[REV] End of Month Reviews - August 2004 [spoilers]
Saxon Brenton
saxon.brenton at uts.edu.au
Fri Sep 3 10:52:28 PDT 2004
[REV] End of Month Reviews - August 2004 [spoilers]
Reviewed this issue:
The Alt.Riders #27 [LNH]
The Daily Super Paragraph #1-3 /
The Daily Super-Short Story #4-11 [LNHY/Acra]
Digital Jump #4 [LNH]
Generation Zed: The New Class #9-12 [LNH2]
LNH Asia: Full Throttle #3-4 [LNH2]
LNHY #1 [LNHY]
'Was It All Just A Dream?' [LNH]
Also posted:
Deja Dude and Master Blaster Special #2 and 3 [LNH]
Letter Adventures [Meta]
Preview: ASH #51 [ASH]
Ultimate Ninja 2020 #1-4 [LNH2]
I've been feeling as sick as a dog over the past few days, causing
delays in trying to get these writeups finished. Now I've gotten to the
point where I've decided to post what I already had done. This will cause
some descriptions to be terse and others to be rambling.
So then. Where did all the non-LNH stories go? The presence of
one [Meta] story post parodying the Daily Super Paragraph, plus a
preview of ASH #51 simply so that Dvandom can say that he posted
*something* in August both only highlight the fact that there's been
effectively nothing set outside the Looniverse.
And in the meantime the Looniverse itself spins off another
subimprint. If I suspected for one moment that the two events were
planned and co-ordinated this way, I'd call it performance art conceived
with deep and subtle irony, and be done with it.
Spoilers below.
----------
The Alt.Riders #27
'Confessions and Lamingtons'
A Legion of Net.Heroes [LNH] series
by Jamas Enright
Mandrake (now calling himself God) continues with his scheme to
entrap the Alt.Riders into being his servants, using his televised talk
show to bring into play psychodramas to manipulate their guilts and fears.
The resulting conversations are heavy in characterisation, as well as
bring in new material or emphasise old history as appropriate. I found
Agent's to be the most interesting; once he's no longer using (apparently
occasionally quite justified) secrecy to cover his motives and resources,
he's quite blunt about his "complete disregard and utter disdain" for
"the entirety of humanity". Almost makes you wonder why he goes to such
efforts to be a superhero; but then, preserving the world and saving
humanity aren't synonymous. Also notice that he doesn't say 'the rest of
humanity' or suchlike.
And next issue, the Legion turn up, presenting the opportunity for
conflict with Mind Controlled and non-Mind Controlled net.ahumans - but
by now you should be aware that it won't be that simple.
The Daily Super Paragraph #1-3
then becoming
The Daily Super Short-Story #4-11
A Legion of Net.Heroes Y [LNHY/Acra] series
by Arthur Spitzer
Taking a leaf from Chris Gumprich's old Paragraph Adventures series,
Arthur proceeds to set himself a goal of producing a short vignette of
story each day - taking a break only when somebody else (such as Martin
with #0) posts something.
At first I was considering taking umbrage at the fact that the Daily
Paragraph Adventures clearly weren't paragraphs: they were simply a string
of sentences all joined together in one text block, thereby masquerading
as a single paragraph. This obviously worried Arthur as well, because in
#3 the Mighty Morphin' Paragraph Police made an appearance to complain
about just this stylistic violation... only to be vaporised by God using
his God vision. However, after that the series became the Daily Super-
Short Story, which took care of the false advertising.
So far God has created Looniverse Y, then the character of Gotta-Luv-
Me Lad, and continued on with incidents vaguely paralleling biblical acts
such as Gotta Luv Me Lad's search for a helpmeet in both Exciting Leather
Strap-On Lass and Knows-How-To-Please-Her-Man Girl. Along the way there
have been parables about why humans have only one nose and why men don't
have melon sized breasts, as well as encounters with Ted the Time-
Travelling Atheist and a Banjo Duel with the Before God Guys. #11
concludes with Knows-How-To-Please-Her-Man Girl being Tempted by
Wondersock with the Vending Machine Of No-Free-Lunches.
It's surreal, and amusing in its blasphemous bad taste.
Digital Jump #4
'DUALISM! Twenty-Seven Primary Colors!'
A Legion of Net.Heroes [LNH] series
by Andrew Perron
Digital Jump returns after an extended hiatus and still radiating
indiscriminate hilarity (yes, yes, I cribbed the phrase from the
discussion thread; it's a perfectly apt description, though). Faded Iron
Master, Malachite Wendigo and Like Rouge (who turns out to be a disguised
female) explain the Big Threat of the Zinc Oxide Tyrant who they, James
and Casey must unite against by collecting the Four Atavists.
Andrews seems apologetic for producing an issue that's all
exposition, but there's exposition and there's exposition. All of the
information is presented in small chunks while the characters talk,
interspersed with personal interaction, rivalry and - particularly in
the case of James - complete non sequiturs. It flows well and keeps the
reader entertained. It's not as though it's all one big hunk of data dump
or something. (Trust me on this; Jamas still keeps the virtual shoji
mallet with 'I will not drop doctoral theses in the middle of my stories'
written on it to whap me over the head with. It's for my own good. Really.)
