This series made it so easy to invest in and root for these characters, because Parker had such a great handle on their roles in the dynamic of their relationships with each other and in the series as a whole.

Because that’s what Flash Gordon does.Īs for particular arcs? It doesn’t feel like we got enough to break it down into arcs, so I’ll cop out and say all of it? Actually, without going back and checking out the issues, the things that instantly come to mind are just a bunch of little moments that made me smile when I read them. I thought Millar & Parlov’s “Starlight” was going to be the cure for my Flash blues, and it is both gorgeous and one of my favorite Millar stories in forever, but this Parker/Shaner/Bellaire joint came out of nowhere and saved me. I wanted to like the Alex Ross stuff from Dynamite a few years back, but it just felt unfocused in a lot of ways.

I appreciated the Raymond aesthetic when I saw it other places, but the newspaper strips were something I couldn’t get into until VERY recently. That said, I was never a rabid Flash Gordon fan other than that film and its context.

Seeing the Alex Raymond artwork zip past my eyes with one of Queen’s most anthemic rock songs was like the brainwashing scene from A Clockwork Orange but in the best possible way. (I am, no joke, listening to the Hawkmen attack War Rocket Ajax on the soundtrack right now as I type this). Greg: I’ve said this a few times before on the podcast and in conversations, but that Flash Gordon movie was the first defining comics experience of my childhood. Let’s talk about some of the highlights of the series: was there a particular issue or arc that really spoke to you? Of course, I also saw Flash Gordon and had the Queen soundtrack record as a kid, so I had that going for/against me.īut I’m with you – I wasn’t necessarily aware that I needed a Flash Gordon series, but once the creative team was announced, I was all in. We are pretty contemporaneous, age-wise, so I’m sure you remember Defenders of the Earth, the mid-80s cartoon starring the King Syndicate characters, so I have been aware of the characters, and marginally a fan, since then. Brian: I did read “Kings Watch,” and I really dug it.

Kings Watch Volume 1 by Jeff Parker