Quirky Miniboss Squad

Tremble before our well-rehearsed, synchronized might!

Kevin: We've confirmed three key captains in Desperado. Their codenames are all wind-themed. ... Collectively they're referred to as the "Winds of Destruction."
Raiden: The... what? They all have action figures, too?

— Metal Gear Rising: Revengeance

An ensemble of Elite Mooks more developed than faceless mooks. Occasionally The Dragon or other major villain is part of The Team, and will be the official or unofficial leader. The competency of this group varies wildly.

This group is typified by an overarching design theme, but also an individual quirky personality to each which may seem oddly familiar. They might act funnier than The Dragon. They mainly provide a distraction to the heroes until the real plot kicks in. The Big Bad has little qualms with killing them off if they fail consistently, possibly because their jobs often entail a bare minimum of intelligence needed. Some groups are filled with backbiting and betrayal, with the occasional Minion Shipping. Occasionally, one or two of the bunch will have a change of heart, and do a Heel–Face Turn. That person is almost always a loner to the rest of the group anyway, especially if they become the Sixth Ranger.

If the heroes defeat their Dragon and their Big Bad, some or all of them may survive. They usually don't stick around in-show after that, but if they do, they may become the Terrible Trio or a bunch of Sixth Rangers. Assuming none have undergone the process beforehand, this is also a common point for the group to have a collective Heel–Face Turn, setting the stage for future days in the limelight.

Sometimes overlaps with Psycho Rangers, if the squad members are also each the Evil Counterpart of the main characters. See also Terrible Trio (incompetent Quirky Miniboss Squad, although they may be made a threat with Team Rocket Wins), Elite Four (generally more competent squad commonly seen in Japanese media), Goldfish Poop Gang (a sillier recurring enemy that doesn't pose much of a threat), Carnival of Killers, Standard Evil Organization Squad (a larger and more serious version) and Praetorian Guard (if the Big Bad happens to be some form of royalty or official authority and they're explicitly bodyguards, albeit quirky). Contrast Co-Dragons for a situation where multiple characters split the Dragon role, but don't necessarily work together the way a Quirky Miniboss Squad would and are usually treated more seriously.

Contrast The Family for the Whole Family.

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Example subpages

• Anime & Manga
• Video Games

Other examples:

Asian Animation

• Tobot Galaxy Detectives: Team Mayhem are a trio of goofy-but-villainous criminals who all wear yellow clothes and drive around piloting a giant robotic lizard. They usually introduce themselves in a rather flashy manner, announcing their names as they do.

Comic Books

• Batman: Despite supposedly being an elite squad of assassins from the League of Shadows the Seven Men of Death are incredibly quirky with weird ineffective primary weapons. In Red Robin Tim notes this, pointing out that Whip's whip and Maduvu's claw-like fingernails do not pose much of a threat against people with significant martial arts training and body armor. He also quickly decides Detonator is incredibly annoying and dangerous since the man uses hand grenades in close combat.
• Disney Ducks Comic Universe: The Beagle Boys in the Scrooge McDuck comics.
• Judge Dredd: The Angel Gang are a clan of murderous rednecks, each completely psychotic, yet also gimmicky and weird. Pa Angel is the most normal, but is still a vicious killer who treats his boys with love and devotion, yet also raised them to be brutal criminals. Junior is a gunslinging, grenade-chucking Serial Killer who is constantly begging for permission to kill people. Link is a hulking brute who dresses like a stereotypical biker and had to be kept chained up as a kid. Mean Machine is a homicidal cyborg who headbutts people to death. The weirdest by far is The Fink, a ghoulish mutant who lives in a hole in the ground and whose only friend is a rat wearing a bowler hat.
• Scott Pilgrim: The League of Evil Exes.
• Sin City: Manute had a QMBS with him in Big Fat Kill which consisted of a midget, a wise-cracking Neo-Nazi, and an old guy who can make people feel pain just by touching them. The Irish mercs from the same story might also count.
• Sonic the Hedgehog (Archie Comics): The Destructix — composed of Lightning Lynx, Sergeant Simian, Predator Hawk, Flying Frog, Drago Wolf, and Sleuth Dawg — are a group of incompetents who have worked for various Big Bads over the years, usually getting their butts kicked in the process. Recently, Drago left to work for Dr. Eggman and Sleuth retired, handing control over to Fiona Fox, who apparently has big plans in the works (which so far consist of breaking her boyfriend Scourge out of prison so that he can take charge of the gang).
  • Recently, Dr. Eggman got a new group of enforcers in the form of the Metal Series — a group of Evil Knockoffs of several of the main heroes, led by the recently roboticized Mecha Sally.
• Transformers: Before he lent his name to a summer blockbuster, The Fallen created one in the second volume of Transformers: The War Within. Decepticon mystics Bludgeon, Mindwipe, and Bugly were given vague mystical power upgrades and charged with gathering a team of (seemingly arbitrary) Transformers so that The Fallen could attempt to summon Unicron.
• The Ultimates: All members of the Liberators had his own power, look and basic backstory. This was an improvement over the Chitauri of the first arc, who were just an Always Chaotic Evil alien race with a single guy fleshed out as a character.
• X-Men: The original Brotherhood of Evil Mutants were pretty silly until character development set in. Later the nineties gave us the Dark Riders, a team of mutant mercenaries who follow the strong while ironically not being very strong themselves. They attached themselves to Apocalypse, ditched him for Stryfe and then joined up with Stryfe's maybe-son Genesis, but one thing they never picked up over the years was a shred of respect. Most of them were killed off unceremoniously by Wolverine, though a few survived to make sporadic D-list appearances over the years.

