Grrl Power #519 – Mesmurprise!
Maxima can be a little arrogant, but this stems from living in a world where 95% of the time she can stomp anyone who fronts. Or… fronts her? Fronts to her? I don’t think that term has been relevant for about 20 years. She can beat up jerks. This is true with supers and it’s especially true when dealing with the supernatural. Werewolves are stronger than humans, but they can’t rip the door off a bank safe. Even an ancient vampire lord can’t hold a candle to her in terms of raw power. Of course one does not become an ancient vampire lord if their first thought when meeting a being like Maxima is to try and arm wrestle her. They have lots of other tricks which is what makes them dangerous. They do have moderate super strength and moderate super speed – it’s just not “stomp a tank flat” strength or “outfly Firefox” fast.
Maxima is correct however in the 4th panel when she suggests that even if something can copy her powers, that doesn’t necessarily make it as powerful as her. If you could copy Cyclops’s eye beam, but could only generate enough energy to output 1/10th the beam, then all you could really do is distract cats. This golem is already strong and armored, so copying her powers may or may not have a big effect on it. Though it might be able to fly afterwards too, which wouldn’t be great. But again as Maxima pointed out, her blood is weird. Still, it’s probably foolish to chance it, but for all anyone knows, it can absorb energy blasts in addition to being able to deflect them, and it was just waiting for a big burst damage to break out the ability.
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This is a little off topic.
As a resident of Columbus OH I would like to commemorate the anniversary of the first woman solo flight around the world in 1964 by a Columbus native Jerrie Mock. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jerrie_Mock
The local paper ran an article today. After seeing it I really think Tom Hanks needs to do a DNA test to see if he was accidentally switched at birth and if she was his biological mother. https://thumbs-media.smithsonianmag.com/filer/03/48/0348840c-2d73-4c8e-8bee-105e2aa821b4/02-i-was-there-jerrie-mock-mainimage.jpg__800x600_q85_crop.jpg
The comic is called Grrl Power. I don’t think celebrating pioneering achievements, by women, would be even slightly off topic!
Thanks for sharing.
I u lob lob yob fob a yob gob rob e e a yob i tob hob wob o u yob a yob e tob yob a yob gob a i nob a yob o rob pob yob a yob.
Sounds like your engine is not running smoothly. You might want to urgently land and get an avionics mechanic to check it out, rather than risking crashing!
Yikes, that is an uncanny resemblance.
And what a great thing to post on Grrl Power! Thanks!
Thank you for sharing this Great Tidbit O.B. Juan
I think I figured out what I don’t like about the current art style. It’s too… “realistic” is the word that keeps poping into my mind but I’m not sure that’s right( again, I don’t know art).
Basically, I miss the more cartoony style of classic Dave. It doesn’t help that there are examples of it all over the site.
Too far into the uncanny valley for you? I can see what you mean, but I’m still stuck wishing I could draw like him!
It sort of reminds me of expressionism.
Not my favourite school of paintings.
I’m not into it myself. I am still enjoying Dave’s style here though. Conveying expressions and beauty are important things that it does well. Plus it allows subtlety and depth to be merged in, as required. Not to mention helping to convey the meaning at a glance.
Ever thought how hard it is to paint ‘this is a mental attack”? Yet still keep that consistent with realistically portrayed characters.
Oh, I like Dave’s work fine too.
I just don’t happen to like expressionist paintings as much as works from other schools of painting.
*nods*
Mind you I prefer it to sharks in formadahyde and unmade beds. And whenever a cleaner throws out one of the ‘works of art’ from a modern art museum, we should have a
rulelaw that they are not allowed to put it back in. The cleaners have better taste than the curators!Agreed! Any such works of art must be placed in a dog park for a week, so that dogs have a chance to dissuade potential noncompliant art museums.
I’m an artist, and I can’t do anything but agree. A con-artist (also he’s a painter) friend of mine said that such pieces of ‘modern art’ have nothing to do with painting skills, but con-man skills in order to sell such garbage to the galleries and private collectors.
Also a total lack of appreciation for what art actually is. If a group of people can get confused thinking a janitor leaving their bucket and mop outside while they use the restroom real quick is art, then they clearly have no sense of aesthetics.
