Grrl Power #1131 – A hairy situation
Yes, SuperMassive calls his gravity balls “G-Spots,” because he’s just that rad.
You know I’ve never thought about what Maxima’s hair might taste like until I drew this page. Of course, her hair isn’t hair, it’s like some sort of metallic silk. By itself, it probably doesn’t taste like anything, as it is hyper-nonreactive, so it’s mostly going to taste and smell like whatever shampoo she uses. She’s stated in the past that her skin is a fair bit more slippery than human skin, and the same applies to her hair, so her use of shampoo is more about scent than cleanliness. She could stand in front of a firehose if she wanted and it’d be pretty effective in terms of cleanliness. Might even count as a gentle massage if she dropped her armor way down. If she actually gets anything tenacious stuck to her, she can jump in a vat of something that would turn a mid-level thug living in Gotham into an A-List Supervillain.
The January Vote Incentive is still up! Time for the quarterly fashion show that Anvil puts Maxima through. Can you detect the theme?
The new one is coming I promise. I’m back down in Houston helping out my folks and the setup makes it a little difficult to find time to work on pics of topless ladies. I will endeavor to decrease the time between these as I know I’m on the verge of stretching the definition of ‘monthly.’
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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I’m amused by the concept of Maxima taking a bath in chlorine trifluoride just to get some demonic goo off. (It’s used to clean semiconductors… and nuclear reactors)
That doesn’t sound so bad. You should tell people it reacts to pretty much everything, and CIF3 makes stuff like water, asbestos, sand, glass, concrete and ash BURN. You can’t put it out, as the normal things we use to put out fires is just fuel for CIF3. It will burn through anything.
It’s one of those chemicals that makes most chemist go ‘Nope! Nope! Nope!’.
Here’s a proper chemist going “nope nope nope” to ClF3 – https://www.science.org/content/blog-post/sand-won-t-save-you-time
Really, everything that Dr. Lowe has written under the tag “Things I Won’t Work With” is absolute gold – https://www.science.org/topic/blog-category/things-i-wont-work-with
Seconded. They’re what brought me to his excellent blog and kept me there. Quality writing, quality reading – and I am no chemist.
On the plus side, it makes writing the firefighting section of any hazard-response plan very easy: “isolate fire and let burn”.
Unless there is flammable stuff in the area and you’re worried the CF3 fire starts a normal fire.
CF3 fires also apparently make toxic gases.
… That’s what ‘isolate’ means
From Freefall:
R: “Do you know what to do if there is a spill of the cleaner chlorine trifluoride?”
K: “Pour water on it?”
R: “It makes water catch on fire.”
K: “Pour sand on it?”
R: “It makes sand catch on fire.”
K: “Pour asbestos on it?”
R: “It makes asbestos catch on fire.”
K: “What happens if I get some of that stuff on me?”
R: “You will be very clean. And also on fire.”
I’m actually reading Freefall, but don’t remember that exchange. Which strip was it?
After Mr Kornada’s scheme gets stopped and he’s sentenced to work at Cricket Burger, he protests and gets told that the alternative is working at a plant making chlorine trifluoride. He then has the above exchange with his robotic police officer.
A quick search says http://freefall.purrsia.com/ff3100/fv03032.htm
The specific strip is http://freefall.purrsia.com/ff3100/fc03032.htm
I didn’t get the conversation word-for-word perfect, but I captured the gist of it.
nearly directly after that paperclipass got his punishment
From John D. Clark’s Ignition!: An Informal History of Liquid Rocket Propellants:
“It is, of course, extremely toxic, but that’s the least of the problem. It is hypergolic with every known fuel, and so rapidly hypergolic that no ignition delay has ever been measured. It is also hypergolic with such things as cloth, wood, and test engineers, not to mention asbestos, sand, and water-with which it reacts explosively. It can be kept in some of the ordinary structural metals-steel, copper, aluminium, etc.-because of the formation of a thin film of insoluble metal fluoride which protects the bulk of the metal, just as the invisible coat of oxide on aluminium keeps it from burning up in the atmosphere. If, however, this coat is melted or scrubbed off, and has no chance to reform, the operator is confronted with the problem of coping with a metal-fluorine fire. For dealing with this situation, I have always recommended a good pair of running shoes.”
TIL “hypergolic” contraction of hyper (excessive)+ erg (work) +ol (oil) + ic (of or having to do with)
I was thinking a villain named Golic would be fun, but apparently it was hyper – ergol – ic and they deleted one of the double ers. So it would be Ergolic.
How many test engineers did they go through before they figure they were hypergolic with this stuff and not something else, like their clothes or hair-products?
Because the Nazis were some of the first people to mess around with this stuff (they wanted to make it into a flamethrower and/or rocket fuel), the answer is possibly a very uncomfortable “more than zero”.
