LNH: Retcon Year #1

[Drew Perron]

On 4/22/2019 6:38 PM, Jeanne Morningstar wrote:
> 1991. A time when no colors were too bright or too clashing, when morally 
> ambiguous mercenaries weren't afraid to misspell their names and carry guns that 
> were too big for them, when muscles were huge and weblines were advantageous. 

Ahhhhh, childhood nostalgia~

> Celebrating the 25th anniversary year of rec.arts.comics.creative (which I 
> somehow didn't realize until just now)...

Hell yeah!

> APRIL 27, 1991:

Somehow, two stories that take place on specific dates were posted on the same day?

> A dark shadow darted across the rooftops of Net.ropolis. He then collapsed and 
> started panting.

Heeheehee
> He looked down at his 
> belly, instantly regretful of putting on spandex. I don't really look or feel 
> like a net.hero, he thought. No, he told himself, a net.hero looks like whatever 
> a net.hero looks like, so if I am one, I do.

That's right!! :D

> He couldn't help but see Burp Tower looming in the distance, like a glass and 
> steel middle finger raised at the whole city. A manifestation of the pure, ugly, 
> overwhelming power of the biggest land developer in Net.ropolis, Y-Plex Burp. 
> He'd knocked down the Net.ropolis Grand Hotel, one of the city's most beloved 
> landmarks, to build it.

Damn-- wait, what :o I thought... ooooooh.

> When you were one of the richest and most powerful men in the city you could be 
> called something like Y-Plex Burp and no one would ever ask you what it meant. 

*snerk*

> You could have the power to shut down a much-loved restaurant on a whim because 
> you didn't like the food, and because it was only making a reasonable amount of 
> profit and not infinite profit. A restaurant which happened to be the favorite 
> of one C.E.L. Spender. And that was what finally motivated him, after years and 
> years of daydreaming about it, to become a net.hero: the man called Cheesecake 
> Eater Lad.

Oh my god that's AMAZING :D

> He was a chef from a family of chefs that went back to the founding of 
> Net.ropolis, beginning with the very first Cecil Spender, whose pies were so 
> delicious that the very smell of them caused British soldiers to drop dead from 
> ecstasy.

*snerk* I love it.

> C.E.L. Spender's father could make any dish out of any ingredients. He 
> had once made an omlette out of burnt tires and poison mushrooms for the Queen 
> of England, who had pronounced it the most delicious thing she'd ever eaten. 
> C.E.L. Spender had all the overwhelming talent of his family, but he could only 
> make one thing. He could not craft casseroles, omlettes, crepes or 
> bouillabaisses. He could only make one thing: Cheesecake. From the first 
> cheesecake he ever made, at one year old, he was clearly the greatest cheesecake 
> maker in the world. He could make any kind of cheesecake, including varieties 
> that had never been imagined before and were clearly impossible, and he could 
> make anything into a cheesecake. But that was all he could make. The whole rest 
> of the culinary world was cut off from him.

God damn. This is perfect. This is Arthurian. (...in the Spitzer sense.)

> He might have called himself a mutant if he wanted to boost sales on his comics 
> (everybody loved mutants; nobody wanted to be one of those uncool Avengers)

Did You Know: This was true, once upon a time. The '90s were *weird*.

> Then one day, he logged onto his local BBS and 
> found a file called "Superguy Digest," and suddenly he had an idea.

OMG BEING INSPIRED BY SUPERGUY :D :D :D PERF

> He'd never really felt like he fit into the culinary world that his six brothers 
> accepted without question.

Six brothers, got it *takes notes for the wiki*

> Cheesecake Eater Lad pulled a grapnel cheesecake out of his hammerspace satchel 
> and threw it at the side of the building.

I LOVE IT.

> The problem was these were single use. You couldn't reload a 
> cheesecake, of course, that would be silly.

Bwahahaheehee X3 <3

> Of course. Trading card counterfeiters. 
> When the new wave of net.heroes had started, the city had responded by banning 
> comic book trading cards. But that only meant that the mob got into the business 
> of illegal trading card joints.

Oh my god that's amazing. :D

> Cheesecake-Eater Lad threw himself at the skylight. It didn't budge an inch. 
> "What the hell was that?" said one of the mobsters below.

*snerk*

> You couldn't really take a class to be a 
> net.hero. You had to figure out all by yourself things like how to jump through 
> skylights, hitting them hard enough to create a dramatic trail of shattered 
> glass but not actually hurt yourself or anyone else.

Oh man, I bet this leads into why the LNH exists

> CEL was tempted to just cut his losses and go home but he'd spent all this time 
> running around rooftops and climbing up buildings so he didn't want to let that 
> go to waste.

Heeheehe

> "GERALDO!" he shouted,

XD

> "It's one of those goddamn net.heroes!" said the first mobster. "It's 
> uh..." He rummaged through the cards. "Cheesecake-Eater Lad!"

*cackles*

> Cheesecake Eater Lad stood silhouetted by the moonlight. He froze up. He'd 
> thought up a lot of good dramatic speeches on the way over, but now that he was 
> actually facing the criminals he wasn’t sure what to say. "Uh... you’ve been 
> killing a bunch of people and you should maybe stop."

OH MY FUCKING GOD XD XD XD <3 <3 <3 PERF

> Cheesecake Eater Lad yanked a smoke bomb cheesecake 
> out of his hammerspace satchel (you can't put cheesecakes in an utility belt, 
> that would be silly)

X3 X3 X3

> The smoke burst out and made them 
> cough and rub their eyes, stopping them in their tracks. Unfortunately it also 
> did the same to Cheesecake Eater Lad. He assumed as a net.hero he'd be immune to 
> them.

I love every detail of this scene

> The mobsters closed in on him. He could make out their outlines in the dark. Now 
> would be a perfect time to hit them... but he couldn't. The problem was, he was 
> basically a nice person who didn't like hurting anyone, which would do him well 
> in most walks of life but made it a bit hard for him to be a net.hero.
> 
> In the thick smoke he heard a gun go off.
> 
> I guess my trading card won't be too valuable after this is done, he thought...

this is AMAZING

> So yeah. I'm aiming to get this out once every two weeks. I'll be posting the 
> first two chapters sequentially and then alternating with Victory (so Ic an keep 
> the same numbering, which is pleasing to my autism brain).

Oooo yes. :>

> I'll be aiming to 
> focus on one scene/major turning point per chapter, sometimes splitting them up 
> into two if they get too long, as this one did. No schedule survives contact 
> with reality, of course, but I am trying to move toward posting shorter units I 
> can get out more quickly. Breaking the Kirby barrier, as Michel Fiffe called it.

Hell yes, same!

> Next: Another net.hero enters the fray!

NICE.

Drew "god I love this so much" Perron