Grrl Power #1000 – Graduation!
Let’s celebrate arbitrary round numbers! Human nature! Woo!
Okay, seriously though, I’m kind of amazed we’re here. It’s not something I’d really given a lot of thought when I started this comic. Though I will say I thought it was at least possible, because I name my files “GP” followed by four digits, which means I’ll have to wrap up the comic before page 9,999, or else the computer will sort them weird and my OCD won’t put up with that.
I know this is almost definitely not how most military graduations go. I wasn’t sure where everyone would stand and, look, I did pull up a few on youtube, but they’re incredibly boring to watch. There was only so much marching up and down the square I was prepared to subject myself to. It only took me about 5 minutes of research to decide to skip 99% of that stuff in the comic, as it’s all very definition of stiff and formal, and there’s no room for anything humorous to happen without it coming across as disrespectful.
The other major factor here is Archon’s domestic presence and media spotlight. The fact they’re a new branch means they can streamline the pageantry and put as much emphasis as they want on the graduates themselves.
Sydney fell behind the other recruits due to her space adventures, but it was important from the public relations/perception angle that she graduate alongside everyone else, especially because she’s basically the most famous member of the team with the possible exception of Maxima. So Sydney’s been doing a little extra work here and there, getting some tutoring, etc., and has passed all her qualifications, even if some were by the skin of her teeth. (coughPTcough) Some of her written tests, like street level application of the law as it relates to supers is slightly more pending, but it’s not like she’s going to be unsupervised in the field anyway. Barring any additional encounters with wormholes.
I didn’t draw Ren and Vance, (who is still on the team even though I haven’t drawn him in like 700 pages) in the lineup, cause I was thinking like that panel cut to them as the general is reading along the list of graduates, but it just kind of looks like just the 4 girls are graduating. Oh well.
Unrelated, has anyone done a mashup of Snap’s “The Power” with Stan Bush’s “The Touch?” Cause it seems like that should exist.
Happy Thanksgiving if you’re into that stuff.
Here’s to 1,000 more pages!
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Did Anyone else notice that Halo and Jabberwocky have opted for pants while Jiggawatt and Varia chose skirts?
Nope. Nobody else noticed. At least that you noticed.
Well spotted!
Ladies who can fly and/or do handstands on one finger, don’t wear skirts in Archon (as established by precedent of the Maxima herself, during the first big press conference. ;)
is that why the ties are different?
I noticed that myself, and have decided that i5 is due to Archon being both, A: new enough that there still some flubs, and, B: progressive enough to allow some flexibility with uniform components.
We know that, at times, Archon personnel wear the uniforms of their previous service, even in circumstances where we would normally expect only their current service’s uniform. Which we can take to mean that Archon personnel are officially entitled wear such.
There would be a couple of good reasons for doing so. One is that Archon needs to attract supers to it, even from other branches of the armed forces. Some of whom would have been reluctant to leave. So allowing them to wear their old uniform (and show solidarity with their former service) would help lessen the problem a bit. Likewise regarding resentment from those left behind (especially the commanders of the other branches).
Plus supers will often have features which set them apart from normal humans. Making a parade of identical looking troops unlikely to start with. And some of them will feel ill-at ease standing out against those who look alike. So having a relaxed dress code, with different variations on a theme, would make such personnel feel less out of place.
As such it is likely that any uniform accessories, which have different versions in different branches of the armed forces (such as ties), would be on Archon’s list of approved wear in each option.
‘Tis called a uniform for a reason. it’s plausible that flyers can wear pants. but dress blues are prescribed, if you have prior service you wear a badge showing prior service. these are all the same uniform but shown in different ways. The CO and the Chief would not allow such things especially the Tie vs Crossover Tie thing. This abortion was a consequence of Dave spending 5 min researching the subject, not any form of military tomfoolery.
It’s a military organization that only exists in the comic. It has supers in it. There are going to be some differences between it and real-life military organizations that are up to the whims of the writer.
you just said what I said in a much more polite way.
We may have communicated the same facts, but the difference in phrasing communicates additional information.
What I got from what you said is “The author is wrong because they’re ignorant on the topic”, while what I said was “The author is right because the topic is a product of their imagination”.
Oh and, of course, the same would apply with items that vary by gender, in the enlightened Archon regime.
Although Hiro is still not allowed to wear a skirt, due to being a flyer.
Bad doggo, Yorppie.
Hiro in a kilt is an absolute _must_.
No, he’s just required to wear underwear.
This is a travesty of justice.
