Grrl Power #1042 – A pelvic victory
As I was drawing this page, it occurred to me it’s really weird that they didn’t introduce themselves before the fight. Anytime supers are going to have an exhibition match, there would definitely have to be a discussion about power levels and everyone’s ability to take a hit. Anvil can stop a runaway dumptruck no problem, but she couldn’t catch a dumptruck thrown off a building, well, at least until she’d stopped a few runaway dumptrucks first. She doesn’t handle blades or energy attacks very well either. That sort of stuff definitely needs to be hammered out before supers throw down.
Anyway, it seems reasonable that you’d probably shake hands and say hi at some point in that discussion. But then maybe blue and black hair there was like “You’re both strong and don’t have to worry about blunt force trauma. Have at it!”
The Huricanrana. It’s basically a Frankensteiner where your opponent cooperates by using you as nunchucks before you throw them. Some of the less obviously carefully choreographed moves in the Frankensteiner video look pretty cool, especially the ones where the thrower comes in at an angle and tosses the person sideways, but anyone attempting that shit in a street fight would definitely die. I’ve always thought professional wrestling was incredibly childish (except when I was a child, I suppose) especially all the scripted drama and macho boasting, but that doesn’t mean there aren’t some cool looking moves, however impractical. Almost everything they do involves the opponent cooperating, meaning very little would translate into actual fighting prowess. Unless… one or more parties had moderate super strength and/or agility. Then a whole new world of possibilities opens up.
I think it would be cool to see a really well considered super fight. The action in Marvel movies is pretty good, but there are still things like Strong Guy 1 stepping on Strong Guy 2, trying to crush him into the ground, and that makes no sense. Sure, maybe they both weigh a bit more than the average human, but if we’ve seen SG2 throw a bus, how is the weight of SG1 even affecting him? Just because he’s strong, it doesn’t mean he can push down harder. The Hulk can push down exactly as much as he weighs, and no more. Okay, he can stomp down and add some velocity to it, but it’s going to make him jump into the air. I just think it’d be cool to see a fight were all that stuff is taken into account. Any maybe cap it off with some sort of atomic Huricanrana.
April Vote Incentive is up! Looks like someone had better make sure their life insurance includes acts of Snu Snu.
Alternate versions over at Patreon include less cloth-y versions as usual, but also some of those color changing chokers.
Her shirt, since no one has figured out the kanji yet, says “I ahegao you. (As long as you ahegao me.)”
Edit: I updated the no-tanline nude version that was missing the tattoos, so grab that if you need.
Double res version will be posted over at Patreon. Feel free to contribute as much as you like.
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Okay, that’s enough flirting. :D
Never. More flirting. Eternal flirt. >:D
pfp checks out
And pay mind that there is to be no flirting in a highly populated urban environment…
And there is to be no super-flirting in a highly-populated urban environment or repairs are coming out of YOUR paycheck.
Standard Supers courtship
In panel 2, the profile of the lady on the left reminds me of May Day from James Bond.
I thought the visage looked familiar!
I had wondered too glad I wasn’t the only one!
a fight between super strength heroes serious about their craft would be really really fast. once a mechanical or physical advantage is found it is brutally exploited. this was a sparing match.
that being said- I like the shot of him looking up at her with the hair all around. that’s neat. do supers sweat?
I assume they do, but the lower limit to start sweating for physical heroes is probably a lot higher.
And Heatwave, probably hardly at all.
Is Kito’s hand backwards in the last frame? Or did Kenya walk around him between frames, so she’s now at his feet-end facing his head-end, the better to hike him up?
She’s also the wrong way up in his viewpoint shot – the way he’s shown lying in panel 9, her face should be nearer his feet than her crotch is.
Nope. Her right hand is shaking his left in an anatomically correct way. I wouldn’t suggest she help him up from that angle though.
If she did she’d be letting him know her intentions! lol
Apologies if this comes out as a double post, but:
Is Kito’s hand backwards in the last frame? Or did Kenya stand up and walk round him, the better to pull him to his feet?
Panel 7 is supposed to represent her beating the Earth with him several times before they stop.
Trying to pull him up from the position in the penultimate panel would not work, so I think it is obvious she changed her position.
Lifting the man onto his feet makes sense. Lifting him onto his head really does not. So between the last two panels, she stood up and stepped around to his feet, before offering her hand and name.
