Composite Character: Difference between revisions

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{{trope}}
[[File:Worldsfinest283_692Worldsfinest283 692.jpg|frame|Most of them aren't this [[Literal-Minded|literal]].]]
 
 
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* 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--fromexample—from ''Ultimate Human'', a mini-series focusing on [[Iron Man]] and [[Incredible Hulk|the Hulk]], the Ultimate version of Hulk baddie, the Leader. The Ultimate incarnation the Leader combined elements of the Classic Leader with [[Excalibur (Comic Book)|Peter Wisdom]]. The latter should not be surprising, considering [[Warren Ellis|the creator of the original Wisdom wrote it.]]
* Yet another Ultimate Spider-Man example--theexample—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 [[Spider-Woman|the 616 Jessica]] and Ben Reilly/The Scarlet Spider.
* In ''[[Daredevil]] Noir'', Elektra and Bullseye are combined as Eliza, the Bull's Eye Killer.
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* In the first ''[[Spider-Man (film)|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 -- boththis—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 [[Cloudcuckoolander|guy with an umbrella]]).
* A boy named Nigel from the later film adaptations of the ''[[Harry Potter (film)|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.
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* ''[[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 ''[[Tintin (film)|The Adventures of Tintin]]'', this happens to several characters from the [[Tintin|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 [[The Dragon|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 Wizard of Oz (film)|the MGM film]] and a [[Gender Flip|Gender Flipped]]ped Queen of the Field Mice).
* Both film versions of [[The Millennium Trilogy|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 Serial|Film Serials]]s became the singular Lightning Bug. To explain his radically changing appearance, The Lightning Bug was explained as a [[Master of Disguise]].
* In ''[[Dark Shadows (film)|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.
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== 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--Cromwelltitles—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.
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*** Tyzonn, the Mercury Ranger, mixes in [[Sixth Ranger|Bouken Silver]] ([[It's Personal]] against the Ashu/Fear Cats), one-shot guest star Ragi (human transformed into [[Lego Genetics|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 [[Make My Monster Grow|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 [[McGuffin|Precious]], but has the traits of [[Original Generation|Aka RED (film)]], since they're both borderline-[[Physical God|Physical Gods]]s who are important players in the [[Milestone Celebration]] crossover.
** Inverted again in [[Power Rangers Jungle Fury|Jungle Fury]]: Long, the ultimate [[Big Bad]] of [[Juken Sentai Gekiranger|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.
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** Which itself is the reversal of a straight example: in ''[[Old Possum's Book of Practical Cats|Old Possums Book of Practical Cats]]'' there's no connection between Gus and Growltiger.
* In the Opera of ''[[All the King's Men|All the Kings Men]]'', entitled Willie Stark, Stark's aide Jack Burden supplants his love interest Anne's brother, Adam, in ultimately {{spoiler|killing Stark.}}
* In Frank Wildhorn's musical of ''[[The Scarlet Pimpernel (theatre)|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 ,<ref>Who also inherits the novel's Ffoulkes position as [[The Lancer]]</ref>, 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.
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** 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 -- thoughhis—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.
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* Robin from the ''[[Teen Titans (animation)|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 ''[[DCAU|The New Adventures of Batman]]'', has Jason's Todd's origin and some of the attendant attitude ({{spoiler|plus his luck with the Joker}}), 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 [[Technopath|Technopathy]]y 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 [[Distaff Counterpart|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 [[Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles 1987|the 1987 animated series]], Splinter was Hamato Yoshi himself, who gained rat-like qualities due to the mutagen.
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** 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|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|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 Morrison's Batman|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.
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