Adaptational Early Appearance in Live-Action TV.
- Alex Rider (2020):
- Tom Harris is not introduced until the fifth book. Here, he's introduced straight away as Alex's best friend.
- The books also don't mention Scorpia until the fourth installment, with them appearing in the fifth, although with hindsight their influence is visible as far back as Stormbreaker. The final episode reveals them as Yassen's employers.
- Razim, the Big Bad of Scorpia Rising, is name-dropped twice in Season 3, which in book terms is a good four instalments away from when he actually makes his debut.
- Arrow:
- Mia Dearden (the 2nd Speedy in the comics) was originally introduced years after Roy Harper (the 1st Speedy). Here, she's reinvented as Oliver Queen's sister named Thea Dearden Queen and was introduced in the pilot. The TV version of Roy Harper was instead introduced during the second half of the (first) season.
- In the comics, Oliver Queen meets Dinah Laurel Lance for the first time after he's already become the Green Arrow and she's become Black Canary. On the show, Oliver and Laurel (as she's called here) are childhood sweethearts long before either of them become costumed vigilantes.
- In the comics Green Arrow encounters Slade Wilson/Deathstroke relatively late in his heroic career, during Judd Winick's Turn of the Millennium run. On the show, Slade is introduced in the first season's flashbacks as Oliver's friend and mentor long before the latter became the Green Arrow, and after their falling out, the big Green Arrow vs. Deathstroke clash happens in the second season of the show.
- Avatar: The Last Airbender (2024) introduces a couple of characters earlier compared to the cartoon:
- The opening scene features Fire Lord Sozin, who is totally absent in the original series until the Book Three episode "The Avatar and the Fire Lord" in which we learn about his backstory, despite being the instigator of the Hundred Year War.
- Aang meets Avatar Kyoshi during his trip to her island, way earlier compared to the original, where Kyoshi is properly introduced in Book Two, and doesn't meet Aang until near the end of Book Three. In fact, Kyoshi, and not Roku, is the first Avatar to be introduced. She is the one who does the Opening Narration, rather than Katara.
- Speaking of Avatars, Aang meets Avatar Kuruk in the penultimate episode of the first season. Kuruk and his predecessor Yangchen (the last Airbender Avatar before Aang) first meet Aang near the end of Book Three, barring a single non-speaking, unidentified cameo in Book Two. The live-action series also namedrops Yangchen earlier, though unlike Kuruk she doesn't actually appear.
- Commander Zhao participates in the attack on Kyoshi Island, and thus encounters the Gaang earlier. In the cartoon, he first encounters them in Roku's Temple during the Winter Solstice.
- In the original series, Azula has just two cameos in Book One, neither of which names her, and only one clarifies who she is. She's been made a prominent recurring character in the first season.
- Azula's friends Mai and Ty Lee and the owl spirit Wan Shi Tong are all Book Two characters who appear in the first season.
- The 2018 reboot of Charmed established many core aspects way earlier than the original did.
- The Halliwells' Whitelighter Leo initially appears as a minor character until his role is revealed halfway into the first season, whereas Harry is the one to inform the Veras of their destiny at the beginning of the series.
- The original Elders existed as a powerful, unseen force for the first four seasons until they finally appear in the flesh in season five. In the reboot, the first Elder is introduced as earliest as the fourth episode.
- The Source of All Evil was alluded to a few times in the original series before his grand entrance in the season three finale, while Macy becomes the host of the reboot's Source at the end of season one.
- Cole Turner was introduced in the first episode of season three, while his reboot counterpart is introduced in the third episode of the first season.
- The Halliwells' discover they have a long-lost half sister in season four. The Veras make the same discovery at the beginning of the series.
- The first season of Dark Winds is an adaptation of the Leaphorn & Chee novel Listening Woman, but features both Jim Chee, who did not join the franchise until the next book, and Bernadette Manuelito, who did not appear until Spider Woman's Daughter, over thirty years later.
- The Animated Adaptations of some 1960s Missing Episodes of Doctor Who have occasionally slipped in wanted posters of The Master, a character introduced in 1971, into the background of certain scenes.
