Ming the Merciless is Emperor of the Universe. He rules from the planet of
Mongo. All-powerful, with fleets of vessels like
War Rocket Ajax and armies of loyal troops, his downfall came the day a puny human from the insignificant speck called
Earth showed up, and
that vile Aryan freak foiled Ming the Merciless! A movie of this horror was made by
Dino de Laurentiis which proved conclusively, once and for all, that
Max von Sydow was
born to be Ming the Merciless. I wonder if his parents had any clue when they brought him home that they had just given birth to the future Ruler of Mongo.
Actually, Ming first showed up around the beginning of the Twentieth Century in the newspaper strip Flash Gordon. He's been seen in countless bad movies starring spaceships with cigarette butts sticking out their rear for smoke, as well as in stage shows, comics, novelizations and the like. And that bastard Flash keeps surviving, and worse, winning occasionally.
He's also half of some of my favorite badflique dialog ever made. Along with his henchman Klytus:
Ming: Klytus, I'm bored. What plaything can you offer me today?
Klytus: An obscure body in the SK system, your Majesty. The inhabitants refer to it as the planet...Earth. {said with disgust}
M: How peaceful it looks.
{CUT TO: An Evilly-beringed finger traversing a set of buttons with titles such as "Tidal Wave", "Volcanic Eruption", and "Earthquake" before pausing over and then decisively pressing the one labelled "Hot Hail."}
{FX: Ray Gun noises, followed by explosions}
{We hear Ming laughing, followed by Klytus joining in before saying}
K: Most effective, your Majesty! We'll destroy this...Earth-
M: Later! I like to play with things a while...before annihilation.
...and it goes right into the most excellent theme music by Queen.