DC’s Most Important New 52 Character Is Back, But Something About Her Return Feels Wrong

DC Comics is on the kind of roll that honestly seemed impossible five years again. They rebuilt their universe with “Dawn of DC” in 2022 and 2023, leading into “DC All-In”, which not only gave the mainline DC books an amazing main story arc, but also gave us the blockbuster Absolute Universe of comics, new versions of DC heroes on a world created by Darkseid. The God of Evil has become the big bad of the DC Multiverse again, with Superman narrowly defeating him in DC K.O. This led into Superman Annual 2026: Year One Thousand #1, a book that tells the story of what Superman was doing after defeating Darkseid. It’s an important part of the ongoing story of the DC Multiverse and it ends with the return of the last character that anyone would have thought to see in 2026: Pandora.

Once upon a time, there was a little story named Flashpoint. At first, it was advertised as a standard Flash event, with some time travel and some Speed Force shenanigans, but it got changed at some point into an event meant to reboot the entire DC Multiverse. The story ended with a mysterious woman showing up and explaining how all of the various DC Universes were going to be smushed together and create something new. She was seemingly meant to be the mother of the New 52, but things didn’t exactly work out that way. Pandora coming back is a major return, but if I’m being honest, something doesn’t really feel right about this return.

Pandora Epitomized the New 52, for Good and for Ill

The New 52 flew high before crashing and burning. I remember the hype when it was reported that DC was pulling an “Age of Apocalypse” and cancelling their entire line in order to relaunch it. This was the second time the publisher had done this; the first time had given readers post-Crisis, one of the most creatively fruitful and popular parts of DC history, so many fans had faith that the DC Comics of 2011 could do the same all over again. Pandora’s appearance at the end of Flashpoint was huge, with numerous theories for who and what she would be all over the Internet.

She appeared in every first issue of the line, teasing cryptic events and strange truths, but wouldn’t get another major appearance until the 2012 Free Comic Book Day Justice League: Trinity War one-shot, a story that teased the origin of Pandora. She was a young girl looking for berries to save her ailing brother, finding a golden skull containing the Seven Deadly Sins. She released them and would eventually be punished by the powers that be, forced to walk the universe for all time and see what terrors she wrought. “Trinity War” was something of a failure and fans didn’t really like her origin, which would lead to her fading away until DC Rebirth #1, when she was killed by Doctor Manhattan, who was revealed to be the power behind the New 52.

Her return at the end of Superman Annual 2026 #1 was a huge shock, not because dead characters don’t come back but because no one but no one would ever ask for her back. She appears in the ending story of the issue, working for Darkseid and helping Brainac One Million, the most dangerous version of Brainiac, retrieve the various Legions of Superheroes from the multiverse. On the one hand, you could argue that her place as the person who released sin on humanity would make her a servant of the God of Evil, allowing him to bring her back and use her – we recently learned that he was the power behind the return of Eclipso after he lost his position as the Angel of God’s Wrath, so that’s not a huge stretch.

However, as I was reading the issue yesterday, I was struck by how pedestrian this version of Pandora seemed. She wasn’t ever that deep of a character, but there was a faux profundity to her words that got everyone burning to know more about her. This new version of the character is extremely matter of fact; she speaks in an entirely different way than she once did. She’s not being cagey – she out and out says everything, something that she really never did before. This feels like a completely new version of the character, but it’s hard to figure out who exactly it could be.

There Has to Be a New Mystery With Pandora

Anyone who tells you they weren’t surprised to see Pandora when they got to the end of Superman Annual 2026: Year One Thousand #1 is lying to you. She was a character who was supposed to be important to the New 52 but her blah origin reveal made her fall directly on her face. Her death was basically housecleaning; she was a failure that wasn’t really needed anymore. Bringing her back was the one of the biggest surprises of “DC Next Level”, the blockbuster continuation of “DC All-In”. However, I don’t think this is the version of the character that we followed all those years ago.

Her face is subtly different and her speech patterns are entirely different. There is a precedent for a servant of Darkseid showing up as a familiar villain and ending up being something different. Back in Final Crisis, the villain Libra reappeared and was able to convince the Legion of Doom to join Darkseid’s side. However, this wasn’t the classic version of that villain and I don’t think that this is the version of Pandora we think she is. There’s really no reason to bring the original back, so it’s more interesting for this new Pandora to be a mystery character. It’ll be intriguing to see what’s done with her in the days to come.

Superman Annual 2026: Year One Thousand #1 is on sale now.

What do you think of the return of Pandora? Leave a comment in the comment section below and join the conversation on the ComicBook Forums!

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