Why is Che Guevara Cool?

Here’s a question for the interwebs that the combined mental might of our car-pool couldn’t answer this afternoon: Why the heck is Che Guevara cool?

I get why he’s cool now – his silhouetted face has become a cultural icon, worn on t-shirts of people who don’t even know who he was, and that recognisability creates ‘cool’ just as brand names do.

But why did it happen in the first place? Who first created that image and sold it, made it popular? It’s pretty much the equivalent of college kids 50 years from now wearing Osama bin Laden t-shirts, and from this decade’s point of view that seems a pretty strange idea.

Why Guevara specifically? Are Lenin and Trotsky too old, is Franco too right-wing, is Pol Pot too controversial? Why does he get his crimes erased from the public consciousness so much more easily than other revolutionary leaders?