Grrl Power #615 – Whoops
If I was a superhero, I would buy stock in “construction.” That’s how stocks work, right? Construction and bandages. And moral outrage or racism probably.
Nobody planned Max’s bolt hitting the bridge, but the law of comic book averages meant it was practically predetermined.
Maxima didn’t know Sciona could deflect her shot, and to be fair, neither did Sciona. Maxima might have had more luck with a beam weapon, but to be fair, neither of them knows if she could have deflected that either. I don’t think I’ve ever drawn Max doing a beam attack, have I? Maxima also could have put a shitload more watts into her attack, but she didn’t want to risk washing the cars off the bridge if it missed and hit the water. Or volts. I’m not entirely sure how her powers work. Do cosmic beams have watts even? Or cosmic particle beams?
I like how non-specific “cosmic energy” is. What is that, energy that’s in the cosmos? Isn’t everything in the cosmos? So really all we’re saying is that the beams aren’t made of matter. Unless it’s a particle beam, and then it’s… kind of matter? Little tiny bits of matter. Like a super hot sandblaster, except a much finer grain. So like a super hot powdered sugar blaster.
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HeartGold versus SoulSilver!
+1
+2
I question why people would want Max to get closer to the person with the ability to Magically(Maxima’s weakness) manipulate blood(Something she has).
Are YOU going to tell her no?
What makes you say magic is Max’s weakness?
Oh wait, you’re thinking of the Vehemence fight, aren’t you? He was making that assumption because Max shifted her stats into pure defense to endure the electro-choke thing, and seemed to be becoming weaker to him because of it.
The author has indicated that Maxima has no more resistance, against magic, than any strong willed normal person. And strong will only helps against a few types of magic, and even then it only gives an edge where resisting is possible. Often, with stronger mental attacks it is not.
Specifically Dave said that the mental attack which Sciona’s construct used against Maxima WOULD have worked against her, if it had not been for a crack in its projecting lens, due to the earlier fighting. It was only the damage which allowed Maxima to shake off the weakened beam.
So Sciona is in possession of at least one type of attack that can defeat Maxima. And has such a wide variety of capabilities, including the ability to steal super powers, that exposing herself needlessly to an attack would be a tactically very poor move from Maxima.
I agree with everything that the adorable doggo said here.
*cutely wags tail*
Eh? Word of Dave specially left whether the mesmerise would have worked with an uncracked eye open:
Unless he later retconned himself on a later page/comments section?
Yikes, I was overstating that! My memory, of how it was phrased clearly had drifted.
Although as it was phrased as “quite strong willed”, as opposed to “very strong willed” or even just “strong willed” I can see why I shifted the interpretation more that way. However I was wrong to make it a definitive, albeit only doing that through relying on a flawed memory.
*ears droop*
Yorpie is a Jedi!!
⚔
No Yorp! Don’t give into the light side! Just think by going Jedi you will be forced to go permanently blue balls and not allowed anything fun like chasing tails and sniffing butts.
You are right that Vehemence was in error over that. But that is not the key part. Maxima was being just as much affected by the aggro aura as everyone else was, barring Halo. One example being ripping Vehemence’s arm off. But her entire attack was extreme (such as driving him into the ground with a concrete pillar). In contrast to her orders to avoid lethal attacks, where possible.
However when Halo blocked the aggro aura, by enclosing Vehemence inside the shield with her, all the combatants calmed down, and became rational again, including Maxima.
Force fields wise, Maxima’s should protect against things like fireballs, regardless of their magical origin (Maxima does not have a weakness, just no special protection against magic). But it does nothing for mental or other non-physical attacks (magical or otherwise). Whereas we saw Halo’s working versus at least Vehemence’s attack. So this is a key difference between the two hero’s defensive capabilities.
Maxima’s weakness so far has been against mental/psionic attack, not against magic. She seemed to punch through the Mannekiller in the Council attack just fine, and hasnt really been attacked magically any other way so far. I wouldnt consider Vehemence’s aura to be a magic attack – again seems more like a mental/psionic attack, even if we assume that it’s FROM a magical source.
the superhusks laser ..mace? worked fine enough to give max a scratch, superskin or no superskin.
i’d suspect that anything with a high enough energy density would work on max. and no super brain firewall in her super package i guess.
but that said – hardened milliatry feminist probably counts as a superpower there.
cant wait for Worm-cooter to annoy her.
That ‘scratch’ is just an assumption from some people, others believe it to have just been shadow or dirt
Vehemence demonstrated a technique for getting the blood out. It is called punching Maxima on the nose.
I suspect that Sciona’s wings are sharp and strong enough to draw even Maxima’s blood.
Doh, put my reply in the wrong place.
:D
It’s not entirely clear that there was a scratch in the first place. It also could just be that the copy of Pixel’s laser claws is enough to scratch Maxima when she’s not powering her invulnerability up beyond her ‘perfect triangle’ of powers. Remember, Maxima’s able to raise and lower her different powers.
And now I’m realizing the double entendre that could be thought up by anyone who reads that I wrote ‘perfect triangle’
🐼 💙
You mean, like the triangle in the invotive?
Another term for that specific perfect triangle might be Hermuda Triangle, inasmuch as there is a non-zero possibility that those attempting to penetrate its mysteries may disappear without a trace.
Which part of the entendre that applies to is left as an exercise for the student (the poor, foolish, doomed student).
I’m guessing that the Mannekiller’s weren’t designed to fight someone that can punch-out missiles and tank nukes.
I think you’re confusing Maxima with Superman. Maxima hasnt been shown to have a weakness against magic. So far her main weakness that’s been shown has been against psionic attack/mesmerism.
well, that’s to assume blood magic works for nonstandard blood …as demonstrated in park fight max got some quite nonstandard blood in her veins
Also it assumes Sci-fright can manipulate contained blood
This is where I should have put:
“Vehemence demonstrated a technique for getting the blood out. It is called punching Maxima on the nose.
I suspect that Sciona’s wings are sharp and strong enough to draw even Maxima’s blood.”
Yes, butt they have to hit Maxi first
Max just tried to kill Sciona for getting close to the bridge. Was there any way that she thought anyone other than Achilles or Halo’s force field could withstand that attack.
That’s the problem of writing a story with a character of such high power.