Nope, they’re good. Both are their right hands.
Both right hands – in a position that wouldn’t be feasible if she were still squatting over his head. Implying that she has moved between panels.
And that’s why strong characters, imo:
1 should allways aim their strikes up or down. You either launch them far eoungh or the ground thoes half the job
2 should have either gravity induce stability/flight or 0point telekinesis like max.
Daniel here. Yeah, letting the ground below your feel compensate for the lack of actual mass you have would be a smart move if you don’t have any other way to do so. And if you aim up, you could send a flightless opponent airborne, removing their ability to fight back basically. Plus if you time it right & anchor your feet right, you might get bonus points by hitting them again before they hit the ground again…
Maxima was almost right, since Anvil grabbed him between her ankles, not her thighs. But who knows, the day is not over yet ;)
Well – it’s obvious where Kito’s looking (we already knew that), but Kenya’s no different… his eyes are… well, not there.
I’ve got me right where you want me. Sounds about right.
I’m guessing his actual super power is luck. :)
That’s not an actual superpower. And totally not cinematic!
Correction – in some series luck is a superpower, and a pretty effective and cinematic one at that.
Is that an intentional Deadpool 2 reference? Because if so… you get an internet cookie.
If not, and that is a serious take, I suggest you watch Deadpool 2 before making that statement, because… well… I mean, if they set up a Chekhov’s Comment like that, there’s gotta be a payoff. And there is. And it is… well, it is certainly cinematic.
Sometimes it’s a mixed blessing
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Stan_Lee's_Lucky_Man
That… was not the real Domino
It’s like an inverse image of the real Domino
Hm. New idea for superpower: short-range instinct override.
You can just go full-on wrestlemania on people, and it works because you’re basically mind-controlling them into cooperating, by overwriting their combat reflexes with your own custom-modded ones.
Vehemence already does the mind-control into cooperating bit, apparently by flipping the bits of what is social vs anti-social behavior.
If someone doesn’t have the proper durability/other secondary attribute, the modder could really hurt them by overwriting their normal responses.
If his nickname is the Hammer, then we can say she Brought the Hammer Down.
Is the hammer his penis?
I think that hammer was raised up
That was a “Dr. Horrible’s Sing-a-long blog” reference from Captain Hammer wasn’t it?
Yes it was. :D
The hammer didn’t pound the anvil. Not yet anyway.
Funny how you can say “things like Strong Guy 1 stepping on Strong Guy 2, trying to crush him into the ground, and that makes no sense”, having created Stalwart, and then not even mention him, or that you found a way to justify such a scene.
Unless your goal was to encourage someone else to bring him up for you. Happy to oblige.
Stalwart CAN push down harder though, by way of increasing his weight to do so. Most super strength characters *do not* have that ability.
Yep – Stalwart can weight as much as the Space Shuttle, if not more.
That was exactly my point. Was that not clear?
It sounded more like an accusation of hypocrisy to me, so no it wasn’t clear. Tone on the internet is a bitch.
Anyway, Stalwart’s power is not exactly strength, it seems to me to be density. The strength is a side-effect.
I read it as thinking Dave had made an oversight in pointing out the physics issues, when he himself had invented a character that counters that very issue. I see now it was more of an observation that Stalwart could have been part of that discussion.
Stalwart’s power would be impossible to use if it didn’t come with some form of super-strength increasing density increases mass which would make moving and stopping very difficult due to the Newton’s law of motion unless he could render himself inertia-less which would mean he could move at almost the speed of light…. ok my head hurts I’ll stop LOL!! I’ll let Dave dwell in that mire applying logic to a superhero comic is foolhardy at best ;)
I can’t decide if he lost or won there.
Lost this battle but it may count as a strategic win in the long run.
Klingon dating rituals.
They probably did introduce themselves by their code names before the match, but they are buddies now. =)
That’s what we were thinking…
“Hey. You’ve been staring for a bit. You can call me Anvil…”
“Uh….. oh…….. um……… [mahogany forklift]…”
“Well [forklift], you seem pretty strong, and I’m getting bored with arm wrestling, wanna do an exhibition match? Strength Vs strength?”
“Um, yeah, sure…”
“You don’t have any extra powers I need to know about do you? Laser cutter eyes? Plasma blades? Turns into soup when punched too hard?”
“No, no not at all…”
“Well I got [lists unclassified powers]…”
“Yeah, I got [rattles off his powers. All of them?]”
