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"So the main plot is that there's this evil cult that's kidnapping everybody on the island, including the king's daughter. Just another day in Fantasy Land. So since you're a historical badass, they've resurrected you to go and get her back, and to lay the hurt down on anyone that gets in your way."

A dead person who is brought Back from the Dead because their skills are needed to accomplish some grand mission (perhaps because it's too difficult for any living hero, or because someone officially dead is required for it, etc.).

May involve a trip to the afterlife, in which case this can overlap with Devil's Job Offer.

This trope is not about heroes being resurrected after getting killed mid-series. See Disney Death for that. This trope is for when resurrection is used in a premise of the story.

See also Comic Book Death and We Can Rebuild Him.

This is a Death Trope, at least in the case of sequels. Spoilers ahoy!


Examples

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    Anime and Manga 
  • The Impure World Resurrection from Naruto is a jutsu used to bring back dead ninja who were especially skilled or powerful.
  • Inuyasha:
    • Urasue tries to resurrect Kikyo and command her. It doesn't work out so well.
    • Naraku later resurrects the Band of Seven and Saint Hakushin to keep Inuyasha's crew distracted while he upgrades himself in Mount Hakurei.
  • Dragon Ball Z features a lot of Disney Deaths, but the straightest example of this trope is probably the second time Goku is revived. They tried to revive him after he was killed by Cell, but since he realized he -- and by extension, his friends and the world -- would eventually be targeted by new threats he refused to be resurrected. Seven years later, Gohan is the only warrior who hasn't been killed or absorbed by Majin Buu, and he can't beat him, so Goku has to be revived to help him.
    • Then it gets played with a bit: the powers that be in the afterlife get desperate and decide to offer Vegeta, who previously sacrificed himself in a vain attempt to destroy Buu, another chance to take on the demon. He accepts, and they send him back to the world of the living... but they don't actually resurrect him. He's still dead, he just has a physical body so he can fight again. And if he dies while already dead, he'll be rendered Deader than Dead...
    • Dragon Ball Super: The ability to bring a dead person back to the physical world for a single day was used again for the Tournament of Power, when the heroes were in desperate need of a strong fighter for their team, they choose Frieza, who is in Earth's hell after his death on the planet.
    • This comes into play twofold for the Namek saga. Piccolo's death in the Saiyan saga meant the Earth Dragonballs died with him and they needed the Namekian set instead. Once they manage to get the balls together to make wishes, Piccolo insists he come back first in order to restore the Earth Dragonballs. This ends up being a crucial decision as the Grand Elder of Namek passes away from stress, which immediately dissolves the immortal dragon Porunga before he's granted all his wishes. With Piccolo alive again, King Kai is able to pull together a plan to revive the Namekians including the Grand Elder using Earth's immortal dragon Shenron, thus reviving Porunga exactly as he was and then use his final wish to evacuate everyone off of the dying planet.
  • Downplayed in case of Motoko Kusanagi from Ghost in the Shell: Stand Alone Complex. She was resurrected as a cyborg after a plane crash that nearly claimed her life and is now working as a law enforcer/cyber commando, but that accident happened when she was 10-years old or so. Having to live in a cyborg body (only her brain is organic) led her to mastering it, and thus her current job.
  • This is the premise of High School Dx D in which Issei is murdered, but resurrected by the high-class devil Rias to be her servant. She also resurrects Asia to serve as the team's healer after she's killed, and seems to have employed this method to recruit the rest of her team as well, seeking out those who are on the verge of death but could be put to good use.

