Grrl Power #353 – The handyman’s secret weapon
I’m not sure I’d encourage the duct tape solution if I was Max, but then we didn’t see what happened between this page and the last. It is entirely possible Sydney dropped the ball (so to speak) 5 or 6 more times in the interstitial and arrived at this solution to expedite the actual flying test.
Oh, the last time a made a Street Fighter reference in the comic, quite a few people didn’t get it, so the short version is, there’s a guy named Guile in the game, on of his attacks is the Sonic Boom.
This page colored by Keith.
Whoops, the orbs weren’t arranged correctly originally, and Sydney wasn’t holding the force field orb. She is now. The flight orb gives her a deflector field that helps up to a certain speed, but she needs the force field orb to get over 150-200 mph.
Here’s the link to the new comments highlighter for chrome, and the GitHub link which you can use to install on FireFox via Greasemonkey.
Back when SF2 was in the arcades, I was sure that Guile was calling out “Typhoon!”
It took a long time for my friends to convince me otherwise.
My ability to understand song lyrics and SF2 characters was also distorted. I thought Guile said ‘Lemming foo!!’
Heh.
I thought the Hadouken was “adoooooakit”.
Best Friends Again!
If you think this is the last time Max will give Sydney a good chewing over, I believe that you are sadly mistaken. They still need to work out the details about Syd’s shop, or it’s just going to happen again.
I have absolutely no doubt that, now and in the foreseeable future, there will usually be SOMETHING for Max to chew Sydney out over. Only the magnitude of the chewing will vary.
Max is the one in charge and that sort of thing comes with the job. Once Sydney has training, she may be less of a “loose cannon”, but will certainly remain very much the left-handed monkey wrench – I don’t see that changing, nor would any of us want it to, I think.
Doesn’t mean they aren’t friends, even when Max has to chew her out majorly over something or another.
I’ll just leave this here.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ii6mXrVDtZU
X3
Aviation generally uses Knots (i.e. – nautical mile per hour) as the speed unit. Failing that, you’d expect a unit of highly advanced people to use metric (Kilometer per hour). MPH simply makes no sense.
Shachar
I suppose it’s for Sydney’s benefit.
Or perhaps their GPS units are actually american models made for cars. :)
A car GPS with three dimensional flight exclusion zone layering and compatibility for speeds in excess of the speed of sound? Exactly which millenia are their cars from?
I’ll have to agree with Shachar, their systems would use either knots or kmph for speed and kilometers for distance. Still, since the majority of the readers of this comic are likely to be american, and probably dropped from school before learning how the metric system works, using unrealistic measurement units can be forgiven.
Yeah but Sydney is the one using it and she herself is American.
As for Imperial measureing being unrealistic I don’t know son… I build a pretty mean lightning cannon from scrapped metal and an air compressor using Imperial. Only flaw in the design so far? Its a cannon not a gun, can’t get the parts small/light enough without the dang thing melting on me. Do I know metric? Yes. Do care to convert out of metric every time I talk with an American engineer about aforementioned cannon? Hell no, so I build it in feet and inches.
I am American, studying Mechanical Engineering. As a common rule of thumb, you use whatever system is most convenient. For robotics, I use inches. For 3D printing, I use mm. My homework problems commonly use whatever the writer felt like. Yay for calculators that have built-in units.
I use paws.
Considering that Sydney is using it, I’m pretty sure it’s not unreasonable that it would have been set for mph instead of knots. It’s not like it can’t be configured many ways. My GPS in my car can do both miles and kilometers, after all.
I take it back. No number other than Knots makes sense.
You share an airspace with airplanes that measure their height in feet and their speed in knots. If you use any other unit, you are going to be constantly working math, either in your head or by other means.
Regardless of how much you like metric, if you’re driving in the USA, you’ll probably want to set your GPS to Miles. Otherwise, road signs and speed limits will make little sense to you.
Shachar
>>by other means.
It literally takes one line of code in her GPS to do this math.
…Which it would then show to the user as speed in knots.
It was probably intended as m/s – otherwise the numbers mentioned are a bit off too.
Most likely Maxima is converting KPH into MPH for Sydney. Using units Sydney is familiar with is a courtesy at this point. I would hope that their GPS units could change from miles to Km to knots in the settings menu.
