Grrl Power #109 – Innate abuse
This is the last page we’ll see the ball room in for a while. It went on longer than I thought it would but I guess as long as it’s entertaining the background art isn’t really the important part of the page. It will be nice to finally break up this scene and not have to worry about where 10 people are positioned, though I guess Harem bugged off and X re-cloaked when Sandy came in, even though I didn’t actually show either of those events happen. I didn’t want to burn the page real estate on showing that stuff and both of them can come and go with little fanfare.
Of course now Sydney gets to meet a lot of other team members soon, so I’m putting myself in the position of drawing all new characters with all new backgrounds so that won’t be stressful at all.
I’ve decided that it’s more hassle than it’s worth to try and be creative with the rank insignias so I’m going to back and slowly fix all the ones in the art as I have time. Apparently there’s a tad more leeway with non-commission chevrons though. I may play around with those.
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I like the General’s taste in women. :)
Ditto
I guess the General is a Star Trek fan.
or She-Hulk or Gamora.
read the caption kind of late. LoL
Heh, I just realised the irony of setting this scene in the “ball room”.
And yay for Dabbler’s powers of mental projection! That is pretty awesome! As is General Faulk’s imagination. Orion animal woman, he’s another nerd/geek in Archon.
Um… What just happened?
“So… Tele-me can’t see through the glamor, if anyone’s…” Anyone’s what?
Also, no need for a comma between “glamor” and “if”.
Okay, I got it. Dabbler disguised herself specifically as a woman the General is attracted to or fantasizes about. But does this mean the true sight of Syd’s Telepresence Orb can’t penetrate a disguise if it’s not specifically trying to fool Syd?
i think it means that the projection she creates with the orb can’t see through illusions only her real self.
Yeah I was running out of room towards the end of the page. In my mind the actual conversation that occurs just after this is a Sorkin-esque rapid fire back and forth that explicitly spells out that the real her holding the parent orb can see through the glamor, but the telepresence her can’t, along with several amusing what if hypotheticals. If I could knock these out 2-3 a week I’d have all that in there but there’s no need to dwell on it.
Maybe Sydney’s tele-presence can’t see through the Glamor because she’s holding the tele-presence orb, not the true sight orb? If she was holding both the tele-presence and true-seeing orbs, then maybe the projection would also get true-seeing? Or does the same orb provide both tele-presence and true-seeing?
Previous experiments suggest that the Telepresence orb doubles as the Truesight orb, but possibly only when the ‘light bee’ is inside the orb (i.e. no Telepresence being projected).
…Oh. The sentnece did not parse that way to me. It looked more like she was saying “tele me can’t see through the glamour if anyone else is the target of it” or something along those lines. Honestly I wasn’t sure how she was going to end the sentence, but I thought that “if anyone’s…” was actually an integral part of the explanation, rather than just an addition at the end along the lines of “if anyone’s interested.”
I suspect that phrasing is going to confuse a fair number of readers, though…
Dave, how much time do you spend doing backgrounds and such? Cause I’ll be getting a new tablet soon and I wouldn’t mind pitching in. What I could do is mock up the backgrounds in google sketchup, throw it into 3ds max, unwrap, texture, and have it to you so what you could do is essentially take a screenshot from whatever angle you want and do it that way. Just an idea I’m throwing at ya if it’d save ya a lot of time.
I’ve been coasting a little since I’ve been able to recycle some of the backgrounds in this scene, of course, I’m a dumbass and keep drawing slightly different angles so I don’t get to copy and paste as much as I’d like. Still it’s probably a good hour on the backgrounds, maybe a little more. Now that they’re leaving this room the amount of time I’ll be spending on them will probably jump quite a bit.
I need to build an actual floorplan. I have an idea of how some of the main floors are laid out but I’m sure I’m not leaving room for plumbing, emergency stairs, elevator shafts, things like that.
I’d love to have a bunch of pre-rendered backgrounds cause frankly I think mine are utilitarian at best, but then if I needed alter some piece of the environment, like add a chair to a scene or something, and didn’t have time to outsource the changes, then there’d be this cartoon chair in the room that looks like the super obvious miscolored rock that’s going to move in a Scooby Doo cartoon.