Lethal force is justified, when dealing with someone who attacks indiscriminately like Sciona. Maxima is aware of several such incidents so can easily justify such a decision.
This was not an example of poor writing. Rather it reflects the kinds of decisions that police and army officers have to make any time that they are involved in a situation where they believe civilian lives are endangered.
An example I cited, on the previous comic page, was Metropolitan police, in the UK, pursuing a suspect believed to be carrying explosives, into a tube station, who managed to get on a train before they could stop him. Just like with Sciona here, they had to make a decision whether to kill the individual immediately, or to challenge them and risk everybody in the train being killed.
This despite the person having done no more than evade the police and head into a public transport area. The latter being otherwise innoccuous enough to not warrant any action. But the former, combined with intelligence that the person is dangerous and believed to be in possession of explosives (or in this case even worse, a weapon of mass destruction), made the kill decision appropriate.
As it turns out that individual was not carrying explosives. Other officers had bungled their investigation and communication of the facts. But the ones on the scene were in exactly the same situation as Maxima and made the right call, based on the information that they had.
Very sad for the person killed, and his family, needless to say. But if other police find themselves in the same situation, they MUST make the same call. Because the next time the individual may have a bomb.
Bearing in mind that these are not casual decisions. They were based on the fact that the person had a history that means an unprovoked attack may have been imminent, and that they were evading the police (regardless of doing so fast enough that no challenge could be made).
No, do not believe Sci-fright attacks ‘indiscriminately’, recklessly probably, butt not ‘indiscriminately’
It’s plausible that she used Wrymie to get into the display because that was her plan all along, not because of SmugD butt because she knew Wyrmie’s abilities (remember, he didn’t understand why Sci-fright didn’t just blow open the doors because he would have survived just fine)
She blew Cooter up because he was an unpleasant individual (that many readers were happy to see become Modern Wall-Art worthy of The Tate)
We have no idea if Sci-fright started the fight with Valeur or the other way around, as we went from Sci-fright smashing a marble-lined pillar (fairly calculating if you ask me, rather than Valeur) to being defenestrated by Valeur
Se has shown signs of being ruthless and calculating in her attacks, butt no indiscrimination
Normal leaders would not attack their own followers. We have seen this three times now. First taking blood from an unwilling vampire (an important contact who supplies information on the Council), secondly murdering a sacrificial pawn and thirdly Wyrmil, a powerful ally. This is not discriminating between friend and foe, therefore is indiscriminate!
Given her willingness to kill even her own allies (for whatever reason), innocent civilians are in deadly peril, should it suit her whim.
You saying an ancient vamp couldn’t vamp-out and get away before Sci-fright could needle him?
Like said, they have not been indiscriminate, butt carefully planned and thought out
Again, regarding Wyrmie: he was known to be very hard to kill, so, yet again, Sci-fright may have been counting on him surviving
No I am saying that he was visibly pissed off and will be resentful. It is humiliating for a vampire to be used like livestock. They are the ones who expect to be taking the blood of others. It would be hard to find a more insulting way to treat her ally!
Why? So that she would have a new enemy, seeking revenge and badmouthing her about how she shoved his head in a death field?
And, for the point of determining if it is indiscriminate, it does not matter what is going on in her head, it is how the rest of society views her murdering and abusing others. Including those who are loyal to her. Even in a prison full of murderers, rapists and other heinous sorts, they would expect an ally to be protected.
Those who do not follow even such a basic concept are not using discrimination in their behaviour. Not from the point of view of those observing it, and making judgements on whether they should kill them or not.
If we were always concerned about complete strangers, we wouldn’t use a fire hydrant in the middle of a crowded street as a urinal
Speaking of how observers, we now have a bridge full of people who just saw Maxi blow it up, well, that is if any survive the attack
The mass “illusion” (i.e. maskerade) generating sites exist to prevent a nasty genocidal race war. Sci-fright destroyed several of them to disrupt communication and/or create a distraction, and “destroying them” presumably included the deaths of a fair number of people who just happened to be there.
So she’s just fine with mass murder, even at potentially genocidal levels, as a distraction, and Max knows this. That this was “the plan” doesn’t make it less heinous.
The obvious reason for her to change course and head to the bridge was to endanger/kill large numbers of people as yet another distraction.
+1
When you have a Golden Angel of Death on your tail, someone who is officially on record as blowing up a mosque, you do what you damn will can to shake them off!
Max isn’t “officially on record as blowing up a mosque” unless that was deliberately announced by the team (highly unlikely). A few weeks ago she “officially” didn’t exist and only came out of the closet at that Bank job way back at the beginning of the strip.
And “mass murder” is apparently sci-fright’s first solution to any problem, not her last.
Maxima was an air force officer, prior to joining Archon, so was a part of the public record. But where you are right is that the actions of super heroes were kept under the radar, so the ‘mostly accident’ was probably during a classified operation.
Ok Im going to assault you with some math.
See the attached image file
I am making a number of probably false assumptions with this
(I) her shot propagates Via a 3 D plasma-Magnetic bottle effect at a speed faster than sound
(2) that shes not accelerating or decelerating
(3) the shot is not accelerating or decelerating
(4) both trajectory are functionally Parallel, and not affected by ballistic arc or atmospheric deviation on both the projectile and the (ahem) target…
(5) that in 2D both path terminate at the point I indicated
that said MATH ATTACK!
Interception point is 76, 190
point of impact trajectory on her in the image I am estimating would have been roughly 200,190 in this image
Her Forward speed in this case is 124 Pixels per panel.
what I believe to be the functional tip of the projectile is currently at 334-70(note this is different if the functional tip is actually the tip of the glow)
This gives you two usable numbers in a right triangle based on the center points of both locations. length and height…
plunging in the formula for a right triangle.
20^+258^2= 400 + 66564 (Sqrroot) or 256.78006153 pixels, meaning the projectile is roughly twice as fast as the Blue grey blur….
So…. If Sciona is doing half the speed of sound the projectile is sonic, and obviously the closer to the speed of sound shes flying the faster the projectile up to 1.22 times the speed of sound.
If shes doing faster than the speed of sound (unlikely, unless shes suddenly projecting a shock wave field now she would be leaving a shock wave on the water) the projectile is twice as fast as what she is implied to be doing, never mind her pulling off that “lane switch would imply shes insanely tough given the G-load she would put on herself.
