Flash Gordon

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Flash Gordon is a character in the comic book literature and the American science fiction genre.

Comic

Alex Raymond first published on January 7, 1934. Comic around the hero Flash Gordon aka Gordon Ferrao in from the publisher King Features supplied newspapers, which as a direct competitor to the exactly five years ago launched science fiction -Strip Buck Rogers was intended. Flash Gordon quickly surpassed this forefather of all SF comics because of the quality of Raymond's dynamic, yet precise artwork; less because of the bumpy stories that made use of the elements of the space opera established in the pulp magazines from the start .

Like a Dr. Peter Pohl states in the preface to the Pollischansky Verlag's first Flash Gordon issue , Raymond is said to have worked up to 100 hours per picture page. It is characteristic of the development of the series under Raymond that the speech bubbles were more and more displaced from the comic panels in favor of narrative texts .

Flash Gordon was published weekly in the King Features designed Sunday supplements while shared a Sunday page with the drawn also by Alex Raymond adventure series Jungle Jim , the popularity of the first by Hal Foster , later by Burne Hogarth entrusted comic version of Tarzan the Should dig water. Raymond's Flash Gordon comics, along with Hal Foster's Prince Eisenherz , Burne Hogarth's Tarzan and Milton Caniff's Terry and the Pirates, are considered the best American adventure comics ever. In 1944, his assistant Austin Briggs took over the Sunday pages after he had designed a daily Flash Gordon comic from 1940 to 1944 (this was taken up again from 1951 with changing artists). Briggs was followed by numerous other illustrators, the best known being Mac Raboy , Dan Barry and Al Williamson .

Most of the Raymond stories in German translation were published 1975–1983 by the Austrian Pollischansky publishing house; other Flash Gordon comics have been published by Heyne Verlag , Norbert Hethke Verlag and others. The graphic or print quality is to be regarded as rather modest by today's standards. Since 2018, Hannibal Verlag has published a 6-volume edition of the Sunday pages with bonus material.

Content of the comic series

After the "world-famous polo player" Flash Gordon crashed in an airplane, he and the other survivor Dale Arden meet Dr., who is endowed with "great brains". Zarkow , who, having gone insane for a short time, forces the two of them to launch with him in a self-made rocket to an approaching comet in order to divert it from its collision course with the earth and thus save them from a collision. This succeeds, with the rocket suffering a crash landing; the comet itself turns out, meanwhile populated than the thrown off track and exotic creatures with countless pretty Planet Mongo .

Here the three experience all sorts of adventures with various opponents or allies. The ruler of the planet is the tyrant Ming the Cruel , whose daughter Aura in turn falls in love with Flash, which often leads to scenes of jealousy from Dale Arden.

In terms of content, the individual stories are very similar. Various semi-animal life forms Mongos appear as opponents, e.g. B. ape people, hawk people, lion people etc. There are constant fights, from which Flash emerges victorious in the end, until he can finally overthrow the ruler Ming together with his friends. The many technical inventions Dr. Zarkovs. But there are also traitors and defectors. In the meantime, the three of them return to Earth to prevent an impending world war there before they return to the now distant planet Mongo.

The stories drawn by Raymond's successors also adhere to the tried and tested pattern of conflicts with very exotic aliens, the actions either take place on earth or in space and on distant planets.

Film serial (1936–1940)

Logo for the 1980 Flash Gordon movie

As of 1936 it different were science fiction film - serial rotated. Buster Crabbe played Flash Gordon, a hero with - at the time - typical American virtues. He is of an athletic figure (a world-famous polo player in the Alex Raymond comic, football player, quarterback for the New York Jets in the 1980 film ), blond and educated. His constant opponent Ming ( Charles Middleton ) represents the matching (Asian-looking) villain. Jean Rogers as Dale Arden is a blonde beauty who is repeatedly rescued from awkward situations by Flash. Nevertheless, there is no closer relationship between the two. On the other hand, Flash has to defend itself against the approaches of mostly bad women. Not least because of the Second World War , the mixture of science fiction , western and knight themes became a great success, as many Americans could identify with Flash Gordon. The German-speaking First aired the series took place in the January 5, 1981 Bavarian television instead

Version differences

There are some differences between the American originals and the German versions:

  • The episodes were re-edited and the original cliffhangers and the character of the episodes changed as a result.
  • All episodes were given the opening credits of the first season, regardless of whether actors (e.g. Dale) changed.
  • The narrators (there are two in each episode) talk into the episodes and recapitulate things at the beginning of each episode that only happen in the episode.
  • The titles of the individual chapters are completely mixed up.
  • Some episode titles are completely wrong (for example episode 5 "The fight with the fire dragon", this fight takes place two episodes later).

