In "When We First Met", we spotlight the various characters, phrases, objects or events that eventually became notable parts of comic lore, like 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.

The other day, I wrote about Julia Pennyworth's short-lived time as a love interest for Bruce Wayne (and Batman, actually).

Julia's time as a regular in the Bat-books started during Doug Moench's run, but she actually debuted a few years earlier, during Gerry Conway's run on Detective Comics, in Detective Comics #501 (by Conway, Don Newton and Dan Adkins). In that story, Alfred is called to Paris on mysterious terms and Batman follows suit and we see Bats meet with a member of the French police and we see Batman mention, for the first time, that Alfred served in British Intelligence during World War II....

We then learn about Mademoiselle Marie, who I also wrote about recently here and how someone in the French Resistance was thought to have shot Marie...

Alfred is then arrested by Julia, the daughter of Mademoiselle Marie, who believes that Alfred was the person who killed her mother. She holds her own kangaroo court to hang him for the murder of her mother...

Batman, naturally, insists that she give him the opportunity to clear Alfred's name and she reluctantly does and Batman finds the real killer (it's the guy from the French police we saw earlier). However, this doesn't explain why Marie kept saying Alfred's name when she was shot and was found to be pregnant. Alfred won't elaborate...

But it's painfully obvious what the deal is when Alfred commiserates with the former French Resistance member who raised Julia....

Honestly, wouldn't it be kind of painfully obvious for JULIA, too? "My mother was pregnant by an unknown father. You didn't shoot her. Huh...I wonder why she kept saying your name. Oh well, I guess we'll never know!"

In any event, this is the story that established Alfred as a former spy, which has been a major part of his background ever since.

If anyone else has a suggestion for a notable comic book first that they'd like to learn, drop me a line at brianc@cbr.com!