Grrl Power #1121 – Phenomenal Cosmic Roll of the Dice
Will they unleash a superpowered supernova? Merge into a Tyrant type creature? Or will Varia just attain the ability to come up with dumb pun supranyms? That one would be less useful than Bird Radar, cause I can think of quite a few uses for that power. Nemesis and Omni-Gestalt are really pretty similar powers, or power sets really, since both potentially contain “all” powers. Nemesis likely has a smaller catalog because it’s purely a defensive ability. It’s hard to imagine Bird Radar as a counter to some specific bird attack power. Although… maybe if someone could control birds and also make them invisible? Eh, sure, I can see it. And if someone could take the form of a giant burrito and the only way to defeat him was to make him boiling hot on the outside and still have a chunk of bean-ice on the inside, then Nemesis could generate a microwave laser power, so while the power is activated defensively, it can still create offensive abilities.
The January Vote Incentive is up! The new on is being worked on. Time for the quarterly fashion show that Anvil puts Maxima through. Can you detect the theme?
Variant outfits and lack thereof over at Patreon.
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Man this guy has full cartoon-villain charisma. How do you turn down an offer like that, even knowing that he’s a supervillain? You can’t!
“IT’S A TRAP!!” – Star wars ;)
Varia’s Inner Voice: DON’T DOOOO EEEEEETTT!!!
Also Varia’s Inner Voice: DOOOO EEEEEETTT!!!
….well. That certainly _is_ quite a question.
Will her power even work on him, or will he develop the ability to suppress his own genetics as a defensive measure? Or maybe she’ll get the power to perfectly attack anyone, regardless of the defender’s powers? (If Varia gets perfect attack _and_ Team Badguy is prepared with a mind-control Super on standby, then this could get… quite messy indeed)
My quatloos are on: absolutely nothing happens. The gestalt of it all is sum zero and everything cancels everything out. Until it doesn’t. Or something. Or, EVERYthing happens.
‘Dis gün be güd.
FWTDT power is based on any one power he needs for defense… Locked behind needing it for defense.
Varia is limited by linking to another who has a power.
This is probably correct. His power counter would be… to prevent Varia from gaining a power on contact? Her super power connection/link would break temporarily as long as she holds his hand. He could then subdue her without a power as she reverts to “normal” human status.
Well. No, Varia gets powers from anyone, weather they have powers or not. So every sentient being, and for all i know maybe animals too, is a potential power for her. Though most animals wont stay in physical contact when varia turns into a fireball or something
I think FWTDT’s power doesn’t activate at all in this case… because by and large, those Varia touches are immune to the power she gets from them. So FWTDT has nothing to defend himself against.
oh man, this is a horrifying quandary. because we all know. shes gonna basically get default human. so no powers at all. but you really have to find out for sure what would happen wouldnt you. for science!
I am quite sure whatever the result it, the side effect is to be able to give terrible pun like jokes.
Even default hyu-mons give her powahs
I’m curious too! :)
I don’t understand this. I thought Varia RECEIVED powers from OTHER supers? Are you now saying that Varia and Death Toll have unlimited powers, but can’t access them directly? Otherwise the answer to Death Toll’s question is “nothing, they are both waiting for the other one”
You thought wrong. You’re not alone, but I still cannot comprehend why people are so confused about this. They both have potentially any power, but they need a “key” to switch powers.
For Varia, it’s touching another person. Not just supers. Possibly just humans, and not any person in the universe, but they don’t need to have superpowers. Her power selects its form based on the genetics of the person she touches, probably in a way that relates to what Deus has said about human DNA interacting with the superion field.
For Death Toll, it seems that he needs to be responding to a specific event. It works on things that aren’t super powers as well, such as magic, and presumably ordinary attacks. From the author’s notes beneath this very page, it doesn’t even need to be in response to an attack. He simply gains whatever power is necessary to counter someone else.
This isn’t new. He’s not “now saying” this. This is how it’s been from the beginning, but people have jumped to weird conclusions for reasons I can only guess are based on prior knowledge of other media. They look at Varia and think she’s just like Rogue.
