LNH: Classic LNH Adventures #272: Integrity Quest Part Nine
Arthur Spitzer
arspitzer2 at gmail.com
Sun Jan 22 13:03:54 PST 2023
And we're back in the past and can check the eyrie archive
once again.
Here's where you can find the whole Integrity Quest and well as
Amabel Holland's very nice Integrity Quest Companion, which is
well worth a read:
https://archives.eyrie.org/racc/lnh/Crossovers/
And we're still in the Integrity Quest storyline! Hubert Bartels and
Doug Wojtowicz write episodes 15 and 16! Can Panta and Kid Anarky
stop Defacto's plot to Marvelize everything?! Can Lost Cause Boy
and Rochester stop Spitt from spitting on everything?! Is Kid
Anarky's Teddy Bear going to write an exciting tell-all book?! And will
we find out that Defacto is actually Geoff Johns?!
Find out in...
_
| | Classic
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| | ____ ____ _ ____ ___
| |__ | [] | | [] | | | | [] | | _ \
|____| \__] \__ | |_| \__/ |_|\_\
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|_| OF NET.HEROES
ADVENTURES #272
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Integrity Quest Part Nine
=====================
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From: hgb at catalina.edu (Hubert Bartels)
Subject: Integrity Quest: In the Embrace of Madness
NET.PATROL: Integrity Quest - part 15: IN THE EMBRACE OF MADNESS
[ In our last issue, Panta and Kid Anarky were sent to Metropolis to stop
the attack of the supervillain Spitt on the worlds of the non-mainstream
comics. The Net.tube dropped them in a small MidWestern city which was
promptly attacked by some vast metal construction on caterpillar treads.
Panta and Kid Anarky were surrounded by a team of Marvel Fanboys. And
taken prisoner.]
Kid Anarky groaned and held his furry teddy bear closer. He felt
as if he had caught a fever and was burning up inside. At least his old
teddy bear was here in bed with him. He ran his hand along the teddy bear's
warm furry sides. Until he reached something that felt like spandex. Warm?
Spandex? He couldn't remember his teddy bear wearing Spandex. His hand moved
a little further. Until he reached a round firm tail. Tail?
Kid Anarky opened his eyes. He was lying on the floor of a metal
cell, his hand planted on Panta's rump.
He screamed and jumped across the tiny cell. Suppose someone had
seen them? They almost killed Lost Cause Boy for much less. He sweated,
his mind full of hanging mobs, the 'W' word, and rolled up newspapers, full
of horrid angst.
Panta sat up at Kid Anarky's scream. At first she seemed completely
disoriented, turning around with claws extended, looking for a target. Then
her eyes centered on Kid Anarky and she straightened up. "Hi. Where are we?"
Kid Anarky cleared his mind of the angst trip. "Panta, you're orange
and yellow again."
"Ah, so I am." Panta scratched the fur on her arm. "I know we're on
that machine, but..."
Now that Panta mentioned the machine, Kid Anarky noticed a distinct
rumbling under his feet. Somewhere close by, huge wheels turned and great
forces worked.
Panta worked her way across the tiny cell and raised herself by her
arms to peek out of the high porthole. "Kid Anarky?"
"Um" He watched her lithe spotted form hanging by her claws.
"Wasn't the sky sort white/grey when we arrived?"
"I guess so. It wasn't blue, I know."
"It's blue now." Panta dropped to the floor of the cell.
"So?"
"So! Defacto or whoever has figured out a way to Marvelize any
underground comic he comes across." The shock of what she was saying made
Panta slide down the cold metal walls to sit on the floor of the cell. "He
can make any comic into a clone of Uncanny X-men!"
The two were interrupted by the sounds of a key at the door. The
door was opened by a typical thug, heavyset with cauliflower ears and a
flat broken nose. "Boss wants ta see ya. Best not keep him awaitin'" he
drawled.
Kid Anarky scrambled to his feet. Panta followed him out of the
cell. "So who's the boss," she asked as she passed the thug.
"Don't give me any lip," he warned. He led them down the long corridor
of cell doors into a TurboLift(tm). The TurboLift(tm) hummed and delivered
them to a huge black room.
A single spotlight shone on a black plastic Onion. The Onion unpeeled
layer after layer. Inside was the back of a leather office chair.
"Da prisoners from Kitchen Sink, Boss," the thug drawled, knuckling
his craggy fist to his forehead in salute.
The leather chair revolved, revealing a form that Panta had last seen
in her Mutant Guest Quarters below the LNH headquarters.
"Defacto..." she breathed.
"Panta. What a pleasant surprise," the editor of Evil quipped. "I
was just going to drop in on you and see how you were doing. I wasn't sure
of your location. Was it Lost Cause Boy's room? Or Kid Anarky's Or another
of your teammates???" He smiled wickedly.
