Grrl Power #895 – Fine print, bitches!
Apparently Hench Wench got her gorge under control. It’s been suggested that Hench Wench’s day job is a contract attorney. Makes sense to me.
I don’t know if LLCs have officers or are referred to as charters. I did a minimal amount of googling, but I figure I retroactive it if Hench is talking total nonsense in panel two there.
I do like the idea that Hench Wench comes in, gets herself hired, then goes bezerk with everyone else’s abilities, runs roughshod over their plans and basically tops from the bottom. But even though she’s infamous in super villain circles, everyone keeps hiring her because she’s such a god damned force multiplier.
Weirdly, Hench Wench’s clothes aren’t getting burned, but her stocking can get torn up because that’s kind of sexy, especially on the knee there. Also keeping track of a bunch of progressive battle damage on her outfit is a pain in the butt. I only did it with Maxima’s outfit because I knew I’d only have to track it for two pages. :)
[cough]Kelek.[/cough]
Speaking of LLCs, here’s a book recommendation that I think I might have recommended before, but I’m recommending it again because book 4 just came out after 3 years. It’s Delvers, LLC. It’s an isekai series, but there’s two unique things about it that I like. One, the main characters are two guys who are friends transported there at the same time, so it’s like a buddy isekai series. Two, the series tries hard to set up a harem for both guys, but as I recall through the end of book 3, it doesn’t happen. I’m relistening to the books because as I said, book 3 came out just over 3 years ago, so I might be wrong. I’ve only just started in on book 3.
Actually, the thing I like most about the books is the world building. The setup for the MCs having a harem is that the world has a 3 to 1 female to male ratio. A lot of books would kind of leave it at that, but Delvers goes into how most marriages are different, and how the women of the world think it sounds exhausting to be the only other person in a marriage. Most guards and mercenaries are women because men are considered to be more valued, stuff like that. I also dig all the details about how the animal people are super sensitive to body language and ear/tail positions and how much teeth they’re showing. Man I love good xenoanthropology.
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Hench Wench believes she has covered all the bases with the fine print in the LLC’s charter. Arianna gets a court order to place the LLC into receivership with Arianna herself the court appointed overseer. At that point Hench Wench losses the powers of the previous LLC directors and finds herself limited to Arianna’s powers, or lack thereof. Arianna then discovers a non-compete clause that prevents Hench Wench from joining up with any other group of super villains. Thus ends the career of Hench Wench.
these conversations had returned and once again every single one is ignoring something.
they have said they are in an LLC, not what the LLC is named, where it was made, nor even what their real names are, so there is no way right now for anyone to even find out which LLC it is.
if they could find out which one it is, they could send a court order to disband due to engaging in illegal activities. But without variable ONE, action B is impossible to even begin implementing.
Brüt has shown he is willing to comply, and given he is also a signatory he would have all the knowledge someone like Arianna needs.
Yes, he is a signatory, which means they would also have to track down the others (and seriously doubt there is only 3 of them)
And, again, this all takes time!!!!!
He can at least identify it, there after it’s all paperwork.
Brüt can provide the information needed to forcefully disband the LLC.
That having said it’s a tactic that works only if they either win enough time or if Hench Whench escapes.
Nope. As long as you have the name and venue, you can destroy the LLC *administratively* even without a court order. Just get a state drone to reject the application and back it out. Or Leon can hack in and change the “charter officers” of the LLC to “Donald Duck” etc and see what happens.
Please no looney toons else she will get the powers of toons.
Yeah, toons always win vs matches, toon logic is overpowered.
I wouldn’t worry about Donald Duck, but Bugs or Taz would be worse than Brut.
This is also correct. Specifically someone working in the office of the New York Department of State. Or even the Secretary of State of New York himself/herself.
And you are ignoring the fact that Max can easily get all the info needed from Brut, who is suddenly very cooperative thanks to Max’s fire arm’s current target.
I am in awe…
…
I am _miffed_.
That bitch (who I am still insane in fan-love with) is (trying) to hurt my husbando with spinny-centripetal-slamming stuff. I know it can’t hurt him, but I can’t help feeling like even making him dizzy is an UNFORGIVABLE CRIME.
…
I want her punished. Punished!
Does Dabbler have a Bigby’s Spanking Hand spell? And not the fun version.
Fun fact due to how humans get dizzy being indestructible should prevent that from happening.
Hmmm… dizziness is tightly linked to balance and proprioception, which are tied the motion of fluid in the inner ear. I don’t see why invulnerability would affect that at all, aside from maybe clamping down on the nausea.
Well his inner ear nerves can’t be damaged so,
nor can his circulation be cut off or disrupted by spinning, or optical nerves for that matter; rapid changes in blood pressure caused by the head moving quickly, or damage to the inner ear. He shouldn’t be affected by a flash bang to his sight, or sonics, rapid movement, or such disrupting (which is a mild form of damaging) her sensory nerves that affect balance.
so yeah, if he is as invulnerable as advertised then things that we take for granted as being caused by mild damage should also not be possible.
basically while the more severe causes of dizziness should be obvious no goes like infection or severe damage; he should also be immune to disruptions to his nervous system via eyes, neural sensory of position in space and relation to gravity, and inner ears.
Dizziness from spinning isn’t associated with any actual tissue damage though, it’s caused by the fluid in the ears continuing to slosh around due to momentum after the body stops moving.
I guess it all comes down to what is considered “damage”. Is damage defined as “anything that can cause the body to function at less than optimum, even temporarily”? Or is it restricted to actual cellular injury? I think it should probably be the latter, as the former would raise a whole lot of weird conceptual questions, like for example if you could blind Achilles by spraying his eyes with ink, or why being grappled doesn’t count as preventing his muscles from working.
On a related note, I’m also curious about what would happen if you tried to drown, suffocate, or starve Achilles. Being immune to tissue damage doesn’t mean that your body can create energy from nothing. My guess is that he would go into a kind of hibernation, his invincibility preventing cell death but not actually keeping him functional under these circumstances.
I wouldn’t expect any “normal” level of starvation to affect him at all. Suffocation and drowning clearly do not. His cellular existence is not subject to normal biological laws, and he’s been buried and had to dig himself out so often that it’s a running gag on the team… if he’s missing, look for the largest mound of heavy stuff…. and wait.
I took his invulnerability which seems to extend also to eating diseases to mean that it prevents any abnormalities, like sleeping gas not working, flash bangs not working, prevent anything detrimental or abnormal to change the status of the body; that said this would also mean spicy food while having a flavor would not have the kick due to no reacting to the capsaicin.
This has already gone so much further down the rabbit hole than I would ever have expected.
I love it! X’D
I’m still calling dibs on Achilles for husbando, however.
My head cannon says he is basically 60-something in the body of an exceptionally fit (and invulnerable) 30 year old. And weirdly, I love that. A fully mature & well-experienced gentleman who can out rock, out party, and out last anyone “his age”. Even if if he is a goofball, nearly always.
