Adaptational Early Appearance in Comic Books.
- Much like The Batman, All-Star Batman & Robin, the Boy Wonder sees Barbara Gordon become Batgirl before Dick Grayson becomes Robin.
- Artemis Fowl: The graphic novel adaptation of the first novel features references to Opal Koboi and her company — both of which play major roles in the second book- that were not in the print version.
- Batman: Two Faces: Traditionally, Harvey Dent doesn't become Two-Face until sometime after Bruce Wayne has been active as Batman. In this Elseworld, it is changed so that Bruce Wayne takes up the cowl after trying to help Harvey Dent when his friend had already started a career as a criminal with a partially disfigured face.
- Downplayed in the comic adaptation BoBoiBoy Movie 2 - Evolusi Kuasa, which has BoBoiBoy Glacier show up before Retak'ka destroys the dam, instead of appearing in order to freeze the dam after he breaks it in the original movie.
- Buffy the Vampire Slayer (Boom! Studios):
- Drusilla and Spike weren't introduced until the second season of the show. Promotional material for the first two issues has them shaping up to be some of Buffy's earliest foes.
- In the Angel spinoff, Fred Burckle is introduced in the second issue. She didn't appear until the second season of the sister series. Charles Gunn makes a an Early-Bird Cameo in a vision from #3, while he didn't appear until the very end of the first season of Angel.
- The first The Adventure Zone: Balance graphic novel, Here There Be Gerblins gives a brief non-speaking appearance to Carey Fangbattle, Brad Bradson, and Boyland.
- Jem and the Holograms (IDW):
- In the cartoon Jetta isn't introduced until season 2, when The Misfits decided they need a fourth member after Jem and The Holograms start looking for a new drummer. In the IDW comics she's already a Misfit before Jem's band is even commercially known.
- Stormer's older brother Craig is introduced in the same episode as Jetta but in the comics he bumps into Aja in the first arc.
- Clash doesn't appear until several episodes into the cartoon but is prominent from the start of the comic.
- The Legend of Wonder Woman (2016) is an adaptation and update of Wonder Woman's WWII era tales and four of the five Holliday Girls are from her Golden Age WWII era stories. Lita Little on the other hand was never associated with WWII before, and wasn't introduced until Silver Age Wonder Woman.
- Certain random background Legionaires were changed into Brainiac 5 when early Legion of Super-Heroes stories were reprinted, by simply recolouring them to Brainy's colours (purple clothes, green skin, blonde hair).
- Mega Man (Archie Comics): Quite a few characters make appearances before the adaptation of their games of origin. The most notable examples include Dr. Cossack and his Robot Masters, who first appear before Mega Man 3. Mr. X (as a new character and not a disguise used by Wily) also appears just before Mega Man 4's adaptation begins, and is later revealed to be Xander Payne, who first appeared in a comic-exclusive arc early in the series.
- The New 52:
- In order to add some diversity to the team, Cyborg is made into a founding member of the Justice League. In real life, Cyborg wasn't introduced until the early 1980s, long after the creation of the Justice League.
- Darkseid was initially introduced years after the Justice League already formed. In the New 52 universe, he's the reason the League exists.
- The Paul Kupperberg iteration of the Doom Patrol were the second version of the team and formed after most of the first roster died, with Cliff Steele/Robotman seeming to be the sole survivor (and since then being the only member affiliated with every roster of the team). The New 52 incarnations of the Doom Patrol make their debut during the Forever Evil (2013) event, which has most of the Paul Kupperberg roster (save for Robotman and Rhea Jones/Lodestone) being the first roster, while the classic roster of Robotman, Elasti-Girl and Negative Man are instead a second roster formed by the Chief after the first roster were wiped out by the Crime Syndicate members Johnny Quick and Atomica.
- Steel was first introduced in the aftermath of the Death of Superman storyline that was published in The '90s, long after Superman had been established both in real life and within the timeline of the DC Universe. By contrast, the New 52 version of Steel made his debut during the early months of Superman's career, showing up to help the young Kryptonian hero during his very first clash with Metallo.
- Noob:
- The webseries and novels introduced Castorga during the Centralis battle. The comic has him show up before the first of the Disaster Dominoes that led to the Centralis battle happening in the first place.
- The webseries and comic introduced the guild of Gaea Admirers during the Centralis battle, but the comic introduced them during an earlier battle taking place on Syrial.
- The novels introduced Mist right after the faction of Chaos was driven out of Glacesang, an event that happened several months after then Centralis battle. The comic introduces her one day before the Centralis battle takes place.