Fan Works

• Rupert and Earl's crew in The Calvinverse serve as this. They're very, very incompetent, and the heroes generally don't pay them any mind.
• Child of the Storm has Surtur's Great Captains in the sequel - while all of them get their powers from the same source (Surtur, the original Dark Phoenix), they manifest it in very different ways. Jormungand, for instance, is an absolutely colossal dragon (indeed, he is the 'Father of Dragons', with one of his children being the size of a mountain), at a direct contrast to the Black Captain, who's more or less human sized and shaped. While none have apparently appeared yet, they are described as having distinctive powers, personalities, and strategies - according to Word of God, the Black Captain is The Strategist and the brains of the operation.
• In Civilization V: Peace Walker, the MSF Stealth Operative team sent to infiltrate France returns with a story about an elite French unit called the Supreme Senses, religious-themed soldiers with names like God's Vision and Fiend's Hunger, and superpowers to match. In other words, they'd fit right in a Metal Gear game.
  Snake: Yeah, that's about what I expected.
• In Comes the Sunset Sunset Shimmer has a Quirky Miniboss Army, the most notable being Virtuous Fury (a knight from another dimension), Emerald Ray (an evil Crystal Pony), and Shrike (the former second in command to Nightmare Moon).
• Distortions (Symphogear): The White Noise Squad, the Four Horsemen's anti-Symphogear fighting force. Each of them have their own eccentricities and thier own personal reasons to fight against the Adaptors.
• Show up so often in Dragon Ball Z Abridged that they're automatically classified into the pretty one, the strong stupid one, and one with freaky powers.
  • The Ginyu Force get even quirkier in this parody series. They pick opponents with a 'Wheel of Death', Recoome has the mannerisms of a professional wrestler (while Burter and Jeice do commentary), Jeice is Space Australian, Burter is obsessed with being the fastest in the universe (because it's the only thing he has that makes him stand out), Guldo is a Memetic Loser, and while Ginyu is Wicked Cultured and dances after every successful mission (he's contractually obligated by King Cold to do the Dance of Joy, and by Cooler to do the Daddy's Little Princess Dance. He also has the Dance of Cheering You Up when Freeza gets upset, and the Dance of Solitude when he's alone).
    • "And they're all INCREDIBLY FLAMBOYANT!"
  • Lampshaded and parodied in the Dragon Ball Z: Lord Slug Abridged movie; when Piccolo comes face-to-face with Slug's three top henchmen, he casually asks them what their gimmick is, noting that the last bunch he fought (in Christmas Tree of Might) were all misfit minions. His bored reaction as they list their gimmicks (the pretty one, the tough and stupid one, and the one with weird powers), makes it plain he's seen it all before. Then he comes across the aforementioned trio in Cooler Abridged, though the mooks didn't seem to get which one was which.
    Piccolo: Okay, I take it back. You're all stupid.
• Fairy May Cry: There seems to be one for every arc thus far.
  • In the Vergil arc, wherein the titular character summons bosses from the first game. These include Griffon, Phantom and Nightmare to deal with the Fairy Tail rescue team.
  • For the Edolas arc, the Edolas Magic Force captains such as Erza Knightwalker, Hughes, Sugarboy, Byro and Panther-Lily. Nelo Angelo is also present as a Sixth Ranger Traitor.
  • The Devil Hand arc has the Seven Deadly Sins, the elite members of the titular dark guild, each with powers and personalities corresponding to the sin they represent. These include Iblis for Pride, Mammon for Greed, Asmodeua for Lust, Satan for Wrath, Leviatha for Envy, Belphegor for Sloth, and Beelzebub for Gluttony. This is significant as people representing each sin was needed to raise Temen-ni-gru, in addition to Vergil and Arkham needing minions to keep Fairy Tail busy.
  • The Tenrou Island arc has the Eight Kin of Purgatory, the elite members of Grimoire Heart who each wield a lost magic. Aside from their leader Ultear, there is also Azuma, Kain Hikaru, Rustyrose, Merudy, Zancrow, Caprico and Job.
  • The knights from the Order of the Sword form this for the first half of the Order of the Sword arc. They consist of Nero, Credo, Coco, Mary Hughes, Sugarboy, and Dan Straight.
  • From the rest of the arc, the Neo Oracion Seis fit the role, acting as the biggest physical threats for most of the arc. While Midnight/Brain II makes part of the Big Bad Duumvirate with Sanctus, the other members fit the bill quite well. These include Cobra, Racer, Erigor, Gilver and Gloria. And then there's Imitatia, aka, Michelle Lobster, who acted as The Mole for the Big Bag Duumvirate for the entire arc!
  • The Grand Magic Games Arc: While Fairy Tail is on friendly terms with most of the guilds participating in the titular event, there are two guilds that act antagonistic towards them.
    • First is Raven Tail, led by Makarov’s vengeful son Ivan, consisting of Nullpudding, Obra, Kurohebi, Flare Corona, and Sid, who acts as an informant for them. There’s also Sapphire Caldwell, who is actually acting as a double agent for Mermaid Heel.
    • After Raven Tail is disqualified, Sabertooth takes their place for the rest of the arc. In addition to Vergil, who is their top member, and later master after killing Jiemma, and Yukino, who is expelled after the second day of the Games, there’s Minerva, Sting, Rogue, Rufus, Orga, and Dobengal.
• The Reapers and the Zodiac Family in Fallout: Equestria - Project Horizons, the former being a mercenary group made up of prewar genetically-engineered half-pony hybrids and various other freaks and mutants, and the latter made up of Western Zodiac themed bounty hunters.
• the Big Bad Ensemble (Nightmare Moon, Queen Chrysalis, King Sombra, and Lord Tirek) of Highschool Dragon have a plethora of minions at their beck and call. They are Trixie, Descent, Prince Blueblood, She-Demon, Pyro, Frost, Nightmare Rarity, Rabia, Grogar, Garble, Catrina, Rep, The Dazzlings, Dr. Caballeron, and Ahuizotl.
• Invader Zim: A Bad Thing Never Ends: Zim's minions are this. In addition to the canonical GIR and Minimoose, there's now Skoodge (a fellow Invader, but also the Token Good Teammate), Bob (an ex-service drone who was basically press-ganged), and the Announcer (a Large Ham Master of Illusion).
• Jackie Chan Adventures: Olympian Journey: After being released from her imprisonment, Eris pressgangs Vanessa Barone, Origami, and Zhixin into serving as her minions.
• Queen of All Oni has the core membership of the Shadow Hand serve as this to Queen Jade.
• Annabelle Lee and her squad of void walkers in Resonance Days are a gang of the Big Bad's agents who constantly hound the heroes with the goal of capturing Kyoko and Oktavia and bringing them to their boss. Each of them are a tad eccentric with their own quirks, with Annabelle Lee serving as Only Sane Man, Ticky Nikki is a homicidally immature maniac, and the twins are competend but uncomfortably intimate at all times (made more uncomfortable by the fact that they look identical). Over time, Annabelle Lee does get character development and turns into more of an Anti-Villain.
• Spike's Gambit: Impossibly has quite the entourage of colorful characters under her belt: Filthy Rich, Spoiled Rich, Abacus Cinch, Garble, Iron Will, Suri Polomare, Indigo Zap, Sour Sweet, Sunny Flare, Sugarcoat Lemon Zest, and Twilight Sparkle.
• Sunset of Time has the Deathwing, a group of griffon mercenaries. They're half in for the gold, half in it so they don't get killed.

