Grrl Power #1058 – Firehaboob
I wanted the sound effect on that explosion to be reminiscent of those concussion fireworks, the ones that just boom without any razzle dazzle. Honestly those are my favorite, but I’ve always enjoyed joint rattling bass. Generally when those go off, there’s the “sound getting to you” delay, then there’s the echo of the sound that went in every direction but toward you deflecting off all the buildings and whatnot nearby. Unfortunately I decided that “BOOM-waboo-boo-whoom” took up too much space and might not have been quite as evocative as I had hoped. So it’s just “BOOM,” so you’ll have to imagine the cool delayed echo yourself.
Incidentally, a little googling indicates that concussion fireworks are roughly as loud as flashbang grenades, coming in at 170-175 db, but there’s got to be some factor that differentiates a flahsbang from a massive air burst concussion that feels like someone opened a door in your face from half a mile away. It’s got to be frequency? It displaces far more air but at a slightly slower rate, so it’s lower but also thumpier. I can’t help but imagine if you set of a concussion firework in a house before your SWAT team ran in, I don’t think they’d have to actually run in, cause all the walls of the house would shatter and the contents of the house would be flung onto the lawn. I assume the prior occupants would have collapsed organs and be spitting up bone marrow.
If you have waist length hair, you’ve got some hair ties in your pocket or purse. Anvil left her clutch at home this trip I guess. That or the gale force winds already ripped all her sprungy band right out of her hair.
I guess Max decided “If [Darude] is aware of my presence…” wasn’t sufficient, so she announced herself.
Terre and Kito are under the impression that Super powers increase with experience and use, which is generally true, but some people start at a higher power level than others, and some people cap out at certain levels. Even Deus isn’t sure if these are hard limits or if like the very top end of athletic competitions, there are other genetic factors determining the absolute zenith. Like, anyone can be a bodybuilder, but even with equal access to nutrition and weights, only some people have the genes to really maximize and hold on to those gains. Likewise, anyone can run, I mean, barring a fucked up ankle that never healed right or like, if there’s something wrong with your spine… okay, most people can run, but only one guy is going to be the absolute fastest, and a different guy is going to be the most long distancy, and neither of those guys are going dominate at the hurdles. Some of it is genetic, and at some point, you need to make choices about specialization. Energy Blasteroid Man might be able to train up to match Maxima’s destructive power, but he’s probably going to be sacrificing range or beam versatility or the size of his energy tank or something. But superpowers are still too new to know for certain.
The June Vote Incentive is up! What’s that dripping down Sydney’s face? Uh… well, actually, clicking on the link won’t actually give it away necessarily, cause the thumbnail is from one of the, er, advanced pictures in the series, if you take my meaning. Yes, I mean there is a nude version of Sydney (and guest) over at the Patreon version.
Double res version will be posted over at Patreon. Feel free to contribute as much as you like.
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Also, figuring out power stunts does take some time and practice. Or a least an impressive knowledge of the genre so you know what sort of tricks you want to try and replicate.
I figure control is going to be the biggest improvement from experience. And that matters when you’re going against another super with an overlapping power set such as sand-kinetic vs geo-kinetic.
Yup on fireworks. Thats one of the reasons I enjoyed Expo 86 so much- the nightly closing combo music/fireworks show standing down in the concussion zone feeling the music and concussion pulsing through your bones. :)
“I guess Max decided “If [Darude] is aware of my presence…” wasn’t sufficient, so she announced herself.”
It appears she’s moved directly to the “draw Darude away from the city” stage things, and that won’t work if she hasn’t been noticed.
I’ve seen the results of a flashbang in a small room…first you say it then you do it, but I don’t think the occupants had time to say anything before they did it. All it usually took from then on was to mention using one where it could be heard behind the barricade and the standoff ended immediately.
I’m kind of surprised the boom was located over there. I’d assume the problem with using energy blasts on Daurude is that he’s so dispersed you can’t do more than poke tiny holes.