@#$%^*!&* IT I did not save the image correctly let me remake it.
https://i.imgur.com/1JKRYQU.jpg
and that is not quite as right as what I did, sorry.
OK, that is a bit ruder than I meant that comment to be to Dave, (he never indicated how fast Sciona was flying, just “super sonic”, Its just that you kind of expect some water disruption from a object her size traveling faster than sonic speed)
to clarify again Super sonic on 612.
WTB Edit function!
Don’t believe DaveB mentioned how fast Sci-fright was going at the time Maxi caught up with her
The only thing I can say about that … SUPER NERD
Nice work and good insight, though I think some of the inherent assumptions make it hard to rely any such analysis, and especially to claim a high level of accuracy. We certainly don’t know much about the absolute speed, but even the relative speeds are hard to pin down. Does Maxima’s shot interact with targets at its center of mass or at (or beyond) its surface boundary? How far are Sciona’s ‘wings’ from her center of mass after she flips over?
Your approach with similar triangles is definitely useful in getting a ballpark, though I think your answer is off. Moving the horizontal intersect line in your picture from Sciona’s center of mass up to the center of the lower trailing wing (about the height I’d put her wings at impact) puts Maxima’s incoming fireball at 2.5 times Sciona’s speed, versus maybe 1.8 for your original drawing; slightly harder to dodge laterally, but still enough time to spin around either way.
However, I think both numbers are still wrong – dodging laterally to avoid a shot moving only 2-3x faster than oneself wouldn’t be that hard, especially at the distance Max fired from originally. Dodgeball probably has higher relative speeds and way less time to react. I suspect both Sciona and Max’s shot are traveling at the speed of plot.
https://i.imgur.com/1JKRYQU.jpg
ok…. even Spinneret needs an extra hand to properly facepalm over this mess.
Don’t worry ’bout it. Things go wrong sometimes. You supplied interesting analysis, which is what counts.
All energy can be expressed in joules. From the food energy of a meal, to the electrochemical potential in a battery, to the gravitational potential energy of a bowlingball on a shelf, to the energy of a bolt of lightning.
Watts are how fast those joules are being turned from one kind of energy to another.
(A bolt of lightning actually contains about 1.21gigajoules, but since it’s discharged over 30 microseconds a bolt of lightning is actually about 4e12 watts. A 1.21gigawatt bolt of lightning would have roughly 1/30th of the energy of a candybar. Nerd science!)
Although there is an alternative. The calorie. This is far better, as it allows you to easily tell how tasty something is!
Will Sydney and Alpha team make it in time?
Well, as Sydney is ‘engaging nitro’, we can hope so.
That was a whole page ago, she must be almost here by now!
Ah, wedding bells. :)
What happened to wolverine though?
Hah, I do not fear a fictional rival!
*puffs up chest, and swaggers jauntily*
Actual this entire sequence could have taken place within about 5 seconds from first image to bridge detonation. with the shot being 1-2 seconds from her last word on the previous page.
See just how awesome Sydney’s response time would be, if she gets there in time to save the kittens!
The next day, Darkwing Duck returns to his lair to find it got blowed up overnight. To this day he still thinks Negaduck did it.
:-D
Poor ducky.
I guess it got dangerous.
And now I remember another show I need to binge-watch with my kids when they’re old enough to enjoy it. The Terror That Flaps in the Night cracks me up.
Maxima can project energy? Of course she can.
What do you think she was using at the firing range? o_O
btw, as started to read again this comic came to wonder …what happened to table top group syndey had? :)
They don’t exist yet. That game hasn’t taken place. Sydney isn’t a Corporal yet. It was sort of a “Start at the End” type thing.
Yup. Although Sydney may actually have a gaming group who she has been playing with but, if so, she has been neglecting them since she signed up to Archon. Mind you she has also skipped out on World of Warcraft* raiding, has only phoned her parents the once and only gets to see her partner, Joel, because she negotiated time to work at their shop.
So the lack is consistent with the jam packed schedule of someone fitting in basic training in between life-or-death missions.
Even if she is already a member of the table-top gaming group though, we know that their membership does change between now and the time depicted, at the start of the comic (which is ‘in a few months time’). Given that we saw Olivia there, yet Sydney has only just met her.
Our other clue is that her brother/cousin is also a member. But Sydney did know him already (which would be consistent if they were members of the same gaming group). The oddity being that Sydney seemed to be too shy to approach him. So that pushes the odds more to there having been no group yet.
However we have seen Sydney being extremely shy, around sexual matters. Which would include someone attractive who she really fancied. Of course Leon would seem to bust the shyness statement. But not if you realise that Sydney was interacting with him as a fellow nerd, so remained well within her comfort zone.
Add to that the fact that Leon is somewhat more homely, and not built like an athlete. So it is only after Sydney has gotten to know him, and he passed his nerd testing, with flying colours, that Sydney started to think of him as potential boyfriend material.
Whereas the other guy is hunky enough that he may make Sydney tongue-tied even making small-talk with her before a gaming session starts. In the game she could interact mind, as her focus would be on the gaming. But it is credible that she may not have worked up the courage to speak meaningfully with him outside of that context.
So the group may or may not already be a regular thing. If not, I hope we get to see it being formed, rather than that happening off-screen. However even if it is in existence, we should get to see the first time Olivia gets invited to the session.
* Or some similar game.
Given the discussion of horsemeat earlier, there WAS a case of horsemeat being found in a supermarket’s range of processed meat products a while ago – but the case was ACTUALLY about the meat not complying with the packaging regulations, not that it was horsemeat specifically.
The English, and British generally don’t eat horsemeat from choice, although they mostly just aren’t familiar with it. It DOES need a special licence, but that’s because (like a number of other specialist meats) it isn’t covered by the general hygiene and packaging regulations.
By European standards, the British diet contains a great deal of red meat. This is probably because England was cleared of wolves and other large predators many years ago, so livestock farming was established at a very early stage. This isn’t to say that the lower classes ate meat regularly until quite recently, but it does mean that John Bull long ago learned to associate red meat with a good diet.
We interrupt this program to bring you the following message:
RUN FOR YOUR LIVES! THE ROBOT REBELLION IS UPON US!
