Canon Character All Along / Comic Books

Warning: All spoilers will be unmarked.

Times where somebody was revealed to be a Canon Character All Along in Comic Books.

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• 2000 AD:
  • The Dead Man featured a burnt amnesiac being left for dead and subsequently heading off to find out who he is. He discovers that he's Judge Dredd who had taken the Long Walk and was attacked by the Sisters Of Death. To keep the secret, Dredd strips were still run concurrently and the Dead Man story was credited to Keef Ripley. Lobster Random and Sinister Dexter homaged this storyline using similar techniques.
  • Done with an entire city in the Azimuth strip. Following the reveal at the end of "A Job for Suzi Nine" that the mysterious threat to Azimuth that Suzi had been investigating was actually Ramone Dexter, the Immediate Sequel "The Stranger" has Dexter identify the transhumanist city as a radically reinvented version of his old stomping grounds of Downlode.
  • And again with the Azimuth one-shot "Snow Zone" in the 2023 Christmas Prog, when Dexter is found by La Résistance, led by a mysterious telepath known only as Andi. The last page is a splash of her in a fantasia of a Judge uniform, explaining "The survivors called me Andi. You can call me Cassandra."
• Arrow's Malcolm Merlyn/the Dark Archer was always established as the Arrowverse counterpart of Arthur King/Merlyn the Archer. However, the comic spin-off The Dark Archer establishes that his real name was actually Arthur King all along. Which is then made weirder when Green Arrow (Rebirth) reintroduces the Dark Archer as Malcolm Merlyn with "Arthur King" merely being an alias.
• Avatar: The Last Airbender - The Search: Zuko and Team Avatar, along with Azula, are searching for their long-lost mother, Ursa. Along the way they meet a woman in Hira'a named Noriko. They later find out from the Mother of Faces that Noriko is actually Ursa, who had her face and identity changed by the Mother of Faces to escape Ozai (unfortunately requiring that she forget her elder children as well). At the end of Part 3, her original face and memories are restored.
• Batman '66: The main series' final story "Main Title" manages to pull this off with the generic criminals that appeared in the original TV show's title sequence. The three crooks Batman and Robin punch at the start of the intro are revealed to be the Terrible Trio, the man with a sheet over his face is The Shiner, the green villain is King Cobra, the red-haired mad scientist with a beard is Professor Achilles Milo (with one panel showing that he's wearing a wig and a fake beard, exposing his traditional black hair), the bald, bespectacled man is identified as the Atom-Master, the mustached man in a brown suit holding a gun is Deadshot and the man in a blue shirt and cap is identified as this continuity's Signalman. Most noteworthy is that while the comic does use characters who didn't exist until after the original television show ended production (such as Bane, Harley Quinn and Killer Croc), all of these villains actually predated the 1966 TV show.
• Batman Creature Of The Night: The titular bat creature that aids Bruce Wainwright in his crusade against crime turns out to be the soul of his deceased brother, Thomas Wainwright. Bruce's parents hid his death from him and didn't get the chance to tell him about Thomas once he was old enough due to their Death by Origin Story. This makes him the counterpart of Thomas Wayne Jr, Bruce Wayne's Exiled from Continuity brother.
• Volume 3 of Batman: Earth One features Bruce Wayne's maternal grandfather Adrian Arkham, having faked his death and allowed an empty coffin to be cremated. He turns out to only be impersonating Bruce's grandpa, with his real identity being Clayface.
• In Batman/Superman: World's Finest, we're introduced to David Sikela, a boy from an alternate Earth who ends up becoming Superman's unknown sidekick Boy Thunder. However, in issue #10, after being kidnapped and tortured by the Joker and the Key, he snaps and vows to kill the Joker if he ever met him again, the final page revealing he'll grow up to be Magog of Kingdom Come.
