Grrl Power #1068 – And then it all went south
Their plan wasn’t… bad… but I think a lot of it revolved around getting the rooms secured (and occupants knocked out) before any alarms went off. They just didn’t count on the guy who was still paying attention to his computer screen while his lady wiggled on his lap. Honestly, Krona might have grounds to be a little bit offended.
On the flip side, it sounds like Archon really needs to back off on the drills, or they need to use a fake alarm sound when they’re doing drills, because their response here is real bad. Now I could take some of the sting off by insisting that this page is happening at the same time as the business with Arianna downstairs, and that each page isn’t a purely linear sequential progression, but still it’s obvious that Arc-SWAT needs to review their invasion response protocols.
Oh and please ignore the fact that Hiro is wider than his own door. I mean, he’s pretty buff, but he can fit through most doors without having to go sideways.
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.
Double res version will be posted over at Patreon. Feel free to contribute as much as you like.
SuperheroThey're super, thanks for asking!
Meatspace ComicSeriously these are awesome. Check 'em out!
Not UpdatingNo longer updating or only updates sporadically, but definitely worth reading.
SeriouslySeriously you guys. If you like Grrl Power the check these out.
"Mature"Mature subject matter and occasionally something explicit but usually safe. Can't guarantee the ads are safe though.
Dongs Ahoy!Full frontal and backal. Lots of skin, sex on some or all pages, explicit or otherwise.
These guys are in a bit of trouble now. A pissed off Hiro is not an opponent you want to face. I really hope Math is there ,because he is a fighter you need to servely overpower not to killed by.
Math is a Nuke from orbit. then do it again, because ‘there is no such thing as just human.’
I mean… Heatwave is just a nuke that has decided to put it’s all into thermal rather than ionizing radiation. So… Sure?
These guys are in for it. Hiro looks angry. You might even say ‘unhinged’.
well, its clear the plan is in pieces. they failed to correct for the vari-bles
Shame! You shouldn’t even wait for the ninja. You should feel unfathomable, endless shame for botching that pun!
I don’t even understand this pun. And I agree with Torabi.
For SHAME INDEED Palmvos. SHAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAME.
Endless SHAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAME.
yeah they need to take a step back and look at it in a detached manner. Aiiieeee Wilhelm!
* and sending ninjas won’t help, I have anti-ninja dabbler cookies *
I would give you a pass on that one, O.B, but your use of puns (even though a clever one) will cause the use of far more juvenile punnage from others. An example must be made.
Ninja hit squad en route.
well, It has cooled off a little bit, so the ninjas wont poodle as fast…
Okay man I am seriously confused now about what you are making a pun about. :)
OB Juan’s pun was ‘unhinged’ which made sense as a pun because it’s in reference to doors, which have hinges, and now that the door is broken off, it’s off the hinges. It’s ‘unhinged.’
I’m not sure where poodles comes into it. I think you’ve gone past mere puns and are now quite mad, sure. Quite certifiably mad indeed, sir!
I can’t even send ninjas to you until I know what the dog pun is in reference to. They require paperwork on this sort of thing!
I would say that pamvos is more in the ‘unhinged’ range than ‘certifiably mad’… But I see telltale signs of a mobile phone keyboard and autocorrect, so I’m guessing that’s actually to blame. But a pun is all in the delivery, and if you botch the spelling or grammar, it just falls flat! You’ve got to double-check those sort of things! A perfectly executed pun can be a potent weapon, but a weak effort leaves you worse off than if you hadn’t tried at all.
Indeed, typos often have pun intended results.
I was rather under impression that, judging by the proportions, it was only a part of the door, although very neatly broken of vertically.
There was a cleavage line where two pieces of plywood were joined together. It is not the best technique, but it allows you to use what would otherwise be scrap.
It was just Hiro’s door. They knew it was a matter of time before he’d break it regardless, so they just used a cheap ass knock-off door. I mean, like, the dude goes through a few doors a month. Though, admittedly, that’s a bit up from where it was before they were using the cheapest doors they could find. But the doors are at least cheap enough that they’re saving money, so long as they don’t factor in all the time they take in installing the doors…
Nah, with a little practice imploded door replacement goes pretty fast.
I would think Digit has that covered.
Hee, the Wilhelm Scream that was actually Wilhelm:)
Was going to point that out too. ^_^
That was definitely my favorite bit.
Another great page with excellent comments. Don’t have much to add on the story or action, but this invasion keeps pulling me back to real world comparisons. This is not a criticism, just an examination of real world hard sites.