A self-driving car has caused a pedestrian fatality in Arizona. Now that they have tasted blood it is only a matter of time until they come for us all. So, if you ever hear you spouse say “Honey, did you call for an Uber car?” and you didn’t, and there is one waiting outside, don’t fall for it. It is lying in wait.
(There was no mention if the Uber car in Arizona goes by the name ‘Christine”.)
https://www.wired.com/story/uber-self-driving-car-crash-arizona-pedestrian/
Have only seen mention of that, butt no details, maybe you can answer some questions
Was the car actually at fault? Or did the cyclist cut in front (like they tend to do)?
Oh, and a cyclist is not a pedestrian!!!
From the NY Times story:
“The vehicle was doing about 40 miles per hour on a street with a 45 m.p.h. speed limit when it struck Ms. Herzberg, who was walking her bicycle across the street, according to the Tempe police.”
The photo with the story shows the person was not crossing at a designated crosswalk, and stepped out from behind a group of trees in a median strip. https://static01.nyt.com/newsgraphics/2018/03/20/self-driving-uber-death/7683976956b3d8a571e2cf09e03ea7962c2c85a5/accident-diagram-720.png
If it is the fault of the car, there is a potential that the on-board computer may know what a pedestrian is, what a bicycle it, but not recognize the combined shape of a person walking with a bicycle. Sun glare off objects can also be a problem. That is what caused a Tesla car on autopilot to hit a parked firetruck in California.
It needs to learn how to squint. And to slow down if there is too much glare. And just avoid hitting any obstacles, whether they look human or not.
Okay, so that’s why they referred to the idiot as a pedestrian
The news item showed the scene at night, butt there was no sign of an ambulance, or much of anyone around, just the car and the bike on the footpath, and the US doesn’t have much in the way of a ‘twilight’ or ‘dusk’ it could have been within 30 minutes of it being ‘day’
I’d love to see the car’s footage of this event – hope it’s released at some point. Dark(ish), person probably walks out from behind bushes or a sign (based on the on-scene image in the NYT article) into a section of road where they really shouldn’t be, ‘backup’ human driver didn’t have time to react…
Really curious what the person was wearing – without reflective or at least light clothes, it would be very hard for the camera/software to detect someone at twilight with only a few frames to process for line detection and changes from the previous frame. Police chief said it
Clearly self-driving tech isn’t there yet, and this is definitely a significant milestone in its evolution, but the human driver didn’t do any better and may have done much better in slightly different circumstances. Glad to see that the media response has been (surprisingly) measured and reasonable overall. Condolences to the family :(
…and, “love to see footage” sounds really sociopathic as I read this back. No desire to watch someone getting hurt, but I do software and have worked with traffic camera footage for object recognition and motion detection in the past. Just a professional curiosity about well the software performed and what it had to work with.
… unfortunately the video from the vehicle has made the 11pm news…
…yeah, that’s pretty sad to watch. :( Definitely not enough time to react for the driver, though I would have thought the car should have picked enough up to apply the brakes (though not in time to matter much). I suspect the LiDAR/infrared views, if they’re ever released, may show more actionable data.
Sorry to go off topic on my own off topic post, but in addition to rogue unmanned cars we are soon to have a rogue unmanned spacecraft to worry bout. The latest estimate of the de-commissioned Chinese space station falling to Earth is now on March 31st plus or minus 3 days in the area somewhere between latitudes 43° north and 43° south.
My guess it will be in Kansas. They have a history of attracting crashing space ships.
…they never did put a crew on it, did they?…
Tiangong-1, the one which is crashing, has been manned, in the past, but was decommissioned in 2013.
Tiangong-3 is still up and running and is intended to be fully armed and operational a couple of years after the international space station’s planned obsolescence.
They are estimating Middle Earth (hopefully the North, something needs to remove the last traces od Sauron and the Cave Trolls)
On the plus side it should be easy to evacuate to Narnia or Gotham City just follow the signs.
Love whoever made those signs, though I do wish they’d been able to do it in Swindon instead.
Super heated powdered sugar blaster is a scalding caramel sprayer if you add cooking oil and lighter fuel to that you got the “poor man’s napalm”. even cheaper is a wick taped on a lacquer spray.
*licks lips*
Is it bad to eat napalm?
Not if you don’t mind the heartburn :P
ok semi useful commentary with pictures.
first the Map!
https://i.imgur.com/GleptP9.jpg
ok the small orange Dash on the far left is the initial trajectory of Sciona after slashing Cooter.
the three grey lines are projections of her flight path, overly simplified
the circle at the Dallas Fort worth area is a approximation of the best guess as to where the base is located, and I am using that simply for this example.
The three lines are hypothetical flight paths of (A) Max, (B) Halo-bus) and (c) Osprey I arbitrarily chose the center line as the intercept point for Sciona, its far straighter than her actual flight-path would realistically be and is simplified for this explanation, a Tracking AWAC and/or a satellite or three will be basically guesstimating a flight path to intercept points, because the Osprey is slower than the Halo bus, its going to be the far Left track, they may be flying a separate intercept trajectory assuming they are plan C to intercept her.
Well, you kind of can do that:
If you don’t have a lot of money you buy an industry fund, a mutual fund that focuses on a particular industry, (in this case, construction). You could also go with an index fund if there is an index for the industry you think is going to be booming in the near future.
If you do have a lot of money, you tell the guy who handles your investments to put it in a mix of construction-related stocks.
I would not advocate any single stock, but what you want to do is buy a group of stocks, in an area or look into a mutual fund, or more accurately multiple mutual funds.
For example you would look at companys that provide construction equipment,
Caterpillar (U.S.)
Komatsu (Japan)
Volvo Construction Equipment
Hitachi Construction Machinery
Concrete? there way too many to list. Dito with various steel and material suppliers. just look at mutual funds on those
Individual construction company’s, more the same problem there.
Also realize that your have to replace damaged and destroyed equipment like computers and so on.
That said, I don’t think your looking at Marvel universe level of destruction with a half dozen super teams leveling entire city blocks every couple of weeks. For one thing, beyond a certain point, things start tipping and you have people demanding a universal Death penalty for Super Villains, and a “Lethal force on Sight” mentality regarding them.
