Grrl Power #1071 – Goon life. And death
“Hey Goose, how did you know those guys were full of weird, crunchy particles, indicating they might be some sort of expendable duplicate?”
“…”
“Oh……… ‘Kay.”
So yeah, the guys in the brown armor are actually a guy in brown armor, named “The Goon Squad.” I felt like that might have been used before for a hench duplicator, (cause it seems kind of obvious) but I couldn’t find anything with a quick googling. I also asked Marion Harmon of Wearing the Cape fame, cause I know he’s got some duplicators in his novels (and google isn’t going to return results about stuff like that unless someone has a comprehensive wikipedia listing novelized super powers) but his duplicators are named Platoon and Flash Mob.
Honestly, the knife to the back of the knee would probably be more painful, right? Sure, six bayonets (AKA Bowie knives) through the liver would hurt a lot, but not for very long, especially what happens next.
Unlike Harem, he can tell you what it’s like when one of his dupes dies. Or maybe not? We see them die here, or just… cease functioning, but the full scope of his capabilities haven’t been explored yet. Those of you complaining that the guys who got harpooned on Digit’s page didn’t leave any blood splatter, now you know why. As for Digit (and definitely Goose) being psychopaths… I mean… that’s probably valid?
Also, why was Goose just hanging out in the armory at 4 am? Probably over-sharpening the knives until they’re ground down to the size of mini-golf pencils.
Before anyone goes and throws up some sweet Princess Bride quotes, remember that Fezzik was on the Brute Squad, not the Goon Squad. It’s possible that Goon Squad may or may not have a brother with a power set making it likely that he would call himself Brute Squad. We’ll have to wait and see on that one.
The July Vote Incentive is… still up! As usual, the new one is basically done but I’m adding some outfit variants, so I’ll have it up with the Thursday comic.
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.
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the way this guy’s powers works actually reminds me most of Twice from My Hero Academia, except Twice could make duplicates of other people as well
I briefly thought that the goons dissolving into beads was more of Krona’s reality meddling.
There was a Marvel superhero called Multiple Man who could duplicate himself into an army.
And I remember a webcomic called PARADOX GIRL
As a hero with the power to go anywhere and anywhen, Paradox Girl can create an army of herself by bringing her past and future selves to a fight.
There was also Flashback, a minor character from Alpha Flight. His power was similar to Madrox’s BUT his duplicates weren’t simply duplicates. They were future versions of himself from alternate timelines.
This came back to bite him in the ass when one of those duplicates was killed in action. He realized that eventually he was going to be plucked from the future only to die at that moment.
Multiple Man was even one of the X-Men movies, IIRC.
Just what we need, an instant clone army. Kinda stealing from Star Wars prequels but adding in that it takes a few hours rather than 10-20 years to make! Now we know why they all say “HUT” all the time it’s one guy with a lame idea of how troops should act in combat. This makes this attack a true super villain attack rather than a couple of supers and a quasi-military squad.
If that hooded guy has to uses these:
https://www.yojoe.com/images/resize/w/MAX/imagestore/105/80384.jpg
Would those on Archon base be any match for them,especially Goose,Delta,Gwen and Krona?!?
Well, considering that the B.A.T.S. NEVER work right? So much so that even the regular Cobra troops (who are NOT the elite of the elite) consider them utterly useless?
I would say ‘Yes’.
Something that always bothers me about body armor whether depicted in graphic art or in movies, is how useless it seems to be. Star Wars Storm Trooper armor has to be the worst.
To quote Michael Bishop (Mark Dacascos) on Sabotage, “I don’t use it. They always assume we’re wearing it.”
The next scene then goes on to prove his point as a sniper (Tony Todd, the Candyman himself) is using ammunition that blows clean through armored security guards and vehicles. Only hiding behind an engine block provides the cover they need.
In reality, body armor typically isn’t as super-effective as people would like it to be, with even the SAPI plates being a marginal improvement over a standard flak jacket. Bullets aren’t going to bounce off of you, you’re gonna feel it and you’re probably going to poop yourself from the pain.
