Flash Gordon Was a Lousy Pilot

One might assume that Flash Gordon was a superior pilot given his status as Saviour of the Universe and all-around legend, but the original Alex Raymond comic strips draw a different picture. In any given adventure, no sooner does Flash take the controls of a rocketship then it invariably hurtles planetward and crashes, forcing Flash and his friends to survive another hostile environment full of enemies and potential love interests. Flash is profoundly competent in many things (as most action heroes are), so it stands to reason his consistent failure to operate vehicles without destroying them is entirely the fault of Plot. The story needs his victory to be postponed; it needs to move him from one plotline to another. Sending him off in a rocketship or some other flying machine and having it crash-land somewhere is his standard mode of travel dating back to the very first comic strips when he had to commandeer Earth's first rocketship when Zarkov had a panic attack. James Bond in the original novels by Ian Fleming had a similar penchant for driving fast cars and promptly crashing them. Based on the films, one would imagine Bond was one of the greatest drivers in the world. In actuality, Flash Gordon and James Bond were expert crash-landers and crash survivors, which is still quite impressive. And though it may seem ridiculous how often they end up walking away from one burning wreckage after another, it nonetheless keeps them more grounded than most movie action heroes. So, Flash Gordon wasn't really a lousy pilot, but rather a pilot with lousy luck.