Generation Zed: The New Class #9-10
'Strange Visitors' parts 1-4
A Legion of Net.Heroes 2 [LNH2] series
by Jesse Willey and Martin Phipps
Much of this story arc focuses on the interactions between the
already established characters studying at the Net.ropolis Academy and
some Dorfian children who temporarily take up residence with them; in
particular Dran, the mostly human son of Vel, the latter who is now
Dorfian ambassador to Earth, and Seductress.
LNH Asia: Full Throttle #3-4
'Cat Fight' and 'Resolutions'
A Legion of Net.Heroes 2 [LNH2] miniseries
by Martin Phipps
Members of LNH Asia head off to the capture the Lan.darin and
retrieve the disc of information, while the Lan.darin's ally Cute Emma
arrives at LNH Asia headquarters. Fights ensue, but in keeping with a
running gag started in #2 - that the readers are mainly interested in
watching beautiful women in tight, skimpy costumes - the Cute Emma/Cute
Anna match is given priority while the LNH/Lan.darin fight occurs off
panel. The disc itself turns out to have been passed on to Lag.neto, so
the final issue features a talk with Lag.neto and Rumour Monger which
deals with loose plot threads, as well as returning the Lan.darin's rings
to the Dorfians.
LNHY #1
'Jumping Off On the Wrong Foot'
A Legion of Net.Heroes Y [LNHY] series
by Arthur Spitzer
You know, when you sit down and think about it, it's amazing that a
shared writing universe like the LNH - which started as a joke thread
over a decade ago - should not only be continuing when other, more care-
fully planned universes like Omega or Crossroads are, at the very best,
on indefinite hiatus, but is actually producing spin-off imprints from
itself. An optimist might start theorising about the therapeutic benefits
of comic book parody for letting off steam. A pessimist might start
theorising about lowest common denominators - before muttering about the
spread of cancer cells.
In this case Arthur produced this new open imprint (and this showcase
series along with it) as a way of dealing with one of the LNH-proper's
moderate but intrinsic problems: occasionally unwieldy character numbers
and uncertain rules for character usage. It's a thorny problem, and it's
indicative of the LNH that one of the reasons why the writers have been
able to deal with it as well as they have is because the imprint's
inherent silliness allows it turn the topic into grist for the humour
mill. A more serious writing universe might not be able to cope with the
problem, but then a more serious writing universe might well have had the
effort put into it to avoid the problem in the first place.
Anyway, the plot: due to a misunderstanding, the perennially ousted-
from-superhero-teams Kid Kicked-Out is given a suitcase containing all
that he needs to set up his own franchise of the Legion of Net.Heroes in
his home universe. Being somewhat of a slacker, Kid Kicked-Out panics at
the thought of having to organise - and more importantly pay - for all of
this. He tries to ignore it and get on with his life, but it begins to
intrude during a confrontation with the Road Rager and Madam Middle
Finger. Meanwhile the Mysterious Shadowy Messing-With-Destiny Dude who
gave him the suitcase (on the orders of the even more mysterious and
sinister Banana Daiquiri-Drinking Man) is about to complete his assignment
by handing over a comparable briefcase to villains destined to form the
System Corrupters, this universes' version of the Brotherhood of
Net.Villains.
I found the setup, and particularly the dementing spiel of the LNH
Member Detector, to be vastly amusing. But there's a paradox here that
kept nagging at me. A lot (but by no means all) of the humour came from
the metatextual situation of setting up a new universe's LNH, while at the
same time the LNHY NAQ (which I had read first) stipulates that the LNHY
continuity is (at least for the moment) a closed world, with no prospect
of crossovers. Under those circumstances, I'm not sure how long the joke
about being a new LNH franchise can be milked for. Fortunately situations
like the Master Root Of All Evils' inadvertent creation of Road Rager and
Madam Middle Finger suggest that the new imprint can stand on it's own
feet, if only the Writers (whoever they turn out to be) put some original
thought into it. We shall see.
'Was It All Just A Dream?'
A Legion of Net.Heroes [LNH] post
by Arthur Spitzer
The conclusion suggests that it would be a good idea never to mention
this story again. Unfortunately, in the past half year I've come to
suspect that Anal-Retentive Archive Kid may in fact be my second Writer
Character, and there are certain obligations that go with that...
In the course of the discussion thread about character usage that
triggered the formation of the LNHY imprint, the canonicity of LNH
membership and stories since 1998 was raised. Arthur picked up the notion
and ran with it, posting a vignette where Master Blaster wakes up, Dallas
style, and discovers to his (temporary) relief that the past six years
- including his marriage to Sister State The Obvious - was all just a
dream. Then he finds out why he couldn't possibly have been married to
the woman he's been going steady with for years: marriage to women is a
perversion outlawed on Earth-Gay. Cue Twilight Zone music.
----------
Saxon Brenton University of Technology, city library, Sydney Australia
saxon.brenton at uts.edu.au
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