Grrl Power #267 – Don’t worry, he’s got nothing on Frieza
Ok, NOW he’s growing. His size has fluctuated a bit just due to my art. Turns out drawing a really muscular guy like him throws off my sense of proportion fairly easily, but yes, now he’s all growed up. All upper body, though. Typical guy, right? To be honest his size may continue to fluctuate slightly throughout the remaining pages. He’s supposed to be about twice as big now. Turns out it’s even harder to draw hulk sized dudes the same size each time.
I really wanted this page to be a double, just cause I’m sure a lot of the comments will mention events that occur on the next page, but it has 13 panels on it and I couldn’t just couldn’t swing it.
#makecomics: The nature of sequential art can make for some weird word bubble placement. I needed Max to talk first in order to give Sydney something to react to, which is why Max’s word bubble isn’t right above her head. Normally you either arrange the characters in the order they speak or flip the camera around to put them in the right order. The problem this time was they were already lined up a certain way and I wanted to show their faces, so I couldn’t flip the camera. The more characters there are in a scene, the more complicated your character blocking becomes. The ballroom scene where the team interviewed Sydney was… quite challenging toward the end.
Edit: Whoops, I forgot his missing teeth, they’re back… or gone as the case may be.
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.
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So, a couple of thoughts here. One, if Vehemence is growing, since healing is at it’s most basic is just cellular growth, shouldn’t he have healed all those scratches, and possibly even the eye/teeth?
Two. Why doesn’t Vehemence join Archon? Their job is to seek out the super powered individuals causing trouble, i.e. violence, and put a stop to them. Wouldn’t joining Archon provide him with an easy access to sources of violence?
Third. What if Harem teleported around with Anvil? Anvil could absorb the kinetic energy from his attacks. When someone talks about “violence,” they usually mean when it is being done to someone or something. What if the you remove the recipient from that equation? If nothing happens to Anvil, is it truly violence anymore?
Four. Is all this vehemic energy going to have an effect of Vehemence’s mind? He seems to be getting a rush whenever he absorbs more energy or makes use of that which he has. Is that going to affect his brain?
Fifth. (Final) We’re assuming that he “spends” energy when he attacks. What if he doesn’t? What if the energy is more of an ambient thing that enables him to have greater power? When it increases, he’s able to do more. If the overall level of violence decreases, so too does his strength. (This last one I’m not so sure about though)
Your last point, that we’re assuming he spends energy when he attacks, is wrong. He stated, not two pages ago, that when he attacks them he gets stronger because of the violence.
Your third point is interesting, but if he’s anything like Dabbler, and like most demons in fiction, I assume he’s feeding off the emotion, not the physical act.
The WoG (aka Dave) the act of violence is sufficient to “feed” him.
He can gain power from an earthquake, a tornado, or any other naturally violent event.
It is just that people driven violence “tastes better to him.
1- Healing may not be something V can do. Usually Growth and Healing/Regeneration are seperate powers with differing mechanisms.
2- Vehemence does not want to be part of Archon because they would limit his actions. And after this display of unrestrained chaos, I doubt Archon wants him anyway.
3- It is still violence in the most basic sense of releasing energy. I think V avoids attacking Anvil because the trade of energy expended and returned doesn’t balance in his favor.
4- Vehemence was not exactly the most normal of people before he got so powered up. And his rages seem to be growing.
5- At this point I think of his supply of vehmic energy is self-sustaining. He has gotten stronger. And at this point there might not be a limit. Or he may melt down like a runaway nuke reactor. I think that would be very bad (as Egon might say). To stop him they must damp down his power. Cool him off somehow. My bet is Sydney might have a clue of how to do so. But unlike coaching Max on taking down DT this time Sydney will have to take a personal hand in shutting down the V Reactor. That last is a guess, but I think the rest of the team is about to become busy trying to stay alive when Vehemence attacks.
Some additional info with your #1:
Quite often, a super’s Growth power obtains additional mass through some kind of specific “link” to another dimension. Probably only drawing sub-atomic, atomic, or molecular-sized particles that merge with the super’s body mass. Being that it only draws mass on such small scales, the transfer of extra-dimensional mass occurs invisibly. Some supers in specific stories have occasionally managed to use a “Power Stunt” kind of use with such an interdimensional link to achieve a different effect, but that’s been rare because the primary usage of that power is pretty limited & specific.
So you are saying that the normal amount of background Vehemic energy would be about the size of a Twinkie, and the energy from this fight would be a Twinkie 35 feet long and weighing approximately 600 pounds.
Max and Sydney may have to try a ‘cross the streams’ tactic and hit him with both their beams at the same time.
That’s a big twinkie.
Cross the streams? It was a pleasure to know you…
just remember: if someone asks if you are a God…. SAY YES!!!