The problem with that idea is the people who see art in a literal pile of garbage may consider the dogs’ contributions to be the added touch of genius.
Lol.
Seriously reminds me of the “Legion” episode on Red Dwarf. Rimmer is
pretending to be interested in art to impress Legion
Rimmer: Now, this three dimensional sculpture in particular is quite exquisite. Its simplicity, its bold, stark lines. Pray, what do you call it?
Legion: The light switch.
Rimmer: The light switch?
Legion: Yes.
Rimmer: I couldn’t buy it, then?
Legion: Not really. I need it to turn the lights on and off.
Pretty sure that would win the Turner prize and be in Tate “Modern”.
But it expresses the duality of human nature; the light and dark side of the psyche. And the fragility of existence in the modern world in that what we think is constant can be changed in an instant.
i like his current art style, he mixes it up with the chibis so it’s not all realism
I slightly agree. I think the textures are getting a bit over used in the backgrounds. All in all Dave’s art is sweet and this is one of the best drawn comics I read, I put it parallel with Girl Genius.
+1
Girl Genius is…what’s that word? ppl use it to describe something which could only be done by a really smart person? i give up
Smart question. Most such words are used to describe the person as being really clever. For instance savant and genius (which as a smart bird, I am sure you are alluding to). And there are a whole host of ones that describe the results of that work. Sublime, to name but one.
I too am drawing a blank on one that matches your definition though. I would have to turn to phrases, such as ‘a work of genius’, but whilst that supports and reinforces the wordplay it does not actually indicate that it can only be achieved by such, merely that it was.
A genius might create a picture so simple that it conveys many subtle meanings simultaneously. Yet the same might be stumbled upon, purely by accident, by a child. This would not stop the former from being a ‘work of genius’ nor detract from its merit. Yet the child might turn out to otherwise be untalented.
Nope, there are a few specialist ones, that apply to particular applications only, such as ‘opus’. But I am failing to come up with said cunning word.
“masterful”?
Good one. Although a master may simply be good, whereas genius implies great. So getting there but not quite what was defined.
Sticking that in the thesaurus though should bring up what we are after, if exists. Of which the best results are “consummate” and “preeminent”. Neither quite doing the job.
Mmm, thinking on it, a ‘masterwork’ would indicate the work of a master. This could just be a well-trained and practiced person. One who is capable and dedicated, but not necessarily a great thinker.*
Therefore allow me to coin “geniuswork” as our solution!
* Although the original meaning of genius was simply that they were very good in their specialist field. In this sense it would be synonimous with ‘master’ or ‘masterwork’. However the modern meaning has diverged from that. This probably explains why there is no existing word. The associated language has simply not caught up with the new meaning.
masterpice?
there’s a slang term, where you describe something as being genius, like, that’s genius, i know it’s not proper grammar but Shakespeare didn’t spell his own last name consistently yet English teachers would have us all build shrines to him
Brilliant?
Yup that is a similar trick. Both examples of evolving language. I think the former fits the bill slightly better, but for most purposes they would be interchangeable. Only tarnished by the disrespectability of slang usage.
But, in due course, all the old naysaying teachers will have died off of old age, and the new usage will be accepted.
Mind you a lot of unexpected words (and uses) do find their way into even the mainstream dictionaries. So we should not write them off too soon. Although, I bet you they would keep the ‘slang’ tag on it, for a long long time, regardless.
One thing people may have forgotten: DaveB mixes up his art style, as in, Sydney is one style (believe it is ‘anime’, which isn’t really a style in itself as have seen different styles used), and Maxi for example is another
You just can’t go throwing around ‘all encompassing’ labels like ‘Manga’ or ‘Anime’, have just finished reading a very good (POO) Manga called “Real Clothes” (have caught up with the translations and just have to wait for the next chapter), and even though it is completely Japanese in setting, it uses, to me, what seems more of a distinctively ‘European’ style of art (they still use giant eyes for some characters, and through in the ‘chibi’ for effect when needed, but it’s not what one would typically associate with ‘Japanese art’)
So with that last panel, anyone else thinking this is actually Dabbler donning a Maxima form so they can scout this thing’s abilities? Her eyes look off-model in the last panel (along with a slightly off-model face in the close-up front-view), and I can’t help but think that it’s intentional. Guess we’ll find out Thursday, but just in case – Called It!
