's role as "the Dark Lord".
 * In Tarzan Kerchak is a composite of Burroughs's Kerchak (leader of the Mangani during Tarzan's childhood) and Tublat (mate of Kala who is vaguely resentful of Tarzan, but not a villain). To confuse things further, The Legend of Tarzan introduced a character more like the book version of Kerchak (violent killer ape seeking revenge on Tarzan) ... and called him Tublat.
 * Ursula from The Little Mermaid is actually a composite of the Sea Witch from the original Hans Christian Andersen fairy tale
 * The 1990s Discworld animated series replaces the unnamed Mended Drum barman in Wyrd Sisters with Hibiscus Dunelm, the new proprietor in Soul Music. Soul Music also gives Adrian "Big Mad Drongo" Turnipseed all the lines belonging to the other two students at the High Energy Magic Building, Skazz and Tez the Terrible.
 * In the Direct to Video movie Superman: Doomsday, there's only one replacement Superman, who has elements of three of the replacements in the original The Death of Superman arc: he's a clone like Superboy, he has a zero-tolerance approach to crimefighting like the Eradicator, and he's like the Cyborg.
 * Legion of Super Heroes pays tribute to Superman's entire legacy of Phantom Zone criminals in the form of Drax, a young Kryptonian with a big 'Z' on his chest and an inexplicable British accent who was born in the Phantom Zone and even has design elements of the non-Kryptonian Zod from Superman Birthright.
 * Not to mention the spikes on him, which are reminiscent of Doomsday. The pale skin may be a shout out to Bizarro as well.
 * Robin from the Teen Titans is an amalgam of the first three characters who went by that name, although he is mainly implied to be Dick Grayson.
 * Tim Drake, the second Robin in the The New Adventures of Batman, has Jason's Todd's origin and some of the attendant attitude, but had Tim Drake's name and costume, and, judging by his future career as a communications engineer, his intelligence. Typical Robin wisecracking came from both.
 * In Wolverine and the X-Men, Marrow appears in the Bad Future, where she befriends Rover the Sentinel and takes on the role of Tom Skylark in the comic book Bad Future Here Comes Tomorrow, only without the Technopathy that explained how Tom had made friends with a Sentinel. Instead, she was given it by Polaris.
 * The show's version of Arclight is a male like the Age of Apocalypse characters, but sported the powers of the classic Marvel version who's a woman and wears a Spear Counterpart version of her costume.
 * In the original Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles Mirage comic book, Splinter was the pet rat of ninja master Hamato Yoshi, who gained anthropomorphic qualities after exposure to the mutagen. In the 1987 animated series, Splinter was Hamato Yoshi himself, who gained rat-like qualities due to the mutagen.
 * Arguably, Ch'rell (Utrom Shredder) from the 2k3 animated series is an amalgam of the comic version of Oroku Saki and Krang from the previous animated series.
 * In Turtles Forever, one could argue that the movie Shredder was added to the mix (In his insanity to take revenge on the Turtles to the point of Murder Suicide).
 * In X-Men Evolution, Avalanche seems to be a combination of the comic book Avalanche (name, role with the Brotherhood) and Rictor of the New Mutants (appearance, the details of how his powers work, occasional consideration of a Heel Face Turn). The hotheadedness comes from both of them.
 * In The Spectacular Spider-Man, Montana of the Enforcers and the Shocker (originally Herman Schultz in the comics) are now a single character. His partner in the Enforcers, Fancy Dan, becomes Ricochet (a hero in the comics continuity). The Ox also gets a power suit, but stays the Ox. Their boss, Lonnie "Tombstone" Lincoln, also uses the alter-ego, Big Man (originally Frederick Foswell in the comics). Interestingly, Foswell was in the series, and once made a comment that sounds very ominous if you know that he's really the Big Man in the comics. However, nothing is made of it, possibly due to the series dying an early death by way of Screwed by the Lawyers.
 * And the Cat, Black Cat's Gentleman Thief father, is combined with
 * There's also Sable Manfredi. Her role as the loyal daughter of the elderly crimelord Silvio "Silvermane" Manfredi comes from Alisha Silver in Spider-Man: The Animated Series. Her name and appearance are clearly based on Nazi-hunter and occasional Spidey ally Silver Sable (Silver Sablinova).
 * And then there's Venom. Take the history of Eddie Brock from the Ultimate Spider-Man series, combine it with the appearance of Brock from the original series and the symbiote's original origin (though its entry to Earth was more based on Spider-Man: The Animated Series) from the comics. Mix together and get pure Badass. This may count as an Incredibly Lame Pun, seeing as Venom is already a composite character (Eddie Brock+ symbiote).
