History Main / AbortedArc

** The original vision for EPCOT was an aborted arc. Disney's plan was for an actual city (Experimental Prototype Community Of Tomorrow) where people lived and worked. The Monorails and the People Movers were to be part of the infrastructure.

** The nods to dragons and unicorns in Animal Kingdom were hinting towards a land that they ended up never building, Beastly Kingdom, focusing on fantasy creatures. The only things left of that (so far) are a dragon-shaped rock formation near Camp Minnie Mickey, a bridge that looks like the entrance to a castle, and the big dragon who appears on the park's logo to the confusion of many a guest. The concept of including mythological creatures into the park was eventually picked up by Expedition Everest's Yeti, but has yet to be paid off in full.
** The animatronic raven in ''Franchise/TheHauntedMansion'' was originally going to be the "narrator" of the ride, which ended up being much better implemented with the "Ghost Host" being piped in through the Doom Buggy's individual speakers. The ravens, however, are still situated throughout the ride, flapping and moving their beaks as if they were saying something.

* AbortedArc/FilmLiveAction

* AbortedArc/{{Webcomics}}

[[folder:Theatre]]

[[folder: Web Animation]]

Cases where there ''is'' a resolution eventually, no matter how trite or sudden, aren't this trope -- though ''really'' bad cases of FourLinesAllWaiting or OutOfFocus usually end up emulating the effects for all intents and purposes; when the plot point ''does'' get brought out of cryogenic suspension, fans have long since lost all hope for it or interest in it.

* The release of the album "Fangs!" seemed to be something of a new beginning for the experimental rock band Falling Up. It was both a NewSoundAlbum and a ConceptAlbum that was the beginning of a story arc... [[AuthorExistenceFailure then the band broke up.]] The band reunited in 2011, but their album doesn't really continue the story line of Fangs.

** The original vision for EPCOT was an aborted arc. Disney's plan was for an actual city (Experimental Community Of Tomorrow) where people lived and worked. The Monorails and the People Movers were to be part of the infrastructure.

* ''ComicStrip/{{Doonesbury}}'' decided to celebrate its 20th anniversary year (1990) with a big epic storyline in which all the strips' various {{plot}}lines and characters converged together, with practically the entire cast all ending up at Mike's apartment. Creator Garry Trudeau ended up writing himself into a corner with the arc, which had everyone together but didn't give them anything to do. The arc got weirder when Mike's house was mistaken for a crack den and raided by federal agents. Trudeau decided the whole thing had gotten out of hand, and undid the entire arc by revealing that the last several months worth of strips had been AllJustADream.

** In 1969, the band decided to record some songs together in a studio, and later in an impromptu concert at the Apple rooftop, in what would become the album ''Get Back'', all while filming a documentary about the experience. The GloryDays revival would even be illustrated with an album cover replicating the ''Music/PleasePleaseMe'' one. The whole ordeal wound up just raising tensions and ultimately leading to the Beatles' breakup, but not before they decided to make ''Music/AbbeyRoad'' before calling it quits. Then the ''Get Back'' sessions were submitted to Phil Spector for an orchestral makeover, and the result was ''Music/LetItBe''. (the cover was famously repurposed in the compilation ''1966-1970'', aka The Blue Album)

* The American version of ''Kristina från Duvemåla'' cuts out the significant plot point of [[spoiler:the majority of the immigrants being killed in a Sioux attack after Kristina's miscarriage]]. (Presumably for the sake of political correctness, since the songs are left in their full length but with different lyrics, thus saving no time.) However, the event is still foreshadowed in "Queen of the Prairie"/"Wild Grass" through the fur trader's warnings, leaving it as a unresolved thread to audiences unfamiliar with the original story.

* Theatre/{{Rosmersholm}}, written by Creator/Henrik Ibsen in 1886, has an interesting set-up. It begins with a rather political premise, setting up the strife of the times, with the main character positioning himself in the middle. Then, the play turns around, and gets more and more introvert, putting politics firmly in the background, to focus mainly on the inner struggles of the main character. This can be seen from the beginning of the second act.

** The nods to dragons and unicorns in Animal Kingdom were hinting towards a land that they ended up never building, Beastly Kingdom, focusing on fantasy creatures. The only things left of that (so far) are a dragon shaped rock formation near Camp Minnie Mickey, a bridge that looks like the entrance to a castle, and the big dragon who appears on the park's logo to the confusion of many a guest. The concept of including mythological creatures into the park was eventually picked up by Expedition Everest's Yeti, but has yet to be paid off in full.
** The animatronic raven in ''Franchise/TheHauntedMansion'' was originally going to be the "narrator" of the ride, which ended up being much better implemented with the "Ghost Host" being piped in through the Doom Buggy's individual speakers. The ravens, however, are still situated throughout the ride, flapping and beaking as if they were saying something.

* In the first episode of ''WebAnimation/CampCamp'', Max is trying to escape Camp Campbell and drags his new friends Nikki and Neil with him. After his plan inevitably fails, he swears to the councilor David, that he and his new friends ''will'' escape, setting up the main plot of the series... which is dropped after being brought up again in only ''one'' episode. Though this may be justified, as in said episode, Max realizes that his problem isn't that he hates the camp... it's that he [[HatesEveryoneEqually hates everyone]].

[[folder:Films -- Animation]]
* ''WesternAnimation/MyLittlePonyEquestriaGirls'' features two of these: the fact that [[NiceGuy Flash Sentry]] used to date [[AlphaBitch Sunset Shimmer]] is mentioned, but never expanded upon (neither character appears on-screen at the same time nor do they make reference to this) in the film or [[WesternAnimation/MyLittlePonyEquestriaGirlsRainbowRocks it's]] [[WesternAnimation/MyLittlePonyEquestriaGirlsFriendshipGames sequels]][[note]]Sunset and Flash do discuss it in [[WesternAnimation/MyLittlePonyEquestriaGirlsLegendOfEverfree Legend Of Everfree]], as Flash notes Sunset is a much different person than when they dated[[/note]]; and the little plot point of a girl who had been humiliated in the previous Spring Fling, who WordOfDante says it's Rarity (although a few lines in the film imply it's her).
[[/folder]]

* [[Music/TheyMightBeGiants John Linnell]] intended his 1999 album "State Songs" to be the first part of a trilogy... which has never been continued, and probably never will be. This album was recorded during Music/TheyMightBeGiants' 1996-1999 downtime (their only studio album of this period - "Long Tall Weekend" - consisting largely of old, unreleased material), and since then, the group have been much, much busier.

* Music/DavidBowie's 1995 concept album ''1. Outside'' was supposed to be the first of a series leading up to the millennium. However, further albums continuing the "non-linear gothic drama hyper cycle" never appeared. Almost 15 years on (and with its artist dead) it's probably safe to classify this as an aborted arc.

* Music/JohnLinnell intended his 1999 album "State Songs" to be the first part of a trilogy... which has never been continued, and probably never will be. This album was recorded during Music/TheyMightBeGiants' 1996-1999 downtime (their only studio album of this period - "Long Tall Weekend" - consisting largely of old, unreleased material), and since then, the group have been much, much busier.

* ''WesternAnimation/MyLittlePonyEquestriaGirls'' features two of these: the fact that [[NiceGuy Flash Sentry]] used to date [[AlphaBitch Sunset Shimmer]] is mentioned, but never expanded upon (neither character appears on-screen at the same time nor do they make reference to this) in the film or [[WesternAnimation/MyLittlePonyEquestriaGirlsRainbowRocks it's]] [[WesternAnimation/MyLittlePonyEquestriaGirlsFriendshipGames sequels]][[note]]Sunset and Flash do discuss it in WesternAnimation/MyLittlePonyEquestriaGirlsLegendOfEverfree, as Flash notes Sunset is a much different person than when they dated[[/note]]; and the little plot point of a girl who had been humiliated in the previous Spring Fling, who WordOfDante says it's Rarity (although a few lines in the film imply it's her).

* ''WesternAnimation/MyLittlePonyEquestriaGirls'' features two of these: the fact that [[NiceGuy Flash Sentry]] used to date [[AlphaBitch Sunset Shimmer]] is mentioned, but never expanded upon (neither character appears on-screen at the same time nor do they make reference to this) in the film or [[WesternAnimation/MyLittlePonyEquestriaGirlsRainbowRocks it's]] [[WesternAnimation/MyLittlePonyEquestriaGirlsFriendshipGames sequels]]; and the little plot point of a girl who had been humiliated in the previous Spring Fling, who WordOfDante says it's Rarity (although a few lines in the film imply it's her).

[[folder:Western Animation]]
* ''WesternAnimation/AsToldByGinger'' has a particularly jarring one in the episode "Wicked Game": a deeply involved plot about a [[spoiler: plan involving Ginger's best friends to break her and Darren up]]. In a series that normally follows things through, the sudden lack of consequence to this episode is especially jarring.
* ''WesternAnimation/AvatarTheLastAirbender'':
** Aang is required to [[spoiler: let go of Katara so he can master the Avatar state but he never actually does it. He spends more than a whole season agonizing over this because of his major crush on her. The series just has him abruptly and accidentally activate it by [[DeusExMachina hitting a rock with his back]]. This makes absolutely no sense because unlocking the chakras is established as a mental process. The novelization [[HandWave completely glosses over it]] with Aang's thoughts remaining on Katara even as he enters the Avatar state]]. The head writer has explained that this was because he [[WhatCouldHaveBeen originally intended to have Katara end up with Zuko]] but the [[CreativeDifferences creators]] and [[ExecutiveMeddling executives]] were against it.
** The season one finale features [[TheHero Aang]] traveling to the spirit world meeting the potent character Koh the Face Stealer, who ominously says "We'll meet again," as Aang leaves. They never did, not even in the second season of ''WesternAnimation/TheLegendOfKorra'' which [[WhatHappenedToTheMouse dealt with nothing but spirits]]. [[AllThereInTheManual In a series of flash games]] that take place between seasons 2 and 3, they do meet again and Koh is more than a little eager to pay Aang back for escaping the last time they met.
** Initially there were plans to reveal that Momo, Aang's pet lemur, was actually the reincarnation of his old Airbending teacher, Monk Gyatso. This was vaguely alluded to several times throughout the series, but ended up being scrapped.
* ''WesternAnimation/TheAvengersEarthsMightiestHeroes'': Due to being cancelled after only two seasons, the show had a few of these. Notably, the heavily foreshadowed showdown with Surtur and the Enchantress never took place, and Maria Hill's repeated rants about a [[Comicbook/CivilWar Superhuman Registration Act]] never panned out.
* ''WesternAnimation/AvengersAssemble'' Season 2 ended with ComicBook/CaptainAmerica and Comicbook/IronMan deciding that they needed to expand the team in order to face bigger threats, and the last shot showed them looking at images of a bunch of potential new recruits like Comicbook/BlackPanther, [[Comicbook/MsMarvel Captain Marvel]], Comicbook/DoctorStrange, and ComicBook/MoonKnight. The Season 3 premier then opened up with none of these characters as part of the Avengers roster, with Comicbook/TheFalcon offhandedly mentioning that the expansion plan had been cancelled.
* Due to being ScrewedByTheNetwork, ''WesternAnimation/BatmanTheBraveAndTheBold'' had to abort the Shards of Equinox arc, an arc that would have focused on finding the various personality shards of Equinox that were scattered through the universe. The GrandFinale episode even made a LampshadeHanging over the cancellation of the show by being about ''getting the show cancelled''.
* ''WesternAnimation/Ben10UltimateAlien'': Three arcs that progress (the lingering threat of King Viktor, the redemption journey of Charmcaster (whose true name is [[spoiler: Hope]]), and the possession of Elena Validus by the Hive nano chips) never saw their conclusion due to [[AuthorExistenceFailure Dwanye McDuffie passing away]] during production. The people in charge of [[WesternAnimation/Ben10Omniverse the following series]] outright stated they no interest in continuing them. Dr. Viktor became Dr. Viktor again, [[AuthorsSavingThrow with Zs'Skayr being shown removing Xarion's soul and allowing Viktor to regain control]], Elena cameoed as herself toward the end of the series with no explanation as to how she was freed of the nano chips' influence, and Charmcaster never went by her true name again and saw no escape the HeelFaceRevolvingDoor.
* Birdboy's debut episode in ''WesternAnimation/{{Birdman}}'' ended with Birdman promising to help him [[DisappearedDad find his father]], and the search was occasionally brought up in Birdboy's later appearances. However, nothing ever came of it.
* ''WesternAnimation/BojackHorseman'':
** Despite the pictures of [=BoJack=] having sex with Sarah Lynn being given some build up, they were mostly used for a few comedic moments before being resolved very simply without much thought given to them. How much do the paparazzi demand to prevent the photos from leaking? [[spoiler:$150. Each.]]
** Played for comedy when Todd gets $8 million at the end of season 3. He starts wondering what [[LeaningOnTheFourthWall interesting adventures that could lead to]], but in the very next scene, he accidentally gives it all away, making him poor again.
* In the Season 2 finale of ''WesternAnimation/CodeLyoko'', Franz Hopper, in his diary, mentions that Lyoko and XANA were originally created to stop a certain "Project Carthage", a military program designed to "disrupt enemy communications". This led to the expectation that the next season would deal with the Project somewhat, while delving into Lyoko's history some more. Not so. Season 3 took off in a different direction, and other than the {{fanon}} assumption that "TheMenInBlack" seen throughout the show are from this organization, Project Carthage is never, ever mentioned again. For two seasons. Not even when the show ''ends''.
* ''WesternAnimation/DannyPhantom'':
** [[BigBad Vlad's]] plans with Fright Knight, the Crown of Fire, his ElaborateUndergroundBase, and his acquirement of Axion Labs. ExecutiveMeddling played a part in it all. For that matter Danny and Valerie's DatingCatwoman plotline.
** The return of [[FutureMeScaresMe Danny's evil older self]], which was heavily hinted at at the end of his sole appearance.
** At the end of the show's penultimate episode, Valerie discovers [[spoiler:that Vlad (who gave her her weapons) and Danny's "cousin" Danielle are halfas]]. She implies she'll do something about it. Come the finale and nothing happens, with Valerie having not even a single line of dialogue.
* ''WesternAnimation/FriskyDingo'' intentionally [[PlayingWithATrope played with this trope on at least two occasions]].
** In one episode, [[spoiler:it was revealed that Xander had a [[LongLostRelative long lost twin brother]] named Nearl, who planned to become a villain and seek vengeance on him. Nearl was then promptly shot and killed by Ronnie, who said [[LeaningOnTheFourthWall things were already complicated enough]] without throwing some "EvilTwin bullshit" into the mix]].
** One of the last episodes of the second season introduced Xander's illegitimate teenage daughter. She initially seemed like she was being set up to join the cast as a major character in the next season, but the episode abruptly ended with Xander paying her an outrageous sum of money to leave and never contact him again.
* ''WesternAnimation/{{Futurama}}'': The pilot episode introduced the career chip, which supposedly assigned one a permanent job and was ostensibly mandated by the law. Although Smitty and Leela both say that those who reject their career chips are labelled "job deserters" and "fired out of a cannon into the sun", nobody is ever shown facing those legal consequences. The career chip appears twice in the show and only once in the comics, and the time gap between the its two appearances in the main series is quite large.
* In an early ''WesternAnimation/{{Gargoyles}}'' episode, Demona is left thinking that Elisa is dead, which Goliath says is probably for the best for now. Nothing really came of it before she saw Elisa alive again in the season one finale, probably because the writers realized how hard it would be to keep Elisa's existence a secret from Demona while she was still living her normal life.
* In ''WesternAnimation/KimPossible'', Ron Stoppable has a romantic arc with Zita Flores, a cute girl who seems to share his interests in gaming and entertainment, albeit not identically (she is a fan of sword-and-sorcery RPG's, whereas Ron is a straight FPS and Action/Adventure gamer). After two episodes and a meeting in a movie which might be construed as a first date, followed by joining forces in an MMORPG plot, she is not seen until the GrandFinale, where she's [[PairTheSpares randomly paired off]] with Felix the wheelchair guy.
* In the third season of ''WesternAnimation/KingOfTheHill'', an ongoing plot thread dealt with Hank and Peggy attempting to have another baby but failing due to Hank's narrow urethra. What made this more aggravating for the Hills was that Hank's father Cotton had somehow managed to impregnate his wife Didi, with Cotton being 75 and Didi the same age as Hank. This thread followed only into the first episode of the following season and was then dropped.
* Two cases in ''WesternAnimation/MaxSteel''; a flashback shows that Jefferson Smith's predecessor as CEO of N-Tek (and, by extension, the man in charge of the secret espionage division) was a man named Marco Nathanson, who bore an uncanny resemblance to [[spoiler: season one BigBad John Dread.]] According to the original producer, this was actually meant as a RedHerring, though later said by others to be exactly what it looked like, but neither interpretation is followed up on. Even more blatant, the episode "Truth be Told" features [[TheCameo real-life athlete Jeremy [=McGrath=]]] discovering that the protagonist and his friends are ex-secret-agents-turned-vigilantes, and he suggests bringing in one or two friends he has on the sports circuit who could help the heroes save the day on occasion. This is the final scene of the episode, except the episode is also the SeriesFinale. Along with [[CanonDiscontinuity half the premise of the show,]] this was never picked up on in the subsequent made-for-TV movies.
* ''WesternAnimation/MyLittlePonyFriendshipIsMagic''':
** Season 4 had a recurring subplot about The Mane Six rebuilding Princess Celestia and Luna's old castle, implying it may be used as as a base of operations for their adventures down the line. But, [[spoiler: after Twilight gets her own castle in the season finale]], this is soon forgotten.
** In the Season 5 premiere, Twilight Sparkle and Starlight Glimmer both mention a Mage Meadowbrook who wielded eight magic items, which Twilight realizes the "Staff of Sameness" was not one of. This plot thread is never touched on again. When Meadowbrook appears much later, rather than being a unicorn who wields enchanted items she's [[{{Retcon}} now an earth pony more akin to a Louisianan Witch Doctor]] and said magical items aren't even referenced.
* ''WesternAnimation/RockyAndBullwinkle'' had a storyline about Boris counterfeiting cereal box tops to procure all the prizes from cereal promotions and ruin the world economy. This did not sit well with General Mills, the show's sponsor (and owner, who likely thought it was inappropriate case of BitingTheHandHumor), and "The Great Box Top Caper" was stopped after a few episodes.
* In the StoryArc of Season 20 of ''WesternAnimation/SouthPark'', nostalgia-powered sentient fruit called Member Berries are threatening a conspiracy that Randy Marsh eventually finds out about and teams up with Presidential nominee Mr. Garrison to stop. Unfortunately, the conclusion to this arc relied on [[DeweyDefeatsTruman the presumption that Hillary Clinton would win the current election]]. [[RealLifeWritesThePlot When Donald Trump, whom Garrison was serving as a proxy for, won instead]], the plot is abruptly stopped by Garrison and Randy brainwashed by the Member Berries. The Member Berries then get to stay in the White House and [[WhatHappenedToTheMouse nothing is done about them in the end.]]
* ''WesternAnimation/SupermanTheAnimatedSeries'':
** The two-parter "Little Girl Lost" ended with Clark planning to introduce Jimmy to Kara, hinting at the start of a possible romance as Jimmy had been at Supergirl's side when she investigated Intergang. However, Jimmy ended up crushing on another girl in his next major role and he and Supergirl never interacted again.
** "Legacy" was originally intended as the introduction to a story arc about Superman regaining the world's trust after being [[BrainwashedAndCrazy used as a pawn by Darkseid]]. Instead, the two-part episode became the SeriesFinale, and a variation of the theme was used in the Cadmus arc of ''WesternAnimation/JusticeLeague''.
* ''WesternAnimation/TeenageMutantNinjaTurtles1987'': The episode "Raphael Meets His Match" introduced a character named Mona Lisa and ended with her moving to the sewers and the implication she would go on more adventures with the Turtles. [[ChuckCunninghamSyndrome She never appeared again]].
* ''WesternAnimation/TeenageMutantNinjaTurtles2003''
** One episode ended with the people of the USA becoming aware of the turtles' existence after the president came face to face with them and mistook them for aliens. This was never mentioned again. More glaringly, an ongoing plot in the series' sixth season, featuring CorruptCorporateExecutive Darius Dun, was aborted when the series was re-retooled and the turtles were sent back into the present.
** A lot of the story arcs went nowhere due to ExecutiveMeddling. Not only was the sixth season's story (Fast Forward) supposed to continue so that it could wrap up the hanging threads there, but the shoehorned seventh season's story arc (Back to the Sewer) was also supposed to wrap up ALL loose plot threads in an arc called "The Shredder Wars"... before the series was canceled. Granted, the series was then finished off with a mega-crossover love letter to fans TV movie, but that never wrapped up anything other than the final fate of a couple of series regulars.
* ''WesternAnimation/TotalDrama'':
** ''Action'' has Justin as the main antagonist, DJ's illegal alliance with Chef Hatchet, and Harold's one-sided friendship and attraction with Heather (which actually started as early as the post-''Island'' special). By the season's halfway point, all three of these subplots are abandoned entirely, with the first example as a result of the studio realizing too late how ineffective Justin was in this role and leading to Courtney being his hastily-chosen replacement in order to avoid rewrites. WordOfGod has confirmed that Justin's role as antagonist in the earlier episodes of ''[[WesternAnimation/TotalDrama Total Drama Action]]'' was deliberately dropped because they realized that he was way too self-absorbed to ever fully put his head in the game; his claims of being a master strategist were all his ego talking. Alejandro, a character that debuted in the following season, is essentially what they wanted with Justin.
** ''Action'' features a friendship forming between Heather and Leshawna after being at each other's throats for the entirety of the first season, only for this to disintegrate in ''World Tour''.
** Courtney and Gwen's newfound friendship, Blaineley's participation in the game, and the increased focus on several of the early losers from ''Island'' were abandoned mid-season in ''World Tour''.
** Owen and Izzy's romantic subplot came to an abrupt halt due to the same order of ExecutiveMeddling that broke up Gwen/Trent and Duncan/Courtney.
** ''Revenge of the Island'' includes the short-lived love triangle between Zoey, Mike, and Anne Maria and the rivalry between Brick and Jo.
** The first half ''All-Stars'' is one long pastiche of aborted arcs, from Lindsay's short-lived participation to Jo and Lightning's continued rivalry, the Gwen and Duncan romance, Duncan's personal crisis and his conflict with Mike/Mal, Cameron's efforts to save Mike from Mal, Courtney and Gwen's friendship yet again, the Scott and Courtney romance, Sierra competing without Cody, Jo and Heather's attempted alliance with Gwen, Alejandro flirting with Gwen, etc.
** The second half of the season ''Pahkitew Island'' has Jasmine's friendship with Samey (due to the latter being eliminated) and Samey trying to be her own person (dropped because [[spoiler: she tricks Amy into being eliminated in her place leaving her to pretend to be her for two episodes before being actually eliminated]]).
** In the spin-off ''[[WesternAnimation/TotalDramaPresentsTheRidonculousRace The Ridonculous Race]]'', several teams that fell victims to the Ice Dancers' cheating, namely Crimson, Ennui, Emma and Kitty, wished that the BigBad duo would get their karma in a bad way. However, when the bag guys got eliminated, they barely got any karma; they were forced to watch their worst enemies (Sanders, [=MacArthur=], Geoff and Brody) win the grand prize.
* ''Every'' set of producers for the Creator/{{Hasbro}}-owned ''Franchise/{{Transformers}}'' had to deal with never knowing if their incarnation of the franchise be renewed or not, and every series got wrapped up in a hurry when the plug got pulled with little notice. Plot lines would also change suddenly, due to the desire of higher-ups to push new toys and promotions. (This can potentially apply to every MerchandiseDriven series.)
** In the third season of ''WesternAnimation/TheTransformers'', Blitzwing began to have doubts about the Decepticon cause, and a deleted scene even has him considering joining the Autobots. The writers wanted him to become an Autobot in a later episode; however, the editors forced them to instead give this arc to the new toy Octane. (A close viewing of one episode featuring the character suggests that this change happened at the very last minute - Octane references events that happened to Blitzwing, and demonstrates a number of the latter's quirks like getting stuck while transforming.)
** ''WesternAnimation/TransformersAnimated'' had a bevy of plot threads LeftHanging, included Meltdown making a return, [[spoiler: Waspinator coming up with a plan while putting himself together]], where [[spoiler: Sari's protoform came from]], and both Lockdown and Swindle [[spoiler: escaping]]. It should be noted that the cancellation that resulted in a number of these plots threads being unresolved was a mix of Hasbro's ExecutiveMeddling and being ScrewedByTheNetwork.[[note]]''Animated'''s last season was produced as Hasbro and [[Creator/DiscoveryChannel Discovery Communications]] were planning to combine forces and create their own kids channel called [[Creator/DiscoveryFamily The Hub]]. Creator/CartoonNetwork shared the rights of the ''Animated'' show with Hasbro, due to that incarnation being produced by Cartoon Network Studios. The end result was that Hasbro did not desire to continue the series when they [[WesternAnimation/TransformersPrime could just make a new one that they'd completely own]], and while Cartoon Network was given the option to continue ''Animated'' solo, they saw no point if they could no longer merchandise it.[[/note]]
** This goes back to G1, where "The Rebirth" three-parter introduces a ton of new characters and situations... and suddenly has to ''wrap up the entire show,'' as during its production it was cut from ''a fourth season'' to a five-parter to a three-parter. The various comic series have faced the same problem, though with the [[ComicBook/TransformersGenerationOne Dreamwave Comics]] series, it had more to do with the death of the company itself. There's one exception to the rule: ''WesternAnimation/TransformersPrime.'' Despite all Hasbro's talk of the constant reboots ending in favor of a "[[Franchise/TransformersAlignedUniverse new, aligned continuity]]" producers plotted a three-season series with a beginning, middle, and end. When that end came a bit sooner than intended with season three's episode count getting cut down, it apparently didn't hamper them much. As such, we get the ''only'' western TF property to finish all it started and have a truly satisfying ending instead of a rushed wrap-up.
[[/folder]]

[[quoteright:350:[[WebVideo/HalfInTheBag http://static.tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pub/images/rlm_never_continued.png]]]]
[[caption-width-right:350:I wonder what sort of crazy adventures I'll get up to now?]]