That is the beauty of Dave’s subtle foreshadowing. It is possible to pick things up like that sometimes. It also gives fair licence for us readers to speculate on the significance of the smallest detail.
Like Dabbler only having the one (real) eye. And don’t be too worried about which, as Dave can unintentionally invert things on the left/right axis at times.
Not that I am drawing any conclusions mind. Just drawing attention to that disembodied detail, in the final panel.
It’s not a robot so Dabblers lust aura will still be effective.
Will she also take the form of what it finds attractive? This ability was foreshadowed for a reason.
Will just toss in a bible quote, given yesterday was Easter..
‘Pride goeth before destruction, and an haughty spirit before a fall’
It still is here, on the same latitude as the Holy Land.
*wags tail spiritually*
Longitude.
*twitches tail to wag at right angles to previously*
Man, so close to generating anti-spiritualism there!
Pfft! It looks like a pump handle!
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_mPPwfp90KE
when my dog gets REALLY excited her tail does a propeller wag
… is it using some sort of power that depowers Max?
Look at her eye color.
https://www.grrlpowercomic.com/archives/2074
Power duplication comes in two main flavours. Copying and stealing.
The eye colour might just be an artifact of the beam colour that is being laid over it. If not though, then you have spotted something that would point to the latter flava.
If it’s able to steal even Max and Harem’s powers at a glance, then it just… no.
Unless…
https://jeremyvarner.com/blog/wp-content/uploads/2016/07/analogy-300×225.png
Heh. I rather missed the point that it needed to handle the blood to analyse it. Whereas this is a totally separate power, namely mesmerism. Assuming the text clues are not red herrings.
But other threads have raised the possibility of it mixing and matching powers, and even merging them to create new ones. Using that hypothesis then this could be drawing from the above powers to create a beam/cone which drains powers and then hypnotizes the weak human which results from that.
However Dave has indicated that Grrl Power does not have any generic power-draining abilities. So we can exclude a broad-spectrum one from our speculation. However it could well be one that has been personalised for Maxima.
Sydney though is probably immune to it (even ignoring the fact that it may only work on Max), due to not being super powered herself (by our generally accepted definitions for this setting, albeit that I argued for the possibility in another thread). Although the mind-control would still be an issue, if she does not get her shield up in time.
Ok, when does Hitler come out in the cosmic headdress, and does he turn Sydney into a squirrel?
Heh, that image sure has resonated and stuck in the memories of a lot of folks.
… Does Maxima have a line to the Hoover Dam?
Yes, it was her contract rider. Sydney’s was a pony petting zoo.
If vampires work anything like a certain rpg series with vampires and they can pump blood points into their strength, speed, etc, they might be able to pump up to her power level….. So not good, especially since the older a vampire is the stronger they become.
i don’t think the golem’s creator is a vampire, just a blood mage with immortality of a sort
Vampire blood was used to empower the golem, though.
Yup. Ancient vampire blood, at that.
I’m pretty sure 1/10th of a Cyclops blast would still, at the very least, cause third-degree burns in baseline humans. To be fair, we are pretty squishy, but that thing can slice through buildings.
Maxima forgets stuff like that.
Considering Cyclops optic blast is enough to level a mountain, Maxima need to remember what 1/10th of her power would be like.
Also, 1/10 her power, combined with other powers, would likely make for a more difficult opponent even for her.
Also Cyclop’s optic blasts arn’t thermal beams like superman’s, they are kenetic force. So being blasted by 1/10th would still be like having a car hit you.
Unless they retconned that in the marvel comic’s new universe reboot.. I don’t keep up.
Yeah stun cats would be more like 1/10000 or less.
The guy has serious amounts of firepower.
Still waiting on Halo flying meters over its head then PPO’ing straight down at full beam. Point blank, can’t miss. Loosing height by falling due to orb switching shouldn’t be a big issue, shield is more important.
