Grrl Power #1125 – Splash damage
“Once I enter, I’ll want a distraction.”
“I could increase my mass, fall through the floor and destroy whatever’s underneath.”
“That’s always your suggestion.”
“And you contribution is to be gold and punch things. We all have our niches.”
“Touché?”
Planning an assault with a bunch of superheroes would probably become predictable.
AM: “Is this warehouse near a river possibly? Because I could…”
BM: “No, Aquaman, no large bodies of water nearby. Anyone have viable suggestions?”
AM: “Aw.”
F: “I could…”
BM: “Let me guess, Flash, run at them very quickly and steal all their guns or possibly create a tornado around them?”
F: “Well what the hell else am I going to do? Challenge them to a game of Clue? Of course I’m going to use my superpowers in the manner that has proven effective in the past. That’s what all of us always do! Why do we even have planning meetings? Why, what are you going to do, Bruce? Offset the cost of the missiles you launch from the Batwing by buying fifty-million shares of Oracle and then passively make more money in a month than the bottom 99% of Gotham combined? You know if you put some of that money into Gotham ISDs, you’d halve crime in a generation!”
BM: “Okay, geeze! Obviously we’ve ventured into a sore area. I withdraw my earlier sarcasm.”
F: “Thank you.”
BM: “… Buuut…”
F: “Yes! I’m going to run in and steal all their guns so those of us who can’t actually dodge bullets can concentrate on other things!”
BM: *slowly backs away from podium*
The January Vote Incentive is up! Time for the quarterly fashion show that Anvil puts Maxima through. Can you detect the theme?
Variant outfits and lack thereof over at Patreon.
.
.
.
Double res version will be posted over at Patreon. Feel free to contribute as much as you like.
SuperheroThey're super, thanks for asking!
Meatspace ComicSeriously these are awesome. Check 'em out!
Not UpdatingNo longer updating or only updates sporadically, but definitely worth reading.
SeriouslySeriously you guys. If you like Grrl Power the check these out.
"Mature"Mature subject matter and occasionally something explicit but usually safe. Can't guarantee the ads are safe though.
Dongs Ahoy!Full frontal and backal. Lots of skin, sex on some or all pages, explicit or otherwise.
Either Max is having to drop her speed a lot to counter SuckHole, or she’s lettinghim know he’s about to get goldfisted for maximum shock value.
Although, it’s vaguely possible Super Massive’s powers include a time-dilation effect that gives him better than human reaction times, but that might be stretching… or spaghettifying things.
Either way, we’re about to find out if he’s got enhanced durability, Maxima has incredible control, or if gray matter is easy to clean off those gloves…
Nah, her Flight power is Antigrav-based. She doesn’t have to fight his power while flying, that’s what the previous page was about
Max’s flight may be Antigrav, but every bit of it that she’s currently using is only allowing her to stand normally. That’s what the “chunk chunk” sound is: Max walking over to MassHole. (the VWOON being her fist coming at him fast/heavy enough to have the speedline effect)
Hmm, he might accidentally kill himself here. Max may be throwing a punch at normal human speed, but if his power is making it 100x the inertial mass equivalent…
His power increases gravitational force, not inertial mass.
Gravity doesn’t work that way, it needs mass. If he can shape gravity without increasing mass, then he can do a lot more than pull things down. For example he could launch things up, or sideways, or towards any point really. Since he isn’t doing that it is reasonable to assume he must use an existing gravity gradient, which means he needs mass, which implies he is manipulating mass or the effect of mass (which is effectively the same)
Super powers like magic rarely work within the regular rules of physics, see the commonly abused three cubed law, conservation of mass and energy, and resistance from surfaces being ignored in power struggles. For Gravikinetics the power almost always seems to either create a sort of false plane increasing gravity along the plane on one side, this things being pulled down but not up, like artificial gravity in sci Fi , or else like a tractor beam to a specific item to pull in that direction (Gravity Rush game style), although that too is like moving plane as it even works towards nothing. A common one though that causes the target to actually sink into the ground seems to increase their attraction to the closest large mass (the planet core), pulling them down harder and this actually making the ground buckle aroundd them. Which yes conventional physics more mass, but if we want to go all techno jargon instead of handwave superhero just assume the quantum foam force expression of gravity is being exaggerated via direct although not consious of the mechanics anymore than you need to know anatomy to bend your arm, mental control by the super.
> Gravity doesn’t work that way, it needs mass.
Not in reality, but in reality you also can’t just create mass, so either is physically impossible. That’s why it’s a superpower.
> For example he could launch things up, or sideways, or towards any point really.
Yes. He can.
https://www.grrlpowercomic.com/archives/comic/grrl-power-1119-how-to-survive-a-1770-mile-fall/
https://www.grrlpowercomic.com/archives/comic/grrl-power-1120-superheroine-on-cinderblock/
I much prefer magic systems with internally consistent logic, but that’s not gonna happen in this world.
I can’t believe I forgot about those!
To be fair in this setting it has been revealed that super powers while filtered through a human body are originating from a synthetic quantum field created by a type 4 or above civilization or entity/entities.
Which on the Grrl Power scale is above 3, the one I usually use would be 4 or above. We can’t say on the Kardashev scale *which is honestly outdated as it focused on raw power output* but on the more recent Microdimensional scale this already places them at the highest level, Type Omega-Minus (controlling the fabric of space/time its self *the quantum fields and especially the core quantum field*
-possibly the unknown theoretical fields/dimensions we aren’t yet aware of that could interact with dark matter *which that said this series already has a few other extra quantum fields like those for magic and psychic powers*,
so basically how the “matter and energy expressions” of this synthetic quantum field the “Superion Field ” as Deus has it out, work and interact with the expressions of other quantum fields *the sub-atomic particles, including the likes of leptons and bosons* that culminate together to create the aspects of the universe we are aware of and can interact with.
its like an extra set of physics interacting with known physics. Which honestly gives way for some creative thinking and literal world building.
And to be honest I prefer that over the types that try to shoe horn it into real world physics even when that makes no sense like the times my Hero Academia says things like “his powers come from explosive sweat, or her powers are her making any synthetic materials from her bodily fluids…even when what see on screen clearly doesn’t work that way…its like…don’t try to make it sound biological when you have matter makers, pyrokinetics and even cryokinetics, physics is taking a back seat to rule of cool;
And her hair to have its usaly fluffyness
That sound in the background was likely all sorts of electrical systems losing power and shutting down. Maxima’s flight powers counteracting gravity means she doesn’t need to walk.
Or falling debris hitting the ground.
The sound effects are the lights and other systems shutting off because Stawlwart just bombed their generator.
the “chunk” sounds are the industrial strength breakers flipping from the damage Stallwart did
I read somewhere that gravity and time are interrelated, so he may very well have a time distortion. maybe thats where he gets his awful fashion ideas?
She has to slow down.
Hitting his head at Mach 10 would not knock him unconscious. It would rip his head clean off, and that would be very much not PG 13.
It would shatter his head. Possibly literally. At Mach 10, flesh wouldn’t have time to deform and tear as it would normally.
So at that speed the head would behave as a non-Newtonian fluid?
Yeah… I think we already crossed that line, in terms of gore.
