Generation Xerox - Television Tropes & Idioms

Someday Mother will die and I'll get the money
Mom leans down and says "My sentiments exactly."

— They Might Be Giants, "I Palindrome I"

Yes, we know that Lamarck Was Right... but this is getting silly.

You see, not only has our hero discovered his Secret Legacy and realized that, due to his Superpowerful Genetics, he has inherited all of Mum and Dad's abilities (including the ones courtesy of Charles Atlas)... he's found out that he's destined/doomed to live out a replay of their lives.

This trope takes "following in your parent's footsteps" to a whole new level. The character hasn't just inherited their parents' character traits and superpowers — they've inherited their entire life story.

They will meet the same people their parents met, or, if this isn't possible, they will have an equivalent. If Mandy's best friend when she was a child was Polly the Soap Box Sadie, her daughter Mindy will befriend Paula the Soap Box Sadie on her first day of school. Sometimes it's just a coincidence, where the child seems to gravitate towards the same type of people as their mum and dad were drawn to, but often the new associate will have some direct tie to the parent's past (i.e. is the daughter of someone that knew the character's mum).

Often, certain key events will happen exactly as they did in the past. In many plotlines, however, the outcome will change at the last moment since the hero(ine) has heard the story from their parents and has had the time to work out what went wrong and worked up the guts to change it. For example, if the hero's dad fell out with his best friend because neither would apologize to the other, the hero will figure out that saying sorry is the best way to keep his own friendship going.

To a certain point, this trope can be a Justified Trope. If the parents send the kid to the same school as they themselves went to, then it's not such a stretch to believe that the son or daughter will encounter the same people. If the parents kept in touch with their old friends, it's not unlikely that the child will befriend the children of those friends. However, if the parents moved to a different country, assumed secret identities and tried to forget the past, only to have Junior come home from his first day of school announcing that his dad's right hand man is his English teacher... that's a bit more of a stretch.

Mentors who become parental figures will also tend to pass on their life story, although karma rather than genetics will be held responsible for the resulting deja vu.

Love Interests and relationships tend to get copied whole cloth as well. Whether it's the descendants of two Star Crossed Lovers or the child of the Official Couple from a Love Dodecahedron finding out they have their parent's stable's children gunning for them with cupid's arrows.

And heaven help you if your parents/mentors made a mess of their lives, because guess what? Yup, that Fatal Flaw was hereditary too. Better get to work figuring out just how they screwed things up, because if you don't, chances are the same tragedy's going to happen again. And it'll be your fault this time around, in which case you'll have no choice but to pass the entire scenario on to your son or daughter and hope that they can Set Right What Once Went Wrong — a sort of generational Groundhog Day.

Very often, the exact same actors will be used to portray the ancestors. The more distant they are, the more likely this is.