It was the Germans (who else) back in the 30s that found out the hard way. It only took the one process engineer having the fat under their skin detonated before they treated it with the respect it deserves. Also kinda explains why they (only) made about 30 tons of it during WWII for testing, before they found out how difficult it is to store and handle. If they’d had time, they had intended to make flamethowers spray it instead of napalm.
Thank yous, didn’t know that, thought it was just a humerous throw-away line that most would have overlooked, like the last line about the running shoes
Less talking about Sydney having sex (/shudder), more melting helmets (while Suck Hole is still wearing it)!
Sydney can be pretty hot. I’m more disturbed at the thought of Clousseau fathering someone. And yes, I’m aware of “Son of the Pink Panther.”
Oof. This is like “The Game”, where I have now lost both because I have reminded myself of The Game, and also been reminded of Son of the Pink Panther.
Now I want Sydney to meet someone who looks like an in universe version of the cartoon Clouseau. They would be irresistibly attracted to one another and comedic results would follow.
Is that… the next set of bodies looking for bags to be poured into?
Ah the age old curse of making an OP build only to have run into something that counters it. Nearly reminds me of a Star wars campaign where my droid character could pretty much tank any damage (unkess by ship or lightsaber) forcing the DM to switch to most of his enemies switching to stun guns because apparently it was easier to knockout or stun my droid than it was to harm him.
Even gravity powers are weak against the ability needed to breathe and stay conscious… Now lets see if Gravity Goblin can back away gracefully or if he tried bringing the area down in a “rocks fall. Everyone dies” type of situation.
Looks like having long hair tied up when in the field is going to be a mandatory practice from now on. I’d ask why it wasn’t already, but little things like that can easily be overlooked.
It was. But somewhere between 1117 and 1123, the hair tie got lost.
Stalwart’s explanation makes zero sense. That’s speedforce level physicsbabble.
To be fair, it’s possible that Stalwart simply doesn’t understand gravity, runs off instinctive control of his power and fails to explain what’s happening.
There IS a mechanism by which what Stalwart is saying makes sense. If he can change his center of gravity (a very natural extension of his powers) and rotate himself around his center of gravity (a common ability, no powers required), then in principle he can do those things rapid-fire to transport himself in any direction, in complete disregard for conservation of momentum (and consequently, in defiance of gravity).
Similarly, if G-man is trying to mess with Stalwart’s body with a gravity field, he can make the part of his body inside the gravity field light and the part outside the gravity field heavy… and the gravity field won’t do much to him (though it might still pull on someone else’s hair).
> Similarly, if G-man is trying to mess with Stalwart’s body with a gravity field, he can make the part of his body inside the gravity field light and the part outside the gravity field heavy…
That assumes Stalwart’s body is partially inside, partially outside of the gravity field. There’s no reason for SM to do that (unless he wanted to murder someone, sinceca normal durability target would be ripped apart by tidal forces).
Whether it does or doesn’t – WHY explain a power to the person with whom you are currently locked in combat and against whom you are using it???!!!
Even the good guys are prone to monologuing.
Have you read a super hero comic before?
He’s not informing Supermassive, he’s informing us. Supermassive is just in the way.
“There IS a mechanism by which what Stalwart is saying makes sense.”
Literally the formula for gravitational pull. Whatever mass is simulated by SM’s gravity balls can be countered by the second object with mass – ie, Stalwart.
No, that’s absolutely not how gravity works, and no, the formula doesn’t imply this. Increasing Stalwart’s mass will increase the force of gravity on him.
If SM simulates mass (we’ve already seen that he doesn’t have to), the force on this mass will also be higher. But 1. Stalwart isn’t heavy enough for that to be meaningful 2. It wouldn’t decrease the force on Stalwart, it would just mean they both get accelerated towards their combined center of mass.
Stalwart has not explained how much control he has, or what type.
He has long demonstrated some ability to bifurcate his massyness. He can be supermassive, while not having consistent super weight.
For instance, in the V battle, he can put the weight of a space shuttle on one foot, while not breaking through the ground with the other.
In this case, he could increase his mass in the same way while NOT increasing the gravitational attraction relative to Suckhole’s power.
Arguing that he can’t do what he’s been doing for years is not much of a logical act. Just remember, he doesn’t appear on screen much, and we have no idea how much training and skill growth he’s accomplished when we were watching all them womenfolk.
> Arguing that he can’t do what he’s been doing for years is not much of a logical act.
Separating his inertial and gravitational mass is not what we were talking about. It can’t be what he’s using, because that wouldn’t allow him to fly.
Although now that you brought it up, I feel compelled to point out we’ve never seen him do it and there’s no evidence in favor of it:
> He has long demonstrated some ability to bifurcate his massyness. He can be supermassive, while not having consistent super weight.
