[5] With actress Laura Wright in the role of Carly, Brown returned to General Hospital in January 2008 as new character Claudia.

[6] Having previously won three Daytime Emmy Awards[7] and two Soap Opera Digest Awards[8][9] for her portrayal of Carly, Brown stated that a chance encounter with executive producer Jill Farren Phelps had precipitated discussions about her return to the series, and that they had never considered her reprising Carly.

[6] Initially contracted for a one-year run,[10] Brown later re-signed for another year, citing both financial motives and her desire "to learn more about Claudia.

"[10] The strike ended a month after Brown started, and in December 2008 she acknowledged that the change in writers due to the strike had made Claudia "inconsistent" in that "half the things the writers had set up for me [ultimately] were changed ... you've made choices that don't work anymore and you're suddenly saying things that contradict what you did earlier.

[12]Of the then-developing storyline that found Claudia trying to get pregnant by Sonny to protect herself from his wrath over her part in the shooting of his son Michael, Brown dismissed the idea that Claudia was "desperate": "I refuse to play a needy woman who relies on a pregnancy to save her life.

[11] Claudia is summoned to Port Charles in January 2008 by mob lawyer Trevor Lansing[10] in the hope she can assert some control over her wayward younger half-brother, Johnny Zacchara.

Mentally unstable mob boss Anthony[10] had divorced Claudia's outspoken mother Domenica and kept custody of their daughter out of spite.

[10] Now Trevor, who has been secretly running the now fully insane Anthony's illegal operations for years, is surprised to find Claudia, once a "gangly and awkward teen,"[3] is now a strong and vicious woman bent on taking over the Zacchara empire.

Nikolas ultimately allows Claudia to leave without reporting her to the police because she is aware he had paid Devlin $10 million for drugs.

Anthony makes a sudden recovery and is finally released from his mental institution, immediately shutting Claudia out of the business.

To save Johnny, Claudia perjures herself on the stand, testifying he killed Logan to stop him from raping her.

Claudia receives a DVD from the presumably dead Jerry revealing her role in the shooting, several copies of which he has hidden in the Corinthos mansion.

Prevented from fleeing to Brazil, a furious Anthony kidnaps Claudia on February 25, 2009, threatening to kill her unless Sonny brings him $20 million.

On her way to tell him, Claudia is accidentally run off the road by Sonny's daughter Kristina Davis, and miscarries the baby.

While Claudia shares a carnival ride with Molly and Kristina, a drugged Edward Quartermaine drives into the fair, killing and injuring several people.

Michael is able to track the two to the cabin, and in order to protect his mother and newborn sister, hits Claudia in the head with an axe handle, accidentally killing her instantly.

The adults in Michael's life arranged for him to leave the country until the trial ended to prevent him from confessing.

Both sides resorted to ethically questionable tactics to this end: Diane encouraged Maxie Jones to perjure herself and knowingly accepted Carly's bogus, albeit convincing, testimony, while Claire, assuming that Michael's testimony would ensure Sonny's conviction, did everything in her power to find him, going so far as to force Claudia's brother Johnny to lie on the stand that Sonny routinely beat and abused Claudia, and to pull Morgan Corinthos out of school under false pretenses without his parents' knowledge to testify.

Though Dante had believed that Michael would be given a lenient sentence, Judge Carroll instead sentenced Michael to two-to-five years in Pentonville Adult Correctional Facility to punish everyone for their role in the cover-up and to punish Diane and Claire specifically for their courtroom antics.

Calling Brown's return to General Hospital as a new character "one of the most unusual moves in soap-casting history," Nelson Branco of TV Guide Canada noted that while her debut was heavily promoted by ABC, "the writers’ strike interfered with the ill-conceived character's journey.