Grrl Power #1129 – Mess hall
This page starts about 4 seconds before the end of the prior one. Maxima isn’t taking multiple potshots at Super Hole, not after lecturing Sydney on being certain of whatever is behind your target in case they dodge. Because stuff like this happens. Maxima gave the team permission to go weapons free on this assault, but there’s a difference between killing someone in self-defense and blowing up a room full of potential enemies. If half the guys in capes are non-Super millionaire sponsors, they’re obviously not going to throw down on the super cops. Being rich means you can afford lawyers. Of course, what would a bunch of rich guys be doing hanging around an underground silo in the middle of the day? Although, one presumes with a hidden base of this sort and the majority of the staff being ethically shady at best, there’s probably a wing of this base nicknamed “Epstein Island” or something. Still, it’s a lot less than half of the maskcapes that are idle rich sponsors.
So, I recently got caught up on One Punch Man, at least the official, American releases. I’ve seen the Jupiter Sneeze, but I haven’t gone looking for scanlations. I was like 7 or 8 volumes behind. Honestly I’m a little disappointed that they’re STILL doing the Monster Association stuff. Although with a book like OPM, it kind of doesn’t matter what they’re fighting, as long as there’s some cool action and Saitama wanders through every other book to punch something into oblivion on a two page spread.
But I bring it up because it made me want to step up my action a little bit. The thing is, I know no one is really reading my comic for the world class action. That kind of comic doesn’t really work with my twice a week offering. I mean, one issue of OPM had like 4 pages that were nothing but people staring in shock as they wondered what that (OPM generated) shockwave was. I think the reaction shots are important to drive home the magnitude of events like that. It works in a format like Shonen Jump, which puts out something like 18-20 pages per week (because those bastards have dedicated inkers, toners, background guys, speed line guys, etc.), but it would be pretty boring in a twice a week format. Still, I don’t want to do terrible action, so… enjoy this low content page that is mostly explosion. I tell you though, all that speedline stuff, there’s a definite skill set to it. It’s not just laying down a bunch of lines, they have to flow just right and convey direction and action, and while I feel like I have a decent grasp of how to use them, again, I don’t have like a dedicated guy to do them, and I don’t quite have a grasp on how to get the most out of the tools I have at the moment. I’ll get better with them, but it’ll be a slow process because like I said, this isn’t really a premier action comic. I probably have fewer action pages in the entire run of the comic than a single volume of OPM.
To help fill up the rest of your time this week, (given the massive time investment difference between reading a 4 panel page and my usual 9-11 panel pages – you’re welcome) you can always check out the latest in one of my favorite novel series, The Vixen War Bride. Book 5 came out a few weeks ago. It’s titled Cupcake Girls. I know that sounds cutsie, but uh… Well, no spoilers. I really enjoy the xenoanthropology, and if you haven’t checked out the series, I obviously recommend it.
I’ve asked for xenoanthropology recommendations in the past, and I’ve tried a few things you guys tossed out. The Pride of Chanur was one. It was okay… I think I’d read a few too many HFY stories, or isekai hero who single handedly causes a paradigm shift of some sort to really enjoy Chanur though. I kept expecting the human to do something exceptional and that’s just not the sort of story it is. It was like waiting for the neverdrop.
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.
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Double res version will be posted over at Patreon. Feel free to contribute as much as you like.
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Dongs Ahoy!Full frontal and backal. Lots of skin, sex on some or all pages, explicit or otherwise.
The only problem with super fights as spectator sport is the frightening speed at which you go through spectators…
The ‘Do not die ™’ seats costs ten times the price. But hey, for the usual seats it’s a good way to generate ghosts.
K6BD managed to top that by getting the entire stadium audience, most surviving competitors and much of the nearby city inhabitants killed when Jagganoth entered the battle.
But you have to admit that Jagganoth was not invited.
So the stadium was only rated at 1/2 Salami at best.
First deflected blast. We’ll see if more to follow. Either way that order will be Well done.
That’s more along the lines of “Extra Crispy” or more correctly “Incinerated”
Gives a new meaning to Cajun-style supervillains.
Is the ‘Order up’ guy in a kitchen that’s in the central pillar? And is the central pillar something that’s important to the structure of the facility?
