Grrl Power #885 – Gotta catch ’em all with their pants down
In the Grrl-verse, Supers can’t be deployed by a countries military against a foreign nation. They didn’t have any rules about that when Maxima and others were serving in Afghanistan and people realized that could escalate REAL fast. So now there are accords.
But, here’s the thing. There’s nothing really preventing, for instance, the CIA, from hiring foreign supers to, oh, I don’t know, clairvoyantly listen in on certain important people during meetings, or telekinetically mess with someone’s brakes or whatnot. Yes, the accords explicitly call that a bit of a no no, buuuuuuut, no country really believes that any other country won’t be doing that, and if you cloak said activities in several layers of obscurity and you just have a weirdly large line item in your budget for “Black Coffee” then, while it’s technically illegal to be a super powered mercenary – there are totally super powered mercenaries.
They don’t usually wander into street brawls though. But as you can see from this page, there are multiple incentives for them to do so if they just happen to be wandering by and figure they’ll get a significant initiative bonus because everyone else is already distracted.
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Did she just get punched flat?
He’ll be right next to her in a next few panels, because we both one that one punch DIDN’T knock Maxima.
I dunno. Remember how Maxima can only allocate so much energy between abilities? She was putting everything in speed at the time to move while in stasis, so she had nothing in defense. Like when that vehemancer had her pinned down because everything she had was in defense, so she couldn’t break away.
Also remember however that a giant bone golem with a debuff spell designed to reduce even an elder vampire to a weakling who could barely stand when applied to Maxima she was still strong enough to take it down with relative ease. For all we know that was below her base line.
She probably doesn’t go to zero defenses, that would be a really stupid build for a Champions character.
Rather she probably has some base defenses that are always there, and the power pool can supplement that.
There’s nothing more embarrassing to go full out for something, and the wimp in the back K.O.s you because you have no more defenses. Ya, that kind of build only exists once in a campaign, then nobody ever repeats that mistake.
i still cannot understand how anybody can say “definitively” that “Maxima had NOTHING in Defense” when there has been ZERO input from DaveB, either by way of comic panel stating that, nor by him in the comments… so until he says one way or the other, we, the readers, are just GUESSING!!! as to the disposition of her stats, whether pre- during- or POST-Stasis…
yes, it’s cool to try and guess, but let’s not get crazy with proclaiming impossible knowledge (Only “I” KNOW the TRUTH about XYZ of whatever/whenever…) kind of statements, until we actually get shown in the comic, can we all just chill out and wait for the next update, ok?
If she had zeroed out anything here it would have been flight. That would explain why she was flung like that. Maxima’s not stupid, she wouldn’t step out of something like this with no defenses up. Also, we’ve seen her move; if this stasis field had her at 1% time, it wouldn’t have taken this many pages for her to get out of it at her top speed. Plus, big shiny boobs.
I venture to say that a normal human could have moved almost that quickly at 1% time. For it to have slowed Maxima to the speed depicted, who has at least caught a bullet with a finger and thumb, and probably CAN move much much much much faster than that, without cranking her super speed to x 3 levels… it would have to dilate time to at most 0.001% speed.
Considering we have DaveB saying that the gun would normally slow someone to 2 or 3% but it is compensating for Maxima’s super speed, by “double fist[ing the] power cell”. “Double fisting” doesn’t sound to me like going from 4% to 1%, so we can be confident it’s probably slowing time to no faster than 0.1%, and I’d say even slower than that, but that’s a guesstimate.
It is possible that 99% isn’t on the same kind of linear scale that we use for most numbers, but it could be a geometric or logarithmic scale where each number represents a much greater value that the previous one.
Much like how they measure earthquakes. (It’s not the Richter Scale anymore, that wasn’t good enough for the big ones, so they changes to a different one a long time ago but I forgot it’s official name.)
If it is one of those kinds of scales, I bet the 100 is total stasis with time for the rest of eternity, a theoretical value that their technology can’t even reach and outside of fiction is probably considered impossible. (Kind of like light speed is for us)
But it’s all speculation unless Dave dishes some info for us :)
Clever thought. However I think it unlikely. The characters appearing on the display are a courtesy of Dave’s. As per his blog, when he explained that he wanted to more readily convey the gag that Maxima was rapidly depleting the stasis gun’s battery. Without the symbols translated for us, the scene would have been slower and harder to interpret, thus losing the impact that allowed it to be so funny.