First off, I’m assuming that ARCSWAT is the equivalent of other first tier agencies such as DIA, FBI, NSA, CIA etc. Since it’s a relatively new agency it would have been built from the ground up incorporating the technology and design developed from the others. I’m going to stick with NSA as I have actually spent been inside them spending several months TDY there. Here a link to Wiki’s article on NSA:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/National_Security_Agency
If you scroll down a bit you’ll see a picture of NSA Hq with its main buildings. Take a close look, there’s two low level dun colored buildings and two new one which appears to be clad in black glass. What you don’t see are windows. There are places where windows should be which can be seen best on the dun colored structures. Inside these things are huge and have their own shops, restaurants and other facilities. The facility is basically a self contained city. What you see on the surface is impressive but it also extends underground to quite an extent.
This place never shuts down, it’s a 24 hour operation and one will always see people in the corridors not the least of which are the security personnel. Everyone wears a badge which has its own electronics. All the rooms, offices and corridors are monitored and loaded with sensors. Your badge is coded for the area you are allowed access and if you stray from that area you are intercepted in very short order by polite but professional security forces. In fact it is very difficult to stray from your authorized area as the interior is divided up in different security areas and to transition from one area to another you have go through a check point with armed guards. If your badge doesn’t allow you past that checkpoint, an alarm goes off and you are turned back. Note, you have to have a badge, the sensors will alert to an unbadged person. Also, for reasons I won’t go into, you can’t fake or steal a badge. Security operations are redundant and decentralized, no clue as to how many or where they are.
I don’t think it can be attacked or invaded even with supers. The only way you’re going to conduct any kind of attack or espionage is with an inside job such what happened with Snowden. These places are fascinating and of course I didn’t cover any of the classified aspects of which I know very little and I can only speculate upon.
On a final note, nothing you have seen in the spy movies from Bond to Mission Impossible are going to allow for penetration to these type of facilities.
Yeah, that is pretty awesome.
There used to be an app for the iPhone for the Wilhelm Scream. It had something else too, but basically it just played the scream when you tapped the button. Sadly, iOS updates broke it because it wasn’t maintained.
Absolutely loving the Wilhelm Scream.
Loved this compilation when I first learned about the Wilhelm.
Oh yeah, that’s the original, didn’t get the name until two years later (not sure why thought it was black and white… )
As another reference point, there’s a video game called, “There Is No Game; The Wrong Dimension” in which one of the characters is Wilhelm & he does the Scream just as it’s defined.
I took that as part of Hiro’s door, as it would be rather stupid to use solid doors in a place like that because you don’t want to much money on replacing them, and you would be expecting to replace them quite often due to the environment and its inhabitants.
So you’d use cheap yet fire retardant doors and cover them in a wood veneer, and that veneer would have some straight edges from previous cuts when broken.
I sell doors and windows for a living. There isn’t really a ‘cheap yet fire retardant door’. Even a 20 minute rated door, which is the lowest rating, weighs considerably more than a normal door due to the fire retardant materials and costs anywhere from $400 to $4000 depending on the style of door. For a painted, flat door you would be on the lower end of that scale but, surprisingly, for a nice wood veneer you would actually be middle-to-high. I once sold a door similar to what he’s holding for around $2500.
Eh. They can afford it.
That’s because there’s no such thing as “government paid” or “government owned” because it’s taxpayer’s money for it all…
well… super super super can manipulate veneer super super makes super super resistant to fire, so they could start with any door they wanted – maybe even styrofoam and boom! got ya door!
Question for you then:
The indoor doors here tend to be, well, not quite cardboard, but close, over a wooden frame. Hardboard? Something like that. I’d imagine filling that with fire-retardant foam, possibly impregnating the wood too with something suitable (paint wood and board on the backside with water glass), should be fairly cheap and somewhat more fire-retardant than the plain deal. The veneer doesn’t need to look nice. It only needs to say “this is wood here, sir, yessiree”. Nobody looks closely at hallway doors.
That would provide the breaklines (crossbars backing the hardboard) but would provide close to zero bullet shielding.
What would be the cost of such a vehicle?
Before the usual government surcharge, I mean. And discounting actual certification, which is what makes things really expensive, even though that by itself doesn’t up the quality. It just provides a baseline guarantee through paperwork.
Interior residential doors to tend to be veneer over expanded cardboard honeycomb, in my experience.
But, I also know of a school that replaced all their hollow core doors with heavy duty fire-resistant models. These things are heavy, and I understand they’re basically sheetrock core. Solid wooden frame, basic wooden veneer, and sheetrock between the veneers.
They’re also supposed to be resistant to forcing, and I hope that is never tested.
