Grrl Power #1122 – Villain shaming
I, too, am disappointed in Varia’s… I don’t know, ethics? Honestly the very first draft of this scene in my head went down a very different way. I won’t say what that was, cause this probably isn’t the last time the two of them will cross paths. It was definitely very cool and/or funny. Okay, I hadn’t fully decided exactly what that outcome would be. When it does happen, the rule of cool and/or funny will likely be a factor, but there’s a chance it will be totally story driven. Not a huge chance, but a chance.
The original version of this page had Varia twist a bit which caused Jiggawatt’s dangling arm to swing forward, and Varia reached back and caught her wrist. But then my brain thought, “spankies!”
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Not only no but hell no! You bad person, she good person. Just because the groped Jiggawatts butt does not make her bad person! Necessity is necessity! No soup for you! Sit in debris of holding cells!
Her hand was busy holding her anyway, besides who wouldn’t want a good excuse to grab that butt? LOL! Anyway maybe he just got the realization he needed to stop being a man-baby and find out where he is best suited to use his power rather than acting like a douchebag!
Even Sydney thinks it’s like a ripe chocolate peach.
Curiosity is not a sin, but I do get her feelings on the matter.
If he had kept it at idle curiosity, I would not hold it against her to explore it as I mentioned it myself on a previous comic that it was an interesting concept.
But he tried to pull a Sith Lord move on her, bad call bud.
I wonder if his power is… “Always on” so he is always countering everything around him, he is a negative to anything positive and the same the other way around.
But its not just physical, the way his reaction is at the end speaks more to his is Lonely, its possible he has lived for centuries? Time has no meaning to him etc.
And his emotions flip as soon as someone gets too close as a reaction, a defence mechanism.
This would be very interesting. He’s like that person who gets in a minor interpersonal fight and then busts out with the harshest, cruelest thing he could say because he just overreacts defensively.
So every relationship has to either be constantly cooly professional or doomed to eventual implosion.
And the idea that his power lets him fight TIME and DEATH is actually kinda metal.
i wonder, if someone used “life” magic on him would he hurt himself from his ability cause it used “death” magic to counter?
Like, he gets caught in a healing aura, and immediately starts putting out an equal and opposite death aura? and you get this venn diagram of super healthy, normal, and oh gods the humanity? And he panics as everything on the opposite side is just violently dying, and he’s running for everything else’s life? that would be tragically funny, probably
The powers of For Whom The Death Tolls seem to be defensive in nature, not reactive. That is to say, I don’t think that “thing being active on him” is likely to create a response, particularly if the “thing” in question is beneficial.
Basically, that would only really start to happen if the “Life” Power/Magic/Other was directed in such a way to give him cancer, or encourage the growth of certain bacteria & viruses in an unhealthy manner.
Yeah, he gets a power to defend himself, but it’s not passive. Most of the time he has to use it to defend himself.
Dearh Toll: *gets cancer*
Hero with healing powers: *tries to cure his cancer*
Death Toll: *power counters by getting super mega cancer instead*
“Why can’t I ever have the Power?”
because you won’t listen to Snap.
SuperBUUUUUURRRRN!
Ooo… this IS interesting, the way it turned out. Not only did she turn him down, she told him off in a way that’s got him feeling genuine remorse. Either he never stopped to consider just how bad his crimes were until she spelled them out for him, or at the very least he’s realizing that she is NOT going to fall for a “bad boy.”
Which makes this situation a case of THIS, as opposed to anything more mutual: https://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Main/VillainousCrush
It’s also possible he didn’t “throw in with them” but had his loved ones held hostage/is being blackmailed/thought he was joining a group of like-minded fashionistas only to find out they now controlled all his assets and he’d only get them back after 5 years indentured servitude (read the fine print, For Whom!).
whatever, point is, he might have hoped the contact either a) gave him a power that would help, or b) let her know the state of his affairs so she could help, while publicly looking evil so whatever the hood bros have over him doesn’t trigger. I’m saying, it may not be as cut and dry as Varia made it out to be.
Probably is, but possibly not.
The operative moment being that Varia didn’t offer to take For Whom away, or try to convert him to the side of good EVEN THOUGH HE WAS EXPLICITLY LETTING HER ESCAPE.
He wasn’t even on the “slightly evil” side of the ledger in this encounter.
How was he ‘explicitly letting her escape’?
As for the “wasn’t even on the ‘slightly evil’ side of the ledger”, did you miss the part where he beat Jigs unconscious?
heck yeah! moral standing, nicely done!
Wow. I’m really impressed with her ethics and tactical thinking. I didn’t see that coming. Well done.
