Who was the first superhero?

Hugo Hercules: ever heard of him? Neither had we.

HUGO WAS THE creation of a 23-year-old Tribune artist named Wilhelm Heinrich Detlev Körner

Hugo Hercules was created in 1902. He boasts superhuman strength and a heart of gold.

What did he do?Saving damsels in distress; lifting an elephant; debunking armed robbers.

For 5 short months, anyway. Apparently, America’s readers weren’t ready for a hand-drawn, super-powered individual in 1902. They would be three decades later, after World War I and the Great Depression created a need for escapism. But by the time the U.S. comic book industry was born, in 1933, Hugo Hercules was long gone.

WHETHER HE WAS stopping a speeding trolly car with his bare hands, or wielding a full-size cannon as though it were a pistol, the friendly colossus known as Hugo Hercules was pulling off superhero-type feats long before anybody even thought to use the word.