LNH: Classic LNH Adventures #221: LNH vII #50 Part One

Jeanne Morningstar mrfantastic7 at gmail.com
Tue Nov 9 07:01:06 PST 2021


On 11/8/21 11:25 PM, Drew Nilium wrote:

 > WOOOOO! I've probably read thru this half a dozen times or more since I
 > posted it. Everyone put so much good energy into it.

I've been rereading 52, and this issue reminds me a lot of that in terms 
of being the work of a group of creators with very distinct, 
well-defined voices but also feeling like a cohesive whole. Thankfully, 
we don't have a superhero murdering an entire country in this one.

> 
> Completely understandable, and TBH, The Cat With Glasses was very much 
> worth it. :>

It's wild how much influence that story had in the long term, with the 
Brad Pitt thing being a central part of WikiLull.


> 
> Incredibly understandable. I feel like you, me, and Jeanne all felt 
> individually responsible for the post-Martingeddon slump, but really, 
> it's nobody's fault but his. (And, you know, all the other forces that 
> keep us from writing, internal and external.)

I feel like it took us a really long time to gain a sense of closure 
after All That, which was part of why it was hard for me to write for 
LNH sometime. (And yeah, the impact it had on LNH20, something I put a 
lot of myself into, was a big part of it.) Both personally and in terms 
of our collective narrative movement--the whole last decade was kind of 
about trying to resolve what the LNH was after Martin's 
characters--especially Master Blaster, who'd kind of been a central part 
of the LNH in the 2000s--were gone. I don't think I fully resolved that 
for myself until LNH v3 #3. We got some amazing writing and ideas out of 
working through that, though.

> That was part of it, and it was also justifying horrifying takes on 
> queer characters *and* Master Blaster tormenting WikiBoy[*] and also 
> started with a summary of #50 that ended with "There. Now you don't have 
> to read it." or something. @@

I no longer even remember how queer characters ended up being a part of 
that argument, and that's probably for the best.


> 
> [*]Also weirdly John Byrne-esque, actually, comparable to his Fantastic 
> Four run saying that Galactus's existence is cosmically necessary And 
> That Is That. I'm not sure if I'm Chris Claremont in that situation or 
> Jeanne is. X3

I feel like I'm usually Chris Claremont in most cases, both in the "long 
running subplot" sense and the "making everything gay" sense.

I guess Drew is Louise Simonson, if only because Power Pack is an 
extremely Drew-like concept.

> :> Jeanne definitely helped, including just keeping my writing energy up 
> in general. X3
<3


> gaaaaad Martin's origins. Can't wait for Retcon Year.

*looks around nervously*

> 
>>       "Do you see what's happening here?" said 
>> You're-Not-Hitting-Me-Hard-
>> Enough Lad, turning to his friends. "How can the LNH fight the evil and
>> injustices in the world -- when it takes a blind eye to the evil and
>> injustice within its own halls?
> 
> This is a theme I've been coming back to. <3 It's extremely relevant 
> nowadays. @-@

This issue was really the one that cemented a lot of the core ideas and 
themes of the post-Beige era of LNH, and that's one of the big ones.


> This climax is Martin's and it's also pretty funny. X3
> 
>>       "It's an alien! A Dorf! A Dorfian shapeshifter!" said Ubiquitous 
>> Boy
>> Lad Jr., voice filled with horror and relief.
> 
> DUN DUN DUNNNNN!

It's interestng how the Dorfs basically take on the properties of 
diffrent kind of aliens in pop culture--they started out as a Borg riff, 
became the Klingons and this issue borrows heavily from Secret Invasion 
(but it works much better, just as Beige Midnight's version of President 
Luthor, the Registration Act and Project Everyman did).

> 
>>       Right on cue, as if from thin air, Doctor Stomper appeared.
>>
>>       "Gah!" said Ubiquitous Boy Lad Jr.
> 
> Due to the piecemeal writing process, a *lot* of characters just kind of 
> popped up out of nowhere in this story, and I tried to smooth those 
> transitions as best I could. I'd be better at it now. X3

That's a real Old LNH kind of humor though.

> So, after Jeanne put Masterplan Lad in this, other writers kept using 
> him in new LNH v2 stories. This, of course, is rad, but also, there had 
> never been a story written where he actually joined the LNH - he'd only 
> ever appeared as an ally of Ultimate Mercenary as they journeyed thru 
> various alternate timelines. Jeanne tied that up in Just Another 
> Cascade, around the time I was working toward finishing this, and I took 
> the opportunity to do a little continuity-finagling via time travel. Not 
> that you need to know that, because...

I do like how MPL was part of the Core LNH for a bit and basically had 
the same trajectory of early Writer Characters like Sig.Lad, becoming 
part of the LNH's central narrative and then diverging again.


> 
>>        Heaving a sigh of frustration, he passed through the double doors
>> and saw a Japanese woman sitting behind the desk, hurriedly struggling
>> to get some paperwork done. This must be Kyoko Ishikawa.
> 
> Jeanne and I use her a lot! :D

I really like the idea of her being a meaningful narrative presence 
having her own life outside the LNH. Like the occasional human 
supporting characters such as Stevie Hunter in 80s X-Men (Claremont 
again). I feel like losing normal human supporting casts around the 
90s/00s has been a big problem for suerphero comics.

> 
>>        "No, I'm already a member of the team, though I haven't been 
>> around
>> very much. I'm Masterplan Lad." He hoped she wouldn't remember who he
>> was, not to mention the fact that he'd accidentally destroyed the LNHQ.
>> [In one of the Infinite Leadership Crisis issues that Adrian swears he's
>> going to write someday -- Footnote Girl]
>>
>>        "Wait, didn't you destroy the LNHQ?"
> 
> Heeheeheehee

At this point, I've decided it would be funnier if I never actually 
wrote those issues.


> 
>>        "And the number one reason List Lad won't be attending tonight's
>> party," Pulls-Paper-Out-of-Hats Lad continued. "Because of what Toony
>> Stork did to me and the woman we both loved during the LNH's very first
>> mission."
> 
> An excellent cliffhanger to leave off on. :D
> 
> Drew "DUN DUN DUNNNN" Nilium



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