This is because of the rule of funny. Above all this is a comedy webcomic, and anything which hinders that is given a lower priority. In this case sacrificing the realism of a totally alien display for one that we could take in at a glance, using our mathematical symbols.
And as we do not use “%” to indicate a log scale (without something else to show that it is not a normal use of “%”), I doubt that it is anything other than 1/100th of a charge remaining.
All that said though I would not write it off as effectively useless. As another commentator indicated, even a 1% charge should be sufficient to incapacitate a normal human (say Sydney with her shield down).
However I would like to add one key point, in that these percentages were an indicator how how much energy was being used to contain the most powerful super (or at least the one currently wearing the crown). And it is very likely that Maxima had cranked her power distribution dial to ‘maximum speed’.
Whilst we might try to envisage this as ‘fast enough to catch a fired bullet in mid-air’, that is just a simple application of the power and probably not at the top end of the scale. To get to grips with how much comparable energy might be involved in that opposed struggle, it may be better to envisage the nuke-like attack that Max demonstrated. Because that is what Maxima’s capability is like at the upper end.
Now consider that the display could well indicate “1% of the power of a nuclear bomb going off”, and you realise that it is possible that even that small amount may be adequate to counter other super heroes.
And this is because your logarithmic point does come into play when you are comparing the relative power of supers. Each of the stars in their ratings represent an exponential increase in power over the previous rank. So mid-to low ranked heroes could easily be contained by this weapon.
Heatwave, for instance, whilst immune to heat like attacks will not have any special defenses against a temporal attack. Likewise Anvil is near immune to kinetic attacks, but that gun could freeze her, just as easily as it could zap a passing postman.
“ZERO input from DaveB”
not true. dave has given a run down on how maxima’s powers work. Maxima DOES have a baseline toughness which he described as “a very butch tank”. granted that “similar to a tank” is not necessarily that tough in this world where “what it does to a tank” is a common measure of damage.
when she maxes out one stat she does go down to her baseline, but thats still pretty high. She has a pool of power she can allocate but each stat does have a minimum and it is WAY higher than a normal human. She probably was at a full speed dump so her toughness was at its minimum. we’ll see how much that hurt when maxima comes back on screen.
DaveB was very specific that Maxima has a Baseline. She can not dump any one stat below that, to boost any other.
So she is never without defense.
It would be great for someone to actually quote DaveB, if we were to continue this discussion, but I believe these are the facts:
1) There are 3 basic levels for each of her 5 powers, and 3 points to distribute easily and nearly instantly
2) 3 points can be placed in the same power, 2 in one power and 1 in another power, or all 3 points distributed to different powers
3) If no points are distributed to a given power at a given time, she is still a fairly powerful super in that particular power, but not “phenomenal”, this is what I call her baseline
4) She can draw further from this baseline for exceptional circumstances, “dumping” that power into another power that needs it. I would prefer to assume* that this is not quite as instant or effortless as moving the points around, and is more similar to someone actually working out with heavy weights, or trying to sprint after already having been running for several minutes or hours (depending on your overall fitness level) – it’s strenuous for her, but in exceptional circumstances, something she knows how to do.
5) I would prefer to assume* that she can draw from each power separately, beyond the “baseline” – much like I can flex my arm muscles and legs together, but I can also isolate them to flex separately. this power is then du,ped into the power that needs it.
6) If she draws from her “baseline”*, she cannot draw further from it than would leave her as an exceptionally strong or fast or durable human being (not sure what that implies about flight, but I would assume it’s non-existent if she draws as much as possible).
* – conjecture, especially in terms of what “baseline” means
If you disagree with some of those (I’m assuming most likely what “baseline” is [in 4, 5, and 6 in particular], is the most likely point of disagreement) then please continue discussion with what number(s) above are the places we disagree.
If your primary argument is that “baseline” refers to her absolute minimum power allocation, after she is straining and allocating all that she can reallocate, then what would you call the level where she simply has no points allocated to a power, but isn’t trying to borrow either?
As for why I use baseline to describe the untaxed but also unenhanced level… baseline is much like someone’s baseline heart rate. Still beating, but they’re at rest. There’s nothing bringing it higher, like physical exertion, or lower, like a disease or pressure to a vagus nerve or something, no meditation, etc – nothing suppressing it – it’s the normal, non-enhanced, non-suppressed “baseline” against which all other things are measured.
