The Original Super Hero

[jvcb8]

Long before there was Adam West, Christopher Reeve, Michael Keaton, Robert Downey Jr., Christian Bale, Hugh Jackman, Chris Evans, Chris Hemsworth, Tobey Maguire and Ryan Reynolds there was Tom Tyler. Tom played Captain Marvel (or Shazam) in the 1941 movie serial "Adventures of Captain Marvel" and The Phantom in the 1943 movie serial of the same name. Here's the link to an interview with author Mike Chapman. Mike is the author of the book "The Tom Tyler Story: From Cowboy Star to Super Hero!". In the interview Mike talks about the life and career of actor Tom Tyler. Listen now and learn about the man known as "The Original Super Hero"!

[Midvillian1322]

Zorro dont count? Regardless still an interesting watch

[jvcb8]

Zorro dont count? Regardless still an interesting watch

You're right it is Zorro but I meant in terms of actors who play superheroes.

[Midvillian1322]

You're right it is Zorro but I meant in terms of actors who play superheroes.

I knw theres been Zorro films since the 1920s but id have to google it to come up with names

[regnak]

The Grey Seal had a movie serial in 1917:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jimmie_Dale#Film_serial

a copy no longer exists but the character was created in 1914.

[AndrewCrossett]

The first superhero was Gilgamesh. And he even had the first sidekick, Enkidu.

Still waiting for Hollywood to make a terrible CGI movie based on him.

[Midvillian1322]

The first superhero was Gilgamesh. And he even had the first sidekick, Enkidu.

Still waiting for Hollywood to make a terrible CGI movie based on him.

He just talking about actors who played superheroes.

But yea and after Gilgamesh you have Prometheus/Hercules/Perseus/Achilies. Buf i dont know of any films made with any of them before Shazam or Zorro

[Jokerz79]

The term Superhero was coined around 1917 and there were plenty of superhero successes with books, serials, and radio shows before Superman and the characters we now traditionally think of as superheroes I mean the Shadow, the Phantom, Mandrake the Magician, and Doc Savage to name a few.

[Güicho]

The Grey Seal had a movie serial in 1917:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jimmie_Dale#Film_serial

a copy no longer exists but the character was created in 1914.

Grey Seal a "superhero" (although recruited into fighting the mob) Seems more like the gentleman thief type , more in the vein of Fantômas, created 1911, who also had a movie in 1913. At best these might be proto-superheroes.



Superhero fiction is just a sub-genre of all Heroic fiction, just people want to move and draw arbitrary lines all over the place to qualify the "first" Superheroes.
Either with nuances of character or identity, specific skills abilities weather they are "super" or not, how "real" their world is, was or has remained, whether the costume or mask qualifies as a costume or not,, etc...LOL.
Most would correctly classify it as beginning around the popularity and trend of Superman and the American comic book explosion and everything it inspired. Others want to move it back, to the things that influence Superman & Batman, the comic-strip characters Phantom, Mandrake, Flash Gordon, Dick Tracy, ...etc, to the pulp-magazines and radio heroes, Tarzan, The Shadow, Zorro, John Carter, Doc Savage, Green Hornet, etc. , to gothic and victorian era heroes the Pimpernel or Monte-Cristo who disguises and reinvents himself to seek revenge on the corrupt and those who wronged him. To the middle ages and knights and fables, even further all the way back to heroic epics and classics , Beowulf, Hercules, Gilgamesh and the oldest recorded stories. LOL!

Which defeats the whole purpose of the classification to begin with.
It just becomes arbitrary and meaningless.

[Güicho]

Zorro dont count? Regardless still an interesting watch

You're right it is Zorro but I meant in terms of actors who play superheroes.

As far as a movie, and an actor with maybe the most direct influence on the creators of Superheroes.
Yeah Fairbanks and Zorro (proto-superhero) might be one of the most influential films and actor on the young creators of the genre.
He was the superstar of their time, and pretty much invented the movie action-hero.

