Grrl Power #270 – Options dwindling
One thing I haven’t really established in the comic so far is that Max has a sort of “golden triangle” of power distribution. We know she’s quite tough, and she has a power pool on top of that she can use to max out one attribute, but usually she just divides her reserves up between strength, speed and armor. That usually makes her stronger than most strong guys (like Hiro but not Stalwart) and tougher than most tough guys, but Vehemence is nearly matching her in all three now, which is a very unusual situation for her. If he manages to exceed her in any of those attributes she’ll need to make some choices about how best to redistribute her power, like dropping her armor and putting it into speed and playing keep away.
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I wonder if Sydney’s just going to use the unconcious Nemesis-powered guy as a shield against Vehemence.
I would assume that his power would require him to be conscious. Though that does lead into an interesting question. How does “For Whom the Death Tolls” gain immediate proficiency of the nemesis abilities.
Clearly, the “absolute nemesis” qualifier his powers use has the default addendum “…and perfect control/proficiency of that power”
Unless his opponent had a power that gave them a boost from his proficiency, I guess. “Unblockable psy-waves that deal damage proportional to the target’s intellect”?
I’d guess Death Tolls would need to be conscious…Vehemence not only pointed him out specifically to Sydney, but also waited until DT was down before joining the fight. It seems to imply that Vehemence was already aware that the Nemesis power would only work if DT is conscious.
There was the whole thing that V got stronger the longer the fight took. So he might just have wanted to be the last man standing to absorb the maximum amount of vehemic energy.
There is some evidence of DT’s power only working while concious (otherwise why has he not yet nemesissed the traquilizer or knockout and woken up?)
That being said, Arc cannot risk using DT in this way. He could die and that would be a really Arianna unfriendly thing. He is out and thus no longer a danger (unlike Jabberwocky was when Dabbler controlled and sicked her on the enemies).
Actually, Vehemence waited off to the side for as long as possible, trying to absorb as much violence as he could. He didn’t step in until Opal was about to teleport *all* the villains away, including himself. If Vektor & Opal would have *not* been trying to escape, V would have probably just stood back longer.
His banquet was about to end before he was full…
This might have been covered before, but I just thought, what would happen if our heroes just left? Vehemence probably can’t generate vehemic energy by himself at a sufficient rate to stay powered up, the way a vampire gains little by drinking their own blood. So he gets to stand around looking goofy for a while – I don’t think he had any goal besides beating everyone up – until he can be thrown in the direction of the sun. Maybe I’m missing something and they can’t all get safely away?
I think it would be irresponsible to leave an uber-powered super to wreck havock over the unsuspecting population. They cannnot leave him, just like they could not leave For Whom the Death Tolls. He could just go berserk and destroy the city.
I still say the power of love will defeat him.
Well, they can tell him if he wants to destroy the city they can’t stop that from happening, but if they drop a nuke on him it will keep it from happening again in the future.
Then he will shrug and happily crush the city, nuke be damned.
Also, just consider…If the nuke doesn’t kill him outright (& he might even have some kind of magic spell for defense if he’s aware of its coming), then think of what it would be like to try to fight The Atomic Vehemence!
The gentleman brawler here will probably just go around slowly, just slow enough so they can evacuate, destroying police and military related structures encouraging them to shoot at him until he reaches the ARCHON building or the constant ringing of their phones by increasingly powerful government officials encourages them to try something more than becoming the Gandhi Police. They won’t nuke a city full of people, takes longer than he’ll give them to evacuate a whole city, and if he goes out of his way not to kill people they won’t be able to excuse killing all those citizens to stop the destruction of replaceable objects (financially worth more than some of the people maybe but don’t expect to get reelected anytime this millennium!).
So he doesn’t accomplish anything besides property damage. That seems tolerable. I can picture our heroes walking with him, within talking distance, constantly telling him how useless his actions are and he’s just making everyone miserable and in the end he’s going to go to prison anyway and working until his arms fall off to pay for everything he breaks. With a newsteam along to record his slow, stubborn fall from grace for everyone to see. It’s like he’s the British and the heroes are Ghandi.
You make it sound like he’s just gonna break a couple of windows. The guy can demolish buildings even before his power up. The way he looks, you’re saying they should try to talk him to death while he lays waste to the city. Assuming he’s nice enough not to hurt civilians (much), at the very least, you are allowing him to mess with people’s homes and jobs and businesses, essentially make their lives miserable. And that is still an assumption he’d even care about hurting people, a very horrible assumption no matter how polite he seems to act.
Yeah, he seems like a reasonable guy, there should be a limit to how much he wants to destroy just to be evil. Seems more he wanted to prove he could beat everyone, so tell him, congratulations, you win. It’s not like they can beat him until he runs out of power, from what we can see. Might as well ask what he wants and then either work with him or make fun of him depending on the answer.
Seems like a reasonable guy is not the same as being a reasonable guy. There do exist murderers who can be polite and courteous when it suits them. V can afford to be all cool and stuff, but take away his fun? He looks less like someone trying to prove himself, or more of someone on a power trip. Leaving him alone under the assumption he will somehow burn through his power rapidly AND not hurt civilians along the way? Highly, highly, highly not recommended, both for the city, and for ArcSWAT’s image.
Besides, Sydney is thinking. Let’s wait for that first.
Here’s where your reasoning falls a bit short…Vehemence already DID tell them what he wanted. He’s just “pro-violence” & even went to the trouble of getting this gathering together for just that purpose. Asking him what he wants NOW is like asking a successful bank robber what he wants…
@ MidnightDStroyer: Actually, I think that everything he said to Max before the fight started was true. It also seems like he wants to teach them, and perhaps Max in particular, a lesson about arrogance and pride, rather than actually trying to kill or permanently hurt any of the team. He has had probably a dozen opportunities to kill members of the team since he joined the fray, and hasn’t taken them. For example, he could have punched Stalwart in the throat instead of under the chin, or used his grip in Anvil’s hair to twist/yank her head off. He isn’t there to kill anyone, just to perhaps discredit the ARCSwat team and ARCLight in general. And to test his own limits.