I don’t have to do the math (even if I knew it) what would happen IF she were to hit him in the head with a Mach 10 punch…his head would NOT come off. Nope, not at all, but. In the first few miliseconds before impact the shockwave from her punch would turn his exposed skin in to a very dispersed pate’, while that is happening his head will start moving away slightly. But then her fist would impact and that’s when what is left of his head and upper body become a very, very, VERY fine pink mist that likely be dried before it starts to fall. That would be due to the heat friction from the shockwave. p.s. just popped in to check, have to go up to the main entrance and deal with a similar mess. Told the guys mach 20 kinetics was overkill for dealing with jehovah’s witnesses. (shoulders industrial shopvac back pack.
Probably pretty close to the described above, even a Mach 1 rocket sled impact results in vaporizing a ‘soft’ target. Definitely not anywhere near the realm of relativistic baseball though.
It’s fair to say that this situation is way beyond keeping things “Ariana Friendly.”
These people have fucked up massively, and this guy in particular is pay a very heavy (ba dum tss) price for it.
Still, it’s early yet.
On the previous page when she powered up her anti-gravity, she turned off her super speed.
That dial lets her BOOST the separate powers, not just power them up, Max still has her speed, she’s just not bothering to use it. Some people are just not worth the effort. And it lets her humiliate the egomaniac.
Wait, she said suckhole, was she insulting him, or giving stalwart the go ahead for his cannonball? Really hope Supermassive has great reflexes.
Yes, to both. It also let Stalwart insert himself and open a way for others further into the building. As well as provide a certain amount of psychological shock to the other villains in the building
Super Villain 2: Your power generator is from CAT? I was expecting a slave speedster in a treadmill or energy creature in a condensor
Super Villain 1: Nah. The CAT generator is so much more efficient and doesn’t try an escape all the time
besides. have you seen how CAT treats its engineers? they are evil.
Weeeellllll) they did just melt someone in one of those smelters, so I’d say you’re not far off the mark…
Super Villain 2: Please at least tell me that wasn’t a rental, as I wouldn’t want to be the one that has to take it back and explain.
Super Villain 1: Oh, we own that. But…
Super Villain 2: What?
Super Villain 1: I don’t think our insurance will cover what just happened to it, yet we still need to make a claim.
Super Villain 2: I didn’t realise we had insurance. And why are you handing me a pen, plus a massive stack of paper!
Where’d he go? Oh no. I am not filling out insurance paperwork!
we’re in the business of clocking people, not being fair duelists
This is one of the best super entrances Dave have drawn.
I personally love Stalwart.
Not as much as Achilles, but Stalwart is just _such_ a mensch. Reserved, confident, impeccable taste & style.
Like a beefcake John Wick.
I dont know why but I have ALWAYS loved Stalwart even though he hasnt done all that much overall. Much more than Hiro who has gotten more prominence in the comic, although I also like the back and forth banter between Hiro and Stalwart the few times its happened.
And yes I totally agree that he is a beefcake mensch.
Hiro’s a great guy, I don’t doubt.
Stalwart will open doors, offer his hand, and pull out the chair at restaurants.
I also expect he can order the correct wine for any meal, and probably knows how to dance.
Properly, I mean. Ballroom.
What else would you expect of a guy who even has pleats on his boxers?
I wouldn’t be the surprised to discover he also speaks either Italian, or French.
There’s nothing in your post that I can disagree with at all.
Especially the part about pleats on his boxers. :)
And you notice, that like Suck Hole, Stalwart favours a suit. And very much unlike Suck Hole, he doesn’t feel the need to strip it off when going into battle…. though he does seem to be wearing some armor over the top of it, probably because again unlike Suck Hole, his really is a *nice* suit.
See, Suck Hole? This is how you do it properly…
You know, I’m pretty sure that Batman DOES spend a fuckton of money on making Gotham better. Wayne Enterprises is most likely one of the safest and most secure jobs possible, and the Wayne Foundation most likely runs half the orphanages.
Batman doesn’t just dress up in a bat suit and punch criminals, he fights crime as Bruce just as much as he does as Batman.
Actually, no, Bruce does fuckall to actually alleviate the cause of crime: poverty
The only thing he does, is ensure the status quo so that he has a reason for being a mopey fucking rich prick with DPS (Dead Parent Syndrome)
Actually no, he has set numerous charities, schools, scholarships, hospitals and other programs to elevate the masses. It doesn’t do shit because a happy Gotham is a boring Gotham, so the writers have gotta fill it with depression, corruption and random super hero villains
Also he’s not exactly ridiculous rich right now in the main comics after the joker stole the majority of his money,lost control of his companies and had to leave his mansion.
Granted he still has afew millions but he’s far from a billionaire atm
In some continuities, Gotham is literally cursed. Like, there’s evil spirits haunting the land on which it was built, ghosts in Arkham Asylum driving everyone mad, stuff like that. Even in the relatively grounded movie continuity, they mention that the League of Shadows was trying to collapse the city’s economy to try and destroy the city quietly. Like, I don’t think a new charity and some urban renewal projects are going to convince a centuries-old cult of assassins to mend their ways, or stop a terrorist from putting fear toxin in the water supply.
In other continuities the city is corrupt and run-down for ordinary, mundane reasons, but those are usually the continuities where Batman is an ordinary billionaire instead of having enough money to fund the entire Justice League and their own private space station.
Also there’s a whole secret society full of Gotham One-Percenters and founding families with a private army of zombie assassins who make it their life’s mission to keep the “lower class filth” in the lower classes.
The Waynes are literally the only Old Money in the city who actually give a fuck about people.
A.) Poverty is not the cause of crime. Criminals cause of crime. Poverty does make a lovely excuse though.
B.) Wayne Enterprises does indeed pump a literal metric ton of money into civics works projects: orphanages, battered spouse centers, low income housing, scholarships, food kitchens, drug rehab centers, inner-city school refurbish, remodel, and modernization, even giving the company that hired Mr. Freeze a humanitarian award for exemplary treatment of workers, until Batman learned the truth and the CEO had to give it back and go to jail for what he did to Mrs Frieze.
Unfortunately, Batman still has to run around at night punching criminals in the face because the very wealthy mobsters, psychotic nutjobs, butt-hurt, entitled, and petty a-holes, and various mutants all LIKE being criminals and just want to hurt people to make themselves feel better.
Poverty does cause crime, IRL.
Call it an excuse or whatever but a lot of criminals just do it for the pay out, not because they’re mini-Jokers.
Thinking of Jean Valjean and his loaf of bread.
Poverty is ‘A’ cause for crime. Not the only one.
I have known people from several backgrounds who were criminals because they enjoyed it. Because they literally enjoyed hurting people. Nothing new there and nothing limited to any economic level either. Rich or poor, psychos are psychos. Humans are human and we will always have the psychos until or unless we grow up as a species. My bet? It won’t happen because it is far less ‘fun’ to be civilized as has been proven in the last few years over and over in the US.
Never claimed it was the only one, just the most prevalent.
Sounds like you’re repping for a point of view with no real point. Both in IRL, and in the view of the comic, there is not a significant percentage of people that are just evil to be evil.
I’d disagree with your assumption that poverty is the MAIN cause, Duffenblaster. If it WERE the main cause, then a lot more Poor People would be committing crimes.
The vast majority?
don’t.
The much more likely cause of criminal behavior is the same regardless of where you are socioeconomically;
Narcissism and a lack of empathy for others, along with a belief that you’re ‘special’ or ‘deserving’ seem much, much, much more likely, given that there are literally millions in poverty who are NOT criminals.