Well, for the chair thing, if there is already a chair in said environment, it’s as simple as copy and pasting that chair so you’d have another. And if you’re not going for a super elegant chair or throne, I could whip one together in like 20-30 minutes easily. It’d be shorter, but god UVmapping is such a pain in the ass.
I’m not against the idea at all. I wish my art program could import sketchup models, or 3DS or anything really. I messed with Blender for a while but I gave up when I couldn’t find an easy to use toon shader that would let me import chairs/guns/cars/rooms and let me hand color them.
So her tele-clone can’t use the true-vision effect. Interesting, now to see if Syd herself has true-sight while projecting.
What I got from it was that the real her holding the orb can see through it, while the image being sent back from her projection can’t. Must be one heck of a kalidoscope effect if she is looking at her from both angles at the same time, not only two points of view but the same (item) in both is different. Trippy.
It’s worth pointing out something to remember here; tele-Sydney copies Sydney exactly, so while tele-Sydney is looking at Dabbler and seeing the glamour, Sydney is actually seeing the wall (or something). Had she produced the telepresence by her side, she’d probably would be triping out right now :D
Perepheral vision, she isn’t standing that close to Dabbler here so likely gets a corner of the eye of the true form while the copy is looking dead on.
it’s just like looking through a rifle scope with one eye while having your other eye open, you “choose” which image you focus on and process with your brain
The comma in this situation indicates a pause in the sentence, which is still useful in this case.
Probably “if anyone’s interested” or something like that. Also, the comma is fine there, since it’s a slight pause in the sentence.
I’d go for “if anyone’s… listening”, as it then ties in with “no-one’s listening” in the linked bubble.
Woo,She-Hulk!
More like the woman from the first season of the original Star Trek. I think it was the third episode.
Actually it’s the Star Trek pilot reworked into a two part episode.
CSB:
During the production of the scene with the green woman the film
came back with normal-ish skin tones.
“Make her greener!” Roddenberry commanded.
The scene was filmed again.
Meanwhile, in the photo lab, they couldn’t figure out why the film needed so much correction.
Trivia-Time:
…The actress who played [Star Trek]’s green-skinned Orion slave-girl was also seen as TV’s first Batgirl, opposite Adam West & Burt Ward!
that was my first thought as well.
That was my thought too, but then I realized that she was about a foot too short.
Interesting…Dabbler has a bit of fabric tied around her arm in the same place as her arm-bracelet thing. Give you four-to-one that’s the cybernetic arm mentioned in her bio.
The bio says lower left, which is the opposite arm.
What the bio doesn’t tell you is why it’s that arm that was replaced. Of course, some would say that lower lefties always tend to be a bit wilful even in metahumans, and that therefore what a Succubus’s lower lefty gets up to would probably blow the X-ratings out of the water.
…
Would be fun if they bumped into Spinerette at some point.
That’s a nice weapons set up on Peggy by the way. Quick draw shoulder hosters like that are hard to get just right. There is always some suble adjustments between comfort and speedy accesability.
I just googled “shoulder holster” till I found a decent looking one. Didn’t realize that was a speed-draw one but that makes sense anyway.
if that somehow reaches the general’s family he’ll be in a lot of trouble.
That COULD be the General’s wife done up for a little “Trek role-play.
Okay, I think I get it. Sydney wanted to test if her PROJECTION also had the same ability to see through glamour that she does while holding that stone. Dabbler pulled She Hulk out of someone’s mind as their ideal image, but I am a little vague on who it was.
It was General Faulk. That’s why everyone is looking at him funny. And it was the green slave girl from the Star Trek pilot episode.
The slave girl I wound up drawing is sort of a combination of Marta, who I think was the one in the pilot – she had sort of a flapper haircut, and one who appeared in a later episode who had so dark red it’s almost black beehive. I would have just drawn her but I couldn’t find a good shot of her outfit. When you google “orion slave girl” mostly you get shots of the trio from “Enterprise”
The woman from “The Cage” (and got recycled into “The Menagerie”) was called Vina. Marta was the name of the Orion girl in the third season episode “Whom Gods Destroy” and interestingly enough was played by Yvonne Craig after her appearances as Batgirl in the final season of the Adam West Batman series and oh my god I can’t believe I know all this without looking it all up oh god oh god what am I doing with my life. D:
Punches a stamp through Hardcover’s nerd card. “Wow, one more like that and you have 1 free get out of a wedgie card!”
