Writer: MATT WAGNER
Artist: FRANCESCO FRANCAVILLA
Colorist: ADRIANO LUCAS
Cover: JOHN CASSADAY
Genre: Pulp/Action/Adventure
Dynamite presents the return of yet another Legend as Matt Wagner unveils the all-new Zorro!

Writer, Art Director and cover artist Matt Wagner is in command of this all-new "year one" Zorro comic book adventure. Similar in tone and scope to Dynamite's acclaimed Lone Ranger series, Zorro also features artist Francesco Francavilla who complements Wagner's pulp action writing!

Zorro was created in 1919 by pulp writer Johnston McCulley, and first made his appearance in The Curse of Capistrano, serialized in the pulp magazine All-Story Weekly. From there Zorro has been the star of countless films and has been noted by Bob Kane as a main influence on Batman (Bruce Wayne even went to see Zorro the evening his parents were killed) and recently featured in a WORLD WIDE BEST-SELLING novel by Isabel Allende!

Joining Wagner and Francavilla for the return of the legendary Zorro is cover artists Mike Mayhew (with the incredible colors of Dean White) and Lone Ranger cover artist John Cassaday!

Wagner's story takes its cues both from the original Johnston McCulley novel and the prequel novel by Isabel Allende. Wagner examines the life of Diego de la Vega from two different points in life. The first is at the beginning of de la Vega's costumed career, with a group of drunken soldiers coming to grips with the area's new masked menace. The other half focuses on a younger Diego and his "brother" Bernardo, the latter of whom actually narrates the comic.

Everyone in the Western world loves Zorro. I'm pretty sure it's a physical impossibility not to. While the Gay Blade is one of our pop culture icons, I'm hard pressed to pick out a truly definitive interpretation of the character. The original novel was a great pulp story that lacked any sort of depth. The more recent novel by Isabel Allende was an overly long and needlessly complicated origin tale for a character that didn't necessarily need one in the first place. The '50s television show is what is is, and nothing more need be said. Perhaps the 1998 movie The Mask of Zorro came closing to hitting the nail on its head. Antonio Banderas makes a delightful swashbuckler, after all.

So now Dynamite swoops in to lend our hero a dash of class once more. The publisher has already met with great success modernizing the Lone Ranger is his own series. Based largely on that series' success, I was expecting great things from Matt Wagner's Zorro.

Wagner's story takes its cues both from the original Johnston McCulley novel and the prequel novel by Isabel Allende. Wagner examines the life of Diego de la Vega from two different points in life. The first is at the beginning of de la Vega's costumed career, with a group of drunken soldiers coming to grips with the area's new masked menace. The other half focuses on a younger Diego and his "brother" Bernardo, the latter of whom actually narrates the comic.

What Matt Wagner does here is craft a classic parallel story. In the “present” we have a group of Spanish soldiers whose revelry at a saloon is broken up when a fellow soldier staggers in, bloodied and beaten. He tells the others that his unit (which was sent to terrorize some uppity sheep farmers) was attacked by… a demon, a devil, a ghost — anything but a man. Everyone in the soldier’s unit was dispatched by the demon’s sword and only by begging for his life was the soldier allowed to escape to tell the tale. Interspersed with this plot we have the story of young Diego De La Vega, he the son of his wealthy and powerful ex-Spanish soldier father and American Indian mother. It’s a familiar hero’s beginnings — a smart and fearless young boy who witnesses evil deeds committed by the Spanish army and vows to never forget. A new element, presumably introduced by Matt Wagner, is the Indian influence. Diego’s mother is a proud member of the Tongva tribe (although her outward appearance is that of a wife assimilated into Spanish culture) and that cultural influence informs Diego’s character as well. It’s an interesting new twist on Zorro, I think. It may not play for everyone — this Zorro not being fully Spanish — but for me it works.

That leads me to another point about Zorro. It’s really great to have a book that features a cast that is, in this issue anyway, completely devoid of white characters. Diversity is good. Diversity in an industry whose characters and creators are dominated by one race is good. It’s also really great to have a Spanish main character because it’s a heavily unrepresented group in comic books when diversifying a book usually means adding black characters.

I suppose it’s not a shocker that I would so love Zorro, considering his being so heavily influential on the character of Batman. They are both the sons of well off families who don dark costumes at night to fight injustice and protect the people of their cities. But what is most interesting about this issue is that the tables have been turned and there is a whole lot of Batman in the character of Zorro. We hardly see him at all, and when we do he is but a silhouette against the night – nothing really visible but black leather glove and white eyes and teeth. And of course the sword.

The art from Francesco Francavilla is perfect for this book. It has a style much closer to European than American comics and is invaluable in providing the proper atmosphere for this story. No other book that I buy looks and feels like this book does. The characters all look unique and have expressive faces. He does a great job of capturing what I imagine 19th Century California would look like. His Zorro is scary.

This is a great place to start if you love the character or Zorro, this is a great place to start if you know nothing about the character of Zorro. This is a great place to start if you like good comics and are looking for something different to read, something that doesn’t involve New Gods or Skrulls. And if you’re a Batman fan or a fan of Matt Wagner this is a book definitely worth checking out.

In 2022, an adaptation of the Django / Zorro comic strip, written by Quentin Tarantino and Jerrod Carmichael, will be released. Release date, trailer and cast details will be updated later. This is the adventure story of the character of the Tarantino western "Django Unchained" and the legendary Zorro, known as Diego de la Vega. They will carry out an important mission, freeing the native Indians from enslavement.

A few years after the events of Django Unchained (2012), Django accidentally meets Don Diego de la Vega, Zorro's legendary man, and agrees to become his bodyguard on a mission to rid the local indigenous population from the oppression of slave owners. The heroes also rescue Django's wife, who works on the plantation of the cruel owner.