Red Herring / Comic Books

• The Avengers:
  • Issue #54 introduced a new version of the Masters of Evil, who were assembled by a mysterious villain called the Crimson Cowl. The issue ended with the supposed revelation that the Crimson Cowl was really Jarvis, the Avengers' longtime butler, and that he had developed a robotic henchman to pose as the Cowl to throw off suspicion. The following issue then revealed that Jarvis had actually been brainwashed, and that the seemingly docile robotic "lackey" was the true mastermind, one who would soon cement his position as one of the team's deadliest and most dreaded enemies for decades to come: Ultron.
  • In issue 263, the Enclave, the scientists who created Adam Warlock, crash a plane into Jamaica Bay while trying to flee the police. The Avengers get called in after a strange cocoon emanating powerful psychic energy is discovered in the bay, with the readers led to believe it contains another of the Enclave's Artificial Humans, as Warlock had previously made his first appearance inside a similar cocoon. It is eventually discovered that the cocoon has nothing to do with the Enclave and actually contains the unconscious body of Jean Grey, who had been replaced and impersonated by the Phoenix some time before the events of The Dark Phoenix Saga.
  • The first issue of Kurt Busiek's Avengers saw former members of the group being attacked by various mythological creatures, as well as Thor telling his teammates that someone had stolen Surtur's Twilight Sword. Everyone assumed this to be the work of Loki, only for the real masterminds to turn out to be Morgan le Fay and Mordred.
  • An early New Avengers arc introduces a mysterious masked vigilante called Ronin. A sequence of Ronin beating up Yakuza goons in Japan is intercut with flashbacks of Captain America asking Daredevil to join the team, with the latter declining due to recently having been outed to the public as Matt Murdock in his own series. Cap then brings up the period where he briefly adopted the superheroic alias of Nomad, suggesting that Matt could similarly take on a new costumed identity to join the Avengers without arousing suspicion. This, coupled with Ronin’s penchant for using nunchaku (similar to Daredevil’s trademark billy clubs), is clearly meant to fool the reader into thinking Ronin is indeed Matt Murdock, but Matt instead tells Cap that he has a friend who might be able to do the job. Subsequent issues continue the mystery, with Spider-Man guessing that it might be Daredevil’s old allies Iron Fist or Shang-Chi under the mask, only for it to ultimately be revealed that Ronin is actually Maya Lopez, a.k.a. Echo.
  • During the initial lead-up to Secret Invasion (2008), an issue of New Avengers ended with a dramatic close-up of Dani Cage, the daughter of Luke Cage and Jessica Jones, whose eyes were shown glowing. This was obviously meant to imply that she (and by extension, one of her parents) might be a Skrull, but was really just an indication that she'd inherited superpowers from her parents.
  • During the time when The Wasp was believed dead, a zombified cyborg version of the Wasp appeared as a member of the Descendants in Secret Avengers. Hawkeye seemed to believe that she was the reanimated corpse of the original Wasp, but it instead turned out that she was actually from a Bad Future where the world's heroes had been killed and rebuilt into Deathloks.
  • Avengers Standoff's prologue follows a blonde man known only as Jim, who awakens in the mysterious town of Pleasant Hill with no memory of his true name or past life. Throughout the issue, he begins to remember brief glimpses of Captain America and Bucky, and eventually makes contact with Phil, a dark-haired Gadgeteer Genius who sports a distinctive goatee. Despite the strong implication that the two men are Steve Rogers and Tony Stark, the end of the issue reveals that they’re really Baron Zemo and the Fixer, with Pleasant Hill actually being a prison for mindwiped supervillains.
• Batman:
  • The story from Detective Comics #40, the very first appearance of the Batman villain Clayface, has three separate characters dramatically declare their hatred for the actress who is subsequently murdered. None of them is the killer. The true murderer turns out to be Basil Karlo, the jolly old actor who popped up to say hi to the actress at the beginning.