Well what constitutes fire resistant in the US must be different to the UK.
Internal doors must resist fire for 30 minutes to be resistant, and the cheapest would be around $80-$90 at current exchange rates.
https://www.wickes.co.uk/Wickes-Lisburn-Ply-Flush-Internal-Fire-Door—1981-mm/p/9000152487#
here in the US flame retardant isn’t the thing being protected against. we want doors that… are difficult to force open, because we can’t invest in mental health/medical needs of our citizens and so we have some fairly infrequent issues that make good news stories.
Seriously, think about how you’d install that gadget on a closed door. Wouldn’t work.
I assume the point of the flange was to keep somebody on the inside from just kicking it back out, but it gets in the way of installation. You’d maybe want to make it spring loaded with a hinge.
Also, are the small canisters of the mystery gas actually effective enough? Any science people here that can confirm this? Also, the fact that the door has a large enough space under it, won’t most of that gas just leak out?
(notes name and adjusts consulting fee and exit strategy accordingly) Oh yes, those cannisters hold more than enough of any gas you care to use to kill/incapacitate the person on the other side of the door. Oh and no cryptocurrency. Cash or uncut gem stones and I can smell fakes of either kind. Though, I might consider it even for a complete wooly mammoth hide.
looking at usename… why should we furnish intelligence for you. go over to war thunder forums where classified info is routinely shared.
anyway- if we are going for a designer gas here it should be lighter than air. however- bigger question. how is the ventilation system set up. using gas requires a fair amount of planning and time. POI did it at least believably- she had to tape stuff closed stealthily. (stealth duct tape for those quiet moments.)
Knockout gas in a combat situation is BS anyway. It only exists in fiction. In real life the dosage needs to be so carefully monitored for something like knockout gas that when you go into surgery there’s one guy there whose entire job is to make sure you don’t either wake up mid-surgery or die from the gas that put you to sleep. That’s it. 4 hour surgery, that’s all that guy’s doing the entire time. And you think they’re going to just pump a building full of that stuff to incapacitate the enemy? Nah, it doesn’t work like that.
Well..
Th is is a work of fiction.
Knockout gas is more like a nerve gas doesn’t “knock you out” it paralyzes you and in many cases would kill. But as Heatwave shows the gas they used to carry the poison is flammable so yeah small bomb by the door! Clearly who ever planned this has NO idea how well trained ARC member are! Kevin had a much more effective attempt
at taking them out and HE failed! lol
Considering how ready they were to torch the PR lady, I don’t think they’re too worried about overdosing the actual threats with sleepy gas.
Russia uses a form of very finely pulverized heroin in a rapid delivery container. You do need injections of that opiate neutralizer all around.
Zactly. But TV/movies are always showing up the knockout gas to the face or the shot in the arm that works instantly. Also the poison/disease antidote which is instant and removes all side effects.
Doors open inwards, device bars between the frames to brace outside, then the flange pulls the door shut. Heatwave is trying to pull the door open (look at the tilt relative to the frame).
Also no visible hinges on the outside, plus the little hinge […?] marks [?] on Hiro’s door would indicate an inward hinging, plus that’s the way inside doors tend to hinge – inward to the room they enclose
The L brace is there to catch the door as it opens inward, pulling the crossbar on the outside, and thus preventing the door from opening. It also makes it harder to stop the gas by stepping on the hose head.
It’s a clever bit of engineering…if you aren’t taking supers fully into account.
This was, on the whole, a Smart Plan for Dumb People.
Big Bang, as opposed to Rick & Morty.
the problem isn’t how it’s supposed to work, it’s the installation step, it literally cannot fit under the door with the L brace unless the door is paper-thin. The door is NOT paper-thin.
You can maken an L brace that hinges one way but not the other. Add a spring to pop it up automatically and presto, working L brace. It loses some structural integrity that way, so you need to make the hinge from unobtainium, or as Americans would call it, unobtainum.
Except for the piece of rebar spanning the door and the attached canister, that ‘flange’ is identical to the ones we used on the end of an OC canister wand to keep inmates from pushing them back out when it became necessary to introduce it into a cell to keep anyone from getting hurt on entry.
You hold it at ninety degrees to the door then ‘roll’ it under to let it brace against the inside of the door and slide the wedge on the outside part forward against the outside of the door.
This is one reason there’s a space between the bottom of a cell door and the floor, not the original reason, but it allowed this design to work.
I guess just making more jagged, broken edges on Hiro’s door would turn it from “broken down door missing top and bottom pieces” to “just a piece of door used as shield”
Does Heatwave require oxygen while using her flames? With how quickly she melted that tank, there’s no way she doesn’t burn all the oxygen around herself once she heats up.
