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.

Last year, I did one of these on the first women to WRITE the adventures of Batman, Spider-Man and Superman. I also did a follow-up piece on who were the first women to either write or draw Wonder Woman (as a follow-up to that piece, let me note that Jill Thompson was the first woman to draw Wonder Woman in Wonder Wman's ongoing series, Thompson was also the first woman to write AND draw a Wonder Woman comic book story and Renae De Liz was the first woman to write and draw a whole Wonder Woman series). The other day, my pal Wayne asked me who the first woman was to draw Superman and I figured that this merited a follow-up to the original piece!

First off, we have to define what we mean by "draw Batman, Spider-Man and Superman." We, of course, don't just mean draw them in a comic book period, right? We mean in specifically a Batman, Spider-Man or Superman comic book.

Otherwise, the answer for Batman and Superman would be simple, as Ramona Fradon was the regular artist on DC's Super Friends comic book series from the late 1970s, starting with issue #3...

Ya got Batman, Superman and Wonder Woman all on the very first page there! So that would pretty much do it if that's all you are looking for for Batman and Superman. However, I am pretty sure we all mean "in an actual Batman or Superman comic book series," right?

The answer there, though, is also a bit tricky.

Fradon drew a team-up in The Brave and the Bold #59 of Batman and Green Lantern in 1965 if you count The Brave and the Bold BEFORE it was an official Batman team-up series...

Batman and Green Lantern team-up

In 1992, John Ostrander, Mary Mitchell and Bruce Patterson came out with a miniseries called Batman: Gotham Nights, which was a well-produced examination of the lives of the people of Gotham City...

The book is really not ABOUT Batman, but rather the people of Gotham City. Still, the book is clearly titled BATMAN: Gotham Nights and Batman appears in the comic book right away, so that should totally count, right?

We certainly count Trina Robbins as the first Wonder Woman artist for her 1986 Wonder Woman miniseries, so Mitchell or Fradon have to be the answer for this one.

Becky Cloonan, though, was the first woman to specifically draw an issue of the flagship Batman ongoing series, with Batman #12 in 2012...

So that is, of course, very notable on her part, as well.

Page 2: [valnet-url-page page=2 paginated=0 text='Okay, so how about Superman and Spider-Man?']

Spider-Man is a bit tricky himself, but not really.

Marie Severin did some alterations in Amazing Spider-Man #82, but pretty much just making sure that the talk show host looked like Merv Griffin...

A decade later, she became the semi-regular artist on Spectacular Spider-Man with 1980's Spectacular Spider-Man #45...

For Superman, Joyce Chin drew the 1998 miniseries Superman: Silver Banshee...

Chin also did a page in the 2006 all-star tribute issue of Superman/Batman to Sam Loeb.

Adriana Melo drew Superman/Batman #86, if you're looking for the first woman to draw an issue of an ongoing Superman title...

While Nicola Scott drew Superman #3 in 2012, if you're looking for specifically the first woman to draw the flagship Superman title...

Thanks for the request, Wayne! If anyone else has a question regarding when something in comic book history first showed up, drop me a line at brianc@cbr.com and I'll try to figure it out for you!