For instance, in the V battle, he can put the weight of a space shuttle on one foot, while not breaking through the ground with the other.
The ground under his other foot was also breaking. And it’s not like shifting your weight on one foot isn’t an entirely mundane ability.
> In this case, he could increase his mass in the same way while NOT increasing the gravitational attraction relative to Suckhole’s power.
In concluion, that’s conjecture, and it doesn’t fit his explanation.
Nah. It makes plenty of sense. Let’s assume Stalwart is normally 100 kilograms of pure muscle because he’s a big guy and a super and I like round numbers.
So what happens when Suck Hole imposes a multiplier on the gravity, and makes the area subjected to 1000G?
Well, Stalwart manipulates his mass to be, say, 100 grams. Put him on a scale and he has the same weight as he normally does with no gravity powers and no funky mass manipulation.
So based on what we know, he can be hit with Suck Hole’s power and suddenly have a mass of 100kg but an actual weight of a thousand times that without changing his mass at all. So he just kinda… drops his mass until his weight returns to normal. In this example, his mass drops to 100g, and his weight in imperial units is 220.46 lbs which is a thousand times what 100 grams would normally weight under 1G.
Remember that objects with a smaller mass will be less affected by gravity, which is why they have less weight. This is actually why the Metric system uses grams as a unit to measure both mass and weight. Provided you never leave Earth and are always under 1G conditions, your mass and weight will always be identical. Although this entire system breaks when you go into any other gravitational conditions, at which point the formula to convert becomes Mass = Weight / G
Thing is, if Stalwart becomes 100 grams (which is 10 times too light for a gravity field of 100g, by the way), he will weigh more or less as much as air. He can be swatted around like a huge balloon animal – and he’ll barely be able to stand on the ground. Any lighter, and he’ll be lighter than air and buoyancy will take over.
Except he masses 100 grams and still weighs 100 KG, so there’s still that force pushing him down.
If he’s been practicing flight, he may even be able to split his power to two forces, one with regard to normal earth gravity, and one with regard to some other thing that he’s increasing his attraction to. In that case, he’d have a relatively straightforward skill-vs-skill roll against MassBalls.
Technically speaking, he still weighs 1000N. kg is still a measure of mass, not weight.
That’s not compatible with Stalwart’s description.
It would make sense, and it’s what I considered the most likely explanation before this page. But it’s not what Stalwart says, and I’m calling out what Stalwart says.
I think I don’t understand what you mean.
Stalwart says he can control his mass.
Teksura says Stalwart can reduce his mass.
Is reduction not a form of control?
He says he can “focus” it. I have no idea what that’s eupposed to mean, but its not “I make myself lighter.”
“Let’s assume Stalwart is normally 100 kilograms of pure muscle because he’s a big guy and a super and I like round numbers.”
Feh. When I was in college gymnastics, after doing wrestling in HS, I was 100 Kg of muscle and bone, and I’m only 5’9″ and wasn’t nearly as massive looking as that guy, even if I did have trouble finding jeans that fit. He’s 150Kg, easy.
Whether it makes sense or not – WHY explain it to a person with whom you are locked in combat and against whom you are currently using it???!!!
“Stalwart makes random shit up to throw off SM” would be an explanation, true. Although WoG on the last page promised there would be an explanation of how Stalwart could counter SM …
He becomes super massive without being super heavy so he doesn’t fall through floors.
It’s a necessary secondary power to let his main power work.
If you spend a few decades learning how to not fall through floors, you can prevent the villain Super Heavy from making you fall through floors.
He’s absolutely becomes super heavy, or his power stunt against Vehemence would have made no sense. He used the downward force from his increased weight to push Kevin’s foot down.
Maybe he can decouple his gravitational mass from his inertial mass, but that doesn’t fit his description.
No, he CAN become super heavy. Clearly he can control this.
I was unclear: he can become super heavy but controls the degree to which this happens. Ergo he can control the degree to which gravity affects him.
He can control how much he masses, but gravity affects everything equally no matter how much it masses.
We have no evidence he can control his inertial and gravitational mass separately.
He is making changes to how his mass interacts with normal spacetime via the superion field, so we can assume he can make it interact however the plot requires.
By reducing mass to near zero, gravitational forces essentially no longer have any effect on Stalwart. This would normally render Stalwart’s moment of inertia so low that he could be sent flying with ease, but Stalwart is also super strong and grappling Supermassive and choking him out. If Supermassive tries to send Stalwart flying, he’d do so with enough force to take himself with Stalwart.
As for flying: Shift majority of mass into the extremity of one limb. Reduce mass until buoyancy provides desired lift. As your inertia is centered around the extremity, movement of the limb controls your direction. You can use this to either fling yourself (tug and then immediately drop the mass in the concentrated point while adjusting the rest of your mass to maintain desired buoyancy with the new momentum) or cartwheel through the air (same as before, but instead of redistributing the mass and costing on inertia, you build the inertia by instantly switching which extremity has the concentrated mass causing rotation about that point of mass with each switch).