The wrist gizmo probably reports knots, with Max doing math in her head to get mph.you know: 100kph > 100mph.
I’ve worked on aviation software. The one thing more important than speed or even location seemed to be altitude. Some countries give you flight levels in feet. Others in meters, and air charts carry conversion charts for the two. And I saw no design flaw fixed faster than one that risked planes picking the wrong flight level.
Many years ago I was an air traffic controller for the Israeli air force. Israel is a metric country. All communication inside the military network are in Hebrew. I tried to fill in on English names for things such as the flight circuit and stuff like that, but most of my colleagues couldn’t give an airplane instructions in English to save someone’s life. It is, for all intents and purposes, a separate network, unrelated to the way civilian aviation is conducted.
And yet, heights were in feet, distances in nautical miles, and speed in knots.
Shachar
No, 100 kph < 100 mph. Because kph is kilometers per hour. Knots is velocity, knots per hour is acceleration.
One knot is about 1.15 mph, so it's a fairly easy conversion.
The easy answer to this whole thread: options menu for units displayed -_-
Your average american has no clue what a knot is. I sure dont :D
The Street Fighter reference was perfectly timed for me. I JUST bought a copy of Ultra Street Fighter IV today. Yay convenient timing!
I’d kinda like Max to be beaten at something. Flight speed would be a trivial thing, wouldn’t it?
Pretty sure she also cant beat sydney’s shield.
Well, Max has already tried beating Sydney’s shield (back during Syd’s interview, but stopped short of damaging the room itself) & even tried blasting it too (carefully, so as to not accidentally splatter Sydney across the landscape just before the press showed up at the testing range)…
This isn’t to say that Max can’t Sydney’s shield, but if she does, it’ll take a really high level of effort to do so.
This alludes to a common problem that comes up in science fiction and superhero comics.
The power required to breach the shield/armor is so high and the human body is so relatively frail that the margin of error between “shield taken down/armor breached” and “contents turned into high energy meat vapor” is incredibly narrow.
Some people ignore it, some people play it straight. The latter tend to have a pretty high body count.
I still think a good theory about why Sydney’s shield is so impermeable (even Harem can’t teleport through it, and even Vehemence’s effects could not get through it – including anything BEHIND her shield, let alone inside it) is because of the same reason that the orbs don’t register to Dabbler. There’s something about them that isn’t from this reality, or they’re empowered from something outside of this reality, so stuff from this reality can’t affect them (aside from whomever the orbs are tethered). The shield orb and fly orb and the comm ball seem to be the ones, based on the picture of Sydney’s skill table, that are the highest ranked (those three seem to have skills set at 4, while everything else is 3 or less). Plus the two ‘unknown’ orbs seem to have the least points put into them.
The comm orb seems to have the most ‘dot’ placements, followed by the fly orb, then the PPO, then the lighthook, then the shield, then the two unknowns, but the fly orb and the lighthook seem to be the ones that has the most ‘filled out’ dots.
or they tap into the universal laws at a level lower than they do pre-empting them.
As long as you dont care what that something is : she is not the biggest girl :-)
https://www.grrlpowercomic.com/archives/607
Actually, Achilles beats her hands-down in terms of defence. Maxima got pretty beaten up by Vehemence, but Achilles is (Insofar as the power level of anything we’ve seen yet) completely invulnerable.
He also got buried under a pile of bricks.
His strength is only a little above human normal iirc, but that is after he stopped an energy sword with his eyeball.
Everyone’s Talking bout Sydney, Me I’m loving Max’s pose, Arms crossed over her chest, effortless Mach 1, as if there is another 20 to go….
Just an interesting though, Sydney can see symbols,(as can we) but earlier in the comic we/she could not….
Did the Level up (put into her truesight) allow her to see these Symbols in the Orbs that she couldn’t before…
Nope.. she could see them at the Bomb range..
Yep. Sydney was able to see the markings even before she earned the point-pip.
Then, why did she say “Never noticed those before…”?
Would you notice if one of multiple icons changed a tiny bit –say on a desktop pc screen– compared to her going very fast and the icons change more? If she ever went flat out with flight when testing the orbs, she was probably paying more attention to surroundings (doing a Never-Ending-Story “woohoo!” all the while). The orb in hand with the attention on it makes the icons stand out more clearly. Of more interest to me is that the display icons had to have adjusted to be visible (not under her fingers or tape)
When she first got them (out at sea) she tried them out, but probably didn’t watch the orbs themselves much. Once she noticed the markings she was just flying around her apartment and wouldn’t notice the miniscule change in speed markings.