- Doom Patrol (2019):
- Crazy Jane is featured as one of the main characters from the start, when she didn't show up in the source material until Grant Morrison's run.
- The first roster of the Doom Patrol in this continuity consists of Mento, Celsius and Lodestone, when in the comics Mento was a Sixth Ranger of shorts who showed up after Negative Man, Robotman and Elasti-Girl were united as a team by the Chief, Celsius founded the second roster of the Doom Patrol after the original team seemingly died and Lodestone joined the second roster shortly after the Paul Kupperberg iteration got their own ongoing title.
- Valentina Vostok is established to have been involved with the Chief and bonded with a negative spirit before Larry Trainor's accident, when Negative Woman in the comics was introduced as a Distaff Counterpart to Trainor during the formation of the Doom Patrol's second roster.
- The Sisterhood of Dada, this continuity's interpretation of the Brotherhood of Dada, are shown to predate the Brotherhood of Evil and Eric Morden's transformation into Mr. Nobody, when in the comics both rosters of the Brotherhood of Dada were founded by Mr. Nobody and neither existed until long after the Brotherhood of Evil was established.
- The Scants are encountered and defeated by the Doom Patrol before Casey Brinke came along in this continuity, when Gerard Way's run introduced Casey at the start of the series and didn't have the Scants show up until six issues later.
- In Emerald City, characters from the Land of Oz books who don't appear until The Marvelous Land of Oz (the second book in the series) such as Tip, Jack, and Mombi, instead show up early in Dorothy's journey, which parallels the action of The Wonderful Wizard of Oz.
- The Expanse:
- Chrisjen Avasarala doesn't appear until the second book, but she's a major character from the first episode of the tv series in order to provide an Earth-perspective to political events.
- Bobbie Draper also doesn't appear until the second book, but she's brought into the show by the start of the second season (back when the show is still adapting the first book) in order to provide a Martian perspective on the destruction of Phoebe Station, and to provide more development for her squad prior to their deaths.
- Methodist pastor Anna Volovodov, a POV character in the third book, is given an Adaptational Backstory Change and a subplot in the first half of the third season (when the show is still adapting the second book), allowing the show to better establish her character and more easily bridge the gap between the first and second halves of the season.
- In Winx Club, Aisha didn't show up until the start of season 2. In Fate: The Winx Saga, she appears along with the rest of the Winx Suite fairies at Alfea in the first episode.
- In Stephen King's Finders Keepers, the second book of the Bill Hodges trilogy, Hodges and his friends Holly Gibney and Jerome Robinson don't actually show up until fairly late. They appear right throughout that storyline in Mr. Mercedes, and almost everything that involves them is an invention of the show.
- Game of Thrones: Hodor appears as a face in the crowd when King Robert arrives in Winterfell, but isn't properly introduced until three episodes later.
- A large number of Batman's supporting cast and Rogues Gallery have showed up in Gotham even before Bruce Wayne dons his iconic cowl.
- The first season of the BBC/HBO adaptation of His Dark Materials, which mostly covers the events of the first novel, introduces several characters from later novels early, most notably Will Parry, which is understandable given that he and his relationship with Lyra are so pivotal to the later novels.
- I, Claudius adapts the novels I, Claudius and Claudius the God. In the novels, Herod Agrippa is briefly mentioned but doesn't appear in person until the sequel, at which point Claudius talks about him being a childhood friend and playing an important role in previous events. The novel lampshades the use of Remember the New Guy?. In the tv series, a Pragmatic Adaptation is done wherein Herod is "written into" scenes from Claudius' earlier life, rather than appearing out of nowhere like in the novels.
- Interview with the Vampire (2022):
- In the Interview with the Vampire novel, Armand's role starts in the second-half of the story, but in the TV adaptation, his opening scene is in the pilot (albeit in Human Disguise as Rashid).
- Dr. Fareed Bhansali first appears in Prince Lestat, the eleventh installment of The Vampire Chronicles. On the show, he's introduced in episode 6, which isn't yet halfway through IWTV, the first book of the series.
