The Green Hornet is a fictional superhero who was originally created for an eponymous radio series which aired from 1936-1953. Following the commercial success of the radio show, the series expanded into a multimedia franchise including a TV series, as well as numerous films, comics books, novels and other forms of media. In his civilian life, the Green Hornet is newspaper publisher and playboy Britt Reid. While the Green Hornet is a heroic figure, his modus operandi involves adopting the persona of a criminal mastermind out to destroy the competition, in an effort to destroy the city's criminal underworld from the inside out. Reid is aided in his crime-fighting efforts by his valet, Kato, who joins him as a costumed martial arts expert. Kato is Reid's primary confidante and one of a small circle of individuals, the exact makeup of which varies depending on the iteration of the franchise, who knows the Green Hornet's secret identity.
Although Britt Reid is the Green Hornet in most adaptations, some forms of media, notably the NOW and Dynamite Entertainment comic books, have treated the superhero alter ego as a legacy persona with the identity being passed to Britt's descendants after his death or retirement. In such adaptations, these legacy versions are almost always joined in their own crime-fighting efforts by a legacy version of Kato, usually a descendant of the original.
Creation[]
The character was created, as was its predecessor the Lone Ranger, by George W. Trendle, who intended The Green Hornet to be to then-contemporary crime dramas what The Lone Ranger was to Western-adventure shows. The plots of stories in the two radio shows ran parallel, and indeed, Britt Reid was introduced to radio audiences as the son of Daniel John Reid Jr., whose uncle, John Daniel Reid, had hidden from his enemies using the alias of the Lone Ranger.