Grrl Power #73 – Operation “Let’s Get This Story Moving”
OMG we’re finally free! We’re leaving the parking lot behind us! I could have done more there and kept it entertaining I think, like Achilles breaking free of the gurney so that the ArcSWAT ‘regulars’ could show off their stuff, making Sydney think she had to finally reveal what’s in the tube to stop him only to realize the top is locked making me wonder what her plan was in the bank and yadda yadda etc. BUT, we’ve lingered here long enough so let’s move forward eh?
Some of you may have noticed that I modeled our yet unnamed general after a certain actor, in an attempt to make my male characters a bit more visually distinct. I was banking on my inability to do a decent likeness to keep that from being too obvious, but it would seem that one of the disadvantages of drawing a comic every week is that your art improves a bit, go figure. I may have to go back and revise him cause honestly it’s a little distracting.
And while I pat myself on the back for my mad art skills, it looks like Maxima was played by 4 different actresses on this page. :P Oh well.
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It took me five minutes to realize that the black spot under his nose was his mouth, and not some sort of incredibly weird mustache…
LOL, I saw it as his mouth right away but now I can’t not see it as a mustache.
I stumbled on this insanity from a link to another webcomic and have been busting a gut since. Does sidney have a heat level or what? What is in that tube? We will find out when you choose to reveal it and I’ll patiently wait for the surprise and the laughs till then..
It was suggested several pages ago that Leon is here because he is powered too. I thought of a power that would work really well for a hacker: precognition. The ability to know whether or not a password/code would work before he types it might be the best superpower a hacker could have.
My Idea of a super power for hackers would be faster thought process and the ability to multi-task up to fifteen or more things at once.
Can’t wait for next week and Maxima’s recruitment speech. Given that the camera is literally right there filming, she has to keep in mind that other developing supers will see it – but also that Sydney and all her quirks is the one she has to try and convince.
She said they were leaving, so there would be no camras when they have the eventual talk about what’s in the tube, and recruitment speeches.
What more does he need powers for? He’s not really kidding in panel 3.
If you’re trying to screw with someone without killing them, a world class hacker is far more powerful than most supers. And if you are trying to kill someone super powers are spectacular, but almost besides the point. Any grandmother with a pair of car keys or a pistol can kill someone.
Really, if Maxima wasn’t willing to kill you, what could she do? Kidnap you and leave you somewhere inconvenient? Wreck your house?
Annoying, but kind of obvious and leaving her subject to civil or legal trouble.
And anyone with money could pay others to do the same thing.
But Leon could get you put on the no-fly list, alter your records, cause you to suddenly owe the IRS more than you’ve ever made…
Dead is dead, but short of death the wrath of Leon is probably actually scarier than the wrath of Maxima.
Oh, there’s a whole long, wide range of options between doing nothing and killing somebody.
You can HURT people in a great variety of ways and extremes.
Early on, we had a discussion on the board about the psychological impact of having superpowers on the ego. I firmly believe if humans get superpowers in the real world, supervillans will outnumber superheroes by orders of magnitude.
Leon’s a hacker, so they probably wouldn’t want to hurt is delicate little fingers or 12-lb brain, but there’s nothing (other than professionalism and basic human morality) to prevent Max from breaking every bone in his body from the waist, down; …or flaying his legs, or killing his family, or scalping him, or crushing his shoulderblades, or sewing his right eye shut, or tearing out his left inner ear, or spiking his feet to the floor…
Sure, she could. But so could any thug. A capacity for violence is unremarkable.
I’m inclined to disagree with you about supervillains outnumbering heroes, although it lot would depend on the nature of the power and how they were aquired. I do think a child born with powers would be much more dangerous than someone who got them later in life. Something most comic book writers seem to have intuited you’ll notice.
… And I think I have to leave it at that or launch into a 1000+ word essay on sociology, psychology and morality. And I don’t want to spend that much effort on a comic comments section. ^_^
You’re right, of course, that this could quickly devolve into a multi-page rant on either side. I’ll try to keep this one quick.
