LNH: Classic LNH Adventures #16: The Omaha Project Part Three

[Drew Perron]

On 5/3/2016 9:35 PM, Arthur Spitzer wrote:
<snip>
> Chapter Seven is written by Mike Escutia creator and writer
> of the Pliable Lad series.  Mike would later really regret
> bringing his characters into this cascade (well, I suppose
> like everyone else involved).

Hey, this gave us Pliable Lad Annual #1, which was lots of fun and which in turn 
led to Pli's appearance in Just Another Cascade, so. <3

> Chapter Eight is some more Chris Sypal as he retcons his
> previous chapter into being a dream.

Oh god, we're going full RACChallenge D:

>      Actually, the ninja hadn't sent Touri, but Pli invited her, anyway.
> It was her day off from her regular job as the official LNH tour guide,
> and she didn't have anything better to do.  Needless to say, the ninja
> would probably have a fit when he found out.

I mean, this is probably actually a good call on his part >->

>      "Oh.  Well, that should make it easy to find them," she said.
>      "Yeah," PK Kid grinned, pointing to a instrument panel display.  Be-
> low it was a label which read 'Geiger counter'.  "I shut off my karmic
> powers ten minutes ago!"  The threesome laughed, owing thanks to EDM's
> powers.

That's a good gag except where it's overdone~

>      "Hey, PK, I thought your powers let you park closest to where you
> need to be," Pli said as he and Touri stepped out of the hatch into the
> Net.braska air.
>       "Yeah, if I want to.  But I wanted to land where the air blasts
> wouldn't affect those guys," PK Kid said as he locked the flight.thingee
> and joined Pli and Touri.

That's a nice detail. <3

> Pli was helping Touri make her way through
> the corn stalks, as it was sometimes difficult to find an opening.
> Strangely enough, she started finding openings on her own, and started
> helping *him*, much to Pli's embarrassment.

Honestly, the question is why he's helping her at all, it's kind of her powers

> He wore a cape and mask, looked young, maybe in his late teens, and was
> about Lite's height (whatever that was).

Heeheeheehee.

>      "Deal," EDM replied as they quickly shook hands.  "Well?  Did our
> fearless leader send you three to check up on us?" he asked Pli.
>      "*DING!*" Pli said, grinning.
>      "SCORE!" Lite whooped.

I think Lite just got roleplay XP.

>      Boy Lad's foot touched the pattern.
>      Quite suddenly, the pattern began to pulsate rapidly, the crater
> shook violently, and seven people and one eagle were pulled into the
> pattern...and vanished.

I hope they're happy in Amber o3o

>      Variable Woman has heard from her room across the hall of the academy.

You know, nothing in the previous issue clued me in on the fact that "Vari" was 
short for "Variable Woman". XD

>      "It's not that."  Gel toweled his face, removing the beads of sweat.
> "It's just that the way everything progressed was so bad, it seemed to
> have been written by a beginning writer."

Heeheehee.

>      Something is happening in this great land of ours.
>      Actually, a lot of things are happening.  Most of them are fairly
> tedious.  Most of those would probably be labeled as pornographic by
> various members of Senate subcommittees.  What this says about various
> career politicians is probably more telling than what it says about the
> state of modern art.  Maybe they should get out more and take long walks.

I mean, it's true.

>      Something was happening.  It was one of those moods that the people
> who should know something was going on get when somebody's pulling a fast
> one behind their back.  Like an itch you can't scratch at the root of your
> tongue.  Like song lyrics that keep running through your head in a foreign
> language invented by rock djs.  Like the crossword puzzle that you know
> you can solve, but you're afraid that it will contain some form of
> personal insult.

These are great analogies. They also remind me of Arthur's.

>      The President, for instance, is right now getting up from his seat,
> wondering where he put his bookmark, when he thinks he sees something flap
> by the window of the Oval Office.  He puts down the fine crystal he was
> drinking out of, and tries peering out of the corner of the window.  He
> can't stand in the middle, of course.  The guards all around him push him
> away from it.  Something about, Sorry, sir, state security, you know, all
> that, muttered under their breaths.  And he was certain that he might have
> seen a bird, if it wasn't for the fact that the Joint Chiefs have gassed
> all the birds around the White House.  They told it to him the day he took
> office.

This whole thing feels like it's trying a bit too hard to make a point that 
remains frustratingly vague. Some kind of... nanny state... national security... 
taking agency away from us in the name of protection to a degree that it reaches 
even the President... thing? I can reverse-engineer the logic, but it really 
doesn't quite come across.

>      Then there's Erik Gant.  Erik is a freelance stringer for an
> international newspaper.  Erik's schtick is that he gets his clues from
> the Internet.

The '90s!

>      Right now Erik's riding a little dangerously on the indigestion
> highway.

SUPER THE 90s

>      There's a place near the large tower of the capitol building where
> tourists naturally congregate.  Usually they're busy taking pictures,
> which is a horrible waste, since most tourists mistakenly believe that the
> whole point of vacation pictures is to fill up your slide projector with
> three hundred identical prints of you and your dopey family smiling at the
> camera.

This may not seem '90s, but in fact, this sort of easy Seinfeldian humor is, in 
fact, Peak '90s. Okay okay I'll stop nitpicking (no I won't).

>      In a world of superpowers and cosmic beings, in a world where the
> Ultimate Ninja is capable of existing, the most dangerous man alive is one
> who leads the Average Life.  Adventures never happen to him. He's never
> taken hostage.  He lives an average life, with an okay wife and three
> children and a dog and a cat, and tries to do the best he can without
> getting in someone's way.
>      He's Average Joe, and when he's in town, superheroes are utterly
> useless.  A few archvillains recognized his unique ability to lead an
> utterly bland life some time ago.  Some of them have been taking advantage
> of that for some time.  It's an acquired skill, like Zen tiddlywinks, but
> once it's mastered... once it's mastered...

Ahhhhh, a threat that's an attack on genre. Very good. <3

>      Dan finally decided to cut across an approach and move to the main
> highway.  Half way across, he bumped up against something, buffeted slowly
> by the grass.  It was a PerilRoom unit. Out here.

Ooooooh. Interesting. :o

>      Dan got closer.  He recognized them all.  And he didn't like the one
> person, the person in the middle, the person with the grin and the gun.
> He wasn't supposed to be here.  This wasn't supposed to happen.
>      Fading Dan now no longer knew what was going on.  But now he knew who
> to follow.  He was very good at following, was Fading Dan.  Sometimes his
> own shadow got lost, and had to run to catch up with him.  He'd watch, for
> now.

DUN DUN DUN.

Drew "laddish" Perron