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12/09/2022 4:59 pm  #31


Re: Finding Firsts

Probably not quite enough action to qualify, but there are the Torchy Blane films from the 30s (which influenced the creation of Lois Lane).
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Torchy_Blane

 

12/10/2022 1:30 am  #32


Re: Finding Firsts

zuckyd1 wrote:

Probably not quite enough action to qualify, but there are the Torchy Blane films from the 30s (which influenced the creation of Lois Lane).
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Torchy_Blane

Hmm. Good example, and it makes me think that we might need to parse out "strong female lead" from "kick-@$$ female lead." Torchy is definitely the former - smart, brave, resourceful, capable, etc. She's just not also a super-tough fighter - without having seen her movies, I assume she could probably defend herself from a thug or two if push came to shove, but she's not going to take on a half dozen or more well-armed/well-trained foes and take them all down.

 

12/10/2022 8:30 am  #33


Re: Finding Firsts

First travel to a parallel Earth - live action TV:
Parameters: A character must make a trip to a world that's not his or her own. Simply showing a world where the Nazis won the war from the perspective of its inhabitants is not enough. For now it's enough to just have it be live action TV in general. Should it prove to be in an anthology show, I'll add a separate category for ongoing characters.
Suggested answer: Star Trek: Mirror, Mirror, in which Kirk visits the Mirror Universe 1967

First travel to a parallel Earth - animated action TV:
Parameters: As above, but in a cartoon
Suggested answer: Super Friends: Universe of Evil (1979), in which Superman visits said universe

For now I'll leave it as the above. But Hopefully for at least one of the above someone will have an answer that isn't just "evil version of main universe". If not I'll create a "non-evil" category later.


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12/10/2022 12:10 pm  #34


Re: Finding Firsts

Andy E. Nystrom wrote:

First travel to a parallel Earth - live action TV:
Parameters: A character must make a trip to a world that's not his or her own. Simply showing a world where the Nazis won the war from the perspective of its inhabitants is not enough. For now it's enough to just have it be live action TV in general. Should it prove to be in an anthology show, I'll add a separate category for ongoing characters.

Time to separate it out. 

The Parallel, Twilight Zone episode 114 (season 4, ep11), March 14th 1963, an astronaut returns from space to find himself on a parallel version of Earth.

 

12/10/2022 12:14 pm  #35


Re: Finding Firsts

We should also consider the same "first travel to a parallel Earth" for prose (novels or short stories), comics and films. And to clarify, while handbooks count alternate futures as parallel Earths (because by the way time travel was originally established to work in Marvel they were), we should not count cases where this wasn't the original intent - e.g. no including time travel to the future or past in a story UNLESS the story makes it clear this is an alternate reality. Also no counting of traveling to fantasy worlds UNLESS they are explicitly alternate versions of Earth - so Dorothy going to Oz (which I've seen some say is an example of traveling to a parallel Earth) does not count, but the travels in Incomplete Enchanter to places like Asgard do count because the story makes it clear this is traveling to alternate realities.

 

12/10/2022 1:18 pm  #36


Re: Finding Firsts

Loki wrote:

the travels in Incomplete Enchanter to places like Asgard do count because the story makes it clear this is traveling to alternate realities.

IIRC several humans in Greek mythology travel to Olympus (but maybe that's not what you're talking about).

 

12/10/2022 2:15 pm  #37


Re: Finding Firsts

Just to clarify further (and my use of "Earth" should probably be "universe"), I'm not referring simply to other realities with completely different lands, but universes with clear similarities with the main universe. So Oz wouldn't count even if it was explicitly in another reality unless it was further explicitly stated to be Australia or somewhere else. You can't say for certain that the Emerald City is definitely where the centre of Australia ought to be or why it's surrounded by a lethal desert instead of the sea, etc.
 


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12/10/2022 3:22 pm  #38


Re: Finding Firsts

zuckyd1 wrote:

Loki wrote:

the travels in Incomplete Enchanter to places like Asgard do count because the story makes it clear this is traveling to alternate realities.

IIRC several humans in Greek mythology travel to Olympus (but maybe that's not what you're talking about).

Yep, those wouldn't count. In the myths Olympus is another realm, but not an alternate reality. In Incomplete Enchanter they identify the realms of fiction as being parallel versions of Earth, so even though they visit Asgard (iirc - but maybe it was only alternate Norway - been a long time since I read the book) it is meant to be an alternate Earth. Hence why it would count while trips to Oz, Narnia, etc. would not.

