LSH #20 Roundup and Questions (spoilers, of course)
Dani Zweig
it, and highlight unanswered questions. This is *not* a scorecard, this
is not a replacement for the scorecard, and this is not a precedent.
Much of what follows is a compendium, shamelessly borrowed (I'm returning
it; that means it was only borrowed) from the postings of
morp...@yvonne.caltech.edu (Dream of the Endless); djd...@PacBell.COM
(Dan'l DanehyOakes); michael j pastor iii (guest on mk...@andrew.cmu.edu);
bo...@triton.unm.edu (Pisces); kh...@alydar.Eng.Sun.COM (Abhijit Khale);
nel...@desktop.nsc.com (Taed Nelson); he...@zoo.toronto.edu (Henry Spencer);
eca...@venus.lerc.nasa.gov (Ronald E. Graham); and me, of course.
Page 1: Have we heard of the Aetian sector before?
Page 2: 'The Thousand-Years' Folly'--in the Invasion! limited
series, the Dominators swore to conquer the Earth, 'even
if it takes a thousand years!' (Invasion! was set in the 20th Century).
The "Thousand-Year's Folly," and the reference to "the importance of Earth"
both pertain to the prevalence of the Meta-Gene on Earth.
Page 4: Former Ambassador Relnic is now UP Council Chairman Relnic.
Anyone know what E.C.C. stands for?
Page 6: It looks like a man and a woman ambushed poor Devlin...any guesses
as to who? The "He's wounded" suggests that what they zapped him
with was *not* a weapon. A super power?
Page 7: Sounds like some super-powered experimental subjects have escaped
the Dominators. The phrase "every one" suggests that there were
at least three of them, so (unless they separated) they're probably not
the ones who got Devlin. Presumably they will include one or more of the
new Legionnaires we had some advance word about.
Page 8: The teleporter-gun also reminds of the 'experimental teleporter'
that several of the Legionnaires used to reach Takron-Galtos
during the Great Darkness. Seemed to work better then, too...
Laurel seems to be making heavy use of electronic disguises. Comes of
being conspicuous, I guess.
Page 9: Let's see, Celeste wants to kill Brainy because the emphasis in
'working model' turned out not to be on 'working'. Salu (looking ahead a
few pages) is unhappy that he failed to mention how her new leg was going to
look. Jo seems to be at a low point in his Braniac-appreciation cycle,
probably because Braniac is being a trifle officious. Rokk may be said to
be a trifle irked... Possibly he is overly frustrated by Laurel and Rond
being together and taking it out on everyone else. Is another breakdown
coming?
Page 10: Amethyst (born a Lord of Order in human form, and on Gemworld)
is the Yang/female to the Archmage. Amethyst absorbed herself into
Gemworld in her miniseries set 20 years in Gemworlds future. In Books of
Magic #4, Mr. E tells Tim that she lived on in what he called "stolen
flesh", eventually dying a mortal.
Mysa refers to 'it'...is she speaking of magic itself, the soul of Amethyst,
the Gemworld/Zerox/the Sorceror's World?
Page 13: Starfinger's ring has been playing musical chairs since this series
began. Presumably the Legion is going to find itself fighting
the new Starfinger (and Tweedledee and Tweedledum, or whatever their names
are) some time next year.
Is Dirk dead? Earthgov is not a reliable source. ("the still unexplained
detonation"...right.)
Anyone know if my guess is correct that the new Ranzz girls, Dacey and
Doritt, were named after some LSH fans who know the Bierbaums?
Page 15/19: Ivy is here. Does that mean that this is taking place in
Quarantine too? Might Christie be a patient? His clothes
suggest that, as does his strange reaction to a story which means so much
to him.
page 16: Shakespeare was a medic at Venando Bay? Is he Braalian, or was
he playing Foreign Legion? According to the Who's Who series,
Kent Shakespeare had his meta-gene activated by the damper -- entry was
written by the Bierbaums, so it's mostly-official. Did the damper
blast that gave him his powers cost him his magnetic powers? And Loomis
was there. We've been given no indication that he lost his powers. Why
do Braalians make so little use of their powers? Previous LSH comics have
see-sawed back and forth between claiming that Rokk's powers are/were
exceptional (possibly because he was born on Earth) and between claiming
that any magnoball champion is as powerful.
