Grrl Power #202 – Nose boop. OF DOOM!
This outcome is a little predictable, but only if you know what Anvil’s powers are, which haven’t actually been stated in the comic yet. Her ability to absorb kinetic energy combined with her grappling skills makes her incredibly well suited to fight other strong arms and bricks. As some people suggested on the prior page of comments, it would have been funny if this guy wasn’t actually a brick, but had some other powers and just happened to be a roided out bodybuilder, but Anvil needed a moment to shine I thought.
This page is a double because small action doesn’t look good, but I don’t want to “split the clause” and spread out a big paneled page into two posts if I can avoid it. I may have to a few times just because of the complexity of some of the scenes, but I’d like to avoid that as much as possible.
You guys are awesome, Grrl Power is on to the final 4! We’re up against MonsterKind, which is quite a nicely drawn comic. If we make it past them, we’ll be at the finals, I assume up against Ava’s Demon, which swept the tournament last year, though the readers over at Paranatural could rally. I definitely need to find some time to read those. Remember, you vote using the checkboxes under the brackets, not any of the links within the brackets.
<– I’m set up over at Patreon! Would you like to know more?
SuperheroThey're super, thanks for asking!
Meatspace ComicSeriously these are awesome. Check 'em out!
Not UpdatingNo longer updating or only updates sporadically, but definitely worth reading.
SeriouslySeriously you guys. If you like Grrl Power the check these out.
"Mature"Mature subject matter and occasionally something explicit but usually safe. Can't guarantee the ads are safe though.
Dongs Ahoy!Full frontal and backal. Lots of skin, sex on some or all pages, explicit or otherwise.
After the fight are we going to see that one of the bidding contractors to fix this restaurant is indeed our super of borderline villainy and obviously smart enough to see the video for its real message?
Yep super-construction guy! Debris clearing, wall-building removal, construction in half the time you’d imagine! And he does real fine molding work too! (just don’t ask him to do the roofing- his weight and control over a roof shingle hammer might be a bit lacking.)
GRRL POWER REACHED THE SEMIFINALS!! WOOW!! GO GRRL GO!!
NOW TO WIN, VOTE: https://www.comicmix.com/mix-march-madness-webcomics-tournament/2014/04/04/final-four-mix-march-madness-2014-webcomics-tournament-vote-now/
YOU DO NOT NEED AN ACCOUNT, YOU CAN VOTE ANONIMOUSLY
Vote below the brakets in the vertical list with the check boxes. After voting it must show meters with the voting percent, if not vote again until succeed. You can vote in different computers.
This will be really tough, voting started today Friday, ends Sunday midnight and we are now down.
Sadly “Monsterkind” updates Friday so most of their readers have received notice of the voting while mostly Grrl Power’s readers will not come until Monday, to late to vote. Also they has had votings as high as ours.
PLEASE, NOTIFY ALL PEOPLE YOU CAN, EVEN IF YOU THINK THEY ALREADY KNOWS, JUST IN CASE.
As usual paid votes could be highly usefull, 25 cents a vote that will be donated to charity and is tax deductible. Use the “Donate” button below the “HERO INITIATIVE” paragraph.
We can keep going!!
BE AWARE: the page is SLOW and loads in two or three steps, give it like a minute to be sure.
As expected voting is going damn even, it is easily revertible with couple votes or even just one dollar one way or another.
So “tweet and shout” about this, that vote you get could be the winner one.
GO GRRL GO!!!
UPDATE: THE VOTING NOW ENDS AT TUESDAY MIDNIGHT
You mentioned that we are “currently down” in the voting. The actual voting page was not showing the voting percentages for me. And having a look around I could not see it elsewhere. Do you have a link to where it is displayed? Or should it be on the voting page, as before, and I just have some display bug?
That aside, as a suggestion to anyone keen on following the contest, it may be an idea to bookmark the voting page:
https://www.comicmix.com/mix-march-madness-webcomics-tournament/2014/
As it sounds like we need every vote we can get in this round and, should we win through, in the next, it may be wise to have the link, just in case. We already experienced one period where the Grrl Power website was inaccessible during the voting. And a similar thing happened in the later part of the completion last year. Possibly co-incidental, possibly not.
