Flash Gordon: Zeitgeist # 3

“Chapter Three: Monsters of Mongo”

Plot and Script by Eric Trautman; Plot and Art Direction by Alex Ross; Art by Daniel Indro and Ron Adrian; Colors by Slamet Mujiono; Letters by Simon Bowland

After a fairly auspicious start, this series is beginning to veer off in a direction that, while novel, is really not the way I’d hoped things would go, though there were harbingers of my least favorite elements of the strip even in its debut issue. The adaptation of the initial storyline from Alex Raymond’s classic sci-fi/ adventure strip (intertwined with elements of the 1980 Mike Hodges film Flash Gordon) continues, with Flash Gordon having found himself, his love interest Dale Arden, and paranoid scientific genius Dr. Hans Zarkov stranded on Mongo, a planet hostile to Earth, which Mongo’s emperor, Ming the Merciless, has apparently been attempting to destroy.

Dale and Zarkov are not present in this issue; instead, writers Trautman and Ross focus on Flash and his attempts to evade Ming’s forces in the air en route to an attempted rescue of his two allies. After being shot down by Ming’s imperial ships in the kingdom of Ardentia, Flash encounters the land’s prince, Thun, a young lion man (literally, part-man, part-lion) who, in the tradition of superhero team-ups of old, does battle with Flash over a misunderstanding before coming to terms with Gordon and counting him as an ally. The two enemies of Ming escape the airships by means of a device called a siege projector, then are attacked by a saurian predators called Droks.

The major plot twist that marred this issue for me was the continued escalation of a parallel subplot began in issue # 1 involving Adolf Hitler and the Third Reich entering into an arms deal with Ming’s vizier and right-hand man Klytus. The deal is simple: Klytus gives Germany advanced technology to wage war on the rest of the world and then to set up Hitler as puppet ruler of the conquered Earth. Whereas I see where Ross and co. might’ve thought, “wow, what a groovy idea!”, I feel it complicates the ongoing larger story. Raymond’s original story arc, running several years from the time Flash and co. crash on Mongo to Ming’s ultimate defeat, contained more than enough story to adapt without introducing faux historical relevance to the tale. Suffice to say, I’m not impressed with this development nor its execution.

The art in this issue is not nearly as spectacular as in issue # 1, due, no doubt, to Ron Adrian’s indeterminable contributions. Indro made a fine artist solo. Alternate covers are provided by Alex Ross, Paul Renaud, and Francesco Francavilla. Once gain Francavilla (artist on Image’s underrated Sorrow) walks away with top honors by far of the three. Francavilla, unlike Ross and his garish body armor redesigns, portrays the classic Flash in all his glory. Perhaps Francavilla could be moved over to interior artist? It should also be mentioned that letterer Simon Bowland, who I’ve neglected to mention in any of my Dynamite reviews, but who has lettered most if not all Dynamite books that I’ve  reviewed, does a fine job and is under-recognized.