Grrl Power #1022 – Pressed to impress
This page was supposed to show Deus working out alongside a bunch of soldiers, and I kind of started to do that there in panel 3, but in my head, there was like a line twenty deep behind him and ten lines next to them. I realized I wouldn’t have time to draw all that but I was hoping to make it look a little more like he was being a man of the people. (Whether that was just PR theater or a genuine thing would of course be left unsaid.) My initial vision also had them all standing in a flat field using kind of beat up looking weights, but that was just my brain being like “All I really know about Africa is that it’s a destitute dustbowl and the north part has pyramids and the south part had apartheid and also that’s where District 9 took place man can you believe that movie only came out in 2009 it seems like it’s so much older than that and it’s crazy Sharlto Copley had basically never acted before and he fucking nailed it” so I had to revise that image in my head. Also, Galytn and Mozambique are closer to the equator than Texas, and there’s no way I would touch metal weights that had been laying out in the Texas sun, so I added the tent/pavilion thing.
In my 30’s, I was a pretty regular gym rat. I lacked the mass of someone who’d been doing it since they were 14 – if you look at the dudes who become Mr. Olympias or at least WWE crash test dummies or jacked actors (jackedors, as I call them) they’re all huge by they time they’re 17 or 18 – BUT, I did get my military press up to about 225. (That’s the bar plus two 45 lb plates on each side.) I never liked doing deadlifts though, because I was pretty terrified of messing up my back, so I never would have been able to clean* the weight like Deus is doing here. I used a rack with all the safety catches but still managed to fuck up my shoulders. *By ‘clean’ I mean hopping the weight from the ground to the shoulders. It’s half of the clean and jerk, an exercise clearly named before modern slang made giggling mandatory when talking about this.
All that to say I figure someone who’s got that teenage foundational bulk could handle 315 lb military press. (Bar plus 3 plates per side) Of course, even if he’s pushing the Olympic record, it would be a weird way to try and impress someone who had military pressed and then military thrown a tank a hundred yards. Maxima might intellectually recognize the effort as impressive, but to her, 315 pounds is like an empty dixie cup.
Tamer: Enhancer 2 – Progress Update: It’s done!
Seriously. It’s done! 210K words of weapon building, dinosaur fighting, harem satisfying, lumberjacking, moderate diplomacing, bad guy chopping action. Also some humor.
January’s vote incentive is going to hang in there just a few more days. Should have the next one ready for Monday’s comic.
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Dabbler is giving Max a look like ‘are my porn-senses tingling just now?’.
She’s four-armed, two toed fine purple people pervert
she don’t look strange to me…
Maxima: What are YOU smiling about?
Dabbler: I can kind of see the future.
Maxima: What?
Dabbler: Well, you know that saying “Forewarned is Forarmed? Well it works the other way around.”
I’ve theorized before that Dabbler likes a little ‘flavor’ in her tantric energy. Right now, she’s enjoying the sweet, sweet flavor of sexual tension. Or who knows? Maybe it’s more salty, with a touch of umami. Whatever. Either way, she digs it – and wants more.
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Deus clearly knows how to push Max’s buttons, and I’m loving that look on Dabbler’s face as she’s observing the look on Max’s face.
Thing is, she probably has some idea what’s going on in Maxima’s libido, given her powers.
I suspect that what Deus really want is to be the biggest troll ever and all that power and wealth is just a tool for reaching higher levels of trollishness.
The way I hear it, gaining wealth & fame doesn’t really change a person. It merely allows them to display their true personality to a wider portion of the people.
Justin Bieber, for example…He was always a jerk personally, but fame & fortune only revealed his jerkishness to a wider audience.
Yup. He and his entourage got kicked out of the WalMart I used to work at for being spoiled entitled jerks. For some reason he couldn’t understand that he couldn’t ride a bike from the toys department he had no intention of buying around the store like a complete idiot was not a good idea. Then he picked a fight with management over being kicked out of the store.
If it had been Oprah, on the bike, kicking him out would have been “racism”
I’d say the fame and fortune is a factor, just not usually the dominant one. There’s pressure to “act like you’re important” and the people who get enough attention to emulate are the jerks. Won’t make a nice guy into a turbo-jerk (unless that need to conform and be accepted is really dominant, a whole other bucket of fish), but especially if someone has a sudden windfall and is trying to mentally catch up it can nudge things.
I see no reason to consider personality when trying to understand behaviour, it adds nothing that cannot be explained by environment, both present and historical. Much like LaPlace’s response to Napoleon’s question why God was not mentioned in his theory. “I have no need for that hypothesis”.
I’d argue that a person’s personality is shaped by their environment. So yes, on one hand, if you know their entire history, you could potentially ignore their personality, but their present personality is probably more accessible.
He is way beyong trolling. For what should he have to compensate?
Who said trolling is about compensating for someone? To some of us, it is an art form. For the lulz.
+1 :) :>
In Oz it’s known as “chiacking” ( /ʃaijæk/ ), and there is one rule: if you can’t take it, don’t dish it.
Do keep telling this yourself. *laughs*
Max’s response should have been “Pft! I see better every day at work and much better at home”
Home? I think Max might very well just live on base.
you see, but you fail to grasp.
Exactly
Deus is just the master of finding the chink in Max’s armour,in more ways than one he would hope he would hope.
Yeah, I jacked my own shoulders last summer, just splitting an oak tree into firewood. Worst part about growing old is that you find out what you can’t do anymore the hard way, then spend months and a fortune on physical therapy just trying to get back to where you were before you did it.
So, is that genuinely the result of hard work, or a hint that Deus has the “super” body, that you seem to get regardless of your power set? I guess we’ll be kept guessing for another decade.