Films — Animation

• The Lion King (1994): The hyenas always show up together, but they have distinct personalities: Shenzi is bossy, Banzai is grumpy and Ed is dim-witted. But of course all three are prone to laughing at everything.
• Lock, Shock, and Barrel, the psychotic trick-or-treating kids in The Nightmare Before Christmas. They get one of the coolest, most sadistic songs ever.
• The Monstars (also known as The Nerdlucks) the secondary antagonists of Space Jam.
• The Toon Patrol, the 5 weasels from Who Framed Roger Rabbit.

Films — Live-Action

• The Three Storms from Big Trouble in Little China.
• The Bloodpack in Blade II are an elite group of vampire warriors formed to hunt down Blade. Ironically, they're only introduced to team up with Blade against the Big Bad. Ultimately some of them remain villains throughout the shaky alliance.
• Top Dollar's gang from The Crow are all pretty quirky. Oddly enough, they were the ones responsible for the rape and murder or Eric's girlfriend as well as his own murder, making them his actual targets. We soon find out that Top Dollar was ultimately responsible for their actions leading to a climatic battle with the real Big Bad.
• The five traitors in Dead in Tombstone are all colorful criminals, each of whom has their own shtick.
• The US Marshals in The Fugitive until the end.
• In Ghost Rider (2007), Blackheart has three elemental minions (Gressil, Abigor, and Wallow), all of whom Ghost Rider defeats with very little effort.
• In Masters of the Universe, the mercenary team hired by Skeletor to track down He-Man on Earth.
• The five artists (Sky, Paul, Bill, Lexi, and Macon) from Murder Party.
• Casanova Frankenstein's allied gangs in Mystery Men, each sharing their own quirky theme.
• Repo! The Genetic Opera has the Largo siblings: Luigi, Pavi, and Amber Sweet.
• Clarence Boddicker's squad of eccentric, racially diverse criminals in RoboCop (1987).
• Despite not having a big bad commanding them, the gangs from The Warriors the titled gang has to go through before reaching the safe haven of their territory.