That being said, I have a feeling that Max may be about to try to feed him one of her blast attacks. I can’t think of anything else that she might be considering as not publicly acceptable.
Or he keeps them alive so as he may continue to draw out the fight much longer in order to gain further power. That doesn’t mean he won’t kill people. He is here for the buffet; any other reason beyond that is mere speculation, a risk that no one should take.
V is just too powerful to make assumptions of how he will act and than do nothing or trying to solve matter peacefully. Also don’t forget that he is fast enough now all he needs to do attack to group members that are not superspeedsters or teleporters. Heck he can go against Anvil for a good long time each pumping others power but V has strategies against anvil if she gets too out of control. On the other hand Anvil does not have a good paln yet.
Lets still not forget, violence he commits himself still gives him power, so it will be a LOOOOOOOOOOONG while before his proverbial arms fall off.
Well, they can certainly make that choice. I think it will be the end of any kind of career in this area (police, military, superheroing, whathaveyou) and they should probably get a good lawyer in case folk try to sue them for not making a reasonable attempt to stop him (not to mention the 1 person/child or more V will probably accidentally kill while destroying that much stuff). Such suits might not be logical but since when has common sense stopped such things? When they don’t do a thing to stop him they will have to further stop others, including the local authorities, from acting when they get fed up with this lack of action. And who knows what an intelligent and frustrated V would do or bluff if they resisted fighting him that much?
It would be an interesting choice for another comic, lots of unique writing opportunities with such a strange twist, but I don’t see these characters going that route and this comic clearly isn’t going that direction. (the start before the flashback would have been wildly different with Sydney being part of a very different ARCHON, a completely different group or maybe on her own… )
The only logical next step is to counter the vehemic energy with dabbler’s tantric power by having a giant orgy.
Logic, or fantasy? :P
For a moment there I thought it was one of the orbs having the thought balloon. Well, whether it’s the orb or Sydney, should have some interesting results…
SYDNEY’S BRAIN IS WORKING! Incoming cunning plan and/or smartass snarky comments!
Probably both…
I think the solution to this problem was already presented erlier in the fight.. one question though. do sydney’s forcefields Have to have her inside, or can she project them elsewhere? if the latter, she simply needs to form one around vehemence and shrink it, initially immobilizing, eventually suffocating him.
also, whats the tensile strength of her lighthook? has it been established?
This has been brought up in every comment section since V revealed himself – probably with Death Toll too.
From what we’ve seen until now, Sydney needs to be inside the shield and cannot morph it to create sub-pockets.
As for the lighthook, we haven’t seen the extent of its strength yet, though we know V is at least strong enough to bend and repel it. And that Sydney is the physical anchorpoint for it, given that she was thrown back when V freed himself.
Congratulations on being one of the few who haven’t kept up on all of the comments, yet had the foresight to *ask* about Sydney’s shield limitations before making a suggestion.
You get to pass “Go” without collecting one of Dr. Revenge’s signs…
;)
Atlantis is that much farther away now. :-)
Not really…It’s not taking any trophies away, just not adding another one.
I know I was joking.
Maxima’s first thought on waking: “What can I do today to make Arianna’s life hell?”
Dabbler’s first thought on waking: “Ooh, that one one kinky wet dream Maxima was having. I wonder if the subliminal command I gave will take?”
Sydney’s first thought on waking: “Oh god I am sooo glad that curry tastes as good in the morning, as it does hot, and I do not even have to prepare breakfast!”
Heh! Sydney’s breakfast could even be leftovers from yesterday…No cooking or microwaving required to still be hot.
Nah, I reckon Sydney’s first thought upon waking would be more along the lines of; “ANTELOPES! On roller skates! They cannot be stopped and they want our shrubberies! Shrubs. That’s a weird word. So is weird. Weeeeeiiiiirrrrrrrrrrrrrrrduh.”
BTW, if Sydney’s brain asks the question, “Do penguins have knees?” it can be truthfully said yes, they do. I’ve seen penguin X-Ray pic posted on the net. They’re knees are imbedded way up the leg, close to the hip joints & covered by flesh & fur nearly down to their ankles.
Well, that’s ONE question that won’t keep her up late at night…
I’m guessing Sidney could just encapsulate Vehemence in her shield. We already know Maxima needs at least a good push to break it, so it should be just beyond Vehemence’s abilities.
So he could only crush Sydney then. Well, until she’s crushed, at which point she won’t be able to hold the shield orb and the shield will fall.
Therefore, the expected results of that plan: Hospitalized or dead Sydney, momentary inconvenience to Vehemence. Doesn’t sound worth the trade-off.
Atlantis should rise any minute now…
*takes a shot for someone suggesting the shield thing for the millionth time*
Your liver must hate you sooo “vehemently” by now…
Shield + Vehemence + Sydney = dead main character.
Shield + Vehemence cannot function without Sydney inside shield
Plan cannot work unless the variable “changable forcefield shape” is added.
Then the plan means:
Vehemence + sheild + changable shape – Sydney = victory
This plan is completely void if the shield is fragile from the inside out.
White left eye in the last frame, and white glow in frame 5? Get ready to feel the pain Max, he’s consuming his power.
Just a couple of panel before that, his left eye wasn’t showing anything more than perhaps how bloodshot (literally) it is. In the last panel, I’d say it’s likely he closed his eyelid over it again…The tattoo-line is not broken, still continuing over his eyelids. It’s the glow from that tattoo-line you’re probably seeing.
Here’s some thoughts on beating him:
*) Max shoves her hand in his mouth and does a maxed-out (Maxed-out?) particle blast. It’s either totally ineffective or lethal. If it’s ineffective, you’ve just powered him up that much more.
*) Sydney drops her shield, has Harem teleport her in close, puts one of the orbs down V’s throat to suffocate him, and immediately raises her shield again. If we want it to stay non-lethal, she can pull it out after he passes out and before he takes brain damage. This, of course, assumes that he needs to breathe. Might or might not count as violence.
*) V appears to have rooted himself to the ground, as opposed to having flight powers. Could max rip the ground up under him and fly him+it into orbit?
