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 Sound of Clashing Metal as well as other
MISC LNH stories:

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

And we've got The Sound of Clashing Metal by Dave Van Domelen and Mark
Friedman (Part One). A number of Acton Lord copies are running around
causing chaos, but will we ever learn who the Real Acton Lord is -- and
more importantly will we ever learn his true opinions on Snausages?!!

Find out in...

_
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| |__ | [] | | [] | | | | [] | | _ \

|____| \__] \__ | |_| \__/ |_|\_\
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|_| OF NET.HEROES

ADVENTURES #263

=====================
The Sound of Clashing Metal Part One
=====================

From: dvandom@magnus.acs.ohio-state.edu (Dave Van Domelen)
Newsgroups: alt.comics.lnh
Subject: REPOST: The Annotated Sound of Clashing Metal #1-3!
Date: 21 Apr 1994 04:33:50 GMT

THE SOUND OF CLASHING METAL PARTS ONE TO THREE - ANNOTATED VERSION
Written by Dave Van Domelen and Mark Friedman
A Special Incoherent Comics Production!
===============================================================================

In this second annotated reprint, only the first three parts were
available at time of press. The remaining parts will be summarized at the end.
Enjoy!

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

In the HQ of the LNH, P.C.Man clashed vehemently with MacLaughlin Man over
just about everything from the Perot economic plan to snausages. Then P.C.Man
glanced over to see Lurking Lass become the Lurking One! [There were many name
confusions arising at this time, such as the Politically Correct Man mistake
and Tori's fits about Lurking Lass. The author no longer recalls who this
Lurking One was]
Excusing himself (as if MacLaughlin Man would even notice if the target of
his rant left), P.C.Man ducked behind a potted plant and activated his remote
teleporter to avoid being spotted by the genuine article, P.C. Person (aka
Multiculturally Senstitive Deconstructionist Human Animal of Spandex).
Arriving at one of his secret bases (one of the orthonormal ones), he
stripped off his concealing suit and revealed himself as Acton Lord!!!
[The orthonormal bit is a math joke. An orthonormal base is a kind of
mathematical set. At the time of this writing, several people had been using
Acton Lord, each of them using a vaguely different version, some of them
mutually incompatible]

* * * *

Meanwhile, at another of his secret bases, Acton Lord frowned. If the
readings on his screen were correct, the reactivation sequence had gone wrong,
and now there were several active copies of him on the net, each slightly
different. For example, one copy with a slightly wrong costume and really
gross taste in pizza was currently menacing Ultimate Ninja [wReam had
established a rather odd taste in pizza toppings for the Acton Lord he was
using], and yet another was attempting to infiltrate the LNH. Whether there
were others out there or not was a question he could not answer...for now. As
far as he could tell, he was an uncorrupted copy, which was good, since he
could set about trying to fix other inactive copies from his own matrix.
Then a window popped up on his screen indicating that the orthonormal
secret base was occupied. Enlarging the window (he had learned a few tricks
from battling Multitasking Man), he was able to ascertain that it was the Acton
Lord that was trying to infiltrate the LNH, and betray it from within.
He stood and tapped the "A" on his chest, saying "Base R-4" as he did so.
One orthogonal transform later, he was in the other base. [R-4 is the name for
Euclidean spacetime, which is an orthogonal base]

