I’m a fan of the late 1970s Flash Gordon animated TV series but somehow I never got around to the 1982 feature-length version, FLASH GORDON: The Greatest Adventure of All. Before blogging about it, a bit of comic-strip history.
The Flash Gordon comic strip debuted in 1934 and blew the people reading the Sundaycomics pages away. In the opening story arc, Dr. Zarkov kidnaps Flash — a champion polo player — and beautiful Dale Arden to come with him to Mongo, a rogue planet hurtling towards Earth. On Mongo they become the resistance leaders against the tyrannical Ming the Merciless and criss-crossing the man cultures of Mongo: the winged Hawkmen, Prince Barin’s foresters, and multiple others.
It’s basic sword-and-planet stuff, the kind the pulps had been doing for more than 20 years by then. However reading it wasn’t the same as seeing it and in those days you didn’t see it. Nothing like it at the movies, no TV, no comic books. Flash Gordon became a star and Alex Raymond a legend. It would become three hit movie serials, a 1950s TV show, then the 1980 film, then the cartoon. And since then various appearances in comic books, the Defenders of Earth cartoon, comic books and more TV. I watched the first episode of the most recent TV show. Not good.
And then there’s The Greatest Adventure of All, which was much more enjoyable. We open in 1939 Warsaw as Olympic athlete turned US diplomat Flash Gordon struggles to help people during the Nazi invasion of Poland. He can’t but he gets a message from a brilliant Polish scientist to deliver to Dr. Zarkov — “One word … Mongo.” Flash and reporter Dale Arden reach Zarkov but the disruptions unleashed by Mongo’s approach force them to escape Zarkov’s isolated laboratory by rocket ship. Destination: Mongo. Can they stop Ming when he wields the terrifying power of atomic fission to fuel his technology? Can Flash unite Mongo’s warring factions into an organized opposition? Will Ming force Dale into marriage? Will his daughter Aura seduce Flash?
It’s action packed and fun … but it got me thinking whether there’s any point to continued revivals. Flash Gordon back when this came out was still a famous name, at least to nerds like me; now I’m not so sure. Certainly sword-and-planet remains popular but when Star Wars films and TV spinoffs fill more or less the same spot in pop culture, does Flash bring anything to the table?
Even the animated film, though it only came out in ’82, looks a little dated. The voice cast, except for Ted Cassidy as the lion man Thun, is forgettable; these days I’d expect a much stronger acting team. And the women’s roles, while true to the original series, are dreadful (making me appreciate John Carter for doing so well with Dejah Thoris). Dale spends the entire film a captive; Aura gets more agency — bad girls often do — but she still winds up facing a forced marriage to Vultan, the king of the Hawkmen (and forced marriage clearly means marital rape). I think it’s possible to do that and still be true to Raymond — but I’m not sure it would sell even so. Of course, it only takes one clever filmmaker to prove me wrong …
Art by Alex Raymond. All rights to images remain with current holders.