Nah, the perspective is playing tricks. While it looks like Max’s stray blast is going towards a pillar, it’s actually moving in front of it on an upwards trajectory to the –Walled City 99 Control Room–, er evil mess hall
Look again: that blast was directed at the window on outside of the central core, not the pillar (thought at first it was going towards the pillar as well)
Oh, and ‘Order up’ guy is Ted
The foreshortening in panel #3 is misleading. It’s The blast is not touching the central pillar, but coming in our direction.
Thanks!
I forget which maxim this is, but it applies to this comic:
Company mess and incoming fire should be easier to tell apart.
Maxim 23, for the record, though the official wording is “the company mess and *friendly* fire should be easier to tell apart”.
As an aside, the structure of this place reminds me of a Panopticon. Clearly this isn’t one, but perhaps they have brought a couple of the design elements over?
An interesting thought. It reminds me of an Atlas missile silo complex. The command center/living quarters is a cylinder with a central pillar.
… I thought Mangas like One Punch Man were pretty much entirely done by the Mangaka? I’ve never heard someone claim that Mangas have dedicated inkers, toners and background guys.
That sounds a lot more like American or European Comics than Manga.
Some do. Dragon ball, berserk, one piece, hunter hunter, sailor moon…
Older and/or established authors are more likely to be able to afford it.
the “poorest” mangakas do it like that, and they say its hell… but people working on super popular ones, like Oda or Rumiko takashi actually have a team no different from a regular work place.
Mangaka do usually have 2-4 assistants for weekly/monthly series once serialized. See manga about making manga (such as Bakuman) that says more about the process.
Many mangaka thank their assistants on some page or another in their volumes.
as many others have said it depends on the manga but the big ones like in this case OPM have assistants that do stuff like backgrounds, speedlines, inking, etc to speed the whole process up, in the case of OPM they even do a pass digitally to add some further detail that is imposible traditionally
I would think that most of them have gone digital by now.
Japanese graphic artists don’t generally divide the work up the way westerners do, into writer, penciller, inker, colourist.
Instead, they’ll have assistants to draw the backgrounds, design some of the minor characters, etc. The newbie might just spot blacks and collate the pages, but typically they are all capable of doing all of the tasks, just not necessarily as well as the “name” mangaka.
Last picture, where is redcape?
Do i miss something?
I think he’s the one with the red and orange lines around his shield.
You mean near the flying chairs?
Can kinda, sorta, just make out a shoulder and upper arm if you look down from the ‘B’
Yeah, was wondering that as well: can see Cape Chick (that’s not Portal Lass from the basement, is it?) and Ted (valiantly taking the brunt of the blast… with his face), and Chef Ted, but where did Red Cape go?
Max’s particle beam(?) is normally tightly focused as is shown right up until it is deflected by Super Hole which, regarding physics, makes sense. Interesting the power it has even when dispersed. Brings to mind Star Trek TOS, when they first encountered the Romulans and their new weapon. Balance of Terror I think?
It’s grappling with particle beams time.
Gravity is can be massive force but on it’s own it is very weak, it requires a lot of mass to generate, and he seems to work on deflection of her and catching her offguard for his tricks..
If she would go for a more grappling way of attacking with relative slow speed, he can’t just deflect her or yoink her away if she is determined. Once she would have a grip on him, he should be basically out of realistic options.
His big defense seems to be not getting hit. Grappling just ends it… although he should seriously be trying to avoid that.
Yeah, she should absolutely go for the grapple. Like anvil vs Math. “If she gets her hands on him, it’s over.”
500 gravity won’t stop her crushing his wrist in her hand. Or just ripping his arm off.
Yes I brought up grappling (holds) a couple of strips back where it was obvious that he was a fister. If he hits you and it does little (thanks to MAx defense) then use whole body if need to apply a hold and fire point blank aka “dodge this”.
Lol, “he’s a fister.” The implication he’s fisting Maxima is great… not far off if she doesn’t do something to turn the tide.
Gravitational field strength is inversely proportional to the square of the distance from the centre of mass.
Getting close enough to grapple means getting close enough to not be concerned about field strength loss.
Get close enough (0.0many zeros01) to enough mass (10many zeros0.0) and its gravitic effects overwhelm all other nuclear forces (Strong, Weak, and Electro-Magnetic) to the point where event horizons happen and The Rules (as we understand them) Change.
It should be noted that thus far DaveB has shown us that SuperMassiveGoomba can (somehow) create these sort of gravetic effects.
And (somehow) not destroy the planet in the process. (If you can figure that plot hole out DaveB has an official, StanLee approved, No-Prize waiting for you).