• In Batman: Urban Legends #5, a Batgirls story features a new "wildcard" character of unclear allegiance, who turns out to be a young African-American woman. At the end of the story, with the Batgirls still unclear on who she is or what her agenda is, the last panel shows her standing in front of a camper van with a potted plant in the window, and "Ryan Was Here" graffitied on the wall behind her, all indicating that she's a Canon Immigrant version of Ryan Wilder.
• A Marvel miniseries called Battle Scars (an epilogue to Fear Itself) introduced a black Marine named Marcus Johnson and his war buddy nicknamed "Cheese". The event eventually revealed that Marcus is the son of Nick Fury and therefore the mainstream continuity's equivalent of the Samuel L. Jackson-style Fury introduced in Ultimate Marvel and popularized by the Marvel Cinematic Universe; and that Cheese is Phil Coulson (also from the MCU).
• This was how readers were introduced to the new, more mutated Beast in his Amazing Adventures debut. After an In Medias Res battle with a spy, Beast goes back to his lab to check if his transformation is irreversible (it is). In a fit of anguish over his new circumstances, he flings back a portrait, telling the people in it to "stop looking at (him) like that"... and a few panels later, we see who is in the portrait: Professor Xavier and his X-Men, confirming that this Beast is the same one who appeared in those books. Of course, nowadays, Beast being furry and monsterlike is such an integral part of his character that this almost counts as It Was His Sled.
• In alternate universe tale Captain Carter, it swiftly becomes clear that the British government is corrupt. It's not until much later in the story that the real identity of Prime Minister Harry Williams is uncovered - he's actually the vampire John Falsworth, better known in the main Marvel Universe as villain Baron Blood.
• Catwoman:
  • In the 2018 series, Selina encounters and befriends a group of homeless teen runaways who live in her old neighborhood of Alleytown. One of the kids is an Asian pickpocket known only as Shoes, who initially seems to be a new character like the others. However, the DC Festival of Heroes one-shot reveals she's an amnesiac Lian Harper, the daughter of Roy Harper and Cheshire, who was previously thought to have been RetGoned out of existence by the New 52 reboot.
  • Later, during Tini Howard's run, Selina meets and befriends a female inmate named Marquise while in prison. It's eventually revealed that "Marquise" is actually Scandal Savage, the former leader of the Secret Six and daughter of Vandal Savage.
• Cobra Commander: A nameless man serves as Cobra Commander's bodyguard and Handler during his mission for Cobra-La. Issue #3 reveals that he's this continuity's incarnation of the Nemesis Enforcer from G.I. Joe: The Movie.
• One of the central antagonists of the Convergence event (a story done during the twilight of the New 52 and prior to the Rebirth era of DC that involved revisiting every defunct era of DC Comics) is a being called Telos, who is later revealed to be a mortal man transformed into his current state by Brainiac. Telos' self-titled spinoff miniseries would subsequently reveal that his true self is Arak: Son of Thunder.
• Exiles (2018) introduced among new characters Becky Barnes, a gay female version of Bucky Barnes from a reality where Peggy Carter is Captain America. Future Foundation would later reveal that Becky is actually one of the reincarnations of Rikki Barnes, a preexisting heroine from a different world who has been dying and being reborn as vaguely similar characters across the multiverse.
• G.I. Joe (Devil's Due) did this with the nameless S.A.W. Viper who killed Quick Kick, Doc, Heavy Metal, Thunder and Crankcase back in the original Marvel comic when he returned and was revealed to have survived Snake Eyes and Storm Shadow's attempt at killing him. The S.A.W. Viper's actual name is given as Robert Skelton, but he ends up taking on the codename Overkill, a name belonging to a Cobra cyborg whose only prior appearances in any G.I. Joe fiction were in the DiC continuation of G.I. Joe: A Real American Hero. To seal the deal, the Overkill of the Devil's Due continuity is eventually made into a cyborg himself.
