Based on the long-awaited sequel to 1998's "The Mask of Zorro," Columbia Pictures brings back Antonio Banderas and Catherine Zeta-Jones for the continuing story of the hero in black. The film is set for release on October 28. Original.

"SADDLE UP! Andes takes us on an exhilarating, dust-kicking ride through the actual origins and history of the first hemispheric Latinx superhero: Zorro." —Frederick Luis Aldama, editor of Tales from la Vida: A Latinx Zorro's Shadow explores the masked character's Latinx origins and his impact on pop culture—the inspiration for the most iconic superheroes we know today. Long before Superman or Batman made their first appearances, there was Zorro. Born on the pages of the pulps in 1919, Zorro fenced his way through the American popular imagination, carving his signature letter Z into the flesh of evildoers in Old Spanish California. Zorro is the original caped crusader, the first masked avenger, and the character who laid the blueprint for the modern American superhero. Historian and Latin American studies expert Stephen J. C. Andes unmasks the legends behind Zorro, showing that the origins of America's first superhero lie in Latinx history and experience. Revealing the length of Zorro's shadow over the superhero genre is a reclamation of the legend of Zorro for a multiethnic and multicultural America.

A child of two worlds -- the son of an aristocratic Spanish military man turned landowner and a Shoshone warrior woman -- young Diego de la Vega cannot silently bear the brutal injustices visited upon the helpless in late-eighteenth-century California. And so a great hero is born -- skilled in athleticism and dazzling swordplay, his persona formed between the Old World and the New -- the legend known as Zorro.

McCulley's novel first appeared in 1919 as a five-part story serialized in All-Story Weekly, a popular pulp magazine. The novel was quickly adapted to film as The Mark of Zorro, starring Douglas Fairbanks.

The year is 1849, and the future state of California is under the control of former soldiers from the Mexican-American War. Their leader, General Gomez, is busy buying up the locals' land for pennies on the dollar, so that he and his cronies can maximize their profits from the coming gold rush. But he and his men are dogged by a series of masked, would-be avengers all calling themselves Zorro. They are an almost laughable annoyance, simple peasants living out the fantasy of a local legend. Until one man shows up and starts picking off Gomez's men one by one, as stealthy as a fox. He brandishes a sword which he uses to carve the letter Z into his victims' cheeks... Could this be the true Zorro?

Zorro behind the mask is a daring defender of freedom and justice, wielding sword and whip with unparalleled skill in defense of the common people's cause. Zorro without the mask is Don Alejandro de la Vega, wealthy landowner and as much of a family man as his charge will allow. As California stands on the brink of statehood, Alejandro is not sure who he will be when the need for the mask fades, but his lovely wife, Elena, is certain he will be the devoted husband and father she and their son, Joaquin, have patiently waited for. But ruthless men in a deadly conspiracy of power have different ideas. As they threaten the future of a still-young nation, they also set Alejandro's two lives in collision, drawing his beloved Elena into a perilous world of shadows and lies. Could the mask ultimately cost the one they call Zorro everything and everyone he holds most dear? Or will the Zorro legacy and de la Vega family prevail?

The Curse of Capistrano is a 1919 serialized novel by Johnston McCulley and the first work to feature the fictional Californio character Zorro (zorro is the Spanish word for fox). It would be later published as a book in 1924 under the title The Mark of Zorro

De mediageschiedenis van de gemaskerde Zorro-figuur, een soort Robin Hood in het Californië van de vroege 19e eeuw, dat toen nog hoorde bij het Spaanse Mexico.