Grrl Power #614 – Stratotail
Maybe Maxima should have been two more cars behind. It always bugs me in movies when someone is tailing someone else, and they’re maybe 30 feet behind them. I know they do that so its easy to get everyone in the same shot, but it makes it look like the followers are every bit as incompetent as the people they’re following. Same thing when someone is parked across the street staking someone out, they’re usually less than 50 feet away. These minimal distances are usually exacerbated by the cameraman taking the shots with a telephoto lens, which compresses the foreground and background elements and makes them look like they’re right next to each other.
To be fair to Max, she was at least half a kilometer above Sciona, and she doesn’t glow like those wings. If it was daylight, she’d have to worry about glare like a sniper in a video game, but at night, she’s a pretty stealthy flier.
It’s a good thing Max caught up to Sciona though. Even if she’s going supersonic, it’s unlikely anyone would be able to track her in those valleys. Maybe if there was an AWACS in the air above her, but they’re not supersonic.
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Your artwork has been looking more painterly lately. I like it.
Agreed. Apparently it is the lack of an inking stage which has driven the recent change. Initially giving it a more ‘pastel colouring’ type feel (probably more to the colour palettes in use at that time mind). Here, with the dark tones, and evolving style, that is lost completely. But still retaining the sophisticated style you mention.
I am surprised that more people have not been raving about the final panel, in particular. The light effects, from Maxima building up her energy attack, makes for a striking image. Plus the expressiveness, both for her and Sciona previously, is incredible!
Probably the main reason behind the “lack of pointiness” from some characters.
Have to admit that I just noticed a lack of black lines. Reminds me of Samurai Jack.
I wonder if you (Dave) will include the dead fishes after the inevitable watershot Max is lining up right now. There’s such a thing as pressure waves, and dynamite fishing is a good enough analogy to show how them fishes react to sufficiently strong pressure waves.
Yup. Only if Maxima causes a massive blast mind.
I am aware of the following incident, although could not find a newspaper article describing it (but it may not have been publicised, so that is understandable).
Two guys were conducting commercial fishing by dropping dynamite from a helicopter. As this was a business venture, it was being done on a large scale (to justify the cost of using the helicopter). Meaning that they had a box of dynamite in the cockpit of the helicopter.
Obviously this was a shady operation (hence being credible that they covered it up) so their practices were not subject to the usual health and safety procedures you would expect. The guy dropping the dynamite would use his cigar to light the stick, before throwing it out of the open door. Presumably cooperating with some boat nearby to come and pick up the dead fishies.
What went wrong though was when he was bucked by turbulence, and dropped the lit dynamite, with it landing in the box containing all the other dynamite! Likely, with all of those rolling around, he could not easily spot which was the lit one. Similarly the smoke would interfere in looking down into a box.
Whatever mitigating factors he may have had though, his response was to jump out of the door. Meaning that he survived the subsequent explosion.
His pilot did not though.
Kinda sounds an urban myth
I know. Despite having first-hand knowledge of evidence supporting it, even I ran it through Snopes.
:-D
Couldn’t he just have thrown the whole box out the door? Seems safer and easier.
A braver or more honourable man would have tried. His pilot was strapped in after all. But, who knows, they might just have both died?
Not that I am too fussed about criminals dying of their own stupidity. Fishing nets are designed to only catch fish of a certain size. So that baby ones can get away and keep the species going. Dynamite does not discriminate though, and they were using it on an industrial scale. So they were devastating the local ecology.
Poetic justice, suffering the same fate as their victims. The pilot being just as guilty as the guy lobbing the dynamite.
A more honourable person wouldn’t have been doing that in the first place…
Actualy dynamite fishing only nets the floaters, not the ones who’s swim blazers rupture. Generaly only 1-2 fish will end up floating to the surface for every 10 killed by the blast when actualy blast fishing. The rest sink to the bottom or are pulped by the shock.
Last night, I was watching a program on extreme survival, with that episode dealing with islands. In it they said about how even remote pacific islands have had their ecosystem devastated and their reefs destroyed, through illegal dynamite fishing!
It mostly dependes on when does it explode. If the blast explodes well above water, underwater is… mostly save. Transicion waves are very weak. … week?… sorry. Bad english.
Weak (and safe, rather than save, in the previous sentence). No need to apologise though. I could not even put together a comparable comment in Bulgarian, and I have live out here for years!
As for the content of your comment, I totally agree. If the blast is underwater the fishes are in trouble. At the surface likewise, but not as bad as for a deeper explosion. Above the water and it will not affect any except those nearer the surface. And the higher the explosion the less risk.
Unless, of course, Maxima created another nuclear-like explosion. That last one was set off near the horizon, yet still had enough force (and/or burning) to tear(/burn) the clothes off Achilles’s back!
