10 Comic Book Cliches That Need To Die

7. Copycat Character

Scarlet Spider Good characters are a hard thing to come by. They can only have so many origin stories, powers, motivation, and personalities. But the same kind of character keeps coming up, the copycat. What happens when a character is successful and creative teams want to do something new? The take something popular and make it slightly different, while still keeping it recognizable. The problem with these characters is that they are almost never as interesting the original, and they just keep coming. The most entertaining copycat comes with the gender switch. While some characters have survived over time, these are usually not characters that are interesting or last for any length of time. Was there anybody really clamoring for a female Deadpool? Or a She-Hulk? Or a Red She-Hulk? Having a few of these characters would be fine, but an astounding number of them have been made over the years. Then there's the twin, the clone, the alternate dimension, the unknown child, the mirror villain, the list goes on. The same characters have been copied so many times, it's impossible to keep track of all of them.
 
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