Anti-Hero Substitute: Difference between revisions
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{{trope}}
[[File:azrael-b.jpg|link=Batman
Over the course of a long-running series, something happens to the main character. He [[De
The moment when the creators realize this and decide to push the big [[Reset Button]] is beginning of the hero's return: [[He's Back|first hero is back]], and often has a fight with the
▲Over the course of a long-running series, something happens to the main character. He [[De Power|loses his powers]], makes a [[Heroic Sacrifice]], or gets [[Older and Wiser]] and decides to retire. Sometimes they [[Dropped a Bridge On Him]], or [[Put On a Bus|Put Him On A Bus]]. In a word, he's gone. But the story still goes on! [[Legacy Character|His role is taken by a]] [[Suspiciously Similar Substitute]], but one with a very different character. He's how the original hero would be if he were a [[Jerkass]], [[Anti Hero]] or (most commonly) [[Nineties Anti Hero]]. This guy is often an effect of [[Executive Meddling]], which arises when editors stupidly declare that audience stopped liking the first hero or never liked him at all; so he will be replaced with someone [[Darker and Edgier]]. Of course, most of time they are wrong: the original guy has so many fans that his replacement quickly becomes a [[Replacement Scrappy]].
This happened a '''lot''' during the [[Dark Age]] of Comics ([[The Nineties]]). Back then, it was common to expect readers to like the character, but writers have gotten smarter since then. Now, the [[Darker and Edgier]] version of the hero is commonly portrayed as a villain or a psychopath, as the [[Nineties Anti
▲The moment when the creators realize this and decide to push the big [[Reset Button]] is beginning of the hero's return: [[He's Back|first hero is back]], and often has a fight with the [[Anti Hero Substitute]] for his position. Of course, however contemptuously the [[Anti Hero]] dubs him "[[Good Is Old Fashioned|outdated]]", the original hero wins and [[Status Quo Is God|takes the story back to the point right before the new guy took over]]. The [[Anti Hero Substitute]] becomes forgotten as fast as possible, and the [[Story Arc]] featuring him becomes a [[Dork Age]]. Alternatively, the [[Anti Hero Substitute]] gets a name change and, now that he's not replacing a much loved character, may be [[Rescued From the Scrappy Heap]].
▲This happened a '''lot''' during the [[Dark Age]] of Comics ([[The Nineties]]). Back then, it was common to expect readers to like the character, but writers have gotten smarter since then. Now, the [[Darker and Edgier]] version of the hero is commonly portrayed as a villain or a psychopath, as the [[Nineties Anti Hero]] archetype has grown less popular over time.
See also: [[Counterpart Comparison]], which often happens to this character. Subtrope of [[Suspiciously Similar Substitute]]. May overlap with [[Costume Copycat]]. Could be an [[El Cid Ploy]] gone bad. Contrast with the [[Redeeming Replacement]].
{{examples|Examples:}}▼
* This happens to [[Batman]] a lot:
** During the ''[[Knightfall]]'' story arc, Batman was temporarily paralyzed by Bane and gave his cowl to Azrael, who quickly became a [[Knight Templar]]. This forced Batman to undergo [[Training
** Cheerful and lovable circus brat Dick Grayson was replaced by cheerful and lovable circus brat Jason Todd in the early 80s. Then, post-Crisis, in a rare case of a character being replaced by an [[Anti
** During the aforementioned ''Battle for the Cowl'', Two-Face also attempted to become the next Batman and Hush impersonated Bruce Wayne with the help of [[Magic Plastic Surgery]].
** During the ''Batman and Son'' storyline, fake Batmen began showing up in Gotham City and committing crimes, and Bruce was forced to fight them. The eventual source of these was revealed to be psychological experiments conducted by the Gotham Police Department to create replacement Batmen should anything ever happen to the real one. This didn't turn out so well.
** Current Robin Damian Wayne is more of an [[Anti
** Cassandra Cain as [[Batgirl]] has both the outfit and the angsty backstory, but it's subverted in that she's also very much [[The Cape (trope)]].
