First appearance

In comic books and other stories with a long history, first appearance refers to the first occurrence to feature a fictional character.

Monetary value of first appearance issues

First appearances of popular characters are among the most valuable comic books in existence. Of the "ten most valuable comic books" listed in the spring 2002 issue of The Overstreet Comic Book Price Guide, seven are first appearances of popular superheroes. (Another, Marvel Comics #1 (October 1939), is the first appearance of the Golden Age Human Torch but is most noteworthy as the first comic book published by industry giant Marvel Comics).

By the time a character becomes iconic, many years have passed since his or her first appearance and few copies, and fewer good-conditioned copies, remain. These comic books may be worth thousands of dollars. In 2004, a copy of Flash Comics #1 (January 1940), the first appearance of The Flash, was auctioned for $42,000 and a copy of Captain America Comics #1 (March 1941), the first appearance of Captain America sold for $64,400. In 2010, another copy of Flash Comics #1 sold privately for $450,000.

Frasier

Frasier is an American sitcom that was broadcast on NBC for eleven seasons, premiering on September 16, 1993, and concluding on May 13, 2004.

The program was created and produced by David Angell, Peter Casey, and David Lee (as Grub Street Productions) in association with Grammnet (2004) and Paramount Network Television.

The series was created as a spin-off of Cheers, continuing the story of psychiatrist Frasier Crane as he returned to his hometown of Seattle and started building a new life. Frasier starred Kelsey Grammer, David Hyde Pierce, John Mahoney, Jane Leeves, Peri Gilpin, and Moose/Enzo. Critically acclaimed, it was one of the most successful spin-off series in television history.

Overview

Psychiatrist Dr. Frasier Crane (Grammer) returns to his hometown of Seattle, Washington, following the end of his marriage and his life in Boston (as seen in Cheers). His plans for a new life as a bachelor are complicated when he is obliged to take in his father, Martin (Mahoney), a retired Seattle Police Department detective, who has mobility problems after being shot in the line of duty during a robbery. Frasier hires Daphne Moon (Leeves), as Martin's live-in physical therapist and care giver, and tolerates Martin's dog Eddie (Moose). Frasier frequently spends time with his younger brother Niles (Pierce), a fellow psychiatrist. Niles becomes obsessed with, and eventually falls in love with, Daphne (notwithstanding his own marriage), but does not confess his feelings to her until the final episode of the seventh season.

Lilith

Lilith (Hebrew: לִילִית‎ Lîlîṯ) is a Hebrew name for a figure in Jewish mythology, developed earliest in the Babylonian Talmud (3rd to 5th centuries CE). The character is generally thought to derive in part from a historically far earlier class of female demons (līlīṯu) in Mesopotamian religion, found in cuneiform texts of Sumer, Akkad, Assyria, and Babylonia.

Evidence in later Jewish materials is plentiful, but little information has survived relating to the original Sumerian, Akkadian, Assyrian and Babylonian view of these demons. Recent scholarship has disputed the relevance of two sources previously used to connect the Jewish lilith to an Akkadian lilitu—the Gilgamesh appendix and the Arslan Tash amulets. (See below for discussion of the two problematic sources.)

In Hebrew-language texts, the term lilith or lilit (translated as "night creatures", "night monster", "night hag", or "screech owl") first occurs in a list of animals in Isaiah 34:14, either in singular or plural form according to variations in the earliest manuscripts. In the Dead Sea Scrolls' Songs of the Sage the term first occurs in a list of monsters. In Jewish magical inscriptions on bowls and amulets from the 6th century BC onwards, Lilith is identified as a female demon and the first visual depictions appear.

Frasier Crane

Frasier Winslow CraneM.D. Ph.D. is a fictional character on the American television sitcoms Cheers and Frasier, portrayed by Kelsey Grammer. Grammer received award recognitions for portraying this character in these two shows, in addition to a 1992 one-time appearance in Wings.

The character debuts in the Cheers third season premiere, "Rebound (Part 1)" (1984), as Diane Chambers's love interest to the "Sam and Diane" dynamic. Intended to appear for only a few episodes, Grammer's performance for the role was praised by producers, prompting them to expand his role and to increase his prominence. Later in Cheers, Frasier is married to Lilith Sternin (Bebe Neuwirth) with a son, Frederick, and resides in Boston. After Cheers ended, the character moved to his spin-off series Frasier, the span of his overall television appearances therefore totaling twenty years. In the spin-off, Frasier moves back to his birthplace Seattle after his divorce from Lilith, who retained custody of Frederick in Boston, and is reunited with a newly created family: his estranged father Martin and brother Niles. In the series finale, he is supposed to depart to San Francisco for his proposed talk show, but instead he goes to Chicago, where one of his love interests resides.