Review by Win Wiacek
A third collection of Mac Raboy’s Sunday strips for Flash Gordon picks up from the cliffhanger ending of Volume Two midway through ‘Missiles From Neptune’. It reveals how the oppressive Tyrant of Neptune seeks to impress and cow into submission his already-captive populace by testing deadly new Weapons of Interplanetary Destruction against hapless planet Earth.
A further twenty adventures follow, each running roughly six weeks of original continuity, here spanning early 1958 to late 1962. As ever, Raboy’s art draws the attention, but uncredited writer Don Moore provides the initial inspiration. Plots vary between the type of adventure that inspired Star Wars and hard science storytelling at a time when America was locked in a space race of its own. The compelling ingenuity as a ‘Robinson Crusoe in Space’ provides the power of classic storytelling in only the second strip.
In places the art has to excuse the attitudes of the time, such as ‘Rocket Derby’, in which Flash is embroiled in a commercial show-race to the outer planets. It’s apparently less about proving whose ship is best and more about rich, spoiled obsessive competitors Morgan Bates and Babara “Bobcat” Kathryns realising how close hate is to love. Along the way, Dale is dragged into the competition after hearing macho males telling Bobcat that space is no place for women, even as hired gun Flash suffers numerous sabotage attempts. It’s almost like there’s an unknown fifth element acting on their own agenda…
Thanks in large part to Flash Gordon himself, spaceship technology has rapidly advanced and he is selected to pilot the first human-built FTL drive ship. The Columbus will ferry ‘The Star Miners’ to another star system, reap mineral wealth and set up a colony. However, the directives of chief advisor Dr. Zarkov are constantly challenged and ultimately overruled by gang-boss Mr. Birk, who can only think of glory and a big fat bonus promised for prompt completion and delivery. Arriving on unexplored planet Karst, Zarkov again urges patience and caution, but is first sidelined and then arrested once Flash undertakes his secondary mission of exploration. By the time the hero returns the entire expedition is close to extinction and only drastic measures can save them all. It’s stirring space adventure as we want it.
Robots, abductions, troublesome film makers, visits to the future, poachers, a death farm, the Sahara desert becoming a sea… The wonder never stops and there’s the strange coincidence of a strip running in 1962 in which blonde, blue-eyed hero is found in a block of arctic ice. The Avengers 4 was released on January 3rd 1964, reintroducing Captain America to the world.
An interview with Raboy’s son in Alter Ego 7 reveals Raboy didn’t enjoy working on Flash Gordon, which you’d not know from the ever-more expansive artwork in another fine collection. The reprinting of Raboy’s run concludes in Volume Four.