Either way, I found it frustrating hunting through my browser history to try and find the link, when it happened earlier in the week. Which not everyone would want to waste time doing.
The page MUST show the percentages AFTER you vote.
The page is SLOW, it takes up a minute to load the voting list (or the percentage list) sometimes it do not show it at all but reloading the page usually fixes it.
By the way, though the Yorp’s link looks different to mine both goes to the same voting.
Thanks, so bug then. Because mine keeps me at the voting options, even after I have submitted my vote, and have seen the vote total going up. But no percentages getting shown.
If it shows you the check boxes try and vote again cause could was an error, if the site do register your vote the checkboxes would not be shown.
I believe I’ve determined the cause of this, but in the interest of fairness I don’t think I should post it. It would be hard for the organizers to fix, and almost anyone could exploit it if they knew the cause. It does look like the vote total keeps going up if people with this bug keep voting, so it could be really unsporting.
I think you are doing right.
I think that you may be able to contact them discretely, using their ‘contact us’ page:
“https://www.comicmix.com/contact-us/”
I felt a bit uneasy about it, as it is similar to the format they use for comments to be posted publicly, and did actually get them mixed up at one point. But looking at the options they have there, on reflection, I think it will go directly to the organisers, rather than being visible to everybody. I have mis-understood parts of their site before though, so if you want to err on being more cautious, they do list their postal address too:
ComicMix LLC
304 Main Avenue, Suite 194
Norwalk, CT 06851
Obviously, writing would not change things for these last couple of rounds of voting. But I imagine even a simply bug fix could not be implemented in time. Let alone if there is a fundamental problem, like you imply. But it would give them the opportunity to find an alternative system for next year.
If it helps either confirm your suspicions, or them with their bug fixing, I am a Google Chrome user, and attempted to vote anonymously. However, there must be something more to it than that, as when I was at the internet cafe I definitely was anonymous too and am fairly sure that the browser was Chrome as well. Yet experienced no bug.
Feel free to quote what I have said. Or to direct them to this thread even. The link being:
“https://www.grrlpowercomic.com/archives/1271/comment-page-4?replytocom=64195#comment-64076”
I would agree that, if there is a serious flaw, that cannot be fixed, it would be appropriate not to publish it openly, in any event. It would seriously impact the fund raising. But feel that it is essential that the organisers be advised, to give them the opportunity to find a solution. Even if it cannot be implemented yet.
We can only hope that Grrl Power readers will be wise enough not to try and replicate it and use it as an exploit. If there is credible evidence that any comic is biassing the vote, then the organisers may feel the need to cancel the event. Which would hurt all parties, but worst hit would be the charity. Even if we fall behind in the voting, we should not feel tempted to cheat. We stand a good chance of winning by fair means, due to the quality of the comic and the loyalty of the fans. And if we loose, our progress to date has been a great achievement anyhow.
E-mail the organizers explaining the bug and let them fix it in their own time. Put an attention-grabbing subject line in the e-mail, you don’t want it to end up in the spam folder.
Currently (as of this posting), GP leads 34% (129 votes) to 33% (122 votes)
147 vs 147 this instant.
As expected this is going to be damn even, the differences far now could be easily reversed with couple votes or even just one dollar. One way or another.
So “tweet and shout” about this, that vote you get could be the winner one.
GO GRRL GO!!!
Down 149 vs 185.
Monsterkind has suddenly speeded up somehow.
WHOA! Monsterkin got like 30 votes in a couple minutes.
Down 160 vs 193.
Sounds like somebody on the other side has the same bug as me. I can carry on clicking for half the evening, and the total would go up with each click. Kind of dull though. Not to mention being very unsporting, if it is actually changing the vote %.
They certainly did not seem to be concerned when I reported it in the last round though. So I assume that their set up does not count duplicate votes from the same address. But, just in case it does, I will do a few votes to balance the batch you just mentioned.
Mmm… If they did not care about your complain then somehow it must be not a problem. Maybe it is something that anyone at any side at random can do, then it would not be unfair.
If so, as in any game, if the setup allows something to all sides it is ok to use it. Pretty much like the previous paid votes situation. It could be that there are three ways of voting: normal votes, paid votes and “somehow” votes. Then each person will use the ones they can.
But all that is only assuming your reading of the behavior is right. I actually can’t guess what is going on.