So she goes with a concussive blast, but it ought to be doing that along its whole length, like a lightning strike, so the sound should be more like thunder, I would think. Because it’s not striking a solid surface.
As for the first part… if you remember what she did to the tank at the demonstration, it looked like she has some after-launch control of her toys. Delayed explosion at least, or maybe even something finer.
seems like if the beam connects with anything, she can choose to cause an explosion at that point
im really hoping for a multi-mini-splosion chain since this first shot will obviously do nothing more than make him prioritize her over the civvies
She actually threw a fireball at the press conference, not a beam like we see here or with the Fel ship. My take was that this explosion is a second shot, not a detonation of the first one.
I’m assuming the beam propagates at something approximating the speed of light, (Like a lightning bolt.) deposits its energy along the path of propagation, (Again, like a lightning bolt.) and the the deposited energy causes a linear explosion along the line of propagation. Yup, just like a lightning bolt.
This is rather more visible where the beam is going through Darude, because there’s sand in the air being heated to incandescence, while the air outside of him is just air, with much less tendency to glow when hot.
That is, I think, generally how particle beam weapons tended to act in practice, the very few times they’ve been experimentally tested.
She doesn’t just use a beam though – at the press conference finale, she built and threw a ball of energy, which melted through a tank, and then gathered more power over several seconds before actually detonating. It’s not clear to me if her beam vs fireball are discrete attacks, or exist on the same sliding scale.
One of my friends is a pyrotechnician, and she says one of their biggest fears is a report round falling into the crowd before it explodes. They’re like a flashbang on steroids, except they can literally kill you just from spraying debris at someone.
Also maybe Darude has a way of making the sandstorm carry sounds and call Max out.
I do believe the sound effect you are looking for when it detonated would be VLADADABAUUUUM
I still cannot help chuckling at the thought of the sandstorm guy being codenamed Darude.
In the flash bang vs concussion fireworks thing, i imagine that the difference is in volume displaced by the explosive, so gas volume after combustion, and maybe the explosion velocity. Shockwave velocity should be constant at the speed of sound, but the original explosion could for a short while travel faster depending in th explosive i imagine, and that how much faster has an impact.
I have waist length hair, and wear a jacket over it. There are more solutions to read life problems than most people think.
In this sort of a sand & wind storm, I’m expecting All Of The Wardrobe Malfunctions. I like your clever idea of the jacket over the hair, but this situation will probably end up ripping and displacing almost any & all clothing exposed. Kenya really needs a piece of sturdy rope more than anything else. And, technically, with her superpower of absorbing momentum/energy/etc., she should be at an advantage. Her body should be absorbing the kinetic energy of her hair whipping around, so it should be more manageable than what other people are experiencing.
Hmmmmm. It does raise the question: just how many people will be wearing anything (other than scraps of rags) by the time this battle is over? Terre’s top already looks endangered. Could be a funny final panel or three with a lot of people with a lot of skin showing, and Dabbler trying to oggle everyone at once.
Dab would be gaining some energy that way too lol I had mentioned Anvil could build her energy levels by stomping and clapping her hands together as well and many shot it down good luck with that logical comment. Besides it could be a source of power but she’s blinded if she did do it that way it left her open to attack since she can’t see anything.
I am now imagining a baddie talking about how their ship/bunker is impenetrable because it reflects and magnifies any physical or energetic or magical strike against it; cue Anvil raising an eyebrow starting a “We will rock you” that the whole team joins in on; baddie thinks it’s a starlord-esque dance-off distraction and panics, checking their sensors for threats, when in reality it’s just Anvil cheesing an infinite feedback loop until the bunker fails (baddie never put sensors on hull integrity because ‘it’s invincible’)
Clothing damage is a occupational risk for supers. Luckily they are all very sexy and there will always be some scraps of cloth covering crotches and female nippels.