!!Examples:

[[folder:Anime & Manga]]
* ''Anime/CodeGeass'':
** The series lost a couple of important story elements thanks to the time slot shift for the second season and the {{Retool}} intended to prevent a ContinuityLockout on new fans. This includes an explanation for Suzaku's superhuman abilities (and any possible connection to the Geass) and the possibility of finally revealing C.C.'s name.
** There's one in the first season with Shirley [[spoiler: after Lelouch erased her memories]]. Shirley ends up finding a page of her missing diary that she threw away earlier which [[spoiler: reminds her about Lelouch being Zero.]] It never comes into play later probably because of the retooled second season where [[spoiler: everyone's memory was erased.]] Something similar to this does happen in the second season but the diary isn't used this time and isn't even mentioned.
** Season one heavily hinted on a return, or at least a relevant arc, surrounding Kallen's dead brother. Season two however, dropped this build-up completely.
* ''Anime/DigimonAdventure02'' had the infamous "[[BizarroEpisode His Master's Voice]]" (aka "Call of Dagomon") episode. A tribute to the works of Creator/HPLovecraft, the episode ended with Dagomon (a horrifying Franchise/{{Cthulhu|Mythos}} [[CaptainErsatz clone]]) rising up from the sea in [[SinisterSilhouettes silhouette]], with the FindOutNextTime narration promising a future appearance from the beast. Dagomon never appeared again. His role was originally going to be expanded, but [[ExecutiveMeddling meddling from Bandai]] and [[CreativeDifferences disputes amongst the show's staff]] led to the arc being aborted, creating headaches for Digimon fans for years to come. Not even his actual appearance in Xros Wars' [[Anime/DigimonXrosWarsTheYoungHuntersLeapingThroughTime final arc]] has cured it (though that was likely because it was a different individual of the same species in an alternate universe). Time will only tell if the new SequelSeries will get this squid-shaped monkey off everyone's backs.
* The manga based on the ''VideoGame/GalaxyAngel'' gameverse starts up a Mint storyline... but then drops it to focus on Ranpha and Milfie, not even ending Mint's plot.
* The animated adaptation of ''LightNovel/MahouSensou''. Plot twists will be suddenly thrown at the viewer as though setting up an impending story arc, only to be forgotten about as quickly as they'd appeared. One of the most blatant examples is when [[spoiler:Ida's sister]] is supposedly kidnapped by the magical equivalent of the FBI: it seems as though the heroes are going to pull off a daring rescue, but instead the kidnapping is never brought up again and the series ends with the viewer clueless as to what ultimately happened to her.
* ''Manga/MahouSenseiNegima'' was going to have a brief sub-arc during Mahorafest featuring Zazie and the Nightmare Circus event, but it was cut because Mahorafest was getting really long as it was (at the time, roughly ''half the manga''). It's implied that Negi ''did'' go to the circus, but we never actually get to see it, thus making the series' most enigmatic character even more enigmatic.
* Happened a few times in the ''Anime/{{Pokemon}}'' anime:
** The GS Ball was a MacGuffin that loosely guided the overall plot for about a season and a half, spanning 60 episodes. A Poké Ball that nobody could open, Ash was supposed to give the GS ball to Kurt, the leading Pokéball expert, in order to discover whatever secrets the ball held. After giving the ball to Kurt, however, neither the GS Ball nor its contents were ever brought up again. The GS Ball was supposed to hold Celebi, a legendary NatureSpirit Pokémon, that would be the focus of the next arc, but the writers later decided [[http://www.pokebeach.com/news/0708/second-pokemon-interview-with-masamitsu-hidaka-many-interesting-points to give Celebi a starring role in a movie]], hoping that viewers would eventually forget about the GS Ball. They didn't, and haven't.
** In the ''Best Wishes'' saga, we have a case of an aborted ''conclusion'' to a near-finished arc. The subplot with Team Rocket and the "Meteonite", a space rock with special destructive powers, is built up for several episodes and ''just'' as the epic two-part conclusion to this subplot is about to air, [[TooSoon an earthquake devastates Japan and the episodes are pulled from rotation and never referenced again]]. [[spoiler: Various trailers and a synopsis based on leaked information show that it went pretty much how one would expect it to go - with Team Plasma stealing the Meteonite from Team Rocket, the two teams fighting over it, and Ash intervening and having Pikachu destroy it to end the conflict.]] Though even if they ''did'' air, the announcement of [[Videogame/PokemonBlack2AndWhite2 sequel games]] as opposed to the usual UpdatedRerelease third version caused such a shakeup that the rest of the Plasma plotline was excised from the main story, completely separating it from the whole Badge quest and TournamentArc.
** Half of ''[[Radio/PokemonTheBirthOfMewtwo The Birth Of Mewtwo]]'' radio drama, meant to go with ''Anime/PokemonTheFirstMovie'' and later animated (though [[AdaptedOut excluding a large portion]]), revolves around Jessie's MissingMom Miyamoto and how she's been searching for Mew for twenty years. Outside of the drama nothing has referenced Miyamoto. She has yet to be reunited with Jessie.
** The original series conclusion to the anime was meant to be a climactic final battle between Ash and Gary... except by the time the conclusion was approaching, ExecutiveMeddling forced this all-important finale to the side and launched Ash on a perpetual journey and the show into being a long-runner with no real conclusion in sight. Similarly, the Mewtwo movie's original trailer showed brief [[MissingTrailerScene scenes]] of a DistantFinale apparently involving an adult Misty and a suspiciously familiar-looking child, which needless to say never made it to any print version of ''Mewtwo Strikes Back''.
* ''Anime/PsychoPass'' had a storyline about Rina, Yayoi's former friend and a guitarist who is secretly building a LaResistance against the Sibyl System. She was never caught and Season 2 and the movie never mentioned her again.
* ''Anime/PuellaMagiMadokaMagica'' ends with Madoka [[spoiler:essentially becoming God with her wish and rewriting the rules of the universe]] so that in this new setting the enemies aren't Witches any more, but tall, robed creatures named Wraiths. The plot of the series is continued and concluded in the third movie, ''Anime/PuellaMagiMadokaMagicaTheMovieRebellion''. This time, however, the enemies are new creatures called Nightmares [[spoiler:except not really, because it's all part of a fake reality which is Homura's witch barrier]] and the Wraiths are nowhere to be seen again, outside of that ''very'' brief and unexplained scene at the very end of the original series.
* In ''Manga/RanmaOneHalf'', [[JerkWithAHeartOfGold Ranma's]] attempts to conceal his curse are quietly dropped in the middle of the "Full-body Cat's Tongue" arc and the story goes from no-one at school knowing about his curse to everyone ([[SelectiveObliviousness except Kuno]]) knowing about it with hardly a ripple or comment from anybody, signaling a general shift from dramatic arcs to episodic comedy.
* The penultimate chapter of ''Manga/SchoolRumble'' throws both major shipping factions a bone by having Harima [[spoiler:suddenly get (pretend) engaged to]] Eri [[spoiler:but move in with]] Yakumo. The final chapter mentions ''none'' of this, instead going with a time skip and an infamous "pie end" that resets what little development Harima had managed to obtain.
* In ''Manga/ToLoveRu'' the plot regarding attacks by Lala's suitors is slowly dropped during the story. The last reference is the return of Lacospo and no other suitor appears after this.
* The Yakitate 25 arc in ''Manga/YakitateJapan'' suddenly came to an abrupt end partway through when Kirisaki cancelled the competition [[spoiler: after he had turned into a half-bread monster,]] which is rather jarring when two matches ago, Pantasia suddenly found themselves on the verge of defeat and struggling to stay afloat. The fact that the arc had quickly succumbed to becoming StrictlyFormula might have something to do with it.
* In ''Anime/YuGiOhTheDarkSideOfDimensions'', Jonouchi's quest for a better Duel Disk goes nowhere.
* ''{{Manga/Bleach}}'' is just filled with these.
** Early on, it seemed like Tatsuki Arisawa, a friend of Ichigo and Orihime, was being built up to eventually become a companion who would fight alongside the core group. However, she became OutOfFocus and LockedOutOfTheLoop once the Soul Society arc got going.
** When the series ended, it left enough plot lines aborted to fill a cemetery, including those introduced a mere '''twenty chapters''' before the ending. The biggest is everything learned about the Soul King after [[spoiler:his death,]], and his relation to the Quincy and Yhwach, [[spoiler:his son]].
* In ''Anime/YuGiOh5Ds'', Yusei at one point duels and defeats a SadistTeacher to prevent him from expelling Rua, Ruka, and their classmates. The final scene of the episode shows one of their classmates, Sly, staring at Yusei and vowing to acquire his Stardust Dragon, implying he would try to steal it. It's never brought up again.
* ''Anime/{{Shinzo}}'': The first season sets up an arc where the heroes have to confront the so-called Seven Enterran Generals who started the war and ending with their leader, [[SortingAlgorithmOfEvil who is of course the most powerful one]]. This quest is cut short when the third General on the list reveals that she had already killed the remaining ones to absorb their power, then herself is killed by a time-displaced version of the BigBad. Killing ''him'' then causes a TemporalParadox that changes the entire history of the show.

[[folder:Comic Books]]
* A constant problem in Creator/{{DC|Comics}} and Creator/MarvelComics of the last few years, especially in series about second- or third-division characters, as character or plot arcs are constantly derailed by massive {{crossover}} events. A [[LampshadeHanging lampshade was hung]] on it in the penultimate issue of Dan Slott's ''Comicbook/SheHulk'' run, in which the characters were forced under threat of death to give the reader a high speed run-through of how all the arcs were ''intended'' to have worked out, before being interrupted by the ComicBook/CivilWar and Comicbook/WorldWarHulk crossover events.

!!!DC
* In ''ComicBook/FiftyTwo'' the original ComicBook/BoosterGold/Skeets arc involved the duo fixing the time-stream after it had been damaged during the Comicbook/InfiniteCrisis. Several issues into the series, after Skeets had already noticed discrepancies between events as they happened and as they were recorded in the future, the writers decided that this plot was overused and too generic. They switched to a new malevolent threat that intended to manipulate time and reality for its own gain [[spoiler:and this leads to the return of Mr. Mind, who had appeared in the early issues]].
* In a very well-known example, Geoff Johns' ''ComicBook/{{Aquaman}}'' run ended with a ''big'' one. Nereus, the former fiance of Mera (Aquaman's love interest), had tracked down Orm, Aquaman's AntiVillain brother. Orm had apparently come to partly accept the surface world, staying with a woman and her son during after the ''Forever Evil'' event. Nereus tells Orm that he had found the lost kingdoms of Atlantis, and that he and Orm should take their rightful place besides them as kings. There's even a "to be continued" down the bottom that says the story will continue in an event crossover with Johns' ''Justice League'' run titled "Rise of the Seven Seas". Yes, it even got a name. Johns would later be forced to limit his comics output to two monthly titles at a time, and that quota was filled without ''Aquaman''. Years later, Johns would say it ''was'' being worked on, and even later would say it was being worked on with then-current ''Aquaman'' writer Dan Abnett, but nothing has come of it.
* Creator/BrianKVaughan wrote a Batman one-shot where he introduced a mysterious new villain called the Skeleton, who was running around impersonating other Batman foes to cover his tracks. The hope was that Vaughan would become a regular writer on one of the Batman books so that he could make the Skeleton into powerful new player in the franchise, but obviously, this never occurred.
* Creator/ChuckDixon's ''Comicbook/BatmanAndTheOutsiders'' run set up the deceased [[ComicBook/ElongatedMan Ralph]] and Sue Dibny as a pair ghost detectives who would act as recurring allies to the team. This was nixed very early on, leading to the Dibnys making only sporadic cameos across the DCU until ''Comicbook/{{Flashpoint}}'' rebooted everything. There was also the matter of an underground club where teens were granted a chance to receive superpowers from one of the surviving ''Bloodlines'' parasites. This too went nowhere.
* {{Subverted|Trope}} with ''ComicBook/{{Convergence}}''. The series revolves around taking certain arcs that were aborted by the ComicBook/{{New 52}} and giving them completion they didn't originally receive before.
* ''ComicBook/TheFlash'': Meloni Thawne had left a message for Bart Allen (the fourth Flash) to stay away from his brother. While Bart didn't know it at the time, Owen Mercer, the second Captain Boomerang, was actually his half-brother on their mother's side. Owen even inherited super speed and was learning to use it more efficiently (he could only to small bursts initially). It's implied that this may have had something to do with the Rogues killing Bart... except Owen wasn't a part of that plan. Bart would later return to life and Owen would die, and this warning about their meeting would never occur. In fact, they never even met.
* ''The Flash: Rebirth'' left multiple sequel hooks that weren't followed up on:
** The ending implied that the Reverse-Flashes of the Silver and Modern Age would be teaming up again (they had briefly worked together one time previously). Hunter Zolomon, the second Reverse-Flash, had lost his powers but approached Eobard Thawne, the first Reverse-Flash, and told him that they could make each other "better". Within the story itself, Eobard had used one of Hunter's signature moves and explicitly said he learned the trick from Hunter even. Then ''Flashpoint'', a Flash story ''by the same writer'' rebooted the DC Universe, and Zolomon and Thawne didn't exist in this universe for ''years'', as a new Reverse-Flash was introduced and seemingly was the first. Later, Eobard would be reintroduced (and even later, he'd regain his pre-Flashpoint history and memories) and use some more of Hunter's signature moves, but Hunter himself is still MIA and Eobard hasn't directly referenced him.
** Thawne told Wally West that one of his kids would grow up to ruin his life. Jai, Wally's son, had lost his powers to his sister Irey, and the ending implied that he was now TheResenter because of his sister now having full access to superspeed and being allowed to be part of the Flash Family. This plot point was also never brought up again, as ''Flashpoint'' rebooted Wally and his family out of existence. It is rumored that there were plans for a ''Green Lantern Corps''-esque series, with Wally West serving as protagonist with numerous Flash characters in supporting roles while Barry Allen kept the main ''Flash'' ongoing, which would explain things. At the very least, Wally and his family were supposed to have backup stories in the 2010 ''Flash'' series, but this never came about.
** It was said that Thawne had done something to Gorilla City's jungles... again, not followed up on.
* ''ComicBook/ForeverEvil''
** Owlman (an evil alternate universe version of Batman) had displayed an obsession with the mainstream universe's [[ComicBook/{{Nightwing}} Dick Grayson]] over the course of the series, as ''his'' Dick Grayson had died. Despite the Crime Syndicate basically turning Dick into a bomb, after the bomb is diffused, Owlman goes back for Dick and tells him that he still hopes that the two can be partners. Nothing ever comes of this. Owlman instead played a big role in the ''ComicBook/DarkseidWar'' storyline, and would end up [[spoiler: getting killed by Dr. Manhattan]] as a lead-in to ''ComicBook/DCRebirth''. The fact that ''Rebirth'' was only conceived about a year and a half after ''Forever Evil'' ended makes it obvious Owlman was meant to follow-up on Dick. Regardless, it has never been brought up again, and Dick got another EvilMentor in the form of Raptor.
** In the tail-end of the story, Bruce's "Injustice League" is separated, and he and Comicbook/{{Catwoman}} are on their own. They come across Wonder Woman's Lasso of Truth and Catwoman notes that nobody but Diana herself can use it. Bruce says that he ''can'' use it because of some strong connection to Wonder Woman that's unexplained and leaves Catwoman with a ''very'' jealous look on her face. It's likely referring to something that happened in the five year gap between the Justice League's founding and current stories (where Wonder Woman was dating Superman), but it was never addressed again. Catwoman found a ''different'' reason to hate Batman around the same time and ''ComicBook/DCRebirth'' is altering continuity pretty heavily, ''especially'' that of the Justice League and its members.
* ''Franchise/GreenLantern''
** Hal Jordan met a rogue Lantern named Malvolio, who used a BatmanGambit to get Hal to replace his own ring with Malvolio's and leave. What this was supposed to accomplish was never followed up on, though many fans pointed to it later as a way to press the ResetButton on Hal's badly done FaceHeelTurn. (In the end, the Button was pressed a different way.)
** Another example is Gerard Jones' characterization of the Guardians of the Universe. Throughout his 45 issues on the book, Jones planted many clues that related to his plans for the Guardians. When ExecutiveMeddling changed the plans, many of the odd behaviors of the Guardians (and characters' observations of same) were left dangling and unresolved.
** Character profiles of the various Lantern Corps introduced characters who seemed like they would be plot-relevant, particularly the "Lost Sapphire" who was clearly intended to be important. This teasing never went anywhere.
** A number of these have come out such as the other six new laws in the Book of Oa and the Lost Star Sapphire. Made even weirder by the fact that the writer who set most of them up, Creator/GeoffJohns, was on the book for another several years afterward, and never explored any of them.
* ''Franchise/{{Justice League|OfAmerica}}'':
** Creator/DwayneMcDuffie's run had several of these, as he was infamously fired for speaking out against the ridiculous amount of ExecutiveMeddling his run received. In addition to developing a friendship between Comicbook/{{Firestorm}} and Doctor Light, [=McDuffie=] had planned to have Comicbook/{{Icon}} join the team, as well as appearances from some of his other Creator/{{Milestone|Comics}} characters.
** After clearing away the last remnants of [=McDuffie=]'s team, James Robinson assembled a brand new Justice League line-up filled with characters like Mon-El, Comicbook/{{Starfire}}, Comicbook/{{Cyborg}}, the Guardian, Comicbook/TheAtom, Hal Jordan, Doctor Light, and many more. Because of a variety of reasons, the vast majority of these characters had to be written out of the book after just one arc, leading to Robinson having to assemble ''another'' new team.
** Back in UsefulNotes/{{The Bronze Age|Of Comic Books}}, Robert Kanigher set up a LoveTriangle between Batman, ComicBook/GreenArrow and ComicBook/BlackCanary. Mike Friedrich began his run the very next issue, and immediately got rid of the development by claiming Canary actually loved Batman ''like a brother'', not in a romantic sense.
** After ComicBook/GreenArrow killed Prometheus at the end of ''Comicbook/JusticeLeagueCryForJustice'', it was mentioned that Green Lantern and the Flash were unable to find the advanced, computerized helmet Prometheus used [[AwesomeByAnalysis to defeat his opponents]]. Astute readers remembered that prior to his death, Prometheus had essentially lobotomized his partner, Ira Quimby, who mysteriously vanished around the same time the helmet did. It was pretty clear DC was building things up to have Ira become [[LegacyCharacter the new Prometheus]] via a ClothesMakeTheSuperman or BrainUploading situation, but this never occurred.
* ''Franchise/JusticeSocietyOfAmerica'':
** In a guest-writer spot, Jerry Ordway, author of ''Power of ComicBook/{{Shazam}}'', seemed to be setting up an ongoing storyline about the Shazam characters; it involved Billy and Mary being depowered (undoing the DorkAge where Billy was the wizard and Mary was evil), the wizard acting irrational, and the introduction of the Rock of Eternity's EvilCounterpart, the Rock of Finality. While Ordway never got the chance to continue this, Eric Wallace's subsequent ''Shazam'' one-shots seemed content to keep things in a holding pattern until he did, while adding other elements such as the return of Blaze. Then ComicBook/{{Flashpoint}} and the Comicbook/{{New 52}} happened, and Captain Marvel was one of the characters who got completely reset. Not only is the arc aborted; in current continuity ''none of it happened''.
** An earlier issue of ''JSA'' had Sand having a dream with prophetic messages from dead JSA members. Most of these panned out, referring to the two-part Roulette story, the "Stealing Thunder" storyline, and the ''Comicbook/OurWorldsAtWar'' and ''Comicbook/JokersLastLaugh'' crossover issues. But the original Mr Terrific's warning that Michael Holt would need help when he learnt the truth behind his lost love didn't lead to anything. There was some fan speculation that his late wife would turn out to be the new Crimson Avenger, but she was revealed to be someone else entirely, and then Michael had a vision of Paula in the afterlife and got closure, closing that plot thread completely.
* For readers versed in [[UsefulNotes/TheGoldenAgeOfComicBooks Golden Age]] {{superhero}}es, it is almost obvious that supporting character Mary Kramer from ''Stars and STRIPE'' was intended to be the new Merry the Gimmick Girl. She had a similar name (Mary Kramer vs. Merry Creamer), had red hair and was good with technology. She was even seen looking into a box with Merry's costume. This never happened, however, since ''Stars and STRIPE'' was canceled and the Star-Spangled Kid moved to Creator/GeoffJohns' other book, JSA (where she eventually became Stargirl) and Creator/GrantMorrison ended up creating a brand new "Gimmick Girl" homage for the Comicbook/SevenSoldiers of Victory mini-series.
** In the other direction, Geoff Johns kept implying that Stripesy's biological son (who was screwed over by Courtney stealing the Star Spangled Kid identity from him as well, and his dad openly favored his new step-daughter over his flesh and blood son and was quite neglectful of him in order to play super-hero with Courtney) would become a villain/his half-sister's rival. Sadly, while Stripesy's son would appear in Stares and STRIPES and JSA, ominously looming over Courtney and reminding her how she ruined his relationship with his father, the plot never culminated into anything.
* ''Comicbook/{{Supergirl}}'':
** In the first issues of the ''Comicbook/RedDaughterOfKrypton'' story arc, writer Tony Bedard started several subplots up, but he had not the chance to develop them. [[http://comicboxcommentary.blogspot.com.es/2014/09/tony-bedard-interview.html He revealed his plans in an interview, though]]:
--->'''Anj:''' You sowed the seeds of future plotlines which may never come to fruition. Can you tell us what you were planning with Blaze? Siobhan? Michael? Shay Veritas?\\
'''TONY:''' I was going to have Blaze create a trio of henchgirls called the Furies. Remember Siobhan’s roommate and her two friends? They were all orphaned in superhero battles and had sworn themselves to finding a way to make super-people pay. They were going to beat Supergirl and take her back to Blaze’s home dimension. Hilarity would ensue. I wanted to get Siobhan in there more, to make her and Kara a team. I had one issue where the newly Red Lanterned Kara fights Silver Banshee, and I contrasted their fight with flashbacks of Kara and Siobhan just having fun roommate moments. That remains one of my favorite things from the run: just letting her have a friend. Michael returns in my final issue, and we’ll see if they do anything with him after that. If not, it was enough that Kara met a guy who had every reason to hate life and yet retained a positive outlook. He was in many ways a good role model for her, and he didn’t want to trick or use her, which is nice for a change. And Shay I wanted to keep playing sort of mysterious. Is she really a friend to Supergirl, or does she view her as another science project? Shay’s still a bit of a cypher to me, which is okay if she’s played for mystery. But I liked doing scenes of her staff at the Block talking about what it’s like being stuck there, having to wear her face, alternating between admiration and resentment. It gave the whole Block set-up a little complexity.
* ''Comicbook/TeenTitans'':
** Mal Duncan abandoned his Hornblower identity and went back to being the Guardian after the Gabriel Horn was stolen, and the plot was never resolved. Had the book continued, it would have been revealed that Mal had hidden it himself because he subconsciously did not want to be a superhero anymore.
** There had been some broad hints in Geoff Johns' run prior to ''Comicbook/InfiniteCrisis'' that the new Aquagirl would be joining the team, with her expressing an interest in the Titans and showing up as Aquawoman in ''Titans Tomorrow''. Plans changed at some point, so she ended up joining and quitting offscreen during the "One Year Later" TimeSkip. She finally joined the Titans for real during Sean [=McKeever=] s run, long after Johns had left the book.
** Likewise, the ''Son of Vulcan'' mini-series ended with the title character going to San Francisco and introducing himself to Beast Boy. This was obviously supposed to set up a plot about Vulcan becoming a member of the Teen Titans, but this never happened.
** The "Origins & Omens" back-up story foreshadowed a number of events which were supposed to affect the team, such as Comicbook/{{Static}} joining, [[Franchise/TheFlash Kid Flash]] returning to life and rejoining the team, Kid Devil dying (in a completely different manner than the way he ''actually'' ended up dying), Comicbook/BlueBeetle hooking up with Comicbook/WonderGirl, and Sun Girl becoming pregnant with Inertia's baby. Aside from Static becoming a Titan, all of these were ignored when writer Sean [=McKeever=] was fired.
** [=McKeever=] had notably planned to resurrect Kid Devil and restore his powers. After ''Comicbook/BlackestNight'' temporarily established that "dead means dead" in Franchise/TheDCU, this plot was dropped as well.
** [=McKeever=]'s run also revealed that Bombshell's mother was EvilAllAlong and the true mastermind behind Project Quantum. The change in writers derailed this subplot, and Bombshell ended up being booted off the team before it could be resolved.
** The same thing happened to JT Krul during his run. His first issue showed glimpses into the future which revealed that Aqualad [[CanonImmigrant from]] ''WesternAnimation/YoungJustice'' would be joining, and that the Teen Titans would end up involved in a crossover with Comicbook/{{Deathstroke}}'s team of AntiHero Titans. ''Comicbook/{{Flashpoint}}'' rendered all of this moot.
** Felicia D. Henderson's final two arcs were basically an extended [[PoorlyDisguisedPilot Backdoor Pilot]] for a new ''Static Shock'' ongoing. The new series was supposed to have been based around the hook of Virgil trying to get his powers back, but the book ended up being delayed and eventually canceled entirely due to the ComicBook/{{New 52}} ContinuityReboot. A new ''Static Shock'' book did launch with the New 52, but it had a different creative team and was completely unrelated to Henderson's proposed series.
** Years prior to this, there was the ill-fated Titans L.A. spin-off that was planned. The group was first hinted at in the ''Beast Boy'' mini-series, the seeds were planted in a ''Titans Annual'', and the team finally assembled in the ''Titans Secret Files'' one-shot only to...never appear again. Comicbook/{{Cyborg}} later confirmed that the team had disbanded with a HandWave line of dialogue. Then it's revealed that Terra II was apparently the ''real'' Terra all along. Terra II fell into obscurity before this could go anywhere, and ended up being killed off the next time she made a significant appearance. The whole reveal was later {{retcon}}ned itself, as it turned out Terra II was indeed an impostor, albeit one with IdentityAmnesia. Although, this explanation in turn is similar to Marv Wolfman's original intent for the character, before the later ''New Titans'' editor (Pat Garrahy) had mandated a story to imply the two Terras were the same (which Geoff Johns and Ben Raab intended to expand upon with their reveal).
** At one point, Comicbook/{{Deathstroke}} was shown taking in Poprocket, a homeless teen metahuman. It was stated that he had plans for the girl, but she soon disappeared without explanation. Presumably, they were setting up Poprocket to be part of Deathstroke's AntiHero team of ''[[Comicbook/{{Teen Titans}} Titans]]'', but for whatever reason she ended up not appearing in that book.
* Franchise/WonderWoman famously quit the ''[[ComicBook/JusticeLeagueInternational Justice League Europe]]'' after just one issue. Keith Giffen has stated that Wondy's editors demanded she be written out of the JLE, as they didn't want her to be "sullied" like the other members of the League (who famously underwent a lot of {{Flanderization}} and then [[NeverLiveItDown Never Lived It Down]]).
* Early ''ComicBook/{{New 52}}'' comics were clearly setting the Daemonites up as the BigBad of the line, not just in the ex-Creator/{{Wildstorm}} books but with Superman facing them as well. There was even a suggestion that the Comicbook/DemonKnights had got their name from a mishearing of "Daemonites". Then ''Grifter'' and ''Voodoo'' got cancelled, ''Stormwatch'' got retrobooted and ''then'' cancelled, and with the exception of Midnighter and Apollo, pretty much all the Wildstorm elements of Prime Earth went very quiet.

