Perhaps it is partly the fault of my own high expectations, but I can’t help feeling just a bit let down by Dynamite’s newly-released Flash Gordon #1. That isn’t to say that it’s bad, more so that it could have been better.Going into this comic, I had high expectations. The creative team is absolutely top-notch with Batman ’66 scribe Jeff Parker on writing duties, Evan “Doc” Shaner whose work recently appeared in The Adventures of Superman handling art duties, and Jordie Bellaire of Pretty Deadly on board as the colorist. As for the subject matter, I may not be very familiar with Flash Gordon but he has a soft spot in my heart as a property that my grandfather always spoke very highly of from his own childhood.How did it seem like this issue could have been better? Well, continue to read as I break it down.The Good:
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- The planet Mongo
- Portals to other planets
- Frigia
- The attempted Mongo invasion of earth
- Emperor Ming the Merciless
- Arboria
- Prince Barin and the Arborians
- The relationship of Barin and the Arborians to Ming
I don’t include our core cast of Flash, Dale, and Zarkov in this list because the “One Year Ago” segment honestly does a good job of introducing them as characters.Following up on this question of knowledge of this universe, there is one particular moment that makes me scratch my head. All during this issue, Flash, Dale, and Zarkov appear to be blundering from place to place through portals with little to no knowledge of where they are or where they’re going beyond the hub of Ming-controlled Mongo. However, when they end up confronted by Prince Barin in Arboria, Dale somehow knows it’s called Arboria and references it as such without anyone having mentioned its name previously. So which is it? Do they know where they are or don’t they? This is a minor point but it further confused me about the timeline here and what events preceded this issue.I get the feeling (or at least I sincerely hope) that there is going to be a flashback in the next issue laying out some of the backstory for this series or at least a conversation where the background and status quo of this universe are explained. Frankly though, I don’t think this series was well-served by starting in this manner and leaving that sort of material for the second issue. If the creative team wanted to start off with this sort of cold open, then this should have been a special giant- or double-sized first issue sort of situation so that more could have been established before asking the readership to gamble on a second purchase for the next issue where there may or may not be more new-reader-friendly explanation. First issues tend to sell pretty well anyway, so why not ask the readership to either pay more for a longer read or gamble on undercharging to try to hook more people?Leaving aside that complaint, I do have a minor bone to pick with Doc Shaner’s art at one point. After crashing their plane on Arboria, there is one panel where Zarkov apparently unfastened his harness and started falling toward the ground so that Flash had to grab him. This panel suggests that they landed upside-down. My complaint is that every other panel suggests that they landed right-side up. Also, if they did land upside-down, I wonder how they got out of the plane safely and into the giant Arborian trees at all…The Questionable: Where we talk about things that are neither good nor necessarily bad, but at least are a little head-scratching.This is a minor point but I was a bit confused when Ming apparently used a ring to call down a column of red light to obliterate an underling who had displeased him. Is this something that the character in previous incarnations had been established as possessing the ability to do? Or is he a Red Lantern? Or perhaps did he get his hands on a Hammer of Dawn-style weapon from the Gears of War video game franchise?