Missing is not the issue. Its shield bounced the fireballs off. If that happened to the main beam, it could slice Anvil in half!
But it would be a stylish move, if the construct can’t use the shield to cover a vertical attack. Halo would be able to see if it did move it into place, so could try something else if she reacted fast enough. Nice idea.
HUZZAH! MERASMUS!
Somebody just found a big hole in Max’s defenses. This could get messy. The Drunken Superman Syndrome.
Damn I miss Sydney’s bangs! She looks so serious above. Well, I guess she has good reason. But still…
*grabs magic head-band, in mouth, and runs off to dig a deep hole*
Don’t forget to ‘water’ it
Actually, originally, Sydney’s bangs were closer to the invotive image, but somewhere along the way they started to ‘draw the curtains’ across her face, eventually they may have ended up completely covering her face…
Why is Anvil examining that brick so closely? Did she dig it out of her cleavage? o_O
Hmm, she is pulling on her top, so maybe she did dig it out, upgraded from a ‘crumb shelf’ to a ‘rubble rack’?
Maybe it is actually a retro-style mobile phone, that is just styled to look like a brick?
Concealing what is actually a satellite phone, with a shed load of smart phone accessories built it. Not to mention whatever James Bond type gadgets Arc-Spark could build into it.
Suitably reinforced to use as a thrown weapon, of course. Maybe even with a rubbery surface, so that it will bounce back to her too!
Throw-hit-bounce-return-kinetic recharge
Throw-hit-bounce-return-kinetic recharge
Make quick call
Throw-hit-bounce-return-kinetic recharge
Throw-hit-bounce-return-kinetic recharge
Anvil would probably need a phone with armor and padding enough to make it look like a eighties mobile.
It may be sold in other venues, but I was in a local Bestbuy (and I use the term loosely) store and found they are selling a 60’s retro Trek communicator. It links to your phone via Bluetooth and lets you use it to make phone calls. It even does the chirp-chirp noise when you open the grill.
https://www.bestbuy.com/site/the-wand-company-star-trek-bluetooth-communicator/5450837.p?skuId=5450837
The Retro Spy-Flip 3000! The latest in stylish mobile communications for top intelligence agents! Endorsed by Q! We want these field tested to the extreme, but returned in one piece…
Comes with poison dart signal antennae, multiple pre-installed ringtones, and an all new enhanced feature! The Samsung Galaxy Note 7 hand grenade!
:D
It’s never a good thing when someone like Maxima is vulnerable to mind control. Hopefully, they thought of that possibility and had Dabbler cast some kind of spell on her that would immediately knock her out or something if she was ever put under like that.
OMG I’m dying here… Check out Kenya… (Anvil)… She just pulled a brick out of her cleavage… LOL
The look on her face is: How did this even get in there in the first place? It is priceless. If I had any skill at editing I would use that as my Gravatar picture.
In the past Dave has said that he is OK with readers making up personal gravitars like that. Of course we should consider that to be under the usual restrictions such as ‘for personal, non-profit use only, and with copyright remaining with Dave’.
As regards the skill, I can see how you might want to get rid of the speech bubble, in order to show her right hand. But, provided you are not fussed about the latter, you can still make a good gravatar by not including the part with the speech bubble in it.
In fact that would probably make the image easier to see, in the thumbnail size as it appears in the comments. Show too much of the scene and you risk loosing the expression that you want to capture in her face.
I opted for the Rad Muncher Omnomnomanyte! Comes prepackaged with Dabbler boob tube…
Crumb Shelf!
Technically, Cyclops was the worst example, since he doesn´t shoot lasers out of his eyes.
His eyes are portals to another dimension, so if you were to copy that, you would have the exact same abilities as he does.
Yeah, he only ‘shoots’ if he blinks (which he keeps forgetting to bloody well do), otherwise it’s a continuous beam
Bricks are clearly not welcome in boob valley.
No silicon wanted there!
you know, that does raise a question. if/when Maxima has a kid, will the kid inherit her powers?
Comments that Arianna and Peggy have made indicate that if there is a genetic cause to super powers, they have not been able to prove it. Yet some comments Dave has made, such as in blogs, could be interpreted that there are genetic links.