• Near the end of G.I. Joe (2019), Dr. Mindbender is shown to have a female assistant who questions his decisions. As the story goes on, it is revealed that she is affiliated with G.I. Joe and is infiltrating Cobra as The Mole, in addition to being in a relationship with Frontier (this continuity's interpretation of Flint). To remove any remaining doubts of her true identity, the last panel of the issue has Frontier identity her as Lady Jaye.
• Gotham Academy Annual does this twice. The series likes to make teachers share similar names and be lookalikes to DCAU versions of Batman villains, without ever confirming outright if they're those villains or not. One of the main cast members ropes a young redheaded boy named Warren into being his errand boy. In the Annual mysterious new teacher Derek Powers turns out to actually be Derek "Blight" Powers from Batman Beyond who traveled back in time to kill Warren, last name McGinnis - he's going to grow up to become the father of future Batman, Terry McGinnis.
• Hasbro Comic Universe:
  • The Transformers: Sins of the Wreckers:
    • The story is all about the titular team trying to track down Prowl, who has been kidnapped by an old colleague of questionable stability named Mesothulas. When he and Prowl actually talk face to face for the first time, Mesothulas is revealed to be the IDW incarnation of Tarantulas.
    • This trope comes into play again with Ostaros, a mute bot with an indestructible spark that Mesothulas created. The final issue reveals that Prowl spared Ostaros and gave him a new life as Springer, something Springer himself was unaware of.
  • Multiple instances of this trope occur in The Transformers: More than Meets the Eye:
    • After getting captured by Chief Justice Tyrest, some of the crew share a prison cell with a new character named Minimus Ambus, who shows some familiar quirks. Rung eventually figures out that he is none other than Ultra Magnus, who was secretly a much smaller bot in Powered Armor (as well as a Legacy Character) all this time. Ratchet had figured this out, but no one else knew.
    • Another seemingly new character is the Senator who was a friend of a young Optimus Prime and helped him along in his career. His identity is deliberately obscured, with his name never being uttered on page, and frequently changing his color scheme out of vanity (although at one point, his color scheme bears a strong resemblance to Ultra Magnus (this appearance came before the above mentioned Minimus Ambus reveal)). The final twist of his storyline reveals that after being brainwashed and deformed, he became the famously emotionless Decepticon scientist Shockwave.
    • Subverted with Tarn, who was foreshadowed as secretly being Optimus' old friend Roller, who went missing many years ago...only to have Roller turn up intact just before The Reveal that Tarn was actually a minor character introduced in this series named Glitch.
    • Subverted again with The Grand Architect. After being set up as a shadowy figure, he seems to finally be revealed as Scorponok!...Only to have it turn out later that Scorponok and the Architect are not the same being, and Scorponok merely works for him. The actual identity of the Grand Architect is eventually revealed to be Adaptus (an original comic character) possessing the body of Pharma (another comic original).
    • The character Rung appeared to be an original character made for the comic. However throughout the book we've gotten hints that there's far more than meets the eye (hah) with him, and near the end of the series it's revealed that he's actually the IDW incarnation of Primus!
  • Issue #0 of Revolution (2016) features Joe Colton and Scarlett talking to one of the former's old friends, who throughout the issue is kept in the shadows and referred to only by his surname, Manheim. The end of the issue reveals him to be none other than Miles Mayhem, the main antagonist of M.A.S.K.. He is later established to have also been the "Sea Adventurer" from the original G.I.Joe toyline.
  • The Transformers: Robots in Disguise:
    • A member of the Earth Defense Command named Ayana Jones is revealed during the events of the Revolution (2016) crossover to be a G.I. Joe operative codenamed Mayday.
    • Arguably the biggest one of the entire IDW continuity occurs during "The Falling" arc of Optimus Prime, in which Greater-Scope Villain Onyx Prime was revealed to be a Not Quite Dead Shockwave, who had been sent back in time following the events of Dark Cybertron and had taken The Slow Path while manipulating the course of Cybertronian history as part of an ontological time paradox.