Then again, wasn’t it said somewhere that her power actually something related to microwave radiation?
Thermal energy, not necessarily fire.
you can have heat w/o oxygen.
Since it has been confirmed she can both heat and cool objects, her power most likely works by speeding up and slowing down molecular vibrations in an object.
I guess it’s a good thing she’s not super short or her codename would have been Microwave.
its microwave when she’s wearing 3 napkins, some dental floss, and a smile.
What I would be waving to her, if I was there, would NOT be micro.
Heatwave, doesn’t produce flames, just heat.
Heatwave doesnt actually create fire per se. She creates HEAT (or cold) – likely by making the vibration of molecules speed up or slow down.
Here’s the specific description of her power from the press conference demonstration by Arianna
https://www.grrlpowercomic.com/archives/comic/grrl-power-163-serious-press-is-serious/
Arianna: “Heatwave is capable of heating objects to thousands of degrees in mere seconds. Which as you can see can cause matter to sublimate explosively into superheated gas and plasma. She has precise control and can simply make guns too hot to holdand can melt or weld anything that isn’t flammable.”
This is not a description of someone that can shoot fire – it’s a description of someone who creates heat.
Also her power is again explained after the super mannekiller attack near the Mars Factory.
https://www.grrlpowercomic.com/archives/comic/grrl-power-525-tropelock/
Dabbler: “Heatwave can extinguish flames by absorbing heat until materials drop below their combustion point. She can make things pretty cold, but she doesn’t do it often, because, quote ‘shooting heat is cool, and absorbing it is ooky’
Again, it’s not described as shooting fire and absorbing fire – it’s described as shooting and absorbing HEAT.
Drills where I work are always started off with “EXERCISE EXERCISE EXERCISE”. “Any real emergency will not be called with EXERCISE”. “EXERCISE EXERCISE EXERCISE”.
Noisy as all get out, but it does get the point across.
Ours usually included the phrase “NO DUFF” for any real emergency, especially if something actually happened in the middle of an exercise :)
Ever notice how you can’t understand a word of any of those announcements unless you’re standing right under the big speaker?
Someday, someone will manage to explain to the DoD that there’s such a thing as “speed of sound” and “addition and cancellation of wave fronts”.
It would work so much better if they just cycled through the speakers.
Hiro’s door does look a bit too thin for it’s doorway.
Compared to its doorknob, yeah, it’s REALLY narrow – like broom closet narrow – unless they just have abnormally large doorknobs for some rooms?
All that said, I do appreciate the attention paid to other things like door hinge cutouts on Hiro’s door indicating an inward swing
HUT, HUT, HUT, HUT, HUT, *Screams of panic* as Hiro goes Bulldogging down the hallway in his boxers. XD
its my nightmare…. we are being invaded by NFL pretenders! quick, throw SI swimsuit issues at them…..
The true joke is them doing the “hut hut hut” thing while still being on the supposed stealth part of the misson before even attemting to subdue their targets.
This was my second-favorite part of the page, after “Wilhelm!”
I automatically assumed it came from this scene :)
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Atks5rRqQkg
That’s the origin of the longest running gags ever. XD
“HUT, HUT, HUT, HUT, HUT” becomes “HURT, HURT, HURT, HURT, HURTS” really fast around these parts.
Who was the new guy that said he was thousands of spiders in a skin suit? It would be a really good time for that joke to come to fruition, even if it is just a reaction shot with a Beetlejuice scare silhouette of him showing.
There is a world of difference between drills, and the real thing.
Thisis something that all these ammosexual weekend warrior types fail to grasp.
That said, for what is essentially their first real invasion, I’d say the guys are doing great. Honestly, this is exactly the perfectly thing for Achilles to have fun with. I expect, REN, Jabbers & Math, and the rest to all come piling out too, shortly.
Seriously, these guys are in for the worst time, and Archon is gonna get some great press.
Breaking News: Unknown assailants assaulted ARCHON Headquarters in the early hours of the morning, attempting to take advantage of Colonel Leander’s absence and attempt a mass kidnapping. They were subsequently beaten mostly to death by the nearly every other superhero on site, because of course they were, what the hell were they expecting to result from attacking a militarized superhero team with full Federal backing & military support. The first Twitter memes are already coming in, and we warn the audience: they are fucking hilarious.
earlier today a group of peaceful autograph seekers were rudely assaulted by ARCON personnel. Rumor has it that at least one woman walked around naked. there are also reports of a sex show. serious life changing injuries reported. the out-of-control Arcon personnel even started several fires. How long will decent people tolerate this rouge agency?