I think filling out your nerd card means you get a mandatory wedgie actually.
I made arrangements with the “BIIIG Nerd” sub-guild. Fill out the card and you get one free “Pound the bully into pulp”.
…with an optional up-grade to:
“Use L33T Skilz to either [Mess with Bully’s Credit Rating] or [Add Bully to Local Police’s Most-Wanted List]”
Kinda an either/or. The “Big” Nerds don’t get as much exercise these days.
of course not, they’ve graduated into SMOF’s they don’t “do” petty things like that anymore…
Yvonne Craig also appeared in the first black an white season of the Wild Wild West. (The rest was in color.) In it she gets to perform 4 different types of dances. (She was a dancer.) She is part of a league of Assassins and she gets seduced by James Tiberius West of the Secret Service.
General Faulk (“mo”; “eeny” for Peggy, skipped Max, already did Sydney, “meeny” for Sandy, “miny” for Arianna), and it’s not She Hulk but a green-skinned alien woman from Star Trek as people above pointed out.
Still can’t figure out what the condition has to be for Syd’s True Sight to work.
And I think it should be spelled “Miney”.
Sydney has to hold the telepresence orb for her to get truesight. But while she gets truesight while holding the orb, even if it is projecting, her projection does not see through glamours (I guess because the projected orb is not real).
Whoops. Was tired enough not to see the key phrase of ‘Can’t see’. This is what I get for staying up til early morning waiting for the update.
Slave Dale from Flash Gordon (1980) or slave Leia (1983)? Oh, no. The General is of an age that Vina would have been very influential. (1966) She certainly caught my attention.
https://www.themakeupgallery.info/fantasy/alien/st/orion/vina.htm
Oh good lord that is funny. I love Maxima’s face as she is trying not to laugh. I also love how Sydney has no idea why everyone is treading on egg shells.
And I too have no idea what Sydney was going to say.
“If anyone’s interested”
Looks to me like Peggy’s facial scar was applied professionally for looks. I can’t see how she would get it in service without losing part of her nose.
Vina is probable a defense to not have his real sexual fantasy presented to the public.Its a easy association between Vina and pulling sexual fantasy pulled out of someone mind.
Hrm… the dress is closer to that worn by Marta, while the hair looks like Vina’s. I don’t think the general had a specific slave girl in mind when his hind-brain was constructing this fantasy.
Is there anyone else out there that now can’t get the idea of a four armed slave Leia out of their head?
True, Dabbler’s Glamor forms don’t have the four arms that I know of, but, yea, image is permanently rooted in the brain box now.
One would assume if the fantasy that was being accessed had 4 arms it’d show.
Or 6?
What if she had three heads?
You guys are bound and determined to totally twist my brain, aren’t you.
However, I don’t think the three heads would ever do it for me.
I do still want a hug from all four of Dabbler’s arms though.
We’re talking about Spinnerette and Minerva the humanoid Cerberus.
Agreed, can’t say anything bad about a four-armed hug!
Alright, I accept your challenge:
“I only regret that I have no more than 1 pair of arms with which to hug her in return.”
That’s what legs are for! *Tackle-GLOMPHs are go!”
HA! Nice rebuttle Good Sir! I gotta say I wouldn’t have thought to respond with that.
Given Peggy has had time to appear in the ballroom, the fact that Harem and X have disappeared isn’t jarring, since there’s obviously a small time lapse from the previous page.
I like the way Sydney’s visitor badge swings round to the front again during the page.
And Dabbler as Vina? What more to say!!
That’s a good point about Harem and X. But what about Sandy, she’s had more than enough time to do what she came in to do so why is she still hanging around?
Wouldn’t you stick around if you could? Maybe she hasn’t been told to leave or go do something.
Is it just me, or does Max’s mouth in the last panel look weird?
She’s trying to not bust out laughing.
She’s biting her lip which is hard to see at that res.
I sooo want to see when she DOES lose it.
Only a matter of time, with Sydney around.
She is probably slightly conflicted, wanting to chew out her boss for having a Slave girl fetish, and chewing out Dabler for doing that a second time.
