Villain Team-Up: Difference between revisions

[[File:burgess meredith frank gorshin lee meriwether cesar romero batman the movie 001.jpg|link=Batman: The Movie|frame|They all met while [[Villains Out Shopping|shopping for masks.]]]]

 

 

If a [[Superhero]] has a [[Rogues Gallery]], it's an obvious plot for the villains to team up. A '''Villain Team-Up''' is almost always for the sole purpose of ganging up on a hero or hero team and finishing them off ''once[[Dramatic Pause|...]] and for all!!!'' Villains will almost never team up to rob a bank together, or commit any other crime together. Which makes sense, because the typical [[Rogues Gallery]] has villains with nothing in common at all, other than hating the hero.

 

Compare [[Evil Is One Big Happy Family]] and [[Legion of Doom]].

{{examples}}

* [[Spell My Name with an "S"|Malik/Marik]] and Yami Bakura from ''[[Yu-Gi-Oh!]]!'' Battle city arc.

* In the episode of ''[[Inuyasha]]'' entitled 'Naraku and Sesshomaru Join Forces'...Take a wild guess.

* Final arc of ''[[Tiger and Bunny]]'' saw a Villain Team-Up of [[Big Bad]] {{spoiler|Maverick}} and villain from one of the earlier episodes, {{spoiler|Doctor Rotwang}}. They got along very well, despite that one of them was [[Fantastic Racism|NEXT-hater]] and the other was secretely a NEXT himself {{spoiler|until they were at the verge of [[Disney Villain Death]], with Rotwang begging Maverick to save him, only for him to reveal he is a NEXT and kick him in the face}}.

 

* Two of DC's big [[Crisis Crossover]]s, ''[[Infinite Crisis]]'' and ''[[Final Crisis]]'' had ''one'' of the threats being the team up of almost every single villain in the DCU (or the Earth-bound ones, anyway).

** The original ''[[Crisis on Infinite Earths]]'' had this as well—Brainiac and Luthor took advantage of the chaos caused by the Anti-Monitor to gather an army of EVERY known super-villain on the remaining Earths—and unleashed it on the worlds left unprotected when the heroes went off to battle the Big Bad. They also cut down on unnecessary duplicates (Earth-2 Luthor, anyone?).

* A 1960s [[Incredible Hulk|Hulk]] comic had the Mandarin team up with the Sandman. It ended with Mandarin sending Sandman into a molten vat turning him to glass.

* Paste-Pot Pete broke another Human Torch foe the Wizard out of jail, however they conflicted due to the Wizard trying to act as leader while Pete wanted them to be equal. They were captured by the Torch, but didn't seem sorry at the team-up ending.

* Several of the [[Marvel Universe]]'s [[Big Bad]]s all teamed up in the 1980s ''Acts of Vengeance'' [[Crossover]] in a large-scale [[Evil Plan]] to destroy each others' enemies by setting the heroes up against villains they'd never faced before. In effect, this was a Villain Team Up of almost '''all''' the human villains of the Marvel Universe, with a team of [[Chessmaster]]s manipulating dozens of lesser bad guys for their own personal agenda. The whole scheme falls apart for the simple fact that all of the villains behind the plot are so egomaniacal that they can't stand not being totally in charge, and they end up turning on each other while struggling for power.

* It should be noted that villains can and do form their own teams for reasons beyond simply getting vengeance on a particular hero. The Masters of Evil, one of the [[Marvel Universe]]'s longest-running supervillain teams, has had various incarnations formed over the years by [[Big Bad]]s who recruit other villains to share in the profits of the leader's evil scheme. The Serpent Society, long a thorn in the side of [[Captain America (comics)]], was a collection of snake-themed villains who essentially formed their own mercenary business, complete with health care coverage, room and board, and a guaranteed [["Get Out of Jail Free" Card]] from the team leader, who would use his teleportation powers to free any members who were arrested or captured.