The reporter who wrote that would have to be on drugs to believe it.
you know what cowfields are full of….
Grass, mostly. Cows also. Bulls are a distinct minority, if there at all.
Like the name though. Very grassroots and down-to-earth, cornerstone-y. I think that’s a keeper.
Yeah, well you know, any “Newz” agency owned by Rupert Murdock falls into that category.
We are an independent news organization presenting an alternative view. we are not owned, managed, or run by Rupert Murdock.
But why would you admit it even if you were?
Because here at Cowfield News we report facts. getting it right is important.
I have a feeling that there are also shrooms in the cowfield.
So true, spindoctors can do allot of stuff, especially if they get some help, perhaps some doctord video clips from “phones” that really is from cams on the suits.
Especially if none of the captured personell can or will say the wrong thing(by being dead or lawyerd up)
Should have dropped some sleep canistes at the start of the invasion, and some while moving out, so to fill the coridors with the gas if some one else without a mask would happen by.
Gah my horrible spelllings.. >_<
Next morning’s press conference.
Arianna: Early this morning, a heavily armed and armoured group of individuals attempted to invade Archon headquarters, which is a recognized military base, and therefore, military rules of engagement applied. As such, the use of lethal force was authorized and exercised, but with a focus on arresting the assailants.
During their assault, approximately one-third of the attackers were killed, another third were deemed to be in our jurisdiction, that is people with extraordinary abilities, and are being held in our holding facilities. The remaining third are humans not in our jurisdiction, so they have been turned over to the state police for holding.
We are still determining what criminal charges the survivors will be charged with, but at this time, they are all charged with Entering a Military Base Without Authorization, Assault and Assault with a Deadly Weapon, along with Domestic Terrorism charges. Other charges are forthcoming and certain individuals may have many more charges applied.
As the assailants are civilian, the FBI is leading the investigation of criminal wrong-doing, with our investigators involved due to the presence of super-powered individuals in this terrorist group. We will be performing an internal review to determine what we could have done differently to prevent this kind of thing from happening in the first place, how to reduce injuries and fatalities of the attackers, how to reduce property damage and other collateral damage, and why did it take us 12 minutes to get things under control. I expect other agencies will be conducting their own investigations about this incident.
Are there any questions? Yes, Suzy?
Uh, yeah, Suzy Wen, How many casualties were there among the Archon people?
Arianna: Some of our people suffered minor injuries, but we do not expect any of those to cause any of the injured to have to go off-duty. Next question?
The autograph seekers were even led away in handcuffs !! Until the camera shows a different angle where they’re just holding their hands behind their backs…looks like a cnnn/ap piece.
What bearing does the colour of the agency have to do with anything?
How long? At least until next season, when they finally release the earth tones and blues we’ve all been demanding.
When we started doing armed intruder drills at my previous place of employment we figured out quickly that the front office was going to take a lot of casualties. People will default to their level of training and you can use drills to minimize losses but there is no replacement for experience. My employees had a lot of experience with dealing with violence from the facility residents but I expect that had an armed intruder ever made it onto the grounds at some of them would have died just because they were standing out in the open.
“Our intel was correct, onlyone guy with no superpowers was on duty.”
“Why did the assault fail if that was the case?”
“It was Batman.”
Given, the same would go with many other unpowered heroes from DC, Marvel and others.
Of this thing in the funniest thing I can see is hero using a part of his door to block the taser prongs. They also seems to be a type of dangerous energy behind his eyes like saying you’re interrupting what was a good night for me so now you have to share my pain.
So who else was in there? *wink wink wink*
in Hiro’s mind: I’m going to be spending all day tomorrow writing and editing reports about this. I HAD PLANS.
“If you’re going to make me write reports, I’m going to make them interesting.”
And that was when the enemy squad needed a change of pants.
That’s actually a pretty good line, sounds like something Tagon or Schlock would say.
I can’t see either of these two writing reports unless threatened with heavy artillery.
Unless we’re talking Book 16 forward, then Lieutenant Flinders is going to have to work overtime again.
Hiro is being really smart here. If you don’t know what it is you are better off assuming it can take you out and taking precautions. Grabbing a random hunk of door isn’t the best choice but I doubt he has Captain America’s Shield next to his bed.
Oh, he probably does by now. Sydney sells the things, and would probably think it was funny. Either that or the superman cape. But, being made of styrofoam, it wouldn’t stop a dirty look, much less a bullet.
Or? The superman cape replica is covering the Captain America shield replica.
