Adaptations and Influences
When Worlds Collide had far-reaching influences on the science fiction genre. The themes of an approaching planet threatening the Earth, and an athletic hero and his girlfriend traveling to the new planet by rocket, were used by writer Alex Raymond in his 1934 comic strip Flash Gordon. Jack Williamson's 1934 short story "Born of the Sun" also used the concept of a scientist and his fiancee escaping the destruction of the Earth in a hurriedly-constructed "ark of space". The 1940-1941 newspaper comic strip Speed Spaulding, an adaptation credited to the novel's authors, was more directly based on the novel. The themes of escape from a doomed planet to a habitable one also can be seen in Jerry Siegel and Joe Shuster's 1938 comic Superman.
The novel was also adapted as the 1951 film When Worlds Collide, produced by George Pal and directed by Rudolph Maté. The film inspired Deep Impact. Another film adaptation of When Worlds Collide was in pre-production as of 2012.
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