• The Swordsman seen in Heroes Reborn had nothing to do with Jacques Duquesne or Philip Javert. When the world was revisited in the Heroes Reborn: Remnants one-shot, it was revealed he was his Earth's version of Deadpool.
• Knights of the Old Republic has "Squint", a scruffy-haired Jedi Knight who is part of a militant sect known as the Revanchists. As the series goes on, Squint ends up losing his hair, tattooing his scalp, and adopting the alias Malak. By that point, it is clear to the reader that Squint will eventually become Darth Malak, the Big Bad of the original Knights of the Old Republic game. Likewise, the Revanchists' eponymous leader is eventually revealed to be Revan from the same game.
• Legion of Super-Heroes has a history of red herrings on this.
  • When the mysterious "Reflecto" appeared and focused mainly on protecting Phantom Girl, the covers hinted that he was really her long-missing lover Ultra-Boy. But once unmasked, it was Superboy... albeit, a Superboy possessed by Ultra-Boy's mind. It was complicated.
  • New member Sensor Girl wears a mask, and revealed her identity only to Saturn Girl. ^note Might as well, since the latter is a telepath. Various clues lead Brainic 5 to conclude that Sensor Girl was in fact Supergirl, returned from the dead. But once unmasked, it was Projectra, returned to our dimension.
• The main character of Dynamite Comics' Massive Multiplayer Crossover Legenderry is Magda, sister to Red Sonja, who is being pursued by the villains for unknown reasons as she searches for her sister. It turns out she's Sonja herself, who was given False Memories by the villains a year earlier to make her more tractable.
• Marvel Adventures Spider-Man #57 opens with Spidey being attacked by a mysterious new villainess called the Silencer. Halfway through the issue, it's discovered that the Silencer is actually Emma Frost, who joined the book's supporting cast several issues prior.
• Marvels X stars a new character named David Jarrett, a young boy who has seemingly failed to develop superpowers despite being exposed to the Terrigen Mist. In the final issue, David is killed in battle while helping Captain America, and his body is buried. However, Nighthawk then digs up the coffin to reveal that David is alive and well, explaining that the Terrigen gas actually gave him Resurrective Immortality in the form of a powerful Healing Factor. The final pages then jump forward into the future, revealing that David eventually grows up to become the mysterious new Daredevil (whose identity was never revealed) from the original Earth X.
• The recurring villain Xander Payne from Mega Man (Archie Comics) eventually takes the identity of Mr. X, the Disc-One Final Boss of Mega Man 6.
• Mega Man: Fully Charged
  • The comic book adaptation reveals that the real Dr. Wily from the video games exists in the series, and is the grandfather of Aki's classmate Bert Wily. Moreover, he's also been Dr. Light's rival since their falling out as colleagues.
  • From the same comic, halfway through the series, Suna takes up the conflict under a new alias to help Mega Man: Zero.
• Alan Moore's Miracleman Retconned the original 50s adventures as dreams induced via Lotus-Eater Machine. However one part of those stories is true. The main bad guy of the original comics, and the man behind the curtain of the Miracleman project is Dr. Emil Gargunza.
• In the New 52 version of Secret Six, only Catman and Black Alice return from the previous continuity. Strix and the new Ventriloquist come from Batgirl (2011) and Porcelain and Big Shot appear to be entirely original. Over the first few issues it's established that Big Shot is a Private Investigator, has the ability to expand in size and a rubbery face, is obsessed with his late wife, and has a sensitive nose. Oh, and Mockingbird calls him "Mr Dibney". It is later revealed that he is, indeed, the world-famous Elongated Man.