  • Robin (1993): When Bruce decides to test Tim on his sixteenth birthday Tim first thinks his recurring villain Jaeger may be the culprit of the apparent technologically advanced attack, which from everything on panel initially looks probable to the reader as well.
  • In 2014, DC launched a Bat Family Crossover called Robin Rises, which was rumored to end with Batman taking on a new Robin. Around this time, Batman began palling around with several young people who each seemed to be a possible candidate: A highly intelligent young student named Duke Thomas, who was formerly part of We Are Robin, an orphaned daredevil named Annie Aguila, and Carrie Kelly, a Canon Immigrant best known for being Robin in Batman: The Dark Knight Returns. In the end, this all turned out to be an elaborate misdirect, and the Robin who "rose" was a resurrected Damian Wayne (the previous Robin).
  • Adding to that, Duke appeared in The New 52: Futures End as the new Robin. While Duke did eventually join the Batfamily and became one of Bruce's partners, he was never an official Robin.
  • In the Blackgate oneshot, the Cluemaster masterminds a breakout attempt but becomes aware that Batman is somewhere in the prison working against him. He naturally suspects three fresh faces who all arrived on the same boat — a new guard, a bank robber in the infirmary who was severely injured by his own bomb, and a guy who testified against the Black Mask and is going into solitary for his own safety. All three are neutralized by Cluemaster's co-conspirators, but Batman still foils the plot in the end. Turns out he was disguised as Shoppie, The Scrounger who runs a convenience store out of his cell.
• There were various hints (including the title) that the Big Bad of Beyond! was the Beyonder from Secret Wars (1984). In the end, it actually turned out that the Stranger was the mastermind behind the events of the series.
• The initial Black Orchid stories were notable for never revealing anything about the titular heroine's backstory or identity, but they would sometimes tease possible explanations, only to debunk them. For instance, one story ends with the strong implication that Black Orchid is secretly a female race car driver named Ronne Kuhn, only for the next storyline to have Ronne get rescued by the real Black Orchid after being Bound and Gagged and left to die by her supposed teammates.
• Blacksad: As Blacksad searches for a kidnapped girl, he encounters a group of black separatists who suggest the girl was kidnapped due to being the granddaughter of white supremacist E. V. Oldsmill, mentioning that his son is "mental". Blacksad plays Oldsmill a visit, only to learn his son is "mental" in the sense of mentally handicapped - there's no way he could be the girl's father. (The word used in the original French can mean both "psychotic" and a slur for people with mental disabilities). The trip isn't a total waste, however - Oldsmill offhandedly mentions several facts that prove rather important later.
• Captain Marvel #28 shows a mysterious, hulking villain with alien technology taking out The Avengers one by one. The reader is initially led to believe this is Thanos, but the assailant actually turns out to be the Controller, an old enemy of Iron Man.
• One of the stories in Deadpool #900 has a running red herring gag involving a chicken in a murder investigation.
  "You're still paying attention to the chicken, aren't you? Look at ME!"
• Disney Ducks Comic Universe: Used in a Italian comic Whodunnit story which had Donald Duck competing with an Expy of Hercule Poirot during an investigation. A wealthy and eccentric hostess had invited Scrooge, Rockerduck, and several celebrities to a vacation in an isolated mansion. A series of mysterious thefts occurred on the first day, and Donald (accompanying Scrooge) decided to investigate each of the guests to discover the culprit. He quickly realized that several of them were acting suspiciously, and that some of them had lied about what exactly was stolen. But he failed to find any incriminating evidence for the suspects. At the end of the story, the Poirot expy revealed that there was an intruder in the mansion, and that the thief was a professional burglar who had no affiliation with the guests.
• When the Red Hulk originally made his debut, there was a mystery as to who this character really was. Some video footage was discovered that apparently showed him killing Thunderbolt Ross, but it was eventually revealed that it was staged and he was Ross all along.
