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

Drew Nilium pwerdna at gmail.com
Tue Nov 9 19:28:25 PST 2021


On 11/9/21 10:01 AM, Jeanne Morningstar wrote:
> 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.

That's an excellent point! :>

> Thankfully, we don't have a superhero 
> murdering an entire country in this one.

aaaaaaaaaaargh indeed @@ raaaaaaaaage

>> 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.

Yessssss. <3

>> 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.

Yeah, I feel like I've been juggling around bits and pieces of the setting and 
figuring out where they should go, and now most of them are in place. <3

>> 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.

It probably is. X3

>> [*]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.

IT'S TRUE.

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

Ahh, so that's why you're so into the Crossover Queen. :3

>>>       "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.

It's true!! <3

>>>       "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).

BM really did a better version of a whole bunch of big crossover storylines.

>>>       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.

It's true! :3

>> 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.

That's an excellent point! :>

>>>        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.

Yes agreed. <3 Ongoing supporting casts are so important!!

>>>        "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.

Curses. X3

Drew "still gonna write my characters eventually" Nilium


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