 

12/10/2022 3:26 pm  #39


Re: Finding Firsts

Andy E. Nystrom wrote:

Just to clarify further (and my use of "Earth" should probably be "universe"), I'm not referring simply to other realities with completely different lands, but universes with clear similarities with the main universe. So Oz wouldn't count even if it was explicitly in another reality unless it was further explicitly stated to be Australia or somewhere else. You can't say for certain that the Emerald City is definitely where the centre of Australia ought to be or why it's surrounded by a lethal desert instead of the sea, etc.
 

Yes, I concur. Oz shouldn't count anyway, as the implication seems to be that it is somewhere on regular Earth, given it can be accessed by balloon. But other realities that are not parallel Earths wouldn't count. That's why myths where people go to Olympus, Asgard, the Celtic Otherworld/Faerie realm would not count, but Incomplete Enchanter were they go to Asgard and explicitly state that the supposed mythical reality is really an alternate reality would. 

 

12/10/2022 11:29 pm  #40


Re: Finding Firsts

Loki wrote:

Yes, I concur. Oz shouldn't count anyway, as the implication seems to be that it is somewhere on regular Earth, given it can be accessed by balloon.

And of course by cyclone (going on a tangent here). Except the 1935 movie version which being a dream (albeit one able to sustain a linear plot far longer than any dream I've ever had) could arguably be a case of Dorothy being transported while asleep. But certainly the novels from what I recall are stated pretty definitively as being on Earth: Going from memory (and I might have a few things off) Oz become magically hidden from the rest of Earth in Emerald City of Oz, and Baum subsequently claimed in his introduction to The Patchwork Girl of Oz that Oz characters got back in contact with him via wireless.
 


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2/08/2023 8:08 am  #41


Re: Finding Firsts

Andy E. Nystrom wrote:

First comic book protagonist death - later reversed
Parameters: The lead of a comic book feature is killed off, though later brought back
Suggested answer: The Comet: Died in Pep Comics #17 December 1941; brought back in the 1960s. There is little doubt that he's the first superhero to be killed off, but it's possible that a non-superhero lead was killed earlier.

Got one that beats this. Cat-Man debuted in Crash Comics#4 (September 1940), and died that very same issue!

Cat-Man may also be the first case of a character being resurrected (where said resurrection wasn't part of their origin), as he returned from the dead the very next panel:

Nevertheless, he was genuinely dead, so it still counts as an example of a lead character being killed.

Andy E. Nystrom wrote:

First comic book protagonist death - never reversed
Parameters: The lead of a comic book feature is killed off, and remains dead
Suggested answer: 711. Killed in Police Comics #16 (January 1943). Never brought back.

Perhaps a bit of debatable case here, but in Silver Streak Comics#9 (April 1941) the Claw burns his nemesis Daredevil to death. It subsequently transpires that this was not the original Daredevil, but his brother, covering for Daredevil while the hero was on holiday. So the debatable bit is whether the fill-in Daredevil would count as the lead - some might say yes, albeit very temporarily, others would insist not - but if he is, then given that he stayed dead, he'd beat 711.

 

2/08/2023 8:28 am  #42


Re: Finding Firsts

A new one.

First fictional character (in any medium) to be killed off, then subsequently resurrected.
Parameters - the character has to have been seemingly killed off, then in a subsequent tale revealed to have actually survived. No actual resurrections, nor reveals in the same story, where the intention was merely to fool the readers for a few pages. Additionally, we're counting these from the tale that reveals the character is alive, not the tale that appears to kill them, as otherwise the answer could be changed simply by finding the oldest available tale where someone is said to have died and then writing a brand new tale today which reveals they survived.

And with all that preamble out the way, the oldest I can currently think of would be Sherlock Holmes, who was slain in The Final Problem, and revealed to have survived in The Adventure of the Empty House, first published 26th September 1903. I will not be surprised to find out there's an earlier example of this however.

 

3/23/2023 7:39 pm  #43


Re: Finding Firsts

So, um, er, it's come to my attention that there have been multiple superheroines that have been powered by, uh, the time of the month, the most recent one promoted because Games of Thrones' Emilia Clarke created the character. So...