The three original series are divided into four DVDs in German:

  • Flash Gordon 1 - Planet of Terror, Ep. 1–7
  • Flash Gordon 2 - The ruler of Mars, Ep. 8-14
  • Flash Gordon 3 - The fight against the forest people, Ep. 15-21
  • Flash Gordon 4 - Death Rays from Space, Ep. 22-28

This corresponds in the original:

  • Flash Gordon Space Soldiers (1936), episodes 1-9
  • Flash Gordon's Trip to Mars (1938), episodes 10-20
  • Flash Gordon Conquers the Universe (1940), episodes 21-28

Original title

Flash Gordon -
Space Soldiers
(1936)

  1. Planet of Peril
  2. The Tunnel of Terror
  3. Captured by Shark Men
  4. Battling the Sea Beast
  5. The Destroying Ray
  6. Flaming Torture
  7. Shattering Doom
  8. Tournament of Death
  9. Fighting the Fire Dragon
  10. The Unseen Peril
  11. In the Claws of the Tigron
  12. Trapped in the turret
  13. Rocketing to Earth

Flash Gordon -
Trip to Mars
(1938)

  1. New Worlds to Conquer
  2. The Living Dead
  3. Queen of Magic
  4. Ancient enemies
  5. The boomerang
  6. Tree Men of Mars
  7. The Prisoner of Mongo
  8. The Black Sapphire of Kalu
  9. Symbol of Death
  10. Incense of forgetfulness
  11. Human bait
  12. Ming the Merciless
  13. The Miracle of Magic
  14. A beast at bay
  15. An eye for an eye

Flash Gordon -
Conquers the Universe
(1940)

  1. The Purple Death
  2. Freezing Torture
  3. Walking bombs
  4. The Destroying Ray
  5. The Palace of Terror
  6. Flaming death
  7. The Land of the Dead
  8. The Fiery Abyss
  9. The Pool of Peril
  10. The death crap
  11. Heavily treachery
  12. Doom of the Dictator

German original title

Flash Gordon -
Planet of Terror

  1. The dangerous planet
  2. Captured by the shark men
  3. The heat rays
  4. Destructive fate
  5. The fight with the fire dragon
  6. The invisible danger
  7. In the ruler's palace

Flash Gordon -
The ruler of Mars

  1. The return to earth
  2. Off to new worlds
  3. The living death
  4. Old enemies
  5. The boomerang
  6. The prisoner of Mongo
  7. The black sapphire from Kalu

Flash Gordon -
The fight against the
forest people

  1. The symbol of death
  2. The human bait
  3. Ming the Merciless
  4. The miracle of magic
  5. The bomb squadron
  6. eye to eye
  7. The purple death

Flash Gordon -
death rays from space

  1. Living bombs
  2. Deadly rays
  3. The burning planet
  4. The burning abyss
  5. Playing with death
  6. The petrified treasure
  7. The end of the dictator


TV series (2007)

From August 10, 2007, the SciFi Channel ran a modernized version of the Flash Gordon story. There is a total of 21 episodes. The series has been discontinued since the end of March 2008. Although there was never an official announcement, the SciFi channel has removed the series from its program schedule.

The new Flash Gordon series started in Germany on September 24th on RTL2. After only 4 episodes she has already been withdrawn. The remaining episodes were broadcast by the pay-TV channel Syfy at the turn of the year 2009/2010.

Cinemamovies

After the three very successful series in the 1930s and 1940s, the cinema went silent about Flash Gordon.

Flesh Gordon (1974)

Only in 1974 appeared under the direction of Michael Benveniste and Howard Ziehm the - optically based on the serials - porn parody Flesh Gordon , which was followed in 1989 by a sequel, Flesh Gordon - Shame of the Galaxy . The trick effects are based on the original serial and partly use the style of old master Ray Harryhausen .

Flash Gordon (1980)

In the course of the Star Wars fever, Dino De Laurentiis produced the remake Flash Gordon in 1980 with Sam J. Jones in the title role and including Timothy Dalton , Max von Sydow , Melody Anderson as Dale Arden and Ornella Muti . In terms of content and partly in design, the film loosely follows the first years of the comic Sunday pages designed by Alex Raymond, but adds irony and sometimes slapstick and tries to do a balancing act between the comic template and the series with Buster Crabbe, which were created under rather economical production conditions.

