LNH: Classic LNH Adventures #259: The Annotated Kinda Big Darkness Saga!

[Arthur Spitzer]

30 Years of Legion of Net.Heroes (1992-2022)!

And we're back in the past and can check the eyrie archive
once again.

Here's where you can find The Annotated Kinda Big Darkness Saga! as well
as other MISC LNH oneshots:

https://archives.eyrie.org/racc/lnh/Misc/




And we've got Dave "DVANDOM" Van Domelen writing (and annotating)
The Kinda Big Darkness Saga! Will we find out what Acton Lord did
while he was slarmied?! Will backgrounds be stolen?! Will we get
a bunch of They Might Be Giants refs?! And will Flipseid ever get
a chance to flip some cosmic flapjacks?!

Find out in...



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|_| OF NET.HEROES

ADVENTURES #259


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The Annotated Kinda Big Darkness Saga!
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From: dva...@magnus.acs.ohio-state.edu (Dave Van Domelen)
Newsgroups: alt.comics.lnh
Subject: REPOST: The Annotated Kinda Big Darkness Saga!
Date: 21 Apr 1994 04:33:22 GMT

THE KINDA BIG DARKNESS SAGA TEB - ANNOTATED VERSION
A special Incoherent Comics Production
===============================================================================

Hello, readers. In this special Annotated version of the Kinda Big
Darkness Saga Trade EtherBack, every effort has been made to preserve the
historical accuracy of the work. Only obvious typos and grammar errors that
the author would have caught had he not been composing on his newsreader have
been fixed. Nomenclature errors and nonstandard usages have been preserved.
In addition, explanation of some of the injokes and specialized references
will be included in [brackets] for the benefit of newer readers or those who
didn't get it the first time around.

===============================================================================

Newsgroups: rec.arts.comics [racm had yet to propagate fully]
From: dva...@magnus.acs.ohio-state.edu (David VanDomelen) [the author had yet
to figure out how to fix his login ID]
Subject: LNH: The Kinda Big Darkness Saga
Date: Sun, 20 Sep 1992 02:42:47 GMT [barely post-Cry.Sig]

But alas, Netlurker was cut off from his net access by several hundred miles of
distance, and wouldn't be back until late Sunday or early Monday! This threw a
kink into Acton Lord's plans and came dangerously close to getting him flamed
onto rec.music (no, I refuse to explain my puns [nor can I figure them out
now]).
Ellipses King lays strewn all over the field..of.....battle.
...............................................................................
.................................................................gasp..........
As he let loose the last threads of life, he wished dvandom had
remembered him when doing the chara writeups so that he might have gained some
kind of powers to use in the fight against Ultimate Ninja. [this was during
the free-form add-on era, and wReam had just finished killing off my NWC
Ellipses King that day]

* * * *

In an abandoned dormroom on the campus of Clarkson, a figure stirred.
Despite lack of a machine to be run on, the rampant silliness on r.a.c. and the
constant mention of a certain combination of three letters had begun to rouse
this slumbering behemoth. Yet, he could not rouse completely without some kind
of net access. If he could be hooked up to the system once more, his power
could recreate an entire world where the LNH might interact in realtime, not
through the delays of Post. The Mighty TIM had begun to stir....
[The Great Live-Action LNH Project started its MUSH aspect here, as we
began plotting to infest TinyTIM. It was later stalled, but now is running
okay.]

* * * *

Somehow Cybersig had gotten separated from DadaDude along the many
net.pathways. He began to see portals that looked totally different from any
he had seen before. They were neither newsgroups nor ftp sites. What could
they be? He entered one with the port number of 1701, and found himself in a
Virtual Reality devoted to the Star Trek series.
"Hmmmm," he thought. "If we could find a site like this to work out of,
the Tales of the Legion.of.Net.Heroes could grow beyond even the ability of
List Lad to chronicle! With such diversity and interaction, no single power
could ever threaten the world with total destruction again. But despite the
great numbers of LNHers, we obviously could not support such a site without
powerful help. But (he said foreshadowing the further mentioning of TIM), who
could we get to tolerate us? Certainly not any TrekMUSE or lpmud. I
wonder...."

