The Tyrant of Mongo

The Complete Flash Gordon Library #2

by Alex Raymond

Continuing the comprehensive library of the greatest science fiction hero of all time, this gorgeous collection of library editions feature all-new restorations that will preserve these legendary adventures for generations to come. 

Featuring strips from world-famous writer-artist Alex Raymond, restored in their original format, complete and uncut! This volume continues the seminal adventures of pulp hero Flash Gordon, an ordinary man trapped on an alien world, and his ongoing battles with the deadly and heartless Ming the Merciless. 

The Tyrant of Mongo offers readers a series of new, swashbuckling Flash Gordon adventures,  
The Fall of Ming
Ice Kingdom of Mongo
Beast Men of Mongo 

Genres: Comics, Science Fiction, Graphic Novels, Sequential Art, Fantasy, Comic Strips, Pulp

208 pages, Hardcover

First published June 26, 2012

About the author

Alexander Gillespie Raymond was an American comic strip artist, best known for creating the comic Flash Gordon in 1934. The serial hit the silver screen three years later with Buster Crabbe and Jean Rogers as the leading players. Other strips he drew include Secret Agent X-9, Rip Kirby, Jungle Jim, Tim Tyler's Luck, and Tillie the Toiler. Alex Raymond received a Reuben Award from the National Cartoonists Society in 1949 for his work on Rip Kirby.

Born in New Rochelle, New York, Alex Raymond attended Iona Prep on a scholarship and played on the Gaels' football team. He joined the US Marines Corp in 1944 and served in the Pacific theatre during World War II.

His realistic style and skillful use of "feathering" (a shading technique in which a soft series of parallel lines helps to suggest the contour of an object) has continued to be an inspiration for generations of cartoonists.

Raymond was killed in an automobile accident in Westport, Connecticut while driving with fellow cartoonist Stan Drake, aged 46, and is buried in St. John's Roman Catholic Cemetery in Darien, Connecticut.

During the accident which led to his untimely demise, he was said to have remarked (by the surviving passenger of the accident) on the fact that a pencil on the dashboard seemed to be floating in relation to the plummet of the vehicle.

He was the great-uncle of actors Matt Dillon and Kevin Dillon.

Reviews

[Drew Canole · Rating 3 out of 5]

I really liked the first volume. The artwork here is just as good but the story doesn't really do anything interesting for me. I wanted to give it a 4, but I got tired with the repetitive nature - each story there's a new beautiful woman who wants Flash which makes Dale very jealous.

There's some fun stories here though!

[Mel · Rating 4 out of 5]

I came across Alex Raymond's art in a pulp collection for art work he did for a Dashiell Hammett story. I just loved the way he drew the women who looked like 30s film stars. I found he'd done Flash Gordon a few years ago but the comics were only available in small collections. This edition is fabulous. It collects all the stories in four volumes, this one is the 2nd, and reproduces them on big full colour pages.

The story starts with Flash and Dale visiting the jungle lands of Ming's daughter and son-in-law, it all looks very Robin Hood, down to the feathers in the hats. Flash is captured and taken to the capital, they have adventures in the capital, in the frozen north. Each section visits a new area and has a new young woman who falls hopelessly in love with Flash. There are some serious gender issues here. Dale is the only woman who stays throughout the story and she spends all her time being jealous, or crying because she thinks Flash is dead. There are a few moments when she has some agency and tries to save Flash, but overall she's pretty disappointing. Likewise there are some interesting women who appear. Though each area they visit only has ONE woman in it (one can't help but wonder how babies get born in this place). That woman is always beautiful and always falls for Flash. Sometimes she tries to rescue him, and sometimes she's a liability.

But the issues are beautifully drawn, there is plenty of cheesecake of both the male and female variety, and some rather fun monsters. The comics are not quite as science fiction as the old serials but still lots of fun. Even though they are episodic in their weekly format you can still sit down and read them as a full story, without a lot of repetition and previously on... which makes a lot of the short strips hard to read in one go.

Definitely one I'd recommend, and I shall be getting the other volumes.