Cracked a rib attempting to pull out a two-foot tall weed, the root ball was about the size of a baseball and it was on the edge of the lawn, so solid packed soil
Didn’t feel any physical pain, but mental pain? Written words couldn’t be trusted and memory was playing tricks
Mum was keeping me company to make sure things didn’t get worse, she mentioned Terminator the movie but… wasn’t registering, read the cast list and didn’t recognize the name ‘Linda Hamilton’
This was about two weeks ago and the rib is just minor ache now (refused to sneeze for three days because just hiccupping was bad enough, the thought of sneezing scared the sneeze out of me)
We-e-e-lll, Deus ain’t a strength-super. Looks like he got that body the manly way by the stress in — on — his face as he sets for the jerk. I’m sorta with DaveB here, there’s all sorts of ways weightlifters can royally screw it if the lose concentration, so you need to be totally in your own world there.
His power is definitely as an info-super, “… knowing things he shouldn’t …”.
Certainly a non-physical powerset that he can use to gather either wealth or info.
Could be as simple as weak probability manipulation. (Strong probability manipulation gives you Deadpool Domino crazyness)
Listening carefully to the little voices…
You all know my opinion already.
https://www.grrlpowercomic.com/archives/comic/grrl-power-1015-shock-and-brimstone/comment-page-1/
My long-held opinion on Deus, the perfect man, savior of the downtrodden, paragon of humanity and hope for a brighter tomorrow has always been that time travel shenanigans are involved, much like Layla from X-Factor Investigations or David Xanatos from Disney’s Gargoyles.
However, if it turned out that it was just from having a lot of money and the intelligence to both use it wisely and understand how other think in general, I would not be TOO surprised.
All praise Deus, amen.
We know that “time travel shenanigans” are possible in-universe, thanks to the little mishap with Sciona’s portal to Alar. Which means that “lots of money plus intelligence” can easily open Deus a way towards time shenanigans even if he doesn’t have inherent access.
This is true. Plus who knows what other items Deus gained from the Black Reliquiry. One of the items might have been a way to send messages to the past or something along those lines.
One of which could have been on how to get to the Black Reliquiry and when, and what to get from it. :)
It just feels like something David Xanatos would do, and Deus has a very David Xanatos vibe to him, after Xanatos became an ally to the Gargoyles instead of an opponent of them (end of season 2 after the fight against Oberon)
> I was hoping to make it look a little more like he was being a man of the people. (Whether that was just PR theater or a genuine thing would of course be left unsaid.)
Are we ever going to find out?
I think Deus does everything in Galytn 70% for himself and his goals, 30% for the people.
The thing is, with how much he does for himself, that leaves a lot for the people as well.
I really do love having the opportunity to indulge in my Deus fangirling.
I would say that, so long as his goals coincide with what’s best for the people, the difference is functionally immaterial. He obviously wouldn’t put the needs of others above his own self-interest, he’s said as much himself on television (the whole greed diatribe), but so long as his own self-interest aligns with the betterment of those around him, he will continue to make their lives better, and I wouldn’t be surprised if he hadn’t thought about it any more deeply than that himself, largely due to his philosophy surrounding morality, other than how he wants to look to others who *do* genuinely care about the masses.
He’s doing this stuff for the good of the people, because the good of the people furthers his own ends, and as such I think it becomes kinda meaningless to try to quibble about how much of his motivations account for morality and how much is pure self-interest, because his morality is entirely built around self-interest, it is (according to his own words) the only motivation he has (and that he believes anybody has, but that’s another debate entirely). He cares about the good of the people because the good of the people is more profitable long term than treating them poorly. He is without a doubt exploiting those under him for his own gain, but he recognizes that he gets more out of it if those he wants to exploit are happy and comfortable being exploited by him, and so he does what he can to ensure that they are, since the reward vastly outweighs the costs.
Frankly, I’d much rather get exploited by Deus than my current corporate overlords.
“Any Evil Overlord who actually follows the rules in the Evil Overlord List tends towards benevolence.”
Also, I’m failing to remember or find the line from HP:MoR about how a friend is someone who, when you use them, it makes them stronger.
I do believe that is the matter of concern: what happens if or when those things diverge?
Deus’s default posture is enlightened self interest, greed and increase of resources for all, most of which will be available for him to deploy and manipulate.
It’s always in Deus’s interest for the people to receive massive benefits from his actions, and from things that give him power and resources.
It is always in play that anyone can argue that anything he does that is good for the people is actually “bad” for the people in some way.
He has more control than the vast majority of politicians, but both on average and at the extremes, the people would be far better under his dictatorship than under a typical democratic regime starting at the same economic state.
One of the neat things about fiction is that it allows us to explore moral questions that are otherwise thought to be solved, by either recasting the core question into a situation free from our biases so we can look at it clearly, or by postulating scenarios in which the facts are linked differently.
Something that is true in all scenarios is a powerful and rare truth. Something that is true only under very specific conditions is hardly a truth at all.
+10, this is one of the things I love about scifi and superhero stories alike.
Deus once told Sciona that she ‘obviously didn’t see the value in trust or loyalty’, implying that he DOES see that value. his behaviour seems to back that up, given his people’s attitude towards him.
Deus truly is a man of the people. Or a greek god of the people. Either way, it does not mean that he cannot also be doing everything to benefit himself as well. For Deus, praise be his name, does not believe in a zero sum game. The paragon of humanity is a big proponent of the win-win scenario for all those who are wise enough to follow his way. The way of a hope for a brighter tomorrow under his wise guidance and anyone who agrees with this assessment is most definitely not only incredibly wise as well, but probably extremely good looking and very popular.
> Or a greek god of the people.
I thought you liked Deus? The Greek gods were absolute asshats, so why would you compare Deus to them? Seriously, they all had Issues, and they ran around raping people, kidnapping people, murdering people, transforming people, having their followers kill and eat people, etc.
“The Greek gods were absolute asshats, so why would you compare Deus to them?”
Understandable, but you are focusing only on the first half and ignoring the second half. When I say greek god of the people, I merely mean his physique. the Greek Gods were not ‘of the people.’ So when I say ‘Greek God of the people’ it means nothing but praise. That he is a man of the people with the body of a greek god. One of the really good looking ones, not Hephaestus.
