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.

Today, based on a suggestion from my pal, Loren, we look at when Franklin Richards was first established as a mutant in the comics (something that is a major factor right now in the X-Men/Fantastic Four miniseries that Marvel is currently putting out).

Franklin Richards made his "debut" in Fantastic Four Annual #6 (by Jack Kirby, Stan Lee and Joe Sinnott) as his mother gave birth to him...

It's interesting to note that when Jack Kirby left the Fantastic Four, Franklin was still very much a baby (more than an infant, of course, but not quite yet a toddler)...

When John Buscema took over the series, though, Franklin was now a toddler and Stan Lee began to hint that there was something going on with Franklin...

There were a number of other hints over the next couple of years that there was something odd about Franklin, with Roy Thomas being the first writer to make it a bit more explicit, like in this bit from Fantastic Four #130 and Franklin' sparkling eyes...

Gerry Conway picked up on that idea and took it a step further by having Annihilus show up and flat out state that Franklin Richards was filled with power...

They key here, though, is that Franklin was just "Filled with cosmic energy"....

It sadly led to Reed Richards to flat out shut down his own son's brain temporarily to keep his powers from overwhelming him...

Sue, as you might imagine, was not a fan of that move.

But anyhow, that was always the take - that Franklin was just filled with "cosmic energy," as a mix of his parents both being imbued with cosmic rays and/or the element that Reed had to get out of the Negative Zone to save unborn Franklin's life in Fantastic Four Annual #6.

Interestingly, Marv Wolfman specifically had a mutant kid in an issue of Fantastic Four (#203) without Reed making any reference to "like my son, Franklin")...

Even during Doug Moench, Bill Sienkiewicz and Joe Sinnott's run on the book, it was still simply a matter of their cosmic ray-irradiated genes causing Franklin to have powers...

As reader David L. pointed out, around that time, John Byrne, Chris Claremont and Terry Austin revealed Franklin to be a mutant in the terrible future of Days of Future Past in X-Men #141...

That was just a possible future, but then, early in Byrne's run on the Fantastic Four, in Fantastic Four #238, he confirmed that Franklin was mutant...

It makes sense then, that Byrne would be the guy who finally established that Franklin was a mutant.

Thanks to Loren for the great question (that ended up being way too much work answering, but hey, it WAS a great question!).

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