I love him. ^_^
I will now refer back to my (soopr brief) thesis of Achilles as the CMHB: https://www.grrlpowercomic.com/archives/comic/grrl-power-879-immovable-grapple/comment-page-2/#comment-858714
Every spell Dabbler has is the fun version, even the ones that are devastating in battle
Point.
I did not fully consider what I was saying.
Clearly, I am not ready to leave the Temple. (Of Love, cause yeah I’m sure Dabs rocks that jam)
Nah, Bigby didn’t do enough research when mad in order to get the worst effects. However… EVAN did do the necessary research when really peeved, in order to come up with THIS.
…I’d forgotten all about that. O.o’
Thank you (?) for reminding me that exists. You are now my new favorite person.
No problem, glad i made someone’s day a bit better (?)
She’s just flirting with him. Remember the Barnes and Barnes song “Love tap?” That’s her.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NGqzaMZRy5U
“Game over, man! Game over!”
RIP Hudson’s balls
Sounds like the easiest way to defeat Hench Wench is for one of Harem’s copies to just pop in on a local judge, show them a video of Hench Wench bragging, and then get a court order dissolving the LLC as a criminal enterprise.
When the LLC dies, so do her powers.
Hmm, must have missed the page where the name of the L.L.C. was mentioned, or where it was formed, mind linking to that page?
it wasn’t specified, but she DID say that it was formed recently, and that apparently all the supervillains are officers of the corporation.
A quick public records search MIGHT turn it up.
Alternatively, it’s an open question whether or not you could simply get away with a blanket declaration stating that any such LLC, whatever it’s name and wherever it was incorporated, is hereby dissolved and/or nationalized by the nearest federal court that covers the jurisdiction they’re currently standing in…. without regard for whether or not the LLC was even incorporated domestically in the first place.
They don’t actually need that information – they just need Brut’s name. Which I suspect he will readily give to Maxima as soon as she says ‘What’s your full name’ assuming he does not have a record already and his real name cannot be found out from all the cameras he’s on via ARCHON’s resident hacker. LLCs are registered with the secretary of state and are publicly available information. IF it’s not registered with the secretary of state, then it’s not a legal LLC in the first place. Also it needs to be published in several newspapers.
Not to mention, Maxima can just say ‘What’s the name of your LLC’ if we want to be picky.
Not even that.
MAX: (whisper) what’s the name of the LLC?
BRUT: StrivingWenches please don’t hurt me.
I mention that in the post above – last sentence. :)
Thinking on it, the LLC shouldn’t have worked at all, since the LLC is a legal entity itself. it’s not the people who run it. She should only have, like, the power to hire people, and pay taxes on income *after* expenses, instead of before… and get a great tax rate and business accounts with distributors and suppliers. And a postage machine, The LLC is not the people who run the LLC; that’s the whole point of incorporating, so individuals who run/own the company are not personally responsible for it. I Guess Hench Wench’s powers work on her personal beliefs, not on legal facts, so dissolving the company might not stop her either
Good thinking. Her powers shall disappear in a puff of logic.
LOL
I agree that is probably how her powers work. However, just making her believe that the LLC was dissolved would stop her, then. It would be good to convince her it would never work again, while you are at it.
this would admittedly be a very hilarious and Douglas Adams-y way of resolving this.
What’s going on over Achilles’ head in the first panel? TV screen on the side of a building?
Probably a billboard, seeing how they are in, or near, Times Square
It occurs to me that Brut is surrendering only partially because he has a shotgun pointed at his junk. The other portion is that it is maxima pointing it at his junk. I’m not sure what his plan was, he appears to have been really hoping that the surprise attack would take out maxima. Or he may have had an escape option as part of his equipment, which due to dabbler’s declotheing, he suddenly doesn’t.
Either way, it is weird that he stayed to brawl in what should have been a smash and grab operation.
He has realized he is a B class at best fighting an S class whose gun alone can cause his knee to be sore so a nut shot is going to hurt. He either greatly over estimated his own power or some how several under estimated Maxima’s power. A common problem of B class supers is that they have that chip on their shoulder so strong yet there are still those above them and it drives them nuts
Think guys like Sabertooth , or Venom (when written well), as prominent B classes.
Most likely, he used that first shot to try and gauge her ‘actual’ combat power, not knowing that her power has a limited pool, so she was at almost her physically weakest. Probably the most common ‘Maxima prep’ for anyone looking to challenge her is going to be her fight with Kevin and the shot of her nuking the ship (I don’t recall any other non-staged public displays of her combat power). Realistically, she can’t deploy the nuclear blast, so he’d likely bank on being able to stun or at least knock her about, and with those two data points, it’s possible she’s been pegged as a ‘glass cannon’ even though she’s nowhere near that.
From there, his actions at the start of the fight were a mix of probing and mission creep. Step one was securing some alien tech, possibly with the option to secure more. Step two was attacking Maxima to see how tough she actually is (and to test the likely ‘glass cannon’ theory from above). From there, he was likely expecting her to be at or near his own level of toughness/power, and from his reaction, we can expect he’s used to pistol and/or rifle rounds, not anti-materiel rounds.
Yeah I can see that. When we step back from the semi-omniscient stand point of the audience and think of it from an in universe not on the team perspective.
Her standing in her own fall out at the tank display could be shrugged off by other supers if this world *and Heat Wave’s power supports this* works on the metaphysical defense feed back principle where a super can’t be hurt by their own non-biological *energy, elemental force, supernatural forces, ect..* powers. Like Cyclops beams can’t hurt him nor is there any opposite reaction to his head when he fires them, and so on…
so her standing there would look cool to those not knowing that but supers with experience with their own powers or others with energy powers might shrug it off as her showing off because her own special energy just doesn’t affect her.
The fact she keeps standing back during fights until the last moment as if she is charging up, and the misunderstanding that even Sciona got that electricity made her weaker and no one could tell how strong Vehemence really was because during that fight it was mostly focused on Maxima so not knowing her strength to compare to it would be hard to determine how strong he was for an outside observer. Had he first ground slammed an earthquake or threw a bus at someone it might have helped an outside observer gage that better.
I would also posit that any displays of power which are obviously staged would be either discounted, or taken with a grain of salt as propoganda. That’s why I used the ‘public brawl’ qualifier. We’ve seen her pull some serious shit with Sciona, but that wasn’t in a public battle, so no one that’s not part of the Council is likely to have that information beyond simple second hand information.
Anyone preparing with a fight for someone like her is probably going to look for actual recordings of unplanned fights, or fights where Maxima is an attacker on an enemy force to get a look at her actual combat skills and abilities. There’s likely at least some footage of her fighting Taliban, ISIL, or other super powered military targets from her time in the actual military, but we haven’t seen any of that, and we also don’t know the approximate power level of her opponents.