As for the Storm Troopers from Star Wars, this was actually discussed in one of the Legends novels (oddly enough, one of the Young Jedi Knights books), where a recruit has Storm Trooper armor demonstrated to him… While he’s wearing it. The instructor starts by using his cybernetic arm to harpoon the kid with a spear, but all it does is knock the kid back into the door that just closed behind him. The spear was stuck into the “plasteel,” but he was otherwise unharmed. The instructor then explained the armor was designed for physical weaponry, like knives, axes, spears and even slugs (the Star Wars catch-all for bullets of all kinds) and arrows. He took a moment to talk about how the armor still has soft points in it, too, so you can’t go around thinking you’re invincible (probably an aside to discuss how the primitive Ewoks defeated the garrison on Endor); and this “chinks in the armor” issue is something that’s been a problem in reality since medieval times.
In the end, the only things Storm Trooper armor was absolutely useless against were blaster bolts, lightsabers, vibro weapons and fire (because it’s fire). However, while the movies portrayed Troopers as dying to blaster bolts, the novels and comics demonstrated they actually had a decent chance at survival, probably about the same chance as modern-day soldiers getting shot while wearing their body armor. Getting hit with a light saber is probably still a death sentence, though.
I remember seeing something about how the stormtrooper armor is built to spreed out the impact of blasters leading to trooper being knocked out quicker but likely still alive after being shot
Another thing to keep in mind; most of the opponents the Storm Troopers face in the original trilogy are, explicitly: force sensitive. There’s a big difference between your average Rebel soldier shooting a blaster at a Storm Trooper, and Luke Skywalker one of the strongest force users in existence shooting a blaster at a Storm Trooper. The former tends to be a lot less lethal than the latter.
modern day ballistic armor, specially the one used by the military IS a decent improvement over flak jacket thou, they arent unstopable yes and im sure soldiers would love to have even better protection but they can stop direct hits from rifles and they have lowered the amount of deaths a decent amount, and there are reports of soldiers surviving even multiple hits and coming from the other side alive
of course the armor isnt perfect and it cracks and become useless after a couple of hits, but it is an improvement and a reason why modern soldiers die far less often
In this case, that might be justified. Anti-ballistic body armor is good a against bullets, not so good against knives/bajonets. And while good against single bullets from pistols and low-power rifle rounds (weak rounds, long range, through cover or similar), ballistic body armor does jack against continuous high-power fire, such as from a typical (comic/video game) minigun. It also does badly against hooks that can penetrate safety glass and embed in the wall behind (Digit), the Schism Blade (Detla), blunt force trauma (Hiro, Harem), explosive force (Heatwave blowing the door open)…
There is actually an example in this assault where someone was protected by body armor, namely Fire Guy when he grappled with Varia and one of the mooks shot at him.
—-
Regarding Storm Trooper armor, that is likely less for the purpose of armoring the Stormtrooper (if it was designed for that, it would stop at least a few blaster shot) than for turning him into a faceless mook.
As part of an ongoing discussion in the Vampire the Masquarade LARP, at the 2006 Annual convention they rented a shooting range and brought in 3 identical body armor chest pieces, an assault rifle, a pistol, and a crossbow.
Body armor stopped AR and pistol rounds as expected. Crossbow bolt ripped though the plates like it was cardboard.
Thus ended the discussion of “Does body armor prevent staking”
The numbers geeks managed to show that it’s a mass factor. F=ma and while you cut A by a factor of 10, you increased M by a factor of 100-1000, depending on the projectile.
Another purpose of the Stormtrooper armour (the classic armour, not the Clone shit) was a fear factor: the helmet is designed to resemble a human skull, making them look kinda like skeletons
Classic ‘Legions of Terror’
Ming the Merciless was an idiot, but he did have a few good ideas.