“Alright, lets get this show on the road…”
I think they’re giving actual names now cause they respect each other enough now…
Gonna pipe in here as a former fan of pro wrestling (who has also gone to many matches with seats in the first three rows) to say that if you’ve watched any of the documentaries about wrestling, or even really paid attention to it, that the matches are more “staged” than “fake”. By that I mean who is going to win with what move and the general timeline of the match is planned out… but none of it is actually rehearsed in advance.
Yes, they’re pulling their punches (somewhat) and one of the first things you learn as a wrestler is how to fall properly and roll with a hit/kick to minimize any damage. But when you can see the wrestlers in the middle of a match from five feet away, you get a pretty good view of some of the actual bumps and bruises they’re getting. And speaking as someone who has done stage combat before, I can vouch for the fact that if you’re off by so much as an inch with your shot you can make real contact and throw off the tempo. (I was in one play where the first blow in a fight was mis-timed slightly and we were off balance enough that virtually every hit after that was making some contact.)
So I would say that yes, wrestlers are trained to fight. But what they’re doing in the ring is more akin to a full contact sparring match rather than a full-on fight. They’re not trying to seriously hurt one another. I wouldn’t want to go against someone like Kevin Nash, Dwayne Johnson, “Stone Cold” Steve Austin, or John Cena in a real fight because they could tear you apart with the moves they learn… and if you’re not cooperating by moving with what they’re doing it’s going to hurt more. (Much like in Aikido, the more you resist the move, the more it hurts and the more likely your shoulder or wrist will get dislocated or you end up with torn tendons.)
That doesn’t mean someone with a black belt (or higher rank), or a frequent hard-core bar brawler couldn’t beat them. More that there’s a huge difference between pro wrestling and stage fighting. (For one, wrestlers don’t have time to rehearse their matches, The best they have is a timeline they learn right before the match, and signals they give each other.)
The first art I studied* was a traditional Chinese art, and our primary training method was much like professional wrestling. We would partner up and take turns attacking each other. The defender would deliver strikes & kicks and/or joint locks and throws, usually ending with a stomp. The strikes were pulled, the joint locks rarely applied full speed and power, and the throws for real, like judo. The attacker reacts as though they were feeling the impact, or going with the grappling as you describe. I had to use heavy bags and wooden dummies to practice strikes. Can’t practice elbow against throats for real, after all. Fencers don’t really stab each other, and soldiers don’t actually shoot each other for practice.
Supers would presumably have higher standards – “Hit me as hard as a baseball bat, but not a cannon.”
It occurred to me much later that pro wrestling was much like that, although they were focused on entertaining and we on street fighting. Considering also that the wrestlers are often rough boys and girls and the males were at least 100 pounds heavier, I’m glad I never had to test myself against one of them.
I train in escrima now, which is more old man friendly.
* 46 years ago! Crap. If you want to see some of their training, look up “kung fu san soo” on Youtube.
Yeah. I’m getting a bit long in the tooth myself (and if you get that saying, we’re likely not too far apart in age).
I took Aikido when I was younger, and we had to be careful when sparring. Later in life I took Tang Soo Do, until my sensei actually told me to stop taking martial arts. Not for my health or safety, but because during a belt test day I was just participating in (not testing) as a white belt she saw that I was holding back some of my reflex moves and stopping myself from following through unconsciously. She had me team with another guy against the top student in the class for two minutes of upright fighting, then he was supposed to take her to the mat for another minute. He couldn’t get past her guard. My sensei got an odd look in her eye and told me “Get her…” like commanding an attack dog. I went blank and next thing I know I had her on the ground and tied up in her own gi restrained with my arms and legs with a textbook jiu-jutsu gi chokehold. (I’ve never taken any other martial arts but those two.)
I asked her why she wanted me to stop taking martial arts and she explained what she was seeing. Also that I was reflexively pulling off moves from about a half dozen martial arts she knew I’d never studied. Basically, her hypothesis was that with me being on the Autism Spectrum… and having watched so many martial arts and action movies, along with pro-wrestling (apparently I had taken down the top student with a Goldberg Spear without knowing I’d done it)… that my brain just stored the info and the techniques unconsciously. She said that also probably explained why I go so frustrated and such when I was trying to train like everyone else in class, but whenever she saw me act on reflex I was a natural because my conscious brain basically got out of my way of what my reflexes knew what to do. (E.g., one of the moves she saw me do while sparring during the belt test and pointed out to me was take a kick to the ribs and trap the guy’s knee, but stop myself as I’d just about started to spin the leg with a strike to the knee, open hand already cocked back… which would have crippled him.)