I’ve got a bad case of old man memory, but the only two public battles I can recall were with Vehemence and against the alien psycher plague carriers. Both of those would lend themselves toward the glass cannon, or possibly just high level flying brick w/ a dash of plasma weapons, as it’s doubtful that Kevin ever really went to town with his Vehemic magical energy (and if that would be covered by the Council) so without any measuring stick to compare him and his powers too, all the in universe video will show is Kevin hammering Max into the ground.
What I want to know is where did the rest of his grenades and equipment go? Dabbler isn’t sloppy (well I mean, not in combat *blush*) she wouldn’t risk detonating weapons if the pin got eaten before the explosive, and I assume the clothing nibblers only ate cloth, maybe leather and synthetic fabric. Are there half a dozen grenades rolling around?
It looked like he used up his grenades and I’d say Dabbler’s spell/summoned nano bots ate everything on him except his underwear.
He did have one left he was tossing up and down prior to the de-clothing
Okay, I know everyone’s trying to come up with clever legal work arounds, but this is definitely at the level where Max would be far beyond justified in just slapping her until she gives up. And the fact that she’s not, and allowing a fight to continue in the middle of a busy city, is probably gonna get her chewed out.
Well, honestly, she’d be justified in just punching her head off for that last, very clearly attempted lethal, attack, but there are tourists around.
Except, as LEO, she is expressly not permitted to do that, which is why she attempted to get Juggernot to de-power her
I feel obligated as an attorney to come up with clever legal workarounds… but yeah your idea would likely work just as well or better :)
We literally have no idea how many powers HenchWench has, but teleportation seems likely. It’s not obvious how much work it would have been for Max to take down Brut, and HenchWench is more powered up than him. “Slapping her down” is not likely, at least until after Brut leaves the LLC.
Why does teleportation seem likely? We’ve seen no evidence of that yet. And Maxima is ridiculously powerful – she could probably take down Brut very easily. The only reason he was even able to get a hit in on her was because she was in a slow field and had her armor down to it’s minimum since her speed was at maximum, which no longer required. Remember, Maxima took a punch to the face to a powered-up Vehemence and all it did was make her move back half a step. Even when Vehemence was at his maximum, he was unable to kill her (yet) and when he was near maximum, she blew off his entire arm. I do not think Brut is anywhere near on Vehemence’s level.
We don’t know exactly how the grenades got inside her clothes.
Sleight of hand
I’d go with sleight of hand before I assume he has the ability to teleport grenades into another person’s clothes AS WELL AS superstrength/invulnerability. Those two powersets seem like an unusual fit.
Sung-jin Woo does the best “Arise!” you just lost all credibility lady!
It’s a good thing Achilles is on a team. Because being unkillable without any other ability would suck if you got trapped somewhere.
One of my favorite book series has an immortal main character. And that was his only power (as far as he knew). So when a supervillain encased him inside a cement staue? He stayed there for 17 years until a super couple broke it during their…interlewds.
hench wench is drunk on power and being drunk on power is a good way to end up catching the dead (too much of a liability to let her live). if she’s captured alive she’s probably going to be signing a lot of paperwork devised by the keenest (non-super) legal minds archon has access to and all to the extent that she won’t be able to use her powers in any manners that aid or cause a crime to occur
Get a court order prohibiting her from being employed by anybody with super powers. Poof, her power becomes useless, at least until she moves outside the jurisdiction of the court in question.
You want a judge to issue an order enforcing discrimination? o_O
So, what happens to Hench Wench if Brüt decides that his best bet here is to quit the LLC? Will she instantly lose his powers which seem to be a big part of her power set here.
Easy done. Your the invulnerable one right? Fucking quit. See how she feels when those atks start to hurt.
Membership could be hard to resign from, due to the rules of the llc.
Not to get into a huge discussion on this, but you can always quit any job.
If you can’t quit, it’s called slavery, and we don’t do that anymore.
Now, there might be consequences for quitting, and it might be unwise, but no one can force you to stay.
What Dibbit said, yes.
I don’t think part-ownership of an LLC would count as a job. Seems to me that it’s something you “own”, so giving up the position would follow the rules for abandoning property rather than the rules for quitting a job.
a. You can always quit, but not always within one day. Sometimes you’re contractfully obligated to wait a week after quitting.
b. This isn’t about a job, this is about ownership. Ownership can only be transferred or emitted in the atmosphere.
You cannot legally put in an LLC agreement anything to prevent members from voluntarily leaving the LLC.
However, in order for the LLC to bestow powers on HenchWench, the members may have had to “contribute” their powers into the LLC as an in kind contribution. It would have no physical effect on them… but then to leave the LLC might not even affect the power delegation that gives her access to them.
It’s all magical hand waving, so it operates according to the laws of cool, funny etc.
Powers are not some specific item though. I think the aspect of being an employer is what is needed – so if an employer quits, it would have the same effect as her being fired, at least for that particular power.
Yes, that is arguable. I agree that is what would be expected, not counting law-fu. She was hired by the LLC, not the individuals, or an LLC wouldn’t have been needed.
Whenever something is contributed to an LLC, it is not necessarily withdrawable except per the terms of the LLC. I put in my trade secrets, you put in the deed to a property, a third and fourth person throw in money. If I want out, the trade secret doesn’t necessarily come with me automatically.
Powers are clearly an intangible, so I doubt that they paid any attention to how she wrote that part of the contract. “Upon resignation of an officer, the LLC is entitled to the continued use of the contributed powers for 90 minutes…” would be a statement that she could easily have included.
Anyway, rule of funny/cook applies to whatever happens here. Dave has plenty of fun suggestions now. The question is if Sydney gets to blow HenchWench’s mind and pop the LLC with an ADHD question, or maybe Arianna with legal fu, or Leo with a hack.
Dark horse answer would be if Ray Cosmos managed to nullify her power with any of the above, because THAT would have endless possibilities for further developments.
1) I now love the word ‘law-fu’ and plan to use it in my daily conversations. So thank you there.
2) Trade secrets are intellectual property, and are different than a person’s particular skills or physical ability – which are NOT property at all – intellectual or otherwise. Trade secrets come under intellectual property law (which is the main part of my law practice:) ). It would be illegal to require a person to contribute their skills or physical ability after they quit – and putting that in a contract would be illegal as well.
3) There’s a difference between intangibles like LABOR and intangibles like trade secrets. The most that can be done is to make a non-competition clause, where the member or employee cannot compete with the LLC after they quit the LLC. And even that is limited in scope, time and area. Also has nothing to do with this particular example anyway. :)
4) Rule of Funny is true, but comic book geeks such as we tend to also want there to be some sort of consistent in universe rules. :) It’s one of many reasons why movies like The Last Jedi sucked so much.
