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Anti-Hero Substitute: Difference between revisions
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[[File:azrael-b.jpg|link=Batman|thumb|350px|[[Knightfall|I'm the goddamn Batman! Admit it or I'll kill you in the name of God!]] ]]
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]].
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 Of course, however contemptuously the [[Anti-Hero]] dubs him "[[Good Is Old-Fashioned|outdated]]", the original hero wins and [[Status Quo Is God|takes the story back to the point right before the new guy took over]].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]].
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** 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-Hero]] than his predecessor, but new Batman Dick Grayson has made it his goal to craft him into a true superhero and not an [[Anti-Hero]].
** 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 ''[[Batman Beyond]]'' has most of the heroic qualities of the original, the series premise of a hot-headed [[Snark Knight]] and former juvenile delinquent stepping into Bruce's place after the latter's retirement is very much in line with this trope.
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* In an inverse of this trope, [[Green Lantern]] Hal Jordan inexplicably [[Face Heel Turn|turned evil]] during the ''Emerald Twilight'' arc and the role of "original hero" as described by the intro was played by his replacement Kyle Rayner.
** 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-Hero]] version of himself. When Rogers regained the mantle, Walker continued operating as the U.S. Agent.
** 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>, the main conflict for Bucky was whether or not he could do right by Steve Rogers as Captain America. As such, Bucky would act as best of a hero as he possibly could during that amount of time as Cap.
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** {{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 (manga)|Astro Boy]]'' of all people in a one-shot gag manga [[Osamu Tezuka]] did as a nostalgia piece for Bungei Shunju, a popular men's magazine of the day. After Astro's apparent death in the final episode of the first TV series the ministry of science was ordered to create a replacement, but since they tried to make him [[Humans Are Bastards|more humanlike than the original he turned out to be a selfish, greedy, shiftless sex maniac]].
* ''[[Umineko no Naku Koro ni]]'' has a {{spoiler|Villainous example. Beatrice gave her title to Eva's hidden personality. When Eva-Beatrice was acting like a [[Complete Monster]] all-time, Beato get a few [[Pet the Dog]] moments, and got to make a [[Heroic Sacrifice]], after realizing her mistakes. Then it's revealed it was all a clever [[Batman Gambit]] she put in order to make Battler admit she's a witch.}}
** 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...}}
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