Batman predecessors in pulp fiction, comic strips, newspaper headlines, and autobiographical details referring to Kane himself. As an aristocratic hero with a double identity, Batman had predecessors in the Scarlet Pimpernel (created by Baroness Emmuska Orczy, 1903) and Zorro (created by Johnston McCulley, 1919). Like them, Batman performed his heroic deeds in secret, averted suspicion by playing aloof in public, and marked his work with a signature symbol. Kane noted the influence of the films "The Mark of Zorro" (1920) and "The Bat Whispers" (1930) in the creation of the character's iconography. Finger, drawing inspiration from pulp heroes like Doc Savage,
The General in His Labyrinth Márquez's account readers observe Bolívar intimately, seeing his human qualities. In the view of critic Isabel Alvarez Borland, by choosing to fictionalize a national hero in this way, García Márquez is challenging the claim of official history to represent the truth. In the "My Thanks" section of the novel, García Márquez asserts ironically that what he is writing is more historical than fictional, and he discusses his own historical methodology in detail. By posing in the role of a historian, he challenges the reliability of written history from within the writing process. According to Alvarez Borland, this serves to "remind