You’re making excuses to defend the economic status quo.
The vast majority of poor people do not commit crimes.
But the vast majority of criminals are poor.
But it sure makes people’s lives so much easier if they can just assume that other people don’t have reasons for the things they do.
Someone isn’t a criminal until after they’ve committed a crime, so I’m not sure it follows to say that criminals cause crime. Poverty is something that motivates people to commit crimes. When people feel that there’s no way to succeed by following the rules, they give up on the rules.
Correlation is not causation. There have been entire generations of poor people in various times and places that did not devolve inti looting stores at the drop of a hat. That’s culture, not inherent to poverty.
Causation is complex. Something can be necessary, but not sufficient, or sufficient without being necessary. Just because there are poor people who do not commit crimes does not mean that poverty is not a factor in crime. People do whatever they think is the easiest, fastest, or safest way to survive and get their needs met. Their beliefs about the world and their own situation affect their actions.
Name three.
Poverty drives people to perform criminal acts to survive, because under our current capitalist economy the very means of survival has been put behind a paywall in the vast majority of places worldwide.
Therefore, poverty causes crime *and* criminals in a very direct fashion.
Not to get preachy but lots of different things cause crime. If we could separate out exactly what does in some sort of algorithm, there wouldn’t be any crime. There is because the causes are not simple and are rarely, if ever, universal or near universal factors.
Poverty/economic factors
Poor upbringing/social environment
Lack of self-control.
Family structure/parental criminality
Lack of respect and responsibility
Familial violence
Neglect
Jealousy and Envy (see ‘lack of self control’ to deal with this)
Arrogance / Inflated self-importance (the rules that apply to you should not apply to me)
Mental instability
Whole bunch of things cause crime. It’s not just poverty. Also lots of different types of crime. Are we talking purely violent crime? White collar crime? Fraud? Robbery/Burglary/General Theft?
Lots of poor people don’t commit crime. Lots of middle class and wealthy people do. Heck in this story, the Ascenders are rich. They’re causing crime. :)
You’re deliberately obfuscating to point being made, that point being that poverty causes crime.
Not “all crime,” which was neither expressly stated, nor even implied.
The fact is that one of the fastest ways to reduce crime (and yes, given the context of the conversation, we’re talking street level property crime, often abetted by interpersonal violence) is to alleviate desperate circumstances. Housing & feeding people, and making certain they have healthcare & education (not “access,” but the goods themselves) goes a long way to eliminating motive.
But as has been pointed out, that wouldn’t make for a great superhero story, and the fact is that neither Warnernor Disney are interested in teaching kids that wealth distribution could actually make their own world a better place.
“Poverty causes *some* crime” is a trivial statement.
“Poverty causes crime” is a false generalization.
Oh, golly gee gosh, welpers, then I guess there’s just no discussing a relationship between poverty and crime so we better just not even suggest any such linkage exists!
…This is exactly the sort of bad faith bullshit I was referring to in a previous comment section.
There’s a difference between “Poverty causes crime” and “Poverty causes all crime”.
I would suggest that crime also causes poverty. I wonder which is greater, the poverty caused by crime, or the crime caused by poverty?
I dont think that I obfuscated that poverty can cause crime. It was the first thing on the list I presented, in fact. I am just pointing out that its a very generalized statement since rich and middle vlass also commit crimes, and msny crimes have nothing to do with economic factors.
And yes, housing and feeding people, but moreso giving them the means to house and feed themselves (the give a man a fish vs teach a man to fish argument), can help with some crime for some people. But the previous comments amwere implying all crime, or at least a majority of all crime. It helps to be more specific about the type of crime when pointing out workable solutions.
And I was mainly pointing it out since the villains here, in the comic we are commenting on, are most definitely not committing crimes because of poverty.
Isn’t it interesting how the stories we tell mostly center on unrealistic villains, doing villainy just for the sake of it?
Isn’t it interesting how people always look for justifications to cast real-life criminals the same way? How we try to pretend that everyone deserves their place in society, that there’s nobody who’s been pushed to the breaking point? How people bring up those noble poor, who just suffer and die if they can’t find a way up the ladder that the successful have tried so hard to pull up after themselves?
Just because some people have the moral fortitude, or are afraid of the consequences, or don’t know how to fight for themselves, and follow the law under extreme hardship doesn’t make the circumstances right or the people wrong. Everyone has a different breaking point. Just because one person hasn’t been subjected to theirs yet doesn’t make them morally superior.
“Isn’t it interesting how the stories we tell mostly center on unrealistic villains, doing villainy just for the sake of it?”
Well…. not for the sake of it insomuch as because that’s what this comic page and story arc is about?
“Isn’t it interesting how people always look for justifications to cast real-life criminals the same way?”
Not sure what you mean or are trying to get across? Generally people are going to try to figure out why a person committed a crime they’re accused of committing. And sometimes they do try to fit the less realistic reasons for why someone would do something which people with a firmer sense of ‘right and wrong’ might struggle to do if they were in the same situation, so they’ll look for reasons that differentiate themselves from the accused person. If that’s what you’re suggesting?
“How people bring up those noble poor, who just suffer and die if they can’t find a way up the ladder that the successful have tried so hard to pull up after themselves?”
I’m sort of still confused where this is going from my post.
“Just because some people have the moral fortitude”
I think I brought this up in my list of the many reasons for crime. – ‘lack of respect and responsibility.’
“or are afraid of the consequences”
Yeah this is another reason for criminal action – not thinking about, or even not caring about, the consequences. Although there can be many reasons for why they wouldn’t think or care about the consequences of their actions, ranging from poor upbringing to ‘heat of the moment’ thinking/mob mentality thinking, to narcissism, to sociopathy, etc.
“and follow the law under extreme hardship doesn’t make the circumstances right or the people wrong”
This is true also. And also a bad use of making laws or decisions. To quote Judge Robert Rolf, and later famously borrowed and paraphrased by Oliver Wendell Holmes, “Hard cases…” (or Great cases, added in Holmes’ quote) “… make bad law.”
“Everyone has a different breaking point.”
Pretty similar what I was saying, yes. Which is why not everyone is going to be a criminal because of poverty – there are a lot of other possible reasons as well. Again, this is not saying poverty is not a reason for criminality. I’m just loathe to make blanket statements like that when I could make the same case for a lot of other factors leading to criminality other than poverty. Especially dealing with upbringing (which admittedly can also be influenced by poverty but can also be influenced by a lot of other factors).
“Just because one person hasn’t been subjected to theirs yet doesn’t make them morally superior.”
Yes but you shouldn’t assume that many people have a breaking point that is not a lot more extreme than what we see in the majority of the root causes of crime. There are clearly a lot of poor people who do not commit crimes, and a lot of rich people who do.
Not really sure where you were going with the post to be honest or if it was meant in response to mine or in a general response to the thread?
Btw when I say ‘you shouldnt assume’ I wasnt necessarily saying you in particular. Again it’s a more generalized ‘you’ as in ‘one should generally not assume.’
