| Flash
Gordon Conquers Universal
Pictures: The
3rd Serial |
| Ch.
7: Arboria -- Attacks and Counter-Attacks |
|
King
Barin's realm of Arboria lived in fear of Ming and his futuristic forces -- especially
the Rocket Ship bombers against which they had no defenses. | Prince
Barin is inexplicably attacking Ming's palace,leading a fleet of sparky, smoky
Rocket Ships. The Saturday audience pays for Science Fiction adventures! |
|
The
Earthlings had to save their Arborian pal Roka from a booby-trapped Ming ship,
by stealing another Ming ship.
This leads to a case of mistaken identity
-- Prince Barin orders his men to shoot down their escape craft. | King
Barin owned a few Rocket Ships in the Sunday strip, but they were transport vehicles,
and seemed to troubled
by mechanical problems -- perhaps out of a need for
weekly
conflicts for our heroes to resolve. |
|
Alex Raymond
generously supplied Rocket Ships to King Barin in the strip when needed, but not
for fighting. |
After a cliff-hanger, Barin calls off the attack
and brings his allies onto
his flagship. |
|
Zarkov sets
up defenses against an imminent firebomb
attack from Ming's fearsome high-tech
arsenal. |
Ming used firebombs in Raymond's original
War With Ming sequence of
1935. |
|
Zarkov
and Flash fought back against the firebombs of 1935 by blowing up a dam and drowning
the flames. | Flash
Gordon plants
super-scientific devices
that counteract Ming's firebombs. |
|
Interspersed
in the plot of the Saturday serial is the kidnapping of Princess Aura, ostensibly
to save her from Ming's planned firebomb attacks. The audience meets secret agent
Lady Sonja, who arranges the dastardly deed. | Sonja's
name was borrowed from the Sunday pages,
but
this character started out as a rescued prisoner,
and trouble-making Flash
Gordon groupie, in Alex
Raymond's Outlaws of Mongo sequence of 1937. |
|
1938's
horned horses of Mongo were easy to adapt ... | ...
to the movie serial in 1940. |
|
Princess
Aura gets ONE defiant moment in 1940 when she tells Emperor Ming: "The Earthpeople
have beaten you once, and they'll beat you again!". | Queen
Aura didn't get too much respect in the comic strip after her initial role as
a passionate royal troublemaker.
She was only on the edges of the action afterward. |
|
Sonja was
allied with her somewhat-dimwitted brother in
the comic strip, but they were
Ming's enemies. | Ming
sends Lady Sonja with the inept Captain Torch
to support the firebomb attack
on Arboria. |
|
Lady Sonja's
foolhardy return to Barin's palace pays off in military intelligence about a scientific
counter-attack from the ominously-named Land of the Dead. Torch is totally humiliated
too, but do you expect anything else? | Raymond's
Flash Gordon had a kidnapping sequence in 1939, but it was centered on Barin and
Aura's child. The Lindburgh case was still fresh in the nation's mind, and
this
none-too-tasteful idea was altered for the movie. |
| |
