LNH History

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This is the out-of-character history of the LNH imprints. For in-character histories, see History of Earth-20 and History of the Looniverse.

The Chaos Age

1992

  • May 6: One Steven Librande responds to all this by declaring himself the ingenious Doctor Killfile, who will destroy the LNH with his patented Kill-o-Ray! [1] Various RAC posters respond by RPing as their LNH characters, joining into battle against Doctor Killfile in true 27-to-one hero fashion. This is the beginning of the long RP thread that becomes the Cosmic Plot Device Caper, the first Chaotic Add-On Cascade in LNH history, and the beginnings of LNH as a storytelling universe.
  • Early-to-mid-June: Due to the erratic internet access outside of universities in those early days, the CPDC threads are abandoned until the next semester.
  • September 10: As Scav continues The Long Road to Nowhere largely independent of all the other add-on thread shenanigans, Drizzt begins writing an epic story, involving most of the LNH, which would create a coherent plot and sort out the post-Gap add-on chaos once and for all: the Cry.Sig on Infinite Net.Earths! The Cry.Sig, as the LNH's first grand cosmic battle royale story, would inspire the structure of many tales to come, and introduce a net.villain who would eventually cast a long shadow over the Omnilooniverse: the Crossover Queen.
  • September 30: rec.arts.comics is removed and replaced by a number of different groups, including rec.arts.comics.misc, the new home of the LNH – but not without controversy, as some posters see the stories as inappropriate on a discussion-focused group.

(Tho it looks like the feeling

  • October 3: Cry.Sig finishes, as does The Long Road to Nowhere three days later. Their conclusions signal the transition of the LNH from chaotic freeform RP to serial storytelling, with posts imitating the structure of ongoing superhero comics.

The Golden Age

[October 1992-Retcon Hour]

  • Somewhere in early October: alt.comics.lnh is created, in an attempt to stem the flamewars over the LNH's presence on rec.arts.comics.misc. However, it is created without going thru the proper channels, and thus, many servers don't accept the group; while a.c.lnh became the group's new home, stories continued to be crossposted to RACM and continued to be controversial.

1993

  • Dave Van Domelen begins Constellation, pulling together plot threads from his past LNH stories and RPG campagins to tell the story of a minor supervillain turned cosmic traveler who struggles to find a place in the Omnilooniverse. It establishes much of the LNH cosmology.
  • Michael Montoure creates the Patrol universe, the first usenet comics fiction world outside the LNH, laying groundwork for the later creation of rec.arts.comics.creative. Dave Van Domelen was a significant early Patrol author (before leaving over creative differences) and crossed it over with his LNH work.

The Silver Age

[Retcon Hour-1996]

1994

  • March: Before this point, new users to the Internet showed up every September as university students gained access, and were taught its customs and mores over the next year until a new wave of newbies showed up. In March 1994, AOL opened up its Internet service, and along with other means of access opening up further and further to the general public, ushered in an era where new users were constantly showing up, known as Eternal September. This includes the LNH, as new readers and writers arrive who never interacted with the original rec.arts.comics community.
  • Tensions over crossposting LNH stories boils over as Mike Kelly, who'd created the founding LNHer Myk-El, takes the anti-crossposting side. wReam responds by revealing Myk-El as the long-hinted-at Legion traitor (a parody of the X-Traitor plotline in the 90s X-books) and having Ultimate Ninja kill him. Most of the "Council of Elders" approves this but Dave Van Domelen objects, writing an issue of Constellation that retcons Myk-El's death. This all leads to the dissolution of the Council. Constellation #27 would remain a well-regarded issue even after everyone stopped caring about the usenet drama that inspired it, which had quickly become a moot point as...
  • rec.arts.comics.creative is approved. In storytelling terms, this leads to Retcon Hour, the LNH's most sprawling and ginormous crossover to date, as wReamicus Maximus and other temporal threats take advantage of the newly recreated net.reality. The Legion traitor Contraption Man had come to the future to warn about is revealed as Contraption Man himself, the first in a long line of LNH plot resolutions that would make more sense than the Big Two comic plots they parodied.
  • The creation of RACC leads to the beginning of a whole slew of new storyworlds including Omega and ASH.
  • Constellation is succeeded by the long-running and influential series Dvandom Force.