Damn, good spot with the ties. Honestly, I think Sydney should be wearing a tie tab and not a tie. I’m not sure if tie/tab flexibility has worked it’s way into the common US military dress uniform standards yet for other branches – I certainly haven’t seen it in DAFI36-2903, and actually this whole line of talk got me curious so I went to look it up. Para 4.6.2.4. specifies tie tab to be worn with the women’s blouse, required with the long-sleeve shirt and optional with the short-sleeve shirt, unless the short sleeve shirt is worn with service dress then it’s required.
How would they look in the uniforms of the original thirteen G.I.Joes(especially the helmets?)
https://www.yojoe.com/action/82/
Here is how I picture it going: Maxima would have fought tooth and nail against any policy requiring women to wear skirts. Arianna would likely try and irritate Maxima by arguing that dictating that they *can’t* wear skirts if they so choose would be just as bad. Thus a compromise is formed where a choice is given between dress pants and tie, or a dress skirt and a tie tab.
Congratulations on hitting the iK milestone. Only another 999,000 to go. Till you are done.
“Unrelated, has anyone done a mashup of Snap’s “The Power” with Stan Bush’s “The Touch?” Cause it seems like that should exist.”
Now I’ve got: “You’ve got the touch… I’ve got the powah!” stuck in my head.
Excellent! :full_finger-steepleage:
Hm. Those who’ve been at such ceremonies, is there a set order in which the graduates’ names are read out?
I’d have expected alphabetical to be the default, but that doesn’t fit the order on the page: either Nazari would be ahead of Ng, or Schofield would be ahead of Sharif Nazari. It might be divided by sub-categories of graduate, in the same way as a university graduation (e.g. ‘straight’ Chemistry, Chemistry with Materials, Chemistry with Pharmaceuticals, etc.), but in that case I’d expect the categories to be called as well. By their passing grade in the final assessment?
Either Alpha by Family name,
Or By Class Standing….
But I have heard that can be Low to High, or High to Low, Depending on Service…
In which case I would have expected Sydney to be last due to demerits ;)
I can Easily believe her Middle Name is Trouble :D
More Easily than any Error, or attempt at humor during the Ceremony
I can easily believe she gave ‘Trouble’ as her middle name when asked.
It is certain that a name change under US law is no more difficult, and probably easier, than a name change on military enlistment paperwork for a serving member, so whether or not it was her middle name when she busted out of the hospital right after her zeroth birthday, I’m just going to accept as fact that it is now.
And it may even predate the military enlistment. After all, she applied for a business license with the comic store ages ago, and is even more likely to have done it then.
Thing is, if she changed her middle name to ‘Trouble’, then the “Jr.” wouldn’t apply anymore. I can entirely believe that her parents gave her that middle name. :)
Her parents probably heard of her dilemma of a name change and not wanting to loose the JR so agreed to assist her with an additional name change.
Likely her father’s middle name is also “Trouble”. Which makes me REALLY want to see the previous generation of the family…
Typically in enlisted basic training graduating classes, the graduates names *aren’t* called out. There are simply too many of them alongside of the idea that is driven home that “You’re all the same and nobody gets special treatment” throughout most of basic training.
This, however, this is Archon and it’s first class of super special heroes who’s training and ‘military’ career is far different than any that exists in reality, so, well, there you go. Given the military, it’d either be alphabetically by family name or in height order, height order being how recruits were regularly ordered in marching squadrons and such.
Admittedly I messed up their standing order cause I cant alphabet.
perhaps cannon could be that Falk had Ariana randomize the order. since God does not play dice then you can have the lineup in any order. with luck Sydney will attend one of these as an instructor (new crop of victims/plot devices) sometime before comic 3,000.
Out of curiosity what is the motto on the seal behind them?
Amplus Potent Venit Amplus ??????
I can’t make out the last word, but I get a translation of “Large Potent Come Large ?????”
I’m guessing it’s supposed to be something like “Ample Power Brings More Power”
With great power comes great responsibility
I think that would be Magna Potentia Manga Est, still I’m not expert on Latin to English translation.
I am thinking Dave B was going for a similar but not the exact same thing approach
“Magna Potentia Manga Est” and now I’m going to have that image of Sydney’s comic shop running a special on Japanese comics…..
‘Amplus Potent Venit Amplus’ comes out ‘Great Power (and) Great Will’ or ‘Great Power Strengthens Intent’ or something like that, in my ancient and incomplete understanding. I could buy it as a shorthand for ‘With Great Power comes Great Responsibility’ but I think it’s missing some sentence structure (mostly suffixes) for that.
At least it wasn’t something ominous like ‘Nil Inultum Remenabit. (Nothing Shall Remain Unavenged).’
