Grrl Power #259 – Dirty pool
I told you Maxima fights dirty. This is a maneuver her and Peggy had oft talked about but were never able to employ until now. In the previous page, Max and Vehemence were parallel to the street outside the restaurant, this page starts off with Max having her back to the strip mall. Imagine her pacing around Vehemence while they talk until Peggy gets them lined up and calls it in Max’s ear. It’s another thing I would have liked to have drawn into the page, but since this isn’t a manga and I’m not putting out 12 pages a week, it was a nice little moment of pacing I needed to cut.
Something else I decided to cut was the exchange that wound up with Concretia on the roof there behind Peggy. I’ll just say it involved a claymore and leave it at that.
Firing the Barrett on top of that air conditioner would be SO loud. It would be the loudener. The glass muffler of gun accessories.
I found a cool looking kickstarter that may be too late to save, but might be worth checking out if you like quirky RTS games. The elevator pitch is Robot Apocalypse vs. Cthulhu Apocalypse. Humans are the resources. The machines need ’em for oil, the Lovecraftian horrors need their souls. It’s called Human Resources (get it?) and has a decent pedigree of developers behind it. They need a cavalcade of support to make their goal at this point, but who knows, if they get a big boost today, then tomorrow maybe they get some gaming press which keeps them going for the big final push. If nothing else, their pitch video is pretty amusing so check that out at least. Edit: Welp, looks like Human Resources has pulled the plug. Their projection models weren’t showing anything promising and it was costing them time and money to run the kickstarter, which personally I find worrying since I’ll be running my own for the book in… a few… look, my ability to project the length of my story arcs is clearly something of a stat dump for me, but anyway a kickstarter is… in my future at some point.
I wish I had more time for games. I somehow managed to finish next week’s pages a day early so I indulged a little and got Injustice: Gods Among Us on steam and played through the single player campaign. I’m much more of a Street Fighter guy than a Mortal Kombat guy but it was fun enough, and the story was good, but it did have the problem of Joker getting punched through a stone wall then getting ground up by a mining machine and it only takes off 1/4 of his health bar. That’s the big problem with superhero fighting games (not that there are a lot of them unfortunately) but if it takes 1/4 of Superman’s health bar off, then when Harley Quinn gets hit by the same thing, there shouldn’t even be a molecule of her remaining. I know they had those super pills in the story, but the mining machine thing happened to Joker before he ever got his hands on them. If I made a superhero fighting game, I’d break the characters into tiers, and you wouldn’t be able to fight cross tier, or if you picked a lower tier, then it’d automatically become a team battle, like four vs one or something.
Here’s the link to the new comments highlighter for chrome which I can’t live without anymore, and the GitHub link which you can use to install on FireFox via Greasemonkey.
—> So I finally took some time and put together a support widget over on the side so I don’t have to pimp myself in the comment all the time. I’ll be able to dive into my vault of gold coins a la Scrooge McDuck soon!
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.
One of my concerns, which I’m sure Dave has already accounted for, is actually how well equipped Archon really is to incarcerate some of these criminals. Vehemence especially, since his extreme power level is going to be difficult to create a counter for in a prison that is presumably not going to have Max standing around 24/7 waiting to beat him down again. Every such universe usually has some form of neutralizer for such powers (which the villains inevitably steal at some point and use against the supers), so I’m sure it’s provided for in the comic.
Kind of a good thing we don’t have superpowers cropping up in RL, though, as there’d be no guarantee that the capability of imprisoning one would show up at the same time.
I believe DaveB said, quite awhile back, that there were no known power inhibiters in his universe.
Emphasis on known, which means they may exist, but not currently in usable form.
But in comic, at the end of the Live Fire presentation, Maxima also claimed that her villains will be either imprissoned, or dead (paraphrasing). But at the same time, she doesn’t have the autority to give out death sentinces, so after capture, that stuf is up to the judge.
So it’d create some fun drama down the line I think.
