Kull - also known as King Kull, Kull of Atlantis, Kull the Conqueror is a fictional character created by Robert E. Howard. His first published appearance was The Shadow Kingdom, in Weird Tales (August 1929). The first Conan story, "The Phoenix on the Sword" was a rewrite of an unpublished Kull story, "By This Axe, I Rule", with long passages being identical word for word apart from character names. Kull was portrayed in the 1997 movie Kull the Conqueror by Kevin Sorbo, who was also starring on the TV series Hercules: The Legendary Journeys at the time.