Reading Room MEDUSA CHAIN Conclusion

Read Part 1, Part 2, Part 3, and Part 4. and Part 5.

Then ask yourself...

I'd like to be able to say "The Medusa Chain will continue...", but it didn't.

Unfortunately, the book (and most of the DC Graphic Novel series) sold poorly, and the project ended after only six issues.

(The exception was Jack Kirby's The Hunger Dogs.)

It was revived a year later as DC Science Fiction Graphic Novel, using adaptations of prose novels by big genre names like Robert Bloch, Harlan Ellison and Ray Bradbury and comics pros like Keith Giffen and Klaus Janson, but fared equally-poorly, ending after seven issues.

Reading Room MEDUSA CHAIN Part 5

If you want to know what happened before one of the koolest space battles ever seen in comics begins...

Read Part 1, Part 2, Part 3, and Part 4.

Then continue, with the codicil that it gets extremely gory and may be NSFW...

Why do the Earthians want radioactive material?
Find out tomorrow, in the surprising climax!

There's no explanation in the story as to what the "Fibonacci Sequence" is.

Named after the Middle Ages mathematician Leonardo of Pisa aka Fibonacci (although it was known in Indian science and arts at least a century earlier), the sequence begins with 1 and 1, or 0 and 1, depending on the starting point, and each subsequent number is the sum of the previous two.

For sci-fi fans, the concept is also the basis for the famous "computing number of tribbles" scene in classic Star Trek's "The Trouble with Tribbles".

Plus, Fibonacci is also the person responsible for instituting Arabic numerals (1, 2, 3, 4, 5, etc) as the standard in our mathematics, replacing the Roman numbers (I, II, III, IV, V, etc) used until then.

Reading Room MEDUSA CHAIN Part 4

Things are about to get really intense in...

...and the story is already way too complex to synopsize.

So, if you haven't read Part 1, Part 2, and Part 3, do so.

Then continue...

Tomorrow: An Epic Space Battle!

Give Ernie Colon credit.

He has a little bit of almost every fiction genre you can think of in this one graphic novel.

Mystery and crime.

Sci-fi/space opera.

War.

Horror.

OK, maybe he left out romance...

Reading Room MEDUSA CHAIN Part 3

When Last We Left the Wrongfully-Convicted Chon Adams...

After avoiding being gutted by Basenga and his cronies, Adams returns to his cabin and rests, dreaming of how he broke jail to track down the executive who planed to destroy the ship Chon was on to collect the insurance, forcing Adams to euthanize half the crew so the other half would have enough food and air to survive the trip home after the bombs were disarmed.

When he awakens...

Things go from bad to worse, tomorrow...

The amount of violence and gore is amazing when you're aware writer/artist Ernie Colon spent decades illustrating the wholesome adventures of Casper the Friendly Ghost, Richie Rich and the rest of the Harvey crew...

Reading Room MEDUSA CHAIN Part 2

We Have Already Seen...

Convicted murderer Chon Adams' 13-year sentence is to serve on the space frieghter Medusa.

As the ship takes off and he's put into suspended animation, he dreams of the incident that resulted in his (wrongful) conviction.

Now in deep space, the Medusa's crew is revived...

To be continued, tomorrow...

A year earlier, Ernie had been the editor of Green Lantern, and had pushed through a story set in deep space featuring a kid being tossed out an airlock...without a spacesuit!

Due to the Comics Code Authority, the art had been toned down, but there was still something of a controversy about it.

Did the controversy inspire the plotline for Medusa Chain since the graphic novel line's creatives were told there would be no Comics Code interference?