Bob Kane credited Zorro, one of the earliest masked avengers with a dual identity, as part of the inspiration for Batman: a wealthy idler by day, a masked vigilante by night with a cave beneath his house.
BookSeries· 1919· Adventure
Zorro
Zorro: 3 recorded works trace back to it, and it draws on 1 recorded source.
What Zorro influenced
Works that record this one as a source, with the evidence a contributor gave.
The film adapts McCulley's serial, made the year after it appeared. McCulley's later Zorro stories were written to follow the film, which is also where the title The Mark of Zorro came from.
Jerry Siegel credited Zorro along with The Scarlet Pimpernel as inspirations for Superman, particularly the concept of a dual identity as mild-mannered reporter Clark Kent.
What influenced Zorro
The works this one is recorded as drawing on.
Zorro is built on the Pimpernel's formula: a nobleman who plays the useless fop in public so that nobody suspects him of being the daring masked rescuer everyone is hunting. The Pimpernel is usually named as the first of the double-identity heroes, and Zorro as the one who brought the mask and the sign.