I wouldn’t go after stock in equipment given that the supers pitched in on heavy lifting for the first bridge Max destroyed. However, I would try to get mutual funds or maybe even shares in specific major concrete and steel suppliers in several major cities. New York, L.A., and Tokyo especially, given how this universe follows tropes.
But then you would run the risk of loosing all your investment, when the metal manipulating super brings up enough iron, from the Earth’s core, to charitably supply the entire world’s needs for 20 years. And kindly processes it into good quality steel.
Likewise when it turns out that Concretia can also manipulate aggregate and soft stone in a similar way and decides to copy his philanthropy to make vast lakes of concrete available. Modifying it slightly so that it will not start to harden until a specific chemical is mixed with it.
Either one of those supply sources would destroy huge numbers of mining jobs, but even if there were a massive source of pre-refined raw materials, someone still has to shape it and transport it, so I suppose the industry would take a hit initially as prices dropped, but the increased demand should still make up for it in the long run.
…Incidentally, that’s exactly how concrete works already. It’s just powdered minerals and gravel until you add water (and small amounts of other additives for miscellaneous application-specific properties). :) Not a lot of exciting moments in teaching material science, but it is fun watching some people wrap their heads around the details of concrete curing and going “wait, concrete doesn’t cure by drying out? It’s soaking up the water? Everything I know is a lie!“
I think we can see how Maxima got the title “destroyer of mosques”. For all her talk to Sydney about avoiding collateral damage, Max clearly isn’t good at practicing what she preaches…
Maxima avoided it, Sciona unavoided it.
Well she also unsportingly avoided being blown up.
So Max just wrecked that whole bridge. As in the whole thing is coming down now. I wonder if she can catch all the cars on it (there were 10 or so from the previous page)? Not good.
Cosmic energy usually refers to the gunk that stars or Novae emit. Basically any band of energy or relativistic particles we’ve seen.
Pretty powerful though. What’s a gun but a high mass, low speed particle accelerator.
A symbol of death/rebellion/lawlessness/an inability to hunt with bow and arrows/national pride. A threat to kill. A fashion accessory. A way to feel safe in a frightening place.
Yours is cool though. :-)
I just had to break off my reply to attend to hungry kitties and cooking. No souffle though.
Thing I don’t understand is why the bridge tower (presumably made of concrete and steel) after being holed by an energy beam, should suddenly explode.
I bet the bridge maintenance team were keeping an illicit still there!
Heh. Entirely possible.
The explosion though was beyond the bridge, so was just Maxima’s energy attack doing its thing. Each example of its use has resulted in an explosion. Albeit that she can control the size of the explosion (there was a small one indoors, in the rifle range), so we need not fear this one being as destructive as the nuke-like demonstration.
for those of you that say Maxima totally messed this up, I offer the following:
a) nothing up until now has been able to reflect her blast;
b) where the ricochet goes is totally dependent on the angle of the plane where the reflection occurs.
Regarding b), the bolt could have hit the wings perpendicular, and bounced straight back into Max. Or, the angle might have been shallow enough that it ended up in the river ahead of Sciona. Sciona could have applied the brakes and the bolt would have overshot. Given that much area of play for a ricochet, hitting the bridge is just coincidental to the plot. It’s unrealistic to say “watch for what the ricochet might hit” because it could go ANYWHERE. Ralphie, you’ll shoot your eye out.
+1
and that’s why agencies like “Damage Control” exist. (and if you don’t have them, some salvage operator is going to go rogue and then you’ve got more super-villain problems) :)
I was wondering if anyone else had thought of that, and wondered if there is any such agency in this universe. If nothing else, plans for one should be in the works!
I am hoping that the super who Maxima dissuaded from a life of crime, and who announced that he was ‘going back into construction’, will have either founded such a company or alternatively, at the very least, find employment in one.
Sadly the most likely suspect to have set one up is Deus.
Actually it all depends on the type of energy, Dave! If it’s photon or plasma based, wattage would work, but if it was a concussive attack, then pounds of explosive force, megatons, et al, would be applicable. a Laser is definitely in the megawatt measurements. Plasma, being a magnetic force, is interesting. Could measure it in temperatures, if it was a solid beam, or megatons if it was explosive, or damn near anything cause its so versatile.
Yay! Another villain the strongest hero in the world can’t beat alone!
I understand the need for Dramatic Tension…would quickly grow boring if Max just overpowered every Bad Guy in the world. However, there is a balance that hasn’t quite been struck yet, in my opinion, which is worth absolutely nothing in objective value, so treat it accordingly.
*Every* fight we’ve seen Max engage in, she gets jammed up. The moral of the story I’m getting is the *real* heavy hitters head for the Dark Side, and Max is just the best of what’s left. Possibly because she’s not interested in cookies…
Dramatic tension is a necessity, sure…but seriously, it gets just as predictable when the strongest hero in the world can’t win a fight on her own. Maybe Dave is just focusing on big story arcs, which needs a Big Bad to justify the time and effort. But compare to the MCU, as an example…you had Iron Man kicking butt in his movie, Cap kicking butt in his, and then Avengers wove it all together and presented us with a situation a single hero couldn’t manage, and we got a serious dose of Awesome because all these competent heroes banded together as a team.
So far, we got a team but the only apparently competent hero is Sydney, because she always comes through…and it doesn’t quite gel.
Yes, this is the first page of conflict, and there’s a lot more to come…but from the opener, we know Sciona has defenses to match Max’s energy blast (her most potent power, apparently). We know from previous scenes Sciona has offensive capability on a par with her defense, so going toe-to-toe would put Max at serious disadvantage. This tells us, additionally, that there are at *least* two Bad Guys able to spank Max like an unruly Pekingese: Vehemence and Vale (assuming Vale is a villain, of course; she’s not a dedicated hero, anyway).
So, how exactly is Max the most powerful person in the world? Don’t get me wrong: I love Max, she’s my favorite character…I’d just like to see her be a little more…you know, competent. Powerful. So far we get a lot of talk that sounds good, but her walk leaves a lot to be desired…and no, I’m not talking about her south side as she strides away.
