Don Diego de la Vega (also known as Diego Vega) is a Spanish nobleman of the 19th Century, and is the main protagonist of the Zorro series. He is a young scholar whose alter ego is El Zorro. Upon returning home he found that Los Angeles was being ruled by a tyrant (usually the Alcalde although in some stories it is an evil Commandante of the Spanish army and even still in other stories, the Governor of California) The character's name in Johnston McCulley's writing and previous adaptations was Diego Vega; the Disney version expands the name to Diego de la Vega, an innovation retained in some subsequent versions of the story.