nope- all three naughty bits types have been exposed, simultaneously even. just not on panel. one can really feel for Hiro, as the gold bits were on full display… as he struggled mightily to not look.
i have … middle back? length hair (never had to describe its length before) and live on a coastline that gets trade winds every year
a jacket isn’t stopping it from whipping you in the face for long couple minutes maybe
and that’s without the shorter bits of hair that don’t even fit in the jacket annoying the crap out of you by constantly hitting you in the face
@Dave I assume your original echo intent was along these lines: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=af4P88bgR2Y
Also, it’s worth noting that most explosives that aren’t for entertainment have a heavier “thump” which gets cut off in recordings. I’ve never been around a true flash grenade, but when I experienced live AT4 & Claymore detonations I needed ear protection from a couple hundred feet back and could feel it. The difficulty is with how different pitches are compressed/filtered during recording (often automatically). Watch any video about suppressors and you won’t hear much difference whether it’s on or off, but the guy shooting clearly knows when he needs ear plugs.
Device intent also matters: I expect a flash-bang is more effective with a higher pitch effect to cause ear ringing.
Being with the observer party directing artillery rounds gives a good experience with the concussion effects.
Sand guy is technically attacking everyone on the battle field at once. So I think this counts as self defense/defense of her team.
Is it an attack if he’s just whipping up a sandstorm? So far he hasn’t done any damage, besides to delicate machines that don’t tend to enjoy sand in their internals.
A sandstorm is very much an attack. He’s sandblasting everything in the area which can blind, choke, rip clothing, strip the skin from your body, etc. Sand accumulation on/around objects can also collapse them when there’s enough of it.
As Nightmask said, yes this is very much an attack. This isn’t sand in a gentle breeze. Sandstorms with higher wind can be very destructive. Ripping apart anything soft like paint, rubber, human flesh, it is a storm of rocks moving like an area wide constant buck shot barrage
Except withdrawing or just sheltering in place under Sydney’s shield are both viable options, so going straight to escalation is a hard sell.
It’s not a hard sell when Darude is previously known as one of TWO people to have been able to fight Maxima to a standstill. There will be complaints, there will be an unbelievable diplomatic furor, the brass WILL be yelling at Maxima behind closed doors — and outside of them they’ll be backing her to the hilt for making the tough but correct call, especially with what they were there for Deus to sell them.
Term for the thumper is Report. Also salutes. Thumper with extra magnesium are another type though.
I doubt that counts as a attack.
As Peggy said in #216: “There are a lot of superpowers that make bullets mostly just annoying.”
With Darude, it might apply to Maximas Beams.
Tom should as Max “I thought you had NO jurisdiction outside your country,what gives?!?”
And Max’s reply should be…?!?
Imminent threat to self, team, and innocent lives via a wide scale and gruesome attack by an enemy showing zero restraint or focus on only military targets.
Yep, that artificial sandstorm is effectively a WMD.
Wind Multiplicative Disaster
would be funny if the sister succubus’s hands were moving downwards.
She’s younger than Sydney…
Mostly just amused they’re still hugging. It’s cathartic I imagine.
Yeah, it doesn’t seem like either of them have any urge to disengage from one another. I mean, MAYBE it’s terror, but Paraphael IS part succubus… and she IS more Syd’s size… just, don’t look down, Syd. You’ll never be free after that…
Even with her hair covering her face, I can see the look of pure exasperation on Ancil’s face.
FFS Max
Ahh Kenya, that is the curse of long hair. Looks good in most aspects, except when it is being blown around by an elemental sand being.
Have to figure some are born lucky. While Maxima may not have been born with her powers, the fact that she is so powerful, it’s because of luck and other factors, which most others don’t have.
Which is why I’d say Maxima can break those diplomatic rules and really not worry about any discipline from her superiors.
That much power, and the government will not be able to stop her and want her on their side to use as a weapon, just glad that she’s on their side.
Maxima is definitely one of the good guys but you know someone in government is a little concerned she may go all Homelander and will cut her slack where reasonable.
