King Kull
| Kull of Atlantis | |
|---|---|
| Created by | Robert E. Howard |
| Information | |
| Gender | male |
| Occupation | Monarch |
| Children | 1 |
Kull of Atlantis or Kull the Conqueror is a fictional character created by writer Robert E. Howard. The character was more introspective than Howard's subsequent creation, Conan the Barbarian, whose first appearance was in a re-write of a rejected Kull story.
His first published appearance was "The Shadow Kingdom" in Weird Tales (August, 1929). Kull was portrayed in the 1997 movie Kull the Conqueror by actor Kevin Sorbo.
Kull was born in pre-cataclysmic Atlantis c. 100,000 BC, depicted as inhabited at the time by barbarian tribes. East of Atlantis lay the ancient continent of Thuria, of which the northwest portion is divided among several civilized kingdoms. The most powerful among these was Valusia; others included Commoria, Grondar, Kamelia, Thule, and Verulia. Note that the word "Thuria" never appears in any of the Kull stories. Howard coined the term while tying Kull's world to Conan's in the 1936 essay The Hyborian Age.
Kull was born into a tribe settled in the Tiger Valley of Atlantis. Both the valley and tribe were destroyed by a flood while Kull was still a toddler, leaving the young Kull to live as a feral child for many years. Kull was captured by the Sea-Mountain tribe and eventually adopted by them. In "Exile of Atlantis", an adolescent Kull grants a woman a quick death so that she would not be burned to death by a mob; for this he is exiled from Atlantis.
Kull attempted to reach Thuria but was instead captured by the Lemurian Pirates. He spent a couple of years as a galley slave before regaining his freedom during a mutiny.
He tried the life of a pirate between his late adolescence and his early twenties. His fighting skills and courage allowed him to become captain of his own ship, creating a fearsome reputation for himself in the seas surrounding Atlantis and Thuria. Kull lost his ship and crew in a naval battle off the coast of Valusia but once again survived. He settled in Valusia as an outlaw but his criminal career proved to be short-lived as he was soon captured by the Valusians and imprisoned in a dungeon. His captors offered him a choice: execution or service as a gladiator. He chose the latter. After proving to be an effective combatant and gaining fame in the arenas of the capital, a number of fans helped to regain his freedom.
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