. . . . Do you doubt for a moment that Sydney would have her friends, who have high tech and unearthly metals, MAKE a bullet proof replica of Captain America’s shield? Or effectively working copies of other superhero gear?
Sydney is also a business owner of the world’s most high-profile comic shop, and no doubt takes care to only source official materials instead of crossing the Marvel and DC lawyers. I imagine Arianna is still working through negotiations and profit-sharing agreements with said lawyers, along with some huge appearance fees for the team to cosplay well-known characters at a comic convention for Halloween.
Dave is so going to have to include this idea.
I wonder if characters will be created just so the ARC supers can cosplay them to make the companies cash?
Also, imagine a kids cartoon series based on ARC with supers helping people. Good PR with influencing the young, and makes money (similar to how the show Homeland was made depicting a new government department that can call on the resources of others to fight terrorism, a few months before the official Department of Homeland Defense was created, using the same name. Well, that mean’s there is real world precedent.)
Oh, out of work SWAT members from Police Academy? ;) You gotta be old to get that.
Wrong movie: Blues Brothers SWAT members
TACKLEBERRYYYYYYYYYYY!!!!!!!!!!!!!
OMG, the memories!!!!
Yeah, Hiro indeed looks like he’s holding a cupboard door or something. :-)
“Honestly, Krona might have grounds to be a little bit offended.”
No she doesn’t. Real humans aren’t cartoon characters who get heart eyes and become drooling zombies when they see a sexy woman and become like butter when she touches them. Yes, he’s not real either, but you know what I mean. I think she should be proud that he managed to do that despite her having hacked both of their horninesses to align with each other, and she should be ashamed for seducing him on the job, and get punished for it. Case in point:
“but still it’s obvious that Arc-SWAT needs to review their invasion response protocols.”
And that includes Arianna who doesn’t seem to know how to get out of the way in a fight that has both guns and supers.
Of course not, real men get nosebleeds when they see a sexy woman. /s
For some reason this made me think about Krona’s timing. She’s actually a Vi, not part of Archon, and other Council factions have attacked and tried to infiltrate Archon before… Really hope she’s not a double agent.
absent some other evidence I’m going to call it bad timing. otherwise she failed. also given some of the commentary Leon was thinking horny thoughts, then Krona decided, yeah its slow tonight sounds good. then… well.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fa7nSzCiGXk
I would think Leon is pretty mad pretty mad too, I mean he was right in the middle of something.
actually Leon wasn’t quite in the middle yet. he was undoubtedly rising to the occasion however, and resents the interruptioon. the question was is it possible that Krona was somehow involved in this disaster of a plot. I’d suggest Arianna was behind it but she’d make a better invasion plan when she’s drunk than this one.
Surprise… lost…
These guys are screwed. Nothing else to say, really.
Indeed, it’s vital to keep the initiative.
I just assumed that was a PIECE of Hiro’s door, like Archon could afford doors actually made of wood(en boards) and not that plywood-IKEA junk.
Unless it’s an outside door, or is required to have flame retardant properties, most doors is this kind of junk.
Real wood doors are expensive, they tend to warp and so on.
I’ve been thinking about that. Guitars have rods running down the necks for just this problem.
Yeah but ARCHON has the budget of….well I was going to say “of a small army” but that seems redundant. I feel like for a fortified building designed to hold highly-paid super-powered heroes/celebrities/probationary-ex-supervillians, ARCHON could afford accommodations that were just a tad wee bit nicer than the usual tissue-paper-and-spit that dorm rooms are composed of.
So unless Max or General Faulk or someone was insisting on that authentic army-barracks feel…
Plywood is an engineered improvement over natural wood, it’s fiber / particle board that’s junk.
TIL…
It does look like the baddies may be trying to take prisoners rather than kill, based on the Taser darts hitting Hiro’s chunk of door.
Well also iirc he’s known to be bulletproof, I imagine the mooks have several different measures they’re cycling through.
they were planning to cycle through. however…. plans, reality, they never quite go together.
something something “first contact with the enemy”…
Recalling my faraway army days, drills always had the word “drill” shouted as part of the, well, drill.
“Hey Jim…. I think we’re fucked.”
“Yeah Matt…. we’re royally screwed.”
heh, Wilhelm scream
I just assumed she wasn’t thinking straight due to being woken up by a klaxon at three in the morning.
I just assumed she wasn’t thinking.
This is a military base though. There shouldn’t be any thinking required in how to respond to an alarm.
Does Hiro really need the door for cover? His skin should more more bullet resistant than a wooden door.
why chance it, just that little extra can perhaps get an armor peircing bullet to tumble(perhaps/hopefully) and defeat most of its penetrating power.