Two things immediately wrong here. Harem can’t teleport anything living apart from herself, and her upper limit for what she can port is about 50 lbs. So she’s not going to be porting Anvil anytime soon.
Thank you, Captain Obvious. I’m always glad to see you where you’re needed most.
Silly thought… Sydney reaches into her pocket, winds up, and throws or light hooks a small bottle into his mouth. Reflex causes him to bite down:
We find out whether he can handle Scoville level hot sauce… ;).
I like!!! Once visited a college friend in Phoenix, Anglo. Helped paint the house of a friend of his, Chicano, whose Madre made an amazing spread of homemade Mexican food. Friend of friend SLATHERED on the salsa & munched away with mucho gusto. My Midwesterner sense was tingling; I put on 1drop to test. My college bud copied his friend. The 1 drop burned a hole thru my tongue. The head of my friend turned to plasma–he for reals grabbed everyone’s beverages, one right after another, and poured them into his mouth, like it was a scene in a movie or cartoon. I now have an image of Sydney in a salsa/Chile face off vs Big V, to the tune of The Good, The Bad, And The Ugly…. :-)
“Pour Pilgrim”
Freiza is the villain in the next DBZ movie.
I’m assuming you mean animated movie, they never made a live action one…. nope… never did… they never made one.. I never watched it. It never made me want to beat my own skull in. Nope… never never happened… never ever… nope nope nope…
and the girl that they didn’t pick to not play Chi-Chi wasn’t the least bit hot, and neither was Bulma, who also didn’t appear in the live action movie they didn’t make.
Whole movie, btw, I was thoroughly expecting some Mogwaii and Gremlins to pop out of the woodwork and totally save it… or rather… I wasn’t… ’cause they never made the movie…right? RIGHT?
Jeez, they’ve shown that when Freezer (or other villains) come back from the dead they’re no more powerful than they were when they went IN, which means that Freezer as a villain can’t even take on Yamucha by now, let alone any of the big boys.
Or Krillin specifically. It’s been implied that Krillin is the most powerful Human on the planet. He still can’t go toe to toe with a Saiyan unless it’s an ally he’s training with or the enemy is amused. But, he can beat the other humans on the team if need be.
Also, the final ep of GT. Goku said he knew Krillin had always had more skill. Or something along those lines. Which means in skill to skill only, Goku is lacking.
The Tropes name for that is ‘villain decay’. For longer running shows or movie series the good guys keep gaining in power though training, gathering more or more powerful items etc. This allows them to take on increasingly bigger bad guys in more spectacular fights, using increasingly and pointlessly more complex GCI effects (cough, Michael Bay, cough).
The original villains don’t go through the same ‘level grind’ process and stay at the same power potential. Eventually, even the second string cast members are strong enough to individually wipe the floor with someone that initially took the whole team to vanquish.
Keep making him grow. He’ll stop being able to move and will drown in his own superpower.
Or just don’t. Maybe one of Sydney’s mystery orbs will come into play. I hope one of the mystery orbs is a time warping device or something as funnily a usable as that.
These infinite loop characters seem odd – if Harem walked into a mall and turned on porno-power or whatever to make everyone lust after her, feeding a power loop that would make her stronger than the rest of the team, why hasn’t she? Ditto with vehemence.
I don’t see how they exist. One reason we know there’s no perpetual motion machines in the universe is that there’s no galaxies out there exploding with the power fueled by one of them.
Ditto with these supers. To use a D&D reference, they sound like they should all just be able to Pun-Pun the second they can start a power loops.
It is Dabbler who has the “personal” lust aura not Harem.
Have you seen Red in a bikini? Or even sweats in front of an open fridge?
Harem may not be Dabbler level, but she can turn on the “lust” aura …
Perhaps she has been taking lessons….
or in Dave’s “Harem’s Playboy Centerfold pic”? not gonna link to either the NSFW version, or the SFW version, but still… Mmm, hmmm….
Unfortunately, the analogy by accepted physics thing works poorly in a superhero universe. Half the team are perpetual motion devices of one sort or another. The question of why isn’t Dabbler or V a god is a much better one. It might be that Vs power gain from his own acts of violence have some sort of diminishing return. Or, he could be lying. Most versions of succubi don’t get power from masturbating. Well, unless someone else is watching. Final possibility, we’re about to see V go Pun Pun.
Sydney alone is perpetually hyper and adhd
I realize that’s redundant lol. But it is possible to be adhd and not have energy for physical activity. So, hyperactivity is included.
Sorry, Sydney, but he probably has at LEAST two more transformations to go through. And a bulk-up after that to reach 100% power. You’re in for a looooooooong night. :P
God forbid he starts growing gravity defying glowing yellow hair. XD
maybe that’s why he shaves his head…so we cant tell he’s one of them… the whole gravity thing is by choice after all….
