I wanted to like it better than I did. I read rather like a first draft - not horribly written, but lacking polish, and the fight scenes were strangely dull. As you'd expect for a work of its time, it suffers from some sexism and racism, and (weird in a story where the hero defends the downtrodden) classism. But what killed it for me was the character of Zorro.

I get that it's supposed to be somewhat humorous and all, but Zorro was too... perfect, I guess. It's not that he's a skilled horseman and sword fighter and all, it's that he's so skilled and so confident that it sucks any tension out of the story. I realize in a pulp adventure, there's no chance of the hero losing, but there should still be some sense that things might not all go his way. Maybe that's another "product of the times" problem and the idea that heroes should struggle a little and have at least some minor setbacks is a newer idea. (But then I think of The Scarlet Pimpernel or the Sherlock Holmes stories and think that either it's a specific to pulps thing or a specific to this author thing.)

That said, I can see why its a much adapted story. The basic idea is great. Oh, sure, it's basically a mashup of Robin Hood and The Scarlet Pimpernel, but that doesn't mean it's not a good idea. I just like my heroes to have to put in a little more effort and not be so clearly a million times better than the villains.