• All of the promotional material for "The Secret Origin of Tony Stark" seemed to be indicating that Marvel was retconning Iron Man's origin so that rather than simply being a genius with a suit of Powered Armor, he was actually some sort of cosmic space messiah who was genetically engineered (with help from some aliens) to save the world. The fans took the bait and many were outraged, but the end of the story revealed that the child in question was actually Tony's older brother, not him. The actual Reveal was that Tony was adopted by the Stark family.
• Identity Crisis (2004): Despite the sensationalism of Sue Dibny's sexual assault being played up before the book was released, her rape, Dr. Light, and even the mind wipes, which admittedly due come up and play a major part in later storylines, all end up having nothing to do with her murder. The rape in fact isn't mentioned past the second issue and Dr. Light disappears from the plot shortly after too.
• In JLA: Year One there's a subplot regarding the identity of the backer who's secretly funding the League's headquarters and equipment. The offer is made shortly after Batman observes the new League in action and decides he doesn't want them operating in Gotham, and reference is made to the financier being 'a bit of a crusader'. The mystery backer turns out to be Bruce Wayne's fellow millionaire-turned-crimefighter, Oliver Queen AKA Green Arrow.
• Legion of Super-Heroes:
  • In the original Sun-Eater storyline, the Pre-Crisis version of Ferro-Lad performed a Heroic Sacrifice to stop the titular menace. When the Sun-Eater reappeared as the main antagonist of the Final Night crossover, it seemed like history would repeat itself, and that the Post-Crisis Ferro-Lad (now known as Ferro) would once again die to save the Earth. However, at the last minute, Hal Jordan (still Parallax at the time) intercepted Ferro's ship and sent him back to Earth, before going on to sacrifice his own life to stop the Sun-Eater.
  • A reboot Legion of Super-Heroes storyline involves Element Lad trying to deduce who is behind a series of thefts of ancient Earth objet d'art. Early on, he describes the thief as a "vandal", while we see a shadowy figure in old-fashioned Earth clothes gloating. It is eventually revealed that the mastermind is ... some random alien businessman. Not Vandal Savage at all.
• Mickey Mouse Comic Universe: Played in an unusual manner in an old Mickey Mouse detective story. Mickey was investigating a smuggling operation at a luxury hotel, and had noticed four different suspects among the hotel staff. Several clues were pointing to each of the four. Mickey eventually realized which of them was part of the smuggling ring, and decided against further investigating the suspicious behavior of the other three. The end of the story revealed to the readers (but not to Mickey) that each of them was a career criminal working on a different personal agenda. They mocked Mickey for failing to recognize them.
• MonsterVerse graphic novel Kingdom Kong: At one point in the comic, whilst Dr. Brooks is contemplating an Iwi legend which seems to prophesize Camazotz causing Skull Island's doom, Kong finds an ancient Iwi mural in a cave which depicts him or one of his kind seemingly being defeated – we're led to believe Camazotz is the cause of this seemingly-prophetic downfall. After Camazotz is defeated, Kong goes back to and uncovers more of the mural, with the comic's final panel revealing that the full mural depicts Godzilla (or one of his kind) bringing about the Titanus Kong's fall.
• Mortadelo y Filemón: Used extensively in a mystery-themed story where the spy duo are searching for The Mole who has been leaking classified information to rival agencies and the general public. A series of clues lead to different suspects, but they all turn out to be innocent. The duo eventually question how the "secret" messages were transferred in the first place, and realized that their inept boss had taken no safety measures. There was no mole, it was just incredibly easy for enemy agents to overhear the necessary information.
• Kyle Baker's run on Plastic Man featured a villain named Red Herring deliberately complicating Plastic Man's attempts at investigation.
• In Volume 2 of Scott Pilgrim, Wallace shows Scott that Mobile taught him some psychic skills, making Scott think he could learn them as well to help him against Todd. Turns out he never does. Instead the vegan police show up to strip Todd of his powers.
