The Best Of The Encyclopedia Of Pulp Heroes: Audaz. 

The best of the Encyclopedia of Pulp Heroes: Audaz. 

Audaz. Audaz was created by Messias de Mello and appeared in the Brazilian comic strip “Audaz, O Demolidor” (Gazetinha, 1937-1938); the strip was reprinted in Spain in 1949. Audaz is a gigantic crime-fighting robot controlled and piloted by the brilliant scientist Dr. Blum and his friends Gregor and the child prodigy Jacques Ennes. He takes on a variety of ordinary human criminals, albeit with an occasional Mad Scientist included.

Yes, folks, the first heroic giant robot piloted by humans was not Japanese, but was Brazilian. Not the first giant robot of science fiction—you can find predecessors in the American pulps. But the the first giant robot with human pilots, of the kind that Japanese science fiction later specialized in—that, as far as I’ve been able to tell, was a Brazilian creation. Interesting, especially in that Brazilian science fiction, as a national genre, didn’t tend toward the pulpish until the mid-1930s, so “Audaz, O Demolidor” was quick work.