!!!Marvel
* At the end of the first arc in ''[[Comicbook/TheInvaders All-New Invaders]]'', Comicbook/TheEternals discovered a comatose {{Galactus}} in the Negative Zone (where he'd been trapped following ''Comicbook/CataclysmTheUltimatesLastStand''), and planned to use the Gods' Whisper to control him and make him destroy the Kree. The planned attack on the Kree never occurred, and Galactus later appeared without any reference to how he'd escaped the Negative Zone.
* ''Franchise/TheAvengers''
** Near the end of Roger Stern's run, minor ''Comicbook/AlphaFlight'' character Dan Smallwood saw the Avengers on TV, and was shocked to learn his childhood sweetheart Marrina was now a member of the team. According to Stern, this was going to lead to Dan heading to New York and ending up in a LoveTriangle with Marrina and [[Comicbook/SubMariner Namor]]. Unfortunately, Stern was removed from the book by ExecutiveMeddling, and Creator/WaltSimonson ended up killing off Marrina in his very first arc.
** Creator/KurtBusiek's ''Avengers'' run had the team face a powerful villain named Bloodwraith. They were unable to best him, but ComicBook/ScarletWitch managed to bind him to the ruins of Slorenia, making it impossible for him to leave the country's borders. It was mentioned a few issues later that ComicBook/{{SHIELD}} was still monitoring Slorenia to make sure Bloodwraith didn't try anything funny, but Busiek ended up leaving the title before he could revisit that plot thread. The next time Slorenia appeared, absolutely no mention was made of Bloodwraith or where he'd disappeared to.
** Creator/GeoffJohns' first ''Avengers'' arc introduced a new Scorpio. Though his plan was thwarted, the ending showed that he had escaped with the Zodiac key, and that he was actually part of a new incarnation of the Zodiac group. Zodiac's mysterious leader mentioned that the next time, the group would attack as one to ensure the Avengers could not stop them. Unfortunately, there never was a "next time," since Johns left the book before he could continue that subplot. The new Scorpio and Zodiac never appeared again.
** Creator/BrianMichaelBendis hinted at a romance between [[Comicbook/{{Hawkeye}} Clint Barton]] and Echo in ''Comicbook/NewAvengers'', even having the two share a passionate kiss. This was completely dropped once Clint's ex-wife Comicbook/{{Mockingbird}} returned "from the dead" (it's complicated) at the close of ''Comicbook/SecretInvasion''.
** The official tie-in comic for ''ComicBook/TheAvengersEarthsMightiestHeroes'' had a story with the ComicBook/ScarletWitch and ComicBook/{{Quicksilver}}, which heavily implied that the two teens would be joining ComicBook/TheAvengers at a later date. Thanks to the cancellation of both the show and the comic, this never occurred.
* During a crossover between the ''Comicbook/AvengersAcademy'' and ''Young Allies'', it was hinted that Reptil and Spider-Girl harbored an attraction for one another, and were going to hook up. The problem is, ''Young Allies'' got cancelled after just six issues, so their relationship was nixed with a single HandWave line.
* In ''Beyond!'', ComicBook/{{Dwayne McDuffie}} killed off the teen hero Gravity by having him perform a HeroicSacrifice. However, the final panel of the book hinted that this wasn't the end of Gravity's tale. The character was later resurrected in [=McDuffie=]'s ''Fantastic Four'' run, but hasn't really done anything of note since. It turns out that this is because the original plan was to resurrect Gravity and have him become the new ComicBook/{{Captain Marvel|l}}, but someone else decided it would be a better idea to introduce a Skrull posing as the original Captain Marvel in ''Comicbook/CivilWar'' instead.
* ''ComicBook/BlackPanther'':
** Reginald Hudlin's first run ended with Erik Killmonger's son swearing vengeance against T'Challa after watching Comicbook/MonicaRambeau kill his dad. The son hasn't been seen since then, and his planned revenge has yet to occur.
** In ''The Man Without Fear'', David Liss introduced an EvilCounterpart for T'Challa named the American Panther. The story ended with the villain defeated, but with his costume and mask unaccounted for. The final shot showed someone putting on the American Panther mask and cryptically saying "The world has been waiting for my return. Well...here I am," but the mystery of who this was ended up going nowhere. WordOfGod is that it would have eventually been revealed that the new American Panther was Kasper Cole, the young man who had briefly replaced T'Challa as the Black Panther near the end [[Creator/ChristopherPriestComics Christopher Priest]]'s run. The next time Kasper officially appeared, it was revealed that he'd given up on crime-fighting altogether, and there was no indication that he'd ever worn the American Panther suit.
* ''ComicBook/CaptainAmerica'':
** Steve Rogers dies in Dan Jurgens' ''Captain America'' vol. 3 #50, which would have been addressed by a follow up mini-series by John Ney Rieber.
** Mark Gruenwald's final ''Captain America'' arc had Steve slowly dying, which led to him training a pair of young heroes named Jack Flag and Free Spirit to take over for him. Creator/MarkWaid then took over the book and promptly cured Steve, allowing him to get back into the action. The subplot about Cap's new proteges was dropped entirely, and Jack Flag wouldn't be seen again for roughly a decade, while Free Spirit wouldn't appear again until ''twenty years later''.
** ''Captain America and ComicBook/TheFalcon'' ended with Cap finding Falcon's costume fluttering in the wind, with it left ambiguous as to whether or not Falcon was dead. This was going to be resolved in a solo ''Falcon'' book by Creator/{{Christopher Priest|Comics}}, but the series never materialized.
** In the 70's, a crossover between ''ComicBook/CaptainAmerica'' and the ''Comicbook/XMen'' implied that Comicbook/TheFalcon might be a mutant. This was dropped until a decade later, when the solo ''Falcon'' series confirmed this theory by having a Sentinel identify the hero as a mutant. This was ignored until 2001, when Creator/KurtBusiek addressed the inconsistency in an issue of ''ComicBook/TheAvengers'', where it was established that Falcon was ''not'' a mutant, and that the Sentinel had simply been malfunctioning.
** When Steve Rogers returned after his supposed death in Ed Brubaker's run, Bucky -- who had been acting as Captain America to honour Steve -- insisted on giving the Captain America mantle back, even though Steve didn't want it. Steve insists that Bucky keep the title, and justifies it by saying that Bucky has moved beyond using the role to honour him. He later confides in a sleeping Sharon Carter that he'd had a vision of a possible future, and in this future Bucky, as the Winter Soldier and not Captain America, dies after being impaled on debris. Also seen are numerous large tentacled silhouettes and someone wielding Thor's hammer, Mjolnir. The ''ComicBook/FearItself'' crossover, where numerous Mjolnir-like weapons fall from the sky ''and'' Bucky ''was'' seemingly "killed" (but as Captain America), ''could'' be the follow-up, but it doesn't quite line up. The tentacle things never appeared and besides the event being Thor-related, there aren't many similarities. The visual of giant tentacled robots would be used years later in ''ComicBook/SecretEmpire'' (and a CBR article theorised that this could be a case of ArcWelding), but that's it.
* In one of the issues of the ''Comicbook/{{Daken}}'' solo series, the title character reads a news article about the new ComicBook/CaptainAmerica being outed as ComicBook/BuckyBarnes, the man who killed Daken's mother. He's shown looking at Bucky's picture with an intense stare, and there is a strong implication that Daken is planning on confronting Barnes. The book was cancelled before this fight could occur.
* The Sky-Walker from ''Comicbook/{{Daredevil}}'' was billed as "the most startling character in the annals of Marveldom" when he first appeared. He showed up in exactly one issue before completely disappearing. WordOfGod from Marv Wolfman is that he had wanted to use the character to set off a big sci-fi story, but by that point he'd become so unhappy with his tenure on the title that he asked to be taken off ''Daredevil'' and moved to another book.
* Creator/KevinSmith's infamous ''Comicbook/{{Daredevil}}/Bullseye: The Target'' mini-series, which was never finished. The first (and only) issue saw a group of Muslim extremists coming to New York to hire Bullseye to kill an extremely valuable target, for which he'd be paid 20 million dollars. It ended with him expressing surprise at the intended victim but then agreeing to do it anyway. We never found out who it was or what happened next, but WordOfGod is that the target would have been revealed to be ComicBook/CaptainAmerica.
* Creator/JonathanHickman's ''Comicbook/FantasticFour'' epic, ''The War of the Four Cities''. The four blocs are the Lost City of the High Evolutionary (tied to Silver Age villain the Mole Man), the floating city of the Universal Inhumans (tied to, well, Comicbook/TheInhumans), the hidden lives of the Cult of the Negative Zone (tied to Annihilus), and the Last Kings of Old Atlantis (tied to Namor the Comicbook/SubMariner)... who kind of... died suddenly. Presumably when Hickman realized that with Namor and the surviving Atlanteans living under [[Comicbook/XMen Utopia]] meant there was no way to hold the X-Men off until the GrandFinale. Never mind, we were then treated to the addition of the Kree to the storyline.
* The final issue of Creator/MattFraction's ''Comicbook/{{FF}}'' ended with the implication that Pym Particles could be used to resurrect Cassie Lang, Comicbook/AntMan's dead daughter. Cassie did end up getting resurrected a relatively short time later, but in a manner entirely unrelated to the plot thread from ''FF''.
* Simon Spurrier wrote a companion miniseries to Jason Aaron's ''ComicBook/GhostRider'' run titled ''Ghost Rider: Danny Ketch''. It was basically used to explain why the second Ghost Rider was suddenly a very evil acting WellIntentionedExtremist working for Zadkiel. One of the characters introduced was Mary Le Bow, Danny's confidante and occultist friend. She's "killed" at the end of the story, but her soul ends up in a sort of limbo, where her murderer resides. He says he'll find her a new body and that magic users like her are going to be facing a nebulous threat separate from the war in Heaven that the Ghost Riders were waging. This isn't followed up on, and the following ''Ghost Rider'' series introduces an entirely new Ghost Rider at that. Danny Ketch himself never mentions Mary again and would wind up in comic book limbo.
* ''Comicbook/TheIncredibleHercules'' had a subplot where Amadeus Cho visited his deceased family in the afterlife, only to discover that his little sister, whom he had presumed dead as well, was actually still alive. Maddy Cho did finally appear years later in ''Comicbook/TotallyAwesomeHulk'', but her actual reunion with Amadeus apparently took place entirely offscreen.
* Gerry Duggan's ''[[Comicbook/IncredibleHulk Hulk]]'' run ended before the plot about Gammon, Banner's [[AIIsACrapshoot evil A.I.]], could reach any sort of meaningful resolution. Earlier in the same run, there was also {{Foreshadowing}} for a confrontation between Doc Green and Kang the Conqueror. The anticipated fight never happened.
* During the ''Comicbook/{{Inferno}}'' crossover, Mister Fantastic and the Invisible Woman helped form a new team of Avengers in a manner similar to the formation of the original team way back in ''ComicBook/TheAvengers'' #1. Despite clearly being positioned as major players in the new team, they were quickly written out of the book once ''Inferno'' ended. It turns out that this is because Creator/WaltSimonson had been given permission to add the two to the Avengers, only for editorial to change their minds and decide they wanted them back in the ComicBook/FantasticFour instead.
* ''[[Comicbook/TheDefenders The Last Defenders]]'' ended with Kyle Richmond forming a new group of Defenders consisting of Comicbook/SheHulk, Son of Satan, Krang, and the new Nighthawk after learning from the time-traveling villain Yandroth that this team would go down in history as his greatest achievement and an important part of the Marvel Universe. Indeed, the last page had Yandroth ominously stating that these new Defenders were reality's greatest hope for survival. The new team only ever appeared again in the obscure mini-series ''Vengeance'' (where they weren't even the main characters), and then quietly disbanded offscreen. They certainly ''never'' did anything even remotely as important as the achievements Yandroth hinted at.
* A major part of Brian Bendis' short-lived ''ComicBook/MoonKnight'' series revolved around the hero finding a decapitated ComicBook/{{Ultron}} head, with the series' final issue promising that the plot point would be addressed in the then-upcoming ''Comicbook/AgeOfUltron'' crossover. Not only was the subplot about the Ultron head not resolved, but Moon Knight himself hardly appeared in the actual event.
* ''ComicBook/NewXMenAcademyX'' looked to be building up a BigBad in [[MindRape mind-rapist]] Sean Garrison, the PsychoPsychologist father of one of the main characters, Wallflower. However, the original writers on the book were abruptly fired following ''ComicBook/HouseOfM'', and not only was this storyline never mentioned again, but Wallflower was killed in the wave of anti-mutant violence that followed said ''House of M''. The new creative team implied in an interview that Garrison was depowered by the Scarlet Witch's reality warp, but nothing definitive has ever been stated on his fate in canon itself.
* The "Home Schooling" arc of ''Comicbook/{{Runaways}}'' featured the Runaways' Malibu home being destroyed by a missile attack that also [[spoiler:kills Old Lace]], Klara going berserk, and Chase running away [[spoiler:and later getting hit by a car while chasing after a girl who looks like Gertrude Yorkes]]. It also revealed that the Runaways had been under surveillance by Chase's mysterious uncle, Hunter Stein. But the series was cancelled before the arc came anywhere near a conclusion, and when the Runaways finally resurfaced several years later in ''Comicbook/AvengersAcademy'', the only part of "Home Schooling" that was acknowledged was Old Lace's apparent death (which was quickly undone - the arc revealed that [[spoiler:Nico cast a previously-unmentioned spell that sent Old Lace into another world where she was restored to life.]])
* Near the end of Nick Spencer's ''Comicbook/SecretAvengers'' run, ComicBook/DaisyJohnson was fired from ComicBook/{{SHIELD}} and replaced by ComicBook/MariaHill. Johnson was later shown recruiting the [[ComicBook/BuckyBarnes Winter Soldier]] for a plot to bring down Hill's regime and expose her shady dealings to the public. The book quickly veered off course into a tie-in to ''Comicbook/{{Infinity}}'' involving one of the new [[ComicBook/TheInhumans Inhumans]], and abandoned the Daisy subplot before being cancelled. Other titles later established that Daisy and Maria had resolved their differences.
* The infamous F.A.C.A.D.E. incident from the ''Comicbook/SpiderMan'' books. Long story short, Terry Kavanagh introduced a new baddie named F.A.C.A.D.E., and a huge deal was made about who he really was under the mask (well, [[PoweredArmor helmet]]). Unfortunately, '"Comicbook/TheCloneSaga" began right after F.A.C.A.D.E.'s debut storyline ended, so the mystery of his true identity has never been resolved. It's become sort of a RunningGag that whenever the character does appear or get mentioned, there's usually some sort of joke about his identity.
* Creator/WarrenEllis' short-lived ''[[Comicbook/TheMightyThor Thor]]'' run introduced a subplot about Warren Curzon, a British cop who was investigating Thor. When Ellis decided to leave the title after the fourth issue, he had Enchantress casually kill off Curzon, making his whole storyline a ShaggyDogStory.
* During the ''Comicbook/{{Ultimatum}}'' crossover, Comicbook/TheWasp was [[DroppedABridgeOnHim killed after being eaten off-screen by the Blob]]. Before pulling a HeroicSacrifice, [[Comicbook/AntMan Yellowjacket]] was seen telling Comicbook/IronMan to take the Wasp's body into his lab and activate something known as "The Jocasta Project", hinting that her life might somehow be saved (since in the mainstream comics, Jocasta was an android with the Wasp's brain patterns). This was never mentioned again. In the same event, Comicbook/DoctorStrange was slain by Dormammu. Upon Stephen's death, a mysterious figure appeared in front of his corpse and teleported away with it. Like the business with the Wasp/Jocasta, this was never addressed or even mentioned again.
** ''Ultimatum'' caused a lot of these. In ''Comicbook/UltimateXMen'', it had been revealed that Comicbook/EmmaFrost (who was thought to be a hero and ally to the X-Men) was actually a [[TheMole Mole]] working for the Hellfire Club. Emma was killed in ''Ultimatum'' (''offscreen'' no less) before this subplot could be continued.
** In an ''[[Comicbook/UltimateXMen Ultimate Comics: X-Men]]'' arc following ''Ultimatum'', it was revealed that Havok was still alive and in a mental institution. He was released by Nathaniel Essex and introduced to Layla Miller, with the implication that there were plans for the boy. This plot point was never resolved, as the book ended up changing writers who never followed up on any of this.
** Connected to this was a thread of several characters seeing "ghosts" of loved ones telling them to follow plans that made everything worse for everyone, much like Havok, with the implication that Apocalypse was the one behind it all, and that he was looking for a rematch with The Phoenix (after his last appearance had him be [[CurbStompBattle Curb-stomped]] by it), along with William Stryker Junior's mind being uploaded to all the Sentinels. Then Nick Spencer left, and the incoming Brian Wood didn't even pay lip-service to any of this.
** In general, there's a whole ton of plots that'll never be resolved now that the Ultimate line has been cancelled and the universe itself was destroyed during ''Comicbook/SecretWars2015''.
* Mary Jane supposedly had the OZ formula purged from her body at the end of the "Clone Saga" arc in ''Comicbook/UltimateSpiderMan'', but there were still scattered hints that some of it remained. She briefly grew claws at one point during a tense argument between Peter and Comicbook/KittyPryde, and was shown having nightmares where she transformed back into the Demogoblin and killed Peter. This whole subplot was quietly dropped after a while.
* Rick Remender's second volume of ''Comicbook/UncannyAvengers'' ended with Comicbook/TheVision learning a horrible secret about Comicbook/ScarletWitch and refusing to divulge it in order to spare her feelings, and the High Evolutionary claiming that his genocidal actions were meant to safeguard the world from some unspecified oncoming threat. Both plot points were dropped when the book was cancelled and relaunched with a new creative team.
* The 2003-2004 ''Comicbook/{{Venom}}'' series ended on a {{Cliffhanger}} where Venom mutated into a larger, even more monstrous form after absorbing the clone Symbiote that had bonded with Patricia. Worse still, he was shown preparing to fulfill the clone's mission to KillAllHumans at the behest of its alien masters. The next time Venom appeared, he'd returned to his classic form without any explanation, and while the clone later did resurface as Mania's Symbiote, the alien genocide plot was never resolved.
* ''Comicbook/XMen'' has had multiple versions of them: the Baby version of Age of Apocalypse, how Comicbook/{{Psylocke}} and ComicBook/JeanGrey switched powers, evil Nurse Annie being sold off into bondage to Elias Bogan by her evil son, Sebastian Shaw being courted by Comicbook/{{Apocalypse}}, ComicBook/{{Magneto}} joining forces with the Neo, Comicbook/KittyPryde supposedly having some sort of connection to the Neo, the mystery mutant that was present outside the Sentinel base in Uncanny X-Men #57-59, etc. One of the most infamous examples was the "Externals" plotline from Creator/RobLiefeld's ''Comicbook/XForce''. This secretive bloodline of mutants, all possessing immortality in addition to their mutant power, were built up to be the next big thing, with two former {{Big Bad}}s revealed to be members of the group, as was a member of the team, whom the others seemed to have various vaguely-defined "plans" for. However, Liefeld left the book before he could tie up all the plot threads, and the next creative team was quick to sweep everything about this story under the rug, with one of the three established characters in the group killing all the new ones and the other two revealed to not actually be Externals anyway. This happened so suddenly that many fans pointed out the fact that the story was essentially ''Franchise/{{Highlander}}'' with the SerialNumbersFiledOff and suspected Marvel canned the story to avoid litigation, though WordOfGod assures us this was not the case. There was also a subplot during Joe Kelly's run that hinted Jean might end up transforming into the Phoenix again. Kelly left the book before this could happen, though Creator/GrantMorrison ended up bringing back Jean's Phoenix abilities in his own run.

!!!Other
* ''ComicBook/ArchieComicsSonicTheHedgehog'' :
** As a {{Long Runner|s}}, the comic gets this a lot, but two memorable aborted arcs include the mystery of [[KidAppealCharacter Tails]]' destiny as "[[TheChosenOne Chosen One]]" (a prophecy of him being a bigger hero than [[TheMcCoy Sonic]] or [[TheSpock Knuckles]] combined that faltered several times, due to arguments over exactly ''what'' that was supposed to mean), and the Eggman-backed Dingo invasion of the Echindas' homeland (which petered out when the story shifted to an equally-aborted arc regarding a civil war in the Dark Legion). Both stories were hyped up something fierce, but disappeared so quickly and completely that even the ''writers'' have no idea [[TheChrisCarterEffect how exactly they were supposed to end]].\\\
[[KidAppealCharacter Tails']] "Chosen One" destiny was resolved either when he stopped Mammoth Mogul from destroying TheMultiverse or when he was used by [[AIIsACrapshoot A.D.A.M.]] to gather all the Chaos Emeralds in the galaxy in one place and fuse them together. And the Dingo invasion/Dark Legion civil war stories were interconnected (as the latter allowed the former to gain more ground), and were both brought to an end when [[TheSpock Knuckles]] was tricked into becoming [[PhysicalGod Enerjak]].
** A lawsuit by former ''Sonic'' writer Ken Penders for continuing to use his characters even after he left the comic meant that Archie had to write them all out -- and since Penders had created or helped create ''dozens'' of characters, this ultimately resulted in the implementation of a CosmicRetcon that cut short numerous plot lines, some of which had been building for years. In fact, the only ones that got any closure at all were Silver's [[SetRightWhatOnceWentWrong attempt to fix the past]] (which got [[WrapItUp quickly resolved]] pre-retcon, and then reworked into something different but similar post-retcon) and Ixis Naugus' [[TyrantTakesTheHelm reign as king]] (which is almost ridiculously resolved by him [[ScrewThisImOuttaHere running away]] immediately following the retcon).
** When the title and it's spin-off series, ''Sonic Universe'', was ultimately cancelled due to various factors, this left a ''lot'' lingering plot threads behind that the writers were hinting to explore later in rebuilding the new universe.
*** Breezie and Honey's deal which they made at the end of the "Champions" arc. It was obvious Breezie was starting to plan something and Honey would likely end up involved.
*** Wendy looking into finding another conch shell: After Wendy joins Eggman's empire (somewhat unwillingly), Eggman sends her off to find a replacement conch shell. Citing he had lost his initial one somehow (Which ended up destroyed at the beginning of the "Worlds Unite" crossover by a Sigma-possed Orbot. Since the events of that comic were erased, he only has hazy memories of it).
*** Snively and whatever ulterior motives he had in GUN: In the new universe, Sniverly defected from Eggman after the events of Sonic 3 and joined G.U.N as their resident science expert. But he was still planning something malicious, having deflected suspicion off him from his superiors. What's more he was now in possession of Eclipse's ship and the Black Arms technology within.
*** Where Eclipse and his Dark Arms (basically Black Arm versions of Wisps) ended up as they were last seen fleeing Angel Island and crashing into an unknown area. Likewise his vendetta against Shadow.
*** Where Silver, Gold and Von Schlemmer wound up after defeating the Second Devourer. As this story was a prequel before Silver meeting Sonic in the new universe was shown, that meeting will never be revealed.
*** Some plotlines with a few of the Egg Bosses such as Tundra and Akhlut (two leader of their fractions at war with each other), Nephthys (an Egg Boss who only joined to make sure Eggman rule is undermined while not casting suspicion on her. The Freedom Fighters of that area actually being her friends and working with her with the main cast completely unaware), Conquering Storm (her taking over her homeland and the rising rebellion), Maw (Him being tested on with an secretive experimental power that not even the other Egg Bosses save Nephthys knew about and developing a new robotizicer for Eggman) and Cassia and Clove (two young girls who were tricked into serving Eggman when the latter willingly became a cybrog to save herself from an terminal illness. But unbeknownst to her is isn't cured and Cassia quickly finds this out but Eggman essentially holds her sister hostage by that point).
*** The Setting Dawn Pirates returning and whatever was in that temple they had found with the Chaotix, Echo and Princess Undina in their last issue. Their story likewise tied into one of the Egg Bosses, Abyss.
*** Nicole had been left in the backup systems of the Sky Patrol after her old computer was destroyed battling Phage during the final moments of [[VideoGame/SonicUnleashed the Shattered World arc]]. Had both continued, ''Sonic Universe'' would have had an issue where Tails and Sally went to Dr. Elidy to help repair the computer and get Nicole back.
*** And Eggman trying to re-power his Death Egg with the implication he was going to go to the Lost Hex to acquire energy for it (which likewise in turn would lead to an another encounter with the Deadly Six, the first one was in the World Unite crossover but that was erased at the end of the event) and the threat of the adformentioned new robotizicer.
* ''ComicBook/CerebusTheAardvark'': This occurred at least once in an early story arc where Cerebus and a band of mercenaries capture a commander named Krull as part of an elaborate military campaign. A later story even depicts them having difficulty keeping Krull imprisoned; seeming to foreshadow an upcoming conflict or complication. However, the author suddenly and unceremoniously dumps the story line, ultimately having it resolve itself offscreen. Not only that, it is never mentioned how (or even if) Krull affected the campaign's outcome.
* In the ''Series/DoctorWho'' [[Magazine/DoctorWhoMagazine spin-off comics]] a lengthy planned character arc for DarkActionGirl turned companion Destrii was dropped when the TV show was revived, and it was decided that the Ninth Doctor comic strips would be tied strictly into the TV continuity. As a result the Eighth Doctor and Destrii got an AndTheAdventureContinues ending and the comic switched straight into the Ninth Doctor and Rose.
* ''Comicbook/ElfQuest''
** Several storylines used to be published in an anthology title from 1996 to '99. ''Future Quest'', taking place some 900 years after most other stories, was put on hold indefinitely to avoid spoilers for other planned stories. Then the anthology was discontinued for financial reasons. ''Wolfrider'' wrapped up neatly in the trade paperback. ''Mender's Tale'' and ''Wavedancers'' had additional chapters been made available online in 2008, partly in script- or unfinished form; ''Wavedancers'' still has no conclusion.
** Similarly, the Summer Special ''Recognition'' was meant as a teaser for a new trade paperback, but then DC Comics bought the publishing rights for ''Comicbook/ElfQuest'', and did not want to pick that title up. Additional parts are available online now, but there is no conclusion yet.
* Happened entirely too often with Rob Liefeld's creator-owned work. Most quarter bins will have issues from series that never went past the first couple of issues, set-ups for crossovers that never actually happened, storylines that were abandoned mid-plot... the list goes on. Some of the most prominent examples include:
** ''Youngblood: Imperial'' and ''Youngblood: Bloodsport'' minis
** ''Comicbook/{{Supreme}} Sacrifice'' crossover, which would have involved the 90s-era Supreme escaping from Supremacy and wrecking havoc.
** Subverted with the ''Supreme: the Return'' storyline. Seeing as ''Supreme'' has been relaunched, it did continue from The Return storyline while featuring a 90s-era Supreme.
** And most of Creator/AlanMoore's plans for Awesome Comics line in general.
** There was even a crossover planned between ''Comicbook/{{Youngblood}}'' and ''Series/PowerRangersZeo''. The ''Zeo'' comic didn't get past issue ''one'', though.
* The Creator/MalibuComics' ''[[ComicBook/MalibuComicsStreetFighter Street Fighter]]'' series was rife with this, as it ended after only three issues. The final issue even hinted at a future crossover with the Malibu hero Amazing Man, and introduced a CanonForeigner fighter named Nida, who had sworn vengeance on Ryu for some reason. The letter column of the issue gave a brief rundown of the various story beats that would have unfolded had the series not been cancelled.
* In 2010, the ''[[Franchise/TransformersTimelines Transformers Collector's Club]]'' dropped their "Nexus Prime" plotline which had been running for about five years across [[TheMultiverse various continuities]], after Hasbro ''themselves'' took charge of stories regarding the thirteen original Transformers.
* An early issue of ''ComicBook/BlackScience'' explained the principle of the core of the eververse and teased that the team would have to go their to fix their problems. They got distracted and it never came up again.