Now I am checking the total too at each refresh and it do not match the meters:
In this instant: 95+138+277+239 = 751?
There is some incoordination.
Found It! Two person voted in the blank row :)
Grrr. They have closed the comments. I wanted to declare that I was about to do it, in the interests of transparency. And so they would have a fixed time to check so they could look at the numbers and see if duplicate votes are getting through.
That is not that easy since there are very simple ways to change the IP between votes, but that would not be something accidental (or that everyone knows) like the “somehow” way to vote, that would be actually cheat.
If they perform that filter they will be taking down the honest people and keeping the cheaters.
Also there are plenty situation where legit votes have the same IP. A family computer, a library computer, laptops entering and leaving a Starbucks, et cetera.
Except, when I was at an internet cafe, in one of the early rounds, it blocked me from voting because a vote had already been submitted. Instead it showed the percentages like you describe. And it was the same, I think, when I was at home too. I would feel far more comfortable if ti was the same for everyone.
Certainly it is profoundly unfair if a few people, essentially at random, can sway the voting. I could double all the votes cast to date in less time than we have spent discussing the issue! Which would be fine if money was going to charity with each vote. But it would not be.
I have just checked and the comments are still closed. So there is no way to provide feedback on the issue. Mind you, perhaps it is for the best. If there is no problem, then the discussion would only impact on money being raised for the charity, rather than helping. :-/
If anyone happens to notice other suspicious spikes in the voting, let me know, along with a guestimate of the numbers involved. I will put in a corresponding number on our side, to balance it. If it is not being counted, I don’t mind wasting the time. If it is, then hopefully we are just levelling the playing field, rather than unbalancing it.
In this instance it is good that paid voting can continue after the regular voting. That way we know that all votes placed then will be going to charity!
I understand what you mean, it is annoying.
By the way, I was talking about anonymous voting, if you were using an account like facebook then they can block you wherever and whenever you try to re-vote.
I believe I’ve determined the cause of this, but in the interest of fairness I don’t think I should post it. It would be hard for the organizers to fix, and almost anyone could exploit it if they knew the cause. It does look like the vote total keeps going up if people with this bug keep voting, so it could be really unsporting.
I totally agree eugenef. One thing to add to my other reply to you above, is that if we do spot any signs of someone putting a fix in, we can attempt to balance it out discreetly (ahem, as discreetly as is possible by anything discussed on a public forum). But if the public comments do get unlocked later, on their website, I personally shall not post anything there, now that I think we have a private way to contact the organisers. Even if we loose the round, any complaints would only harm the charity, and would not be sportsman-like.
Please let me know if you prefer not to contact them, in which case I will let them know as much as I can. But if you think you know the cause, that would be of far greater use in their hands, than my suspicions alone. Which have already been voiced, in any event.
so, I just checked the boards, and Grrl Power leads by just 49 votes over monsterkind. (379 to 330). it seems to be a close one.
No doubt you are right.
Also “Grrl” updates Monday and “Monsterkind” updates Tuesday, so the final sprint will be theirs.
Also there are the paid votes which are added BEFORE the voting ends. In previous rounds “Grrl” has not had any.
I just voted. As of 2:06 am EST, Grrl Power is in the lead at 36%
Your comment has so many replies, yet none of them are replying to the content of your comment.
:(
Thanks for the reminder, I had been intending to give a thumbs-up on the call-back, but got… distracted.
My fault, I wanted to put the voting notice as high as possible for visibility (as Yorp showed me :) but people here is damn fast. Sorry.
+1
How is Anvil only a 5 on the power scale? Steroid-dude seemed to be expected by his team mates to be able to handle the entire bunch, and yet he was toasted by just one member of the good guys.
Perhaps he is a power level 1…
There is a bit of a rock/paper/scissors going on here, but I don’t see this going down any differently if it was Maxima against steroid-boy rather than Anvil.
5 is the highest possible in this universe.
9 is the highest possible power level in this universe, check out the cast page. Also I’m pretty sure 1 is a normal human. This guy has a bad power match up in that he uses super strength and Anvil is an energy absorber, anything he does to her just makes her stronger.
The “5” might be her base power level, before she starts absorbing kinetic energy.