Max’s mouth in the last panel looks… bizarre. Unnaturally so.
Its because she’s biting the side of her mouth, trying to keep from laughing/smiling.
best described as a poker face
Or trying to keep a poker face and losing the battle.
Max’s mouth is twisted from her trying to not burst out laughing or smile but still attempting to speak. Her lips are pulled in opposite directions.
everyone’s reactions in this one are perfect!
The biting cheek in last panel by maxima kinda looks funny- almost as if you drew here keeping a straight face and then smiling to one side and overlaid both pictures- is a bit disjointed. Out of focus it works, close up not so much.
Otherwise- dialogue is a bit confusing at times. Simple trick used in mangas and some verbose comics is to link bubbles with arrows in the link. sometimes shading backround in bubble might work too w/multiple bubbles and origins of dialogue.
Love the ST reference and what would make the Gen’s day.
Also when referring to Peggy as “Already done that.” Love that embarrassed smirk on Peggy’s face. Implies many levels of doneness.
If I was the General I would have owned it by saying “ok so I used to be a bit of a nerd.”
If you don’t show embarrassment they can’t use it against you.
You say that with PRIDE!!!!
:) I was waiting for someone to say that.
Is he hip as well?
Can’t say yet…
…but we have it on good authority that he’s dead-sexy in his underwear…
:P
:)
Already did you was when she hit Sidney, presumably the image she came in with.
From Dabblers comments in the einie, minie, miny, MO page, she got the image that she used when she first came in from Sydney.
Exactly what I was thinking.
DaveB, are the patches on the side’s of Maxima’s and Peggy’s shoulders new?
I don’t remember seeing them before.
I am regrettably a little inconsistent with those. It’s supposed to be the same blue circle with the Archon star that the table has.
I’m sorry but being a little inconsistent with partially hidden embroidery DOES NOT rate as one of your patented “easter eggs.” If you’ve forgotten to include one of them in this page just come clean and say so. ;)
Did I neglect to neglect something? Not even a questionable spelling choice? I’m scared what is happening?
AHHHH!!! It’s the 1278th sign of the apocalypse!! AHHHHHHHHH!!!!!! *Runs away screaming about cats and dogs living in harmony*
Apocalypse averted. The MagicallyRetyingCurtain (TM DaveBarrack) has retied itself off-screen again. It’s just visible in panel 4 over the general’s left shoulder. (The perspective has shifted, but that should still be the curtain situated between the general and Maxima’s empty chair.)
Don’t forget snakes and bees!
That’s the 728th sign, when snakes writhe upon the ground yelling in a British accent ‘Help Help! I’m covored in BEES!!!”
Nice one, but I was thinking about Arriana’s wild imagining about what was in Sydney’s poster tube. “Holy Shit it’s full of snakes and bees! How did I forget they where in there and why are they living in harmony?!”
How’s this, Dave? In the Who’s Who, the last sentence for Dabbler reads ‘ Enjoys antagonizing anyone she perceives as prude, ‘.
That probably should be altered to either “…. perceives as A prude” or to “….perceives as prudISH,”.
I need an editor. :P
Oh, a-n-d you misspelled “perceives” there as well. “I Before E, Except After C” and all that.
Sorry, dude.
So, that first glamour was Sydney’s secret fantasy and her Orb only worked because of that?
I think the True Sight Orb doesn’t work through the projection of Sydney. But to be scientific about it we should try again, with another image pulled from what passes for Sydney’s mind ^_^.
OK, another person for Sydney to practice her crazy on. Though I suspect Peggy can take a lot of weirdness in stride.
Awww… I wanted one over. I really wanted to see what Zeph would picture!
Barbra Edin in a see thru version of her I Dream Of Genie outfit.
HA1 Genius, Mr. Pickle. As Sydney would say, “dialed that shit in!”
Slave Leia is more my thing. Maybe later?
For an Orion slave-girl she does a dam good She-Hulk.
SFX for Dabbler in the last panel: SQUOOSH.
Where’s the fun in super powers (especially ones involving shape-shifting) if you can’t abuse them?
Dude, fantastic effect in the penultimate panel. The overlay of the glamour taking effect, complete with the soon-to-be-completely-masked extra arms, is detail I wouldn’t expect to see. *Very* nice.
