Hugo Hercules was an American weekly comic strip published in the Chicago Tribune, written and drawn by Wilhelm Heinrich Detlev Körner. It ran for five months, from September 7, 1902, to January 11, 1903, totaling seventeen strips. Despite its short run, it is considered the earliest superhero fiction comic.
A good-natured man endowed with superhuman strength, Hugo was often depicted wandering about town, assisting people with their dilemmas and shocking them with displays of power. He was "strong enough to pick up an elephant", "kick a house like a football", "wield an artillery cannon like a handgun", and lift a locomotive engine off the tracks and pull its cargo behind him at train speeds. Casual about his incredible feats, Hugo often repeated his catchphrase, "just as easy", shrugging off the crowds.
Sometimes referred to as the first superhero, the strip was not a great success and Körner eventually left comics to become a painter.
Hugo Hercules appears in the graphic novel Nemo: River of Ghosts and the subsequent, limited series The League of Extraordinary Gentlemen, Volume IV: The Tempest, both written by Alan Moore and illustrated by Kevin O'Neill.
