In the 1970s, Carlo J. Caparas was thinking of a new comics adventure novel due to the wishes of his publisher Don Ramon Roces and then later he came up with a legendary folk hero named Panday. He patterned the character to look like Fernando Poe Jr. as he instructed the artist and co-creator Steve Gan to draw Panday's face similar to Poe's. Upon making the character, Caparas already conceived in his mind that Poe would be Panday even before the character was still yet to be portrayed by Poe in film. The character along with its look, villains and powers also drew inspiration from Philippine history and culture.