Literature

• The Black Company series provides two examples:
  • The Ten Who Were Taken^note extremely similar to Wheel of Time's Forsaken, albeit generally better at living up to their reputations and made first, called Taken for short ^note The original Taken are Soulcatcher, the Limper, Shapeshifter, Stormbringer, the Howler, Moonbiter, Nightcrawler, the Hanged Man, the Faceless Man, and Bonegnasher; they worked for the Dominator and later the Lady, but neither of those are considered part of this group. As is typical for wizards in that setting, their names are descriptive — Soulcatcher steals souls, the Limper limps, the Howler howls uncontrollably, Shapeshifter changes shapes, Stormbringer controls the weather, and so on. Typically, they are extremely hard to kill; this is true of all wizards, who are longer lived and more durable than muggles, but the Taken are strong enough to be effectively immortal, and capable of recovering from pretty much anything short of total body destruction.
  • Later in the series another group is introduced — the Shadowmasters^note Longshadow, Stormshadow, Moonshadow, and Shadowspinner. They're not quite as dangerous, both because there's only four of them and because their leader, Longshadow, is a paranoid nutcase who isn't nearly as good at keeping them in line as the Dominator and the Lady did with the Taken, but they're still terrifying enough to conquer and terrorise the entirety of the Shadowlands. It's eventually revealed that Stormshadow used to be the Taken Stormbringer, giving her the dubious distinction of being part of both groups.
• Deltora Quest has the monsters guarding each of the gemstones. In order, they are a Black Knight, a giant carnivorous angler fish (who oddly enough has a taste for fine music), a demon witch and her deformed children, a giant three headed snake demon, a golem made entirely out of human skulls, a frog demon that oozes a powerful poison (the same poison the Big Bad's mooks use, in fact), a giant Extreme Omnivore slug demon, and finally a possessed illusionist who keeps demonic dogs as pets.
• The Discworld book The Last Hero briefly features the squad as the henchmen of Evil Harry Dread. As a traditional Evil Overlord, Harry has deliberately chosen the squad for stupidity, and they kill themselves in battle immediately.
• The sullanciri, or "Dark Lancers" from The Dragon Crown War are essentially what you get when you combine the Ringwraiths and the Forsaken. Big Bad Chytrine creates them from ordinary mortals (with a preference for using Fallen Heroes) and uses them as her supernaturally powerful lieutenants. They have to obey her, but retain individual personalities otherwise. Her initial group of them get killed off rather quickly in the prequel, but she ends up replacing them with the very heroes who defeated them, and this core group of ten are the main sullanciri for the series — Nefrai-kesh, Nefrai-laysh, Myrall'mara, Neskartu, Ferxigo, Quiarsca, Malarkex, Ganagrei, Anarus, and Tythsai.
• Dragonlance: The Faceless Brethren from theTaladas Trilogy act as this, though their quirks are of the darkest sort and they are in no way amusing. The group is composed of the Master, the Keeper, the Teacher, the Slayer, the Watcher and the Speaker. In his backstory, Maladar had another one called the Seven Swords, but he killed them all in a fit of paranoia millennia ago.
• In Fengshen Yanyi, several examples can be found among the enemies fought by Jiang Ziya and the forces of Zhou, including the Ten Heavenly Lords of Jinao Island (a group of grotesque but very powerful and prideful Immortals who can build magic formations to kill their opponents within them), Lu Yue and his disciples (another group of creepy taoists with magic tools related to illness and plague), the sons of Yu Hualong (five warriors, each with a different magic trick up the sleeve) and the Seven Monsters of Prune Mountain (a group of seven animal-based shapeshifting demons seeking glory and wealth).
• The Death Eaters from Harry Potter are Voldemort's henchmen. They have the same dress code, their own names, and some other factoid to them. Lucius Malfoy, Bellatrix Lestrange, Peter "Wormtail" Pettigrew and Fenrir Greyback are the most significant recurring Death Eaters; others such as Professor Quirrell, Barty Crouch Jr., the Carrow siblings, and Yaxley have significant roles in one book, and there are number of others (Rookwood, Avery, Dolohov, Rowle, etc.) who are namedropped/show up often, but get little development.
• Legacy of the Dragokin: The Kthonian Knights would be this if they were part of a bigger organization and Jihadain weren't their leader. As it stands, they are the main villains.
• Moribito: Guardian of the Spirit: The Hunters hound Balsa and Chagum's steps for most of the story and serve as the main physical threat from the Mikado's Court. Ultimately, as the story ends up with all human characters on the same side, they help Balsa defend Chagum in the climax and help shoot down the Emperor's plan to have Balsa assassinated.
• Ashram's followers (Groder, Gaberra, Smeddy, Gilram, and Astar) from Record of Lodoss War. They're also Evil Counterparts to the heroes: Ashram for Parn, Groder for Slayn, Gaberra for Leylia, Smeddy and Gilram for Shiris and Orson, and Astar for Deedlit.
• The Redwall novels are full of these. Badredd's gang in Loamhedge and the group of vermin sent to hunt down Tagg in Taggerung are probably the most memorable and plot-influential.
• The Brave Companions/Bloody Mummers from A Song of Ice and Fire are a twisted Crapsack World version of this trope. A mercenary army of almost excessively evil killers, all of whom are either highly eccentric or just plain weird. They include a giant man with no nose, a child-like cannibal with superhuman strength, a Pedophile Priest, an obese barbarian, a Frankenstein style mad scientist, and a Monster Clown.
• The Sovereign Stone trilogy has the Vrykyl, a group of immortal, vampiric warriors bound to serve Dagnarus. Several named Vrykyl appear across the series, but the most prominent are Shakur, Lady Valura, K'let, and Jedash. Collectively, they're Evil Counterparts to the Dominion Lords.
• Several show up in Warrior Cats:
  • Brokenstar's rogues, who show up several times for scraps against the heroes.
  • The BloodClan warriors under Scourge's command, who each have a few personality quirks and hang around in the manga arcs.
  • The Dark Forest warriors, who exist to flesh out the Dark Forest and serve as climactic fights during The Last Hope.
• In the Whateley Universe, Big Bad The Necromancer has put together a monster-themed gang called the Children of the Night. His Dragon Lycanthros is part of this gang, as well as Lady Darke, Nightgaunt, the Arch-Fiend, and the youngest and snarkiest of the group: Vamp. As of their second appearance, we learn that — in classic tradition for this trope — Vamp has been forced to join the gang and has been betraying them since before their first appearance.
• The Wheel of Time: The Forsaken. They are only rarely played for laughs, but then, very little in this series is. There are 13 of them, and each served the Dark One for their own reasons^note The thirteen Forsaken are, in rough descending order of power and threat level, Ishamael, Lanfear, Demandred, Graendal, Sammael, Semirhage, Aginor, Rahvin, Be'lal, Mesaana, Balthamel, Moghedien, and Asmodean; in the last book, they get a new member, Mazrim Taim, who receives the Forsaken name M'Hael. Ishamael was probably the only one who believes in the Dark One's agenda of destroying the world for all time; as for the rest, Asmodean did it because he wanted to be immortal, and some others joined because they were criminals, or in revenge for slights real or imagined by the Dragon (not to be confused with The Dragon). When the series began they were believed to be the most powerful channelers of all time, but after a few books we learn that some modern characters are on par with them or even stronger. In fact, they were just those of the Dark One's servants who happened to be with him when the Dragon sealed him away, and by now most of them have been killed. (And some have been brought back.) A lot of them were killed with surprise attacks, or by using an Artifact of Doom and the higher-level Forsaken (Ishamael, Lanfear, Demandred, and to a lesser extent Sammael, Semirhage, and Graendal) are far, far stronger than anyone else (and most of the others are less dangerous not because they're weak but because they suffer from Crippling Overspecialization, Evil Cannot Comprehend Good, and Chronic Backstabbing Disorder, which the heroes quickly learn to exploit). For example, Ishamael/Moridin can sense both Saidin and Saidar, while no-one else can sense his channeling.
• From Worm, we have the Slaughterhouse 9. As the S9 are labeled as an S-Class Threat, they have a standing kill-order placed on the group as a whole, applicable to new members as well. As such, they have a high turnover rate. Their leader, Jack Slash, mentions that there are few that he considers "long term members," which includes himself, Bonesaw, and the Siberian. He also mentions that Mannequin was a borderline case, as he had been with the group for a very long time.