- In the comic book adaptation of Small Gods the History Monks' Books of History reveal on the cover that they were written by Wen the Eternally Surprised, with commentary by Clodpool the Apprentice. In the novels, the founder of the History Monks wouldn't be named until Thief of Time.
- Spider-Man:
- Spider-Man: Life Story issue #4, set in the 90s, introduces Jessica Jones into the story. While Jessica was retroactively made an old classmate of Peter Parker's, she actually technically wasn't created introduced into Marvel comics until the Alias series published during the Turn of the Millennium.
- In Spider-Man: Season One, a modernized retelling of the early Stan Lee / Steve Ditko Amazing Spider-Man stories, Peter's first fight with the Vulture (originally depicted in The Amazing Spider-Man #2) has a cameo appearance from a young child who is very strongly implied to be Miles Morales.
- The Tales from the Dark Multiverse version of Batman: Hush heavily borrows elements from Night of the Owls, including the eponymous Court of Owls. In regular continuity, the Court was only established to exist two Cosmic Retcons after the events of Hush.
- When Tintin in the Congo was turned into color, Thomson and Thompson were added into the scene where he is saying goodbye to everyone on the railway platform (they were not present in the original black and white edition). The pair made their first proper appearance in Cigars of the Pharaoh.
- Marvel Comics did a Comic-Book Adaptation of Toxic Crusaders, the first issue of which was an adaptation of the cartoon's first episode. The comic had Headbanger and Junkyard appear with Nozone and Major Disaster as heroes wanting to help Toxie fight crime, when the original cartoon had Headbanger and Junkyard appear in the second and third episodes respectively before joining the Toxic Crusaders.
- Ultimate Marvel:
- Ultimate Spider-Man:
- In the original Spider-Man comics, Gwen Stacy predated Mary Jane Watson (introduced as The Ghost) as Peter's love interest. In Ultimate Spider-Man, Mary Jane appears from the very beginning, while Gwen doesn't show up until issue #14. That said, Gwen herself also counts as Peter didn't meet her — or Harry and MJ — until college, whereas here, they're among his high school classmates.
- As with most modern adaptations, the series has Norman Osborn and his son Harry around from pretty much the beginning, with Harry serving as one of Peter's only friends at Midtown High. In the original comics, Peter didn't meet Harry until he began attending college, with Norman showing up a little bit later. Also, Norman is established as the Green Goblin within the first story arc, in contrast to the original Silver Age stories, where the Green Goblin appeared way before Norman or Harry. In fact, when the Goblin was originally unmasked as Norman back in 1966, it was treated as a shocking plot twist.
- In the classic comics, Peter Parker had years under his belt as Spider-Man, and he and Eddie Brock were well out of college when the latter became Venom. Here, Peter is still a rookie in high school and Eddie is in college when Eddie turns into Venom. Likewise, Carnage is introduced while Peter is in high school.
- In the classic comics, Peter met George Stacy while in college and Jean DeWolff after graduating. Here, he meets John Stacy and Jeanne DeWolfe while in high school and Stacy is even one of the cops hunting for Ben's killer (thus predating his daughter's debut). Peter also meets Black Cat, Silver Sable, and Deadpool while in high school instead of after college. Cloak and Dagger, Kate Bishop, and Maria Hill are also active during what'd be Peter's high school years instead of post-college years.
- The Kingpin, Miles Warren, Silvermane, Hammerhead, Moon Knight, Shang-Chi, Taskmaster, and Iron Fist are also around while Peter is in high school instead of college.
- Despite canonically being a classmate of Peter's, Jessica Jones falls into this as she didn't appear until Peter was out of college in the comics, whereas we do see her and Peter in high school here.
- Ultimate X-Men (2001):
- Jean Grey was the last of the original 5 Silver Age X-Men to actually join, with the first issue dealing with her introduction to the rest of the team. Here, she's the second ever member of the X-Men, and the first issue actually has her traveling the country to recruit the rest of the team.
- Storm and Colossus are recruited into the team in the first issue, and Wolverine joins shortly after. In the original run, they didn't show up until over a decade after the creation of the team.
- Due to the series serving as an Adaptation Distillation of decades worth of X-Men stories, there are various examples of characters who didn't show up until much later in the original comics appearing early on here. For instance, Ultimate Rogue first shows up in issue #7, while her original counterpart didn't join the team until Uncanny X-Men #171. Meanwhile, Ultimate Gambit has his debut in issue #13, while the original Gambit first appeared in Uncanny X-Men Annual #14, which was published 27 years after the series began.
- As in the 90s animated series, the Sentinels are the first villains faced by the X-Men, while their original Silver Age counterparts didn't appear until X-Men #14.
