LNH: Sound of Clashing Metal #4 - Annotated

[Dave Van Domelen]

SOUND OF CLASHING METAL #4 - The Annotated Version
copyright 1992, 1996 Dave Van Domelen
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[Thanks to Tori for providing the archive disk which contained, among
other things, this lost part of the Sound of Clashing Metal. Since the
gags in here may be too obscure for newer readers to get (frankly, *I* don't
get them all anymore), explanations and other comments will be provided in
brackets.]

Article 223 of alt.comics.lnh: [Ah, the good old days!]
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dvandom
From: dva...@magnus.acs.ohio-state.edu (David VanDomelen)
Subject: Sig.Lad escapes!
Message-ID: <1992Oct16.1...@magnus.acs.ohio-state.edu>
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Organization: The Ohio State University
Date: Fri, 16 Oct 1992 18:44:01 GMT [I feel old.]
Lines: 46 [Yep, posts were short in those days.]

Sig.Lad fought off the ravening hordes of random characters that trapped
him in port 19, but it was no use. The flood of meaningless data was too
strong to swim against, and soon he was overcome by it. [Netlurker, at
Acton Lord's behest, had trapped Sig.Lad in an echo server in part 3.]
For what seemed to be an eternity (or was it an antarctic press?)
[Ninja High School was published by both Antarctic Press and Eternity in
its run.] Sig.Lad was bombarded with contradictory falsehoods and general
garbage. He tried to surround himself in a cocoon of .sigs to protect
himself, but it was no use. The bombardment penetrated even his thickest
.sigs. He felt himself going raving mad. Then he got better, regaining his
silent lucidity. But he was no longer the same net.persona he had been. He
was evil, in an insane sort of way, and reveled in it. [There ya go, a
complete rip-off of the Warlock/Magus origin from the Jim Starlin Warlock
series.]
Using the power his insanity gave him access to, he easily broke free
of the loop he was trapped in, and found himself back in early July. He
was no longer Sig.Lad...he was now and forevermore,

*** ACTON LORD ***

* * * *

[Yep, even four years ago I was using that "three tabs and an asterisk,
repeat four times" separator.]

While Acton Lord began to use his memories to set in motion the complex
set of events that would lead to his creation (thereby retconning Dial "D"
for dvandom out of the post-Cry.Sig continuity), back in the present a
strange thing was happening. [Of course, this retcon would later lead to the
necessity of the Bellerophon Gambit to fix things.]
Sidewinder [remember, this was back when I thought Sidewinder was
public domain and had adopted him], having gotten into alt.fan.goons,
found a strange ragged idiot that bore a striking resemblance to Sig.Lad,
except that he seemed somehow...unstable. But before he could investigate
this further, he was distracted by a reference to marmalade and crossposted
to alt.breakfast.foods, leaving behind the ragged idiot. [Yes, I was
making Goon Show refs LOOONG before Crisis on Earth-Goon.]
The ragged idiot wandered the .goons group for a few days, until he
stumbled into a catchphrase and fell into the water.
"At last, my memory is restored! The contact with water broke the
memory block I suffered from! I am truly,
*** Claymore, the Sig.Warrior ***" [Namor, the Sub-Mariner. Yes, it
was a lame gag.]
Thus, Claymore immediately felt compelled to swim to the arctic and
hassle some eskimos (why are there eskimos in the Atlantic polar regions?
Ask Kirby.). Once he got there, he found a strange figure frozen in a
block of ice. Intrigued (hey, he's a good guy! He's not gonna just chuck
it in the ocean!), Claymore attached the heating unit from his outfit (how
else do you think he survived swimming in the Arctic?) to the block, and
melted it open to reveal
*** Old Comics Man ***! [I'd completely forgotten about this bit...
maybe Tony can work it into Challengers of the Abominable. Heh.]
"What's with all these asterisks? Why, in my day, we had two ways of
writing things: normal and boldface! And we LIKED it! And what's with
the two part name? 'Claymore the Sig.Warrior'? In the old days heroes
had one name, and maybe a secret identity. Which one is your real name?
Claymore's awfully stupid for a real name...unless you're an alien
invader? Naw, ya ain't got any z's or x's in your name...."

Dave Van Domelen, sitting on the ice with Old Comics Man and perhaps
regretting it....

[And thus ended the Sound of Clashing Metal. Not with a bang, but
with a segue into yet another gag. At least I didn't make any references
to Net the Giant Bouncing Eyeball in this one (I have NO idea where that
came from in the Netlurker piece...). This story led right into the
Claymore special, which led into Electrocutioner's Song.]