the first superhero was...?

[DrNewGod]

It's debatable.

Superman?
Doc Savage?
Zorro?
The Scarlet Pimpernel?
El Cid?
Siegfried?
Sir Lancelot?
Herakles?
Gilgamesh?
Samson?
Who was the first superhero?

[Revolutionary_Jack]

Superman is the first superhero.

[DrNewGod]

Superman is the first superhero.

Because?...

[Jackalope89]

Probably go Hercules/Herakles on this. The mythos on him has been around for millenia, and some of it has served as the basis for future heroes.

[TheRay]

Probably go Hercules/Herakles on this. The mythos on him has been around for millenia, and some of it has served as the basis for future heroes.

Is Asclepius older than Herakles?

[TheRay]

I thought it was The Phantom

[WestPhillyPunisher]

I suppose it could be argued that Hercules was the first superhero, thanks to the cred he got from the Twelve Labors.

[Jim Kelly]

It's Superman because Superman popularized the term super-hero for action heroes. He was super, after all, and a hero. Retroactively you can say that all these other action heroes that came before Superman were super-heroes, but they weren't called that at the time. Superman begins the convention of using super-hero to mean such characters.

[Riv86672]

It's Superman because Superman popularized the term super-hero for action heroes. He was super, after all, and a hero. Retroactively you can say that all these other action heroes that came before Superman were super-heroes, but they weren't called that at the time. Superman begins the convention of using super-hero to mean such characters.

Basically yeah.
He was first in that he was the character that coined and almost universally defines the term, but he wasn’t first in that there were heroes before him who fall under that term.

I’ve seen ppl stubbornly refuse to acknowledge that distinction though. And, I won’t argue w. them.

[DrNewGod]

It's Superman because Superman popularized the term super-hero for action heroes. He was super, after all, and a hero. Retroactively you can say that all these other action heroes that came before Superman were super-heroes, but they weren't called that at the time. Superman begins the convention of using super-hero to mean such characters.

The term superhero didn't get applied to the genre (which at the time wasn't really a genre) until it had been around a few years. Reading the early DC titles, they typically referred to the characters as "mystery men" until sometime in the early-mid 1940s. In its infancy, the characters and situations that became superheroes were more like an illustrated sub-genre of the existing pulp genre.

[Uncanny Mutie]

It's Superman because Superman popularized the term super-hero for action heroes. He was super, after all, and a hero. Retroactively you can say that all these other action heroes that came before Superman were super-heroes, but they weren't called that at the time. Superman begins the convention of using super-hero to mean such characters.

This. Close thread.

[TheRay]

It's Superman because Superman popularized the term super-hero for action heroes.

Solid argument. I tried to poke holes in it and I just cannot.

[shooshoomanjoe]

The Clock.

[TheRay]

The Clock.

Do Triathlon and Northstar count?

[TheRay]

I suppose it could be argued that Hercules was the first superhero, thanks to the cred he got from the Twelve Labors.

I think there’s a great argument for Gilgamesh.