    Comic Books 
  • Blackest Night's Black Hand and his lanterns.
  • The Crow resurrects those who have been murdered along with those they loved in order to "set the wrong things right" by taking down their murderers.
  • At the beginning of their original series, Dr. Magnus would rebuild the Metal Men anytime a monster of the week would show up.
  • Dead X-Men: The titular team are all X-Men killed in the previous year's Hellfire Gala, revived to try and Set Right What Once Went Wrong.
  • Doom Patrol's Robotman is a borderline case, being resuscitated as a robot after a crash, in order to join the Doom Patrol.
  • Marvel Universe's original Deathlok arguably qualifies.
  • Featured in the backstory of Spawn: he is resurrected to increase the armies of Hell.
  • Darkseid has the ability to resurrect his lieutenants for a job, usually after he's killed them.
  • Norman Osborn brings back Hawkeye's brother Barney Barton, also known as Trickshot, from a morgue, despite being dead for several years both in Real Life and Comic-Book Time, just to show how Comic Book Death works, in order to join up with a new team of Dark Avengers.
  • Every member of the Death Vigil gets this treatment, as Death needs people to fight things that should not be.
  • Downplayed in Dynamite's The Shadow. The Shadow can't bring people fully back to life, but he can keep them from crossing over for a short while, usually long enough to get information or, in one case, land a plane.
  • Drax the Destroyer's origin is that he was resurrected after he and his family were murdered by Thanos and tasked with killing the Mad Titan back. (Of course, Thanos oscillates between 5 and 7 on the Super Weight scale regularly and is frequently completely immortal. Drax's main power is that he's a Stone Wall who refuses to stop trying to kill Thanos. The idea was that he'd have to succeed eventually. Even In-Universe, this logic has been called into question.)
  • Moon Knight actually has this as his only consistent super–power. Maybe. Because he knows his god will pull him back as often as is necessary, his fighting style can only be described as "suicidal" - Taskmaster, who can mimic other's abilities just by watching them, won't even look at Moon Knight for fear of having a fighting style he's described as "painful to look at" imprinted on his mind.
  • The Warlord (DC): Chakal was resurrected by the sorcerer Deimos for his hatred of Morgan, and became one of Deimos' servants.
  • X-Men (2019): Vulcan inexplicably returns from the Fault he was trapped in back in War of Kings, seemingly alive, unharmed, and with his sanity restored. Then the truth starts to be revealed; Vulcan really did die back in his final duel with Black Bolt, but his soul was grabbed by a group of inter-dimensional alien invaders who repaired his body and mind before dumping him back into reality so he can serve as their Manchurian Agent.

    Fan Works 
  • The plot of Hope for the Heartless is set after The Black Cauldron, and it begins with the Horned King being resurrected for a period of 18 months by the Fates and half-forced on a seemingly impossible redemption quest: earning a human's love. Nothing else is revealed about the reasons for this other than the Fates are obliged to it for unclear reasons. The Horned King is promised a full freedom from the Black Cauldron for successful completion of the quest and permanent imprisonment into it for failure.
  • More or less the whole plot of 'A Hollow in Equestria''. Discord has brought Ulquiorra Cifer back to life in Equestria, because he needs him to deal with whatever threats due to a Cosmic Flaw throwing Equestria's reality right off its axis.
  • Rainbow Dash dies saving Luna at the start of Where Loyalties Lie: Honor Guard, but Celestia brings her back as an Honor Guard to find the assassin and the antidote to the poison that's now slowly killing Luna. While Celestia had intended to return Rainbow's soul to the afterlife afterwards, this being Rainbow, she vehemently refuses.

    Films — Live-Action 
  • Universal Soldier: After being killed, soldiers are brought back to life via cyborgization and used on missions too dangerous for regular soldiers.
  • Similarly, Robocop has a murdered cop rebuilt as a cyborg by OCP.
  • Pirates of the Caribbean
    Jack: Did anybody want me back just because they missed me?
    *two or three of the crew raise their hands*
    Jack: Ah, I think I'll stand over there with them.
  • Brittany Murphy's character in The Prophecy II is resurrected because Gabriel needs a human familiar with modern technology to help him search for the mother of a Nephilim and prevent its birth.
  • Freddy Krueger brings Jason Voorhees back to life in Freddy vs. Jason, as a part of his plan to renew his reign of night terror.
  • Occurs several times in the Godzilla films.
    • Godzilla vs. King Ghidorah has the Japanese attempt to nuke a Godzillasaurus in order to mutate it into Godzilla and stop King Ghidorah. The problem is that Godzilla was already mutated by the nuclear subs at the bottom of the Bering Sea (where he was transported pre-mutation) so nuking him again only made him bigger and more powerful.
      • Later, King Ghidorah is resurrected as Mecha-King Ghidorah to stop Godzilla from destroying Tokyo.
    • Godzilla, Mothra, King Ghidorah: Giant Monsters All-Out Attack! features three gods (Baragon, Mothra, and Ghidorah) being resurrected/awakened from their eternal slumber in order to save Japan from Godzilla.
      • Likewise, Godzilla himself is resurrected by the vengeful souls of the forgotten soldiers who died in WWII to punish the Japanese for forgetting them.
  • In Justice League, the eponymous nascent League (Batman, Wonder Woman, Aquaman, Flash and Cyborg) resurrects Superman using the Mother Box in order to ensure the chances of defeating Steppenwolf.

