Here is the errata.

“Give Spiral a double power action, remove all of her Gateway markers from the map and place 2 Gateway markers on the map. Place one in an adjacent square and the other may be placed in any square on the map. Starting with your next turn, give a friendly character occupying the square of a Gateway marker a free action and place it in the square of the other Gateway marker.”

My question is:

If I send a character through the portal with a free action, can I bring them back in the same turn?

I know that you cannot do the same thing as a free action more than once in a turn. But is sending someone from portal A to B the 'same thing' as sending them from portal B to A?

Thanks!

yes it's a free action to use Spiral's portal.

And it's not official errata until Player's guide but as written that is how it works...now if you have someone like say Tony stark or Mole Man MC someone...take a free action to send them through....then have them come back on their own...tha'ts a possibility.

It might be early to presume things about this wording of the ability. That is a non-official wording given in an article on heroclix.com (which are notorious for providing incorrect rules information). This is by no means an official wording of the power or the final wording that will appear in the next Player's Guide and is not the current wording of this ability.

Assuming the wording stays the same I think this is the relevant part. 'Occupying the square of a Gateway marker', so the power doesn't seem to differentiate them. Ergo, only once per turn.

So can a figure continue a move action after being given the free action to use the portal, or is this basically limiting at most 2 characters through the portal on any given turn (a character that starts on the portal being given the free action to use it and then moving once they land on the other side, and the second character ending a move action on the portal and then using it). I'm starting to think of ways to use this in conjunction with batmite and his idol to get a shuma gorath within flurry distance of the opposing figures in a single turn (not necessarily the first).

You can't take a free action to use the portal in the middle of a move action. You would have to fully resolve the move action and then take the free action, or take the free action and then take a move action.

So ideally what I would do is put the portal on batmite when spiral makes the portal (adjacent to batmite) and then starting next turn have batmite use the portal and haul his favorite shuma with him. Wow they really lamed this portal power up. Probably shouldn't require a free action to use the portal, but maybe say the portal cant be used more than once a turn.

Only using it once per turn was more than enough to be utterly devastating.

Well as many points as spiral is in comparison to a cheap tker, I think it will be easier to just tk batmite and have him move full movement and call his idol over.

They didn't "lame it up." They made it "not ludicrously abusable."

Quoted for truth.

Before the change on it, there was a player that REALLY wanted to win a tournament so he had Brainiac and someone else with PW and a high damage, both having Nova Blast feats on them), then had Spiral open a portal , they RS'd and Nova Blasted to completely obliterate the team quickly (with 3 Destiny's following behind for PC so they wouldn't miss). That kind of alpha strike potential makes it very easy to win any game if you plan for it and it's almost impossible to avoid it if you face it (short of spreading out and having him neuter your 2 biggest guys or worse).

And short of Barrier, and short of using a fig (or figures) that ignore Pulse Wave and short of getting your figures off the board (via vehicles or other methods) and short of doing it yourself first.

Most of which requires planning and expectation. Even if you put up a barrier to protect your main figure(s), you can't encompass all of them with one barrier (unless you're REALLY lucky on the terrain near the starting area) so they could just open the portal, OW the barrier figure, and start the slaughter. If you happen to be lucky enough to get that nice area of terrain where you can cover everyone without an open slot they can portal into, it just takes that team passing and waiting until the figure with barrier has 2 tokens and can't put up a barrier.
The vehicle is just a delay tactic and the main figure "hiding" there will only delay it a turn or so as they run through and single-target PW the vehicle to damage/destroy it, then push to NB/PW on the next turn.
All of those suggested are either stalling tactics or using your own alpha-strike (which only argues my point that it's too overpowered).

Yes, winning in Heroclix usually requires planning. Winning against high-level or abusive strategies most definitely does. Spiral was extremely abusive and one of the few figures I consider Broken.
1) There are 22 Vehicle dials in Heroclix. 4 have 5 clicks of life or fewer.
2) There are 17 Heroclix with 5 damage or more Pulsewave on their first click.
3) The avg point cost of these figures is around 600. Only 3 cost under 300 (160, 251, 295).
4) Nova Blast isn't optional. So a figure with Nova Blast MUST use it if they use Pulse Wave.
5) There are 4 figures in Heroclix with starting Barrier for under 20pts. The cheapest is 10 points.

And as I type all this I realize it belongs more in the Strategy and Tactics forum than here. Anyway. The more you know...

While this is all true... do you realize you're essentially saying that you should always expect this figure on a team (before the change) so you have a vehicle for each of your big guys, at least one barrier fig (depending on how many you need to protect), etc? What about all the other abusive figures that you need to "prepare for" that require different strategies? My point of that is that you can't anticipate every single opponent and can't plan a team against one specific strategy/scenario unless you know you're facing that scenario.
On the flip side, I did that once because one player kept playing the same team every week and I wiped the floor with him because he brought the same team again... what he learned was that he wanted that figure I beat him with. LOL! At least he learned to vary his team from then on so he learned the lesson, but you can't always assume you'll face one or two particular figures as you may be wasting space on a good chunk of your team if you don't face any of those figures.