* * * *

Back at base R-4 a few seconds prior to the last line, Acton Lord cursed
the fates.
"Damn! If only P.C.Person hadn't decided to join! Granted, I made a
mistake in calling myself P.C.*Man*, but with those chowderheads I could have
covered quite easily if the genuine article hadn't shown! And now there's too
many members for me to try another one. Especially since Contraption Man
warned them of a traitor. [The 'traitor' story was a plotline based on the
Bishop/Traitor story in Uncanny X-Men. The traitor was eventually revealed as
Myk-El, to the annoyance of Myk-El's unconsulted creator] If onl...What the
hell are you?!?!" he exclaimed as the other Acton Lord reconstructed from the
other base.
"I am Acton Lord...or rather a copy booted up when the original was
defeated in the Kinda Big Darkness Saga."
"What copies? *I* am Acton Lord, the one and only! The original!" As if
to prove his point, he fired off twin powerbeams at his double.
"Absolute certainty misleads absolutely," quipped Acton Lord as he
corrupted his double's powerbeam into incoherent light. "Obviously, Sig Lad's
meddling affected your memory as well as your judgement."
"How did you do that? I was never able to corrupt powers...I can just
make variants of Acton's Law and fire powerbeams!" said the puzzled Acton
Lord.
"Ah...I see the problem. You're a copy from between LNH #249 and #250 [a
reference to the suspected issues of extraction for the 'clone' SW6 Legion of
Super-Heroes at the time of this writing], and we didn't actually gain the
power enhancement/corruption ability until the lettercol of Suicide Squid v23
#14. [One of the last Suicide Squid 'crossovers' in the LNH] My file was
updated after that issue, so I have the greater power."
"Maybe...or maybe you're a clone that later gained neato powers and I'm
the original, socked away for a while, who never gained those powers."
"But that would contradict the Kinda Big Darkness Saga wherein it is the
original Acton Lord that gets killed, and only then are the clones activated.
And the message on the screen of my computer in Base C-1 only displayed one
activation date." [C-1 is the basis for the one-dimensional complex plane]
"Well, you can never trust artists to get continuity right. But in any
case, you could probably whup my ass so I'll go along for now and try to
backstab you later on. Okay?"
"Sounds like good solid plot material. Especially since my plan requires
that I be betrayed if the LNH is to beat me."
"Cool beans. What plan?"
"Well, I realized that your initial plan was a good one, if badly
executed. I propose another shot at it."
"But it won't work again (see above)!"
"Ah, but you see, you just solved the problem yourself! We are
net.entities. We are bound only by filing restrictions, and not by normal
causality. If you change a file from two days ago, you have changed the
history of that day. With a little intrusion program left behind by Netlurker,
we can do just that."
The two then huddled together over the computer screen, and the letterer
obliged by having the words become little scribbles with only occasional
legible ones like "and then" or "perfect disguise".
"It is finished!" proclaimed the post-Squid Acton Lord [later labelled as
the Primeclone Acton Lord]. "I have corrupted and enhanced your powerbeam
power into something unrecognizable, and if you just put on this costume, I'll
pop you back into time."
And with a flourish of net.SFX, the line appeared back in a previous post
about Cheezar, right after he demonstrated his powers to the Handi-capable
Cannon Fodder,
>"Whoa, who forgot to flush!" asked <name deleted here for security and plot
>purposes> from the kitchenette.
[The LNHer in question was Sidewinder, who the author had decided to
retcon into always having been the "Golden Age Acton Lord" until he was
informed that Sidewinder was a WC. GAAL as Sidewinder was responsible for the
Death of Flatulence Lad and later was revealed in Crisis of Infinite Clones #1
(part 4 of Electrocutioner's Song). Sidewinder was re-retconned into having
been captured during the time in question]

Dave Van Domelen, yes the title of this is a pun on a Marvel Villain
[specifically, the sound of clashing metal is "KANG!"]

From: dvandom@magnus.acs.ohio-state.edu (David VanDomelen)
Subject: LNH: The Sound Of Clashing Metal - a story in two Actons
Date: Mon, 12 Oct 1992 13:38:58 GMT

Having placed his inferior other in the past, Acton Lord turned to the
task of cleaning up the copies of his GIF. Unfortunately, due to the number of
systems on the net that recieved virus-like copies every day, it would be
impossible to totally clean the net. The best he could hope for would be to
salvage a few copies and keep them updated for personal use. And if bugs
caused premature activation of defective Acton Lords, so be it. They'd make
excellent 'smokescreen'. Now, first to wuarchives to retrieve the copy
there.... [when he had originally posted his GIFs, he also placed a copy in
wuarchives, a GIF archival site. The GIF of Acton Lord and Sig.Lad actually
was posted, unlike many other LNH GIFs the author had Netlurker make later on]

On 11/6/22 4:16 PM, Arthur Spitzer wrote:

<snip>
> And we've got The Sound of Clashing Metal by Dave Van Domelen and Mark
> Friedman (Part One). A number of Acton Lord copies are running around
> causing chaos, but will we ever learn who the Real Acton Lord is -- and
> more importantly will we ever learn his true opinions on Snausages?!!

:D :D :D Ahhhhh, classic silly Dave stuff.

> In the HQ of the LNH, P.C.Man clashed vehemently with MacLaughlin Man over
> just about everything from the Perot economic plan to snausages.