Implenting GPS trackers and means of incapacitating someone directly in the body (somewhere they can’t safely be removed) would spring to mind, but than you start bumping against human rights
No, he said “no universal power inhibiters”, which means no “one-size-fits-all” power-cuffs
However they do have, as indicated, universal tranquilize the crap out of them, bracelets
Pssh, filthy muties don’t get no human rights! They ain’t human! And me and my Friends of Humanity bretheren will…
uh…
be the most ineffective antagonist group of like any superhero story ever.
Big differences here, anyone can have powers with or without registering them, there is no requirement to do so. They are even allowed to use powers, registered or not, in the confines of legally acceptable activity. Illegal activity is illegal with or with out powers. Illegal acts committed using powers legally on par with illegal acts committed with a weapon. Removal of right requires trial by jury. Resisting arrest can result in your death.
How about taking a rest, which is what most of the villains are doing?
:p Don’t get pissy because I beat you to a logical falacy.
Though I get he was making a godawful joke with it
And then a be-pornstached Tyrion Lannister builds giant deathbots to kill them all the end.
Its simple and effective….Send him……. to Detroit.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ldf7r4eZHCo
We are building a fighting force of extra ordinary magnitude. We forge out spirits in the tradition of our ancestors. You have our gratitude.
They are currently using those knockout bands, so maybe a more long term version of one of those?
They can’t keep them in a coma longterm though, this ain’t Demolition Man :P
nah, they FROZE those guys… too bad the good guys at the time didn’t “really” know that people stayed conscious inside there while they were undergoing reprogramming. or maybe they did, and just didn’t CARE due to the violent nature of most of those incarcerated there and they figured it was a fitting punishment… or it was a plot hole the movie guys screwed up with …
and what’s with the three seashells?
Au contraire mon frère, Now all restaurants are Pizza Hut. (or Taco Bell in the U.S. Release).
I can think of few worse punishments for them than to wake up in a future where every restaurant is a Pizza Hut or Taco Bell.
A&W Ken-Taco Hut?
<——- Runs screaming from the building
GANGWAY!!
At least the root beer would still be good. For my money, the hell restaurant to see all over the place is Jack in the Box.
Have to agree. We used to have an A&W here, out on State Line Avenue (which literally is the state line). We used to buy their root beer in the gallon jugs. Awesome stuff.
it’s quite simple really, put him in a cell made with kinetic absorbing material (similar to anvil’s power) with a gravity engine underneath that can be cranked up to immobilize him whenever its feeding time or time to change the bedding and or waste bucket. there are ways to hold even the strongest of supers, i’m sure they can use maxima to test out the cells to make sure they can hold just about anyone including her.
That would be a simple solution once you actually invent kinetic absorbing material.
If you just have Max say, “They’re not getting out of that.” Without ever specifying what ‘that’ is, three-quarters of your readers will spontaneously self-combust. Which would tip global warming into a runaway greenhouse and end all life on Earth. No pressure.
Or a gravity engine
i blame dabbler if that exists in this universe. maybe some way to alter the interactivity of mass not so much changing the total mass but rather rendering it either inert or hyperactive.
It’s quite probable that Xuriel either has access to these technologies or could cock something up, but it’s not likely she’d be willing to let it out of her sight.
Why she’s so protective about exotic technology is and interesting question. I can only guess that there is a good reason to it. Perhaps there is some kind of interstellar council that has created a non interference law. Perhaps it’s been tried before and entire civilizations were destroyed. Perhaps she was involved in introducing a technology that destroyed a civilization. Whatever the case she doesn’t like having us primitive monkeys monkey about with her more advanced toys.
Ehrm… that should have been cook not cock… Not that Dabbler cares…
Gravity wells require an intense amount of power. It would have to be very very well guarded. Hopefully with supers, because we all know what happens when you put unenhanced humans in charge of guarding the highly powerful villain. The safest thing to put him in would be an gps and phone free, easily concealed, constantly mobile stasis unit that can send out an emergency signal to Archon if tampered with.
Put him (while unconcious) in an orbiting space module. Think ISS habitation module + automated services. If he tried to use his powers on any prison staff astronauts, he would destroy the fragile container he lived in, then he too would die in the decompression/cold/radiation exposure/starve to death.
That’s not cost-effective. Have you priced the launch of a satellite lately? You might even go so far as to say that the price is…
…Wait for it…
…Astronomical.