- Joe Pickett : Nate, Merle, the Brothers Grim, the Scarlet Family, Luke Brueggman, Klamath Moore, Shenandoah, Bud Longbrake, Buck Lothar, Alisha Whiteplume, Randy Pope, Dave Farkus, the governor, and several other characters from books 3-12 debut in the first two seasons.
- Jupiter's Legacy:
- Barnabas Wolfe, Neutrino, Shockwave, Jack Frost and Raikou appear only after Walter and Brandon have taken over the US in the comics. Here they are introduced prior to that.
- Some characters that only appeared in the prequel comic Jupiter's Circle, which was released after the first volume of Jupiter Legacy, have also appeared in the show's first season such as The Flare's daughter and Skyfox's butler Cuthbert.
- The Lord of the Rings: The Rings of Power:
- One of the three ancient clans of Hobbits — specifically the Harfoots — is included in the grand history of the Second Age. In-canon they only show up several thousands of years later in the Third Age.
- Episode 7x01 shows the Balrog later known as Durin's Bane awakening, though this did not happen until the Third Age in Tolkien's canon — the Balrog was the Bane of Durin VI, not Durin III or IV.
- The first season finale features the creation of the Three Elven Rings as the first Rings of Power ever made. In the source material they were made last and in secret by Celebrimbor alone.
- Episode 8x01 heavily implies that the The Stranger is Gandalf, making him appear an age earlier than in the books.
- Les Misérables (2018): Marius isn't introduced until the fourth part of the novel, and his family history is delved into then. This series opens on the Battle of Waterloo and Marius being kept in his grandfather's custody in the aftermath. On the street, Col. Pontmercy passes Fantine prior to her employment. This means Gillenormand, Thenardier, Fantine and the Pontmercys all show up even before Valjean.
- One Piece (2023):
- In the manga, Garp makes his first appearance in an unnamed, non-speaking role in Koby and Helmeppo's cover story (which ran alongside the events of the Arlong Park arc), and wouldn't be properly introduced until the Post-Enies Lobby arc a good 340 chapters later. In this series, he's introduced from the very first scene as the one overseeing Gold Roger's execution, and continues to appear throughout the season as a major character.
- In the manga, the existence of Baroque Works isn't set up until the Reverse Mountain arc and aren't properly introduced until the Whiskey Peak arc. Because this show adapts Zoro's fight against Mr. 7, which was originally only mentioned to have happened prior to the story in the manga, Baroque Works is set up much earlier.
- In the manga, Arlong doesn't make a physical appearance until the titular Arlong Park arc, where he serves as the Arc Villain of that section of the story. In this show, he first shows up to intimidate Buggy after his defeat, which happens alongside the show's adaptation of the Syrup Village arc, and continues to have a presence throughout the season, essentially upgrading him from the antagonist of a single arc to the overall Big Bad of season 1.
- In the manga, the song "Binks' Sake" doesn't show up until Brook's first appearance in the Thriller Bark Arc. In this series, the song can be heard being played during a flashback scene in episode 1, where Luffy tells Koby how he got his powers, which was much earlier than Brook's debut in the manga.
- Percy Jackson and the Olympians
- Hermes first appears during the events of The Lightning Thief, delivering Medusa's decapitated head to Mount Olympus in the third episode. In the books, Mount Olympus is not visited until towards the end of The Lightning Thief, and Hermes first appears during the events of The Sea of Monsters.
- The cast list also spoils that Timothy Omundson is going to be portraying Hephaestus, who doesn't appear in the flesh until the fourth novel. A mechanical rhino that might be one of his constructs is observed by Percy in his youth.
- In a rare case of a game being this, the Mythomagic card game actually gets a cameo as something both Grover and Percy use to bond over, instead of of being first mentioned in The Titan's Curse.
- Chris Rodriguez, who in the books was briefly mentioned in The Sea of Monsters but didn't truly appear until Battle of the Labyrinth, is in the second episode as Luke's cabin-mate who accompanies him and Percy in finding something Percy's good at.
