I found this link awhile ago and it started me going back and finding old novels and movies that pre-date superhero comics.
Of course, pulp fiction and penny dreadfuls - The Shadow, Doc Savage and Zorro and as well as French classics - The Count of Monte Cristo and The Scarlet Pimpernel are forefathers of the modern superhero. But I’ve found a few other things of interest:
Gladiator by Philip Wylie. An early novel about the strongest man in the world.
Judex. a French serial from 1917. A missing link between The Count of Monte Cristo and Batman.
Memoirs of Vidocq: Master of Crime. An autobiography of a 1830’s criminal mastermind turned police chief. An inspiration for Edgar Allen Poe and the modern detective genre.
Various films of Dr. Mabuse, the original German mad scientist.
Do you know of other films and books that helped shape the superhero genre?
Tarzan and Sherlock Holmes books certainly contributed to the climate. Most of Edgar Rice Burroughs’ oeuvre can be described as “superhero-ey.” Robert E. Howard wrote numerous adventure serials, some of them influencing the genre more than others (Solomon Kane was sort of a dour, humorless Zorro in his way).
What superhero team isn’t an extension of The Three Musketeers or the Knights of the Round Table?
Superman was a product of the pulps, and was in fact originally intended to be a pulp series (although the titular character was originally more of a Nietzschean villain). Try to track down a copy of The Steranko History of Comics, Vol. 1 for a peek at the Superman that almost was.
As for movies: The Man Who Laughs is acknowledged as the biggest inspiration for the Joker. Anything featuring Douglas Fairbanks or Erroll Flynn is worth considering.
Robin Hood was a big inspiration, as the invention of Hawkeye & Green Arrow will easily attest.
Dr Jeckyl and Mr Hyde inspired numourous characters - some directly referencing, others (like the Hulk) not.
The Joker was directly inspired by the silent movie The Man Who Laughs.