    Literature 
  • 'Pham Nguyen' is brought back from some 'deaders' in A Fire Upon the Deep and becomes a true hero.
  • Happens to Agrus Kos in the Magic: The Gathering novel Dissension after his death in Guildpact.
  • In Michael Moorcock's Eternal Champion series, the protagonist is a hero who is magically resurrected, as different people, on different worlds to wage war. He is VERY good at it.
  • In The Heroes of Olympus, the Doors Of Death have opened, meaning that no one stays dead for long. While this can be good (as when Gwen gets speared during a combat exercise) it also means that Gaea can resurrect deadly monsters and giants to help her defeat the Olympians.
    • Hazel was apparently brought back to help in the fight against the giants.
  • Kevin Landwaster is brought back in The Chronicles of Thomas Covenant to fight Lord Foul. It turns out to be a really, really bad idea.
  • The Saga of Darren Shan has the Little People, all of whom were resurrected for a purpose by Mr. Des Tiny, with no memories of who they'd been when they were alive. Harkat Mulds is the only one who can talk, and he becomes Darren's close friend. It turns out he was Darren's one-time friend Kurda Smahlt, who was executed for betraying the vampires, and his appearance as Harkat before his death was due to time travel; and his mission was to protect Darren, Mr. Tiny's secret son, who is destined to take over the world and destroy humanity. Harkat did indeed save Darren's life many times.
  • Not precisely "resurrected" (since he exists only as a computer personality construct), but the first phase of the plot in Neuromancer is bringing back the Dixie Flatline for One Last Job.
  • The Zin-carla spell from The Dark Elf Trilogy. Used to bring back a person with their full skills and abilities, but under the control of the caster. Only used every few centuries, and requiring hundreds of people praying every day for months, but usually worth it. Assuming the caster manages to maintain control, of course...
  • The Dresden Files novel Ghost Story plays with this trope. The person in question would have died (having been shot through the heart). However, the person is kept from death due to a Deal with the Devil made in an earlier novel, solely to perform the job agreed to in the deal. Also, the other party knew the person would try to back out of the deal.
  • In Robert Reed's short story, The Hoplite, the characters were all long-dead, but their bones were dug up, used to clone a new body, and their memories retrieved using a device called the quantum-dilutor. All of the characters come from empires known for either their brutality or their cunning - Nazi Germany, Mongol Empire, Aztec Empire, Roman Empire, etc. The characters are then given a suit of Powered Armor and are used to subjugate rebellious regions.
  • It is mentioned in the Earthsea series that one wizard used to summon souls of ancient kings and wizards for royal council. It ended up with him being exiled, since, apparently, the advices of the dead are of little use to the living.
  • In the Polish novel Siewca Wiatru (Wind Sower, from "who sows the wind, will reap the whirlwind"), a part of the Zastępy Anielskie series by Maja Lidia Kossakowska, the angel Abaddon is resurrected by God immediately after being executed at the beginning of the story. It leaves him sort of dead, a perfect vessel for the destructive forces he needs to channel as part of his job.
  • Przemko Łabędź is killed with a thunder and immediately resurrected by god Swarożyc to kill king Mieszko II at the beginning of Polish novel Kiedy Bog Zasypia (When the God Falls Asleep) by Rafal Debski.
  • A related concept appears in Charles Sheffield's short story "Out of Copyright" — past geniuses are cloned and recruited as research scientists. Under the "copyright" rules referenced in the title, only people dead for seventy-five years may be cloned and only one clone per person may be created, leading to a corporation competing for their services in a manner resembling a sports draft.
  • Kay Dutch in Sergey Lukyanenko's Line of Delirium is killed at the beginning of the novel by a teenager as revenge for accidentally killing the boy's sister. While Death is Cheap (as long as you can afford the price) in this 'verse, Kay has not yet paid for his resurrection (must always be done up-front). He is amazed to find himself alive and finds out that it's because of this trope. The owner of the aTan Corporation (who has the monopoly on resurrection) brings Kay back to life in order to escort his son and heir to a remote planet on a secret assignment. The guy was specifically looking for a professional bodyguard who dies without paying for a resurrection. Kay later finds out that he's far from the first person hired for the job, likely in a similar manner.
  • Gandalf dies in the first book of The Lord of the Rings when he defeats the Balrog. Both he and it are corporeally bound Maiar, who are equivalent of lesser angels, so he's not exactly mortal, but his body is killed in the process. The beings above him toss him back onto Middle-earth in a slightly upgraded form to finish the task of defeating Sauron.
  • Takeshi Kovacs is pulled out of dead storage eighty years after getting killed in a police raid that left his cortical stack intact and resleeved to solve a gerontocrat's murder in Altered Carbon. In Broken Angels his team recruits some new members by buying a bunch of stacks on the black market and loading them into a virtual reality for interviews.