5) I would love if Ray Cosmos nullified her powers somehow, although I honestly do think Arianna is a perfect way to nullify her, plus it would be really funny as well. :) I do think Sydney giving her an ADHD question which completely makes her pause would be hilarious as well, especially if her powers from employment are just psychosomatic. :)
Can you put in a ‘notice period’ between the notification to resign and the resignation taking effect? It’s not exactly analogous to employees’ contracts, which invariably do include such provision, but it could be justified on the same grounds: giving the remaining partners time to restructure around the resources/abilities which will shortly be withdrawn, rather than leaving a surprise hole in the LLC’s capabilities. Brüt would still have the unilateral right to start the withdrawal process at any time, but Hench Wench would still be able to borrow his powers while that process was running.
No, but you can put a no compete clause in the resignation requirement. Basically if someone wants to quit, they can quit. Whenever they want to do so. There MIGHT be a fiduciary argument (probably would not hold up though as an argument), but you can’t force a person to work against their will. Like Dibbit mentioned…. that’s slavery or indentured servitude, and not legal. And like I (and others) have accurately stated multiple times, you cannot have an illegal contract. If nothing else, it would be an unconscionable requirement.
And according to Hench Wench’s description of her powers, they are directly tied to whoever she happens to be working for at the given time. Meaning you can’t say ‘but Hench will still be able to use his powers even after he quits’ – because that’s not how Hench Wench’s powerset works.
Hench Wench is stupid super character. But describes well where this comic is going.
Deleting this shit from my reading list.
this comic has been like this since day one.
I swear these must be spam bots from a rival comic, every page now there is ONE of these as if they think this is going to convince people who have been reading this comic to go elsewhere. Get over yourselves. Don’t like it, don’t read. Making this show of it just makes you look like that spoiled brat who has to scream in the store and walk out so everyone is looking at them; a petty self entitled child.
Imagine creating a new name, and leaving a comment for the first time in order to leave such a lame exit statement.
The person must suffer from toxic entitlement.
It seems it takes some maturity to enjoy a silly superhero comedy like this. More or less stupid super characters is what it have been about for all these years.
Bye! We’ll miss you! Thanks so much for your eye-opening, grammatically correct, well thought out critique. I’m sure we have all learned a lesson and feel deep shame for continuing to read without you!
Name check
You think *that’s* a stupid character?
Paris of Troy gets everyone he cares about killed because he can’t keep it in his pants.
Hamlet gets everyone he cares about killed because he can’t make up his mind.
Batman (at various times) is o.k. with killing henchmen but mysteriously insists on keeping Joker alive.
Literature is FULL of stupid characters – or at least characters whose motivations we don’t fully understand – it’s the most realistic thing in this comic!
—
It may be difficult to understand the physics of HW’s powercopying power, but that’s inherent to powercopying. The limitation of “only powers of my employer” may be a psychological kink, that’s all, or maybe it’s an aspect of whatever HW uses to tap the Thaumion Field (if that’s what she does) https://www.grrlpowercomic.com/archives/comic/grrl-power-813-metaphysics-101/
Going back to the first appearance of Brut and his LLC’s employee, what he said to the alien merc implies that they are there to fight with ARC-SWAT, and the alien tech is just an added bonus. Given she wasn’t able to stop him taking the stasis gun when he seemed to realise that he could take them down.
So going by all the Lawyer talk in the comments above (and previous pages), the LLC was put together to fight the Super Police, so isn’t a legal LLC. So can be dissolved with a single phone call.
Right? *looks at Pander*
This is correct, yes. An LLC agreement is like any contract or agreement. If it’s for illegal purposes, the contract becomes void. And even if the LLC members say they want to defend against something as summarily done as a phone call to a judge, they are free to contest/argue it. In court. In the meantime though, I dont see how Hench can be an employee of an LLC once the LLC agreement has been ruled as illegal. :)
This may be a choice-of-laws question.
Criminals often form agreements among themselves for criminal purposes; these would be void within the legal system of New York or most other jurisdictions – so no judge would enforce it – but be enforced among and by themselves.
Consider side-agreements made while playing a board game. These are (generally speaking) not enforceable in any court, but thoroughly enforceable within the context of the game.
The tactical question is not whether an American judge recognizes the contract, but whether HW’s power recognizes it. What are the choice-of-law provisions she inserted into the contract?
My point is if she specifically said they formed an LLC, in order to be able to have the powers of all the members in that LLC, then there are specific things that must be done for an LLC to be valid. If the LLC is not valid (ie, declared void for being for an illegal purpose, thus making it an illegal contract), then there will be no LLC, and at best, Hench Wench can only be hired by one person, as soon as a judge or someone in the Department of State of NY says so. :)
As for ‘choice of law provisions’ inserted into the LLC agreement, it’s a moot point of the Secretary of State or a judge says the LLC Agreement is not valid – HW does not have an agreement with either the Secretary of State or the judge – she has, at best, an agreement with the members of the LLC. And for that to be true, there has to still BE an LLC.
Which is why I said earlier if she had been really smart (when dealing with people with fast access to government officials and judges), she would have instead had them form a general partnership, which is harder to dissolve since it doesn’t require a written agreement approved by the Secretary of State of NY. But then you also could not have put that firing clause in there either.
Why would a general partnership not be able to freely negotiate an employment contract with a third party that requires a majority of the partners to void the contract?
Because a general partnership does not require a legal document that can undo the entire business, and it would be more difficult to negate the employment contract without a trial first (although not impossible for a judge to still give a summary judgment, even if he would probably be overruled later on). The LLC can be removed purely administratively, or (temporarily at least) judicially via a phone call. A general partnership can not.
Most of the time, people form LLCs because of tax liability and personal liability protections, so it seemed odd that they’d use that form of business setup since they were planning on doing illegal stuff anyway, which would make any LLC pretty much impossible to have once they start doing the illegal stuff (ie, a drug cartel cannot use an LLC to protect themselves from liability for the crime of growing/making/selling/distributing drugs, because the LLC would not be legal in the first place and as soon as the person who certified it nullifies it, there goes the LLC, and no one would be able to enforce anything in the LLC Agreement anyway).
Them being there (as in, Times Square) to fight ARC-SWAT doesn’t mean the L.L.C. was formed to fight ARC-SWAT
They had clearly planned the attack as a group, they hired Hench Wench who had them form the LLC so she could gain all the members of the LLC’s powers to be more effective in this endeavour, so the LLC was created for this attack.
They knew that alien tourists would be arriving, in the middle of Times Square? And that Archon would be sent as interim border security and customs?
That means one of the Unknown in the L.L.C. is a pre-cog? That means they knew what would happen when they attacked Maxi
Dave, don’t forget the Nora Hazard books are part of the Delvers LLC verse, and takes place from a local person’s perspective. IIRC, the end of Nora Hazard 3 begins crossing her over as a major character in Delvers. I also think there’s an anthology of short stories, which includes major plot developments/reveals.
LitRPG style, I’ve found I’m migrating toward ‘the game comes to reality’ versions, where humanity as a whole has to deal with the sudden addition of magic and game mechanics to reality. It tends to give a nice post apocalyptic feel to them compared to the more fantasy heavy elements (not that those are bad, but sometimes you want something different). Scifi are the harder elements to find for me at least, Endless Online being the closest and it effectively balances magic and tech deliberately.
