Don Diego Vega, secretly the masked man known as
Zorro, battles oppression of the middle and working-class citizens of Los Angeles while romancing (as the dashing Zorro),
Lolita, the beautiful daughter of caballero
Don Carlos!
However, corrupt Captain Ramon lusts for Lolita, and when spurned by her, orders her family's arrest on trumped-up charges!
This book-length tale in
Dell's Four Color #228 (1949) was adapted from the novella "Curse of Capistrano" by
Johnston McCulley.
(The title "Mark of Zorro" was first used for the 1920 silent film adapting "Curse" and starring Douglas Fairbanks as Zorro/Don Diego.
Since then, when the story is reprinted, it tends to use the "Mark of Zorro" title instead of "Curse".)
The
writer of the comic adaptation is unknown, but the artist is Bill Ely,
who has several hundred comic stories from 1937 to 1967 to his credit.
Dell Comics continued this series of
Zorro one-shot tales on an irregular basis in
Four Color until the debut of the
Walt Disney Zorro TV series, which they began adapting into comic books.
In an early example of rewriting continuity, the later stories
ignore the fact that Zorro's secret identity is now known to the other residents of Los Angeles!
This entry is part of our
Retroblogs™ Masks Marathon, celebrating the new
Dynamite comic series
Masks which combines, for the first time, the major masked mystery men of pulps and comics including
The Green Hornet,
The Shadow,
The Spider,
Zorro,
The Black Terror,
The Green Lama, and
Miss Fury (ok, a masked mystery
woman), among others.
We'll be presenting more never-reprinted stories featuring these characters throughout the month of December.