Examples

Anime and Manga

In Pet Shop Of Horrors, Count D's dad is portrayed throughout the series as a nasty piece of work, a Manipulative Bastard supreme. It's surprising then, when a short story reveals that D's dad was much like his son when he was younger, to the point he even had a "Leon" of his own in the form of Vesca Howell — a loud mouthed and brash best friend who he was exceedingly fond of but whom he ultimately abandoned, just as D abandoned Leon at the end of Petshop. The elder D's later "madness", and the fact that he and Howell were eventually responsible for each other's deaths, doesn't bode well for his son, especially given the "Count D" family's odd connection to karma.
One of the themes of Naruto is the recurrence of certain characters, traits, and patterns across the generations. Team 7's relations and characteristics, for example, are a dead ringer for those of the Legendary Sannin. This was one of the reason many fans were able to pick up on a Luke I Am Your Father revelation long before it was revealed in canon.
- Not that it was particularly subtle.
- As a matter of fact, the relationship between Naruto and his friend/rival Sasuke works as a Generation Xerox on three separate levels across multiple generations.
- What about the Ino-Shika-Chou trio?
  - Many aspects of Shikamaru much more closely parallel their sensei's than his father, though there is some overlap.
One episode of Yu-Gi-Oh features a duel between Yugi and a girl named Rebecca, who accuses Yugi's grandfather of stealing his Blue-Eyes White Dragon card from her grandfather. The duel ends up mirroring exactly a duel between the two grandfathers held in a caved-in archaeological site, with the last bit of water on the line. Both Yugi and his grandfather ended up surrendering their duels even though they would have won with their last card draw.
The final episode of Digimon Adventure 02, the second season of Digimon, ends with a Where Are They Now Epilogue in which all twelve of the heroes from the past two seasons bring their children to the Digital World for a get-together. Not only do many of the kids look somewhat like their parents, but ALL their partner Digimon are lower-level forms of their parents' own partner Digimon. This scene is not popular with the fans, though that's mainly for shipping-related reasons.
Rapidly subverted in Mahou Sensei Negima manga, which has the earnest, 10-year-old genius mage Negi following in the footsteps of his hugely-famous Disappeared Dad, the "Thousand Master" Nagi... Only later Nagi is shown to be a laidback magic school dropout who —although quite powerful— had to read spells off of a card and resorted to cheap tricks whenever possible (like, say, luring a certain vampire into a covered hole in the ground). In power and personality, they're completely different, and Negi increases the divide even further by choosing the powers of darkness.
- That all said MANY comparasions can be made between generations, and grow with each relevation: Negi=Nagi, Kotarou=Jack Rakan, Setsuna=Eishun, and of course Ala Alba=Ala Rubra. For that matter Albrieo Imma is rather mischevious and the team healer, like Konoka. And with the Nagi calling the Zect his "master" recalls Ku Fei.
Partially applied in Tsubasa Reservoir Chronicles Where we find out that the Syaoran from which the main character was cloned was the Identical child of Syaoran and Sakura From Card Captor Sakura who falls in love with an Alternate World version of his own mother (talk about an Oedipus complex), thus forming a couple exactly like his parents.
Played with in Tengen Toppa Gurren Lagann, where the villain notes that all of what the heroes are doing has been done before to no success.
Code Geass. An Emperor and his Knight, to whom he is very close, form a plan to unite the world for its own good by any means necessary. Now, thinking carefully, am I talking about Charles and Marianne, or Lelouch and Suzaku?
A Pettanko sorceress from Zephilia meets a mercenary swordsman and they fall in love while fighting to make a buck. Lina Inverse and Gourry Gabriev, or Lina's parents?
A rough-looking young man from the north punches his way through adversity and is very Hot Blooded. Sanosuke Sagara, or his father Kamishimoemon?

Comic Books

Both played straight and subverted for all it's worth in Runaways.
John Constantine's 19th century ancestor, Lady Johanna Constantine, is a suave, dashing sorceress with a tendency to doom her loved ones to horrible fates.
In Spider-Girl, and related series like A-Next, most of the characters are awfully similar to their parents, mentors, or inspirations. The next generation of superheroes has different demographics, however, as a disproportionate number of daughters fill their fathers' shoes. In their favour, they often have different personalites and motives, just similar career and fashion choices.
- Spider-Man —> Spider-Girl; Spider-Woman —> Spider-Man; Captain America —> American Dream; Ant Man —> Stinger; Black Cat —> Scarlet Spider; Daredevil, Ghost Rider, and Ben Reilly —> Darkdevil; Quicksilver —> Blue Streak; Falcon —> Ladyhawk; Juggernaut —> J2; Wolverine and Elekra —> Wild Thing; etc, etc...

Fan Fic

Especially common in Harry Potter and Ranma 1/2 Fan Fic. Even before the Deathly Hallows epilogue.
- It's not just those two series, it's everywhere. Any "Next Gen" fic will feature kids who are either 1.) Exact carbon copies of their parents or 2.) Have a blend of traits that the writer thought were the coolest aspects of said parents. This applies to personality, fighting styles, what the kids want to be when they grow up, etc.. Occasionally the kids will have certain aspects of their grandparents if they showed up in the series and they were likable enough. When you get right down to it, all of these "original characters" are the same damn people and the only difference will depend on what the writer's favorite name is.
  - And while we're on the subject, this leaches into the shipping as well. For example, if the writer is a Harry/Draco fan, this will come across/feature in an Al/Scorpius fic. Same goes for Rose/Scorpius = Hermione/Draco, among others.