Maxima seems to be doing ok (for now) primarily because her power set also involves Really Big Numbers.
What would make a far more interesting match up is Supermassive vs Stalwart (once he gets himself out of that hole he dug for himself).
Apparently his training is focused on tanking damage, grappling, and proper use/management of a level of super strength second only to Maxima. Factor in that he is “saturated in forcefields and repulsor beams” and likes to adjust his mass on the fly (“i weight as much as a space shuttle right now”) in any fight means that he is almost tailored to be a (soft) counter to the bulk of supermassive’s various effects that he is not out right directly resistant or immune to.
Both of them do their best work against an opponent the closer they get. Gravity Goombah seems to rely on PowerStunts for general combat while Stalwart seems more classically trained in High Strength fisticuffs. The questions here is Does Stalwarts defences allow him to survive /nulify GG’s powerstunts long enough to beat him to submission the old fashioned way.
Finalists for the Darwin Awards.
So one of them had shields… so how many seconds do you think that lasted?
Probably the whole time. Maxima’s not putting any extra power into her blasts — it’s all going into countering Masshole.
One capedude has a green shield up, and the other capedude to his left just has a whole lot of sparks in front of him (and no cape anymore).
Guess one’s built for soak tanking and the other for block tanking.
The one to the left (ie in front) was one of the Ted’s
Nice to know peoples’ attitude towards Suck Hole is universal, even amongst his caped cronies
That’s a one spicy meatball!
Smokin’
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VaqdQhuvPi8
Jaysus Chroist, man.
Fire up the Wayback, there!
The other thing about this fight is it is occurring underground, so the ground will soak the damage, except for shots going straight up. So it really is fairly safe to throw around major power.
Until you start hitting support structures and bury everyone left alive.
When half the people you’re burying are supers, burying them alive is… not that deadly?
Just because they have powers, doesn’t mean they are the type that will allow them to survive the crushing weight and loss of breathable air
Remember Ted? He dies, a lot (or at least his Ted-lings do)
Do you think someone like Vahriah would survive if she didn’t have anyone to hold onto? And they gave her a gestalt that will allow both to survive (knowing where the nearest pigeon is wouldn’t be much help)
@DaveB. You do you, we will be here. don’t sweat it.
Okay, the Ted with the chef’s hat just kills me.
Action scenes are nice, and a pissed-off Max is just the ‘chef’s kiss’ (though apparently not by Chef Ted) to any action scene (starting WAY back in chapter 1 when she got mad about not being able to move Sydney’s map tube with the orbs in it), but I’m here for the pure comedy that comes in every fight scene.
Yes I think the chef hat is the absolute best thing in today’s comic. :)
*long drag off a clove*
…créme d’ le créme.
It’s that kind of comedy that provides the leavening, when Dave gets on a roll.
But that’s baked in.
Of course.
It helps to cleanse the palate, between our semi-weekly servings of souper heroism. Helps reduce the number who might otherwise dessert, even after they get a good taste of what’s coming.
Dear god what fresh pun-filled hell birthed you!?
*furiously sends 3 ships of ninja-pirates to your location*
You’re getting way too much enjoyment from my suffering.
*sends another 4 ships of pirate ninjas and one batallion of koala-zombie-ninjas since they work cheap*
This has all the ingredients of a recipe for disaster.
It has been brewing for a while but she finally decided to hopp on it. Though I have no proof, she might tap into the dregs of her budget if we beer down on her hard enough. I could find a tun more if I weren’t so far into my cups.
For those who may feel bad for the capemasks in that caff… my I direct you to the movie Clerks and the contractor discussion about the second Death Star.
Off topic… GrrlPower Silurian Hypothesis.
The civilization that created the orbs were ancient, sapient dinosaurs who I will refer to as Silurians, not so much because Doctor Who but because the name used by whoever first formulated the real world Silurian Hypothesis…
The KT Event was another civilization attempting to wipe out the orbs, which were quite possibly a prototype judging by the relatively low experience on the skill tree prior to Sydney getting hold of them, and due to the fact that there’s only 2 waypoints on the navigation system: Earth and Fracture Station, with Earth being all kshhhhhked out, presumably due to the KT Event.
The civilization that wiped out the Silurians was mainly just trying to get rid of the wielder/inventor of the orbs with something the orbs wouldn’t be able to defend against at the power level they were currently at. Also, that civilization is the civilization that created the goo that was in Maxima’s geode.