[[folder:Comic Strips]]
* In as much as there is continuity, one ''ComicStrip/{{Dilbert}}'' comic involved Dogbert raising an army of cloned vegetables. It was supposed to be longer, but Scott Adams found it wasn't as funny as he thought it would be, so he actually stated in comic he was ending the arc by "skipping ahead to the big finish." Another arc, featuring the death of Dilbert, was also resolved quicker than planned when Adams ran out of ideas (he also mentioned doing it to shake things up, but the strip was so early that nobody cared). Another early arc involved Dilbert building a robot that became gradually more intelligent before being dropped without comment a few weeks later; the plotline was revisited more than a decade later with a different robot, who went on to become a regular.
* A two-week 1995 ''ComicStrip/FoxTrot'' storyline had Paige getting the role of Cleopatra in the school's Antony and Cleopatra play, (with Morton playing Antony). The story ended before the play started, with Roger noticing Paige's name in the play program. After that strip, the story suddenly ended, with no actual strips of the play being performed, and the story was never mentioned again.
* ''ComicStrip/{{Luann}}'':
** At one point creator Greg Evans had planned a storyline which revealed the reason SatelliteLoveInterest Aaron Hill was so uninterested in Luann's (or anyone else's) advances: he simply wasn't interested... [[ComingOutStory in girls]]. Evans got cold feet, fearing he didn't have enough of a subscriber base to absorb the potential loss of paper slots, like [[ComicStrip/ForBetterOrForWorse Lynn Johnston]] did when she pulled a similar storyline. So he [[AuthorsSavingThrow altered the story]] so that Aaron was hiding a relationship with the much older Dianne.
** After Aaron was [[PutOnABus put on a plane to Hawaii]], the strip signaled his reunion with Luann in a storyline where she wins a contest flight to Hawaii. What happens when she reunites with Aaron there? She sees him once with another girl, doesn't even bother to confirm she's his girlfriend, and then doesn't speak to him again after that. Aaron's return was teased ''again'' with a strip where he sends Luann a Myspace friend request and a message suggesting he's single now, but nothing came of it after that.
* ''ComicStrip/{{Doonesbury}}'' decided to celebrate its 20th anniversary year (1990) with a big epic storyline in which all the strips' various {{plot}}lines and characters converged together, with practically the entire cast all ending up at Mike's apartment. Creator Garry Trudeau ended up writing himself into a corner with the arc, which had everyone together but didn't give them anything to do. The arc got weirder when Mike's house was mistaken for a crack den and raided by federal agents. Trudeau decided the whole thing had gotten out of hand, and undid the entire arc by revealing that the last several months worth of strips had been AllJustADream.
* ''ComicStrip/HeartOfTheCity'' story arcs often end suddenly with no further explanation. An example is an arc where Heart's mom agrees to go on a date, which Heart dreads until she learns that the man is a talent agent. After that, the arc ended.
* Lampshaded in a ''ComicStrip/{{Peanuts}}'' strip in which Snoopy is writing a novel. One part of the plot involves a king living in luxury while his people starved. In tying up the plot threads, Snoopy left him out.

[[folder:Fan Works]]
* ''Fanfic/ABoyAGirlAndADogTheLeithianScript'':
** In this ''Literature/TheSilmarillion'' fic the story abruptly stops shortly after Luthien makes her choice, and before she, Beren and Huan go to confront [[spoiler:Carcharoth]] for last time.
** The author wrote several spin-offs narrating in greater detail and in prose some important bits. In her notes she says that her intention was writing more spin-offs and having all of them published at the same time that the corresponding parts of The Script.
* ''FanFic/BoyScoutsOneHalf'': This series used to have a pretty strong (and ''Series/TheXFiles'' inspired) arc about a shadowy conspiracy by some of the older adult Scout leaders. This arc, other then the occasional reference, was dropped after Mike Quadrozzi, one of the authors who once worked on the series, stopped doing so.
* The ''VideoGame/DeadOrAlive'' doujinshi by Hellabunna, REI: slave to the grind: REI 06: CHAPTER 05, ends with Kasumi's classmates stating next time she will make her public debut in the park, but the following chapter, REI 07: CHAPTER 06 does not pick on this, instead focusing on a fat man meeting Kasumi between train trips.
* ''{{Franchise/Pokemon}}'' fanfic ''FanFic/CloudedSky'' was originally intended to be the second in a series of four, but the author decided not to make the third and fourth, leading to certain plot elements being set up without ever receiving any payoff. The meaning of these elements and the author's original plans are all explained in a postface after the epilogue.
* One of the main characters of the ''Anime/SonicX'' fanfic ''FanFic/DontKeepYourDistance'' is Star, one of Dr. Eggman's robots who turns good and helps the other protagonists. Star cannot speak, communicating only in gestures and ambiguous robot noises, but it is implied early on that it actually cannot understand the animals' speech; this is quickly abandoned, likely for convenience.
* In ''FanFic/{{Fractured}}'', a ''Franchise/MassEffect''[=/=]''Franchise/StarWars''[[spoiler:[=/=]''VideoGame/{{Borderlands}}'']] [[MassiveMultiplayerCrossover crossover]], the opening of [[spoiler:Vaults]] is set up to produce different results depending on who activated it and under what circumstance they did so. In the [[FanFic/SovereignGFCOrigins sequel]], this notion [[{{Retcon}} disappears entirely]] and they are given a different purpose.
* ''[[FanFic/FriendshipIsMagicTheAdventuresOfSpike Friendship is Magic: The Adventures of Spike]]'': The "Spike Party Anthem" arc was cut unceremoniously short, and the arc that was meant to come between it and the "Canterlot Wedding" arc was cut out altogether. Both were a result of the author's computer crashing and losing all his notes for those arcs.
* In the ''Series/{{House}}'' fanfic "Incarceration", there is a conversation between Chase and Foreman where they decide not to tell House who's been running the hospital while he was in prison after Cuddy left. This is not resolved in the fic, which focuses mainly on House's relationship with Wilson and his efforts to get him paroled. The author later revealed it would have been Cameron who had taken over administration.
* ''Franchise/{{Superman}}'' fanfiction ''Fanfic/SupermanOf2499TheGreatConfrontation'', deals with the hardships of the descendants of Superman and ComicBook/{{Supergirl}} in the far future. In the fourth chapter a character is fed up with the Family Law which dictates there can only be one Superman and the rest of relatives are supposed to hide their powers. So, he declares he won't pretend to be a normal human again, and a large number of relatives support him. However that subplot was quickly dropped.
* In ''FanFic/TalesOfTheEmperasque'', there was supposed to be an arc exploiting a [[Website/FourChan /tg/]] joke that claims Leman Russ was turned by Warp into ''Anime/SpiceAndWolf'''s Hulu. The canon!Leman and Hulu!Leman would meet and hijinks would ensue. However, the author decided that the idea is stupid and the girl who was supposed to be Hulu!Leman was retconned into reborn Sister of Silence and then forgotten about.
* In ''RolePlay/WeAreAllPokemonTrainers'' the Warriors sub-arc in Holon lacked a resolution due to the player responsible for managing it losing motivation.

[[folder:Films -- Animation]]
* ''WesternAnimation/MyLittlePonyEquestriaGirls'' features two of these: the fact that [[NiceGuy Flash Sentry]] used to date [[AlphaBitch Sunset Shimmer]] is mentioned, but never expanded upon (neither character appears on-screen at the same time nor do they make reference to this) in the film or [[WesternAnimation/MyLittlePonyEquestriaGirlsRainbowRocks it's]] [[WesternAnimation/MyLittlePonyEquestriaGirlsFriendshipGames sequels]]; and the little plot point of a girl who had been humiliated in the previous Spring Fling, who WordOfDante says it's Rarity (although a few lines in the film imply it's her).

[[folder:Films -- Live-Action]]
* In ''Film/IAmLegend'', Robert Neville lays a trap that captures a female dark seeker. Shortly after, a male dark seeker goes to look, even briefly exposing himself to sunlight. Neville theorizes that the dark seekers have started to lose their remaining higher brain functions, and with them some of their basic survival instincts. However, the next day Neville is caught in a trap very similar to the one he set, hinting that the dark seekers may be more intelligent than he thinks. In the original ending, the dark seekers come to rescue the female dark seeker and spare Neville's life; due to bad test audience reactions and ExecutiveMeddling looking for a SequelHook, the ending was changed and the implication ignored. As [[http://www.cracked.com/article_16258_5-awesome-movies-ruined-by-last-minute-changes.html Cracked.com]] put it, "The original ending is available as a bonus scene on the DVD release, where it is advertised as the "controversial original ending". Yes, coming to a peaceful reconciliation with your enemies is now more controversial than blowing them right the fuck up."
* ''Film/TheXFilesIWantToBelieve'' features a controversial paedophilic priest with "psychic" powers around which [[NeverTrustATrailer most of the publicity hinged]]. However, about halfway through the film goes off at a tangent about a different character, the only reference to Father Joe being [[spoiler:his death announcement at the end.]]
* Both ''Film/FridayThe13thTheFinalChapter'' and ''Film/FridayThe13thPartVANewBeginning'' set the character Tommy Jarvis up to be Jason's replacement as the main villain of the series. These plans were canceled due to the unpopularity of ''A New Beginning'' and Jason [[LightningCanDoAnything was brought back to life]] in [[Film/FridayThe13thPartVIJasonLives the very next film]].
* ''Film/CheaperByTheDozen'' had a few scenes where Tom Welling's character has problems with a bully. This is never resolved.
* ''Film/Halloween4TheReturnOfMichaelMyers'' has Michael's young niece Jamie Lloyd seemingly inherit whatever evil drove him to kill, as at the end of the film she stabs her stepmother with a pair of scissors in a manner almost identical to how Michael killed his sister Judith in [[Film/{{Halloween 1978}} the original film]]. The prospect of Jamie replacing Michael as the main villain of the series was abandoned by producer Moustapha Akkad, much to the disappointment of Creator/DanielleHarris (Jamie) and Creator/DonaldPleasence (Doctor Loomis). In [[Film/Halloween5TheRevengeOfMichaelMyers the fifth film]] Jamie is back to normal and is {{retcon}}ned into merely wounding her stepmother in the previous film, instead of killing her.
* The ''Film/{{Hellboy}}'' film builds up Sammael as an unbeatable enemy due to his [[MyDeathIsJustTheBeginning ability to duplicate himself every time he is killed]]. If you ''don't'' kill him then he lays eggs all over the place, which hatch into even ''more'' clones. By the end of the movie there are at least dozens of Sammael-clones and more hatching -- so, how do they deal with him? Well, a whole raft of other plot points had come up, including the BigBad and his chum, so they just set all the ones they could find on fire and called it a day. We already know from earlier in the film that KillItWithFire doesn't stop him duplicating, and they only bother looking for clones in one room of a very large underground complex halfway around the world from his last hangout. Once they leave the room, Sammael is never so much as mentioned for the remainder of the film. [[spoiler:It does however appear in TheStinger, so it wasn't forgotten.]]
* ''Film/TheRoom'' uses this trope at least three times: In one subplot, Denny has a brief run in with a drug dealer (a VoodooShark to explain the presence of the [[ChekhovsGun gun]] at the end). In another, Michelle's boyfriend Mike is shamed by Lisa and Claudette walking in on him with Michelle in Johnny and Lisa's living room; and another one - and here's the kicker - has Claudette telling Lisa that she has breast cancer, something that NOBODY ELSE MENTIONS. Not even CLAUDETTE HERSELF. All of these subplots are introduced and immediately forgotten. In an AMA on Reddit, Mark's actor [[http://www.reddit.com/r/IAmA/comments/1nbna6/oh_hai_mark_greg_sestero_mark_from_the_room_here/cch4dn5 stated that]] Claudette's actress asked Tommy Wiseau several times whether the breast cancer would come up again, only to be told that "It's a twist". Eventually she dropped the subject and moved on.
* At the end of ''Film/TheGhostOfFrankenstein'' the Monster is given Ygor's (late Dr. Frankenstein's assistant, played by Creator/BelaLugosi) brain, enabling the Monster to speak once again. This portrayal was supposed to be continued in ''Film/FrankensteinMeetsTheWolfMan'', but the negative reaction from the test audiences made the executives to cut out all the Monster's dialogue and returning him to the {{Man Child}}ish brute for the rest of Franchise/UniversalHorror movies featuring the character.
* In ''Film/TheFinal'', when the outcasts are setting up their torture chamber, they mention how they are rigging the place with webcams in order to send a message to high school students all across the country. This is never brought up again.
* The opening scene of ''Film/JohnnyMnemonic'' establishes that the protagonist needs to do OneLastJob in order to have enough money to afford an expensive "procedure" that he can have done to restore lost childhood memories. This character motivation sets the rest of the plot in motion, but the importance of needing money for the procedure [[spoiler: and needing the procedure itself to restore the protagonist's lost memories]] is abandoned as soon as the scene ends.
* An odd one in ''Film/{{Aliens}}''. Ripley confronts Burke about the fact that he ordered the investigation of the alien derelict ship. This should be a major plot point, as it essentially says that Burke knew that the aliens were out there and deliberately set the colonists to investigate so they could be infected, which should make him the villain of the movie and responsible for all of the evil that's happened. However, Burke offers an excuse for it that makes him come off as careless rather than deliberately villainous, and it's never mentioned again, even though it should be a major bit of information to bring up to the Marines. This is compounded because the investigation scene in question was cut from the theatrical release, so it's never explained when the colonists first encountered the aliens, and it's assumed that the aliens just coincidentally decided to show up not long after Ripley was rescued. As a result, the conversation is a bit confusing in regards to what Ripley is talking about.
** The Special Edition restored the missing scenes, removing the source of confusion.
* In the 2004 Zac Snyder remake of ''Film/{{Dawn of the Dead|2004}}'', after establishing that the zombie infection is spread through contaminated blood, a 'very big deal' is made of one character washing off infected blood in a water feature in the mall. Later, a similar 'very big deal' is made of one character falling into this pool of supposedly infected water, cutting open his arm on the way in. Both shots are done with Snyder's trademark 'this is important' slo-mo, but the incident is never discussed nor followed up, and the character in question [[spoiler: does not suffer from zombie infection]].
* In the [[SyfyChannelOriginalMovie Syfy original movie]] ''Camel Spiders,'' one of the two major stories involves a group of four college kids, two boys and two girls, trying to survive the spiders, sharing screentime with another group of survivors. A little more than halfway through the movie, though, after the two boys die, the movie completely forgets about the two girls who were still alive.
* ''Film/TheIncredibleHulk'':
** This movie's [[StillbornFranchise poor box-office returns]] created a big one involving [[MadScientist Dr. Samuel Sterns]] and his StartOfDarkness. Though the studio was able to continue Bruce Banner's character arc with his appearance in ''Film/{{The Avengers|2012}}'', the lack of direct sequels to ''The Incredible Hulk'' meant that we never got to see the fallout from [[spoiler:Sterns using Banner's gamma-irradiated blood to turn himself into the Leader]]. This plot thread was [[AllThereInTheManual eventually continued]] in the ''Fury's Big Week'' comic that was released as a prequel to ''The Avengers''. In it, [[spoiler:Sterns uses his new abilities to attack Black Widow, only to end up knocked out and taken into custody by ComicBook/{{SHIELD}}.]]
** The even bigger plot thread was TheStinger that showed Thunderbolt Ross partnering with [[Film/IronMan Tony Stark]] to take down the Hulk. This was never mentioned in any of the subsequent films. [[OnceMoreWithClarity This was explained]] in the short film ''[[Film/MarvelOneShots The Consultant]]''; S.H.I.E.L.D. sent Stark as a patsy to ruin the relationship with Ross after the World Security Council ordered Fury to add the Abomination to the roster of the Avengers.
* ''Film/XMenOriginsWolverine'' ended with the reveal that SelfDemonstrating/{{Deadpool}} had survived being decapitated, setting the character up for future appearances. The InternetBackdraft, coupled with the movie's mediocre earnings, led to the studio completely abandoning any plans for a sequel, and releasing the unrelated ''Film/TheWolverine'' and ''Film/{{Deadpool|2016}}'' instead.
* Despite being in the title, the killer barracudas in ''Barracuda'' are completely forgotten when the conspiracy behind their behavior is uncovered halfway through the film, and the rest of the film is spent unraveling it.
* One of the many {{Sequel Hook}}s at the end of ''Film/TheAmazingSpiderMan'' involves Peter attempting to track down the man who shot Uncle Ben. In ''Film/TheAmazingSpiderMan2'', this plot thread is never even mentioned. Likely this was meant to be continued in a future film, however with the series now canned so Spider-Man can join the MCU, it'll never be resolved.
* ''Film/{{Annie 2014}}'':
** Hannigan smugly informs Annie that she's arranged for her to be moved to another home very early in the film after she messes with her in front of the social worker. This is never mentioned again, because before it can happen, enter Stacks.
** Annie catches Stacks without his hairpiece, but other than a one-off joke with Grace about she "shouldn't bank on the hair", it's completely dropped.
* In ''Film/DjangoUnchained'', Creator/ZoeBell plays a mysterious tracker who always wears a scarf over the lower half of her face. She gets two significant close-ups, including a lingering scene where she's shown looking at an old picture of two children. What, if anything, this is meant to mean is never resolved, since she soon ends up being [[DroppedABridgeOnHim killed off without contributing much to the plot]]. Bell has confirmed that the film was originally going to go more into her backstory and explain exactly what the photo scene meant, but this subplot was cut for time. Some have theorized that she was going to be revealed to be Django's former childhood friend.
* Shocker classic ''Film/{{Freaks}}'' had a pair of reoccurring acrobat characters who kept setting up their great act as something that was going to be amazing, but we never get to see it. In the available cut of the film, their bragging feels more like padding to show off the eponymous stars' unusual traits and features.
* ''Franchise/StarWars'':
** ''Film/RogueOne'' introduces Jyn Erso and the force sensitive Kyber crystal amulet given to her by her mother, who tells her to "trust in the force". Kyber crystals power lightsabers and Death Star weapons, and there usually is a link between a force sensitive character and their personal crystal. This one, however, never has any impact on the story whatsoever. It gets destroyed along with Jyn and the other characters. The end.
** Similarly to how ''Film/TheForceAwakens'' focused on Han Solo and ''Film/TheLastJedi'' focused on Luke Skywalker, ''[[Film/StarWars9 Episode IX]]'' was supposed to have General Leia as a major character. Creator/CarrieFisher's [[AuthorExistenceFailure tragic passing in December 2016]] completely destroyed these plans, and Lucasfilm stated they wouldn't digitally recreate her likeness as they had with her and Creator/PeterCushing in ''Film/RogueOne''.
* ''Film/BatmanVSupermanDawnOfJustice'' was originally supposed to be the lead-in to a 2-part ''Film/JusticeLeague'' movie, but when it underperformed and was trashed by critics, those plans were heavily altered. As a result of heavy retooling and [[TroubledProduction many behind the scenes issues]], the resulting movie (now a single film) ignored most of the set-up that its predecessor established. These include:
** A deleted scene from ''BVS'' showed Comicbook/LexLuthor speaking with Steppenwolf, who showed Luthor the three Mother Boxes. This was clearly meant to imply that Luthor would be working with Steppenwolf in ''Justice League'' or was at least the one who spurred him to come to Earth. In the actual ''Justice League'' movie, Luthor has nothing to do with Steppenwolf's plot and doesn't even appear [[spoiler: until TheStinger]], and instead, Steppenwolf claims that he came to conquer Earth after learning of Superman's death.
** The "Knightmare" scene from ''BVS'' had a premonition of a dystopian future where Comicbook/{{Darkseid}} ruled the planet (complete with his omega symbol scorched into the ground), with an evil Superman serving as his enforcer and leading an army of Parademons. Later in the movie, Batman was visited by a time-traveling Flash, who warned him of the evil Superman and told him that Comicbook/LoisLane was somehow "the key" to stopping him. Back when ''Justice League'' was going to be a two-part movie, the plan was presumably to have Steppenwolf appear as the villain of Part 1 while Darkseid would be the villain of Part 2, with the evil Superman subplot explored in greater detail. When this plan was scrapped, the whole thing was pretty much abandoned. [[spoiler: Darkseid never appears in the finished ''Justice League'' movie and though Superman briefly suffers fights the League due to ResurrectionSickness and has to be calmed down by Lois, it only lasts a few minutes, and the Knightmare scene never comes into play. In fact, even when Batman recruits the present day Flash as part of his team, he never mentions (or even seems to recall) his encounter with the future Flash. Likewise, even though the Parademons are prominently featured, Batman doesn't mention the fact that they appeared in his vision.]]
** ''Batman v. Superman'' ended with Superman dying during a fight with Doomsday, only for the last shot of the movie to show dirt levitating around Superman's coffin. This was seemingly meant to imply he was OnlyMostlyDead, much like in ''Comicbook/TheDeathOfSuperman''. In ''Justice League'', however, [[spoiler: Superman is definitively stated to be dead, and is only revived once the members of the team use the Mother Box to bring him back to life. Why the dirt around his coffin was floating is never addressed.]]

[[folder:Literature]]
* The ''Series/BuffyTheVampireSlayer'' novel ''Queen of Slayers'', capped off with Buffy becoming psychically pregnant with an embryo that was the composite daughter of both Spike and Angel -- Buffy's most popular love interests over the course of the series. It's ignored by later authors for obvious reasons, though Spike and Angel being told about it would probably be hilarious. It's also one of the many [[SpinOff spin-offs]] and {{fanfic}}s that were {{retcon}}ned [[NegativeContinuity out of existence]] by the S8 comic's revelations about what was really going on in Italy.
** A couple of the earlier tie in novels seem to have gotten aborted too. Books like 'The Journal of Rupert Giles' , 'The Cordelia Collection' and Angel's "The Longest Night" clearly had Vol.1 on their covers, but no more were ever made.
* ''Literature/WildCards'' had some plots abandoned, presumably because some creators left, probably taking their copyrighted characters with them. Tachyon's infection with the Typhoid version of the virus is treated as something that can be cured by another character who disappears from the series. Tachyon is also jumped into a different woman than his girlfriend, a Chris Claremont creation.
* The ''Literature/{{Animorphs}}'' once encountered a new type of Controller called the Garatron, which was incredibly hard to defeat given that it could run ridiculously fast. After finally managing to defeat one after a book they comment there's a good chance they'll be fighting more of them soon. They never do.
** Book 41, "The Familiar" centers on a BadFuture where the Yeerks have conquered Earth—Marco is Visser Two's host and is in charge of Earth, Cassie is a jaded terrorist and member of a resistance lead by Tobias, using the morph as Ax and looking like Elfangor, Ax is a Yeerk general that conquered the Andalite homeworld, and Rachel is crippled. The only free member is Jake, who tries to figure out what's going on. Even in-universe the world doesn't make sense though, such as how Cassie at one point uses thought-speak while human and Tobias stating that Jake is supposed to be dead, and it's revealed to be AllJustADream. As Jake awakens he hears an entity speaking that humans require "more study", implying it was a vision from the entity. Nothing in the book ever comes into play in the rest of the series and the mysterious entity is never mentioned, though it is known that it isn't the Ellimist or Crayak.
** A few off-hand references are made to the Yeerks having some presence on the Andalite homeworld, but this never developed into anything and by her own admission Applegate just forgot about it.
* K.A. Applegate's series ''Literature/{{Remnants}}'' suffered major [[TheChrisCarterEffect Chris Carter Effect]], meaning many arcs were left undone--most egregiously, what the "Ancient Enemy" was and how both the Troika and Billy related to it.
* A major hazard of the multi-author format of the ''Literature/NewJediOrder'' series. Perhaps most notable were the arcs dealing with the Insiders, a conspiracy set up by the heroes that was to keep LaResistance going even if the Yuuzhan Vong destroyed the New Republic, and Tahiri's possible destiny as a half-human half-Yuuzhan Vong DarkMessiah, but smaller arcs were dropped as well.
* ''Literature/JurassicPark'' ends with the revelation that some dinosaurs have escaped to the Costa Rican mainland. Once Site B is introduced, no mention is made of them. This is briefly discussed in the second book, where a character mentions that they tried to look for them and found nothing, but the jungles of Costa Rica are dense enough that they could easily remain hidden there. It should also be noted that Creator/MichaelCrichton hated sequels, and that ''Literature/TheLostWorld1995'' was only written at the insistence of Creator/StevenSpielberg so that he could make a 2nd movie. Thus many parts had to be retconned and threads that were meant to be left open to illustrate the unleashed dangers were ignored. Made worse by the fact Spielberg used very little of the 2nd book for the sequel movie(s).
* ''Literature/PerryRhodan'', given its nature as an extreme {{Long Runner|s}} written by a ''team'' of authors, is quite full of plot lines that [[WhatHappenedToTheMouse simply disappear]] and/or [[ShootTheShaggyDog come to a sudden (and usually bad) end after a lot of buildup]]. It's actually quite common for a new character to be introduced - or for a formerly random {{mook|s}} to be given an upgrade to MauveShirt along with NominalImportance and a half-chapter {{backstory}} - only to be ''killed off-screen in the next issue''. One particularly bad example from the early days of the series includes a hobo-turned-scientist (with the long and poignant backstory this implies; it takes up about half an issue)... [[ShaggyDogStory who is killed on his first mission. By a falling tree.]] [[ScienceMarchesOn On Venus.]] [[YankTheDogsChain Very slightly after it seemed he might experience happiness for the first time in his life.]]
* In the Creator/DaleBrown novel ''Wings of Fire'', one plotline involves Sky Masters, Inc. being the victim of a takeover, with the heads of the purchasing company having a ChildProdigy daughter that really impresses Jon. All this is seemingly forgotten by the next book.
* Franchise/StarTrekExpandedUniverse
** The ''Literature/{{Rihannsu}}'' novels repeatedly have the Klingons turn up briefly and look like they're going to get more deeply involved in the story (they turn up in ''Swordhunt'' raiding a Romulan colony, then there's a scene at the High Council, and then they attack Artaleirh in ''Chair''), and just as quickly are forgotten each time in favor of the Romulan/Federation story.
** The ''Literature/StarTrekVoyagerRelaunch'' novels switched authors after book four, and there's at least one major Aborted Arc. By the end of the ''Spirit Walk'' books, arch-foe the rogue changeling had taken control of the government on the planet Kerovi. No-one knew he was there, and he was clearly up to something dangerous. It seemed as though the arc was being set up to be a big one, but it was swiftly dropped in ''Full Circle'', the first novel from the second author. He was discovered, and arrested by the Kerovi authorities. In fact, the changeling then dies off screen. We don't even visit Kerovi in ''Full Circle''.
* In ''Literature/ABrothersPrice'', there's significant friction between Jerin and his older sister Corelle. She wants him to be a proper male, with smooth soft hands and [[BeAWhoreToGetYourMan tight showy clothing]]; she also wants to trade him for the Brindle brother, while he wants to marry into a smaller and less violent family. When their mothers and elder sisters are away, she takes the middle sisters to visit the Brindles, leaving Jerin and the youngest children undefended by anyone above twelve. Eldest Whistler punishes her by confiscating her possessions and distributing them to her sisters. Corelle is defiant and irresponsible throughout. But when Eldest takes Jerin to court, Mother Eldest assigns Corelle to come with them with the idea that she needs to see more of the world, and one mistake shouldn't mean permanent blacklisting. Corelle is then well-behaved and careful for the rest of the book. Sure, she's under Eldest's eye, but it's odd that she doesn't so much as snipe at her brother.
* ''Literature/HarryPotter'' has Florean Fortescue, an ice-cream maker who was noted a few books. In ''Prisoner of Azkaban'', he's mentioned helping Harry with his History of Magic homework, ''Order of the Phoenix'' namedropped a former Hogwarts Headmaster named Dexter Fortescue, and ''Half-Blood Prince'' mentioned him vanishing, likely dragged off by Death Eaters. Rowling was planning to foreshadow him being the one who explained the various historical magical artifacts to turn up in ''Deathly Hallows'', but she eventually decided that the subplot wasn't going anywhere, and handed the explanations to other characters.
* The end of ''The Final Warning'', the 4th book in the ''Literature/MaximumRide'' series ends with a cliffhanger: The Voice tells Max about a mission that she should go on. The 5th book, ''Max'', begins with a CSM show, with no mention of the mission from the 4th book ever again.
* In "Literature/TheStonesAreHatching" Uncle Murdo tells Phelim that [[spoiler:his companions are working for the Stoor Worm and the Obby Oss is a hatchling. This is never mentioned again; this is odd because Murdo had little reason to lie, yet Sweeney, Alexia and the Obby Oss never show any signs of being aligned with the Stoor Worm]].
* The ''Literature/{{Discworld}}'' novel ''Discworld/{{Thud}}'' ends with the Patrician taking control of a network of dwarf tunnels under the city, many of which have rails laid down, and also a dwarfish power source with infinite torque. ''Discworld/MakingMoney'' and ''Discworld/UnseenAcademicals'' go into further detail about "The Grand Undertaking", which the Patrician has planned for these tunnels. Oddly, this goes unmentioned in ''Discworld/RaisingSteam'', which introduces actual steam trains, and AuthorExistenceFailure means that we will never see the completed underground system, unless it appears in ''The Watch'' TV series.
* ''Literature/TowerAndTheHive'': At the climax of the third book, ''Damia's Children'', Zara makes a mental connection to the captive Hiver queen, thus can tell that the temperature in her enclosure is set too low. Zara lets the authorities (who had failed in every attempt to communicate with the queen and couldn't figure out why see seemed to be going dormant). This saves the queen's life and seemed to be a breakthrough in communicating with, thus understanding, the Hivers. This plot point is ignored in the next book, ''Lyon's Pride''. And when it is mentioned again, it's pretty much in the context of "We don't know how Zara did it, neither does she, and we haven't been able to do it again" and ignored, past the implication that Zara's refusal to take part in operations against Hiver ships was due to her mental connection. She's eventually PutOnABus to Earth to study medicine and is never mentioned again after that.