** ''[[The Batman]]'' also did a variation of this in the "Team Penguin" episode, when the Penguin recruits several second-tier Bat villains into a criminal gang as a way of evening the odds against Batman and his sidekicks. The idea is [[Lampshade Hanging|lampshaded]] at every opportunity, as none of the other villains like the name "Team Penguin" and keep suggesting alternatives, which Penguin shoots down. It's Penguin's vanity that causes the others to abandon the team. {{spoiler|At first.}}

* The ''[[Fantastic Four (Comic Book)|Fantastic Four]]'' had to fight Doctor Doom and the Sub-Mariner at once (in one of the earliest examples), and were saved when Doom betrayed the Sub-Mariner a bit too early, causing him to switch sides. Later, the heroes faced the Frightful Four; a revolving-door group of second-string supervillains that always seemed to betray each other.

** Another Spider-Man example is the Sinister Syndicate, a group of C-List Spidey villains. The difference between this team and the Sinister Six is that the Syndicate try to focus mainly on making money and would rather avoid having to fight Spider-Man.

** A similar thing happened to [[Spider-Girl]] in the [[Marvel Comics 2]] continuity. It was a [[Run the Gauntlet]] style, and Spider-Girl was both exhausted and (unknown to herself) depowered before the last fight...so she calls in a favor from pretty much every hero she's ever met. The last villain wisely surrenders.

** Technically, if it weren't for the fact that the main plot revolved around the villains stealing Scrooge's entire fortune for various reasons: The Beagle Boys because they want to be rich, Glomgold so that he would then be the richest man (er, duck) in the world instead of Scrooge, and Magica just wanted a single coin: The Number One Dime of the world's richest man; which she would then use in a spell to gain the [[Blessed with Suck|Midas Touch]]. Scrooge strikes a deal with Magica after he convinces her the coin will no longer work now that he is poor, and she teams up with the Beagle Boys to rob Glomgold instead.

** The European comics have a story arc setting up a new [[Big Bad]], who forced the Beagle Boys, Magica and Phantom Bolt to join him by brainwashing them. This actually led to his undoing as Minnie and Daisy convinced Magica to turn against him and Phantom Bolt was just pretenting to be brainwashed so he could [[Hijacked by Ganon|hijack the plot]] and the two atacked him in the middle of his confrontation with Donald and Mickey.

** Not only that, but they apparently worked together for years, and various instances when they fought each other were retconned to be set-up so nobody would suspect a thing.

* ''[[Irredeemable]]'' played with this with members of Plutonian's [[Rogues Gallery]] offering to join him in his new [[Face Heel Turn]]; {{spoiler|being [[Dangerously Genre Savvy]] he decided to test their loyalty, by offering each of them a button that, when pressed, would render him completely powerless. They betrayed him before he could even finish the sentence. He then revealed they just triggered the destruction of the facility they were in}}.

** This is apparently how various supervillains get to know Max Damage from ''Incorruptible'' - in his villainous days they would often team up. One flashback shows Max teaming up with another villain and then them both betraying each other because they just didn't like each other.

** [[Dark Avengers]] were in fact a team up of the more villainous members of the [[Thunderbolts]] with antiheroes [[Ares (Comic Book)|Ares]] and [[The Sentry]], young and misguided Marvel Boy (who quit the moment he found out what he gotten himself into) and [[Daken]]

** Cabal was this between [[Norman Osborn]], [[Loki]], [[The Hood]], [[Doctor Doom]], [[Sub-Mariner|Namor]] and Emma Frost and later Taskmaster, with a lot of betrayals and schemes in it.

* [[Doctor Strange]]'s enemies Dormammu and Umar are a brother/sister pair of [[Dimension Lord]]s. Usually they don't cooperate, which is good because it goes badly for him when they do. (Subverted in nearly all instances, since Umar is more clever than her brother and wants to see him fall more than she wants to defeat Strange.)