I was saying that most of our fiction, particularly comics, and even including this comic, have shallow, unrealistic villains who are motivated to do evil because it is evil, rather than because it actually serves their needs in some way. And that people see real-life criminals in the same way. They don’t look for reasons or justifications, they don’t try to empathize with the criminal — they just brand them as inherently criminal. They’re just a bad person, so of course they do bad things. Because if the criminal had a reason, then maybe the people who haven’t broken the law are just fortunate not to be put in that position. Maybe they’d break the law too. And they don’t want to believe that. People want to believe that they are good people, that they’d do the right thing in a hard situation — that they already do. That whatever they do is the right thing.
People use themselves as a measure for what’s acceptable. That everyone else should be held to their standard, that whatever they don’t break under is acceptable hardship, and whatever breaks them is more than anyone should ever have to deal with. They externalize their own problems and failures, and internalize those of other people. If they fail, it was too hard. If someone else fails, that person wasn’t good enough.
It was kind of a general response to the thread, but it sprung from you mentioning that the Ascenders are rich people committing crimes, so I wrote it as a reply to you.
Ohhh okay :)
You don’t know how much theft was in countries where everyone had a mandatory job, every worker got paid the same ( except agricultural workers who got 30% less), and the regime had put anyone suspicious into a work camp for a few years.
Criminals cause crime the same way soldiers cause wars.
Remove your head from you fourth point of contact.
That’s… beautiful.
Well said!
What are the other three points of contact?
I’m just curious now :)
Really you’d think Batman doesn’t do anything but in fact… yes… Bruce Wayne has been spending tons on helping the city. He’s hired thugs to work in his company, sent them to college full ride scholarships, paid every medical bill, paid for replacement of every door/window/wall/floor/etc he’s broken, and so much more it’d take a massive amount of wall o text to list it.
See “Batman on a Budget” to know more.
Batman does try to upset the status quo.
Authors are the one maintaining it, not him.
Actually Bruce does a LOT outside of his vigilantism to stop crime in multiple ‘root causes.’
He has numerous charities set up. Multiple work programs for getting convicts employment so they don’t return to a life of crime. Inner city youth programs, etc.
In fact, one time, Black Mask had a bunch of people who were going to go out to hunt down Batman. Batman walked in the front door, put a DVD in the DVD player of this huge TV on the wall, and it had a video of Bruce Wayne saying if they give up right now and go to the nearest Wayne Enterprises adult education center, take the courses and keep their record clean, they would get guaranteed employment at Wayne Enterprises. Versus having to fight Batman and probably get hospitalized, since Wayne Enterprises offers health insurance while Black Mask does not. Plus he said they could have good, honest work – jobs that they’d be proud of, instead of jobs as hired thugs.
(The Batman Strikes! #39)
https://preview.redd.it/52chmv3mn8o71.jpg?width=750&format=pjpg&auto=webp&v=enabled&s=bc8805b20c029dd4e8197a96ce5a0a391b3b8f54
https://preview.redd.it/0ofm4x3mn8o71.jpg?width=750&format=pjpg&auto=webp&v=enabled&s=1355d31524256dd8f1e6a35e03e8c01b748ee762
Okay, this is absolutely amazing and badass and I wish I saw him do it more often, it’s fantastic.
And Gotham is still a hellhole with a disproportionate number of literally insane supervillains. Maybe the best thing he could do for Gothamites would be to buy them a huge number of bus tickets out of that burg?
Yeah, I realize Gotham is the nitty gritty city, and Metropolis is the clean and working city of the future, but still, you’d think at some point they’d just evacuate the place and salt the ground.
“Yeah, I realize Gotham is the nitty gritty city, and Metropolis is the clean and working city of the future, but still, you’d think at some point they’d just evacuate the place and salt the ground.”
The funny thing is Metropolis was built in large part by Lex Luthor, and he employs, through not only LexCorp but hundreds of smaller companies which LexCorp has bought whether they know it or not, in nearly every market, nearly 2/3rds of the people who work and live in Metropolis. He’s also built the majority of the buildings that are in Metropolis.
So it’s funny that the city of tomorrow was built essentially by a criminal, while crime-ridden and horribly corrupt Gotham City owed a large portion of its worth to philanthropists like Dr. Thomas Wayne and Martha Wayne, who were rather good and honest and non-criminal people. :)
Luthor’s hang up is his personal hubris & pathological hatred of Big Blue.
Honestly, if he could get past those, he’d be a largely admirable figure. And I say that as someone who believes capitalism has passed its expiration date.
Even without Superman, Luthor is still the single biggest crime boss in Metropolis and probably bigger than any in Gotham.
AND HIS PERSONAL HUBRIS.
So glad people don’t selectively read & decontextualize my posts in order to misrepresent things I say.
I can’t imagine what that would be like.
You can’t just subtract a mayor part of someone’s social context (nemesis is so large a part that it is personality-shaping.) and expect them to come out as the same person. That is not how personal growth works. Who you interact with helps determine who you become.
“ Honestly, if he could get past those, he’d be a largely admirable figure.”
You just described Lex Luthor from Earth-3, who wound up being Earth’s greatest hero. :)
Also Luthor from Injustice, although I’ve never really liked that comic that much but they did a really good job with Luthor, Harley, and Plastic Man.
Oh also All Star Superman’s challenge to Lex Luthor to do all the good things he says he would do if not for Superman when Superman is dying from a solar overload (before Lex’s realization of how wveryone is connected and thats how Superman sees everything all the time)
https://youtu.be/A9vzZa8TsKM
After this epiphany and BEFORE Lex is executed, he gives a notebook full of his plans and ideas to another scientist to implement them to meet Superman’s challenge to finally make the Earth a better place like he always claqimed he would if not for Superman.
There’s some fiction out there, alt universe, where Bruce Wayne doesn’t become Batman, but uses his superpower to actually make a difference by hiring various members of his rogue’s gallery to use their powers for benefit.
Money: The only Superpower Batman ever had, or needed.
Unfortunately Sociopathy does not end because you get a well paying job. AKA you can’t buy off Krazy!
So you’d rather people be locked up in cages like animals, instead of finding ways to allow them to contribute to society despite their mental illness?
Sure hope you never get into politics, pal.
Your belief in your ability to control Krazy is not just naive, but sadly ignorant. There are very few in the rogues gallery that would be amenable to any kind of control at all.
But, enjoy your fantasy land.
Here: here’s the HFY version that presumes it was possible:
https://www.reddit.com/r/HFY/comments/l8e19b/pi_without_the_bat/?utm_source=share&utm_medium=ios_app&utm_name=iossmf
Let me just enjoy the fact that you refer to a fantasy world as your example of a real life issue, then tell them to ‘enjoy their fantasy land’.
Batman’s rogue villains are not and should not be used to refer to real life criminality or, even more so, real life mental health disorders. I say this as someone who loves Batman and works in Neurobiology xD
The Joker aside, the Rogues Gallery is mostly pretty hirable, provided you’re smart & compassionate enough to work with their various mental health issues.
Eddie excels at systems analysis & design.
Pam is almost the ideal EPA Agent.
Oswald quite gifted at troubleshooting & personal politics.
Vic is just a friggin scientific genius.
Harley might just be the best trauma counselor & patient/victim advocate you could get.
Selena is a covert ops wizard.
Jonathon is a gifted social psychologist, and could easily help develop policies to mitigate/guide popular anxiety/fear.
And Harvey really is gifted litigator.
I could go on.
In fact, I will, just a bit.
