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Revenge of the Sequel

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https://static.tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pub/images/film_poster_revenge_of_the_jedi.png
Wait a minute...note

In many sequel names, particularly in schlock horror, the title, or sub-title, describes some kind of return, revenge, reaction, counter-force, backlash, etc. that usually implies it's a direct consequence of one of the previous installments. The movie's tagline might even be something like "And this time, It's Personal."

Also expect "Return of _____", "Son of _____", and "Bride of _____". Can overlap with Character Action Title, where the most common variants are "_____ Returns", "_____ Strikes Back" and "_____ Rides Again".

Compare Unabashed B-Movie Fan. Usually overlaps with The X of Y.

Examples:

    open/close all folders 

    Anime & Manga 

    Asian Animation 
  • The 10th season of Happy Heroes is officially titled Happy Heroes and the Return of the Superhero.

    Comic Books 

    Fan Works 

    Films — Animated 

    Films — Live-Action 

    Literature 
  • C. J. Cherryh's novel The Kif Strike Back. Cherryh was shocked that her publisher took her joking suggestion seriously.
  • It's worth noting that Return of the King is not an example of this trope because: 1) it's not a trilogy but the third volume of a single story, 2) the titular return is something that's been hundreds (?) of years in the making, and not a direct follow-up to the two previous installments. Return of the Shadow was a rejected title for The Fellowship of the Ring, and eventually turned up as the title of the sixth volume in The History of Middle-Earth, Christopher Tolkien's making of dodecalogy.
  • The Cat in the Hat Comes Back
  • Many Goosebumps books: "Return of the Mummy", "Say Cheese and Die - Again!", "Return to HorrorLand", "Return to Ghost Camp", "Return to the Carnival of Horrors", "Return to Terror Tower", "Revenge of the Body Squeezers" and "Bride of the Living Dummy". The "Goosebumps HorrorLand" series includes several non-numbered sequels, starting with "Revenge of the Living Dummy".
  • Arthur Conan Doyle's first collection of Sherlock Holmes stories after bringing the character back to life was titled - what else? - The Return of Sherlock Holmes.
  • Likewise, Chesterton brought back his detective, Father Brown, in The Resurrection of Father Brown.
  • The second omnibus of The Spirit Thief books is titled Revenge of Eli Monpress.
  • One of Richard Lederer's sequels to Anguished English is The Bride of Anguished English.
  • A The Addams Family tie-in novel by W. F. Miksch is called The Addams Family Strikes Back.
  • The Godfather received the sequels The Godfather Returns and The Godfather's Revenge, written by Mark Winegardner after the death of Mario Puzo.
  • The Plant That Ate Dirty Socks: In-universe, Michael and Norman have seen a movie called The Swamp Monster. In book 6, Norman discovers a sequel, Son of Swamp Monster. Out-of-universe, every single sequel includes the phrase "The Plant That Ate Dirty Socks" and some qualifier such as The Return of..., The Escape of... and so on.

    Live Action TV 
  • The Quantum Leap episodes "Return of the Evil Leaper" and "Revenge of the Evil Leaper."
  • Whatever Happened to the Likely Lads?? is kind of a variation on this.
  • Several Mr. Bean episodes: "The Return of Mr. Bean", "The Curse of Mr. Bean", "Mr. Bean Rides Again", etc.
  • How I Met Your Mother made a sequel episode to "Slapsgiving" called "Slapsgiving: Revenge of the Slap". Then they made a third called "Slapsgiving 3: Slappointment in Slapmarra."
  • The second Cinemax season (third Sky1 series) of Strike Back is known as Strike Back: Vengeance in Britian.
  • An in-universe example happens in Friends, when Joey mentions to have acted in a movie titled "Family Honor 2: This-a-Time-a-It's-a-Personal".
  • The Horror Host of Screaming Yellow Theater was named Svengoolie, so a few years later when another the station hired a new horror host he called himself the Son of Svengoolie.
  • Doctor Who has the stories "Revenge of the Cybermen" (which, as is often pointed out, is a contradiction in terms as the emotionless Cybermen should not be able to feel the desire for revenge) and "The Return of Doctor Mysterio".
  • The revival series for Baal Veer is called Baalveer Returns.
  • The title for Return of Ultraman is a bit of a holdover from early development plans, when the Ultra hero from the first series was going to return as its lead protagonist.