[[folder:Music]]
* The release of the album "Fangs!" seemed to be something of a new beginning for the experimental rock band Falling Up. It was both a NewSoundAlbum and a ConceptAlbum that was the beginning of a story arc... [[AuthorExistenceFailure then the band broke up.]] The band reunited in 2011, but their album doesn't really continue the story line of Fangs.
* Music/DavidBowie's 1995 concept album ''1. Outside'' was supposed to be the first of a series leading up to the millennium. However, further albums continuing the "non-linear gothic drama hyper cycle" never appeared. Almost 15 years on (and with its artist dead) it's probably safe to classify this as an aborted arc.
* Music/SufjanStevens has discontinued his "50 states project", which started with ''Michigan'' and ''Illinois''. Looks like there won't be any more.
* Music/JohnLinnell intended his 1999 album "State Songs" to be the first part of a trilogy... which has never been continued, and probably never will be. This album was recorded during Music/TheyMightBeGiants' 1996-1999 downtime (their only studio album of this period - "Long Tall Weekend" - consisting largely of old, unreleased material), and since then, the group have been much, much busier.
* Music/TheBeatles had planned to record an theme album about their childhoods with "Strawberry Fields Forever" and "Penny Lane" being the first two songs written for this endeavor. "When I'm Sixty-Four" was the next song recorded for the album, though it had been written years earlier, and eventually the concept shifted to a fictitious band putting on a performance, yet with every song being impossible to do live (for them at the time) and thus ''Music/SgtPeppersLonelyHeartsClubBand'' was born. While the title song and its "reprise" relate to this theme, none of the other songs do.
** In 1969, the band decided to record some songs together in a studio, and later in an impromptu concert at the Apple rooftop, in what would become the album ''Get Back'', all while filming a documentary about the experience. The GloryDays revival would even be illustrated with an album cover replicating the ''Music/PleasePleaseMe'' one. The whole ordeal wound up just raising tensions and ultimately leading to the Beatles' breakup, but not before they decided to make ''Music/AbbeyRoad'' before calling it quits. Then the ''Get Back'' sessions were submitted to Phil Spector for an orchestral makeover, and the result was ''Music/LetItBe''. (the cover was famously repurposed in the compilation ''1966-1970'', aka The Blue Album)

[[folder:Pro Wrestling]]
Years ago, before the advent of live cable television on Monday nights and the Internet, feuds were planned out months in advance rather than week-by-week, meaning that even if an angle were not living up to expectations (e.g., apathetic fan response), it would continue until the earliest opportunity to quietly end the feud. But even in the pre-Attitude/pre-''Monday Night Raw'' era, unplanned events – a wrestler's unexpected death or departure, or a major legit injury, for instance – would often force major changes to a carefully planned angle, and often force promoters to hastily edit explanations into the already-completed films that were to be distributed to local TV stations.
* In 1957 there was a "[[WorkedShoot dispute]]" among members of the Wrestling/NationalWrestlingAlliance over whether Édouard Carpentier had defeated World Heavyweight Champion Wrestling/LouThesz or not. This was going to lead up to a big match to determine who the "true" NWA World Heavyweight Champion was once and for all but then Montreal promoter Eddie Quinn pulled out of the alliance and NWA president Sam Muchnick made it official that Carpentier had never beaten Thesz.
* The 1988 "blackmail" angle involving Dusty Rhodes and Baby Doll was dropped after only two weeks. We never found out what was in the envelope Doll gave him, leading to quite possibly the only time Dusty was ever rendered speechless.
* Wrestling/{{WCW}} used to invoke this trope all the time.
** While much of this was due to the various [[WagTheDirector 'creative control' clauses]] in contracts held by big names such as Wrestling/HulkHogan and Wrestling/KevinNash, who would refuse to do anything they didn't feel like doing or just rewrite it on the spot, just as much blame has to go to the various bookers and writers themselves. One infamous example were the ridiculous 'Search for Cactus Jack' vignettes, where Wrestling/PaulHeyman scoured North America, searching for Wrestling/MickFoley, who had "sustained amnesia" after being injured. As the skits got worse and worse, WCW decided to drop the whole thing and have Foley just reappear on television with his memory intact, after which the entire thing was swept under the rug.
** Halloween Havoc 1995, in which [[Wrestling/TheBigShow The Giant]] challenged Wrestling/HulkHogan to a Monster Truck Showdown atop the Cobo Hall Arena. It ended in a scuffle, during which Hogan accidently threw The Giant off the roofof the building, ostensibly to his ''death''. Hogan sold the incident as if he was horrified and apologised profusely...And then The Giant showed up at the end of the Event for his scheduled title match with Hogan and ''no mention was made of the incident at all''. That's right, WCW managed to begin and then abort a storyline ''within the space of a single Pay-Per-View''.
* In 1997 the Wrestling/WorldWrestlingFederation had the privilege to showcase some of Wrestling/{{AAA}}'s Los Cadetes del Espacio vs Los Rudos de la Galaxia feud under its own banner on [[BShow Sunday Night Heat]], going so far as to announce Abismo Negro joining Cibernético's Los Vipers after the latter group was defeated to continue his vendetta against Los Cadetes. Then WWF released Negro and never mentioned it again (though it continued to play out to a logical conclusion in AAA).
* In 1999, WWE ran a reoccurring vignette featuring short Caught in the Act videos of Superstars doing rather embarrassing things under the title of "GTV." The plan was originally for Wrestling/{{Goldust}} to be revealed as the culprit (as per writer Wrestling/VinceRusso, the very first vignette actually called it "GDTV"), but his sudden departure from the company meant it never came to be. The WWE continued to run the vignettes afterwards, though with much less regularity, before quietly retiring them. The arc actually did get something of a send-off on Sunday Night Heat, when Glen Ruth (formerly Headbanger Thrasher) displayed GTV footage to acquit Chaz (formerly Headbanger Mosh) in his own domestic violence angle.
** Actually, as [[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fuy5ZYr9V-A this video]] reveals, it wasn't Goldust who was supposed to be behind "GTV", but MTV's Tom Green, whom Russo had a friendly working relationship with off-camera.
* In Wrestling/{{WCW}}, 2000's "Wrestling/StacyKeibler is pregnant" arc was halted following Wrestling/VinceRusso's departure from WCW. This is Vince Russo we're talking about. She gave birth to a stack of Shawn Stasiak photos. Sadly, it's only the second strangest thing a woman has given birth to in a wrestling storyline.
* WCW never did reveal who Wrestling/DiamondDallasPage's mystery benefactor in the white gloves was.
* WCW had a notorious angle involving the unknown driver of a White Hummer that deliberately drove into a limousine that Kevin Nash was in. The unknown driver of the White Hummer would be brought up and speculated about, and the incident kept getting callbacks for months, all without going anywhere. They actually did finally reveal the driver, a few months after they'd quit constantly bringing it up, but so anticlimactically that a lot of fans weren't aware. The driver was Eric Bischoff. The driver of the White Hummer was allegedly supposed to be Rena "Wrestling/{{Sable}}" Mero, but that plan fell through when Mero wasn't able to get the no-compete clause of her WWF contract annulled. The stretching out of the angle was caused by WCW not knowing where to go with it after the Sable plan fell through.
* In February of 2001, [[Wrestling/StacyCarter The Kat]] entered an angle where Wrestling/JerryLawler lost a match on her behalf and she was forced to join the Right to Censor group. The next episode of Raw had them forcing her to wear a burlap sack to the ring and it was implied the storyline would continue. However The Kat was released the very next day and the excuse was apparently that Val Venis had slept with her and she escaped out the window. Apparently she ran out into the night and got lost, never to be seen again.
* The Katie Vick angle of 2002, involving Wrestling/TripleH and Wrestling/{{Kane}}, was more-or-less hastily ended after near-universally negative reviews. The angle was innocuous enough: the heel Triple H – hoping to play mind games with Kane (in the midst of his tortured soul/sympathetic face persona) – claimed that he had evidence that Kane had killed a young woman named Katie Vick, with whom he had an unrequited crush; said accident happened as Kane was driving Katie home. The angle began going south after Triple H showed video footage of "Kane" having sex with Katie's corpse. Actually, Triple H was dressed as Kane, and making out with a mannequin.
* Anyone remember the Fake Kane? Started out as Wrestling/{{Kane}} being confronted by someone dressed as his old masked persona, but the whole thing was dropped after about a month of build-up and never mentioned again. This one actually ended; WWE.com had a {{kayfabe}} [[http://www.wwe.com/inside/news/unsolvedmysteries/ page]] on this and similar arcs. {{Smar|tMark}}ks know the man was Drew Hankinson.
* Not a big aborted arc, but when John Heidenreich debuted on RAW in 2003, he always told people his actions were all done for someone named "Little Johnny". Heidenreich was taken off TV before the identity of Little Johnny could be revealed, but said later in an interview that it would've turned out to be a doll that represented his younger self when he was overweight. He also claimed he could have made the angle work (as people know what it is like to be picked on) but the writers messed it up by making every discussion about "Little Johnny" seem like a DoubleEntendre.
* Before a Pay-Per-View match, Wrestling/BookerT and John Heidenreich were in a locker room when a manila folder was slipped under the door which was addressed to Booker. Inside it was just a piece of paper that said "I still remember". It was never mentioned again. Allegedly, this was going to be a note from Goldust that would facilitate his return, but it ended up never happening.
* One of the first major feuds planned in Wrestling/{{SHIMMER}} was Wrestling/SaraDelRey vs Wrestling/MercedesMartinez. They had already wrestled to a stalemate and unsuccessfully tagged together against the Minnesota Home Wrecking Crew. Then Del Rey beat Martinez. After Mercedes finally defeated Del Rey she was to turn on the promotion and its fan base but got injured, so Del Rey did it instead. Mercedes would become Wrestling/{{WSU}}'s problem, biding her recovery time by attacking its wrestlers while under a mask.
* In the Wrestling/{{WWE}}, 2007's "Who Killed Wrestling/VinceMcMahon?" was abruptly halted when two to three weeks after the storyline began, Wrestling/ChrisBenoit [[TooSoon killed his family, and then himself]]. It was later explained that "Vince" had faked his death. It would've eventually been revealed that [[Wrestling/KenAnderson Mr. Kennedy]] was involved. A year later, the Raw set was sabotaged, with equipment falling on Wrestling/VinceMcMahon. The perpetrator was never revealed, and it wasn't mentioned again after a week or so.
* One 2007 episode of Smackdown featured Krissy Vaine debuting after a match with Wrestling/TorrieWilson and [[Wrestling/LisaMarieVaron Victoria]] and beating the crap out of Torrie. She had one backstage segment next week and was never seen again. Behind the scenes she decided WWE wasn't the right place for her and promptly left for smaller promotions. She also injured Torrie's back while training and that resulted in Torrie having to retire from wrestling completely.
* WWE's ''Wrestling/{{ECW}} On Creator/{{Syfy}}'' had an angle where Wrestling/BallsMahoney began a relationship with Wrestling/KellyKelly, who's contract was owned by Wrestling/TheMiz. The story was generating quite a buzz before it was quietly dropped. WordOfGod says that management [[TallPoppySyndrome didn't like how popular the plot was making Mahoney]], so they quietly aborted the arc.
* Wrestling/{{TNA}} examples would be Wrestling/SamoaJoe's abduction (...by ninjas) and the mystery Ace of Spades assailant. Both seem to have been dropped in favor of another mystery angle. Again, Wrestling/VinceRusso.
* At one point, Jackie Gayda arrived in TNA, promising that she had a juicy secret about Wrestling/JeffJarrett that TNA executives would "love to hear". This went on for a few weeks, with Gayda dropping vague hints about this "something", but it was never revealed, and Jackie was eventually forced to join Jarrett when he revealed blackmail information of his own. It was an...odd angle.
* David Otunga threatened Wrestling/WadeBarrett that he was going to reveal the reason Wrestling/TheNexus attacked Wrestling/TheUndertaker and cost him his "Buried Alive" match with Kane. That was never followed up on; it was allegedly supposed to push Barrett vs Taker at Wrestlemania 27 but it was aborted when Wrestling/TripleH came back.
* The Anonymous Raw General Manager storyline. For months on end, an anonymous General Manager was making matches on Raw through a laptop at the side of the ring, next to the commentary tables. The storyline has apparently been ditched without the audience ever discovering the GM's identity. Wrestling/JohnCena did make reference to this mystery person (whom he called "The Computer") the night after 2012's ''Over the Limit'', declaring that whoever it was, it would be preferable to Wrestling/JohnLaurinaitis.The Anonymous Raw GM was finally [[ShockingSwerve revealed]] to be [[spoiler: Hornswoggle]].
* The "GM-less" era. Back in December 05, Wrestling/EricBischoff was leaving the company (being fired in kayfabe) leaving the position of Raw GM vacant. For the first few weeks, this was treated as a huge deal; Raw was in a state of anarchy with no one to keep things under control. Various people were teased as the next GM, such as [[Wrestling/ShaneMcMahon Shane'o'Mac]] and Wrestling/DustyRhodes, and various wrestlers schemed to convince Vince to give them the job. Eventually the storyline was dropped with Vince more or less running the show but with the GM's office remaining vacant. The issue wasn't addressed for ''a year and a half'', when Vince decided it was time for him to get off tv.
* A couple of things got killed as a direct result of [[Wrestling/JerryLawler Jerry "The King" Lawler]]'s (real) heart attack in Sep. 2012.
** The Wrestling/CMPunk\Lawler feud ended after that, but not without a final sendoff of Wrestling/PaulHeyman mocking the actual event. After that, the feud was never eluded to again.
** Wrestling/MichaelCole's heel persona seemed to have been dropped completely due to the heart attack. His ability to hold things together on commentary while the heart attack happened was the difference maker for many fans who had hated him for various reasons. His heel persona had been calmed somewhat before then, but Cole seems to be a full time face. Many feel he's better off by doing so, as his commentary seems to have improved greatly as a result of the abortion of the arc.
* A feud between Wrestling/EveTorres and Wrestling/AJLee was teased for several months in 2012, even as late as TLC that December, when Divas Champion Eve appeared to be dismayed that AJ won Diva of the Year. Signs pointed to a Divas Championship match between Eve and AJ at WrestleMania 29, but Eve announced her plans to leave WWE in December 2012. Instead, AJ was turned heel at TLC, and Eve dropped the Divas Championship to Wrestling/{{Kaitlyn}} on January 14, 2013.
* Kaitlyn was later part of her own aborted arc with Wrestling/{{Layla}} after winning the title, with the angle seeing Layla show signs of turning heel against Kaitlyn. The angle began after the Elimination Chamber PPV, which saw Layla display jealousy of Kaitlyn and attempting to upstage her in the hopes that she could get a title opportunity. The angle was supposed to result in Kaitlyn defending the Divas Championship against the villainous Layla at WrestleMania 29, but it was dropped by mid-March. Ironically, Layla actually did turn heel against Kaitlyn after the latter lost the Divas Championship to AJ.
* Wrestling/BoDallas was scheduled to feud with Wrestling/WadeBarrett, even eliminating him from the 2013 Wrestling/RoyalRumble and causing Barrett to return the favor later in the match. After a match on Raw and a few backstage confrontations, Dallas was sent back to [[Wrestling/{{WWENXT}} NXT]].
* Around July 2014, after Wrestling/{{Big E|Langston}} & Wrestling/KofiKingston lose a match on RAW to Rybaxel, Wrestling/XavierWoods, wearing a suit, comes out and tells them they need to start taking what's theirs. This seems to set them up as a tag team to oppose Wrestling/TheUsos, with Woods as their manager, even scouting the Usos at one point, but it lasted maybe two weeks, with Kingston & Big E both going back to job duty, with no mention of them being a team or having Woods manage them. This ended up being subverted, as the trio resurfaced in November, although with a totally different gimmick. While they were originally teased as having a MalcolmXerox gimmick, WWE backed out of it for fear that it would spark the wrong kind of controversy (the race-related riots and protests in Ferguson, Missouri around the same time likely had something to do with it as well) and they instead re-debuted as the blue wearing, positivity spreading stable Wrestling/TheNewDay. They got tons of Wrestling/XPacHeat for being so cloyingly optimistic at first, but it's since become the best thing to happen to all three men in the stable.
* Wrestling/ProWrestlingZero1 had planned out a feud between two debuting wrestlers, famous kick boxer Yuichihiro and Daichi Hashimoto, son of Wrestling/ShinyaHashimoto and nephew to the already legendary Masahiro Chono and Wrestling/TheGreatMuta. In a twist, the rivalry may still be played out for pro wrestling fans...in the [[Wrestling/AntonioInoki Inoki]] Genome Federation, which both neophytes jumped over to...ouch.
* WWE had an inverted case going into Wrestlemania 30. Wrestling/{{Batista}} returned and won the Royal Rumble, setting up a match for the unified titles between him and Wrestling/RandyOrton. However, the fans did not like this idea ''at all'', and desperately wanted to see Wrestling/DanielBryan in that spot after he'd been hit with a straight case of this, where he received an enormous push and won the WWE title from Wrestling/JohnCena at Summerslam, but was quickly screwed out of the title multiple times and relegated back to the midcard with no actual conclusion to the angle. The other major component in this was CM Punk's sudden departure from WWE the day after the Royal Rumble, which forced WWE to rewrite their plans. It's been confirmed by WordOfGod that the original plan was Randy Orton vs Batista for the WWE Title, Daniel Bryan vs Wrestling/{{Sheamus}}, and CM Punk vs Wrestling/TripleH. With Punk's departure and the mounting backlash from fans, they dropped the concept of Bryan vs Sheamus before the angle was even teased, opened the show with Bryan taking Punk's place in a match with Triple H, and then winning the title in a triple threat match with Orton and Batista. In the process of having this come about, WWE also caused ''another'' instance of this related to Daniel Bryan. Bryan had been manipulated into joining Wrestling/TheWyattFamily and remained as part of their stable...for about two weeks before Bryan turned face again.
* NXT had Marcus Louis going [[AxCrazy ax-crazy]] after a humiliating defeat and losing all of his hair to a match stipulation, causing him to wander off outside the arena in his wrestling gear. His return was teased a couple of times but ultimately the angle was dropped and many months passed with no sign of him. Due to [[OffscreenInertia offscreen inertia]] he is presumably still wandering the streets of Florida in his trunks. He resurfaced in 2015 at house shows and on TV, though primarily as a jobber, still bald & crazy and looking like an ersatz Kane.
* In mid-2015 time was dedicated to showing Wrestling/{{Fandango}} dropping his salsa dancer gimmick and [[HeelFaceTurn turning face]], going back to his old ballroom dancer character. This pissed off his girlfriend/valet, Wrestling/RosaMendes who turned on him for Adam Rose, becoming his muse/girlfriend and the two shown many times as SickeninglySweethearts. Eventually, Rosa stopped appearing with Rose and no explanation was given. It was later revealed on ''Series/TotalDivas'' that Rosa was pregnant and had gone on maternity leave at the time, so that's probably why it was dropped.
* The Wyatt Family and the League of Nations were supposed to get into a feud that would have, presumably, destroyed the League for good, but Bray Wyatt was injured at a house show and the feud was dropped. It didn't save the League, however, as they fell apart and disbanded a few weeks later.
[[/folder]]

[[folder:Tabletop Games]]
* ''TabletopGame/VampireTheMasquerade'' had innumerable half-finished non-runners, especially when it came to details like the end of the world. Most notable was the pathetic Rasputin plotline, wherein UsefulNotes/RasputinTheMadMonk was actually a Tremere who had somehow found a way to essentially become Caine, so that God/Karma could kill ''him'' instead, thus averting complete obliteration of the vampire species.
** In truth, many TabletopGame/OldWorldOfDarkness splats laid claim to Rasputin, not just the vampires. The one that stuck? He's a [[TabletopGame/WraithTheOblivion wraithly Puppeteer]] who enjoys bodyhopping various supernaturals.
** ''TabletopGame/VampireTheRequiem'' has a lot of ''potential'' aborted arcs. The possibility that Anoushka (Vlad Dracula's childe) is The Unholy (superpowered urban legend force of nature) is toyed with again and again, and finally thrown away in the ''Immortal Sinners'' supplement. Thankfully, the in-character artifact clanbooks allowed the various freelance writers to wrap up their pet storylines, with the unfortunate side effect of so many of those favorite storylines being given pat WordOfGod bullshit tie-ups to shut the fans up.
** The "Glass Armonium" MacGuffin shut down many plot hooks.
* The prerevision ''TabletopGame/MagicTheGathering'' comics were leading up to the Planeswalker War, but the comic line was cancelled before it could be published. Some of the characters involved, like Freyalise, Taysir and Tevesh Szat have turned up later in modern storylines, but details on what actually went down are extraordinarily vague.
* ''TabletopGame/{{Warhammer 40000}}'':
** The game is infamous for [[StatusQuoIsGod its plot never advancing]]. Almost all major events or story lines that might have an actual impact on the larger universe are almost never brought up or touched upon after the expansion in which they take place.
** The "Eye of Terror" summer event from 2003 was billed as having a huge impact on the 40k universe - if the Imperium and their allies won, the Eye of Terror would shrink, the Imperium could expand to entirely new sectors of space, and an upswing of faith could generate new crusades and a (relative) golden age for mankind. On the other hand, a victory for Chaos would hasten the Imperium's collapse, see increased Chaos incursions, and possibly even lead to the fall of the Cadian Gate and a huge resultant tide of Chaos Marines and daemons into realspace. It had the potential to introduce enormous changes to the setting and there were even rumours that significant characters from the losing side could be killed. However, none of this panned out - once the results were in and announced (a minor victory for Chaos - stated in-game to be Abaddon succeeding in gaining a foothold on Cadia, albeit with his fleet in tatters), Games Workshop did absolutely nothing with it before quietly sweeping the whole thing under the rug with a series of retcons a decade later.
** Games Workshop had reportedly planned an arc that would see the Tau raised as the chosen race to defeat Chaos, with the Ultramarines discovering this fact and opting to ally with them, possibly against other elements of the Imperium. The Tau were even flagged as "Battle Brothers" for Space Marines in the 6th Edition rulebook (the highest tier of alliance, indicating deeply trusted allies). However, possibly in reaction to the negative reception this idea received, the idea was quietly shelved and the Tau-Space Marine alliance capability was reduced in future editions.
* ''TabletopGame/{{Shadowrun}}'' does this on purpose, allowing game masters to run self-written adventures that "fill in the blanks" and tie-into the game's lore.
[[/folder]]

[[folder:Theatre]]
* The American version of ''Kristina från Duvemåla'' cuts out the significant plot point of [[spoiler:the majority of the immigrants being killed in a Sioux attack after Kristina's miscarriage]]. (Presumably for the sake of political correctness, since the songs are left in their full length but with different lyrics, thus saving no time.) However, the event is still foreshadowed in "Queen of the Prairie"/"Wild Grass" through the fur trader's warnings, leaving it as a unresolved thread to audiences unfamiliar with the original story.
* ''Theatre/TheTamingOfTheShrew'' begins with the premise that the play is a [[ShowWithinAShow play within a play]] being presented to a drunkard named Christopher Sly, who is being fooled into thinking he is actually a rich and prestigious man as a prank. After the initial set-up, this is never brought up again. Some adaptations bring back Sly in an epilogue.
* Theatre/{{Rosmersholm}}, written by Creator/Henrik Ibsen in 1886, has an interesting set-up. It begins with a rather political premise, setting up the strife of the times, with the main character positioning himself in the middle. Then, the play turns around, and gets more and more introvert, putting politics firmly in the background, to focus mainly on the inner struggles of the main character. This can be seen from the beginning of the second act.
[[/folder]]

[[folder:Theme Parks]]
* Sometimes, at Ride/DisneyThemeParks, Imagineers will add something to an attraction while it's being built for some purpose, only to eventually go in a different direction, leaving an element in the attraction that leads nowhere. These are also a form of DummiedOut. Some examples:
** The nods to dragons and unicorns in Animal Kingdom were hinting towards a land that they ended up never building, Beastly Kingdom, focusing on fantasy creatures. The only things left of that (so far) are a dragon shaped rock formation near Camp Minnie Mickey, a bridge that looks like the entrance to a castle, and the big dragon who appears on the park's logo to the confusion of many a guest. The concept of including mythological creatures into the park was eventually picked up by Expedition Everest's Yeti, but has yet to be paid off in full.
** The animatronic raven in ''Franchise/TheHauntedMansion'' was originally going to be the "narrator" of the ride, which ended up being much better implemented with the "Ghost Host" being piped in through the Doom Buggy's individual speakers. The ravens, however, are still situated throughout the ride, flapping and beaking as if they were saying something.
** In the super-secret-invite-only Club 33 restaurant, several disused animatronic animal heads hang from the wall. Walt had planned to be able to speak through them to his guests. The idea was abandoned because it was deemed too silly for a high-class restaurant, and because of privacy concerns. The idea sort of came to fruition at the shut-down Adventurers' Club in [[Ride/DisneyThemeParks Disney World's]] Pleasure Island.
** The original vision for EPCOT was an aborted arc. Disney's plan was for an actual city (Experimental Community Of Tomorrow) where people lived and worked. The Monorails and the People Movers were to be part of the infrastructure.
[[/folder]]