Even then, I’d not want to take on a more experienced and trained martial artist or a pro wrestler in a fight either. Partly due to my age these days, and partly because I probably have about 10 minutes of hard fighting left in me and after that I’m done. (My knees are a mess, my back is bad, and I have a titanium plate in my neck. If someone could avoid me being able to grapple them… I wouldn’t last long.)
To be honest it sounds more like your advantage was instant aggression and doing moves that werent being taught,Combine that with any degree of strength and most students in modern martial arts will fold like wet cardboard,Most people when instantly rushed freeze up and panic for a second forgetting everything they learn.In my old judo classes I pulled this alot which embarrassed a lot of alleged blackbelts when i was far farrrr from having such a belt myself =).
Also I think the teacher was less saying they cant teach you how to fight properly and more saying that they cant risk the lawsuits keeping someone like you in the class would entail (As you might randomly blank out and break someones neck mimicing something you saw on tv).Still an interesting story though.
She said part of it would basically interfere with what my body and subconscious reflexes already knew. (It’s like trying to put two competing types of software on the same computer and run them at the same time… like two AV programs… as they will interfere with one another and neither will run right anymore.)
Part of it, yes, was that she was concerned that something might cause me to not hold back in sparring and seriously hurt someone. Like if someone rabbit punched me I’d be more likely to react to it as a legitimate threat rather than sparring and remove all restraints without much to keep my response in check until the threat was neutralized.
And I do agree with the “instant aggression” aspect. Having someone who’s 6’5″ and about 275lbs suddenly explode at you from 0-60 in a heartbeat will cause most people’s hearts to miss a beat or two and their brain to lock up for a moment. Particularly as guys my size tend to be seen as “lumbering but strong” rather than “HOLY HELL A MAC TRUCK AT 120MPH IS ABOUT TO PLOW INTO ME!! WHERE DID THAT COME FROM?!?!?” (I’ve surprised a number of people with how fast I can move when I need to or when it’s a reflexive action. I just rarely feel the need to move that fast. Adrenaline helps too when it comes to a quick jump off the starting line.)
As I’ve mentioned as well (I believe), I’m more of a “grappler” type than a “boxer” or “agility” type. I used to wrestle my friends all the time in high school, some of them bigger than me (surprisingly enough), and none of them could ever pin me. If you can keep me from getting my hands on you, you’re much more likely to win… but I’m also willing to accept a broken rib or two just so I can trap and blow out a knee if it comes to it. (Keep me at range, you’ll have better odds. Get in my solid grab range, and I’ll more likely win.)
Have you guys been watching Young Rock? It’s actually pretty funny, although we already knew that Dwayne has good comedy chops.
The latest episode when 10yo Dewey has a heart-to-heart talk with Andre the Giant, is pretty sweet.
Yeah, it’s choreographed before the event (the show “Heels” gives a decent behind-the-scenes look at how things are done), but they still get hit, and they can still get hurt when shit goes wrong on the night
This is fairly obvious to anyone who isn’t a kid or a dim witted adult taken in by the kayfabe. Yes, they are trained to make things look real, and yes as the entertainment media has grown so has the skill and the athleticism of the wrestlers. Anyone watching them stomp the mat to make a sound effect when they throw a ‘punch’ should be able to see that while this is an entertainment medium which requires some talent to pull off, it is still a fake fight being put on for entertainment value only. Or, if you’re cynical, to sucker the suckers.
When I was a kid most ‘pro wrestlers’ were just big men. Sure they were strong, that went with being big men. But that was about all they had going on. Only a very few ‘pro wrestlers’ were very athletic, as compared to today. There were plenty of fat and fairly out of shape ‘pro wrestlers.’ Andre the Giant was huge, and no doubt stronger than any normal man. But his gigantism condition gave him health issues which made it impossible for him to be involved in any real wrestling. His ‘pro wrestling’ opponents had to be made aware of his condition and take it easy on him in order for him to not be injured in the course of a normal match.