Hephaestus wasn’t ugly, he was scarred. Some references say crippled, but given the context, and given that he was still fully capable of doing anything and everything within his domain the same as any other god, I have to assume that Hera and Aphrodite (AFAIK the only two who really called him that/cared about it, and kinda the two most vain goddesses) consider any scar that blemishes godly perfection to be just as crippling as non-functional legs or arms, which *I* think is stupid, as a lot of scars can look really cool, I mean look at Deus, AND getting some scars, even particularly nasty ones, that leave you still perfectly functional in every meaningful way is most definitely not comparable to not being able to do the things you want/need to do properly.
“Hephaestus wasn’t ugly, he was scarred.”
Clearly I am not an expert on greek myths. :)
Anyway, he didnt have the COOL scars that make you more rugged looking and attractive like Deus, based on the myths. Then again, like you said … most of the descriptions are from Aphrodite or Hera, who are the vain ones, so you have a point. I concede to your argument.
That’s actually probably the most apt comparison for Deus. He’s a capricious asshat, who doesn’t actually give a damn about anyone else, but occasionally helps them (mostly by accident, or as a means to achieve goals he actually cares about which universally benefit him). He might help you, but only as far as helping you helps him and not a millimeter further. The second it benefits him to kill you, he’ll do so without blinking and sleep like a baby that night, because he doesn’t have a conscience.
Wow. completely wrong.
1) He’s in no way “capricious”. He plans and executes in terms off decades.
2) His helping others is not “occasional”, it is continual, since it is his primary strategy for increasing the assets available to him. He does more for more people than any politician that can be named, or even than supposedly charitable folks like Mother Teresa. The people he benefits don’t have to accept his religion in order to get his charity.
3) He has not demonstrated any such murderous nature. He has demonstrated a variety of strategems that are not related to “murder” for dealing with opposition. Sure, he kills people, but to the degree that he has deployed any such thing, it is always to people who have clearly deserved it. In Hero terms, he has ‘no code against killing”.
Okay everything you wrote, I have to correct. Googleman already did this (and did so extremely well – well done GoogleMan!) … but I’m going to get even deeper into the weeds on how your post is wrong on almost every single word. Sometimes multiple times in a single sentence.
“He’s a capricious”
Capricious = given to sudden and unaccountable changes of mood or behavior.
In what way has Deus EVER been shown to be capricious? He has far-reaching plans, he is EXTREMELY accountable, and his mood and behavior are not only extremely stable, but he announces them in advance of doing them constantly. Sometimes on national television. Quite forthrightly, actually.
He is literally the most opposite of ‘capricious’ as a person could possibly be. Maxima’s been FAR more capricious with her outbursts and decisions.
“asshat”
He’s brought millions out of abject poverty while making a profit for himself and his shareholders as well. He’s saved refugees from exploitation. He’s given children of current Galytnians hope that their children will never have to witness the horrors that they had to witness. He constantly tries to minimize death on all sides. He only ever uses force against the most corrupt and awful opponents, and even then he tries to always go the diplomatic route first, then goes the diplomatic route as soon as they are willing to do so. He’s managed to get mulitple societies to live in peace and harmony, despite how they probably would not if left to their own devices (demons, alari, and humans from a formerly wartorn nation). He’s given half a billion dollars in stock to the poorest people in the US in order to let them have an idea of how to invest properly and as a method of what seems to be almost altruistic, despite his main theory of how life works is based on ‘greed’ (in a Gordon Gekko ‘Greed is good’ way).
In what possible way has he been an asshat?
“who doesn’t actually give a damn about anyone else”
A person who doesnt give a damn about anyone else would not do the things that Deus has been constantly doing. He cares about those who follow him because he wants loyalty, not just fear, from his followers. He scolded Sciona about this when she attempted to sacrifice Wyrmil to get what she wanted, while his plans involved killing nobody, plus his followers got cool doo-dads as an additional reward on top of being paid extremely well. He treasures an ashtray made by a little girl who thanked him for saving them from the evil warlord who used to torture and murder her people – a warlord who would have had no problems murdering her as well. Why would he treasure that when it has no actual worth? Because he does ‘give a damn.’
“but occasionally helps them”
It’s not even remotely ‘occasional.’ It’s constant and persistent in how he helps people. Almost every time he makes a deal with another person, that other person benefits HUGELY as a result. Unless they try to order their guards to throw him off the roof of a palace after having had decades of torturing and murdering and raping and pillaging his own people like Evil-Warlord-Indinge did. Even then, he tried to appeal to greed before he was forced to have his bodyguards use violence in complete self-defense. He’s done this regularly, with almost every person who is in his employ. When Lorlana threatens the maitre’d of the restaurant he owns, he has him delivered a bottle of expensive wine and his apologies for Lorlana’s behavior. Occasionally? No. Regularly? Yes.
“mostly by accident,”
Nothing Deus has done has been by accident. He is one of the most Batman-level planners in the comic. Anything he does is on purpose, not accidental. The closes thing to an accident is that he cannot control when another person will be an evil a-hole who will try to kill him, but even then he plans just in case they do.
“or as a means to achieve goals he actually cares about which universally benefit him”
How is making sure his goals, which help everyone else, but also benefit him, in any way a bad thing? This is a GOOD thing. When he succeeds, while also helping others, all it does is mean he’s able to further help more people. Which will again wind up helping himself as well.
Why do you think that helping others should REQUIRE hurting yourself? That doesn’t really make sense to me.
“He might help you,”
And you don’t seem like you would be grateful for the help if it also benefits him. Other people would be.
“but only as far as helping you helps him and not a millimeter further.”
This is actually untrue as well. He has passed up opportunities to do things which would ALSO achieve his goals, but would NOT help others in the process. He chooses instead to do a far more difficult task which involves win-win situations constantly. That’s a lot more than ‘a millimeter further.’ He didnt have to make Galytn first world nation. He could have let them wallow in poverty, strip-mine their nation, and given them some scraps which are jus a LITTLE better than what they had, which was nothing. They would have been happier with that than they would have been under Indinge. Instead, he went above and beyond. WAAAAAY above and beyond.