The damper blast bears a strong resemblance to the detonation of the gene
bomb in Invasion. The effects on Braalian powers, the disappearance of
many of the nearby Imskians, the triggering of Kent's powers, all suggest
that the damper is, in fact, a specialized version of the gene bomb.
An interesting speculation: The Dominators have been the source of all
sorts of new technology of late, and they're the ones who originally
developed the gene bomb. Perhaps the Damper field was developed by the
Dominators, and in fact the whole Imsk/Braal war was yet another Dominion-
instigated conflict?
Page 18: Rokk took Salu's eye! Or could this be a subcouncious guilt trip
by association? He knew she was there and he knows that is where
she got it scragged, so maybe he is associating that way.. If his memory
is correct, has he consciously put two and two together and realized who
that 'enemy soldier' was?
Page 19: Could the fact that Braniac wants Rokk hypnotized mean that he
thinks that the power loss might be partly psychological?
Page 20: What, doesn't Drura *like* Tenzil?
Page 21: Sorry, Tenzil, I don't think that Fiesta Brand Pudding and Pie
Filling is an element that Jan can make...
That map doesn't match the one the Dominator is looking at on page 7, but
it's probably the same chamber.
Page 22: Where did all these SPE's come from? In various issues, the
number of SPs on Earth has been reported to be as low as half a
dozen. Presumably Circe and Wellington have been recruiting heavily.
Was Bounty about to assassinate Circe, or was she gunning for Dominators?
(As an enlightened and unprejudiced citizen of the galaxy, Bounty should
be just as willing to kill humans.)
Page 24 (text page): An obvious parallel to the atomic bombs that ended
WW II, no? ... haven't decided yet if it's too
'preachy' or not...
Next Issue: The letters page contains the statement "All we can say about
Darkseid is...keep reading." In fact, "The Quiet Darkness"
has a good many parallels to "The Great Darkness" being set up, beyond the
similarity in names. Darkseid is coming back at the same time that Saturn
Girl is giving birth. Mysa would seem (on the basis of page 10) to be
involved. The ad simply refers to it as a "thematic" sequel.
The ad shows Ivy in it. Is she playing a major role? Is the woman with
her supposed to be Imra? It makes sense that she might be at Quarantine
when the trouble breaks, either to visit Garidan or to have the new twins
checked out. We don't know yet what Lobo's involvement will be.
-----
Dani Zweig
da...@netcom.com
"One of my favorite games when I was a kid was 'murder/suicide.'
Dad would show us a photo and ask us, "Is it a murder or a
suicide?" -- Colleen Doran
James Davis Nicoll
About Ivy: given that at least two LSH charcters (the Tornado Twins)
and several supporting characters are decended from 20th century heroes, is
it possible that Ivy's related to either Poison Ivy or Tefe? Not that there
any shortage of the metegene in 20th Century folks for 30th century types
to inheirit.
That's assuming no selection pressure to change the mg frequency.
If you can judge by the pajama police crowd, having the metegene increases
the odds you'll survive a catastrophe, but your social life will decline to
soap opera levels, not to mention the fact that active mg carriers seem to
seek out violent conflict. Maybe the mg is like sickle cell animia; a trait
that aids survial enough to offset the cases where it causes death.
Maybe the World Wars between now and the 30th century had something
to do with the apparent lack of mg carriers in LSH. If I were fighting a
nuclear war, and I knew about the metagene, I'd select out the mg carriers
for special duty to activate the mg. I expect mg soldiers would have high
death rates, since they'd face Big Guns and other mg soldiers, so perhaps
mg frequency is less in the 30th century because of this.
Maybe the mg carriers were the primary population used in ET colonies.
They do show an better ability to adapt than non-mg carriers.
I wonder what ever happened to Black Orchid? She does have a limited
form of serial immortality, after all.
James Nicoll
Kenneth Arromdee
> About Ivy: given that at least two LSH charcters (the Tornado Twins)
>and several supporting characters are decended from 20th century heroes, is
>it possible that Ivy's related to either Poison Ivy or Tefe? Not that there
>any shortage of the metegene in 20th Century folks for 30th century types
>to inheirit.