In these more modern times ‘pro wrestlers’ are far more athletic. They are typically body builder or weight trainer types. If they are not cut it is because they are more power lifters than body builder types. But they are still legitimately athletic. And the kayfabe in the ring has become much more complex.
I wonder if Sydney and Dabbler happen to witness this….!?
I doubt it they are both inside dealing with Deus while this was happening and I doubt Max would care since it was a sparing match
I think Kito won… just saying. Also don’t think to hard about why i said it.
On the topic of naming themselves before a fight, in this sort of brawl it’s hard to be sure that you wouldn’t be stepping on someone’s toes by beating them, leading to a grudge-fueled stalker bit villain, which is a plotline that someone like Anvil has probably already had and doesn’t want to repeat. So, especially when it comes to personal details, it might be best to not bring it up until after you’re sure that they’re cool.
Given their positions in the second to last panel, I can see why he’s satisfied with the outcome…
There are some exceptions that get noted in the comics: Juggernaut’s power of unstoppable motion, granted by Cytorrak, defies the laws of physics. So if he starts his foot moving down onto your chest, it’s the power of Cytorrak you’re working against the stop it, not the power of gravity. Blob can manipulate his mass to increase his weight, so he could make himself heavier and thus harder to lift. Superman and his partial clone Superboy have tactile telekinesis (they can use mental force to influence objects they are touching and their own bodies); in fact, it’s the only power Superboy initially has. It’s shown somewhat in the Man of Steel and Justice League movies (when the ground ripples around Superman before he lifts off, and when he flies supporting an apartment building when he should just tear through it, since its weight wouldn’t be able to be supported on two points the size of his hands).
But generally, yeah, cinematic fights (and some comic fights) do ignore the effects of super strength on a fight.
The secret to defeat to defeat Juggernaught is Judo. Don’t fight his unstoppable motion, use it to throw him further along into a vulcano
It can be assumed that any “flying brick” has a way of imparting extra force into their stomps as well- even if Supes didn’t have tactile TK, he can accelerate at a RIDICULOUS rate with his flight, which means that it can impart plenty of ‘push away’ force.
Superman and Supergirl do not use telekinesis exactly. They have what’s called a Kryptonian biomatrix field, which basically covers every cell of their body when supplied with the right type of sunlight (like a solar battery). Red only gives enough for the equivalent of human level strength, orange is about half of what he has on Earth, yellow is… well… earth, blue is triple his normal strength on Earth, and white is too much to control, sort of like when Supergirl was on a planet with three suns and didnt realize how suped up she was until she grabbed Rand and Green Lantern to escape from some hawkmen and didnt realize she had flown around the planet multiple times (knocking all the Hawkmen around from just the air pressure wake of her speed as she kept flying PAST them) until GL pointed it out to her.
When Cadmus (and Lex Luthor specifically) cloned Superman to make Kon-El (Superboy) they could not duplicate many of Superman’s powers exactly, because of … well… physics. Also because Kryptonian DNA is a pain in the neck to clone (unless you’re Dr. Sivana, who seems to be able to do it just fine when he cloned Power Girl with ‘Divine’).
So they fixed the problem of physics getting in the way of Superboy’s superstrength and a way to augment his toughness into actual invulnerability by giving him tactile telekiensis to ‘simulate’ the Kryptonian biomatrix. On the plus side, it’s not dependent on solar radiation. On the negative side, it’s not nearly as powerful as the biomatrix. Also he needed to have special visors for some of Superman’s other powers, like X-ray vision and heat vision, which were almost never used.
Another factor can be speed. The faster something impacts, the more it’s going to hurt. (And the more it requires the necessary second powers to use, such as durability.)
So speedsters can probably really hurt if they choose to stomp. Someone like Diana or Superman, whose powers in practice can combine speed and strength, can really hurt someone if they choose to.
I don’t even want to think about what Maxima could do with a 50/50 speed/strength split of her power pool.
Why split 50/50? She can respec at will and has super speed and thinking. Go 100% speed until the last instant, then 100% strength on top of all that inertia.
I’m a little surprised that she didn’t go for a full body grapple to finish just for the excuse of getting a close and feely. Would have been the perfect excuse for it.
Right, she did mention a birthmark.
As for betting, Alari hipster boy is not wrong. It’s all well and good to cheer for your buddy but betting just for moral support can get expensive real fast.
Looks like neither one lost there.
Kenya uses Pelvic Sorcery. It’s super effective.
