Gold Key's Flash Gordon!

Gold Key was the kind of comic book company which generally published quality if sometimes unexciting comic books. The place was manned by seasoned professionals who approached the job of making comics with a solid professionalism. Alas that reliability and experience made for work which rarely deviated from the norm. Unlike idiosyncratic Charlton which had bubbles of creativity and break though talent, Gold Key was the calm reliable comic book company. But as the marketplace for comics was shifting in the Bronze Age, Gold Key was on the way out, but not before delivering some really excellent Flash Gordon comics.

Flash Gordon had not been seen in mainstream American comics since the lapse of the Charlton run, but a new movie from the producer Dino DeLauentis suddenly made Flash Gordon desirable and so they picked it up and continued its numbering from the King and Charlton runs.  Gold Key had a good track record with heroic science fiction being the home to such fine comics as Magnus Robot Fighter, Turok Son of Stone, Tragg and the Sky Gods, and Doctor Solar. 

And they wanted to do Flash Gordon right, so they asked Al Williamson to do it and he said no, but he did put them into contact with an artistic ally Carlos Garzon, a guy who drew a lot like Williamson. I still remember being quite excited when I first opened up this new Flash Gordon comic. John Warner writes the stories and they pick up as if nothing in the earlier Charlton series had happened. In fact the King Comics features seem out of place too as Flash, Dale and Zarkov are back on Mongo and battling Ming directly for a couple of issues.

Then with Warner still on scripts we get two directly connected issues drawn by the every ready Frank Bolle the go-to fill-in man for comic strips and books alike. Bolle's style is not lavish nor particularly exciting but it's story telling is rock steady. The stories deal with Barin's son and a tutor who works for Ming among other things.

With Garzon back, Flash and his compadres head off into Mongo to round up help in the battle against Ming.

In the spirit of the comic strip, the hard headed Flash invades Mingo City to face off against the evil emperor, but as usual the result is less than final.

The trio then encounter the lava men and find among other things some new allies against the tyrant. The look of the lava men here is very reminiscent of the lava men in the Marvel Universe.

They are somewhat less successful in a land where serpents are worshipped. The queen of this city is a lovely raven-tressed woman, but weirdly so have all of the women shown in the series so far. Perhaps it's to contrast with Flash's blonde hair, but every woman Garzon draws looks alike, save for Dale. The men are very distinctive by and large and seem based on real folks and not types.

But it is in the other-dimensional city of Illusia ruled by magicians that the biggest event occurs -- Zarkov finds love. What will become of this new aspect to the story will have to wait for the Whitman issues as the Gold Key brand is retired along with most of the newsstand distribution. More of the same Flash Gordon on that next time -- but different. 

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