Grrl Power #1067 – Heatsink form is too effective
Aluminum Varia randomly out-shiny-ing Maxima. I think it’s cause I sampled colors from a photo of a jagged block of aluminum, so she has a bit more contrast than what I usually apply to Max’s skin.
No, Varia doesn’t have a nigh-skintight forcefield like Max. At least not with this gestalt. Usually she does, like when she gets fire powers from Arianna.
People have asked why the fire extinguishers haven’t gone off yet, and the real answer is because I didn’t think about it until I was drawing the page with Arianna standing in the burning doorway and by that time it was too late to add them in. But the real real answer is that with people like Heatwave flying around the building and who knows what else going on inside, it was decided that the fire suppression system reaction time needed to be tweaked so it didn’t go off 8 times a day.
Yes, that soldier is a terrible shot. I’ve never fired a Kriss Vector, but apparently they have this downward sliding… slidey thing that reportedly helps quite a bit with recoil. Plus the thing is suppressed, and yet he managed a four foot spread from 15 feet away. So yeah, maybe the red team here isn’t staffed by ex-Mossad or anything.
The July Vote Incentive is up! This is an unusual incentive because it started life as a panel from the comic. A few people thought it was a good pose to turn into a nude version, and I agreed. It was originally intended to be a stopgap pinup while I finished the one I’d started on for this month, but I got caught up in shiny skin and various bits of anatomy and alternate outfits so I’ll just leave this one as the July incentive. The advantage being that I have a head start on next month’s so… maybe it won’t be late?
Be sure to enjoy the alternate outfits and lack thereof over at Patreon.
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If you added little speed/motion lines leading from the bullet impacts toward Varia, it’d look more like they deflected off of her instead of Chuckles McStormtrooper being a shit shot.
Maybe he was trying not to hit Mr. Magma, and just spook or wing Varia? Just because you’re incandescently hot doesn’t mean you’re bullet proof.
So, Varia not only gets a super power from touching somebody, if they have a super power themselves, she becomes immune to it? Because if that wasn’t established, it was pretty stupid to go for a choke hold on somebody that hot.
I thought it WAS established that Varia was immune to whatever the other super possessed?
No, only the resulting Gestalt
It has been established and stated multiple times in the comic. A couple pages back as well. Read the author notes. They help fill in blanks with this comic.
It’s been established that she, and the person she’s touching, both gain immunity to the gestalt power. However, I don’t think anything’s been said before about her gaining any immunity to the power of any super she may be touching.
Varia and whoever she touches form a gestalt with some kind of power. What that power will be cannot be determined
with certainty ahead of time. In the case of supers it is potentially related to the innate power of the other, but there is no guarantee of that.
The other odd side effect is that the Gestalt is immune to the effects of whatever power it generates. In the case of Varia + Arianna they were generating fire (not sure if they were made out of fire or merely covered in it) and gained an immunity against fire.
Varia could reasonably expect that holding on to Flamey McFlameFace would create a fire related power and thus an immunity to it. It turned out that the gestalt power was a form of a supernaturally effective heat sink (metal and she seems to be absorbing the flames). She of course is now also in the ‘tiger riding’ territory. She cannot let go of him without immediately being attacked by him while she loses the fire protection in the process. Unless of course another member of ArcSwat shows up with whom she knows she can create a gestalt power that is better suited to take out this flamehead.
That belays the question though. If she was gray when first touching him then why did she turn that tan afterward? If she is immune to his power would there be a charging effect with this touch or did it only take a secondary effect when he activated his fire abilities.
As objects heat up they glow, incandescence. Varia is just getting hotter when she absorbs that guys flame, also why her clothes are going whoof, crackle and sizzle.
It’s possibly a bone thrown to MerlostheMad, who was bummed that Arianna’s clothing didn’t burn off. Unless he specifically wanted a nude Arianna, he’s got a nude Xochitl to make up for the loss in the last comic.
Which just makes me wonder… what happens if she lets go of him while she’s red-hot?
She loses her powers and turns back into a flesh monkey… but does the heat vanish too, or does she have sudden VERY serious problems?
As she said; heatsink
She only started to glow and sizzle after absorbing his blast attempt.
It’s established that Varia is protected from the other persons powers when she is in gestalt mode. But just now she has absorbed enough heat energy to glow incandescently and burn away even the ash of her now non-existent clothing. She has also taken at least one bullet to the hand which as deformed whatever is currently passing for tissue. So what happens when she disconnects from Lava Dude. Even with comic book physics that energy needs to go someplace. I’m guessing that she will have to dissipate before she can let go.