I am fairly sure that Dave adjusts the figures to take into account typical usage. For instance he has commented that Sydney’s rating is low (compared to Maxima, for example), at the moment, because she is inexperienced. So I am confident that Anvil’s capability to absorb kinetic damage and use it is all incorporated into her rating of 5. Whilst this may seem low, given that she could be stomped on by Godzilla and simply get more powerful, it is a reflection that her power is very specific. So would be of no use to protect her from, say, flaming breath or radioactive fallout.
None-the-less, it is an average rating for a combat-capable super hero, so is not to be sniffed at.
In her area of speciality, she is formidable. Someone who only has kinetic offence will have great difficulty overcoming her. But she is totally vulnerable to psionics, magic, illusions of any sort, the various mundane attacks suggested by another reader and a bunch of improvised ones. Plus she does not have anywhere near as much flexibility in her powers as Maxima, Dabbler or Sydney.
However she has does have great offensive capability. But, again, can be easily thwarted. Using many of the means above, plus others. She could not touch a flyer, as one simple example.. Anyone like Math can run rings around her. If you look at the rest of the team it is easy to see a whole bunch of ways they could oppose her.
None the less, her powers are strong enough that they can help her to improvise solutions to problems. Which is why she is one of the core cast members. Strong enough to shine in her own speciality. But with enough limitations that she will need to come up with interesting counters to those supers who are scissors to her paper.
+1
for the RoShamBo reference
Oh, she can hit a flyer… If its low enough.
Air-drop her into combat without a parachute. let her land and store up the kenetic energy of her landing. Then she has sufficient power to lob heavy things at it, or, given the kick of her nose boop, simply jump, probably limited to a couple hundred feet. Anyone have figures on how far up one can jump if starting from terminal velocity?
Anvil would probably suffer whiplash and brain injury, possibly terminally, if she attempted that. Anvil has no inherent toughness. Physically she is no more robust than any other human. Her only defence comes from her ability to absorb kinetic energy. Trouble is, if she wants to use kinetic energy to launch herself up into the air, then she cannot absorb it. Although I have pointed out elsewhere that she appears to be able to separate out the ‘equal and opposite’ part of the equation, with her ability, she cannot do so if she wants to apply that force to herself.
In other words, she can’t have her cake and eat it. If she wants to jump with her power, she has to accept the bad side effects (such as the brain being slammed against the inside of the skull) along with the good..
The one advantage she does have is that it is not as dangerous as impacting the ground at terminal velocity (provided she does not hit any obstacle on the way up). But going from stationary to terminal velocity, in a single output of energy, sounds incredibly dangerous to me.
Even skydivers do not do that. They build up their velocity rapidly, but over a period of time, rather than being shot down by a cannon. Plus they are not opposing gravity, which would only compound the problem for Anvil. As we can see when astronauts take off, the body suffers massive forces, even with the steady output from a rocket.
Sorry, I should have clarified that my reply was only as regards jumping up. The rest of your comment is sound. She should not need a parachute to skydive.. There is nothing stopping her from firing a rock, with the energy absorbed, like a cannon round, as you say. Likewise she could jump up to hit a low-flying opponent.
As a rule of thumb, if you would not want to jump down from the height that the flyer is at, then it is probably starting to get dangerous for her to fire herself up that high.
But she can get around that problem by releasing the energy in a series of bursts, rather than a single one. Pushing against air, rather than the ground, after the first one Of course trying to maintain stable flight on top of an unaerodynamic jet of air, may not be feasible.
Probably not. But, in which case, Maxima made a very good choice. Here are a few of the reasons:
Maxima is a senior police officer, so should avoid undignified brawling, where possible. It lessens the perception of her being an authority figure. Both to her own personnel and the criminals.
As the commanding officer of a unit entering combat, it is essential that she remain in a position where she has the minimum distractions possible, so that she can establish a good overview of the situation and any changes in the dynamics.
Maxima is the most powerful asset in her nation’s military. She is also probably the most powerful super on the planet. The enemy know this. It is unlikely that they have engaged without planning for it in some way. Therefore it is wisest to assume that Big Ugly is part of a trap designed to disable or dispose of her. It may be specifically tailored to her, or it may be dangerous to anyone. Either way, deploying a less-critical asset to deal with the present problem is the only sensible option.