• Secret Empire #4 ends with the revelation that HYDRA has a Mole inside Sam Wilson's resistance group. The following issue strongly suggests that the traitor is Mockingbird, only for issue #6 to reveal that it's really Ant-Man.
• Snotgirl #5 ends with Caroline pushing Charlene off a rooftop. Issue #6 then opens with Lottie and her friends at a funeral, which the reader is led to believe is for Charlene. However, it later turns out that Charlene survived the fall and is currently hospitalized, while the funeral is actually for Misty's dog.
• Spider-Man:
  • A crimefighter calling herself Jackpot was introduced concurrently with One More Day providing a case where a character turned out to be Red Herring. She wore a mask but bore a strong resemblance to Mary Jane Watson, like her she liked to call people "Tiger", and her code-name echoed MJ's line at her first meeting with Peter Parker, "Face it, Tiger, you just hit the Jackpot!" The aim apparently was to encourage MJ-friendly readers to keep reading the series after Mephisto erased the Parker marriage by leading them to suspect that she had now become a superheroine (because otherwise she was absent from Amazing Spider-Man to make way for new romantic entanglements for Peter). Later it was revealed that it was just one incredible coincidence after another, Jackpot actually was a fan of Mary Jane's soap-opera acting who just so happened to bear a strong facial resemblance and put on a red wig. Plus they added a Retcon that Mary Jane had used the "Face it, Tiger" line in her soap opera role and made it popular enough to make someone call herself "Jackpot" (in the previous decades it had been treated as a private thing between her and Peter). To make matters even more complicated, it also turned out there were actually two women who fought crime as Jackpot; the one who appeared in the early Brand New Day issues and who, to make the resemblance to Mary Jane even greater, was shown to have a crush on Spider-Man, eventually got herself killed, transforming from a Red Herring to a Dead one.
  • In the lead up to Superior Spider Man, Marvel kept the character's identity tightly under wraps. However, a "leaked" script excerpt mentioned Miguel O'Hara, leading many to believe that he was the new Spider-Man (which was supported by the fact that like Miguel, the new Spidey had razor sharp talons). While Miguel did eventually appear in the series, the Superior Spider-Man turned out to be Otto Octavius.
  • The Clone Saga: Poor Anthony Serba. Despite being drawn with a combover, a name hailing from Shiftystan, and a mug which wouldn't look out of place in Dick Tracy, he's not the culprit here. Far from stealing Warren's tissue samples for his own nefarious use, he tried to dispose of them right before Warren snapped and suffocated him to death.
• Superman:
  • In the Elseworlds story The Nail, Lex Luthor is the Big Bad... or is he? The question is, who is the one manipulating Luthor? The JLA heroes believe at first that it's Starro, but it turns out that Starro is just a mutated Krypto, and the real Big Bad is... Jimmy Olsen. Yes, THAT Jimmy Olsen.
  • In Post-Crisis storyline Who is Superwoman?, Supergirl suspects that her old friend Thara Ak-Var is the evil Superwoman who aided and abetted her father's murderer because Thara was Kandor's security head. It turned out that Superwoman is Lucy Lane, the younger sister of Lois Lane. Thara would later turn out to be the new Flamebird, with Chris Kent as Nightwing; this story also had a red herring, since Thara's mystic fire powers and Chris's recently-developed tactile telekenesis led readers to think they might be Linda Danvers and Kon-El.
  • Superman: Earth One Volume 2 at first seemingly sees Lex Luthor made into a Decomposite Character between Alexander "Lex" Luthor and his wife, Alexandra. However, volume 3 ends with Alexander dead and it turns out that Lex is more of a Gender Flip as Alexandra takes up being called "Lex".
  • In Superman: Space Age, Kryptonite's existence and potential as a weapon is mentioned repeatedly, but never used, even when Otis expends Lex's resources to buy some.
  • The very first issue of Superwoman delivered this to readers. The promo material and the solicitations seemed to hint that the heroine of the series was the New 52 version of Lois Lane, seeing as she gained powers from the events of The Final Days of Superman. Turns out, there was a second Superwoman — Lana Lang — and Lois ends up dying at the end of the first issue.