Well, at least the “Mo!” left panel. Technically the last three are indeed three panels and not one. >_>
Thanks. I’d love to do a crazy higher level of detail, little arcane symbols and what not trailing the whipping effect of the under image but I just didn’t have the time.
It was good the way it was. Got the idea of sight shifting across, and went with the story well.
Remember the old acronim KISS, it also helps when you are short on time.
That’s “Keep It Simple Stupid”, right?
Since Dave seems reasonably intelligent I’ll amend that to “Keep It Simple Silly!”
Simple can just mean getting the story across in a clear manner. In doing that DaveB can save time on some of his artwork and concentrate on the quality of his art. If he has time afterwards he can embellish whatever he feels could use some extras. That way if he prioritizes what needs to be done first he won’t feel as rushed to get the page done on schedule.
He probably already does these things, but I was trying to get my point across.
It seems that when Gen. Faulk makes “the angry eyes” it is almost a super power. Very scary. Ahh, the old classics Vina (Susan Oliver) as Orion Slave Girl from first pilot Star Trek and with a bit more muscle development turn her into She-Hulk.
I’d like to find a place that had lobster burgers. Cost at least $20 but on Maxima’s ebony card it would be worth it.
Kind of thinking that the Black Card means a resturant / cafeteria / whatever will GET a Lobster Burger for you if you want, whatever the circumstances..
“But we’re a Vegan establishment…”
“OK. In that case, I want double cheese and bacon on that sucker as well.”
There’s at least one in London. More than that I can’t tell you, other than that a friend worked there once.
so the last glamor was from Sydney’s imagination. does that mean there’s some latent lesbianism in her? or is that the perfect image of a woman which she would like to be?
it would be awesome if dabbler did this with someone and the glamor image turned out the same as dabbler herself just with a special costume. that would hilarious.
DaveB said it’s her ideal version of what a REALY HOT girl looks like. Wether she is into chicks or not dosn’t come into it.
It did resemble Sydney’s “OmniGal” Gaming-persona from PG#1.
Since this page here is a “flashback”, perhaps “OmniGal” was inspired by Dabbler’s glamor…?
Of course Sydney is unphased by the revelation, for a comic book nerdette green skin women in skimpy clothes is common fair. Nice and easy cosplay too.
After reading through the comments, I didn’t get the Star Trek slave girl right away (thanks to muscle tone), my first thoughts were She-hulk or Gamora in a ballgown. Granted she would be lacking Gamora’s distinct facial markings.
I think a “held on by fishing line and double sided tape” dress by William Ware Theiss would have made the Star Trek reference a little more obvious. Or maybe I’m just that old as to remember that.
I have realized that I am old enough to say “Hey you kids, get offa my lawn” completely without irony.
Hey…I’m just impressed you know who William Ware “Do the censors think that moss grows under there” Theiss was!
Yea, I’m that old. Not quite as old as the General, though. My formative years were influenced by M’Ress and Leela.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/M%27Ress
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Leela_%28Doctor_Who%29
OK folks, stand back!
It looks like we have a “furry” in the crowd.
Leela is NOT a furry!
I think he means the Caitian M’Ress…Of course….okay, bad thought there.
They’re everywhere!
Yes, they are, every rock, tree, shrub, just twenty years ago one could not be found.
That’s because that would be before the Anthromorphic animal entertainment boom.
You will find most “furre” fall into two groups, those introduced to it via the internet, or the older group that originated it. These people for the most part fall into the same two generations (or one generation span across ten years) that grew up with a slew of cartoons featuring anthropomorphic animals in “realistic” IE relationship, heroic, and everyday envrionment settings
such as (Chip & Dale’s Rescue Rangers, Tail Spin, Gummi Bears, Duck Tales, Darkwing Duck, ect…) and simular animals given human characteristics type shows. This died off as the main stream around the early 90’s (when the crude cartoons started to take over). Thus this age group had these imprinted on their mind, and many grew up with amalgamated mental images of human/beasts thus hold onto it as a part of their childhood and psyche. Lets put it this way, when you are three or four years old and everyday those chipmunks are telling you that mouse is sexy, it might just stick.
Like ThunderCats and a few others.