Film

In the Back To The Future trilogy, George McFly is bullied by Biff Tannen; his grandson Marty McFly, Jr is goaded into crime by Griff Tannen. Both characters' escape from their respective tormentor was catalyzed by Marty McFly, Sr, who is himself (initially) goaded into crime by Douglas Needles (not a Tannen, but he fills the same Jerk Jock/Corrupt Corporate Executive role as Biff).
- Marty Sr is reluctant to send his demo tape to a record producer because he "couldn't handle that kind of rejection". George (in the original history) won't send his manuscript to a publisher for the same reason.
Star Wars: Young Skywalker is whisked away from his home on Tattooine by a Jedi Knight. He then saves the day by flying a starfighter into battle and improbably blowing up the enemy space station, befriending R2-D2 in the process. He then receives training in the Force against Yoda's protests, leading him to overconfidently attack Palpatine's Dragon, losing an appendage for his troubles. Now, are we talking about Luke or Anakin?
- Arguably subverted, as Luke didn't turn to the Dark Side like his father did.
  - Arguably not subverted. Arguably reflecting the point of the Trope.
- Arguably taken a step further in the Expanded Universe, in which Luke decides there's no such thing as a 'light side' and 'dark side', only the Force, henceforth using the force entirely as he sees fit. Later, after a certain incident, he comes to the rapid conclusion that he's made a terrible mistake, and cuts himself of from the unsavory elements of the Force. In some ways, reflecting how Anakin came to embrace the Dark Side, only to repent and slay the Emperor.
In Forrest Gump, both Bubba's mother and Lieutenant Dan are depicted as coming from long lines of service (the Blue clan comes from a long line of servants, and Lieutenant Dan's ancestors had died in each of America's wars.) In both cases, it's Forrest's intervention that breaks their cycles: He saves Lieutenant Dan from death (but not from losing his legs) in Vietnam, and he gives Bubba's mother a cut of his shrimping money (the last scene she's in has someone serving her.)
Mamma Mia! has a mild version: Sophie's relationship with her best friends Ali and Lisa is identical to that of her mother Donna and her best friends Tanya and Rosie - both groups have their own friendship chants and the similarity is Lampshaded in a later scene when both groups unwittingly have a near identical conversation.
The film The Duchess seems to be a determined attempt to present the life of Georgina, Duchess of Devonshire, as a foreshadowing of her collateral descendant Diana, Princess of Wales.
In Tremors 4: Back to Perfection, Burt's 19th century ancestor encounters the Graboids.

