Metroid famously reveals in a twist ending that protagonist Samus Aran is a woman.

But this might not be the first time Nintendo did this twist.

Nintendo's Mach Rider opens with this shot of the protagonist. Each time you beat a level in the arcade version (titled VS. Mach Rider) you see the shot of the bike again, but the protagonist is gone...and a few more squares of a new image is slowly revealed.

The full image reveals a woman standing in the same place as the protagonist.

Does this mean Mach Rider is really a woman?

Japanese magazines began speculating almost immediately, such as this poster from Hi-Score Media Work magazine.

Mach Rider almost made it into Nintendo's Captain Rainbow, an adventure game celebrating forgotten Nintendo characters. It seems the character got as far as being modeled...and she's a woman.

Did Mach Rider inspire Capcom's Akira Kazama from Rival Schools, who had a similar Samus Reveal moment?

Of course, Mach Rider wasn't the first to do a Samus Reveal. As I mentioned previously, Baraduke was the first video game to do it.

But what about in wider media? https://twitter.com/katewillaert/status/1254520492981202946

In Return Of The Jedi, C-3PO uses male pronouns in reference to the bounty hunter Boushh, who's later revealed to be Leia.

Not only is Boushh a Bounty Hunter mistaken for male, but Jabba is the Boss to a group of Space Pirates who literally make Luke walk the plank. Hmm...

Of course, not everyone discovered Samus was a woman from playing the NES game. Which game was our introduction to the character?