1995

  • Flame Wars III, a smaller and self-contained crossover involving time travelers, which resolves Contraption Man's character arc and gives him a shot at redemption.
  • Crimes of the Brotherhood
  • The Grand Tour

1996

  • Fan.Boy is succeeded by the team book Alt.Riders (Though the final issues of Fan.Boy, a crossover with Misfits, would not be posted for quite a while.)
  • Acton Lord becomes Kid Pocky.

The September Age

[1996-2000]

  • 1996-1997: As the moderation of RACC makes the community more stable and self-sustaining, the level of newbies joining accelerates, especially those adolescents who would've been too young to participate in the early university-based era. This includes Chris Ireland, Jesse Willey, Amabel Holland and a number of her friends. RACC's existing culture cannot easily absorb them, and there is a significant amount of cultural clash.
  • Amabel Holland unleashes a flood of posts and characters not seen since the days of wReam. They were poorly received at the time, and she has evolved considerably as a writer since then and moved on to other things. However, many of these characters become surprisingly long-lived and successful, including Ultimate Mercenary, Ultimate Ninja's niece Nina (who became Ultimate Ninja II), and Teenfactor's heroine Carolyn Forge (who became Doctor Killfile II).
  • 1998: Beginning of Teenfactor, which would go on for a staggering 130 or so issues in a few years.
  • January, 1, 2000: The Millennium happens. Nothing much changes, as tireless engineers had worked to prevent the Millennium Bug. Several LNH stories, such as Limp-Asparagus Lad Annual #1 and the Alt.Riders Year 2000 Special, are written to commemorate this event.
  • Teenfactor ends in a spectacular fashion with the deaths of most of the cast.

(ends with the end of SotN? and/or Teenfactor)

The Dark Age

[2001-2007]

  • Sig.ago go boom. With The Team and Alt.Riders being among the most active series of this period, the whole mood of LNH is weirdly skewed towards horror.
  • Amabel Holland follows up Teenfactor with the grim and dramatic Pearly White but drops it after a few issues, concentrating on the absurd and comedic Journey into Irrelevancy instead. This begins the slow pendulum swing back to traditional LNHian comedy.
  • Amabel Holland begins Net.heroes on Parade, a more dramatic and horror-oriented series featuring many of the characters from Journey into Irrelevancy.
  • 2005: Jamie Rosen starts of Legion of Net.Heroes Volume 2, beginning a gradual increase in comedy stories, Classic LNH nostalgia and stories featuring core LNH characters which lay the groundwork for events to come. The next few years would see a substantial burst in LNH activity, including many Volume 2 issues.

(ends with Adventures Beyond Comprehension #10?)

The Beige Age

[Infinite April 2007-2012]

  • The original LNH Wiki
  • The second LNH Wiki
  • 2009: In the midst of all the event-story upheaval, Drew Nilium comes back to RACC. They write many issues of Legion of Net.Heroes Volume 2, stepping into their role as one of the LNH's most significant (and cute) writers.
  • 2011: East/West coast brotherhood split established, a plotline which was pretty much ignored at the time but got big later.

The Post-Beige Age

[2012-2016]

  • 2013: Flame Wars Final, unfortunately one of the many stories of the 2010s that was never finished due to Real Life pressure.
  • 2014: Just Another Cascade

The Post-Lull Age

[2016-2022]

  • Oddball LNH resolved.
  • The current LNH wiki

The Post-Sabertooth Age

[2022-present]

Footnotes

  1. The thread is titled "Brotherhood of Net.Villains," even though the original Doctor Killfile himself would never become part of any incarnation of the Brotherhood. (Though his daughter would.)