The Creators – Dan Didio – Writer, Jim Calafiore – Artist, Juancho! – Colours, Carlos M. Mangual – Letters

The Players – Flash Gordon, The Phantom, Mandrake the Magician, Lothar, Rick Gordon, Kshin, LJ, Kro-Tan, The Ghost Who Walks, Jedda

The Story – Ming is defeated. This is the story of what happens next.

The Take – As with every book, new or old, there is always some good and some bad to greater or lesser extents and thankfully, the former outweighs the latter. The first issue of Defenders of the Earth by Dan Didio and Jim Calafiore is a solid start to the series and it introduces readers to a cast of characters that many will be familiar with. Whether one watched the animated series or followed them through their four-colour exploits over the decades through various publishers, The Phantom, Flash Gordon and Mandrake the Magician have not had a series together in quite some time so it is good that Mad Cave gave readers the chance to read some new adventures starring the trio. The issue begins with quite the shocker, something never seen in a Flash Gordon book and it definitely makes its audience want to find out what will happen on the following pages. Didio lets the book jump forward a few years, the war with Ming is now over and Flash is more of a politician while the rest of his friends have tried to settle into normal life. Being a politician though means he has little time for anything including family and it bothers his son Rick to no end. Elsewhere, The Phantom is still recovering from an injury he picked up in the war, Mandrake wants to go on tour so that he might share his gifts with the people and Lothar just wants to head back home to Africa. Things have settled down and are different now; yet, something is not sitting right. Something is brewing and as the book ends, it does so on a bit of a shocker much like its beginning. Not quite as staggering as when the book opened but it is still quite surprising in its own right. Overall, there is a lot to love including the wonderful pencils by Calafiore whose style has somewhat evolved from his earlier work whether that is simply for this series or just a regular progression, it looks great and is exactly the kind of energy the book needs. As for the bad, it is not even that but Didio spends a lot of time on introductions, characterization and setup for things to come. It is not a waste of time nor anything one might even consider bad but given that beginning, one would have hoped that he would have kept up the excitement in the following pages, which he did not. Still, for newer readers, this first issue does everything it needs to do to get them in on the ground floor and for longtime fans, gives them a lot to think about and feast their eyes on.

Worth It? – Yes.