The Ghost / Comic Books

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• Amalgam Universe: There are several characters who don't appear physically and are only acknowledged through mentions in other characters' dialogue or in the letters pages, such as Infant Mite Terrible (presumably a fusion of DC's Bat-Mite and Marvel's Infant Terrible), the Impossible Mod (who is likely a mash-up of DC's Mad Mod and Marvel's Impossible Man) and Howard the Mxyzptlk (who is almost certainly a combination of Marvel's Howard the Duck and DC's Mr. Mxyzptlk).
• Astro City: The occult serial killer in "Confession" is never seen or even named. Except for a brief glimpse at the end, as a gigantic Eldritch Abomination.
• Boneville from Bone is a whole ghost town. Despite all the references the Bone cousins make to it, creator Jeff Smith has never actually depicted it, saying because Boneville isn't the focus of the story. Whatever Boneville looks like is up to the reader's imagination. Averted in the Spin-off novels "Quest for the Spark" which was written by Tom Sniegoski (Jeff Smith still illustrated it) starts off at the Boneville adventurer's guild. Yet true to the original story, it still doesn't describe anything of what Boneville actually looks like.
• The Cartoon History of the Universe portrays Mohammed this way, out of respect for mainstream Islam's prohibition on visual representations of historic Muslim figures.
• Doom Patrol:
  • Polly Polly Tinker Boy is the only one of Dorothy Spinner's imaginary friends to never physically appear, his existence only confirmed by Dorothy mentioning him in volume two, issue 80.
  • Dorothy's parents remained off-screen when she made her debut in Paul Kupperberg's run and continued to be unseen when Dorothy discussed her childhood in Grant Morrison and Rachel Pollack's subsequent runs. While Margaret Spinner would eventually make a physical appearance in John Arcudi's run (which retroactively established that the Spinners were Dorothy's adoptive parents), Dorothy's father remains unseen and unnamed and is revealed to have died a short time before Dorothy Spinner and Kate Godwin were removed from the story in compliance with the Doom Patrol's tradition of discarding members the writer behind the current roster didn't want to use.
• Empowered's mother. (They sometimes talk on the telephone, but we never hear what she says.)
• Traditionally, this is true for the original members of the Yancy Street Gang, the ones that Ben Grimm knew when he was a member; they are never fully seen in the comics, only heard from the shadows, from the windows of buildings, or shown with hardhats or other headwear covering their faces. However, the younger "new generation" of the Gang was seen in full.
• Gaston Lagaffe: The titular character's aunt Hortense.
• The Joker was given this treatment in the New 52. After the events of Batman: Detective Comics #1, he apparently "retired", and the only thing left of him is his face after he had another psychotic criminal surgically remove it for some reason. He still manages to cause trouble for Gotham — in the wake of his disappearance, he gets a bunch of fanboys who dress up like him to form angry mobs that accuse Batman of murdering the Joker. His face (which is currently being held by Gotham police) is also being treated as an object of worship by the Joker's crazier fans. The few times Joker appeared, it was either in a flashback or an impostor. He finally returns in Batman #13, where he retrieves his face. This leads to an event called Death of the Family, in which he goes after every member of the Bat-Family.
• The Legend of Wonder Woman (2016): The Candy family has a huge impact on the story as their actions spur Etta into action and eventually give her a convenient excuse to escape to an active war zone, but they're never seen, only her little brother Mint is ever named, and none of them are ever even in the same state as our characters during the comic.
• Mister Miracle (2017): Darkseid played as this. The overarching God of Evil of the New Gods mythos, his presence looms over the story, with frames being repeatedly intruded with nothing but dark proclamations that Darkseid is. Despite this, Darkseid is almost never seen, only mentioned or represented through his emissaries that act on his behalf. The only times he appears are at the end of issue #6 after having murdered Orion (though the highly distorted framing of his depiction makes it ambiguous if he's actually physically there), and in issue #11, which takes place entirely in his throne room.
• Lawrence and Mobile of Scott Pilgrim, both of whom the story teases by mentioning why they are just barely offscreen as a Running Gag. Until they both appear near the end of volume five. When they do, Scott initially confuses them for Gideon, as they all have dark hair and glasses.
• Father Time, a character from The Smurfs (1981) cartoon show, is this type of character in The Smurfs comic book adaptation of "The Smurflings". His workshop does appear in the comic book universe, but although mentioned, he himself does not appear in the story.
• Spider-Man: Before her first appearance in Amazing Spider-Man #42'', Mary Jane Watson was sort of a Running Gag by the writers, someone who Aunt May and Mary Jane's own aunt were trying to have Peter meet, but never succeeding. The first time she appeared, her face was hidden. When she and Peter finally met, it came as quite a shock to Peter.
• Star Trek: Early Voyages: The Tholians are never shown even though they are mentioned as being a major enemy of the Federation throughout the series. When they launch an attack on the Federation in the two-part story "The Fallen", their Chakuun shock troops do all the fighting.
• The "Enemy" in Sturmtruppen is never ever shown, except for one single strip (which is still pitch black).
• Superman:
  • In The Jungle Line, Superman talks the names of Kara and Lois as ovewhelmed by feverish hallucinations, but otherwise they are not seen.
  • In Masters of the Universe crossover "From Eternia— With Death!", Prince Adam's parents never physically appear, although several people guess the king considers his son to be a disappointment, and Adam mentions he has heard of Superman and his homeworld because his queenly mother is a lost traveler from Earth.
  • In Supergirl (1984), Kara's cousin is often mentioned, and even shown in one poster, but he never makes a flesh-and-blood appearance.
  • Legion of Super-Heroes/Bugs Bunny Special: The Legionnaires talk at length about their friend and comrade Superboy, who inspired all of them and will assuredly help them save Supergirl because he is so brave, noble and heroic...and still he only shows up in one panel as Clark Kent, never getting involved in the proper story.
• The Transformers: Robots in Disguise: The Thirteenth Prime's identity and existence are shrouded in mystery. Mistress of Flame believes that Optimus is the Thirteenth which matches the characters identity in Transformers Aligned Universe, but the book never confirms or denies this.
• Transformers vs. G.I. Joe at one point mentions a Decepticon chef named Confektor, but he never physically appears.
• Transmetropolitan: Spider's book editor is never shown, never described, never gendered and only referred to as "The Whorehopper".
• The Director General in Union Jack is never seen, even though she's being scapegoated for British government's lackluster response to the R.A.I.D. attack.

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