It’s true to life, really. It’s easier to make a stronger weapon than stronger armor. You still wear armor, of course, because it may stop shrapnel or a ricochet from killing you, but if you get hit dead on with top end weaponry, you’re toast.
brute squad. goon squad. then the Dude Quads. nobody talks about those much. they’re more for eyecandy distraction than battles
I once had to deal with an invasion of the Geek Squad when my Samsung HDTV broke, but they were actually rather helpful.
I hope you turned on the Goon Show as soon as they left. Could always go find it now too, of course, in honor of today’s new character intro.
No I was instead watching the Super Hero Squad, after watching the Mod Squad.
The real evil here is that the goons are filled with styrofoam beads.
YES! The damned things will get everywhere, and take FOREVER to cleanup!
OTOH, at least they’re not full of glitter!
oh, I thought they were OrBeez
The minigun first appeared here; https://www.grrlpowercomic.com/archives/comic/grrl-power-328-six-cylinder-enthusiasm/
And continued in epic fashion on the following page.
At least they aren’t manikins that re-assemble themselves. I think the bubbles happen because they are mostly air and some kind of ectoplasum? that’s up to Dave to decide really… although the suits seem real so that would mean this is going to get costly.
I’m kinda rooting for Goon Squad now, he’s got a sense of humor and is owning his role as king of the mooks. And he seems totally fine with instances getting popped – maybe if the team manages to arrest him they can work out a training deal like Kevin has.
“Also, why was Goose just hanging out in the armory at 4 am?”
Never ask someone what they do with their favorite gun that early in the morning. The answers are always, at minimum, embarrassing to talk about.
ofc, it being Goose, odds are the answer would be “…” regardless
hmmm.. I cannot be sure but it seems the comic has gotten a bit more raw. I mean yeah kill monsters and all, but it seems to me that this is the first time we’ve seen the brutal killing of humans. I may be wrong, but things just seem to have gotten a bit more “real” I approve if it has just to clarify.
Well, pretty much the entire point of this strip is to show that they AREN’T killing humans. Humans aren’t full of blue and purple Skittles. Admittedly, the strip itself doesn’t do a great job of emphasizing that they’re all power-generated clones of the guy in the panel with the hooded man, but DaveB goes on to explain more thoroughly in the author’s comments below the strip.
No humans have been killed so far over the course of this invasion. There HAVE been other human deaths (Sciona’s murders, for instance, or the mercenary/rapists killed by Deus’s men), but not here.
It DOES show that ArcSWAT is apparently very willing to jump instantly (whether accidentally or deliberately) to lethal violence if an enemy invades their HQ.
As opposed to a field situation, where they act more as police officers initially, this is essentially a direct armed attack on a highly classified military base. Lethal force is absolutely authorized.
ah. Just read Daves explaination. “real” comment retracted.
Only one I can think of is Jamie Madrox, the multiple man.
There’s also Billy Numerous, and Multiplex in DC. Replay in Milestone, and Dupli-Kate in Image Comics.
Pretty much every universe that has supers has one of this guy.
It’d be interesting to compare this guy’s power set to Harem’s. He can clearly make a lot more of himself than she can, and yet they’re just as capable of fully independent action, and the him on the roof seems to have full awareness of all of their experiences. So does he have some other kind of drawback, like reduced durability (explaining Stalwart’s oopsie) or limited duration even if unharmed, or is he just straight-up more powerful than her?
He probably lacks teleportation, though.
Hmm, this might explain why they made it in the building before any alarms went off. Sneak 1 guy onto the roof, then spawn 20 copies… pretty solid tactic for a quiet entry.
He probably has an actual range limit, a distinct original body that controls all the others, and can’t teleport them around.
Plus, it seems like the armour is staying behind when his bodies pop, which would inidcate that he has to kit out each replicant seperately. That could become expensive quite fast.
woot, they have Duke Nukem in team?
Dude’s been there since the beginning. Despite his taciturn facial expression, though, he was willing to play along as Sidney put him in various outfits (including a Serious Sam shirt).