[Charles · Rating 5 out of 5]

Without question, the most impressive aspect of the Flash Gordon comic strip is the quality of the artwork. Alex Raymond clearly spent a great deal of time and effort on each caption, the level of detail is so high that the strip could serve as a lesson in drawing comics and this book as a text.
Although he is human in all respects, Flash Gordon is the equivalent of a superhero in that he faces enormous challenges and yet always emerges relatively unscathed on the other side. There are some points where the storyline goes a little too deep in the injuries to Flash and his recovery, but such is the nature of the comics.
Flash and his companions Dr. Hans Zarkov and Dale Arden are on the planet Mongo doing battle against the tyrannical Ming the Merciless. The battle zone moves to wherever they are at the time, even when Flash and his allies win the battle they are forced to retreat.
The women are beautiful and often scantily clad, while they are universally portrayed as brave and stalwart fighters, they are also given strong emotional tendencies. Dale is often jealous of the women that they encounter as they interact with Flash and occasionally resorts to the creation of an artificial love triangle with another man. Yet, Flash generally remains the noble hero, forgiving the transgressions of the people of Mongo that betray him.
There have been many heroes of the comics, Flash Gordon was one of the first and the content was very original, the wide variety of monsters and humanoid creatures on the planet Mongo along with the artwork allowed the story to continue for decades. A combination of art and imagination, this is a great book of fantasy adventure.

[Frida Hultgren · Rating 1 out of 5]

LOL
Stay away from this mess of a book.
Racist is just the beginning. I wrote better books when I was 13. This is badly written and even worse translated into Swedish. (and had entire sentence typos and some words) Read it because of Buzzwordathon, it's short and plus it's my dad's from the start.

So, so bad. I skimmed some parts and laught at others. Not worth it though.

[Honesty · Rating 2 out of 5]

Emperor Ming,
Outside of your proclivity for killing your own people and your outmoded sexism, I have to say I'm with you on this one. Flash Gordon is an insufferable Marty Stu, and Dale has the personality, spine, charm, and soppy proclivities of a wet dishcloth. (Actually, she would probably be more interesting as a sapient dishcloth.) Why you ever wanted to make her your Empress in the first place is beyond me, your Supreme Intelligence, except perhaps for her malleability. Your diabolical plots, the unrealistic, albeit creative, glacier monster (which could be fun in a sci-fi tabletop rpg), the superb dry-brush technique, and the fact I'd spent money on an interlibrary loan were the only things which kept me reading.
I sincerely regret the writers will never allow you to kill off these sorry cardboard cutouts. Thanks to the next volume's title, your ultimate fate does not look promising. Oh, well, such are the trials of villainy.
Signed,
A Curmudgeon

[Samuel Valentino · Rating 4 out of 5]

As a continuation of the first book, a lot of my comments for that still stand: great art, pulp fiction storylines. There is one difference, and something I didn't bring up about the first collection.

In the first, like Buck Rogers, there is an ambivalent but present "Yellow Peril" tone against the Chinese. First of all, there's Ming the Merciless, with his name alone. But even if he were Bob the Merciless, he couldn't be more Chinese. His deity is the Tao; he dresses like Fu Manchu;, and, distressingly, his skin is yellow - by that, I mean bright yellow.

On the other hand, everyone in Mongo swears by Tao, yellow, brown, white, green, or blue. Further, there are good guys who look like Ming, Prince Barin being most prominent. His skin is just as bright yellow as Ming's, yet he is undeniably a good guy. It's hinted that he's the rightful ruler of Mongo, displaced by Ming, and he's Flash's best friend. Moreover, there is no horrible caricaturing of "Asian" features; Ming, Barin, and the others are rendered just as magnificently as Flash and Dale. And Ming is brilliant and brave, so a worthy enemy, not a craven one. So while it's undeniable that there is some sort of Chinese reference going on, it is fortunately not as bad as could be, and, given the time period, probably better than most.

I bring this up because by the time of the strips in this second collection, almost all of this has disappeared. Virtually everyone has the same skin tone as Flash, which might mean he toned it down intentionally. Or it might be that Flash keeps disguising himself as Ming's soldiers, so if he were the only one not bright yellow it would give him away instantly.

Another reason might be the approaching world war. The officers of Ming look less and less Chinese as the strip goes on, and more like German officials. The uniforms look more European, and the officers all sport monocles and mustaches. Whatever the reason, I was glad to see the bright yellow turned off!

That (I'll admit, lengthy) commentary aside, it's good rip-snorting fun, as always. A page turner, and I'm glad I have them all in one volume, instead of having to wait a week between each cliff-hanger!

[N KHAN · Rating 5 out of 5]

I think I am biased because i watched the Flash Gordon serials in the 60s at our local Colloseum Saturday Matinee. Yep, we dont really get that anymore. But the comic strip stories are pretty much what you get in the serial minus the music, sound effects and those pulse pounding cliff hangers. Yes Flash Gordon gave the world cliff hangers in the 30s and now its the staple of modern drama. As a kid I thought Flash Gordon was cool, flying in rocket ships, bopping the bad guys and saving the universe. In my opinion the comic strip plots would have worked better with longer plots and more panels. But these are newspaper strips, hence the condensed story telling. Its classic, great Art and good wholesome fun!

