superheroes in tokusatsu. Along with Astro Boy, the Super Giant film series greatly influenced later Japanese tokusatsu superhero films. Moonlight Mask also became popular around that time, with six films retelling the story of the TV series being made. Another early superhero film was Ōgon Bat (1966), a Japanese film starring Sonny Chiba based on the 1931 Kamishibai superhero Ōgon Bat. The kaiju monster Godzilla, originally a villain, began being portrayed as a superhero in the Godzilla films. He has been described as "the original radioactive superhero" due to his nuclear origin story predating Spider-Man (1962 debut), although Godzilla did not become a hero until Ghidorah, the Three-Headed Monster (1964). By the 1970s, Godzilla came to be viewed as a superhero, with the magazine King of the Monsters in 1977 describing Godzilla as "Superhero of the '70s." Godzilla was "the most universally popular superhero of 1977" according to Donald F. Glut. The year 1966 saw the debut of the Ultra Series with kaiju TV show Ultra Q. However, with the release of the original Ultraman, the franchise started focusing on superheroes. In 1967, Ultraman started expanding to films. Early films, such as Ultraman: Monster Movie Feature were compilations or theatrical releases of TV shows' episodes. The first original Ultraman film was a co-production with Thailand, The 6 Ultra Brothers vs. the Monster Army. The popularity of television superheroes in Japan led to the start of the Kamen Rider and Super Sentai franchises by famous manga artist Shotaro Ishinomori in 1971 and 1975, respectively. Just like with Ultraman, many early Kamen Rider and Super Sentai episodes were released as films. Original Kamen Rider films released before 1978 include Kamen Rider vs. Shocker, Kamen Rider vs. Ambassador Hell, Kamen Rider V3 vs. Destron Mutants and Five Riders vs. King Dark. Original superhero characters emerged in other, more comedy oriented films such as the French political satire film Mr. Freedom (1969), the Polish parody Hydrozagadka (1970) and the American B movies, Rat Pfink a Boo Boo (1966), and The Wild World of Batwoman (1966). 1978–1998: Rising popularity of the genre Riding a wave of a new interest in fantasy and science fiction films with the success of Star Wars, Richard Donner's Superman (1978), the first major big-budget DC feature film, proved a critical and commercial success. The same year, Toei Company's Spider-Man reimagining and the first Super Sentai crossover film, JAKQ Dengekitai vs.