A capacity for violence is unremarkable – correct. What is remarkable is the relative scale. There’s an old truism that bullies don’t like to fight – they like to beat people up; this stops when they encounter somebody that is close to their physical equal. Max is so far off the scale that she outstrips the existing max-min ratios for normals in almost every capacity.
We could probably debate for days about the potential for greatness (in both good and evil) among humans. In my short life I’ve seen the best and worst of humanity, and in my experience, once you strip away the veneer of civility, the evil greatly outnumbers the good (and both are vastly outnumbered by the neutral don’t-get-involved-types)
Like the boy’s power from No Ordinary Family. That was an awesome TV show I have no idea why it was canceled.
For some reason intresting shows with good acting and great storylines keep getting the ax, while shows which go to the lowest common denominator just keep going on and on in American TV.
I’ll second that. The most famous being Fire Fly which was shot down after only 14 episodes.
I thought Joan of Arkadia, and Dead Like Me were a couple of shows that should od lasted at least two years. Wonderfalls was another. I was suprised that Northern Exposure lasted as long as it did.
Because it wasn’t making the execs 15mil an episode? Some of the best shows take a season or two to really hit their stride. But they don’t want to wait for a GOOD show to start really making money when trash like Survivor or the *shudders* Kardasians make it within weeks.
I never watch those shows. I hate the very concept of them. Some good shows that I like that are now playing are Breaking Bad, Justified, and Burn Notice.
Being a fan of cyberpunk fiction I’d say the ultimate power any hacker could have would be an ability to directly interface his mind with computers.
Possibly the ultimate Hacker power, but also possibly the ultimate Hacker weakness. Leaving aside questions of interface types and speeds, it seems you’d be leaving yourself very open to (even accidental) mind viruses, possibly up to a Hard Rapture-type hostile takeover.
Sixteen things at once, surely, to correspond with the binary arithmetic of computers. Or is one thread reserved for subconscious body-keeping tasks?
If your able to multi-task that many things eventually you need more limbs. That might be one of Dabbler’s things though.
I notice the General’s wearing a purple uniform.
Also, the second to last panel made me laugh loud.
I read it and at first I didn’t see the importance, and then I got what she was saying.
Hmm I did not notice the uniform was purple until now.
so then… it’s official.. formal uniforms are a shade of purple! :D
When I was in the AF we called formal version of the uniform Dress Blues.
If I had to wear a Purple uniform I’m pretty sure I would be forced to call them “Dress Pimps.”
You know what dave? your anatomy is improving. their bodies are staying a lot more consistent than when you started this thing. So keep patting yourself on the back. The thing that makes Max look like four different people is her eyes, and the fact that her red lips disappear completely for those two frames. I feel if you left even a hint of red around those lines it would make it work that much better.
No offense but, Sydney’s head looks kind of fat in the last two panels. Actually, now that I look at the comic again the reporter’s head looks a little on the fat side as well, not sure why though. I like the art work, continue the good work.
Those are becouse he’s cartooning the picture up. It saves time, and gives the comic a more zaney feel. But mostly it’s probably because he’s running out of time and has to do this comic between a full time job, his marrage,and things to do around the house. In other words he has a life.
You’re both right, Sydney follows more of a manga design, but I should try and normalize proportions a little more if the picture doesn’t actually involve cartoony zaniness.
I’m sure it’s been said in the plethora of other comments, but I love the look Maxima gives in the 4th panel. Sort of a “Are you really going to try and play that card?” look. Combined with Harem’s look in the panel, it makes for a great laugh.
Also, I just thought of something (Which I’m sure has also been brought up somewhere in the past). Does the team or Harem have a way of specifying between individual Harem bodies? Other than like “Harem with the black hair” or something like that? I would think it could be potentially important if they wanted Harem to go somewhere, but specifically wanted the gothy looking one to go because she would blend in the most.
