Intrepid Reporters in Comic Books.
- Since it is an easy way to get a superhero into an adventure, ever since the Golden Age a lot of superheroes either worked as reporters themselves (like Superman) or had an intrepid reporter as a love interest (like Superman had Lois Lane) or close pal (like Superman had Jimmy Olsen). For example:
- Iris West and Linda Park, journalist wives of the second and third Flashes respectively.
- Also Vicki Vale, Batman's love interest in the '50s and the Tim Burton movie. She still makes occasional cameos in The DCU as a TV news anchor but is no longer associated with Batman.
- As of Battle For The Cowl, she's back on the Gotham Gazette and back to trying to deduce Batman's secret identity. And she's succeeded.
- Radio reporter Libby Belle Lawrence became the Golden Age Liberty Belle in the winter of 1942/43.
- In the Marvel Universe, both the Daily Bugle's publisher, J. Jonah Jameson, and its editor-in-chief Joe Robertson had aspects of this. As did a number of the paper's journalists, including photographer Peter Parker alias Spider-Man. Also Peter's former romantic rival Ned Leeds and his widow, Betty Brant.
- Ben Urich, formerly of the Daily Bugle, now of Frontline. His first story involved him deducing Daredevil's secret identity.
- Likewise, his partner Sally Floyd. (Being "intrepid" does not necessarily mean you're good at your job.)
- During his time on The Pulse, the Bugle's superhero supplement, Ben also worked with Jessica Jones and Terri Kidder. Kidder showed the dangers of being an intrepid reporter; her obsession with superhero stories got her killed.
- In her first solo series as Ms. Marvel, Carol Danvers was editor of Jameson's magazine Woman.
- The Beast's one-time girlfriend, television reporter Trish Tilby.
- In The New Universe series Psi-Force, reporter Andrew Chaser befriended member Tyrone Jessup and eventually wrote a book about the team.
- The Golden Age Black Cat (Linda Turner) had an admirer in reporter Rick Horne.
- In a slight subversion, Owl Girl, the sidekick of the Dell Comics Golden Age hero The Owl, was gossip columnist Belle Wayne.
- The Golden Age Blue Beetle's girlfriend was a reporter; she even appeared in one solo story as Joan Mason, Girl Reporter in 1945.
- Vic Sage a.k.a. The Question is DC Comic’s most famous superhero journalist. He is an investigative reporter and hard television personality who uses what he learned as a journalist to solve crimes as a detective. Lampshaded further in 52 where it was revealed in a snippet that Vic was influenced more to wear a mask to protect himself after his enemies began to try and harm him (at one point even burning a house to get to him).
- In 1938, Action Comics #1 introduced Scoop Scanlon, crusading reporter, but he never took off. He was probably overshadowed by one of the other characters.
- Age of the Sentry parodies this by making The Sentry's alter ego Robert Reynolds an intrepid reporter... for an encyclopedia.
- Subverted in Astro City; Samaritan's civilian identity is as a fact-checker at the Astro City Rocket, but he doesn't do any actual investigation — he only uses their internet connection so his organic computer can monitor news worldwide and alert him to dangerous events.
- The Black Order Brigade has the German left-wing journalist Lotte, who serves as an informer to the protagonists of the story on the whereabouts of their opponents. She apparently got this information from a young fascist, "that kind of asshole I even had to get to bed with to spill information". That statement has "Intrepid" written all over it. Later, the "Viking Jugend" gets back at her by mowing her down with a machine gun.
- The classic newspaper comic strip Brenda Starr has its titular character in this role. Also, a frequent Damsel in Distress.
- Billy Batson, the Golden Age Captain Marvel, was a cub reporter for a radio station.
- Chlorophylle has the titular character and Minimum in "Zizanion Le Terrible". Zizanion exploits it by phoning their newspaper with a bomb threat.
- Clean Room: Chloe Pierce is ostensibly a reporter, though after her introduction she devotes all of her time to investigating the Mueller organization and seems to have abandoned her actual job.
- Jimmy Olsen sometimes reminds the readers he's a photographer working for a world-famous newspaper and not only a weirdness magnet. In Bizarrogirl, Jimmy hurries up to search whatever is tearing up Metropolis so he can take pictures.Jimmy: And I'm gonna get closer to whatever's messing up downtown.
Boy: What?! Why?
Jimmy: So I can take a picture of it. - Paperinik New Adventures has three.
- The first is Stephan Vladuck/Camera 9, an intrepid reporter capable of discovering everything (in the story he has discovered the existence of the Time Police, including that Lyla works for them, and what the Ducklair Tower really is. Luckily he's keeping the secret) before the advent of the show-news forced him to find a job as cameraman for Channel 00.