Homelander is 100% Government Sanctioned (he’s one of the Good Guys)
Government sanction doesn’t equate to morality of action. Pretty sure that The Boys made that point, in both comic and live-action versions.
Never said, or implied, otherwise
Maybe pointing out there is already a precedent, big difference being: Maxi wouldn’t go Homelander because her morals are too strong
This is going to shake out in general perception as ARC, and by inference the US of A, defending Galtyn.
And not going to take the bet that Deus did not have a hand in the timing of this attack coinciding with ARCs visit.
Looks like Deus finally found Max’s button.
Hm, I’d assume the explosion is a secondary effect from the beam super heating the sand, as if it were a direct effect, the beam would have stopped, same as the little bomblette she torched the tank with. Always good to remember how your energy weapons are supposed to work. Tanks and most military vehicles are full of fuel and explosives after all, so secondary cook off isn’t as difficult once you penetrate the armor.
Also, frequency (to my knowledge) is pitch. Because sound waves travel at constant speed* the only way to increase energy by the wave is through an increase in frequency, the Doppler Effect.
* Air can be forcibly accelerated past the speed of sound, as velocity is always relative, but the speed of sound is the speed at which the air molecules will bounce off of each other and react.
But it’s been quite a few years since physics class.
As my wife pointed out: Anvil can solve a lot of this hair issue by facing into the wind (to let her hair all stream behind her), grabbing her hair, and tying it all into 1 quick knot.
That only works if it is just wind, and something ‘soft’ like water. Don’t forget this is a sandstorm turning to face that could damage your vision and a lot more. With the flying sand hitting her hair its energy is partially dissipated I don’t think she can get a kinetic boost from impact to dead cells. Otherwise the hairy-go-round wouldn’t have been as effective.
The big difference between a flash bang grenade and a massive concussion firework is the size. The flash bang is loud but the actual amount of explosive used isn’t very large. They work well inside of rooms where the blast wave is contained and magnified, not so well in open fields where they’re more like a big firecracker going off. The fireworks that give the loud boom are essentially just large bombs, which is why they can be heard and even felt from a distance away. If one of those things went off in a small room with someone they would be a lot worse off than just stunned.
Bit of explosives trivia. The US makes what’s called the Mk. 3A2 Offensive Grenade, which is just 8 ounces of TNT in a thick cardboard tube. That’s basically just like those fireworks. It doesn’t produce fragments so it can be thrown at things much closer than you can a defensive frag grenade without the thrower risking themself. Just from the blast effect it has a lethal radius of 2 meters, and that’s out in an open field and not inside a closed room. So that gives an idea of what would happen with one of those big fireworks going off near people.
They let off one of those big concussive fireworks as the final blast at some big celebration in Dunedin back in the early 2000s. Set off every glassbreak sensor alarm that the security company I worked for monitored. Very busy night, our company made a LOT of money off callout fees.
cue SupereAl “Because even in battle your hair needs care” commercial
I’ve seen what happens when cops fire a flash bang into -not over,INTO – a crowd. It isn’t pretty
Can someone explain to me the joke on Sydney’s shirt in the vote incentive? I look at the Krillin heads on her shirt and just think it’s supposed to say “Cookies & Cream Krillin”, but it doesn’t make sense.
According to the comment sections of previous pages, replacing “Krillin” with “chillin'” apparently gets you the lyrics of some ice cream commercial.
uhh, no. think kpop type song that’s very suggestive.
Sydney and Parfait are having a nice hug.
Can someone explain to me the joke on Sydney’s shirt in the vote incentive? I’m reading it as “Cookies and Cream Krillin”, etc., but it doesn’t sound right.
theres a song ‘chilling, chilling, Ice Cream’
No, Terre and Kito aren’t under the impression that with time a Super’s powers gets Super-er, well, not without training and figuring out what you can do with it
In the beginning, Iceman could basically just play as a walking Snowman and throw snowballs, but over time and practice, he could do a lot more (and then Frost took his body for a spin and unlocked even more fun abilities and skills: like spikey ice-golem skin)
This is about power. If Thor beats Captain America in an armwrestling match, that’s not because Thor had more time to train.