It's Tefe. (Or at least Swamp Thing.)
They're not allowed to say this in the comic, though. Go figure.
--
"Let's see your power stop me now, Deus ex Machina Man!"
[safe falls on villain]
"Not bad...."
Kenneth Arromdee (UUCP: ....!jhunix!arromdee; BITNET: arromdee@jhuvm;
INTERNET: arro...@cs.jhu.edu)
Tom Galloway
all the powerspheres on Earth going up (apparently one of the retcon waves
substantially weakened their potential. It used to be that one of these suckers
going up would destroy all of Metropolis, which in the 30th Century is the
entire BosWash corridor). But in this issue, outside of some ruins and snow, it
seems like everything's otherwise OK. They still have hightech facilities set up
and operating, etc. No way. After all that, there shouldn't be anything left on
Earth would fighting over, and the population should be back at 14th century
technology at best. This is getting right up there with the white dwarf star
incident for scientific silliness.
da...@netcom.COM (Dani Zweig) writes
>Page 6: It looks like a man and a woman ambushed poor Devlin...any guesses
> as to who? The "He's wounded" suggests that what they zapped him
>with was *not* a weapon. A super power?
>
>Page 7: Sounds like some super-powered experimental subjects have escaped
> the Dominators. The phrase "every one" suggests that there were
>at least three of them, so (unless they separated) they're probably not
>the ones who got Devlin. Presumably they will include one or more of the
>new Legionnaires we had some advance word about.
Maybe. There's a possibility I got from the DC Forthcoming Projects bit which
I'll put at the end after a ^L.
>Jo seems to be at a low point in his Braniac-appreciation cycle,
>probably because Braniac is being a trifle officious. Rokk may be said to
>be a trifle irked... Possibly he is overly frustrated by Laurel and Rond
>being together and taking it out on everyone else. Is another breakdown
>coming?
I was rather surprised by Jo and Rokk's appearances on Quarantine. Somehow
Brainy doesn't strike me as the type who'd ship anyone having a problem off to
another planet to be psychoanalyzed. Particularly since there hasn't been any
reason established for him to do so with these two. Rokk's certainly not shown
any problems lately dealing with Venado Bay, and Jo hadn't been shown having
problems since he got back. If he had to send people, I'd say that Vi and
especially Mysa were much more likely candidates.
>Is Dirk dead? Earthgov is not a reliable source. ("the still unexplained
>detonation"...right.)
C'mon, we see his eye open. We don't see the body. His radiation exposure was
off camera and didn't accomplish anything. He's been a semi-major character
whose story hasn't been resolved. No way he's dead.
>Page 15/19: Ivy is here. Does that mean that this is taking place in
>Quarantine too? Might Christie be a patient? His clothes suggest that, as
>does his strange reaction to a story which means so much to him.
Yep, it was on Quarantine. I'd think Christie was a plant, and faked falling
asleep so he wouldn't have to interact further with Rokk after the guts of the
story were told.
>page 16: Shakespeare was a medic at Venando Bay? Is he Braalian, or was
> he playing Foreign Legion? According to the Who's Who series,
>Kent Shakespeare had his meta-gene activated by the damper -- entry was
>written by the Bierbaums, so it's mostly-official. Did the damper
>blast that gave him his powers cost him his magnetic powers?
This is all wrong. Kent is a Terran who according to the Who's Who entry was
infected by a mysterious virus which made his strong, fast, invulnerable. Never
had magnetic powers, never will. He was a member during the five-year gap, but
got in hot water with Earthgov and was shuttled around the various offworld
Legion members. He happened to be serving with Rokk at the time.
>Page 18: Rokk took Salu's eye! Or could this be a subcouncious guilt trip
> by association? He knew she was there and he knows that is where
>she got it scragged, so maybe he is associating that way.. If his memory
>is correct, has he consciously put two and two together and realized who
>that 'enemy soldier' was?
This was very unclear. We suddenly went from Rokk telling the story to a third
person viewpoint. Given Rokk's apparent mental/physical state in the flashback,
not recognizing Imskian soldiers until it was shoved in his face and apparently
Vi at all, he shouldn't know it was Vi unless she'd told him later. Or perhaps
Rokk has come to this conclusion due to remembering the laser and now knowing
about Vi's eye injury.