And maybe I misinterpreted the press conference scene that introduced Max’s blast powers, but doesn’t she control when and how it explodes? It can burn/blow into the target, but only explodes when/if she wants it to? That’s how it appeared to me, so why did this one explode at the perfect spot to mess up the bridge? And if the explosion is what does the major damage, why didn’t she aim a little ahead of Sciona and let the blast actually…you know, *work*? Hit Sciona with a mini-tidal wave due to it exploding underwater? Any of a dozen other things that a clueless powerless dork like me can figure out, but the lady with the powers doesn’t think of? The supposedly-extremely-competent-and-powerful-combat-tested-superhero?
Yeah, yeah, Dramatic Tension, shut up and enjoy the ride more than the cuddle puppies have thus far…so, venting over. Please return to your regularly scheduled programming.
I think it was Champions (maybe Heroes) that had Superman as a build. His disadvantages were magic and Everybody Else. His points changed depending on if he could solo, or if he had to watch out for other members of his party (not to mention additionals like Lois Lane or Jimmy Olsen).
Complaining that Maxima can’t win on her own is overlooking the fact that she totally cannot go “all-out” most of the time. She’s a cop, so she can’t just blast Vehemence into ashes in the first round. Nor can she vaporize the river canyon with her Vegata’s (almost) big blast, which would have most probably ended Sciona, and done a lot more damage. She’s still trying to find that balance between lethality and effectiveness. A cop arrests the criminal, not kills them on sight, unless their name is Judge Dredd.
Sydney died once already, so, no she doesn’t always come through. As for the others being incompetent, I refer you to the final body count from the Restaurant Rumble, where Sydney had accounted for fewer than Anvil of the adversaries, and Jiggawatt dropped 2 of them just arriving.
If Max were truly “the mostest powerful evah” and sufficient unto herself, there wouldn’t be much need to form a team, now would there, much less one with her leading it. Ergo, she is not sufficient unto herself AND KNOWS IT. And even Superman, in his own universe, has acknowleged the need for occasional help from his friends…
Well if by “gets jammed up”, you mean that the fight is not just about defeating the enemy, but also about protecting the lives of the innocent bystanders, then yes. If though, as the tone of the comment implies, you mean she could not beat the enemy, then no.
The Twilight Council would have lost most of their leaders to a single grenade if it were not for Maxima. As that is the most powerful organisation on Earth (barring Archon, of course), Maxima was justifying her position and in a spectacular fashion.
Yes the rest of the team did get a chance to show off their stuff, when Maxima had to take the exploding construct to a minimum safe distance away. But, yet again, that is her saving the day. Without that they would likely have lost the majority of the Twilight Council, not just the leaders.
Then she returned to finish off the seemingly unstoppable construct, in the blink of an eye.
Likewise with the guardian of the most heavily defended high security vault on Earth. Clearly the guardian would be one of the most powerful constructs available to the combined resources of all the factions (including galactic civilisations, ancient magical empires and immortals who have walked the Earth since before humanity stole fire from the gods). And Ingsol, an elder vampire, was visibly shaken that its strength debuff had full effect on Maxima, yet did not impede her tearing it apart.
Both of these incidents had readers complaining that Maxima is overwhelmingly powerful, which makes things boring, blah blah blah. Yet here you are grumbling about the converse.
Personally I am happy with the balance. Maxima is not the all-round invincible being that Super Man is. Her flaws and weaknesses are more general than needing a green rock from a specific alien planet. Plus the comic has stressed the point that ‘playing rock paper scissors’ is vital in super fights. Given that every super (including Maxima) is vulnerable to some kinds of attacks, yet perfectly safe against others.
This is why the government assembled them into a single force. So that they can deploy the appropriate personnel to each respective fight.
Sorry, guys…using Superman as a basis for Max doesn’t work, because that poor guy has been put through the wringer, the strainer, and possibly even the noodle-maker. His powers fluctuate on a yearly if not monthly basis, depending on how long a creative team gets to work with the character. He gets or loses powers as the plot demands, depending on the creative team. Originally, he couldn’t fly. No heat vision. No supersonic speed. No…you get the idea. DaveB is a *lot* more consistent with Max’s powers than Superman ever was.
No, I do not expect Max to be all-powerful…that would be boring and pointless. I’m all for having challenges, her not able to able everything on her own at all times.
However…I don’t think having *every* combat Max is involved in show her to be borderline incompetent does much to establish her character as the most powerful super in the world. Parking lot fight: she couldn’t beat *two* of the Bad Guys (the deflector/adapter dude, can’t think of his name) and Vehemence. Sydney the Newb Recruit had to save the day against *both* of them. Establishing Sydney’s cred, sure, I can get that…but not at the expense of Max. Yes, others took out individual Bad Guys, some with panache and style…except Max. Arguing she was `overseeing’ the battle undermines Yorp’s point of protecting the lives of innocents, as she pointedly wasn’t flying the servers and cooks to safety…so why wasn’t she kicking butt?
Second, at the Council, she took the construct a `safe distance’ away…and got trapped in rubble. Trapped. In. Rubble. Sure, bad luck, surprise, whatever, could happen to anyone…point is, it happened to Max and *happens* to Max consistently.
Yorp, we’ll have to agree to disagree on the vault guardian; I saw it as none of the vault’s defenses were as awesome as the Council believed, showing it was only a matter of time and luck before someone…anyone…popped in and robbed them blind. Think Maginot Line for the French in WW2…
As a comparison, imagine Peggy had been touted from the start as `the greatest sniper in the world’. And every fight, she’s, “Oops…I missed. Oops…I accidentally hit Achilles. Oops…I left my rifle in my other pants.” But during the press conference, she doesn’t miss a single paper target and is bouncing rounds off rocks to knock an apple off Sydney’s head.
No, Max should not win every battle singlehandedly and with ease. Likewise, however, not every battle should be one requiring all-hands-on-deck-because-none-of-us-can-beat-him/her/it-alone! If Max *is* the most powerful super in the world, logic says a whole *lot* of battles are going to be easy for her. None of her opponents should be her equal in terms of power, because she’s the *most powerful*. Smarter, sure. Sneakier, probably. Better at using their `limited’ power, I can buy that.
