More Famous IRL: Bruce Wayne or Vlad Dracula?

[Güicho]

I know Batman has teamed up with Sherlock Holmes on at least one occasion... don't know about Zorro?

Yes Batman has crossed over with Holmes, and as indicated Dracula both in comics and animated film.

Where Batman has repeatedly referenced Zorro is as the oft referenced film that helped inspire him.

Dark Knight Returns Frank Miller

Year One: Miller / David Mazzuchelli


Batman Adventures: Ty Templeton / Rick Burchett

[Güicho]

DKSA


Batman and Robin #20 Peter Tomasi / Patrick Gleason


Batman: Grant Morrison Tony Daniel


Those are just a few

[Güicho]

And animated:

JLU the Man Who Has Everything J.M. DeMatteis. original Story: Alan Moore and Dave Gibbons



Batman: The Brave and the Bold E37 "Chill of the Night! Michael Chang / Paul Dini


DKR



Re:

I know Batman has teamed up with Sherlock Holmes on at least one occasion... don't know about Zorro?

Yes Batman has teamed up with Holmes, and crossed over with Dracula both in comic and Animated, and both of which Finger and Kane have referenced as influence. also worth mentioning is The Shadow, another significant antecedent of Batman, who has crossed over a couple of times, in the Bronze age, and recently again in the Dynamite crossover.

Where Zorro is significant is the often reference movie as inspiration, in the repeated origin.
See above, there is many more.


I believe the OP, and others reference Dracula, Holmes and Zorro specifically as the " literary offspring"
(again I'd add to the list The Shadow who Finger cribbed the first story from)
Is because the creators themselves have cited them:

A few quotes about the actual (at the time) pop-culture character movie and actor that may have been an influence:

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 to which currently dominates the pop-culture zeitgeist, I agree with many it is currently Batman.
Although overall historically I would still put Dracula above.

http://www.vaultofthoughts.com/wp-co...901dracula.jpg
1901dracula.jpg

Or rather imagine a constant through-line that goes from (adding Count of Monte Cristo), Dracula, Holmes, Zorro, the Shadow (add The Phantom) to Batman. .

I can't speak to the current gen. of kids, but to me Batman always exists a constant reminder of those that came before, I don't look at him without acknowledging his literary antecedents.

Similarly Superman with Hercules, Mosses, John Carter, Gladiator, Doc Savage, Flash Gordon, etc.. Where Superman is like the current most recognizable modern synthesis of those. Yet I don't see him, without always acknowledging the others.

[KNIGHT OF THE LAKE]

It's Dracula. He's THE vampire which is a whole subgenre of horror fiction.

[sunofdarkchild]

Dracula has the benefit of taking the name of a real person (how much Stoker actually knew about Vlad Tepes is very much up for debate). 'The real Dracula' kind of adds to the fictional character's mystique.

And he's a folk hero in Romania.

[Güicho]

Who is a bigger part of pop culture? And how do you measure such things?

"How do you measure such things?

LOL The clear scientific method: Halloweencostumes .com

Batman 361 items (includes many spinoff characters)

Dracula 306 items (although not surprisingly defaults to all-encompassing "Vampire")

Zorro 19 items (sexy Lady-Zorro is a thing?)

Holmes 14 items (although Miss Private Eye and the "hound" mask are only spuriously related)

[Vinsanity]

Am I the only one who read this as Vlade Divac?

[Güicho]

Who truly owns the Night?

Count Dracula or ... the Batman?

Put the two together...

[Güicho]

Detective Comics #32 (1939)
Batman Vampire Hunter.





Batman Nosferatu (1999)

[Alan2099]

Batman has become a vampire but Dracula has never iirc become a vigilante haunting Transylvania as a superhero so....

... and let's not speak of Dell's Dracula again.

or it's Frankenstein...

... and ESPECIALLY not it's Werewolf

[Güicho]

LOL! ^ Thank you for that!
Yes Dell turned their monster properties into the most outrageous costumed superheroes. Yet let's not ignore Marvel's own Morbius the Living Vampire, who ran around in that universes version of a superhero onesie costume, at times being the dark vigilante and some time as the hero in his own series.

With similar comics for heroes Werewolf by Night and Monster of Frankenstein.

And DC had their crime fighting version as the Creature Commandos.




Or the Monster Squad TV series:

The monsters, wanting to make up for the misdeeds of their pasts, became superhero crimefighters who used their unique abilities to challenge and defeat various supervillains

Not sure if the Groovie Goolies were vigilante crime fighters, but the Drak Pack certainly were.

[daBronzeBomma]

Wait, so in all his 79 years so far, Batman has never, not once even in Elseworlds, met Zorro as a fellow character in the flesh?

He's met Dracula, Sherlock Holmes, and the Shadow in-story before, but the last of his Mount Rushmore Ancestors is a no-show?

[Güicho]

Wait, so in all his 79 years so far, Batman has never, not once even in Elseworlds, met Zorro as a fellow character in the flesh?

That's cause (besides the huge time discrepancy) they established Zorro as the in-story fictitious movie character, that Bruce Wayne saw as a kid.

He's met Dracula, Sherlock Holmes, and the Shadow in-story before, but the last of his Mount Rushmore Ancestors is a no-show?

"no-show"?
That is a weird way to put it, since with all the origin retellings, which repeatedly reference the Zorro movie, he's probably been referenced and indirectly "showed up" in more Batman comics than the others.

[Güicho]

His own dad even used to dress up as Zorro in some versions.

Even the latest movie incarnation dropped references to him.
With Batman "branding" / leaving his mark.



See above, Morrison Arkham arc even ends with Wayne's last words to his son being about Zorro.

That said I would love to see a The Fox & The Bat / Batman & Zorro cross-over.
Although it would have to be established as a sort of elseworld, where he can somehow meet his childhood hero.
Attachment 69543

[Alan2099]

That's cause (besides the huge time discrepancy) they established Zorro as the in-story fictitious movie character, that Bruce Wayne saw as a kid.

That's a ridiculously easy thing to work around.

Instead of being inspired by a Zorro movie, he's inspired by Zorro news reports. Bam. Done.