[LNH][blather] Mutants mutants everywhere...

[martinphipps2 at yahoo.com]

Saxon Brenton wrote:

> > >[stuff]

Oh.  You were serious.

> On Tues 8 Nov 2005 Tom Russell <milos_parker at yahoo.com> replied:
>
> >On the other hand, it also depends on your definition of powers; so
> >many character in the LNH, naturally, have powers that are somewhat,
> >well, slight.  Cheesecake Eater Lad, for example, has the ability, as
> >we all know, to make any kind of cheesecake.  Does this really
> >constitute as a power?  And does that make him a mutant?
> >
> >I'd like to think that any of the silly powers that one comes across in
> >LNH stories count as powers, even if they seem rather suspect (like the
> >ability of Sleeps-With-Anything-Alive-Girl/Lass to... well... sleep
> >with anything alive).  In that case, Cheesecake Eater Lad does have
> >powers and, unless I'm blanking on an origin story, he is a mutant.
>
> Here is where I'll have to disagree.  I tend to think of origins like being
> a
> mutant, or a mutate ("bitten by a radioactive Origin"), empowered by
> gods (or being a god), being an alien, or a robot, or a magic-user as
> being independent of power level or inherent ludicrousness of concept.
> And some of those powers are so slight that while they may be powers,
> they could also be well-honed skills.

I feel like an asshole but we can just check the LNH FAQ.

... searching ... searching ... searching ... no match to search
criteria

Hmm.  I need to expand my search.

... searching ... searching ... searching ... one match found

Ah, here it is!  In an old FAQ from Jan 25 1994:

"To join the LNH one simply has to come up with one character that they

feel epidomizes their life - drab, simple, fun or what not - that
usually has
something to do with the net or with comics.  For example, If people
accused
me of having a drab and boring personality that was limp and not very
exciting
I might become Limp-Asparagus Lad!  (Yes, the man with the powers and
personality of LIMP ASPARAGUS! )  Generally those more fun and more
unusual in
character type are the kind that make the best characters."

My point is that most of the LNH roster (maybe 51%) was created this
way.  We could retro-actively say that Cheesecake Eater Lad was a
mutant with the ability to make cheesecakes but he was originally a
rec.arts.comics lurker whose only "power" was to eat cheesecake.  This,
of course, was not a power.  That's the joke.  Ha.  Ha ha ha.  Ha ha ha
ha.  Sheesh.  Doesn't anybody have a sense of humour anymore?

Now, personally, I've always thought that if the characters were the
embodiment of the writers and the writers were both writing the story
and appearing as the main characters then the possibilities were
endless.  Also endless was the possibility for stories getting overly
silly.

Now, admittedly, I did make Lagneto and Pizza Girl mutants.  But
Lagneto didn't know he was a fictional character.  He needed a "real
world" explanation for his powers.  He also found it odd that both the
LNH and his fellow net.villains all had silly, sometimes useless
powers.  In Lagneto Saga #s 7-8 (plug plug plug) Lagneto gives mutant
powers to various politicians but instead of turning them into powerful
mutants they get powers like an increased libido and the ability to be
heard from far away.  It wasn't what he was expecting because he didn't
know rule #1 about the Looniverse: it's supposed to be silly.

So, no, few of the LNH characters are mutants.  Most of them were
designed to have silly powers based on what the authors thought were
amusing about themselves.

Martin