Human genetics granting them access to the Superion Field is due to ancient Silurian tinkering with the genetics of a species of KT era mammals that would later go on to become primates, later hominids, and eventually humans.
I particularly like how one of the Goon Squads is still in full uniform… but with a little chef’s hat as well.
Ted is a man who can not only wear many hats, but pull them off.
I’ve said it before but I’ll say it again. I think Goon Squad may very well be my favorite villain because he reminds me of Bob, Agent of Hydra.
It was a pun
I choose to read it as not a pun because Bharda’s caused me to have to again overextend myself on hit squads.
About Dave’s book recommendations, is it about human military and fox girls? I’ve read something like that about cat girls. Of those I recommend Upon a savage shore. Human space marine (NOT WH40k one) crashlands on a seemingly uninhabited planet, finds a crashed enemy ship, kills the men, and the women surrender to him. Good stuff.
This year I got into Aeon 14 starting with the first novel Outsystem. A major colony ship under construction is facing a number of major threats, and badass military intelligence officer is brought in to eliminate the threats. She does just that with some collateral damage while flirting with a fighter pilot. Novel & sequels make an effort for realism, but I bet scientists, NASA engineers, and the likes would find plenty to nitpick about. Still good stuff.
And as he mentioned HFY, I know it has been brought up before, but First Contact is a good read, has a massive chapter count, and is currently on r/HFY and Royal Road; and Raults is the most prolific author I have ever run across.
Angle of the speed lines is far different from the angle it hit the window.
I posit that the angle of refraction of the window for that specific form of blast is extreme… resulting in the same effect that makes pools of water look far more shallow than they really are.
The coherent blast hit the window and refracted, and the window attempted (with partial success) to disperse the energy across a larger area, BEFORE the window broke. There should probably be a superglow that hits the ceiling behind the top of the H in WHABOOM, though.
I wonder how many people has Maxima “accidentally” killed.
Maxima is a soldier. Collateral damage is an unfortunate fact of every conflict since the dawn of time. Most armies try to limit it, but there’s no way to stop it completely, so I’m sure she’s killed people accidentally before. I mean, just her fight with the sand guy where she was basically just randomly blasting the sand to try to get to him, at least some of those blasts had to be aimed at the ground.
In Star Wars: A New Hope, just before Darth Vader enters, the Stormtroopers are having a shootout with the Rebels.
When I see that scene it looks like the blaster bolts are traveling around 135 miles per hour (60 meters per second).
That’s faster than a professional baseball player’s fast ball (93.9 miles per hour).
Is that dogeable? Duckable? One guy got his shield up. Ladymask might have Duck and Covered.
Mythbusters proved they were dodgeable, bit only just, and most times it was a matter of luck. I think that episode is available from Discovery On Demand, and maybe on YouTube.
Ladymask was the one who got her green shield up (you can tell by the colour of her suit), Ted took the full blast to the face (and the rest of him)
The thing about any type of photonic beam is that if it encounters something like a sheet of standard glass, unless it’s specially made to allow it to pass through, the beam will refract and super heat the glass with an explosion. Ask anyone that has screwed up messing with high energy lasers.
Red cape looks a lot like what happens as metal heats up in a cutting torch flame, as the metal starts to glow and gets to bright red the surface burns slightly giving off the very same flame effect, so either red cape’s power is to turn into metal, or they are burning.
Related to the Teds. Given their propensity to dissolve into sixlets or butter mints or whatever candy like object you prefer, will those bit act as an ablative material if you blow a Ted up with sufficient force?
I see two options for Max here. Either (as some have said) forget the punches and beams and go for a grapple, or forget the punches and beams and go for a large localized explosion. Blow herself up (relying on her armor, of course) to take him down.
…Or I suppose she chould bring the roof down on him… or do some comic book thing like use superspeed to race around him fast enough to suck all the air from around him and suffocate him….
Yeah, if you’re going into Chanur expecting an Isekai, you’re going to get surprised. Cherryh really doesn’t go for the thinly disguised White Saviour narrative. The closest is probably the Faded Sun trilogy, but even there, the human is different rather than being better than the aliens at their own thing.
Soooo, where IS red cape? I see the Ted being incinerated, I see green force field blocking… I don’t see Redcape.
Find the ‘B’ in ‘Boom’ and look down, believe that might be their elbow below the first floating chair
Super Assive [M deliberatively forgotten] may be “winning” but everyone around him will end up “loseing” as collateral damage. Although, to be honest, most of those losers will be the Teds. Of course, given Super Assive’s ego he probably won’t care as long as he looks cool!