This may seem both cowardly and callous, but it is one of the realities of battle. Those commanding officers who do needlessly expose either themselves or vital assets (in this case being one and the same thing), are endangering the entire unit and everybody who is dependant on them. Personally, I would prefer to serve under a cautious commander, than a reckless one. It would improve my long-term odds of living, even if it meant that I had to be on point, at times, whilst he never was.
For her various roles, it is important for Maxima to retain her objectivity as long as possible. Once she gets personally involved, the adrenalin starts pumping, and the fists start flying, she looses a lot of the emotional detachment which would aid in good command decisions.
One of Maxima’s other hats is being Halo’s mentor. Currently she is free to ensure that the biggest danger to the organisation is being supervised. Why Sydney? Because if the villains kill people, it is an act of terrorism, war or criminality. If Sydney messes up, it can be portrayed as a ‘police brutality” or an ‘army massacre’. Officers of Maxima’s rank have to continuously be aware of the political ramifications of their actions. And this is a truly critical time for Archon, until they win public acceptance and support.
There’s another reason: Having a subordinate handle the threat while you sit back casually tossing down onion rings sends a clear message as to how intimidated you feel.
Maxima is vastly more powerful than Anvil. Each point on the power scale is not one greater than the previous one. It is significantly larger. For example we know that Achilles is about 50% stronger than an average person. He rates as 1 on the strength scale. If that remained proportionate, then Maxima, with strength 5 would only have 250% more strength than an average person.
Even if you calculated it differently, and multiplied the previous value by 150%, you would only end up with her being just over 12 times stronger than a normal person. Twelve people working together could not lift a tank above their heads, without mechanical assistance. Nor could they throw it like Maxima did.
So the individual power points represent a big jump each time. Loosely speaking the scale starts at “greater than possible to a normal human” and ends up with 5 being “the most powerful known”. An exception, to the lower end of the scale, being for things, like marksmanship, which do not require super-human capability at all. Note that Achilles has invulnerability at 6, which we can take as being an absolute, rather than one requiring a point of reference. Which the text of his explanation supports.
The total power ranking of individuals is slightly different, as it needs to incorporate regular people at the bottom end of the scale, so is ranked from 1 to 10. With Peggy being an example of the top end of the normal humanly-achievable scale at 3. Math cheats, because he has access to mystic martial arts techniques. Potentially Big Ugly might not be ranked higher than Peggy, factoring in the incompetance we have witnessed. However it is more likely that he is in the 4-6 range. He is loosing because Maxima chose someone who, as you say, is ‘paper’ to his ‘rock’. Or ‘lizard’ to his ‘Spock’.
But his abilities (at the time Maxima made the call) were a total unknown. From the cast list though we can see that the average supers (fit to be deployed in a combat team) rank at 5. So it is quite sensible to deploy a average asset to counter an unknown super. Mathematically it is likely that he is of average power himself.
Oops “8 times” rather than “12 times”, I took it up to power ranking 6 rather than 5 by over-enthusiastic button-pressing.
She’s a 5, because while she’s incredibly well suited for taking on others with super strength, she can’t fly or move particularly fast, she has no ranged attacks other than throwing stuff, she has limited resistance to cutting attacks and isn’t too useful against energy attacks. The overall power level is an attempt to estimate their ability against all possible matchups, so she gets docked a few for her specialization.
A high-powered Telekinetic with fine-grade control would fit that task quite well. Such a Telekinetic with Compartmental Mind could even multi-task on different actions at the same time too.
Ooops! Somehow, this should have been put under Brodder’s comment above but didn’t make it there.
idea: Halo: telepresence plus shield = hey, there she is! (attacks illusion) omg, she’s just as solid as Anvil!
[shield off] : : shield trap. bonk…bounce…’help me’….lighthook….HELP ME!…
We haven’t seen evidence that Halo can shape her field, or center it anywhere other than on herself/the orb. So I’m not sure she can shield-trap people that way.
Although she could do the thing from Scrapped Princess, where she catches someone between her shield and a wall to pin them down.
Agreed. Although what hypnofetish describes could certainly be a power stunt that Halo may be able to develop. Possibly requiring several skill choices. For instance ‘malleable’ or ‘shippable’ shield on the Forb tree. Plus the intersection between shield and comm ball to co-ordinate the illusion with the shield.
