While the outlaw hero has long been an international tradition, it is only in the information age that the ability of individuals to be represented globally and, in some cases, to act globally has become a reality. Previously, outlaw heroes arose and met their fates in obscure localities or regions, sometimes with utopian, ethnic or other aspirations to independent status. The range of their depredations was constrained by transport realities of foot, horse and, more recently, the motor vehicle. Likewise, their ability to project their discontents outside their areas of influence was also restricted to scribbled messages and notes to local politicians and newspapers. Ned Kelly was the first to become a global media sensation when metropolitan journalists, able to take the train to the location and to place their stories on the newly installed telegraph wires, covered the showdown at Glenrowan in 1880. The local story made newspapers in London and elsewhere in the world. The outlaw heroes of Depression era America were the darlings of the state and national newspapers for a short time, while Salvatore Giuliano was the subject of considerable media romanticisation until his unromantic slaying.

All these figures and the many others discussed in this book can be considered the old guard of the outlaw hero tradition.