Oh no. X3

> Then P.C.Man
> glanced over to see Lurking Lass become the Lurking One! [There were many name
> confusions arising at this time, such as the Politically Correct Man mistake
> and Tori's fits about Lurking Lass. The author no longer recalls who this
> Lurking One was]

That was actually a reference to the original intro post of PC Person, where
Lurking Girl was turned into The Lurking One.

> As
> far as he could tell, he was an uncorrupted copy, which was good, since he
> could set about trying to fix other inactive copies from his own matrix.

Acton Lord don't got time to worry about existential questions.

> He stood and tapped the "A" on his chest, saying "Base R-4" as he did so.
> One orthogonal transform later, he was in the other base. [R-4 is the name for
> Euclidean spacetime, which is an orthogonal base]

One-percenter jokes are great.

> "How did you do that? I was never able to corrupt powers...I can just
> make variants of Acton's Law and fire powerbeams!" said the puzzled Acton
> Lord.
> "Ah...I see the problem. You're a copy from between LNH #249 and #250 [a
> reference to the suspected issues of extraction for the 'clone' SW6 Legion of
> Super-Heroes at the time of this writing], and we didn't actually gain the
> power enhancement/corruption ability until the lettercol of Suicide Squid v23
> #14. [One of the last Suicide Squid 'crossovers' in the LNH]

Heeheehee meta nonsense |>

> "Well, you can never trust artists to get continuity right. But in any
> case, you could probably whup my ass so I'll go along for now and try to
> backstab you later on. Okay?"
> "Sounds like good solid plot material. Especially since my plan requires
> that I be betrayed if the LNH is to beat me."
> "Cool beans.

X3 X3 X3

> "Ah, but you see, you just solved the problem yourself! We are
> net.entities. We are bound only by filing restrictions, and not by normal
> causality. If you change a file from two days ago, you have changed the
> history of that day. With a little intrusion program left behind by Netlurker,
> we can do just that."

I love the kind of coherent-yet-nonsense logic this uses.

>> "Whoa, who forgot to flush!" asked <name deleted here for security and plot
>> purposes> from the kitchenette.
> [The LNHer in question was Sidewinder, who the author had decided to
> retcon into always having been the "Golden Age Acton Lord" until he was
> informed that Sidewinder was a WC. GAAL as Sidewinder was responsible for the
> Death of Flatulence Lad and later was revealed in Crisis of Infinite Clones #1
> (part 4 of Electrocutioner's Song). Sidewinder was re-retconned into having
> been captured during the time in question]

Eheheh. X>; So it goes.

> Dave Van Domelen, yes the title of this is a pun on a Marvel Villain
> [specifically, the sound of clashing metal is "KANG!"]

I would never have gotten that if it hadn't been explicitly explained! <3

> Unfortunately, due to the number of
> systems on the net that recieved virus-like copies every day, it would be
> impossible to totally clean the net.

It sure is impossible now. X>

> he was
> adrift in MU* territory. It was a cold and forbidding place, especially since
> so many MU*s were down right now. It was like being on a normally busy
> commercial street at 4 in the morning when only the convenience stores and a
> few crappy bars were still open.

Good metaphor!

> Since he had had to start the process at his own
> image, the mutation was pretty severe there, and the duplicates would not even
> be recognizable as him. In fact, scores of them may very well be joining the
> LNH under totally different names and powers {editor's note: this is a kind of
> pseudo-scientific explanation for the proliferation of superpowered individuals
> arriving on the scene recently...they are mostly warped copies of Sig Lad, but
> have their own unique identities now. They are not even aware of being clones,
> and may even have long involuted histories if the GIF reactivated at an earlier
> time index on the system}[Further, the current Sig.Lad is one of these warped
> GIFs, as the one focused on here meets his fate in Part Four].

I still need to reveal that a character is actually a Sig.Lad GIF.clone. One of
these days. Also, Sig.Lad also has no time for existential angst

> Dave Van Domelen, if you want to check NAIVE, bug Netlurker
> [NAIVE eventually lost its port, but was accessible via a mirror system on TIM.
> It later moved elsewhere after the NAIVE natives got sick of the TIM wizards]

Ahhhhh, online community drama.

Drew "never changes, but we learn to deal with it better" Nilium