‘Z’ for Zorro, 100 years on
The dashing masked avenger Zorro made his first swashbuckling appearance 100 years ago in the pages of a US magazine to become an international icon alongside the likes of Tarzan and Superman.
The original caped crusader, Zorro was created by US writer Johnston McCulley and introduced in the story “The Curse of Capistrano”, carried in a Californian pulp magazine over five weeks starting from August 9, 1919.
In conceiving the sword-wielding defender of the downtrodden, McCulley set the stage for a whole century of superheroes.
“Zorro is the original caped crusader. Before Batman, before Superman, before Wonder Woman there was Zorro,” American history professor Stephen Andes, who studies the history and myth of Zorro, says on his website.
The prolific McCulley (1883-1958) went on to pen about 60 books about Zorro, which means “fox” in Spanish, but was reputed for his reluctance to say what inspired the character.
One theory is that he was modelled on real-life Mexican highway bandit, Joaquin Murieta, who took revenge for abuses of his countrymen in California during the 19th-century Gold Rush.
Another is that he was drawn from the Scarlet Pimpernel character -- created by HungarianBritish writer Emma Orczy -- who rescued aristocrats before they were sent to the guillotine during the French Revolution.
“Zorro was intended to express the spirit of the caballero of the times, and to everyone’s satisfaction he did,” the US Oakland Tribune Magazine wrote in 1923 after interviewing the author.
- Secret identity -
The character is the alter-ego of a young 19th-century Spanish nobleman, Don Diego de la Vega, who returns to California from studies in Spain to find it being ruled by corrupt and cruel tyrants.
When he takes action in defence of the defenceless, he disguises himself in black with a cape, hat and mask covering the top of his face. He famously uses his sword to leave a “Z” on his defeated villans.
His secret identity is known only to his trusted servant Bernardo, who is mute, and to his intelligent black horse Tornado. - AFP