- In Episode 2, Grover consults with the Cloven Council. In the books, the Council of Cloven Elders wasn't introduced until Battle of the Labyrinth.
- Power Rangers:
- Season 3 of Mighty Morphin' Power Rangers had the Rangers start off with the Ninja Zords as opposed to their Sentai counterparts, the Super Stealth Beast Gods, which would be the last set of mechs the Kakurangers would receive. This also extends to ally Ninjor, who also appears at the beginning of the season whereas his Sentai counterpart Ninjaman didn't show up until the series' midway point.
- Power Rangers Ninja Storm had Cameron Watanabe show up in the beginning, as his Sentai counterpart Shurikenger was introduced in episode 21, though this is a subversion as Cameron is also a Composite Character due to his Sentai counterpart as support for the Rangers being Oboro Hinata, who was there from the start.
- Power Rangers RPM combines this with Ascended Extra, having Kilobyte appear long before, and stick around long after, the two-parter his Engine Sentai Go-onger counterpart came from.
- Power Rangers Dino Charge had Kendall Morgan being introduced from the start of the series, whereas her Sentai counterpart Yayoi Ulshade was introduced in episode 21.
- Snide is this retroactively, or something... it's complicated. Basically, his sentai counterpart is from a team-up movie that wasn't adapted during PRDC. Now that that team-up is getting adapted, this means his entire role for that season is now a very early Early-Bird Cameo, as he showed up four years before the episode that corresponds to his sentai appearance.
- In Preacher (2016), Odin Quincannon is a major villain for the first season, before the show does more than hint at the Grail or Jesse's family matters. In the original comic series, Odin was the newly-introduced villain of an arc about two-thirds of the way through, after the Custer family arc and the first Grail one.
- Two failed pilots were made for a US remake of Red Dwarf, both of which had Robert Llewellyn reprise his role as Kryten. In the original series, Kryten didn't appear until season 2 (played by David Ross) and didn't become a regular until season 3.
- Ripley: Reeves Minot appears in the final episode. He's a major character in the rest of the books in the Ripliad, but doesn't appear in The Talented Mr. Ripley (which this series is adapting).
- The Sandman (2022):
- In the comics, the Corinthian was introduced as an antagonist in the second story arc. In the Netflix adaptation, he's introduced in the very first episode, and shown facilitating the events of the first story arc as well.
- In the TV version of "A Hope in Hell", Lucifer is being attended by the demon Mazikeen when Morpheus comes to reclaim his helm. In the comic, Mazikeen's first appearance was several story arcs later, in the issue revealing how Lucifer planned to get revenge on Morpheus for humiliating Lucifer in "A Hope in Hell".
- In the comics, Rose Walker's first appearance on-panel is at the start of The Doll's House in issue #10, and the fact that she's actually the same "Rose" who another character spoke to on a payphone in a single panel in issue #6 is only confirmed in the final issue of the story arc (#16). In the adaptation, the call is made on a smartphone — and thanks to video chat, Rose makes a brief on-screen appearance.
- In A Series of Unfortunate Events (2017), the show is set up with a much more cohesive narrative from the get go through bringing in aspects of the Volunteer Fire Department in the adaptions of the first 4 books when they didn't show up until a little bit after, most notably in the Sigil Spam of the VFD logo, which the film shows Olaf's tattoo actually looking like this time around, the frequency of VFD spyglasses, and Montgomery Montgomery and Josephine being shown as clearly active members.
- Sharpe: Teresa Moreno, Sharpe's eventual first wife, was introduced in the novel Sharpe's Gold, the second novel published, which became the third chronologically when prequel novel Sharpe's Rifles was written. The television series had her meet Sharpe in Sharpe's Rifles and go on to appear in Sharpe's Eagle (adapted from the first published novel). Ironically, thanks to the novels being adapted out of order, she wasn't in the In Name Only adaptation Sharpe's Gold, having already been killed off
- In the Sherlock Holmes canon, Mycroft Holmes makes his first appearance in "The Adventure of the Greek Interpreter" and Watson is surprised that, in all the time he's known Holmes, he never mentioned having a brother. In Sherlock, Mycroft introduces himself to John (sort of) almost immediately after John first meets Sherlock.