Well, well, looks like Varia found her own arch-villain. Does that mean she’s due to a promotion?
Except, her arch-villain can’t attack anyone with his powers, and so far has just been caught up with an ever-inflating sense of self-importance from gaining powers and the after-effects of being encouraged to use them by Vehemance. It honestly seems like he feels defeated by being rejected from the experiment, and hadn’t really put together what he was doing as wrong before now.
…I’m starting to suspect that For Whom The Death Tolls doesn’t have any protections against subtle mental manipulations, as they aren’t direct threats to him. Which would also suggest that this group might have some individuals who are capable of such subtle mental manipulations, encouraging For Whom The Death Tolls’s curiosity in regards to Superpowers and subduing his more normal responses to normally discouraged actions, such as kidnapping, unlawful imprisonment & illegal human experiementation.
After a couple of years of good service and passing a written exam, she can qualify for a promotion to corporal. Having a portfolio of supers she has dealt with will help.
Oh dear, is that fraternizing amongst the ranks I see? Tsk Tsk!
No, it’s sexual harrasment.
While I find it amusing that Varia groped Jiggawatt to get the magnetic power up, my first thought was “Why didn’t she just reach back and touch her hand?”
Perhaps it’s simply a practical consideration. She doesn’t need to change her carry on Jiggawatt, and for all we know gesturing to use the magnetic powers is a requirement.
Never a bad thing when the characters say “What? No. I would never do this. Give me that keyboard.” It means you have a clear picture of who they are.
I am not disappointed in Varia. The guy was a douchebag to start with.
Remember that V pointed him out without using a name, saying that he is a concern. I’m half-decided that FWTBT was in the parking lot brawl on his own volition, not influenced by V. That DOES make him a bad guy. In my mind, he was there with the intent to harm ARC (and harm he did), unaffected by V’s aggro aura. If the aggro aura was active from the start, then he wouldn’t just stand there goading ppl to fight him, he would actively throw the first punch.
So yeah. In my books, he is one of the baddies, not just a douche. And an irredeemable one at that.
One thing I would be surprised if no one pointed out. Wouldn’t he have been countering V’s Aura from the very beginning? It showed he couldn’t be surprised by powers so it wasn’t like he had to know of the power before he could counter it
I would be supprised if no one else pointed this out. Wouldn’t he have been countering V’s power from the beginning? I know once he started in the fight he would have to stop to counter others, but doesn’t that negate the aura as a reason for him being there in the first place?
It has been pointed out that he counters “Anything,” not “Everything,” so V could have gotten him there on a post-hypnotic suggestion while initially doing something like trying to lift and throw him telekinetically – the throw gets countered, the suggestion gets through, and having it kick “post” means there isn’t a power to counter when For Whom’s power is available to do so.
I Doubt V cared enough to bother with something like that. A sales-pitch of “hey, you have awesome powers, but you can’t demo them without assistance, want some help making the best demo reel ever for your resume?” would have worked nicely.
Alternately, V pointed him out at that point because his effect on the final battle could NOT be predicted… his powers might have chosen to counter V’s aura as the best protection against the battle.
Thus, V preemptively focused the entire team on the nerd in the skull mask
Or, Kev pointed him out to boost the violence juice he was gulping down
Damn…did I get closer to the truth than I thought?
Now I actually feel Kinda bad for him.
…maybe there’s a redemption arc somewhere in there after all.
I am minded of a conversation I had with the adult child of a family friend some years ago.
She’d married a guy who turned out to be a fantastic asshole. Real “I am a Christian,” type. As in, “I don’t care if your mother has always been a pagan, you married me, and I will not allow her to be around _my_ children,” type. He was a SEAL (one of the ‘new’ breed; real Blue Falcon), and an “Alpha Male” before that became a “thing.” Did everything he could to isolate her & the girls from her family, alienate them, and evil went so far as to tell his daughters that their grandparents were evil Devil worshippers who would take them to Hell.
And she tolerated this.
Even after he got caught cheating on her, she tolerated this.
And then one day, she happened to stop by her mother’s house on some paperwork errand, while I was visiting. We caught up for a minute, and then she told me she had to go before the dickhead thought she’d been there too long.
And then I looked her in the eye.
“Kat, he forbade your mother, the practicing nurse, from so much as visiting her grandchild in the hospital when she very nearly died of septicemia. He’s ordering you around like a toddler, and you’re letting him drive you away from your mother, father, your own sister, all of your extended family and friends, like me, who’ve known you for over thirty years. Your dad has cancer, but your husband the adulterer says you’re not allowed to visit him because he and your mom once had a threesome with their closest friend, who taught you how to ride a bike. That’s the example you’re setting for your kids. You’re a bad daughter, and a bad mother.”