So remember, if the women don’t find you handsome, they should at least find you handy. :)
That’s fine & dandy for Red Greene & the rest of us guys, but saying that doesn’t help Sydney much…She’s the one using the tape.
Okay, so if she needs the force field orb, and the flight orb active to go above 100-150 mph, does that mean she cannot use the PPO (yes, I am hip) while supersonic?
Also, regarding the tape issue, I’m betting there is a discussion with the QM in Sidney’s future about some very special gloves… It’s not like the military doesn’t already love both Velcro, and loads o’ pockets…
Max and Sydney are very similar in powersets, aren’t they. They both can only use SOME of their power at any given moment. Whereas Max can change specialties at the speed of thought and Sydney needs to swap orbs to do it, it’s still the same concept of power management.
Doesn’t matter what sort of gloves even Dabbles could come up with, Sydney can only use a max of two balls at once as they have to be held within the palms of her hands
And, Sydney will be too busy making sure she doesn’t crash to even consider trying to use the PewPew (and she would probably be more effective using the Bubble to carry a load of whatever and then dropping the Bubble like a supersonic bomber)
Possibly Sydney and Varia working together could fly with shield and use the PPC or Lighthook at the same time. They could even have one person flying and the other person shooting (or whipping).
I wonder if Sydney and Varia, hooking arms together, can hold 4 balls, or if Varia’s power requires her to touch them with her hand, in which case they can use 3 balls. I think I might have asked this before.
That is assuming Varia is able to use the orbs, i went back and there is nothing saying she can.
Why bother with the PPO when she can just smash directly into her opponent with her bulletproof hamster ball. If it’s strong enough to not budge from Maxima’s blasts, then it would squish almost anyone she decides to play the super equivalent to bumper cars with. What are they gonna do, break through it?
I love the look on Max’s face in the last panel. Combined with her body language one gets the impression that while she’s gotten used to being able to fly at incredible speeds she’s enjoying Sydney’s excitement and remembering how much of a thrill it was before she became used to it.
As the comedian Gallagher might say it, Sydney has this way of making everybody see the world with “New Eyes.”
Yet again the interface we see is set for human, earth environment, the orb appears to display units of mach, but mach is dependant on earth’s gravity and Atmospheric pressure. are they smart enough to work this out for themselves, doubt sydney knows the exact point, but the orbs do, so that rules out the information being transferred from sydney
Unless it’s not showing speed at all but experience gained for using the orb :D Not much is known about the level-up system after all, just that considerable use unlocks upgrades.
The orbs are capable of detecting when the explodey ray is being used unsafely. Compared to that detecting when they are nearing the speed of sound is child’s play, requiring far less judgement.
Actually, it doesn’t have to be set specifically for anything regarding Earth, as the sound barrier is something that is reliant on the density of the surrounding environment (atmospheric pressure). While the specific ‘speed of sound’ at ‘sea level’ would vary on each world, the creation of compression areas (mach disks) and resulting sonic boom crossing the sound barrier would be universal in effect.
Why isn’t Syndey deafened by the sonic boom? If the boom noise is deflected by the shield, are the implications for that taken into account all the time?
The sonic boom will be behind her by the time it happens. She’ll be outrunning it. I expect her to be disappointed that she didn’t hear it, only to have Maxima dial one up for her.
Her shield reduces loud sounds below the danger level. So even if she wouldn’t experience this as sound rather than pressure she would be protected.
Yep, same way her shield makes her immune to lasers without making it completely opaque.
It blocks damaging levels of light/sound/etc
you don’t hear a sonic boom if you’re making it. the sonic boom is a radial compression wave that splits away from you. the HABJ High Altitude Balloon Jumpers report that entering sonic-carrying air feels like a drumming massage moving back down the body as they meet, then exceed Local Mach
I do not know for sure, but the symbols seem to say that Sydney is going at 1/5th her max speed, and that is without any upgrades.