 

* ''[[Ultimate Sleepwalker|Ultimate Sleepwalker: The New Dreams]]'' plays this trope with an unusual spin. Instead of any of Sleepwalker's enemies teaming up, it's [[Spider-Man]]'s enemies that reunite as the Sinister Six to carry out Doctor Octopus's latest diabolical scheme. Sleepwalker and several other heroes are hastily recruited by the web-slinger into an impromptu team to even the odds.

* ''[[A Dark Knight Over Sin City]]'' has various [[Batman]] villains teaming up with [[Sin City]] villains.

* ''[[Fallout Equestria]]'': Red Eye and the Goddess, though both are plotting behind each other's back.

* [[Played With]] in the ''[[Calvin at Camp]]'' episode "A Stalkers Life"—multiple villains appear to attack the kids, yet they do nothing but trip each other up.

 

* In superhero movies this seems to be required for sequels. A single villain can occupy for the first movie, but once a sequel comes out you've got to throw more and more villains together. ''[[Batman Returns]]'': Penguin + Catwoman, ''[[Batman Forever]]'': Riddler + Two Face, ''[[Batman and Robin (film)|Batman and Robin]]'': Mr. Freeze + Poison Ivy (whether Bane is a villain or a henchman, you pick). ''[[Superman (film)|Superman]]'': Lex Luthor, ''[[Superman II]]'': Lex + 3 Kryptonians. ''[[Spider-Man (film)|Spider-Man]]'' avoided this for the first sequel, but made up for it by throwing in three villains (Sandman, Venom, New Goblin) for ''Spider-Man 3'', two of which team up (Sandman + Venom).

** The whole point of ''[[Batman Returns]]'' was to demonstrate that this trope doesn't work, and the fact that Catwoman and Penguin work with each other for all of five minutes seems to support it.

* [[Double Subverted]] in ''[[The Thief and the Cobbler]]''. When the evil grand vizier Zigzag goes to join the [[Big Bad]], the Mighty One-eye (who has an entire army of monstrous one-eyed men at his command), One-eye is unimpressed and has Zigzag thrown to his alligators. However, with his charisma Zigzag is able to convince the alligators to spare his life and help him out of the alligator pit. This impresses the Mighty One-eye enough to let him join him.

 

* In Lies, the third book of the ''[[Gone (novel)]]'' series, {{spoiler|Caine and Zil team up to burn down Perdido Beach, which acts as a distraction to let Caine escape to the island.}}

* In the [[Star Trek Novel Verse]], Villain Team-Up is essentially the idea behind the [[Star Trek: Typhon Pact]] series, only with a twist. It's uncertain if the Typhon Pact will be an enemy of the United Federation of Planets or not. Politically, everything is still highly uncertain, following the formation of the Pact in [[A Singular Destiny]] (a novel detailing the aftermath of [[Star Trek: Destiny]]). While the Pact members were historically antagonistic, their outlook appears to be changing. The extent to which they will remain "villains" is unclear. The Tholians, at least, look set to remain enemies, whether the rest of the Pact follows their lead or reins them in is anyone's guess.

* In ''The Warlord of Mars'', third book of the [[John Carter of Mars]] series, Matai Shang (a previously-offscreen but often mentioned [[The Chessmaster|chessmaster]]), Thurid (a minor villain from the previous book) and Salensus Oll (a newly-introduced [[Evil Overlord]]) pull off one of these, {{spoiler|which ends up falling apart messily, since all three hate each other's guts and have only temporarily-related goals}}. Rounding out the partnership is Matai Shang's daughter [[Daddy's Little Villain|Phaidor]], though she's genuinely loyal to her dad and is mostly along for the ride rather than a co-conspirator.

 

* In ''[[Smallville]]'', there have been a few villain team-ups. Firstly, in season 3, three of the meteor freaks Clark Kent had taken down teamed up to steal his powers and escape. There have also been team-ups between Brainiac and Bizarro, Lex and Toyman, and recently several Superman villains from the comics were teamed up by LuthorCorp to become Smallville's version of the Injustice Gang.