I’ve also found I really liked the Divine Apostasy series https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B07TTDGKP2 as it’s got the somewhat novel approach of having no isekai elements at all, instead relying on the character having to learn mechanics of a class he didn’t plan to pick.
Yeah let’s Sydney have her.
what an anti-climatic take down if her shield can block this just like Vehemence’s aggro aura. Form the shield around herself and Hench Wench (wide mode likely), the affect is blocked, Sydney aims gun at Hench Wench ordering her to lie down and surrender.
That would be a bad call. HenchWench, even if missing her major powers, is likely to be able to cripple Sydney hand-to-hand, and has shown no compunctions about hurting people.
I assume Sydney has a gun, if not her orbs are able to fly about and hit hard enough to break a troll’s arm (even if Sciona regenerated), Hench Wench minus the durability boost would be pummeled, and Sydney has been training; heck at the start she could flip a guy…also who says she ONLY brings Hench Wench into the field, the shield only cuts off external use of powers like with Vehemence. so extend the shield around Hench Wench and Achilles and/or Amorphous so they can now take her down as easily as any human, maybe Dabbler too and put a sleep spell on the now defenseless Hench Wench so next time the shield is dropped she is asleep and can be carted off. Assuming Dabbler isn’t unconscious or recovers from that by this time.
Molest-orb has been shown to work both inside and outside the shield.
And a light tenticle being able to move through a barrier that anything else CAN’T has certain lethal options….
No, the Violatorb can not work inside Mr Buble, she tried that against Kevin and it didn’t work, that’s why she was reduced to having Dabbles play Skip Rope outside
It worked on the :kaiju”.
no she teleported inside the bubble she did not use light hook
That fight doesn’t prove that Sydney cannot use the Lighthook inside the Shield, only that she did not. If she had manifested it outside the Shield to begin with, Vehemence would have been alert to a potential trick, and less susceptible to Dabbler’s distraction. By claiming that she had tried and failed to manifest it inside the Shield, she encouraged Vehemence to let his guard down under the impression that she’d just lost Plan A and had no Plan B, and thus to open himself up to Dabbler’s sight-based hypnotism.
Of course, hiding a capability like this is the sort of trick that only works once, and it requires Sydney to maintain the bluff right up to the point that she really needs the bonus action. The moment anyone sees her use the Lighthook inside the Shield, the secret is out and the potential attacker knows to be wary.
No, it expressly proves that she cannot because she tried to have it form inside
She needed something to defend herself against Kevin, and there was no chance in Hael she was going to risk using the PewPukeBall, which left her only remaining offensive defensive trick: tie him up
She tried. She literally was not able to, though.
That means she can’t. YET. There might be an upgrade in the future that lets her. Or maybe there’s some knowledge in the center ring which will let her learn how to do so. But currently, in the comic, she cannot form the lighthook within the shield. Which is why she came up with the Dabbler doing jump-rope idea.
That’s the impression given by Sydney’s actions, yes. But it may be a deliberate and false one. Again, all that it proves is that she did not, not that she can not.
(Apologies, this post ran rather longer than I thought it would!)
To summarise the relevant pages:
p280:
Sydney gives Vehemence the verbals as if building up to a major attack. At this point she has almost his full attention, and he’s fully on his guard against attacks and trickery. He can tell that he’s just been cut off from his violence fuel, and Dabbler is very kindly demonstrating that nothing’s getting in either, so all he has to worry about is the Maxima he’s got electro-pinned and the easily squishy Halo. Vehemence also knows that the Lighthook had minimal effect and was easily disengaged even before he levelled-up (see p257), and Sydney knows that directly attacking him is a bad idea (see p267).
And then the Lighthook pops up outside the Shield. Right next to Dabbler.
p281:
Sydney immediately starts on an ‘improvised Plan B’, which just happens to use the Orb whose payload ‘unexpectedly’ materialised right next to its second essential component. Within half a page, Vehemence’s grip is loosening as he’s drawn in by Dabbler’s “literally hypnotic” corsetage – as highlighted with a Sydney-specific flashback.
p282:
Jiggawatt finally notices the long message detailing a multi-step “Plan” that Sydney has apparently sent to all of “the Good Guys”. With Dabbler keeping Vehemence distracted, there is now time for Jiggawatt to get in close, surprise him, and neutralise the electricity that’s been keeping Maxima pinned.
From memory, I questioned the apparent series of events based only on the actions on those three pages. After going back to get the citation links just now, I’m inclined to call “The Plan” as stronger evidence that Sydney’s ‘Plan B’ was in fact Plan A. It’s definitely written from a time-point before she cages Vehemence with the Shield (“if that works” (page 282, panel 5)), almost certainly as the product of page 278‘s memory-association montage (first panel after montage). DaveB‘s footnote about typing fast with one finger (p282) is therefore misdirection, if it’s taken to imply that The Plan was only written after the ‘shift to Plan B’.
Note that the montage not only includes several prominent flashbacks to Dabbler’s chest, but also calls attention to Vehemence being “like pro-mode Sebastian Shaw“. A character primarily known for his energy absorption, but also well known as both a principal and a patron of the Hellfire Club. It would be a stretch to say that Vehemence must be especially susceptible to Dabbler’s distractions based purely on that parallel, but the association could easily serve to bring that angle of attack into Sydney’s mind.
If The Plan did falter for a page or two, about which the message says nothing either way, it’s been steered back on track by the time the Shield is lifted (hence stopping my summary at that point).
Now consider another pair of references: pages 741 and 742. In which we see that Sydney is very well aware of the operational advantage that can be gained by not disclosing the full extent of her abilities until she really needs to, even within the confines of ARC itself.
There isn’t any proof that Sydney can use the Lighthook inside the Shield, granted. But that she cannot do so, we only have her word. Her word spoken to a dangerous adversary, when she was in the middle of executing a plan against him.
“(Apologies, this post ran rather longer than I thought it would!)”
I can never attack someone for writing long posts or I’d have to attack myself on an almost daily basis whenever I write a post here. Plus I like long posts :)
“p280:”
If you notice in the last two panels on that page (and I’m pretty sure you do since you seem to have done a lot of research on your post on this), Sydney specifically says that she does not know how to make it (the lighthook) appear inside her shield. Which makes her have to modify the plan slightly. I’m assuming her initial plan was for Maxima to punch him in the throat as she distracted him with the lighthook, then immediately wrap the lighthook around his damaged throat, which had to be changed when she realized she couldn’t do that first part anymore. So instead, the distraction came from Dabbler’s hypnotic boobs and the most erotic jump rope session ever depicted in a comic.
I’m assuming. I havent seen much jump rope in comics except for She-Hulk, which turned out to be a big tease.
“Sydney immediately starts on an ‘improvised Plan B’, which just happens to use the Orb whose payload ‘unexpectedly’ materialised right next to its second essential component.”