    Live-Action TV 
  • Doctor Who:
    • When The Master first shows up in the revived series, he explains that the Time Lords tried this with him, thinking his underhanded deviousness would make him a great soldier for fighting the Time War. However, they forgot his natural tendency towards self-preservation and when he was confronted with the horror of the Time War, he immediately decided to leg it.
    • Also Word of God for why the Lord President in "The End of Time" is called 'Rassilon' — the same thing was done with him, and that didn't work out any better.
    • And the same thing happened with the dying Eighth Doctor, who was given a potion by the Sisterhood of Karn to regenerate into The War Doctor to fight the Time War. They did give him a choice, though, and he chose the Warrior potion.
  • Dean is brought back to life so that he can help avert the apocalypse in Supernatural after he was sent to Hell. Which turns out to be a lie on the part of the angels who saved him. They want to start the apocalypse and use Dean as the earthly vessel for the Archangel Michael in his battle against Lucifer.
  • Rimmer in Red Dwarf was woken up to keep Lister sane. He was deemed fitter for this one purpose than anyone else — even the captain — because Lister got such a kick out of winding him up. He succeeds in this mission spectacularly.
  • The lawyers of Wolfram & Hart in Angel are often still seen working in some capacity for the firm after their deaths, although this is less being resurrected for the job and more death never stopping the job to begin with. In a more straightforward example, Wolfram & Hart resurrected Darla for the purpose of screwing with and/or controlling Angel.
  • Takeshi Kovacs of Altered Carbon is killed during arrest but his cortical stack with his memories is recovered and stored for 250 years, then is re-sleeved in a new body by one of Earth's near-immortal oligarchs to solve a murder.
  • Earth: Final Conflict: In Season 5, two supposedly dead characters are brought back to life by Sandoval in order to destroy La Résistance. First, he brings back William Boone, the protagonist of Season 1, who was thought to have been vaporized by Zo'or (as it turns out, he was merely kept in the buffer). Then Sandoval brings back Zo'or himself, before turning her into an Atavus (unlike their Taelon descendants, the Atavus have two sexes). In the Grand Finale, it's the good guys who do this, with Ra'jel bringing back Liam Kincaid, the protagonist of seasons 2-4, whose body was never found after the end of Season 4.
  • Melisandre believes that Jon Snow is "the prince that was promised" in Game of Thrones, so she is able to resurrect him after his assassination.
  • Bizarrely implied for a throwaway gag in 30 Rock. When Jack is angry at Tracey for naming a movie villain after him, this is his response.
    Jack: After all I've done for you, I brought you back from the dead. *Beat* And revived your career!
  • Kaizoku Sentai Gokaiger: According to supplementary material, The Powers That Be resurrected previously fallen Rangers note , even those that were previously already temporarily resurrected and normally could not be brought back againnote . This doesn't count for fallen Rangers whose powers were passed on.note  Strangely, unlike their living comrades, their deceased status allows them to retain their otherwise-sacrificed powers, meaning, should they be allowed to venture into the world of the living, as is the case for Black Condor during Jetman's tribute episode, they can use their powers even though the Gokaigers may have their Ranger Key, the crystalization of each Ranger's power.
  • The Greatest American Hero: The supersuit-bestowing aliens revive a murdered soldier as a white-faced zombie/ghost to pass a warning along to Ralph and Bill concerning a rogue general's plot to start World War III.

    Tabletop Games 
  • Magic: The Gathering:
    • In the Ravnica Cycle, Agrus Kos's partner is murdered, then brought back from the dead to help solve his own homicide.
    • In the sequel, Dissension, Kos himself is resurrected by an Azorius contract, much to his chagrin—the job he's been brought back for is incredibly dull and consists mainly of standing around on guard duty.
    • In Scourge, Kamahl recruits Ixidor from the dead to help defeat Karona.
  • This is often the case for the Arisen in Mummy: The Curse. If they haven't woken because some asshole has plundered their tomb or because the world has entered a Sothic Turn, then either their cult or their Judge (the divine authority they pledged their soul to) has need of them.