Which isn’t going to happen mind, given how close Sciona is to a bridge with innocent civilians driving over it.
if we were in a room together and I lit off a sick of dynamite in the middle of the room, chance are we would all survive the blast, albeit with busted eardrums, retinal damage, and some bruising. The same blast underwater would kill us. Water is incompressible, unlike air. it’s also quite a bit denser than air. so it transmits the force of the explosion a whole lot better than the air. conversly, if you are about to be hit by an air blast, hiding underwater is a good safety measure. This, of course, does not take into consideration the effects of shrapnel or flying debris, which often times is what makes explosives lethal.
Though water probably does do a good job of protecting from shrapnel too, if it behaves anything like bullets in water (which as we know from Mythbusters, supersonic bullets disintegrate within a few inches of hitting water and don’t do anything at all to anything past that).
It probably won’t disintegrate shrapnel (it’s already basically disintegrated), but it should VERY quickly slow it down to a point that it’s not dangerous any more.
Obligatory ‘that guy’ question: How can anyone hear what she’s saying if she’s travelling supersonic? Advanced jawbone mic, or some other power that keeps sound waves she says moving faster than she goes?
Relativity. Maxima, the air that she is displacing (and thereby the medium through which the sound is travelling, being the air in contact with her) and the microphone are all travelling at the same speed. Therefore the sound waves will have no problem propagating to the the microphone. It only needs to reach the microphone on her neck after all.
Maxima could indeed use a jawbone mike though. Which would be of use in high altitude. However she does has to use a mask in such situations. Which would have a suitable microphone built into it.
This ignoring windy noises making it hard to hear Maxima. She probably has fancy software to compensate for that.
Yea, that is it. I think that one will slip by unnoticed. Oh, did I say that out loud? Damn!
If the microphone would only hear the “sonic boom”. It is “simpler” and nearer to the “jawbone mike”. The mike is in the collar.
The “real problem” would be if the earphone is not airthigt.
Doesn’t she fly by telekinesis? She could drag a thin envelope of air around her, which would help vs being supersonic. Also keep her clothes from being ripped off.
She does. And her force field* surrounds her near to her body (enclosing her clothes). I did not even consider that aspect, so well done on pointing it out, as it renders my previous argument redundant (albeit still correct, if it were not for the force field).
Alekay Maxima cannot hear the sonic boom, nor can any devices on her. She is travelling faster than the speed of sound. So the boom is rippling out behind her, but not catching up with her (unless she stops).
I am sure that Archon can afford airtight earphones. But they are not necessary for Maxima, due to her force field.
* Maxima’s telekinesis is actually her erecting a force field and pushing an object. Albeit that it is initially described in Dabbler’s Science Corner as ‘zero range telekinesis’, the details correspond with the way I have just stated it.
The people arround her would hear her after she pass away. But. The wind is still there. So it depends on “How much air she pulls with her telekinesis”.
After all, she has range 0 tlkns.
It is sufficient to enclose her clothes, some of which are quite bulky (her jacket above for example).
It is only ‘zero range’ to indicate that it cannot bridge a gap to someone else. But it can do so if she is carrying them. After much debate, over the various descriptions of the force fields it appears to be comprised of three different types:
1) Core forcefield – this is the strongest one, that surrounds every cell of Maxima’s body. This is strong enough to survive Maxima’s nuke-like attack as well as the explosion of the construct.
2) Clothing forcefield – can extend out beyond her body to things Maxima is wearing, providing similar protection to the core forcefield but somewhat weaker. Likewise this protected against the nuke-like attack but it was not up to saving Maxima’s clothes from the construct explosion.
3) Structural forcefield – can extend even further, to encompass anything Maxima is carrying, no matter how big and including people. This is still ‘zero range’ though as it needs Max to be touching it. This does not provide protection from attack. But it does enhance the structural integrity of an object. This is what Dabbler was describing when she said that the ambulance did not bend or break when Maxima lifted it up at a single point.
All the air inside the clothing forcefield would travel with Maxima, and be completely undisturbed by air turbulence outside. Just like a Concorde flying supersonic* the crew and passengers would be unaware of the sonic boom and would not be inconvenienced by wind.
Any hair flapping either artistic or indicating flexibility in the secondary force field to allow clothing to move naturally. But this is consistent with the primary force field being able to move with lungs breathing and the heart beating.
* Back in the days before humanity started to regress and we actually had supersonic passenger planes, space shuttles and toblerones without huge gaps between the peaks.
but it might be as simple as “dead hair being dead cells a bit above the root” is not subject to the field effect just as really baggy clothing disappears in a blast?
Hair is not comprised of dead cells. It is a chemical extrusion (just as ear wax is, for example). The chemical is keratin.
