Was Superman the first superhero and the originator of the superhero genre? No. Matthew Warner Osborn (UM-Kansas City) discovered the Night Hawk in The Mechanics Free Press in 1828, predating the Man of Steel by more than a century. The Night Hawk fits the Mission-Powers-Identity definition of the superhero devised by Peter Coogan (Institute for Comics Studies). In conversation with Coogan and historian Dr. Andrew Fogel (Skirball Cultural Center), Osborn lays out his discovery, names the man behind the cloak of America's first superhero, and discusses his forthcoming book Night Hawk: A Nineteenth Century Superhero and the Dawn of American Mass Culture (University of Chicago Press, 2026).