    Video Games 
  • At the very start of Mass Effect 2, Commander Shepard is killed but brought back to life by Cerberus to continue the fight against the Reapers. In the process, they spent billions of credits and invented several technologies unknown to man until then.
    • To drive the point home, the Normandy SR-2, the successor frigate that Cerberus built just for you, with all the experimental tech included? You were more expensive to revive. The intro mission in ME2 is essentially trying to deal with someone who is pissed that you're getting all that money dumped on you.
  • Locke D'Averam from Revenant is a general from the ancient times who has been resurrected by the kingdom to wage war on the Children of Change and rescue the king's missing daughter from them.
  • Age of Wonders: The Wizards Throne does this later in the story. It turns out that Merlin had been killed, and resurrected by Gabriel, to combat the rebellious wizards.
  • In Altered Beast (1988), you play as a human warrior who was resurrected (and given superpowers) by Zeus in order to rescue his daughter.
  • Caleb from Blood. Opening line? "I live... again!" The first game is him out to find and avenge his wife and best friend after their god has forsaken them.
  • All of the player characters (called "Guardians") in Destiny
  • The protagonist Adam Jensen from Deus Ex: Human Revolution was brought back from near-death and augmented with all kind of cool gadgets to continue working in Sarif Industries. He's not entirely glad about it.
  • In Rift, this is your situation.
  • In Elden Ring your player character is a Tarnished, a member of a group of people who were once rejected by the Erdtree's grace and driven away from The Lands Between. Later the apocalyptic event known as the Shattering would take place, where the destruction of the Cosmic Keystone known as the Elden Ring, caused The Lands Between to be engulfed in an eternal war between the demigods. After the Shattering, the Tarnished were resurrected by the same grace that had once spurned them, and told these words: "Stand before the Elden Ring, and become the Elden Lord".
  • The Elder Scrolls:
    • In the backstory, the legendary Nordic hero/king Wulfharth was brought Back from the Dead several times. First, he was resurrected by Shor to serve as the general of the Nordic forces during their 1st Era invasion of Morrowind. He was again brought back in the 2nd Era by Jorunn Skald-King, who summoned him from Sovngarde with a shout that Greybeards taught him to aid in the fight against the Kamal invaders from Akavir. (Others say it was Almalexia of all people who summoned him back for this reason.) This time, according to tales considered heresy by the Empire, he stuck around in his "Underking" guise long enough to aid Tiber Septim in his late 2nd Era conquests to establish the Third Tamriellic Empire. He would continue to aid Septim in his conquests, until Septim agreed to the peaceful vassalization of Morrowind. The Underking considered this a betrayal that legitimized the Dunmeri Tribunal, so he left Septim. As part of the Armistice with Morrowind, Septim acquired the Dwemer-constructed Numidium. Requiring an immensely powerful power source, Septim's Imperial Battlemage, Zurin Arctus, lured the Underking into a trap. Arctus was able to soul-trap the Underking, but not before the Underking killed him and all of his men. Septim used the immensely powerful filled soul gem, known as the Mantella, to power the Numidium and complete his conquest of Tamriel. According to these same "apocryphal" tales, following the "Warp in the West" after the events of Daggerfall which saw the Mantella returned to the Underking, Septim fused with Wulfharth/the Underking to ascend as the Ninth Divine, Talos.
    • Alduin in Skyrim spends much of the game flying around resurrecting dragons to help him bring about The End of the World as We Know It.
  • Maximo: Ghosts to Glory begins with the titular character being killed by the Evil Sorceror Achille, but is allowed back into the land of the living when the Grim Reaper offers him an Enemy Mine agreement; Grim doesn't like Achille's experiments interfering with the souls of the dead, and Maximo wants revenge.
  • When Anastasya in Might & Magic: Heroes VI is killed after being blamed for the assassination of her father, her necromancer aunt Sveltana resurrects her as an undead being so she can assist with the investigation of the real culprit.
  • In StarCraft, after being betrayed and killed, the body of Alexei Stukov is given a "burial at space" by jettisoning his casket from aboard a battlecruiser. During the secret campaigns of StarCraft 64, however, it is revealed that his body was recovered by the Zerg and he was resurrected as a powerful infested Terran by the cerebrate Kaloth for the express purpose of seeing whether he would prove to be an effective leader of the swarm.
  • Played with in the case of Fatal Frame: Mask of the Lunar Eclipse. Choushiro Kirishima is Dead All Along, but the spirit of Sayaka contacts him to aid Ruka when she returns to the island. He's still dead, but it breaks the loop his spirit was trapped in, and later he can join the others in heading to the afterlife.
  • Nanashi is killed by demons ten minutes into Shin Megami Tensei IV: Apocalypse, and the god Dagda offers to resurrect him in exchange for his servitude. Dagda is generally hands-off except at a few critical points, so his goal of recreating the universe and killing everyone in it in the process remains a secret.
  • Done twice over in Dark Souls III. The First Flame is fading (again), and there are no new Lords of Cinder left to Link it. So, they resurrected five previous Lords of Cinder to Link it a second time. However, all but one of them pretty much said "Screw you, we're not going through that again." and abandoned their duty. Therefore, they proceeded to resurrect the Unkindled — worthless Undead who once tried to Link the First Flame but were unworthy fuel for it and were immediately consumed and turned to ash — whose job is to force the Lords of Cinder to do what they were brought back to do. That's what you are. Each of the other Unkindled you meet in-game have some connection to one of the four missing Lords of Cinder: Hawkwood was a deserter from the Abyss Watchers, Siegward was a good friend of Yhorm, and Anri of Astora was one of only two children who escaped the clutches of Saint Aldrich. What connection, if any, the Player Character has to Prince Lothric is unclear.
  • In Mega Man X3, Dr. Doppler resurrects Vile to bring X to him, alive if possible. Vile makes a point of bringing him back dead no matter what.
  • Mega Man X6:
    • Though it's somewhat hard to decipher from the game's hack-job translation, all of the eight Nightmare Investigators were "retired" for various reasons and resurrected by their creator Gate as part of his scheme to trick reploids into following said investigators into Nightmare Virus hot zones to be infected and become his slaves.
    • Metal Shark Player's had this as his special ability, being able to resurrect dead reploids under his control to perform jobs or fight battles for him. Since this is illegal, he was "retired" as punishment for doing it. During the battle he's able to temporarily resurrect Sting Chameleon, Magna Centipede, and Blast Hornet from the trash in the room to assist him in the battle.
  • Clock Tower 3 has the Subordinates, the spirits of people who were executed and resurrected to hunt and kill Rooders. The more notorious of killers they were in life determines their strength as a Subordinate, measured by how many years they would have been sentenced to prison had they not simply been put to death.
  • Xenoblade Chronicles 3: The Future Redeemed DLC reveals that this was the true purpose for Consul N's recruitment by Moebius. The leader of Moebius, Z, needed someone able to fight Alpha on his behalf and the deceased Noah with his Sword of the End made for the perfect candidate, so Z offered to resurrect Noah (and his wife Mio) as Moebius in return.

