Superstars: Zorro Returns - The Scoop
Now this should be good, Dynamite has done a great job with the Lone Ranger so far.
Zorro Returns
Superstars, Scoop, Friday, March 23, 2007
Zorro is back. The popular character, with a comic career tracing through
Dell, Gold Key, Topps, Marvel, Image, Papercutz and a syndicated newspaper
strip, is returning from a new publisher, Dynamite Entertainment. A release date
has not yet been set.As with their Lone Ranger and Red Sonja series,
Dynamite indicated that the new series will start from the character’s origin
rather than pick up stories that were established previously. The company’s
license also allows they to revive Lady Rawhide, the companion character
created by writer Don McGregor, who has written Zorro in comic book, newspaper
strip and manga form.When tracing the origin of the modern superhero,
one looks not only to the Platinum Age comics that reprinted the top newspaper
strips of their day, but to the rag-tag excitement of the pulps. Characters like
The Spider, The Shadow, and Zorro had such a tremendous effect on early
superhero creators that it’s almost impossible to overstate their impact. Of
those, perhaps the influence easiest to discern is writer Johnston McCulley’s
most famous creation, Zorro.Don Diego de la Vega, alter ego of Zorro,
the fox, was created by author Johnston McCulley (1883-1958) and first appeared
in 1919 in the All-Story Weekly pulp story “The Curse of
Capistrano.” Zorro has a long film history, ranging from the 1920 silent
The Mark of Zorro, starring Douglas Fairbanks, Sr., to the 1981 spoof
Zorro, the Gay Blade, with George Hamilton in a dual role. Modern fans
may know the character best from the 1998 feature film, The Mask of Zorro
and its 2005 sequel, The Legend of Zorro. On television Guy Williams
embodied the flashy 19th century swordsman in the popular Disney series that
aired on ABC from 1957 to 1959. The Family Channel ran a new series from 1990 to
1993, and a TV novella, Zorro: La Espada y la Rosa (”The Sword and the
Rose”), debuted on Telemundo in February.The Alex Toth-illustrated Dell
comic books, the Don McGregor-written newspaper strips, and the introduction of
Lady Rawhide are considered highpoints of the character’s comic book
incarnations. Zorro comic books appeared from 1949 to1961, 1966 to 1968, 1990 to
1991, 1993 to 1994, and 2005.
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