Maxima does call the goth Harem ‘Deshantis’ earlier, so it’s probable that each one has adopted a nickname to help differentiate each other while still being Harem
As DaveB stated earlier, Deshantis is Harem’s last name.
I imagine that, whilst Harem usually ‘individualizes’ her T-clones, there could still be times when having five identical copies might be useful. The prank possibilities are endless, for starters.
She calls them Vogue, Goth, Co-Ed, Punk and Farmer’s Daughter (or sometimes Girl-Next-Door, for her ‘unmodified’ strawberry blond version)
Since she’s quite literally One Brain in Five bodies…. THERE IS ONLY HAREM!! :P
one mind five brains to nit pic
All one-star generals are clones of Dan Hedaya. It’s a rule.
Last!
Sorry, I had to say that. At least now I know the name of that guy who played Nick Tortelli! I have to wonder though….couldn’t the reporter have just told Sydney that “that’s all the time we have, thanks” Then run away?
Does Sydney have any idea that she’s about to be “retrieved”? Wonder how that’ll go?
There was a lot I had in mind to do, like Sydney realizing that with Max gone she had a chance to run off, but then Achilles starts making trouble, all kinds of stuff. I’ve probably got another 20 pages of material I could do but I need to perform a little self editing and I want to get to the tube reveal before the strip’s 2 year anniversary hah hah.
I’m Lazy and have really bad A.D.D. So I don’t feel like looking through the comments. Can somebody please explain the flash light?
It’s a microphone. She’s attempting to interview the Colonel but got sideswiped by Sydney.
I meant the flashlight in the geeks lap. Didn’t figure til later that it was meant to create a spooky shadow.
Never mind I got it.
The comments page was a TL;DR so this might be in there, but you might want to add the Brass to the Who’s who, I suspect that other Dicipline issue will come up. Though why does this elite Gal team have a Guy running it? Also did you decide to switch to standard rankings making this a Brig General?
Oh and if you went with ads and updated more often, that might not be bad, though I think you should give it a few years and then they wont be necessary hopefully.
It’s not a total female team, there are men on the teams Achelies and Mr. Amorphous to name a few. DaveB. just calls this Grrl Power becouse he is concentrating on the female side of the operation. Plus the main caractor is a girl.
He’ll be added to the Who’s Who once he’s had a more proper introduction. I think his appearance on this page is fairly self explanatory.
Because the Military is still controlled by men.
Female soldiers are a pretty recent development, so Maxima is probably one of the highest ranking females in the service.
Their own female general?
Not likely.
While the military is heavily male, there have been female generals since 1970, and are about 50-60, going up to 4 stars, at the moment. So a female commander is not out of the question. However, the statistics do favor male, And we do seem to have a mixed [and likely mostly male] unit here, just one in which we are are more interested in the female members.
I have noted that units do tend to group there females togather (put one fem NCO in angel line team then the fem E 1-4s drift in all the new fem mechanics are asigned there) put one in supply office and untrained fem are assigned NBC and arms room duties while NBC trained male made a driver for distro.
The General has a minor discipline issue himself. His top botton is undone as is evidenced by the fact that his tie has been slightly loosened as well.
Have to also say that while I’ve got nothing against the color purple, it just doesn’t look right for military dress uniform.
‘Button’ ye gads.
I’m going to take a wild guess, give Dave B the benefit of the doubt, and say that it’s blue, and looks purple because of the lighting.
No it’s supposed to be purple. I think it looks a little off as well, but I’ll play with it a little. Maybe it’ll look better if it’s a lot darker.
Brigadier General Jack O´Niell ftw.
Still think he should’ve made Lt. General.
As well as the apparent button being undone, the General seems to have a mild case of Five O’clock Shadow.
Very strongly suggests that, rather than having any discipline issues as regards uniforms, he may have had an especially long and busy day. Possibly a couple without any break in between.