    Webcomics 
  • Homestuck: This is basically what the Kernelsprites are for. Kernelsprites, when properly prototyped, will be capable of functioning as guides to the player, as well as a Crutch Character. Prototyping is done by chucking objects into the Kernel, and by an unspoken rule at least one of these items should be the remains of a dearly departed. The resulting Sprite takes on characteristics of everything that was thrown in, but failing to include something capable of speech, or at least something sentient, will result in a largely ineffectual guide, as well as a missed opportunity to reunite with a loved one.
  • Casey and Andy: Happens to Casey's fantasy world counterpart, the court wizard, who was killed while trying to take over the world. The queen decided he was a shoo-in for the job as Evil Vizier (which mandates scheming, backstabbing and attempts at usurpation).
  • Darken begins with Gort defeating his Arch-Enemy with help from a Deal with the Archdevil Mephistopheles, then promptly getting killed by a devil to call in his debt. Once he's in Hell, Mephistopheles appoints him his champion and resurrects him to collect a trio of Artifacts of Doom on his behalf.

    Web Original 

    Web Video 

    Western Animation 
  • Optimus Prime at the end of the original series of Transformers. This was not the first time he'd been brought back to life either, nor would it be the last.
  • Mortal Kombat: Defenders of the Realm has Shao Kahn resurrect Shang Tsung because of a magical orb that increases in power depending on how evil the user is.
    Shao Kahn: "Few have ever existed more malevolent than you, Shang Tsung"
    • He also gave Shang Tsung a good punch in the face for losing Earthrealm in the first place. Actually, it was the very first thing he did.
  • In Darkwing Duck, F.O.W.L. resurrects Taurus Bulba as a cyborg so he can work for them. Taurus doesn't actually appreciate being brought back as a cyborg forced to live off of motor oil for the rest of his "life" and refuses to work for them.
  • Ninjago: Kabuki Mask, the mystery villain of season 15, turns out to be Harumi, having been revived shortly after her death by the Overlord to build him an army to conquer Ninjago.

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