Captain Ersatz

Captain Ersatz

English

Foxy, a Captain Ersatz of Mickey Mouse.

Etymology

Coined by TV Tropes in 2007, from German Ersatz (“replacement”).

Noun

Captain Ersatz (plural Captain Ersatzes)

1. (fandom slang) A fictional character created as a knock-off of another character whose copyright is owned by a separate entity.
   • 2010 February 7, plausible prose man, “Doctor Doom - should he be retconned like Ultimate Nick Fury?”, in rec.arts.comics.dc.universe, Usenet‎, retrieved 2022-08-15:

     > And Astro City isn't mainly about the superhero powers and fights,
     
     No, it's mainly about the Captain Ersatz's and Kurt pretending to be a real novelist. Except, you know, his main characters are all superheroes and supervillains, so however much he apes Raymond Chandler his resolutions usually involve someone punching someone else in the face or smashing their hero-defeater machine.

   • 2014 September 23, Sea Wasp (Ryk E. Spoor), “Just For Fun: My Top Ten Villains”, in rec.arts.sf.written, Usenet‎, retrieved 2022-08-15:

     > Thanos?
     
     He and his opposite-brand Captain Ersatz Darkseid (actually, I think it's the other way around -- Darkseid first) certainly both get to play in the "Omnicidal Maniac" area, but they didn't quite grab me as much as some of the others I listed.

   • 2017 January 3, jeffpiatt, Twitter‎, archived from the original on 2022-08-15:

     he admits that as most of his creations are captain ersatz versions of rejected pitches to other companies.

   • 2020 August 31, TheOtherMaven, “If DC and marvel could swap two characters to be in each others universe permanently which two would you swap?”, in Reddit‎, DCcomics, archived from the original on 2022-08-15:

     DC to Marvel: Captain Marvel. He's redundant at DC, and none of Marvel's Captain Ersatzes have been half as good. And, he could finally use his proper name.

   • 2022 March 21, DrGeraldRavenpie, “What's a system with over-the-top collateral damage?”, in Reddit‎, rpg, archived from the original on 2022-08-15:

     Adaptability...I made a 'WIR' of that game in rpg.net, and one thing I did was making two Captain Ersatzes of Toph Bei Fong and Rick Sanchez. So yeah, there's adaptability.

Related terms

• expy