Literature

In Harry Potter, this cuts both ways. Harry's father and his cohorts from their days at Hogwarts, the Marauders, map well onto Harry and his friends — and he meets every single one of them before the end of the third book. And the "first day at Hogwarts" at the end of Deathly Hallows is a dead ringer for Harry's own "first day" way back in Philosopher's Stone. This is emphasised when Harry's daughter Lily whines that she wants to go to Hogwarts now to her mother, Ginny... who said the same thing six books earlier.
- This is also subverted to an extent with Harry's father — Harry unthinkingly assumes that their characters were xeroxed until Harry's father James turns out to have been a pampered little idiot in his teenage years, properly maturing only when he was out of school. It's implied that Harry's unhappy upbringing has made him a better person in some respects.
- Fanfics set in the Marauders era or the Albus Potter era, however, have a strong tendency to follow this trope.
A non heroic example is present in Gabriel García Márquez's novel One Hundred Years Of Solitude. The names and the personality traits associated with those names emerges in each generation of the Buendía family, leading to a cycle of repeating mishaps and tragedies which only ends with the death of the last member of the family and the destruction of the town the family founded.
It is rather subtle but the similarities between the younger generation of (especially, but definitely not just them) Stark children in A Song of Ice and Fire and the previous generation has been pointed out.
Every generation of the Ohmsford family in Terry Brooks Shannara series includes one member who, against his family's advice, Jumps At The Call of the druid Allanon (or his successors). This family member stands a good chance of being friends with the impulsive Prince of Leah, and will almost certainly encounter the King of the Silver River and be accompanied by a group of Men, Dwarves and Elves (probably including Elven royalty) against the Big Bad. They may also have a more sensible sibling who accompanies them to stop them getting into trouble, encounter a Loveable Rogue named Creel, and befriend a Moor Cat.
In Neal Stephenson’s novel Cryptonomicon and its multipart Prequel, The Baroque Cycle, the characters of Laurence Waterhouse and his ancestor Daniel are both descended from nonconformist preachers (Lawrence’s grandfather, Bunyan, and Daniel’s father, Drake). Despite an unconventional childhood, they attend a prestigious university (Princeton/Cambridge) where they form a strong but uneasy friendship with an obsessive, gay ubergenius (Alan Turing/Isaac Newton). They subsequently come onto the radar of the mysterious immortal Enoch Root, and become involved in a complex secret war involving hidden gold and cryptography, with the assistance of Sergeant Bob Shaftoe (of the US Marines/the King’s Own Black Torrent Guards), while also becoming involved with the political machinations of the Comstock family (Roger Comstock, Marquis of Ravenscar/Earl Comstock, first head of the NSA) and working on early computers (very early in Daniel's case).
- Laurence’s grandson, Randy, in Cryptonomicon's 1990s sections, also fits the pattern to some extent; he’s a computer geek, he becomes involved in Root’s conspiracy, works with Bobby Shaftoe’s son (and has a relationship with his granddaughter), and deals with the political machinations of Earl Comstock’s descendant. Admittedly, he starts out with an interest in his grandfather’s work, but that doesn’t explain all of it, and certainly not why his capitalist venture partner just happens to be descended from a member of the original Bob Shaftoe’s brother’s pirate crew (as, incidentally, is Goto Dengo, one of a handful of characters to appear in the 1940s and 1990s sequences of Cryptonomicon. He’s a Japanese soldier who converts to Christianity; his ancestor was one of the "Kirishitan" Jesuits persecuted by Toyotomi Hideyoshi).
The writing of David Eddings, especially the Belgariad/Malloreon series and the Elenium/Tamuli series, in which characters specifically point out the similarity of events. This repetition is put down to Destiny by The Obi Wan/Dirty Old Man/Byronic Hero Belgarath and Creepy Child/Oracular Urchin/Physical God Aphrael, respectively. At the end of both series, however, it is claimed that this cycle of Destined Events has been broken, making the future unpredictable.
Subverted to some extent in Tamora Pierce's Trickster's Choice, where it is revealed that the daughter of female knight Alanna has no interest in becoming a knight herself, and in fact begins the book as a rather lazy and unambitious individual.
- It's a pretty mild subversion, though, because what she wants is to follow in the footsteps of her spymaster father instead...
In Wuthering Heights, Heathcliff and Isabella's son Linton Heathcliff has the worst traits of both of his parents, being a nasty, cowardly snob. On the positive side, Harleton Earnshaw and Catherine Linton have a lot in common with young Heathcliff and young Catherine Earnshaw (in fact, Heathcliff deliberately keeps Harleton uneducated to mold him into a new version of himself), but turn out to be better than the older generation.
There is something like this is seen in Vanity Fair- Amelia, who is something of a Wide Eyed Idealist Yamato Nadeshiko has a son George who she terribly spoils, leading him on a path to become like his father, George, who was a snobish Jerk Jock wannabe aristocrat, but whereas Dogged Nice Guy Dobbin wasn't successful in reforming the earlier George, he is able to mould the younger one his step-son into a better person. The other "heroine", Becky Sharpe, has a Freudian Excuse for some of her behavior. She neglects her son Rawdon, who is named after his father who was better than most of his family who were a long line of evil aristocrats. While less of a character than young George, the younger Rawdon also seems to grow up to be a better person than his parents- he gives his mother a settlement not to come near him ever again which contrasts with how his grandfather, Sir Pitt Crawley tried to cheat his children out of inheritance owed to them.