“The second it benefits him to kill you,”
Where are examples of this? When you say ‘the second it benefits him to kill you’ do you mean ‘the second you try to murder him and he has to resort to self-defense?’ OR do you mean ‘the second you refuse negotiations in a war, that he’s asking you to do so they won’t have to be a war which will result in casualties that he does not want?’ He tries to minimize death, even when that restraint does NOT benefit him any more than it would for him to have a war of attrition. He could have done that against Mozambique, and taken over all of Mozambique in the process. He did not. In fact, he only seems to go into places where the residents of that area are BEGGING him to come into to help them and free them from their oppressive authoritarian overlords who are keeping them in abject poverty. It would have been a lot easier to just have his overwhelming army of supers and demons and alari kill off the entire Mozambique armed forces, and not allow surrender terms, which apparently he’s been allowing (and encouraging) at every single opportunity.
“he’ll do so without blinking and sleep like a baby that night,”
If I killed, in self defense mind you, someone who’s like Adolf Hitler or Mao or Stalin, I would sleep like a baby as well. Indinge was not a good person. He raped, tortured, murdered and ‘disappeared’ innocent men, women, and children, exploited them, let them starve to death, and kept them in a constant state of terror. Indinge was at war with every single surrounding nation. He was so corrupt that any humanitarian aid given to him would be spent on him, not his people. He was so inept at running a country that his nation did not even rank on the World Bank. He was an awful person and the world is better off with him dead. Even so, Deus TRIED to negotiate with him in a way that he would have become rich – while also making his people happy and prosperous.
“because he doesn’t have a conscience.”
He clearly does have a conscience – but he picks his enemies well, to make sure they are the worst of the worst. He would ‘kill a thousand murderous tyrants’ to save the innocent little girl.
https://www.grrlpowercomic.com/archives/comic/grrl-power-413-green-herring/
(panel 2 – Deus “Angel, I would kill a thousand tyrants for you.” and he treasures that valueless ashtray given to him by a young girl who just wanted to thank him for saving her and her family and her people, and for giving them things like clean water, food, houses, and television. He considers the ashtray to be something that money cannot buy, because if you did buy it, it would devalue it’s worth – since it’s worth is the thanks of an innocent little girl, not an actual monetary worth).
But that doesn’t mean he has no conscience. It means he’s a hero who will kill if absolutely necessary, and he treasures loyalty and people looking up to him as the savior of the downtrodden and paragon of humanity which he is. All praise Deus, amen.
Dabbler’s look is just pure gold here.
no, that’s Maxima
;P
“Discussions with the leaders of Mozambique”… I assume that “Ugandan discussions” aren’t a thing in the US?
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MtzMUJIofNg
just for you
“Ugandan discussions”
Ummm. I left all things African some decades ago, please could you elucidate? For the time being, I’ll assume it’s a euphemism describing the use of armed force to “negotiate” new positions? Sort of along the lines of Korben Dallas?
Well, Anakin Skywalker described “aggressive negotiations” as including the use of lightsabers, soooo…
There’s a political satire magazine in UK called Private Eye, which has no US equivalent – probably The Onion would be the nearest thing. It has a long tradition of euphemisms relating to the sex scandals which periodically enliven public life over here, and “Ugandan discussions” is one such.
So a Ugandan discussion could lead to a Presidential Invitation maybe? As in… Bill? Or John F?
So it’s the UK equivalent of “Hiking the Appalachian Trail”
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Recurring_jokes_in_Private_Eye#Ugandan_discussions
Thank you for that. I would never have thought about looking in Wikipedia for this euphemism.
Private Eye has coined several other truly classic expressions and euphemisms along it’s long history (note that “Ugandan discussions” dates back to 1973!) Google up “tired and emotional,” “colourful racing identity” and “Arkell v. Pressdram” for few other classics…
*this is all really nice
Not “reallty”. Or are you trying to say “realty”, as a pun?
Is DaveB pandering to our love of wordplay? :>
I’m not sure Sydney is mature enough yet to make a pun without calling it out and making sure everyone understood that she intended it to be a pun (?)
But accidentally? As in: she has yet to realise what she said?
And of course Dabblecakes would be interested in this.
No, not Dabblecakes. Space Grandma Dabblecakes.
Dave, there seems to be a typo in Sydney’s last bubble in panel 1. “Reallty” should probably be “really”.
Fixed.
Actually reallty also sort of worked as a Sydneyism
Now I am sad. What @daedster said.
Button – pushed.
Dabbler got that look
“You better sleep with him first before I do.”
But yeah Deus be ripped. Like we knew he was but seeing it in person. Are we sure he’s not some maxed out human like Captain America? Smart enough to negotiate aliens and supers to work for him easily, as tall as a damn horse, and built so damn well you’re almost positive bullets would merely bounce off those rock hard abs.
I’m still not convinced he isn’t hiding some secret super power of his own honestly.
There’s definitely some Maxwell Lord vibes to this guy…
As Deus said, “money is the best super power”. Maybe he’s just evil Batman.
‘Evil’ is redundant
Ok, now I’m just vaguely curious how you would define evil.
Not that most people can produce a coherent definition which could be used to measure or judge individual actions or circumstances. Most people’s moral sense doesn’t seem to rise above a loose collection of memorized rules.
But still, it would be amusing to see how you define evil, particularly as it relates to Batman.
Again, there’s nothing that’s been shown to be evil about Deus.
Do not be swayed by G’s aspersions on the greatness which is Deus. One day, G will come around to the truth.
Honestly, I don’t trust Deus. Good and Evil has nothing to do with it. He was shown alongside other antagonistic figures at the beginning of the comic, and his goals are almost certain to bring him into direct conflict with ARCHON at some point.
I cannot tell how said conflict is intended to be resolved, nor whether Deus will do more harm than good or the other way around. At the moment, I’m pretty much in wait-and-see territory.
“Honestly, I don’t trust Deus.”
I’m not sure why people would not trust him. But you don’t have to trust him. That’s business. In business, both sides might not trust each other – that’s why contracts exist. But if you WANT to trust him, he definitely has a track record of being EXTREMELY trustworthy and constantly following through on his promises without negative side effects happening. It’s constantly upsides, constantly win-win scenarios for all sides involved.
