The Spaceman Always Mings Thrice in FLASH GORDON CONQUERS THE UNIVERSE*!

Space hero Flash Gordon returned to the silver screen for the third time in 1940's Flash Gordon Conquers the Universe, along with...

...aww, you guessed!

Yes, we know.

He "died" at the end of the previous serial...and the one before that!

This time, there's no explanation for how he survived, he just did!

Not only that, but he managed to re-establish his base of power in Mingo City.

But Ming doesn't control Mongo as he once did.

War rages across the planet as the Forest People led by Prince Barin and his wife, Aura (Ming's daughter) fight to keep freedom alive allied with the inhabitants of the Ice Kingdom.

But Ming makes the mistake of testing out his new "ultimate weapon", Purple Death Dust, in Earth's atmosphere.

Once Dr Zarkov deduces the poison is from Mongo,  he rounds up Flash and Dale, and it's off to Mongo where they discover they were wrong about Ming's death.

But, they do what heroes must...try to stop the Most Evil Man in the Universe...who, in fact, is so evil, that he declares that he is the embodiment of the Universe!

(Which explains why a good guy like Flash would want to conquer anything, much less the Universe!)

Buster Crabbe returned as Flash for the third time, after taking a break to play the other big-name spaceman of the 1940s, Buck Rogers.

Frank Shannon reprised Zarkov, and none but Charles Middleton could have donned the now-European military-style mantle of Ming!

In fact, though adapted from a plotline from the Flash Gordon comic strip, this serial seemed steeped in current events with Ming paralleling Hitler and the Forest and Ice kingdoms filling in for besieged England and Scandinavia under constant air raids from Ming's spacefleet!

(Ming also had slave labor camps and Gestapo-like secret police!)

The action never stops as Flash and Ming match wits for twelve chapters from the icecaps and jungles of Mongo to the Land of the Dead!

Ming stops at nothing, even risking his own daughter's life to capture or kill the rebels and Earthmen, but the end is never really in doubt...

Now, is this finally, really and truly, once and for all, the End of Ming the Merciless?

Be back tomorrow for the startling answer!

To paraphrase Mel Brooks: "It's good to be the Ming!"

*I dare you to come up with a better post title!

And for more villains than you can boo and hiss at, see the other contributors to...

by clicking HERE!
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"Ming is Dead! Long Live Ming! Oh, Wait...He's Back!"

Due to the incredible box-office generated by the Flash Gordon movie serial, a sequel was planned, again using a plotline taken from the comic, involving Azura, the Witch Queen of Mongo.
The storyline was moved from Mongo to Mars...along with the studio-demanded addition of Ming, who wasn't in the original comic story...
But wait!
Ming was incinerated in a creamatorium at the end of the previous serial?
How did he survive?

As it turns out, his robes are fireproof!

Note: a number of sources claim the serial was set on Mars instead of Mongo to capitalize on Orson Welles' War of the Worlds radio show hoax.

But the serial opened in March of 1938, seven months before the Halloween radio show!
The more likely explanation was to be able to include Ming (who didn't appear in the "Witch Queen" plotline in the comic strip) in exile on Mars, planning to use the Martian army to retake Mongo.
But, to do that he has to convince Mars' ruler, Queen Azura, that he can provide her with a weapon that can defend Mars from any Mongo counter-attack: Ming's Nitron-ray, which he tests against Earth, leading Zarkov, Flash Gordon, and Dale to investigate, seeting the serial into high gear!
The original cast, including Charles Middleton as Ming, returned, along with Beatrice Straight as Azura.
Ming received a bit of a makeover, with the elimination of the taped-up "Asian" eye make-up (which was painful to apply and remove) and addition of a skullcap.

However, Ming is uncomfortable in any alliance, thus, he also plots to eliminate Queen Azura, and once Flash and crew arrive, plans to use them as scapegoats.
While Ming initially convinces the Martians that the Earthlings are dangerous, Flash and the others win over individuals, then groups, then, finally, the Queen herself!
In desperation, Ming orders Azura's death, then hastily tries to have himself crowned ruler of Mars.