It might well go to the place it came from – if fire guy can make fire from nothing, Varia might be able to put it to nothing.
This opens the question of why she doesn’t automatically do that – but maybe her powers include an option for directed release as a weapon.
Might be Heatwave or Anvil style energy absorption and dissipation. we’ll see.
The hand injury is the most interesting to me, to be sure
Lava dude has two bullet dents in his chest armor, while Varia has one in her hand where she was covering her eyes. Still, 3 hits out of 9 at that range? Peggy would be appalled, SYDNEY did better than that without her aimbot glasses.
I *have* fired a Kris Vector, it does indeed have a funky “rolling recoil” system that basically does this v< [back & down blowback, then up & forward to close the bolt], but with no practice on a rented gun I was able to put 20 rds center mass at 50 feet, so I think even stormtroopers are saying this guy is a lousy shot!
but,, did you fire a full auto before.? from experience, any on first time full auto, usually tend to be all over…
ok, if that’s your excuse. Who sent a mook out with a weapon he was not trained on, and never used before? I mean seriously? whoever set this up makes the starfish Patrick look like a 220+ IQ.
whoever this is…. should be sat in a chair and laughed at by ARCSwat as part of his incarceration.
I prefer the explanation that the mook with a gun is a bad shot and panicking.
Robnot, yes, but not free-standing for MANY years (since the Germanies were still in their “trial separation”), and I agree with palmvos: what jackass hired the minions with no weapon experience?
The one that has read the 101 rules but is a Thradithionalist?
Sydney was doing it during practice rather than in the field while in danger. It makes a real difference.
I’m going to go with a combination of ‘Guy is a bad/panicky shot firing in a combat situation where his boss(?) is a human shield’ and ‘He was trained with it under regular circumstances, but they added the Magic Hollywood Suppressors at the last minute that throw off your aim.’
Heat Sink, Yeah, but that doesn’t come with protection for your clothes from fire this time.
I wonder what would happen if Varia was in contact with two people at once. We’ve seen her touching both Heatwave and Jiggawat but both of them don’t cause her body to change, just give her ice and magnetic powers.
I figure either she gets both powers or she only holds the power from the first person she touches and doesn’t pickup another until she breaks that contact.
On the bright side, if she’s bullet proof then the only serious chance those guys had of taking her out would have been to wrestle her off, but now she’s too hot for them to handle
she is always to hot to handle.
OK, I really don’t follow this. Why is Varia aluminium coloured, then not? Aluminium isn’t bullet proof and doesn’t stand up to fire at all well. If Varia’s clothes burn up NOW, presumably because of Rule of Funny, why didn’t her clothes AND Arianna’s burn off before, while facing the same enemy? Arianna’s reaction would have been Comedy Gold. ….. Max has had her clothes burnt off at least twice, where Rule of Funny applied.
The color change is because she’s literally glowing yellow-hot. That’s why it’s sort of fading into orange under the sprinklers.
Dave used an aluminum block to color Varia. she’s a bulletproof heatsink that looks like aluminum when cool in this gestalt. aluminum is very heat conductive. also the Arianna gestalt confers clothing protection because Arianna is PR and HR and even Dave B is afraid to cross her.
Mr. lavaskin is an energy manipulator. he throws heat around not burning/superhot excretions to the relief of plumbers everywhere. it appears that Lavaskin (can we get a name?) is attempting to burn Varia off and well, this gestalt does not have clothing protections. this is called Math summon 1/2 and Varia knows it.
Aluminum is also better electrical conductor than copper. however; it expands more than copper when heated. They used to use aluminum wires in houses, but they stoped doing it because it kept causing the problem for the outlets which is occasionally blow off the wall. I know because a friend of ours had a trailer built like that, and they constantly had to reattach the outlets when one popped.
At one point used a copper plate with aluminum pins in it for a heat sink for computer CPUs. The aluminum pins were sort of like a screw lots of surface area. They usually heated the copper block up enough to stick the pins in, and then when it cools it forms a pretty permanent solution.
Aluminium is a significantly worse conductor per volume, 2.65E-8 vs 1.68E-8 Ohm/m. They used Aluminium because it’s a lot cheaper. Aluminium also has a problem with the surface oxides. Because of that it’s normal to clad them in copper. Aluminium is a better conductor per weight. Because of that it’s used in drones for instance.
The issues with aluminum wiring were indeed from the higher expansion – the aluminum connections wiggle themselves loose over time, which creates arcing and fires.
His name is ‘cravassey moron.’
Fire guy tried to burn her, upon which she absorbed the heat.
That caused her to glow yellow, and burn her clothes.
