LNH: Classic LNH Adventures #73: Birth Of A Villain Part Thirteen

[Drew Perron]

On 8/12/2018 4:28 PM, Arthur Spitzer wrote:
<snip>
> And joining the Birth of a Villain cascade for the first time
> with #33 is John "uplink" Scheibeler who brings in his character
> Opinionated Lad to express the opinion that maybe there are too
> many Birth of a Villain issues.  Just Maybe.

On the contrary, there are not enough! >:o

> And with #34 Saxon Brenton comes back with a brand spanking
> new Time Crapper.  But who is this Time Crapper?  Don't worry.
> This is Saxon Brenton issue and he'll not only explain who this
> Time Crapper is, but will also explain who the previous three Time
> Crapper's were (or are (or will be?)).

Saxon is excellent at that~

> Okay, what has gone before:
> 
> I have no idea, I wasn't reading the newsgroup.

And in turn, I won't read this story.

> Having tried the use the handbrake, only to have it break off,
> Blue Light Productions careens out of control into:
> 
> Birth Of A Villain #34

:D

> "Indulgent Exposition And Plot Development"

THE INDULGENTEST.

>       Fourth Wall Lass rolled over, stretched, and yawned.
>       "Here," somebody said, handing her a bottle of Mr Paprika. "This
> should help stave off the effects of Legionnaire's Disease."
>       "Oh? I thought it was just lack of sleep..." murmured FWLass
> blearily and took a sip.
>       "Your exhaustion acted as an inroad for the coma effects of the
> Disease. The Mr Paprika increases serotonin levels to stave it off."
> [As was noted in _Birth Of A Villain_ #26 - Footnote Girl] "You'd
> need to be a serious addict... I mean, consumer... to build up an
> innate tolerance from a soft drink though, so you'll need to keep
> drinking the stuff.

Yes good, thoughtful repercussions.

>       "Ah, okay," she said, taking a second sip. And then did a
> spittake as she saw who she was talking to. "The Time Crapper!"
>       "Careful. You'll spill your drink."

I love Time Crapper IV a lot

>       "A number of things. At the moment I'm getting you awake enough
> to join the others at the LNHHQ. Here. You'll need to give Gorilla
> Grad this sample of the Potion of Commotion," the Crapper said,
> handing her another bottle, this one marked in the italics lettering
> of psuedo-olde worlde writing saying: 'Thee Potion Off Commotion'.
> "Unfortunately he still thinks that Vector's powers derive solely from
> the technology that was stolen from Dr Stomper. He'll need this if he
> wants to develop a cure."

Ah yes. <3

>       "Third? But... Oh no... Brenton's finally gone and carried out
> his threat to have a Time Crapper analogue for each version of the
> Time Trapper that's been running around in DC's Legion comics ever
> since the first Jim Shooter written issues back in the Silver Age,
> hasn't he?" She hastily tried to remember the theory behind it all.

 >:D And now we've taken it further!

>       The First Time Crapper was the villain GreenRingwraith who had
> been turned into the Crapper just as the anonymous villainous
> scientist had taken on the identity of the Trapper to escape into the
> future and hide behind his Iron Curtain of Time. The second Crapper
> was literally a mobile pile of excrement, paralleling the 1980s era
> Trapper who had been the cosmic embodiment of entropy, both without
> any human origin.

Actually, the GRW _became_ the excrement, and thus, the second Crapper. The 
first Crapper's origin has never been revealed... _so far_...

> "That means you're either the first-and-a-half
> Crapper," she said,

I think that was the one who showed up in Flame Wars III, also in a story by Saxon.

> "or the fourth one; the female one from the end
> of Zero Hour. The Glorith analogue... Oh no."
>       The fourth Time Crapper pulled back her hood. "Surprise," she
> said.
>       Yep, it was another one o' them thar pesky Melissa-clones.

I love this so much

>       Fourth Wall Lass put her face in her hands and went, "No no no no
> no no no no no no."

I love her so much. X3 The best part of FWL is she's so human

>       "Enough of this," said the Crapper briskly. "I have brought
> you here outside of time to give you a few hours sleep to recover
> from your exhaustion, and used my powers over time to accelerate
> your metabolism slightly to overcome the lagging effects of the
> Legionnaire's Disease.