( •_•)
( •_•)~⌐■-■
(⌐■_■)
Yeeeeaaaaah!
Much simpler, just hang him from elastic bands in a cell large enough that he cant touch the walls. No leverage, and strength doesn’t matter if you can’t stretch the bands far enough to break them.
I’m thinking they’ll somehow get Vehemence to guard the other inmates, as sort of a community service thing. He might agree to it too, since he gets to fight anyone who tries to break out.
As for how they’d enforce it… I dunno.
He’s not a bad guy, he’s just a little insane
didn’t they once say that about Napoleon?
Now now, it’s not nice to make fun of someones insecurities.
By the way, the common belief that Napoleon was quite short has been challenged by a number of researchers. In the old records that’s still available his height is said to be 5’2″ which in imperial units would equal about 1.57 m. The interesting thing is that the French was using an inch that by definition was longer than the one used by the English. If the French definition was used then that would make Napoleon about 5’6″ to 5’7″ or about 1.68 to 1.70 m, which was just about the average height for a man in France at that time.
I just know that all of the top notch English Gentlemens Clubs use French Rulers when the bragging contests break out…
As for the IRL super powers; cement shoes, bellows, and the Marianas Trench come to mind. The only one’s you’d really have to worry about are teleporters. And teleporting requires such a high level of precision (without some sort of waypoint method) that one would almost never use it. A teleporting super w/o a superhuman level of spatial awareness (we’re talking intergalactic levels) would wind up suffocating in space or lodged in some celestial object the first time they discovered their ability.
I just love the fact that the non-super on the team is the one who power-combo’s with Maxima to take down the big bad. There cannot be a greater demonstration, to the team, and all other onlookers, including the press, that this is a team, not just Maxima. Smoothly done.
For those of you keeping track:
It is officially one year to the day of the future time travel date in the second Back To the Future movie. Order your hoverboard and Cubs World Series jerseys today! I can’t wait to get the fusion upgrade on my car.
I was just talking about that with a friend of mine the other day. We were comparing what was predicted in the movie vs what actually has come to pass. One point made was if you look at your smartphone, if you went back to 1985, the year of the first BTTF, that smartphone would be pretty much the most advanced piece of tech in the world. And it’s really just a toy for us today. Most of the tech in a smartphone is for entertainment purposes. Makes me wonder what the next 30 years will bring.
Well, science has already demonstrated the capability to make those hoverboards. But for some reason, the industrialists & marketeers have yet to actually try to capitalize on it.
I’m thinking that’s because at first glance it looks like an injury/postmortem lawsuit waiting to happen. “Wee, I’m on a hoverboard!” *accidentally drifts into traffic*
Oh sure, it’ll require a license and training, but I don’t really want to think about what happens if you get top heavy.
No worse than a regular skateboard? Let’s just hope the pansies don’t start demandning a license and training for those
Sony has a copyright on it that I know of. They didn’t have the operating computer or even the power source onboard the hover board though and it was huge.
I’d say it needs a decade or two yet to have a practical version. It would need the electric approximately of an electric car and their batterys are huge and heavy.
Actually, saw an article about it recently, some people have already built it, just need to mass-produce it (and make it hover more than half an inch off the ground)
about sony, in the u,s. copyrights only last for 25 years except in the cases of disney and baseball which last forever.
Sorry, Sassafra, but you’re *way* off.
Anything copyrighted on or after January 1st, 1978, the copyright is good for between 70 and 120 years. (Title 17, Chapter 3, Section 302.)
Slight technicality. It is good for between 70 and 270 years. The 70 years being counted from the death of the author, thus providing both the upper and lower bounds. The former if he dies immediately on completing the work. The latter being the upper potential.
In case you are wondering where the 200 comes in, medical technology is continually improving. As is the life expectancy of humans, as a result. It is estimated that the first people who will live to be 200 years old have already been born. If one of them were to create a copyrightable work today, that copyright may still be in force for over two and a half centuries.
And let’s not forget just how much certain industry titans have impeded progress just to maintain their stranglehold on their particular market. *cough*BigOil*cough*
Hokay kids, time to get in on the ground floor of this deal. https://www.kickstarter.com/projects/142464853/hendo-hoverboards-worlds-first-real-hoverboard
Metal and magnets… ?
