Flash Gordon: Arthur Byron Cover

Weather conditions on Earth are getting strange and deadly. 'Flash' Gordon, football star, and travel agent Dale Arden are the passengers on a small plane flight but when a meteorite hits the plane and the two pilots vanish, Flash must take over and they crash land in the greenhouse of Dr Zarkov, who has built a space capsule to discover the origin of the forces that are destroying the Earth. When his assistant refuses to go, he lures Flash and Dale aboard. All three fall asleep and are drawn through the vortex to the planet of Mongo, where its ruler, Ming the Merciless, has been playing with the Earth, heedless of its impending destruction. All resistance is futile - Zarkov is turned into a lowly Ming- drone; Flash has been executed; Dale is about to be forced into marriage to become the Empress of the Hour; the other races of Ming's universe seem to be too downtrodden to mount a rebellion - so who will save the Earth with only fourteen hours to go? With colour photos from the 1980 film.