Comic Book Limbo

The worlds created by large comic book companies are a curious thing. Since there's many different titles being published simultaneously, an odd effect can occur; when a character is set aside, they can seem to vanish from the universe; not being mentioned, spoken of, or appearing in any situation one would expect them in.

This usually occurs to characters who have had their titles canceled and found no appropriate series to migrate to. Many characters, especially supporting characters or those without powers, are permanently stuck in comic book limbo.

Sometimes this is a direct choice on the part of the editorial staff. For instance, in the '90s, Hawkman and his family were purposefully put into Comic Book Limbo because the editors decided that he'd only shown up a few years ago—after other writers had put him into the founding of the Justice League of America. So an alien spy had been masquerading as him in the interim, except when he hadn't, except that he still knew the characters that knew the alien spy him, and then they didn't know if the reincarnated magical pharaoh Hawkman was related to him or not, and then they merged into the even more confusing Hawk-God, and... at this point, limbo becomes a mercy.

Characters can be brought back from limbo at the writer's discretion, unlike a Comic Book Death, where they at least have to give the semblance of having an explanation of why they're back. The likelihood of such a thing happening usually depends entirely on how much the writer likes said character.

C-List characters are often brought back from limbo just to be killed off as part of a Tonight Someone Dies event. For instance, this happened to several third-string Teen Titans members during Infinite Crisis.

Series with a lot of Meta Fiction often parody this concept by having characters that were banished to a literal limbo, usually just because people forgot about them.

Compare Chuck Cunningham Syndrome.

Examples of Comic Book Limbo include:

Comic Books

During Grant Morrison's highly metafictional run on Animal Man, the eponymous character actually visits Comic Book Limbo.
- Comic Book Limbo was later revisited in the Morrison-penned Final Crisis tie-in Superman Beyond. By Superman. This results in the invasion of Comic Book Limbo and the King of Limbo (Merryman, one of the Inferior Five) yelling "LIMBO SAYS NO!"
Another literal comic book limbo appeared in the final issue of Marvel Comics Silver Sable title. The writers used the Li'l Sylvie comedy back-up strip to comment on the cancellation of the book by having Sylvie (a chibi version of Silver Sable) banished to a limbo inhabited by chibi versions of female Marvel characters who had once headlined their own books.
Deadpool - After his series was almost cancelled, he had a dream in which he sits in camp with heroes of many closed titles.
Irredeemable Ant Man - Last issue's cover shows the titular character fighting many forgotten heroes and screaming he will never share their fate.
Magog has entered this since leaving the JSA and his own series turned out poorly.
The Doctor Thirteen: Architecture and Morality backup had the DCU's premier skeptic exploring Comic Book Limbo and coming into conflict with the shapers of the universe (who bear a strange similarity to the authors working on 52).
In Green Arrow: Quiver, we see a VERY dark take on the Silver Age kid's characters Stanley and his Monster.
Captain Carrot and His Amazing Zoo Crew after the Oz/Wonderland miniseries generally only ever appeared as background gags or in Take Thats to their comparatively Lighter and Softer tone.
Darkhawk was in limbo for a few, recently returning in a few crossovers.
Of all characters, the X-Men were technically placed in limbo for about half a year in the 70's. Their series was put on hiatus and only reprints were being published with Marvel contemplating cancelling it all together. Luckily, Chris Claremont and Dave Cockrum restarted the book with an all new team featuring a certain short guy with claws and the rest was history.
Occasionally occurs in The Beano and The Dandy with past characters disappearing from the two Anthology Comics for years before returning. One character, Lord Snooty, disappeared for almost 20 years - then his grandson, Lord Snooty the Third, appeared, heavily implying that the original Snooty was dead (he'd need to be for the younger Snooty to inherit the Lordship), an unusually dark scenario for the Beano. Occasionally characters brought back are heavily redesigned or openly mocked for appearing odd to a modern audience (see Keyhole Kate and Pansy Potter's treatment in one of Kev F Sutherland's strips [1]).

Web Comics

Deep Fried briefly recruited Lyman, mainly known in his home-comic for being absent since the early days of the run, as a replacement for one of the main characters.
Mayberry Melonpool visited an endless void inhabited by Calvin, Opus, and other characters from completed newspaper comics.
In a dimension-hopping storyline in Real Life Comics, Greg and Tony end up in a blank room where forgotten characters sit around all day playing poker, including Greg's ex-girlfriend Lizzie (who asks if the author got tired of them too).

Web Original

This occurred a lot in the Global Guardians campaigns. When players left the game, or when individual campaigns shut down, their casts usually faded into the background, never to be seen again. Occasionally one would move from one campaign to another, but it was rare.

Video Games

Disney Epic Mickey takes place in Waste land, which is basically Walt Disney Cartoon Limbo.