Unexpected Character

In Long Runners, certain characters are guaranteed to show up in its sequels or adaptations, those characters whom the franchise simply wouldn't work without.

Every now and then however, the Unexpected Character pops up. Maybe they're an obscure Ensemble Darkhorse, a victim of Chuck Cunningham Syndrome, or someone from the Early Installment Weirdness days. Whatever the case, it's clear that most of the audience weren't expecting to see this one turn up and the fans who knew of them had all but forgotten that they existed.

Can often be a controversial trope as for every fan who loves this obscure character, there are those critics who see it as a plug for some other franchise.

Examples of Unexpected Character include:

Comics

• Titan's line of Doctor Who comics has this down:
  • Issue 1 of The Third Doctor ends with the Second Doctor showing up! And it's not the Second Doctor. It's his Identical Stranger one-off foe, Ramón Salamander making the whole series a Sequel Episode to "The Enemy of the World", something no one saw coming.
  • The Lost Dimension brought back Jenny, the Doctor's Daughter who'd received only one, non-speaking, cameo since her introduction. It proved the catalyst for more Jenny-focused spin-off media.
• The 2016 G.I. Joe comic had Skywarp has a Joe.
• The 2019 reboot of Transformers seems to delight from pulling C and D list characters from the most obscure corners of the franchise.

Film

• The Marvel Cinematic Universe:
  • Absolutely no one expected the Guardians of the Galaxy to get a film. Iron Man, Thor, and Hulk had at least been B-listers when their films were made but the Guardians were low D-list.
    • In the film, Howard the Duck making a cameo was pretty unexpected given his disastrous film.
  • Ant-Man was in a similar situation, being largely regarded him as a Memetic Loser by most comic fans, those who knew of him at least, at the time. And even then, people were very surprised that the film went with Scott Lang in the suit instead of Hank Pym.
  • Avengers: Infinity War:
    • Given the Black Order's relatively recent introduction when the film was released, and the fact that they were all dead in the comics, very few expected to see them.
    • Of all the films that Red Skull could have made his return in, no one thought it would be this one.
• Nearly the entire Star Wars fanbase called that Palpatine would play some kind of role in The Rise of Skywalker. Very few actually called that he was Back From the Dead.
• When the cast list for Transformers: The Last Knight was released, everyone expected Stanley Tucci to reprise his role from Transformers: Age of Extinction as Joshua Joyce. It wasn't until the day of the film's release that it was revealed he was portraying a totally unrelated character: Merlin. Yes, that Merlin.
• Bill Murray in Zombieland. The press kept his cameo totally underwraps.

Live-Action TV

• Doctor Who:
  • After Steven Moffat had made very clear that Clara Oswald wasn't to debut until Christmas of 2012, Jenna Coleman shocked the world by appearing in "Asylum of the Daleks."
  • As the Eighth Doctor so perfectly lampshades, no one was expecting him to show up in "Night of the Doctor."
  • It was leaked months in advance of the Series 9 premiere that a child version of Davros would be featured. Audiences were still shocked when the adult Davros showed up after surviving the Crucible. Somehow.
  • All of the promos for Series 10 focused on Bill and the Doctor. When Nardole showed up in "The Return of Doctor Mysterio" and stayed on as a regular in Series 10, many were pleasantly surprised.
  • After Series 11 shied away from any pre-existing lore, Series 12 shocked everyone by bringing back the Master and Captain Jack Harkness.
• Everyone knew Barry Allen had to be in The Flash. Few expected his Earth-90 counterpart to guest star. And even less called his DC Extended Universe counterpart appearing.
• The Mandalorian opens with the bounty hunter being dispatched to collect a baby for the Imperial Remnant. Episode 1 ended by showing the child to be of that one race that no EU lore has ever touched before: Yoda's.
• Star Trek: Picard:
  • As a Sequel Series to Star Trek: The Next Generation, Seven of Nine was on no one's short list.
  • Bruce Maddox appeared in one episode of TNG and was mentioned in one more. Safe to say, not many called him being part of this series' backstory.
  • The season 1 finale shocked everyone by showing that Data was still alive.

Video Games

• Star Trek Online delights in pulling characters and concepts that appeared in but a handful of appearances and making them the driving forces of story arcs. Doomsday machines, Preserves, Crystalline Entities, Tholians, the list goes on.

Web Comics

• Given that 5 Years Later was hyped as a crossover between Ben 10 and Danny Phantom, Zim and GIR showing up in the third chapter took most of the readers by surprised. The creative team, quite successfully, strived to keep it a secret.

Western Animation

• The fourth season finale of My Little Pony: Friendship Is Magic featured Lord Tirek, an update of Lord Tirac from G1. Not only had Hasbro lost the rights to many G1 names, FiM had gone out of its way to avoid any characters that looked too human.
• Since the cast of He-Man and the Masters of the Universe couldn't be used in She-Ra and the Princesses of Power, it was largely assumed that, having since emigrated to He-Man media that Horde Prime wouldn't make an appearance. These assumptions were incorrect.
• Star Trek: Lower Decks made a name for itself through Continuity Porn but the Season 1 finale unexpectedly surprised everyone by first having an exocomp as a character before later canonizing the USS Titan and having Riker and Troi rush to rescue the crew from, of all people, the Pakleds.
• No one, In-Universe or out, expected Darth Maul to return in Star Wars: The Clone Wars. A Suspiciously Similar Substitute was even cooked up to throw people off the trail.
• After being kept under-wraps for so long, the final instalment of the Tales of Arcadia trilogy, Wizards, was naturally going to feature this but two characters no one expected to see were Bular (who memorably died in Trollhunters) and King Arthur.
  • Everyone just assumed Callista to be a new Troll. She's Deya, the first Trollhunter.
• Transformers:
  • Transformers Animated unexpectedly featured Bulkhead among its main cast. While an A-lister now, the original Bulkhead was an insane lunatic in the best left forgotten Transformers Energon. He may have been an In Name Only version but very few people ever thought that the Bulkhead trademark would ever be touched again.
  • Transformers: Cyberverse:
    • Maccadam barely ever appears in the comic books. Giving him A Day in the Limelight was certainly something that no one saw coming. Nor did anyone expect the show to lean into, and ultimately confirm, the "Maccadam is really Alchemist Prime" theory.
    • Of all the Transformers that could have been chosen to guard the AllSpark, you can bet that Cheetor wasn't on anyone's short list.
    • "Who's the baddest shark around? Who's the smartest shark in town? Sky-Byte, that's me!"
    • Not just a character but more the concept of Titans founding Cybertronian colonies in Ghost Town.
  • Transformers: War for Cybertron:
    • Given the focus on the A-Listers from The Eighties, the animated debut of Cog in the Siege trailers dropped a lot of jaws.
    • But not quite as many as Soundblaster making his animated debut in episode 5.
    • And then the Earthrise line had Bug Bite as a figure.
• Given that she'd seemingly been Adapted Out for six seasons, no one really expected Hys/Nanny to show up in Voltron: Legendary Defender's sixth season. Nor did anyone expect her to now be a Galra and Lotor's governess.