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Villa, Pancho. Pancho Villa (1878-1923) was a Mexican general in the 1911 Revolution; he later fought a successful guerrilla war against the United States. An extremely fictionalised version of his life appeared in the German Celebrity Pulps General Villa, der Mexikanische Rebellenführer #1-12 (1914-1916) and General Villa, der Mexikanische Rebellenführer #13-51 (1920-1921).

The fictional Pancho Villa fights exploitative Americans and other bandits and villains. Villa discovers Lost Race Mayans, deals with native witches, and defeats a Yellow Peril Japanese spy in Mexico, among other vigorous adventures.

The fictional Villa appears in stories with titles like “To a Hair’s Breadth,” “Safely Escaped,” and “In Seriland.”

* I'm including the Pancho Villa stories in the Best of the Encyclopedia list because of their imaginative content. Germany's covert alliance with Mexico before, during, and after World War One paid off for the Mexicans in a few ways, the most important of which was the German important of Mexican characters and personages for use in the heftromane. The Pancho Villa Celebrity Pulp heftromane did not limit themselves to ordinary tales of Villa fighting bandits. They went, as good heftromane do, right to the fantastic stuff--Mexico has no lack of them--and German and Mexican readers got the pleasure of seeing the combination of the Celebrity pulp, the modern cowboy heftroman, and the ideasplosion heftroman, all in one pulp. The two Pancho Villa heftromane aren't, if I'm being honest, great reading; apart from the descriptions and uses of the fantastic foes, the writing on the heftromane is mediocre. But the heftromane come alive when the Lost Race Mayans and native witches and Yellow Perils are on the page--their scenes and their battles with Pancho Villa and his men almost reach the heights of being really exciting for the reader. The two Pancho Villa heftromane are, ultimately, more fun to think about than to read, but at least they've got great ideas and in each issue at least one good scene. 

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