*) As opposed to a Krav Maga style martial art (designed to literally take your opponent apart), try something more like aikido (designed to control the opponent while preventing them from being harmed). This assumes that someone on the team HAS that skill, of course, or can at least fake it.
*) Massive doses of sleeping gas. Or one of those painkillers that makes you really happy and out of it. Although I think most of those are injected, which isn’t an option right now.
Sydney’s orbs apparently have the “regardless of force applied, cannot be moved away from her more than X feet” thing. Within that area, they move as she wills; do they also have “cannot be diverted from their course regardless of force applied”? If so, she could use them as literally unstoppable battering rams. Alternatively, if she clustered them around him at appropriate points and then told them DO_NOT_MOVE! she could effectively cage him.
Ah, wait, better strategy. Ok, new assumptions:
*) The orbs CANNOT be moved out of Halo’s zone (at least not by V’s powerlevel)
*) Sufficient force will move the orbs around inside Halo’s zone regardless of what she tells them to do. So, basically, she can’t plow them through him and she can’t use them as a block to keep him from advancing on her.
Ok, so: put the orbs around his neck in a collar, right up under the chin. Now, Harem grabs Halo and starts teleporting around V really, really fast, with no pattern, staying right at the edge of Halo’s exclusion zone. Any time V tried to move, Halo is on the opposite side and moving would require pushing one of the orbs out of Halo’s exclusion zone. Boom, he can’t move. Controlling the head is sufficient to prevent him from going anywhere or doing anything — so far he hasn’t shown any ranged ability. It’s not violence so it shouldn’t power him up any more, so they can just hold him there until he runs out of juice.
It’s a fragile technique — Harem and Halo would need to be pretty close to him, so if he DID manage to catch a pattern and anticipate Harem’s teleport, then he could slip out, grab her, and thwack both of them. It would at least hold him for a while and give someone else time to find a better solution.
Let me start by pointing out the Harem can’t teleport living things, aka. people.
Doh. I missed that. Can Dabbler? If not, have Max fly her around in a circle really fast.
Assuming he couldn’t move the orbs, and he probably can, away from his throat you would only need five to get the job done well enough and then Sydney can fly herself around him shielded while the others figure out what to do.
1) Probably loose a finger or a hand depending on how much energy was diverted away from things essential to get said appendages safely inside V’s mouth like speed, armor and or strength (shoves it in his mouth as in shoves it open on the way in?). But hey, might be possible with just speed and blast maxed out if they can get him talking. With decent aim maybe she wouldn’t have to shove it all the way in with speed up? But you would want as much into blast as possible so its pretty risky (not to mention can an uber blast hurt a Maxima who has shifted defense into blast?? Cuase a semi-ubered blast was an area of effect explosion it seemed… )
2) I would reaaaally want to know how tough those orbs are before letting V chomp on them. They are big enough and V is slow enough you would pretty much need Maxima to do the shoving at speed (see above possible issues) and that would require that her orbs have a “loose” mode where they can be pushed around. More on this below.
3) Beats me. Its been pointed out V’s foot isn’t crushing the ground so maybe it is just an “anchor” as opposed to a gravity thing so maybe. I’d have to look up an anchor spell to see how they handle the whole disrupting the ground thing.
4) Probably better be one of the super strength sorts at this point. He’d still get something out of it (I forget the whole conversation some others had about this already) most likely but it would be a delaying tactic till something else comes along…
5) I think I actually was in on some of the first conversations of this and I think its worth a shot (though I wanted to gas him BEFORE this latest development!). Halon gas was suggested to suck out the oxygen. Also some kind of chemical that makes it easier for medicine to get through the skin but of course now his skin is repelling .50 cals at its weakest points so penetration may take a while.
6) Um… you said to different things here but lets assume the orbs can be moved around with their limit for now OK?
I think you are missing the obvious combination of this with #2 AND #1. Sydney lowers the shield long enough to slip a ball outside and then slams it down again. Maxima uses strength and armor to force said ball down V’s throat (go for a hold near his head and when he starts yacking about how awesome he is or whatever grab the jaws as the orb goes in). This may require Maxima, the Hentacle, Vaseline and a large bucket of luck! Once the orb is in his stomach work it down as far as it will go into his intestines if possible (maybe they got bigger too?) so its harder for him to just puke it up (his puke muscles are all super powered so maybe he could!). At this point Sydney is already safely inside her shield with the rest of the orbs so she grabs the flight orb and flies up to her distance from orb limit and hovers.
V is trapped until he can pass the orb. Lot of IFS and risky business here but considering your prior plans I thought you might appreciate this combination.
she is tied to the balls not the other way around. look at the first 20 comics. she is literally picked up and tossed when the case with the balls in it rolls away.
We’ve seen examples of both ways…Sydney being restricted by the orbs AND the orbs being restricted by Sydney. It seems to be dependent on which of the two are most firmly anchored in place when the other is moving to the range-limit.
In one case, at the bank when Sydney tried to leave her car, the carry-strap of the poster tube got hung up inside the car & Sydney got bounced back as if she hit a wall. After the robbery-scenario, Sydney was stationary under another car when Max tried to pull oon the poster tube & wound up pulling herself forward instead.
Yes, it seems to be whichever is moving is the one stopped.
The orbs have a limit past which if someone attempts to move them they just STOP and no force so far has been able to get them farther from Sydney than that. Maxima’s attempt to do with her super strength didn’t move Sydney even a little.
Sydney also can not move farther from the orbs than the same limit. Any attempt by her to do so will cause her to just STOP, often as if she just slammed into a wall and occasionally do some kind of comic pratfall which you may have mistaken for her being yanked off her feet by them. DaveB does the best he can to get it across but misperceptions happen when he insists on the big funny slapstick reactions.
I looked waaay past 20 comics. That which you describe never happens but sometimes she is being man handled at the same time her reflexive mental connection to the orbs in the container is moving them about. There is a scene where she was reflexively calling the orbs to her (or they just follow when active and not tied down *shrug*) as she ran and Maxima stopped them causing Sydney to slam into an “invisible wall” doing the over the top comic pratfall thing I discussed above. This is probably what you saw.
