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This article taught me that Gordon served in the military. Does anyone know what specific branch? In Batman: Year One before he fights Flass, he says that it's been years since he fought a Green Beret, so I'm guessing U.S. Army, but I don't know. Has it ever been referenced in detail?

First Appearance[]

I swapped out Detective Comics #27 for Batman #404 since the was the first appearance of the "New Earth" version. I left the note at the bottom since it is akin to the Prime Earth notes we've got. I left the creators as is for the same reason. But I'm wondering, should we include the first appearance, if it's actually been nailed down, of the Earth-One Gordon that got folded into the New Earth version?

- Byfield (talk) 13:06, June 8, 2014 (UTC)

On the record, I'm against using #404 instead of #27. I think it's weird to list a first appearance that the character's creators weren't involved with. That being said, I think it's about time we gave Jimmy-One his own page. I've started linking to it in a few places. - Billy Arrowsmith (Talk), 07:55, June 10, 2014 (UTC)
If there's enough difference, like with Batman, an Earth-One page makes sense.
As for first appearances and creators... it really looks like we're in a catch-22. As a "basic" character, Commissioner Gordon was created by Kane and Finger and first appeared in Detective Comics #27. But by and large we don't have articles on the "basic" characters, we've got them on specific versions and each of those is going to have a unique "First Appearance". With Gordon, the Earth-Two version was assigned the Golden Age material - 1939 through the mid to late 1950s - including Detective Comics #27. The other 3 big versions though - Earth-One, New Earth, and Prime Earth - each have, or should have, their own first appearance. The New and Prime Earth versions are easy to point to. The Earth-One version though... there really wasn't a clear "change over" story in the mid to late 1950s.
As far as creators go, I'm going with what I though were current intentions. For primary continuities the Creators field be used for those that created the "base" character only even if they did not create that version. This version of Gordon fits there - Kane and Finger created the base character, They did not however create the New Earth version, that was O'Neil and Miller. And for all others, comic or not, versions of the character, it include the original creators and those responsible for adapting the character. My personal preference still is that we add a field for "Adaptation" so the characters can be put into "Characters adapted by <Foo>" categories and that get applied to re-boots as well as Elseworlds, TV versions, and so on.
- Byfield (talk) 11:02, June 10, 2014 (UTC)
Re: the Earth-One/New Earth split for Jim (and Babs) Gordon, I think it's long overdue. Miller and company totally revamped Jim's background. Granted, his background wasn't really well-defined Pre-Crisis but he was older and longer established in the GCPD on Earth-One. I agree with Byfield on the first appearances. If we treat them as distinct characters with their own pages, it makes sense to point out the first appearance of that distinct character.Of course, determining that first appearance can be the tricky part.... DrJohnnyDiablo (talk) 13:28, June 10, 2014 (UTC)
To clarify, Billy's position is that there shouldn't be a listed First Appearance of different versions of a character. The first appearance of Batman is ALWAYS Detective Comics #27, according to that method. The first appearance of a version of a character would go in notes, he says. I do agree that the first ever appearance of a mainstream continuity character should be listed somewhere on the page. I don't necessarily agree that it should be in the infobox of a PE character. The thing about CoIE, though, is that the universes were folded into one another. The New Earth Batman serves as an amalgam of the previous versions. - Hatebunny (talk) 13:51, June 10, 2014 (UTC)
CoIE pretty much resulted in three major "classes" of characters that carried over: nil to minimal change (most of the JSA for example), major revamps that couldn't be reconciled with the pre-Crisis version(s) (Batman, Gordon), and "new" (Wonder Woman, Superman).
How we are treating them more or less sets what we should be looking for in the infobox. A character like Alan Scott, where we don't split the material to have a pre-Crisis "Earth-Two" page and the post "New Earth", would use the older date. The rest, since there are separate pages, should use the later date(s), if they are clear. The Earth-One/Two characters that were in continued publication through the 1950s are a pain for that since there wasn't a CoIE-like event.
- Byfield (talk) 21:31, June 10, 2014 (UTC)
I vote for an independent Earth-One page. Varese (talk) 05:49, March 18, 2016 (UTC)
Me too. Is everybody cool with me starting an E-One Jim Gordon page? DrJohnnyDiablo (talk) 03:33, March 19, 2016 (UTC)

First Appearance, #2[]

How come his first appearance is #404 when #401 says he appeared in there? There's also Detective #569 that happens before #404. Is it first chronologically? I haven't read them so I'm really just asking. BrawnyOak (talk) 16:22, September 4, 2019 (UTC)

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