As these were mostly associated with Varia’s power though, and she has a contradictory view point to Arianna and Peggy, then that may be just to do with the way her power works (using gestalts). Plus, of course, Maxima had geode water triggering her change, for whatever reasons there may be behind that. So she may be in a different category to the ones like Harem who were (presumably) born that way.
Therefore this is very much a ‘wait and see’. Which I hope we do get to do one day. Maybe around 2050? I would like to see the Archon kindergarten scenes where Max junior is playing with Sydney Scoville III. Plus we might get to see Arianna and Suzy Wen bringing in their kids too!
*wags tail caringly*
I’m thinking that with the minimums that Max has to have for Speed, Toughness, and Strength… either the babby is a super from the getgo, or it’s going to be a corollary to the old “Man of Steel, Woman of Tissue Paper” issue.
that was kinda the path i was thinking. if maxima’s minimum strength and toughness is too high, a c section wont be an option, and natural birth might end up…. squishy…
Unless Achilles is the dad.
He’d have to be, just to survive the Snu-Snu :P
But, this is like with the Mavelverse: you have those born with their powers (Mutants or Aliens), and you have those given to them through artefacts or serums (Juggernaut or Captain America), and fairly sure only those born with it would pass on the genetic Super-DNA, unless the serum actually changed them at the DNA level (in which case, Parker can pass it on, as seen in Mayday Parker, but Juggs won’t)
For the love of god Sydney, get your shield up and keep it up.
+1
Getting it up and keeping it up is hard work. There’s also normally a long recharge time between usages.
Soooo… are you saying Krona should offer Sydney a choice? “Take the red pill or the blue pill?”
Did we stop talking about Sydney and start talking about our male powers?
So I’ll assume you’re taking the little blue pill, then…
maxima might watch a little too much dbz. i mean why would you speed straight for an enemy that you don’t know its abilities of.
Because all of the other supers present are vulnerable enough that there would be a severe risk of the construct gaining their powers, if they were to fight it instead. Whereas dancing around and not attacking just gives it more chances to attack whilst you decide what to do.
Plus, as a power duplicator, there is no way to tell when you have found out all there is to know about it. So far they already discovered a bunch of things, like the laser claws and the regenerating. At some point you have to say ‘OK we have learnt all we are likely to, we have to engage’.. Tactically the sooner you do that the better, when dealing with absorbing enemies, whilst you have yummy little power ups on legs wandering around next to them.
Well, usually…
I’m thinking vampiric charm gaze as Sciona used an ancient vampiure’s blood in that thing.
Somebody was gettin’ cocky.
That will be Maxi, as usual :P
Obligatory movie reference: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nN9xsFUsPqM
‘Fronts’ is just a short form of ‘confronts.’ So you can use it in any way where the word confronts works.
===
I have to wonder why robo-cop didn’t bother to try his mezmer-ray on Halo. He might have managed to get her to drop her force field, making her easy prey for his vastly superior physical attacks.
Judging by the results, he was waiting for Maxima to show up. As has been mentioned elsewhere in these comments, after Maxima’s demonstration of her capabilities every arch-villain will realise that they must overcome her, before any other plan will succeed. There are many ways to defeat Halo though, and she is not (presently) an overwhelming power. So all it needed to do was remain a clear, present, and escalating danger and wait for Maxima to show up.
The other thing to bear in mind is that the Fight at the Steakhouse Car Park™ was televised and Sciona has been shown to be a clever antagonist. If we can deduce that the shield protected from Vehemence’s mind-affecting power, then so can she.
Plus, of course, Archon has been letting the ‘villains’ go free under the legal basis that they were being mind controlled, so were not acting under their own volition. Which would make that aspect very much a matter of public record. So joining the dots about the shield protecting against more than just the physical will not be hard.
There was no point in wasting such a powerful attack on a target who is probably immune to it. Especially as that would run the risk of alerting the main target.
they must overcome her, before
or, as Bilbo Baggins put it:
It does not do to leave a live dragon out of your plans
Even if Sydney wasn’t immune, using such a powerful ability on someone relatively low level would have tipped off NotBot’s hand and allowed the Big Bad to be prepared
Panel 4… hrm. Max is having an ugly day.