Actually checking a Latin dictionary I can’t really get anything sensible other than ‘strength brings greatness’ and that much only by relying on ‘Amplus’ for two different definitions in the same phrase.
A better (though not really accurate) reading might be, “Increased Power Comes Bigger.”
I’m picturing something like the seen where Batman is confronting Waller, and tells her, “Mine’re bigger.”
maybe it’s Latin for ‘Plus Ultra’
“Cum Amplus Potentia Venit Amplus Onus” With great power comes great responsibility.
I have the same OCD about my files at work, I mostly work with dates. If I dont put a 01 for January at the start, then when I hit October it files them between January and February. Usually these files arent critical and I just delete the ones 3+ months old, but for your case I’d start filing them in separate files (GP 0001-1000, GP 1001-2000, etc) so that way they dont overlap AND it makes archive searching a bit easier when it comes to looking in a specific range, like 100 or so pages.
Do you actually have OCD?
Knowing military ceremonies, they would have absolutley BUTCHERED Varia’s given name.
Exo-cheet-il Axo-talent Zippity-do-da
Yeah. I was coming down into the comment section to say props to the guy who spent HOURS practicing to say Varia’s real name without flubbing it.
Coming from a file-aholic:
Make 2 folders. Call one 0000-9999, the other 10000+. Boom problem solved.
Jiggawatt’s real name is Azarin Nazari? So her given name is an anagram of her family name?
So, is this something relevant, or just one of those dumb things that happen in comics that you’re just supposed to go “OK” and forever after ignore?
Dumb things like that happen in real life, too. The short version of a friend’s first name is his initials (same pattern for his brothers — very much deliberate on his parents’ part).
If it isn’t an actual name from some given culture, it may be echoing the real world, modern day phenomena of parents trying to come up with unique names for their offspring because they eschew more traditional ones. Portmanteaus, quite often like “Yasmarigold” or completely new ones like “Shteron”.
Or those poor girls named Renesme who are headed to highschool next year (the 4th twilight boot is 13 years old)
I work in a children’s hospital. The other month, we had a family come in with : Johnald, Ronathan, Amberley, and Kimothy.
Kimothy would have at least made thematic sense if she’d had a twin brother named Timberly. She did not.
Timberly sounds like a great name for a lumberjack.
Looking for a unique spelling, My oldest grandson was gifted with “Aadan.” Nobody ever spells it correctly. Next one’s middle name is Arwyn. Oldest granddaughter became F. M. Essence J. because her mom liked the sound of that.
Parents sometimes make important choices that will affect their children’s futures on the basis of things that amuse them.
Also, Sydney’s middle name is Trouble, if you missed it.
Is it? Huh. I just looked up interesting sounding Egyptian names.
Yes, it is. :)
Azarin is just Nazari, with the N in the end instead of the beginning.
Well, you could always make another folder for comics 10000-99999 so that they would be sorted properly.
Congratulations to Sydney – and to Dave – for their respective graduations.
That said, at 2 strips per week, you have to keep it going for about 86 more years to reach 9,999 strips. I am more than game (God willing, as I would be a couple of decades older, at that point, than any current age record holder), it’s been done (Bats and Supes are both 90izh), and I suspect you would be game, but at least you don’t have to worry about it for a while.
And … is Sydney’s middle name really Trouble?
Of COURSE it is!
Even if it isn’t, it has to be! I wouldn’t be surprised at all if her parents named her that even not knowing the full scale of the madness she would wreak.
Yes it is, and I dare say it’s one hell of an understatement, given her track record of how many times she’s been spotted near the Fracture.
if it wasn’t before. it is now, and it is well earned. *lays out doggie treats to distract Yorp*
now here’s the thing…. Sydney strikes me has having received the parental curse multiple times.
‘may you have a child just.like.you’ let us all run in abject terror from this.
I also wouldn’t be surprised if the next page has her yelling “That was just a joke!” then a smash cut to a flashback of Sydney proudly standing there with her chest out, saying “Trouble is my middle name!”
This related to last page with the all female species that breeds with males of different species yet retains its own species identity and remains all female. The term I forgot was Kleptogenesis a species that can takes parts of another species genome and mix however yet retains the distinct features of the mother. There is actually a species of salamander that pulls off this trick in real life, albeit only with other salamander species, something pulling this off just for having similar morphology like being humanoids is another level
To be precise, it is magical :)
https://oxford.universitypressscholarship.com/view/10.1093/acprof:oso/9780195369670.001.0001/acprof-9780195369670-chapter-4
and more specific
https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/19639004/
I did not doubt it in these salamanders.
But in humans, or Succubi I guess, it would be magical :) Not merely another level :)
eye of newt, tongue of frog, reproductive organ of salamders LoL
As someone who actually WAS in the military, you made the right choice to skip most of the graduating.