Actually Aluminium is bullet proof, or at least the forms they use in tanks and IFVs are.
Plus if Varia is completely Aluminium then she will be definitely be bulletproof as even low grade aluminium blocks cna’t be penetrated by small calibre fire.
That’s why YouTube channels like Demolition Ranch like to shoot them with increasingly powerful firearms.
What aluminum doesn’t do, however, is glow when heated. Evernote molten aluminum gives off no glow whatsoever. Looks a lot like mercury.
The power Varia received from Arianna, and visa-versa Arianna from Varia, was protection from fire; apparently including a short range force field to protect garments.
The power from El Flamo is fire/heat absorption no garment protection included.
And yeah, colour->incandescence of hot objects.
no, the power Varia got from Arianna had to do with generating fire, and Varia’s powers through in immunity to fire for both of them as a precaution. However the power that that Varia got from lavaskin already has a version of fire immunity or doesn’t generate fire, so her own power’s didn’t through in an inclusive immunity to fire. Because she just has whatever fire immunity being a really good heatsink gives her, she doesn’t have immunity extended to her clothing.
That, or her powers focused on the other guy already being immune to fire, and Varia being immune to fire by default, and said “well i don’t need to do anything” and didn’t give her a fire immunity for that reason.
In short, she didn’t get a safety precaution fire immunity, so while her powers are technically still giving her a fire immunity, it is of a much lower grade that doesn’t protect clothing.
Where did we get a definitive statement on what Varia’s power from Arianna is? So far as I’ve read, the only thing we know for sure is they both got fire immunity, but nothing about Varia’s unlocked ability.
It was some sort of fire elemental/thing that was on fire. Which is why i just labled it as “fire generating”
There does not seem to be a vice versa with Varia’s power. When she touches somebody’s skin she instantly manifests in a different form, and only as long as she maintains physical contact.
It is unclear if she gets a unique superpower. With one possible exception she simply seems to change herself.
What she does share with the other member of the gestalt is an immunity to whatever she is currently manifesting as. When she touched Arianna she either became a being made entirely out of fire, or she became fully covered in fire. In either case to be able to maintain the gestalt she, and her partner, need to be immune to fire. Thus by touching Arianna Varia could shield her from Flamey McFlameface’s attack.
Currently Varia is made out of Aluminium. She does not need to have any other power. If she is made entirely out of metal it will take more than a hand gun to make a hole in her, and Aluminium like all metals is good at absorbing heat (though does not do well with retaining it, so you cannot use it for thermal protection tiles).
So, if Flameface’s fire is not as hot as the melting point of Aluminum then she is effectively immune to his power, if indirectly so. If it is hotter then she is only protected as long as she has thermal mass to heat up. She will continue to heat up (the absorption will significantly reduce local hot spots in her body) until the temperature exceeds the melting point of Aluminium, at which points she will simulate the Wicked Witch of the West after Dorothy offered her a drink.
The sprinklers of course make either scenario moot
As for what Varia is made of, I would think Titanium or Chromium would be better options.
Similar elemental colours to Aluminium but much higher melting points, 2 to 3 times the density and 2 to 3 times the Mohs rating of Aluminium and higher than the Mohs rating for Iron.
Had a think about it while I had a smoke and got a coffee.
Maybe Dave was just going for a Blue Steel look for Varia. (last panel)
He said shoot in hopes that it would work. She said shoot because he had fire resistant clothing instead of a super power that also prevented his clothing from catching on fire and being reduced to ash.
The joys and pains of super powers that don’t cover everything.
The KRISS Vector has it’s barrel inline with it’s grip and trigger which reduces muzzle climb.
Inside is a mechanism that redirects at least part of the recoil downwards further reducing muzzle climb as well as backwards recoil.
All of this helps improve the weapons accuracy, yet won’t count for much in the hands of someone who couldn’t hit a target with a tight group of shots at 20 yards with one (Vector’s effective range is 55-70 yards).
And is that a suppressor, or the muzzle shroud required to be fitted to civilian versions of the gun (doing nothing but adding weight and being visible)?
Yeah, community college welder weighing in cuz u said Aluminum, shoulda known better frankly :p (AC mig or tig whereas most other welding is done in DC, bla bla bla obligatory 3 months of metallurgy class and overinflated minutial pride I only know enough to be slightly more effective and less dangerous).
Aluminum is fairly reactive with the air but nonreactive with its own oxide, thus why you hear that it’s “rust resistant,” when you can also use the dust and fresh flake to help in chemical firestarting and stuff. Not as good as magnesium but definitely an option. But unlike iron alloys the oxide (“rust”) won’t trigger more rusting beneath, and it takes something like constant saltwater immersion or making a friction type part fron it to do more, something actively wearing off that surface layer, which is slightly harder than the rest anyways.