“He was shown alongside other antagonistic figures at the beginning of the comic,”
This is true. He is shown alongside other antagonistic figures. But where they have been aggressively evil, Deus has never been. And yet people seem to think that Vehemence can do a heel turn and be good. And with Tom… well Tom was actually a perfect gentleman after the bodyslam for him saying ONE thing that was aggressive. He’s been wonderful to Dabbler in particular, and seems to genuinely love her. And she seems to at the very least appreciate that he is NOT an evil jerk to her and that he goes out of his way to be the best possible Master to her that he can be in her relationship which she HAS to have a Master in order to simply survive in a biological requirement. Simply put, Tom has not abused the privilege he has over her one iota.
Despite being on the splash page, I don’t think it makes him in any way a bad person.
“and his goals are almost certain to bring him into direct conflict with ARCHON at some point.”
That involves the assumption that ARCHON is always on the right side. This is clearly not the case. We’ve already seen multiple times that ARCHON has flaws and its members sometimes do the wrong thing. Sometimes illegal and unconstitutional things.
1) Maxima blowing up the bridge due to recklessness during her pursuit of Sciona
2) Maxima taking Krona into custody in a very ‘Minority Report’ mentality.
3) Arianna having a problem with the precedent set for not arresting the people who were under Vehemence’s aggro control, which Sydney did not understand as being a problem since Sydney was RIGHT and Arianna was wrong.
4) Maxima being INCREDIBLY arrogant about not being able to be defeated, when that’s clearly not the case. It’s happened with the Super Mannekiller (who Hiro had to save her from), and it almost happened with Death Toll, if Sydney had not stopped her with a far better plan.
5) The government was threatening to seize Cora’s ship during the Fel negotiations, and Maxima was not on Cora’s side of the table, since she is a United States officer and duty bound to follow legal orders of her superiors. And yes, there is a way to give a legal order to seize Cora’s ship if Cora tried to stop them from taking the Fel ship. Sydney would not go along with it because Sydney is actually incredibly morally virtuous, and Dabbler would not have because she and Cora are friends. But Maxima probably would have, in the same way that Captain Atom followed the orders of Lex Luthor when Luthor became President and made Superman America’s Most Wanted, or when Cadmus activated Captain Atom’s military status, which takes precedent over Captain Atom’s justice league status.
All this being said, I do like Maxima as a character. But the idea that Deus is not trustworthy because he might eventually have different goals than ARCHON does not mean Deus is not trustworthy. It could mean ARCHON is not trustworthy, in fact.
“I cannot tell how said conflict is intended to be resolved, nor whether Deus will do more harm than good or the other way around.”
From what we’ve seen so far, Deus tends to try to always get a ‘win-win’ situation for both sides. Much as I am a fan of the United States in a general sense of history, we can’t really say the same for the US seeking win-win situations for the majority of the conflicts its been in. So far, Deus does not cause more harm than good. He seems to cause almost universally good outcomes with no harm whatsoever. Admittedly, that alone is suspicious because it is so unlike people to be this virtuous and good, but Deus hasnt shown any reason to doubt his intentions if you base it on his track record INSTEAD of on his love of subverting and deconstructing villainous TROPES.
“… shown alongside other antagonistic figures …”
Antagonistic? Are you sure they were not merely agonistic figures?
I think Max already has based on their backstory.
Dabbler is just having fun.
As I’ve mentioned before, his super power was alluded to in his interview wherein he claimed that greed was the root motivation. His superpower is to know what the other party desires. Good in the boardroom. Good in the bedroom.
I’m actually surprised Dabs and Deus haven’t hooked up. He’s not a government super, so she can have all the fun with him she wants, and Deus has a WELL-documented history of sex adventures with exotic women. Maybe they have done the deed – but, if they haven’t, the reason has got to be interesting.
I would guess that as *fulfilling* as Deus would be, she figures that it would interfere with trolling Max. And trolling Max *IS* her #1 priority, so far as I can tell.
That is such a Lex Luthor “LOOK AT MY HUMAN MADE PECS, KENT!” move
Heh. Actually, I’ve always thought Clark should look like a weedy little nerd boy. Well, a tall, weedy nerd boy. How on earth would he ever strain his muscles enough to bulk them up?
Part of his disguise would be his superman outfit is heavily padded.
Agreed. I could accept a runners build, possibly, since that’s mostly just working the muscles enough, without major resistance.
But when you can lift a hay roll like a piece of paper, how the heck do you build muscle?
By lifting the hay baling machine?
using train cars. bench pressing, pulling, etc. etc.
Yep, just like a real hero.
I would assume that’s an aspect of being kryptonian or an El. Powergirl is frequently drawn built similar to Max muscle wise, so I’d expect either the race/family simply runs heavily muscled (I would also expect that they continue physically maturing into their mid to late twenties, given that Supergirl runs around at half Powergirls size).
Of course, there’s also a wide variety of exercises that you can perform to tense muscles against themselves, and flight probably helps out some.
By not having myostatin, I assume.
It’s a signaling compound produced by muscle tissue, that builds up in the body and suppresses muscle growth. Without it even an ordinarily active lifestyle eventually leaves you ripped.
Makes sure you don’t build up so much unneeded muscle mass that you end up needing to eat too much, and starve to death the first time there’s a famine.
Per current canon (or at least one interpretation of it), technically Superman’s superhuman strength is all tactile telekinesis and has absolutely nothing to do with his muscles. He can use it effortlessly, but has to choose to do so (which is why his sneezes and other involuntary muscle spasms don’t kill people, for example)…which means he can work out in a normal gym as long as he doesn’t use his powers.
The myostatin thing or some other aspect of his alien physiology is also possible, since Kryptonians tend to be portrayed as super ripped just in general, even if they’re scientists or otherwise not as likely to be very active.
Hey, there are plenty of villains able to test and push him.
He doesn’t bench press them every day like a bodybuilder, though.