* * * *

Newsgroups: rec.arts.comics.misc [racm arrived at the author's site]
From: dva...@magnus.acs.ohio-state.edu (David VanDomelen)
Subject: The Kinda Big Darkness Saga continues (please repost to a.c.lnh)
[but a.c.lnh had not arrived yet]
Date: Tue, 6 Oct 1992 18:04:55 GMT

Acton Lord awoke sprawled over a hard chair in a dimly lit office area
with a headache the size of the Suicide Squid archives. As memory blurrily
returned, he remembered he had used Goon Show lines once too often and been
compelled to "go round the back for the ol' brandy, mate." One drink
led to another, and now he knew the truth of the statement, "Absolut Vodka
intoxicates absolutly."
A gradgnome scurried up and said, much to Acton Lord's headache's
displeasure, "Please to be inconvenienced and hide before department head
arrives, boss." Acton Lord batted feebly at the gradgnome and entered the
secret compartment behind the computer station, staggering and leaning against
the wall.
"What did I do while slarmied?" thought AL. He concentrated on
remembering what had happened....

* * * *

"I tell ya, A.L., this system environment is ripe for the conquest! I've
been there, they're all a bunch of wimps. If we could just get some kind of
hookup to the net for it, we could bring in the entire BoENV to take control
before the LNH even decided who would drive the float there!"
"Maybe, Foxshbat, but...."

* * * *

Try as he might, that was all Acton Lord could remember. But Foxbat?
He's licensed! What would he be doing in the net.worlds? HeroMUD was
vaporware, after all. And what was the name of the world he mentioned? It
must have been a dream or something, induced by the alcohol. Then Acton Lord
unclenched his right fist (he must not have been drinking Ouzo at least) and
saw laying in his palm, a Ping Pong ball.... [prior to setting up the LNH
plane on TIM, the author played the character Foxbat]
It *was* real! So, a realm ripe for the picking, eh? What plan should he
set in motion? Perhaps it was time to take the cell samples he scraped from
Myk-El's third cousin and only remaining Qwertian Dev-Null, clone an army of
them, outfit them with suits that let them have full powers under yellow suns,
and....nah. Been done before. Perhaps he could approach the Sidekick Legion
posing as a timetraveling hero, warp their worldviews to fit his own, then use
them as an army...no, to stupid. Besides, the Sidekicks would last about 2.3
seconds against the real LNH. Aha! [the discarded plots are parodies of the
Dark Circle's Dev-Em clones and Cable's influence of the New Mutants]
Acton Lord took a dramatic pose against the special floodlight installed
in his hideout for just such an occasion and said, "I will impersonate some
other major villain who is currently thought dead, and get his minions to do my
dirty work!" Grynning evilly, Acton Lord set about finding his makeup kit....

Dave Van Domelen, Fascist dictatorships rarely happen overnight. First
those in power choose some minority to strip of human rights, and gets the
majority to agree. Then the leadership chooses another minority out of what
remains and gets the majority to excise that. When you vote Nov. 3, remember
that if you support a candidate that is for denying civil rights to an
'undesirable' group, when it's your turn to be denied rights you will have
already voted against yourself. [This .sig inspired one of the Savants of
Darkness who appear in the next part, hence it is not edited out]

* * * *

Newsgroups: rec.arts.comics.misc,alt.comics.lnh [ah, access at last!]
From: dva...@magnus.acs.ohio-state.edu (David VanDomelen)
Subject: The Kinda Big Darkness Saga concludes
Date: Wed, 7 Oct 1992 15:06:20 GMT