Anytime you see ordinary aluminum colors you see on unpainted bikes or bats or fence posts, its cuz no-one’s gone over it in the last hour with a wire brush or something. OR have just snapped it in half. Its actually QUITE reflective in a newer/purer/cleaned form, moreso if smoothed. If it didn’t oxide at the slightest air touch it’d be great for mirrors, but obviously now a precious metal needing a vaccum seal to function is way more expensive than painted glass.
Actually at the level of smoothness that skin is and without time to oxide, a whole lot of metals get really reflective like that… its actually a lot to ask that metal gets that smooth, takes lots of polishing.
It’s got a lower-ish melting point than would purely scientifically work here, but is conductive like hell. As in, only takes about twice the thickness to replace copper wire with aluminum. Its not just electical conductivity though, its nearly as thermally conductive. Sometimes used in heat sinks for computers if they’re being fairly cheap, with maximized surface area and a fan right on it it does well for that.
As far as colors go thats actually fairly accurate for heated aluminum. It can go through tons of colors. Anything burning on it coats it with burnt o2/co2 soot, yet the weld right next to it can be mirror smooth in seconds, oxidizing at heat, which is why it needs covering gas ideally. It melts friggen fast and warps even faster, especially with rapid cooling like a rain quench from a building extinguisher system. It takes like 4 minutes straight of welding on thick steel (with a 22,000⁰F arc) for that to glow anywhere except the melted pool of weld. It takes aluminum maybe 2 seconds in the same thicknesses, 5 for as many inches around to glow, aaaand by then you’d have melted a hole in it already.
I think the colors are fine, and the fact its not changing color even faster and not 3 seconds from melting at the brightest and her arm’s not randomly got a slight s curve in it now, is pretty simple to explain: sci fi powers are bull-hucky, and this is a comic that has to focus on aesthetics. If she was gray in one frame and bright yellow the next it wouldn’t be clear why. Her powers grant blanket immunity to her gesalt partner’s powers, and apparently he might have enough super strength or flame concentration that it turns out she’s mildly bullet resistant.
TL;DR At heat and under cover gas or powers bull covering, hot aluminum can absolutely be that shiny. Frankly if Varia was generating entirely new aluminum skin then the earlier pictures should be shinier anyways. Not mirrored but definitely bright gray. This color would make sense inside without flourescent lights, but maybe smoke covers it.
(And lol plain cotton smoulders but at that thickness smoulders fast, also accurate, so does denim but even slower. Leather > natural fibers > bare skin > plastic or rubber fibers, which will melt and cling and burn you deeper than just grasping the dang thing with bare mits. Metal shop in the shipyards did cotton glove replacements like they were a dime per 100.
I bet Varia is going to suggest flame proof of undergarments at the next staff meeting. Not a lot of options and a lot of options and some would be very uncomfortable. Like asbestos, Rockwoo andl chainmail… Severe itch and or cooling issues.
The key problem is, it’s not just high temperature problem (and the question is how high the resistance should be) as Varia can get loads of well… varied powers which may require a different kind of resistance from her clothing.
There’s simply no way to design underwear that can cope with the sheer random possibilities of Varia’s power.
She’s burning them off this time, but next time could be acid secretions, getting covered in spikes, incorporeality, disintegration, or even something ridiculous like cloth absorption.
Fortunately, it’s established that ARC supers have a good income, because she’ll be replacing clothing rather frequently.
Also, I’m sure, “and has been.” I mean, she’s been interested in touching a wide variety of people, so I’m sure she’s experienced some wild gestalts, including a number that were fundamentally clothing hostile.
ARC even have tailor ninjas so if you are a victim of cloth damage (as supers often are) you may find yourself reclothed without knowing how.
If this were the 20th century she could have underwear stamped with “Protected by the Comics Code Authority” and be enter firefights or the heart of a sun, modesty safe against anything
Nice ‘Sensational She-Hulk’ ref.
Cop a feel.dude, you know you want to!
He doesn’t need to: she’s pressing against his back already
Nobody NEEDS to cop a feel!
but I’m sure these a long line of WANTING too.
so, I’m gonna get slapped aren’t I?
What an amusing combination of sex and violence. I can’t imagine that it’s often that someone is in a chokehold by a hot woman without clothes.
That’s just Saturday night.
Meanwhile, in Gatlyn, Max receives a notice that Archon HQ is under attack….!