…some things have changed since that conversation. Her dad died. So did her mother, from COVID, several years later.
And while I never heard a word about that conversation again, she did not have to live with abandoning her parents before they died, or her daughters not knowing them. We see each other from time to time still. Dickhead had realized just what a dickhead he was, and we only had to have one “high-speed-low-drag” conversation.
Sometimes – rarely – having the right person say the right words really is all it takes.
I’m sure ARCHON can avail themselves of some of his tissue if they feel testing is warranted.
Dead tissue likely doesn’t work – Sydney proposed it months ago, so Varia likely tested it and found it didn’t work.
I dont think they tried actually. At least it hasnt been stated that they’ve tried in the comic, or even had a theowaway line to signify that they tried, although Sydney did suggest it to Varia, like you said.
A lot of things can happen without being stated – I don’t think we can expect power testing to only happen with Sydney involved.
I see no reason not to test it, and no situation where the negative result would have been brought up.
Unless they’ve at least MENTIONED it in the comic, or at the very least, DaveB has mentioned it in blurb, you should not assume something has happened that, for all practical reasons, you have no reason to think has actually happened. It doesn’t have to HAPPEN in the comic, but it should at least be mentioned in the comic or by the author in even some minimal fashion before you take it as canon fact. Theories, cool. Treating it as what is actually in the comic seems a bit too much though. It would feel like when Star Wars fans make up excuses for the plot holes in The Last Jedi or The Rise of Skywalker, if it’s never been mentioned in any even minimally significant way in any of the canon. It’s the reader doing the work of the author in that case. More like fanfiction (which is all well and good, there’s some great fanfiction out there and even some which CAN become canon if the author adopts it)… but it’s still not canon YET.
I’m just saying wait until DaveB says something, or until there’s at least some throwaway line about it in the comic or in DaveB’s comment blurbs, or maybe a Dabbler’s Science Corner on Varia. Which would be awesome. So far I think we’ve really only had them for Harem and Marxima so far.
> Theories, cool. Treating it as what is actually in the comic seems a bit too much though.
I literally qualified it with “likely”, so calm your horses. I never treated it as canon fact, merely the most likely theory given what we have in canon.
In the absence of a sheepish “I totally forgot Varia was supposed to test that” in the Author’s note, I’m going to give DaveB the benefit of the doubt and assume the comic universe is consistent, and that characters who are portrayed as competent act with reasonable competence, and I’m going to use that to predict what happens offscreen from what has been shown on page.
If Varia simply forgot about it, that would be maybe not a plothole, but definitely a headscratcher, and assuming bad writing without evidence seems not very charitable towards the author who has put a lot of thought into his worldbuilding. Things happen off page, and we only learn about them once they come up.
“I literally qualified it with “likely”, so calm your horses.”
I’m calm. Sorry if my post sounded like I was perturbed or annoyed or something. I’m definitely not. I was just making a response to your post and making a generalized statement about not reading into things that do not happen or not alluded to having happened in the comic.
“If Varia simply forgot about it, that would be maybe not a plothole, but definitely a headscratcher, and assuming bad writing without evidence seems not very charitable towards the author who has put a lot of thought into his worldbuilding.”
They’ve also been rather busy in the last two months. Might not have been able to do all the different testing that they’d want to do within that time, in light of stuff like the Fel attack, politicking, the stuff with the Council, aliens, etc.
And like you said, it might have happened and DaveB hasnt gotten around to saying it yet. But I don’t assume things happen in general until there’s some reason beyond that it ‘should’ happen.
Btw I realize what went wrong with my post. I said ‘you should not mention it’
I didn’t mean ‘you’ in particular as in you, Voyager. I just was meaning a more generalized ‘you’ as in ‘a person should not.’ That could have made it sound more personal than i meant it to sound.
Varia just one shotted PBS!
Possibly solo’d him?
I had so much faith… and it was not rewarded.
Ask not for whom the bell tolls, it tolls for thee.
Nailed it.
Uh, Dave, you’ve got the wrong tag for Varia, so she’s not showing up in the Who’s Who.
I would be supprised if no one else pointed this out. Wouldn’t he have been countering V’s power from the beginning? I know once he started in the fight he would have to stop to counter others, but doesn’t that negate the aura as a reason for him being there in the first place? So Varia is very right here, I think
I think Varia just gave him a serious dose of introspection. To paraphrase the third season of The Boys; “I thought becoming a Supe would turn me into a major asshole, but all it did was make me more … ME.”
Is no one going to talk about the ass grab? It took me a second read-through to realize.
