Flash Gordon's Trip to Mars (TV) (TV Miniseries) (1938)

Another crisis is striking the Earth: a fictional chemical element called nitron is vanishing from the atmosphere, causing hurricanes and other meteorological disasters. (Universal used stock newsreel footage for the scenes.) Flash and Zarkov use an airplane to take measurements only to discover that a ray-beam from Mars is the source of the nitron depletion. A comical newspaper journalist, Happy Hapgood, arrives on the scene to get the scoop, and stows away when they, together with Dale Arden, leave to investigate in Zarkov's rocket ship. They discover that Azura, Queen of Mars, is working with Ming the Merciless, their old nemesis from Mongo, not dead as they had believed, to conquer earth. All Martians who oppose her have been turned into clay humanoids, consigned to live in a world of clay-walled caverns beneath the Martian soil. Flash, Zarkov, Dale and Happy take refuge from the Martians in one of these caverns and are captured by the Clay People, and taken to their Clay King. From him, they learn what is transpiring between Queen Azura and Ming, and anxiously agree to help. Flash Gordon’s Trip to Mars was the second of the Flash Gordon serials. It had been preceded by Flash Gordon (1936) followed by Flash Gordon Conquers the Universe (1940).