Every week we spotlight the various characters, phrases, objects or events that eventually became notable parts of comic book lore. Not major stuff like "the first appearance of Superman," but rather, "the first time someone said, 'Avengers Assemble!'" or "the first appearance of Batman's giant penny" or "the first appearance of Alfred Pennyworth" or "the first time Spider-Man's face was shown half-Spidey/half-Peter." Stuff like that. Here is an archive of all the When We First Met features so far! Check 'em out!

Today we look at the first appearances of three magical objects from Marvel Comics - the Darkhold, the Serpent Crown and the Casket of Ancient Winters!

Enjoy!

First appearance of the Darkhold

The Darkhold is first mentioned in Marvel Spotlight #3 by Gerry Conway and Mike Ploog, as Jack Russell gets caught up in a plot to find some mysterious book his birth father supposedly owned...





His captors were one of those "we need to do some bad in order for us to do good" types of people, so one of his captors balked when Jack began to be abused...



That's the first time the book is called the Darkhold.

Now escaped, Jack decides he IS interested in finding the book himself...



In the next issue (also by Conway and Ploog), Jack meets a reporter named Buck Cowan, who tells him about the Darkhold...



They travel to the castle, which has now been turned into a mental institution. Jack is captured and he meets the daughter of the new owner....



Jack discovers the owner doing terrible experiments on the patients but he also discovers...



(The twist in the issue is that Marlene has Medusa-like powers and her father is doing all of the experiments in an attempt to cure her)

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First appearance of the Serpent Crown

In the last issue of Tales to Astonish (#101) by Roy Thomas, Gene Colan and Dan Adkins, Namor is haunted by a dream of a new villain...



At the end of the issue, we meet Destiny, a man with a helmet of power!



In the next Namor issue (contained in the one-shot Iron Man and Sub-Mariner #1), we learn the origins of the helmet, how he read about a helmet of the ancients...



and discovered it in the Antarctic...



Eventually, the man named Destiny ends up dead (the helmet made him so cocky that he felt that its power was within himself and he did not need the helmet. He then tried levitating off of a building and...well...it did not work).

Namor goes to get the helmet. He manages to do so in Sub-Mariner #8. In the following issue (written by Roy Thomas and drawn by Marie Severin and Dan Adkins), Namor brings the helmet back to Atlantis for safe keeping...



The helmet makes a change, though, while Namor is off on other business...



And while he is gone, Dorma is taken under its spell...



Things are not good when Namor returns...



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First appearance of the Casket of Ancient Winters

In Thor #345, a young man is captured by some magical beings. He knows his time is nearly up, so he puts into place arrangements with his lawyer. The lawyer mentions the situation to the Avengers, who pass it along to Thor...



As it turns out, we're talking about the Casket of the Ancient Winters!



The young man is the guardian of the casket. He is actually a lot older than he looks. Whoever the guardian is does not age once he becomes the guardian. With his death near, Eric Willis passes the torch to his son, Roger, a Korean War veteran. Roger goes to find the casket...



Ultimately, though, Malekith gets the casket...



And this leads to a story (that affected the entire Marvel Universe) where all of the winters of the world are unleashed on Earth at once.

The casket played a role in the recent Thor film, as well.

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Feel free to send in ideas for other debuts that you're curious about! Send your ideas to bcronin@comicbookresources.com!