The Creators – Jeremy Adams – Writer, Will Conrad – Artist, Lee Loughridge – Colours, Taylor Esposito – Letters

The Players – Flash Gordon, Ming, Prince Thune, Prince Vultan, Dale Arden, Princess Aura, Zarkov, Barin

The Story – Ming is about to fire the Unraveller at Earth, thereby destroying it. Flash Gordon will not let that happen.

The Take – Mad Cave Studios, who brought back Dick Tracy for a new generation, has now done the same with Flash Gordon though not as much time has passed since his previous series at Dynamite. It all begins with everyone on Mongo united behind Flash Gordon and at odds with Ming, the ruler of Mongo. After hearing of Ming’s newest weapon which can destroy a planet, everybody stands together to stop the tyrant from destroying the planet Earth. A desperate plan is put into action but given all of the minds who worked at it, including Ming’s own daughter, it was not so desperate as well-thought-out. Written by Jeremy Adams and drawn by Will Conrad, the two start things out with a bit of action which sets the tone for the entire issue and the pace never lets down even when one thinks it should. Flash is portrayed as heroic and as lighthearted as ever, the makers of this book perfectly capturing his personality to a T. At the same time, on the flip side, Ming is as merciless as ever. Ming seems tired of losing to Flash all the time and his new weapon will gain him a large measure of revenge though it seems he may have already achieved that when Flash’s body is brought before him, seemingly dead. It is all a ruse, of course, just a means to get Flash within arm’s length of Ming so that he might stop him before he fires the weapon. As they battle it out a bit, things do not go as planned and Adams and his partner in crime, Conrad, leave it all on the biggest of cliffhangers and one of the most exciting things to happen in a Flash Gordon comic book in a very long time. It will leave the reader both a little shocked and just a wee bit angry because how dare they just leave readers hanging there without any resolution until the first issue is published at some point down the road. It is probably the best feeling one can have when reading a book because being left and wanting more means that the writer, the artist and everyone else who worked on it did their job and did it well. Conrad’s artwork is fantastic and Flash has never looked better, Ming looks absolutely fearsome and the rest of the cast is just as exciting. This is a new beginning for Flash Gordon and the future looks incredibly bright.

Worth It? – Yes.