Thing is, a serious Superstrength fight would be grappling. If you’re tougher than steel or concrete and strong enough to break through either with your bare hands, then the object you want the opponent impacting is YOU.
So serious superbrawler fights would look a LOT like high level Olympic wrestling- not even Judo or Aikido, because those are more about momentum and throwing. It’s going to be each super trying to get the other into a joint lock or use the leverage of their own body to compress, overextend, or fracture the other guy’s body. At certain levels of superstrength/durability, punching someone through a building is the equivalent of dropping them gently into a crate full of potato chips.
Honestly, someone with superstrength getting their hands on you basically means the fight is over, unless you have something (like Parasite or the Human Torch) that makes touching you dangerous- and even then that depends on the super being a ‘don’t kill/injure’ type, instead of someone who’d just tear off your arm or crush your windpipe and call it a day.
The training version of that happened in https://www.grrlpowercomic.com/archives/comic/grrl-power-972-warmups-over/ between Vehemence and Hiro.
Even Dabbler got bored after a while.
Then it was Max’s turn.
The blurb’s reminded me of pet peeves of mine: why would someone with high resistance to, or the ability to absorb kinetic energy be weak to blades/piercing weapons? All they do is concentrate kinetic energy into a smaller surface area for greater effect with the same energy for greater effect. It’s the same energy in a smaller area.
You’re halfway to answering your own question.
Dave, you say Kenya couldn’t catch a dumptruck thrown off a building, but couldn’t she EFFECTIVELY do so simply by standing where it’s going to land? Absorbing the kinetic energy from it means it’s going to stop moving. Maybe she couldn’t at that point proceed to carry it around, but nothing’s going to be damaged by it.
I was wondering about that point as well. I’m guessing she could catch the truck and bring it to a sudden dead stop over her head, absorbing all the kinetic energy. But then she’s left holding a stationary dump truck over her head, without enough power to actually hold something that heavy, and gravity proceeds to pull the truck down to the ground as usual.
Maybe launching herself into it inertia and kinetic energy is two different things she could cancel the impact but she’d have to either redirect the energy back or muscle the truck to a stop. Either way the truck is junked and anything on the ground below would be pelted with shrapnel mixed with bigger chunks. Max could cancel both effects and save the truck as could Sydney with her lighthook but with damage.
About the late introduction. You could spin it so that Kito and Kenya have introduced themself with ther hero name at the beginning, and giving your real name might be some way to show respect.
I’ve noticed a lot of the things DB says “oops” about have these kind of fridge logic explanations. When you think about it, there’s a perfectly rational/logical/emotional reason for whatever happened to happen (or not), but like in the real world, you don’t think of why it subconsciously made sense of the time. You have to pick it apart and analyze it to realize, “oh right, that’s why it works.”
I’ve seen a pattern in some superhero genre stuff that this actually could fit into.
Before their first sparing match, they exchange their superhero names (assuming they don’t already know each other’s superhero names and know the other knows). After the match, if they enjoyed the fight and want to get to know the other person better, they exchange their personal names.
Which basically tells me that you’ve kind of confirmed my ship. ;)
Anvil has the convenient ability to build up kinetic energy by simply clapping or punching her palm anyone not knowing that would get one heck of a punch from her so if she’s stomping her way towards you while doing that you best run or start praying she’s about to knock you through a wall lol!
Just the air drag when flying at supersonic speeds with a superflyer should provide a huge charge. A good way to power up on the way to a battle.
I don’t think she can do that, although I can recall anything definitive Dave has written about it. Obviously the laws of physics preclude free energy, but even in a superpower context it would be totally OP for her to be able to power herself up geometrically. At best the energy taken to swing one arm would be transferred perfectly to the other, no net gain.
She absorbs kinetic energy while her strength is separate or enhanced by releasing the energy. If she isn’t using the energy only absorbing it then any impact would generate more. Anvil does have a good control of the collection and release of energy yeah she wouldn’t gain a lot from doing that but if she’s getting low and no one’s trying to punch her than yeah easy way to build up some.
Picture this: she’s been fighting a super villain both are near exhausted he’s trying to escape she needs to land one more blow to knock him out/down so she speed runs after him stomping the whole way then uses what energy she has to launch herself for a flying double-fisted punch into the back of his head knocking him out cold and a sliding stop on the pavement face first. Anvil can barely stand but remains over the baddie calling backup.