Sydney has already been shown, since the very first page of the comic, to be good at improvising strategies when her initial plans don’t work, like she did in the tabletop RPG, or how she did against the Kaiju on Alari Prime.
“p282:
Jiggawatt finally notices the long message detailing a multi-step “Plan” that Sydney has apparently sent to all of “the Good Guys”.”
Most of the plan sent to the good guys involve them AFTER Vehemence’s throat is damaged though, in order to keep him continually off balance. The one improvised part – the part with Dabbler jump-roping, was not texted to anyone, as it was not part of the initial plan, and actually hampered the plan a bit since everyone was too busy staring at Dabbler. :)
“The Plan was only written after the ‘shift to Plan B’.”
It didnt really need to be rewritten, since everyone else’s part in the plan only takes place after Vehemence’s throat is damaged and the lighthook is used to keep him from being able to heal it.
“Sydney is very well aware of the operational advantage that can be gained by not disclosing the full extent of her abilities until she really needs to, even within the confines of ARC itself.”
I find it very unlikely, and also very counter to Sydney’s natural thinking process, to risk Maxima’s life on her plan when Maxima was very close to dying. Sydney even states this afterwards, that her main focus was to try to prevent Maxima from being killed by Vehemence. And Sydney is not exactly someone who is able to easily focus on multiple things on a continual basis in a short term time limit (ie, remember her fight against the Super Mannekiller which started while she was having to upgrade, or her choice paralysis on Alari Prime before she realized she had to choose or she would probably die), even though she’s able to formulate plans very well and even improvise when one part of the plan goes wrong.
“But that she cannot do so, we only have her word.”
Seems like a very unusual time to practice deception when Maxima’s close to being killed. Occam’s razor – it looks far more likely that she thought she’d be able to use the lighthook inside to distract Vehemence from killing Maxima, then realized she wasn’t able to, which made her need to improvise the plan a little to get to the part where the other good guys could help.
Good theory, but I don’t think it’s nearly as likely as what most people think happened – that Sydney is not able to (at least not yet able to) use any offensive powers (like PPO or Lighthook) within the shield, and she was not even aware she could not until she found she couldnt use the lighthook in the shield. She even thought she would be able to use the PPO, but she never followed through on that. If she had, it probably would have gone the same way as the lighthook.
Think about it like this – the Enterprise can’t fire its phasers INSIDE the ship, and cannot use a tractor beam inside the ship either. And Sydney’s orbs operate as a ship, essentially.
I did notice Sydney’s lines in the last two panels of p280, I’m just not convinced that they’re truthful.
Note that there are two separate claims implied in those panels: [i] that Sydney intended to use the Lighthook inside the Shield in this situation, and [ii] that she is unable to manifest the Lighthook inside the Shield. If we accept [i] as true, then her failure to do so implies that [ii] is also true. If we posit that [i] is in fact untrue, then we cannot say (on the information available) whether [ii] is true or false.
Sydney needed a distraction of some sort, to get Vehemence to drop the aggression aura and to keep his attention occupied afterwards. This let her lift the Shield, allowing Jiggawatt to wrap his arm in ‘darkning’ so that Maxima could get free and start punching. You’re taking her at her word, assuming that there was only one layer of direct distraction planned. I’m suggesting that her plan was for a multi-layered and indirect distraction, with the ‘admission of inability’ being a crucial psychological component – whether the admission is true or not. How accurately she communicated that plan to everyone else…
But consider: it’s trivially easy for Sydney to check where the Lighthook can operate. Even if she hadn’t thought about it before that night, it would be the work of seconds to do while formulating The Plan if it were really a keystone element. Getting caught by surprise on something so basic and avoidable just seems out of character for a disciple of Batman.
If she is deliberately bluffing on p280, that doesn’t necessarily mean that it’s a deliberate and prolonged misinformation campaign. She’s not really had any other call to use the Lighthook within the Shield, and it’s only in those circumstances that she has to decide whether to reveal the capability (if she does have it).
It’s the sort of thing where we won’t get a conclusive answer until we get new evidence – when Sydney either cashes in the bluff or takes a serious hit from the inability. Until then, truce?
And Achilles demonstrates ‘bad’ superpowers – in order for his abilities to be shown, he has to be clobbered with incredible amounts of force. It may not hurt him, but he’s definitely a magnet for it. If she’d done that to Heatwave, it would have been messy…
to be fair, Heatwave isn’t invulnerable, so she wouldn’t have attempted a grapple. Achilles’ most effective attacks are “break their hand on my face” and “hug them tight so they can’t hit anyone else”. The “I must get injured to demonstrate my healing power” trope isn’t entirely applicable here; it’s actually his most useful tactic, to soak attacks that would hurt other team members if they connected.
Ariana should ask Max to start interviewing Brüt about the LLC for the information she needs to have it disbanded.
Questions like: “How’s your LLC called? In which Jurisdiction is your LLC registered? Who’re the other members? Where do you keep your version of the contract?”
Also Maxima would probably benefit from having her gun duty relieved. Is there a special super police car to lock supers in? Can someone replace her with a rifle or something? How long will it take for help to arrive?
How would a super police car work?
I would do it this way:
– Start with a semi-truck
– Make all parts easy to replace with a differing set of rare tools/keys.
– Get a really energetic power source that can’t be more voluminous than most of the truck(leaving enough room for a few systems, the driver, the motor, the arrested figure and other necessary parts).
– Get a few increasingly smaller versions of this power source.
– Get an electromagnet strong enough to lift a heavy human.
– Get a few weaker electromagnets
– Get a lot of ferromagnetic thins that can be assembled on and in humans in varying ways.
– Get an energy regulating system for the power source.
– Get heavily armored walls.
– Get layers of varying materials you can click to those walls.
– Get motors that work by differing kinds of systems for the truck.
– Get a self driving system for the truck.
– Get a remote driving system for the truck.
– Get remotely controlled TASER systems
– Get remotely controlled gas weapons in the truck.
– Get hermetic closing doors in the back of the truck.
– Get a window on top of the cell part of the truck.
– Get mirrors for the inside truck of which you can choose the angle while installing.
– Get high kinetic weaponery for inside the truck.
– Get a way to pressurize the insides of the truck.
– Get a way to remove the air inside the truck.
– Get gear that keeps someones bodily pressure normal and provides oxygen(doesn’t have to be human shaped as long a human fits in it)
– Get internal flame throwers.
– Get a disease/poison only the government has the cure for with many methods of injecting and a slowly lethal effect.
Feel free to comment, add and answer.
That would mean a impractically big and heavy truck if you use real tech but since this is a superhero comic we don’t have to care about such boring details. Since there are teleporting technology in this comic you could just have fast and sturdy car that can handle mildly uneven terrain. That way you can just teleport whatever equipment and weapons you need for this specific super villain to the trunk and teleport him directly to super jail when subdued.
See this is where the confiscated stasis tech would come in oh so handy.
Stasis cuffs and then stack them like cord-wood in an armoured truck.
