Merciless: The Rise of Ming #3
Written by Scott Beatty
Art by Ron Adrian
Colors by Roni Setiawan
Letters by Simon Bowland
Cover by Alex Ross
Dynamite Entertainment
Release Date: August 1, 2012
Cover Price: $3.99

Merciless: The Rise of Ming #3 is a great sci-fi action/thriller. From front to back, it’s got everything that fans of classic science fiction could ask for. And it’s cooler because it’s Ming the Merciless.

Writer Scott Beatty gives us another chapter in the origin of Ming the Merciless, and it’s a great roller coaster ride. This is CLASSIC sci-fi writing, but the format is updated for today’s audience. It’s action from cover to cover and you only catch your breath and the very end…and then there’s the last page. Beatty has been a fantastic science fiction writer for awhile now (his Buck Rogers series from Dynamite is totally underrated), and it’s nice to see him take the reins on another series. What I also like about this series is that it’s not just a spin-off of Flash Gordon: Zeitgeist that doesn’t need to exist. The audience needs to know how Ming got so merciless, and it’s nice that it flows into the current Flash Gordon series.