The Remnant / Comic Books

• The Avengers:
  • The first Baron Zemo sought to kill Captain America and anyone who stood with him to avenge Germany's loss in World War 2. Unlike fellow Nazi villain the Red Skull, whose genuine loyalty to the "third Reich" varies from writer to writer, Zemo was totally sincere. While Zemo died, he unfortunately managed to imprint some of this insanity onto his son...
  • The Supreme Intelligence of the Kree destroyed his own Empire with a Nega-Bomb, and the Avengers executed him for that. Still, a small group of Krees, called the "Lunar Legion" (because they set their base on the blue area of the moon) blame the Avengers for the destruction of their Empire and their beloved Supreme Intelligence, and try to kill them. Of course, the SI turns out to be less dead than they thought.
  • In U.S.Avengers, Sunspot had bought out AIM to turn them from science terrorists to a scientific force of good. However, to enforce Status Quo Is God, it's noted there are pockets of the old group still around and they can balloon back into the old group.
• In "The War That Never Ended!" in Adventure Comics #255, Green Arrow and Speedy are stranded on a Pacific island that is still inhabited by Japanese soldiers who do not know that WWII is over.
• The "Peekaboo Bandit" from Airboy: Deadeye: a Japanese aviator who kept fighting a one-man war against the Allies in the Pacific after the surrender of Japan until capture by Airboy.
• Asterix:
  • Gaul has surrendered to the Romans, but one Undefeatable Little Village still lives like it's the Iron Age and holds out against the invaders! ...or not, as they never engage in La Résistance-type action, preferring mostly to get on with their own, usually quite petty lives, and beat up any Romans trying to tell them what to do rather than attempting to liberate Gaul. The story clearly establishes that legally, the village is Roman, and the characters even exploit this when being part of the Roman Empire would be helpful to them. They also adopt Roman technology, such as the use of sestertii as currency, wax tablets, Roman numerals and writing, and so on, and everyone's bilingual Gaulish and Latin, though some are better at Latin than others. Caesar even says that the Roman government pays a peace settlement to their chief, as agreed upon in the terms of surrender, and the chief's wife is angry that the Romans haven't made him a senator. And yet, they proudly refuse all Roman identity, did something to the Roman taxman so he would never come back there again, and any Romans approaching the village get beaten to a paste. They have no interest in being seriously liberated and are well aware the war is over, but continue fighting it because it's fun, they hate the Romans on principle, and they just don't care.
  • Obelix All At Sea and The Secret Weapon suggest Asterix's goal is for the Romans to grant them peace with honours, but if they tried to negotiate surrender as it is all the warriors would end up in prison, so fighting until the Romans get the message is the only option. Obelix is horrified by any suggestion of compromise and considers it trampling on the memory of Vercingetorix, with the implication that most of the other villagers agree with this. Of course, this is all Played for Laughs.
  • In Vercingetorix' Daughter the actual remnant shows up: Vercingetorix' most trusted lieutenants, who, on his orders, had left Alesia with his daughter before the surrender, hoping that one day they would launch a rebellion capable of expelling the Romans. They eventually abandon the plan in the face of the sheer impossibility when Vercingetorix' daughter herself just wants to stop the insanity and live like a normal girl.
• Atomic Robo: The Flying She-Devils of the Pacific has CHOKAITEN; a rogue Japanese military unit that has been waiting six years since the end of the war to unleash a devastating super weapon that will sink the North American continent.
• In early 1995, when Bruce Wayne finally returned to Gotham City to officially be Batman again after a two-year absence (it's a long story), the first enemies he found himself and Robin having to combat were the Troika, a faction of three (technically four, but one of them defected to the West) ex-Soviet terrorists unwilling to admit that the Cold War was over.
• Crossed: Various surviving military units appear from time to time. Most are just holed up behind their forts, or on patrol ships, hiding and vainly hoping to ride things out, but the San Diego Naval Base puts a real effort into evacuating survivors from infected zones and getting them onto ships heading for somewhere safer, although they're gone by the first month of the apocalypse.
• Subverted in the Doctor Who Magazine comic strip "Lunar Lagoon". The Doctor arrives on a Pacific island in 1963, and is attacked by a Japanese soldier. The Doctor tries to explain that the war is over ... and then learns he's in a parallel universe where it isn't.
• In Empire, they're the good guys. What's left of them.
• In G.I. Joe (2016), splinters of Cobra that survived their collapse at the end of G.I. Joe vol. 4 pose a constant threat.
• According to Halo: Escalation #5, the Covenant has fractured even more than anyone previously thought.
  Zef 'Trahl: What does it mean to be "Covenant" today? A hundred warlords claim they rule the Covenant, but each of them leads only a small faction
• In G.I. Combat #235's cover story, The Haunted Tank is ambushed by a German tank crew from World War I who cravenly hid out in a forest and seemingly never came out for 30 years. Their weathered faces and tattered uniforms starkly contrast their spotless tank that never saw combat. When they capture a fancy new-model American tank, the TC is sure the Kaiser will pin their medals on himself.
• The Fort Charlotte Brigade from Jonah Hex are confederate veterans who refuse to accept the authority of the North (although they're more deeply defined by the personal axe they have to grind with Jonah).