** During the "Titans Tomorrow" arc, a potential future version of Tim Drake becomes a gun-wielding Batman.
** And, of course, while Terry McGinnis of ''[[
*** Amusingly, McGinnis was created by [[Spinoff Babies|the opposite kind]] of [[Executive Meddling]], as WB executives wanted a "[[High School AU|Batman in high school!]]" show to connect with the kids. The writers took one look at the concept and decided that obeying it would do bad things to their ''[[Batman:
* [[Superman]] was killed, and replaced by four guys: [[Badass Normal|Man]] [[Powered Armor|of Steel]], [[Cloning Blues|Superboy]], [[Cybernetics Eat Your Soul|Cyborg]] [[Evil Counterpart|Superman]], and [[Nineties Anti
** And [[Steel]] was a complete ''inversion'' of this; if anything, he was [[Up to Eleven|even more heroic than the original]]. Also, unlike the other three, Steel admitted from the start he wasn't really Superman, but that he was trying to represent the spirit of what Superman stood for.
** While neither passed themselves off as Superman, both [[Kingdom Come|Magog]] and [[Justice League of America|Proteus]] tried to usurp his position as the DCU's foremost superhero by being more ruthless, aggressive and proactive. Both were deliberately set up to fail; Magog went too far and Proteus was evil from the start.
** Also, in the ''[[Justice League]]'' mini-arc 'Hereafter', after Superman vanishes from the face of the planet after Toyman manages to pull of a successful attack on him, '''''[[Lobo]]''''', of all people, tries to step in as his replacement.
* [[Wonder Woman]] was forced to give up her name and costume because her mother had a vision of her death. Her place was taken by Artemis, but in the end it was she who was killed, not Diana.
* Played straight in current [[Spider
* [[Incredible Hulk
** Earlier on in the 80s this trope popped up, with the normal destructive but rarely malicious green Hulk being replaced by an amoral jerkass grey Hulk named Joe Fixit. Green Hulk is an anti-hero to begin with but the trope still stands as Joe Fixit is several notches down the scale. The twist is Joe Fixit is just another of Bruce Banner's repressed personalities.
* In an inverse of this trope, [[
** Played straight, however, was Guy Gardner replacing Hal Jordan in 1985. (To clarify: Guy Gardner is not some crazy killing machine or anything (unless you count the Warrior storylines where he's a living weapon); he just has more of a fly-off-half-cocked, kick-butt-take-names, punch-first-ask-questions-later personality than Hal.) He's the gym teacher everyone despised in high school.
* In [[The Eighties]], Steve Rogers, the original [[Captain America (comics)]], was replaced by John Walker, a [[Nineties Anti
** Like ''Knightfall'' this was apparently a deliberate in your face. And the same thing pretty much is going on now with [[Bucky Barnes]] as Captain America. That said, Steve went on record in ''Heroic Age: Superheroes'' that there's not a man out there more fit to wear those colors than James Buchanan Barnes.
*** It should be noted that during Bucky's tenure as Cap, that while he did use his gun and his costume did invoke a [[Darker and Edgier]] angle,<ref>the costume had far more black than the red, white, and blue.</ref>
* In a [[Video Game]] example, the introduction of K' in ''[[
* [[The Mighty Thor]] was replaced by Thunderstrike in [[The Nineties]], who was quite literally just another version of the original.
** This was a bit of a subversion, as Thor was much more willing to kill a dangerous foe than Thunderstrike was. Thunderstrike did, however, look the part. (He came across as a dork when he tried to sound like an anti-hero). Not only that, but Thunderstrike had previously ''been'' Thor himself.
* Most of [[Norman Osborn]]'s Dark Avengers are villains that had their costumes redesigned to look like familiar heroes. He's gone a bit overboard on this front, creating the Dark (now Shadow) X-Men, making the HAMMER organization to replace SHIELD, and forming The Cabal, essentially a copy of the already morally ambiguous Illuminati, as well as his own Initiative with [[The Hood]] and his gang. Osborn is trying to reshape whole Marvel Universe at his image.