I feel like this is her shortly after her Origin (as seen in Ultimate Mercenary 
#7), and thus, she has not become as oblique and mysterious as she would later.

> The lagging is
> only the initial effect, though. Once the person has been lagged and
> falls asleep, it has a completely different effect. An effect on the
> mind. Now, go."

Did we ever end up establishing what this was?

>       "I had deduced the lag effect," said Gorilla Grad as took the
> bottle over to the workbench of the lab for examination. "Vector's
> claim back in issue 3 that she and her numerous iterations would fill
> up the spaces within us turns out to have been more than a metaphor.
> The Legionnaire's Disease seems to create a form of 'information
> congestion' analogous to lag in the body's neural system, causing
> people to fall into a coma. I've theorised that the blocking powers of
> Writers Block Woman repel the congestion altogether. By comparison,
> Invisible-Intangible-Inaudible Lass seems to make the congestion pass
> through the bodies of the people she's protecting so that it doesn't
> affect them, essentially making them immune to the congestion even
> though the congestion is still permeating their material forms."

Which makes total sense, and is cool.

>       They all stared in amazement. Lad whistled. It wasn't just a shot
> of Sig.ago, however, but of northern Illa.net. The city and a large
> chunk of the surrounding state and adjacent Lake Mi.sig.an was sealed
> off inside the shimmering of an absolutely sodding enormous force
> field dome.

Which is an AMAZING idea.

>       "Well, except for that giant dragon encircling the city and
> making like Ouroboros with its tail in its mouth," Narcoleptic Lad
> pointed out.
>       *It's got red hair. Three guesses where it came from.*

I love this idea.

>       *Well, he does worship Dvandom,* said IIILass. *Maybe he holds
> Dvandom's characters in such high regard that he doesn't want the hurt
> in the cross fire,* she suggested.

Nah, we love when Dave messes with his characters

>       "Yes, but the rest of the Legion has it's power houses too. And
> to be blunt, the enemies you face don't really factor into it, since
> Writers are almost always partisan and any group can be made to
> triumph over almost any odds if the Writer can think up an even semi-
> plausible explanation for it. I'm suddenly having flashbacks to
> scores of old Spiderman stories where he defeats some villain vastly
> more powerful than himself simply because he's the hero." He shook
> his head, obviously irritated at the mental image.
>       It occurred to more than one of the Legionnaires present that
> Tsar Chasm might also be recalling the times when he had lost, simply
> because he was the villain.

If I'm remembering correctly, he actually had a couple he *won* while being the 
villain, and often when he's lost it's been while being very "dammit I have to 
fight a bigger bad guy".

>       Gorilla Grad nodded darkly at this, then returned to the subject
> at hand. "In any case, I estimate it will only be a short while before
> the cure is properly synthesised."

It's interesting - Vectors have, of course, shown up again, but Legionnaire's 
Disease hasn't, really, so I assume it's the cure for that.

>       .oO( And if nothing else, ) Tsar Chasm thought, ( if I can wake
> up Ultimate Ninja, or Fearless Leader, or any other halfway competent
> LNHer, I can dump this mess in their lap and get the net.hell out of
> this storyline. ) Involuntarily his fists clenched. It wasn't that he
> was finding the situation unpleasant or onerous. Quite the opposite.
> He was disturbed to find himself enjoying things. Giving orders.
> Rallying the troops. Being in command.
>       Tsar Chasm was beginning to suspect that he was on the verge
> becoming addicted, once again, to the unquenchable urge to (yes Pinky)
> Take Over The World.

ooooooooooh. Nice. :3 This makes a ton of sense for him.

>       That was a worrying thought, and Tsar Chasm deliberately thrust
> it aside, even as Fourth Wall Lass worked hard to pretend that she
> hadn't read that particular thought balloon and narrative caption.

Awwwww. <3

>       "Oh, that's easy. It's turned permeable. I'd say that without
> full effort being constantly applied to keep it solid, it's simply too
> large to maintain it's cohesion"
>       Gorilla Grad nodded and put in, "I would hypothesise that unless
> the Church makes efforts to strengthen it, it will probably dissipate
> entirely within a few days."

Makes sense.

Drew "good progression-y chapter" Perron