It’s been done before as has the helicopter style air blowing version.
Missed ’em before. Figures.
not heard any breaking news or seen any tweets about Deloreans appearing out of midair yet. Nor has the fashion police switched our wardrobes out. Guess the second digit from the left might have been broken in the series, meaning it was actually 2115 that they came out in
Naa, it just means they messed up the timeline and the things we should have aren’t here. Bummer.
The Steyr, As far as I know, never went into production, prototypes only. I. Suspect a nextel 14.5mm loaded with APDS would be impressive, bu I just noticed that it is available in 20 x110 Hispano. E total energy of that shell is similar to the US 20x102mm, used in both aircraft and surface mounts. Putting the Apfsds round developed for the Phalanx anti-missile system would probably allow effective AP performance.
Preamble, this is not making fun of Dave, thought it may sound like it. I just noticed on panel 8 he remember to have Vehemence’s shoe on the foot that Maxima grabbed be damaged. It hasn’t been relevant for 3 or 4 pages so it’s awesome he remembered to put that little detail in there. I prolly would have forgotten.
Yes, it’s the little things.
yeah, he’s good about SOME things… you notice that he keeps forgetting Sydney’s bruise though? :D
Wait, Sydney has a bruise? Since whe-… oh, there it is.
Maxima…actually looks even sexier with the broken nose and blood streaming. That’s wrong, right? Somehow, I don’t feel bad about the remark though.
Here’s something I find interesting (enough to stop lurking in the woodwork and actually make a comment for the first time in the three-ish years I’ve been following this comic):
The greek verb ‘μαχομαι’ means ‘to fight’ and is pronounced ‘maksomai’. ‘Maksomai’ is eerily phonetically similar to ‘Maxima’, who is currently doing a bang-up job of fighting. It’s interesting how language works, isn’t it?
That IS interesting. Got any others?
Dernedest thing, that.
Long time the maxome foe he sought… From Jabberwocky. Figures Rev Dodgson would know his Greek.
Just thinking, Maxima just sent him into a clockwise spin at possible supersonic speeds. Which she suddenly halted with a counterclockwise super punch, which obviously overcame the initial rotation as he is now recoiling from the punch in a counterclockwise manner….
simply put, DIIAAAAAMMMMNNNN, it will be a medical miracle if he hasn’t separated every vertebrae in his neck and spine. I had a kung-fu instructor show me a “simple” counter to a thrown punch, by side stepping the punch and bringing your arm up and around to “assist” in what appears to be a throw, then rapidly changing the direction of your arm, and their head. Which leads to the persons head going one way and the rest of their body continuing the other way. Result, instant quadriplegia/death. Now lets do it at supersonic speeds and strength with Maxima. 0.0″
Max power test of super strength and invulnerability there. And she’s trying for a failure. Maybe not fatal, but I think that’s the end of the fight. The fat lady will sing “Fools Rush In” as we exit the theater on Thursday.
he he he, I was thinking the fat lady would be singing “Another ones bites the dust”
“And now five or six well known solos in the key of E!” (CRASH) “Shoulda tried B flat.”
At this rate, Vehemence might not have any teeth left with which to bite the dust.
New saying – gum the dust.
She did give fair warning in the press release that a super that actively resists Archon may end up dead as a direct result. If you are to strong to imprison and too criminal to be left alone, then you will be put in a pine box.
Since Maxima ordered Syd to have her shield up all the time and she didn`t last time we saw her…
what will happen? *insert slightly maniacal cackle*
Sydney has been flipping her shield off and on since she found out it’s airtight. In fact it was Max who noticed her getting ready to pass out.
So, while the rest of the team was getting their butts kicked, Peggy never opened fire on him? That could’ve been what kept the rest of the team losing to begin with.
Though, with Maxima now in the fight, why is everyone just standing back instead of helping out to take him down even quicker?
This shot did nothing but distract him. He was shrugging off all attacks the team was throwing at him.
Shooting at him would have done nothing but distract for a little while, hurt him, and reveal Peggy’s location. A VERY power tactical choise.
