http://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Main/CarnivalOfKillers

What a colorful bunch of murderers.

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A Carnival of Killers occurs when a villain either hires the best assassins from around the world and sends them after the hero, or puts out an open contract on the hero's head that attracts a variety of assassins. A typical Carnival of Killers will involve a large collection of assassins with radically different styles (e.g. a Cold Sniper, a Knife Nut, a Mad Bomber, etc), and sometimes will include last season villains that have since fallen below the Sorting Algorithm of Evil's current threshold. Sometimes one of the assassins will decide the best way to win the bounty is to take out the competition before taking out the hero.

In a story that wishes to evoke an "international" flavor, all the killers may make no secret of their creepy foreignness and might even dress as mildly absurd ethnic stereotypes. It's not unusual for some of them to be political radicals or even terrorists who are taking a break from their usual "hobbies."

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Compare Legion of Doom and Quirky Miniboss Squad. Not comparable to Circus of Fear, unless being chased by the world's top assassins posing as clowns is the hero's worst fear.

Compare and contrast Ragtag Bunch of Misfits, who's usually the protagonists and/or the focus of the story who are just as radically different individually as this trope.

Examples:

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Anime & Manga

Comic Books

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Fan Works

Film

Literature

Live Action TV

Music

The Aaron Stewart-Ahn video for The Decemberists' "O Valencia!" features Colin Meloy protecting a woman from assassins.

Newspaper Comics

In his final appearance in the Dick Tracy strip, 'Big Boy' Caprice created an open contract: an offer of one million dollars to anyone who killed Tracy. This led to multiple attempts on Tracy's life. (New writer Max Allan Collins used this storyline to kill off Moon Maid, Creator's Pet of the series; killed by a car bomb meant for Tracy.)

Professional Wrestling

Radio

Was the general idea of the Gunsmoke episode "Reward for Matt". Mrs. Hornby gets pretty mad when Marshal Dillon kills her husband. She offers $1000 to anyone who kills Dillon. The script was later reused for an episode the Gunsmoke TV series.

Video Games

Webcomics

Cassiopeia Quinn: During "The Big Race" arc, Headhunter siccs a small horde of his mercenaries after Cassiopeia, including Clawlossus, Mercy and Old Salt.

Dead Winter: One of the main characters, Monday, is involved in one of these as a subplot.

In the Extraterrestrial Mob Assassins storyline in Get Medieval, Mafia boss Broat hires a trio of these ◊ .

storyline in Get Medieval, Mafia boss Broat hires a trio of these . Kill Six Billion Demons has the Pursuers, an unaffiliated mob of 108 Guild mercenaries and independent warriors hunting the Key of Kings lodged in Allison's head. While they work together to chase Allison, whenever they get close to actually catching Allison they start killing each other in a free-for-all brawl since only one would be able to actually claim the Key. New Pursuers join up at about the same rate as they get killed, keeping the number constant.

Web Original

In the backstory of Worm the Slaughterhouse 9 used to act as this for gangs such as the Teeth. By the current story they seem to have abandoned these side jobs in favor of straight mayhem.

Western Animation