Perhaps throw in an upgrade to incorporate the tentacle too. To grant manipulation and strength capability to the ensemble. Then Halo ends up with a remote body projector, rather than an illusion. That is complex enough though, that it may be what the centre upgrade is, in the middle of the skill tree.
Or, perhaps, unlocking level 2, grants her the super-hero powers directly, rather than via a projector :-)
Yes, we did. The field can be shaped and decentered. The latter at least was clearly at will.
Well observed. Although that does not prove that Halo has sufficient fine-tuning of that to emulate the feat described, it is certainly an indicator that it is plausible. The off-centre bit is a good observation too. But I think it is significant that Halo remains inside the shield. So there is still quite a step lacking if she wants to put the shield up around someone else, or the remotely-projected illusion.
My thoughts too.
But she is still INSIDE the shield, even if not exactl in the center
Might be more accurate to say it can conform closer or further away as needed (less of a shaping and more of adjusting edges). And on the enlarged one I think she was dead center on establishing it, just moved afterward to get a better view.
I think it’s funny that he claims to wish to take off her head, and then punches her in the stomach.
Maybe he’s smarter than we think? If you announce that you’re going to punch someone in the head, you probably shouldn’t then punch them in the head.
Night at the Museum 2… ‘We are not going to attack’…
I thought he was punching her in the tits which I understand can be painful and is a nasty thing to do to a Lady but not as bad as kicking a guy in the nuts.
How do you know?
Good point. Whilst guys obviously react much more, it could just be because we are wimps who;s pain sensors do not use childbirth as a baseline.
We could always ask a member of the trans-gender community. It would probably need to be someone who has experience with male to female transition though, as fully functional breasts can be developed with just hormones. That way it would still be subjective, but it would be using just the one person’s subjective experiences, so they have a basis for comparison.
Or we could get some of our readers with a medical background to pop into an autopsy room and count up the number of pain receptors they find in each region.
But I think I know where the clever money will go, even without any consultations or grave robbing.
Well I don’t have numbers, but there are ALOT of nerves in the tits
Supposedly male nipples are about as sensitive as female (albeit with a *lot* of variation between individuals), and speaking personally, my testicles are much more sensitive than my nipples. However, I’ve been unable to find any proper scientific data on nociceptor density or anything.
… which I understand…
He never said he did know.
Thank you. Yes women have told me it hurts but guys can actually pass out from the pain of a groin kick. And EVERY guy who sees a groin kick winches a little even if he laughs. Only takes one hit to traumatize you. It’s why jock-straps and cup were invented.
Oh, please, is a common expresion, should I asked “how do you understand”?
Take off your head is more of an expression though
And he punched her plexus Solaris, which is a real life weakspot. Big collection of nerves right near the surface. A good punch there will knock you out
A good punch there can KILL you since it can paralyze your diaphragm and cause your heart to basically go into convulsions.
I’m not sure if I’m guessing this right or not, but Anvil -seems- to have a super power that I once tried to create in a Heroes unlimited game. Granted her’s is a tad different but the idea of it was a character who could absorb, control and redirect kinectic energy. A sort of tactile kinesis that took what was thrown at him and allowed him to use it to perform what seemed to be feats of super strength. The stronger his opponent was, the stronger he was. I wonder if thats it and if so is there a limit to the strength she can absorb?
DaveB If you do not mind I truly think you should make a tweet about the ongoing semifinal, this is being hard, each vote actually will count and that would help.
Encase Anvil in some quick hardening substance that absorbs kinetic energy and she is trapped. But first you have to hit her with it. Before that you have to concoct it!
Every super has vulnerabilities, or it gets dull. Better make sure your substance hardens into something particularly tough though. Anvil has super strength even without her kinetic powers.
You could use the Goo balls that trapped Mr. Incredible.
even easier is dump 5 gallons of baby oil on her.
she will be unable to do anything with out falling down
* Or fluff her with talcum powder, so that she can’t see.
* Or dump her into a muddy pit, to severely inhibit her movement.
Somehow though, I think these attacks may be deemed to have an ulterior motive. :-D
There’s always room for jello. ;)
There are lots of ways to neutralise a kinetic-energy absorber. Which is why the exact nature of her powers are classified. Let the villains keep on trying to overpower her as long as possible, rather than thinking up clever ways to deprive her of K.E..
