This is a feature called "Beg Steal or Borrow," which is about when comic book characters are abruptly pulled from one book to another. I'm not talking about when comic book characters simply migrate from one title to another (I spotlight examples of that in my feature, "Looks Like I'm Moving"). I mean examples where a writer has a character taken out of the book against their wishes. It almost always happens in team books, but sometimes it occurs in solo titles, as well.
Today, we look at when one of the Squadron Supreme left the team because he wasn't enough of a Justice League of America pastiche!
As you likely know by now, the Squadron Supreme was introduced as analogues of the Justice League so that Marvel could cheekily have the Avengers fight against the Justice League.
The Squadron live on Earth in an alternate reality. In the classic Squadron Supreme maxiseries by Mark Greenwald, Bob Hall, Paul Ryan, John Beatty and Bud de La Rosa, the team basically decide to turn their world into a Utopia, even if it requires them to suspend some civil liberties in the process.
Nighthawk of the Squadron couldn't live with what his team was doing, so he put together a resistance squad. We see these renegades in Squadron Supreme #10.
One of the people on the team is a hero named Haywire...
In the next issue, Haywire is one of a bunch of Nighthawk's allies who secretly join the Squadron as new recruits...
They surreptitiously reverse the brainwashing that the Squadron had done to some of the Squadron's older victims...
However, Haywire and his girlfriend, Inertia, do admit that they're having a good time with the Squadron...
However, in the final issue, they agree to still stay loyal to Nighthawk...
The battle between the two teams is a bloodbath, with seven heroes killed.
A couple of years later, Gruenwald and Ryan returned to the Squadron for a graphic novel (Al Williamson inked Ryan) that saw the heroes reunite to save the planet/universe.
In the process, Inertia is killed....
Haywire never quite got over it.
At the end of that story, they save the universe, but found themselves trapped in a new universe... the main Marvel Universe!
After seven or so years of trying to get home, they finally returned for the Len Kaminski/Anthony Williams graphic novel, New World Order..
The problem is that Kaminski wanted to go back to the Justice League pastiche of the team and Haywire, who had no Justice League had no analogue.
So Kurt Busiek convinced Kamisnki that they could just leave Haywire behind, which is what happened in the Avengers Annual that led into New World Order...
Haywire later died in an Avengers miniseries by Steve Englehart.
If anyone else has a suggestion for an example of a comic book character being ripped from a series, drop me a line at brianc@cbr.com!