That was Cheetara running around in a one-piece bathing suit. And I’m still surprised the censors didn’t notice all the Thundercats were naked in the first episode.
Because bugs was always nude, and Donald never wore pants….
I’m 21 and never really watched Star Trek and I know who Theiss was. He’s got a trope named after him. :P
https://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Main/TheissTitillationTheory
It occurs to me that Dabbler, with her illusion powers, could pull off outfits that you couldn’t hold on with fishing line and double sided tape…
I..um…have a question here….kind of been bugging me since last week…
And yes, at least one person is going to know this is my normal train of thought….
but are Maxima and Peggy a couple? I don’t know, last strip and this one just…I don’t know…made me wonder that.
We know they’re friends. But Dave’s said Max is straight. Peggy we don’t know. Dabbler and Harem though. ;)
Ok, I wasn’t sure. It can be hard to read through all the comments and I just ended up wondering.
As far as we can tell Dabbler’s like Jack Harkness, and Harem’s an experience junkie so there’s no telling what she’s done or will do with 5 bodies.
Well, yeah, Dabbler probably isn’t too discriminating when it comes to romance/sex.
I was just wondering because it seems like Maxima isn’t the kind to have a good friend who isn’t a partner. I don’t know why she struck me that way.
Dabbler is a, well part succubus, like the bipolar the need is great, like food…
Max and Peggy are ostensively just close friends – the cast history indicates they served together and were each injured during that time. From personal experience I can confirm that friendships established during combat either become your closest Friends, or fade to nothing and become very awkward and uncomfortable later.
This, of course, doesn’t preclude escalation…
Maxima is a former tabletop RPG gamer and a former member of the US. Air Force.
Both that hobby and that employment involve forming friendships, generally quite good friendships, with people one doesn’t form romantic or sexual relationships with. In fact, military service generally promotes forming strong personal bonds with one’s cohort of fellow service members while actively forbidding most or all forms of fraternization.
Maxima would almost CERTAINLY have good friends who aren’t partners. In fact, at this point she doesn’t seem to have a partner of any sort.
They seem more like very close friends for life, without needing to take it beyond that. Which seems to fit with what I’ve heard about many such war-forged friendships – a (small) squad of sisters, so to speak.
I was just making sure since I wasn’t entirely sure.
It seemed odd, that’s all.
People who have been around each other for years and shared danger can be realy close friends, and not have a sexual thing going even if on of them is gay.
Lovers come and go, but a great friend should be cherished beond reason.
I think I read that or something like that somewhere.
Well, part of why I was checking had to do with the lip bite since that can mean so many things.
You mean the lip bite that clearly has nothing to do with Peggy and everything to do with the fact that her commanding officer just unwillingly had one of his personal fetishes broadcast to an entire room of his coworkers and subordinates by Harem’s inconsiderate act of mind-reading?
I’d say in this moment it’s an expression of contrition to the boss whose privacy has been violated because the situation is intensely uncomfortable. Peggy could’ve been on the other side of the planet, and that lip still would’ve been bitten. She was unrelated to it.
.
I would like to know what Zephan’s reaction was … before and during when Dabbler takes hold of her breast and feels herself up.
Zephan’s ideal woman might be Dabbler herself. . . oh now wouldn’t that be fun?
Would be funny if that was the General’s “image” just imagine the looks on the team’s face then.
At first I thought it was odd that Sydney’s projection couldn’t see through the glamor, while Sydney could, but now that I think about it that’s a huge advantage. If she can see things as they really are through one set of eyes, and the illusions through another set of eyes, then she can recognize which things are illusions!
Think about it, if she could only see through illusions, then in cases where she was already using the orb she wouldn’t know if she was seeing through a new illusion or not except by how others reacted to it, and then she wouldn’t know what the illusion was. Since she can simultaneously see both the illusion and the reality perfectly, she doesn’t need to rely on others to recognize when an illusion is being thrown her way.
That’s actually pretty useful.
I was trying to create some limitations to the orbs. They’re already really powerful in my corner of the superverse, especially as Sydney starts learning more about how to use them. Since she can activate the truesight of the yellow comm-orb by just grabbing it, it’s easy for her to spot check whether something is an illusion or not. I’m just trying to place a bit of a limit on tele-Sydney. I want her to have cool powers, not plot-bustingly awesome ones.
