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El Murcielago. El Murcielago was created by “Boixcar,” the pseudonym of the Spanish writer Guillermo Sánchez Boix (Black Knight (II)), and appeared in El Murcielago #1-6 (1943).

El Murcielago is a Superhuman Costumed Avenger based on The Batman. A young student and sportsman, Juan Jose Hidalgo, exchanges bad words and threats with the bald villain, the Mad Scientist Señor Z, who lives in a sinister medieval castle and tries to steal the formula for the explosive Z-V-5. Hidalgo decides to fight crime in a costume. He invents SCIENCE! in his Batcave-like lair and uses those inventions (like the Radiant Crystal, a magic monocle that can emit sleep rays or death rays or even materialize solid images) and his superpowers, which include invulnerability, hypnosis, the control over a flock of bats (which obey his every command), and the ability to project beams of force from his hands, to fight Señor Z and his Yellow Peril ally and his Tong hatchetmen. After defeating Señor Z et al., El Murcielago decides to murder all the surplus Chinese [sic] and sends them all into outer space while they are sleeping.

* I'm including El Murcielago in the Best of the Encyclopedia category because of its imaginative content. Oh, it's deeply racist. Terribly so. But it's also a take on The Batman that really embraces the imaginative and ideasplosive potential of the form and gives the reader as much wonderful content per page as possible. El Murcielago doesn't waste any time with lesser matters; only fantastika and hero & villain monologues and action scenes for El Murcielago. Which makes for a very entertaining read...up until you are smacked in the face with another bit of Guillermo Sánchez Boix's staggering racism. 

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