LNH: Classic LNH Adventures #94 -- FLAME WARS IV Part One

[Drew Perron]

On 2/10/2019 4:02 PM, Arthur Spitzer wrote:

<snip>
> So is it just another typical day of the LNH schmoozing with Giant Radioactive
> Hamsters From A Planet Far Beyond Mars -- or is it going to be a more flamey
> warry type of day?!!!

The forecast calls for FLAME with occasional WARS!!

> .                                                __________________________
>      ////// ///       ///     ///     /// ////// |_    __  ______________  _|
>     ///    ///      // //    ///// ///// //        |  |  \ \            / /
>    /////  ///      //////   /// /// /// /////      |  |   \ \          / /
>   ///    ///     ///  ///  ///     /// ///         |  |    \ \        / /
> ///    ////// ///    /// ///     /// //////       |  |     \ \      / /
>                                                    |  |      \ \    / /
>          ///     ///    ///     ////// //////      |  |       \ \  / /
>         ///     ///   // //    /// //  ///         |  |        \ \/ /
>        /// /// ///   //////   /////    ///         |  |         \  /
>       ///// /////  ///  ///  /// ///    ///       _|  |__________\/_________
>      ////   //// ///    /// ///  /// //////      |__________________________|

I love ASCII logos.

>       The spaceship approached the Looniearth and entered Usenetted States
> airspace at 27 minutes past 10 eastern standard time. It's presence was
> not noticed by any ground based radar systems - partly because it was
> magically shielded from detection, and partly because the radar pattern
> of it's wooden hull would've made no sense to the computers and been
> ignored even if it had not been shielded.

Lov those worldbuilding details~

> The tourists and newbies
> took photos while the jaded long time residents of the city shrugged
> their shoulders and got on with their business.

Shrug emoji

>       Once the space ship had landed the police department put up a cordon
> around it, mainly to keep anybody from spraying graffiti over it. 

*snerk*

> They
> were reluctant about this sort of guard duty, since if the aliens were
> hostile then it was nigh inevitable a large number of cops would be
> killed with over-hyped special effects before the Legion of Net.Heroes
> arrived to engage the aliens in climactic battle

Neverrrr... hm, wait, all cops are bastards... nope, still not doin' it in my 
stories >:/

> For his part the Mayor had a meeting with
> Senator Amanda Bedfellow that afternoon about the ongoing funding
> problems for Net.ropolis' perpetual disaster area classification, and he
> really didn't have the time to be waiting about to see whether these were
> serious inter-stellar ambassadors or just more adolescent off-worlders
> out for a joyride.

Heeheehee

>       It was actually less than twenty minutes before the hatch to the
> spaceship opened and two giant hamsters walked out. Dallas noted this
> with relief, since it looked as if these particular extra-terrestrials
> didn't drool slime all over the place like some had a habit of doing.

Hamsters are pretty chill, I find. ...okay not *chill* as such, but...

>       The larger of the two hamsters stepped forward and replied, "Thank
> you. I am Re'quee, ambassadorial assistant of the Giant Radioactive
> Hamsters From A Planet Far Beyond Mars to Webster's World. This is my
> brother, Branb'ss."
>       "Hello," chirruped the smaller of the two.

Cute. :>

>       "Actually, we're here to see the Legion of Net.Heroes if at all
> possible," Re'quee said. "There are certain recent events in galactic
> politics that might cause problems for your planet, and my people thought
> it would be good to warn your planetary champions about them."
>       Dallas blinked. It was mildly surprising to meet aliens who were
> that friendly.

Surprising but welcome! :D I need to do more of those.

>       The man known as Fearless Leader was, by an ironic turn of events
> and some amazing silliness on the part of the Writers, the second-in-
> command of the Legion of Net.Heroes.

Heeheehee. :3

> He had once been something more but,
> well, that was an alternate reality.

I enjoy the LNH20 version a lot. :>

>       As he was walking through the corridors of the building he suddenly
> encountered a vagueness. A vagueness that seemed to have a mail bag over
> its shoulder. "Hello Fuzzy," he said.

This is such a good description.

>       "Nothing much at the moment, fortunately," said Fearless Leader.
>       "That dull, huh?" she quipped.
>       "Only if you look at it that way," he said with a wry grin. "I
> prefer to think of the quiet times as conformation that we've done our
> work properly, and that the normal people we're supposed to be protecting
> are getting on with their lives."

a.) This is, I think, the *core* of Fearless Leader. He cares about helping 
people and making the world safe, and he sees it as a task to be accomplished.
b.) I know what happens in the rest of this crossover OH NO ;-;

>       Fearless Leader and Fuzzy both wheeled to see the striking figure of
> All-Knowing Last-Chance Whiner Destiny Woman (who was almost as annoying
> as the Dvandom Stranger when it came to giving cryptic warning about
> possible future plot threads before vanishing to leave the heroes to deal
> with the consequences in appropriately dramatic fashion).

And twice as cute! (Sorry, Dave.)

