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King Vultan

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Performer:
Ty Olsson (Sci Fi Channel)
John Lipson (serial)

King Vultan rules the Hawkmen on Mongo.

Contents

Sci Fi Channel Series

For the updated Flash Gordon series, creator and executive producer Peter Hume says that adapting the Hawkmen for a modern audience was a challenge:

You had to keep the spirit of the thing, but then update it. But I still want to do, like, Lion Men. I want to do Hawkmen. But how do you do Hawkmen and not make it stupid and silly? We have Hawkmen, but they're guys that follow the way of the hawk and are all about birds, and they do kind of fly, but they're not guys with wings sprouting out of their backs... The Vultan character is a much more grounded leader of his people. [1]

In the new series, the Hawkmen will be known as Dactyls. [2]

Sci Fi Channel Appearances

Comic strip

The Hawkmen are introduced in the Flash Gordon comic's second storyline, "The Monsters of Mongo", making their first appearance in the July 8, 1934 strip. The Hawkmen's city is used as a "prison city" by Emperor Ming, who sends Flash, Dale and Barin there when he's forced by sacred law to spare Flash's life.

Initially, Vultan is a willing servant of Ming and Princess Aura, who boss him around fiercely, but he soon takes a shine to Dale and begins to resent Ming's influence. [3] He orders Flash and his friends to work as slaves in the Atom Furnaces, which process the radium that the city needs to stay aloft in the sky.

Vultan has a number of wives, who he keeps in his private skyrooms at the top of a tower. He plans to add Dale to his harem -- but a jealous Lura, Vultan's favorite wife, pushes Dale out of a window. (Dale is saved by Flash, and then recaptured by the Hawkmen.)

Flash leads a slave revolt, and sets off an explosion in the radium furnaces. This threatens to topple the city out of the sky, but Dr. Zarkov invents a new atomic light-solidifier, which makes the city even more stable than before. Vultan is grateful, setting his captives free and giving Zarkov a job as his head scientist.

In the third story, "The Tournaments of Mongo", Vultan protects Flash and Dale when Ming travels to the Sky City to collect them. Vultan calls for a "Tournament of Death" so that Flash can have a chance to fight for his freedom. When Flash becomes the King of the Cave World in "The Caverns of Mongo", Vultan sends a delegation of Hawkmen to accompany Flash.

Serial

The Hawkmen of the 1936 Flash Gordon serial follow the original strip's continuity very closely. King Vultan and the Hawkmen first appear in the fifth chapter, "The Destroying Ray", and Vultan immediately sets to menacing Dale and enslaving the rest in the atom furnaces. Flash is tortured by Vultan in "Flaming Torture", and sets off the explosion in the atom furnaces in "Shattering Doom".

Zarkov saves the Sky City in "The Tournament of Death", and Vultan befriends the heroes. When Ming arrives, Vultan calls for a "Tournament of Death", although in the serial this tournament is on a much diminished scale -- Flash must fight one orangopoid, instead of the thousands of warriors in the comic strip's Tournament.

Vultan remains a loyal friend to Flash for the remainder of the serial, even going to prison on Flash's behalf in "The Unseen Peril".

Vultan through the years

References

  1. ↑ "Flash Honors Old, New", Sci Fi Wire, Patrick Lee. July 16, 2007.
  2. ↑ "Eric Johnson Saves Every One of Us in Flash Gordon", iF Magazine, Sean Elliott. August 10, 2007.
  3. ↑ Flash Gordon, "The Monsters of Mongo". August 5, 1934.
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