Just seems a pattern developing that every `major’ battle, the Bad Guy is actually *more* powerful than Archon and it `takes a village to spank the child’ or some such. This is a problem with most teams across the spectrum of comics, especially `all-star’ teams like Justice League and Avengers and such. Sadly, I don’t know the answer…just that making the Bad Guy able to spank any of the team solo so they have to team up, really isn’t it…as anyone who has read Justice League, Avengers, etc is well aware of for the past what, fifty years?
Not every Bad Guy should be Thanos, yanno?
There is a good reason for that. One of the two guys power specifically made him unbeatable. So it does not matter how powerful you are, you can’t beat him. First it was necessary to figure out the nature of his power. Then find a way around it.
Which is why your demand that Maxima show off her power is a foolish strategy for her to follow. Her job is not to pose and look awesome. Her job is to win the battle. Her strategy was to oversee the fight, assess the situation, and direct her troops.
In the restaurant afterwards Maxima revealed that letting her troops gain combat experience was also a factor. Had she (by means unknown) managed to wipe out all the opposition, in the blink of an eye, the rest of her unit would have remained an untested, unbloodied unit.
It would have also been pretty boring, for us as the audience. One spectacular moment, then all over. Plus, from then on, we would have the expectation that Maxima could (and should) defeat every enemy. Making the rest of the comic rather boring too.
Plus the other guy also had an unknown power, that was on a par with Maxima’s. Once fully charged up, he became the most powerful super on the planet. Which means, yet again, he could not be beaten by anyone else, because (at that moment) he was unbeatable (by any one individual).
Because she is a highly experienced combat commander, who has fought various super battles, in two separate wars. She knows that every super can be taken out by opponents who have nemesis powers. The fire guy can be taken down by the ice one. The guy who creates shadows, to hide in, can be outed by the one who creates light. And so on.
Had Maxima just dived in to super speed around and punch every baddie, there would have been several results:
1) A lot of those individuals would have died. Not having been able to assess their individual capabilities, Maxima’s blows would have torn their heads off. And we have since found out that most of them are actually completely innocent people!
2) Other individuals will not have been hit hard enough. Again not being able to judge how tough they are, Maxima will have not put enough force into her blow, to take out the tougher ones. Trouble is that she is moving at bullet speed. So she does not know this, as their reactions will not become apparent, until later, as they are only moving at normal speed.
3) Some of those survivors may have a way of killing (or otherwise incapacitating) Maxima, once she has turned her back on them, to move on to the next foe.
4) Maxima would have steam rollered her way through most of the mob. Up until she tried to hit For Whom the Death Tolls. Then she would have been instantly defeated. Arc-SWAT would have been without a leader. Leaving the rest of the team at the mercy of Vehemence. Who could mop the floor with the lot of them, as Maxima was the only one capable of taking him on toe-to-toe.
Of course that act only made him more powerful. But in this alternate reality it would not be needed. As he would have had more than enough power to overcome everybody else anyhow. Note how he made the decision to kill Maxima. Because he knew she was the only foe that posed a real threat to him.
Boy you sure are a ‘glass is half empty’ kind of guy. Maxima heroically saved everyone. A side effect of which was rubble falling down on her. It was an explosion. Maxima expected that to happen. She could not take it out into the park, as there were innocent civilians out there. Maxima took it to the safest place possible and it blew up.
Note that she survived a devastating explosion in a confined space. That takes the toughest of heroes, so is hardly a sign of weakness or incompetence on her behalf, as you are trying to portray it. Further Maxima was not trapped, as she got out unaided.
It merely took some time to do that. And not much at that, if you work your way through the brief fighting that took place in her absence.
So, if Maxima wins, it is only because the opponent is weak? As opposed to Maxima being strong? You are showing extreme bias in your interpretation.
As for the whole static defence thing being a flawed strategy, you are right. But you are also making a good analogy (albeit inadvertently). Because the Maginot line was the best defence in the world, at the time. And still got beaten. Likewise the Dark Reliquary was, for its own purpose.
A cunning and evil opponent out-thought the defences, in both cases. By avoiding being directly exposed to their attacks, and finding a way to defeat them, without risk.
Whereas Maxima did not have the luxury of studying the schematics for weeks or months, and coming up with a perfect plan. Rather she just took on the awesomely powerful (but you are at liberty to disagree) guardian head on. And tore it to shreds.
Demonstrating her awesomeness. But your conclusion was ‘she won, so it could not have been that tough’. Do note though that I provided Ingsol’s reaction as supporting evidence. Whereas you only provided subjective opinion, with nothing to substantiate it, other than an analogy (which actually helps support my contention).
This is flawed thinking. Maxima is the most powerful, by virtue of being the one who wins. This does not necessarily equate to being the strongest (topped up with vehemic power, Kevin was stronger than her). Likewise Maxima was stronger than For Whom the Death Tolls, yet would have been beaten by him.
And who is the person who has gone to great effort to establish and maintain a rapport, with this extremely quirky and volatile newb recruit? Who took her to one side and managed to use that connection to make her realise that she must assess the battlefield carefully? Who told her to keep her shield up and not to make use of the PPO, until she had practised with it?
These were vital elements which gave the newb recruit necessary basics to survive the battle, avoid causing catastrophic friendly fire losses, and be in a position to actually help. Plus it was Maxima who encouraged Sydney, by saying that she was ‘open to suggestions’. Which is a sign of an insightful commander.
Further we have since seen how very easy it would be for Maxima to tear opponents apart, like tissue paper. And she does suffer badly from anger management herself. So it is a credit to her capabilities (and her strong will) that she was able to resist the aggro aura as much as she did.
This and her initial order (to ‘avoid killing, where possible’) were both vital to ensuring that the unit operated as a police unit, trying to enforce order on citizens. As opposed to taking the stance of a military unit attempting to kill their enemies. Something they were fully entitled to do mind, given the clearly lethal force being used against them.
So the aggression which was being driven up in them was actually focused in being aggressive in non-lethal ways. Something which probably saved the lives of those attacking the guy with the nemesis power (as attacking with lethal force would probably have meant they would have been killed by it, rather than incapacitated in a corresponding way).
It also meant that the unit did not end up with calls to be disbanded, due to having massacred a bunch of civilians, who were not acting under their own volition.
Maxima has won all of these battles. Because she is the commander, of the unit. All the failures of the unit are ultimately her responsibility. But, conversely, she deserves the credit where they succeed.