Live-Action TV

• Buffy the Vampire Slayer:
  • Glory had a small following of grovelling servants who, for the most part, served no purpose other than to elevate her ego. On the one occasion they did try to be constructive, they were beaten down by Buffy's superior man-handling skills.
  • There's also The Troika. Though not members of any larger dominant unit, they form their own squad, who's sole purpose is to enslave Buffy and force her into a life of servitude. However, their 'devilish' schemes are constantly thwarted, ending more often than not in pain and humiliation. Being geeks, they are probably consciously emulating this trope.
• Chousei Kantai Sazer X has the Three Shoguns, who are higher-ranked than the Descal's regular element-themed monsters and much goofier than they are. They're also tied to a number of plot developments that happen later on, since they're the direct ancestors of the current generation of villains.
• H.R. Pufnstuf: Witchiepoo's henchmen: Orson Vulture, Seymour Spider, and Stupid Bat
• The music video for Kenyan Electronic Funk group Just A Band's "Huff + Puff" features a trio of what appear to be Parliament Funkadelic backup dancers as elite mooks to The Dragon.
• Kamen Rider:
  • Kamen Rider 555 has the Lucky Clover, a quartet of assassins who work for Smart Brain, though they're not so much "quirky" as "deadly and ruthless."
  • Kamen Rider Ex-Aid has the Monsters Of the Week double as this due to their Resurrective Immortality: the eight Bugsters that aren't important to the story each have their own quirky personality and each show up many times throughout the series, since being exploded by the heroes is only a temporary inconvenience.
  • Kamen Rider Build has the Hokuto Three Crows, a trio of Hard Smash (Smash who retained their intelligence) who serve under Kamen Rider Grease.
• In the French Canadian TV series "Les rescapés (The survivors)", the followers of the evil priest Chabanel serve as a quirky miniboss squad, each with their own distinctive personality quirk. Viateur is extremely violent and Trigger-Happy, Jean-Luc is cowardly and keeps going through the Heel–Face Revolving Door, and Marguerite is the most mysterious, but also the most competent. When Viateur died, his role was taken over by a previously nameless monk.
• The Strike Team on The Shield follow this mold, as far as the characters Shane Vendrell, Ronnie Gardocki, and Curtis "Lem" Lemansky serving as a quirky miniboss team for Vic Mackey. Indeed, by the end of the series, Shane murders Lem while Ronnie and Shane end up hating each other, right down to Ronnie keeping Vic from calling off a scheme to kill Shane.
• In Spartacus: Vengeance, Ashur finally manages to convince Glaber that the regular Roman soldier isn't good enough to fight the gladiators. So Ashur recruits several Psychos For Hire, who act as this. In the ensuing group, Ashur is The Dragon while they are The Brute. Most notable is The Egyptian.
• Most Super Sentai and Power Rangers seasons feature a Quirky Miniboss Team for the big bad, who often (depending on the whims of the writers) either die, reform, disappear off the face of the Earth, or manage to escape justice by the end of the season.
  • Gosei Sentai Dairanger has the Three Idiot Gorma, who are not good at the whole acting evil thing and are more into thinking about new sports games to play with the Dairangers.
  • Zyuden Sentai Kyoryuger has the Zetsumates ^note (pun on zetsumetsu, which is Japanse for extinction) . This trio of monsters managed to kill off the dinosaurs in prehistoric times, but are rather comedic villains during present time. They even acted as an evil parody of a ranger team, pissing off the real rangers.
• Tomica Hero Rescue Force has Maare, Saan and Shiika who work solo for the first few episodes but later start working as the squad for Daen and later his daughter Maen. Rescue Fire has a similar setup with Chukaen, Sakaen and Ukaen who work as the squad of Don Kaen.

