What's the difference? I see several repaints, particularly with Prime, where one is labeled as evil and usually colored with purple accents. Then there is Nemesis, which is mostly black with red accents. What I want to know is, other than color, what is the difference between evil and nemesis?
As far as TFs are concerned, there is no difference. Evil = Nemesis. Nemesis Prime (disambiguation) - Transformers Wiki However, there are instances where a nemesis may not necessarily be evil (see the dictionary definition). For whatever reason, an individual or character becomes the nemesis of someone else in order to satisfy a need for vengeance or retribution. I blame genre fiction for warping the traditional idea of what a nemesis actually is. It shouldn't automatically mean an evil clone or evil alternate version of another character. But it sounds cool, so it's become a trope: Evil Counterpart - Television Tropes & Idioms
I think Star Trek Nemesis had this as well. Picard's clone wasn't exactly evil, but was bent on revenge.
The only official release I can think of is BotCon Shattered Glass Optimus Prime. He comes from a mirror universe where Autobots are evil and Decepticons are good, but all retain their regular universe counterpart's names. Nemesis Prime is typically a resident of one of the "regular" universes, and an evil counterpart of Optimus Prime.
The term nemesis basically means "to give what is due" so you could have a "good" nemesis of an evil character. Nemesis was the name of a greek spirit who enacted vengeance against those who were arrogant in the face of the gods. So nowadays a nemesis is the character who is the opposite counterpart to another character, and who basically exists to ruin their plans.
I'd imagine Nemesis Prime in Shattered glass would be bright primary colors like red and blue, and spout corny noble platitudes, like "Freedom is the right of all sentient beings" or something like that.
SG Nemesis Prime would be the kind of guy to sacrifice himself over cheating on a video game. Except he wouldn't have cheated in the first place.
the very first black and red repaint was not evil Super Convoy (Nucleon Quest) - E-Hobby & Other G1 Recolors - TFW2005