I assume Dabbler and Vehemance are to blame, since they specifically power up by draining power from others during certain conditions (although now that I think about it, it didn’t seem that anyone who was actively powering up Vehemance got exhausted in the process, they way spending the the night with Dabbler does, so maybe his power needs to be “unlocked” as well?).
Anyway, since it has been established that characters with a wide array of conditional powers (Dabbler, Vehemance, heck even Sydney and Maxima technically counts) all recieve said powers from an external source/third party, it’s not exactly a leap of logic to asdume that Death Toll and Varia would function the same way.
people don’t get exhausted powering up Vehemence, because the power he draw upon has already been spent by them. ‘you attack me I gain power. I attack you, I gain power. Someone attacks someone else in my range, I gain power. And that range grows as my well of power does.’ The power’s already been output, he just collects it.
Well seeing as feeding Dabbler typically involves lots of horizontal tango, which can (and will be if it’s with Dabbler) be a intense physical activity, which would imply exhaustion after a length of time. Meanwhile Vehemence gets fed by violence which generally also implies physical activity but not necessarily requires it, would not be a direct cause of exhaustion to the extent of Dabbler. Vehemence does not need his power unlocked it is active all the time, this is demonstrated by his ability to generate AOE fields to induce violence, similar to how Dabbler can induce lust by proximity.
Vehemence doesn’t drain people, he gains power (not “powers”, he just grows stronger, as opposed to Varia and PBS who actually get entirely new powers) from violence, as an abstract concept, it would otherwise just dissipate.
Can’t help but think it would be interesting if Varia’s manifestation when she touches someone is the power that person would have if they were to have an origin story. Except of course the powers she gets touching a super have no relation to their power.
Except the powers that she gets from touching a super usually do have some relation to their power.
But yes, I think the implication is that there’s some common genetic pattern between supers that give them access to the superion field, and thus superpowers, but it’s the specifics of their genes that determine which powers they get, and that Varia is tapping into the same mechanism. Presumably if those non-super people had the patterns necessary to have super powers, they would be related to the powers that Varia gets from touching them.
Is it only based on genetics? Varia’s Sydney gestalt is implied to be that she can control Sydney’s orbs just like Sydney. That would mean that Sydney is linked to the orbs at a genetic level. Have Sydney’s genes have been altered by the orbs, or was she already special before she touched them? If she was already special, how many other people are special like her?
My assumption is that the Orbs rewrite something within the host to allow them to control the Orbs, or the Orbs control them. This is based on Sydney stating that she doesn’t get vertigo when using the flight Orb, but did have it when demonstrating to Maxima within the first week of them meeting (can’t remember the specific comic, but Sydney was on the roof and Maxima commented that the Orb probably overrides this so she can use it). I also feel that the feather-fall power-up further amplifies this rewrite as, after upgrading that section, Sydney no longer had vertigo when she was not holding the Orb.
Another example was when Sydney upgraded the middle of the leveling path and stated that she felt like she understood the Orb functions easier than before. This was not as obvious as the flight Orb, but would work as part of my theory.
With this rewrite theory, it would also require something to change with the host. Varia’s power is unknown exactly what is causing it (stated she thinks it is genetic, due to how family members generally gift her similar powers), so it is possible whatever Orb effects Sydney also affects Varia’s powers.
Rewriting something within the host is very vague though. Could be epigenetic. Could be installing a physical antenna in her brain. Could be genetic, could be turning her into an orb slowly and slowly until someone else finds a pack of eight orbs (the Sydnorb would probably vibrate strongly, or impart you with energy and knowledge, or something).
I’d be inclined to think that messing with the host was a bad idea, and the orbs were incrementally calibrating to her DNA rather than modifying it. And Varia’s gestalt power links to her donor, so the orbs just saw her as an extension of Sydney.
It’s only implied insofar as one panel showed the orbs above both of their heads, while Varia tried to do everything she could come up with – to no avail. It’s very weak evidence, as tbh you’d expect her to try and see moving things around her, too. Not saying it’s impossible, but the fanon that she has access to the orbs is not far from the level of “epileptic trees”.
Who knows how many people passed by the orbs where Sydney found them in the ocean before she did? Maybe they wouldn’t just work for anybody. Maybe she was always special in that she could use them.
