Like things will ever stay calm on Earth.
Creative Staff:
Story: Jeff Parker
Art: Jesse Hamm
Colors: Grace Allison
Letterer: Simon Bowland
What They Say:
Flash, Mandrake The Magician & The Phantoms struggle to bring peace to a broken Earth…but a FAR-too-familiar foe from beyond threatens to destroy everything they hold dear!
Content: (please note that content portions of a review may contain spoilers):
After thoroughly enjoying the Kings Quest series that finished up recently, I was definitely curious to see what would be next in store for this particular cast of characters. With Flash Gordon: Kings Cross, I’m already coming into it pretty pleased by the knowledge that it follows up the previous series as opposed to its own take or a fresh start on things. A little continuity goes a long way and I found myself more invested in some of these characters recently than I would have expected – particularly Jen. So getting to see what’s next for this group from that adventure, with a different creative team, is certainly exciting.
The expected is pretty much here as everyone has gone their largely separate ways and are working their own paths. Mandrak is being all mysterious in his special home, trying to deal with this particular world and time, while Lothar and Jen as the Phantoms are doling out justice around the world to those who wrong their homeland. There’s some amusement to how that plays out but it mostly looks like the pair are working well. Dale’s off doing high level government things by all appearances while Zarkov continues to dabble in his science, now in a lab funded by Flash. Flash also gets to return there to help out since some Russians want to bring Zarkov back to the motherland as his discoveries should benefit his homeland, even though he’s a second generation citizen here. It’s all familiar but it’s the kind of placement that works well to cement us where we are and to show that after Kings Quest they go back to what they know fairly easily.
Naturally, catastrophe has to strike and we saw previously that Ming is back and has learned a lot in his death/exile that happened. He’s grown in his understanding of the universe and he intends to make Earth his crown jewel of the empire with what he’ll do to it, so naturally he gets some pretty good earthquakes going. It’s not something that the gang figures out quickly, it’s really saved for the last few pages, but watching them dig into the mystery and the scale of it is a whole lot of fun. The flow of the book is solid and Hamm delivers some great pages throughout but particularly toward the end with the giant sea monsters, the new island, and the chaos wreaked upon the Navy ships that are there. This is my first exposure to Hamm’s work and I definitely like how he brings it together for these familiar and old characters with a fresh look and energy about them.
In Summary:
After having a storyline that had no Ming, I’m definitely curious to see how I feel going into this one more since I’ve not read anything with him in an age. At this stage, the big win for me is Jen as the Phantom and her kind of snarky attitude about nobody asking how she’s doing besides Flash. The book is a familiar setup kind of piece with what it is it has to do but Parker and Hamm put it together solidly and with ease, showing a real polish and love of the characters and just the vibe that they have. Each has a distinctive enough voice without being overdone and Hamm’s artwork combined with spot on coloring from Grace Allison simply makes this a pleasure to read while making me curious to see what’s yet to come.
Grade: B+
Age Rating: 13+
Released By: Dynamite Entertainment
Release Date: November 2nd, 2016
MSRP: $3.99