First superheroine to be powered by time of month.
Parameters: Can be any media but that has to be the source of their powers, and it has to be that monthly occurrence and not anything else that happens monthly.
Suggested answer: Ms. PMS, star of a short lived 1992 comic series.

And to move on to a probably more comfortable topic:
First confirmed appearance of the Earth-1 Batman.
Parameters: Not actual first appearance because that's impossible to determine, but first instance where there is no ambiguity on the matter, where there is no possible way it can be the Earth-2 Batman.
Suggested answer: As I noted in the Non-Marvel Getting Wrong thread, the first New Look story is often suggested, but there's an earlier example: Brave and the Bold #28 March 1960. This was the first appearance of the Justice League. The Earth-2 Batman was a member of the Justice Society, not the Justice League, so the Batman in that comic in unquestionably the Earth-1 version.


 


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3/24/2023 6:41 am  #44


Re: Finding Firsts

Andy E. Nystrom wrote:

So, um, er, it's come to my attention that there have been multiple superheroines that have been powered by, uh, the time of the month, the most recent one promoted because Games of Thrones' Emilia Clarke created the character. So...

First superheroine to be powered by time of month.
Parameters: Can be any media but that has to be the source of their powers, and it has to be that monthly occurrence and not anything else that happens monthly.
Suggested answer: Ms. PMS, star of a short lived 1992 comic series.
 

Not sure if there's anything pre-1992 here that meets the qualifications, but there's this page: https://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Main/MenstrualMenace

 

10/28/2023 6:47 am  #45


Re: Finding Firsts

Spinning out of a FB discussion where I apparently really upset the other person by disagreeing with/correcting them. Someone stated that the Clock was "the first masked crimefighter in comics"; I contested that while he might be the first in a comic strip, or the first in American comics, he was not the first in comics overall as there existed at least one earlier example, Batsowl. He was definitely masked, as evidenced by the illustration included in the link, and he appeared in a British comic, Illustrated Chips, though he himself appeared in a prose tale with limited illustrations. Not wanting to concede, the original poster insisted that Illustrated Chips wasn't a comic by the American definition, but per the American dictionary Meriam-Webster a comic is a "magazine containing sequences of comic strips" and Illustrated Chips was definitely that:

Anyway, we're now after:
First appearances for masked crimefighters/vigilantes/seekers of justice, who may or may not be superpowered, in various media. The character has to be masked as a regular part of their outfit, so examples where someone adopts a mask temporarily do not count. Afaik, the following hold the titles at this moment, unless and until an earlier example arises:

First in prose fiction: Spring-Heeled Jack, 1968. The character appeared in legend and in Penny Dreadfuls several decades earlier, but the 1968 iteration was the first that I know of to be revealed to be a normal human in disguise rather than some demonic entity.
First in a comic book but not a comic strip: Batsowl, Illustrated Chips (1918)
First in a film/film serial: The Masked Rider, The Masked Rider (May 7th 1919)
First in American comics: The Clock, Funny Picture Stories#1 (November 1936)

I will note that, unlike the poster I debated with, I am more than willing to be corrected if/when others locate earlier examples. 

 

9/01/2024 6:43 pm  #46


Re: Finding Firsts

First retcon in a comic book.
Parameters: Must be a significant change, one that cannot be simply explained away by artistic license. Cannot be reconciled with a bit of creative thinking without resorting to parallel Earths. So 1940s Superman suddenly going from George Taylor at the Daily Star to Perry White at the Daily Planet, while later muddied by how Earth-2 Superman was defined, could have at the time been explained by things like different people, different venue, a change of names, etc. Must be a comic book, not strip.
Suggested answer: Wonder Woman #1 Summer 1942. In her first appearance in All Star Comics #8 and initial appearances thereafter, Wonder Woman has no lasso. In Sensation Comics #6 she gains her lasso during a return visit to Paradise Island and only then receives her magic lasso as a reward for her good deeds "in the world of men" (at the time she could make any command, not just to tell the truth, but that's not relevant here). So it's explicit that she brought Steve Trevor back to the United States, did some good deeds, and then received the lasso. However in Wonder Woman #1 her origin is retold and expanded on. Hippolyta wears different clothes but that falls under artistic license. However, just before she leaves, she is gifted the magic lasso and while Steve is still on her plane uses it on a Nazi saboteur. So the lasso bit cannot simply be presented out of sequence with the rest of the origin story. She is now said to have actually received it sooner.


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