Effective and funny.
Well… now they (ARCHON) has access to stasis pod technology :)
Assuming Dabbler does not refuse to give back the power cell to ARCHON once the battle is over. She doesn’t give out her own tech, but tech that humans legitimately captured from attackers seems to be a precedent in Earth’s favor after the Fel incident, especially since Earth seems to have things which are valuable for trade purposes in the future.
That’s why I suggested the second point.
How would you fit an involuntary super strengther in a car with the equipment needed to restrain them?
My plan was to use those magnets and a power source to keep them airborne, but that would take more volume than a car provides.
Just occurred to me that what Heatwave is doing would be horrifically fatal if Hench Wench wasn’t apparently fireproof.
Hench Wench has past the point where ‘restraint’ is required. she presents a current and ongoing threat to both law enforcement and civilians in one of the most populous cities in the US. relieving Max or retrieving some other high class team member to stop her needs to be a priority.
Pretty sure burning someone alive constitutes “excessive force”
Heathwave already tried it once on Hench Wench, when she got first introduced and as she has shown in the Vehemence fight while getting stabbed in the food she tends to start lower than her absolute limit.
What I think is, thus happening here is that Heathwave first tried a “normal human uncomfortable” dose of heath and now tried a “normal human lethal” dose on Hench Wench.
It would explain, why she is still participating in the fight at all after Hench Wench resisted her first attack and why she uses her potential lethal attacks on Hench Wench.
Nah. Peggy has shot people with a 50 cal in the eye (Vehemence) and head (Concretia/Concrete lady?) as a non-lethal option :)
Mmm, I wonder which of Hench Wench’s employers has either the ‘flash forward’ or the ‘flashback’ powers? ;-)
Nice to get to see this scene play out though, a lot of folks had been eagerly anticipating it, myself included.
{Phew!} And longer than I care to count after living most of a year in a place with dodgy internet connection, I’m finally caught back up to the current page. An unexpected upside to so many of the usual commitments being put on hold this year! Now, which will be the next webcomic to try to catch up on…
Hench-Wench might have an unpleasant surprise if she ever tried anything like this in the UK. Under the law the Queen has massive legal powers which she never uses but are still, strictly speaking, in force. Might be quite amusing for Hench-Wench to square up for a fight with the UK’s super team when all legally empowered, only for Her Majesty to show up. Inform her that she forbids the existence of such an arrangement and then shoot her in the face.
And Max still has her BFP(Big Freaking Pistol)pointed at Brut…
Is it just me, or is he speaking about five octaves higher? :LOL:
Anyone else concerned that Sydney has not made an appearance or a glib comment in several pages? Just what is she doing amidst this chaos?
No, she gets more than enough screen time as is. It’s nice to see other characters doing things by themselves.
Remember Sydney? It’s a song about Sydney.
You can get anything you want…
Just gonna say this once, ‘cos it’s true. No other reason than that, really.
Hench Wench’s powers, as stated, are logically ridiculous.
If we’re running with it, we could say she has some knid of ultra-versatile or enormous power set but some psychological problem prevents her from being able to access more than the slice of it represented by her employers’ power set.
But that’s still ridiculous. Just, you know, maybe a little less ridiculous. The distinction between no logic and comic book logic, maybe.
Well, so are Varya’s, if you think about it.
But it does point to one possibility – that superpowers are the product of intelligent action, and not simply random chance/genetics/etc. In other words, *something* out there said ‘Let”s give this one powers based on bureaucratic nonsense’.
Jabberwokky’s power is also largely psychologically based, probably – hence her tendency to shout out her attacks like she’s in an anime before her powers change to suit the attack. Either she has to do it, or she’s so used to doing it that she can’t use her powers effectively if she doesn’t shout the attacks out first or during the attack. Even when she was under Dabbler’s influence, she still did that.
Hench Wench could be the same way.
So is a mirror nonsense? You have an object and a visual duplicate of an object.
Clearly super powers grant an energy source of some kind (for example to fuel Maxima’s nuke-like blast attack). They also create a (very varied) bound on how that energy can be utilised (for Max it is to go boom with that power, whereas for Anvil it is to be able to add energy to that pool, or release it, via kinetic energy).
So Hench Wench’s boundaries are defined by social behaviours. Whilst this seems esoteric, there are commonalities with other super powers. Take Max’s variable powers, as a good example. Maxima knows that she can mentally transfer power from speed to defence or to super strength. This is an unseen energy source being redirected by mind alone, but constrained by Maxima’s belief in what her capabilities are.
Testing, of course, will have shown and helped to define those beliefs. And likewise Hench Wench will have have to have had some flukes (e.g. being hired by someone with super powers) and experimentation, to discover the scope of her powers and the social constructs which bound them.
And all this is within the premise of the setting as it is already firmly established that
… oops my kitty decided that there had been enough typing.
All this is within the premise of the setting as it is already firmly established that supers get ‘good looks’, which are based on a social norm. Mostly the ‘California beach babe’ social concept. So if we accept that the appearance of the supers can be bounded by social perceptions, why not their powers too?
I think with the ‘good looks’ thing, it’s mainly that however supers get their powers might be artificially tailored, for a ‘perfect human form’ – which WOULD mean lightly toned feminine muscletone for woman and more bulky muscletone for men, although I know there’s like four different ‘ideal human forms’ in biology for human beings. We even see that in the 1920s, they had the same MODERN idealized human form, even though back then the social ideal might have been to be a bit more…. how can I put this delicately…. zoftig … to show that you were of a higher social class during times of economic strife.
So I don’t think it’s just because of social norms – I think it’s that the idealized human form just happens to currently be a form that most people find incredibly attractive in modern times. Although if it IS artificial based on social preference, that definitely would be interesting. But I definitely don’t think it’s based on social preference of the super themselves. IE, I don’t think we’ll be seeing anyone like the Blob from X-Men as a super, or Big Bertha from DC Comics.
Wonder what would happen with Hench Wench if someone used mental manipulation to make her think she WAS fired…..
Logically she would not use any of the powers, as she would think that she could not. However if any of the powers were persistent ones (such as the heat resistance she demonstrates above) and its ongoing effects were obvious to her (such as not getting burnt by an attack), then she may well break free of the mental manipulation, and thereby regain control of the powers.
But it is possible that thinking she was fired would fool her super power too, and have exactly the same results as actually being fired.
Given that she has a gestalt power, I wonder what would happen if Varya touched her…
Varya would gain some kind of power. Maybe some type of gestalt power, maybe not. Or it may behave similarly to Varya being able to (speculatively) share control of Halo’s orbs. So perhaps Varya and Hench Wench would share the pool of powers that Hench Wench’s employers have? Given that HW can only use a limited number of the powers at once, that would make them a very effective team up.
Depending on the theme of her employer’s powers they could make up specialist power combinations to prioritise their immediate needs. For example a group of super burglars would have a different pool to a mercenary team. So for the former they should both be able to get a variety of stealth powers. With one specialising in threat detection and nullification, whilst the other could go all ninja.