** Comparably, Venom could count as a rare villain-to-villain example of this. Eddie Brock, the original Venom was certainly a homicidal maniac, but he eventually was tailored into a [[Nineties Anti
* Happened, of all people, to [[The Authority]] once, when they were defeated by G8's agent and replaced with bunch of [[Nineties Anti
** {{spoiler|Of course, the second the real Authority comes back, they start their revenge by killing in cold blood the}} {{spoiler|''only''}} {{spoiler|redeemable character among the new team: Rush, the Canadian replacement for Swift, who didn't kill anybody they wouldn't have and hated all her teammates. They catch hell for this later.}}
* Happened to ''[[Astro Boy (
* ''[[Umineko no Naku Koro
** EP 5 replaces {{spoiler|Battler himself}} for {{spoiler|Furudo Erika}}. It's played with irony considering the second is more or less an aspect of the [[Big Bad]] and Battler is not incapacitated and actively fighting the against change.
** Considering the replacement's personality? Definitely, at least, invoked. {{spoiler|And now she's dead. In fact, she may have never been alive...}}
* Keppler, the [[Temporary Substitute]] for ''[[
* In [https://web.archive.org/web/20190216202011/http://www.johnnysaturn.com/ Johnny Saturn], the Johnny Saturn I (John Underhall) retires, and he is soon replaced by Johnny Saturn II (Greg Buchanan). Many of the characters in [https://web.archive.org/web/20190216202011/http://www.johnnysaturn.com/ Johnny Saturn] are ''legacy'' characters.
* After Horatio Hellpop gave up the mantle of [[Nexus (fanfic)|Nexus]] it was taken by Stan Korivitsky. Sadly, the mission of killing worst murderers was too much for him, and he quickly snapped and turned worse than those he was supposed to kill. That forced Horatio to take back Nexus powers and kill him.
* [[Ghost Rider]] has an odd example. He is already an [[Anti
** And now Johnny got tricked into passing his power onto new host. [[Word of God]] already confirmed that it's gonna bite him in the butt once he'll realize that new Ghost Rider may have few loose screws and he had just created another
** Also, considering he's a [[Legacy Character]], it makes sense that he is replaced with a new host every now and then.
* Intentionally done again in the '90s, when the [[Fantastic Four]] were [[Comic Book Death|presumed dead]], and [[Spider
* Happened to [[The Flash]] with [[Fan Nickname|Dark Flash]] a mysterious characted that turned out to be an alternate universe version of Wally that didn't allow himself to cross the speed threshhold necessary to save Linda Park in a previous story. He wore a darker outfit and was a little more brutal.
* The [[The Adjectival Superhero|Irredeemable]] Ant-Man, Eric O'Grady, is this to the other [[Ant
* [[Iron Man]] did this to himself, in a way. When his suit was damaged, he built the [[War Machine (Comic Book)|War Machine]] armor. Not only did it have the appropriate [[Darker and Edgier]] name but it was loaded with BFG's and was colored [[Good Guys Wear Black|black and gray]]. Stark wore the armor in a few issues, invoking this trope even though it was the same guy in the armor. After that arc, he gave it to Jim Rhodes who is actually a bit nicer than Stark who can be a [[Jerkass]] from time-to-time.
** It should also be noted that Rhodes replaced Tony as Iron Man for a couple of years due to Stark's alcoholism so in a way, it was the inversion of this trope.
* Inverted for [[Spider
* When one [[Buffy the Vampire Slayer|Slayer]] dies another girl is called forward to take her place. Well Buffy did die and despite being revived is replaced by Kendra, a [[Knight Templar]] whose sole focus is on hunting and killing vampires regardless of who they are. When she died she was replaced by Faith, very much an [[Anti
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[[Category:Legacy Tropes]]
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