Not just Maxima I would guess, but there’s probably little they can do immediately. Take Sydney for instance, who now has a top speed of Mach 16 if I recall? Google maps says that Mozambique to Washington DC is about 13,500 Km. At Mach 16 (~19,500 Km/hr), it would take about 40 minutes for her to return, and that’s not accounting for acceleration and deceleration. By the time they get back, I would assume the situation will have been de-escalated.
Mach 16 is impressive (and might make the air combust, I’m too tired to work out the physics) but cross-continent scale travel is still a very large scale.
Maxima has her hands busy right now with Darude, one of the few supers ever to be in a draw with her during a fight.
That dude is just thinking, but not daring to say;
“Harder mommy”
Even Crevassy is wondering, “wait.. are those bewbs i have my head nestled inbetween…”
right now he’s trying to figure out how he’s in a choke hold but her arm is behind his neck.
It’s not behind his neck. His arm is what you think is his neck, trying to release his neck from the hold. I had to double check, but it’s actually a choke hold.
Though she’s got her forearm across the windpipe, which will kill the guy rather than render him unconscious. To put him out he elbow needs to be right under the chin so the upper and lower arm compress the carotids.
I’m surprised a building with that much computer equipment everywhere would still use sprinklers even in the common area where they are, instead of a hypoxic gas system.
A gas based supression system can only be used in an area that can be closed off airtight, so they wouldn’t be able to use them in the hallways unless they had bulkhead doors every so often. At that point it gets so ridiculously expensive that it’s cheaper just to replace any computer equipment that may for whatever reason be in the hall when it goes off.
That doesnt look like water spray, unless its being misted. If its Halon or C02, Varia better hold her breath (if she still has to in that form) and beat feet while everyone in the hallway passes out…
its not at all unusual. its one of many reasons offsite backups are a thing. besides, the fire itself destroys most media almost immediately, and the electronics soon after so if the sprinklers go off its time for new computers anyway. you do have insurance? you paid it right? Pander isn’t the insurance companies’ lawyer I hope.
Wouldnt hypoxic gas kill anyone trapped in the rooms as well though via asphyxiation?
Asking seriously. My only info on gas-based fire suppression is from Terminator 2, and I think that’s Halon gas.
Plus I’m also guessing the server room does have a fire suppression system that doesn’t use water and would be safe for the computers. Thin clients are replaceable.
Depends on the gas, but probably.
Most hypoxic compounds are VERY well regulated because it is very easy to mess up with them and kill people. Halon is just the best known of them.
That looks more like a firefighting foam to me. Maybe I am imagining it, but what is coming out of the sprinklers doesn’t LOOK like water.
I once, breathed in a tiny bit, of Halon. Literally prevented me from breathing. it absorbed the oxygen in my lungs. Choking me. (if that is what it does)
I feel like I need to ask the series of circumstances and possibly bad life choices that let up to you breathing in any halon? :)
When I took my concealed carry class there was a lady in there who’d never touched a gun before in her life. Why you’d take a concealed carry course before even unboxing your gun I’m not sure, but this lady did. She showed up to the range for the shooting test with a Taurus still in a taped-shut box. And managed a spread of about 2 feet at 30 feet. So yeah, your bad guy with a 4 foot spread at 15 feet is a worse shot than someone who’s never laid hands on a gun before.
Most sprinkler heads, or at least the ones I’m familiar with, have a fusible link that melts when exposed to a high enough heat for long enough, and that lets the valve open to spray the water or whatever esoteric substance they use in a heat generating superhero infested building.
Given that there are several heat based superheroes in Archon, Heatwave being only one of them, I’d think the system would be tweaked to be even less sensitive and resist temporary heat spikes or the presence of a hot body and only react to a more extended or highly elevated localized temperature level, otherwise it would be going off every time Heatwave made popcorn or melted a can of pop.
A stray or deflected bullet hitting the sprinkler head is a different story altogether and someone deliberately breaking one was pretty much a weekly if not daily occurance where I worked.
If the sprinklers went off every time there was a ‘hot body’ present then the fusible link would have to be made of carbon steel, especially in the shower room and yes, I’ve seen sprinkler heads in a shower room. Don’t ask me why, I didn’t design it but I assume there was a profit made.
Well no one has to walk through fire to turn on the showers. Sprinklers are automatic. But there typically isn’t much to burn in a shower, and not much of any value either.
On the surface, yes sprinklers over a tiled shower area are stupid. But, the fire might be running through the floor below and break through, or someone (say high schoolers) might decide to use it as a fire pit and ignite the ceiling. Or the building might get repurposed and the tiled space might be converted, although part of that remodel could easily be to extend the sprinkler system.