And Darude was already strong enough to throw down with Maxima back in the day – a level most will never be able to reach.
…. TBH, a power with that size of a shaker effect? If the dude doesn’t have a weak spot that’s some sort of core or real body to hit, Habboob just needs to sit on top of an area and it gets literally scoured off the face of the planet.
Nothing small-scale can stop that without some convenient weak spot!
Nukes or MOABS would be needed to counter that sort of thing, assuming being vitrified WORKS on such an enemy… Or doesn’t make them more dangerous, turning from a storm of flying sand to a storm of molten glass… Or a storm of glass razorblades. Possibly radioactive if you nuke it,
Yeah, the question lies on which of the three variants he is,
full self particulation (like Sandman or Hydroman)
consciousness core (body has become the large mass but there is one piece in there acting as the brain controlling the mas; think the rock enemy in the sacred beasts arc of YuYuHakusho).
or
just a powerful Geokinetic and the storm isn’t his body but he wants people to think it is and he is actually located either deep inside and can elemental sight his way to control it (see through the eyes of the giant mass created around the body), or is above *thinking in that stringy bit coming off the top would be my first guess) or on a mountain somewhere controlling from a distance.
Sydney DEFINITELY has spare hair ties, barettes, & bobby pins on her. We already know her hair is fully capable of escaping most forms of confinement (well, her bangs), and we know she put a lot of practical (for her) things in her batman belt pouches.
…so Anvil do you *wish* you had a hair tie?
Cue receiving a tie made out of hair (may or may not be her hair)
… vortices.
*single sand particle get’s in Max’s eye/bra/waistband*
*cracks knuckles* Welp *Skweeeeeeen*
Pocket, purse, on wrist (as a wristband), tucked into corner of a boot/bra… trust me, if you have hair long enough to get in your face and live in a windy area you have spare hair ties stashed in places no one expects. (Also those neon mini ones I have worn as rings, but that’s because I have extremely skinny fingers and fine hair.)
Eh, we knew that was gonna happen. But then, let’s be honest… if the brass knew this guy was still alive, he’d be a face card on the supers deck. So I very much doubt she’s gonna get slapped down for engaging him when he’s using area-effect stuff around civilians with zero regard for collateral damage.
Deus will probably come up with a diplomatically worded note to the tune of ‘we requested humanitarian aid to protect the civilian infrastructure from the known terrorist’ to smooth things over.
What this tells me is that Deus isn’t unstoppable.
This is an attack on his personal quarters and primary product(which is worth billions) by a semi-sizable force and we don’t see him collect the defenses in time.
The factory was safed by Dabbler and still took damage and I don’t see anyone except Max even imply they can handle Darude.
Sure he has a “super” under his disposal who could handle him(Vale), but the fix for that seems to be to just strike when she isn’t around
Still saying (typing?) that this is a SmugD-stunt, and he has a contingency plan to ‘stop’ Haboob when Maxi and team are on the verge of failure
If that’s the case. He would not only need to have had really good insight in arc swat, but also Dab’s psyche.
She is known to suffer from choice paralys, so guessing your primary income on her violating max orders within mere seconds from when they’re given is risky and since the last missile did strike the factory it alsof doesn’t look Luke he would have stoppen the rest.
Him not being unstoppable and the one behind all this shit doesn’t have to be mutually exclusive, and it wouldn’t be the first time some hired goon decided to take the chance to ‘branch out’ and go ‘off-script’, specially if they come across a personal nemesis
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sv0tGx80yLk
at 6:00 is the .. boom .. you want…
it is call the “F.A.E.” fuel – air explosive.
oh yeah.. play on low volume first time….