[[folder:Video Games]]
* ''VideoGame/TheBardsTaleTrilogy'': ''The Bard's Tale II: The Destiny Knight'' ends mentioning The Castle of Candarr, but this does not show up in later games.
* In ''VideoGame/{{Primal}}'', Scree grills Jen about her PowerTattoo, saying the symbol is very important, and asking where the designer saw it. While the same symbol is seen all throughout the game, we're never told why it's so important, or what it means.
* In the early days of ''VideoGame/ToontownOnline'', there was a video played during the download that featured a giant robot who was brought to life by [[ComicBook/DisneyDucksComicUniverse Scrooge McDuck]] that creates the first Cogs, who would then go on to endlessly manufacture more. This video was taken down on some countries' versions of the site, particularly the American one. Since then, the releases of the Cog HQ's have made it seem like the four types of Cogs are separately ruled by four different bosses. [[spoiler: However, defeating the CEO results in hearing a bit of his dialogue about the "Chairman," who some fans thought would turn out to be the robot from the download video. It's moot, since the game was discontinued before anything could come of it.]]
* All ''VideoGame/MegaManX'' games up through ''VideoGame/MegaManX5'' shed some light into the backstory of Zero, hinting time and again [[spoiler:that he's originally a Robot created by Dr. Wily of the [[VideoGame/MegaManClassic previous series]], and that ''he'' (Zero) is the true cause of the Maverick uprisings]]. ''X5'' is supposed to be the GrandFinale of the X series, so this was naturally a given that the plot be somehow resolved in that game. And then, PostScriptSeason kicked in, and aside from a few [[ContinuityNod nods here and there]] this plot twist was never adhered to again, and the X series moved on to a different story direction. Ironically, [[FanonDiscontinuity even if fans disregard]] the [[PostScriptSeason post-script series]], ''VideoGame/MegaManZero'' just made everything more confusing -- dark secrets were explored all right, but they were brand new ones, and Zero [[LaserGuidedAmnesia didn't even remember the old]].
* Happens occasionally in ''VideoGame/CityOfHeroes''.
** A few epic archetypes, the Avilians and Blood of the Black Stream are referenced in the game but never seen while Incarnates were promised early on but never appeared until it was revealed that a certain few [=NPCs=] are of this type but the archetype is still not available to players. Also there is The Coming Storm, which has been coming for well over a year now and has not had any updates in just as long.
** Each contact (Quest giver) has at least one group of missions that tells a story between them. Since you're not obligated to accept future missions from a contact if you don't want to, you can abandon arcs all on your own.
* The [[spoiler:"runner assassins"]] in ''VideoGame/MirrorsEdge'' are dropped without a trace. They appear in one mission and are made a big deal of, show up in one more mission as enemies, and then just disappear. WordOfGod has it that great swathes of her storyline were hacked out of the final product due to time constraints.
* ''VideoGame/HalfLife: Opposing Force'' leaves our beloved Shephard in a state that suggests (read: "practically begs for") his eventual return, but his narrative has yet to be picked back up, and the chances of Valve ever doing so are looking pretty dim, even if they ''do'' ever release more ''Half-Life'' games.
* There are so many of these in ''VideoGame/WorldOfWarcraft'' that they could form a folder all to themselves, although it's worth noting that Creator/BlizzardEntertainment has been revisiting some of them. A ''very'' concise summary:
** The Chained Essence of Eranikus quest line from Sunken Temple ended with the PlotCoupon being handed to an NPC in Winterspring, with a promised followup that never occurred. Later, Eranikus was summoned and redeemed by players as part of the Ahn'Qiraj opening quest line, but the quests themselves are completely unconnected in gameplay terms.
** The Discs of Norgannon quest line, available to players after defeating Uldaman, was left hanging after the discovery of Uldum in Tanaris. This lasted for close to three years before Brann Bronzebeard began investigating Ulduar in Storm Peaks, using a similar set of discs as the PlotCoupon. That, too, was left hanging until the opening of Ulduar as a raid dungeon in patch 3.1. Uldum itself was opened as part of the Cataclysm expansion, revealed to be a zone which was previously hidden. However, the disks found in Uldaman (and the second set of disks that you were told that you needed to enter Uldum), turned out to be unnecessary and were forgotten about.
** The Missing Diplomat quest line started in Stormwind and took players up to the reveal of King Varian Wrynn's abduction by the Defias Brotherhood. It was never followed up in-game, but did receive extensive treatment in the [[AllThereInTheManual tie-in comics and novels]]. Come ''Wrath of the Lich King'', Varian suddenly reappeared in charge of Stormwind with a DarkerAndEdgier look and a [[HandWave microscopically thin]] in-game explanation.
*** And then, if you started playing after Wrath of the Lich King came out (but before Cataclysm), then you find out the King has been kidnapped...and wonder what the heck they're talking about since the King is right there in Stormwind.
** The human kingdom of Kul Tiras, a key player in ''Warcraft II'' and ''Warcraft III'', is not even shown on the map, despite the fact that a large number of [=NPCs=] are stated to have come from there (including the major human character Jaina Proudmoore). Blizzard has openly admitted that there are presently no plans to formally add the island nation to the game, despite it being previously discussed at a [=BlizzCon=] panel. Gilneas was in a similar situation until ''Cataclysm'' was announced.
** The Shady Rest Inn quest line remained unfinished, until a patch during The Burning Crusade expansion.
** The supposed alliance between the Blue Dragonflight and the Ethereum during the Nexus War in [=WotLK=].
** The "Purification of The Ashbringer" subplot. The Ashbringer is a powerful holy sword, owned by the paladin Alexandros Mograine and lost when he fell to darkness. The corrupted version could be acquired in old Naxxramas, kicking off a quest chain that ended with the promise of purifying the Ashbringer in a future expansion. Come ''Wrath of the Lich King'', Darion Mograine, the son of the original bearer, gives it to uber-Paladin and general messianic badass Tirion Fordring in the midst of a HeelFaceTurn. Tirion's faith in turn purifies the Ashbringer. Players who owned the original sword were left disappointed.
*** Come Legion, every Ret Paladin is given Ashbringer as their Artifact weapon, acquiring it from a dying Tiron. The original plans are referenced with a hidden Artifact Skin that turns it into a new version of the corrupted Ashbringer, requiring players to find Nat Pagle's book, Nefarin's head and taking them to the prince in Dire Maul, bringing the arc back around full circle.
** Related to the above, rumors were spread during the Burning Crusade expansion that the aforementioned purification of Ashbringer would involve Turalyon and possibly Alleria Windrunner, and a mysterious smith in Outland hinted to be another son of Mograine. Nothing ever came of this, and Turalyon and Alleria have yet to be seen in game, despite promises that all the members of the Sons of Lothar would be featured in The Burning Crusade.
*** One loading screen tip highlights this plot thread by noting nobody has seen Turalyon or Alleria in years.
** The Vashj'ir storyline, and the war between the naga and Neptulon's forces. Toward the end of the storyline, Neptulon is forced to retreat to the Throne of the Tides, and at the end of the Ozumat encounter, he is abducted by Ozumat again after players reduce Ozumat to around 10% HP. There was going to be a five-man dungeon in the Abyssal Maw, in which players would go inside the third ancient of Vashj'ir, and among other enemies, fight the Battlemaiden they had been controlling in the past visions quests. Blizzard scrapped the Abyssal Maw zones, deciding that Throne of the Tides was the conclusion to the storyline. It was even twice aborted, as the five-man was planned to be a raid.
** Garrosh Hellscream's character arc was one that was changed so significantly it may as well have been aborted. Garrosh was intended to be a hot head struggling with the reigns of leadership and ultimately growing into an appreciable character who fit well with the dichotomy of the Horde. Unfortunately, the writers flubbed Garrosh's writing, making him unsympathetic with his positives being an InformedAbility. Once the developers realized their mistake, they gave up on making him a character the players were supposed to like or understand, turning him from "harsh but fair leader the people need" to "violent, xenophobic TyrantTakesTheHelm who needs to be deposed."
** Many intriguing storylines in ''Warlords of Draenor'' were dropped or cut short due to a troubled development cycle. Examples of stories either cut short or outright removed include Yrel's character arc; the home islands of the Laughing Skull and Ogres; the titular Warlords and the Iron Horde being defeated quickly; and the sub-plot of Cho'gall and his connection to the Void.
* ''VideoGame/TheElderScrollsVSkyrim'':
** If you speak to the Thieves' Guild member Rune, he will tell you his backstory and the reason for his peculiar name and you can offer to keep your eyes open in order to help him discover his origins. And then... nothing. It's never brought up again in the Thieves' Guild questline and there is no quest having anything to do with Rune's backstory.
** There's Mjoll, a former adventurer trying to clean up the corruption in Riften. You never get a chance to help her deal with either the Thieves' Guild or Black-Briar family. This option was originally planned but was cut for time during development.
** It's mentioned when you talk to people in the College of Winterhold that the previous mage group before yours [[ChekhovMIA went missing.]] You can happen upon their bodies by chance, and pick up unique items of theirs, but you can't do anything for them, find out whether the deaths were connected, or bring anyone any closure. This is actually a glitch, as Phinis Gestor was supposed to offer you the quest, but never does.
** One quest has you tracking a man's wife who was kidnapped by bandits, but it turns out [[spoiler:she's taken over the band and enjoys her new life, so she asks you to lie about her fate to get rid of him]]. When you do, she says she owes you a debt and will see you again someday because she means to repay it. She doesn't; you two never meet again.
** In ''Dawnguard'', if you side with the vampires, it's a plot point that two of Harkon's top lieutenants are feuding, and both are plotting to overthrow Harkon. The end result of this is that each of them sends a guy to kill you during your first quest for Harkon. After this, the plot is never mentioned again, even after [[spoiler:you kill Harkon and take over as lord/lady of the castle. Presumably you keep around two guys who are trying to kill one another, and really want ''your'' job.]]
** One that was thankfully cut was that Mephala's quest would result in ''all'' of Jarl Balgruuf's children seeking him out and committing patricide. The scripts are completely finished and in game, but unused. It's probable that the testers felt this was an undignified end for the Jarl and would take away a major moral dilemma of the Civil War arc.
** The player can invoke this in-universe. Guards around Solitude will mention a huge upcoming wedding, being held in public with everyone allowed to attend, between the Emperor's cousin Vittoria Vici and Asgeir Snow-Shod, a native Nord. It's supposed to be the precursor to peace in the Civil War, everyone important is showing up, guests from far away are riding in, it's all Vittoria herself talks about... The quest is ''supposed'' to culminate in [[spoiler: the player joining the Dark Brotherhood and assassinating Vittoria in full view at the ceremony]]. But if you take the option of [[spoiler: destroying the Dark Brotherhood (or never meeting Aventus Aretino and starting the whole thing)]], nothing ever comes of it. You can actually end the Civil War, one way or another, and people will still be riding into attend and Vittoria will still be going on about it.
* No fewer than two separate examples of this in ''VideoGame/BreathOfFireIV'':
** Thanks to Capcom's {{Bowdleris|e}}ation of non-Japanese, non-[=PlayStation=] versions of the game, there is an Aborted Arc where Fou-lu is stabbed by Soniel...and then after Fou-lu looks astonished, the game fades to black. [[spoiler: In the Japanese versions, this goes to Fou-lu dementedly laughing about foolish mortals, then the screen goes to black-on-red silhouette as Fou-lu goes AxCrazy and decapitates Soniel ''with the very sword he pulled out of his own back''.]] This would normally fall under WhatHappenedToTheMouse, but as this is actually a major plot-point in the game, it's better treated here.
** Game designers were intending to kill Yuna off in the original script. In fact (according to WordOfGod) they had not one but ''two'' proposed methods: Mauling By Fou-Lu's Foo Dogs, or General Rhun killing him -- neither of these got implemented, though, because the game ended up on a very tight schedule due to (at the time) a very real fear of [[AuthorExistenceFailure Game Publisher Existence Failure]] and they didn't have time to code that part of the script. Yuna's death ended up just not happening.
** The ''manga'' adaptation of ''IV'' gave some satisfaction on one end, and Much Cursing Ensued on the other. The manga adaptation of the scene between Fou-lu and Soniel [[spoiler:features Fou-lu backstabbed and run completely through--with Fou-lu manifesting an energy sword and decapitating him whilst ''still having the Dragonslayer sticking through him''; Fou-lu then shoves this out by hand.]] Yuna, on the other hand, survives -- and this is especially maddening, seeing as other material in the artbook that didn't get the chance to be included in the game ''was'' included in the manga. This also pretty makes Yuna a complete KarmaHoudini.
* ''VideoGame/JakAndDaxterTheLostFrontier'' gave Daxter a [[SuperpoweredEvilSide Dark Eco-powered Evil Side]] just like his buddy Jak. It had interesting story potential since [[spoiler:the AlwaysChaoticEvil Dark Makers were Precursors [[TheCorruption corrupted]] by [[PsychoSerum Dark Eco]], and Daxter was revealed to be a Precursor in ''VideoGame/Jak3Wastelander'']]. This went nowhere.
* Capcom left the original ''VideoGame/DinoCrisis'' story hanging, in favor of [[RecycledInSpace Dinosaurs In SPACE In the Future]] for [[VideoGame/DinoCrisis3 the third]] (and [[FranchiseKiller final]]) installment.
* It has been [[http://www.chronocompendium.com/Term/Arbiter.html speculated]] that ''VideoGame/ChronoCross'' was originally intended to contain a subplot going into greater detail about Serge's role as the Arbiter of the Frozen Flame. More generally, there are suspicions that ''VideoGame/ChronoCross'' was intended to be significantly longer than it was, as many of its plot threads are concluded only in the form of a massive InfoDump right before the final battle that was added to the North American version of the game.
* In chapter one of ''VideoGame/ValkyrieProfile'', Lenneth decides to commit a vampire's name to memory after hearing about it after performing soul transfer on Belenus. However, we don't actually ''meet'' this vampire.
* In the second ''VideoGame/BlackMirror'' game, there is talk early in the game of a woman named Kerry who committed suicide in the small Maine town. You never hear of her again once you leave the town.
* In ''VideoGame/GearsOfWar 2'', Delta Squad visits New Hope, an abandoned COG research facility filled with horrible humanoid mutants called "Sires." They are never explained in the game canon. The only evidence about them came from an Epic developer's post on the official forums where he claimed their story had been cut from ''3''. {{Fanon}} has it that they were performing horrible research on humans and Myrrah was one of the subjects, and with her Human/Locust hybrid DNA, she was able escape and become leader of the Locust horde. A comic later revealed that she the daughter of one of the humans who escaped the facility with the offspring of the sires.
* In ''VideoGame/SuperPrincessPeach'', there are a series of cutscenes that talk about Perry (Peach's talking umbrella), and how he [[spoiler:was once human.]] However, this is never expanded upon and we never learn who was responsible.
* The first ''VideoGame/MarvelUltimateAlliance'' ended with a SequelHook where ComicBook/{{Galactus}} was revealed to be planning a strike against Earth. This was completely ignored in the sequel in favor of an adaptation of the ''Comicbook/CivilWar'' storyline, with Galactus' planned attack [[SecondHandStorytelling only mentioned in passing]].
* In ''VideoGame/MassEffect2'', Tali's recruitment and loyalty missions feature a subplot about dark energy reducing the mass of a star's interior, causing it to age unnaturally quickly. Data on this phenomenon is considered important enough for the quarians to sacrifice whole teams of elite commandos in order to obtain it. Come the third game, this is never mentioned again. [[spoiler: This was originally going to be the motive behind the Reaper cycle. Use of the Mass Relays causes dark energy (which is what was prematurely aging the star) to spiral dangerously out of control, threatening the whole galaxy. The Reapers cull advanced civilizations to stop this from happening. However, the departure of several key dev members caused Bioware to change it to the more controversial motivation that we actually got. There is the question of how this would have made sense, however, as civilizations finding and using the Mass Relays (which the Reapers built in the first place) was crucial to the Reapers' plans since the first game.]]
** In June 2013, [[http://www.escapistmagazine.com/news/view/125213-Mass-Effect-Writer-Reveals-Discarded-Ending-Ideas Drew Karpyshyn]], the former lead writer for Mass Effect 1 & 2, confirmed this theory and elaborated a little bit on how the original Dark Energy ending for the trilogy would have played out. However, he also emphasizes that it was only one idea of many and they never developed it very far.
* The localization team of ''[[VideoGame/FireEmblemTellius Fire Emblem: Path of Radiance]]'', possibly assuming Ike/Elincia would happen in the sequel, ramped up the ShipTease for the two. There was indeed some basis for it in the original script, but Ike says that he's going to go back to being a simple mercenary at the end, which would effectively kill his chance at a marriage with a ruling queen. Yet many players were surprised when the sequel not only sank the ship, but treated them as if there was no possibly romantic subtext between the two in the first place.
* ''VideoGame/CommandAndConquerTiberiumWars'' indicated that [[spoiler:the Scrin force you fight off in the GDI and Nod campaigns is only a mining colony, and there's a whole invasion fleet waiting in the wings]]. ''[[VideoGame/CommandAndConquerTiberianTwilight C&C4: Tiberian Twilight]]'' completely ignores this plot arc.
** ''VideoGame/CommandAndConquerTiberiumWars'' and ''VideoGame/CommandAndConquerTiberianSun'' imply Kane is an alien - as the Scrin recognize him during their invasion (and he's not human), and he shows awareness and affinity to Alien technology like the Tacitus. However the fourth game abandons most of it. Turns out Kane is the biblical Cain and he really was doomed to walk the earth - the alien tech is just a means to an end to resolving that.
* In ''VideoGame/MetroidOtherM'', a subplot arises concerning a traitor among the Federation soldiers, killing the others to preserve the Bottle Ship's secrets. However, the subplot just sort of drops off, and by the end of the game all the likely suspects are dead with no confirmation as to who the traitor was. The potential clues the game drops our way make it fairly easy to deduce it was [[spoiler: James Pierce.]] Still, this is never addressed at any point, and there is no indication that Samus herself ever makes the connection.
* In ''VideoGame/HeavyRain'', [[spoiler: the recurring blackouts Ethan suffers after Jason's car accident that lead him to think he's the Origami Killer are no longer mentioned starting around the last quarter of the game. It was originally intended that the Killer's being present at Jason's accident formed a psychic link between him and Ethan that caused him to black out when the Killer committed his initial kidnapping, but this was dropped due to realism concerns]].
* ''VideoGame/TwoWorlds'' II Seems to suffer heavily from this. The story goes on nicely until [[spoiler:you finally make it out of the [[SwampsAreEvil Goddamn Swamp]], then you have to head out for the Big Bad's fortress only to end up being handed a TwistEnding the size of the castle you're infiltrating]]. It seems the game was originally planned to be significantly larger but the developers had to shorten it due to time and money constraints, so you get the feeling of having "skipped" a certain portion of the story when getting an ending which doesn't make much sense and feels extremely rushed.
* ''VideoGame/SilentHill2'', which arguably codified the series and ever game in the franchise thereon, dropped certain important plot points from ''VideoGame/SilentHill1'', such as the presence of an addictive drug that the cult was using to control key members of the town.
* ''[[VideoGame/{{Swordquest}} Swordquest: Airworld]]'', the fourth and final installment, would have the RealLife contest winner receiving the Philosopher's Stone, and facing off against the winners of the Talisman of Penultimate Truth, the Chalice of Light, and the Crown of Life, for the grand prize, the Sword of Ultimate Sorcery.
* The preview for the final episode of the ''[[Creator/ZapDramatic Ambition]]'' series states that you'll advise [[spoiler:Rolf Klink as he negotiates with "pure evil"]]. This is not what happens in the episode at all, which instead focuses on the trial for [[spoiler:Angie's murder]].
** From the same creator, ''Sir Basil Pike Public School'' mentions subplots based around a BigGame and a school dance, which are never brought up again.
* What happens when you take about 30 arcs that never get resolved and stitch them together with a storyline that goes nowhere? ''VideoGame/TreasureHunterG'' on the UsefulNotes/SuperNintendoEntertainmentSystem. Awesome music and a unique battle system thankfully keep you from realizing it.
* ''VideoGame/TalesOfXillia'' has this occur to several subplots during the final stretch of the game, due to [[ChristmasRushed being rushed out to meet the 15th Anniversary of the series]]. The BigBad drops by, talks to the protagonists, flings the key to the final dungeon at them and leaves, leaving several subplots be dropped or left to [[GuideDangIt voiced-over subevents the player needs to find]].
** The 20th anniversary game ''VideoGame/TalesOfZestiria'' wasn't [[ChristmasRushed rushed]] quite as blatantly, but also had problems with this. Some of the broader worldbuilding-related ones were revisited in [[VideoGame/TalesOfBerseria the prequel]], but most got either rushed resolutions in sub-events or were outright never resolved.
* A minor series-wide one started in ''VideoGame/AssassinsCreedII'' involves the Armor of Altair, which was [[spoiler: forged from knowledge obtained from a Piece of Eden]]. You'd ''think'', possessing defensive abilities that quite possibly outperform modern body armor, that this would become a convenient HandWave for why Ezio and possibly later assassins [[SlidingScaleOfGameplayAndStoryIntegration can shrug off gunfire as firearms become more and more advanced]], but it's [[spoiler: lost early on in VideoGame/AssassinsCreedBrotherhood, never to be seen again]].
* ''VideoGame/SabreMan'': ''Mire Mare'', Sabreman's third destination, required to defeat the third and final guardian, was mentioned in the preceding three games, and never shows up.
* In ''VideoGame/StarTrekOnline'', your Federation player is asked by an admiral to invade a Romulan outpost in search of illegal weapons. Instead, you find out that the weapons were actually equipment to find the Undine and the admiral is an Undine, who replaces the Romulan commander you just murdered and escapes. However, this isn't followed up on afterwards, with Cryptic Studios mentioning that, yes, they ''were'', but they never could and they hate that they couldn't.
** This is hardly the only aborted arc (the most prominent one is probably the Klingon Fek'Ihri arc, which ends with a blatant sequel hook in the form of evidence the Fek'Ihri may have been bioengineered creatures, possibly using Hur'q (the Hur'q being an alien race that once enslaved the Klingons) technology. Nothing ever comes of this), though sometimes it's complicated by picking up the arc again but after enough time in-universe that there were changes and events during the skip never entirely explained, and in at least one case an arc was 'unaborted' by WordOfGod exposition not actually mentioned in-game.
* In ''VideoGame/BatmanArkhamCity'', you can find a positive pregnancy test in the Joker's office, indicating that Harley Quinn is pregnant. In the ''Harley Quinn's Revenge'' DLC, you find several negative birth control tests and the test's box has been changed to read "may give false positive". Seems the writers got cold feet and quickly backtracked.
* In ''VideoGame/BatmanArkhamOrigins'', [[spoiler: it is revealed that the Joker has taken over Black Mask's gang and taken Black Mask hostage. When you rescue Black Mask,]] he threatens Batman to stay away from the Joker, claims that the Joker is his kill, and runs off when Batman is ambushed by [[spoiler: Copperhead]]. He never follows through on this threat and is never seen again outside of his "most wanted" mission, which involves destroying drug caches and has nothing to do with the Joker. The closest the Black Mask vs Joker plot gets to resolution is in ''VideoGame/BatmanArkhamOriginsBlackgate'', where both Black Mask and Joker are in prison and Black Mask attempts to destroy all of Blackgate, supposedly just to kill the Joker.
* ''VideoGame/TheSecretOfMonkeyIsland'' has one point like this early in the game. where Fester Shinetop ([=LeChuck=] in disguise) lures you to a back alley and threatens you. In this alleyway, there is a door which Guybrush comments is locked. The original plan for the game was to use this scene to show you this alleyway, then later on have [=LeChuck=] bring Elaine through this door and into some underground tunnels, where you would rescue her, but space and time reasons meant they aborted this arc. They instead replaced it with the scene in the church. However they left the alley scene in for the sake of establishing Shinetop's character. The next time you see him, he is about to kidnap Elaine but doesn't because you are there. They would return to the idea of [=LeChuck=] hiding in underground tunnels for the second game, and the elevator in those tunnels even opened at that door and alleyway (using the same artwork, slightly modified with barricades preventing you from exiting). This doesn't stop it from qualifying though as [=LeChuck=] doesn't actually capture Elaine at all in the second game.
* In ''[[Videogame/{{Shockwave}} Shockwave: Operation Jumpgate]]'', the ''Omaha'' discovers alien prison transports carrying non-human prisoners, establishing that the invaders are not the only aliens in existence. While Shockwave 2 explores other alien races further, the prisoners from Operation Jumpgate are forgotten. From the dynamic between the races in ''Shockwave 2'', they are likely Sensci.
* A secret message from the original ''VideoGame/GodOfWar'' had Kratos revealing he discovered a secret chamber containing the soul of [[spoiler: the god Ares he just defeated]]. Then he considers using it against Zeus. This is never addressed in the sequels and as of the third game, it will never be again since [[spoiler: Zeus and most of the gods are dead]].
* As many have noticed, every central character in ''VideoGame/{{Xenogears}}'' besides Fei, Citan, Elly, and Bart is kind of shunted to the side story-wise after the arc they make their first appearance in. One of the more notable instances being Emeralda, who [[spoiler: gets a whole sidequest devoted to her growing up so she can be more useful to her 'father,' Fei, only to fall out of the story for the remainder of the game-]] and that's if you did that sidequest to begin with.
* The English prototype of ''VideoGame/EarthboundBeginnings'' that eventually was released in Japan in the CompilationRerelease "MOTHER 1+2" ends with two [[SequelHook Sequel Hooks]]: [[spoiler:Giygas/Giegue promises to the hero Ninten that they will meet again and in TheStinger, Ninten's father calls him to inform that "Something new has come up"]]. Neither ''VideoGame/EarthBound'' nor ''VideoGame/Mother3'' address this as they have different main characters and, in fact, aside from [[spoiler:Giygas' origin]], those two games are [[TwoPartTrilogy disjointed from the original]].
* The second game of the ''VideoGame/{{Lemmings}}'' series deals with the 12 Lemming tribes fleeing a disaster that destroys their home island. Four follow-up games were supposed to be made, dealing with three of the tribes each, which detailed the [[FightingForAHomeland Lemmings discovering and settling a new island chain.]] Unfortunately, only one - ''Lemmings Chronicles'' was actually made and it did not do well critically or commercially, so the entire arc was shelved.
* Depending on your choices, you can ultimately reduce the Bhadra subplot of ''VideoGame/FarCry4'' to this. If you [[spoiler:side with Amita as leader of the Golden Path, Bhadra is "sent away" in the ending]] and all the game's carefully constructed {{Foreshadowing}} about Bhadra becoming TheChosenOne goes absolutely nowhere.
* A rather odd example in the Creator/TomClancy-verse video game franchises: ''VideoGame/RainbowSix Vegas'' and ''VideoGame/{{HAWX}} 2'' gave hints that the conflicts in those games were being masterminded by some kind of ultra-powerful international organization hellbent on destroying the United States. ''VideoGame/SplinterCellConviction'' then revealed the existence of an AncientConspiracy called "Megiddo" that was bigger than nations, corrupted that game's BigBad, and convinced him to betray his country. But after ''Conviction's'' reveal, Creator/UbiSoft apparently decided to discard this plot device: ''VideoGame/GhostRecon Future Soldier'' (which took place in the same war as ''HAWX 2'') showed that the instigators of that conflict were an arms trafficking group called "Raven's Rock", and ''Splinter Cell Blacklist'' never mentioned Megiddo at all (though it may have brought the idea back vaguely, as the BigBad of that game mentions he is being backed by 12 nations in the ending). ''VideoGame/RainbowSixSiege'' and ''VideoGame/GhostReconWildlands'' are multiplayer shooters with [[ExcusePlot not much plot]], and ''VideoGame/TheDivision'' has a completely different story.
* The whole matter with Dex that started in ''VideoGame/SaintsRow2''. You find out he was one of the few who had set you up to be killed at the end of the first game. But he runs off to escape retribution with the Boss vowing to hunt him down by the end of the game. However [[VideoGame/SaintsRowTheThird the third game]] never even continued said storyline and he only gets a (rather humorous) mention in passing [[VideoGame/SaintsRowIV in the 4th game]]. You do somewhat get to kill him in ''Gat out of Hell'' but it feels moots since [[spoiler:he was killed when the Earth was destroyed and already in Hell being tortured]]. The justification Volition gave was that the arc depended on people having played the first game and the DLC of the second, neither of which are available on PC, and they didn't want that portion of their player base to feel left out of the loop.
* ''Franchise/FinalFantasy'':
** Freya in ''VideoGame/FinalFantasyIX'' appears this way as she and her relationship with Fratley was never explored. We'll never know what's his deal.
** ''VideoGame/FinalFantasyVII'':
*** At one point, Red XIII asks Tifa if his history of experimentation by Hojo means that he'll eventually go mad like the other subjects, suggesting that this might happen... [[{{Fauxshadow}} and it's never brought up again]]. Red XIII was one of the first characters added to the game and had an extensive storyline worked out for him, focusing on the results of his time as a test subject. Virtually all of it was cut mid-development, meaning that he has the least to do out of all the party members with the exception of optional character Vincent.
*** The chronological last event to happen in ''The Compilation of VideoGame/FinalFantasyVII'' (besides the "[[DistantFinale 500 Years Later" coda]] featuring the older Red XIII) is Genesis Rhapsodos recovering Weiss's corpse with some vaguely defined plan in mind. This was intended to foreshadow Genesis's involvement in ''VideoGame/CrisisCore'', which was to come out later and chronologically preceeded ''Dirge'', but failed to resolve (or even touch upon) what Genesis had been up to. The ending of the ''Compilation'' line - which was not unexpected, but built in - means it will never be resolved, although ''VideoGame/DirgeOfCerberus'''s FanonDisContinuity status means few care.
* ''VideoGame/KingsQuest2015'' suggests pretty strongly that the dragon will return. Especially in chapter 3, where it's revealed that [[spoiler:Manny]] is trying to train it. Sadly, the dragon does not show up in the finale.
* The comic tie-in for ''VideoGame/TeamFortress2'' wraps up the game's story (teams of [[PaletteSwap Pallette Swapped]] mercenaries fighting it out on behalf of two construction companies) in the first entry with some liberal [[DroppedABridgeOnHim Bridge Dropping]] and [[HandWave Hand Waving]], and then spends the rest of the time acting as though it (and the poor blue team) never existed.
[[/folder]]