- The second is Mike M. Morrighan, a sleazy reporter who still has discovered evidence of the Evronian threat (and only failed to reveal it because the US Army discovered the tape he had mailed to himself to prevent confiscation and swapped it with a bad cartoon).
- Then we have Angus Fangus: in spite of being (in)famous for his unjustified rants against our protagonist, the fact his favourite target is called Paperinik the Devilish Avenger for a good reason (and still continuing after having been at the receiving end of his humiliating revenges at least twice), his ongoing attempts at bringing to justice a Corrupt Corporate Executive (that's why he left New Zealand), his backstory including foiling a traffic of thermonuclear weapons and many other brave (and ridiculous. He had already saw everything when he had been kidnapped by a Mad Scientist who wanted to Take Over the World) feats of his make him one.
- Lyla Lay is a subversion. She is certainly intrepid and a reporter, but journalism is actually a side-gig. Her main job is being an undercover agent for the Time police, and she moonlights as a superhero, which means that she ends up covering up more information than she reveals.
- Revival: May Tao achieves national fame when her interview with a morgue tech turns into video of a corpse returning to life. She aggressively pursues more stories but is unable or unwilling to print the results, never managing further journalistic success.
- Robin (1993): Alexandra Brackett is a reporter who first meets Robin while she's working on a story that has multiple factions trying to kill her to get her to stop investigating. She does not stop, and actually manages to uncover the corruption and murder Strader Pharmaceuticals is trying to hide.
- Saga: Doff and Upsher, reporters, are investigating the rumor that two soldiers from opposing armies managed to have a child together. They're seemingly the only reporters in the galaxy to take this (entirely true) rumor seriously and manage to score an interview with one of the soldiers' commanding officers in the middle of an active war zone. Note that Doff and Upsher are tabloid reporters.
- Scoopy, from the British Anthology Comic Nutty, was a Funny Animal dog (described as "the runaround hound with a nose for news") with a camera and a Press Hat. A typical Scoopy strip would involve him suffering Amusing Injuries due to his determination to get the story.
- Spirou & Fantasio are technically reporters, and they're definitely intrepid. Unlike Tintin, they can even be seen doing actual reporting once in a while.
- Star Wars: Invasion: Cianba, a reporter with a particular chip on her shoulder about the Republic's nonexistent response to the Yuuzhan Vong invasion, makes a point of reporting live from refugee camps and active warzones in order to make it as clear as possible how much of a threat the Vong are and expose how the Republic is leaving entire worlds to die.
- For a short while in the early 70's Supergirl worked as a junior photographer and reporter for San Francisco news station KSF-TV.
- Superman: Clark Kent, Lois Lane and Jimmy Olsen fill this role at the Daily Planet in The DCU, and editor Perry White was one before he got promoted. In Kryptonite Nevermore, as soon as she hears about a band of crooks appropriating a Government facility, taking hostages and threatening with causing an environmental disaster if their demands are not met, Lois leaves to get the story. In Trinity (2008), not even gods battling and tearing down the landscape will keep her from getting the story.
- Tintin is one of these, though you might have missed it if you haven't read the one volume where he actually gets around to filing a story.
- This ambiguity is likely a result of a poor transition into the paperback format which most modern readers are more familiar with. Tintin was originally published in a supplement to the Belgian newspaper "The 20th Century". The idea was that he was a reporter who submitted his stories in comic form, so showing him interacting with members of the newspaper staff would have seemed redundant.
- Spider Jerusalem from Transmetropolitan, who brings down an entire government with his stories. He's not even the only one in the setting; any reporters not being actually paid to spout government propaganda are willing to take swings at them.
- Savoy from The Unwritten an Intrepid Reporter of the blogger variety. His modus operandi is infiltrating prisons to get the inside scoop on fresh detainees.
- Uptown Girl is a Minneapolis-based reporter for the City Pages (in Real Life, a weekly paper) who gets involved in many weird cases. In issue #18, her friend Rocketman lampshades her habit of charging ahead to solve the problem of the day without sensibly calling the police to deal with it.
- The Wicked + The Divine: Cassandra starts out wanting to prove that the gods are frauds and their miracles are just tricks, and soon after switches gears to finding out who killed the judge. This involves her going against her better judgement since interfering with all-powerful Physical Gods is probably the most dangerous thing she's ever done, but the potential scoop can't be ignored.
- Wonder Woman:
- Sensation Comics: Selldom Wright nearly gets himself killed while following leads to write a follow up of his story on the Blue Seal Gang. It doesn't help that he discredits Wonder Woman's attempted help as he doesn't want to take women seriously.
- Wonder Woman (1987): Cassie Arnold shows what a reporter like this could be without scruples; the reason she's there at the scene of so many crimes and fights before the police even show up is that she's dating the super-villain who is secretly orchestrating it all and is helping him maintain his public persona as a hero in exchange for juicy stories in which lives are lost.