But that is not necessary to explain the force field, as we had Dabbler’s Science Corner, and various blogs and other comments by the author. Dave explicitly stated that the outer force field was strong enough to protect Max against the mini-nuke attack, yet was not strong enough to survive the construct explosion.
Although it is not actually necessary to say that the outer shield is weaker than the inner one, simply because the outer one is exposed to the blast first, thus weakening the effect, so it is logical that clothes could be burnt off, whilst her hair and skin remained unscathed, even if the two layers have identical strength.
Regarding this particular point though Maxima has never lost her hair in a blast, so it is being well protected. Were it not hair is very easily singed off (as Adam Savage has found out).
She also took damage from the bolo-nukes, and not just her favourite jacket and one of her bullets (cartridges? shells?)
The long-anticipated showdown between two of Earth’s mightiest women draws nigh. Who will come out on top…and who will end up the bottom? ; )
So you think that Halo might have to fight Maxima?
Yes, I agree that is a serious risk.
It is possible Sciona will have a hand-held version of the mental attack device that her construct used on Maxima before. If it had not been for the crack in that (thanks to Anvil’s earlier attack) then it would have overcome Maxima’s strong will.
Maxima had better hope her opening shot does something similar, if that is the case. Otherwise she might become mind controlled by Sciona. Thereby turning against Sydney and her passengers.
I hope that Sydney comes on top of Maxima.
Wait … I think you tricked me there! Sydney is a good girl!
Syd is well versed in “mind controll” And she nows that there are two mayor ways to deal with it.
1st: Neuronal kninetic reboot: A well serve punch in the face.
2nd: Love: Dabbler.
*wags tail twice, approvingly*
Unless she gets turned into a squirrel!
Why’s Sciona’s visor craked? I dont recall her having it engaged when she was fighting Vale. Ido like that her first response to being tailed it to take it out on the civilians. A lot of baddies save that move as a trump card but Sciona is going collateral damage right off the bat. Pretty evil move…but then again she does use people’s blood for her magic as well as backstabbing allies.
Probably the helmet broke when she was… well, decapitaded.
It happened during her (I get to use that word again!) defenestration. The last panel shows it clearly. https://www.grrlpowercomic.com/archives/2756
It is awesome isn’t it? Defenestration seems like far too specialised a word to be useful, but it turns out to be vital to condense ‘throwing him/her/them out of a window’!
All I am looking out for is an opportunity to use ‘undefenestration’. Or even ‘anti-defenestration’ (if they have not been through the window in the first place). Or would that be for bars that protect the window, in really tough pubs? Oh the joys of exploring uses for words.
It was there, just very hard to see on some monitors. I didn’t notice it till it was cracked and had to zoom in on the image of the previous page ALOT to see it clearly.
I don’t recall anyone stating that they noticed it, on the first page that it appeared. It was not until the next issue that there was a good angle, and all of a sudden folks were going ‘what is that, where did it come from’.
And you had some people claiming they could see it from the start, like the smug little liars they are
Well to give our fellow readers fair credit, it is entirely possible to spot something and not feel the urge to make a comment about it. :-)
Quite alien to us, of course, but there are other, less verbose individuals in the community.
if you were looking at the page from a mobile device that zooms in there is a good chance they did.
Not saying that there weren’t some who did, butt you also get the ones who didn’t, butt say they did
Because they either saw it and didn’t think anything of it, or didn’t and couldn’t mention it.
So next page its cracked, those that didn’t notice it comment on it, and those that did mention it was there before confused it wasn’t seen before or that it mattered.
I’m thinking of Sydney’s sphere grid and level system again.
What if it’s a combination of multiple Final Fantasy mechanics? Like ‘doing one of the things within this list gets you a point’ that is technically encouraged to be spent where it was gained (like legitimizing a Blue Magic unlock) but instead of unlocking that way, it instead works like Final Fantasy Tactics where you already KIND OF have everything unlocked, but only so many abilities can be equipped? With liberties taken in every direction.
So Sydney is currently trying to unlock her finishing moves?
Aren’t all of her powers Limit Breaks?
Didn’t know that term, but mostly, yea.
Although I think her ‘tank melty beam’ would count as a finishing move, versus anyone less well armoured than a main battle tank.
Math example.
Usually in FF games, you can only do up to 9999 damage with ridiculously overpowered normal or special moves. Limit Breaks, however, break this limit. You can totally do 75,000+ damage in a single hit but it has to charge up in order to be useful. Kind of ‘final kill move that defeats a boss in one hit after you’ve already fought a couple hundred wimps beforehand’ move type.
Damn the attention to detail on the cracked visor is astounding. I had to go back and look to see where it came from.
They don’t need to be, or they won’t be as good as they are at detecting enemy aircraft and just about anything else that comes inside their ~250 mile detection radius. Just as a point of interest, that is well over the horizon (~3 miles at sea level).