 * A minor example, the treacherous business partner who stole Adrian Toomes's inventions and drove him to become the Vulture got folded into Norman Osborn's character.
 * Young Justice has Artemis, who shares the name and backstory of her counterpart, but also has elements of Arrowette and Mia Dearden thrown in. Notably, the chest emblem on Artemis' costume comes from Mia's Speedy costume.
 * Match is also given elements from various Bizarros (backwards S, insanity due to the difficulty of copying kryptonian DNA) and Superboy-Prime (carving an S-symbol into his own chest, having black eyes, status as the "original" Superboy).
 * In Superman the Animated Series, Kyle Rayner is a combination of Kyle and Hal Jordan
 * The Flash is a combination of the second and third Flashes Wally West (name and personality) and Barry Allen (occupation and Base of Operations)
 * On The Superhero Squad Show, Scorpio (Nick Fury's brother in the comics) is
 * In Transformers Animated, Megatron is a combination of his original cartoon incarnation, his larger and more vicious live-action movie incarnation but with a little dash of his Beast Wars namesake added in.
 * Blackarachnia is a combination of her Beast Wars namesake and Elita One from Transformers Generation 1, with her design featuring elements of all of Blackarachnia's appearances in the Beast era.
 * The Japanese dub actually did this to everyone by making them all the same characters as the ones in the live action movies. Especially Bulkhead, who was actually even renamed "Ironhide".
 * However, that's a very informed trait that doesn't show up in the series itself. In fact, comedic elements were added to that particular character that make "Ironhide" even less like Movie Ironhide than Bulkhead was.
 * Inverted (or something; we're not quite sure what) with Skywarp and Cyclonus. In Transformers Generation 1, Cyclonus may or may not be an upgraded Skywarp (blame error-prone animation for a confusing Transformation Sequence.) The Animated version, however? Skywarp is one of several clones of Starscream, each with one trait of the original taken Up to Eleven. Skywarp represents his cowardice. As for Cyclonus, he's a brief cameo, but All There in the Manual tells us that his "internal chronometer" is way off, he is seeking someone named Galvatron (that's Megatron's upgraded form in G1 and several other series), and he has some circuitry in common with Starscream, particularly his (now disabled) self-preservation instinct. This hints without saying that Cyclonus is from the future and used to be Skywarp.
 * In The Batman, Dr Hugo Strange is initially introduced as the Morally-Ambiguous Doctorate director of Arkham Asylum, who views the insanity of Batman's villains (and Batman himself) as a fascinating riddle. While he soon becomes the Mad Scientist of the comics, the early appearances owe more to Dr Jeremiah Arkham.
 * In the final season, Firefly becomes this, when he came into contact with an isotope and gained the powers and (partly) the codename of minor Batman baddie Doctor Phosphorus.
 * Alan Burnett said the Flash was Barry Allen, but the character has a personality more in line with Wally West and Bart Allen.
 * Ethan Bennet/Clayface is a combination of Two-Face (friends with Bruce, anger issues) and Clayface (name, powers).
 * And funnily enough, the Clayface from Batman the Animated Series is also a composite, in this case of the original three men to bear the name in the comics. He's an actor (Basil Karlo) named Matt Hagen who gained shapeshifting powers (Matt Hagen) but consequentially became horribly disfigured (Preston Payne).
 * Similar to Venom, another Composite Character who's literally a composite is Firestorm in Batman the Brave And The Bold. The original Firestorm was an amalgam of slacker student Ronnie Raymond and physicist Martin Stein, then Raymond and Mikhail Arkadin, then Raymond on his own. After his death the new Firestorm was teenager Jason Rusch, who would combine with whomever happened to be nearby but would eventually combine with his friend Mick Wong, then Stein, then Firehawk, then his girlfriend Gehenna. The animated version was formed by a combination of gym teacher Ronnie Raymond and his student, a pre-teen Jason Rusch (now a science whizz-kid to provide Stein's atomic knowledge). As of Brightest Day, the Rusch/Raymond combo is in the comics as well.
 * The Music Meister is a composite of DC villains named The Fiddler and the Pied Piper who also used mind control through music. His appearance and name are very similar to a character featured in a Justice League episode named "Music Master" who himself was an Expy villain.
