The 2022 ComicBook.com Golden Issue Award for Best First TV Appearance

By Kofi Outlaw

There has never been a more challenging year for our 2022 ComicBook.com Golden Issue Award for "Best First TV Appearance". The past year of television was rich with excellent content – whether it was on streaming or broadcast. Along with so many quality new TV shows, we also got quality characters, played by some promising new acting talent. 

In a year where Marvel, DC, Star Wars, and Stranger Things all ruled the small screen at one point or another, narrowing choices down to the 5 best new TV characters certainly was a feat – but there could only be one winner... 

And the winner of the 2022 ComicBook.com Golden Issue Award for Best First TV Appearance is…

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Joseph Quinn's Eddie Munson from Stranger Things!

It shouldn't be all that surprising that Stranger Things 4's breakout star Eddie Munson (Joseph Quinn) was the winner of our "Best First TV Appearance" this year. (SPOILERS) Eddie Munson may not have made it out of Stranger Things 4 alive, but he has certainly achieved the immortality of being a geek culture icon. 

Fans have so many good reasons to love Eddie Munson: rock and heavy metal heads love how the character represented era of the music culture; tabletop gamers and fantasy geeks love how Eddie was a key architect in his school's "Hellfire Club" of Dungeons & Dragons players. In general, anyone who has felt like a geek, nerd, outcast, or "weird kid" in their teenage years at high school pretty much resonated with Eddie Munson's character – not to mention legions of horror fans who love him. The arc of Eddie running from his problems to finally stepping up and facing the most frightening circumstances imaginable in the Upside Down has also cemented him as a geek-hero icon – with an epic death scene, to boot. 

As stated, the geek-culture zeitgeist has now immortalized Eddie Munson in cosplay, fan artwork, memes, .gifs, and all the other ways that signal a TV character is a forever part of the zeitgeist. 

As you can see above, this was truly a tough year to judge. Orange is the New Black actress Danielle Brooks made a significant jump into the DC Universe, playing Amanda Waller's (Viola Davis) daughter, no less. Bailey Bass had big little shoes to fill (Kirsten Dunst's) playing Claudia in Interview with the Vampire; Lyra Blair similarly took on an iconic role playing a young Princess Leia in Obi-Wan, while Patty Guggenheim may have been the MVP of the MCU this year with She-Hulk's Madisynn. 

Congrats to our Joseph Quinn for the Golden Issue Award win, and all our nominees for "Best First TV Appearance". 

The full list of nominees for Best First TV Appearance are...

  • Leota Adebayo (Danielle Brooks, Peacemaker)
  • Claudia (Bailey Bass, Interview with the Vampire)
  • Madisynn King (Patty Guggenheim, She-Hulk: Attorney at Law)
  • Eddie Munson (Joseph Quinn, Stranger Things) – WINNER
  • Leia Organa (Vivian Lyra Blair, Star Wars: Obi-Wan Kenobi)

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