Varia was holding her anyway so it makes sense to use that spot anyway. It’s a fireman carry, I had to learn it when I was training to be one. Part of the test is to carry a 180 dummy up and down a double flight of stairs a couple of times without banging any of it’s body parts on anything, a totally limp body is very hard to carry so yeah…
Trust me, I’d rather grab Jiggawatt’s ass anyway over a man-dummy ;)
“Worse she can say is NO”
her:
https://www.truevillains.com/comic-2009-12-12~N-The%20Actual%20Worst%20Person-jpg.htm
Thanks for introducing me to this webcomic (True Villains), I’m really enjoying it thus far!
Look at panel three: he was enjoying what he was doing, specially to those smaller than him, and justifying it (in his own sick mind) by passing the blame on to them for ‘not telling what they know’
While I appreciate DeathToll acting like a person here, his non reaction to Varia’s containment strikes me as a bit odd. Previously he’d reacted seemingly automatically to any power used against him. So either he’s choosing not to activate here, or he’s falling victim to the classic weakness of the power immune ( they typically seen’t immune to secondary effects of power use ). But that implies that a theoretical matchup between him and Maxima, or anyone with super-strength could be resolved by the super-strong chucking a rock at him. Which would be a bit….
The bars never touched him, you notice? So, not an attack.
Varia isn’t affecting DeathToll at all; she’s manipulating metal. If DeathToll could interrupt/counter power use not targeting him directly, he’d be a much more significant threat.
Since the bars don’t touch him and just move around him, it seems like they don’t count as an attack to him. He could likely have triggered his power by moving intoa collision, like he triggered is power by intercepting Jiggawatt’s attack on Supermassive, but it seems like he was too disappointed by her rejection to act decisively.
Exactly my take as well, in panel 9 (‘clang’) he’s pulled his hand back away from her (and the bars) into the ‘clutching pearls’ position, just leaving his arm outstretched (panel 8 ‘scraaape’) would’ve blocked the bars. Whether he did so from shock/surprise/disappointment/cunning-trap-laying is yet to be seen. But I’m hoping this is some actual character development, maybe in the future he’ll turn on his employers.
IMO the first/middle part is a yes, but the end in a no.
He would presumably “defend” against the kinetic impact (like he would against a bullet). When Anvil grappled him his power reacted , but apparently placing an obstacle in his way without directly harming him does not activate his power.
I DnD terms think of it as “If an attack roll is made against you, you have to make a saving throw, you would receive damage, or be placed under a condition (status effect), then as a reaction gain one of the following abilities (INSERT LONG LIST) for X round(s), can only have Y* abilities at the same time”
“Grappled” and “Restrained” are conditions, but “In a prison cell” is not.
*he can’t defend against everything at the same time
Slight tangent (Not sure why I’m babbling like this, it usually only happens if I’m really tired but I’m wide awake) but I’ve found that I often try to find a way to translate fictitious abilities into “DnD terms”
I do the same thing with the Champions/Hero system, which provides more clear scaling of power level.
Got to say, “magnet-magnet” is one hell of a sound effect :D
I suspected he wanted to do this because he would be part of the “welcoming committee” like Supermassive (ego) is. Buttsniffer has been having the issue that he has great power and is forever trying to prove it.
Archon has too many rules and would make him learn too much discipline, he clearly wants to be a free agent. But, maybe, just maybe, Varia just got through to him.
I mark him as being a great man-child, whining that he has every super power and is dying to prove it, and can’t.
It seems like the whole “man-child” thing would be an issue among supers. it would be like winning the lottery. A few people make the best of it. Most never manage to use its best effect and a few totally trash their lives and the lives of those around them. I imagine an eternal adolescent with just enough of a power to be irritating.
Your so right, all he’s done since we met the guy was brag about having every power and how strong he is but when he started to rant and demand someone attack him I knew he’s just a spoiled kid demanding attention.
He just got what he needed the most, a true super hero telling him he’s just a bad selfish person that isn’t worth her time. I just hope the message gets through to him or he’ll never be anything but an annoyance. A joke.
Ouch… Verbal smackdown delivered in a Boston accent just hurts more.
Right. The priority is getting Jiggawatt to medical attention. That kind of experimentation will wait until much later. Periwinkle Butt Sniffer is not going anywhere until Hiro drops by to arrest him for assault on a federal law-enforcement officer.
Go Varia!!
Okay,take a look at this pic…
https://cinemasojourns.com/2020/05/26/jack-webb-drill-instructor/#jp-carousel-8164
And how would Anvil look in that uniform?!?
she’d be, er, bust-ing through it
Each sperm has different DNA. Boy would it be fun to watch her after sex. Three days of her cycling through similar power sets.