He’s a no-nonsense weapons expert, though. When the Fell arrived, he came out of Archon, guns blazing, and tore several of those chaos-spawn to shreds. No questions asked, no hesitation, just fire for effect and adjust tactics as necessary.
Goose has been in the comic since page 69, and I believe his name was revealed on page 207. He doesn’t show up often, and doesn’t talk much, but he lurks around in the background. Unfortunately, the comic isn’t fully tagged, even though it has two sets of character tags.
Reminds me of a villain from the Web Serial, Worm. His name was Spree, a member of the gang called the Teeth. Capable of duplicating himself endlessly though the clones were short lived and were killed in bloody meat.
Pretty neat character and ability though. And Goon Squad is better then Spree’s because he clearly can have weapons the the like unless he has to equip himself for an entire platoon each time out.
Ho-lee…that’s GWEN?
So, he makes some sort of bead-stuffed duplicates, apparently he can see what they’re doing or at least sense what happens to them, but they operate independently and have to speak to each other to coordinate, and at least one of them is named Ted. And, y’know, if I could feel what was happening to my other selves, I think I’d go into a less violent line of work. Maybe join the circus.
Oof, I’m just feeling for poor Stalwart there in the second to last panel — he was NOT expecting that and DEFINITELY not trying to crush the goon’s head… it just happened. D: What came next was probably an internal “OH THANK GOD it’s just some sort of super powered duplicate!” moment. o_o;;
I mean, it’s a clever use of a powerset. So, does he get paid enough money for an entire platoon?
A novice magician huh? Gwen you humble little liar. Even if it’s just an illusion, and not actually conjured swam of bugs, that’s still some impressive illusions.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Impossibles_(TV_series)
Evil Multi-Man.
A little confused about if the goon squad KNOWS that they’re a bunch of little marbles in armor, because that one guy who Arianna through a knife into was complaining about how ‘it’s poking the kneecap from the inside’ when I’m presuming they don’t actually have ‘kneecaps.’
Unless the ‘bubbles/marbles’ are actually just them dying and turning INTO marbles/bubbles upon death. Although I didnt see any blood when Goose impaled that one guy with the minigun before he actually died by getting ripped apart from it being fired.
I just realized that this question is stupid, since the doubles of Goon Squad probably know that they’re doubles, just like Jamie Maddrox’s doubles know that they’re doubles.
Plus after re-reading DaveB’s explanations, apparently they only BECOME bubbles/marbles upon death. Before that they’re normal doubles of the original Goon Squad.
I’m inferring that the copies are aware of their lot in life, and that they share a tendency for the dramatic whether or not they are really feeling any pain.
I just got a little thrown off from that idea because of how one called the other ‘Ted’ :)
Then I realized maybe they’re all named Ted because Ted is the real name of Goon Squad.
Wonder if Goonie is a dad: then he would be… Father Ted :P
I want to send a ninja hit squad after you for that, but it’s not a pun, just a bad joke.
Dangit.
It’s also a fairly good UK sitcom
if the original has multiple personalities, but they’re all ‘Ted’, they can have a very in-depth Ted talk
*polite golf clap*
https://c.tenor.com/nhNz2ZqG2IoAAAAC/clap-panda.gif
The external one commented about the minigun with bayonets being rather painful. This would inidcate a level of sensory awareness and feedback that would inidcate pain is a thing for them.
Yeah but I think the external one is the ‘original’ Goon Squad so not sure if it’s that all the double are just extensions of himself, or if they’re all ‘him.’
Have we seen the hooded,masked,gloved guy before? I feel like I have seen him before, but can’t place him. And he’s not name tagged.
I don’t think we’ve seen this guy in particular before, but we’ve seen other members of his organization.
… Is that Duke?
Goon Squad reminds me a lot of either Jamie Maddrox (Multiple Man) from Marvel, or DupliKate from Invincible. Except less bloody when his doubles die. If he was REALLY smart, he’d always keep his real self FAR away from the violence, so even the one who his cohorts think is the real Goon Squad is not the real Goon Squad.