[[folder:Visual Novels]]
* The anime prologue of ''VisualNovel/PhoenixWrightAceAttorneySpiritOfJustice'' features Maya being attacked by a rebel in Khura'in in the middle of a phone conversation with Phoenix. Her mobile phone is broken, and Phoenix thinks something bad has happened to her. Not actually, because Nahyuta Sahdmadhi happened to drop by and immobilize the rebel before he could do any harm to her, but Phoenix decides to go immediately to Khura'in to check up on Maya.\\\
In the game proper, this assault is never talked about. It's said that Phoenix just went there because Maya was finishing her training to be the Master of Kurain Village.
[[/folder]]

[[folder: Web Animation]]
* In the first episode of ''WebAnimation/CampCamp'', Max is trying to escape Camp Campbell and drags his new friends Nikki and Neil with him. After his plan inevitably fails, he swears to the councilor David, that he and his new friends ''will'' escape, setting up the main plot of the series... which is dropped after being brought up again in only ''one'' episode. Though this may be justified, as in said episode, Max realizes that his problem isn't that he hates the camp... it's that he [[HatesEveryoneEqually hates everyone]].
[[/folder]]

[[folder:Web Comics]]
* When the original hand-drawn vision of ''WebComic/BobAndGeorge'' failed to take off, the author decided to make it a ''Franchise/MegaMan'' sprite comic (which, up until that point, had been {{filler}} while the author attempted to work on his drawing skills) with characters and ideas integrated from the original plans. One of the planned storylines for the original comic was an AlienInvasion story featuring a purple shapeshifting alien kidnapping and impersonating one of the superheroes of the comic. The author intended to incorporate the aliens into the sprite comic, and there are two pieces of foreshadowing as a result -- first, during a storyline in which Mega Man suddenly starts running around in paranoia, [[http://www.bobandgeorge.com/archives/001106c one strip]] had him exclaim, "Gotta keep running! If I stop, the purple floating aliens will steal my brain!" Later on, during the storyline introducing George into the sprite comic, after he [[http://www.bobandgeorge.com/archives/001207c tells Mega Man what his life until now was like]], he remarks, "I just hope those pesky aliens didn't follow me here." Of course, the alien invasion was never incorporated into the sprite comic in the end.
* X-Entertainment's photo comic ''Cobra's Chia Plot'', in which some [[Franchise/GIJoe Cobra]] soldiers grow a Chia Pet. The fourth installment ended on a cliffhanger where one of the Joes asks the Franchise/TeenageMutantNinjaTurtles for help, but the fifth installment was never posted.
** The 2008 Advent Calendar was put in a similar limbo. The 2009 calendar dedicated much of its time with making up for it.
* The original run of ''WebComic/CommanderKitty'' ended on a {{cliffhanger}} before experiencing a ContinuityReboot.
* ''Webcomic/CurseQuest'': "The Kobold's Dungeon" was the original chapter beginning in 2013 with much of the main cast already working together. The comic rebooted in 2015 to allow the story to progress differently.
* Furry webcomic ''Webcomic/FuzzyThings'' had an ongoing subplot about spoiled sparrow Shiva trying to find the whereabouts of her old teacher. Eventually, kid genius Rex was able to get her access to a restricted database that contained the answer she was looking for. This subplot is then never brought up again.
* ''[[Webcomic/EyepatchTan Good Luck Eyepatch-tan!]]'' has the ''Pokémon''/''Kamen Rider Divurtle'' arc, which ended abruptly on strip 48 due to technical difficulties. While Nocchifire, the author, initially promised that it would return, he eventually abandoned that idea and decided to [[CanonDiscontinuity scrap that arc altogether]].
* ''Webcomic/ElGoonishShive''
** The comic was going to have [[OppositeSexClone Ellen]] become an alcoholic, but Dan felt that would be too dark. The way Dan gets out of this is beautiful in its LampshadeHanging. A {{Foreshadowing}} sequence has [[OppositeSexClone Ellen]] out all night, Fairy-Doll-Nanase crying, and a six-pack of beer missing from the Dunkels' fridge. One HowWeGotHere sequence later, all this has been resolved without the beer even being opened, and Eliot puts it back behind the RedHerring in the fridge.
** Sensei Greg, [[EvilCounterpart Lord Tedd]], and several other characters have disappeared or show up almost never. Sensei Greg has now returned, but whether or not [[EvilCounterpart Lord Tedd's]] arc will actually be concluded is still up for grabs. [[WordOfGod Dan]] has admitted that he introduced the [[EvilCounterpart Lord Tedd]] thing a LOT sooner than he really should have, but he still intends to get back to it and wrap it up eventually. Just don't hold your breath on it.
** The [[DefrostingIceQueen Susan]] school uniform storyline was given a very abrupt, almost {{asspull}}-level resolution, thanks to the [[SpotlightStealingSquad Ellen and Nanase]] storyline running [[ArcFatigue way, way]] too long ([[LampshadeHanging though the characters don't think it was any less abrupt than the readers did]]).
* ''Webcomic/GunnerkriggCourt'': Chapter 2, [[Recap/GunnerkriggCourtChapter2SchoolyardMyths "Schoolyard Myths"]], has been confirmed by the author to contain setup for an arc he decided against. Presumably, given the chapter's content, it would have more heavily involved Myth/ClassicalMythology.
* [[http://www.mspaintadventures.com/?s=6&p=003558 This conversation]] from ''Webcomic/{{Homestuck}}'' explains the abortion of ''Webcomic/SweetBroAndHellaJeff'''s "nancho party" [sic] arc.
-->DAVE: making a ten part story about nachos was always a bullshit idea
* In order to keep the self-imposed PG rating, ''Webcomic/{{Housepets}}'' decided to drop the catnip arc early. Considering the one comic that he put up in the extras section was especially {{squick}}y...
* ''Webcomic/TheJapaneseBeetle'' started a storyline where America was meant to be the villain...just before 9/11, at which point author Dave White openly admitted to dropping the idea, saying that it felt inappropriate. This also happens in-story, as the original plot is interrupted by the World Trade Center attack, and both the plot and the new character introduced specifically for it simply disappear.
* At the beginning of ''Webcomic/LookingForGroup'', the main plot revolves around the group searching for a mysterious [[ShoutOut "Sword of Truth"]] to settle a group member's debt to a powerful [[TheEmpire Legaran]] military commander. Instead, they go to war with Legara, abandoning the Sword to [[http://www.lfgcomic.com/page/80 oblique references]] and eventual [[http://www.lfgcomic.com/page/376 recycling]].
* ''Webcomic/MegaTokyo''
** As of this writing, the webcomic has abandoned the "conscience" arc, supposedly because Fred Gallagher took offense at some fans calling them "insects" (particularly because the arc's protagonist is based off his own wife). Seraphim, Asmodeus, and Boo only have the occasional appearance nowadays, while Seraphim's sister has more or less disappeared entirely. The last two chapters also did not have a CEA "check-in" at the end, as had been the norm; however, a new aspect was introduced in chapter 8 ("big mode"), so there's hope yet.
** Specifically it was the "Seraphim's sisters" arc that was pulled to a quick close and never revisited. It's likely the original three consciences have fewer appearances these days because there's little time for them given everything else that's going on. It also can be argued that Piro and Largo need their help less and less as the story progresses.
** The complete abandonment very early on of what was essentially the founding premise of the series: trying to get back to America.
* ''Webcomic/{{Melonpool}}'' abandoned three arcs back to back in favor of {{continuity reboot}}s.
* Lampshaded, then subverted in ''Webcomic/MonsterOfTheWeek''. When Scully notes that season arc seems to have disappeared, it pops up again.
* ''Webcomic/{{Nedroid}}'' often has story arcs that quickly dissolve and quietly buried.
* The Bandit Ringtail guest comic from ''Webcomic/NipAndTuck'' ended with one of these. Bandit meets Sierra and she calls him out on getting into a fight that he couldn't hope to win, and then she kisses him on the cheek. The guy that Bandit fought mocks him for losing, then gets challenged to a fight by a very large, very muscular female boxer. And then it cuts out. There's no scene of the guy getting his butt kicked, no scene of Bandit leaving Malarky County, nothing.
* The beginning of ''Webcomic/{{Noblesse}}'' spends a great deal of time getting to know the students in Rai's class, particularly [[DecoyProtagonist Shinwoo and Ik-han]]. However, their development as characters ends up getting dropped completely after the KSA tried to recruit them, and have, from then on, just been there in the background to give Rai's group a reason to protect their current lifestyle.
* The love letter arc from ''Webcomic/OriginalLife''. Maybe. It has the tendency to pop up whenever people least expect it and then get dropped again right away.
* Duane from ''Webcomic/PennyAndAggie'', in the era when the authors still hoped to make it a print comic, uses the phrase "that's just gay," and Aggie, while she doesn't comment, is startled at his homophobia. Over the coming years, the relationship between the eponymous pair becomes a SlapSlapKiss lesbian romance, and the ComingOutStory of Sara and, to a lesser degree, Stan, becomes a major subplot... and T (Gisèle having left) would rather write it off, despite his earlier assurance that it would be a plot point.
** The filler story "Min-Jung", which took place in South Korea and featured ''none'' of the regular cast, was initially explained to have great impact on the latter stages of the comic. When years passed and "Min-Jung" never got a reference again, T eventually admitted he hadn't found a place for it. The rather hostile reaction to the arc probably aided this. In the strip's epilog, Yun-Sung, the main character, finally puts in a small appearance [[spoiler: as Duane's girlfriend at a five-year high school reunion.]] She was really just used as an exposition device for the a few dangling plot threads related to [[spoiler: Duane and Charlotte.]]
* ''Website/PlatypusComix''
** A yearly tradition involved the addition of a new chapter to ''Webcomic/{{Keiki}}'''s [[ChristmasSpecial Huge Christmas Epic]]," which detailed the consequences of Santa Claus giving Andrea [[KarmicJackpot an infinite number of wishes]] for December. The comic began in 2002, but Peter Paltridge hasn't added any chapters since 2007. WordOfGod says there was never a definite plan for a story, and the previous chapters didn't get many hits.
** "Coporatocracy", a ''Webcomic/{{Mulberry}}'' comic created for ''BANG! Magazine'', ends on a cliffhanger. However, the following ''BANG!'' issue has an unrelated ''Mulberry'' story, "My Fat Lady". Mulberry and Jack even admit forgetting what exactly happened in "Coporatocracy".
* Occurs in an arc of ''Webcomic/PvP'', where the characters had travelled back in time, but quickly wrapped up halfway through due to fan complaints. The writer later said he regretted buckling under the pressure.
* Steve, a secondary character in ''Webcomic/QuestionableContent'', fell off the map for a while after getting a new girlfriend, Meena, who was living with her ex-boyfriend, Dave, who she broke up with because he was "too perfect" for her. He reappeared, revealing in a series of flashbacks that Meena had ''married'' Dave, and then we see a series of almost nonsequitur flashback images that have nothing to do with this point.
%%* ''Webcomic/ScaryGoRound'' had a time travel segment that dropped suddenly. Two girls travel to the 1800's and are getting caught up in a cult and prophesy. Then their comrade from the present alters time at the moment they steal a time-pot.
* In ''Webcomic/SluggyFreelance'', the older Dr. Crabtree arc was concluded rather abruptly with her death by an EMP (long story...) with Torg, unaware of this event, saying he sensed a million plot threads crying out at once and suddenly stopping.
* Thanks to creator Christian Weston Chandler's ever-changing fleets of fancy, ''WebComic/{{Sonichu}}'' had many of these. One of these involved a plot which Chris-Chan Sonichu, Wes-li Sonichu and Saramah Rosechu were supposed to be instrumental in defeating AncientEvil Count Graduon, but Chris turned around and Saramah was PutOnABus for a conga-line of LoveInterests. {{Averted}} with the Sonichu crystals, as they managed to obtain the crystals and work with them.
* ''Tweetics'' spent a considerable amount of time building up to a plot to take over the Vatican before the entire plot (and characters) were dropped entirely with no resolution.
* What's referred to as the Black and White Era of ''Webcomic/VoodooWalrus'' aborted what looked to be a [[http://voodoowalrus.com/?p=86 story arc involving the duo being forced into a making a movie]]. WordOfGod suggests that this occurred to artistic burnout which quickly led to a year long hiatus for the comic.
* ''Webcomic/{{Oglaf}}'' has apparently aborted its plot altogether. Oglaf started as a gag-a-day sex comedy with a handful of recurring characters, then started developing an ongoing plot with hints at a MythArc... only to suddenly abandon the story and go back to a gag-a-day comic.
[[/folder]]

[[folder:Web Original]]
* In ''Roleplay/DinoAttackRPG'', this is the fate of any character's story when their player leaves the RPG. Probably the most infamous example of an Aborted Arc would be Databoard's quest to rescue Stealth, which was left unresolved after Chronicler of Ko-Koro left Dino Attack RPG.
** Players do not even need to leave Dino Attack RPG for their story arcs to be aborted. For example, [=TakunuvaC01=] had some plans for the [[AlienInvasion Dino Aliens]] that were ultimately aborted with the introduction of Dino Attack RPG's StoryArc formula.
** The [[WhatIf alternate ending]] ''L.E.G.O.'' was aborted after only two chapters.
* The Scourge VS Franchise/{{Sonic|TheHedgehog}} arc in Roleplay/CampusLife. Though the Anarchy Berly he brought to the world is still around, Scourge has long since disappeared and Sonic is now rampaging around as [[SuperPoweredEvilSide Dark Super Sonic]].
** There's also the original B-Plot to the RP where the characters had to deal with the [[Franchise/TheSlenderManMythos Slenderman]].
* In ''Roleplay/GreatestHit'' a war with Algeria never materializes, nor does The Moon's BandToon.
* Happens so often in ''Roleplay/SuperSmashBrothersLifeItself'' due to players leaving most of the time; the missions they made just often get sent to the Sites Archive.
* ''WebVideo/AitorMolinaVs Pandemia'' said something about a clone in AMvs Seahorse Seashell Party and it was never brought back.
** {{Subverted|Trope}} in [[BizarroEpisode Hateful Comparisons: Vete A La Versh vs. Telegordo]] with "[[Film/IronMan3 The Mandarin]]" [[spoiler: Bator Medina]].
* Given that the basis of ''Roleplay/SurvivalOfTheFittest'' is for characters to be killed off, this tends to happen a good deal. Many a character has died before fulfilling every goal their handler wanted to achieve with them. Outside circumstances -- such as other characters in the planned arc being unavailable, also contribute to this occurring. For example, Madelaine Shirohara (of the first game) was originally supposed to be killed by PsychopathicManchild Cillian Crowe, then his handler abruptly disappeared. The arc that replaced this one, though, was arguably one of the best in SOTF history, so it isn't all bad.
* ''TabletopGame/TechInfantry'' was full of aborted arcs, thanks to its multiple-author nature and CreatorBreakdown.
** A planned subplot with the Von Shrakenberg family getting involved with a CorruptCorporateExecutive was quietly dropped when Erich got too busy trying to fight a losing war.
** Icarus Hicks' planned BatmanGambit using mind control to fix EVERYTHING wrong with the universe died when his character was killed off due to CreatorBreakdown.
** Andrea Treschi's capture by the crew of the ''EFS Schaumburg'' was originally supposed to lead to both groups being forced to become anti-Federation rebels and go on the run together. The plan was aborted when the authors involved couldn't agree on a coherent plan for how to go about it. The various AuthorAvatar characters among the crew quietly drifted off to other assignments and other plot threads.
** The mysterious Mr. Agli as supposed to tempt Erich Von Shrakenberg into rebelling against the Federation with warnings of an even worse plot to topple the Grand Council. The author involved couldn't make the plot work, so it was quietly dropped shortly thereafter in favor of trying to stop another character's planned overthrow of the government through different means. Which led to another Aborted Arc when Andrea Treschi's BatmanGambit involving bringing disgraced politician Samuel Wall back from retirement and exile was brought to an abrupt end when Erich Von Shrakenberg turned down Wall's tempting offer and beat Wall's skull in with his own fireplace poker.
** The entire ''Tech Infantry: Exodus'' spin-off project was aborted when the authors involved got too interested in world-building and map-creation and suddenly realized they'd forgotten to come up with a plot or characters to place in this 'verse.
** And many, many more.
* An early scene in ''WebVideo/{{Awkward}}'' has Lester remarking that Ernie's name rings a bell, which Kevin brushes off. This was originally supposed to lead to a confrontation between Lester and Ernie, complete with backstory, but had to be scrapped when Ernie's actor bailed on the project; Jermaine was brought in as a substitute jerkass for Lester to butt heads with and overcome.
* An early plot in ''VideoGame/{{Valenth}}'' involved mysterious interdimensional entities known only as "the Presences" appearing and causing havoc, bringing hordes of imps with them. Things get worse very quickly, with the near-extinction of several major species and a prominent NPC [[HulkingOut turning into a giant nightmare monster]] and [[RentAZilla going on a rampage]]. After one of the Presences was captured by {{Mad Scientist}}s the others summoned their "master", Xilas the Cold-- and the entire plotline was abruptly dropped. Almost a whole year later, after much WildMassGuessing by the userbase that ''every'' subsequent plot event had something to do with the Presences, the creator announced that the entire arc had been {{retcon}}ned away. It was never intended to be more that a small silly story for Halloween, but it had gotten completely out of hand and didn't work in canon.
* Roleplay/MSFHighForum: Any time a GM quits, or a character with significant plot lines leaves.
* The plotline about [[LovableTraitor Willie's]] other allegiances was dropped midway through in the FanFic/AntiClicheAndMarySueEliminationSociety. Now subverted, as it's being reposted, albeit very slowly.
* WebVideo/TheIrateGamer:
** He started an arc involving robots and said the next episode will be a finale. However, the next episode was about He-Man, with no mention of the robots.
** The end of the VideoGame/{{Aladdin|Capcom}} episode had the Genie take refuge in IG's Game Genie. Three years later and this plot thread still remains hanging.
* Roleplay/BehindTheVeil has several, mostly due to players leaving and never returning. Key mention would be the long-running feud between [[TabletopGame/WerewolfTheApocalypse Kathleen Allan]] and [[TabletopGame/MageTheAscension May Lawrence]] which ended when the latter's player disappeared and never returned.
* ''Toys/{{BIONICLE}}'' web-serial examples:
** The arc: Four of the Barraki reuniting and leading a humongous army against the city of Metru Nui. What became of it: They just turned back, kinda. Reason: Writer's ScheduleSlip.
** The arc: The Shadowed One finding a cache of long-lost viruses, killing Ancient (his crime partner and a double agent for the good guys in secret), with the intention of using the viruses to take over the universe. What became of it: Nothing, just the needless killing-off of a potentially interesting character ([[TheyWastedAPerfectlyGoodPlot and plot]]). Reason: ScheduleSlip.
* ''Website/TheOnion'' ran an article [[http://www.theonion.com/articles/mysterious-congressman-announces-dark-horse-candid,2141/ about the Mysterious Congressman]] running for president. Some time later, this was followed up with [[http://www.theonion.com/articles/mysterious-congressman-challenges-leading-candidat,2245/ the Mysterious Congressman challenging the other candidates to a debate at dawn]]. He was never mentioned again. Since both articles mentioned him [[RunningGag carving things into Sam Brownback's backside]], it seems that he was intended to be used more.
* The ''WebVideo/GameGrumps'':
** They had planned a playthrough of ''VideoGame/ConkersBadFurDay'', but because the game starts very slowly and there wasn't much discussion between the two during the playthrough, this idea was shelved. According to Egoraptor at a [[http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nmYh_miWTd4 panel]], it was also because Jon - who has previously included the game in several 'Best Of' lists - was slowly "realizing it wasn't all that great." Ego described the experience as "depressing", and also claimed ''Conker'' was the worst game they ever played for the show.
** Jon absolutely hated ''[[VideoGame/GargoylesQuest Demon's Crest]]'' and they actually got into a fight over it. Whether or not they air that episode remains to be seen. Jon decided that they'd give it another try, and have started playing it on the show. He addressed their previous playthrough, saying that when they played it the first time he didn't much care for it.
** Several games they've played have either gone unfinished or have gone months without updates, despite their last episodes ending normally in the middle of the action. See the "on hold" and "unfinished" lists on their trope page. The worst example of this is their playthrough of Sonic 06. The series is over 100 episodes and 20 hours long, and right before they finished Silver's Story and moved on to the final chapter, [[PutOnABus Jon decided to leave Game Grumps]].
* And on ''WebVideo/SteamTrain'':
** They gave up on every single one of their various ''VideoGame/FiveNightsAtFreddys'' mostly because they were having too much trouble getting through the NintendoHard later nights, and mentioned during their play of the sequel that even after numerous off-screen tries they simply couldn't get past. Of course, it probably also has to do with the group being [[LovableCoward legitimately terrified by the games]] as well.
* WebOriginal/TheSharkasmCrew's Paranormal Activity series of tournaments was meant to last 14 entries in accordance to one of the Crew's {{Arc Number}}s. However, things such as university pushed them to finish it at 10.
* WebVideo/{{Retsupurae}} has had a couple of these:
** In December of 2012 they started a Wrongpurae of ''King's Quest 7'', but abandoned it later that same month. This has been lampshaded several times, such as the description for the last Noir video (which also seemed aborted before they finished it over a stream) saying "Now you can't say we never finish what we start! No I've never heard of King's Quest VII."
** Part 1 of their Wrongpurae for ''Amazon: Guardians of Eden'' was uploaded in March of 2014. Part 2 was never uploaded. [[WordOfGod According to slowbeef]] at [[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7n3hjpn6FqY the RTX 2016 panel (Around 53:30)]], the longplayer ended up doing things out of order and wasted a lot of time. slowbeef has considered playing through the game himself, but he never got around to doing it.
** A Wrongpurae of VideoGame/{{Ripper}} in a crossover with [[LetsPlay/GamingGarbage Lowtax]] got up to 7 episodes before slowbeef had to cancel it and restart it with LetsPlay/{{Diabetus}}.
* In a panel discussion, the creators of WebVideo/MarbleHornets revealed that the skull masked figure seen in Entry 26 was meant to be ''Jay''. They had even considered going back to this as late as Season 3.
* Due to undisclosed circumstances, WebVideo/SomeJerkWithACamera's review of ''Disney/TheLittleMermaid'' [[Ride/DisneyThemeParks Ride]], promised after the ''Ride/StarTours II'' video, was put on hold in favor of an EPCOT Retrospective. To bridge the two, Jerk starts out his retrospective about to talk about The Little Mermaid Ride, but has an encounter with [[{{Series/Dateline}} Chris Hansen]] that forces him to go on the run and end up in Florida.
* WebVideo/JesuOtaku had a very bad habit of doing this in his retrospectives. Starting off when doing one for ''Manga/{{Trigun}}'' only to stop when the story started to get into the Gun-Ho-Guns. Then he proclaimed he'll do a month focusing on ''Anime/{{Digimon}}'', he made it past ''Adventure'' and ''02''. But come ''Tamers'' he stopped in the final leg of it during the focus on the other characters and never came back to it. He explained later that he didn't realize how large a task it would be to go in-depth in shows like these and there was no way he could do an entire month focusing on all of it (even though he proclaimed he was only going up to ''Savers''). Like [=MarzGurl=], he has since left Channel Awesome and given up reviewing entirely to focus on other projects.
* LetsPlay/{{Sandstriker}} originally had plans in his Unturned Let's Play to have a large scale war, though ultimately this was ended by by no dedicated server and lack of players.
* ''WebVideo/DragonBallZAbridged'': The Garlic Jr. Arc has it's own introduction as previous arcs had. However, at the end of the first episode [[spoiler: Garlic Jr. and his henchmen run into [[MemeticBadass Mr. Popo]] who promptly kills them off-camera. The next episode starts the Android Saga.]] This is, of course, PlayedForLaughs.
* In the roleplay ''Roleplay/TamrielicAdventures'', this occurs twice; both times, it's due to a change in DM:
** The first DM's plot, involving two secret organizations at war, was abandoned when the second DM took over; this point was hammered home when the characters' ship, en route from Morrowind to Hammerfell, wrecked on the coast of Skyrim.
** The second DM had planned an arc where the characters travel on the way to the Imperial City to bring the newly-captured fugitive to face justice, and there being conflict within the group as they learn more about his past and that he's actually half innocent. This was dropped when the third DM took over; the fugitive was just brought to the prison in Windhelm (from which he subsequently escaped), and the next arc, involving pirates attacking the city, began.
* ''WebVideo/TheBenHeckShow'' has quite a number of multi-part episodes that were aborted throughout the show's run (usually when RealityEnsues and Ben realizes that the project is actually undoable or infeasible). For example, episodes centering around the designing of the Pinball/AmericasMostHaunted machine prototype, pretty much only ran until the first half of the design stage of the machine[[note]]However, coverage continued on Ben's personal channel, albeit without going into the details of the design as he usually does on the show[[/note]], and the "[=GameBrain=]" modular console project has became this as of late 2015. The tendency of this happening was lampshaded in the 2015 Halloween episode, where the "Ghost of Unfinished Projects" appears and haunts the workshop in the prologue.
* For a while on ''Podcast/MikeAndTomEatSnacks'', when Nabisco was having financial troubles, Michael Ian Black and Creator/TomCavanagh took credit for the Nabisco's problems, which they said were from they bad reviews they gave to their snacks. For a couple of episodes afterward Mike and Tom were on the run from Nabisco's goons, rating snacks from different classified locations. Eventually they started doing episodes at their studio again, and they never explained what happened with Nabisco.
* On ''WebVideo/AtopTheFourthWall'' Linkara reviewed the first issue of Malibu's ''[[ComicBook/MalibuComicsStreetFighter Steet Fighter]]'' comic. He mentioned that he'd review the other to issues at a later date. Unlike other comics he reviews however, the comics were not reviewed again on the show. As mentioned in his IDW ''My Little Pony'' comic review, some fans expressed disappointment in the review due to Linkara not being intimately familiar with the source material.
* ''Literature/WhateleyUniverse'': Bound to happen in a shared universe this big, but even then very common. The biggest one is Feral: a story called ''Wild Times'', which would have followed Feral as [[spoiler:he became the avatar of Artemis/Diana, transformed into a girl, went to Whateley and joined up with the New Olympians]], but never got released. There's a small teaser, but that's it- Feral's author dropped off the face of the earth and hasn't been heard from for years.
** At August 6th 2014, there was a noticed phenomena where the authors introduced LoadsAndLoadsOfCharacters (each with a highly detailed backstory), but when the characters finished their transformations, the authors stopped writing about them, because continuing would have led to times where the main story arc with Generation 1 hadn't reached yet.
** The main story got far enough to continue those story arcs, meaning the beginning of the second semester, at sometime in 2016-2017. Presuming the above was about Ribbon, Roulette, Knockoff, and the others, then, their Arcs have resumed, as they got to Whateley at around ''[[http://whateleyacademy.net/index.php/content_page/9/775 A Little R%R]]'' or so, which was published on 20 February 2017.
* The LetsPlay/HoboBros seem to have discontinued their series on ''VideoGame/FiveNightsAtFreddysSisterLocation'' despite only being on the third level. It's unknown why they stopped (although it might simply be because [[LovableCoward they aren't horror fans]]), or whether or not they plan to get back to it eventually.
[[/folder]]