Better known than the film directed by Mike Hodges , however, was the soundtrack album by Queen and their hit single Flash .

According to the Vultan actor Brian Blessed , the planned, but not realized, sequel to the movie should be a free remake of the second Buster Crabbe series Flash Gordon's Trip to Mars .

Cartoon series

Flash Gordon (1979-80)

The adventures of Flash Gordon were filmed from 1979 to 1980 in a cartoon series named after him in which, in addition to his opponent, the Emperor Ming, Dale Arden and Dr. Hans Zarkow appear. She was the first major production of the US animated forge Filmation , later mainly by He-Man , She-Ra and BraveStarr became known. This series was broadcast by the private broadcaster Tele 5 around 1990 in Germany.

Defenders of the Earth (1986)

In 1986 the characters Flash Gordon and Ming the Merciless were used in the animated series Defenders of the Earth .

This has nothing to do with the original plot, in it Flash Gordon fights as the leader of a superhero team that includes the phantom and Mandra, the magician , against Ming, whose goal is to take control with the help of his army of ice robots to attain the earth. Ming's appearance was also changed: his skin was painted green so as not to create an image of an Asian enemy.

Flash Gordon (1996)

In 1996/97 Hearst Entertainment launched a US-French coproduction depicting Flash and Dale as teenagers. 26 episodes of 30 minutes each were produced.

Radio plays

Telefunken radio plays from 1975/76

  1. The secret of the slave planet
  2. The space trap

Radio plays from Europe 1981/82:

  1. The superstar in the realm of the stars (content corresponds to the film from 1980)
  2. Ming's Return (based on a sequel to the 1980 film)
  3. The Ming's slavers
  4. Defeat deadly dangers
  5. The traitor from the eternal ice
  6. Brukka, the fire god
  7. The green monster
  8. Escape to Earth
  9. The beast from outer space
  10. The door of doom

List of speakers for the Europa radio play series

Novels

The Adventures of Flash Gordon

Total: 7 books

  • 28.002 Flash Gordon The book about the film; Science fiction novel by Alex Raymond, Bastei Lübbe Verlag.
  • 21,103 Flash Gordon and the Lion Men; Science fiction novel by Alex Raymond and Con Steffanson, Bastei Lübbe Verlag.
  • 21,108 Flash Gordon and the Harmony of Death; Science fiction novel by Alex Raymond and Con Steffanson, Bastei Lübbe Verlag.
  • 21,112 Flash Gordon and the Space Circus; Science fiction novel by Alex Raymond and Con Steffanson, Bastei Lübbe Verlag.
  • 21,119 Flash Gordon and the Time Trap; Science fiction novel by Alex Raymond and Con Steffanson, Bastei Lübbe Verlag 1977, ISBN 978-3-404-01393-7 .
  • 21,125 Flash Gordon and the Witch of Mongo; Science fiction novel by Alex Raymond and Carson Bingham, Bastei Lübbe Verlag 1978, ISBN 978-3-404-01469-9 .
  • 21,132 Flash Gordon and the Cybernauts; Science fiction novel by Alex Raymond and Carson Bingham, Bastei Lübbe Verlag 1980, ISBN 3-404-21132-4 .
The new adventures of Flash Gordon

Total: 6 books

  • Flash Gordon: The Millennium Legacy; Science fiction novel, Bastei Lübbe Verlag.
  • Flash Gordon: War of the Citadels; Science fiction novel, Bastei Lübbe Verlag.
  • Flash Gordon: Crisis on Citadel II; Science fiction novel, Bastei Lübbe Verlag.
  • Flash Gordon: Federation Forces; Science fiction novel, Bastei Lübbe Verlag.
  • Flash Gordon: Major Assault; Science fiction novel, Bastei Lübbe Verlag.
  • Flash Gordon: Citadels on Earth; Science fiction novel, Bastei Lübbe Verlag.

literature

  • Peter Steinmüller: Shoveling coal for the atomic furnace , in: VDI nachrichten 49/2016, p. 3, here:

Web links

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ fictionBOX: "Flash Gordon" discontinued
  2. ^ Flash Gordon Community
  3. ↑ RTL2: Information about the series ( Memento of the original from October 31, 2008 in the Internet Archive ) Info: The archive link was automatically inserted and not yet checked. Please check the original and archive link according to the instructions and then remove this notice.  @1@ 2Template: Webachiv / IABot / www.rtl2.de
  4. ↑ Official website