    Music 
  • The O.C. Supertones' second studio album was titled Supertones Strike Back, and their sixth was titled Revenge of the O.C. Supertones.
  • Son of Schmilsson, Harry Nilsson's followup album to Nilsson Schmilsson.
  • The Frank Zappa instrumental trilogy Shut Up 'n' Play Yer Guitar, Shut Up 'n' Play Yer Guitar Some More, and Return of the Son of Shut Up 'n' Play Yer Guitar.
    • The song title Return of the Son of Monster Magnet (predating the above trilogy) parodies this trope.
  • Although it's not a sequel, Genesis gave us the song "Return of the Giant Hogweed," in which the eponymous weed (which, in real life, is very unpleasant) comes to life and wreaks havoc.

    Pinball 

    Video Games 

    Web Original 

    Web Video 

    Western Animation 

    Real Life 
  • "Pojan koston paluu" is used quite a lot in Finnish. It literally means "The return of the revenge of the son".
  • Similarly, in Spain "X 2: La Venganza" (X 2: The Revenge) is basically the Spanish equivalent of Electric Boogaloo. The Italian equivalent, also used in this sense, is "X 2: La Vendetta".

Parodies:

    Comic Books 
  • One Short Circuits strip in issue #53 of Mega Man (Archie Comics) revolved a hypothetical sequel to "Curse of the Lion Men", generally considered the worst episode of the Mega Man (Ruby-Spears) cartoon. It was titled "Son of the Return of the Curse of the Lion Men".

    Fan Works 

    Films — Live-Action 

    Literature 
  • In Carpe Jugulum, the Old Count is writing a piece of "music" entitled Return of the Bride of the Revenge of the Son of Count Magpyr. He considered adding "From 20,000 Fathoms", but then scored that bit out.
  • Star Warped, a Star Wars parody, entitles its third part "Episode VI: Return of the Son of Jobbi Rides Again", and the sixth "Episode III: Revenge of the Return of the Son of Psmyth Rides Again: the Next Generation - The Early Years".
  • The final two books in Craig Shaw Gardner's Cineverse Cycle (which take place in a universe of clashing B-Movies) are called Bride of the Slime Monster and Revenge of the Fluffy Bunnies (the first is Slaves of the Volcano God).
  • In The 39 Clues, Dan decides to use his new credit card to order The Ninja’s Revenge Part VII: The Last Revenge and The Ninja’s Revenge Part VIII: The Final Last Revenge on Pay-per-view.
  • The illustrated collections of the Bastard Operator from Hell have volumes named "Son of the Bastard Operator From Hell" and "Bride of the BOFH".
  • The collected books of the Bulwer-Lytton Fiction Contest are variations on the It Was a Dark and Stormy Night line: Just the line itself, then Son of, Bride of (in that order), The Final Conflict, and Rides Again.
  • Riffed on mercilessly in the Captain Underpants Extra Crunchy Book o' Fun spin-offs, in which George and Harold create Hairy Potty comics that parody monster movies:
    • The second installment, Bride of Hairy Potty, is fully titled Night of the Terror of the Revenge of the Curse of the Bride of Hairy Potty.
    • The Sequel Hook promises a Son of the Bride of Hairy Potty, with the full title Night of the Terror of the Dawn of the Day of the Revenge of the Curse of the Late-Afternoon of the Son of the Bride of Hairy Potty.