Live Action TV

Although the various generations of the Black Adder family are accompanied by Baldrick and an Upper Class Twit, it's not until Blackadder Goes Forth that we get a real sense of history repeating, with more recurring characters from previous series than before, including one-off characters who take their own plotlines from the earlier series with them (Bob the Sweet Polly Oliver, for instance, or Nurse Mary, who's a WWI version of Amy Hardcastle from Third). The fact the basic set-up is similar to Blackadder II (Edmund, Balders and the twit are all based in location 1. Blackadder is frequently summoned to location 2 where an obsequious hanger-on with equal status tries to get him in trouble with a psychotic loon who has power of life and death over everyone involved) is just the icing on the cake.
The Highlander TV series is an arguable variation, as Duncan is often running into the same situations (and the same people, being immortals) as he did hundreds of years ago.
- In a similar fashion, vampire cop Nick Knight of Forever Knight runs into similar situations (and the same people, being vampires) as he did hundreds of years ago.
- In a slightly different fashion, the modern-day sequel series to Kung Fu, The Legend Continues, always flashed back to life 15 years before in Shao Lin monastery, and lessons learned or enemies encountered there were always relevant to the present-day situation.
The Star Trek series always have The Kirk, The Spock, and The Mc Coy, though who exactly The Mc Coy is is often hard to pin down (except in Enterprise, which was a deliberate use of Generation Xerox.)
- The Captain: Kirk, Picard, Janeway, Sisko and Archer
- The Second in Command: Spock, Riker, Kira, Chakotay and T'Pol
- The Alien: Spock, Worf, Quark, Neelix and Phlox
- The Doctor: Mc Coy, Beverly Crusher, Julian Bashir, The Holographic Doctor and Phlox
- The Engineer: Scotty, Geordi La Forge, Miles O'Brien, B'Elanna Torres and Trip Tucker
- The Chick: Uhura, Deanna Troi, Jadzia Dax, Seven of Nine and T'Pol
- The Kid: Chekov, Wesley Crusher, Jake Sisko, Naomi Wildman and Travis Mayweather
- The Filler: Nurse Chapel and Yeoman Rand, Tasha Yar and the Nerd Barclay, Ezri Dax and Kira Nerys, Tom Paris and Tuvok, Hoshi Sato
They might have got better (kind of) but in Supernatural's Mystery Spot, Dean died and Sam became a ruthless hunter, bent on revenge against Dean's killer. As you would recall, their mother died (she didn't get better) and their father became a ruthless hunter, bent on revenge against her killer. And yes, it's as slashy as it sounds.
Played with in the first episode of the final season of Buffy, when Dawn is joined by two outcast classmates - a mousy shy girl and a loudmouthed guy - and fight monsters on their first day at the newly rebuilt Sunndale High. Those characters were subsequently forgotten.