Pro Wrestling

• Some power stables become so large that they end up having other power stables inside of them.
  • The Brood for the Ministry of Darkness, until they broke off due to being mistreated.
  • New World Order had this after the infamous 1999 "Fingerpoke of Doom". The most important members switched to the Wolfpac's red and black colours, whilst the minor members stsyed in black and white and were referred to as "The B-Team". They largely went off on their own escapades when they weren't involved in NWO beatdowns, and had their own leadership struggles (won mostly by Stevie Ray).
  • Raven's brainwashed cult, the Gathering, in Sports Entertainment Xtreme
  • Team TNA and Las Gringas Locas in La Legion Extranjera, which would itself become just one of many members of AAA's La Soceidad.
  • Team Canada (which in of itself might have been the largest Team Canada ever with ten members) to Planet Jarrett (which was headed by "The Kings Of Wrestling" Scott Hall, Kevin Nash and Jeff Jarrett rather than those guys from Chikara\ROH)
  • Fortune inside of Immortal, at least until they rebelled against the larger group.
• In WWE, the Spirit Squad acted as the squad in the Shawn Michaels vs. Vince McMahon feud, and D-generation X vs. McMahon Family feud.
  • There was also Shane McMahon's buddies, the Mean Street Posse.
  • This is what The Nexus was any time Wade Barrett wasn't there to lead them. Same thing now that CM Punk is in charge of The Nexus and Wade Barrett's leading the Corre.

Tabletop Games

• Fellowship: One of the options for the Overlord's forces is the Organization, a small but powerful group of elite villains with unique abilities and personalities, such as the Braniac, the Honor-Bound, and the Tough Guy.
• Warhammer 40,000:
  • Command Squads and HQ choices with retinues can come across this way — particularly for players who assign personalities to the characters.
  • Encouraged for Space Wolves players, where they not only have tons of named units, but also encourage the player to make their own characters with distinct personalities, plus the special rule that allows them to pick two HQ units for one HQ slot, meaning one can go to war with a large group of infantry choices and put two rune priests in a HQ slot and still have room for more HQ units like a wolf lord or one of the named HQ choices if you spend your points right.
  • The Grey Knights' Paladins have statistics equal to most HQ choices, having an almost identical statline as a Librarian in Terminator Armor and having just as much equipment choices. They can be taken in as few as 1 to as many as 10. Another character can allow them to be taken as Troops, effectively allowing you to field a miniboss squad as an army. To a lesser extent, Terminator armies (Deathwing, Loganwing) are also this, as Terminators are often elite unit choices.
  • With the introduction of formations that let you field only characters (Council of Da Waaagh, Librarius Conclave, Seer Council, The Eight) it is now possible to field an army consisting of only characters and nothing else. As it turns out, this isn't as impractical as it seems, as due to the way some special rules work these characters can share their skills to each other as long as they're joined up in the same unit. This type of army is nicknamed "Superfriends", taken from the MTG deck type of the same name (which is in-turn named after the show Super Friends due to the amount of heroes in it).
  • Codex: Deathwatch allows you to field a specialist team of xeno-hunters, each with his own special equipment. The formation takes this a step further; allowing you to join different units together. However, due to the rules making it so that all units have to move in coherency, this means that all units have to move at the pace of the slowest model, and as it turns out there are a lot of models that are a lot slower than "normal".

Toys

• BIONICLE: The Piraka from 2006 were the first "regular" (i.e. non-titan sets) villains to each have a distinct personality:
  • Zaktan is the cold and calculating leader who could split himself into billions of microscopic lifeforms.
  • Hakann is arrogant and duplicitous to a fault, with the ability to attack his enemies with mental blasts.
  • Vezok is a psychopathic and temperamental brute, who can mimic the abilities of others for a short period of time.
  • Thok is antisocial and paranoid with the power to the ability to bring inanimate objects to life.
  • Avak is the cowardly and sniveling Gadgeteer Genius, and can produce a prison for his opponents from his mind.
  • Reidak is outwardly stupid yet secretly clever, who can adapt to whatever it was that defeated him prior.
  • Vezon is insane and scatter-brained who came into existence as a clone of Vezok, and betrayed the Piraka at the first opportunity.

Web Animation

• Animator vs. Animation
  • Many of the desktop icons qualify as this when they all work together and ally with The Dark Lord to fight The Chosen One. They all have unique designs and some have a wide range of abilities such as flight, laser beams, or extendable arms.
  • The four mercenaries, like the desktop icons, are a group of stick figures each of them having their own style of animation and abilities who oppose The Chosen One. All of them are under the leadership of victim, the first stick figure created by Alan, who runs an organization in a world beyond the boundaries of the internet.