[Devero · Rating 5 out of 5]

Nulla da dire se non che è davvero un caposaldo dell'avventura fantastica.
I disegni di Raymond sono ancora oggi eccellenti, nonostante questa ristampa risenta un poco della mancanza di alcune tavole originali. A livello di narrazione è, per certi versi, troppo veloce e frenetica rispetto a quelle odierne, ma è solo il risultato del fatto che le singole tavole su 2 strisce erano edite una alla settimana ed era necessario mantenere alta l'attenzione e far venire al lettore voglia che i 7 giorni trascorressero in fretta.
Non è tutto perfetto, ma le 5 stelle sono meritate.

[Jorge Schumacher · Rating 3 out of 5]

Boas histórias, apesar de um tanto simplistas para os tempos atuais, reunindo as tiras dominicais de Flash Gordon de 1937 a 1939.

[Ross · Rating 4 out of 5]

Ypu can read the review in all its sexy glory here: http://www.trashmutant.com/comics-rev...

Quiet your faces and read my review of the second volume in the Complete Flash Gordon Library – “The Tyrant of Mongo”! Not so long ago, I reviewed the first Complete Flash Gordon Library Vol. 1 and it was pretty darn awesome. It had great story telling that wasn’t ruined by the page limitations of a newspaper comic strip and incredible art that rivals many of the comic book greats. Volume 2 continues this trend and actually improves.


While Alex Raymond’s storytelling skills are developing as the story goes on, it’s his art that goes through the biggest transformation. While it has always been of great quality, the level of detail and creativity seems to double in volume two.

Due to Raymond’s realistic style and use of real life references, the incredible environments and creatures littered throughout the book look just as real as Earthlings Gordon, Zarkov and Dale.

The story continues the fight with Ming the Merciless that started in volume one when the trio of earthlings crash landed on Mongo. Ming became obsessed with Dale Arden while his daughter developed a bit of a crush on Flash Gordon.

After escaping from the love crazy duo, Flash and Dale join Zarkov and explore this crazy planet while avoiding the planets many threats (including Ming’s minions) and helping out a few of the different types of people on the planet.

Now they’re helping rebels fight Ming, who is known as Ming the Merciless for a reason. He’s merciless, in case you didn’t quite catch that. He’s not a nice guy. He oppresses people. Actually, a cynical person might say that Ming represents Raymond’s views on China and communism but I really like the book so I’m not going to make that assumption. Besides, plenty of people have already done that. But it doesn’t help that he looks like this:



This volume sees Ming sending out more minions and getting increasingly frustrated when they fail (especially when one is sent back with a poem written on his belly, signed by Flash).


The message he wrote on the man's back was about Ming's mom, and man, that was just rude.

They also fight many other enemies such as people with freeze rays, trolls and devious yokels who look strangely like Chinese stereotypes. I won’t lie, I laughed pretty hard when I saw that last one.

But let’s not forget that this is the late 1930s and early 1940s. The fashion was pretty terrible in the pulp sci-fi comics back then, am I right? Look at this; they’re wearing condoms:



Also, you don’t get as many innuendos and fanny jokes that I love so much. That’s always a shame.

But besides the hugely enjoyable, better than great, story and art, this book also comes with a fantastic introduction by Doug Murray which continues to explore the history of Flash Gordon, how it affected society and how it became such an iconic part of pop culture.

Also, there’s a picture of Alex Raymond drawing a nude model.

Many people know about Flash Gordon, the different spin offs, series’, films and comic books that have spawned since the originals but now you have the chance to fill your book shelves with the original source material and I encourage you to do just that. Don’t worry; it’s not crappy old stuff. I hate crappy old stuff, too, but this is one of those rare comics that stand the test of time. I mean, except for the condom suits. Nobody wears those in public anymore.

[ManOfLaBook.com · Rating 5 out of 5]

Flash Gor­don: The Tyrant of Mongo: The Com­plete Flash Gor­don Library 1937–1941 by Alex Ray­mond and Don Moore is a cof­fee table book fea­tur­ing Sun­day strips of the famous hero. This hard cover book col­lects 4 years of comic strip to bring an excit­ing story to a new audience.

Flash Gor­don: The Tyrant of Mongo: The Com­plete Flash Gor­don Library 1937–1941 by Alex Ray­mond and Don Moore is an out­stand­ing book which will intro­duce new read­ers to the won­der­ful art of Alex Ray­mond, drawn to the excit­ing story of Don Moore. For those who are famil­iar with the art and story, the for­mat would make the book eas­ier to read and the clear and clean pages make the images jump up much bet­ter than the cheap Sun­day newspaper.

