Legion of Super-Gaps

When I was a young reader I had gaps in my superhero comic book reading. I think this is a regular occurrence for monthly newsstand readers to have a missing comic in the series. Imagine missing a chapter of your favorite book and you’ll get the idea. I think that monthly comic book readers are more adaptable to “jumping on” a comic series, TV show or even catching a movie halfway through. We want the whole story but we’re flexible enough to fill in the gaps.

I was visiting the spinner rack at Canadohta Lake Amusement Park for some fresh comics. I picked up Legion of Super-Heroes #279, “Tragedy at the Top of the World.” I missed all the story set up from issues #278 and #277. There were literal chains around the Earth choking the planet’s atmosphere, the Legion was fighting some villain with a serious S&M theme going on and a hero named Reflecto had all the mystery around his identity. Despite having only the one comic, I must have read it two dozen times when I was a kid. It was a testament to how fun the story by Roy Thomas and Jimmy Janes was. I didn’t need to know the back story to enjoy the comic. It would be 38 years until I found the issues and got the set up, thanks to Ohio Book Store and their collection of back issues.

Stan Lee said, “Every comic book is someone's first.” I think that’s a philosophy we’re trying to follow with MeSseD Comics. For the first seven chapters we released, they were one-and-done stories. I describe them as single chapter stories, kind of like a single in a music album.

You didn’t need to know much backstory besides Lilliput is a sewer worker, her partner-in-slime is a rat named Akka and these are their stories …

However, each story was loosely weaved together to reward anyone that had an opportunity to take the journey with us chapter-by-chapter or get the trade.

We would be honored to be someone’s “first comic book.” If MeSseD comics had the opportunity to spark that lifetime of comic book reading, that’s “shooting the moon!”

Later, no Gator,

Jay