Honestly the youtube videos I watched were boring scrubbing through at 10x speed.
I prefer to imagine that all military graduations are like the Bill Murray movie ‘Stripes.’
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rjr2W0wQvs0
After which I assume that the winning graduating group gets stationed in Europe to guard a super Recreational Vehicle.
Wow! You are awesome!
Re: “…because I name my files ‘GP’ followed by four digits, which means I’ll have to wrap up the comic before page 9,999…”
I actually use an excellent program for batch renaming files, that is VERY flexible, and has a pretty wide variety of functions to create rules for renaming. It comes in free, cheap, and slightly-less-cheap-but-still-cheap versions; I’ve actually purchased the “less-cheap” version, but the free version is still HIGHLY useful. It does, however, have a very predictable name:
File Renamer
(I won’t place the URL here, unless requested. Not trying to advertise, just share a program I get a LOT of use from.)
Unrelated, re: “…but it just kind of looks like just the 4 girls are graduating.”
I didn’t get that impression, at all. It seems to me that the additional arm-with-rank-stripe at the left edge of the bottom panel makes it pretty (implicitly) clear.
So Trouble is literally Halo’s middle name.
Why do they all have chevrons one their sleeves? Is that an American thing? In most armed forced a single chevron is a Lance Corporal.
Looks like they’re using standard Army insignia. No stripes – recruit/trainee. One chevron – private. one chevron, one arc – Private First Class. Two chevrons – Corporal.
And nothing past that likely to be applicable to Syd for the next year. There is also a pseudo-rank of ‘Specialist’ which is parallel to Corporal but has different insignia. The difference is the Corporal has more authority over the men they serve with and the Specialist has more technical training and authority over some particular aspect of the unit’s operation. For example you might have a Corporal running drills and PT, with a Specialist working in the motor pool.
Single Chevron in the US usually indicates E2 (OR-2) status among US ground forces, either a second grade of Private (PV2) in the Army or a Private First Class in the Marines. The Army doesn’t actually use the Lance Corporal designation; E3s are instead called Private First Class (PFC) and, as mentioned, have a Chevron and Rocker.
There’s a couple reasons the Grads might be E2 already. Given the way the E’s 1-3 work and Archon’s specialized nature basic training may last so long (ie: 6 months) that recuits are automatically made E2 around the time of Graduation. Or the Artist just felt bare sleeves were too plain.
The American Army may not use Lance Corporal, but many Commonwealth forces do. Canada did until 1968 at which point they caved to peer pressure from you lot. What about tradition?! Is nothing sacred? :P
Grats on 1000 Dave! Here’s to 2000!
Congratulations for reaching 1,000! Hopefully, you’re not even halfway done! ;)
So Sydney’s middle name really IS Trouble? Now I can’t wait to meet her parents!
(BTW, are we going to see more of Vance, the spider-guy? Of all the trainees, he’s the most mysterious!)
Spiders everywhere.
Actually, Anvil should be encouraging Sydney to talk while running: it helps train and improve your breathing. If you can meet the standard while you’re talking (I believe the DOD minimum is 1.5 miles), you’re less likely to have issues when it matters. It’s one of the main reasons for call-back cadences, in addition to maintaining formation.
Current Regs on makeup in the US armed forces includes the line:
“Lipstick: Females may wear shades of lipstick so long as they are with the natural color of the lips and do not detract from the uniform”
Are we to conclude that Jabberwokky’s lips are actually blue? That’s basically the only way she could get away with that look at a graduation, while wearing class-A’s.
I’ve met people whose lips are actually unnatural colors; there was a fad for tattoo’ed makeup a while back. None of them were the army-joining type though, so I have no idea how that would have gone over.
i imagine in this case things would be a little bit more relaxed, i mean when your officer has golden skin and purple hair why not
Yeah, as soon as you have people who exceed the presumed parameters for “normal”, whatever rationale there was before starts to look pretty shaky.
Besides, if your organization is structured around “atypical” people, and derive value from the properties that make them different from each other, rather than their similarities, why would you try to inhibit those qualities?
We know that PVT Ng wears lipstick from when she ran into Dabbler after being arrested.
They established earlier that the ARC is very loose on appearance standards. Recall that Peggy is a normal and has had pink hair for every strip but a flashback.
And I imagine the gov’t is desperate enough for supers that it wasn’t hard to knock out an branch exception, especially when the CO requires one.
All the congratulations to you! I am very, VERY much looking forward to all of the future comics. :)
Sydney’s middle name is literally trouble! (Snrk!)
But is it?
Was that someone’s prank?
