Eyepatch After Time Skip



"Kevyn: The bolted patch looks very roguish.

Ennesby: I don't want 'roguish,' I want 'depth perception.'"

- Schlock Mercenary

A quick way to indicate that events during a Time Skip (or in the future) were not all hugs-n-puppies is to have one of your heroes return wearing an eyepatch.

The reasons a missing eye is used so consistently for this purpose (instead of, for example a missing limb or massive scarring), are:
 * It doesn't reduce the character's capabilities. (In real life, the lack of depth perception and vision on that side can be very troublesome, but in fiction this only comes up if the writer wants it to.)
 * In a live-action production, removing an actor's arm (et cetera) is hard to fake with special effects, and scars require makeup. A patch is easy.
 * Scars elsewhere on the body are less obvious, and may be covered by clothing, but a character's eyes are usually front-'n'-center.

To qualify for this trope, the eyepatch has to be unexplained when the reader/viewer first encounters it. Any explanation must come later. This is usually a sign that they Took a Level In Badass.

See also: Eyepatch of Power. Possibly caused by an Eye Scream.

Anime and Manga

 * In the epilogue of Hellsing, Integra is wearing an eyepatch over the eye she injured while fighting the Major.
 * Although less time than usual for this trope passes, if previews are to be believed will have this for Evangelion 3.0.
 * Subverted in One Piece. After the timeskip, Zoro is in fact missing an eye, but so far hasn't been seen to use an eyepatch. How he lost his eye has yet to be explained.

Comic Books

 * Nick Fury gained his Eyepatch of Power during the two-decade time skip that turned him from a Howling Commando into an Agent of SHIELD.
 * After the "Five Year Gap" in The Legion of Super Heroes comic, Shrinking Violet returns with a missing eye and a nasty scar. (But no patch, alas.)
 * Jesse Custer of Preacher (Comic Book) falls out of an airplane and is presumed dead, but mysteriously returns wearing a patch.
 * The Crisis Crossover Infinite Crisis was followed by a Time Skip called One Year Later. Afterwards, Alan Scott, the original Green Lantern, was sporting an eyepatch (under his domino mask, for some reason). The series Fifty Two, which occured during the missing year and filled in a lot of the gaps, explained that Alan lost his eye (And the eye he has left is not even his own) in the massive teleportation disaster that swept up many of Earths heroes at the climax of the Crisis. Creator commentary in Fifty Two reveals that they also felt that the idea of wearing an eyepatch and a mask was ridiculous.
 * In the comics continuation of Gargoyles, Brooklyn comes back from his 40 year time dance with a wife, egg, kid, beast and an eyepatch. No official story on how that happened.

Live Action TV

 * In the original 1992-3 airings of The Young Indiana Jones Chronicles, there were opening and closing bookends set in the present day (that is, the 1990s). These featured a wizened 93-year-old Indiana Jones (played by George Hall), who sported a patch over his right eye, and a pair of glasses over the eyepatch. He also had a long vertical facial scar trailing out from under the patch. No explanation was ever offered for how Indy had lost an eye. The "time skip" element comes into play because Harrison Ford's Indy of course still has both eyes in the film series, set in the 1930s. These contemporary bookends were later all cut out when George Lucas re-edited the show into The Adventures of Young Indiana Jones in the later part of the decade.
 * In the Battlestar Galactica reimagining, Saul Tigh loses his right eye to the Cylons some time during their 4 month occupation of New Caprica.
 * In Babylon 5, Sheridan's brief visit to the future in season 3 gives the viewer a glimpse of G'kar, who has for some reason lost his right eye. After Sheridan returns to the present, later seasons show how it happens.
 * They do not, however, show how he lost the perfectly good prosthetic that Dr. Franklin outfitted him with.
 * The future Beka from "older Trance's" timeline in Andromeda had one, along with some cybernetics and red hair.
 * In Doctor Who,  and her army appear with them after time goes wonky.

Music

 * Over the chronological time skip between My Chemical Romance's music video for "Na Na Na" and their music video for "SING", the character Jet Star gained an eyespatch.

Video Games

 * The Papa Wolf version of Nier in the Nie R Gestalt version gains one after the five-year time skip between the first and second acts.

Webcomics

 * After an unexpected three months go by in Order of the Stick, we return to find out the bard Elan is wearing a patch.
 * During a particularly convoluted bit of flashbacking-and-flashforwarding in Schlock Mercenary, we meet up with part of the crew after a gap of weeks, to find trusty floating robot Ennesby wearing a patch bolted over one optical sensor.
 * In the Futures Trading arc of The Adventures of Dr. McNinja, Dark Smoke Puncher has a huge scar and a glass eye after Doc jumps forward in time.
 * Marsha of College Roomies From Hell got an eyepatch and went crazy after a time skip caused by holes in Dave's memory.
 * In SSDD the future version of Norman has a prosthetic eye and is missing his signiature buck teeth. Historical footage of the early days of his revolution show him with an eyepatch.
 * Used as a Running Gag in Joe Loves Crappy Movies, whenever a future version of Joe appears. Joe also did a series of bonus sketches showing possible ways he lost the eye (the most popular one being him having donated it to his wife).

Western Animation

 * Moe Szyslak has an eyepatch in The Simpsons episode "Lisa's Wedding" when Lisa gets her future foretold.
 * In all futures that have been imagined for the various Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles incarnations, there is one constant: Raphael always has an eye patch. Always. Scarring is optional. This extends to fan incarnations as well.
 * Even My Little Pony Friendship Is Magic utilizes this trope in the episode "It's About Time". Twilight Sparkle encounters a future version of herself sporting a skintight suit, a bandanna, an eyepatch, and a scar on her cheek.