While I'm at it...Gunman Second Class? My but that's a low rank for the founder
of the Legion, intergalactic celebrity, and most powerful Braalian. There should
be a story behind that.
>Page 20: What, doesn't Drura *like* Tenzil?
As a side note, the two guys there are Color Kid and Stone Boy.
>Was Bounty about to assassinate Circe, or was she gunning for Dominators?
>(As an enlightened and unprejudiced citizen of the galaxy, Bounty should
>be just as willing to kill humans.)
She was shown earlier planting bugs in Circe's office. Presumably she's spying
on what's going on at the top levels. Good intelligence is necessary for a
revolt.
>Quiet Darkness
The first issue description of the Quiet Darkness in previews has it taking
place on Zoon, mentions "two little girls", and the only Legionnaires mentioned
are Brainy and Furball. I doubt that Imra will be making an appearance, as she's
not mentioned in the second issue description either.
James Nicoll writes:
>Maybe the mg carriers were the primary population used in ET colonies.
>They do show an better ability to adapt than non-mg carriers.
This'll probably be covered in the Annual, which focuses on Valor and his life
and times. It does seem like the metagene was starting to pop back up on Earth,
given the relatively large number of varying powered Earth Legionnaries such as
Bouncing Boy, Sun Boy, Wildfire, Ferro Lad, Invisible Kids (with the serum
causing slightly different effects on Lyle and Jacques), and Colossal Boy.
Spoiler about who may have zapped Devon and who escaped from the Dominator caves
after the ^L.
Apparently after Quiet Darkness is over, the storyline will focus on Earth. And
people who look exactly like "the original Legion of Super-Heroes" will be
showing up on the streets. These might be Dominator grown clones, and the blast
that takes out Devon looks a lot like a Lightning Lad blast.
"By the way, there was a Legion of Super-Pets"
"But it isn't a nominee because:
1) It would be redundent.
2) It was only an auxiliary of the Legion of Superheroes
3) DC admitted its existence in Who's Who, and
4) There are a lot of humorless Legion fans out there, and some of them
probably have guns." --World's Worst Comics Awards
tyg t...@caen.engin.umich.edu
Martin Kagan
In this discussion about the upcoming Darkness Saga
Revisited, did anyone mention that in the
promotional ad, Darkseid's face is clearly lurking
in the upper right hand corner...
Dan'l DanehyOakes
>
> About Ivy: given that at least two LSH charcters (the Tornado Twins)
>and several supporting characters are decended from 20th century heroes, is
>it possible that Ivy's related to either Poison Ivy or Tefe?
It's been stated (though I can't recall where) that she's descended from
Tefe Holland -- that she is in fact of the line of human-plant elementals.
Ah has spoke!
-- Pansy Yokum
The Roach
Mike Godwin
Could be a major clue. Let's talk about it.
--Mike
--
Mike Godwin, | To see a world in a grain of sand
mnem...@eff.org | And heaven in a wild flower
(617) 864-0665 | Hold infinity in the palm of your hand
EFF, Cambridge, MA | And eternity in an hour
Mike Godwin
> Maybe the mg carriers were the primary population used in ET colonies.
>They do show an better ability to adapt than non-mg carriers.
This is the explanation that makes the most sense. It would explain
all those interfertile humanoid races out there in the universe
in the 30th century.
Paul A. Estin
In article <51b8bf5c...@caen.engin.umich.edu>
t...@CAEN.ENGIN.UMICH.EDU (Tom Galloway) writes:
>OK, so last issue we had substantial chunks of the Moon landing on
>Earth. We had all the powerspheres on Earth going up (apparently one
>of the retcon waves substantially weakened their potential. It used to
>be that one of these suckers going up would destroy all of Metropolis,
>which in the 30th Century is the entire BosWash corridor). But in this
>issue, outside of some ruins and snow, it seems like everything's
>otherwise OK. They still have hightech facilities set up and
>operating, etc. No way. After all that, there shouldn't be anything
>left on Earth would fighting over, and the population should be back
>at 14th century technology at best. This is getting right up there
>with the white dwarf star incident for scientific silliness.
