Zodiac acted like a comic book villain. He was a real life example of they type of character you’d see in fiction. As far as not being caught, as you pointed out Radar BTK became more famous after he was caught DeAngelo was caught 11 years after the Zodiac movie came out.

I don’t have good read on how nationally known all of these guys were during their lifetimes, but DeAngelo seems like the scariest to live through given the scope and duration of his crimes and the fact that he attacked people in their homes. But the media ended up re-using his “Nightstalker” nickname on Richard Ramirez, so maybe they’d already forgotten where it came from? People only started calling him The Golden State Killer decades later.