Canon Discontinuity in comic books.
The following have their own pages:
- The Gargoyles comic, written by the series' original head writer Greg Weisman and officially promoted by Disney, ignores the widely disliked third season The Goliath Chronicles that aired in syndication on ABC, save for the first episode (the only episode Weisman wrote), which it largely retells with the first two issues.
- Sonic the Hedgehog:
- The Sonic X comic is a curious case. As is the norm with comic tie-ins to cartoons in general, it was utterly ignored by the show it was based on, and the comic even had glaring continuity issues and inconsistent characterizations with the Anime since issue #1. However, the editorial behind the Sonic X comic was also the publisher of Sonic the Hedgehog (Archie Comics), and they had the two titles cross over, establishing that the Sonic X comic exists in the Archie Sonic universe as an alternate universe. In other words, the tie-in comic is non-canon to the Anime it's based on, but is perfectly canon to the completely unrelated Archie Sonic continuity.
- This seems to be the effect of the past two hundred fifty one issues of Sonic the Hedgehog (Archie Comics) following the end of Sonic the Hedgehog/Mega Man: Worlds Collide and its Cosmic Retcon ending. Word of God states that, yes, those issues did happen, but it's obvious that they won't have any major standing in the new comics.note
- Jon Sable, Freelance: Creator Mike Grell's later uses of Jon Sable have ignored the 27 issues of Sable written by Marv Wolfman.
- Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles:
- The third volume of the comic book published by Image Comics, as the official continuation to the Mirage-produced series, was completely ignored when TMNT co-creator Peter Laird returned to write volume 4. Though the final three issues of Urban Legends may have subverted this, since they allowed the Image stories to more or less tie into volume 4.
- Almost all of the "guest era" portion of volume one, which took place from issues 22 through 44 and did not have any input from Laird and Eastman, has been stated to be non-canonical, with the sole exception of "The River" two-parter from issues 27 and 28.
- The "Life and Death of Johnny Alpha" story in Strontium Dog has explicitly relegated all of Peter Hogan's stories to the realm of In-Universe fanfic. Garth Ennis' contributions seem to have actually happened, except for maybe "The Darkest Star". The far future Durham Red stories seem to be out too.
- Devil's Due Publishing's continuation of G.I. Joe: A Real American Hero (Marvel) (including numerous side titles), intended to be a continuation of the original Marvel storyline, was segregated to its own continuity after IDW Publishing took away the comic book rights from DDP. IDW now publishes its own continuation of the Marvel run (penned by its original writer Larry Hama), reprinting the Devil's Due run under the title of G.I. Joe: Disavowed.
- In the 70's, Mortadelo y Filemón author Francisco Ibáñez lost his ownership rights over his characters after a few legal fights with his publishing house. They subsequently hired new, usually unnamed artists to take on the series instead. The change was very noticeable and unsuccessful, so the publishers allowed Ibáñez to retake his series, but under their guidelines. Some years later, the courts awarded him the full ownership rights for the series, and he proceeded to ban the publishers from ever again reprinting any of the books he hadn't authored and get rid of all the characters he had been forced to write in but didn't really like. Interestingly enough, he did save one particular book from the purge, since the artist who had written it was a friend and had asked him for advice — Ibáñez even drew a new cover for it.
- There is an obscure UK-exclusive Transformers comic called "The Beast Within", wherein the Dinobots merge to form a combiner simply called the Beast, which proceeds to slaughter most of the Decepticons and a number of Autobots before being destroyed. When asked about a Dinobot combiner, Hasbro tends to deny all knowledge of such a thing, indicating they've either forgotten the comic or like to pretend it doesn't exist, something most fans are happy to agree with. This was finally made this trope when the true Dinobot Combiner, Volcanicus, was introduced for the Power of the Primes toyline.
- Elsewhere in the franchise, in The Transformers: More than Meets the Eye, issue #31 established that female Transformers had "estriol-positive" spark types (the spark being a Cybertronian soul). James Roberts didn't like this much, edited it out of the trade paperback (with Nautica now being "ferrum-positive"), and — in the continuation series, Lost Light — had a specific reference to estriol-positive sparks being a discredited idea.
- The BOOM Studios Darkwing Duck comics had crossed over with the DuckTales comics for their respective final issues. However, the crossover has been officially declared non-canonical due to the Joe Books omnibus omitting them. Correspondences with Aaron Sparrow (who was the original editor and rewrote the stories for the omnibus) claim that the story was published without Disney's approval, as these final stories were printed after Disney revoked the license.
- The Dynamite Comics miniseries Disney Villains: Hades ignores Hercules: The Animated Series with Hades putting together a team of mythical figures to claim the Golden Fleece, with a bald muscular adrenaline junkie take on Icarus (a complete contrast to the scatterbrained dweeby Icarus of the show) and versions of Arachne and Orpheus that are Truer to the Text. Jason, who appeared in the show as a once famous adventurous captain reduced to live appearances played by William Shatner, is depicted in the comic as a young Jerk Jock resembling Kronk that starts a competing quest for the Golden Fleece.
- Every time the Star Trek license is given to a different comic book company, the previous company's books get tossed into the Discontinuity bin. Though, in DC Comics' case, they had their previous comics tossed out while still holding the license, thanks to Paramount demanding a reworking of the terms of the license so that they could exert more creative control over the comics.
- The Finder arc "Torch" appears to be this, as it was abandoned halfway through and the published chapters then scrubbed from the website.