Web Comics

• The Dark Warriors from 8-Bit Theater are a very Quirky Miniboss Squad (all of whom were actually minibosses at one point or another).
• Adventurers! had Argent, Mizuna and Dirlend working for Big Bad Khrima. (The competing Big Bad, Eternion, had his own set, but due to the number of characters involved the only one whose name I recall is Cody.)
• Bob and George: lampshaded here.
• Cucumber Quest has Sir Tomato, Dame Lettuce, and Sir Bacon: the BLT trio, with emphasis on the "quirky" part. In fact, with Bacon of all people gone, the team is even less intimidating. This is not helped by the fact that in order to keep them the "BLT" trio, Tomato tries having Blueberry, who is a mailman, join them.
• The Sues and Stus of Dubious Company. Their fights with the pirates are always hilarious as their quirks mostly poke fun at the Mary Sue traits, but are nigh unstoppable because of them. This frustrates both the pirates and Izor.
  • Izor sees them as spoiled brats and would cast them to the gutter if they weren't so useful.
  • The pirates are frustrated because no matter how hard they train or plan, they can't beat them. Especially Tiren, who can take down a Kraken with a hairpin, but cannot beat the Valley Girl Sailor Moon Expy.
• El Goonish Shive: In the "Painted Black" arc, Grace's "brothers" Hedge, Vlad, and Guineas form a darker-than-usual version.
• In Emergency Exit, Lord Kyran himself is quirky enough on his own, but his underlings range from amorous to bored to genuinely nice, the lattermost healing Karl in exchange for an artifact. Granted, they're still dangerous to the heroes, but they're not really threatening.
• Homestuck has The Felt, though most of them don't survive the intermission they appear in, and The Midnight Crew, Depending on which iteration of them it is.
• No Need for Bushido has the Four Demons of Sorrow, a group of assassins working for Hirotomo Wataro, the most feared warlord in Japan. The members of the group are: the blind swordsman Ryoku, ninja and Master of Illusion Uso, the supreme Blood Knight Honou-ko, (who is never seen without his elaborate armor) and they are led by Hirotomo's Noble Top Enforcer Tadashii, a Master Swordsman and Iaijutsu Practitioner with Super-Speed.
• The Linear Guild in The Order of the Stick. They're also Evil Counterparts to the Order.
  • Later on you have Tarquin's adventuring party, though they're much more powerful and more like Psycho Rangers (which the Linear Guild was always aspiring to but never quite achieved after getting their butts kicked the first time).
• Paranatural: Cody warns Max that the student council president has the Twelve Black Saint Councilor-Generals to enforce his will upon the school, and there is no one left to stand against him besides Lisa, who is far too mercenary to actually care. Note that this has absolutely nothing to do with the plot. Mayview is just that weird.
• Sluggy Freelance: Reakk, Psyk, and Mosp are the Dimension of Pain's Quirky Miniboss Squad.

Web Original

• Destroy the Godmodder: Piono and Binary both have one, and both of them consist of really nasty villains from other areas.
  • Piono has Sauron in his, as Tricky from Madness Combat, and had Dimentio from Super Paper Mario and Vriska from Homestuck.
  • Binary's consists of GLaDOS, bill Cipher, IKEA, king of tabletopia, Doc Scratch and Lord English.
• In the last couple episodes of France Five, Zakaral (The Dragon) leads such a group, composed of Gorlock (a Giant Mook), Succulard (a Chef of Iron), Agony (a Creepy Crossdresser) and Lady Warcry (Warduke's daughter, who wants to avenge her father's death).