She’s going at 4.4/5 of max speed, and that’s mach 1. She has 4 unlocked speed dials, and 4 points in one of the skill chains for the flight orb. So, her max speed (according to a loose chart with only three points (0,0; 6,250; 13,768) the speeds said at specific amounts of wedges filled… with this scale, my top speed comes to about 1530mph… not inconsiderable, about Mach 2… (and that’s with the five boxes maxed out. She needs an upgrade first.
What about if the dial indication is of exponential change, rather than linear change? At 1 dial, she can at least float, which means an acceleration of 9.81 m/s^2, and at 2 dials, that would be 2x G, etc?
Where did she use up 4/5 of her max speed? I don’t see where you’re getting that from. Not to mention that you’re assuming, even if you were correct about that, incremental increases rather than exponential.
In fact, from looking closer, it looks like the speed is registered by her going faster by the triangeles UN-filling, which means she reached mach 1 once only TWO of the circles were unfilled.
Halo may want to ask if one of the more tech-savi ones at ARC can make her something that can record the behavior of the orb’s symbols along with what she is doing at the time. like adding a camera to her bracer-thing.
Oh, and she should REALLY NOT DROP THE SHIELD. I don’t think baseline human flesh can withstand hitting the bowshock of sustained supersonic flight.
Well, I would assume, Sydney would drop the thrust if she gets hurt.
There are few examples of the pilots who had their plane break down at supersonic speed. Some of them survived, some of them didn’t.
Depends on what you mean by “break down”.
If you are in a supersonic aircraft and experience an engine failure but your fuselage is intact, your chance of survival is high (this would be like dropping the flight orb but keeping the shield orb up: you lose thrust but the thing protecting you from your own wind resistance is still there, you just become a glider for a bit. Then it comes down to whether you can eject or how good are you at dead-stick landings).
Not so much the other way around (in an aircraft, the fuselage falls apart but the engines keep trying to push you forward. In Sydney’s case, dropping the shield orb at speed)
A camera wouldnt work as i was established that the skill tree, and orb markings, do not show up on cameras, or Dabbler’s cybernetic eye.
I think we’re looking at another XP point for Sydney. :D
Something has confused me for a while.
Sydney is listed as an Ultra level (6 stars, power-wise). But it really does seem like, given her enormous suite of powers, and those powers being incredibly powerful individually as well as in combination, one would think that she’s more than at 6. Is it just because she’s a novice? Because even as a novice, she was the one who formulated the plan to take down Vehemence, which no one else on the team had been able to do.
Just curious about that. :)
Have to remember: that is the initial guesstimate, who knows what her ultimate power level would set her as she unlocks more and more of the Balls’ abilities
Yes but what they saw, even from the initial showings of Sydney, seemed to be not only a large amount of powers (only Dabbler having more powers available) but also each of those powers being … well…. reallly powerful. So far we’ve seen that her shield can hold up to not only Maxima’s punches and plasma, but pretty much everything that it’s come up against, including magic, teleportation, and vehemic energy (which makes me wonder if it might be able to prevent tantric energy from affecting her as well, even though it doesnt prevent ‘hypnotic boobs’ :) ). Her flight orb can so far let her go faster than any of the other supers except for (possibly) Maxima. Her PPO is able to slice a tank apart like butter… and might have the potential energy output of a star :). Her comm ball gives her truesight able to see through any illusion or invisibility, including succubi glamours designed to be impenetrable.
I love that Sydney’s a little powerhouse honestly :) Just wonder why it rates a 6 on the scale (before any upgrades) instead of a 7, since Sydney has more dots than anyone except for Maxima and Dabbler (and 1 dot more than Math). I was just looking at the others’ listings and was trying to figure what Hiro was able to do that was superior to what Sydney had been shown capable of doing, or how the different dots ‘calculate’ into the power levels. I’m assuming there’s some formula for determining it.