Video Games

Subverted, deconstructed and generally hashed into pieces by Metal Gear Solid 2. The new player character seems to experience a sequence of events extremely similar to ones experienced by the previous player character in the previous game, with note-for-note character analogues and extremely similar level design. The character noticed this, too, and began to get pretty existentialist about it, wondering if he was somehow insane and imagining the whole thing. It turned out it was all deliberately orchestrated to have precisely that effect on him. The game was basically a satire of reiterated sequels, hence the dark use of this trope.
- An agent, codenamed Snake goes on a solo mission to rescue somebody. There he finds out plans to build a nuclear-armed tank. Eventually, he discovers that his mentor is part of the plot, and after a battle, kills the mentor in combat. Now, are we talking about Big Boss or Solid Snake (or even Raiden)?
  - Made obvious by the end of Metal Gear Solid 4 when both are standing next to each other.
- He was a child soldier in a 3rd world country, he was taken under the wing of a skilled soldier who wears a eyepatch, and later on his body was destroyed which led to him becoming a cyborg Now am I talking about Frank Jaeger aka Gray Fox or Jack more commonly known as Raiden?
The Belmont family from Castlevania. For hundreds of years, each generation's males (and many of the females) had to fight Dracula (or his offspring) at least once. This is due to some vague "curse" in the family (which also carried over to other family lines).
- The Sorrow games go even further. The six main protagonists are Soma (the reincarnation of Dracula), his "friend" Mina, vampire hunter Julius Belmont, witch Yoko Belnades, Genya Arikado (aka Alucard), and Hammer (who was originally going to be playable in Julius Mode in Dawn of Sorrow, and fanon suggests would have played like Grant DaNasty). Everyone is essentially a counterpart to someone from the story behind Castlevania III: Dracula's Curse, except that Mina (the Lisa counterpart) isn't dead.
Played rather more literally with Cloud and Zack in Final Fantasy VII. after Zack's death, Cloud has a Heroic BSOD and reconstructs his own personality based on the memories of his dead friend, turning himself into Zack's Expy. However, there are other, more random, events that just so happen to play out the same way in both of their stories - especially those relating to Aerith.
Played with in Valkyria Chronicles. Everyone thinks Welkin is following in his father footsteps while what he really wants is to become a teacher.

Web Comics

Better Days Actually has a chapter called "Father's Footsteps" Reveals that the stories told to Fisk of his father's life were a lie. Instead of the honorable war hero he had believed his father to be, Jim was actually a hitman working for a secret underground operation who fought terrorist on a "more direct front" to defend the U.S., using Vietnam as his cover. One of the characters who explain this met Fisk in his adolescence ealier in the comic and was Jim's friend. Aside from one question accompanied by a frown, Fisk doesn't seem at all angered, dismayed, or even shocked by this ground breaking discovery. He of course hastily agrees to begin training for this new venture eventhough Beth was expecting him to come live with her and lead a more domestic life once his army contract expired.
Surma sends her daughter Antimony to the same school as she herself attended — Gunnerkrigg Court. It seems as if Annie's parents were the only members of that generation who moved away from the court, since Annie runs into most of her parents' social circle (who are now teachers), befriending the daughter (Kat) of Surma's friends. She also meets another acquaintance of Surma's — Reynardine. Instead of walking up to her and saying "Hello, I knew your mum," however, Reynardine comes crashing through Annie's ceiling — and she's the only student in the entire dorm to see him.
- Given her Secret Legacy, it also appears that Annie is destined to acquire Surma's role in the Court, as well as her powers.
  - A recent flashback has shown that Surma, who looks exactly like an older Annie, appeared to have had an almost identical relationship to Kat's mother as Annie has to Kat.
In Girl Genius, Agatha's guardian had to give her an apparently magical (or at least sufficiently advanced beyond what the setting usually has—not that the series has stayed entirely away from magical effects) necklace specifically to prevent her from inheriting her hereditary position as the apparent center of the universe—within a week of losing it, she's escaped from the ruler of Europe's airship after his son fell in love with her, in tow with a talking cat and a legendary hero who then tries to kill her, after having defeated a hive of body horrors and having her foster parents ripped to shreds by a construct made by her mother. And it only picks up speed from there.
- As one character puts it, "We're in a Heterodyne story now, these things happen."
- The Love Triangle that is mirroring the one that took place two hundred years before involving the Storm King, a villainous Spark, and a Heterodyne princess. In fact she was the last girl to be born to the Heterodynes before Agatha,adding to the confusion is the fairytale/Prophecy, that peace can only come to Europa when the Storm King weds the Heterodyne Princess. Now which of her two suitors is which? Gilgamesh, heir to The Empire who demonstated his eligablity to be the Storm King in his Crowning Moment Of Awesome, vs Tarvek, the descendant of the Storm King who, while quite a capable Spark, is more known for his being a Magnificent Bastard.
Riff of Sluggy Freelance seems to be following in his father's footsteps of reckless science, exploration and demonism. This is impressive because they last saw eachother when he was in kindergarten. Meanwhile he's dating a woman as controlling and evil as his mother (slightly less cruel, but more interested in exterminating humanity).