I am to short of time so I stopped before I finished the entire bank scene but I know this is true anyway. I’ll be happy to look at any comic you want to link though.
It is an AOE, but remember that Maxima didn’t even sustain clothing damage from that blast, unlike the blast that blasty-lady (Atomic Bombshell) sent her way earlier in this fight. And Maxima’s anti-tank blast was pictured as being bigger, even if possibly not more powerful given that AB’s attack was said to “really hurt” although it didn’t even break the skin. So if we assume that Maxima used a fairly potent blast at the press conference, it’s clear that her armor, boosted or not, is capable of withstanding the blast without issue.
And there is also the (slight, IMO) possibility that she is simply immune to her own blast effects. She wouldn’t be the first superhero/villain who had that as a side effect power.
I just meant that if she shifted enough juice over to blast to take V out then until she got it shifted back she might be vulnerable to her own blast. At the press conference Maxima said it wasn’t her top blast so she had something left in the tank for defense but also she set it up so it was some distance away and took time to reach its ultimate explosive potential so maybe she was able to shift some juice back. At least I hope her big explosions don’t normally take that long or they are mostly useless against your faster/stronger supers. Atomic Bombshell was worried about using her own uber blast so she used something she called a “shaped charge” I think to focus it on Maxima somehow. Anyway that’s why it took a while to make I assume.
It would be cool if she was immune to her own power. I guess the assumption there would be that she can reabsorb the energy?
It’s been done different ways over time for different supers, of course. This is comics we’re talking about here!
Cyclops and Havok, IIRC, are both immune to their own (or Cyclops would shoot through his own eyelids) and each others blasts (being brothers), and also power each other a bit if they blast each other. But of course this changes with the writer, the reboot, and the forgotten continuity…
Asking if someone has training in aikido. It’s like you’ve forgotten about Math. I want to see what Math thinks about this guy, actually. More importantly, where did he go? Is he off grabbing food while fending off attacks from a stray supervillain or something equally nonchalant?
He did get KOed not too long ago after seeing an eyeful of tattooed boobies…
RE: the ‘better strategy’ If we assume all the orbs have the same maximum distance from Sydney this wouldn’t work as described, but could still be applied I think. The maximum distance Sydney could move from the trapped vehemence would be as far as she could get from the orb on the opposite side of V’s neck from herself. This means that the other orbs ringing his neck would be within the sphere where they can be moved by outside forces. In the random teleporting or flying in a circle fast scenarios all V would have to do is pick one of the orbs to push steadily against and it will yield whenever that particular orb isn’t the one furthest from Sydney in the ring.
A better way to do this would be to have Maxima fly Sydney straight up over his head. One can find a point on the axis through the center of the orb-neck-ring that places them ALL on the maximum distance sphere from Sydney. If he jumps up to allow the orbs to move into that sphere of mobility, Maxima just flies Sydney higher as she keeps the orbs pressed to his neck and suddenly he’s suspended midair from the neck at whatever height he made it with the jump. With no ground to act against his options would be even more limited.
The premise might still break down however: if the balls only resist being moved beyond that spherical distance from Sydney, he might still be able to slip his fingers between the orbs and his neck and push them outward along that spherical boundary (like stretching a rubber band off his neck) and fall down through them. Or even rolling them ‘up’ over his head to push them into the spherical manipulation range.
Also he’s shown some sort of vehement magic now, who knows what kind of ranged abilities he could apply even if held to standing/hanging in one spot.
I’m wondering if his showmanship would allow him to be goaded into showing off what he can do with his powers. If so, then that’s a possible way to, drain him. Get Dabbler to do a mild seduction and get him strut his stuff till he’s too weak to resist.
Yes because obviously the guy who gets off by fighting is going to be seduced in any way by a four armed waste of space who barely beat her first opponent, great pl-wait that might kill her(unfortunately no shes too important) lets do it!
Her natural built in powers, from her succubus side, of glamour and seduction are her most powerful abilities. Stronger than the spells she has tried on him to date. It might well work but others have previously suggested that inducing lust in a creature of violence might be very dangerous. Perhaps if she got inside Sydney’s shield she could be bait to get him acting more predictably once his thought processes were dumbed down with desire.
The guy is obviously intelligent enough to recognize that shes a succubus/magic user with barely any real info beyond watching her “fight” Heavenly Sword and he has thus far shown himself to be really fucking savvy and do remember she backed up once she figured out how he charged up so its incredibly doubtful she’ll be able to mind fuck him in that way.
“V” is a typical rage demon. (perhaps not) I find the seduction would be not as be as powerfull a emotion as angry. because where as seduction is typically greed and lust angrey can be righteous,self defeating,all consuming and generally able to over come the bodys need to bone.
and I would love to think “v” is allot smarter then he acts and is more a “guardian of the realm” then a “villain of the second demon war “
Just have Dabbler, walk up and kiss him and them have her make out with him in full on Succubus lust fest and see what happens.
Why do people keep having this bad idea?
You think maybe lust and the will to violence can’t occupy the same person at the same time?
I guarantee Vehemence’s head is big enough to hold both ideas.
Dabbler probably wouldn’t survive making out with him the way he’d do it.
Because it works better than attacking a bad guy who gets powered up when you attack him. But hey, if you want to keep beating a dead horse and insisting on using what you know full well does not work, go ahead. We shall call you the “pointy haired boss”.
Might consider taking your own advice, because the lust idea has also been beaten to death.
Did you ever heard term of ‘rough play’ you are assuming that he will be docile while Dabbler is kissing her but a person can be violent and lustful at same time so he could easily hug Dabbler to death squeezing god knows where while making out. Yeah your plan works just as good as punching him in the face only difference is he will be raping all the women in a certain radius after he is done with dabbler and if there is any after effect remains.
-*kissing him (curses no edit button :P)
This even assumes her lust aura will even work on him, given he was able to backhand her sleep spell.
Ya Lust + Violence, possibly NOT the the best combination. Klingon Sex without restraint any one?
Sidney’s force-field around the guy will work! She can manipulate it’s malleability to absorb his attacks! If it’s strong enough and can cut off his air, it can stop any sonic-claps from getting out!