Maybe he has a limit on the range he can deploy
Possibly. I’m just saying how it works for DupliKate in the comic (that’s what DupliKate did to ensure she doesnt die) and what Jamie Maddrox ‘can’ do (he doesnt have a range limitation).
There was a similar mook in the GirlGenius webcomic. I forget his name, bit he was the Assistant to the Master of Paris. He did keep his original off site, but each clone was killed in a different way, but all at once by the Master’s daughter after he killed the master. The deaths were bloody though.
The name Goon Squadron makes me think of a clan in some online space game i played years ago. They where had massive numbers compared to many others (might have had multiboxers) and just swarmed in with hundreds of cheap lowtier fighters.
My thought on the goon comments was, that Ted Origin is just having a blast letting his dupes throw arround craptalk while he controls them like some RTS game cannonfodder.
That’s the Something Awful corp in EVE Online. They really do just have THAT many players.
I played on an online zombie game once where seemingly overnight, about 1000 characters started logging on all named ‘Gid’ or ‘Gooned’ or something like that (Gooned1, Gooned2, etc). And they seemed to be different players too – not just one person on multiple characters (the game did not allow more than like 4 characters per IP, and it was pretty good on preventing proxies and VPNs for that as well). It might have been another Something Awful sort of thing though, since Something Awful did the same thing with zombies earlier on on the same game, calling themselves ‘The Dead.’
Korean comic series “The Legendary Midnight Sculptor” has a VR MMORPG guild with all their members named Swordnoob with a number.
Now check my name and take a guess…
Yea there also were GhostZeroZero,GhostZeroOne,GhostZeroTwo and so on But that group is pretty much inactive for arround a decade now.
Maybe goon squad could be named de’version (division/diversion – phonetic slurs)
Could also be Mymeograph mob (mimeoograph)
Lots nf alternates based on Teds actual powerset (duplication)
Could just nickname Ted ‘ditto’
Goon Squad is a YouTube channel of guys that repair cars and things.
Only other place I can think of with multipliers like that is Whateley Academy. There’s a couple multiplicators, including OMAC (or “One Man Army Company”) but none that do this. Though I think I’ve seen something where a tech head made themselves a minion duplicator (such as Dr. Zlo)- and Whateley’s Generator could do something similar.
But yeah, I don’t think Goon Squad has been used. Only issue I could see is with Thimble Theater, since Goon comes from there.
I’m pretty certain that Goon Squads power is the ability to make and control semi-sentient Orbeez.
Duke Nukem does not approve of people raiding his armory. Also they’re full of packing peanuts! They must have been sent by Amazon!
Given “Ted… why?” I wonder how independantly sentient the various Goons are, as opposed to Dabbler? They may be copies that feed back info to the original, but are they also all their own people?
Does no one else remember The Goon Show? Bluebottle would be so disappointed :(
I’ve only ever seen bits and pieces, but I’m running through episodes in the background today while I work. Not all of it has aged well, but there’s some fantastic material in there.
My only question is, why does he call himself Ted? I can take it, that’s his name, but why ask himself what he’s doing? Unless his duplicates take on a mind and name of their own.
There was also a duplicate villain in Venture Brothers. He looked and sounded like Dean Martin and only appeared in one or two episodes before he got killed.
If The Goon Squad is just a duplicator, then Hiro would not have been struggling with him in the corridor at all. He would have gotten the same result as Stalwart.
Hiro wasn’t struggling with Ted, but the dude with the nasty nail problem
As a former Grunt, Goose waking up early and being bored, then deciding to go clean/maintain weapons is totally a real thing.
One of the FEW things a grunt can get up to so early and not draw the ire of the duty NCO.
Stories…. I heard SO many stories.
Yay!! Detla and Gwen!!! Also that isn’t not Duke that is Goose. He just unfortunately bares a striking resemblance to that video game character.