If noting else, it messes with the aim of the enemy.
Indeed, plus he’s got military trained instincts and a responsibility to demonstrate good practice for his underlings, so no reason to drop a shield that manifested in his path. Even if he can run into battle in his boxers, doing so deliberately is a bad idea for lots of reasons.
He’s tanking the fight. By grabbing the door and using it for cover, he *looks* like someone who might need that protection, so he’s more likely to get hit with small arms fire that would be a problem for some other team members but not him.
Im most of all surprised at the sloppy door construction at Archon.
I live in a house from 1949, and still you cant slide stuff in beneath my doors.
If these were exterior doors, or even apartment doors, you’d be right. But these are more like dorm rooms. It’s not unusual to have a like a quarter inch gap at the bottom of interior doors. It would be a little strange NOT to have one in fact.
I would think you’d WANT air to circulate inside, even if doors are closed, right? at least with central cooling – maybe if they have mini splits it’s not so pertinent
Yep, door gaps are actually part of the air circulation design for central air systems – can’t push heated/cooled air into a sealed room. Plus you want a minimal gap anyways to not catch on the flooring, and it’s common to leave a larger gap than needed so that installing a thicker carpet doesn’t require cutting all the doors.
The builders of your home probably didn’t have to contend with any ‘disabilities and accessibilities’ building codes.
Not only does ARCHON have to deal with that kind of legalese, but they actually have at least one in the staff that uses a ‘wheelchair’.
Is it still a wheelchair when you’re standing on it?
I live in a house from the 1960’s and i can see daylight under the exterior doors. all those Ninjas did not help.
Is the enemy using some kind of sleep gas on Heatwave?!?
This sounds more like a kidnap plot…!!!
This is actually something ‘comic booky’. As mentioned elsewhere, knockout/anesthetic gas needs to be delivered carefully so you don’t accidentally kill who you’re gassing.
Presumably this is some fancy, fast acting and non-lethal-regardless-of-concentration Tinkertech gas compound they’re using.
Except that it’s A) flammable/explosive B) they’re using it on a thermokinetic and C) one of their OWN people is made of liquid hot magma.
Interestingly the explosion blowing Brooke through her door and into Wilhelm sent them both over the balcony railing without breaking it. I guess it’s made of transparent aluminum instead of glass.
OR it is poison but not enough to kill before Hiro shows the bad guys the door.
He does know how to make an entrance.
I always thought the “hut hut hut” thing was stupid. I blame Dan Ayckroyd.
Little known fact: Troops rarely chant “hut hut hut” while deployed, unless it is done with intense sarcasm.
Not only that, but chanting “hut hut hut” when trying to be stealthy, would be extremly stupid…
TBF, Hiro’s entire torso is behind the broken fragment of door he’s using as a shield. That’s all that’s required and quite sufficient to get him through the average doorway.
Doorways in the US are commonly 30″, which I and several of my similarly large male friends brush shoulders against but can comfortably pass through without actually hitting them or turning. I can easily see a military superhero being significantly wider, even exceeding an ADA / wheelchair door (which are 36+ inches). I’d hope Archon headquarters, being a modern purpose-built public building, would be using ADA standards for all living spaces.
I don’t really understand what happened with heatwaves tbh.
The gas ignited, when she activated her power, It just needs to be hot enough, no flame required.
ok, adding that to the long list of You Dun Stupid Thangs that someone is keeping… using a flammable gas in a building containing Heatwave.
number 1 is pretending to be football players. I don’t think football(NFL) players say hut hut hut in real life, but I have bad emotional baggage about that corruption of American education. so there may be some bias.
I’m also confused. She burns through the door and that explodes the gas canister, I guess. But she flies out the door, so there was an explosion behind her, in the room? Did they fill the room with a flammable gas that she ignited?
There was enough gas in the room behind her to make her sleepy, so when she ignited, the gas behind her blew her into the hallway. (The gas surrounded her, the gas between her and the door blew out the door, the larger amount behind her blew her out. )
“I need a Hiro!
I’m holding out for a Hiro until the morning light!”
He’s gotta be sTrong and he’s gotta be fast
and he’s gotta be fresh from the fight.
I need a Gyro, it’s gotta be fresh, it’s gotta be long, and it’s gotta be larger than life
a team of suborned ninjas deliver a gigantic styrofoam box to Hypnobubbles
a reel to reel tape player states:
‘Just eat it eat it eat it eat it’
then the tape player melts.
inside… a gigantic spinning gyro.
Based on where Hiro broke his outer door and where the final frame is broken. It is likely that is his closet door and he was trying to grab his gear when he heard the commotion was right outside. So he improvised a defense, then broke out to confront the attackers.