Or just force-field around his head and get the hell out of the way until he loses air.
Anyone who gets into Sydney’s shield will have to be *with* Sydney inside of it as well. If he suffocates, she will too, assuming that he doesn’t turn her into a thin, red paste before that.
Another drink.
Another sign from Dr. Revenge.
Another trophy for Capt. Obvious.
I think a bonus should be awarded for not just the suffocation by shield macguffin, but for also suggesting the partial shielding macguffin as well. Suggestions?
I’d say that suffocation by partial shielding is in the same category as suffocation by full shielding…Go for it.
Alright! Another shot, another sign, and we’ll throw the World Cup just because it’s extra special. ;D
Me thinks people are just suggesting this solution now to troll us…..
People have been thinking that as well for a while. Don’t mean we can’t hand out prizes. ;)
If they are trolling, who cares, we are still having fun with it. :-)
Hmm… Vehemence has all this power but don’t seem to want to heal himself at all.
My theory being that any healing (even to other people) weakens him.
Thoughts?
Whatever magic spell-casting he’s doing now draws it’s “fuel” from the V-Energy he’s got collected & stored up. As Vehemence himself said, “I’ve got power to burn.”
I have little doubt that V has enough knowledge in magic that he could use to heal himself (& maybe even others) & that it would (at least) partially deplete the energy he’s collected already…Not much of a good idea to do in the middle of a battle, especially since he’s already resilient enough to pretty much ignore the damage he has. It would be something like fatiguing yourself by doing a bunch of jumping jacks, just to put a band-aid on a small scratch.
But at the same time he did grow himself, which I assume requires a lot more energy than just regrowing current damaged tissue.
I’m just guessing since I have no idea what method he is using to do all this. If it’s magical knowledge on his part, inherent abilities which are powered by his vehemic energy or something completely different.
Is there a limit to what kind of things he can channel his energy into? If he is indeed a magic user then a healing spell would not be very far fetched unless it has other consequences for him.
From what we’ve seen I’d liken him to a kind of monk, but instead of unlocking his inner power he has unlocked the ability to use this vehemic energy. If that’s the case he has probably studied this for a long time meaning he’s very aware of what he’s doing and it’s all very deliberate.
That’s why I think an oversight like not healing such severe injuries as the loss of an eye, has to be a conscious decision.
It’s just a matter of figuring out why he would refrain from healing himself.
I think it’s entirely plausible that the act of healing or repairing works to negate his vehemic energy.
There’s still the consideration that V doesn’t think that he has enough damage to be worth the cost of healing right now. The worst damage is to his left eye, but that was *before* he achieved his current power level…Peggy’s second shot did *nothing*. He’s blocked Dabbler’s sleep spell with no effect; his *knee* shrugged off small arms firs with no effect; he’s got a couple of minor cuts from Dabbler’s sword, but not deep enough to impair his usage of the arm that got cut; Max literally *ground* at him under that concrete pylon & he’s got some minor scrapes that still don’t slow him down at all.
Overall, he’s just not injured enough to justify healing at this point. His only *innate* ability is to absorb Vehemic energy & that seems to be the function of this tattoo-markings but everything else he’s done (ka-pants & foot anchoring) have been done by casting magic spells…which draw upon the energy he’s already got collected & stored. I don’t think healing would be a specific *counter* to the energy he’s absorbed, but it would cost a quantity of it, just like any other spell would require. I just don’t see where he’s injured enough for *him* to feel a need to use healing…At least not yet.
One would think that regaining depth perception would be higher on your priority list than pants and growing. Especially when size in his case doesn’t actually seem to be of any actual use other than looking more imposing.
I just find his priorities to be strange enough to validate some sort of analysis when he seems like a really smart and level headed guy for a villain.
Depth perception is really only useful if you’re using some form of ranged attack…It doesn’t take much depth perception to aim your fist at someone in front of you.
You’d be surprised. My wife has no depth perception, and when she tries to pour tea from a pitcher into a cup she misses about a quarter of the time.
But when you’re swinging your fists at a human-sized target, you don’t need such comparatively fine control for pouring tea into a small target, like a cup. Just the swinging arc of your arm covers a much wider area.
It’s probably been suggested, but isn’t Anvil the ideal person to fight him right now? Twice now he’s tried to throw anvil away from him and out of the fight – and twice Sydney has stopped him. Despite all that power, he’s still only throwing punches so far (and counjuring pants, and locking himself to the ground). No energy beams, no area effect weapons – just punches.
Anvil can absorb the kinetic energy, and right now that seems to be the primary way V has to wield all the energy he’s collected. Have Anvil fight him and instead of using that energy to hit him back, Anvil can channel it elsewhere (Hey – if she absorbs enough energy, maybe she can also grow like V did).
I suppose Max could try wielding Anvil like a club or shield – but that might still classify as violence.
Yep, part of my plan was for Max to fly Anvil around really fast (too fast for him to easily grab her hair; or they could even stop off and grab a hard-to-grip helmet or something), so that any strike V attempts gets converted into a love tap.
We don’t know if Anvil has a threshold of how much energy she can soak up or not yet and fighting Anvil will give V energy too in worst case V gets mroe energy than what Anvil gets even if V gets slighlty less energy than Anvil it may take a long time for Anvil to catch up on V’s level in which case V can ignore Anvil and fight against another member.
Fighting Anvil gives him energy if she hits back, or if he manages to punch through /overload her power, or if he manages to turn it into a grapple feat again.
But if her power is not likely to overload (and I’m guessing Max has tested it fairly thoroughly), then I still like the idea of Max flying Anvil around as a shield. Because Anvil’s power turns every strike made against her into a non-violent love tap.
Hell, Halo could help out too, by using the lighthook to intercept further hair-grabbing attempts. Or Dabbler could maybe help out with an illusion to mislead V into striking Anvil (for all we know, that might even have just happened). Also, if demons that do this are a known thing, there must be established counter-tactics that D would know about. Finally, V’s senses didn’t seem too hot in the smoke earlier; any hindrance to them that the team could throw up should help.
