{"id":209,"date":"2018-12-15T08:14:05","date_gmt":"2018-12-15T16:14:05","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.codedread.com\/comicbooks\/?p=209"},"modified":"2018-12-18T12:43:50","modified_gmt":"2018-12-18T20:43:50","slug":"15-doctor-occult","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.codedread.com\/comicbooks\/15-doctor-occult\/","title":{"rendered":"15 &#8211; Doctor Occult!"},"content":{"rendered":"\n<figure class=\"wp-block-image\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" width=\"1024\" height=\"764\" src=\"https:\/\/www.codedread.com\/comicbooks\/wp-content\/uploads\/2018\/12\/doctor-occult-1-1024x764.png\" alt=\"A panel from Doctor Occult, appearing for the first time in New Fun #6, September 1935.\" class=\"wp-image-210\" srcset=\"https:\/\/www.codedread.com\/comicbooks\/wp-content\/uploads\/2018\/12\/doctor-occult-1-1024x764.png 1024w, https:\/\/www.codedread.com\/comicbooks\/wp-content\/uploads\/2018\/12\/doctor-occult-1-300x224.png 300w, https:\/\/www.codedread.com\/comicbooks\/wp-content\/uploads\/2018\/12\/doctor-occult-1-768x573.png 768w, https:\/\/www.codedread.com\/comicbooks\/wp-content\/uploads\/2018\/12\/doctor-occult-1.png 1644w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 1024px) 100vw, 1024px\" \/><figcaption>Doctor Occult, 1935<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n\n\n\n<p>It&#8217;s September 1935 and here we are, the birth of the <a href=\"https:\/\/en.wikipedia.org\/wiki\/DC_Universe\">DC Universe<\/a>.&nbsp; With this panel <a href=\"https:\/\/en.wikipedia.org\/wiki\/Doctor_Occult\">Doctor Occult<\/a> becomes the first character to exist in the DC Comics universe, though obviously there was no such concept of a <a href=\"https:\/\/en.wikipedia.org\/wiki\/DC_Comics\">shared universe<\/a> \/ continuity at the time.&nbsp; The strip debuted in New Fun Comics #6 by National Allied Publications (later DC Comics).<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>Initially, Doctor Occult was your standard trenchcoat-wearing detective that happened to fight supernatural menaces.\u00a0\u00a0 The strip was written by &#8220;Legers and Reuth&#8221;, pseudonyms for <a href=\"https:\/\/en.wikipedia.org\/wiki\/Jerry_Siegel\">Jerry Siegel<\/a> and <a href=\"https:\/\/en.wikipedia.org\/wiki\/Joe_Shuster\">Joe Shuster<\/a>, the creators of Superman (we are still about 3 years away from that moment).<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>The definition of superhero is a little loose here, but most people cite <a href=\"https:\/\/en.wikipedia.org\/wiki\/Mandrake_the_Magician\">Mandrake the Magician<\/a> and <a href=\"https:\/\/en.wikipedia.org\/wiki\/The_Phantom\">The Phantom<\/a> as the first ones (while others cite Tarzan, Zorro, Popeye and the Scarlet Pimpernell), but I believe Doctor Occult has the distinction of being the first &#8220;superhero&#8221; to appear in a comic book, period.\u00a0 Doctor Occult was also the first superhero to start in comic books as opposed to other characters who appeared in newspaper comic strips first.<br><\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>Another interesting fact about <a href=\"http:\/\/www.mikesamazingworld.com\/mikes\/features\/newsstand.php?type=calendar&amp;month=9&amp;year=1935&amp;publisher=all&amp;sort=alpha&amp;checklist=null\">September 1935<\/a> is that, from this point onwards in history, the company that would become known as &#8220;DC Comics&#8221; has not skipped a month of publishing comic books.<br><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>It&#8217;s September 1935 and here we are, the birth of the DC Universe.&nbsp; With this panel Doctor Occult becomes the first character to exist in the DC Comics universe, though obviously there was no such concept of a shared universe \/ continuity at the time.&nbsp; The strip debuted in New Fun Comics #6 by National [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":210,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[13,14,23,32,24,25,33],"class_list":["post-209","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-uncategorized","tag-13","tag-dc","tag-doctor-occult","tag-firsts","tag-jerry-siegel","tag-joe-shuster","tag-superhero"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.codedread.com\/comicbooks\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/209","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.codedread.com\/comicbooks\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.codedread.com\/comicbooks\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.codedread.com\/comicbooks\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.codedread.com\/comicbooks\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=209"}],"version-history":[{"count":7,"href":"https:\/\/www.codedread.com\/comicbooks\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/209\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":358,"href":"https:\/\/www.codedread.com\/comicbooks\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/209\/revisions\/358"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.codedread.com\/comicbooks\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/210"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.codedread.com\/comicbooks\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=209"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.codedread.com\/comicbooks\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=209"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.codedread.com\/comicbooks\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=209"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}