That’s really the Dan Heyada effect. I don’t think I’ve ever seen him totally cleaned up and I like his body language. Plus he doesn’t have anyone he reports directly to on the base at the moment so he’s a little relaxed.
Also I like to think that he’s not tired at the moment, but he is thinking “It begins….”
not the first officer both com and non that I encountered that could shave in company area (in front of a formation) at noon (to prove to everyone that yes it’s not fail to shave) and have a shadow like that at 1315. only had the formation for a 1SG but me and others saw a CPT and 2LT do so in there office.
Is that a “the Streak” joke in panel 9?
I do believe it is. Again, showing my age.
No, the female character in “The Streak” was named Ethyl. And I’m really showing my age.
Well, yeah, don’t want to make the joke too obvious, after all.
I love Max’s expression in the third panel.
Yeah, you can wreck my credit rating and destroy my bank records – but I can get those back with some effort. I however can compress you into a ball small enough to fit in my pocket (although it would be rather messy), and put you in a hole at the bottom of the ocean – you think you can recover from that?
I checked with a friend who used to be in the USN, under the UCMJ, Harem is in a load of trouble, although the punishment could vary from nothing to a full court-martial (there is apparently a lot of leeway). Arianna would actually be in worse trouble if she hadn’t cleared all this first – and as she is apparently a mundane, she is EXPENDABLE!
I think (/ hope) Arianna IS in “worse” trouble, hence her summons to the General’s office.
The odds here favor nothing worse, at least for now, than a detailed discussion of standards of deportment and models for future behavior [AKA a detailed ass chewing]. When you “invite” several subordinates into a private discussion, you are generally saying some version of “I don’t care whose fault this is. I want it to stop and not happen again.” If the general wanted to land with both heels on one or more, this interview would more likely be one on one.
this is requiring work on just how mil the unit is becouse max needs at least one military person in the room for the a** chew to avoid claims of mis behavior in the chewing and need witness for interaction between male and female to insure proprietary conduct, arianna has limits on how she may be spoken to as a civy that affect what she may hear of the interaction between gen and major. harem has limits to what she may say / do as an enlisted in the talks (read stand there and listen to the brass and only say yes no or brief sentance followed by sir or maam) provided her rank is real not decoration for being part of the unit. there is more but I feel this properly sets the mood of what I wish to say.
I’m guessing that Leon built Maxes phone with a crush sensor and has all the data backed up on his server. Based on the fact that he knew about the crunch and the speed at which he produced a new one, I’d say this has happened a few times before.
Good call.
Yeah, what with one thing and another, Max possibly goes through certain equipment like it’s candy. Doesn’t necessarily have to be accidentally crushed when really ticked off, either. Gotta figure that those high-speed flights wouild be wearing on her uniforms and anything carried on her, and I wonder if the grips on her handgun had to be specially beefed up?
we already avoided that issue by saying her force field protects her clothes in flight and saves it from the effects of sudden motions. the crushing needed no sensor it was on camera. the pistol grip for her side arm was customized with the rest of it for her use if it isn’t a special developed new weapon unit for arc swat personel with enhanced strength.
There’s no need for a specific “crush sensor” in any case – Leon probably has an alert set up to tell him whenever Maxima’s phone disappears from the network for no good reason (i.e. it’s probably been destroyed.)
MAYBE Max has an aura effect that cuts down on wear’n’tear on clothing and personal gear whilst flying. Question is, would this effect work at ALL other times?
Think about it. Pretty sure that all of us, at one time or another, have accidentally split or otherwise broken an item of clothing. All it might take is to just move a certain way. Seems to me that someone who is super-strong and/or super-fast could have this kind of problem happen a lot.
Real need for ‘Unstable Molecules’ here – assuming a complete wardrobe can be made out of them and that they can do all the stuff that “normal” materials and fabrics do (such as breath, hold colours, be suited to uniforms, etc.)/
The Chief looks like Monk
Maxima totally should’ve hovered in over Sydney’s head and yoinked her hat back. And actually said “YOINK!”
