From: Jeremy_Reimer@mindlink.bc.ca (Jeremy Reimer)
Newsgroups: alt.slack
Subject: N-Man Episode #1 - A collector's edition!
Date: 3 Oct 92 08:20:55 GMT
Organization: MIND LINK! - British Columbia, Canada
Distribution: world

FIRSTLY:

To all the dedicated N-Fans out there who asked for emailed copies, I sent
them out, then LATER found that the other system I was on had serious
problems sending out mail.  I'd say it was because the Sysop was too pinkish,
but that's a) too easy and b) probably not true anyway.  Be assured ALL WHO
ASKED FOR A COPY OF N-MAN WILL GET N-MAN!

SECONDLY:

N-Man has become more than an occasional drop into rec.humor.  N-Man has
become a cult, a phenomenon, an inexplicable power in the universe, and
probably the fifth force as well.  I have decided to move N-Man to a new home
in alt.slack.  Why, you ask?  Well,

a) It'll piss off the pink boys in alt.slack who do nothing but accuse others
of having no slack at all
b) It'll make N-fans happier, as rec.humor has a googol of postings each day,
of which approximately 0.001% are funny
c) N-Man is really a SLACKFUL SUPERHERO!  This becomes obvious as the series
continues.  He may not be BoB, but he is a personification of slack, the best
way I can identify it.

FINALLY:

Those of you who don't like it are reminded to go stick their head in a pig.
Enjoy!

                         THE ADVENTURES OF: N MAN!!

EPISODE ONE

        He didn't look like a typical super-hero.  He was short, and
quite thin, and had the most ridiculous face one could ever imagine.
Huge goggling eyes and a miniscule chin were some of the more prominent
defects.  His shoes were six sizes too large, and he continually wore
baggy shorts, a childish cap with a propellor on the top, and an T-Shirt
with a single, inexplicable, capital N on it.  When asked about the
significance of this letter, he would shrug off the question
noncommittally.  Other more sarcastic people had suggested that it stood
for Nerd, or Nincompoop, or Nitwit, or any one of a thousand equally
degrading words.
        His name didn't even have an N in it.  It was Percy Alspleed,
and having such a name did little to boost his popularity or general
image.  No one was really sure of his exact age; he had never been to
school, and his childish features obscured any years he had lived
through.  Little indeed was known about this strange character, at least
to the general public.  The general public felt that this was actually a
good situation, and did what they could to avoid contact with Percy as
much as possible.
        One might think that with this many things going against him,
Percy would have been a shy, miserable creature unable to cope with the
day-to-day trials of existence.  Nothing could have been farther from
the truth.  For Percy, or N-Man as he preferred himself to be known, was
actually the greatest super-hero who had ever walked the face of the
earth.
        At this point skeptics might point out that since, apart from in
comic books, super-heroes had never walked the face of the earth, Percy
could indeed qualify as the greatest one.  He was not an average hero by
any means.  He had little physical strength, and no magical powers to
speak of.  If he had ever met Superman, or Batman, or any of the other
icons of popular culture, they could have easily disposed of him without
any trouble.  But since those super-heroes had never actually existed,
Percy was safe.  He did not flaunt his super-hero status, which was a
good thing because almost nobody accepted or believed in it.  How wrong,
how very wrong they all were.  For what the mighty N-Man lacked in
strength, he more than made up with in courage, intelligence, and pure
cunning.
        The origins of N-Man are still unknown.  If anyone had felt the
least bit interested, they could have raised a number of interesting
questions about the unlikely hero.  How could he be super-intelligent
yet uneducated?  How would such a weed of a person get to be a
super-hero in the first place?  What was the secret behind his apparent
(yet unflaunted) financial success?  How could it be true that such a
man could possibly be the second greatest man who had every lived?
        These questions remain unanswered, possibly due to the fact that
no one had ever asked them.  N-Man remains to this day a champion of
good, a destroyer of all evil, and an unlikely candidate for the next
presidential election.
        Ever super-hero needs a lair, and N-Man's was one of the best.
It had started out as a tree-house in his back yard as a child, and
ended up as a huge underground cavern stretching for miles beneath the
surface of the earth.  The entry point remained at his childhood
tree-house, which was the last place anyone would look, since his
parents had long since moved out of the house and the new owners had no
children.
        From this home base N-Man had amassed a collection of electronic
equipment that would astound even the owner of Radio Shack.  Starting
with a Commodore VIC-20 and a 300 baud modem, N-Man had tapped into
major electronics suppliers and cracked their accounts databases.  After
tinkering with the order forms, he was able to obtain his collection of
ten Compaq SystemPro 486's, two Crays, a colour NeXT computer, sixteen
Macintoshes, fifty-three Nintendo's, twelve Sega game systems, and a
Sinclair ZX81.  The ZX81 was hooked up to a rat's nest of wiring which
had turned it into one of the fastest and most exciting computers ever
invented, although N-Man didn't use it that much because the keyboard
was a pain.  Many other electronic gadgets were in this lair, but we
will get to them later.
        Like any good hero, N-Man had custom-built a car that not only
looked sleek and dangerous, was equipped with a dazzling array of
weaponry and defence systems, but also got great gas mileage. (It is
always difficult for a super-hero to ask for a fill-up without being
asked embarrassing questions.) The car was painted a dark grey, the same
colour found on most highways, and had a double yellow stripe down the
middle.  This enabled N-Man to cleverly cloak himself and the car by
driving down the middle of the freeway.  The car had two jet engines in
it (in order to be one up on Batman) and with its hidden fold-out wings
could actually fly short distances to avoid traffic tie-ups.  In case
the car ever got into an accident or broke down, N-Man had a VW van as a
back-up vehicle.  The VW had all the features of the sleek flying car,
but didn't look as nice and made an annoying sound when driven.

NEXT ISSUE!!!!!  - N-Man's mortal enemies!
                 - The Dastardly Plot to destroy the world's
                   entire supply of gum ointment!
                 - A large chunk of foul-smelling Brie!
                 - N-Man's first victory!


--
Jeremy_Reimer@ |"It turned out, as N-Man discovered later, that the black
mindlink.bc.ca | boat hadn't been after him at all.  It was full of riotous,
---------------| unemployed former James Bond villains enraged at the fall
aka THE JAGUAR!| of Communism in the Soviet Union."
---------------|
Stealth Sig#69 |  --From "N-Man #3: N-Man on Holiday"