Sydney’s dots seem to be Flight – 4, Explodey – 3 Shield – 5, Teleport (though it’s technically barely teleport since it only teleports her senses and image) – 1, Lift-capacity – 3
Total of 16 dots
Dabbler’s dots seem to be – 4, explodey – 3, shield – 2, Invention – 4, firearms – 3, – 2
Total of 18 dots
Anvil’s dots seem to be Strength – 3 (which we’ve been told is about 16 times a normal person), kinetic absorb – 4, – 2
Total of 9 dots
Harem’s dots seem to be Duplication – 3, Teleport – 3, Fighting skill/melee? – 3, Strength – 2 (i’m assuming for when she’s un-teleported, which would be less than anvil because she has trouble with having only one of herself)
Total of 11 dots
Peggy’s dots seem to be Firearms – 4
Total of 4 dots
Heatwave’s dots seem to be Flight – 1, Explodey – 3, Fire/Heat? – 4
Total of 8 dots
Math’s dots seem to be – 5, Speed -4, Toughness – 2, Strength – 1, Explodey – 3 (which I’m confused about also, unless he has some sort of… chi blast or something?)
Total of 15 dots – less than Sydney’s 16 dots, but he’s Power Level 7 while Sydney is 6.
Amorphous’s dot’s seem to be Stretchy – 3, Toughness – 4, – 3, Strength – 3
Total of 13 dots – less than Sydney’s 16 dots, but he’s Power Level 6 like Sydney.
Achilles’ dots seem to be Toughness – 6 (the only 6 anywhere since his invulnerability is absolute), Strength – 1 (since he doesnt fatigue and muscles don’t tear when doing exertion I think?)
Total of 7 dots
Hiro’s dots seem to be Flight – 3, Toughness – 3, Strength – 4
Total of 10 dots (slightly more than half of Sydney’s) – but he’s Power Level 7 while Sydney is 6.
Stalwart’s dots seem to be Toughness – 4, Strength – 4 (and from what we saw in the comic, he can also alter his mass)
Total of only 8 dots (half of Sydney’s) – but he’s Power Level 6, same as Sydney
Jiggawatt’s dots seem to be Electricity – 3, Absorption (I’m guessing energy absorption) – 3, Teleport (that lightning movement thing she does) – 2
Total dots are only 8 (half of Sydney’s) – but she’s Power Level 6, same as Sydney
Maxima’s are 5’s for everything – flight, explodey, strength, toughness, speed
Total of 25 dots (at least, assuming the military is even able to gauge some of her power levels with safety) and her power level seems to be at LEAST 9, and possibly a lot higher. Sort of like when Marvel classifies someone as Class 100+, it means they can lift a lot more than a Class 100 (100 tons).
I just am not sure how the ‘rating system’ works and was hoping it will be explained maybe in a future Dabbler’s Corner :)
I remember reading a comment before from Dave that said that the relative power levels of the characters are not to be mistaken with the actual power level of the superpower.
It’s more like an estimation of “effective combat efficiency”.
Math, for example, doesn’t even have a superpower, and yet he scores the maximum. Why? Because he is known to use the potential of his skills in a way them lets him overpower almost every enemy he’s facing.
It’s basicly tank vs. soldier. While a tank might be an objectively more “valuable” asset in a war, a single soldier can actually destroy an entire tank given the right tactics and equipment.
Sydney has the potential to score the top-7, but she lacks the combat experience of Max, Math or Dabbler. Granted, she’s creative and genre-savvy and might have good reflexes, but given life-threatening circumstances, she might make the wrong choices in battle.
We haven’t seen yet what happens when Sydney is truly in danger or simply terrified by whatever psychological horror is used against her. We haven’t seen what might cloud her judgement given the right circumstances. She’s impulsive and emotional. What would she do if someone takes a friend of her’s hostage? Would she still be able to apply military logic, like Maxima would? Would she have enough foresight to say “I can’t rescue him/her now anyway and nobody would be helped if I rush into an obvious trap blindly, so I’d rather wait for reinforcements”?
I doubt it. When put under actual psychological stress, I’m pretty sure she will at least temporarily break down in her effectiveness.
She doesn’t have the “combat cool” and “thrill of fighting” of Math. She doesn’t have the military experience of Max. She doesn’t have the superhuman confidence and playfullness of Dabbler. She’s just a teenage girl after all.
21 is a teenager?
Tweenager then? :P
Her mental age is way lower.
Only in certain areas.
I don’t know of any high schoolers who can open a comic book shop and keep it open. Maybe a few 19 year olds. So if her mental age is in the teenage range, it’s at 19. 18 and graduated from high school being the legal age line.
>>”joel does the books, Sydney reads comics” (c) Joel character page.
I disagree with you.
