SCP-095: The Atomic Adventures of Ronnie Ray-Gun

SCP-095: The Atomic Adventures of Ronnie Ray-Gun An incomplete set of old comics is a pretty good way to get a reader's attention. SCP-095 takes that familiar problem and gives the missing issues much worse implications than an unfinished collection. There are three surviving black-and-white comics, dated 1932, with missing covers and water damage. The paper and ink check out for the period. Their supposed publisher and its Ohio hometown cannot be located. The hero resembles Ronald Reagan. His adventures loosely mirror the 1980 election, the 1981 assassination attempt, and the Iran-Contra controversy, dressed up as pulp science fiction. The dates are the problem: these comics were printed decades before the events they resemble. That premise has a lot of appeal because reading always involves making connections. We recognize a character type, notice a familiar argument, or see something from the world around us reflected in a fictional setting. Usually that recognition tells us something about the writer's influences. Here, the order of events makes that comfortable explanation much harder to use. The surviving books also advertise other adventures. Two late titles particularly alarm a researcher: one involves a losing battle for Star Command, and the other announces a threat to mankind. Recovering the advertised issues becomes an urgent concern. Of course, a title is an awful thing to have to build a prediction around. Comic covers and advertisements are designed to make the next story sound enormous. A catastrophe might be literal, exaggerated, symbolic, or something a hero reverses by the final page. Without the story, you cannot tell which kind of promise the advertisement is making. That is where the missing material starts doing more work than a fully explained answer probably would. A reader can supply a hundred possible disasters, and each possibility comes with its own questions. Who is the supposed hero? Does the title describe the beginning or the ending? Is somebody reading a warning correctly, or fitting an anxious expectation into a few suggestive words? The comic format adds another complication. A simple adventure can give complicated people and events very tidy roles. Someone gets to be the hero, someone gets to be the villain, and a messy conflict becomes easy to follow. That might make a story entertaining while making it a terrible guide to interpreting what actually happened. There is a lot to enjoy in that tension. The desire to find the next issue feels completely understandable. The possibility that finishing the collection could make everybody feel worse is what gives the idea its bite. https://t.co/45ULT02YbD