LNH: Legion of Net.Heroes Volume 2 #51

[Martin Phipps]

___  ___________________________
| |-|                           \
| |-| []                        /              #51
| | | [] egion of               \       Introducing...
| | | []__ [] []   []  []       /   THE FLAMING TORCH!
| | | [___][ \[]et.[]__[]eroes  \
| | |      []\ ]   [ __ ]       /    written by and copyright 2012
| |-|      [] []   []  []       \          Martin Phipps
| |-|___________________________/

Last issue, Dorfs invaded Looniearth and the LNH fought them off.

There.  Now you don’t have to read it.

And where was Deja Dude during all this?  Besides teaching students in
TaiWAN, he was engaged in research for the betterment of mankind.

Stop laughing.  That was not meant as a joke.

Anyway, now Deja Dude was back and he had some pressing business to
attend to.

“The LNH,” he said, “must change with the times.  Marvel has had an
openly gay character for decades and now DC has decided that Alan
Scott is also gay.  The LNH must, therefore, have an openly gay
character.”

Thus did Deja Dude, at great personal risk [You try going around
asking big strong muscular men if they are gay], scour the world
looking for a gay net.hero until he finally found… the Flaming Torch!

“The Flaming Torch?” Keiko, the receptionist, asked when Deja Dude
brought him into the lobby.  “So does he light on fire?”

“Not exactly,” Deja Dude admitted.  “Torch?”

“Flame on!” The Flaming Torch said and then he snapped his fingers,
cocked his head to one side and did some moves that appeared to have
been stolen from All That Jazz.

“I don’t think the LNH accepts homophobic characters.” Keiko said.

“He’s not homophobic,” Deja Dude said.  “He’s homosexual.”

“Real homosexuals might be offended.”

“Is Northstar offensive?”

“No,” Keiko said, “but that’s because he isn’t a parody making fun of
homosexuals.  There’s a difference between being openly gay and
flaming gay.  The big two comics companies would never have the
latter.”

“In the 90s, DC Comics had an openly gay character called Etrano.
That’s Spanish for ‘queer’.”

“I stand corrected.”

“Besides,” Deja Dude said, “it gets better: the Flaming Torch has an
eleven year sidekick called the Flaming Torch Junior.”

The Flaming Torch Junior appeared on cue and started waving as
flamboyantly as possible.  “Hi!” he said.

“No!” said Kid Enthusiastic who happened to be in the Lobby while the
new characters were being introduced.  “If he is eleven years old then
he doesn’t know if he is gay or not!”

Deja Dude looked at the Flaming Torch Junior’s frilly pink costume.
“Did you pick that out yourself?”

“I sewed it myself!” the Flaming Torch Junior said proudly.

Deja Dude nodded.  “He’s gay.”

“That proves nothing!” Kid Enthusiastic said.  “Peter Parker sewed his
own costume!”

“But Spiderman’s costume isn’t pink and frilly!”

“You’re a homophobe!”

“I admit that!” Deja Dude said.  “But it’s either this or reveal that
some long forgotten non-writer character is gay, which is something we
should never do to a character we didn’t create ourselves!”

“What about Frat Boy?  Didn’t Tom Russell make him gay?”

Deja Dude sighed.  “Look at it this way: the Flaming Torch is like the
gay version of Master Blaster except the Flaming Torch likes men and
not women.  Why is it homophobic to make fun of the Flaming Torch for
liking men and not heterophobic to make fun of Master Blaster liking
women?”

“Hmm,” Kid Enthusiastic said.

“Well?”

“You’ve got a point.”

“Thank you!”

*-*-*

Meanwhile, while this discussion was going on, Master Blaster himself
was in the cafeteria plaguing Wikiboy.

“I know!” Master Blaster said.  “You’re a Japanese schoolgirl wearing
a uniform that is way too small for you!”

Wikiboy became a Japanese schoolgirl.

“Hmm,” Master Blaster said.  “Looking at you right now in that short
skirt and tight blouse I almost wish I weren’t married!”

“Okay,” Wikigirl said, “this is creepy!”

“What?” Master Blaster said.  “Wikigirl, you can no longer read
minds!”

“I wasn’t reading your mind!” she said.  “I don’t have to!  Everyone
knows what you are thinking!”  Wikigirl sighed.  “Frankly, I’ve just
about had enough!”

“Oh?”

“Yeah,” Wikigirl said.  “I don’t like you treating me like a
plaything!”

Master Blaster nodded.  “You know,” he said, ”you’re right.”

“I am?”

“Yeah.  I went too far.  I apologize.  Wikigirl, you are Wikiboy again
and you are no longer Japanese.”

“And the uniform?”

“Right,” Master Blaster said.  “You are in your usual Wikiboy
costume.”

“I wear whatever costume people say I wear.”

“Well then whatever you were wearing before I edited you.”

“So that’s it then?” Wikiboy asked.  “You aren’t going to torment me
anymore?”

“No more,” Master Blaster said.  “I promise!”

Just then Neternity appeared in the cafeteria.  Internety was able to
fit in the room because the cafeteria, like all rooms in LNH HQ was as
big as the author wanted it to be: in this case, the celing extended
out into infinity and the walls were all infinitely far away, thus
making it possible for all of Neternity to fit in the room.

“Wait,” Master Blaster said, “is it Neternity or Internety?”

“Both,” Internety explained, “for I am both a parody of the Marvel
character Eternity and a representation of everyone who has ever used
the internet!”

“What?” Master Blaster said, cocking his BIG GUN, “including that
Canadian guy who video taped himself grisly killing that Chinese
university student?”