It’s probably true that he can do it quicker or better, but she can do the books. Remember way back at the beginning when he wanted to duck that annoying customer, Joel said that he was going off to take care of the books since he knew she didn’t like to do them, not that she couldn’t do them.
https://www.grrlpowercomic.com/archives/100
I guess you’re right about strategy, but it just seems from the fight against Vehemence that Sydney was not only able to be effective under psychological stress, she was the ONLY one who was effective under that type of stress.
In truth, Sydney was able to do what she did with V (and most of the other supers for that matter) because she was mainly observing and taking a few pot shots here and there, while everyone else got their hands dirty. Rarely did she get into any direct confrontation beyond that shadow dude (whom she hit a home run no less). V made the mistake of mostly ignoring her, thus the worst she got was a brief tantrum spell. Not taking anything away from Sydney, but at the same time, she wasn’t under the same duress as everyone else.
Besides, the rankings are not simply based on just the so-called quantifiable levels of the orbs. As the bio also states, for all the power she has at her disposal, she’s still limited by her inexperience using them, especially the PPO. Add the fact she can only use two at a time at the moment, and it’s no surprise the likes of Hiro and Math outrank her in the power scale. They are the more versatile combatants given their experience and that they are far less limited in the use of their abilities overall. Let’s not forget, Hiro’s bio is not up to date. Amongst his powers is also the ability to absorb energy and throw it back. That’s yet another ability he has at his disposal to go with his standard ‘superman-lite’ powers.
Now, this will obviously change given she gains more experience as well as discover new abilities via skill tree. Plus, we still have a couple of mystery orbs yet to reveal themselves.
Sydney also took down Lee Press On nails in 3 seconds flat, helped Anvil multiple times, as well as Jiggawatt and Hiro with her lighthook.
Again, those things you mentioned, she did so at a distance, observing the battles and taking pot shots here and there. Shadow dude was different because he actually directed his attention at her, AND she fought him while inside her shield. Thus once again, she was more than awesome in coming up with strategies, but at the same time she was mostly left alone, thus allowing her to do so with far less pressure compared to the rest.
Oh and she also formulated the strategy to take down Death Toll
Absolutely. She is a great strategist to the whole superhero-game given her intelligence combined with genre-savvyness.
Sydney is basicly the epitome of a “backline support” in battle. She is physically weak, but can deliver heavy blows from a distance. She has tools at her disposal that allow analyzing critical situations from a distance (flying, truesight and her illusion spell). She has multiple “get out of fight free” cards at her disposal aswell.
However, in the whole battle royale thing, she was never truly in any real danger. Vehemence took a liking in her (which was ironically his defeat) and she knew that. It even caused her to expand her shield around vehemence aswell, basicly rendering her completely vulnerable to his attacks. It was a huge risk that she took only because she *knew* he wouldn’t harm her. In a fight against a “more evil” enemy, that would have been almost a sure-death scenario for her, considering her physical endurance is basicly zero (compared to the other supers).
So not only did she take a huge risk in that battle that no experienced combatant would have taken, but she also had the time to think all that through beforehand due to her comerades taking the hits for her.
So basicly it boils down to this:
Sydney is strong when she gets protected by the other supers. Because she is a support class. But she will ultimately fail fast when put under actual combat pressure with no one to back her up, as you can see in her first fight against Math. He immediately recognized her weaknesses and took advantage of that. And Syd has A LOT of weaknesses that balance out her amazing powers. Physical stamina and endurance is just one of that.
To further explain what I mean, here is a simple “how to beat Sydney” tutorial:
1) Exhaust her by chasing her around. Force her into having to follow you by taking a hostage or something comparable. This will make sure she uses up a lot more oxygen.
2) Force her to keep her shield up (a good old-fashioned barrage of bullets)
3) Keep the molestorb in check by whatever random power you have.
4) Wait until she faints from oxygen deprivation
Or:
1) Snipe her from a distance.
At point 3), you can also just force her to fly, as she can only use two orbs at the same time. In fact, Sydney is basicly useless as soon as she has to use her shield while flying.
Counter to your strategy.
Usethe lighthook to create a cocoon shield around sydney.
