Thursday, January 5, 2012

YEAR 1930: ARDALA VALMAR


In the Philip Nowlan novel on which the "Buck Rogers" comic strip was based, there are no characters comparable to either Killer Kane or his sometime girlfriend Ardala Valmar. Assuming (as some records seem to indicate) that Nowlan wrote the strip for its first few years, he may deserve the credit for creating Kane and Ardala as negative versions of the noble (if occasionally sappy) Buck and Wilma.






As opposed to the versions of Kane and Ardala that appeared in the 1979 teleseries, both characters are denizens of Earth in the 25th century, who start out serving in Earth's armed forces but soon decide to pursue a variety of criminal enterprises.  Ardala starts out as somewhat deferential to Kane, but in future episodes shows little compunction about betraying him, and on occasion pursues some enterprises on her own.  Her first non-comics media appearance consisted of appearing on episodes of the "Buck Rogers" radio show, though at present her greatest media-fame came about as a result of a near-total makeover on the aforementioned teleseries, which will be covered in a separate post.

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