And Maxima is attacking at Super speed. There is noone else in the team that’s fast enough to even move to attack before she’s finished with him.
Besides, there’s not much they COULD even add, seeing as he shrugged off everything they had already. They’d do nothing but get in Maxima’s way
I’m not sure it did nothing but distract him. There’s BLOOD coming from his eye.
That’s the interesting thing about Vehemence. He takes shots that could flatten other people and seems untouched, then little things come in and hurt him much more than I’d expect.
Maybe he has a defense that gets stronger in proportion to the attack? Which means he’ll take a LOT less damage from Maxima’s super-punch, but that bullet to the eye may have left him half-blind.
problem with that is the carbine burst to the leg should have torn up his muscles or cracked bone if the defense got weaker for lesser attacks
Part of the thing is that an eye needs to be sensitive, otherwise you wouldn’t be able to see through it. it needs to be able to let light pass and have numerous complex organelles in it. The fact that a sniper shot to the eye only pained and temporarily blinded him rather than turned his brains into pudding is a testment to same serious supper toughness.
There’s speculation on other threads that the eyelid was torn, but the eye is mostly unharmed. You can see he blinked just as or after the bullet hit.
When Maxima is going to cut loose, it’s best to give her room. Most everyone else would just get in the way. Or hurt by the shock waves of each punch.
Or by analogy: If you were trying to put out a growing kitchen fire with a fire extinguisher, would you want your 3 year old running in with a cup of water to “help”?
Also, Maxima putting her hand up like that got him to stop him long enough to give Peggy a stationary target, which is a lot easier to hit.
*got him to stop moving long enough…
I’m loving this fight. The expressions are priceless.
Side note :I believe they explain how Joker (and everyone else with no super endurance) can withstand blows and even be a match for guys like Superman. Namely some sort of drug Evil! Superman had come up with for his forces.
Dave mentioned that. His complaint was partially that it happened -before- Joker got ahold of the drug..
My, everyone seems to think the fight is almost over. I’ll be contrary and predict that within 3 strips, Archon will be in serious danger of losing. Yes, the entire group there.
My best guess is something magic/tattoo related.
Yep, I’m worried as well. So far, V has shown a lot of physical resistance, some serious magic resistance and physical strength. But I don’t think he would have been so eager to tackle on the enitire team were he a purely melee character.
Right now I’m giving moderate odds that this becomes a slugfest; miniscule odds that Vehemence will get up after that last one and say “All right, now I will actually start fighting”, and pretty good odds that Maxima just ended it.
I have a vague memory of our author saying something a while ago that the battle was going to end in like six or eight strips, which wouldn’t allow for a long battle.
Losing teeth is a repeating theme with this guy.
The teeth themselves are unharmed. Eventually they are used to craft the unholey Dentures of Destruction!
That gap-toothed look in Panel_10 may well be permanent! Consider:
1)__While there are cases of human adults who have grown new teeth, they are exceedingly rare.
2)__His own invulnerability may actually prevent the implanting of false teeth into his gums!
3)__Even if a dental bridge is clamped onto neighboring teeth, it could easily get knocked out by any future punches.
Unless of course he has regenerative healing.
Nietzsche-man! Whatever doesn’t kill him makes him stronger. When you stare into the abyss, he’s already there with a rabbit punch!
The true significance of panel 3 has finally sunk in. There is no more dangerous situation than when a woman says, in a calm voice:
“Fine.”
Yep. when a woman says that, a guy knows he’s f***ed but not in the way he might have been hoping for.
…totally and utterly… and definitely NOT in the way some one was hoping for.
And now we will find out which scenario plays out, on Thursday. The two possibilities:
1) Vehemence gets back up, at various levels of pissed off, but not nearly as hurt as one would think. That would mean that we are likely in for a real brawl.
2) Vehemence is down for the count, either dead, unconscious, or sufficiently hurt that he’s really no longer a threat.
It’s POSSIBLE that we could still get scenario 3, but if so, Vehemence is really willing to take a lot of pounding before he opens up his real can of whupass.
