And nobody seems to know much about him at all.
George H. Plympton was born in 1889 and IMDB lists his earliest film credit entry for the scenario of a short entitled "Mrs. Carter's Necklace" in 1912. By the time he gets his first "super-hero"ish credit for continuity work on Tarzan the Fearless in 1933, he already had racked up over a hundred writing/scenario/continuity credits on various films.
While I don't think of Tarzan as exactly a super-hero he definitely is super-hero adjacent. Flash Gordon falls into that same category. They were the literature and cinematic forerunners of those that qualify as "real" superheroes. Plympton had at least a hand in their on screen presence.
As serial film-making came into vogue, Plympton was at the fore and wound up with screenwriting and story credits on more films that I can actually believe. Below is a list of the ones that in my opinion qualify as "superhero" or "superhero adjacent". This is a tiny fraction of his body of work which totals a remarkable 306 entries at the time of his death in 1972. Given how poorly these things were tracked in the early days of Hollywood, I wouldn't be surprised to learn that there are even more films that he deserves credit for.
Below is a copy pasta of the relevant entries from IMDB. Just the movies with direct superhero or superhero adjacent characters. He also worked on many sci-fi properties and it's always possible that I missed a superhero or two in my research. Over 300 total credits. Unreal.
1955 Adventures of Captain Africa, Mighty Jungle Avenger! (screenplay) / (story) (Originally conceived as a sequel to The Phantom (1943), Captain Africa was hastily created for the screen, possibly by Plympton himself, when the filmmakers discovered that they no longer held the film rights to The Phantom.)
1948 Congo Bill (screenplay) (DC Comics)
1943 The Masked Marvel (original screenplay - as George Plympton) (Character of Unknown Origin, possibly a Plympton creation) Click here for the Wikipedia Entry. It's FASCINATING.
1942 Captain Midnight (screenplay - as George Plympton) (Character from radio drama, eventually published in comics by Fawcett, most recently a Dark Horse Comics character)
1941 The Spider Returns (screenplay - as George Plympton)(Adapted from a popular pulp magazine series)
1940 The Green Hornet Strikes Again! (screenplay - as Geo. H. Plympton) (Character adapted from the Radio Drama)
1940 Flash Gordon Conquers the Universe (screenplay) (Superhero adjacent, adapted from a comic strip)
1938 The Spider's Web (screenplay - as George Plympton) (Adapted from a popular pulp magazine series)
1938 Flash Gordon's Trip to Mars (archive footage, uncredited) (Superhero adjacent, adapted from a comic strip)
1936 Flash Gordon (screenplay - as George Plympton) (Superhero adjacent, adapted from a comic strip)
The most interesting entry in the list (by FAR) is the 1938 film, The Spider's Web.
The Spider is a legitimate contender for the first "true" superhero on film despite being almost unknown today. He wore a mask and cape, fought criminals by night, played the socialite by day.
The Spider used guns, so he's a bit suspect as a true superhero (don't go telling The Punisher), but he also used a knotted rope to swing around and get out of trouble, and that's very superhero-ee.
While I make no claim or accusation to the effect, given that The Spider's Web was released in 1938 and Batman was created in 1939, it's even in the realm of possibility that Batman might be "borrowed" from (or at least influenced by) The Spider. Black cape, black cowl, swinging via gadgets and the fact that Richard Wentworth (The Spider's true identity) was not only a criminologist but also a rich playboy certainly makes it at least in the realm of possibility. One can only assume that Bob Kane went to the movies every once in a while, so who knows?
Side note: Actor Warren Hull played Richard Wentworth/The Spider in the original serial and its sequel, The Spider Returns. He went on to replace Gordon Jones as The Green Hornet in the sequel, The Green Hornet Returns.
So, before Shazam (The Adventures of Captain Marvel, 1941), the Fleisher Superman Cartoons (1941), Batman (1943), Superman (1948) and even before The Shadow (1940), George H. Plympton helped bring us what might arguably be the template for the billion dollar industry that is superhero cinema in the 21st Century. He would go on to put his finger prints on a dozen or so other comic book and superhero properties over the next 20 years, while also writing on literally hundreds of other projects in those years.
And nobody seems to know a thing about the man. Granted, I gave up after a few pages of google entries that all amounted to "born, died, wrote for movies", but what a legacy to have and with so little information about the man himself.
Somebody should make a movie about him. It seems to me that's the least Hollywood could do.
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