* ''[[Burn Notice]]'' had an episode with "Dead" Larry Sizemore and Tyler Brennen, two of Michael Westen's worst enemies, team up. Their partnership lasted just [[Incredibly Lame Pun|half the episode]], since Larry {{spoiler|never intended to work with Brennen long-term and simply stabs him in the chest, killing him.}}

* In ''[[Power Rangers in Space]]'', there was the United Alliance of Evil, a group formed by Dark Spectre and comprised of the villains from the first five seasons of Power Rangers, namely Lord Zedd, Rita Repulsa, the Machine Empire and Divatox.

 

* The Four Horsemen can be considered the [[Trope Codifier]] for professional wrestling. The heel group, known in wrestling as a "stable" or "faction," first formed with [[Ric Flair]], Ole Anderson, Arn Anderson and Tully Blanchard. Various incarnations lasted for 13 years; however, they have direct descendants running up to today's current wrestlers.

** The chain goes: [[New World Order]] (nWo), [[D Generation X]] (DX), Evolution (which had Flair as a member), Main Event Mafia, Fortune and Immortal (both of which had Flair as a member). Notable groups that are "nephews" of the Four Horsemen concept are the Dudley Boyz (formed in ECW as a stable of storyline brothers but later reduced to a tag team) and the Nexus (a group of rookies that took over WWE Raw for a time).

** [[Vince McMahon]] was the [[Big Bad|Higher Power]] controlling both groups the entire time as part of his [[Evil Plan]] to get the title off of [[Stone Cold Steve Austin]] though, so at the very least Vince, [[Shane McMahon|Shane]], and [[The Undertaker]] were in cahoots the entire time. The members of the Corporate Ministry still didn't get along very well though, especially Undertaker and [[Triple H]], and the group disbanded right after the Austin vs Vince feud ended.

** The Four Horsemen and the Dungeon of Doom created the Alliance to End Hulkamania to finally get rid of [[Boring Invincible Hero]] [[Hulk Hogan]]. It failed miserably.

* [[The Miz]] and [[Ron Killings|R-Truth]], two heels in separate stories at the time, somehow found common ground and teamed up in September 2011. They were disqualified from a tag team title match at WWE Night of Champions when Miz attacked a referee. The next night on Raw, then-WWE COO [[Triple H]], sick of their antics, "fired" them. In a reverse [[Nice Job Breaking It, Hero|Nice Job BreakingItVillain]], this set off a chain of events where most of the WWE roster turned against [[Triple H]], leading to Triple H's ouster as the on-screen authority figure. Miz and Truth returned to WWE TV in mid-October 2011.

 

* Not a straight example, since they teamed up to [[Take Over the World]](s) rather then to beat up the hero, but in ''[[Kingdom Hearts]]'', [[Sleeping Beauty (Disney film)|Maleficent]] teams up with [[Peter Pan (Disney film)|Captain Hook]], [[The Nightmare Before Christmas|Oogie Boogie]], [[Aladdin (Disney film)|Jafar]], [[The Little Mermaid|Ursula]], [[Hercules (1997 film)|Hades]], and, later on, [[My Friends and Zoidberg|Pete]]. One of the few villain alliances that actually managed to keep itself united without any form of internal struggles or betrayals entering the picture (the same can't be said about [[Chronic Backstabbing Disorder|Organization XIII]]).

* Being a [[Massive Multiplayer Crossover]] title, ''[[Dissidia Final Fantasy]]'' features one of these involving every main villain from the first ten games of the main series, and [[Final Fantasy XII|Gabranth]], in direct opposition to the heroes from their respective games, and [[Final Fantasy XI|Shantotto]].