“Yes but all am also represent Snooki from The Jersey Shore.
Remember: she uses Twitter.”

“Fair enough,” Master Blaster said, as he disarmed his weapon.
“Snooki’s cool.”

“You watch The Jersey Shore?” Wikiboy asked.

“What?” Master Blaster asked.  “I don’t look like somebody who would
watch The Jersey Shore?”

“Actually,” Wikiboy said, “you’re right: you DO look like somebody who
would watch that show.  I stand corrected.”

“Thank you!” Master Blaster said.  “Now, Netertity, why are you here?”

Internety nodded.  “I am here to tell you that you must not stop
tormenting Wikiboy!”

“What?” Wikiboy asked.  “Why?”

“Because it has become one of the three most popular running gags in
the LNH, right up there with ‘That’s a man’s pop!’ and ‘What would
Gamer Boy think?’”

“I think Master Blaster is an asshole!” Gamer Boy said.

“Who asked you?” Master Blaster asked.

Gamer Boy went back to eating his cheesecake.

“So,” Eternity said, “in order for the Looniverse to maintain a proper
balance of Comedy and Drama, Wikiboy must continue to suffer!”

“Oh no!” Wikiboy said.

“Cool!” Master Blaster said.  “Wikiboy, you’re gay!  I mean you like
men!”

Just then, Deja Dude appeared in the cafeteria with the Flaming
Torch.  “Wikiboy,” he said, “you’re not gay!  You like women!”

“Aw!” Master Blaster said.  “I was just having fun!  Internety said I
could!”

“Who?” Deja Dude asked.

Master Blaster looked up.  “He’s gone!  He was here a minute ago!”

Deja Dude saw Gamer Boy eating.  “Gamer Boy, did you see a large
entity representing the entire internet in here?”

“No,” he lied.

Master Blaster growled audibly.

“Anyway,” Deja Dude said.  “You can’t make Wikiboy gay because we have
a new character who is openly gay, the Flaming Torch!”

”Actually,” the Flaming Torch said, “it might be nice having more than
one openly gay character in the LNH.”

“You’re forgetting the Flaming Torch Junior!” Deja Dude said.

“No,” the Flaming Torch said.  “The Flaming Torch Junior is still only
a child.  I meant an adult.  Someone my own age.”

“Ah!” Deja Dude said.  “A love interest!”

“I guess.”

“Well, you are in luck, because look who just walked into the
cafeteria!  It’s Love-Interest Lad and, yes, he’s gay!”

“Well, okay,” the Flaming Torch said, “but it is a bit of a stereotype
of gay men if you expect us to hit it off even though we have just
met!”

“Ah but you haven’t just met!” Deja Dude said.  “Don’t you remember
the back story that I am making up even as I type this?  You met in
Barcelona years ago!  It was only a short fling but you still have
feelings for each other!”

“Oh, of course!” the Flaming Torch said.  “Hello, Love Interest Lad!
How could I have forgotten about you?”

“Shut up!” Love Interest Lad said.  “Just shut up!  You had me at
‘Hello’!”

They kissed.  Deja Dude, Master Blaster and Wikiboy all looked away.

“You can look now,” Gamer Boy said.  “They’ve stopped kissing.”

“You know what!” Deja Dude said.  “You two should get married!”

“What?” they both asked.  “We haven’t finished catching up on old
times!”

“Yeah,” Deja Dude said, “you can do that in private from now on.
Seriously, everyone likes a wedding!”

“It just seems a bit fast.”

“Nonsense!” Deja Dude said.  “It’s what people do when they are in
love! I’m going to go right now and ask Self-Righteous Preacher if he
will officiate!”

*-*-*

“Absolutely not!” Self Righteous Preacher said.

“But they are in love!” Deja Dude said.

“They are two men!”

“They are net.heroes!”

“Heroes?  Besides being gay, what have they done that is heroic?”

“Isn’t being gay heroic enough?” Deja Dude asked.  “There are eleven
year old gay boys who need role models!”

“I still say that eleven is too young for most people to know their
sexual orientation,” Kid Enthusiastic said.

“Shh!”

“I said ‘No’,” Self Righteous Preacher said firmly.  “Marriage is
between a man and a woman and that’s final!”

“It’s okay,” the Flaming Torch said.  “Really.”

“Don’t you want to be accepted like anybody else?” Deja Dude asked
sadly.

“It wouldn’t have to be a religious ceremony,” the Flaming Torch
said.  “A civil union will do.  The important thing is that when the
time comes I can introduce my husband as my husband and people will
see us as a married couple like anybody else.”

“Well, okay,” Deja dude said.

“And like regular people we will take it slow and get married when we
think the time is right and not just go through a ceremony for the
sake of parodying an X-Men story.”

“Heh,” Deja Dude said.  “Still, this is a bit of a downer, Self-
Righteous Preacher not accepting you and Love-Interest Lad, I mean.”

“What did you expect?”

Deja Dude shrugged his shoulders.  “Hey, I know!  Wikiboy!”

“Yes?” Wikiboy asked.

“You’re a frog!”

Wikiboy became a frog and everybody laughed.

                                        THE END

CREDITS:

Deja Dude, Master Blaster, The Flaming Torch, The Flaming Torch Junior
and Love-Interest Lad created by Martin Phipps

Kid Enthusiastic created by Andrew Perron

Wikiboy created by Tom Russell

Sel-Righteous Preacher created by wReam

Neternity / Internety created by Jameel Al Khavitz

It's 1:37 AM here and I don't know who created Gamer Boy or Keiko.

Martin