I think “Some Dude” below tried to reply, but yeah, she’s laying face -and chest- down. The right arm palm is facing up, and if she WAS on her back, he leg would be in pretty bad shape to bend that way – we’ve seen nothing to tell us they can bend their knees front AND back…
“she” is on “her” stomach
So this dude is like a superpowered Negan.
Either that, or there’s some SERIOUS tech cheats in those knuckle-dusters.
I am surprised and honored to see that I am the first to note that her space Yelp has only one more word than the Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy, Ford Prefect Addendum to the entry (and if she knew of it, she would say it is absolutely wrong).
*Walks off to go listen to Paperback Writer*
Well to be honest, to their combat tech, most humans are definitely harmless.
There are maybe a few thousand supers, and even most of them won’t do anything harmful to you unless you attack first.
That seems to qualify as “Mostly Harmless” in my copy of the book ;P
So the Hitchhikers guide was wrong? “Mostly Harmless” , no wonder she was unprepared.
Correction required.
“Not Mostly Harmless.”
There you go!
It’s technically correct (the best way to be correct), since the great majority of humanity doesn’t have super powers, hence the “Mostly harmless”
Yep, most Humans are mostly harmless. It’s just she’s pissing off the less-than-harmless ones right now. And attracting more by looks of it…
Just don’t underestimate the mice.
The early bird might get the worm, but the second mouse gets the cheese. NARF!
This island is covered in snakes; they are mostly harmless, but one out of every 10 can drop a small child with its venom, and one out of every 600 or so can drop an entire herd of elephants; oh and somewhere in the middle of the island there is a Yakumama, hydra, and queen lamia/naga; hiding in a pond, we don’t know their exact numbers so..enjoy.
Yeah, you need to be careful about that stuff. I mean, I was lucky. I went in there for a little bit, and by the time I cam out, I had four mouths to feed.
I am *so* glad none of the ones I took out dropped an entire herd of elephants. I have absolutely no where to put a herd of elephants. Also, there’s nothing that said whether that herd was tame or not, and I can tell you, these small children certainly are not.
I’ve not seen the drop table for a Yakumama, but I assume it’s probably a lot of absolutely ridiculous stuff.
Brilliant
They are not bad for moat monsters too.
“…Mostly.” – Newt, Aliens.
I don’t know that I’d describe Australia as mostly harmless.
Or Africa, which is wet and therefore in addition to being full of big dangerous things that kill you to eat you is also full of tiny disgusting things that kill you BY eating you.
Space Yelp?? Is there a Space Google as well?
This guy kind of reminds me of Vehemence, but with nicer teeth and a little bit more hair. Could be the build, right?
Probably called Google.@mw (@mw = [@ = spiral galaxy ] Milky Way)
Mutter’s Spiral, more likely. It’s unlikely alien races call it the Milky Way.
Considering the outer arms are a little cooler and supposedly a little more “friendly” to life as we know it, AND all the females (that we’ve seen) seem to have mammaries, it stands to reason many species would have evolved in a star system with a viewpoint looking at the galaxy, where they’d have a very similar elongated “milky” smudge in their own night sky… and with a similar fluid no doubt being generated by their mammary glands, would have a similar word and cultural context, that at least SOME societies/cultures/species would have a very comparable term for the Milky way galaxy…
Anywhere in any flattened galaxy would have a “milky” region in the night sky, it might just be a bigger or smaller portion of the sky is all.
The appearance of milk is a consequence of the fact that it is a hypercolloidal syspension of oil in water. You can test this for yourself by getting a bottle half full of warm water, and put some detergent in it. Shake it and confirm that the liquid portion remains transparent (the froth is white and the reason is fundamentally the same as for the milk (the effect of lots of little reflective spheres). Then add a small amount of oil and shake vigorously. The liquid portion looks like milk. Oil in water plus vitamins and minerals is a great way to nourish an organism with an incomplete digestive system.
Interesting idea.
Yes,
a means to review a business or location is pretty standard commerce.
and if you have a wide information network a search engine to quickly find something would be a general way to go.
Previous known as HHGTTG.
Can I “yelp” in space?
Beautifully timed. Waits until she’s running out of power, tanks her shield right before the power cell burns out, takes her cool toy, and all it’s going to need is a recharge.
He’s going to have a problem though, because punched through a wall or not, Maxima’s no longer in time-out. She won’t be down for more than a second. So unless he’s got something really surprising, he’s the puck and there ain’t no goalie.