It’s not exactly clear how her powers work, but Genetics is a known contributing factor. If the person in question has something unique enough about them, compared to the baseline Varia is used to, such as Sydney’s Orb’s, that could be a contributing factor as well. And that’s ignoring the fact that Sydney may have psychic “arms”, that she isn’t currently aware of, connecting her to the orbs that could give her the ability to use them all simultaneously. Which would allow the use of the full “spaceship” for any users sufficiently trained, explain why she has control over their position, and give a neat little power to Varia while in contact with Sydney that’s effectively useless.
Seems like Varia would have sensed any power at all though, or at least been able to sense the orbs. As we’ve seen now she’s very very good at intuiting what power she gains. As she told Sydney at the time, “Usually I have some clue… Can’t fly, change mass, phase, nothing!”
> From the author’s notes beneath this very page, it doesn’t even need to be in response to an attack.
But it’s already established that it needs to be in response to an attack – he wasn’t able to do anything without being attacked at the brawl.
I think DaveB was just implicitly assuming that Burrito Man was attacking.
The ability to counter an opponent doesn’t matter much when they aren’t launching an attack to BE countered in the first place.
As shown a couple pages back, the attacks don’t have to be directed at Peri for him to counter them
I keep getting the feeling that we’re looking at some advanced math. Most supers are a solved equasion in the superion field, they’ve found what it is they get, and that generates the effect.
Varia, FWTDT, and the Intern are unsolved equations: there’s a variable that needs to be filled in before the effect can be generated. This then is what we’re looking at, when you combine 2 equations, there are always exactly 3 possible outcomes:
1) No intercepts: Nothing happens
2) One or more intercepts: some things happen
3) Same Equation: EVERYTHING HAPPENS
Nothing and everything are extreme outliers, especially as the equations become more complex But a sufficiently large quantity of intercepts could end up feeling like everything pretty quickly. Most interesting would be if they form a stable waveform; ie. Varia gets power A, which gives Periwinkle power B, which gives Varia power C, which gives Periwinkle power A….
My understanding of how it works.
Varia generates a superpower from every individual she touches, not just other supers. Arianna isn’t a super, but when Varia touches her, she gets Fire powers, with the side-effect that Arianna is immune to fire so long as she remains in contact with Varia. After touching an individual, she will always gets the same power from them from that point onward, but
Death Tolls generates superpowers in response to other superpowers being used on him, counteracting the power used on him and letting him utilize his generated power against his foes. He can maintain a few different superpowers at a time, but he does have a limit to how many he can wield at once.
So yes, they both feasibly have “every superpower,” but Varia has to find them amongst the ocean of individuals out there, and Death Tolls only gets them when he is attacked by other superpowers.
Do we know for a fact that For Whom The Death Tolls/the Periwinkle Buttsniffer only manifests his power in reaction to other superpowers? For all we know, he could manifest toughness and durability if he fell on the rails in front of a speeding train, or even gills if he were stuck underwater. Given supers are so rare, that would certainly make sense. How would he even find out about this – he’d need to be attacked by a super and reflexively trigger his abilities, that’s gotta be a rare thing. Unless he was given these powers and they were quickly tested…… certainly would explain how the most what-the-fuckiest power suite we saw, from miss “I get the same powers as you if and only if you legally hire me” would have ever been found out. Seriously, it warranted (no pun intended) an actual legal proceedings sub-arc. Either the superion field is made of narradium, or someone tinkered with it quite extensively.
We actually know for a fact that his power works on non-superpowered attacks too. We saw him gain a fire aura to block Dabbler’s ice shard attack, which is magic, and he was able to resist Harem’s entirely mundane flashbangs.
I suspect it would need to be an attack, so he’d gain no powers if he fell in front of a train, unless he got pushed or the driver tried to run him over something like that. But that isn’t actually known. (The closest we have was him swatting away Concretia’s body with super strength when Math “just human”‘d her in his direction, but that’s at least combat and might have been deliberate – throwing an opponent into another seems like a thing Math might do.
https://www.grrlpowercomic.com/archives/comic/grrl-power-209-dramatic-speed-lines-ensue/
Also, he countered Anvil two different ways: he shocked her when she tried to choke him out, but sapped her kinetic energy when she tried to punch him.