It was a normal afternoon in the LNH HQ [the author later shifted to the
LNHQ designation because it sounds better spoken], which is to say that only a
highly trained observer would have been able to tell that there wasn't a war
going on. Then suddenly the backgrounds all disappeared.
"Hey! The backgrounds are gone!" shouted Sister State-the-Obvious.
"That must mean a fight scene!" said Cheesecake-Eater Lad.
As if to prove the point, four blackened crusty entities appeared center
stage.
"We are the Savants of Darkness! We possess enough power to utterly
destroy all of you, especially if you ask us stupid questions!" To demonstrate,
the lead figure annihilated Cannon Fodder. [Parodies of the Servants of
Darkness, the prime pawns of Darkseid in the Great Darkness Saga]
"Way to go! He had the pizza coupons!" said Bad-Timing Boy. "BTW, why
are you all crusty like that?"
"Er, the Master left us in the Creepy Crawlies oven and forgot about us
when he went out to a concert. But I forget my manners! Before we kill you
all, we must exposit on the nature of our powers so as to give you a better
chance of destroying us!
"I am PoliSig! My overly political .sigs have the power to generate
massive flames!" [as the author found out to his regret after the previous part
was posted. PoliSig is a warped version of Sig.Lad]
Just as Flameproof Lad leaped out to protect the other LNHers, gouts of
flame came out of nowhere ("Must be the Invisible Incendiary" mused
RosterwReam) and crispyfried PoliSig. "Oops, my mistake. My powers *attract*
flames," said PoliSig just before collapsing into a heap of ash.
Another stepped forward. "I am ScatterBrain Lad, able to do an infinite
number of things at once but, er, what was the question?" The befuddled Savant
lost his train of thought as he did an infinite number of other things.
Everyone proceeded to ignore him some more. [Scatterbrain is a warped version
of Multi-Tasking Man]
"I am Obscuring Lad! Able to cloud any issue with meaningless facts and
digressions!" Suddenly the entire net was filled with tangential garbage to
the point that no one could move. Then a gagging sound was heard and the
netjam cleared...Obscuring Lad had choked to death on his own trivia.
[Obscuring Lad is a warped version of Obscure Trivia Lad]
"Hi," said the last standing Savant. "I'm Netjerker. Wanna see my
power?" But then a huge blue pencil descended and edited the Savant out
before he could violate the rather low standards of this group. [Netjerker is
an even more warped version of Netlurker, and no you don't want to see his
power]
All of the Savants of Darkness had self-destructed.
"Well, this was certainly worth $1.50," sneered Sarcastic Lad.
"Why do I get the feeling the fight isn't over?" observed Cliche Dude.
Off in the distance, everybody suddenly spotted a multicolored Studebaker.
"Muppets? But they're so incredibly licensed that there's no way they
could cross over!" cried Adamant-Authority-on-Everything.
"No, I don't think they're Muppets," said The Incredible Man-With-No-Life.
"Can you hear that background track? Sounds like...."
Obscure Trivia Lad (he's not dead during this story, so try to fit it into
the continuity somehow) gasped. "It's the Boat of Car! Which means these guys
approaching must be They Might Be Villains!" [Yep, the same group to later
appear in System Corruptors and launch the Constellation title]
"WHO?" asked everybody else in chorus.
The Boat of Car pulled to a stop and Mr. Claw, Triangle Man and Chess
Piece Face climbed out, leaving Flood to drive the car...boat...whatever.
"Yes! We are the true villains of this piece! Fall before my power of
Photographic Memory linked to projecting Telepathy as I download the entire RAC
log into your brains!" shouted Chess Piece Face.
The LNH reeled as anywhere from 60000 to 85000 articles jammed into their
heads at once. With supreme effort, MultiTasking Man switched windows, dialed
up alt.music.progressive and extracted the TMBG lyric sheets, made a light
snack, debugged his reader, emailed Sidewinder (who was not in the net at the
time) about what was happening, ate the snack, then settled down for a little
NetTrek.
In his home system, Sidewinder got the email about Purple Toupees and
blasted onto the scene, snatching the purple toupee from Chess Piece Face's
head before digressing over to alt.hair.club.for.men. [It was in this story