I do love the ‘the purpose of betting is to win’ line there, reminds me of that episode of Stargate: SG1 where O’Neil’s explaining the difference between a staff weapon and a P90.
Also obviously they introduced themselves by their super names first and now that they’ve gotten the fight out of the way (which in New Universal the murderous black ops organization’s leader whose purpose was murdering supers was described as mating displays) they traded their real names as a show of respect.
“Just because he’s strong, it doesn’t mean he can push down harder.” If someone is on the ground and a super strength attacker is putting blows on them while SG1 is on the ground this could be similar to compression physics in explosions. Et al if you put a pound of black powder on the ground and blow it up it’s fine, but put it in a box it’s got a better concussive blast. Bury that box in the dirt like a mine and you quadruple the explosive potential. In this case the booted leg of SG2 is getting more potential damage returned because SG1 can’t move and is on ground, especially if concrete or water the immediate applied force would reflect back slightly before they get pushed into a crater. Maybe it won’t add extra damage because the SG1 can soak up that much already but the physics is sound. Whereas just kicking them gets a slight amount of ability to bleed off damage by being able to fly off from the kick? I hope this made sense to someone.
Idea for the least impressive yet arguably most useful powerset: Super Average: Physically, you are *exactly* average, for the planet/your species/whatever: Hypothetical: Lightbub with the power to shoot laser beams, at say 10 billion watts. Only person on the planet capable of shooting laser beams. Now, the moment Lightbub first unlocks/uses his power, Super Average Person gains the ability to shoot laser beams at a bit over 1 watt, 10 billion divided by the number of people on the planet. Absolutely useless, but with precise enough monitoring equipment, can track when a new, powerful super emerges, or at least hint that one has done so, before they make headlines.
There’s a manga called I Said Make My Abilities Average! where the female protagonist dies and is reborn in another universe after a god there gives her the opportunity and having not been happy being bothered by people in her previous life because she was so spectacular she asked to be made average in her new life. Great except she didn’t specify average what. Average human? Average being? Average of all life? So she found out she was terrifyingly above average when your average pool includes elder dragons and super-super heavyweight creatures and beings.
DaveB…your supposition about superguys stomping down on each other has at least one flaw: Maxima has touch-based telekinesis. She can lift an ambulance perfectly levelly just by lifting up on one side. She can definitely stomp down with more force than the weight of her body (even accounting for the fact said body is metal-plated).
More Maxima has flight powers which we’ve seen in her battle against Vehemance using to anchor herself in place, she could use the same powers to simply anchor herself so her stomping on someone doesn’t suffer from being lifted away from the target from her very effort of trying to step on it hard.
To echo and expand on Deus’ comment a few strips back… no super’s powers are all just one thing. He specifically implied that no super’s powers can injure that super just from them using them (which isn’t QUITE correct, even ignoring the superwisdom lie), but didn’t mention the hidden, secondary, effects.
Take Anvil for example – she supposedly absorbs kinetic energy. Well, yes and no, and there are other things which don’t effect her (or which are also absorbed) even though they aren’t actually kinetic energy. She appears to absorb DIRECTLY APPLIED kinetic energy, but not potential (she couldn’t be lifted or thrown, otherwise). And in the last strip, panels 2 and 3, she absorbs momentum (which isn’t kinetic energy; I checked) – otherwise that dead stop would have flipped her head-over-heels by soaking the impact but not the vector of motion.
So Deus IS partially correct, though still lying in his teeth… which is exactly what I’d expect (unless he actually believes he is superwise – sorry, Deus, being immune to the insanity-inducing effects of superintelligence doesn’t make you wise, too).
Smart as he is, or claims to be, without the power to know all about the thing just by thinking about the thing, Deus is as likely as anyone to miss all the little pieces that go into effective superpowers, from why a specific super can do X but not why, to all the necessary secondary powers that have to be packaged with a primary power for it to be used effectively. Also any drawbacks having a properly crafted package. (i.e., so many creators never think about what a hyperactive kill all the things immune system would mean for a woman.)
I’d think that it would be understandable if they introduced themselves with their codenames(i.e Anvil) and now that they’ve fought they’re getting more personal
Through clever planning, and shrewd strategizing you now have her right where you want her.
I hate to be That Guy (not really ) but in the stinger “were” should be “where”.