Everyone remember Mary Dahl? I would bet dollars to donuts that, working with Dr. Quinzel, she could use her acting chops to become a powerful therapeutic career for traumatized kids. Quite a few adults, too, I don’t wonder.
My point is, in a world where Bruce Wayne used his skill, passion, intelligence, and resources to help these folks integrate in society in constructive, well regulated, community-oriented ways, almost every one of Batman’s Rogues has the potential to become a proverbial miracle worker, popularly acclaimed, and beloved.
Hell, imagine what Jervis Tetch’s tech could do for people suffering neuropathy & other conditions?
The mind boggles.
Now, yes there some irredeemable villains. Bane is literally a terrorist working for money. Brother Eye. Arguable Killer Croc? And obviously, Joker.
But still, this is a world I’d like to examine. One where the Bat doesn’t need to exist, because Wayne is just that damn good at organizing, managing, and accommodating these people. He sits in the background, making sure they’re all taken care of, able to avoid becoming villains in the first place.
Zack Tilly
“Everyone remember Mary Dahl?”
Mary Dahl is probably the most tragic villain in Batman’s entire rogue gallery. Even moreso than Mr. Freeze, the Ventriloquist, Two Face, or Kite Man (hell yeah).
“And Harvey really is gifted litigator.”
Harvey is. Two Face isn’t. :) And the Judge definitely isn’t. :)
“Eddie excels at systems analysis & design.”
There was a point at which Edward Nigma did try to go legit and work as a private investigator during Zero Year, although he was more doing it to find a better outlet for his obsession with solving puzzles than just to go legit. Still, it was a good outlet.
“Oswald quite gifted at troubleshooting & personal politics.”
Oswald was also the only person in Batman’s Rogue gallery (until Riddler) that realized the sheer stupidity of being an open criminal in GOTHAM of all places, which is why he went mostly legit… ish… with the Iceberg Lounge. He also realized he could even keep Batman and the police off his back for his occasional minor forays into non-violent criminal actions involving fencing and smuggling non-weapon/non-drug related stuff into and out of Gotham, by being an informant for both the police and the Bat Family, in exchange for them not turning his place into a war zone and arresting him.
“Jonathon is a gifted social psychologist,”
He is also, unfortunately, a sociopath, much in the same way Zsasz is, except more on the mental torture end of things, while Zsasz is a sociopath fixated on the physical torture end. It’s REALLY hard to ‘work through his mental health issues.’ :)
“Selena is a covert ops wizard.”
To be fair Selena was always on the edge of criminal and potential anti-hero or anti-villain, and even when she was a criminal, she did not kill (similar to Harley in most of her iterations in the comics). Her being in love with Batman tipped her over to anti-hero though. Her mental health issues were mainly that she was a thrill seeker more than greed.
“almost every one of Batman’s Rogues has the potential to become a proverbial miracle worker, popularly acclaimed, and beloved.”
Yep, this is pretty much the ‘Write Lex Luthor a Check’ trope, or a subversion of the ‘Reed Richards is Useless’ trope.
“Now, yes there some irredeemable villains. Arguable Killer Croc?”
I’ve always found Killer Croc to be a tragic villain because he was treated like an animal because of him looking like an animal. At least in the comics. In the cartoon he turns out to just be a jerk and not just because of his appearance (the episode where he and Baby Dahl partnered).
“But still, this is a world I’d like to examine. One where the Bat doesn’t need to exist, because Wayne is just that damn good at organizing, managing, and accommodating these people. He sits in the background, making sure they’re all taken care of, able to avoid becoming villains in the first place.”
They’ve had several stories where Bruce Wayne does not become Batman – The Dreaming, Batman No More, and a few others – but I don’t think there’s ever been one where Bruce Wayne simply tried to make Gotham better by ONLY focusing on Wayne Enterprises, and not also as Batman. Probably would make a good story though. :)
The reason why it hasnt happened is largely because in those timelines I just mentioned, usually the crime families are still going to be running rampant in Gotham, even if there would be a few less supervillains. :) And usually the story goes something like ‘Batman has actually done far more good than bad for Gotham and the world’ or ‘Bruce Wayne is necessary for the light, but Batman must still operate in the shadows if Gotham is to ever get better.’ or ‘Another person would pick up the mantle of Batman if Bruce Wayne had not, and might not be as noble when they do’ (Thomas Wayne, Owl Man, Azrael, etc).
Before Batman arrived the cops acted more like the mafia wanting their cut and not actually defending people. After Batman (regular man in a costume) came running about because everyone else wrote of Gotham came the super villains.
Not a lot Tom and Jane the police officers can do against someone with super powers… And despite the swarm of super villains you really don’t get anyone getting powers thinking that helping others would be a good idea. The city is pretty much a crime den.
Gotham city can not copy what other cities can do… If anything they need less corrupt politicians so that they can get a super hero system like what this web comic has… Then again this is Gotham… So while the super hero team would be nice and save people in the background for anywhere else… Ten or twenty issues later they would all turn to crime.
Actually come to think of it Gotham is sort of like an eldritch location that doesn’t turn people insane, but turns them to crime and villainy if they stay there for to long. Even the “nice” politicians turn insane and suddenly decide that now would be a good time to try being a super villain even after having no evil ideas and thinking that… Maybe they should have the electric chair take care of some super villains instead of letting the crazy clown with a death toll in the thousands skip about without a care in the world.
I mean…even after the Bat arrives, a not insignificant portion of them are still on the take.
Really enjoyed the first season or so of Gotham, got a bit too gritty for me though.
I loved Gotham, but I almost have to separate it away from Batman continuity, in my mind.
Honestly, it was Cobblepot who made it work.
Totally did, the only Penguin I’ve ever taken seriously instead of just rolling my eyes at.
I mean, the guy in the most recent movie _works_, for what he is.
But I can’t help feeling like Gotham Oswald Cobblepot would eat him for lunch.
…perhaps literally, in a fit of pique.
Channeling a little Danny DeVito, there…
Personally didn’t like the Got Ham Cobblepot: there was nothing really ‘penguin-y’ about him; he didn’t waddle, he limped, and the only time he used an umbrella was for that Bitch Who Shall Not Be Named
He was just a nutter with mommy-issues
“Nutter with mommy issues” describes like 80% of the DC universe, villain and hero alike.
Mommy/Daddy, but oh yeah. Seconded.
The DC Multiverse is not a place I would want to live. Visit, perhaps, for a handful of very specific reasons, and then delta the fuck out of.
Yeah, but that was all Cobblepot had, he had none of the classic Penguin-attribute
That’s why cops like Jim Gordon, Renee Montoya (before becoming the second ‘The Question’), Crispus Allen, and even Harvey Bullock (a jerk to Batman but still an honest cop loyal to Gordon) stood out. They were very rare for Gotham as good cops who refused to give in to the prevalent corruption in the city’s police force and politicians, most of whom were bought off by one of the several crime families that basically ran Gotham (Falcone, Sionis, the Triads, the Penitente Cartel, Escabido, Odessa Mob, Bertinellis, Berretis, Sullivans, Ibanescus, and so on). Plus a couple of them, notably Gordon, likely knew Batman’s identity because, to quote Batman, “he’s too good a cop to not have figured it out.”
Significantly more than a fuckton in fact. Billions of dollars in both direct spending and money raised from other rich people every year. Bruce Wayne throws the best parties on the continent, but if you want to get on the list you’re gonna be donating to the charities he supports. He also anonymously runs a fund that pays for all supervillain related damage in Gotham.