How about Sydney deploy her shield in such a way that it cuts the guy in half?
It doesn’t work that way. By the Word of Dave it resizes itself when deploying if something/somebody is in the way. Either smaller to exclude, or larger to include said object depending on space available.
Yep…The shield does not cut off objects. It reshapes itself according to the terrain or other objects. Sydney was standing on the floor & the shield stopped at floor level. This allowed Shadow Boxer to “phase” up through the floor inside of her shield.
As Shadow Boxer found out, same as Mr. Amorph did during the bank robbery scene, Sydney’s a real ball-buster when threatened…
Actually, Shadow Boxer attacked Sydney before she got her shield up. She activated it when she was knocked down and it formed around both of them. Leaving Harem to bang on it trying to get Sydney to drop it again.
The strip in question
Okay, he did already phase up through the floor before Sydney activated her shield, but the main point here is that the shield automatically sized itself to include him in it…Looking at these more recent pages (& in every case up to this point), if Sydney is by herself in the shield it’s sized to cover only her…It only gets bigger automatically when something/someone is already close to her.
Sydney had to use a specific rune on her orb to include the reporters at the press conference because there were so many of them to include. This would seem to imply that if Sydney *didn’t* specifically enlarge the shield at the press conference & she were standing among them rather than hovering above them, at best the regular-size shield couldn’t include any more than the very few standing closest to Sydney.
Thanksgiving is like a second birthday for you guys, right?. Seems fair enough. Happy Birthday.
What does this hashmark stand for?. Edit?.
Anyway, an Anzac-ish thought for dealing with him is having Sydney reach her Hent-icle down through his throat, out his ringpiece, latch onto his hairy kidneys, super-quick retraction, and snatch him inside out.
:O
ARCSwat *are* legally-empowered as law enforcers & Vehemence has already been obvious about taking pains to ensure that he’s not being a *lethal* level of threat to them; indeed, intentionally killing anyone is at cross-purpose to his even being here in the first place because knocking anyone unconscious (or killing them) will deplete their ability to provide him with more violence. In effect, it would be like attending a banquet & throwing the food into the trash can for him.
A lethal response would just get ARCSwat set up with charges of excessive-force/manslaughter or maybe even murder.
Really?. In America?. Events seem to establish that US police officers routinely get not the least punishment for shooting unarmed civilians who dare to run away or even talk back when questioned. Not to mention that property crimes ( V has broken a few things so far ) allow the police to use deadly force.
I am not getting at you there at all, by the way. Societies have to have rules, and in a democracy like the USA, where the rules would be different if the majority felt they ought to be, it is your call after all, to let the police kill citizen A to protect citizen Bs property. Other places in the world have similar laws, or even more extreme ones.
Umm. No. Police in the US may not get PUBLIC punishment each and every time they shoot “unarmed” people, but they get in serious trouble if they can’t prove that it was really a life or death situation.
Case in point, Ferguson. All the forensic evidence, the teen’s own rather lengthy record of VIOLENT criminal activity, and the fact that IMMEDIATELY prior to the confrontation, the teen, Michael Brown, had assaulted a clerk at a store in order to steal cigars, confirm the officer’s testimony that Michael Brown was jaywalking, and not only ignored Officer Wilson’s legal order to get out of the street (because he was blocking traffic) but assaulted the police officer, TRIED TO TAKE HIS GUN, fled when the gun went off, and when the officer finally got out of the vehicle and ordered him to STOP, he turned, swung his arms upwards in a mockery of the surrender gesture and CHARGED at the policeman before being shot. Note that “The gentle giant” is 6′ 5″ and built like a quarterback. Yet, Ferguson is literally on fire because “the police executed a black, unarmed teenager for jaywalking.” So no, the reverse is true, AntMac.
Florida: A couple of teens break out of prison, try to run over the police who are trying to arrest them with a stolen car. Police open fire, in self-defense. Teens die. Parents of teens sue, claiming “the officers didn’t have to shoot. The teens didn’t have a weapon. They only broke out to visit us for Christmas.”
Sanford, Florida. Teen behaving suspiciously, running from house to house peeking in windows. Clearly marked Neighborhood watch agent Scott Peterson, DOES NOT APPROACH TEEN, follows in vehicle maintaining discreet distance while speaking with 9-11. Recordings of 9-11 call, and Mark Treyvon’s own phone call to his girlfriend show Trayvon, looking for a someone to beat up, went and attacked Scott Peterson when 9-11 agent asked Peterson to confirm his current location. (Peterson left his vehicle to check roadsigns to do so.)
Forensics and medical records prove Treyvon inflicted grievous bodily harm TO Peterson before being shot. (Scott believed Treyvon was going for his weapon.) Result: Scott received and continues to receive death threats, and has lost his, job, his family, and maybe his sanity.
Sorry, but in the US police are NOT going around looking for people to shoot and getting away with it. Police might be letting crimes happen because they’re afraid of the fallout if they intervene.
And V has already confessed to several crimes requiring use of extreme force, if not lethal force.
1.) Confessed to being ringleader of a terrorist attack.
2.) Assault and Battery on several duly appointed police officers.
3.) Resisting arrest with extreme physical force. (One punch connecting with Sidney will kill her.)
4.) Wanton destruction of personal and public property.
5.) Willfully endangering the public.
I’m sure there are others, but when a VIOLENT perpetrator starts attacking duly appointed law enforcement, and refuses to surrender, stand down, or stop, and promises more violence, the police have the right, nae, the DUTY to MAKE HIM STOP by any means necessary.
Spin things how you like, if it was a white teen that pushed a shop clerk aside and stole some cigars ( mere technical assault, and property theft ) he wouldn’t have been shot dead by a cop that went after him MEANING, and TRAINED, to shoot to kill if a black refuses orders.
Spin so hard that you imitate an electron, and you still won’t convince anyone, not even a fellow American, that the US police do not, as I said, routinely use deadly force over property crime, shooting unarmed and fleeing civilians. And that is ALL I said, and I even pointed out that it is obviously US citizens choice to have it that way and made no value judgement either way. I think you took this as a “get” at yourself, and THAT can only be because you know it is true and FEEL it is wrong.