Maybe that’s why so many ‘Heroes’ are reluctant to kill? If they’re in the ground, they’re not in a facility where you can train against them!
of course there’s a reason its built against the cliff.
it probably moves or opens to reveal a big shocking whatever.
Stargate.
go full Robotnic, a giant mechanical version of his own face and the stargate is in his mouth while his eyes are search lights.
Even without opening, it allows for all sorts of hidden excavation without needing to dig down first.
Nah Deus, she’s noticing your narcissistic posturing, needing to display yourself in inappropriate ways in order to gain attention and feel important.
Yeah, this is all intentional, including having Lor take them the ‘scenic’ route to give him time to get into position
Can we just skip to the part where Sydney removes his head from his arse and Maxi punts it into a star (not ours, we don’t want to contaminate it)
It’s funny that you think anything remotely like that is likely to ever happen in this comic, even after filtering the “color” our of your language.
Yep. Deus is the only real foil they have, and he’s doing literally nothing that gives them anything to attack him on. Everything he does that is shady is well within the gray areas of how the international game is played. The US does far worse every year than Deus has done on screen,.
Of course it’s not going to happen, doesn’t mean can’t want it to happen
Just like how so many people want(ed?) seriously bad things to happen to Sci-fright
Not stopping you (or Pander) from drooling over SmugD, so why are you trying to stop me from hating over him?
G, my good friend with whom I disagree but nevertheless respect, you are free to hate Deus, praise be his name. I am fine with all sorts of types of poor arguments ignoring the good and noble works of Deus, savior of the downtrodden and paragon of humanity. But it’s still a good idea to counter your statements with corrections pointing out the flaws in your argument, so that one day you might see the light. I just hope that one day you will recognize your misguided view. It just feels so angry. :)
But seriously speaking, joking aside, I don’t think Torabi is saying you can’t hate on him. He’s just pointing out that your desire of what you want to happen would never actually happen, and finds it funny that you hate him so much, despite all the good he has done in the Grrlpower universe.
(All praise Deus, amen.)
If you are aware that it’s not going to happen, then why phrase your “hating” as if you expect it to? “Can we just skip to the part” suggests that you expect it to happen in the future, and that you are uninterested in the intervening period of time.
You’re certainly free to like or dislike any character or other aspect of the comic, but it would be more conducive to sane discussion if you could express yourself clearly.
I do believe, deep in my heart, that G’s protests against Deus, praise be his name, is just trying to hide the true feelings for the paragon of humanity, savior of the downtrodden, which is actually one of unyielding admiration. So fervent that it hurts and as a result, they try to bury this truth with their current posts on Deus.
G is just trying desperately to hide the love that burns brightly for our exceptional X-faced exemplar of excellence. And one day, G will be able to look inwards to their own feelings and realize that they, like everyone, is actually a fan of the greatness which is Deus. You need not hide it any longer. I feel you, G. I feel you.
All praise Deus, amen.
The faces in the final panel are all independently meme-worthy. Which is not to imply that they are bad, but rather that they could be used as single image indicators of trolling, outrage, and “go on”, respectively.
What sort of look is Dabbler giving Maxima?!?!?
ohhh please go on. I needed a before lunch snack. that’s the look.
He’s starting to make me think of senator Armstrong from metal gear solid revengence, is he using Nano machines? haha
That look Dabbler’s giving Max in the last panel is hilarious. You know if Max could read minds Dabbler’d be getting slapped right about now.
I lived in Morocco about 50 years ago for maybe 18 months because that was a good place to catch VC and ARVN radio chatter on the bounce off the ionosphere while we decrypted all their secrets, but aside from the miles of eucalyptus plantations, and 2500 year old Roman ruins and roads, and being bloody hot the two summers I spent there, I have virtually no memory of that part of Africa. So I can’t say anything about how well Dave B has depicted the part of Africa he’s depicting. I tried to find the places I used to live, and where my house used to be is now an industrial park, and IIRC the street is the entrance to the park, nope just checked Google Maps and the street isn’t there any more but the street name is now on the highway that was about a half a block from where we used to live. Towns change a lot in half a century.
“He even has a gazebo, talk about classy.” – Halo
“I hear they are the real final boss.” – Dabbler
Hopefully they won’t awaken and anger the gazebo.
It occurs to me that many people may have no idea what we are talking about. They may have never heard the meme about ‘Eric and the Dread Gazebo.’
Settle down children, and gather around, while I relate to you the tale.
Eric and the Gazebo
Original story as told by Richard Aronson
Let us cast our minds back to the early days of fantasy role-playing.
In the 1970’s, a GM called Ed Whitchurch ran “his game,” and one of the participants was Eric Sorenson, a veritable giant of a man. This story is essentially true: I knew both Ed and Eric, and neither denies it (although Eric, for reasons that will become apparent, never repeats it).
The gist of it is that Eric… well, you need a bit more about Eric.
Eric comes quite close to being a computer. When he games, he methodically considers each possibility before choosing his preferred option. If given time, he will invariably pick the optimum solution. It has been known to take weeks. He is otherwise in all respects a superior gamer, and I’ve spent many happy hours competing with and against him. *Even today, if any player in our group takes an unreasonably long time to decide what to do, he draws calls of “Hurry up, Eric.” So if you imagine pauses before any Eric response, with the word pause to indicate an unreasonably long pause, you’ll have the flow down pat.
Ed, on the other hand, is very quick witted, of the general school that if you do the wrong thing quickly it may work out better than the right thing slowly. His pauses were usually signs that players were asking something very important or unbelievably unimportant.
So… Eric was playing a neutral paladin (Why should only lawful good religions get to have holy warriors? was the rationale) in Ed’s game. He had a holy sword, which fought well and did all those things holy swords are supposed to do, including detect good or evil (by random die roll). He was exploring some lord’s lands when the following exchange occurred.
Ed: You see a well-groomed garden. In the middle, on a small hill, you see a gazebo.
Eric: A gazebo? What color is it?
Ed: (Pause) It’s white, Eric.