Panta was furious. "It wasn't like that!" she snarled. "Nothing
like that!" Speechless by the insult, she clenched her furry fists.
Defacto made little shaking off signs with his hands. "It's not
important anymore. I believe you will be guesting with us for a while. So,"
he said waving his hands around. "what do you think of my construction? I
call it 'MachineThing'"
"'MachineThing?'"
"Isn't it cute?" he smiled wickedly again. "Manga Man hinted at it
for me. He showed me the opening of Robot Carnival. I love it!"
"What's happening out there?" Kid Anarky asked.
"I'm going to remake all the Universes into copies of my own. Then
I'm going to run an Infinite Crisis on all of them and collapse them into
one. That one, I'm going to rule forever and forever and forever and..."
Defacto collapsed into a bout of manical laughter.
"Sounds like he escaped from some type of cosmic insane asylum..."
Kid Anarky whispered to Panta.
The manical laughter suddenly stopped. "I heard that!" Defacto
shouted. "That's not Politically Correct! And it wasn't really that type
of place... not, I just needed a rest. A little rest. A little rest from
editing. That's what it was, just a little rest..." He giggled nervously.
"And then I left early to take over the Multiverse..."
Panta and Kid Anarky exchanged nervous looks.
"I think you should have an opportunity to assist me. Guard!"
Defacto shouted.
"Yeah, Boss?" the thug answered.
"Take these two down to the shipping room and have them get the
next month's issues ready." The interview was over; the leather chair
revolved again and the black Onion sealed itself up.
"Ya heard da Boss." the thug said in a low threating voice. "Time
to go to work."
The room behind the doors marked 'Shipping' was huge, dimly lit,
and filled with boxes and boxes of comics. The boxes stood in stacks
reaching far over Panta's head to where the ceiling lights shone. The thug
pulled two smaller boxes closer to where Panta and Kid Anarky were sitting
and opened one. "Dis here's the Sliderman 2099 tradin' cards. Youse guys
are gonna put one of 'm in each one of dese comics. Den, ya put da comics
inna da bag and seal it. Got it?"
Panta and Kid Anarky nodded their heads.
"Good. I'll be back to bring ya lunch..." He left, locking the
doors behind him.
Panta sat down on the stack of trading cards. "What are we going
to do?" she asked sadly.
Kid Anarky studied the trading cards that Panta sat on. It was
safer than studying Panta herself. "If we could only divide Defacto's army,
if we could only slow them down somehow..."
"Like if we got them fighting each other? Like all those Superhero
teams?" Panta asked breathlessly.
"Yeah... Wait a minute! I got an idea. How do you think Defacto pays
his minions?"
"Money?"
"No, no, no. If they wanted money, they'd be stockbrokers, not
Fanboys. What do Fanboys really want from life?"
"Women?"
"No, no, no, Panta. Be serious now."
Panta stared at the rows and rows of comics filling the room on all
sides. "I don't know," she confessed, dropping her head on her furry chest.
"Comics. Comics with trading cards. And if only a few comics had the
trading cards?"
"They'd fight over it!" Panta shouted, jumping in the air, furry
fist raised high. "What a wonderful idea!" She pounced on Kid Anarky and
gave him a hug that almost cracked his ribs.
"Ugh, ugh, cough, cough," said Kid Anarky when Panta released him.
"So how are we going to destroy these trading cards?" He held one up by
the edges, 3 1/2" by 2 1/2", brightly colored. "How?"
[ How are our heros going to stop the Dreaded Defacto from remaking the
Multiverse into a Marvel franchise? What has become of the B&W comic
worlds that 'MachineThing' has gone through? All these and Panta's
secret thoughts in the next part of Integrity Quest. ]
Lost Cause Boy (tm) Douglas P. Wojtowicz, Kid Anarky (tm) Stephane Savoie
Panta (furry) Hubert Bartels. Copyright 1994, Hubert Bartels
-------------------------------------------------------------------------------
I N T E G R I T Y Q U E S T
Reprinting the Integrity Quest books from 1993
Vol 3.2
In which Lost Cause Boy and Rochester take on the
supervillain Spitt. Meanwhile, Panta and Kid Anarky
try to make their escape from the MachineThing.(tm)
-------------------------------------------------------------------------------
From: U16244 at uicvm.uic.edu
Subject: LNH: INTEGRITY QUEST is kind of meandering at this moment
When we last left our brave and valiant... er, Marvel.. no, that's not it,
Defiant...Gallant, yeah, gallant (any comic company with that name? No? good.)
heroes, they were getting ready to split up after rising from the dead and
going through the retcon chamber until the story had all the consistency of
an issue of Yakblood. The cover of this issue has Lost Cause Boy looking
back over his shoulder to see two blank holes shaped like Panta and Kid
Anarky behind him as Rochester charges on, Lost Cause Boy going, "Uh... guys?"