Yups: different attacks get different counters
Thing is, their powers are in responce to others. Hers, she need to touch someone. His, he counters his enemys power. In short, they both theoreticly have every power in existance, they just cant access them freely.
They can have “Any power” not “every power” as stated by Halo when they overwhelmed “For Whom The Bell Tolls” with a gang up. Unsure if Varia can have more powers by touching more than one person at a time…
It’s a trap!
SO she’s going to turn into a giant Squid-man? At least she’s already in military armor…
no, that would be a SEAL
Surprise result: Absolutely no power at all. For either of them, until she lets go.
Yeah, that’s my take. Pretentious Name’s power blocks every power that tries to affect him. (Or is it negatively affect him; does healing work?) Varia’s power unlocks variable abilities for her depending on the person, may unlock powers for the person, and gives required secondary powers to the person. So the Varia power that ensures that his power works is… nothing. His power has nothing to block, so it doesn’t activate.
Might just be negative effects, after all he had no problem entering the room via Void’s portal, and might’ve showed up to the parking lot via Opal’s portal.
presumably he has some measure of control over Whether it activates when he knows a power is coming, like how some card video games asks you at every opportunity if you want to activate a card’s effect, strong chance if void or opal tried to drop him through a portal without him being aware of it, it’d trigger automatically and manifest a counterpower.
> Pretentious Name’s power blocks every power that tries to affect him.
No, it gives him a counter. When Jiggawatt attacked him with lightning, it didn’t just fizzle out, it was turned against her.
Varia can perfectly well get a power from him. If she doesn’t attack him, his power won’t object at all. If she does, it will go badly for her, but the attack will still happen.
He’s a smug bastard, not sure I really like him. But he is right – its a verrrrrry good question.
For Science!!!!
Death Toll is absolutely another Sydney, just villainous. Superpower geek!
Aren’t we all?
Bad idea! BAD IDEA! We just saw Varia unlock Doormaker’s power.
Of course, if PBS is looking to jump ship…
He might not be able to stop her, but he can sure distract her with this.
This can go many ways.
Boring: The two powers cancel each other out and nothing happens.
Mundane: Varia gets a power, FWDT is immune due to the quirk of Varia’s power and thus because it is not an attack needing to be countered Nemesis doesn’t do anything.
Exciting: An explosion of randomness as both Varia and FWDT start cycling through numerous abilities as Varia gets a different power for each Nemesis counter, and Nemesis generates a new counter for each of Varia’s unlocked powers.
Whatever it is, she might want to put Jiggawatt somewhere safe before trying.
My first thought as well, Jiggs needs to be out of range first. Also, can’t recall what power Varia gets from her, if we even know?
Magnetism. First shown when repairing the damage from the parking lot brawl, but more recently just a few pages ago.
Doh, of course. Thanks for the reminder. :) Betting that becomes relevant in the next few pages, especially looking at that pile of metal behind them.
He better hope that they don’t mutually annihilate each other. Imagine all those Powers going off at once they’ll simply neutralize each other where neither one of them will have a power from then on.
Actually he doesn’t have *every* superpower. He has *any* superpower. Big difference.
Going by his description of her power (every power locked behind a gestalt gateway) then one can describe his power as every power locked behind a nemesis gateway. So they can be both said in that fashion to have every power locked behind a different restriction for how the powers manifests.
https://www.grrlpowercomic.com/archives/comic/grrl-power-247-if-violence-fails-violence-harder/
So thanks for the trip down the Rabbit Hole.
Does anyone know if an attempt was made to Catalog all the baddies in the Blitzkrieg?
Just because a character in a comic states a hypothesis does not make that hypothesis automatically true.
Also, Nightmask is right, their powers can both be viewed as one power or as every power, just different context. The reality of the world inside the comic does not restrict the possible ways one can contemplate from that world.
I’m not sure how you would test whether either or both of them have every power versus just one.
Sydney’s hypothesis has been tested: She used it to devise a plan for beating him, and it worked. If he actually had every power at once, it wouldn’t have worked.
“Any power” is certainly a better description than “every power” here.