This looks like a job for...
COMICS FOR PHYSICISTS
Yes, this incident *is* right up there with the "Mon El brings
a white dwarf star to Earth" incident in terms of silliness.
LSH #19-20 *really* disappointed me. I've read various
sources concerning "what happens when you throw large hunks of rock at
the Earth" (the most fun of which is the Niven and Pournelle novel
_Lucifer's Hammer_). I can safely say that blowing up the moon with
sufficient power to hurl chunks of moon bits at the Earth is, well, a
*lot* more destructive than the Bierbaums and Co. portray. Sort of
more like Dave Barry's experiment with the frog and the sledgehammer.
OK, let's even forget about the fusion spheres, the Dominator
weapons, and so forth. Let's just take the known facts that the
defense screen was out, and that many chunks-o-moon crashed or smashed
down onto the Earth. What happens next?
The problem, you see, isn't so much the initial damage. It's
not necessary for a chunk to actually *strike*, say, Metropolis, in
order to have the city destroyed. In fact, most chunks will land in
the oceans... where they will cause major earthquakes (every fault
line on Earth lets go), tsunamis, and tidal waves. Really *big* tidal
waves. Like, wavefronts of a kilometer high or more. The tidal waves
will travel circularly outward from each strike point until they hit
land, at which point they will (collectively) destroy all coastal
regions on Earth... where, I might point out, an awfully large
proportion of the population lives. Then, the tidal waves will bounce
back and forth across the oceans, continuing their destruction, until
they eventually damp out.
Ocean strikes will also spew steam and hot mud from the bottom
of the ocean up into the atmosphere, causing mudstorms in the short
term and fairly constant storms and rain for the next couple months--
atmospheric disturbances will be so great that all communications
systems will be effectively shut down. Temperatures will drop
significantly as the extra clouds radiate solar heat back into space,
and ,in the long term, further climactic changes will occur. Crops
will be effectively ruined the world over. It's quite possible that
the biosphere of plant life will be fatally damaged.
Let's see... what else? Well, as the power infrastructure
gets destroyed, all technology and industry comes to a halt. And as
technology fails, no one will be around to bring it *back*. As
civilization falls, it will continue to fall, until the highest
remaining technology in affected areas (and with the moon strike,
*everywhere* is an affected area) will be about 14th century, plus
whatever can be salvaged (but not maintained). In other words, the
highest remaining civilization level consists of farming villages,
possessing vehicles, until the fuel runs out and the engines break
down. As the entire world's transportation infrastructure fails,
people begin to starve. "No nation is ever more than three meals from
a revolution." Chaos ensues. People frantically try to get to high
land, to farmlands that can support only a tiny percentage of those
trying to reach them. Any remaining hospitals and food centers are
overrun and ransacked. Civilization falls. Without medicine, without
much food, perhaps 99% of the Earth's population dies within a year.
Except... that's a best case scenario, based on, say, pieces
of a *comet* striking the Earth, in the 20th century. The LSH
situation is worse. We don't know what would happen to the 30th
century technology level when the power infrastructure fails, but odds
are that people are even *more* dependent on technology than we are
today. When it fails, there may not *be* farming villages to fall
back upon. Even worse, though, is the incredible scale of the
destruction. A comet probably hits a bit harder, but it has a fairly
small mass; the Earth itself isn't much affected in its travels around
the sun, though its surface life might be thrown into chaos. In LSH
#19, however, enough of the moon bits hit the Earth (many magnitudes
more mass than a mere comet) that the gravitational anomalies would
create earthquakes *so* huge that they might well destroy
*everything*. The Earth's crust might well crack apart completely, or
the climate of the Earth might be totally destroyed. There might not
*be* any plant life surviving.
So... the scale of the destruction isn't "half the people on
Earth die". It's more a question of "does anything with a brain
larger than that of a fungus survive?"
While we're at it, do you know how *much* energy is required
to blow up the moon hard enough to blow chunks of it towards the Earth
(as opposed to merely shattering Luna and having it reform or form a
ring-around-the-Earth)? Well, fortunately the topic came up once over
in the sci newsgroups.
