In this OGN review of Flash Gordon Adventures from Papercutz, readers get an anthology of 19 stories featuring the classic hero in a new light.
The Story
Flash Gordon Adventures is an anthology-like graphic novel. In 19 charming vignettes –
Flash Gordon makes a comic book about his own origin story and shares it with his friends.
When Ming the Merciless gets chocolate ice cream around his mouth, he takes it as a sign that he needs a beard – now. So instead of waiting to grow one he orders Zarkov to invent one.
Flash Gordon tries to teach his alien friends how to play football, but they become convinced the football is edible.
MIng the Merciless goes out for a stroll, during which his citizens tell him everything but what they think to his face.
Flash Gordon’s luxurious hair turns out to have a hypnotic effect on his alien friends.
Zarkov’s beard shop has been a huge success, but Ming has plans for the final beard.
Flash Gordon learns it’s not safe to go swimming with the Shark Men.
Ming the Merciless gets the notion that Zarkov needs to invent a machine that will turn him into a lizard and volunteers his personal guards as test subjects.
Flash Gordon convinces Ming the Merciless that swimming with the Shark Men is a great idea.
Zarkov perfects his lizard-transforming machine, but not without some hiccups along the way.
The lizard looks becomes the latest fashion trend.
Ming the Merciless invites Flash Gordon to come see him get turned into a lizard.
Ming and Flash return to Zarkov’s Lab to find he’s turned his beard shop into a lizard shop.
A beast man mistakes the lizard transformation machine for a bathroom stall.
Ming becomes half-man/half-lizard, but once he does it, everyone hates the new trend.
Flash Gordon is taken by a Hawk Man to Sky World, where the Hawk Men are waiting to discuss if footballs are really a delicacy, but offends them when he mentions hot sauce. Ming’s personal guards arrive to force Flash to go back with them for a duel with Ming, but Flash resists until he’s captured by a giant copy of Ming that Zarkov’s machine accidentally created. The duel ends surprisingly early, with Flash winning on a technicality. Flash, Dale, and Zarkov are allowed to go home.
At some point earlier, Dale wakes from a nightmare about falling and tells Flash. Flash thinks about all the times he’s fallen during his adventures and realizes that’s why he never has those nightmares.
Also set earlier in the story, Ming’s morning breath is so bad that Zarkov says he invented anti-cavity toothpaste for Ming to use. But Zarkov has pranked Ming and it’s actually anti-gravity toothpaste.
Lastly, Ming’s guards prank Flash by giving him the same toothpaste.
Analysis
Flash Gordon Adventures is the time-tested formula of Art Baltazar and Franco that we have seen them use in Tiny Titans, Itty Bitty Hellboy, and Little Archie and His Pals– take established characters, make them cute and cartoony, and have them act silly. Every vignette ends with a little tag line, written as if Art himself is the narrator (If they ever make a Tiny Titans cartoon show, Art should definitely be asked to narrate it!), that tells you you’ve reached the last punchline.
If you’re scratching your head about how aliens can mistake a football for food, then you’re overthinking the humor. And yet, despite the surface zaniness, there are deeper elements worthy of analysis.
The first significant thing to point out is that these are not child versions of Flash Gordon and his cast, but the actual adults. And not based on Mad Cave’s current Flash Gordon comic, the Alex Raymond original strip, or any drawn version of Flash Gordon in between. The smart thing to have done here was to push one of the two currently published versions of the characters, from the ongoing comic book or the comic strip. That this wasn’t the case seems strangely subversive.
There are plenty of visual clues referencing the 1980 live action movie, enough that we might guess these are the cartoon versions of the movie version – and let’s face it, to most of us, even 44 years later, the movie version is still the definitive Flash Gordon. Even the importance of beards seems to reference the movie, with the famous examples of Max Von Sydow’s fake beard in the movie and Brian Blessed’s real one. But other elements do not line up with the live action movie, like a green Ming. This Ming suggests to me the 1986 animated TV show Defenders of the Earth. I am not an expert on all things Flash enough to say if this, then, is an amalgam of all versions of Flash Gordon, or just the versions Art and Franco grew up with.
That’s what this Flash Gordon is, but what is Flash Gordon? Art and Franco are interested in exploring what elements of the Flash Gordon mythos might resonate with kids. The fact that Flash Gordon was a football player on Earth has never been more relevant than here, where fascination with football – even if mistakenly culinary in nature – is the bond Flash shares with his alien friends. Jet packs and rayguns are synonymous with Flash Gordon and both figure prominently in the climax, though I was very pleased to see that Flash drives off Ming’s guards, not with a real gun but a pretend one.
Other elements seem deliberately left out. Forming alliances has always been a major story element in Flash Gordon, but here Flash already has friends from among the various races of Lexray, and this element is further subverted when Vultan tries to gather more alliances to help Flash, but keeps failing because they’re all busy. Another major story element in the past was rescuing Wilma Deering, but needing to be rescued by a man is an outdated trope. Rather than show her rescuing herself, Wilma is never put in danger at all. This might be the biggest weakness of the book, that Wilma doesn’t really do much of anything in the book, but is largely just an observer following Flash around.
The climax mentioned above is not just the climax of that particular vignette, the longest one in the book, but the climax of the whole overarching story that most of the vignettes connect to. The story is the complete story of Flash Gordon, from Flash, Dale,and Zarkov leaving Earth to finally heading back home. It is perhaps the tightest plotting we have ever seen in a Baltazar/Franco production.
The final vignettes are independent of the main story arc and the final two are not done by either Art or Franco, but by John Patrick Green, creator of the all-ages graphic novel Jax Epoch and the Quicken Forbidden, and the graphic novel series, InvestiGators. As much as I respect the skills of Art Baltazar and Franco, I have to admit that I found the anti-gravity toothpaste to be the funniest thing in the whole book. I’ll be watching for opportunities to read more from Green.
While not necessary reading, this is the most fun I’ve had reading Flash Gordon, ever. For anyone who loves all-ages science fiction, give Flash Gordon Adventures a try.