[[folder:Western Animation]]
* ''WesternAnimation/AsToldByGinger'' has a particularly jarring one in the episode "Wicked Game": a deeply involved plot about a [[spoiler: plan involving Ginger's best friends to break her and Darren up]]. In a series that normally follows things through, the sudden lack of consequence to this episode is especially jarring.
* ''WesternAnimation/AvatarTheLastAirbender'':
** Aang is required to [[spoiler: let go of Katara so he can master the Avatar state but he never actually does it. He spends more than a whole season agonizing over this because of his major crush on her. The series just has him abruptly and accidentally activate it by [[DeusExMachina hitting a rock with his back]]. This makes absolutely no sense because unlocking the chakras is established as a mental process. The novelization [[HandWave completely glosses over it]] with Aang's thoughts remaining on Katara even as he enters the Avatar state]]. The head writer has explained that this was because he [[WhatCouldHaveBeen originally intended to have Katara end up with Zuko]] but the [[CreativeDifferences creators]] and [[ExecutiveMeddling executives]] were against it.
** The season one finale features [[TheHero Aang]] traveling to the spirit world meeting the potent character Koh the Face Stealer, who ominously says "We'll meet again," as Aang leaves. They never did, not even in the second season of ''WesternAnimation/TheLegendOfKorra'' which [[WhatHappenedToTheMouse dealt with nothing but spirits]]. [[AllThereInTheManual In a series of flash games]] that take place between seasons 2 and 3, they do meet again and Koh is more than a little eager to pay Aang back for escaping the last time they met.
** Initially there were plans to reveal that Momo, Aang's pet lemur, was actually the reincarnation of his old Airbending teacher, Monk Gyatso. This was vaguely alluded to several times throughout the series, but ended up being scrapped.
* ''WesternAnimation/TheAvengersEarthsMightiestHeroes'': Due to being cancelled after only two seasons, the show had a few of these. Notably, the heavily foreshadowed showdown with Surtur and the Enchantress never took place, and Maria Hill's repeated rants about a [[Comicbook/CivilWar Superhuman Registration Act]] never panned out.
* ''WesternAnimation/AvengersAssemble'' Season 2 ended with ComicBook/CaptainAmerica and Comicbook/IronMan deciding that they needed to expand the team in order to face bigger threats, and the last shot showed them looking at images of a bunch of potential new recruits like Comicbook/BlackPanther, [[Comicbook/MsMarvel Captain Marvel]], Comicbook/DoctorStrange, and ComicBook/MoonKnight. The Season 3 premier then opened up with none of these characters as part of the Avengers roster, with Comicbook/TheFalcon offhandedly mentioning that the expansion plan had been cancelled.
* Due to being ScrewedByTheNetwork, ''WesternAnimation/BatmanTheBraveAndTheBold'' had to abort the Shards of Equinox arc, an arc that would have focused on finding the various personality shards of Equinox that were scattered through the universe. The GrandFinale episode even made a LampshadeHanging over the cancellation of the show by being about ''getting the show cancelled''.
* ''WesternAnimation/Ben10UltimateAlien'': Three arcs that progress (the lingering threat of King Viktor, the redemption journey of Charmcaster (whose true name is [[spoiler: Hope]]), and the possession of Elena Validus by the Hive nano chips) never saw their conclusion due to [[AuthorExistenceFailure Dwanye McDuffie passing away]] during production. The people in charge of [[WesternAnimation/Ben10Omniverse the following series]] outright stated they no interest in continuing them. Dr. Viktor became Dr. Viktor again, [[AuthorsSavingThrow with Zs'Skayr being shown removing Xarion's soul and allowing Viktor to regain control]], Elena cameoed as herself toward the end of the series with no explanation as to how she was freed of the nano chips' influence, and Charmcaster never went by her true name again and saw no escape the HeelFaceRevolvingDoor.
* Birdboy's debut episode in ''WesternAnimation/{{Birdman}}'' ended with Birdman promising to help him [[DisappearedDad find his father]], and the search was occasionally brought up in Birdboy's later appearances. However, nothing ever came of it.
* ''WesternAnimation/BojackHorseman'':
** Despite the pictures of [=BoJack=] having sex with Sarah Lynn being given some build up, they were mostly used for a few comedic moments before being resolved very simply without much thought given to them. How much do the paparazzi demand to prevent the photos from leaking? [[spoiler:$150. Each.]]
** Played for comedy when Todd gets $8 million at the end of season 3. He starts wondering what [[LeaningOnTheFourthWall interesting adventures that could lead to]], but in the very next scene, he accidentally gives it all away, making him poor again.
* In the Season 2 finale of ''WesternAnimation/CodeLyoko'', Franz Hopper, in his diary, mentions that Lyoko and XANA were originally created to stop a certain "Project Carthage", a military program designed to "disrupt enemy communications". This led to the expectation that the next season would deal with the Project somewhat, while delving into Lyoko's history some more. Not so. Season 3 took off in a different direction, and other than the {{fanon}} assumption that "TheMenInBlack" seen throughout the show are from this organization, Project Carthage is never, ever mentioned again. For two seasons. Not even when the show ''ends''.
* ''WesternAnimation/DannyPhantom'':
** [[BigBad Vlad's]] plans with Fright Knight, the Crown of Fire, his ElaborateUndergroundBase, and his acquirement of Axion Labs. ExecutiveMeddling played a part in it all. For that matter Danny and Valerie's DatingCatwoman plotline.
** The return of [[FutureMeScaresMe Danny's evil older self]], which was heavily hinted at at the end of his sole appearance.
** At the end of the show's penultimate episode, Valerie discovers [[spoiler:that Vlad (who gave her her weapons) and Danny's "cousin" Danielle are halfas]]. She implies she'll do something about it. Come the finale and nothing happens, with Valerie having not even a single line of dialogue.
* ''WesternAnimation/FriskyDingo'' intentionally [[PlayingWithATrope played with this trope on at least two occasions]].
** In one episode, [[spoiler:it was revealed that Xander had a [[LongLostRelative long lost twin brother]] named Nearl, who planned to become a villain and seek vengeance on him. Nearl was then promptly shot and killed by Ronnie, who said [[LeaningOnTheFourthWall things were already complicated enough]] without throwing some "EvilTwin bullshit" into the mix]].
** One of the last episodes of the second season introduced Xander's illegitimate teenage daughter. She initially seemed like she was being set up to join the cast as a major character in the next season, but the episode abruptly ended with Xander paying her an outrageous sum of money to leave and never contact him again.
* ''WesternAnimation/{{Futurama}}'': The pilot episode introduced the career chip, which supposedly assigned one a permanent job and was ostensibly mandated by the law. Although Smitty and Leela both say that those who reject their career chips are labelled "job deserters" and "fired out of a cannon into the sun", nobody is ever shown facing those legal consequences. The career chip appears twice in the show and only once in the comics, and the time gap between the its two appearances in the main series is quite large.
* In an early ''WesternAnimation/{{Gargoyles}}'' episode, Demona is left thinking that Elisa is dead, which Goliath says is probably for the best for now. Nothing really came of it before she saw Elisa alive again in the season one finale, probably because the writers realized how hard it would be to keep Elisa's existence a secret from Demona while she was still living her normal life.
* In ''WesternAnimation/KimPossible'', Ron Stoppable has a romantic arc with Zita Flores, a cute girl who seems to share his interests in gaming and entertainment, albeit not identically (she is a fan of sword-and-sorcery RPG's, whereas Ron is a straight FPS and Action/Adventure gamer). After two episodes and a meeting in a movie which might be construed as a first date, followed by joining forces in an MMORPG plot, she is not seen until the GrandFinale, where she's [[PairTheSpares randomly paired off]] with Felix the wheelchair guy.
* In the third season of ''WesternAnimation/KingOfTheHill'', an ongoing plot thread dealt with Hank and Peggy attempting to have another baby but failing due to Hank's narrow urethra. What made this more aggravating for the Hills was that Hank's father Cotton had somehow managed to impregnate his wife Didi, with Cotton being 75 and Didi the same age as Hank. This thread followed only into the first episode of the following season and was then dropped.
* Two cases in ''WesternAnimation/MaxSteel''; a flashback shows that Jefferson Smith's predecessor as CEO of N-Tek (and, by extension, the man in charge of the secret espionage division) was a man named Marco Nathanson, who bore an uncanny resemblance to [[spoiler: season one BigBad John Dread.]] According to the original producer, this was actually meant as a RedHerring, though later said by others to be exactly what it looked like, but neither interpretation is followed up on. Even more blatant, the episode "Truth be Told" features [[TheCameo real-life athlete Jeremy [=McGrath=]]] discovering that the protagonist and his friends are ex-secret-agents-turned-vigilantes, and he suggests bringing in one or two friends he has on the sports circuit who could help the heroes save the day on occasion. This is the final scene of the episode, except the episode is also the SeriesFinale. Along with [[CanonDiscontinuity half the premise of the show,]] this was never picked up on in the subsequent made-for-TV movies.
* ''WesternAnimation/MyLittlePonyFriendshipIsMagic''':
** Season 4 had a recurring subplot about The Mane Six rebuilding Princess Celestia and Luna's old castle, implying it may be used as as a base of operations for their adventures down the line. But, [[spoiler: after Twilight gets her own castle in the season finale]], this is soon forgotten.
** In the Season 5 premiere, Twilight Sparkle and Starlight Glimmer both mention a Mage Meadowbrook who wielded eight magic items, which Twilight realizes the "Staff of Sameness" was not one of. This plot thread is never touched on again. When Meadowbrook appears much later, rather than being a unicorn who wields enchanted items she's [[{{Retcon}} now an earth pony more akin to a Louisianan Witch Doctor]] and said magical items aren't even referenced.
* ''WesternAnimation/RockyAndBullwinkle'' had a storyline about Boris counterfeiting cereal box tops to procure all the prizes from cereal promotions and ruin the world economy. This did not sit well with General Mills, the show's sponsor (and owner, who likely thought it was inappropriate case of BitingTheHandHumor), and "The Great Box Top Caper" was stopped after a few episodes.
* In the StoryArc of Season 20 of ''WesternAnimation/SouthPark'', nostalgia-powered sentient fruit called Member Berries are threatening a conspiracy that Randy Marsh eventually finds out about and teams up with Presidential nominee Mr. Garrison to stop. Unfortunately, the conclusion to this arc relied on [[DeweyDefeatsTruman the presumption that Hillary Clinton would win the current election]]. [[RealLifeWritesThePlot When Donald Trump, whom Garrison was serving as a proxy for, won instead]], the plot is abruptly stopped by Garrison and Randy brainwashed by the Member Berries. The Member Berries then get to stay in the White House and [[WhatHappenedToTheMouse nothing is done about them in the end.]]
* ''WesternAnimation/SupermanTheAnimatedSeries'':
** The two-parter "Little Girl Lost" ended with Clark planning to introduce Jimmy to Kara, hinting at the start of a possible romance as Jimmy had been at Supergirl's side when she investigated Intergang. However, Jimmy ended up crushing on another girl in his next major role and he and Supergirl never interacted again.
** "Legacy" was originally intended as the introduction to a story arc about Superman regaining the world's trust after being [[BrainwashedAndCrazy used as a pawn by Darkseid]]. Instead, the two-part episode became the SeriesFinale, and a variation of the theme was used in the Cadmus arc of ''WesternAnimation/JusticeLeague''.
* ''WesternAnimation/TeenageMutantNinjaTurtles1987'': The episode "Raphael Meets His Match" introduced a character named Mona Lisa and ended with her moving to the sewers and the implication she would go on more adventures with the Turtles. [[ChuckCunninghamSyndrome She never appeared again]].
* ''WesternAnimation/TeenageMutantNinjaTurtles2003''
** One episode ended with the people of the USA becoming aware of the turtles' existence after the president came face to face with them and mistook them for aliens. This was never mentioned again. More glaringly, an ongoing plot in the series' sixth season, featuring CorruptCorporateExecutive Darius Dun, was aborted when the series was re-retooled and the turtles were sent back into the present.
** A lot of the story arcs went nowhere due to ExecutiveMeddling. Not only was the sixth season's story (Fast Forward) supposed to continue so that it could wrap up the hanging threads there, but the shoehorned seventh season's story arc (Back to the Sewer) was also supposed to wrap up ALL loose plot threads in an arc called "The Shredder Wars"... before the series was canceled. Granted, the series was then finished off with a mega-crossover love letter to fans TV movie, but that never wrapped up anything other than the final fate of a couple of series regulars.
* ''WesternAnimation/TotalDrama'':
** ''Action'' has Justin as the main antagonist, DJ's illegal alliance with Chef Hatchet, and Harold's one-sided friendship and attraction with Heather (which actually started as early as the post-''Island'' special). By the season's halfway point, all three of these subplots are abandoned entirely, with the first example as a result of the studio realizing too late how ineffective Justin was in this role and leading to Courtney being his hastily-chosen replacement in order to avoid rewrites. WordOfGod has confirmed that Justin's role as antagonist in the earlier episodes of ''[[WesternAnimation/TotalDrama Total Drama Action]]'' was deliberately dropped because they realized that he was way too self-absorbed to ever fully put his head in the game; his claims of being a master strategist were all his ego talking. Alejandro, a character that debuted in the following season, is essentially what they wanted with Justin.
** ''Action'' features a friendship forming between Heather and Leshawna after being at each other's throats for the entirety of the first season, only for this to disintegrate in ''World Tour''.
** Courtney and Gwen's newfound friendship, Blaineley's participation in the game, and the increased focus on several of the early losers from ''Island'' were abandoned mid-season in ''World Tour''.
** Owen and Izzy's romantic subplot came to an abrupt halt due to the same order of ExecutiveMeddling that broke up Gwen/Trent and Duncan/Courtney.
** ''Revenge of the Island'' includes the short-lived love triangle between Zoey, Mike, and Anne Maria and the rivalry between Brick and Jo.
** The first half ''All-Stars'' is one long pastiche of aborted arcs, from Lindsay's short-lived participation to Jo and Lightning's continued rivalry, the Gwen and Duncan romance, Duncan's personal crisis and his conflict with Mike/Mal, Cameron's efforts to save Mike from Mal, Courtney and Gwen's friendship yet again, the Scott and Courtney romance, Sierra competing without Cody, Jo and Heather's attempted alliance with Gwen, Alejandro flirting with Gwen, etc.
** The second half of the season ''Pahkitew Island'' has Jasmine's friendship with Samey (due to the latter being eliminated) and Samey trying to be her own person (dropped because [[spoiler: she tricks Amy into being eliminated in her place leaving her to pretend to be her for two episodes before being actually eliminated]]).
** In the spin-off ''[[WesternAnimation/TotalDramaPresentsTheRidonculousRace The Ridonculous Race]]'', several teams that fell victims to the Ice Dancers' cheating, namely Crimson, Ennui, Emma and Kitty, wished that the BigBad duo would get their karma in a bad way. However, when the bag guys got eliminated, they barely got any karma; they were forced to watch their worst enemies (Sanders, [=MacArthur=], Geoff and Brody) win the grand prize.
* ''Every'' set of producers for the Creator/{{Hasbro}}-owned ''Franchise/{{Transformers}}'' had to deal with never knowing if their incarnation of the franchise be renewed or not, and every series got wrapped up in a hurry when the plug got pulled with little notice. Plot lines would also change suddenly, due to the desire of higher-ups to push new toys and promotions. (This can potentially apply to every MerchandiseDriven series.)
** In the third season of ''WesternAnimation/TheTransformers'', Blitzwing began to have doubts about the Decepticon cause, and a deleted scene even has him considering joining the Autobots. The writers wanted him to become an Autobot in a later episode; however, the editors forced them to instead give this arc to the new toy Octane. (A close viewing of one episode featuring the character suggests that this change happened at the very last minute - Octane references events that happened to Blitzwing, and demonstrates a number of the latter's quirks like getting stuck while transforming.)
** ''WesternAnimation/TransformersAnimated'' had a bevy of plot threads LeftHanging, included Meltdown making a return, [[spoiler: Waspinator coming up with a plan while putting himself together]], where [[spoiler: Sari's protoform came from]], and both Lockdown and Swindle [[spoiler: escaping]]. It should be noted that the cancellation that resulted in a number of these plots threads being unresolved was a mix of Hasbro's ExecutiveMeddling and being ScrewedByTheNetwork.[[note]]''Animated'''s last season was produced as Hasbro and [[Creator/DiscoveryChannel Discovery Communications]] were planning to combine forces and create their own kids channel called [[Creator/DiscoveryFamily The Hub]]. Creator/CartoonNetwork shared the rights of the ''Animated'' show with Hasbro, due to that incarnation being produced by Cartoon Network Studios. The end result was that Hasbro did not desire to continue the series when they [[WesternAnimation/TransformersPrime could just make a new one that they'd completely own]], and while Cartoon Network was given the option to continue ''Animated'' solo, they saw no point if they could no longer merchandise it.[[/note]]
** This goes back to G1, where "The Rebirth" three-parter introduces a ton of new characters and situations... and suddenly has to ''wrap up the entire show,'' as during its production it was cut from ''a fourth season'' to a five-parter to a three-parter. The various comic series have faced the same problem, though with the [[ComicBook/TransformersGenerationOne Dreamwave Comics]] series, it had more to do with the death of the company itself. There's one exception to the rule: ''WesternAnimation/TransformersPrime.'' Despite all Hasbro's talk of the constant reboots ending in favor of a "[[Franchise/TransformersAlignedUniverse new, aligned continuity]]" producers plotted a three-season series with a beginning, middle, and end. When that end came a bit sooner than intended with season three's episode count getting cut down, it apparently didn't hamper them much. As such, we get the ''only'' western TF property to finish all it started and have a truly satisfying ending instead of a rushed wrap-up.
[[/folder]]

** At this point, it's looking like the entire ''VideoGame/HalfLife'' series has become an AbortedArc, as it's been 10 years since the last game released with nothing new on the horizon.

** The "Knightmare" scene from ''BVS'' had a premonition of a dystopian future where Comicbook/{{Darkseid}} ruled the planet (complete with his omega symbol scorched into the ground), with an evil Superman serving as his enforcer and leading an army of Parademons. Later in the movie, Batman was visited by a time-traveling Flash, who warned him of the evil Superman and told him that Comicbook/LoisLane was somehow "the key" to stopping him. Back when ''Justice League'' was going to be a two-part movie, the plan was presumably to have Steppenwolf appear as the villain of Part 1 while Darkseid would be the villain of Part 2, with the evil Superman subplot explored in greater detail. When this plan was scrapped, the whole thing was pretty much abandoned. [[spoiler: Darkseid never appears in the finished ''Justice League'' movie and though Superman [[CameBackWrong Comes Back Wrong]] and has to be calmed down by Lois, it only lasts a few minutes, and the Knightmare scene never comes into play. In fact, even when Batman recruits the present day Flash as part of his team, he never mentions (or even seems to recall) his encounter with the future Flash. Likewise, even though the Parademons are prominently featured, Batman doesn't mention the fact that they appeared in his vision.]]

* ''Film/TheAmazingSpiderMan2'' fell victim to this itself. The ending very unsubtly set up a plot thread involving the Sinister Six and the mysterious Gustav Fiers, which will now never be resolved thanks to the series being cancelled and rebooted with ''Film/SpiderManHomecoming''.

* One of the many {{Sequel Hook}}s at the end of ''Film/TheAmazingSpiderMan'' involves Peter attempting to track down the man who shot Uncle Ben. In ''Film/TheAmazingSpiderMan2'', this plot thread is never even mentioned. Likely this was meant to be continued in a future film, however with the series now canned so Spider-Man can join the MCU series, it'll never be resolved.

** When the title and it's spin-off series, ''Sonic Universe, was ultimately cancelled due to a ''lot'' of factors, this left a ''lot'' lingering plot threads behind that the writers were hinting to explore later in rebuilding the new universe.

** Where Silver, Gold and Von Schlemmer wound up after defeating the Second Devourer. As this story was a prequel before Silver meeting Sonic in the new universe was shown, that meeting will never be revealed.

** When the title was ultimately cancelled due to a ''lot'' of factors, one lingering plot thread was left behind - Nicole had been left in the backup systems of the Sky Patrol after her old computer was destroyed battling Phage during the final moments of [[VideoGame/SonicUnleashed the Shattered World arc]]. Had both continued, ''Sonic Universe'' would have had an issue where Tails and Sally went to Dr. Elidy to help repair the computer and get Nicole back.

** Half of "The Birth Of Mewtwo" radio drama, meant to go with ''Anime/PokemonTheFirstMovie'' and later animated (though [[AdaptedOut excluding a large portion]]), revolves around Jessie's MissingMom Miyamoto and how she's been searching for Mew for twenty years. Outside of the drama nothing has referenced Miyamoto. She has yet to be reunited with Jessie.

* ''Film/BatmanVSupermanDawnOfJustice'' was originally supposed to be the lead-in to a 2-part ''Film/JusticeLeague'' movie, but when it underperformed and was trashed by critics, ''Justice League'', those plans were heavily altered. As a result of heavy retooling and [[TroubledProduction many behind the scenes issues]], the resulting movie (now a single film) ignored most of the set-up that its predecessor established. These include:

** In ''The Man Without Fear'', David Liss introduced an EvilCounterpart for T'Challa named the American Panther. The story ended with the villain defeated, but with his costume and mask unaccounted for. The final shot showed someone putting on the American Panther mask and cryptically saying "The world has been waiting for my return. Well...here I am," but the mystery of who this was ended up going nowhere. WordOfGod is that it would have eventually been revealed that the new American Panther was Kasper Cole, the young man who had briefly replaced T'Challa as the Black Panther during [[Creator/ChristopherPriestComics Christopher Priest]]'s run. The next time Kasper officially appeared, it was revealed that he'd given up on crime-fighting altogether, and there was no indication that he'd ever worn the American Panther suit.

** In ''The Man Without Fear'', David Liss introduced an EvilCounterpart for T'Challa named the American Panther. The story ended with the villain defeated, but with his costume and mask unaccounted for. The final shot showed someone putting on the American Panther mask and cryptically saying "The world has been waiting for my return. Well...here I am," but the mystery of who this was ended up going nowhere. WordOfGod is that it would have eventually been revealed that the new American Panther was Kasper Cole, the young man who briefly replaced T'Challa as the Black Panther during [[Creator/ChristopherPriestComics Christopher Priest]]'s run. The next time Kasper officially appeared, it was revealed that he'd given up on crime-fighting altogether, and there was no indication that he'd ever worn the American Panther suit.

** In ''The Man Without Fear'', David Liss introduced an EvilCounterpart for T'Challa named the American Panther. The story ended with the villain defeated, but with his costume and mask unaccounted for. The final shot showed someone putting on the American Panther mask and cryptically saying "The world has been waiting for my return. Well...here I am," but the mystery of who this was ended up going nowhere. WordOfGod is that it would have eventually been revealed that the new American Panther was Kasper Cole, the young man who briefly replaced T'Challa as the Black Panther during [[Creator/ChristopherPriestComics Christopher Priest]]'s run.

** The official tie-in comic for ''ComicBook/TheAvengersEarthsMightiestHeroes'' has a story with the ComicBook/ScarletWitch and ComicBook/{{Quicksilver}}, which heavily implied that the two teens would be joining ComicBook/TheAvengers at a later date. Thanks to the cancellation of both the show and the comic, this never occurred.

** Near the end of Roger Stern's run, minor ''Comicbook/AlphaFlight'' character Dan Smallwood saw the Avengers on a diner TV, and was shocked to see his childhood sweetheart Marrina was now a member of the team. According to Stern, this was going to lead to Dan heading to New York and ending up in a LoveTriangle with Marrina and [[Comicbook/SubMariner Namor]]. Unfortunately, Stern was removed from the book by ExecutiveMeddling, and Creator/WaltSimonson ended up killing off Marrina in his very first arc.
** Creator/KurtBusiek's ''[[ComicBook/TheAvengers Avengers]]'' run had the team face a powerful villain named Bloodwraith. They were unable to best him, but ComicBook/ScarletWitch managed to bind him to the ruins of Slorenia, making it impossible for him to leave the country's borders. It was mentioned a few issues later that ComicBook/{{SHIELD}} was still monitoring Slorenia to make sure Bloodwraith didn't try anything funny, but Busiek ended up leaving the title before he could revisit that plot thread. The next time Slorenia appeared, absolutely no mention was made of Bloodwraith or where he'd disappeared to.

* The official tie-in comic for ''ComicBook/TheAvengersEarthsMightiestHeroes'' has a story with the ComicBook/ScarletWitch and ComicBook/{{Quicksilver}}, which heavily implied that the two teens would be joining ComicBook/TheAvengers at a later date. Thanks to the cancellation of both the show and the comic, this never occurred.