You omitted the prior sentence, in your quote. It is this which provides the vital context which makes DaveB‘s assertion correct:
AWACs use radar to locate targets. Combined with secondary radar to identify them, through IFF systems, in as much as telling if it is carrying a civilian or allied aircraft transponder. When flying high Sciona would have stood out as being neither.
Radar though cannot penetrate hills. Anyone, such as Sciona, flying below their horizon would be invisible.
The instant she leaves the river valley however, or the hypothetical tracking aircraft gets a view straight down the valley, they should be able to pick her up again:
Sydney, this is for you. Just in case you decide to get that pony.
Depending on how old the guy is, it’s more likely his sisters grew up with the original MLP, not this pastel FiM crap
Can you believe some of the negative comments, and people unsubbing? Just because they made something inspired by FiM? The cartoon is crap, butt that headpiece for a pony is still spectacular!!
Really nice lighting on the treetops and water!
Hey, how come nobody has commented on the clever pun in the vote incentive?
Was focusing more on the fact her shorts are so tight, you can see her bikini bottoms underneath!
Who is more powerful? Maxima or Dabbler?
Maxima. She is rated at 9 stars on the overall super power rating (possibly 10 as the final slot is a “?”). Whereas Dabbler is a mere 7 stars.
The reason behind this is because Maxima has vastly more capability than Dabbler all-round. A top level super speeder can resolve just about any situation simply by dealing with each part of a problem, one step at a time, and doing it all before a foe can even blink. As demonstrated in disarming the grenade, and smashing up the grenade launcher, on route to beating the construct to pieces. Before anyone else (even including animal enhanced lycanthrope reflex individuals) could so much as turn their heads.
Plus Maxima can throw a tank to the horizon, and likely pick up an aircraft carrier. Can survive a nuke-like attack, can create a nuke-like attack (and even more powerful a one than we already saw) and can fly at least as fast as a top-end supersonic jet.
Dabbler’s capabilities though are a couple of ball parks below that (each star that one super exceeds another indicates such).
However, other than having the strong will that you expect of an alpha hero, Maxima has no defence against magic. So in a one on one fight it is possible for Dabbler to beat Maxima, and she has done so.* This however would be dependent on her getting some spell or other trap set up prior to Maxima launching an attack, because, with Maxima’s speed Dabbler would not be able to cast a spell before being taken out.
* Maxima mentions that she has been beaten twice. One of those defeats was in sparring ‘with a member of their team’, and we saw Dabbler nudging Sydney to indicate that it was her.
I should point out that some folks interpret that differently, but I believe the intention is pretty clear-cut, despite their divergent ideas.
Just in case anyone thinks of the ball-room scene, and Dabbler hiding behind her shield, Maxima was showing restraint there. Extreme restraint. Dabbler only has a two-star shield, whereas Maxima has five star strength. Plus that shield can only be erected on one side, so it would be a simple matter for Max to zip around the side or back, and attack where there is no protection at all.
Thanks, Yorp. Though I think the key issue I was getting at was that Maxima is weak to Magic. She is about to go up against Sciona, so that’s going to be a difficult battle for Max.
Yup. Especially as Sciona has a very diverse range of powers, so it will be hard for Maxima to anticipate what tactics her foe might choose. Worse Sciona has seen Maxima in action twice now (in addition to the press conference demonstration), so may well have prepared something specific to counter her.
On the plus side Sciona has been acting rashly and impulsively, and has not had much time to make such preparations. And most of her aggressive powers so far have centred around either physical attacks (where she is outmatched by Maxima) or things she has created (notably the constructs, none of which are in evidence, at the moment). So a decisive attack by Maxima may win the day.
However we should not forget that Sciona just nicked the Bane Ripper off Wyrmcoot. Meaning that Maxima is set for a formidable fight. She put out her ‘urgent assistance required’ call for good reason!
When you hear that from the most powerful super hero, on the planet, you know things are about to get real.
That ‘urgent assistance required’ may be regarding the bridge fatalities, rather than dealing with Sci-fright herself
Or both.
I’m guessing that Maxima won’t just blast Sciona out of the sky with the heat of a million suns, but instead will make an attempt at apprehending her?
Judging by that last panel, apprehending is not on the agenda
The agenda is to stop Sciona reaching the bridge. Given that Maxima is not within arms reach of Sciona, she is making use of the options available to her.
For someone who can move as fast as Maxi can? Distance is irrelevant
It is when you are facing someone flying at comparable speed. Note that Maxima cannot engage bullet time speed at the same time as keeping flight at maximum. She has to decide whether to fly fast or use her fast reactions. If she flies up to Sciona fast, Maxima will not have high defence and will not have high reflexes. So would probably be killed by Sciona’s wings!