A blast from the past cast engage Ming the Merciless!
Creative Staff:
Story: Ben Acker, Heath Corson
Art: Dan McDaid
Colors: Omi Remalante
What They Say:
Join Flash Gordon, TWO Phantoms, Mandrake the Magician, and Prince Valiant on a disastrous intergalactic rescue mission! All they have to do is defeat a limitless alien armada and NOT get eaten by a space jungle.
Content: (please note that content portions of a review may contain spoilers):
One of the things that I like a lot about Dynamite Entertainment is that their work with classic characters can mean we get stories that are set in their proper time periods but also things that shake it all up a bit with occasional modernizations. With Kings Quest, we get a cast of characters that I really haven’t read much of in decades and even then they were pretty basic. I’ve gotten minor exposure to Flash Gordon in his last series, but only for one issue before it ended. Going into this series I can say that I’m at least familiar with just about everyone here so that makes it an easy jumping on point, though I can imagine those with less familiarity might struggle a little more. But it’s the kind of book that looks like it’s going to be some good “serial action” fun. What I’m less familiar with is the team involved in its creation, as I haven’t read anything from Acker or Corson before and this is my first exposure to Dan McDaid as well, I believe. And that sense of discovery for me is definitely an appeal with the book.
The premise of it is straightforward enough in that Flash staple character Dale Arden has been kidnapped and is taken by Ming the Merciless. While we get a single page to introduce the readers at the beginning, she doesn’t make much of an impact beyond that here. Right, she’s just the goal. And a goal that we get her friend Flash to go after her along with a host of others that will help him. That brings in an odd cast to be sure with Zarkov – as he’s always involved, Mandrake the Magician, Prince Valiant and The Phantom. It also includes Dale’s assistant Jen who herself is a new Phantom, providing for the “accessible” route in the book as she’s not sure about any of this, most of the people, or her own abilities. Everyone is fairly self assured and Jen has her moments, but she’s the newbie of the group that provides our view and contrast to the more experienced hands.
What dominates this first issue is the team crash landing sa you’d expect on Ming’s world, since safe landings are just not Flash’s thing nor the air defense that Ming has. We’re really just thrown into things and through this Acker and Corson introduce the cast by their interactions, the fighting, and the quips. It’s all admittedly standard material and these characters wear their personalities on their sleeves, being classics that defined and influenced character creation for years to come. Through the action we get some hints of what’s gone on within this world as Flash and the others thought things had been left in better shape, but it’s mostly just fallen back into hard times with Ming’s cruel hand running it all once more. We get a good run across the landscape to work through all these introductions before setting up for that “twist” at the end with Dale, which will provide for some challenges ahead.
In Summary:
The script here is smooth and fun, filled with the right kinds of quips and introspection to help us connect in a most basic way with everyone whether you’ve read them before or not. These are archetypal characters and there’s an ease when it comes to working with them. The story is fairly simple as we’d expect considering it’s mostly introductions here, but Dan McDaid brings it to life pretty well. I like the layouts for the most part and his work with Jen as the new Phantom is definitely appealing as she’s the most expressive of the cast. It’s not easy trying to blend this kind of weird group of characters together – I mean, Prince Valiant, after all! – but he does it better than I would have guessed and there’s a kind of internal continuity about it that allows it to work. With a four issue run there isn’t going to be a lot of truly grand and intricate plans here but rather just the fun of watching this group together moving through the storyline. And I think this team is going to pull it off pretty well because it is fun in all the right ways that a serial-ish kind of property like this should be.
Grade: B+
Age Rating: 13+
Released By: Dynamite Entertainment
Release Date: May 4th, 2016
MSRP: $3.99