• Colonel Quantrill in B.A.'s Cattlepunk campaign in Knights of the Dinner Table.
• Colonel Augustus Barton and his renegade Confederate bushwhackers in The Lone Ranger and Zorro: The Death of Zorro from Dynamite.
• In Lands of Arran, the kingdom of Eysine has been invaded by an alliance of rival kingdoms and all that remains of it are a handful of citizens and soldiers led by their aging king.
• The Lucky Luke episode Joss Jamon's Gang has Luke dealing with the eponymous gang which consists of six ex-Confederates turned outlaws after The American Civil War ended.
• In The Order (2007), one of their first battles is against a nuclear-armed team of Russian supervillains who are completely unaware that the Cold War has been over for two decades.
• Scarlet Traces: The "Martians" are on the verge of extinction after the events of The Great Game have rendered all life on Mars eradicated, and all that is left of them are those living on Venus. By 1968, the aliens are starting to die out and they have become desperate to finish off their human enemies by planning to destroy the entire Solar System.
• The Serenity comic book introduces the Dust Devils, extremist former Browncoats continuing to wage a terrorist war against the Alliance, and reveals that technically, Zoe was once one of their number — she participated in a battle where neither the Alliance nor the Independents had been informed that the Alliance had won.
  • From the point of view of the Alliance, Mal Reynolds could be seen as The Remnant, though he mostly resorts to brigandry like his 19th Century counterpart Jesse James.
• Sgt. Rock: In Our Army at War #170, Easy Company is held hostage by a 2nd Lieutenant from WWI who lost all his men trying to take a hill and snapped from the grief. He’s been hiding out in a farm on the French countryside this whole time waiting for “reinforcements” to give it another go, and now that fighting has actually kicked up again in the area ’’and’’ a bunch of G.I.s fell into his lap, he finally has his chance. He’s mortally wounded in the firefight and buried on the hill.
• Parodied in one of the "Tales of Irony" in Snake & Bacon's Cartoon Cavalcade, a Japanese soldier on a Pacific island is discovered to still be fighting World War 2 — by a Confederate soldier that still thinks the Civil War's on!
• Star Wars: Purge: Roblio Darte, a Jedi fugitive asserts that they still serve The Republic and should try to restore it, although the others point out the Republic became the Empire by choice.
• Teen Titans: Most of those recruited by the original Wildebeest leader were former H.I.V.E. agents who believed their main goal was to take vengeance for H.I.V.E.
• Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles: The Last Ronin centers around the titular last ronin, Sole Survivor of the Hamato Clan after his turtle brothers were slain by Oroku Hiroto, so he takes on the Foot Clan by himself to avenge them.
• A recurring trope in Tex Willer, with Tex encountering the survivors of a number of native civilizations.
  • In one particular occasion the US Army called him and Carson in to find if what they suspected was a Confederate remnant was indeed this or just a group of bandits that happened Confederate soldiers and presented itself as this to be helped by the locals, as they operate in Virginia, the Army turning to Tex because moving with enough strength to comb the area they believed the bandits hid into would likely cause rebellions. The "bandits" turned out to be the scouts of a fully equipped regiment of Confederate veterans and new recruits led by Stonewall Jackson (who in this universe survived the war), with their attacks on banks and arsenals being aimed to procure weapons to eventually resume the Civil War - and Tex and Carson have to find a way to stop him without causing a full-scale rebellion.
• The Transformers: More than Meets the Eye: With the disbanding of the Decepticons by their leader, their forces are thoroughly shattered. Several just shrugged and moved on with their lives, while others tried for a resurgence of their once mighty empire. Tarn and the Justice Division seek out what might be the largest remnant, a band of Mercurial Decepticons 500 strong, and ally with them to bring forth a new order of Decepticons with their first act of business to hunt down the very one who disbanded the original regime, Megatron.
• The Transformers: Robots in Disguise presents a more conventional example with Soundwave gathering up many of the A-lister cons, including the remaining members of the Earth Infiltration team, throwing their lot in with Galvatron, and heading to earth to ally with the humans and get in the Autobots' way. They claim to be the Decepticons, following their principles in the absence of their founder, even if their ranks only have a few dozen members.
• Ultimate X Men: Magneto seems to die at the end of the first arc, and in Ultimatum. Still, the Brotherhood remains a threat.
• In the Alan Moore run of Wild CATS Wild Storm, this happened to both sides. The Khreubim/Daemonite war has been over for a long time, with the Daemonites falling to the Kherubim and effectively being subjugated. Unfortunately, neither side bothered to send an envoy to Earth, so the war continued to rage here for centuries
• Pointed out in the first X-Wing Rogue Squadron comic.
  Tycho: Wait, slow down. A week ago, Wedge vaporized the Emperor and half the Imperial High Command — I know that Imperials tried to stab us in the back after The Truce at Bakura, but isn't the war basically over? Why won't the Imperials just surrender?
  Luke: Would you stop fighting if Wedge was killed? Or me? Or Senator Organa? The Battle of Endor will always be a turning point in this war, but there are millions of Imperials scattered across the galaxy, and we can only assume that they will fight to the end. And they probably have orders to do just that.