Whereas the merc combo might end up with one being a tank and the other going for aerial fire support. Both with a bunch of secondary and tertiary powers to make each very very good at those roles.
Or Hench Wench could call dibs on something to create an invincible monster, leaving Varia with all the leftover odds and ends she did not find useful. But getting all the lesser used powers (and duplicates of the powerful ones) from an entire villain group would still grant a shedload of varied abilities. And Varia would be one of the few people with the necessary experience in diverse super powers, to make good use of them.
Varia’s powers only sometimes have something to do with the people she touches. Not always. It probably influences her gestalt power but not always. So with touching Hench Wench, we have no firm idea on if Varia’s powers would be related to Hench Wench’s powers or not.
Or even if touching Hench Wench when she has powers would be different than touching Hench Wench when she has no powers. Clearly Varia’s powerset changes when someone has powers vs when they don’t, because if her powers when she touches Sydney are the ability to use the orbs as well, then it had to have changed from when Sydney did NOT have orbs.
Well, that book recommendation got me thinking…
I’m not sure the world building math checks out.
3 women per man is a very, very low number to set up a world where men are “too valuable to go to war”. In fact, I don’t think there is any way to set up a harem world simply having a high female:male birth ratio
A 16 year old boy, which is about the horniest a (legal) human male gets, can easily have sex once in the morning and once in the evening. Do that for a lunar month, and you have pretty much guaranteed that two women will have gotten pregnant by the end.
A normal pregnancy is 10 lunar months, so by the time the first batch of babies is out of the oven our stud could have knocked up another 20 women. Assuming you are going to let the newborns get breastfed for at least a year, rather than throwing the new mother back into the rotation, you could consistently keep about 50 women either pregnant or breastfeeding at all times for each male teenager available.
Which means, even with a 10:1 birth ratio you would still be able to get every single woman pregnant even if the father didn’t survive past his teens.
In fact, up to a birth rate of 200 females for each male, every teenage boy will sire his replacement before he stops being a teen.
What higher ratios do mean is that men can no longer be the sole providers for the family… But then, men never were the sole providers for their families in ancient times. That is a relatively recent invention, despite the weird revisionism we currently have, pretending that in ancient times women were locked in the house by an evil patriarchy while the men went out to do all the work and have all the fun.
What happened in reality was that men went to to all the work that required physical strength, which women were not well-suited to do, while women went to do the work that required uninterrupted stretches of time, which would have left the men unable to do an important portion of their own work. It was, obviously, very much a partnership, and having multiple women for a single man would have meant the man would not be able to do enough of the work that was expected of him, while the women would have ended up with not enough of the work that was expected of them.
Particularly strong (or particularly smart) women could find workarounds, but there’s a reason harems were generally reserved to rich men: they used their economic power to hire (or buy) other men to do the work that required strength. The women, on the other hand, left without enough work to do, would spend their time practicing harem politics.
Back to the topic: for world-building purposes, if your birth ratio is slightly in favor of females, you get a world that is pretty much the same as our own; OTOH, if it is highly in favor of females, men’s strength becomes pretty much irrelevant, as you simply don’t have enough men to do all the work that requires male strength.
Which means that, as a species, you have to find workarounds. It means more simple machines (things like pulleys), wider use of animal-powered tech… And generally more stuff that actually makes men irrelevant except as studs.
Make the ratio high enough, and you end up with a world where, rather than men having harems, communities of women own small pools of men, who exist for reproduction purposes.
I don’t think there is really an in-between where men have harems and women prefer it, not as a single point of departure from our world, anyway. Now, in a world where females are bigger and stronger, *and* have a higher birth ratio, then a harem world becomes a much more reasonable option.
So Hench Wench has the same role (trolling everyone during super battles and there’s nothing anyone can do about it) as Nyah-Nyah Can’t Hit Me Man?
I wonder when Sydney is going to show up (and to something Sydney)
That guy is really desperate now… understandably.
Hench Wench won, and the comic should end. There is no way for protagonists to win, without bailing out Moffat style. Stupid writer.
I don’t see why Maxima can’t win with excessive ultra violent lethality. Because she can. But she is choosing to explore options other than lethal force because she’s such a nice woman. Truly Maxima is an example for all LEO to aspire to.
If Hench only has Brüt level physical stats, and only has a decently powerful geokinetic, and only a bunch of mid tier powers, then Maxima can definitely still pull out a win. If all else fails Serious!Face!Meme!Maxima could go around and murdergank the power sources, can’t be employed by someone if you’re dead, can you…. actually would that depower Hench?
Just because Hench Wench could hypothetically have all the powers doesn’t mean she does right now.
same troll as page one I assume, who has been trolling several pages now trying to get people to think the comic is badly written or whomever is on the page at the time is over powered. Also noticing the “I think I typed this at the last minute before the next page would come up guy” expecting to be super visible to anyone reading the comments as a result.
But alas fair troll, your obvious user name choice and comment gives you away. Seriously though is this one person because I am seeing a pattern here; one troll post on page one day the comic goes up hating on it, then another shortly before the next comic would go up. Is this a rival comic person trying to smear this one. Because the comments keep making these accusations that anyone who reads the comic can easily dismiss as non-issues or blatant fabrications as only one who hasn’t read it would accuse.
It is nice that this forum is very resistant to trolling.
Well mostly because most of the people on this forum are really nice and okay with an argument without getting too insulting. Plus DaveB seems to also respect everyone as well without putting his foot on the scale one way or another, and doesnt get bent out of shape when someone who does seem to be trolling says something like ‘stupid writer’ when DaveB is actually one of the better webcomic writers on the internet that I’ve seen, usually with a very well thought out storyline and descriptions of powersets and tropes. Like someone who genuinely does like comics.
Plus the rare times there are trolls, they tend to be about as subtle as a mallet to the head, like this guy has been. Usually with very easily countered arguments.
There are SO many ways for the heroes to win actually. So far the only three people who have attacked her are the three with the weakest powersets in ARCHON – Achilles, Heatwave, and Mr. Amorphous.
Frankly, Maxima could likely kill or knock her out rather easily given her powerlevel. Dabbler could use her railgun to de-limb her, or use her non-lethal weaponry to take her down if she’s ramped them up to work on a powered-up Vehemence. There’s also the tickle gun, which could probably keep HW out of the game if she can’t think straight.
There’s also Sydney – we have no idea how much Brut can take, but we know that a shot to the knee with a ‘non-super’ high calibre gun’ smarts. Whcih probably means Sydney’s PPO would do a whole lot more than just smart. Heck, Sydney would probably be able to use her speed and lighthook to take her into orbit or at least high enough for HW to lose consciousness. I forget if any other members of ARChon are there currently. Or if electricity will affect HW – in which case Jiggawatt could be effective as well
Thank you very much for introducing me to this new TV show Mr.Great-and-Powerful-Dave
It seems super cool