>       The seeress

Seeress? O.o That's an odd word to gender

> Mystic-looking smoke
> had been billowing from behind her cloak throughout this visitation, and
> now AKLCWDWoman vanished within it entirely. A second later the smoke
> began to dissipate, revealing that she had gone.
>       "I wonder if she's feeling distracted?" mused Fuzzy. "Lately she's
> taken to swirling her cloak around herself when she makes her dramatic
> exits."

*snerk*

>       Fearless Leader's comm.thingee bleeped. "Fearless Leader to Ultimate
> Ninja's office," it requested in a typically Majel Barrett sounding voice.

That's how I imagine all polite computers.

>       "Teasers?" asked Fearless Leader.
>       Dallas O'Rourke put in, "It's the name for rich and spoiled extra-
> terrestrial children who have nothing better to do than to travel to
> worlds that haven't made official interstellar contact yet, particularly
> ones were the concept of intelligent life on other planets is known but
> not fully accepted, and rampage about creating sightings of UFO's. They
> treat it like a prank, which means they engineer fleeting glimpses of
> themselves in circumstances where no evidence will be left behind. A
> large number of the alien contacts that the mayoral office has on file
> have been teasers, and that's counting only those aliens who have tried
> to pull their pranks on the local government. The state and federal
> people probably have more, and there are probably a lot more cases where
> the juvenile delinquents simply picked on some poor person out in the
> middle of nowhere and who had no way of getting anyone to believe their
> experience to even get it on file."

This is one of Saxon's recurring concepts. Motif!

>       "They would," agreed Re'quee "but that's not the only possibility.
> No sooner had the council started, than Flipseid arrived and threatened
> the assemblage."
>       "Flipseid!" hissed by Fearless Leader and Kid Kirby in near unison.

The correct reaction. <3

>       "A nightmare from the darkest Age of Disco," pronounced Kid Kirby
> grimly. "He is one of the Net.Gods - nay, the most powerful of the dark
> Net.Gods - and ruler of the planet Topphorti. There was a time when it
> seemed that he would twist the entire universe into a dark parody of
> itself to suit his whim, and only cosmic war with his opposites from New
> Collins stopped him.

Oh, I didn't realize "New Collins" had actually been used in mainline canon. 
...oh well! *retcon retcon*

>       "Splashpage?" blinked Ultimate Ninja. Even his legendary unflappable
> nature was temporarily bemused by this addition. It was almost a non-
> sequitur. "I'm not sure who you are talking about. The only Splashpage I
> can think of is a minor supervillainess with fourth wall manipulating
> powers. She was working with Exclamation!Master! until his villain team
> inevitably broke apart."
>       "The Etaoin Shrdlu said she was a fifth level adeptus of the fourth
> wall, and she transformed virtually the entire council into paper sheets
> with biographical descriptions of their flesh-and-blood selves," Re'quee
> said.
>       "That does sound like Splashpage," admitted Fearless Leader, trying
> to recall the LNH's file on the woman, "but vastly more powerful than
> we've encountered. Fourth Wall Lass estimated her as being only about
> second or third level."

You know, I don't think the difference between these two portrayals was ever 
expanded upon.

>       OMAR (the One Man Abusive Reaction) turned away from his most
> recent diatribe, convinced that there was no way that anyone could
> possibly match *that* put down.
>       He never seemed to notice that no matter how many ultimate insults
> he launched against his detractors, they never seemed to be cowed into
> the abject obeisance that his ego demanded. He also never seemed to
> notice that others failed to make the subtle distinction between his
> posts that he saw: that some were meant to inflame sensibilities and
> incite comment, while others were terminating rebuttals meant to shut
> people up when he had grown tired of them.
>       But even if he had, he would've just dismissed it as everybody else
> being stupid.

Well frankly this just reminds me of the Limp-Asparagus Lad issue about the 
Presidency. o3o

>       He was small and wizened and green and ugly, as befitted the
> portfolio that he held as the net.god of trolling. In fact, he looked
> vaguely like Yoda, but without any of the charisma.

*snerk*

>       The little figure was about to scan over the current posts to see
> what new ab.omar.nations he could commit

Heeheehee I love puns
>       "Enter, OMAR. You have spent enough time at your vile amusements.
> It is time to put your talents to constructive use."
>       The diminutive green net.god bobbed his head in acquiescence and
> stepped into the glowing hole. Then the hole vanished, leaving no sign
> that it, or its passenger, had ever been there at all.

Mmmmmm nice creepybit. <3 Love it.

>       OMAR, of course, is a satire on the various troublemakers calling
> themselves 'Omar' on rec.arts.comics.creative's sister newsgroups like
> r.a.c.dc.universe and r.a.c.marvel.universe.

Of course. <3 The LNH does this sort of thing quite often.

> On a comics level, he is
> also meant as an analogue of the DC comics New God called Sleez, who
> debuted back in the late 1980s in Action Comics #592-593, and who mind
> controlled Superman and Big Barda into starring in a porno movie for him.

Aaaaaaa that guy. x-x

Drew "John Byrne was never very good at New Gods TBH" Perron