- A lot of characters (specifically Lois Lane and various superheroes and supervillains) in Smallville show up years before Clark Kent even becomes Superman.
- Most of the main characters in Titans (2018) are from either the original 1960s-'70s Teen Titans run (Nightwing, Wonder Girl and Hawk) or the New Teen Titans run from the '80s (Raven, Starfire, Beast Boy and Jason Todd/Robin). The exceptions are Superboy, Dawn Granger/Dove and Ravager, who didn't join the Teen Titans in the comics until the Geoff Johns run that began in 2003. The same goes for Tim Drake, who is introduced in Season 3 before becoming the new Robin in Season 4.
- In True Blood, Sophie-Anne is introduced at the end of the second season, which loosely adapts the second book in The Sookie Stackhouse Mysteries series. Sophie-Anne wasn't introduced in the books until the fifth one; by time the series reached that point, she'd been killed off.
- Season 1 of The Umbrella Academy (2019) primarily adapts Apocalypse Suite, the first volume of the Umbrella Academy comic book, but also adapts some elements of the comic's second volume, Dallas. This means that while the Commission (called the Temps Aeternalis in the comic) and temporal assassins Hazel and Cha-Cha don't appear until the second volume of the comic, they show up at the very beginning of the first season in the Netflix adaptation.
- The Watch (2021) begins with Carrot joining the Ankh-Morpork City Watch, just like he does in the first Watch novel, Guards! Guards!. Angua, Cheery and Detritus are already Watchmen; in the books, Angua and Detritus join in the second novel, Men at Arms, and Cheery doesn't appear until the third one, Feet of Clay. The main antagonist is (or at least shares a name with) the villain of the sixth Watch novel, Night Watch.
- The Wheel of Time (2021):
- Alanna Mosvani and her warders don't appear in the books until the second, The Great Hunt. Here she's introduced in the party of Aes Sedai that captured and escorted Logain to Tar Valon, an adaption from the first book, The Eye of the World. Likewise, Liandrin does not appear until the second volume but appears in the opening moments of the very first episode.
- Similarly, the Amyrlin Seat, Siuan Sanche, and her Keeper of the Chronicles, Leane Sharif, do not appear until the second novel but debut in the first season. More dramatically, the Inquisitor Eamon Valda does not appear until the sixth book, but debuts in the first season. Latra Posae Decume appears in the Season 1 finale despite only appearing the companion book to the series. Finally, the Aes Sedai Kerene only appears in the prequel spin-off novel, but has a role in the first season.
- Yu Yu Hakusho (2023) has multiple examples due to being a Compressed Adaptation that condenses multiple story arcs from the manga into a single season of five episodes:
- Kurama, Hiei and Gouki are all introduced at the end of the first episode, whereas they didn't appear until the 20th chapter of the manga. Likewise, Sakyo, who didn't show up until chapter 47, makes his debut earlier in the same episode and serves as the Big Bad of the season.
- Hiei's little sister Yukina is first seen in the second episode, in contrast to the manga, where she was introduced in chapter 46. This also changes Hiei's motivation, since in the manga, he originally participated in the theft of the Artifacts of Darkness for his own sake, and the revelation that he had a younger sister who he was looking for only came much later. Here, he takes part in the heist so that he can use one of the artifacts to find Yukina after she is kidnapped.
- The Toguro Brothers make their first appearance at the end of episode 2, while their manga counterparts also debuted in chapter 46. Karasu and Bui, meanwhile, are revealed as Sakyo's other enforcers at the end of the third episode, despite not showing up until the "Dark Tournament" arc of the manga, specifically in chapters 60 and 71, respectively.
- Genkai is introduced in the third episode, where Yusuke is sent to her to train for a rematch after being defeated by Hiei. She didn't show up in the manga until chapter 25, one issue after Yusuke had already beaten Hiei.