It’s impossible to cover all the use cases or possibilities in the building code, so unless there’s a very good reason the IBC committees avoid writing exceptions whenever possible.
Rather than reduced sensitivity it would make more sense to me that Max would come down like a ton of bricks on any hottie that caused an incendiary incident, with three months of lingerie PT and obstacle course runs as a disincentive to further incidents. (Maths approval rating 5+ stars)
Is it just me or does the fire user look like he’s wearing Destro’s jacket ?
Destro had some good fashion sense.
But he had idiots on his payroll.
lets be honest here. working for an organization that openly wants to size power. there’s not a deep pool of candidates willing to work for an organization.
*points to corporate America*
I said OPENLY! besides america has this funny notion that people need to work long hours to barely afford food.
OK, so can’t Krona hack reality some more and send all of these guys to the middle of the Amazon or Sahara or something?
She’d have to focus on one at a time or else she’s send everyone off, not a good idea.
We really don’t know the limits of Krona’s power. Maybe she could target anyone without a guest badge for transport.
Amazon would just deliver them right back….
Yes, but Amazon shipping delays would give them time to be ready for them when they came back. I mean, OK, sure, Amazon *does* have the kind of amazing turn around time that can only be had by either paying people really well or exploiting marginalized people, but it’s still hours.
So for the sprinklers not going off right away I think I have an idea that will make it work in continuity and will allow for it to go off when you need in the story (Provided there is a fire). The fire suppression system is designed with a delay because you have a bunch of various supers in the building. It isn’t a good idea if one of your workers has fire powers and accidentally sneezes some fire on nothing but the whole building gets drenched. So there is a built in delay. 15-20 seconds of sustained fire is needed to compensate for random powers.
Yeah, I know you’re deliberately trying to stay away from anybody’s IP… but this team is [i]really[/i] in need of Reed Richards’s unstable molecule fabric.
I imagine it’s not so much about avoiding anybody else’s IP as it is avoiding easy solutions that reduce the potential for interesting stories. Just like he doesn’t want to have any generic “power inhibitors”, because they’re a one-size-fits-all solution. Requiring a specific solution for each problem means you can write a story around both the problem and the solution. Easy universal solutions require coming up with obtuse reasons why the characters aren’t using them for everything.
The sprinkler system doesn’t use the type with the sacrifice plug like the standard sprinkler heads and they do make those for high heat environments, the factory I was a mechanic in made parts out polyurethane power and cotton/polyester fibers and baked it in a 40 foot long oven at 350 F or 450 F the product would ignite at 480 F so the sprinklers in the oven had a metal power filled glass insert rather than a low temp lead plug. Those seem to have a temperature probe that opens them separately. That way they shut off once the temperature drops below the trigger point rather than flood the area continuously. The factory I mentioned had a 150,000 gallon tank to feed the sprinklers and it would empty in 45 mins!
Dabbler would be so proud of Varia right now.
Pantsless Krona FTW again.
Varina,, pantsless Varina..
Krona, is behind the ‘glass’, watching the view.. o.0
I approve of both. can we get that old project from 1980, the one with ‘no fallout’?
And she is also, still, pantsless
dont you have a ‘some like it hot’ machine somewhere? or would Krona hurt us?
The first person to say that this attack caught several members of ARCHON with their pants down gets a ninja hit squad sent over… :)
A bare attempt to cover dropping a pun without redress.
Well at least her front is covered between him and her. The cloth will get very hot and may char but won’t burn because there probably isn’t enough oxygen reaching the cloth between their bodies. It will probably kind of bake and crumble away. Of course Krona could just alter reality and make it clothes again.
The choker is surprisingly durable as it doesn’t get damaged in her transformations. Probably Dabblers doing.
I was going to mention the choker durability too, I imagine Arclight and Dabbler both contributed some bells and whistles to make them basically indestructible.
Could Krona, make any cloth, truly Bullet-Proof?
Now question… As the bad guy there. You know you’re pretty much sunk right? Do you give up and turn around for the look or do you try to beat it out of there?
13 British guys and 2 British women all agree.. running is a good thing.
and don’t forget the Benny Hill chase music
Yakkity Sax, by Boots Randolph.
that’s the one! (I just couldn’t recall the name of it, and my brain decided not to think of Googling it)
sadly Yakkity Sax caused a safe word.
Vote incentive! Naked Varia standing triumphant over the unconscious fire dude. as the ashes from her clothes fall away from her.
seconded. now how do we vote?
AYE!
Varia standing triumphant over the conscious fire dude. as the ashes from her clothes fall away from her.
The picture catches her at the moment she realizes he’s still conscious.