    Live-Action TV 
  • A Blackadder the Third episode has the title character making sacracstic reference to "Dictionary 2: Revenge of the Killer Dictionary".
  • Mr. Show had a sketch called The Return of the Curse of the Creature's Ghost - a B-Movie parody which consisted largely of the characters arguing over what it was they were supposed to be afraid of.
  • During his opening monologue for the very first episode of The Tonight Show (then known simply as Tonight) in 1954, Steve Allen noted that NBC had already had success with their morning show, Today, then joked that if Tonight was successful, they would introduce yet another program called Son of Tonight.
  • One episode of Russ Abbot's Madhouse had a spoof sequel to The Prisoner of Zenda called Return to Zenda.

    Radio 
  • Red Dwarf started as a sketch on Son of Cliché which was a Sequel Series to Grant Naylor's previous show, Cliche. The first Red Dwarf script book was called Soup and the second, Son Of Soup as a nod to this.

    Video Games 
  • The Curse of the Revenge of the Ghost of the Evil Chicken of Doom...Returns!

    Webcomics 

    Web Originals 
  • How 2 Kill a Mockingbird: Return of the Revenge.
  • Linkara names his live shows in such a manner (e.g: Return of Atop the Fourth Wall Live, Curse of Atop the Fourth Wall Live, Son of Atop the Fourth Wall Live, etc).

    Web Video 

    Western Animation 
  • The Simpsons were once watching a trailer for Titanic 2: Revenge of the Titanic.
    • "Rocky V plus Rocky II equals... Rocky VII: Adrian's Revenge!"
    • In "Homer the Whopper", the producers of the Everyman movie plan to make a sequel titled "Everyman 2: Rise of the Revenge".
  • Family Guy had an episode involving "The Passion of the Christ 2:Crucify This". From what we see of it, it appears to be a Buddy Cop movie featuring Jim Caviezel and Chris Tucker.
  • One episode of The Venture Brothers is "Return to the House of Mummies, part 2." There is no part 1.
  • An episode of The 13 Ghosts of Scooby-Doo has the gang sucked into a horror movie called The Son of the Bride of the Ghost of Frankenstein.
  • The Penguins of Madagascar has an episode called "The Return of the Revenge of Dr. Blowhole", which is a sequel to the episode "The Revenge of Dr. Blowhole".
  • The Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles (1987) had an episode where Baxter Stockman returns yet again from banishment in dimensional limbo, called "Son of Return of the Fly II." (Two of his other appearances were straight examples of this title trope: "Return of the Fly" before the parody-titled episode, and Revenge of the Fly after it.)
  • Season one of Darkwing Duck had an episode titled "Battle of the Brainteasers". (The "brainteasers" were Puppeteer Parasite aliens that looked like hats with eyes.) A sequel episode followed in season two titled "The Revenge of the Return of the Brainteasers, Too!"
  • Danger Mouse: "The Clock Strikes Back" was the follow-up to "The Hickory Dickory Dock Dilemma."
  • In the reboot of The Powerpuff Girls (2016), the villain Man Boy appears in episodes each with the prefix "Man Up" (the first installment) in them:
    • Man Up 2: Still Man-ing
    • Man Up 3: The Good, the Bad and the Manly
    • Man Up 4: The Donnyest Games (with Donny the Unicorn)
  • WordGirl: Lady Redundant Woman's second focus episode is called "Return of the Reprise of Lady Redundant Woman", a joke about how said character is themed around being redundant.

     Real Life 
  • Terry Pratchett used to have a gag he did with people who brought all their Discworld novels to sign. He'd start off with "Best Wishes" then "Better Wishes", "Even Better Wishes", "More Wishes" and so on, then eventually move on to "Son of Best Wishes", "Bride of Best Wishes", and "Return of the Killer Best Wishes (from 20,000 Fathoms)". This prompted one fan to suggest the sort of dedications Sir Terry would be writing when he hit the fifty book mark and people were backing the car in, including "Fuck Off", "Son of Fuck Off" and "Third Prodigal Son of a Fling with the Daughter of the Baker to Fuck Off". Fans being what they are, some people later requested these.

Alternative Title(s): The Revenge Of The Sequel

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