And no, fire-head girl, this planet doesn’t suck — it’s richer than you ever imagined in the kind of resource you came here looking for in the first place. Think of the possibilities! This doesn’t have to be a one-time job; this could be your whole career!
Partly because your whole career might encompass the next ten minutes or less, if you don’t get the hell out of here.
Think of it, Fire-Head could be doing the Superpowered Human kidnapping thing for the rest of her life…
…The whole 10 seconds of it, after a blow like that! Even us Cybertronians would notice a hit like that, & she looks a lot squishier then us…
“I’m not a doctor or anything but I have some medical experience.
I’m a dentist. Do you think you’re hurt real bad?”
Okay, not a GENRE movie quote but someone should have recognized it.
Its like skydiving. If something goes wrong you have the rest of your life to fix it.
Unfortunately, to paraphrase Harem, her torso is now “china shop post bull”, so getting the hell out of there isn’t an easy option.
I like the Mythbusters experiment with this, the bull didnt touch anything I think one thing might have fallen but he avoided all the shelves.
Ooo, ooo, I saw that one! Even the bulls they had running around avoided the shelves! It was BUSTED big time! The bull would have to be doing that thrashing around thing where Humans try to ride them as they jump around blindly for the Bull to do any damage…
Unless the Bull just straight up charges them. That might do some damage too…
He has about 0.000125 seconds before Max returns to the fray with a vengeance.
If we aren’t going to get a name for this guy, I’m just going to call him Buttneck.
last page I took to calling him Commando Crusher because of his outfit; but this page due to the mercenary thing, attitude, and style of his steel knuckles. How about Jugger-not.
As in he reminds me now of the Juggernaut during his mercenary days along side Black Tom Cassidy.
I concur. I was debating on making the Juggernaut parallel last week, but was on the fence. This page sealed it.
Now the local freelancers are pulling a smash and grab. I get the impression this wasn’t just a drop on Archon but to mug *Chekov’s gun moment here thanks Sydney for mentioning it*, some aliens for their tech. But these mercenaries have shown off some better gear; in particular that stasis gun. Like I said it outshines everything else they brought and being able to stop even an S-class like Maxima as long as it did means virtually no one else is going to be able to stop it. They can get a buyer or use it themselves to stop people to kidnap or just rob. Some competition has some werewolf, vampire, A-class super with exploding fist bombs as henchmen, stasis gun them and over muscle the main target.
If they can get the right connections to build more (you don’t need to know HOW something works if you can duplicate its components and put it together like a blue print…a potentially dangerous thing to do with inferior materials and possibly not calibrating properly as you don’t actually know what the functional mechanisms are…hence a good reason to keep tech like that far away from planets like Earth who will want it the second they see it, and very poorly try to copy it but not have gone through the stages in technological development yet that lead up to it so…dangerous knock off territory).
Hey we can do tests in space(gun explodes in face do to atmospheric inteference)
He punched her in the gut so hardcore, he knocked the bracelet right off her wrist.
Or maybe she got twisted around… Hard to tell on this creature.
shield is on her left wrist, she is lying on her stomach in the panel and we are seeing her from her right side.
And caved in her badonkadonk.
I’m not sure that hurt as much as ending up a pincushion from all the broken glass.
The general rule outside of comics is that, if a blow throws you across the street, you’re going to die pretty quick. The force necessary to send her flying like that would have caved in her ribs and pulped her internal organs.
“Black coffee” ‘That’s racist!’ “Excuse me, African-American coffee.” Makes for more believable super-sized line-items anyway.
Joke originally made with helicopters. Corporate has decided, excuse me, “has come to the insight”, that that, too, is now racist, so we will replace all references to any color of any kind with the word “racist”. So “racist coffee” it is. And “racist helicopters” that will come and get you. There you go.
Coffee, is an Arabian, discovery!
I hope Maxima flattens this guy in .725 of a second. Max has not really taken anyone down hard in public.
Grinding Vehemence into the ground with a concrete pillar, on camera, then blowing his arm off, didn’t count as a hard take down? o_0
He got better… Really fast. I think it counted as an *attempted* take down.
What I notice… is his power is absorbing power.
Can he fly? Survive in space? Walk on the sun? Breathe under water?
How so?
He punched through a shield, he could just be stupidly strong, shields aren’t perfect; everything has a stress limit.