BUT then that would’ve probably started the cycle of Syd rolling around screaming and pretending to be on fire again and shouting accusation of lies toward THEM again and then she’d go hide under the ambulance AGAIN and we’d have the whole hippie screaming match and the antagonizing again and….
Yeah Max totally should’ve stolen her hat back. :D
Totally. Nuf said.
Sydney’s hysterics are the best part of this webcomic, hands down.
calm down.
That general is so out of uniform it isn’t funny. Purple suit, undone top button, lossened tie. But the kicker is the blakc lipstick hes got on. Course hes also probably the highest ranking military personal within 100 miles of his location so hes good.
Also whats with the floating flashlight in panel three? If I didn’t know better I’d say its a case of… Well you know.
Well it’s supposed to be squeezed between his thighs. I guess I should have made it either resting on the cushion or partially covered up by his legs.
Heh, okay, apparently getting a little lazy with his mouth didn’t work out. I’ll put that on my list of things to fix.
say again not a pure military unit the regs are moded for the fact this is semi civilian unit. dress uniform color is changed to seperate him from a general running for example fort irwin and included is fort irwin dress uniform is not the same as fort knox with it’s different head gear and mods to boots. the lack of service ribbons, name tag, unit crests would not fly with any unit I am familiar with. to end NOT PURE MILITARY UNIT!
maybe boring military stuff isn’t the point of this comic
Not to mention he’s missing his second “U.S.” insignia, of which he’s wearing the Enlisted version, and he’s clearly wearing neither his name tape nor decorations.
Keep in mind I’m not and have never been military. Most of what I know I learned from watching Stargate SG-1. Which is to say basically nothing about actual military structure. Given that this team is a little atypical, my knowledge is probably good enough.
thats what I was trying to express this is not our reality and not forced to fit our norms it is how you choose thier world to be.
Most of the military types I know are borderline OCD about that sort of stuff. When getting tiny crap like that wrong will get you pushups without end, It’s not hard to figure out why. Normal people who have not gone through the borderline-brainwashing that is basic training might not care, but mil don’t have a choice.
It’s not so much that they’re OCD or the fun of it, it’s that they’re OCD because every little detail COUNTS!… think about the protective suits for Chemical, Biological, and Radiological attacks… those suits have to be SEALED at ALL times, under ANY conditions (crouching, running, etc…) when in a danger area.. if the person putting it on is just a LITTLE BIT lazy… Bloop… down they go, dead most likely… they way the military trains people (brainwashing in your terms) is spazzing out and getting “punished” over admittedly stupid stuff like ribbons on uniforms all lining up, and “are my socks folded exactly right?”… to somebody not in the know, it seems stupid and blown out of proportion if taken out of context, but when your life depends on “did i seal EVERY gap in my CBR Suit?” and knowing that because of all the Other crap you’d get dinged on, you tend to make SURE that you did it right the FIRST time, and EVERY time!… thus the BS *DOES* have a function, it’s just not obvious to everybody else most of the time.
claps claws and rights an AAM for scantrotb, presenting it with a your doing great things for your country.
i’ve been through it and i’m perfectly capable of keeping it to myself. people just think they deserve attention for being in the military.
I’m aware of that. It’s just…once you’re in the military, you can’t NOT notice these things. I’m not trying to be a dick here.
but you can choose to not comment on them. we get it. you know about military stuff. no one cares,
Generals can pretty much do whatever they want.
generaly they don’t act like slobs during buisness hours without a damn good reason. Given that Congress and the Pesident are the bosses, and he’s as he’s aparently a O8 aparently outranked by the Comandant of the Coast Guard, (an O10) yah the last thing he can do is be seen as a slob.
