[REVIEW/ACRA] End of Month Reviews #41 - May 2007 [spoilers]

[Tarq]

> Alt.stralian Yarns #11-12
> 'Q3 - The Path To Greatness'  and
> 'Q4 - Of Sidekicks, Team-Mates, And Flamingos'
> A Legion Of Net.Heroes [LNH] series
> by Mitchell Crouch

First off, thanks for reading!

>      Oh.  So that's how Obsessive Compulsive Boy's powers work.
> Okaaayyy.  This means that the theme of Contempo Weapons Lad (and this
> is emphasised in his discussion with Pelican in #12) is that he's one
> of those (reasonably) sane heroes surrounded by a bunch of nut cases.
> Having a sidekick who can compound this and take advantage of it is a
> slight twist on the trope, of course.

As a quick note on the relationship between Contempo Weapons Lad and
Obsessive-Compulsive Boy, they were not originally partners in
crimefighting. Contempo Weapons Lad's first appearance was as
Innovative Weapons Boy in the unjustifiably named Team Q (Questionable
Logic Man was yet to exist, either), and Obsessive-Compulsive Boy was
just a wandering nutter of a character I had in a role-playing game
with some friends. When CWLad (as CWLad) also came into the story, I
got frustrated by the slow movingness of my friends, so I paired them
up and had them burn up the entire campaign.

God, my friends must hate me. =)

>      This is all greatly amusing old school LNH humour.  But then Tom
> Russell and myself have been saying that for ages.  The bit that had me
> cackling the most was Looks-Unerringly-Like-James-Cook Lass.

I'm glad you liked her. She'll play a signifigantish role in a
storyline to come, along with Kid Konvict.

> But then,
> later, I was drawn up short by the inclusion of the reporter Billy
> Hughes.  Really?  Billy Hughes?  As in, the Australian Prime Minister
> Billy Hughes?  The schismatic fruitloop Prime Minister Billy Hughes who
> was successively a member of four different political parties because
> he kept swapping when the one he was currently in wouldn't support him
> unreservedly; and who during World War I ran no less than two
> plebiscites to endorse conscription, failing both times, and most
> spectacularly with the second because he thought the result he wanted
> was a forgone conclusion and started making arrangements for conscription
> on the day before the vote, thereby pissing off the electorate and
> causing the voters to turn against him in a fit of bloodymindedness?
> That Billy Hughes?  But as it turned out there where no 'Little Digger'
> references in Tarq's story, so I guess it was just a name made up at
> random.  Still, for a moment that had me wondering, and it kind of threw
> me out of the story.

No, no, Billy Hughes was in reference to Prime Minister Hughes. Simply
because I had 'Billy' as a name, and as soon as I wrote Billy, all I
could think of was the way my old history teacher crowed "Billy
Hughes!" and I had to include Hughes as the last name. I didn't think
that enough people would get it to bother extending the joke. Perhaps
in the etherback compilation of the Q storyline.

I gotta say though, your description of your realisation is far
funnier than any political humour could ever be. "Billy Hughes? THIS
Billy Hughes? Yeah? Yeah? No? ...no? Oh. Okay."

~Mitchell.