Eric: How far away is it?
Ed: About 50 yards.
Eric: How big is it?
Ed: (Pause) It’s about 30 feet across, 15 feet high, with a pointed top.
Eric: (rolls dice) I use my sword to detect whether it’s good.
Ed: It’s not good, Eric. It’s a gazebo!
Eric: (Unusually long pause, even for Eric) I call out to it.
Ed: It won’t answer. It’s a gazebo!
Eric: (Pause) I sheathe my sword and draw my bow and arrows. Does it respond in any way?
Ed: No, Eric. It’s a gazebo!
Eric: I shoot it with my bow (rolls to hit). What happened?
Ed: There is now a gazebo with an arrow sticking out of it.
Eric: (Pause) Wasn’t it wounded?
Ed: Of course not, Eric! It’s a gazebo!
Eric: (Whimper) But that was a plus-three arrow!
Ed: It’s a gazebo, Eric, a gazebo! If you really want to try to destroy it, you could try to chop it with an axe, I suppose, or you could try to burn it, but I don’t know why anybody would even try. It’s a @#%!$*& gazebo!
*(author’s note: Ed was in the army, and no, he did not say @#%!$*&. The letter count has not been changed for the linguistically curious. Clue: it was a gerund.)*
Eric: (Long pause – he has no axe or fire spells) I run away.
Ed: (Thoroughly frustrated) It’s too late. You’ve awakened the gazebo, and it catches you and eats you.
Eric: (Reaching for his dice) Maybe I’ll roll up a fire-using mage so I can avenge my paladin…
At this point, the increasingly amused fellow party members restored a modicum of order by explaining what a gazebo is. This is solely an afterthought, of course, but Eric is doubly lucky that the gazebo was not situated on a grassy knoll.
Thanks for posting that up. I was aware of the punchline effect, but not the anecdote-grade story behind it!
I look forward to any opportunity to further knowledge of the history behind different memes :)
A nice icebreaker before we get into serious business on the next page.
I’m really, really hoping that Max and Deus NEVER get together. I don’t like it when guys don’t take no for an answer, especially when they’re told no multiple times by the same girl. Or person, really, because sleazy guys don’t always chase skirts.
While I agree fully with your statement and sentiment (because that WOULD be rewarding Deus for his “just keep pushing the issue and she’ll give in” approach), I will point out here that it’s not just sleazy guys that don’t take no for an answer. (Be they straight, gay, or bi…)
People tend to put all the focus on men being overly aggressive, portraying them as the only ones who don’t take no for an answer, who need to be taught that “No means no” and “Rape is bad”.
Women can be JUST as bad as men when it comes to things like that. They’re just often brushed off as “going after what they want”, “exercising their sexual liberty”, and so on… or just as bad, the man’s sexuality is called into question because he didn’t want to have sex with her (because as we ALL know, men want it all the time *sarcasm*). So rumors tend to pop up that he must secretly be gay, or impotent, or whatever. If he IS assaulted by a woman, then you not only have those questions (because he didn’t want it) but also his masculinity is questioned because “he couldn’t defend himself against a woman.” (Sorry, but there are a LOT of ways for a woman to overpower or otherwise force a man… a weapon for instance, or if he is weak from an illness, inebriated, smaller than her, at a numerical disadvantage…)
This, by the way, is coming from a man who was sexually assaulted by two older female schoolmates when he was 15 because they wouldn’t take “no” for an answer. And I know MANY other men who have been sexually assaulted by women (including close friends and family).
Similar issues arise when it comes to sexual harassment by women toward men (again, I’ve had it happen to me at multiple jobs and gave up trying to report it after the first time I tried because my manager refused to even fill out the paperwork because, in his words “Nobody’s going to believe a man was sexually harassed by a female co-worker”).
No one was claiming women should get away with it either.
Douchebaggery be douchebaggery, regardless of gender.
I didn’t say anyone was stating that. I simply wanted to point out that the focus of the prior comment was on Deus (which is not unreasonable), and that the issue extends well past guys like him.
Consider, for example, that Dabbler herself is on the page. Interesting question for you… How many of her partners would be inclined from the start to have sex with her, and how many are “persuaded” by her natural succubus glamour? (I.e., how many would want to have sex with her because of WHO she is, and how many end up having sex with her because of WHAT she is?) Now, I’m not stating that she assaults anyone. Dabbler doesn’t strike me as that kind of character, nor does Dave strike me as the kind of person who would write a character who would. But what I am asking is how many are partners of their own free will and how many are influenced by her natural magic. (Which creates a bit of a fuzzy grey area, no matter how much her partners may enjoy the resulting shenanigans.)
Side note: Personally, I like Dabbler as a character. So the question is a technical one rather than any personal objection to her as a character in any way.
Also, other than Math’s constant ogling of many female members of the team… the female characters in general get away with a lot of things that male characters likely wouldn’t. (And, with Math, his hyperactive “teenage boy on a hormone surge” behavior is pretty much written as his Achille’s Heel, no pun intended considering who else is in ARC-SWAT, as he has been beaten in combat because of it.) Let’s also note that the women on the team have, on multiple occasions, used Math’s weakness for women to actively screw with his head as a prank.
Granted, it’s not a traditional workplace… but it still stands that for the most part that much of the stuff that many female characters readily get away with (Harem and Dabbler in particular, but they’re not the only ones) as harmless pranks or joking, would be considered sexual harassment if the men on the team tried similar things. And, in the real world, I’m willing to bet you dollars to donuts that if the male team members were written pulling similar stuff (again, Math is so over-the-top that it’s pretty much a caricature of a stereotype) there would be a LOT of female readers getting fired up over accusations of sexual harassment and misogyny.
Hell, I got booted from an internet-based writer’s group because I shared a link to the comic and said that while some of it might not be to everyone’s liking, I wanted to share what I felt was a very well written web comic. A few of the women decided to raise a ton of drama the moment they got to the bank robbery scene and complained about how Max was drawn and went on… to be honest… fairly predictable hardcore feminist rants. (Predictable in this case being in what they were going to say in said rants.) Rather than just saying “Well, this comic isn’t for me…” and just moving on, they decided instead to have a collective dramaplosion of self-righteous indignation about how certain female characters were drawn.
too bad there’s not an equivalent male hygiene device synonymous with a douche, so that we could call the female equivalent of a douchebag by that particular sobriquet.