I’m giving Scenario 1 about a 20% chance, Scenario 2 a 79% chance, and Scenario 3 a 1% chance right now.
scenario 4 someone else steps in to retrieve the super soldier prototype (possible newer and more advanced prototype) and all his new friends may be retrieved at the same time
As of Thursday, it appears we’re tending towards Scenario 1. Vehemence was annoyed, but not apparently seriously hurt, by not only what happened in this strip, but everything that happened in the following strip with the possible exception of the final blow — but I somehow doubt that one somehow did significantly more damage than the priors.
“Have you learned nothing from the lesson of Ed Gruberman?”
Get in the first shot?
Not a single one of us could defeat you so we’ll have to gang up on you!
The Wise learn more from Fools than Fools from the Wise.
And now let us meditate upon this wisdom.
Ommmmm. Uhhhhhh. urrrrrrg.
For the book, You could wait till you are finished with Sydney’s first day at ARC and title the Book Day 1. Also, comparing the art from the first few pages to the newer ones, you have really refined the look.
Something I accidentally stumbled across. Early DaveB. Very funny, DB! Loved it!!
https://collar6.com/archive/collar-6-guest-3
Some people really should be warned that site is NSFW.
You are correct, and I apologize for the oversight. Thank you for correcting my omission. But, in my defense, the page I linked to was, IMHO, safe. Browsing after that would be at the browser’s own risk. :)
I did say the site. I agree the page itself should be safe, but some HR people might not see it that way. Best to warn people when in doubt.
Yeah, did that one a while ago. Still holds up pretty well.
So, Ari is Greenies sister? They both have that same look in the last panel :D
Yes, it is pretty good. I followed the link from your site to that one, and have been a regular reader since.
Unrelated to this comic in particular, but….
When do they update normally?
The waiting is killing me!
Monday’s and Thursday’s
Sorry, I meant the time on those days.
In my experience at 11:30 UTC.
No, it’s at the whole hour
13:00 here in the Netherlands atleast, to lazy to calculate what that means for other time zones
Netherlands is GMT +2, so that is 8pm for me here in Japan (+9).
Cheers!
I appreciate you giving Maxima a bare midriff using a barely-plausible explanation, author. I really really do.
I just in a morbid sort of curiosity wondered which way Maxima’s nose was broken, it took me going back several pages to make sure her nose was straight to begin with, and it actually is. Then I looked at panel 3, it is slightly and I mean very slightly to her left. Her nose is broken, but one of the most minor breaks I have ever seen….or had. Interesting that little detail showed up.
Thought it was slightly to the right (her right)
Sorry, I always go with the tip of the nose when saying it was left or right. I’ve seen the curve well on really bad breaks be both ways. The curve….which is very slight as well goes to her right, but the tip of the nose is slightly to her left. I even broke out the straight edge after your comment to make sure.
Hmmm, it looks a bit like one of those candy bananas (mmm, love those candy bananas)
A device that can turn off one of those vent thingies can also magically stop it from being a basically hollow metal drum? o_O
No it just stops any vibrations from blurring Peggy’s sight picture. The BOOM still rattled windows for blocks.
A sniper would never put her rifle on an air conditioner; those units introduce way too much vibration to shoot accurately. That and it would act as an amplifier, giving away her position.
As was stated in an earlier comment, pull the mechanical cut-out and no more vibration. At this point in the battle, secrecy of location is no longer a big factor.
well I was right about him anyway
Stop me if I’m wrong, but that thing on the end of Peggy’s gun looks like a muzzle brake to me, and if so the muzzle flash should be coming mostly out the sides of that rather than straight out the barrel.
Peggy is using a Barrett 50 cal, which does have mussel breaks, in various configurations. And that does look like one of those to me. Whilst what you are saying is in theory true, I suspect that it does not work out quite like that, in practice.
Judging by that photo, it seems that most is actually coming from the mussel itself. So I theorise that the break is just mitigating how bad it would be, rather than modifying it to the extreme you suggest.
None the less Dave has probably overdone it, in that shot, so well spotted. But, if you zoom in, you will see that there is some flash coming from the sides, so he remains within the bounds of artistic license.
Notice all the Concretia parts in the background behind Peggy. xD