It just occurred to me: Anvil’s official hero outfit ought to be modeled off of Nyah Nyah Can’t Hurt Me Man’s. I mean, there’s an upper limit to her strength when nobody’s hitting her, and there quite possibly isn’t one when enough people are.
I’m sorry every time I read this comic I think RWBY
I hope Grrl Power wins this round of the ComicMix tournament (although I like Ava’s Demon), but I just finished actually reading Paranatural (the matchup for the next round, assuming we win). And…I’m not gonna say people shouldn’t vote for Grrl Power in that round, but holy crap Paranatural is a good comic. Please actually read it before voting. I’m honestly curious how people will compare the two.
I might just do that. It is one of the reasons for being interested in the competition. Seeing if there is something good out there, that you have not come across before.
The conclusion is that there is a problem! It updates Mondays and Fridays. Which clashed with something else on the Mondays. But easily solved, it is now in my Tuesday and Friday schedules. :-)
Sooooooooo close to the $2,000 mark on Patreon.
Will the live streaming be for everyone, or just for people who have donated?
It would only be right that it is for people paying with two way communication. A recording of this should be available to everyone to tease them into being patrons aswell.
If only my niece could read yet… nose booping is a very big thing for her at the moment, and I think it would do her good to discover the true powers of the well trained nose booper. :3
DaveB I am sure there are people willing to vote that read the comic and nothing else. Can I suggest you to notify about the voting ABOVE the comic?
There it will be easier to spot.
Heads up on the voting process. I had to turn off Ghostery to see the boxes to actually vote. Before I did, I could only see the blank widget.
So we heard about cars, but what is their stance on using street lights as weapons?
I’m thinking that the perfect clubbing weapon is a particular member of the team with fabulous hair.
There is nothing to street lights. Bigger built non powered humans can punch through them.
Cheap lumps of metal will be the only acceptable ammo. Any ideas?
They could be used as part of a trap versus invading moth aliens. Or to counter darkness powers. And, if you turned them on suddenly you would certainly expose ninjas!
unless, of course, the ninjas are disguised as street lamps…short, chubby, human-shaped street lamps….um…. never mind
;}
I just wanna say, your art has improved SO much since you first started this thing. You made an allusion to that when you admitted you had to re-draw the shower scene, but the contrast between this page and the first one hits the point home almost as hard as Anvil does! There are so many webcomic artists who stagnate, or who find a happy medium between effort and payoff and stay there… I’m glad you’re not one of them!
Don’t take this to mean your art is perfect, though! Continue to strive to improve, and let’s see where you are in another 200 strips!
Excellent arms. Hands need a tad more work, perhaps. Shouldn’t we be seeing a sliver of thumbnail on Steroid Boy in he first panel?
Dave, this has probably already been said, but I love how Kenya’s code-name fits her power perfectly! In all honesty, I would never have thought that this would have been her power, but when you said what it was, I was thinking “Oh! Clever.” It isn’t horrifically obvious (well, it wasn’t to me) and it’s actually a pretty good way to obfuscate the true nature of her powers, since it tells part of the story, but not all of it.
I do have a couple of questions, if you feel so inclined to answer them, but they mostly boil down to the same thing:
What does Anvil’s power consider to be kinetic energy? (I’m not suggesting her power is a living entity, but it helps me visualize its functionality to treat it as such)
Would she recharge her batteries by going for a jog or a ride in a plane?
My other question is this:
Does Anvil’s power only absorb kinetic energy, or can it absorb other deleterious effects bundled with a force exerting kinetic energy upon Anvil? For instance, if she is hit by meteor(ite?), will she only absorb the energy from the impact itself (thus getting burns from the super-heated rock), or will she also absorb the thermal energy from the friction-heated rock as well as the energy from the impact?
You sort of give an answer here, but I didn’t want to make any assumptions. (Sorry if I butchered the tag XD)
This is a very thought provoking power (read: I trimmed this post a lot). I would love to have it myself and experiment with it.
Ooh! I just remembered another question I had (despite spending over an hour composing the original comment):
Could Anvil use a controlled release of energy from her feet in order to increase the length of her stride, albeit clumsily, thus allowing her to keep up preternaturally fast supers (but not those with straight up super-speed)?