Last day of High School, well, one of the high schools, one of the guys tried to set of the sprinkler system.
Held his lighter up to it with flame on max and engulfing the thing, about 5 minutes later his lighter was too hot to hold, no sprinklers or fire alarm going off.
Let’s just say that they aren’t the most sensitive things in the universe.
I know in the military some buildings have basically a piece of solder holding things closed. It’s got to melt enough to break apart for that system to activate. Of course, the humans will probably be dead by that time.
A lot of those “sensors” for the fire systems used are old and cheap tech, rather than quick response stuff.
From what I know, usual modern implementation has a valve held in place by a small glass vial sealed shut and containing a liquid. When there’s enough heat, the liquid expands, breaks the vial, and the valve is released.
Also, other fire extinguishing systems are linked to the fire detection systems directly, which are triggered by smoke, not heat. So in those cases you might not even need a fire to trigger the sprinklers (common TV/movie trope in point: cigarette/joint in a restroom).
Based on the accuracy of the shooting, these minions trained at a stormtrooper academy watching star wars.
Yes, Krona will put Varia’s clothes back Because she looked at the reflection in the glass and saw her Boyfriend ‘Ogling’ Varia and she quickly altered the Timeline. Yep, the downside to having a time-altering Girlfriend.
This. THIS!
We need Leon’s reaction.
I propose a vote incentive where Varia is standing nude and triumphant over the unconcious guy, but in the background we can also see Leon and his undoubtedly massive nosebleed, while pantsless Crona is frantically trying to hack some clothes onto Varia.
Dave, please make that happen! PLEASE! :)
Presumably Leon’s not visible because he’s back at his desk frantically trying to get comms back online and coordinate management of the many systems in the building. There are probably cameras everywhere and all the footage (including leading up to the attack) will be reviewed by committee later, which is going to create some awkward discussions and probably some heavy bidding to be on the review board.
Her hand got dented by a bullet. That’s… that’s probably going to leave a mark.
A dent to her right now would be no different that a finger poke to your cheek! She might look like aluminum but if that fire guy can produce enough heat to flash ignite fire resistant “woodwork” then it would soften/melt normal aluminum as well. Maybe aircraft alloy or something along those lines. I’ve welded aluminum, stainless steel, cast iron, and chromium alloy (NOT fun) you have to know those things to even try to.
That guy’s cough could easily be from a cracked rib, just ’cause a round or rounds hit his trauma plate doesn’t mean it didn’t do some kind of damage. ‘Course, it could also be the Bostonian hanging on to his neck. Either or. Buddy sure did lose the lottery, huh? Not only is he wrestling a Bostonian, she got powers that exactly counter him – and if she masses the same as solid aluminum, she’s suddenly a lot heavier than she looks. Metal is denser than meat, after all.
Varia is using a sleeper hold but if you try to break it you can squeeze your windpipe and cause you to choke/cough. Actually aluminum is lighter than “meat” and aircraft aluminum is lighter still she’s not trying to over power him she’s cutting off blood flow from the brain which will knock him “cold” in about 3.. 2.. 1.. LOL
As pointed out above though, she’s not doing a proper choke hold, which just puts pressure on the jugular veins on each side of the throat until the blood flow is stopped and the person loses consciousness. She’s pushing directly on his windpipe, which might accomplish the same thing if she pushes hard enough but will primarily do some major damage to the trachea.
The few times I’ve applied one (long story) they turn their head and try to pry open the arm resulting in the forearm crossing the windpipe causing it to cut off the air supply. Works as well but dangerous for them! If Varia had time and interest a quick jerk and slip would correct it but at this point I doubt she cares if he passes out or suffocates!
Or surrenders so he can lay on the floor and stare up at her magnificent….. skills. ;-)
“We’re both suddenly very naked, I can feel you against my back and…. I… Uh… Need to use the restroom. For restroom things, yeah. Restroom things.”
*Runs not at all suspectly like to the restroom to sit in a stall and think very hard about things and stuff*
We are talking about nude Varia and pantsless Crona… within the same line of sight…
One can only imagine the levels of nosebleed Leon is having right now!
Everyone I know who’s fired a Kriss Vector says that the recoil thing really doesn’t do anything, and that the UMP has far less recoil and actually shoots better.
I can see that being ineffective, since the animation shows the counterweight pushing against a slanted rail to be turned downward – equal & opposite reaction there could be negating a lot of the benefit. However as an engineer I’m thinking that had to be accounted for and tested before they went into production, and maybe this is a case of a unified system not being given a fair shake.