And Waynetech not only pays an actual living wage, but also offers full educational scholarships as one of the standard benefits available to all employees.
Gotham is so damn horrible that this is how bad it is after the richest man in the world throws his entire fortune into improving it.
I mean, Batman does pump money into Gotham’s well being. So much that it could have turned several other cities into Metropolis by now. But Gotham is just overflowing with so much bad mojo it doesn’t work.
Gotham: The city that is literally actually several kinds of cursed.
they just need to add 3 more letters to the name to turn the city into a true tragedy: GotHamlet
I’d love to hear your thoughts on the Grrl Power wiki that I’m putting together – https://grrlpowercomic.fandom.com/wiki/Grrlpowercomic_Wiki
Aquaman still has super strength\toughness. Plus I think they did the logic thing & gave him low light or darkvision. (Not much light in the depths of the ocean.)
Most of the Aqua-hate sources back to the old 1970’s TV cartoons. Where pretty much everyone was useless, until it was time for the dues ex machina. The problem is he hasn’t really had a good run of “front of the group” story to counter act that. Jason Moama almost fixed that, but Amber Heard managed to quash it.
At one point in the 1970’s Aquaman had sonar, or was that Namor?
It was fish sense, kinda like the bird radar Varia got from touching that one dude a few comics back. The location of every nearby aquatic animal with enough intelligence to be useful in a situation.
Good to see this guy remains a complete moron by falling for an obvious distraction. If he’d ever had brains he would of given up the moment Stalwart hit the ground. As it stands he’s going to be lucky to keep any of his teeth/
Knowing how fast Maxima is she had to have waited for Super Sucker to nearly finish talking before she even started to move, why? Most likely so he’d have just enough time to see that punch coming! Also I wonder if he realizes that even if his helmet is harder than her gloves, her fists are even harder, and that’s assuming she’s not aiming for his jaw.
Now I’m wondering, a normal person would try not to hit a helmet when someone’s jaw is a much better target and far less likely to hurt your hands when hit, but Maxima isn’t a normal person. She forgets that things are heavy, so does she bother to remember that helmets are hard?
Maxima is as fast as she sets her speed to, and right now her power pool is in toughness, flight and strength, leaving her speed at her moderately super baseline.
Is it weird hat I totally forgot that he can increase his weight?
Shouldn’t that be “CanNonball”?
It is meant as a reminder that this actually happened in continuity as opposed to as a dream or alternate timeline.
‘Canon’ would be a cool superpower. The Rick and Morty villain Rhett Conn has the ability to change any condition in the past to what he says. Canon powers would have the ability to change anything happening now to be what he says. “Oh no! We are trapped in jail cell. Luckily I happened to steal the keys from the guard as he was pushing us in here.” (reaches into pocket and pulls out a set of keys)
That’s an insanely OP ability. Why would you be a villain when you could just go “hey I guessed the winning lotto numbers this morning”?
Bill & Ted…
More like “Luckily, I gained superstrength from being bitten by a radioactive ant this morning” *bends the bars apart* or “luckily, I was able to lull them into a false sense of security by creating an illusion that they captured us” *scene dissolves into them being at home*.
“Canon power” is just flavored omnipotence.
Batman getting roasted. No, not by the Torch, that would be predictable.
That said, Stalwart using powers that look like the Shroomy Mass (wait, no, that was Heavy Fungus, right? Ah wait, Gravity Goombah, all to give Arianna a headache with licensing rights and dealing with Nintendo lawyers)… that’s something like superpower cockblocking, reversed, then brought to the limit of overflow back into the negatives. You understand what I mean.
That said, given Stalwart’s powers, that looks like a risky move. The-man-with-a-belt-that-says-SM-thereby-reminding-us-all-of-THAT-guy-from-the-cursed-tumblr-gifs has both directional and incremental gravity control. Stalwart can’t control his direction as far as we know, just mass and density. If he can’t make himself much lighter, Makes-You-Fall-Down-All-Askew-Guy can turn “that guy using space shuttles as a unit of measurement for himself’ into a living example of why Kessler Syndrome is bad. Stalwart, get away from the place. Though a distraction was good.
i dont think the gravity goombah has the smarts to utilize his gravity powers that creatively to be honest
Can’t Stalwart make himself lighter as well? If he does that enough, he can use his air resistance to fall as fast as an autumn leaf or an air-filled balloon. Heck, he could be as light as a helium-filled balloon and fall in the opposite direction from which GG wants him to fall.
Max fights dirty.
I love it
that’s been well established. Max does not use queensbruy rules.
https://www.grrlpowercomic.com/archives/comic/grrl-power-259-dirty-pool/
and
https://www.grrlpowercomic.com/archives/comic/grrl-power-271-how-do-you-disarm-someone-with-super-powers/
Well, those who follow rules of Manquis of Fantailler tend to always loose …unless you are Captain Carrot
Totally works for Carrot, but the rest of the Watch has Opinions on the Manquis, and I tend to agree with them.
If Suckhole has strong control over his gravity powers, it’s entirely likely that he can create TIME DILATION fields around objects such as himself. We see Max’s fist approaching him at super speed but he might be seeing it moving at variable speeds and be able to get out of the way. Basically, Gravity powers are very adjacent to Speed powers.
He needs the brains to be able to do that, and clearly, he doesn’t have them
At the level of gravity where you start getting time dilation worth caring about, he’d have to be able to deal with everything in the room wanting to form a super-dense ball around him. Really, time dilation only sets in significantly at neutron star levels of gravity, and if he can do that he wouldn’t have just made Maxima heavy, he’d have imploded her.
Possibly.
Remember that gravity may have tremendous reach, but it’s relative strength tapers extremely fast.
It’s a comic, so it isn’t beyond the pale to suggest that he may be able to distort space-time in a locality that contains only himself. This form the basis of an interesting type of “armor” I used to use in my Mage games. Essentially enforcing Zeno’s Paradox in order to prevent any attack from ever actually making contact.
That’s how the gravity field induced by mass looks like, but Supermassive’s gravity works not by simulating mass, especially not centered on himself – he was able to put a strong, uniform gravity field on Varia with no effect on him 1m away.
Gravity doesn’t taper off that fast – it’s “merely” an inverse square relationship. Also, powerful gradients introduce tidal forces – things in the vicinity get spaghettified.
If something has strong enough gravity that time dilates this much around it, it’s probably bad news for the celestial objects nearby. But even if he’s able to create a field this strong with a very sharp falloff without fusing the surrounding air onto himself and/or crushing himself into neutronium, that would only serve to make him slower, not faster.
He could make a field around himself that is directed to the outside, turning himself into a gravity “peak”, as opposed to gravity sink.
But then he suffocates, because the field accelerates the air around him outside at relativistic velocities. This would also turn the outside into a nuke, but that’s not his problem.
But of course, if he was strong enough to do that, he could just have squashed Maxima like a bug on a windshield to begin with.
*handwaves*
Comic book nonsense, go!
Exactly, the number of times Flash used newtonian handwavium nonsense and said “The Speedforce did it” to make things moving very fast and increase their mass thereby increasing gravity …. I can’t count
“Newtonian Handwavium” is my favorite phrase of the day. ^_^
*happiness noises*
The Speed Force tends to annoy me sooo much because it’s often an excuse for writers to not know anything about the basics of physics.
