Flash Gordon: The Greatest Adventure of All

In this adaptation of the Alex Raymond comic strips, the incidents are familiar but rearranged in a new sequence, with a Hitler subplot added by writer Samual A. Peeples. It opens in Poland, with Nazi bombs falling. Flash Gordon is given a message for Dr. Hans Zarkov. Reporter Dale Arden is also looking for Zarkov, to interview him for her newspaper. Next, as in the comic strip and movie serial, their plane crashes and they join Zarkov on his rocketship to Mongo, where dinosaurs threaten them. Then, in a sequence that does not occur until much later in other versions, they are captured by the Beastmen. This is followed by the familiar first confrontation with Ming, and their first meeting with Thun the Lionman and Ming’s daughter Aura. Next, in a sequence not from the strip, with Flash and Thun are made slaves in the mines of Mongo. They escape, and, as in the strip, meet Prince Barin of the Forest Kingdom and Vultan, King of the Hawkmen, (skipping over the Shark Men of the comic strip). In the movie, all of these strange people are mutants. In the comic strip, they were quickly dropped when Southern newspapers objected that images of animal men promoted the Godless doctrine of evolution, but Thun and Vultan have been popular in the many film adaptations. The fall of Vultan’s sky city leads to a final battle with Ming. Earth is saved, and Flash and Dale go on to new adventures.