The real test would be to disconnect the counterweight and fire that modified version next to the original to see how much difference it really makes.
Honestly, the main thing that’s been most effective in reducing recoil in modern firearms is actually just tuned springs. You’re also assuming that the company had enough time and money to fully test the system before sending it to market. Kriss is a very small company, and is competing with megaliths in the industry like H&K, CZ, and Steyr. It’s better for them to get something to market than nothing, since their likelihood of being able to dethrone one of the larger companies for a military contract is so slim. It’s better for them to just accept that their system isn’t as powerful as they wanted it to be and hope that smaller forces like police departments pick it up based on what merits it does have.
I wonder… now that she have absorbed a lot of heat… what happens if she lets go of him?
Where do the heat go to? Because unless it vanishes, it either stays in her or it goes into the air next to her when she lets go…
In both cases she is getting burned badly…
I’ve been wondering the same thing. I can see it being hand-waved away, but I’d much prefer something that stands up to fridge logic. Even if it’s just the sprinklers cooling her down enough to let go safely in another minute or two.
I don’t think it requires any more hand-waving than the rest of her power does. When she ends a gestalt by losing contact, where does whatever she’s become or producing go? Where did it come from in the first place? I don’t think where the energy goes is a bigger or harder question than where other energy comes from.
If superion-matter interaction doesn’t break known laws of physics, which I propose it doesn’t, then superpowers manipulate matter and energy but do not create or destroy them. She can generate fire, ice, turn to metal, etc, without violating E=mc^2. How that’s done is absolutely hand-waved away, and past on-screen examples have only lasted a couple seconds and been pretty passive, so likely never a significant amount of energy to pull from or release to the surrounding environment.
But here she’s absorbed enough heat to cause around 350 lb of aluminum to turn incandescant, around 145 MJ. We saw over the last pages that Crevasse’s initial flame was more than enough energy to ignite and char a big section of wall – this is probably much more, it would fry her instantly if it wasn’t transferred before / as she released her current power. I expect her powers protect her, so I’m going with released / discharged over her instantly turning to ash.
Wolfram Alpha tells me 145 MJ is about the same total energy as contained in 1.1 gallons of gas; releasing it all instantly into the room would be equivalent to detonating a 1-gallon air-fuel bomb. Indoors, in a building filled with squishy humans.
All the energy she’s absorbed was produced by the guy she’s currently grappling. Where did that energy come from? My impression is that Supers in this setting aren’t running their powers on the calories they consume — that power comes from somewhere else, presumably something to do with the Superion field. Whatever process returns Varia to her normal state when she releases a gestalt presumably needs to reverse the changes brought about by forming a gestalt. Why assume that it can’t take away energy, if it can provide it?
I guess the question is whether it simply undoes what it did in the first place, or if it restores her to a specific state. We haven’t really seen her in combat before, and don’t have any information on whether injuries suffered in a gestalt form persist after she releases it.
The energy coming from (or at least through) her assailant is actually a really good point. I guess by my prior argument, if he’d been drawing local energy there should’ve been a big temperature drop in the room, which didn’t happen. So it would come down to exactly how her powers deactivate when contact ends, and as you say we have no real info on that.
“Energy, can be neither, created nor destroyed.”
has anyone else been unable to access the site via mobile with brave browser? I can use firefox and chrome (which is odd because Brave is built off of chrome) to access it and the desktop version of brave access the comic.
Are you linking to it via a bookmark by any chance? I had the same problem the last couple of days, and noticed my bookmark was just “grrlpowercomic.com” not “www.grrlpowercomic.com” and updating that fixed it.
Don’t know what changed to break it though. Maybe a chrome update. Maybe a server redirect?
Yeah, the page was un-displayable for a couple days, even the vote page couldn’t be displayed
Krona is there. Can’t she just hack clothing into exitance?
Obey the Law of “Conservation of Matter” and take the carpet and chair and reform them into underwear, shirts, and pants.
Remember kids: Obey the “Laws of Physics” or ARC will give you Tickets!
Krona is the one cast member that I think gets a complete free pass on flaunting the laws of physics, she can just edit the parameters of reality and skip all the intervening steps normal space-time deals with.
I’ve fired the full auto KRISS Vector. I’ll say the weapon is really easy to fire six-shot groups on a B21 silhouette across the chest. KRISS USA came by my range a few years ago to do a demonstration for the local LEO departments and between groups they let me fire one of their SMGs in 45ACP. I’m you’re basic Range Instructor without military or LEO training, I’ve just been shooting since I was a kid and grew up.
But the KRISS isn’t magic, if you shoot like a storm trooper, you’re still going to shoot like a storm trooper.