[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 
The Eyrie Archives of Russ Allbery which collect the online superhero 
fiction of the rec.arts.comics.creative newsgroup can be found at:
     http://archives.eyrie.org/racc/



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