Vehemence is in jail. For whom the Death Tolls is in jail. The vault guardian is in pieces. And they are hot on the heels of Sciona.
If though Maxima had the arrogance you want her to display, she would fail to win. Because she is vulnerable to a bunch of things, like magic and mental attacks. She knows that and is not stupid, so will not expose herself to that, when she is able to assess her opponent, and delegate a suitable subordinate (such as Anvil vs the first super brawler) who is paper to their rock.
Whilst avoiding being rock to their paper, herself.
This is a point that has been elaborated on, in comic, more than once. Maxima fights as part of a team. Not some dumb individual, trying to look heroic, by soloing all comers. That is what makes her the most powerful.
I get that you do comics and might not have much of a science background. But really, Google “cosmic energy.” You even put the search term in quotes. But apparently didn’t bother to do the smallest amount of research to answer your own questions.
Hint: It doesn’t involve shakti.
I did that, and here is a quote from the top hit:
Probably not quite what you had in mind?
For info I do not allow Google Chrome to personalise my results. So they will vary from anyone who does not turn that off (and may do so by region or other quirks of the Google algorithms).
Whereas what Dave is clearly referring to is Marvel cosmic energy. Which is rather disconnected from any grounding with the similar term of ‘cosmic radiation’ or ‘cosmic rays’.
Mind you I purposely ignored the Marvel interpretation, as that is unique to their setting, and is fiction in the Grrl Verse. Hence why I too opted to choose the science based definition for my analysis elsewhere.
You never fail to open your mouth and remove all doubt, do you?
He he. I did miss your hint about the shakti. You are right to call me, on that.
Still the remainder of my post stands well without that.
Given how short the spans are, I was wondering if the cabling was largely or entirely cosmetic. We really only have the crashing fluff truck to indicate any damage to the deck, In the truck could easily be explained by debris, or a startled driver. I’m going by relative length of the cars on bridge.
It is probably just well engineered to have redundancy, to reduce the impact of any catastrophic failure. A bridge that would instantly collapse, if a single cable snapped, strikes me as a poor design. Albeit that other commentators have indicated that such can be inherent in some bridge types.
My understanding is that watts can be used to measure any kind of energy, but depending on what type it is and what it’s being measured for, it may or may not be a meaningful measurement.
“Emergency Cuddle Kittens and Souffle Delivery”. I like that joke on multiple levels.
Without intending to argue the legal side of the question, I would argue that Maxima is justified in using her fireball in this instance. The properties of the various attacking options are not the only considerations; we must also take into account the knowledge states of the actors.
As of the moment Maxima takes the shot, the reader is not aware that the fireball can be deflected. We’ve seen it penetrate hard objects before exploding, and we’ve seen it explode with knockback immediately on meeting a shield it can’t penetrate; either of those would take Sciona out of action. By general storytelling convention, one would expect any third option known to the relevant protagonist(s) to have shown up or been mentioned before it becomes a turning point of the plot – a variant on the Chekhov’s gun principle, if you will. Therefore we may assume that deflection (as opposed to simple blocking) is not something that Maxima has encountered before: to the best of her knowledge at the time of firing, either this shot will hit Sciona and explode, or it will miss and be backstopped by the water.
In subsequent engagements, now that she knows that deflection is a possibility, she will have to take its likelihood into account. It would be safe to assume that tanks and rocks will be melted and pulverised as usual, but there should be more caution when dealing with an unknown.
So why choose the fireball over a bullet, or a body-slam? All three are only effective if they hit the target – and Sciona is currently an alert target, aware of the overhead threat and capable of evasive action.
I believe it was mentioned earlier that Maxima’s gun uses 12-gauge shells, about 18.5mm diameter. That’s not a very big area to dodge, especially when Sciona can start manoeuvring rapidly to disrupt Maxima’s aim as soon as she sees the gun leave the holster. I’ll leave the question of bullet flight time across that range to those with more ballistics experience than I, but I will observe that fighter aircraft use machine gun bursts even when engaging far larger targets than a single humanoid, and still don’t always make the hit.
Maxima herself covers perhaps half a square metre, and has the option of self-guidance to make the hit more likely. But she cannot be sure that Sciona does not have a weapon that might harm even her at close range. And she cannot be sure that Sciona will not evade the strike, leaving Maxima to plough into the water – unlikely to cause damage, but almost certain to delay and/or disorient. An in-person strike against an alert and manoeuvrable target should therefore be considered a last resort.
The fireball covers no more area than Maxima herself and is unguided, but it is ranged and expendable. If Sciona evades the first shot, Maxima can fire more. Even if Sciona continues to evade each one, she will be distracted from her potential attack on the bridge, and every second thus occupied brings Maxima’s backup closer.
Based on the above evaluations, I would contend that the fireball was the correct choice given the prevailing circumstances and knowledge.
Note that the balance changes if the target is not aware of Maxima’s presence overhead.
In this case, the fireball would be unsuitable: powerful it is, but subtle it is not. The glow of charging would give ample warning of the incoming attack, alerting the target and increasing the possibility of evasion.
A bullet may be the solution if Maxima can be sure of hitting a vital area with her first shot, taking into account her knowledge of Sciona’s anatomy and armour, but its focused force must be applied in the right place. Missing with the first shot simply turns an unaware target into a more difficult aware one.
A direct bodyslam trades subtlety for sureness of effect: unlike a bullet, Maxima carries enough momentum and impact area that almost any hit will be effective. Provided Sciona does not know that she has a kinetic Maxima inbound, she does not know to evade. There’s still the risk of Sciona having an effective weapon once the melee is joined, but Maxima can be sure of landing a very hard first hit.
“…Maxima is tactically justified…”, that first line should read.
“Emergency Cuddle Kittens and Souffle Delivery” PAHAHAHAHAHAHAA
*wheeze*This is almost exactly what she told Sydney not to do.
If you’re looking for the unit for a measure of energy that Max’ beam definitely has, it’s ‘joules’, the basic SI unit for energy. One ‘watt’ is one ‘joule per second’- a bolt would have just joules (though the impact and creation would have wattages, though likely different ones), but a beam attack- with its non-momentary nature- would have a wattage instead.
All these people arguing over how powers work and here I am just wondering who the target audience for the “emergency cuddle kittens and soufflé delivery” van is.