Flash Gordon Conquers the Universe

Flash Gordon was created by Alex Raymond and first appeared in 1934. The strip was inspired by, and created to compete with, the already established Buck Rogers adventure strip. This serial, released in 1940, was the third to be produced by Universal Pictures and as with the first two it starred Buster Crabbe, a former two-time Olympic swimmer. Consisting of twelve chapters: “The Purple Death”, “Freezing Torture”, “Walking Bombs”, “The Destroying Ray”, “The Palace of Horror”, “Flaming Death”, “The Land of the Dead”, “The Fiery Abyss”, “The Pool of Peril”, “The Death Mist”, “Stark Treachery” and “Doom of the Dictator”, it was already on the shelves and available for sale when I joined in 1975, although it was just in plain boxes. When we issued the serial ‘Captain Marvel’ it was decided to produce a label for ‘Flash’ to revitalise its sales.