Rogues Gallery Showcase

Everything About Fiction You Never Wanted to Know.

This trope deals with stories from an Action Adventure Series that feature several members of the franchise's Rogues Gallery. These tales don't necessarily fall under Villain Team-Up or Legion of Doom, although there's considerable overlap; they just involve stories in which a lot of villains appear, whether they're working together or not. Writers sometimes refer to these stories as "gang bangs", a name best avoided because of the Unfortunate Implications.

Video game adaptations of comic book properties tend to indulge in this to take advantage of the source material's rich Rogues Gallery.

See also Run the Gauntlet.

Examples of Rogues Gallery Showcase include:


Comic Books

  • The Batman comics have done several stories that fit this trope:
    • Hush
    • The Long Halloween
    • Knightfall not only introduced the world to Bane, but also hit us with The Mad Hatter, The Ventriloquist, Zsasz, The Joker, Firefly, Poison Ivy, and The Scarecrow, to name just a few. To get a bit more... exhaustive, the KGBeast, Maxie Zeus, Amygdala, the Trigger Twins, Abbatoir, Cornelius Stirk, the Riddler, Killer Croc... Essentially, what you're looking at is nearly all of Batman's major villains, a fair number of the more minor ones, and a bunch of new ones!
    • Where Were You on the Night Batman was Killed? where several members of Batman's rogues gallery (Catwoman, the Riddler, The Joker and, inexplicably, Lex Luthor) claim to have murdered Batman and place themselves on 'trial' before a jury of their peers (The Mad Hatter, Poison Ivy, the Scarecrow, Mr Freeze, the Spook, and Signalman) with Two-Face as the prosecutor and Ra's al Ghul as the judge. Most of the rest of the rogues gallery shows up to watch.
  • Similar to the "Almost Got 'im" example below, there is a Tangled Web story where a bunch of villains are talking about how each of them almost got Spider-Man. Then one of them throws off his hat, reveals his hairdo and says "I threw his girlfriend off a bridge!"...
    • A more recent Amazing Spider-Man issue featured a whole bunch of Spideys foes, old and new, hired by Doctor Octopus to kidnap Menace's child.
  • The Flash storyline "Rogue War" featured a Legion of Doom plot with two groups of Flash's Rogues coming together to fight each other, but also involved numerous other, unaligned Flash villains either taking advantage of the chaos or fighting both sides.


Live Action TV


Video Games

  • Spider-Man on the PS 1/N64/PC featured at least six of Spidey's most famous villains teaming up together (and at least two more pursuing their own agendas).
  • Batman: Arkham Asylum features The Joker, Harley Quinn, Bane, Victor Zsasz, The Scarecrow, Killer Croc, The Riddler and Poison Ivy, as well as references to everyone else. None of them really team up (other than Joker/Harley as usual) but many either manipulate or take advantage of the other villains plans.
  • Similarly, Batman: Arkham City, the sequel of the previous example, features The Joker, Harley, Two-Face, Hugo Strange, Ra's Al Ghul, Tania Al Ghul, Catwoman, Bane, The Pinguin, The Riddler, Hush, The Mad Hatter, Azrael, Zsasz, Mr Freeze, Calendar Man, Deadshot, Poison Ivy, Killer Croc, Clayface. No team-up either: some try to take over the city, some try to take on Batman, some make only short appearances. And most of the others are at least referenced, either via mook dialogues (like Scarecrow) or trophies (like Scarface). These two games are truly gifts for the Rogue-loving fans of Batman.
  • Played for laughs in the beginning of Crash Twinsanity, wherein Cortex reveals that he had organized some sort of bizzaro birthday party, consisting of many boss characters from previous games (complete with a confused Crunch Bandicoot and a vengeful Polar the polar bear).
  • Captain America and The Avengers features Klaw, the Living Laser, the Whirlwind, the Wizard, the Grim Reaper, the Mandarin, the Juggernaut, Ultron and Crossbones, all being controlled by the Red Skull.


Western Animation

  • Batman the Animated Series:
    • "Almost Got 'im". "The Joker, Killer Croc, Penguin, Two-Face and Poison Ivy all meet at a poker table, each telling a tale of times when they almost defeated Batman. At the same time, Harley Quinn is about to kill Catwoman. Will Batman be able to save her?" (Synopsis from The Other Wiki)
    • "Trial": Batman and Gotham City's new District Attorney are tried by a Kangaroo Court consisting of The Joker (who functions as the judge), Harley Quinn, Two-Face, Scarecrow, Ventriloquist, Poison Ivy, the Mad Hatter and a bunch of Mook extras.
  • Adventures of the Galaxy Rangers: In the episode "Birds of a Feather", several of the series' recurring villains are all after the same MacGuffin.
  • Swat Kats:
  • In the episode "Katastrophe", Dark Kat, Dr. Viper and The Metallikats join forces to "Destroy the SWAT Kats!" (Cue Evil Laughs all around).
    • In the episode "A Bright and Shiny Future", The Pastmaster teams up with The Metallikats to... well, you know the drill.
  • The Teen Titans episode "Revved Up" had most of the show's minor villains competing in a Wacky Races/Cannonball Run/It's A Mad, Mad, Mad, Mad World style race to see who got Robin's most prized possession.
  • Freakazoid! includes this in "Relax-o-Vision". Because all the fight scenes have been replaced with "relaxing" images so as not to frighten the kiddies, we see little to nothing of the actual fighting.
  • Batman the Brave And The Bold: "Death Race to Oblivion!"
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