Only if she is affected by incomplete genetic information. Sperm carries only 50% of DNA (not accounting for chromosome non-disjunction), so maybe it doesn’t work that way.
It brings up an interesting question though: do non-human organisms (or even viruses) unlock her abilities? They all contain genetic material, too. I assume micro-organisms are a no, since nothing is perfectly sterile and ordinary surface contact don’t seem to affect her.
All that assuming that it is genetic material that she needs for a gestalt. Maybe it is very specifically a sentient consciousness that needs it. And now I’d love to know what would happen if she ever met a Soong-type android or similar. Or tried gestalting with Vale or Dabbler.
Spermatozoa are haploid, whereas human beings are diploid, and they may not be equivalent. And also, do spermatozoa even manifest powers? On the other hand, if Varia were pregnant, she might be locked into one set of powers for nine months; that might even be how she found out!
See also The Time Taveler’s Wife, wherein she has trouble carrying a time-travelling fetus to term.
But each sperm has only half a set, and is not a viable organism.
However, once she gets pregnant, there are interesting times ahead.
“Every sperm is sacred. Every sperm is good. Every sperm is needed in your neighborhood.”
Unexpected Monty Python strikes again.
Nobody expects the Monty Python quotation!
Are you trying to have an argument?
another one rides the bus….
I am glad that dead spermatozoa do not create ghosts, just think of all the poltergeisting socks!
instead of shock-horror….
Or floating white sheets…
Someone should tell FWTDT (Whoomie?) that “Nemesis” would be a much cooler name — and then tell him he can’t have it due to copyright.
You can’t copyright “Nemesis”. It’s the name of a servant of Zeus and Homer has been dead more than 50 years.
I have enjoyed her personality from her first appearance in the comic and throughout, but with this move she is now my clear favorite character. <3
Wait. ARC decided that a person who was among the ringleaders, had picked out a pseudonym about killing people, and already had a costume involving a skull mask was only there because of Vehemence’s influence?
Maybe they couldn’t prove involvement and they had to let him go? I’m sure Arianna would have looked through everything before the decision was made (and she’s like a super-without-being-a-super when it comes to lawyers).
His pseudonym and a costume are meant to make opponents attack him more willingly, so he probably made them as soon as he identified his powers. It’s going to that brawl that could be offense if not for said influence. Him being near “ringleaders” is just because Vekter pragmatically decided to give him a spotlight, to increase his usefulness as “taunt+counterattack” guy
ARC had to let literally everyone aside from Vehemence go unless they had warrants out for preexisting crimes. There was no way to prove that Vehemence didn’t force them into it or separate out those who he did from those who he didn’t. The whole brawl just wasn’t really legally actionable except on Vehemence himself.
Arianna actually specifically complained about it at the time: https://www.grrlpowercomic.com/archives/comic/grrl-power-288-hearts-and-mind-fingers/
ohboi, maybe this will turn into a redemption arc for FWTDT where he decides to change and be a good guy and properly register as a Super and join ARCHON just so he can pair up with Varia and see what powers he&she gets.
Flawless victory. Brutality.
Possibly FWTDT’s remorse is because he has a more personal reason to want to connect with Varia. We don’t know her dad, and we don’t know his age…
Potential anti hero later? I can’t see him just changing his ways immediately and joining ARC. But I can see him looking to using his power to keep potential other villians in line.
Counter-offer: You’re bad and you should feel bad. (See, Anakin? Was that so hard?)
Anakin was under the effect of a completed sequel.
oh man, the SUSPENSE! for the next encounter of the two, under strict archon supervision, likely with PBS unconscious so he does not know about what happens when she touches him.
F-ing well said.
The sexual tension between the two will be fun to see play out!
Lewd handholding denied!
“Handholding on the first date? What kind of woman do you think I am?
“The beautiful kind.”
Just so everyone knows, if you all want to start posting pick-up lines like this, those are not puns, and I look forward to seeing them. There will be no ninja retaliation I promise.
(Waiting to see someone like Brichins, Bharda, or Palmvos, or one of the other nefarious pun culprits merge pickup lines with puns now)
https://imgur.com/Bu221AG
Hope you like this pickup line
I… I just… I have no words now. That wasn’t a pun but I feel like it should be treated as such.
That was Carrottop levels. :)
That line was sooo dirty (rusty is a kind of dirt, right?)
I can’t. I just can’t. I’m still too stunned and flabberghasted by hypnobubbles’ link.
I need some time to recuperate.
Yay! I broke the Pander! (gremlin-type giggling)
Pander, if you were words on a page, you’d be fine print.
*polite golf clap*
Well done, brichins. :)