NET.PATROL: Integrity Quest - part 16: THE BIG DUMB FIGHT TO END
ALL BIG DUMB FIGHTS.
Lost Cause Boy looked at his watch, looking up to see Rochester leaning against
the cash station machine.
"Listen, why don't you just use your damn credit card? Cripes!" complained
LCB.
"Don't get me started. You hadda go and give the Plot Devices to your girl
friend and that other loser, and then we both get stuck without one," Rochester
snarled. "And I wanted to go fight Spitt!"
"Yeah, yeah, yeah. Just chill out..."
Suddenly, the sound of crashing stone and metal filled the air. Both heroes
whirled, seeing a large portion of Net.tropolis crashing to the ground like in
that one Max Fleischer Bongo Cartoon where the end of the world switch is
thrown.
"Yeesh, look at the cheesy effects," Rochester said. "Wonder what's happening?"
"It can't be. Spitt was supposedly going to attack Metropolis, the comic
book. Not Net.tropolis!!! And we've still got to save the Crossroads!"
Spitt stood on the wreckage of a building, snarling down on Rochester and
LCB. LCB squinted, looking at the huge creature's buldging arm with the
black armband on it.
"Who's the armband for?" LCB asked.
"The big muscle guy. We're gonna kill each other. HOOOOOOEEEEEEKKK-SPWUAT!"
Spitt spat.
LCB deftly deflected the loogie with an issue of Guardians of the Galaxy with
a foil cover. "Always knew foil covers were good for something. Hey!!! That's
a nasty habit!"
"What?" Spitt asked. "HOOOOOOOOEEEEEEEEKKK! PATOOOIE!"
Rochester incinerated the loogie with his amazing Laser Vision (tm) and
folded his arms. "Take a wild guess."
"Them's fighting words," Spitt snarled, lunging into Rochester. The two
immensely strong beings started hammering each other as LCB saw the
money spit out of the cash machine.
Thinking quickly, he took the cash and raced over to LNH HQ, reaching the gift
shop and buying two plot devices and a crate of Skippy. He glanced nervously
out the window, seeing the crater slowly growing as the pair battled, waiting
for his change.
"One pen...ny, two pen...ny..." LCB looked at the cashier's name tag. It
was Emo.
"Keep it! Charge it to my account!" LCB raced out of the store with the
plot devices and the 55 pounds of peanut butter.
Spitt stood over Rochester, both beings torn and battered. A cruel sneer
crossed the demon's lips as he raised his clawed fist to deliver the death
blow to Rochester.
"Hey Spit-head. Pick on somebody your own size!" LCB challenged.
"Lemme finish this guy off. It's my duty. After all, we are parodying the
Superman Death issues. HOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEE-ACK!"
Spitt began before he suddenly got hit in the mouth by the 55 pounds of
peanut butter bought by LCB.
"What.... did... you... do???" Spitt gasped, his mouth masticating on the
large amount of the sticky stuff. "I.... can't...."
"You can't spit loogie man. The gum is keeping you from it," LCB said. "You
see, brute force isn't the only way to stop you. It's just that some people
don't have the imagination."
Spitt grasped his throat. "Someone... give me.... heimlich... choking!!!"
Rochester rose to his feet. "No! We don't do it this way! Got to save him!"
But Spitt was far too fat for even Rochester's mighty muscles to save him as
the giant dropped to the ground. Rochester looked down at his former foe.
"I'm not a killer."
"Me neither," LCB said, turning to the cash machine and using it's computer
to upload Spitt to alt.fan.bugtown, where all things that die there are
regenerated.
"Will he be okay?" Rochester asked.
"He'll be alive," LCB said. "Not even ERNIE's and Imag(inationless)'s forces
can cause harm to bugtown."
LCB handed Rochester the plot device. "Here. I owe you for the gum."
"Thanks for saving my life. But where did you..." rochester began.
"Simple. I used a half-way intelligent, totally bizarre, Grant Morrison
Doom Patrol solution," LCB said, smiling knowingly.
"Doom... Patrol? Didn't Erik Larsen do that book?"
"Take it easy. One thing at a time. First, we battle Yakblood."
"Then can I see those Erik Larsen Doom Patrols?" Rochester asked.
Lost Cause Boy's eyes glowed with dark malice. "All in good time..."
Rochester and Lost Cause Boy were waylaid by Douglas P. Wojtowicz.
-------------------------------------------------------------------------------
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Next Week: More Integrity Quest!
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Arthur "Same Classic Channel. But Same Time? Probably not." Spitzer
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