- The Ultimates:
- Captain America is a founding member of the team, in contrast to the original The Avengers comics, where he only joined in issue #4 after The Incredible Hulk left the group a few issues prior.
- Black Widow and Hawkeye are introduced as members of the group's secret black-ops wing in issue #7. In the original comics, Hawkeye didn't become an Avenger until the major roster shake-up in issue #16, while Black Widow didn't officially join until issue #111 (though she did have multiple notable guest spots prior to that).
- Ultimate Fantastic Four:
- Doctor Doom's first appearance in the original Fantastic Four comics was in issue #5. In the Ultimate universe, however, Doom is a major part of the Four's backstory, and was with them during the ill-fated experiment that transformed the group.
- Likewise, Franklin Storm is a major character from the beginning, and essentially serves as the Team Dad until his death in Ultimatum. The mainline universe version of Franklin didn't appear until Fantastic Four #31, and was Killed Off for Real shortly after that.
- Ultimate Spider-Man:
- X-Men: Grand Design:
- Mesmero is a founding member of Magneto's Brotherhood of Evil Mutants. In the original comics, Mesmero didn't appear until X-Men #49, 45 issues after the first appearance of the Brotherhood.
- A younger version of Callisto shows up in the first issue (set during the initial Stan Lee / Jack Kirby X-Men run), where she encounters the original X-Men when they bring the Morlocks a Thanksgiving meal. Callisto's first appearance was in Uncanny X-Men #169, nearly two decades after Lee and Kirby had left the series.
- In general, a number of characters and concepts created during the Chris Claremont run in the late 70s and early 80s like Storm, Moira MacTaggert, Legion, Lilandra, the Starjammers and the Phoenix Force make brief appearances in the first issue, even though it's set years before any of those characters actually first showed up.
- The Hasbro Comic Universe version of the Beast Machines Tankornote is this on two counts: first as he appears while the Autobots and Decepticons are still around and also because (as with Galvatron and Megatron, and Bumblebee and Goldbug/Goldfire) this version is a case of Decomposite Character and thus isn't a reprogrammed Rhinox, who's a case of Adaptational Late Appearance as a result. This also applies to pretty much any Beast Era character since the Beast Era normally takes place millenia after the conclusion of the Autobot-Decepticon war. As such, Beast Era characters show up either as Cybertronians who have adopted more specialized forms (Waspinator, Rattrap), natives of Eukaris (Tigatron, Airazor) and Carcer (Strika, Obsidian), or (most infamously) as Maximals in the service of some of the final villains of the run (Optimus Primal, Megatron, Rhinox, Inferno, Scorponok).
- Pre-Crisis, Alfred Pennyworth did not appear in the main Batman comics until issue #16, where he first introduced himself to an adult Bruce Wayne and was hired as his butler. Previously, Bruce Wayne had been raised by his uncle Philip upon his parents’ death (Philip was originally his paternal uncle but now is his maternal uncle). Post-Crisis and all subsequent adaptations (and in a case of Backported Development, the Batman (1966) tie-in film, Batman: Return of the Caped Crusaders), Alfred has been depicted as the one to become Bruce's surrogate father and having been a part of the Waynes' lives since, Depending on the Writer and incarnation, Bruce was a kid or before Bruce was even born.
- In Robin And Batman, when Dick Grayson first puts on the Robin costume, the other kid sidekicks (Kid Flash, Aqualad, Wonder Girl and Speedy) already exist, and the Teen Titans are formed the same day. In the Pre-Crisis continuity, Robin was generally the first kid sidekick of the modern era (in publication terms, he precedes the other Titans by decades whilst in general terms, Roy and Garth became Speedy and Aqualad respectively before Dick became Robin) the Titans were founded after he'd been working as Batman's partner for a while, and Wonder Girl and Speedy weren't quite founding members.
- Likewise, Bumblebee was a fairly late addition to the original Teen Titans series, initially becoming a costumed hero and joining the team to support her boyfriend Mal Duncan, who had been introduced several years prior. In World's Finest: Teen Titans (a modernized retelling of the original Silver/Bronze Age Teen Titans), however, Bumblebee is already a member of the Titans and a superhero in her own right before Mal even shows up, replacing Lilith Clay/Omen as the sixth member to join the team.
- Pre-Crisis, Matches Malone, the criminal Batman pulls a Dead Person Impersonation as, was depicted as meeting Batman shortly after Bruce comes into conflict with Ra's al Ghul; in fact, Bruce was trying to turn to Matches for help against Ra's. Post-Crisis, the events of Matches coming into conflict with Batman and Bruce's subsequent impersonation of him was years before Bruce adopted Dick Grayson; in fact, Harvey Dent was still DA and hadn't become Two-Face yet.