• Grant Morrison's New X-Men run featured a bunch of new characters, with the most prominent being the Chinese Buddhist Xorn. Then in the twist near the end, it turns out that Xorn was Magneto in disguise the whole time. Since this version of Magneto was a genocidal junkie (and by the end of the run, was thoroughly dead), the controversy was enough that Marvel's editors decided to retcon Xorn into not being the true Magneto the instant Grant Morrison left. Professor X went to Genosha to bury Magneto and found...Magneto. Excalibur Genosha begins, the Ho Yay between the two as they lead the new team in saving what's left of Genosha skyrockets, and in that title, Xorn is never brought up again. However, in the other books, who Xorn really was rapidly became a Continuity Snarl, most infamously being twin brothers with similar names (Shen Xorn and Kuan-Yin Xorn).
• In The New Champion of Shazam!, the science teacher at Fawcett Community College is a woman known as "Professor G". Shortly after being revealed as the villain of the peice, she's also revealed to be Georgia Sivana.
• Powerless takes place in an alternate, more realistic version of the Marvel Universe, and stars non-powered versions of Peter Parker, Logan and Matt Murdock. The central viewpoint character, however, is a psychiatrist named William Watts, who somehow remembers the mainline Marvel Universe where those three characters are costumed superheroes. How he knows this isn't explained until the very end of the series, where, after an Important Shave, William looks into his bathroom mirror and sees Uatu the Watcher staring back at him.
• The Punisher MAX:
  • In the one-shot comic The Cell, Frank menaces imprisoned members of the Drago mafia family for an unknown reason. At the end, it's revealed that the Drago is an Adaptation Name Change for the Costa family: i.e., the mafia family that killed Frank's family.
  • The Heavy from "Girls in White Dresses" turned out to be the series' version of Punisher's archenemy Jigsaw.
• Robin: Tim ends up tracking down an apparent new female vigilante wearing purple and thinks he sees Spoiler, only to discover he's tracking a new player who goes by Violet, only then to discover someone wearing the Spoiler costume is also tracking Violet. He's furious at the stranger behind the mask for dressing up as his beloved deceased girlfriend, disrespecting her memory and messing with him but then learns it actually is Stephanie, whose death was retconned to have been faked in this storyline.
• The Superior Foes of Spider-Man: Boomerang gets a girlfriend, who remains a nameless side character until the final issue reveals that we've seen her before. She's Felicia Hardy, the Black Cat, and she hooked up with Boomerang to steal the Macguffin he was after.
• Superman:
  • Superman Aliens plays with this. Superman is stranded in a city adrift in space called Argo City and meets a young blonde-haired teenage girl named Kara, trying to survive the alien infestation. All of this points to the idea that this is the comic's version of Supergirl... but it turns out that Argo City was actually not from Krypton at all, just that its inhabitants adopted their culture and language, influenced by preexisting character Cleric. Writer Dan Jurgens did want to find a way to bring her into main continuity and even make her Supergirl, but as the Matrix Supergirl had already been introduced previously, she was seen as redundant.
  • In Action Comics (New 52), Clark's landlady is an elderly woman named Mrs Nyxly, who says her husband was a stage magician before a rival put him in a coma. She also mentions that his trademark was a purple derby hat. Yes, she's actually the New 52 version of Mr Mxyzpltk's girlfriend Miss Gsptlnz, now given the full name Nyxlygsptlnz.
  • The New 52 era featured a seemingly new character named Mr. Oz in the storyline "The Men of Tomorrow", but the Rebirth storyline The Oz Effect would ultimately reveal that his true identity is Superman's biological father Jor-El, who had been plucked from the moment of Krypton's destruction by Dr. Manhattan and ended up stranded on Earth, subsequently developing a desire to convince his son to give up on humanity after witnessing firsthand how awful humans could be.
• In Donny Cates's Thanos run, we're introduced to Cosmic Ghost Rider, a wacky cosmic variant of Ghost Rider. His personality and design doesn't match up with any of the previous Ghost Riders, so he seems to be a new character. Thanos eventually asks if they know each other, since the Rider seems oddly familiar. Realizing he forgot to introduce himself, the Rider sticks out his hand and says his name: Frank Castle.
• Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles (IDW):
  • Arnold Jones at first appeared to simply be Casey's deadbeat alcoholic dad, up until one of his bar buddies addresses him by his old gang nickname, Hun, revealing him to be the series' take on the Purple Dragons' leader. Doubles as a Composite Character, as in the 2003 series, Arnold is killed by Hun after standing up to him and his gang.
  • Bonnie is initially a tourist from Florida, who gets mutated alongside her friends into this series' incarnation of the Punk Frogs during the mutagen bomb incident. However, she is later captured by Dr. Barlow, who proceeds to further alter her into a turtle, and develops psionic powers from having been exposed to the Dragon's Scales. Dr. Barlow rebaptizes her as Venus, a character that previously only showed up in Ninja Turtles: The Next Mutation.
• The Transformers (Marvel): The Secrets and Lies miniseries (published by IDW Publishing, but taking place in the same continuity as the Marvel Comics series) has a weird variation: established, but absent from the original run characters Fastlane and Cloudraker crash on Earth in England, getting involved in a viking raid and heavily damaged to the point of unrecognisability, becoming the Man of Iron from his eponymous story and the identical looking navigator from the same.
• Ultimate Marvel:
  • The Ultimates
    • One issue has Nick Fury going undercover to infiltrate HYDRA, where he befriends a deeply conflicted young henchwoman called "Nails." In the following issue, he's able to convince Nails to defect from HYDRA and join the Howling Commandos, and asks her what her real name is. She turns out to be the Ultimate version of Abigail Brand, a character from the X-Men comic books.
    • A throwaway line from Kleiser in the first arc confirms that the shapeshifting Chitauri are in fact the Ultimate versions of the Skrulls, the word being one of the many names the race had been given over their centuries of interdimensional conquest. Note that the Skrulls were adapted later on in Ultimate Fantastic Four.
  • When Thor was first created by Stan Lee and Jack Kirby, he had two identities: he was the human doctor Donald Blake, and could turn into Thor By the Power of Grayskull!. When remade for The Ultimates, Thor is just Thor. Blake appears, as an unrelated person, in Ultimate Comics Thor. As seen later, Donald Blake is still the human identity of a god, but in this case it's Balder the Brave.
  • All-New Ultimates: The comic features a gang war, opposed by the Ultimates in the superhero way, and a police unit the standard way. This police unit would eventually become Terror Inc. (an obscure 1988 comic book).
• X-Men: The Krakoan Age:
  • Way of X features someone the children of Krakoa call the Patchwork Man, who runs around the island toying with the minds of the mutants living on it. After Legion is brought in and gets a crack at him, it's revealed the Patchwork Man is in fact the universally-feared longtime X-men foe Onslaught.
  • Orchis Captain Erasmus Mendel initially seemed to be a new character who died in the X-Men's attempt to destroy Master Mold. A botched attempt to resurrect Mendel is later revealed to be the creation of the Earth-616 version of the Days of Future Past's Nimrod.
  • Orchis scientist Dr. Statis, arms dealer Orbis Stellaris, and magic user Mother Righteous all started off seemingly unconnected, but later on, it's later revealed that they're all tied to Mr. Sinister: Statis and Orbus, like Sinister, being clones of Nathaniel Essex and Righteous being a clone of Nathaniel's wife, Rebecca.
• Wonder Woman '77 Meets The Bionic Woman reveals that Carolyn Hamilton, who appeared in the Wonder Woman (1975) episode "Knockout", has gone on to become the TV-verse counterpart of Nubia. In addition, the one-shot series villain Gloria Vasquez from the television series' movie-length season two premiere "The Return of Wonder Woman" has become Dr Cyber.
• Wonder Woman: Earth One does this twice with major villains. US military psychologist Leon Zeiko turns out to be the Earth One version of Dr. Psycho (which in-universe is his handle as a misogynist Youtuber), and in the third volume the Earth One version of Max Lord turns out to be also the Earth One human identity of Ares.

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