I’m okay with the ignoring air friction excuse of the Speed Force (I just consider the speed force to basically be acting in the same way a ‘warp bubble’ does in science fiction genres), but the Infinite Mass Punch in particular makes me fly into a nerd rage, since the Flash doesnt have invulnerability or superstrength to go with the speed, so an infinite mass punch should really pretty much hurt him or destroy his hands as soon as he uses it.
1) He does not have the superstrength to hold up his fist if it’s ‘infinite mass’
2) ‘Infinite Mass’ makes no sense. Infinity is not actually a quantifiable number. It’s just an idea. You literally cannot measure infinity, so the idea that he can go so fast that his fist gains ‘infinite mass’ is just sooo irritating, even if you get past the whole ‘how does he even hold his hand up at that point to MAKE a punch’ aspect of things.
1. Conservation of Momentum provides a bit of a figleaf here. He doesn’t have to ‘lift’ it, just keep supplying power to sustain/accelerate motion in a direction.
2. “Infinite Mass” is easier for most readers to imagine than ‘the value of mass (M) approaching infinity in an acceleration (a=change-in-velocity/change-in-time) function.’ Yes it’s technically incorrect, but the vague-ass concept is somewhat represented in a manner that the average lay-reader can imagine, and so it hangs together narratively. And mathematically, it isn’t entirely bunk, as an infinite increase in velocity (the “Speed Force”) divided by a finite time yields infinite acceleration. I suspect the reason they didn’t call the “Infinite Force Punch,” is because A, they’re already tossing around the word ‘force’ a bunch and it would generate potential confusion among readers, and B, “Infinite” gets bandied about so much in various comics that it would also just add to the confusion.
Never forget that you, I, and these other here, are not the target audience.
And even if we know the reality, we still want the escapism we read comics for.
I’m…..not sure what this has to do with “Pickles,” but…okay.
Let’s do this….whatever….”this” is. ^_^’
Ha, just popped into my head about knowing your target audience and staying within the expected paradigm. Some of us may know physics too well to miss blatant violations and inconsistencies, but we still want to watch the fun story they happen in. Sometimes *especially* if we get to complain about the details.
I think it’s just an excuse to show a comic from Sequential Art, since it’s an awesome comic.
Yes, yes it, although… any page with the Squirrel Sisters needs to be in colour so we can tell which one is which
They each have a unique hair style, but given their mind melding Scarlet is really the only distinct one anyways.
“Conservation of Momentum provides a bit of a figleaf here. He doesn’t have to ‘lift’ it, just keep supplying power to sustain/accelerate motion in a direction.”
I… guess so? Although I’m not sure how he swings his fist then – if it was just his fist already forward then that would make more sense to me. Also still doesnt explain to me how his fist isnt destroyed upon hitting something. :) I know the Speed Force generates some protection but upon hitting something with ‘infinite mass’ that’s quickly going to go down from ‘infinite’ to ‘not infinite’ at which point I’d expect Barry or Wally or whoever is doing it to no longer have an arm.
“Yes it’s technically incorrect, but the vague-ass concept is somewhat represented in a manner that the average lay-reader can imagine, and so it hangs together narratively”
Feels to more like a ‘Comic Book Writers Don’t Know Physics’ trope. :)
The Fist of Consequences rarely arrives lubed
It’s self-lubing (well, it lubes itself from whatever it comes in contact with)
SuckHole really believes he is the only one with gravity-manipulating powers? Of course he does…
But she’s stuck in Africa right now, recharging. Oh, you mean these two. Got it.
Sweet dreams, Masshole.
Max needs to be careful. SM said he was part of the welcoming committee. And, even correcting for arrogant overconfidence, Max’s basic power set is pretty well understood by now, and the bad guys must have a plan that they think has a good chance of taking her down. Which means there is more to this ambush than we have seen so far.
Except, Maxi didn’t come alone
I said that several pages ago — they’d know Max would show up, they wouldn’t have started if they didn’t think they were prepared for her, and it’s possible that getting her there for [nefarious purpose] might have been the whole point of the exercise.
“And you contribution is to be gold and punch things.”
Possibly the funniest thing you’ve ever said in or around the strip ;)
That fist just came flying from the wrong size of the room.
Also, there is one thing I never got with super (heroes):
Why do they tends to use their power, and often even their “killing move”, right from the start ?
Should a well trained and organized, like one would expect from a team working under the military, to use tactics and gear first while supplementing with powers were needed only ? There’d be a loss less destruction, or collateral, and power brawls altogether.
Using non-kill moves is a given for heroes. Otherwise they become anti-heroes such as Deadpool and Punisher. Villians don’t want dead henchmen every single time. They can be in pain but replacing them takes time and effort and frankly it’s not on their to-do list.
You don’t want to use ‘Form Blazing Sword’ until the episode is nearly over.
Powers are free. Gear costs money. The whole point of recruiting supers is to weaponise them.
“Dude, he jumped”
“He jumped?!”
The Justice League dynamic described in the page comment reminds me of SolidJJ’s super hero youtube skits.
Unless villain guy was participating [he said he wasn’t] then Stalwart needed 2 seconds to fall that 100 feet,
regardless of his mass.
Galileo.
Supers can fit a lot of talk in a short fall.
Another teammate may have given him a downward boost too, but Talking Is A Free Action.
Looks like they are using a 3rd-word radio code in #1124: “enter… atrium…deal…gravity”
Actually, that’s a can opener…
You heathen.
Agreed. The ‘jackknife’ is a straightforward dive with toe touching followed by a headfirst entry with as little splash as possible. Done incorrectly, it can also lead to one of the most painful belly flops possible.
It’s not the first “correction” Dave’s been comically wrong on. Anyone remember Super -> FADC -> Ultra? He should probably start doing it intentionally. (Maybe he did?)
I wonder how fine of a control she has over her distribution ability, like, can she move everything to power to make her punch extremely powerful mid-strike/
Stalwart would be an interesting opponent, what use is massive gravity powers against someone who can change his own weight? Especially if Stalwart doesn’t go boosting why increasing gravity by 100x does nothing to him.
As long as Stalwart can’t turn his mass to 0, he should still be affected by Supermassive’s power.
Also, Stalwart can only alter his mass but not cater for direction, so Supermassive/Suckhole can set him to be pulled up or sideways. If Stalwart CAN set his mass to zero, it would counter this but leave stalwart acting like he’s in zero gravity.
Last panel: This is going to hurt. PLEASE tell me it’s going to hurt – that jerk has it coming.
This suckhole clown has pissed off Max simply because he’s an asshole, so she’s going to humiliate him in front of everyone. Plus he thinks this would be a “fair” fight when it is in fact a police action therefore all’s fair etc…
Clearly he expected just Max would face him thinking she’d come in and try to clear house alone, while Max wants every team member to contribute.
That’s like expecting the leader on a swat team to do the hard part and the rest to clean up his mess. Like I said before, this guy thinks he’s hot shit, but he’s about to be a splatter on the far wall.
Yeah, it’s been clearer these guys don’t realize the severity of their actions..human trafficking, experimentation (legally torture) and bodily violation, assault, attempted murder, property damage, plus doing and attempting such things to federal officers. Yeah they must be rich sheltered types whose only research has been comics and movies so they assume Archon will behave like stereotypical super heroes rather than as law enforcement and military.