Yeah, Douglas Adams expounded on there being a kind of “knack” to defying gravity. Learn how to fly by throwing yourself at the ground & missing. The trick is to be mentally distracted away from thoughts of the Laws of Gravity to the point where you just ignore it.
We can see a lot of that when Wile E. Coyote runs off the edge of a cliff, but just hovers there…Until he looks down & remembers gravity.
Achievements in Ignorance.
Throwing yourself at the ground and missing is already in the laws of gravity though, it’s called “Achieving an orbit” =p
The way things are going, they better flip ‘For whom the death tolls’ quick.
Okay this is going to sound a little out there…but is any fan of this comic working on time travel that would allow the updates to come faster? Cause it not we should look into that. This comic is -way- too awesome and addictive… we need one of those… a DeLorean, a Tardis, any of the Star Trek ways of doing it, a random portal in a cave with mist constantly swirling around… any of those would do… as long as we get updates faster…
I’m not including superman flying backwards (or however that was supposed to have worked) or Flash running, or going into stasis for a 100 years to wake up to all the updates being done …those only apply to one person and cant be loaned to me for awesome comic reading purposes and the stasis thing just never has a happy ending… even if the world doesn’t get blown up and taken over by monkeys (yes “apes” technically I know, I’m insulting them on purpose) something worse will happen… like waking up in the Demolition Man universe… that universe is just creepy… super polite, clean hippies everywhere, no war, no violence, no touching, no burgers… that’s just wrong…
Na…
Much simpler…
Contribute in such a way that Dave can do this for a living and post much more regularly?
How about it?
Always with the unrealistic, far-out ideas…
Check out Dave’s Patreon account. Approximately $2900 per month is approximately $34,800 per year. I think Dave is doing this for a living.
Two to four pages a week at the level of detail he draws them is a full-time job anyway.
At least it’s a job he enjoys :) More than a lot of people can say about their professions.
Stasis worked for Fry
Couldn’t they just hit some pressure points and immoblise him?
As much as he’s gained resilience with his increase of size & strength, it’s going to be a *lot* harder to punch in enough of an effect to reach any nerve clusters. On the normal human scale, it’d be like trying to hit pressure points on someone wearing full plate armor.
Thinking about it, the missing teeth actually indicate something rather important. Vehemence might get energy from violence, but he still takes damage, and does not seem to regenerate. Taking him down now that they’ve allowed him to grow too powerful to stop passively will probably require one extremely powerful shot that does more damage than he can endure. The energy he gains from the violence of the shot will do him no good if he is rendered unconscious, immobile, or dead.
Probably a real good time to try hitting him with the PPO orb with nothing held back.
Best result: He goes into low earth orbit and they get suspended for the investigation,
Worst result: The remains of the USSR react to the kinetic weapon launch sourced to the USA and WWIII makes it all moot.
Getting suspended for excessive use of power is way better than getting dead for holding back. :P
Quick, everyone attack his arms so they grow so big with muscles he can’t move them at all !
Then when he is subdued by a few dozen tranq gas grenades, Sydney can go all huge forcebubble around him (AND HER) and use fly ball to take him for a gentle ride to a deserted tropical island.
He can’t breathe underwater. The more violence he absorbs the denser his flesh gets. Not gonna swim away either.
Vehemence says that anything violent gives him energy, which can be anything from an earthquake to a super battle, and that intent makes it more powerful. The loophole; intent is not enough to power him up. The simple solution; make it so that his attacks have no effect, aka block with Anvil or Halo’s shield. As to how to get this to happen, Syd is doing it right now, trying to get Vehemence angry with her so that she becomes his target.
I’m now picturing him looming over 2 armies of ants as they fight to the death over an ant hill.
I know this comic has been going on for a while… but realtime inside the comic, it’s been only a few weeks I think, and we *still* haven’t caught up to the first few pages of the comic.
Which makes me wonder: has Halo seen any Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D episodes? I’d love to see an in-comic reference at some point… (Hey, it’s become a good TV show!)
“become”? BECOME?! you… you… HYDRA! :p
um, i think you mean that with the exception of the first FOUR comics… this entire series has been the first DAY… Heck, I’ll even to go so far as to say the first eight HOURS! starting at about 1100-ish for her going to lunch, and it being about 1900-ish right now in the fight sequence… though, if you mean the time frame from the end of the fourth comic to the beginnings of the flashback in the fifth comic, yeah, i guess it could be, seeing as how she flat out says “a few MONTHS” whether or not he does a Shield reference or not, i guess that all depends on the-rule-of-funny, and if it’ll fit in to the comic.
8-10 hours, sounds good.
Just gonna put an idea out here.
We call his “Hulked out” size “Vehemoth”
Eh?
Eh?