 * The TB&TB incarnation of Damian Wayne combines elements of three separate children of Bruce Wayne from different continuities - obviously he gets his name from Grant Morrisons Batman, but the story he appears in is more like The Golden Age of Comic Books "Imaginary Stories" with Bruce Wayne Jr. (complete with the Framing Story of Alfred writing fiction). And his mother isn't Talia, like comics Damian, or Kathy Kane, like Bruce Jr., but Catwoman like Helena Wayne of Earth-2, who became a vigilante in order to avenge the death of her mother, and continued on, taking her father's place after his subsequent death.
 * The Weeper in "Joker: The Vile and the Villainous" is based on a Golden Age character who was a foe of Bulletman, but the story itself is based on a team-up between Joker and a character called Willy the Weeper. The composite character has the original Weeper's real name and appearance (and is shown fighting Bulletman in flashback), but like Willy is an Ineffectual Sympathetic Villain who cries genuine tears for his victims.
 * Krull the Eternal is mostly Vandal Savage, but his name and appearance come from Captain Marvel's caveman enemy, King Kull.
 * Dilbert revived LOUD HOWARD, a character who'd proved quite popular with readers of the strip but who the author thought was too Flat Character to make much use of. To make him more interesting, the show merged him with Nervous Ted and had him shout constantly about trivial worries.
 * Greedy Smurf from The Smurfs is a composite of both Baker/Cook Smurf and the original comic book version of Greedy.
 * Rasputin as he appears in Anastasia is actually a mix between the historical character, and a character from russian folklore Koschei the Deathless.
 * In Transformers Prime, Airachnid at first appears to be an Expy of Blackarachnia. However, personality-wise, she appears to be more a combination of Lockdown and Tarantulus, with just a little bit of the Predator thrown in.
 * Arcee looks and acts more like Chromia than her G1 counterpart, who was pink, Team Mom and The Chick rather than being blue, an Action Girl and Lady of War.
 * A few of the My Little Pony Friendship Is Magic ponies are Composite Characters with other ponies, due to loss of trademark on the G1 ponies that were meant to be used. Surprise became Pinkie Pie, Firefly got turned into Rainbow Dash, Glory became Rarity, Twilight became Twilight Twinkle (though her name was changed to "Twilight Sparkle"), and Posey became Fluttershy.
 * The Big Bad Wolf in Shrek is apparently a composite of the wolves from Three Little Pigs and Little Red Riding Hood.
 * The Flash in Justice League and Justice League Unlimited was the Wally West incarnation, but also had elements of his predecessor Barry Allen (such as being a police scientist rather than a mechanic). His foe Mirror Master was the Sam Scudder version but possessed the amped up, supernatural abilities of his successor.
 * In Avengers Earths Mightiest Heroes, Black Widow is a costumed SHIELD agent who apparently defects to HYDRA, but is really a triple agent reporting directly to Nick Fury. Then he disappears, so she can no longer prove this. That's basically Spider-Woman's story in New Avengers (although this does not necessarily mean the Widow is really the Skrull Queen).
 * Baron Zemo is another one, mixing first Zemo (fought wih Cap during World War II and leads Masters Of Evil) with his son, second Zemo (costume and personality).
 * Viper combines her comics namesake with.
 * There is also Hulk, who takes from different versions of himself at different pieroids of time, mixing his original personality, well-known Savage Hulk and recent Green Scar Hulk.
 * In the original G.I. Joe animated series, the General Flagg that appears in the original "MASS Device" mini-series has the same name and role as the General Flagg from the comics, but his character design resembles that of General Austin, General Flagg's adviser from the comics.
 * In Iron Man: Armored Adventures, the Blizzard has the real name of Donny Gill, the better-known Blizzard II in the comics. But his backstory as an embittered ex-Stark scientist who created the cryosuit comes from Gergor Shapanka, the original Blizzard.
 * When Nickelodeon re-introduced America to Winx Club in 2011, they crammed the first two seasons into four, one-hour specials. The season two special, "The Shadow Phoenix," merged Lord Darkar with by making the latter a disguise. In the original full season,  The change caused a Plot Hole in the third season, since.
 * In WITCH comics Nerissa's Dragon Shagon and bestial Kor were random man and his dog turned into her servants. In the cartoon this fate is given to Will's boyfriend Matt and his pet rat.
 * Batman: Mask of the Phantasm was adapted from the Batman: Year Two storyline. In the comic, the Reaper was Judson Caspian, whose daughter Rachael was in a budding relationship with Bruce Wayne. In the movie, was both the Phantasm and the love interest.