Rating: 
Country: USA
Release Date: October 10, 2006
Distributor: Brentwood Home Entertainment
Related Sites:
· IMDb: Defenders of the Earth
Grade: B-
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DVD Review: Defenders of the Earth - The Complete Series, Volume One
by R.J. Carter
Published: November 30, 2006
Ever since National Periodicals formed the Justice Society of America from the individual superheroes that populated their titles back in the golden age of comics, superhero team-ups have been popular. So it seemed a natural -- and yet still novel -- idea when Marvel Comics teamed up with King Features Syndicate to bring together some of the comic strip heroes of their stable into one team.
This was the true "secret origin" of Defenders of the Earth, which saw Alex Raymond's Flash Gordon joining forces with Lee Falk's Mandrake the Magician and Lothar, as well as the jungle-based enemy of pirates, the ghost who walks: the Phantom (the 27th in a long line). And to provide a hook for the younger viewers -- the majority of whom had probably never heard of these decades-old strip heroes -- the creators came up with junior versions of each: Flash's son, Rick Gordon; the Phantom's telepathic daughter, Jedda; Lothar's son, L.J.; and Mandrake's adopted urchin, Kshin. Defenders of the Earth? This seemed to be more like the "League of Extraordinary Single Parents" (even in Flash Gordon's case, since the comely Dale Arden was murdered by Ming the Merciless in the pilot episode.)
Valiant Defender: Flash Gordon and Phantom
meet Prince Valiant on a time travel adventure.
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The "big bad" in every episode was Flash Gordon's nemesis, Ming, who has followed Flash to Earth from his resource-barren world of Mongo. Establishing himself in the arctic, Ming perpetually plots his takeover of Earth -- or at least Central City. To aid him in his schemes, he sometimes enlists the aid of other villains, such as the Phantom's bitter older brother, Kurt Walker, whom he transforms into N'Dama the Weather Demon, or Mandrake's old foe, Doctor Damian Dark. But our heroes always triumph, even when Ming manages to strand them in the distant past (where they find assistance through their new friend, Hal Foster's Prince Valiant and his son Arn.)
The Defenders base themselves in a mountain underneath Mandrake's mansion, and they monitor the world for threats using a supercomputer, Dynak X, which is imbued with the essence of the departed Dale Arden. Arden's death aside, the heroes and villains generally engaged in the sort of non-violent violence that most 1980s action cartoons provided: Mandrake didn't use "magic", he used "hypnosis" (although his hypnosis allowed him to levitate large objects), and he did everything in his three-piece tuxedo; the Phantom left his skull-ring imprint on bad guys not by punching them but by projecting a beam; and the only ships that Flash Gordon blew up were the ones piloted by robots.
Brentwood Home Entertainment has excelled at churning out silk purses from materials of questionable quality, and they attempt to do the same with this show; however, they fall a tad bit short. Only one episode has commentary -- the pilot -- hosted by their emcee of choice Andy Mangels, who moderates with David Corbett, Bill Hutton, Bryce Malek, Loren Lester (Batman: The Animated Series' Dick Grayson), and Michael Swanigan, who talk about rangling the rights to the characters as they created the series. Each episode also contains trivia (at the chapter menu level), as well as a handful of special features on the fifth and final disc of the set.
The fifth disc features include the original presentation reel for the series, in which the viewers were introduced to the younger Defenders -- Lothar's "streetwise" son, L.J. and Kshin, adopted by the entire team. Also joining them were Flash Gordon's blonde-haired telekinetic daughter, Jedda, and the Phantom's son, Kit. Obviously a few changes were made from here to pilot. This feature is not cleaned up, with a lot of fuzziness and graininess. Other features include detailed info on artifacts, characters, creatures, locations and technolgy seen in the episodes, as well as a storyboard-to-screen comparison for the Prince Valiant episode, "Terror in Time", five interviews with the creative forces behind the show, and a slideshow of character designs.
Unfortunately, the disc does not contain the rest of the features listed in the episode guide booklet (enclosed in an envelope with two nicely rendered postcards featuring the Defenders of the Earth as drawn by Madman's Michael Allred and Rafael Kayanan). These missing features -- which would have been a bonus first episode from the Flash Gordon series as well as DVD-ROM PDF files of scripts, storyboards, and the series bible -- make me wonder if the discs weren't perhaps rushed past quality control to make a shipping deadline. Hopefully the second volume will rectify this error.
Given that Brentwood has an otherwise stellar reputation when it comes to making the fans happy with their product, I shouldn't be surprised to see Defenders of the Earth volume 2 packed with an extra load of goodies to make up for the shortcomings of this one.
Defenders of the Earth
The Complete Series - Volume One
Disc Guide (in continuity order)
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Disc 1A
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Disc 1B
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101. Escape from Mongo (optional commentary)
102. The Creation of Monitor
103. A Demon in His Pocket
104. A House Divided
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120. Family Reunion
105. Bits 'N' Chips
106. Root of Evil
107. Cold War
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Disc 2A
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Disc 2B
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108. The Sleeper Awakes
109. The Revenge of Astra
110. Hall of Wisdom
111. The Mind Warriors
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113. The Mind Warriors II
112. The Lost Jewels of Tibet
114. The Evil of Doctor Dark
115. Diamonds are a Ming's Best Friend
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Disc 3A
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Disc 3B
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116. The Men of Frost
117. Battleground
118. The Panther Peril
119. Fury of the Deep
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121. The Defense Never Rests
122. Like Father, Like Daughter?
123. The Would-Be Defender
124. Doorways into Darkness
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Disc 4A
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Disc 4B
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125. Deal with the Devil
126. Terror in Time
127. Ming's Household Helpers
128. The Starboy
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131. The Book of Mysteries
132. The Future Comes but Once
133. Kshin and the Ghost Ship
134. The Carnival of Doctor Kalihari
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Disc 5
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135. The Mystery of the Book
Bonus Features
Interviews
- Interview: Bill Hutten
- Interview: David J. Corbett
- Interview: Loren Lester
- Interview: Peter Mark Richman
- Interview: Rick Norwood
Storyboard to Episode Comparison: Terror in Time
Character Bios
Model Sheet Slideshow
Original Presentation Pilot (7:35)
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