I think Anvil absorbs kinetic energy from just about anything, but the greater the amount of energy, the more of it she absorbs, so she wouldn’t really gain an appreciable amount from most every day activities… it’d be like a steady caffeine drip for her. She can also suppress the ability because otherwise she wouldn’t be able to clap. Also having sex would be weird, but starting around punch strength and she absorbs most of it automatically, and smaking her with a sledgehammer would cause her to absorb 99% of it.
She hasn’t used kinetic bursts to super run or jump, but that does sound like something Sydney might suggest. :)
I recall that somewhere in the previous issue you replied, to someone, that Anvil is not good at absorbing edged damage. Whilst it is perfectly ok to do that, as it keeps things interesting, I should mention that if she is good at absorbing kinetic damage, she should not have a problem with edged. There is nothing intrinsically different about edged damage that would stop kinetic absorption from working.
Not that it is necessary to have a reason, as it can just be an unknown anomaly ‘that is the way her power works’. But it is worth keeping an eye open for a plausible reason for the exception, unless you already have one in mind.
The simplest, if not very satisfying, is that her power is simply not very efficient, when it comes to absorbing edged kinetic damage. Or that it slides somewhat past the skin before the power notices it and responds. So it would be damaging, but not deadly.
Something else to consider with such a limitation though is that whilst it can be argued that regular bullets are blunt (if basically spherical at the point of impact), armour piercing bullets would be considered pointed. So Anvil would have vulnerability to cop-killer bullets. Either of those explanations I suggestions I posed would give her plausible survivability, whilst leaving the attack dangerous.
I’d say each skin cell has it’s own “Max” of how much, with bludgeoning force, it’s relatively spread out, especially since most bricks have Hamfists, but against a blade, which hits much less, it’d be much harder pressed to absorb the force.
(Nit picking, I know, but…) Why would a meteorite be superheated? They spend millions of years in the cold of space, then a couple seconds in atmosphere where anything that heats up instantly melts and is whisked away by the fast air, leaving just the ice-cold core trailed by a vapor of oxidizing metal/rock…
Meteorites are known to frost over after landing…
Maybe hot, maybe not..
Not sure if this has been asked, but does Anvil build up by slamming into things in the morning like Sebastian Shaw would give himself a boost in the morning by smacking himself against a wall a few times?
considering the Incentive is her lifting without a Boost..I don’t think it’s really needed.
Not really. She has a small reserve going all the time from every day activities and she builds it up super fast in a fight. Not that she couldn’t start doing that if there was a need though.
Gambit from the X-Men has a similar power, but I’m sure you already knew that (or had it pointed out to you by a million people). Not that it matters. Every power’s been done a million times before. It’s actually fun to see power redirection, though. It’s not that common.
You’re thinking of Bishop.
Gambit’s power involves kicking up the kinetic energy within an object at a molecular level until the object explodes. He doesn’t have to draw on a pool of stored power for that, because he’s unleashing the energy stored in the material object.
Makes me think of Harry Dresden charging up his kinetic rings by going at a punching bag at the start of his day.
It makes me sad that it took me this long to get this reference.
A long walk off a short helio-pad found on any sky-scraper should suffice. A stroll across I-15 during rush-hour… But I expect most deliberate charging will involve a punch from a nearby super (friendly or otherwise) or a quick drop.
So, if Anvil can convert kinetic energy, I wonder what she’s like during sex?…
As Futurama put it: “Death by Snoo-snoo!”
Nose boop: More scary than it sounds.
Just never get her to perform the Heimlich maneuver!
IMMA TAKE YOUR HEAD OFF
*Aims next punch at chest*
Real bright aint he?
Well at least that guy still has a pretty cool hair color.
“What are you doing, man? Take her out!”
“Okay. Well, Maxima, would you like to see a movie with me someti…”
“I said TAKE HER OUT, not ASK HER OUT!”
“Nose Boop!” I love it!
I thought you might, given your earlier “Sonic boop” suggestion.
Oh wow, I didn’t think anyone noticed that! Really, I just love “boop”, especially when combined with noses.
Due to his vocabulary, this villain will now and forever have the voice of Freddy Krueger in my head. Which makes everything funnier.
I love how Anvil is in a long green dress a la medieval-ish style.