Every power locked behind a Nemesis gestalt works better, obviously it also has an upper limit on how many attacks it can nemesis to at the same time and once exceeded that’s it for him.
ahem *clears throat* YEEEEEEAAAAAAAAAAAAAH!!!!!
I must admit…
FOR SCIENCE!
I think they combine to form Voltron
Honestly, yes. Very curious as to what would happen.
I’m hoping for a Freaky Friday mind swap.
“No, thank you.” seems the smart answer for the current situation.
YOU!
Go sit in a corner and think about what you said!
That is the smart answer, which is why most commenters are telling her to touch him (and not via repeated punches to the face… although, that would be interesting: would she get a new power each time?)
Well, yes, but it’s very tempting offer.
Definitely the smart answer in the middle of an engagement, but possibly a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity too. It’s not like PBS is going to turn himself in and do team training exercises like Kevin, Varia may never see him again. Either because he escapes, or because the Archon brass decide it’s too dangerous to try.
And what if touching him is the reason he escapes? Or causes Archon to be defeated?
Exactly. He belongs in stasis in The Warehouse.
Chance for that is low, given everything they know about him. It’s more likely that she gets a power that helps her in some way.
Also, stalling is good … she is standing alone against an opponent who can beat any one attacker, while having to protect an unconscious teammate, but the cavalry are on the way.
Honestly for a villain personality-wise at least he does a fabulous job coming off reasonable and personable. I wonder if how many hours he spent posturing and practicing in front of his floor-length mirror at home to cultivate that identity?
A defensive power like his seems better suited to a hero than a villain, but I imagine he’s just attracted to the style, like Deus.
Nemesis is almost always a villain power, in order to create a character capable of challenging virtually anyone. Nemesis Kid from the Legion of Super-Villains for example, he originally would basically have your powers but better before they changed him to create counter-powers for any powers he encountered (such as his final battle with Queen Projectra as he became immune to her powers, too bad for him while he was immune to that he wasn’t immune to her breaking his neck while he was looking down on her). Spider-man 2099 encountered a guy who evolved defenses to anything he encountered, so basically Nemesis (only seen once and decisively defeated Spider-man 2099). Only hero with a version of Nemesis I can think of is Darwin from the X-men, he was similar to the Spider-man 2099 foe, he would generate a power intended to counter whatever dangerous situation he encountered (after its first attempt at defeating Planet Hulk Hulk failed it promptly decided teleporting to another state was the best counter).
I do agree he likes style particularly the villain style since he didn’t learn from his previous defeat and go straight. He may also like the villain style because he’s looking for challenges to see just how far he cant take his power, like how eager he was to fight Maxima and learn what his real limits might be.
Given the offer, he may be a captive/thrall in some way. We shall see.
The Ascenders are researching superpowers – maybe he hopes/has been promised they can improve his power so he can use it when he’s not attacked. Must suck sometimes to have superpowers, but be unable to use them without someone else’s input.
One of the best songs, if not best in the original Transformers movie.
And that’s saying something. One of the best soundtracks ever.
If we’re talking The Transformers, I think a more apt song might be “Dare To Be Stupid”
That’s next page, when they touch…
This is getting complicated.
Wow, Varia has some muscles if she can just lift up Jigawatt with one hand like that.
If you go with the idea that the supers have an idealized physique and she works out on top of that she could be pretty strong even without super strength. Picking up an unconscious person is difficult but there are techniques that help.
Jiggs is above-average height but probably weighs 150 tops, and has a decent handle in the form of a belt. Not that hard to one-hand off the ground – lift with your legs, and the second hand is coming into position already. Then 2 hands up to a fireman carry.
Do it!!!
Offer to read Varia’s lines in a posh Cape Cod accent still open. My sister-in-law insists I talk like Ken Casey.
I recall a Hero prose story I read somewhere wherein the bad guy had Nemesis powers, and had cleaned the clocks of the entire hero team, leaving only the team healer to try her powers on him.
The Nemesis powers responded by creating a disease in the baddie that the healer couldn’t heal, but she kept trying because that was what she did. Because she kept trying, the Nemesis kept making the disease worse until he ended up with a fatal but, fortunately, not contagious disease.