Thought a douche was usable by both gender, never knew it was female-only
A douchebag is a douchebag, regardless of which hole it is going in
The problem is that people will keep doing it as long as it continues to be a successful strategy. It doesn’t even have to be the best strategy, just one that works. Though any persistence strategy is going to have more success than one where you give up quickly, unless failure actually is punitive, rather than simply unsuccessful. Yelling at people simply isn’t sufficient deterrent in many cases.
He hasn’t refused to take “no” for an answer. He’s not interested in having sex with her if she doesn’t want to. It would literally not be possible for him to do so, and everyone knows it.
On the other hand, Judging from Dabbler’s expression, Max clearly *is* attracted to him, she just doesn’t like his attitude.
Deus knows she is attracted to him, is conceited in general … and highly self confident about his sexuality, with good reason… and he enjoys tweaking her nose.
If she decides to have sex with him for some reason, that’s her choice. Ain’t nobody’s business but their own.
You going to ignore what really happened with Sci-fright after she got her body back?
Or simply join in the ‘she really did want it’ slash ‘she could have walked away at any time’ stupidity
There is a big difference between being attracted to someone, and wanting to sleep with them
Just like it is possible to find someone beautiful and unattractive at the same time
So what you’re saying is that your knowledge of “what really happened” in a work of fiction is more correct than the author’s own.
*Sydney goes to another bar of similar weight and tries to subtly use hentai orb to assist her with lifting the bar.*
There is nothing subtle about the Molestorb
That look Dabbler is giving Max…
She is SO channeling Sydney at that moment… I’m talking the shape of her face and everything except the glasses.
Now to me it looks like Dabbler oogling Deus as a piece of meat to be devoured, not smirking at Max. And DaveB left Dabbler out of the Who’s Who for this page.
If you notice, Dabbler is standing either right next to, or slightly behind Max.
Max is looking straight forward at Deus when she’s yelling at him.
Dabbler is looking to her hard right, which would mean she’s looking at Max rather than Deus because they’re standing in the same “perspective positions” so far as where their eyes would be focused to look at the same thing.
Is Max ever going to not fall for that?
Probably not. One of Max’s weakness is her short temper, which then clouds her ability to rationally assess situations. The big issue for anyone exploiting it in the wrong situation is they then have to deal with Max attacking them. Dues doing this on a recon/diplomatic mission allows him to reduce her rational senses while being protected by knowing she won’t physically retaliate against him.
Removing this removes a weakness, and outside of catching Max by surprise [like the super in the Alien fight] or overpowering her [like Vehemence in the super brawl], I can’t think of another weakness we have seen for Max. Some may argue her protectiveness over Sydney after leaving her at the Alari homeworld, but Maxima allowed Sydney to perform her duties and only after getting others to safety was she then trying to figure out how to rescue Sydney; this demonstrates her emotions for a subordinate, but not an exploitable weakness as of yet.
I get the feeling that Sydney’s meds have worn off from this page. I’m surprise no character has pointed that out. I’m not sure if that was the goal though.
Never seen anyone do this lift without wrapping their thumbs around the bar.
Not too sure about that nipple placement in panel 3 either.
It is to hold the bar DOWN. The weights are hollow and filled with helium.
If Deus wanted to go ‘full Putin’ in his negotiations, he would have to enter the room shirtless and riding a horse. Although, with his ego he would probably try to top it by being shirtless and carrying the horse.
Lol, that sounds exactly like him!
Someone carrying a horse would thoroughly intimidate me, shirt or no shirt.
COME ON DAVEB, RULE OF THREE!!
military pressed and then military thrown a [i]MILITARY[/i] tank
Not, granted, that we think she’d be doing that to some other kind of tank, like a fish tank, or a septic tank, which would be a really shitty thing to do…
I see your crap pun, and I approve.
I’m amused by how the right half of the last panel sums up 80% of this webcomic.
Not for nothing but the head cannon you have about Africa may need to be updated. Yes some of those kinds of areas still exist in Africa, as well as in the US. But current Africa boasts areas of prosperity, development, infrastructure, stable political situations. (And no, I don’t think Deus orchestrated it.) Google “modern Africa” if you’re interested.
Google ‘modern Zimbabwe’
Doing an images search on ‘landscape mozambique’ it is pretty green and vegetated.
And in fact nobody should be surprised that Deus would pose to seduce anybody, the dude has no shame. He also could be wearing shorts but isn’t and is instead wearing something long, with ironed creases. So yep, it was not only a pose, it was a scrambled one.
Ah, Max, you’ve got to learn when to respond with “Whatever”.
Wonder if the gate that Deus used to go shopping could be tracked somehow (energy signatur from the knifey-knife) by those nice giant robot/cyborg spoctapuses from Halos space adventure…… hmm mhhh could be trouble
Only if they could track Sidney to The Fracture, since Deus never went to the Alari planet
For those not offhandedly familiar with antiquated weights and measures, 225 lb = ~102 kg and 315 lb = ~143 kg.
Actually, him being in Not America, I would expect the weights to be in kilos — so he’d probably have 20 kg plates, not 45 lbs. Of course, me being the long-distance runner and excruciatingly not the gym rat, what the bleep do I know? Maybe pounds is the universal weightlifter measurement.
… I can’t believe I’m the first person to suggest that.
He has both: if you look closely at panel two, you can read KGS on the bottom and LBS on the top
So he does: 20.4 kg, which is indeed the equivalent of 45 lb (to within quoted precision). That at least explains why the standard plate is 45 lb, rather than the somewhat less conversion-convenient 50 lb (22.7 kg).
To be honest, I hadn’t really checked which units Deus’s kit was labelled in. I was simply taking the figures from DaveB‘s commentary, and running the maths on those.