  • Legends of the Dead Earth:
    • The second part of Supergirl Annual #1 is about a group of female space pirates who find one of their comrades is dead. She tried scratching a symbol on the floor as a way to tell who killed her, and the pirates believe she was trying to say "Supergirl." After nearly everyone is killed, driven by the paranoid belief one of them is Supergirl in disguise, we learn the symbol was really the biohazard symbol on the canisters the first pirate was found under. The canisters contained chemicals that cause aggression and paranoia.
    • In Superman: The Man of Steel Annual #5, Corin is jealous of Kaleb's relationship with Lang and it seems as though he plans to betray him to the Empire. He instead prevents Kaleb from being killed by Luthor the 60th, sacrificing his own life in the process.
  • Starfire's Revenge: Shortly after Starfire falls into a moat, a still hand is seen floating in the water, apparently hinting readers the villain has truly drowned. Nonetheless, Starfire reappears several weeks later, and the identity of the drowned person would remain unknown.
• When the new, female Thor first showed up, her identity was kept secret. There were hints that she might be Roz Solomon, a female S.H.I.E.L.D. agent that had been featured in Jason Aaron's previous Thor run, but it actually turned out that the new Thor was Jane Foster.
• The plot of Thunderbolts Annual 2000 is kicked off by an earlier issue of Kurt Busiek's Avengers run where the soul of Hawkeye's ex-wife Mockingbird (who, alongside several other dead Avengers, had briefly been revived by the Grim Reaper) unsuccessfully tries to impart a message of dire importance to Clint before vanishing. Believing that Mockingbird is being tormented by Mephisto, the Thunderbolts head to Hell to rescue her, where they quickly discover that the demon is holding a heavily bandaged woman captive. The heroes battle Mephisto and eventually emerge victorious, only to discover that the bound woman is not Mockingbird, but actually Patsy Walker, who is restored to life after returning to Earth. It's soon revealed that Mockingbird's warning had really been about Mephisto using the Patsy as part of a plot to kill Daimon Hellstrom (Patsy's husband and the current ruler of Hell at the time).
• Tintin: The main plot of "The Castafiore Emerald" is that the eponymous emerald is missing and presumed stolen. Mr. Wagner was acting suspicious — he had mud on his shoes despite allegedly having been inside all morning and he stammers when Tintin confronts him. However, it turns out that he didn't steal it, he just secretly gambles.
• Through The Transformers: More than Meets the Eye, Tarn, the masked and code-named leader of the Decepticon Justice Division, was strongly hinted to have previously been Roller, an old friend of Optimus Prime who was mysteriously absent in the present day. The clues ranged from Roller having a similar build as Tarn, to his "addictive personality" lining up with Tarn's transformation addiction, to Roller's final appearance having him introduced to Megatron's writings (Tarn was notably obsessed with Megatron's literature), getting part of his face damaged (Tarn had scars in the exact same place), and then being forgotten by all his friends via phlebotinum after being injured (a reason for him to fall in with the Decepticons). Then Tarn's true identity was revealed to be Glitch, a minor character who neither looked anything like him in the past (being robots, this isn't a big deal) nor received any particular focus from the story. This reveal was also foreshadowed, but by much subtler means which were overshadowed by the red herring; most notably, Glitch's power to technopathically deactivate machinery, which was noted to have the potential to grow stronger, was, in retrospect, a weaker version of Tarn's power to kill other Transformers with his voice, which Tarn himself commented was "slow to manifest". This power was something Roller showed no indication of ever possessing or developing. (Roller's lack of such powers gave him an inferiority complex, and Tarn was known to have undergone a Super-Soldier upgrade — another piece of faux-shadowing.)