It’s tempting to give your own characters godlike powers, and there are some fun stories built around that premise, Samurai Cat, Fist of the North Star, etc, but mostly those come off as poorly written fan fic Mary Sues which I’m trying to avoid, but mostly it’s because I don’t want to write myself into a corner. I want the characters to use their powers intelligently, and if I give them a power, I don’t want them to have to forget to use it otherwise a villain’s plot would be instantly unraveled, much like all those movies that would be over in 5 minutes if someone had a working cell phone.
Also, keep in mind that a good author, which DaveB appears to be so far, balances the abilities of the heroes with that of the villains; the more powerful the protagonist, the powerful the antagonist has to be by contrast. To make a good story, the bad guy has to have a descent chance to defeat the good guy and vice versa. Let’s compare some hero-villain line-ups.
Hero: (pick one)
– John McLean, a highly competent, although irreverent New York City police officer. Above average, but definitely not super-human, athlete
– Superman, almost unstoppable Last Son of Krypton.
Villain: (again pick one)
– 6 men armed with automatic weapons, lots of ammo and no moral compulsion against their use, who are robbing a bank.
– Lobo, super-strong, invulnerable, amoral bounty hunter from outer space. Does not need to breath to survive.
If you match up John McLean and the bank robbers, you can get a very good complete story, as John takes out the bad guys one-by-one. In fact several movies along this line have been made that were very successful, both story-wise and financially.
If you match up Superman with the bank robbers, you get a two-page introduction to the next issue of a comic book. “You must be new in town. Didn’t anybody tell you about me? Be careful; the bullets bouncing off me could hurt a civilian.”
If you match up John McLean with Lobo, John either becomes collateral damage in the first minute of the encounter, or John realizes he is totally outclassed and becomes a messenger boy to the real heroes (say, like Archon, or an entire armoured Army division). A victory here would be the biggest fluke ever and may feel like (or may have to rely on) deux ex machina. Remember all the cops who where killed in the police station during Terminator 1? Same idea.
Superman vs Lobo is a fair fight. While Superman is easily more powerful, Lobo has no hesitation about causing city-wide destruction to win the fight, but Superman will hold back (See “The world is like tissue paper to me”). This is also why the human Lex Luthor can make a good foil for such a powerful, but moral, being. Clark Kent will not cross the moral lines that Lex, and Lobo for that matter, don’t even realize are there.
As you make your heroes more powerful, the villains have to become more powerful as well, or the good guy gets an automatic win with no risk to himself/herself/itself (boring!). A villain too powerful for the heroes to ever make a dent just makes for a depressing story. Mind you, you can start a story where the mega-powerful villain is in a position of ultimate power and the heroes take small victory after small victory before causing the villain’s empire to crumble around him/her. I think I have seen a few video games along this line, in which case the ultimate villain is the final boss for you to beat, if you figure out how.
but if all your villains are insanely strong then its also boring because then you are lacking contrast. A good story can do more with personality than power levels. Granted I am against everyone being Omega Class planet poppers (Why DBZ started to bug me after a few arcs).
In fact your own example Super-man, you are forgetting Lex Luthor, and Ultra Humanite before him. It was brains against Super-man’s brawn. and Lex Luthor would hold his own.
Bat-man had to be a detective as often as a martial artist, with some villains like the Riddler focusing on that aspect entirely.
But I do agree at times you need the villain to pose a genuine threat, however there is the option that is difficult to pull off of a villain that is a threat in such a way that your main character can’t fight it with out also endangering their team mates (I was inspired by the fight in Tenchi Muyo with Ryoko vs Kagato, Washu pointed out Ryoko could have killed Kagato instantly *she is planet bustingly powerful*, but was holding back and her strength being worn down because if she did go all out the excess energy would have killed Ayeka who was in the same room.)
I rather like that conundrum “I could take down this space dragon elder god / monstrous abomination villain with one shot, but all my friends here with me would be vaporized as well” I did somethig like this once in a short novelle *unpublished* where my sorceress character Rhulan used a powerful spell to destroy a demon army, but had to insist those with her stand directly under her and the floating sigil otherwise their safety could not be assured.
