The series was loosely based on the
comic strip of the same name and incorporated elements from several previous adaptations, following the adventures of
Steven "Flash" Gordon, a twenty-five-year-old who lives with his mother and whose scientist father was lost in a mysterious accident when Flash was 13 years old. Flash's ex-girlfriend,
Dale Arden, is a television news reporter and engaged to police detective, Joe Wylee. They meet Professor Gordon's eccentric former assistant,
Hans Zarkov, when rifts in space appear, allowing travel between Earth and the planet
Mongo. Mongo is ruled by the ruthless dictator
Ming, who controls "Source Water", the only source of safe drinking water on Mongo. Unlike the previous adaptations, he is only called "the Merciless" in closed circles and is publicly called "Benevolent Father". He also exhibits the traits of modern, media-savvy dictators, rather than the more simplistic, stereotypically evil characterization of earlier incarnations. Also unlike previous depictions, Ming resembles a blond Caucasian human rather than a bald East Asian man. Ming's daughter,
Princess Aura, is disturbed by her father's brutality. The series adds a new non-Terran character, Baylin, a bounty hunter from Mongo. She finds herself trapped on Earth and becomes a comrade of Flash, Dale, and Zarkov and their guide to Mongo and its inhabitants. The peoples of Mongo live in "
cantons", tribal groups that echo the animal-human hybrids of the original comic strip. The cantons include the Verdan, based on
Prince Barin's forest-dwelling people from the strip, the Turin, based on the strip's Lion Men, the Dactyls, the series' version of the strip's Hawkmen, the Omadrians, women, who create powerful medicines, the Frigians, who live in the frozen wastelands, the Tritons, who live beneath the ocean, and the Zurn, painted blue "Magic Men" led, by queen Azura. There is also another group known as the Deviates, mutants whose ancestors drank "Grey Water", toxic water to survive. The Deviates are led, by Terek, their unofficial king, later revealed to be Aura's brother and are distrusted, by almost everyone. ==Cast==