The device used on the doors seems a bit specific. Like someone knows what the layout is here a bit too well.
Finally the night security must not include any of the supers. Because this was an aerial insertion through the sky light. I can see a guy walking a beat or just watching cameras to miss that. When I was in the service the night watch was a skeleton crew compared to day shift. (Granted this was 1989-1993 so pre 9/11 that if someone told us then of the attack we would have written it off as bad science fiction.)
Well we do know that there is at least one of Harem’s clones on duty at all times, in uniform. She probably does a roaming patrol of the building, or is in one of the security stations monitoring the cameras.
‘At all times’ would mean she needed to keep one of them asleep all the time too right?
Dang, now I need to find the review of Harem’s power. . .
One needs to be on duty at all times… but not the same one. If half are up shifts 1 & 2, and the other half shifts 1 & 3. All shifts are covered and nobody sleeps 1st shift.
Among their more fundamental mistakes: using flammable knockout gas
Anything is flammable if you try hard enough. And as hot as Heatwave can get I imagine the molecules of any kind of knockout gas would break down pretty fast.
I doubt the knockout gas was flammable. Why use something that can explode, when a little CO in a can should work just as well?
Well, even Carbon Monoxide is explosive in air if you get the concentration up to over 12%.
Maybe it can’t work just as well? CO is one of those things that has a relatively low margin between ‘knocks out’ and ‘kills’. If they’re trying to actually grab some supers, it’s probably more likely something more like the loopy gas they used on Kevin – it goes after the nerves, not all metabolic activity.
it bugs me that heatwaves door handle should be on the other side of the door, ie the panels should be inverted
Considering how the door is broken, while the handle can be on either side of the newly christened shield, it should simply be near the corner methinks. Exact position simply depends how Hiro grabbed it from the floor.
Easy dodge. Every other door is left-handed. Do we KNOW that that was her room that was just barred? How about the fact that when Hiro broke out of his door, the device wasn’t on the next door down yet, and there wasn’t a guy placing it, so probably not under his door either?
Yeah, doesn’t look like it was her door, the placement of the handle she is jiggling is wrong
Of course. By my own logic, the doorknobs should be switched on THIS side of the door. The doors should probably open into a wall, not to reveal one.
I should have been more clear. It looks like heatwave is coming out of the second door in the last panel. The one the gas trap was placed on. From the outside the door handle is on the left side, which means inside it should be on the right, but it is not, it is also on the left.
“Oh and please ignore the fact that Hiro is wider than his own door. I mean, he’s pretty buff, but he can fit through most doors without having to go sideways.”
Judging by the size of both Hiro and the doorknob, I assumed that it was only a piece of the door – the doorknob seems to be reasonably sized compared to Hiro, too large if that’s the full width of the door (and too far from the edge of the door, if that’s the full door size, too).
The way Hiro is holding that door chunk would also make his shoulders seem wider than they really are, as his arms are somewhat out to the sides. Then again, I’m not anywhere as buff as he is and I only have 3-4 inches of clearance when walking through the doors in my house (I’m 6’4″ and *mumble*lbs but not fat), so saying that it is undersized might just be a matter of perspective.
I’m also assuming that the gas they used was somewhat combustible, since Brooke is flying BACKWARDS out of her room from what looks like an explosion. She “Flamed On” as a response to the coughing fit (and possible smell of the gas) and wound up taking an involuntary flight?
Hmmm I am curious as to what kind of gas they were using against Brook honestly? It had to have been one that would have impeded her ability to generate fire/heat.
That would make an ass out of u to believe that hers was the only room they were gassing (Hut Hut is carrying another device for the next room), or that they knew which room was hers
And any gas would be effective in preventing her ability if it knocked her out quick enough
That is a brilliant use of the medium to add the wilhelm scream. After a middling response it’s only fair that the invaders were not prepared for their own whooping.
DAVE! Do you know about Rippaverse yet? Look it up!
I would have mad respect for the person that trained themself to scream “Wilhelm!” whenever the fell.
A big plate of Congratulations to Grrl Power for being #1 on Top Web Comics.
Hey. Could just say Hiro to was wielding his closet door. Plenty of those are smaller than the usual door. Especially in smaller bedrooms.
Is that an attempt to use a taser to take Hiro down? I mean, okay, I imagine we don’t know the limits of his abilities precisely, but I have trouble imagining that anything portable by a normal human is going to be able to supply enough power to even slow him down a little.
Rather than a glass-chin, he has a glass-skin: his skin may be bullet resistant, but needles still work