Actually, I was thinking more from the point of view of the mysterious beings that created Sydney’s orbs. It took me a moment to figure out why they wouldn’t give the projection the same “true sight” ability, and when I did figure it out, it seemed both clever and useful.
That being said, I’m wondering if they’re going to remember the reason why Sydney activated the orb in the first place, i.e. so Dabbler could examine them when activated.
I have other reasons for limiting their powers, but that will be revealed later. :D
Besides the fact that Sydney with Omega-level powers is enough to make both gods and devils shite themselves?
OR, laugh themselves into a stupor…
Or ran crying to their mommys!
which fits into my comment. The whole time some bottom-rung spirit’s laughing his arse off because he’s the one that arranged it.
That reminds me of Glen Cook’s Garret talking about the petty little godling whose job it was to make his life weird and something for the gods to laugh at.
Yes, I belive that gods name is Glen Cook, patron god of fantasy detective noir.
It’s like Rockford Files meets Lord of the Rings. And if you look closely a hefty dose of social commentary.
I thought it had a more Terry Pratchett feel to me than LOTR.
More of a zany free for all type of world, with society in flux.
It’s a bit darker than Pratchett. Death and bloody violence plus endings that are far from happy in most of them. All the nastiness of the human race (and a few others) is at least glimpsed in his books.
So Pratchett with a more gritty feel.
With LOTR you had an epic fantasy feel, Cooks books had a more down to earth but zany feel, where you could and did run into anything you could almost imagine. Plus they are funny as hell.
Sharp thinking, Good Sir!
Too funny. I’m grateful for all the comments, this page makes a lot more sense now that I’ve read through them. No idea who the green woman is- apparently she’s a character from Star Trek. Also interesting that Dabbler is able to model her glamour after the ‘ideal woman’ from a particular character’s mind.
LMMFAO!!! The General’s an old school geek.
Hey, Peggy’s almost Sydney’s height. Bet it’s nice to be around someone relatively “normal”
It’s interesting to note that Dabbler’s glamour apparently has a bit of reality to it even if it is an illusion. I’m basing that observation off Dabbler’s, uhh, experimentation in the last panel.
Or the General’s idea of a fantasy girl has the same bust size as Dabbler and she just realize that.
Well, when Dabbler walked in, several elements of her appearance did in fact match, or approximate, actual physiology and dress. The hair mimicked the ears. The choker stayed the same. The eyes remained the same two colors.
She seems to have a lot of leeway about what to incorporate into her appearance.
I’m beginning to wonder, though, if like MegaMind, her eyes will always stay the same two colors.
The eyes will likely be my tell for the readers. Whether or not she can actually change them is probably unimportant at the moment.
Well, Dabbler is part shape shifter, and using illusion spells will only work so long as they don’t touch the illiusion. Not a great idea for a sucumbus who is all about the touch.
What if she can do minor body modifications such as breast realighnment and things to do with soft tissue changes relativly fast, but has a hard time changingher skelatal structure, so she makes her illousion look like what her target wants, but keeps it within her physical paramaters.
Other than…well her horns, hooves and extra arms?
Well, that’s a valid point but let’s think about this:
If the absolute, quintessential definition of what you consider to be beauty was in bed with you, would you really be in a state to notice jack squat?! and even if you did have the clarity of mind to take notice of any oddities that would require the use of more than two arms (I’ll thank you all to just use your imaginations on this one), all she has to do is crank up her lust aura and BAM! You go from “Hey, wait how are you…” to “…uh, what was I just saying? WAIT, WHY DO I EVEN GIVE A CRAP?!” Yeah, throw alcohal into the equation and it pretty much becomes a non-issue.
I think I’d notice if she has both her hands in my hair and I suddenly another stroking my lower head.
Hmm.. you mean the head that does the thinking for a lot of guys?
well if you can make just F-class shapeshifting changes, minor soft tissue adjustments, like breast size, shrink or expand waist, adjust muscle tone it can add to the whole illussion.
Plus there is if the control over the senses extends to tactile sensations (like Emma Frost in X-men First Class making a man think he was dry humping her when it was just a psychic projection). It begs the question on how much sensory control Dabbler can extend over her target.
She also has those mind probe things on the end of her antenna/ears. Those could be used to controle what someone notices.