Two years after the first Flash Gordon serial and four years after the debut of the comic strip, Flash Gordon's Trip to Mars appeared in cinemas. Returning cast included Larry "Buster" Crabbe as Flash Gordon, Jean Rogers as Dale Arden (now a brunette), Frank Shannon as Dr. Zarkov, Charles Middleton as the Emperor Ming, and Richard Alexander as Barin. Other major cast included Beatrice Roberts as Queen Azura, C. Montague Shaw as the King of the Clay People, and Donald Kerr as "Happy" Hapgood (the comic relief).
No sooner do Flash, Dale, and Zarkov return to Earth after saving it from the evil machinations of Ming the Merciless than they are confronted with another threat to Earth's safety. A strange beam from space is destroying the Earth's atmosphere, so the trio (plus a stowaway reporter known as "Happy") immediately set off in a rocket ship to investigate its source and stop it. This leads them to the planet Mars, where its most powerful ruler, the magic-wielding Queen Azura, has allied herself with Ming who somehow survived his peril in the last chapter of the previous serial.
The serial takes great liberties with the source material (such as placing Azura's kingdom on Mars instead of Mongo), but it retains the spirit of both the comic strip and the first serial. Like both, it is a valuable if not essential point of reference for running or playing The Savage World of Flash Gordon for Savage Worlds.
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