LOVE IT.
stuff one orb in his mouth,expand the shield with him on the outside,facing away from syde,
The orb needs to stay in her hand to work. The proper solution would be to jump on his shoulders, so that only she and his head are inside the field, with the lighthook being a sort of seatbelt to keep him from bucking her off before the air runs out. Her own air supply is an issue, but odds are Harem could pass her a rebreather of some sort.
Except for the fact Harem can’t ‘port through the shield, and the shield apparently doesn’t pass through solid objects (would kinda defeat the purpose of a shield, now wouldn’t it?).
Here’s your sign…
how did you come to the conclusion that the shield “doesn’t pass thru solid objects”?
Well, the shield *seems* to stop at whatever floor surface Sydney is standing on, as Shadow Boxer was able to “phase” up through the floor to get inside…Even as the shield also seems to close up underneath her feet when she starts to fly. But this seems more like an “automatic” function of the orb itself, rather than Sydney making it do that consciously.
Actually, Sydney was fiddling with her pipman and didn’t activate her shield until after ShadowBoxer struck. So while we now know that Harem can’t teleport through it we don’t know if it blocks shadow walking, phasing, or what ever, or not. We may strongly suspect, but we don’t know for sure.
I wonder….since its violence specifically I wonder if a non-violent “attack” would be okay. Obviously since intent is a separate factor it would have to be an action that is inherently non-violent. The mummy shot here might count as violent because of its projectile nature but I wonder if a normal physical hands on restraint move would be non-violent enough to deny him additional power (though if he’s stronger than maxima I doubt anyone could physically restrain him anyway)
just thinking “out loud”
along with all the other comments about how to take him down, this is why i hope that Dave actually HAS a pre-thought-out take-down plan for him and isn’t just winging it as he goes along, since V seems to power-up from EVERYTHING… an earthquake? ok, somebody gets squished in a car-wreck, yup.. he hits you, yes, you hit him, yup… him stepping on an ant…they ALL seemingly power him up too, just to a varying degree each… just what exactly DRAINS away his power?… “Only Hanoi Knows”… (and the Shadow, too) but WE, the Readers are NOT aware of that yet, and THAT is what makes it so frustrating for most of us.
that’s the thing… the definition of “violence” is VERY broad and encompasses a LOT of stuff… what you say about a “hands on restraint” would ALSO be considered “violence” and therefore it would, yes, you guessed it… power him up yet again!, probably not as much as he got when Max turned him into a mortar ‘n pestle did, but still his energy level goes UP, not DOWN… so unless Dave has a specific set of circumstances that will be his undoing, we’re gonna be at this fight for a while yet…
one of the orbs should be an energy drain
use an orb that is unknown,green,sydney doesn’t need it in her hands to control position.stuff it in his mouth like a flying bug, expand the shied when the limit is reached for distance from Sydney ,V will have his head stuck to outside the shield,sydney will one more hand free for another orb her choise
Non-violently, right?
I would like to say that drugs aren’t the answer but psychotropics might be kinda handy. Some kind of tripping anyway.
You know…one assumes he still needs to breathe. And Sydney’s shield is NOT gas-permeable.
Here’s your sign, provisionally.
So… What are you suggesting? I’m sure everyone wants to hear it. ^________________^
*prepares a shot glass*
It may not be possible for Sydney to put up a shield that she’s not in now, but I have to wonder if it will be possible in the future.
Looking back on the orbs’ skill grid, I recall that there were nodes connecting each of the orbs. If Sydney puts a point in the node connecting the shield and telepresence orb, would that allow her to put up a shield around wherever her clone is located?
Maaaybe…
Dave has already stated that all of the orbs’ powers & all of her “skill tree” abilities are already plotted out. We can only wait to see how Dave has set it.
why not just give him a big hug and accept him replace all that violence with love? (yeah ….right….like that will work…)
second of all, all means of gaining power have some way to remove it, (usually) and their expert on demons and the like IS in the area so maybe HE has an Idea but he needed more information on V to finalize what he had planned (for all we know it might just be some “Magic must defeat Magic” kinda thing,)
or for all we know Dave is going some odd route and having it so that there is some hierarchy of energy forms, like lust being maybe a weaker type compared to violence (since violence is more widespread) meaning something like I don’t know annoyance? is stronger then violence? (would explain why he hasn’t gone anywhere NEAR Sydney) and being near the “stronger” source or interacting with a source that has a high degree of that energy could weaken the energy that is the “weaker” or lower on the power Hierarchy.
plus how would you even get close to him to hug him anyway.
The relevance of the tats is so much more obvious in the last panel. Now I see what they do. His strength and his weakness.
One would assume that he has to breath. Why not go the Sue Storm vs Hulk approach and just cut off his air?
You could get a good ratburger in the D-man future if you knew where to look.
Oh god please don’t compare anything in this comic to *shudder* Gyno-star.