Stephen "Flash" Gordon, a triple marathon winner from Kendal, Maryland, has a lot on his plate. An old flame - in the delectable shape of TV reporter Dale Arden - returns out of the blue, his father's mysterious death years earlier may be even more mysterious than he realised, and he seems to have a crazy little stalker in a camper van.

Also, he stumbles through a dimensional rift into a terrifying alien world ruled by a merciless dictator and his life will never be the same again.