But Flash arrives with witnesses to Ming's treachery and the fiend tries to escape, but is determined to kill the Earthman who spoiled everything first...

 The Earth is saved from destruction.
Mars is saved from becoming Mongo II.
The box office is saved with ticket sales equal to the first serial's!
And Ming is dead (Flash said so)!

So is this, really and truly, the End of Ming?

Find out tomorrow!

Note: a couple of months after the serial ended its' run, Orson Welles unleashed his Halloween War of the Worlds radio show hoax on America, and the country went Martian-mad!
So, a feature film compilation of the serial entitled Mars Attacks the World, which had been scheduled for release over the Christmas holidays, was moved up to before Thanksgiving, and did very good ticket sales.

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Flash Gordon Serial Trilogy
Complete, Uncut, from the Original Negatives from the King Features Syndicate Vaults!
(Not the edited "Space Soldiers" PD versions!)
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And Men Shall Call Him "Merciless"! For He is...

...for decades, the single greatest menace in movies.

There have been cinema villians who threatened cites, threatened countries, even threatened whole planets!
But only one has ever proclaimed that not only did he rule the Universe, that he was the Universe!

Ming!

Conceived in 1934 as the antagonist of the brand-new Flash Gordon newspaper comic strip, Emperor Ming of Mongo was a futuristic version of the "Yellow Peril" menace popularized by Sax Rohmer's insidious Fu Manchu and the Han, conquerors of Buck Rogers' 25th Century America!

When Universal Studios adapted Flash Gordon into a 13-chapter movie serial in 1936, they defied movie convention by keeping Ming as the villain and faithfully adapting the strip's plotline.

(Studios usually made radical changes to comic strip and pulp characters they used, most frequently replacing the original pulp and comic villains with the studios' own creations.)

With handsome Olympic athlete-turned-actor Buster Crabbe as the embodiment of an all-American hero, who could portray the ultimate villain to oppose him?

How about a guy who also tried to kill Dick Tracy and Jack Armstrong: All-American Boy in other serials, as well playing opposite Laurel & Hardy and the Marx Brothers (and even sang a song with Groucho and his brothers in Duck Soup*)?

Charles Middleton, who could not only chew the scenery, but spit it out like toothpicks, got the role, and certainly made the most of it...

...making Ming the most hissable foe any movie hero ever faced!
When not plotting to destroy and/or conquer Earth, and lusting after Dale Arden, Ming also had to keep an eye on his own daughter, Princess Aura, who lusted after Flash Gordon, and kept saving him!

By the end of the serial Ming had been fried to death in a creamatorium, Earth and Dale were safe, Aura fell in love with Prince Barin, the true ruler of Mongo!

And that was the end of the man called "Merciless"...right?

Be back here...tomorrow...for the answer to that, and many other questions!

And for more villains than you can boo and hiss at, see the other contributors to...

by clicking HERE!
Support Secret Sanctum of Captain Video
Visit Amazon and Buy...

Flash Gordon Serial Trilogy
Complete, Uncut, from the Original Negatives from the King Features Syndicate Vaults!
(Not the edited "Space Soldiers" PD versions!)
Paid Link

Captain's Library GREEN HORNET "Kingpin of Crime"

For St Patrick's Day, we're featuring our favorite Son of the Old Sod...

...Michael Aloysious Axford, in a never-reprinted comic book tale adapted from an episode of the long-running radio show, The Green Hornet!

Most people don't know that the character of Mike Axford actually pre-dates the The Green Hornet, appearing on an earlier, but now forgotten, radio series, Warner Lester: Manhunter, by the same writer/producer team, Fran Striker and George Trendle!

Axford was a police chief suspected, then cleared, of corruption who resigned from the force and joined Lester in a detective agency.

BTW, It's mentioned on The Green Hornet that Axford is a retired policeman, but his rank was never specified.

It would make sense that Dan Reid would hire as presitigous a retired cop as possible to be his son, Britt's bodyguard, and who better than an ex-police chief?

There's more about Axford's long run on radio HERE.

Though the scripter of the adaptation from Harvey's Green Hornet Fights Crime #35 (1947) is unknown, the art is by long-time pro Al Avison.