Western Animation

• Avatar: The Last Airbender:
  • Azula, Mai and Ty Lee. Azula is the Fire Lord's personal Dragon, and she has Mai and Ty Lee assisting her in battle throughout Season 2 and to a lesser extent Season 3.
  • The Rough Rhinos serve this role in Season 2. They are a group of komodo rhino-riders that each specialize in a different weapon, and attack Team Avatar multiple times through the season. They are also responsible for the deaths of Jet's parents.
• Castlevania (2017) has one in Season 2 and one in Season 4.
  • Dracula's War Council in Season 2 serve as a challenge for the main trio to fight before meeting Dracula, showing of their teamwork, skill and readying them to get worfed against Dracula. Each has a unique design, and pose a challenge that is quickly overcome. The sole exceptions are Godbrand, who dies earlier in the season as a Sacrificial Lamb and Only Sane Man, and Carmilla, who was The Starscream and survives to become the Big Bad Wannabe.
  • Dragan and his possé in Season 4. They do serve a role for the plot, since they sewed together Saint Germain's rebis, and they have some nifty abilities, but they are quickly disposed by the heroes. They do manage to delay them enough for the true Big Bad to set his plot into action, though.
• In the Codename: Kids Next Door An Ass-Kicking Christmas special, the Delightful Children From Down the Lane have the Faculty Four, who represent Substitute Teacher's Day to help their plot to Steal Christmas. Their members are Thesaurus Rex, a dinosaur made up of books, the Unintelligible Tutor, who's babbling incapacitates people, The Human Text, a flying humanoid made up of stacks of paper, and Mr. Physically Fit-tastic, a stretchy muscle man, led by Ms. Edna Ucation.
  • Interestingly, back when they were visualized as side characters of Mr. Warburton's failed Kenny and the Chimp, the Kids Next Door (or rather those Kids Next Door as they were called then) were intended to be examples of this trope◊.
• Prime Evil's "Usual Gang of Idiots" from Filmation's Ghostbusters.
• Gargoyles has The Pack.
• Jackie Chan Adventures: The Dark Hand devolved into this from regular mooks over the course of the series. It eventually got to the point where Finn, Ratso, and Chow were actively trying to avoid crime in favor of having legitimate jobs, as they were tired of constantly getting roped into being the henchmen for each season's villain. In fact, they even play a key role in helping fight Drago in the Grand Finale.
• Each member of the Crime Syndicate in Justice League: Crisis on Two Earths has their own Quirky Miniboss Squad — the "Made Men". Owlman has the Evil Outsiders, Superwoman has the Evil Marvel Family, J'edd J'arkus has the Evil Detroit League, and so on.
• The Sky Pirates from Mao Mao: Heroes of Pure Heart fill this role, even though they are the main villains. And they certainly live up to the word "quirky."
  • Orangusnake, their leader who is a cobra using an orangutan as a body.
  • Ramaraffe, their Dumb Muscle with an extendable neck.
  • Boss Hostrich, a Southern Gentleman that can fire eggs out of his chest.
  • And Ratarang, a rat who can...turn into a boomerang.
• OK K.O.! Let's Be Heroes has the robots of Boxmore. While often working together to attack the plaza to please their creator/father Lord Boxman, they’re just as prone to partake in petty bickering, with many moments of engaging in Sibling Rivalry with one another.
• The Space Biker Gang from My Life as a Teenage Robot. Jenny beats them with ease.
• Boris and Natasha from Rocky and Bullwinkle are the original examples, working under Fearless Leader.
• In the Samurai Jack episode "The Princess and the Bounty Hunters," fallen Warrior Princess Mira gathers a small group of bounty hunters to help her kill Jack for Aku. This QMBS' membership includes:
  • Jujunga, an Aboriginal Australian who fires poisoned darts from a blowgun disguised as a workable flute.
  • I and Am, a duo of anthropomorphic cats who communicate telepathically, speak entirely in rhyme, and display great speed and agility. I wields a spiked chain while Am fights with bombs.
  • Boris, a dimwitted, musclebound Russian warrior who overestimates his abilities and wields dual spiked clubs.
  • The Gentleman, a posh, sophisticated, well-dressed Southern Gentleman who wields throwing knives.
• The Spectacular Spider-Man has the Enforcers fill this role for the Big Man, while the Sinister Six (sometimes the whole team, sometimes just one or two members) do the same for the Master Planner, aka Doc Ock. Interestingly, the Enforcers are shown to report to their organization's Dragon, Hammerhead, while Electro, the Planner's Dragon, is merely the most powerful and loyal of the Six.
• The Gobblers, Dr. Drain's henchmen (henchcreatures?) in Staines Down Drains.
• The five-Ruby squad from Steven Universe. They are given nicknames by Steven.
  Steven: I named them all based on the placement of their gems! There's Leggy^note gem on left leg, Army^note gem on left shoulder, Navy^note gem on navel, Eyeball^note gem in left eyesocket, and uhh... Doc^note gem on chest.
• The Super Globetrotters defeat one in a game of basketball in every episode of the show
• Super Robot Monkey Team Hyperforce Go! features the Sun Riders. Granted, they are ex-actors (and therefore used to trying to impress crowds). And hey, at least they have the dignity to save their posing for after they win.
• In Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles: Fast Forward, the turtles' four clones become this for Darius Dun almost immediately after their creation.
• General Immortus, Madame Rouge and Monsieur Mallah (The Dragon) in the fifth season of Teen Titans (2003).
  • The HIVE Five serve as this as well as an Evil Counterpart to the Teen Titans. This group originally consists of Jinx, Gizmo, and Mammoth with See-More being added later as well as Privite HIVE, Kyd Wyckyd, and Billy Numerous on separate occasions.
• Demolishor and Cyclonus from Transformers: Armada. A dumb lug and a psycho.
  • Funny, a dumb lug and a psycho sound like Lugnut and Blitzwing from Animated.
    • After building a small army of clones, Starscream of Transformers: Animated is his own squad.
  • Sky-Byte's Predacons from Transformers: Robots in Disguise, and, to a lesser extent, Scourge and the Decepticon Commandos.
  • As well, there's the Decepticon Pretenders in Transformers: Super-God Masterforce, and the Dinoforce in Transformers Victory.
  • And Snowcat, Demolishor, and Mirage in Transformers: Energon.
  • Transformers: Cybertron also has the group of Decepticons who stay loyal to Galvatron; Thundercracker, Ransack, Crumplezone, and Thunderblast. However, during the final battle, when they realize Galvatron was never going to spare them either, they abandon him too. Thundercracker even ends up happily working with the Autobots on the Space Bridge Project after Galvatron's death, until the other three shanghai him into their 'New Decepticon Army'.
  • 2015's Transformers: Robots in Disguise series has three such groups: Steeljaw's Pack, the Scavengers, and the Stunticons.
• The second season of W.I.T.C.H. goes through a grand total of three of these, starting off with the Knights of Vengeance, consisting of all of Phobos' minions from the first season, then the Knights of Destruction, and finally CHKYN (it's their initials).
• Xiaolin Showdown: Near the end of Season 2 Jack Spicer made "Team Spicer" comprised of himself, Katnappe, Cyclops, Vlad and Tubbimura
• X-Men: Evolution has the Brotherhood playing this role for Magneto and Mystique.

Real Life

• An odd example is the Tennessee Valley Killer's posse, made up of a cow doctor who bred roosters for illegal fighting, and one guy who wanted to eat said roosters. Their case was dramatized in an episode of radio drama Gangbusters! on April 6, 1958, "Tennessee Triggermen".
• The turn-of-the-century "Molasses Gang." They got their name because one of their favorite crimes was to all go into a shop and hold out a really big hat and tell the shopkeep they had a bet as to how much molasses the hat would hold. He'd agree to fill it as full as he could, then with a quick move they'd clap it over his head, covering his eyes, and while he struggled to get it off, they'd make off with whatever they were after. Supposedly they also once got bored during a bank robbery and left without the money.
• Napoleon had his twenty-six Marshals who were the most powerful military and political figures in his empire and varied widely in competence from guys like Massena and D'avout who probably could have taken over the world themselves if they weren't sharing time with Napoleon down to borderline incompetents like Victor and Grouchy. There was also his main diplomat, Talleyrand. Subverted, though, in that the marshalate was infamous even among contemporaries for being a veritable snakepool. The primary reason Wellington was so successful in Spain, beside superior intelligence, was that the up to five French marshals Napoleon had left to lead his armies in the Peninsula hated each others' guts and refused to cooperate until 1814.

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