The Bus Came Back / Comic Books

• The Multiversity:
  • Five years after Final Crisis, Nix Uotan and Captain Carrot are back. Harbinger and Lady Quark also return, after vanishing post-Flashpoint, although Lady Quark had apparently been a prisoner of A.R.G.U.S. in the Vibe book.
  • The 90s version of Doctor Fate, Jared Stevens, appears on the variant cover to Society of Super-Heroes: Conquerors of the Counter-World #1. The Multiversity Guidebook #1 and The Multiversity #2 show him as one of the heroes of Earth-13, along with the superheroic version of Hellblazer introduced in The Books of Magic.
  • The Just #1 is an entire bus filled with 90s DC characters, including most of the New Bloods, the third Hourman, Chronos (Gabriel Walker), Tomorrow Woman, and Alpha Centurion. Cameos and returns also included Offspring, Mas y Menos, Jakeem Thunder, Doctor Midnite (Pieter Cross), Artemis (as Wonder Woman), Tempest (as Aquaman), Chris Kent (as Superman), and Arrowette (Cissie King-Hawke).
  • Thunderworld #1 saw the return of the Monster Society of Evil, Uncle Marvel, the Lieutenant Marvels, and Tawky Tawny.
• In Convergence, characters from the pre-Crisis multiverse, the pre-Zero Hour: Crisis in Time! universe, the pre-Flashpoint DCU, and the Flashpoint timeline itself meet and fight.
  
  The World's Finest tie-in focuses on some of the truly forgotten characters. The champion is Sir Justin a.k.a The Shining Knight, who is usually one of the more overlooked members of The Seven Soldiers of Victory, but its narrative focus is on friggin' Scribbly The Boy Cartoonist, who had previously been completely eclipsed by the original Red Tornado — Ma Hunkle, a housewife who dressed up as a male superhero.
• Gambit (2022) sees writer Chris Claremont return to the character, and he takes the opportunity to bring back some obscure antagonists from his other Marvel stories - Sabine from Uncanny X-Men and Bounty from Fantastic Four (1998). The 2022 Gambit series is 18 years after Sabine's last published appearance and it's over 20 for Bounty.
• Superman:
  • One of the titles spinning out of Convergence was Superman: Lois and Clark, featuring the married Clark Kent and Lois Lane from the pre-Flashpoint DCU living incognito in the post-Flashpoint DCU alongside their post-Flashpoint versions. (Unfortunately for them, their lives are kind of complicated by the post-Flashpoint Clark having had his secret identity revealed to the world.)
  • In Superman: Brainiac, Cat Grant, a character that had not been seen since the early nineties, reappears and becomes again a permanent supporting character.
  • In 2003 story arc Many Happy Returns Kara Zor-El, the original Supergirl who had been killed during 1985 series Crisis on Infinite Earths, makes her reappearance.
  • In Supergirl (Rebirth), Cameron Chase returns to regular appearances as the Director of the DEO after two years of absence. She was last seen (aside from a cameo) in the first Batwoman Annual way back in 2014, where she retired and went back to freelance PI work.
  • In 2017 storyline Plain Sight Shanon Vance - a. k. a. Strange Visitor - makes her first appearance since 2001.
  • The Krypton Chronicles: Black Flame and Shyla Kor-Onn, two villains who hadn't been seen in years, make their -final- appearance in this story.
  • All-Star Superman: Nasthalthia "Nasty" Luthor was a Supergirl's villain that bedeviled the Girl of Steel during her Adventure Comics run and then faded into comic limbo until Grant Morrison brought her back for this story after thirty-four years.
  • The Great Darkness Saga marked the return of Darkseid after an absence of eight years.
  • In the 2008 DC Comics miniseries Reign in Hell one of the supernatural characters who gets dragged into the infernal battle is Linda Danvers, the Earth Angel Supergirl, last seen in 2003, and who most fans assumed had been retconned out of existence following the reintroduction of Kara Zor-El.
  • Maxima, who got killed off during the Our Worlds at War event, returned to The DCU in the Crucible storyline after a fourteen-year-long absence.
  • 2008 storyline The Coming of Atlas is the eponymous character's first appearance since 1st Issue Special #1 (1975).
  • Strangers at the Heart's Core brings back several villains who hadn't been seen in around twenty-years like the Visitors, Klax-Ar or Lesla-Lar.
  • Superman vs. Shazam! brought the Sandman Superman back seven years after his last appearance in Kryptonite Nevermore.
• When Willy Vandersteen started the Belgium comic series Suske en Wiske in 1945, he originally wanted it to be about Wiske and her older brother Rikki. However, this format didn't turn out the way he planned so after just 1 story Rikki was put on a bus; he left to go buy new shoes, but never returned and was never mentioned again. Over 50 years later, in 2003, the character finally returned for a single story to reveal what became of him.