That shield may also not have had much power left in the batteries to keep it powered up after Max stressed it and the status field by walking up to her and reaching to put her hand towards her neck.
Not to mention the attacks from Dabbles, Cora and Brooke prior to that
Also, I suspect those ‘titanium knuckles’ he’s wearing aren’t just solid metal – there’s something going on with them…
I am reminded of how King Cold thought Trunks’ sword was some magical super sentei sword like the weapons from Ronin Warriors; only to be ended for his mistake.
Didn’t they fight a guy like that already? Are we doing that incredibly dragged-out melee AGAIN?!
Asborbing powers suck.
Heh, cannon, meet glass.
His fist in panel 4 is… draining power from the shield?
Looks like it, but it might be a physical power-up enhancing the punch too. Given his already great physique I’m actually inclined to believe the latter, but I’m sure we’ll find out soon
Or he is just so strong that he punched through the shield, possibly shorting it out; everything has a stress limit after all.
we don’t know his powers in total yet; but I do find it curious several people are coming to this conclusion, its like seeing Juggernaut punch through a tank and assuming he did so because he has a rust touch power.
I think it’s more something like the shield trying to hurt him (and failing)
It’s the Russian mobster’s super goon isn’t it?
That is where the clever money seems to be.
Ultra Tech Money:
“Hello, police, this is money, serial number 091FH667XR. I have just been stolen, from a baby, along with some candy, by a human male with an “X” shaped scar on his face, who answers to the name of Deus. Currently on Earth at 40.7127281,-74.0060152 on 34th Street, heading Easterly, whilst wearing a smug grin.”
“Notification to bearer, named Deus, due to unvirtuous behaviour this unit of currency has been devalued to 0.01 cents. Also your fly is down.”
“Notification to bearer, named Sydney, due to virtuous behaviour this unit of currency has been revalued to $1,000. Also you are really pretty. Psst your car keys slipped down the back of the sofa. Have a nice day.”
https://www.schlockmercenary.com/2009-07-13
I’m getting a Rogue-NID or The Trust vibe with all this :/ (StarGate)
National Institute of Dicks?
You’re not wrong.
A thought occurs to me, thinking about the stasis gun and how it creates time dilation field around the target. We know Maxima’s flight isn’t gravity based (or propulsion so likely hyperforce or subtle dimension slide based), and her speed likewise may be pure speed and not time dilation speed.
So it stands to reason the stasis gun may have little to no affect on a time dilation speedsters. As well may have diluted to no effect on; Gravity Manipulators, Time Skippers *think guys like Hit who can store and jump nano-seconds to seconds through time…may end up able to absorb the stasis field and get a real store house of time stopping later*, and the oddest one the Luck Power types…being the idea that their powers work by subconsciously collapsing localized fractal timelines so only the best outcome ones become reality. So hit them with a stasis field while they are trying to fight you could destabilize it and just shut it down or simply have no effect or somehow bend around them and miss them because two separate time distortion fields would be interacting.
Daniel here. Screwball didn’t understand any of that, but I found it interesting. I wonder how it would effect other powers too. Some Teleporter with a Speedster’s mind, their mind working impossibly fast but teleporting instead of running? Or even a normal Speedster for that matter? I can see them trying to teleport/run out, but would all of their body get out at the same time or would they be stretched/compressed as some returns to real-time while the rest stay in the field?
I find it likely that Maxima’s speed is in fact time dilation based. It neatly explains why the stasis gun overdrew – Max’ time dilation countered it’s own effect, so it increased power to compensate, while it wouldn’t make sense for it to compensate according to some fixed speed limit of things inside the field. Also, her moving(i.e. running) at speed doesn’t have the effect on her surroundings you would expect (whereas her flight produces sonic booms.)
Also, I’m not sure why gravity manipulation would counteract the time dilation effect.
Relative time can be altered by gravity. Some theories postulate that time is actually a by product of gravity rather than a universal constant, hence the changes in relative time being possible. In short altering gravity may also alter relative time.
Gravity slows down time, which is the opposite of what you want. There might be ways around this, but they’re complicated and full of side effects. Also, to get meaningful time dilation, a _lot_ of gravity is needed – you’d be killing everything before getting an effect measurable without an atomic clock.
by that same reasoning the stasis gun shouldn’t work at all. As it is creating a time dilation bubble, the effect this has with localized gravity is an unknown variable as it is so far outside the tech capabilities of anything on Earth.