Suddenly expand it in all directions, sending a car throwing force at all incoming attackers while still being safe from attack
Her lighthook hasnt been shown to have a short distance of expansion… It caught anvil even when she was thrown far away
I suspect that the reason that Hiro ranks above Sydney, even though he has fewer powers than she does and isn’t as fast in fight, is that he can use all of his powers at the same time while Sydney is limited to a maximum of two at a time. Maxima can also use all her powers at one, although not at full power, but when she maxes one out she’s probably beats almost any other super in the world in that power.
I definitely understand why Dabbler and Maxima rank higher. I just am confused why Hiro does. I’m pretty sure that in a fight Sydney has many advantages over Hiro.
Assuming Sydney is not in a dazed stupor while Hiro has his shirt off.
I feel like the real reason her combat effectiveness would be lower is that, 99% of her life, she is a regular, extremely vulnerable, human. Hiro is a super tough badass. Sure, she “can” be borderline invincible with the shield up, but she’s so vulnerable when off guard compared to Hiro that she’s a much easier kill.
This, exactly. Remember that she doesn’t have super toughness or strength. In fact, she probably scores below average human strength and stamina, considering she is extremely bad a sports. She is the epitome of a glass cannon. If you hit her, you hit her hard.
Hiro is just the overall “more rounded” super. He can basicly face-off any random power that is thrown at him just by his toughness and strength. He won’t die from just one or two hits… which is important, considering that in a super battle, you first need to analyze what your enemy is capable off before you can strike back. You *need* to be able to take a hit or have someone take hits for you, or you’ll have to hope that your opponent is dumb enough to reveal his powers beforehand.
Not to mention he has access to said powers at all times, while Sydney can only access said powers two at a time. She is completely vulnerable if she doesn’t even hold one orb. Until she gains more familiarity with both her powers and combat, Hiro outranking Sydney even by just one point is more than reasonable.
But can Sydney fly faster than Rainbow Dash?
She’s also 20 percent cooler than Rainbow Dash.
Pinkie Pie uber alles
I read that sound effect in Guile’s voice.
Isn’t it against regs to break the sound barrier over residential areas in peacetime? You know, to not cause disturbances with the sonic booms?
With her cross section it’d be a smaller boom at least.
I doubt they are still over a residential area…
Hey here is a question. How does Max keep her hat on when going at supersonic speeds? Does she glue it on?
Zero Range Tactile Telekinesis
Pointy ears.
If nothing else, Max should be a better flyer because she can shrug off inertial effects.
Well. . . damage from inertial effects.
You know what? Let’s not analyze it.
Ironically, the thing Guile’s theme doesn’t go with is Guile.
Max has a shield as well, she mentions it during the brawl when she gets hit by the massive bomb and her jacket gets shredded.
A peregrine falcon can go 300 km/h with gravity assist.
Yes, but can it doing it carrying a coconut?
Falcon. Not swallow
Damned right, a coconut is way bigger than a peregrine falcon. Without the aid of super powers it is physically impossible for it to swallow a coconut!
Although I guess you could try it in powdered form, sprinkled on nice juicy bunny rabbits?
Can it *do* it, not can it doing it. Too damn late at night for me ty bee toping tings.
… What kind of a lame loser doesn’t automatically get an obvious Street Fighter reference?
They should be ashamed to even be here.
Yes but here’s a question, Where did the tape come from?
I’m sure there’s a simple answer but I can’t figure it out for the life of me.
You mean there are people who don’t carry duct tape everywhere with them?
Sydney has owned the orbs for months and has thought through the implications of her orbs and their limitations. Hence realising that her nemesis is mittens. Likewise knowing that if her hands get too cold to hold the orbs, she will drop them. Which would clearly be a problem for night time flying and at altitude. So will have long ago figured out that duct tape is a solution to the problem.
Ergo Sydney, like most households, keeps duct tape at home.
Last night, when flying home, she will have felt her hands getting cold, and made a mental note to grab her duct tape in the morning, and stick it in her pocket, before she flew to work. I conclude that she must have remembered that, when she woke up. Now she took it out.
I like your argument!
I picture over-sized oven mitts, with room for a hand AND orb inside. That’d keep her hands… warmer, if not warm.
Sydney just needs gloves with a built in pouch in the palm for her Orb to fit to keep her from accidentally dropping it.
Probably been said already, but, yeah, duct tape wouldn’t cut it. Ordinance tape, or as we called it, 600MPH tape, would be better suited for the task.
I actually really like the way Max looks in the final panel in this one for some reason.