Renowned comic strip character “Flash Gordon” made his debut in the first Flash Gordon serial, released by Universal Pictures on March 20, 1936 (the serial’s production began in 1934, and the comic strip itself debuted on January 7, 1934)

The Flash Gordon sci-fi serials, starring Buster Crabbe as the space hero battling Ming the Merciless on the planet Mongo, thrilled audiences and set the template for science fiction adventure in cinema. Flash Gordon’s influence can be seen in later works from Star Wars to modern superhero films, marking March 1936 as a key moment in pop culture’s space-age imagination.