• The final storyline of the 2003-2011 Teen Titans series had several Titans who were put on a bus at the start of JT Krul's run (notably Aquagirl and Bombshell, who were "fired" from the team off-screen and never mentioned again) coming back to aid the current team in their Final Battle. A number of other former Titans, many of whom weren't necessarily put on a bus, came back as well.
• Spider-Man: During the 1970s, after Gwen Stacy's death, Mary Jane Watson established herself as Spider-Man's primary love interest. This was not to the liking of some writers, so Marv Wolfman split the two up by having MJ reject Peter Parker's proposal of marriage, then involving Peter in an adulterous affair with Betty Brant Leeds before having him start dating a number of newly created female characters (Debra Whitman, Marcy Kane, the Black Cat). However, after the split Mary Jane still had great chemistry with Peter and also was friends with so many members of the supporting cast that many readers still expected her and Peter to get back together, so she was written out of the series (along with her Aunt Anna) in 1980. Three years later Roger Stern brought Mary Jane back in time to meet Peter exactly 200 issues after their first meeting (Amazing Spider-Man #242, 1983) and right from the start many of Peter's and MJ's friends and relatives tried to set them up again, paving the way for their eventual marriage in 1987.
• Ultimate Marvel:
  • Ultimate FF is Victor Van Damme's first appearance since he was left for dead in the Marvel Zombies universe at the end of the "Frightful" arc of Ultimate Fantastic Four.
  • Misty Knight was created in the 1970s, and forgotten a short time later. She was brought back in 2006 in the Ultimate Galactus Trilogy (first major appearance since then, Ultimate or otherwise). It was followed by the Daughters of the Dragon miniseries in the mainstream universe. She became a regular character since then, appearing in several comic books, and was even incorporated into the MCU Netflix series.
• Halo:
  • Jun-A266's fate was left intentionally vague at the end of Halo: Reach; it took almost three years before Halo: Initiation revealed he had indeed survived Reach's fall.
  • Team Black, the stars of Halo: Blood Line, were seemingly forgotten after their comic ended with a Bolivian Army Ending. It took five years before they appeared in Halo media again, in Halo: Escalation. And it was to be Back for the Dead; Team Black was brought back solely to killed offscreen by the Ur-Didact.
• In Robin (1993), Tim Drake's internal monologue notes that he's probably going to drift away from his friends at Gotham Heights when his dad forces him to transfer to Brentwood, and for quite a while none of them are seen or mentioned. Eventually Ives reentered the story and became a recurring character again, but the rest of the group stayed on the bus with only Callie ever even getting a mention afterwards.
• During the Batman Bat Family Crossover, "Officer Down", Jim Gordon retired and was succeeded as Police Commissioner by Michael Akins. The "One Year Later" Time Skip after Infinite Crisis revealed that Gordon was back as the GCPD Commissioner, but there was no word about Akins' whereabouts. However, Akins came back in Detective Comics (Rebirth), replacing the corrupt Sebstain Hady as Gotham's mayor.
• Will Payton's Starman dropped off the map after the end of James Robinson's Starman run in 2001, until a picture of him showed up in 2017's Dark Nights: Metal, and the man himself returned in a 2018 Justice League story.
• Young Justice (2019) marks the return of the team 16 years after its dissolution.
  • The book brings back the Pre-Flashpoint Superboy Kon-El/Conner Kent—who'd previously been erased from continuity and replaced with a Darker and Edgier Kon-El in the New 52—by having his old best friends, Impulse, Robin and Wonder Girl realize he was missing and set out to track him down, discovering he'd been trapped in Gemworld when the timeline went wonky.^note Prior to this, early in DC Rebirth, Superman recalls the events of The Death of Superman, but couldn't remember Conner's involvement in the storyline, though he does note that someone seems to be missing.
• Usagi Yojimbo: After the Chanyou chapter, the Geishu clan, including Noriyuki, Tomoe Ame, Motokazu, Horikawa, and so on were completely absent from the chapters that followed it, but while they still have yet to return in the main series, they did come back in Senso.
• After their removal from continuity in the New 52, fans have waited throughout DC Rebirth for the re-establishment of the Justice Society of America and the Legion of Super-Heroes. Finally, it was announced in 2019 that both teams would officially return in, respectively, Justice League (2018) #31 and Superman (Brian Michael Bendis) #14.
• Wonder Woman:
  • Wonder Woman (1987): The Daxamite who allied with Diana to eradicate slavery in the Sangtee Empire nicknamed "Julia" comes back after over one hundred issues in order to help fight Imperiex.
  • Sensational Wonder Woman: The Empty People brings back Nina Close, a.k.a. The Mask, one of Wonder Woman's Golden Age villains who had not been seen for decades through several reboots of the character's mythos.
