Sunday Serial - Flash Gordon Conquers the Universe - Chapter Twelve

And so we reach the end. Finally we get to to just how Flash and his Space Soldier compatriots conquer the universe. What exactly does it means? What will be the cost? And what exactly will happen to Ming and his evil minions? Well, there's only one way to find out:

Sunday Serial - Flash Gordon Conquers the Universe - Chapter Three

Running a bit late with the post today, so just a quick note before we jump in to this week's chapter: you may have noticed that the title cards, instead of saying simply "Flash Gordon Conquers the Universe" actually read "Flash Gordon - Space Soldiers Conquer the Universe". This change was actually made in the 1950's when King Features Syndicate bought the TV rights to all three of the Flash Gordon serials from Universal Pictures. Since there was also at the time an ongoing Flash Gordon TV show, King made the change in order to distinguish their product. In TV listings, these shows would simply be listed as "Space Soldiers Conquer the Universe". These title cards were then subsequently used for many of the early home video releases from which these embedded episodes were taken.

Ok, let's hurry along and see how Flash and company are going to survive that avalanche...

Sunday Serial - Flash Gordon Conquers the Universe - Chapter One

Ah, "The more things change..."

So today we begin our look at the third and last of the Flash Gordon serials starring Buster Crabbe as the titular hero, and this installment begins with both changes from and similarities to what has gone before.

Once again, the story begins with the Earth falling prey to a mysterious attack, only this time instead of meteors, it's a plague which falls from the sky. Once again, the hand behind the attack is that of Ming the Merciless, the ruler of the planet Mongo, but this time we are shown a Ming who is less Yellow Peril and more European dictator. And once again it is Plash Gordon, Dr. Zarkoff, and the beauteous Dale Arden off to confront Ming and save the planet, but something seems a bit different about Dale this time out, too.

Like the serial itself, I'm not going to spend a lot of time on a long winded introduction - we'll have plenty of opportunity to discuss the serial in depth as we go along. Instead, I'm gonna throw you right into the action with chapter one. Enjoy, and until next time, Happy Treasure Hunting!

-Professor Damian

Sunday Serial - An Update, a Poll, and a Contest

So, longtime readers may be wondering what's going on with the Flash Gordon Serial that I'd been posting chapters of each Sunday. Well, long story short, it turns out that my source for the serial was mistaken, and it was actually still under copyright. Therefore, no more chapters will be posted, and all previous chapters have been removed.

Of course, that leaves the obvious question of "what now"? Well, that's where you come in, kiddies! Over on the right hand side of the page, I've set up a poll with the top five candidates, and the one that gets the most votes by midnight on Friday 6/25 (yep, that's this Friday) will be the next Sunday Serial.

For those of you who may not be familiar with some (or all) of these serials, I've listed them all below, along with some basic information and a link to the IMDB page for each one.(Just click the titles to go to IMDB.)