Was Zorro the first superhero of American pop culture? He has certainly proved to be one of the most enduring, having lasted now for 86 years and spawned countless progeny and imitations. And 2005 may well be his biggest year yet. May saw the publication of the novel Zorro , the first serious fictional treatment of the character, by the Peruvian-born California writer Isabel Allende, and a new Zorro comic-book series by the writer-artist team of Don McGregor and Sidney Lima. (The first Zorro story, serialized in 1919 as The Curse of Capistrano , is still in print under the title The Mark of Zorro .) But the biggest Zorro news of all was the recent release of The Legend of Zorro , the follow-up to the hugely successful 1998 film The Mask of Zorro .

The Zorro we know wasn’t a product of birth so much as of evolution. America’s first popular fictional Hispanic character— zorro is “fox” in Spanish—originated not in Mexico or Spain but in the mind of a New York hack journalist named Johnston McCulley, who moved to Southern California in 1908 and picked up something of the local color and lore of the region.

McCulley’s first Zorro, in a tale written for a pulp adventure magazine, was simply a Spanish gentleman in a mask fighting for the rights of downtrodden Mexican peasants and Indians. In 1920 Douglas Fairbanks changed all that, turning him into a black-suited daredevil in The Mark of Zorro , and this image has been embellished ever since. Along the way, Zorro inspired dozens of crime fighters, most notably Batman, whose mask, cape, and cave all were derived from the boyhood hero of his creator, Bob Kane.

Films and television shows about Zorro have practically constituted a light industry. Here are the most essential. Aficionados of the Fox should have no trouble locating:

The Mark of Zorro (1920). Loosely based on McCulley’s original story, the first Zorro feature was directed by Fred Niblo, but you won’t be watching it for long before you know that the real auteur is Douglas Fairbanks. The first great action hero of American cinema devised stunts and set pieces that are still a marvel. Available on DVD.

The Mark of Zorro (1940). Rouben Mamoulian directed this remake sluggishly, and Tyrone Power, frustrated at this point in his career by not being given more serious parts, seems to phone in the performance when Zorro’s mask is off. But it definitely has its moments, especially the famous showing-off sequence just before the final duel between Power’s Diego and Basil Rathbone’s Captain Pasquale. The arrogant Pasquale licks his sword and extinguishes a candle with a swish; Diego does the same only to produce no apparent result. Rathbone bursts into derisive laughter; Power, smiling, lifts the severed taper, flame still burning. Available on DVD.

“The Man From Spain” and “Zorro and the Mountain Man.” These are episodes from Zorro