What’s Going On In Flash Gordon? Are you covering Flash Gordon regularly? January – April 2024

I’m hoping to make Dan Schkade’s Flash Gordon part of my regular rotation, yes, but I haven’t yet figured on a good spot for it. So for now it wanders through my schedule much as the rogue planet Mongo does. You can catch all my recaps of its plot at this link, though, and there’ll probably be a successor plot recap by July 2024 or so. For those not reading this in mid-April 2024. Now, let’s recap:

Flash Gordon.

14 January – 14 April 2024.

With the killing(?) of Ming the Merciless, the wedding of Barin and Aura, and the inauguration of both as co-rulers of a free Mongo what could go wrong? Other than Ming’s son, Ming W Merciless, crashing the wedding dinner demanding how he’ll take the throne, peacefully or by force. Flash, taking a walk to cool his temper, encounters him alone in a dark hallway and something something Ming II is stabbed to death.

Dan Schkade’s Flash Gordon for the 25th of January, 2024. Aegia makes a good case. I’m a little sorry the genre precludes the chance of seeing how the Mongo justice system — especially immediately after the Revolution — works. The suggestion of the inquisitors acting so completely independently of the rest of the government is an one I’d like to see more of.

Aegia, the Inquisitor, rules Flash Gordon a legitimate subject, and Barin and Aura agree they can’t interfere with the course of justice just because, c’mon, it’s Flash Gordon. The jailmaster “loses” the directions to give Flash decent quarters while waiting for trial, instead sending him to The Bellows, the subterranean mine/open battle royale pits that prisons always are in this genre. The viridium patch radio pin Dr Zarkov slips Flash isn’t much good for contacting anyone that deep underground. It’s even worse when it’s lifted by Bones Malock, a tough, energetic woman who gives me Tank Girl vibes. (Based on what I remember from seeing the movie in like 1997. I don’t know if I’m right.) Malock has an idea how to get out of there, and it depends on bringing Flash to the Death Pit.

The first Death Pit battle goes pretty well, considering. Flash doesn’t die at the hands of Death Pit champion Bok, a dragonman. Bok doesn’t want to kill him either, but, y’know, Bok was prematurely anti-Ming and that’s what his life is now. At the next round, Malock calls in a debt and has someone use a galvanic cutlass to smash the meter-thick window between the audience and the fight. Malock, Flash, and — with Flash’s encouragement — Bok escape.

Dan Schkade’s Flash Gordon for the 5th of March, 2024. Bok’s introduction put me in mine of one of the Flash Forward strips Schkade did back in 2021, for the anniversary side strip that might have been a test-run for the revival. The idea of a Death Pit opponent being touched by a bit of kindness is a straightforward one, but it does have me wonder if Schkade was sketching out ideas for the strip even back then.

Dr Zarkov and Dale Arden consider how to prove Flash’s innocence. Since Flash was the only one on the scene the obvious explanation is he was mind controlled by the witch-queen Azura. Arden sneaks off to find evidence, along the way encountering Brian Blessed hollering at someone how they can’t just murder whoever they like. You have to dislike them, at least a little, first. Azura’s delighted to catch Arden snooping around. Also to sneer at the “peasant thinking” Arden’s bringing to the investigation, as though whoever held the the throne of Mongo was particularly relevant to where power was. And then she shoves Dale off a hundred-storey balcony. She’s rescued by Thun on his hover-motorcycle thingy.

Azura’s talk about “peasant thinking” makes Arden realize something. Granted the assassin was there to kill a prince of Mongo — who knew that Ming W was going to be there? Nobody, that’s who. The target was someone else. And Bok notices something. There’s a Kiran Skel, invisible to you folks who don’t have heat vision like him, right there. With a whole party of space-opera heroes around it’s easy to catch one invisible assassin. Queen Fria of Frigia takes Flash and company under her protection and Aura accepts this.

Dan Schkade’s Flash Gordon for the 16th of March, 2024. I am very interested, yes, in why Vultan might want Ronal dead. And also that Aegia, introduced as what felt like a strong voice of integrity, is willing to be even more political than Barin and Aura were.

And we see Aegia and Brian Blessed talking. Aegia knows that Blessed accidentally ordering the killing of Ming W, when Prince Ronal — cousin to Barin — was the real target. Why Blessed wanted Ronal dead is, as yet, unexplained.

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From the 18th of March we journey to the ice kingdom of Frigia. Some curious major rumblings derail the magnetic rocket train and almost send Fria plummeting to death. But, you know, Flash Gordon. And they can at least see there’s some 300-foot-tall thing moving in the haze.

But that sort of thing just happens and might even be normal. Back to Frigia for the first time in a year Fria examines how her regent has been doing. Just the occasional spot of trouble, you know, witchcraft in Gwynedd and pirate miners and this walking mountain thing. So Fria begins a tour of her kingdom to see what all is going wrong and what she can do about it. And they find some pirate miners. So they have a project now, which is nice.

Next Week!

Still planning on the Sunday Phantom. See you then.