There is a reason I thought it was a kinetic containment field when first introduced as the known properties to get the claimed effect are so vast and destructive. But gravity is part of this equation, and super powers tend to bend into the unexpected properties/metaphysical manipulation iffy physics territory.
PS: Note Gravity manipulators can also reduce gravity, even produce anti-gravity/hyper force to fly around and make things float *basically at that point they might as well just be psychokinetics but I guess this avoids claiming other psychic powers”,
a powerful one can be see and focus to create things like tractor beams, gravity mines, somehow walk up a wall even if their weight to do so should break the glass, contained compression points…and other weird stuff you can see in games like Gravity Rush and its sequel among a few characters.
Its like when the writers remember what all falls under electromagnetism and suddenly Magneto is hearing radio transmissions and bending light to turn invisible.
There’s nothing suggesting the stasis gun works via gravity manipulation. And yes, by RL physics it shouldn’t work – which isn’t really a surprise in this comic. You were the one who invoked RL physics when proposing countering it with gravity manipulation, as opposed to basing your argument on anything in the comic, and of course a physics-based argument needs to hold up to physics.
Anti-gravity is either no gravity (which does speed you up, but by an unnoticeable amount when starting in earth’s gravity) other just gravity in the other direction, which doesn’t change anything.
want to get metaphysical.
Gravity is produced when mass reacts to masslessness. Time is produced when that Gravity in turn reacts to physical space, the amount of gravity influences the density of localized time. Ergo, while normally it would take monumental amounts of gravity to alter time; on a much smaller localized level however as you can create isolated gravity pockets you can alter the relationship between a local space/time and the surrounding space/time without interfering with the overall gravitational bodies. Such as creating a circle on the ground holding someone down more or making yourself float and fly around but keep your relative gravity aimed towards your feet *like how Sydney flies*,
if we consider the relationship between time and gravity then gravity manipulator has somehow created a bubble of gravity within Earth’s gravitational field that is only affecting a limited space and things in that space meaning there is point, a membrane as it were preventing anything beyond that distance from being drawn in, and this included the ground under it. An actual increase of gravity in one spot would operate like a singularity pulling all the surrounding mass including the ground and air around them to that point. But what we see with gravity manipulators in various super hero comics and games is altering the relationship between masses, making the Hulk crash down harder to the ground like he’s suddenly denser when he isn’t, of holding people down in a glowing circle yet the air outside that glow and ground under it remains unaffected.
this localized and isolated phenomenon is not unlike what the stasis gun did, with the related and conjoined force of Time. Ergo if a Gravity manipulator has their power on, or using it on the stasis field a reaction of some sort should occur as you are overlapping related yet distinct localized and isolated physics jumbling forces.
While what would/could happen in such an unprecedented and unnatural event is up to the imagination there being a relation alone can be assumed to do “something”, not unlike when a magnekinetic and an electrokinetic face off.
I can’t see a reason why localized gravity would have a stronger effect on time. In fact, a large mass has a bigger effect on time than a small close one, compared to the gravitational force.
And yes, gravity manipulation is manipulation of the gravitational field – which is a force field. And gravitational force strong enough for meaningful time dilation would squish anyone except Achilles. If you have that much power, the destruction outweighs the benefits – city-destroying nuke at least because your gravity field accelerates the air to relativistic velocities.
And as far as I understand it, the time dilation isn’t even related to force, but due to potential energy. If that’s true, producing time dilation becomes even more complicated, i. e. the gravity manipulator needs a physics degree along with immeasurable power.
Indeed,
this is why I was so hopeful the stasis gun was the immobilization definition of stasis like a kinetic containment and not time dilation. Heck to make matters more complicated, add that we could see her in the field and the biggest shouldn’t have happened was…she moved across the ground.
Consider that, the stasis field is producing a time bubble, which is operating visibly within the greater time field of the Earth *which in turn is in the greater influence of the sun*, so we have a time field acting independent within the greater time field….however rather than be a separate dimension/pocket dimension linked by a portal like the usual *time moves differently here than your world*, it retains a position relative to the Earth.
Maxima not only was moving inside it, she was interacting with the road under her feet to move forward..the road which is not only under her feet but extended out from the stasis time field. The stasis field localized on her and moved with her. Although that raises the question if she could have broken out by just flying straight up out of its firing path…but I digress.
the idea here is, given the (shouldn’t be working like this) nature of this stasis gun/rifle; if we overlapped a similar field, say a powerful gravity manipulation field in the exact same spot what sort of reaction would occur between the two localized effects defying their conventional behavior.