  • Wonder Woman: Black and Gold:
    • Cathy Perkins, a supporting character from the Mod era of Wonder Woman, makes her first appearance since 1972 in the titular story "Whatever Happened to Cathy Perkins?".
    • Badra, a one-shot villain from 1947, shows up again the story "Memories of Hator" published over 50 years after her prior appearance. Diana's reformed her in the interim and she works out of a museum.
• Sonic the Hedgehog (Archie Comics):
  • Scratch, Grounder, and Coconuts returned in Issue #187 after a hundred and thirty issues of absence, now employed by Mammoth Mogul at the Casino Night Zone.
  • The Badniks have returned in the post-reboot issues, many of them as part of Hordes led by a Super-Badnik Commander.
• Astro City:
  • Ben Pullam first appeared in the first issue of the second series in 1996, and returned 17 years later in 2013 for the first issue of the Vertigo series.
  • Steeljack returned to the series in 2016, 16 years after "The Tarnished Angel".
  • An even longer bus ride is that of Marta Dobrescu, who originally appeared back in issue 4 of the original series in 1995, and returned for issues 39-40 of the Vertigo series in 2016 21 years later.
  • Michael Tenicek made his first appearance in "The Nearness of You" in 1998, returning 20 years on in 2018 for issues 50-52 of the Vertigo series.
• Justice Society of America: The original team was put on a bus for twenty-five years, with the final issue of All-Star Comics in 1951. When Jay Garrick's surprise appearance in "Flash of Two Worlds" was a success the rest of the team became guest stars in Justice League of America 21 & 22 in 1963 and they started getting little appearances in The Flash and Wonder Woman any time there was an excuse to travel to or from Earth-Two.
• The Empyre Aftermath: Avengers one-shot ended with a Flash Forward implying that Abigail Brand, who resigned from Alpha Flight in the main story, had reformed S.W.O.R.D., which hadn't been heard from since Secret Invasion. Likewise, the X of Swords: Creation one shot ended with Cyclops, Marvel Girl, and Cable arriving at S.W.O.R.D.'s space station headquarters, the Peak, with a data page revealing that Earth had lost contact with it weeks ago. Finally, it was announced that in the aftermath of X of Swords, a new S.W.O.R.D. series would launch in December.
• In the 70s Batman books, Lucius Fox had a delinquent son named Tim. Tim dropped off the face of the Earth after Len Wein left the series, and went decades without making a significant appearance. He finally returned to the DC Universe in late 2020 after The Joker War, with his lack of appearances following the 70s stated to be because he and his father had a falling out that left them estranged.
• In 2020, the current Catwoman series was the return of Snowflame from The New Guardians.
• Issue #16 of Immortal Hulk ends with the surprise return of the original Hulk alter, Joe Fixit.
• Dawn of DC: Quite a few people are making a comeback with this initiative, namely those who were left out of Infinite Frontier or even as far back as Rebirth.
  • Eiko Hasigawa, the third Catwoman, was last seen prominently in a 2015 arc of Catwoman and was briefly touched on alongside bunch of other Gotham gang members in Infinite Frontier. She's going to return in the Catwoman ongoing.
  • Val-Zod, not seen since Earth 2 ended in 2016, makes a return in Adventures of Superman: Jon Kent. This will also include the return of the Injustice: Gods Among Us universe.
  • Kong Kenan, the Super-Man of China, has rarely appeared since 2018, and even his role as the "character whose powers are based in Chinese culture, while being tied to a larger franchise" role was filled by Monkey Prince and his connections to Batman. He's going to be part of the Superman Family proper in this relaunch.
  • The Doom Patrol have been MIA following Doom Patrol (2016) and Doom Patrol: Weight of the Worlds, thanks to the stagnation of the Young Animal imprint, but are slated to make a return with Unstoppable Doom Patrol.
  • Mia Dearden, who last appeared in the Arrow-inspired Kingdom arc of New 52 Green Arrow, as well as her Speedy mantle, which last appeared in the last issue of Pre-Flashpoint Teen Titans, makes a return. Green Arrow (2023) also sees the return of Cissie King-Jones as Arrowette and Eddie Fyers return since 2017.
  • The Flash (Dawn of DC) sees the return of Evan McCulloch, the second Mirror Master, for the first time in 12 years, finally making his post-Flashpoint debut in the main DC Universe after the New 52 and its Cosmic Retcons included sidelining him and resurrecting his predecessor, Sam Scudder.
• Star Trek (IDW): After being presumed deceased in the 2009 film, Gaila (the green-skinned Orion woman) reappears in the "Reunion" arc, and permanently joins the Enterprise crew at its conclusion.

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