that the author started to adopt Sidewinder, incorrectly assuming he was Public
Domain. Note: the Purple Toupee is the source of Chesspiece Face's (um, was)
projecting telepathy]
The barrrage stopped and the LNHers regained their feet. Mr. Claw
advanced on Typo Lad, holding out the 3 foot long claw at the end of his right
arm. Typo Lad thought qwiclee and suddenly Mr. Slaw had shredded lettuce
hanging from his elbow. [This was during the era when Typo Lad's powers were
being vastly increased to allow him to create typos.]
Flood limbered up the weaponry on the BoC. First, the dreaded Foof
Cannon! *FOOFFOOFFOOF*! [On TIM, one of the customs is that if someone says
"Foof" everyone else has to say "Yay!" Don't ask, I don't know why. It seems
to predate TIM, however]
Everyone present was forced to stop what they were doing and shout "Yay!"
Flood took advantage of this lull to BONK Multitasking Man. A few seconds
later when he checked this window, MM said "OIF" and collapsed. [The BONK-OIF
pair is another TIM thing]
But before Hooded Ho`'od Win could see the result of the battle between
Contraption Man and Triangle Man, another figure entered the scene causing a
lull in the fighting.
"Greetings, LNH! I am Flipseid, the most horribly evil and powerful
cosmic dude in the cosmos (this issue)! Since you have defeated my two earlier
waves of servants (trust me, TBMV wouldn't have lasted another paragraph), I am
forced to destroy you myself that you won't hinder my plans to conquer TinyTIM!
Thus I unleash my dreaded Smegma Effect!" [Darkseid and his Omega Effect are
parodied here. In the background, TMBV escape back to their home reality at
this point]
And thus, in a scene *way* too gross to depict here, the LNH was subdued,
all lay on the ground retching except Lurking Lass, who was lurking at the
time. [Yep, the infamous Lurking Girl/Lass problems finally resolved in Lurk of
Faith]
"Gross," though Lurking Lass as Flipseid laughed maniacally. Suddenly
(gee, I get alot of mileage out of that word) she saw a tin of Spam on the
net.floor, and felt compelled to pick it up. Then, for no very good reason,
she opened it while chanting "Babylon and the Number 7 are the same color. Go
soak." [More TIM imagery]
There was the gentle sound of the pasture, and out of the ashes of PoliSig
arose a cow.
Ultimate Ninja looked up and feebly croaked, "Udder Doom!" and tried to
hurl some Ninja Bush, but then he realized that this was not Udder Doom. He
felt an overwhelming urge to pet this cow. [wReam had created a villain named
Udder Doom recently]
Flipseid recoiled in horror. "Sketch! What are you doing here! How did
you escape TIM?"
Sketch mooed. [He does that a lot]
"No matter, I will destroy you with my Smegma Effect!"
Before Flipseid could act, Sketch took the pencil from behind his ear
{editor's note: How? Well, he's a wizard. He can do this kinda stuff} and
said, "You've been naughty, Flipseid. The news.worlds should not be interfered
in by the dealings of MU*s. I can only stay a short time, but that is enough
to do this." With that, Sketch pointed the pencil at Flipseid and typed '@toad
Flipseid', turning the villain into a slimy toad. Then Sketch mooed again as
he faded away. [Sketch fills the role of Highfather of Great Darkness]
The LNHers had by now recovered from the Smegma Effect and walked over to
the toad. Adamant-Authority-on-Everything gasped and said, "Look at the
address on that toad! This was Acton Lord in disguise!"
"So he's dead, eh?" asked Ultimate Ninja as he 'accidentally' stepped on
the toad.
"Why do I get the feeling we haven't seen the last of Acton Lord?" asked
Cliche Dude.

* * * *

In a faraway archive site, Acton Lord decoded himself. The errors
introduced by Sig Lad were apparent in this copy, and his gloves and goggles
were wrong. But no matter. He would recostume himself and try again. For
only absolute failure can stop Acton Lord....

[In an earlier story, now lost to the mists of time, Sig.Lad had entered
Acton Lord's GIF storage to try and mutate the GIFs. This is expanded on in
Sound of Clashing Metal part 1. The errors mentioned were based on a drawing
of Acton Lord wReam had sent the author, in which the pertinent details had
been altered]


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Next Week: Some more Classic LNH Stories!

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Arthur "Same Classic Channel. But Same Time? Probably not." Spitzer