Western Animation

A subversion of the "replay with last minute change" occurs in Hey Arnold, where Helga is a finalist in the same spelling bee as her sister before her... and gets the same last word, "qualm". Like her sister Olga, Helga does know how to spell the word... but deliberately mis-spells it, in order to defy her father and step out of Olga's shadow.
- Don't forget a different episode of the same show where Grandpa tells Arnold about his childhood and the girl that bullied him. Although it skips a generation, we learn that Pookie picked on Phil the same way Helga picks on Arnold.
  - Or the one where Arnold and Gerald get in a fight. Phil and his best friend had a similar argument in their youth...
In one episode of Rugrats, Tommy's grand-aunt visits; at the end of the episode, we find out that, as a child, she had the same relationship with Grandpa that Angelica has with Tommy, and even mentions "those two kids from down the street, Bill and Jill".
Transformers: Optimus and his crew crash-land in the distant past on Earth, and must fend off attacks from Megatron and his band of miscreants while defending the planet and attempting to return to Cybertron. Now, are we talking about Prime or Primal? To further draw parallels, Cheetor takes up Bumblebee's mantle, and Terrorsaur makes a good Starscream Expy.
- In Transformers: Mosaic, Optimus Primal notes the symmetry.
  - Except, of course, that's fanfic; therefore, kinda sorta, well... something that never happened.
In the Western, Identical Grandson episode of Jackie Chan Adventures, Valmont's ancestor is trying to release Shendu, and ends up being defeated by Jackie's ancestor.
Subverted quite a bit in Batman Beyond. As the Distant Finale shows Terry was a Tyke Bomb that was designed to follow the path to becoming Batman almost exactly, but despite this he ends up being somewhat different. For instance Terry is not afraid to kill his enemies if he has to, and as he demonstrated to the Joker himself, he's not afraid of fighting dirty or turning someone's mind games around on them.
In the What If Flash Forward episode Ken 10, Ben's nearly-identical son Ken (he has darker skin, like his mother, and slightly darker brown hair, but is otherwise a Ben clone) is given an Omnitrix by his father on his tenth birthday because he got his when he was ten. It also has the same limitations as his original (time limit, limited number of aliens), and then Ken goes on to meet Devlin, the transforming, superpowered son of Ben's formal rival Kevin (Theme Naming, anyone? Oh yes). Ken also offers Devlin the opportunity to join the Tennyson family, the same offer Ben made Kevin as a child. However, Devlin actually accepts the offer, unlike his father.
- This troper also thinks that Ken's name is a mushed-up version of his parents' names, Ben and Kai, and giving Gwen a brother with the same name was done after the fact...
Famous Five On The Case. This troper can't help feeling it would have been more interesting if George's daughter had been the girly girl, and Anne's the tomboy.
One episode of Totally Spies features the team that cam before Sam, Alex and Clover: Pam, Alice and Crimson.
An episode of Kim Possible shows her 19th century ancestor as an adventurous reporter in the vein of Tintin, Ron's ancestor as her partner, and the ancestors of Shego and Drakken as her archenemies.
In an episode of The Powerpuff Girls, the 19th century ancestor of Professor Utonium creates his own version of the Powerpuff Girls using steampunk technology.
In The Fairly Oddparents, Timmy's 19th century ancestor has Cosmo and Wanda as his fairy godparents.
An episode of Ace Ventura: Pet Detective shows Ace Ventura's medieval ancestor as a pet detective, Guado's ancestor as a corrupt sheriff and Woodstock's ancestor as the informer of Ace's ancestor (complete with a steampunk computer).

Real Life

Both Bruce Lee and his son, Brandon Lee, died under mysterious circumstances, leaving half-finished films behind that would later be completed posthumously (Bruce Game of Death, and Brandon The Crow). The similarities between their deaths led to a number of conspiracy theories involving the Triads and other Asian organized crime associations.

First Law Of Tragicomedies

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