Incidentaly there are currently 41 4 star Generals, and the Army alone has 150 Brigadier Generals, which means in the Army alone he has 150 people who would feel they should be in line for O8 in front of him. . . Never mind the other O8s and O9s
Who would be interested in a lateral transfer.
My bad, O7. And his star should be silver as well.
And yes I completely muffed it up he’s a O-6, it would be other branches O6 s who would want the inevitable O7 slots, never mind the other branches O 7 and O8s and who will see the obvious openings up toO 9. And odds are that some of them also worked with Supers, or mighty even be one themselves.
Umm is there a Phineas and Ferb reference on panel 8?
Yes; yes, there is.
I know what they are going to do monday. :P
Well, we know what DaveB will be doing Monday (barring unforeseen problems).
Ugh finally. I was kicking myself trying to remember who that was.
Just saw a new Generator Rex last week that was a prank war. Between Rex an Noah. Even though Rex has those metal type nano-powers he still didn’t like being trumped by Noah who was good at everything else. Pranks can be dangerous. I stay away from those.
I see ARC-SWAT closer to Hell Boy’s outfit or even MIB than a pure military unit. The question is how civil corporate is it? A hybrid kind of operation?
I agree, especially regarding Hell Boy. It’s also a lot more fun seen with that perspective.
PS: Come to think of it, Maxima does remind me of a more regimental version of Hell Boy.I guess if she punched a car coming for her she’d have to say “Yellow means slow down!” instead of “Red means stop!”.
With Maxima she would say that “the Golden Rule” applies. She is golden, she makes the rules. Or having to do with a car trying to run whomever she is saving from death.
Panels 2 and 3 should earn that hacker ‘evil hacker’ of the month award, and panel 5… that should also earn him the kiss ass of the month.
Id kiss Maximas ass, but she’d probobly kill me for saying it in that way.
or test your body’s tolerance to high speed impacts.
I just have to say that Sydney looks good in that hat.
Agreed, she does look pretty cute.
I wish I could make a face like Maxima’s in panel 4
The hacker uses windows.
I assume he has multiple desktops controlled through a KVM.
Does Leon remind anyone else of Charlie from Numb3rs?
I jut noticed the thing-shaped tanline that Harem has. Nice touch.
aren’t all things shaped like things? could you be any more vague?
Love the Candace cameo. 8^)
No one dares wedgie Maxima, except for certain villains, but she wouldn’t feel it—if she even wears underwear at all that is…
I´ve reed,and loved every panel from the first til this one:) But I got to ask. Is that a flashlight on Leon´s croutch and if so, why is there a flashlight om Leon´s croutch:P?
Purely dramatic effect. He always has a flashlight nearby.
>.> in panel 3 is it just me or does it look like he’s got a steam friends list on the middle screen?
this is sooo me….
“Excuuuuse me, team, but WHO holds the power? That’s right. The one in charge of documentation. If I say it happened, IT HAPPENED, FOOLS!”
I don’t know if anyone has said anything about this, but goth Harem is thinking of Candace Flynn from Phineas and Ferb. I may be being stupid here and stating the obvious, but there it is. I pointed it out. Boom.
Zevis, did you read all the previous mail first before you confirmation? Yeah, noted by many before. Been there done that already Read the comments. Its hard, but saves you on a comment made.
o_o; Bit late here… But… Did she completely rip her underwear OFF her? Cause either they got LIGHTER or they are gone and that’s a tan line.
The underwear are no more. They are an ex-thong.
I can’t get over how sparkly Max is :).
“So, this one time, me and ma buddy keith-“
Panel #9.
A ‘The Great Gatsby’ reference as will be explained by commenters in 2019
for strip #763.
https://www.grrlpowercomic.com/archives/comic/grrl-power-763-its-an-evil-spaceship-not-a-death-dreidel/
9 years later and tha ks to Disney+ i finally get that Phineas and Ferb reference lol
i love the phineas and ferb reference.
and i am certain that “so i says to mable” line is a reference, but i dont remember from where.