The following have their own pages:
In current Super Hero comics every time that either writer or status quo changes, most of the supporting cast and villains with the exception of Ensemble Darkhorses (and sometimes even them) are put at risk of suffering from this. If there is no place for them in the hero's new life situation, their disappearance can be justified. If they are gone because the writer didn't have an idea what to do with them, not so much.
Other Comics
- King Muskar XII of the fictional Balkan kingdom Syldavia was a major character in the Tintin story Tintin: King Ottokar's Sceptre (written in 1938), and ends up a close ally of Tintin. Yet he is completely absent for the post war stories dealing with Syldavia - in fact it is even unclear whether Syldavia is still a monarchy. Possibly a case of Reality Subtext: Muskar was based on King Leopold III of Belgium, who was forced to abdicate after World War II, and almost every Balkan kingdom except Greece was replaced by a republican form of government; although unlike the real-world Balkan states Syldavia did not become communist.
- Spirou & Fantasio:
- The original Marsupilami (the one that was Spirou's pet, and the brother of the one who lives in the jungle) vanished from the comics once André Franquin quit the job and Jean-Claude Fournier took over, as Franquin had created the Marsupilami himself and didn't want anyone else to write stories about him; he kept the rights to the characters and started an independent series starring a Replacement Goldfish, a Marsupilami still living in the Palombian jungle. For forty years fans have sent letters and letters and letters to the editor of Spirou and Fantasio wanting to get the Marsupilami back, to the point that Fournier and later authors of the series often made jokes inside the stories about the Marsupilami.
- Fortunately, The Bus Came Back when the editor of Spirou et Fantasio bought back the society that produced the alternate Marsupilami series, and a canon explanation involving hypnotism and animal traffic was pulled by the authors currently working on Spirou et Fantasio. Since this explanation was never Franquin or Fournier's intent, however, it still counts as an example.
- Famously done to Rikki in the Belgian comic epic Suske en Wiske (Spike and Suzy). Rikki was Wiske's brother, and a main character for the singular issue the comic was still called "Rikki En Wiske". He was never heard from again until after the author passed away, and the new writers decided to bring him back briefly after 254 (!) issues. The explanation? Rikki had gone out to buy shoes and somehow got stuck in Ruritania.
- A mid-story issue of the Super Mario Adventures comic strip, which ran in Nintendo Power during 1992, featured this. Toad uses a Cape Feather to fly up to a pipe sticking out of a cloud (allegedly the one Mario and Luigi entered at the beginning of the story to unknowingly wind up in Dinosaur Land), and gets "help" - which is actually Bowser's Koopa Troop in disguise (the cloud was actually an airship of sorts in disguise). After the Princess gets kidnapped, Toad is shown being held hostage by two Koopas, delivers one line about the Koopas "taking control of the Mushroom Kingdom", and is then never seen or mentioned again for the remainder of the comic (So they just left Toad in the Koopa Castle dungeons?).
- In Strontium Dog, as the series got progressively darker and more serious, the Gronk just sort of faded away.
- In the Star Wars: Tales of the Jedi comics, main characters included Nomi and Vima Sunrider, the latter of which was going to be in Knights of the Old Republic. However, due to unclear trademark restrictions involving the name "Sunrider" (speculated to be from either a brand of convertible tops for Jeeps or some kind of corporation that makes herbal products, neither of which is very easy to mistake for a comic character), the characters stopped appearing at all in the Star Wars Expanded Universe, aside from an accidental anecdote in the first KOTOR game and an item description that didn't mention the last name in the second. However, Lucasfilm Licensing has apparently gotten past the worst of it, and can now create products and media featuring the characters, provided the name "Sunrider" isn't mentioned on the external packaging, and a book about Nomi Sunrider was due out in 2011. (See Wookiepedia
.) For whatever reason, however, the book was cancelled. - Wayne's in Pain, a character put into The Bash Street Kids (a comic strip in the Anthology Comic The Beano) after a Blue Peter competition, disappeared after being in the strip for only a short while.
- One of the signs that Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles Adventures has dropped all pretense of being a Recursive Adaptation of the original cartoon series was that Channel 6 and April's co-workers from the station disappeared without explanation; by the time April gets her own mini-series and we get an update on her job situation, she has been fired from her job at WRTL, by her boss Murdoch Maxwell.
- A number of characters from the Sonic the Hedgehog (Archie Comics) series have disappeared from the face of the Earth, especially if they weren't mainstream Sega-based characters or part of the Saturday Morning series. However, one bad example of this is Dulcy Dragon, a character from the second season of the Saturday Morning cartoon. She had a few roles up until issue 50 before appearing in a set of back stories along with Amy Rose. Beyond one last appearance in the early 100s, Dulcy has rarely, if ever, been seen again.
- However, Ian Flynn's run has revived a number of characters and pulled them out of this hole, including Scratch, Grounder and Coconuts, and obscure, early issue characters such as Larry Lynx and Harvey Who.
- On the other hand, thanks to a heaping dose of Screwed by the Lawyers, a large majority of the non-SEGA-approved characters (re: those created by former head writer Ken Penders) have disappeared due to Cosmic Retcon. However, being what the comic is, the entire thing is lampshaded greatly.
- However, Ian Flynn's run has revived a number of characters and pulled them out of this hole, including Scratch, Grounder and Coconuts, and obscure, early issue characters such as Larry Lynx and Harvey Who.
- Archie Comics:
- Archie Comics have introduced several characters who never appeared after a few issues. Sometimes their absence is explainable, like the alien characters who have landed and vanished soon after. But then we have cases like Betty's older brother and sister, who have been recurring characters in Little Archie but are never mentioned in any of the teen or adult Archie stories (though Polly appears in the Alternate Universe comic Afterlife with Archie). Polly Cooper is actually a peculiar example. As Betty's 20-something older sister, she has appeared in several regular stories from various decades. Only for writers to forget her again for a few years, and bring her back at later points. She has vanished and returned multiple times.
- Back when Josie and the Pussycats was a slice of life comic called She's Josie, Josie had a tomboyish best friend named Pepper. When the series was retooled Melody stayed, however Pepper was quietly dropped. Her role has mostly been covered by Valerie.
- Other peculiar cases involve supporting cast members for a number of characters. In the late 1980s and early 1990s, an entirely new supporting cast developed around Jughead in his own subseries. A few years later, all of them were written out and Jughead lost some of his character development. Dilton was given his own love interest and supporting cast, only to quickly lose them. Cheryl Blossom had her own, rather large, supporting cast. With the exception of her brother Jason Blossom, most of them vanished as well.
- Despite the fact that Robotech: The Shadow Chronicles occurs partially during the same timeframe as final episode of the original Robotech series, Rand, Rook, Lunk, Annie, and Lancer are not seen or mentioned at any time. In the Prelude to Shadow Chronicles prequel, several Sentinels characters are not mentioned at all, such as Burak and Invid defector Tesla, leaving both of their storylines unresolved (although they were resolved in the original Jack McKinney novelizations, they may have been retconned out given that Prelude presents a revised ending to The Sentinels).
- Star Trek: Early Voyages: In "Flesh of My Flesh", the transporter chief Nils Pitcairn, who appeared in "The Cage", is introduced as if he is going to be a major character. However, he appears in only two panels and is never seen nor mentioned again in the remaining 16 issues.
- Much of the original Youngblood's extensive cast of characters are nowhere to be seen or heard in Youngblood (2017), and it's only assumed they're laying low.