The poor counter guy went through preparing a nourishing meal for his ex-customer…
Looks like the meal, along with its plate is about to go through him.
I think I thought this last page but didn’t comment on it. Remembered the older page about thinking about what was behind someone when firing a beam. Although funny enough this issue has so far been more a problem for Maxima, so she was likely partially reminding herself about that when training Sidney. Which it can be easy to forget when it’s such a useful end the fight kind of move
Although what’s behind the target this time is the enemy base, mostly full of enemies.
(And one or two allies that may or may not get hit, but they’re not innocent bystanders.)
She may or may not be aware of the status of the prisoners that Varia, Jiggawatt, and Harem rescued, but she could reasonably assume such prisoners aren’t going to be given rooms with a pleasant view of the central atrium where they would be in danger from a blast from her.
All in all, using her beam attack is not an unreasonable action in this situation. Whether that means she (and by extension DaveB) *actually* thought about it is currently pure speculation.
Well, that room’s gonna be… Interesting for the forensics teams, assuming the entire complex isn’t brought down.
Yeah, it looks like the level above and the level below will all collapse into one pile. The baddies had better hope they didn’t skimp on the rebar.
One Punch Man was kind of fun until the absurdly dragged out Monster Association Fight that is something like double the pages of all previous stories combined. And it’s scale from small stuff to just utterly stupid, and that is saying something after the things that have happened previously in OPM. I stopped reading OPM a bit into Monster Association, and looked into it a while ago and saw it was still going on.
You must admit, though, One Punch Man vs the mosquito was pretty funny.
My favorite humor payoff was Saitama vs. Carnage Kabuto. Have only seen the episodes, never read the Manga (and Season 2 doesn’t exist, just like Highlander 2 and Robocop 3).
one punch man vs luffy. 1000 episodes later, they’re still just having a picnic.
First two panels have a big “Morpheus is fighting Neo”-vibe for me :D
https://qph.cf2.quoracdn.net/main-qimg-7a15c68ea004415eadd77dd0ea3aab77-lq Had to share this Here.
I saw that and thought “eh, probably won’t be spicy enough for me” and then I was like “wait, this was linked off of GrrlPower, ha, Sydney!”
I eat so many Carolina Reapers that my blood is spicy, not even joking. Mosquitos and ticks actually die when they bite me! I was introduced to this comic early on by someone who said Sydney reminded them of me because of the spicy food.
I wonder if Suck Massive Hole can get in trouble for killing those guys using Maxima’s beam.
Dave, the next time Sydney appears, could you have her say something to the effect
“I’m back!” ?
awwww, you’ve ruined it!
Does Cannon Fodder Man, er Goon Squad pull all the mundane tasks in the facility?
Well, he wasn’t the janitor (unless that was him out of uniform… )
“but there’s a difference between killing someone in self-defense and blowing up a room full of potential enemies”
Are we sure about that? I seem to recall something about drone pilots bombing weddings because of a suspicious cellphone. Just label the silo a terrorist compound and you have carte blanche on indiscriminate explosions.
They labelled themselves terrorists when they attacked a federal building and attempted to kill agents inside, not to mention kidnapping one for torture!!
Archon also knew going in that the base had kidnapped test subjects, held in cells with kill switches. The point is valid that very poor intel covereth a multitude of military sins, but in this case they had plenty of proof if was the right spot before kicking the door down.
And, they sent in scouts first to confirm (if having a spy inside wasn’t enough)
The point was, this isn’t just a case of America going in blazing and then planting ‘evidence’ afterwards (mysterious invisible WMD that no one could find any evidence of ring any bells?)
I just wanted to comment that I love the impact of this shot. Max is supposed to be close to superman level but we don’t get to see her blow shit up very much. This kinda drives home her power and to some extent Supermasives threat.
to be honest, it was supposed to be a silent action to take over the prisoners. the plan did not survive the meeting with the implementation so Maxima plays with the cards he has, i.e. the fight against an unrecognized enemy in an unrecognized area with potential bystanders. To be honest, I don’t know if this situation shouldn’t result in a withdrawal order
No, that was simply the first part, they were always intending on kicking down the doors and storming the castle
All casualites are terrorist then and near all found drugs
… Did you just start reading with this page? They fucking breached a Federal Building, and attacked Federal Agents, not to mention kidnapped one!!
Damn right they are labelled as fucking terrorists