Let’s not forget Unauthorized Entry to a Military Base for Criminal Purposes (falls under terrorism charges, so could carry the death penalty), Abduction of a Federal Employee (not the one they thought they had, but still), Assault and Battery of a Federal Employee (even if she was not significantly damaged by it, but the other one was), Assault and Battery on Federal Law-Enforcement Officer (multiple counts), Resisting Arrest, Membership in a Terrorist Organization (they did invade a military base, remember?) and several others that the federal prosecutors will figure out in the next few days.
These guys are inherited big money/supers that think their shit don’t stink, ARCswat is here with a diaper pale and TP.
Something worth wondering: How would Maxima vary the use of her hands in combat? I mean, Palm vs slap vs knuckles vs a finger or two…
Also, with her speed, ordinary brawling is, more often than not, pretty pointless. She could go for vulnerable spots since most people won’t be able to react before she’s done.
Her sonic boom alone can rupture eardrums.
https://www.grrlpowercomic.com/archives/comic/grrl-power-973-ulna-you-di-int/
If anybody wonders what happens to a head when Max strikes it at mach 10, Just search for a video called: F4 Phantom vs concrete wall and multiply the result by 3 to 4.
When it comes to bullets, better to use Flash’s plan than to use Quicksilvers…
No love in the page, no love in the tags and no love in the comments. It then falls to me, Who is Stalwart cradling in his arms?
His leg
As Dave pointed out stalwart called cannonball but he’s doing a jackknife, so he’s holding his lower leg up to force his thigh against his chest.
There are as many reasons/excuses for crime as there are criminals. Did poverty make you drive 50 in a 45 on your way to the grocery store? (That’s 90kph in a 80kph in those countries that haven’t put a man on the moon.)
You’re being deliberately obtuse.
I do agree that fighting proverty in Gotham city would be less effective than people think, although it’s not for your reasons.
In the real world the kind of crimes batman fights is more often committed or maintained(drug bosses are rich, but only in power, because of their poor underlings) out of proverty, but Gotham isn’t the real world and a lot of this kind of face independent crimes are for unclear reasons committed by rich people that do not rely on illegal proverty spirals to maintain their budget.
The Riddler has the time and money to build elaborate traps.
Lex Luthor isn’t really short by cash.
Bane has some real money for illegal boosts.
Dr. Doom never struck me the poor type.
All do they commit crimes that can’t be stopped by changing a set of a million words or less.
Sure it might avoid or even stop cases like the Joker, the Goblin and Catwoman and could certainly be worth the money, but it’s not the silver bullet people make it out to be.
Most reasons for crime do reduce down to poverty, actually. Even in your speeding example, many people who do it are trying to get to work, terrified of getting fired and not having an income. And most of the rest reduce to some form of greed. Usually regarding power over others.
And even if the speeding example was mere impatience, you’re talking basically the smallest of infractions, when people who talk about “poverty causes crime” are talking about serious felonies, like armed robbery. Have a damn sense of perspective. (And I won’t be shedding any tears if it happens via the Total Perspective Vortex.)
Along with poverty is a perception of not having a way out. At least when I was working with kids twenty odd years ago, the street gangs actually played on this idea as a means of recruiting and retaining members. A person who perceives their poverty as temporary is a lot less likely to knock over a liquor store. I’ve been poor myself at times and I’ve known people who came up from poverty. One difference from people who commit crimes out of poverty is an expectation that things can be better so you had better not screw it up.
You mean NASA, who most of the main work on stuff was done by Canadian and German Expat engineers?
Who, respectively, had (a) their Canadian defense contractor company ran out of business in the 1950s by the US (Avro Canada), and (b) were captured in WW2.
Might wanna do a little research before you use the “‘MURICA!” chest-thumping there, bud.
Also, no one ever claimed Poverty was the *sole* cause of crime, but it is still *A* cause of it via desperation.
At least we know how to multiply by 1.6 – 50 mph is 80 kph (80.4672, if you’re being precise). Granted, we don’t have 72kph zones, and 70 is mostly used for bad weather conditions on highways, but “doing 50 in a 45” is *similar* to doing 90 in an 80, not the same.
Polititians cause crime, without laws criminalizing certain behaviors there wouldn’t be criminals, just assholes.
Crimes existed LONG before laws. It was DEFINING what was a crime that took a long time and then, yes politicians got involved and often made messes.
But…
Ever hear the phrase ‘An eye for an eye, a tooth for a tooth’?
Yeah. SO many people think that we should just go back to that and utterly ignore the historically documented horrors that resulted.
‘You cut me off in traffic and I HAVE to cut you off in traffic and that kid who is crossing the road to get to school better move because I HAVE to cut you off in traffic!’ And LOTS worse, btw. Google the word ‘Vendetta’ if you think I lie. It wasn’t just Sicilians doing it either.
Law is not perfect, but is better than people killing each other in the streets. Unless of course, you are certain current and former US politicians, in which case it is fine as long as it happens to people they do not like.
‘Eye for an eye’ is part of the Hammurabi Code, one of the earliest known sets of written laws, made by a politician. Law is a human construct, it is useful but it is not something that simply existed on it’s own. This is why people are able to do things that are morally objectionable without facing criminal penalties, like farting loudly in public, until someone makes a law it is not a criminal offense.
So I just noticed the “brass knuckle bumps” in those gloves she’s wearing. What in the 3477 are those made out of? Unobtanium?
Yes. But they’re actually for cushioning, compared to her bare knuckles.
They are simply part of the uniform that every member wears (if you look closely at the first three panels, you can see Wart wearing similar gloves)
That shortening doesn’t work for him at all. Besides which, this is the only true ‘Wart’.
This is why people theorize Batman would be better as a millionaire, then a billionaire. (He should not have LEx Luthor money, he should have “Adam West Batman” money).
Holy inflation Batman! Since the original comics the value of the dollar has declined 95%. A billion in 1940 is worth only 50 million now.
Time marches on. Bruce is getting up in years and eventually needed to retire. In Wooster Ohio there is actually a retirement home called Wayne Manor. https://www.sprengerhealthcare.com/facility/wayne-manor-assisted-living/
Waaay back at the bank robbery Max plucked a bullet from the air in front of Sydney’s eyes. She can speed up and slow down in a very short space in a very controlled way. Admittedly, her hand in the bullet stunt would have created a shock wave in Sydney’s direction as loud as the original gunshot, but there is the old rule “never let reality get in the way of telling a story”.
Plus, Archon will want to interrogate the ‘head’ of the organization. So, I think we will have a ‘resounding thud’ instead of a KA-SPLOOOSH!! of his head.
… You think Junior there is the ‘head’? o_O
So many people failing to understand that the more intense the gravity field the SLOWER time moves NOT faster. Hence why something getting close to the event horizon of a black hole seems frozen in time from the perspective of the outside universe.
Also seems like someone else has the same power as Super-Massive if he’s complaining about someone else using their powers when he cluelessly fails to understand that jumping off a building or the like of course it’s gravity-assisted because the Earth’s got gravity too.
No, SuckHole is just an egotesticle idiot who thinks he’s the only one with gravity powers, and simply doing a Bartman by proclaiming “That wasn’t me!”
“Egotesticle,” is now, and forevermore shall be, a Proper Word.
Someone else came up with it first