So, the healer healed him to death.
If For Whom The Bell Tolls continues to be a pain for the team, maybe they should turn the doctor loose on him.
That’s a pretty good loophole, I like.
That’s a pretty ridiculous story, since nemesis creates counter powers to powers being used to harm them the idea it would create harm to the person because a helpful power was used on them is absurd. That would make the Nemesis power a harmful power being used on them as well so would nemesis itself into not working.
So is Varia possessed or did she do a “heel turn”?!?
Not sure where you got that from. She was on her way out, probably to reconnect with the rest of the team, when FHDT extended an offer to her. Hence ‘you think you’re gonna stop me’ line.
That’s probably why they thought she turned evil
Probably was just curious what he thinks he is doing, and not willing to attack the guy that can perfectly counter *any* attack. Then *really* curious
If he does indeed have every super power then one of two things will happen. Nothing would happen. Because Varia only gestalts the hidden abilities/powers of others, so therefore it stands to reason that nothing would happen or the other thing that could happen is she gesalts as a power vacuum and leaves For Whom The Bell Tolls without any powers (She does a Rogue from X-Men).
DON’T DO IT!!
Gestalt power person, meet other gestalt power person.
Nothing happens because they both need a trigger.O
Or there’s an infinite feedback loop and the superion-antisuperion annihilation blast cracks the planet in half.
…I WANNA KNOW WHAT HAPPENS! *excited on toe bouncing* must find out. *stares impatiently at the screen* … we need to paint the week red so it goes faster…
The entire Grrl~verse resets to where we all started reading this webcomic.
“Come on, won’t you shake a poor sinner’s hand?”
It will either be the end of life as we know it or the spontaneous creation of a giant pizza with extra anchovy. So basically nothing good…
Anchovies are good! Like salt cod, but bite sized.
He is already immune to every power Varia could have, thanks to Nemesis.
As the powers are usually related and give immunity to the other side, what if she instead has the power to hurt him without triggering his powers? Like, she would be his ultimate counter? Or just a short-circuit?
No, his power totally gets triggered.
His power counters hers. Her power gives him immunity to whatever new power she gets from touching him. Countering that is probably not in his best interest, but that’s what his power would do, so…
Also, touching him is likely to be a superpower jackpot for her. The only thing that will keep him alive in this is she’ll see him as too valuable to off. Assuming she even can keep him alive, what with his power countering the immunity she normally gives the people she touches.
Depends entirely on how his power defines an attack. His power didn’t counter friendly teleports etc, so it’s clearly not stupid or mindless in its operation.
It probably won’t counter anything she does that wouldn’t be harmful.
It didn’t even counter enemy teleports, even though they turned out instrumental in his defeat : he only got to counter the actual flashbangs, but not getting googly eyes put on him.
https://www.grrlpowercomic.com/archives/comic/grrl-power-245-operation-angry-muppet/
So agreed, she actually has to attack him in some way, not just touch him.
Dark Pheonix Infinite Feedback Power Loop Explosion? I really wouldn’t wanna try that with Jiggawatt in hand in an enclosed space…
I would advise against Varia touching ‘fwtdt’ since the bad guys (and women) have been experimenting on their captives and they probably know what will happen.
Remember that when Varia and the ‘Boston portal guy’ touched, HE got powers!
And if they have managed to re-create that effect with ‘fwtdt’ he will get all the benefits.
I want her power to be that she can bypass his. So she just holds on to him and knocks him out.
If her power neutralizes his, it becomes a non-powered brawl, and he has size and muscle mass on her. She can’t suckerpunch him either while weighed down by Jiggawatt’s body.
I’m guessing that she magnetos the bars around him (or at least between them) and runs for it. She doesn’t have to escape the facility, just buy another minute or two while the cavalry punches their way in.
She doesn’t have to do anything – he can’t attack her first. He’ll just stand around while she does her thing, so she might as well have a chat with him.
I too wonder what happens when Periwinkle Butt Sniffer touches Varia
She has a specific power for every person right? Won’t she get that power and then Forwhom will get a power that can defeat it?
This can’t end well but I know if it were me,… yeah no way jn hell I can turn that potential experiment down. Science must know!