If not true, what was my opinion to you, nothing, right?. If true and you feel CORRECT, again, nothing.
Because they do shoot to kill black people only SUSPECTED of property crime, often enough it PROMOTES the black teen to refuse to obey, because of a mix of fear and contempt for the law that doesn’t protect him as well as it does a white teen. this last sentence my mere personal opinion formed over the years. And that informed by bigoted commentary from BOTH sides of the US media, and from facts established in your courts and administrations.
Right or wrong as it may be in some ultimate sense, it is notable to those of us in the other developed and civilised countries, and we DO take note of it, and funnily enough OUR societies don’t routinely allow the police to respond to property crimes while armed with deadly weapons. And we have both less crime, and lower incarceration rates.
Just saying. Damned inconvenient things at times, facts.
Ooops! I forgot to answer your first question: The hashtag mark on your post calls up your “comment ID number” in your URL-address-box so you can copy/paste a link to your specific comment. As an example, I used the hashmark for this link (https://www.grrlpowercomic.com/archives/48#comment-96) to the first-ever comment in this comic.
Also, take notice that DaveB’s comments don’t have a hashmark for reference-linking, so to refer to any specific comment of his, you have to use a round-about way…
Theorhetically couldnt sydney use her shield bubble to trap vehemence in place? Knocking him out from lack of oxygen and practically negating all his combat abilities if she forms a sphere around him? It’s what I’d do and it feels clever enough to be up her alley of thought process. Worst case scenario he takes a while to break free, which would leave him with sognificantly less power and vulnerable to restraining spells and the like and or one hit k.o.s from max or anvil. Maybe even drained enough for dabbler to do spells or maybe have jiggawatt use some electricity to his head to cause to be knocked out?
Please see other responses from just this page alone.
Then have a drink.
…Then graciously accept a sign from Dr. Revenge & toss another trophy on the pile over there by Capt.Obvious.
I thought I had forgotten something. But, well, ask him what he wants now that he has everything he can take then. I bet they can form a circle around him to keep everyone a safe distance away from him. Then what’s he going to do, except look more and more stupid the more his power drains away?
Oops I misplaced my reply to MidnightDStroyer. No big deal I suppose.
They won’t be able to *keep* a circle around him. He can jump almost like Hulk & not everyone in ARCSwat can fly to keep up.
He can still cause violence & feed from it, even if there’s no living thing as a target for his violence.
If he gets close to a building, ARCSwat would have to break the circle in order to keep their own distance from him. If they keep the circle as he approaches a building, they would actually have to themselves cause damage…Even *that* is violence he can feed from too.
Also, he hasn’t gotten everything he can take. He wants and can certainly take more power. Again, he came for the sake of powering up, so stopping to ask is redundant.
Ok here are a couple of flaws in your plan.
1) Max confirmed that V speed up to a point that she can’t play suprise attacks anymore which means V can catch up with anyone that is not a speedster or teleporter in the team so there goes your plan of circling and keeping distance right out of the window.
2) Lets just assume first point was null and somehow team amanged to circle around him and kept their distances while taunting him. Do we have a clear estimation of when his power will run out? Because Dabbler uses similar system of powering up only she uses tantric energy and she ddin’t confirm that they can just wait for him to drain power which means a) the power does not drain unless he burns it willingly or b) the burn rate is relatively lower than gain one in both case unless they make him spend more than he can take he will stay at that power level consistently.
3) Admitting defeat in here will drop Archon’s credibility right after the show they put for press although this may look like a managering problem in the end villians will stop considering them as threat or just gather under V as a more pwoerful organization.
4) What you assume is V may not attacking anyone else once he is done with Archon but neither cops nor military has that luxury of assuming that he will be pacified once there is no attack. V himself said that he is ‘post-violence’
5) We (and Archon too maybe exception of dabbler who should have an estimation) don’t know how long it would take for V to burn out most of his energy if it would be a couple of hours and the drain was much more than aabsorbtion than your plan might work if they were in the middle of a desert but they are in a populated area and evacuations takes time…..way alot of time.
If Halo’s bubble really is airtight, she may have a way to beat Vehemence which doesn’t involve any violence, but might also make her really vulnerable:
Take the airshield and envelop Vehemence in it… then make it expand. A lot. The result is a massive increase in volume per cubic meter of air – which means much lower air pressure and temperature. Basically, deprive him of the air he needs to breathe.
Two flaws with this: (1) if Vehemence doesn’t have to breathe anymore, he might remain conscious. (2) If Halo has to stay inside the bubble, she’s in as much danger of passing out as he is, perhaps more.
At least you acknowledged the flaws in the plan, you aren’t the first to suggest it though. And yes she’s stuck in there with him at least until she upgrade the shield the right way (which is sorta hit and miss considering her skill tree is unmarked).
nope, won’t work. she already did something similar when she created the big shield for the newsies, AND asked that very same question about why she didn’t pop with the pressure differential.
Y’know, it was mentioned that people who do vigilante stuff will get arrested/hired, but what about the people who use their power to try to do community help. Changing tires, helping people carry stuff (that they own), walking about and cleaning the streets up some, and just doing that type of stuff. Would they get a stop by and just be checked out or something?
This topic was covered this during the press conference. If you’re using your powers during the course of your lawful job occupation, if you’re using them in just normal, everyday life & not hurting anyone, if you’re not harrassing people, damaging/destroying their property or going vigilante (taking the law into your own hands), then super-powered people have nothing to fear from ARCSwat. Normal, lawful use will not get them into trouble.
I may be bringing up yet another horse that has been beaten to death, so apologies if this is the case (I can’t keep with all the comments).
Anyway, my question is: wouldn’t it be possible to use the lighthook to blind V and greatly reduce his effectiveness as a combatant? I mean, if Sydney wraps it around his head mummy-style, he won’t be able to see, and if he tries to untangle himself, he will have to constantly be using (at least one of) his hands to get the darn thing off, so I doubt he will be a particularly effective fighter during that time.