• Ultimate Marvel:
  • Ultimate Wolverine vs. Hulk introduced the Ultimate Marvel version of She-Hulk in a Cliffhanger after having earlier introduced Jen Walters (She-Hulk's alter ego in the mainstream Marvel Universe) in a brief supporting role. This turned out to be as misdirect, as the Ultimate She-Hulk was later revealed to be Betty Ross (who later became the Red She-Hulk in the main universe).
  • Early on in The Ultimates 3, there's an ominous close-up of Hawkeye while he's talking about how something needs to be done about Quicksilver and Scarlet Witch before the media can find out about their incestuous relationship. This was obviously meant to imply that Scarlet Witch's killer was Hawkeye instead of Ultron.
  • Ultimate FF: The discussion between Coulson and Machine Man, about the man to send to help the team. If you thought they were talking about Reed Richards, you were wrong: they were talking about Victor Van Damme, A.K.A Doctor Doom.
• Usagi Yojimbo: In the "Sparrows" storyline, there is a subplot about a temple of monks that was the temple where Jei's first host lived. Run now by Hama, an at the time junior monk who was wounded and nearly killed by Jei all those years ago, it hosts the wandering monk Sanshobo and his fellow monk Senzo. Senzo was recently attacked by Jei and is having frequent nightmares of becoming Jei. When another ill guest at the temple is murdered in the night, everyone at the temple assumes Senzo must have gone crazy and done it. Senzo himself isn't even sure he didn't do it with all the nightmares of Jei he has been having. It turns out it was Hama, who has had the seed of Jei inside him all those years since he was nearly killed by the entity. And since Jei's current host has been mortally wounded and is slowly bleeding out, he has been switching between her and Hama as she fades in and out of consciousness before completely possessing Hama and killing Senzo.
• An odd example in Watchmen: During the book's opening scene, all we get to see of the Comedian's attacker are his arms. It's probably not the first thing you'd notice, but he's wearing a brown woolen sweater. Much later on in the comic, Hollis Mason is shown between scenes preparing Halloween candy and talking to his dog (the dog being the only clue that it's Hollis talking at all), and all we see are his arms - wearing that exact same brown sweater. If the reader notices this at all, the most likely moment of recognition comes just before a small number of flashback scenes which portray Hollis from a somewhat more negative perspective than most of the rest of the comic does. In short, all these things put together make this particular character extremely suspicious until the real killer is revealed... but only an extremely small number of readers would even notice it on the first read, essentially making it an Easter Egg Red Herring.
• Wolverine: Origin initially led the readers to believe that young Dog, Thomas Logan's son, was the boy who would grow up into Wolverine. Until the Wham Shot at the end of second issue that reveals it's James Howlett instead. Then the story seemed to imply he might actually be Sabretooth instead (despite issues like him bearing scars vs Sabretooth's healing factor), but the writers just invokedshrugged and it was ultimately ruled out.
• At the start of X-Force, false hints were dropped that Cable and his arch-enemy Stryfe might be the same person (they use a bunch of the same catchphrases, and Stryfe removes his helmet for the first time showing readers that he has the same face as Cable), playing X-Force and the Mutant Liberation Front against each other for some reason. It's later shown that the reason for their similarities is that they are clones.
• Gambit's role in the X-traitor subplot running in the X-Men comics of the '90s amounted to nothing. A major part of Bishop's backstory was finding a garbled tape of Jean Grey talking about a traitor in the X-Men's ranks who'd killed them all and a man called the Witness, an older version of Remy, being the Sole Survivor, leading Bishop to suspect Gambit when he came to the past.^note Jim Lee and Whilce Portacio later revealed they had no set suspect and an idea brandied around was Bishop himself via Stable Time Loop Onslaught, itself an example of Writing by the Seat of Your Pants^note as with the X-traitor, no set suspect at first, opened by showing the whole tape Jean made, revealing the titular villain, a split personality of Professor X, was the traitor.^note Also, as a sign of no set suspect at first, X-Men, Vol. 2, #50, saw a being that was implied to be Onslaught try to kidnap Charles — which means Onslaught tried to kidnap himself.

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