* [[Sonic Generations]] has {{spoiler|Dr. Eggman team up with his past self, Dr. Robotnik. ("Nobody calls me that anymore.")}}

 

* The current story in ''[[The Inexplicable Adventures of Bob]]'' has [[Card-Carrying Villain|Fructose Riboflavin,]] the [[Space Pirates|Pirates of Ipecac,]] and [[Woobie, Destroyer of Worlds|Galatea]] all teaming up although the pirates are there against their will, and it's arguable that Galatea [[Unwitting Pawn|doesn't really understand what's going on.]]

* The Hat and Robo-Cube in ''[[Stickman and Cube]]'', although this is more of a [[Puppeteer Parasite|hostile takeover]] on The Hat's part.

* We see that the team of [[Big Bad|Xykon]] and [[The Dragon|Redcloak]] from ''[[Order of the Stick]]'' started off as this. The prequel shows that the two first met when Redcloak saw Xykon obliterate a garrison of paladins and, as Redcloak's brother says, "Let's suggest a team-up with him, [[Marvel Comics|Marvel style]]!"

** And now {{spoiler|General Tarquin}} joined forces with Nale and Linear Guild. Time will show how long will it last.

* In ''[[Sonichu]]'' a number of villains from the earlier issues (including Dr. Eggman and [[Pokémon|Giovanni]]) team up to take over CWCVille when Chris was away.

 

* In the Web Novel, ''[[The Impossible Man]]'', the villains team up to form The Amalgamated Union of Malicious Malcontents.

* In "Ayla and the Birthday Brawl" of the [[Whateley Universe]], Hekate's unseen master makes her team up with The Necromancer so she has a safe haven from a true Sidhe curse. The same unseen figured gets Don Sebastiano to give them intel, and The Necromancer gets his Children of the Night, the Felonious Four, and Obsession to help him.

 

* "The League of Villains" from ''[[The Adventures of Jimmy Neutron]]''.

** unlike other villain team ups however, these villains actually trusted each other (although didn't get along very well) The only reason Tee betrayed them was because they all belittled him, and Zix and Travoltron only left because Tee convinced them to do so. Other than that, the only reason they lost was because Jimmy outsmarted them all one at a time.

* ''[[Johnny Test]]'' has the "Johnny Stopping Evil Force 5," a team-up of Wacko, the Beekeeper, Brain Freezer, Mr. Mittens (and his butler Albert), and Zizrar the king of mole-people.

* ''[[Transformers Prime]]'' has had a couple of team ups involving [[Terrorists Without a Cause|MECH]]. First, in "Crisscross", they allied with [[Dark Action Girl|Airachnid]] in order to capture Arcee and Jack (Airachnid wanted revenge, MECH wanted the technology in Arcee's body). This ended when [[Big Damn Heroes|Agent Fowler showed up with reinforcements]], and the villains fled separately. Then, in the "Operation Bumblebee" two-parter, they formed an alliance with {{spoiler|[[Dangerous Deserter|a renegade]]}} Starscream, who offered his knowledge in exchange for a share of the energon they'd need for their own plans. This lasted until {{spoiler|Silas got sick of Starscream, stole his T-Cog, and then ditched him}}.

 

* Tends to happen quite a bit in the [[Disney Theme Parks]]' stage shows.

** ''[[The Disney Afternoon]] Live!'' stage show that ran at [[Disney Theme Parks|Disneyland]] in 1991 had [[Tale Spin|Don Karnage]] and [[Chip 'n Dale Rescue Rangers (animation)|Fat Cat]] teaming up to steal a top secret plane.

* In the reknowned ''[[Dwarf Fortress]]'' [[Let's Play]] '[[Boatmurdered]]', a rather hilarious one occurs, when a group of goblins decide to team up with the elephants who were already holding the fortress under seige:

{{quote|''"I think they're starting their own little town in there, elephants and goblins living together in peace and harmony, joined only by burning hatred for dwarves."''}}

 

* [[Your Mileage May Vary|Depending on your viewpoint]], the Axis Powers - Italy, Germany and Japan - would fall under this.

** Also, the alliances between the Axis and the Soviet Union and their Central Powers predecessors and the upstart Bolsheviks in [[World War I]].