Alternatively (and, perhaps, more gruesomely), couldn’t Sydney just shove the lighthook down his throat, all the way to his innards? This seems pretty scary/immobilizing (and not ultra-violent), and I can’t think of a way that V could easily counter this. Yes, V may pull Sydney closer to him (but she will still have her forcefield up, so no biggie), but he can’t pull the damn thing out because Sydney could just keep growing it inside him as he is pulling it out… and, at any rate, it seems a pretty nasty spot to be at.
V could probably rip the Lighthook off pretty quickly, so at best it would be a temporary distraction…Blind him just long enough for other teammates to pull some other kind of plan on him. A good tactic, for sure, but pretty useless by itself, unless it’s only a part of an overall bigger plan.
Your other tactic may actually work, but regardless of Sydney’s first choice of naming it the Hentai Orb, she would probably consider that use to be too lethal, but most definitely too disgusting to do.
Yeah, for the blinding tactic, I thought that Sydney could keep blinding him, so he’ll be constantly occupied – giving the team enough time to regroup/find another way to put him down.
Kind of a slap fight, except with a tentacle?
Why do I suddenly get the feeling that Maxima is going to accidentally injure Sydney before this fight is over?
Considering that this whole day is a flashback that occurred just a couple of months or so from the beginning pages of the comic, if Sydney does get injured in this fight, she got healed enough to finish her “basic training” & rank up to Corporal in a pretty short period of time.
They do have that healer lady, no clue what her power rating is, and no idea if one of her orbs is a heal.
At least Max’s nose got straightened out pretty good in the same time frame. https://www.grrlpowercomic.com/archives/60
;)
I think Maxima intends to kill him, and she believes that she still can. I know this comic won’t actually have characters dying — but I do think that’s what’s she’s planning, by that “extremely non-Arianna friendly manner”. Wouldn’t it be something if Sydney realizes it, stops her (out of arguably mistaken perspective), and it turns out that defending Vehemence from violence is how you neutralize his powers?
Yeah, Max is getting to that point where killing him would be the only way to stop him. As much as he’s capable of continuously ramping up his “threat level”…Well, the page title says it all; Options are dwindling.
It would be a real twist if saving him actually de-powers him…He could *try* to build up again, ewven by just stomping on the ground, but he wouldn’t be able to power back up quickly enough to keep from getting restrained.
I wonder what Sydney will do. and what has harem and the other team members been doing? And will anyone help Achilles out from under that pile of bricks he’s trapped under
Now that Max has ordered most everyone back, maybe *someone* will think to dig him out.
Well, since lust, sex, violence, and Sydney’s shield are out, and this is sounding like the old Lich card from Magic the Gathering, where you cannot be defeated, no matter how much damage you take, but as soon as you are healed you are defeated, can any of them use healing magic? If that does not work, since Marvel was bought out by Disney, deploy Disney copyright lawyers against him for hulking up, and issue a restraining order against him for ever doing so again.
the Hulk copyright wouldn’t apply, for at least one reason: Vehemence doesn’t have green skin. there’s too much differential to claim a copyright breach.
…It *might* be enough to keep him tied up in court long enough to get the claim dropped though; several weeks at least…
Longer than that, besides, it works for Apple all the time. Then they slap him with a restraining order to prevent him from powering up like that. Besides, you look through the marvel comics, you will see more than the Hulk doing this trick. So, the lawyers would have the case and would pretty much own him for life.
To get Vehemence tied up in legalities in a court room, first there has to be someone with enough kajones to drag him in…That’s getting more difficult by the moment.
This will be amoung the last posts before Monday’s installment.
Currently Halo is using the force field orb.
Add the Truesight/See Things As they really are orb.
See what and where V’s Achilles Heel/Thermal Vent is.
Let go of the force field orb, grab the ppp or the power tentacle orb.
Hit V where the Truesight indicates.
TaDa!
Touch the orbs to each other.
Copy and Paste highlighted area?
That would be useful to target the glow lines.
“Immovability” type powers are always interesting to me. I mean, V clearly isn’t just sticking himself to the pavement, y’know? Or do the packed clay or whatever below that. The pavement, much less the clay substrate, isn’t going to have enough cohesive strength to resist the kind of force Maxima is applying to it. If V were just stuck to the pavement, Max would just rip him up along with the pavement.
And of course, the power doesn’t simply make V completely immovable, or the planet would yank itself out from under his feet at something like 1.3 million miles per hour (speed of the galaxy as measured against cosmic background radiation) give or take a few tens of thousands. So probably he’s simply anchored relative to the center of the planet.
You have to wonder what he can anchor too, though. Can he use this power to walk on/over water? ‘Fly’ by walking/running through the air? V implies that he can’t fly, even with his power boosted, so it seems reasonable to assume that there are limits—he can only anchor to surfaces that can support his weight (and therefore can only anchor himself parallel to gravity).
Or maybe he can fly and he’s just being coy.
I see the little cogs in Sydney’s brain a-turning. :)
Remember that if Halo flies into someone with her shield up, her shield could tackle them really hard. Get Halo to drop on top of V and he’ll be pinned down by the shield. Oh, remember to give her an oxygen tank first.
Fedorka has already shown he can move the orbs if he manages to move Sydney: you wanting to bet that he can’t lift a bubble full of hot air? o_O
Last one before the new comic comes up today!
!
Well, almost the last one :-)
On a comic related note I keep hoping the crew will try some non-violent action to drain V. The thought of them doing an impromptu version of “Hair” for example (ok, the thought of Max doing the solo lead in to Age of Aquarius before being joined by Harem, Anvil and Sydney on chorus is an image I find delightfully silly).
THEORY TIME! Ok, Anvil will be holding the noose, and hopefully absorbing vehemences efforts to yank it loose. With his crushed throat trying and failing to heal, and his lack of oxygen also needing to be healed, this may be draining his power rapidly soon. If done right it may drain him to the point where his skin is no longer impenetrable and they can sedate him.
Get him to punch his energy into a volcano?
I mean… it worked against Kars.
No idea why I didn’t make this comment years ago when I first read this page… But I love the little brain (worm) image of the Lighthook orb floating behind Sydney’s skull.