I must confess that I find that I am not keen on Max’s look in that panel. There is something unsettling about it. But ugly? No, not to my eyes anyhow. I would say just ‘less than her best’. Mentally removing the obviously super-human features, I would be proud to have a wife as pretty as she is there!
The ‘something unsettling’ would be like a beauty spot, something that makes the face more interesting to look at, despite seeming undesirable in isolation.
To me, it’s something about the nose, but then again, she did have it broken less than two days ago…
I know it’s a trick of her reflectivity and the lighting. But somehow it makes her look like her eyes are bulging out like they want to grow snail stalks or something? That’s ugly! Thankfully only for that panel.
Ahh, well done on putting your finger on it. I had been wondering if it was something about her mouth or cheek (which is rather angular). But the eyes are different to her normal appearance, you are right.
It also explains why we have a differing take on how it affects her looks. A lot of the locals here have their eyes get a similar look (without the feel of the eyes popping out that you describe). Whilst it can be quite uncomplimentary for some, it suits many of them. As such that does not bother me.
Nice to have that ‘unsettling’ feeling resolved. Being used to that feature was making me blind to its presence. Yet subconsciously I could tell that it did not belong on Maxima. The type that I am familiar with is not a transient expression, it is a permanent feature (usually acquired in middle age or later).
* Wonders if Mandrake is back *
( I don’t think any youngster will get it )
Mandrake the Magician
I remember I used to read that every day in the paper. There is a surprisingly total absence in my memory of anything about it, except that he was a magician.
He could hypnotize anyone almost instantaneously, not actually a magician ;-)
He could also make people totally forget about him. Other than the fact that he was a magician.
Her skin is like part mirror so some of that mezmer should bounce back at the golem.
RESULT: Both are doing the chicken dance
Only if her eyes are reflective, other wise everyone is at risk of the reflected beams
Heh. Now that would be fun!
She could get punched in her period?
I think we should put a full stop to that line of thought. ;-)
I see what you did there, Yorp. Menstruation jokes are never funny, period.
A period IS a punchuation mark.
+1
Does she menstruate?
I hope so. Otherwise we would be unlikely to see a Maxima Jnr, without adoption.
All super powers boil down to rock-paper-scissors. In a fight against another “rock”, its whichever is stronger (like the Violence Aura) or against “scissors” (like Harems teleport/multiple bodies) Maxima can just overpower them. No matter how strong Maxima’s “rock” is, she could be defeated by the “paper” of a mental attack. This matters a lot, i believe, since it means you get no unbeatable super-people and allows for much more real interactions, whether its in a fight or in the lifestyle.
As a side note, this means that Halo and Dabbler are the people who will be on almost every team, since they both have several different types of powers & they can balance out any team dynamic. (I personally think this is one of the reasons sydney’s “future” has her as an officer, the versatility dynamic she presents)
In case anyone doesn’t remember it https://www.grrlpowercomic.com/archives/60
Corporal is an NCO, rather than an officer. As a technicality mind, you are correct that it is a command role. Just one that is low enough to limit the problems that her eccentric personality might cause.
Behold the power of Hypno Toad!
So am I to understand that Maxima has copper based blood? If so then it would be green from oxygenation and blue when not. Like Vulcans and octopi.
Her blood is blue. Its nature though is classified.
Personally I think it is that she passed a mystical test, in being able to get water out of that stone. Others probably tried and failed, but Maxima had ‘the right stuff’ to pass the test Which has elevated her to super-royalty! Ergo she must have blue blood, and it has nothing to do with octopuses.
“Or [get punched in your] period”. <— Best line I've read all day. Turned me into a ball of fits and giggles.
Oh great. So it can scan her blood through her eyes?
Sorta. When there is holding a blood sample, it can scan it. Whilst it might look like it is doing that here, the final panel is giving clues that it is a mental attack. Which is confirmed by the under-comic comment.
Took me this many pages for Sciona’s musing about Sydney’s blood to hit me. Not even trying to predict anymore, I’m barely keeping up with postshadowing.