Ray­mond and Moore cre­ated worlds which even today look unique and futur­is­tic. The build­ings and out­fits are fun, out­ra­geous and cre­ative – they scream sci­ence fic­tion in every panel and adven­ture on every page. Before being immersed in sto­ries of future escapades, comic book writer Doug Mur­ray (who is also a Flash Gor­don his­to­rian) writes an infor­ma­tive essay

Flash Gor­don is one of the most influ­en­tial char­ac­ters in the hero genre, the comics inspired movies, TV shows and other shows, like Star Trek, which would become influ­en­tial in their own right.

The char­ac­ters are the old famil­iar friends, Flash Gor­don, Dale Arden and of course Hans Zarkov and are fleshed out fairly well. The story takes place mostly on the planet Mongo, com­plete with light filled cities to tree towns, ice caves to under­ground tun­nels – sounds famil­iar?
You’ve prob­a­bly seen those on cur­rent shows and / or movies but keep in mind the dates these strips were writ­ten in and you can see why this is con­sid­ered an influ­en­tial work.

While for me the art­work is the star of this book, Moore’s sto­ries (5 in all) cer­tainly dis­play the grandeur and epic for which he was going for. It is amaz­ing that Moore and Ray­mond could tell such mag­nif­i­cent space soap-operas in short strips pub­lished in the Sun­day fun­nies over months (if not years). I can spend hours on each page, dissecting the pan­els and find­ing some­thing new each time.

For more reviews and bookish posts please visit: http://www.ManOfLaBook.com

[Jamais · Rating 4 out of 5]

Flash Gordon and Dale Arden seriously need to seek couples counseling. In the next installment, //Flash Gordon: Tyrant of Mongo//, Flash starts by enjoying his hard-earned vacation. Events quickly conspire to throw him and Ming back at each other’s throats. Flash ends up running from Ming’s forces, and ends up in the Northlands, where an ambitious count sets Dale against Flash. Although they get back together soon enough, Dale’s kidnapping forces Flash to deal with Ming. The last installment ends with Flash in the crosshairs of an assassin.

This book has aged fairly well. Although it’s still far more descriptive than a modern comic, and there is quite a bit of covert sexism (most of the problems are caused by Dale and another woman getting into some sort of jealous fight over Flash), the writing is still pretty incredible. The graphics are of course superfluous, done with an eye towards detail and Mongo looks more like a 1930’s serial than the Roman pastiche. Surprisingly, each of the comic’s installments flow rather nicely into the next, making for an extended story. Combined with the gorgeous cover, and this a book any comic book fan would die to have on his shelf.
As originally written by Jamais Jochim for http://www.portlandbookreview.com/

[Erik · Rating 3 out of 5]

Flash Gordon is worth a read mostly for the incredible art. Raymond had a realistic style, and it looks fantastic. Much more detailed than most other strips of the day. Costume, location, and monster designs are all interesting. The writing is pretty good too. Raymond moves the story along smoothly and has some solid cliffhangers too. Flash is your classic hero and Ming's a great villain. Because it's a 1930's strip, there are some Asian stereotypes in Ming and his men, and much of the trouble the group runs into is caused by Dale's bad decisions. Still, it's a great read for sci-fi and comic strip fans.

[Jaq · Rating 4 out of 5]

My child and I enjoyed reading this together, it's full of fights, flights and giddy excitement.

But poor old Dale. She comes off the worst in this collection. Here she's relegated to the role of jealous girlfriend a contrast to when she was given more roles in the first collection. Here all she seems to do is get jealous, not talk to Flash and faint. Not exactly a great role model. Still Flash manages to scrape through - how I'm still uncertain, because a lot of his ability seems to stem from just super strength - it's certainly not planning....

[Brent · Rating 5 out of 5]

From the tree kingdom of Arboria towering 500 feet above the surface of Mongo, to the power tunnels deep below Mingo City, this book contains all the adventure you could want in a Flash Gordon tale. Complete with the awe inducing artwork of Alex Raymond.

[Jeremy · Rating 5 out of 5]

The love triangle bits are tedious, but the ART! And ADVENTURE! And COSTUMES! And EVERYTHING WONDERFUL!

[Eric David Hart · Rating 5 out of 5]

In this second volume, Alex Raymond's art matures and reaches perhaps its high point. Just beautiful. Loads of action, betrayals and love triangles.

[Philip · Rating 3 out of 5]

Beautiful artwork, but the stories are rather too dependent on jealousy as a motivator.

[Kwaku Osei-Afrifa · Rating 3 out of 5]

Nonstop action.