On that note Dabbler did say if the stasis pod was broken while the power was in it, it could cause some weird gravity effects, so in this universe the relation between time and gravity is in effect; even if the tech at work seems like it should be well above everything else seen so far to the point of *I also have a sun’s worth of energy powering my space ship* kind of civilization but I’ve ranted about that enough; I am just going to assume these mercs stole this gun from some higher end member civilization of the Xevoarchy, the ones probably with the capital ships able to open Aetherium Causeways.
Also yes on that last point, which is an age old feats discussion. How much of your power is something you can learn innately and how much do you have to train and learn to do. An old adage on that is a person doesn’t need to know anything to learn to walk; they just do, or to kick for that matter; but learning about the muscles, skeleton, and such can help you to learn how best to exercise and improve any training in running, swimming, and martial arts.
-which always brings complicated super powers into question because I instantly become curious how they figured out this five step process to do what they do-
Dunno if anyone’s pointed it out yet, but panel 8 is missing the knuckle duster on the left hand.
Or, he simply pocketed it to catch the de-powered gun
Knuckles may be in for a surprise if he plans on using that stasis gun on anybody. Max drained the battery dry on the thing.
Prolly won’t be effective against Max at this point, but depending on how the power cell works, it may have some residual power that will become available after the device stops drawing on it (most likely less than 1% of the total storable power, but might be enough to hold someone…)
Drained power cell or not, it’s still a very valuable bit of loot (especially to Terrans).
“Earth: mostly deadly.”
“Australia: sorry this rating device appears to have broken, because it went off the scale. Final entry before breakdown was regarding a tree with arachnid poison for sap, which likes to burrow down and conceal itself in septic tanks and wait for its victims to use the toilet!”
its now Jamaican coffee, and african-americans aint black as Joe Biden likes to say
They also ain’t African if they haven’t been back for ten generations (ignoring the racist indication that only blacks can be from Africa)
I personally seem to be expecting against popular opinion that this guy is about to get floored not by Max, but rather by Cora or Dabbler, who are screaming “Hey! Go Ninja loot somewhere else! I already called dibs on her stuff!”
He he. Like it.
*raises dew claw upwards, in approval*
They uh, didn’t factor that with Super Heroes comes Super Villains. Did they?
Never discount the local crime when the police are like this.
“With great power comes great abuse of power.”
With Great power comes Great power bills.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fnWKnSczaRc
With all this talk about Maxima’s power level I actually want to know it, so I will provide some data in the hope to find someone with a better understanding of construction can find out her exact power levels.
In https://www.grrlpowercomic.com/archives/comic/grrl-power-275-wake-up-call/ the author confirms her base level durability is one bulky tank/.
In https://www.grrlpowercomic.com/archives/comic/grrl-power-283-tectonic-uppercut/ the dirt spikes are one Jiggawatt high, two Jiggawatts wide on the smaller bits and Jiggawatt is 5’9” high.
Maxima’s blast against the Fel was a hundred petjoules focused in nothing, but a square meter.
She’s less fast than mach 16 and faster than mach 4.
The easiest one to gauge with is the petajoules statement – a joule is a joule, no matter the area that it is focused onto. If you take “a few hundred” to be 400 (for the sake of lowballing), that puts Maxima in the power output range of a 100 megaton nuclear bomb. IF that was her maximum. That kind of energy focused into speed gets her into the range around 30% of lightspeed.
In short – do not taunt happy fun Maxima.
I was just crawling a bit through the comics and than I found this: https://www.grrlpowercomic.com/archives/comic/grrl-power-80-she-used-this-spell-to-scan-a-hotdog-once-once/.
Being a super can be detected.
In https://www.grrlpowercomic.com/archives/comic/grrl-power-80-she-used-this-spell-to-scan-a-hotdog-once-once/ the author mentions Krona is neither a super nor a wizard or a mage, but does use magic.
second link is https://www.grrlpowercomic.com/archives/comic/grrl-power-481-its-basically-just-another-kind-of-magic/comment-page-1/#comments
Regarding what the newly arrived supervillians might have to keep possibly-hurt-Maxima at bay – there sure do appear to be a lot of squishy human bystanders/hostages/seedling-bodybags hanging around the immediate vicinity.