This lot does do things a lot more casual.
I suppose her name could have actually been changed. With or without her knowledge.
Ok, now I’m less sure.
I’m going to say that Sydney Senior changed his name before Junior was born.
Heh… If you think Military Graduations are boring to watch, they’re even more boring to participate in. :)
“Though I will say I thought it was at least possible, because I name my files “GP” followed by four digits, which means I’ll have to wrap up the comic before page 9,999, or else the computer will sort them weird and my OCD won’t put up with that.”
Simple solution: Just add a leading 0.
However I am pretty sure Windows has some function for a “natural” sort, that treats Numbers in the File Name as numbers – rather then just characters. The exact sort order keeps changing between versions, but my Windows currently sorts these correctly:
Test 8.txt
Test 9.txt
Test 10.txt
Technically running is considered to be a controlled fall. Sydney has passive feather fall. Is running any easier then? She still needs to provide all the forward propulsion.
She lacks super strength and pushing down pushes her up so actual steps won’t be effected but could increase her air time between steps but air resistance remains the same so going slow might be easier than normal but higher speeds could require more strength with each given step though there would be fewer required.
This is the kind of thing she would normally pick up on. :)
Did she actually make running harder for herself?
Dave, there are free bulk rename programs, no need to aggravate your ocd. Then you can continue the comic well after you are dead. (Did that sound creepy?)
Pretty appropriate story for a 1,000th strip.
Nicely done, Dave.
It’s good to see an organization require a person to complete their training in spite of the extraordinary experiences the trainee has survived. Surviving extraordinary situations is a poor substitute for complete training.
Trouble? And not in quotes as if it were a nickname or handle, but her given middle name??
Makes no sense…..
They would at least of made them officers, not privates.
You’d want them to go through officer-school since they will be expected to lead normal troops
and police e.t.c. when engaged and give them instructions, simply cos normal troops won’t be
trained to deal with super threats, but they are.
In at least one example on stage here, an Archon private commands more firepower than a Fleet Admiral. Archon only needs it’s ranks to work within Archon.
I do wonder that Sydney doesn’t have some medals on display here for the Vehemence fight, saving her teammates in space, etc.
If you’re talking about when she bipped him and herself into space, that was technically a training op. I would imagine that showing off her creative use of her orbs might earn her some sort of commendation, but she’d hardly get a medal from a training exercise, unless it was because something had gone wrong, and she’d saved the day.
Believe they meant what happened on Alari Prima, but Sydney didn’t actually do anything other than auto-bubble herself (which also included the others)
No, her very first encounter with Vehemence, when she saved the day by locking him inside her shield with her so his rage aura stopped hitting everyone else. That was pretty solidly heroic.
There’s actually several normal troops in ARC-SWAT who ARE trained to deal with super-threats. Like Goose?
Yeah but not GI joe, cops and basically all non ARC members.
You do remember that Anvil is a Sergeant, right?
And the Daphne’s are only Corporals
You know what would help with the OCD and give you a chuckle at the same time? When you hit 999,999, you make a new folder called OCD prevention and the problem fixes itself from there!
Im suprised that arcons uniforms look like army issue and not somthing more unique
Because they are still part of the US military?
different branches of the us Military have different uniforms ESp dress uniforms as they will be more often used in events where multiple branches are present
annoyingly the US Space force has currently the coolest uniforms of any branch
Oh dear god, does this mean she can handle a gun? AAAH!
given those are more universally recognized yet significantly less deadly than the Nth laser pointer she is packing.
She took extensive training (even if she kinda sorta cheated using her upgraded Space Glasses)
teaching aid, it didn’t grab her hand and force it into the correct position like a cybernetic auto-pilot. She was still missing to some degree, she still needed to train, the angle and vector display was a guideline.
I find myself pondering what’s going on with her Comic Book Store right now.
It’s probably receiving new action figures.
Interesting. I would have thought that Sydney’s dress uniform would have included belt pouches for her orbs, since the orbs are all flashy and glowy and stuff and could be a distraction from the formal pomp and circumstance of the event.
They’re “flashy and glowy and stuff”, but they are also the visible manifestation of her abilities. I’d therefore expect them to be on display for that reason, just as other specialist abilities are displayed in our world’s military. A paratrooper gets to display jumper’s wings, a medic gets to display the appropriate badge, Maxima gets to display her gold-ness, Sydney gets to display her orbs…
Congratulations on the 1000th page!!!
trouble is indeed a cool middle name.
And partying ensued.
Snorted out my tea when I saw that Sydney’s middle name is trouble
Does this count as a press conference?
The first had an interesting after party and the others didn’t disappoint either.