LNH: Classic LNH Adventures #236: Just Another Multi-Writer Cascade that will Probably Never Have an Ending Part Two

[Drew Nilium]

On 3/15/22 4:45 PM, Jeanne Morningstar wrote:
> On 3/13/22 4:07 PM, Arthur Spitzer wrote:
<snip>
>> In the LNHQ of the city of Necropolis in alt.obituaries, five men are 
>> gathered. They call themselves the Saviors of the Net.
> 
> So.
> 
> By this point, I had gotten back into comics after being away for a while, and 
> started posting actively on tumblr. This was the time when there was a whole 
> surge of queer comics fandom surrounding some of Marvel's more colorful and 
> emotionally and narrative accessible series like Deconnick's Captain Marvel 
> Captain Marvel, Fraction/Aja/Wu Hawkeye and Gillen/McKelvie Young Avengers.

That was a good era... shame it was so short. >:/ But that's the society we're 
working in - we only managed to get that far because of the battles those before 
us had fought, and to bring it back, to go further, we have to fight even harder!

> At the same time, as soon as it crossed over with Captain Marvel, I was also 
> drawn heavily into Jonathan Hickman's massive Avengers run. (A work I'd go on to 
> keep referencing later, as seen in  That had a very strongly contrasting feel 
> with the other works I mentioned--creepy, abstract and cosmic.

Which is kind of the dichotomy of your work. :>

> I began to think about the contrast in mood and what would happen if those 
> different storylines were brought together. What happens if you crash YA's queer 
> hedonism into Hickmanvengers' cosmic doominess? (The answer is you get the 
> present day twitter zeitgeist... this was kind of a forward looking story in 
> some ways, I guess.)

Hm. X3 Excellent point.

> Characteristically, I pulled in a loose end from an old story, specifically the 
> version of the LNH2 future seen in Ultimate Mercenary v1 #5. My work has a very 
> strong sense of internal continuity. When I want to tell some different kind of 
> story, I frequently repurpose something I have lying around instead of making it 
> up out of the whole cloth.

Hell yeah. <3 I respect that a lot.

> When I wanted a Young Avengers equivalent, I pulled in the supporting cast from 
> UM V1, the team now known as the Liminals. (Even though Drew had already kind of 
> thrown in an YA-based team.)

Yours was of course actually well-defined, so. X3

>> "Yeah," said Manga Girl. It was the first time Victoria had seen her frown 
>> since she could remember. "Any of you figure out where Merc is? The last I 
>> remember we escaped the Crossover Queen [Ultimate Mercenary v1 #7], then you 
>> dropped him off in the middle of that Hungry Past mess and you said he wasn't 
>> part of our world anymore... [in Just Imagine, whenever we get that sorted out.]"
> 
> I do wish I hadn't skipped Just Imagine, and yet I kind of had to--it still 
> feels kind of big and overwhelming, but I feel like we can build up enough 
> momentum from our other writing that it'll get done someday.

Yeah, it was the right decision. I've been starting to Feel it again lately.

> I really did have a 
> problem in the past with overcommitting to things. I've been slowly getting 
> better at this.

Big same, on both sides. X3 I feel like my big breakthru came when, towards the 
end of the conflagration of sabertoothly enthusiasm in October and November of 
2020, I went "Okay, I'm going to draw together all the disparate elements we've 
thrown in here so they can be resolved in the end." And I just kept working away 
at that thru 2021, and now here we are.

>> Masterplan Lad nodded. "At any rate," he said, "at least now I can tell where 
>> in my own timeline my stories are supposed to be taking place."
> 
> Ahahaha, well.

Well, once we got v2 #50 published. X3

>> Manga Girl threw up her hands. "Let's go to a PARTY!"
> 
> Referencing the famous party that wrapped up Young Avengers--which I also drew 
> on for inspiration with the epilogue bits of LNH v2 #50.

Yessss. :D

>> A horde of dark squarish shapes appeared in the sky and descended to the 
>> earth. They were gigantic cans of Spam with googly eyes affixed on them. "Sexe 
>> boobs!" they chanted as one in harsh metallic voices as they crashed to the 
>> Earth with a mighty clang. "Sexe boobs! Sexe boobs!"
> 
> This was a real spam. So was "nice boops."

heeheehee

>> It was Arcanis, the entity in the form of a sword she'd grabbed in the 
>> Crossover Queen's Citadel she was apparently stuck with.
> 
> I don't know where that name came from or what I had in mind originally. This 
> was one of those plot elements I kind of quietly buried.

I'm pretty sure I actually have a summary of your original idea somewhere in an 
ancient Google Doc. X3 But the idea you've told me about more recently is better.

>> Victoria lumbered forward through the depths of Limbo and reached inside the 
>> Spambot, yanking out its central processor (or something), a disgusting slab 
>> of spam.
> 
> This was a neat (kind of Lurking Girl-inspired) use of her powers, I should have 
> her do that again sometime.

Absolutely. :D

>> "Plot Device," said Masterplan Lad. "And I was trying to make some form of 
>> intervention. But the threads of storytelling here and now have gotten 
>> hopelessly tangled. It's even worse than Birth of a Villain."
> 
> Everything was so simple pre-HHS...

X3 Was it??

>> "I archive binged all the Infinite Leadership Crisis issues when we were in 
>> the end of time.
> 
> I suppose I shall have to write those issues sometime before the end of the 
> universe then. Maybe I can do it?

I know you can! :D

> Now by this time on tumblr, I'd gotten heavily into queer shipping for a while. 
> The big catalyst was Captain Marvel and Carol Danvers/Jessica Drew, a major 
> narrative focus of KSD's Captain Marvel around the time of the Enemy Within 
> storyline. This was the first time I was exposed to an in-depth, satisfyingly 
> complex relationship between women with a deep history together that mirrored 
> the wildly popular m/m ships I'd been exposed to, and it had a huge impact on 
> me. This was also around the time I got heavily back into Sailor Moon, which 
> pushed me even further in that direction.

yessssssss. <3 <3 <3

> With lesbian shipping goggles firmly welded on, I went back to my old LNH stuff 
> and found that Alice and Victoria's interactions were incredibly queer, as were 
> Victoria's reactions to the character who turned out to be the Crossover Queen. 
> (People being menaced by creepy domme types is an ongoing thread in my work; see 
> the issue I just posted.)

It sure fuckin' is. :D

> And, as with a lot of my stories, this was written to work with intense, 
> complicated feelings I have and thing I feared and wanted about my life. So, 
> this story played a huge role in being able to fully accept being queer.

:3 yessssssssss. <3 <3 <3

> Manga Girl jumping in to get Alice and Vic to admit their Feelings was also the 
> first time she had a major impact on the direction the series took; the second 
> was when she decided "The Liminals" was the actual team name rather than the 
> title of the series.

Yes good. :D

Drew "love Sakura Mangas" Nilium