Jerry Siegel: "I loved The Mark of Zorro, and I'm sure that had some influence on me." ..."When writing the script, I had Douglass Fairbanks very much in mind in the athletic stunts that he did too, so the influence of Douglass Fairbanks was not only in the art but in the visual action."

Joe Shuster - "I was a great fan of Douglas Fairbanks, and so was Jerry and I tried to use his stance, the way Douglass Fairbanks looked, ...with his hands on his hips, in Robin Hood and Mark of Zorro, in all those he had those marvelous attitude..." " [His costume] was inspired by the costume pictures that Fairbanks did: they greatly influenced us. He did The Mark of Zorro, and Robin Hood, and a marvelous one called The Black Pirate - Fairbanks would swing on ropes very much like Superman flying... the feeling of action as he was flying or jumping or leaping - a flowing cape would give it movement.

Bill Finger - "Batman was a combination of Douglas Fairbanks [who played Zorro] and Sherlock Holmes."

Bob Kane -"Zorro’s use of a mask to conceal his identity as Don Diego gave me the idea of giving Batman a secret identity…Bruce Wayne would be a man of means who put on a façade of being effete. Zorro rode a black horse called Tornado and would enter a cave and exit from a grandfather clock in the living room. The bat-cave was inspired by this cave in Zorro. I didn't want Batman to be a Superhero with superpowers…So I made Batman an ordinary human being; he is just an athlete who has the physical prowess of Douglas Fairbanks, Sr., who was my all-time favorite hero in the movies.”

As far as which was the first live action Superhero film and star after the comic books and genre exploded.
Definitely 1941 Republic Pictures: Adventures of Captain Marvel followed by Spy Smasher, beat Batman and Superman to the big screen.
Although I think the Fleischer Superman cartoons had a bigger impact.

[AndrewCrossett]

We can assume that the "superhero" as a specific character type entered the public consciousness with Superman. Under those terms then Tom Tyler was the first film superhero. Some would count the 1939 Mandrake the Magician serial, but I wouldn't. And then shortly after the Captain Marvel serial came the Fleischer Superman cartoons.

[DrNewGod]

Nothing kicks off a hurricane of debate on these boards more quickly than identifying a "first."

[regnak]

Grey Seal a "superhero" (although recruited into fighting the mob) Seems more like the gentleman thief type , more in the vein of Fantômas, created 1911, who also had a movie in 1913. At best these might be proto-superheroes.



Superhero fiction is just a sub-genre of all Heroic fiction, just people want to move and draw arbitrary lines all over the place to qualify the "first" Superheroes.
Either with nuances of character or identity, specific skills abilities weather they are "super" or not, how "real" their world is, was or has remained, whether the costume or mask qualifies as a costume or not,, etc...LOL.
Most would correctly classify it as beginning around the popularity and trend of Superman and the American comic book explosion and everything it inspired. Others want to move it back, to the things that influence Superman & Batman, the comic-strip characters Phantom, Mandrake, Flash Gordon, Dick Tracy, ...etc, to the pulp-magazines and radio heroes, Tarzan, The Shadow, Zorro, John Carter, Doc Savage, Green Hornet, etc. , to gothic and victorian era heroes the Pimpernel or Monte-Cristo who disguises and reinvents himself to seek revenge on the corrupt and those who wronged him. To the middle ages and knights and fables, even further all the way back to heroic epics and classics , Beowulf, Hercules, Gilgamesh and the oldest recorded stories. LOL!

Which defeats the whole purpose of the classification to begin with.
It just becomes arbitrary and meaningless.

First Fantomas was a very nasty villain, he may be in the running for first super villain.

The Grey Seal was so much more than a gentleman thief. He had

A mask
Utility belt
Secret ID
Secret Lair
And even a sort of Catwoman type love interest.

I also read not too long ago how the creator of the Green Hornet first wanted to do a Grey Seal series. Instead he had a hero pose as a villain and leave his seal all over the place.

I invite anyone to check out these free audiobooks

https://librivox.org/group/587?prima...rm=get_results