Joseph Allen <jal...@eeserv1.ic.sunysb.edu> writes:
>Well... if you use the energy from exploding all the nuclear weapons
>ever made in a 100% efficient method of acceleration, you could
>accelerate the moon to a grand total velocity of....
>1 Mile Per Hour (give or take an order of magnitude)
James Nicoll calculates that:
> The figure I get to propel all the mass of the Moon fast
>enough so that the pieces are going at least 3.5 km/s is 4.5 x 10**29
>Joules or the entire power output of the sun for about 19 minutes.
>That's about ten billion times as much energy as is stored in the
>current nuclear arsenal of the world.
In short, blowing up the moon is *not* a worthwhile means of
destroying the Earth in the first place. If you *have* anywhere near
this much energy to expend, you might as well just blow up the Earth
directly. (Hey, if the Dominators could blow up the fusion
spheres...)
-----
This concludes today's reality check, brought to you by
"Comics for Physicists", the organization voted three-to-one as the
group most likely to accidentally release a toxic virus into the
atmosphere that makes the Black Death look like the common cold.
-----
"You know, I've always felt I'd understand world affairs better if I
had an overview of civilized history... then I realized I had little
hope of grasping history without some knowledge of basic human
psychology. Of course, psychology is just a manifestation of underlying
biochemical principles, which brings in chemistry and physics...
Fortunately, I realized the ultimate futility of it before wasting too
much time."
- _Eyebeam_
Paul Andrew Estin
es...@midway.uchicago.edu
1216 E. 54th St. #1
Chicago, IL 60615
Christopher M. Conway
The Earth kind of wobbles in its track around the sun due to the influence
of the moon. If the moon were to suddenly go away, the Earth would have a
velocity in the direction of the moon at that time, which would not be
counteracted by the moon swinging around again. In the best case, the
eccentricity of the earth's orbit will be increased, resulting in more severe
climate change across the season, thus wiping out a *hell* of a lot of the
wildlife. Worst case, it'll be enough change to put the earth into a decaying
orbit into the sun, or fling it out of the solar system, though of course
either of these will take a little while...
B^)
--
Christopher M. Conway | U*ix and C Guru
wom...@nfinit.enet.dec.com | The Second Amendment is ABOUT military
wom...@jupiter.nmt.edu | weapons. We have the RIGHT and DUTY to
wom...@juliet.ll.mit.edu | overthrow a tyrannical government.
Robert Mark Ballasty
> COMICS FOR PHYSICISTS
>
> Except... that's a best case scenario, based on, say, pieces
>of a *comet* striking the Earth, in the 20th century. The LSH
>destruction. A comet probably hits a bit harder, but it has a fairly
>small mass; the Earth itself isn't much affected in its travels around
>the sun, though its surface life might be thrown into chaos. In LSH
>#19, however, enough of the moon bits hit the Earth (many magnitudes
>more mass than a mere comet) that the gravitational anomalies would
Have you forgotten basic physics? So far as simple collision goes, momentum
equals the product of mass and velocity. A fast-moving comet has the same
momentum as a slower-moving, heavier moon.
Also, the Earth's orbit would probably be wrecked.
abdow
Dani Zweig
>I can safely say that blowing up the moon with
>sufficient power to hurl chunks of moon bits at the Earth is, well, a
> James Nicoll calculates that:
>
>> The figure I get to propel all the mass of the Moon fast
>>enough so that the pieces are going at least 3.5 km/s is 4.5 x 10**29
>>Joules or the entire power output of the sun for about 19 minutes.
Yes, I thought that the destruction we were shown was more consistent with
a set of bombs powerful enough to destroy all lunar installations (major
economic repercussions) and to eject a large quantity (though not large
in astronomical terms) of rock from the moon's surface at several km/sec.
This spray of rocks could take out some orbiting satellites and cause
significant -- though not world-destroying -- tidal waves and ecological
damage. Presumably, it could also cause some faults to give. But the
gravitational influence of the moon would not be affected.
The only thing that would have to be retconned would be that ridiculous
"let's launch a satellite to replace the moon" sequence.
-----
Dani Zweig
da...@netcom.com
The inability of snakes to count is actually a refusal, on their part,
to appreciate the Cardinal Number system. -- "Actual Facts"