KSP had an exploit like the latter as the game didn’t register the mass of fuel as moving if transferred from one tank to another via fuel lines. You could build up some pretty intense speeds if you didn’t mind the micromanagement.
> By reducing mass to near zero, gravitational forces essentially no longer have any effect on Stalwart.
Yes, that would make sense, and I’ve said as much multiple times. Stalwart’s explanation, however, does not.
Stalwart is replying to Supermassive’s statement that extra mass would make him more vulnerable. Stalwart insults Supermassive and clarifies that he can control his mass and focus it to nullify whatever gravitational forces are thrown at him. In other words, Stalwart can focus to drive his mass down to zero or fairly close to zero in order to nullify or minimize the effect of gravity on himself. His explanation makes perfect sense
That’s not what he was saying though. He said he can focus his mass. Focus does not mean reduce.
“Fine! You want a fight! Then everybody fights!” No, they are here to arrest you, not fight you. If that is required to arrest you, then so be it. This just adds Resisting Arrest, and maybe Assault and Battery of a Law-Enforcement Official, to the charges you have to answer in court.
Posthumous charges
Wait, can you charge a corpse with criminal actions?
Why not? You’ve got ’em dead to rights.
I think that would technically violate their right to appear in person at the trial. (US law, some other places allow it)
Technically. But it would be fine as far as their right to remain silent.
Fairly sure there are exceptions: trying someone in absentia (or something)
Sounds like habeus corpses.
I want to penalize you all for making puns here, but they are law puns so I can truly appreciate the clever ones.
Ok. Sex puns and law puns. Those are the only allowable ones.
Puns Are sex, if you enjoy them, you know you’re f*d.
.. dammit that’s a good one :/
Utinam huius conceptus auctor fuissem, posthac ita esse dicetur.
Max should really get another rebar hair tie before going into battle.
I suspect she’s walking out of this fight with a makeover into a pixie cut or military style. She’s been drug around by the hair, thrown by the hair, and her hair has been used against a teammate. She hates losing; I predict she will not keep it on her head.
I think the reason it is this length now is it can’t be cut by normal means, and stopped growing when she got superpowers.
The Barberian thinks he could cut Maxima’s hair, but I don’t think we have any confirmation that anyone has succeeded at doing so.
When was she thrown by the hair? I remember Anvil being thrown by the hair but not Maxima.
Anvil was thrown by Kevin at the restaurant, I was thinking Max experienced a hair-related attach at Times Square but a dive turned up nothing. Though it did remind me there’s a stolen stasis gun somewhere out there in the hands of a group that employs supers.
Long hair is still not a great tactical choice, Max’s has been used in this fight to block her vision and choke a teammate.
I suspect that Maths list of fetisch is rather long.
Extremally short actually
1: Women
2: There is no number 2
I think “women parts” is probably a multilevel list.
Maths is more disturbing the more you have him in a strip, and in this case he was only an after-thought and still the most disturbing thing in the last 20 strips.
Gotta hand it to SM for being creative with his ability. So many gravity users rely on AOE that they never consider the practical uses of singular gravity wells like such. Though as more of Arc joins the fray, his chances of winning or even escaping dwindle pretty fast. He may wanna consider bailing now that Stal has shown he can hard counter
In the novel “Blind Voices”, by the late Tom Reamy, there’s a fight between two people with telekinesis powers. “A” is skilled and shields his body from it, blunting most of the attacks. “B” wins by focusing all his power on “A”‘s eardrum.
In a FASERIP game I played a gravity manipulator and one of his big feats was to orbit bullets around a point in space (usually myself)
Who in ArcSWAT can even join the fight without being a liability? Max and Stalwart obviously. Maybe Dabbler and Halo, but they’re on the other side of the ocean. Jigawatt might be able to make some potshots when she wakes up. I guess Achilles wouldn’t be a liability, but he also wouldn’t be very useful.
Stalwarts superbabbling got him a mouthfull of trouble when Supermassive skillfully used it to get out of a hairy situation.
Has Maxima ever done… whatever it is she’s doing with her fingers before? It looks like she’s heating them, and the “hiss” and “sizzle” effects would back that up, I just don’t remember it ever being mentioning she can do that before.
It makes sense, she’s basically just putting energy into the area around her fingers and then not firing it off like she usually does. Still a new application of an existing power should get some recognition.
I would think Sydney would want to know about potential lightsaber fingers….
but just imagine the wet willies!
She’s definitely done the “glowy fists as a threat” move before
Yes, the first appearance (I believe) was against V in the Super-Brawl – https://www.grrlpowercomic.com/archives/comic/grrl-power-271-how-do-you-disarm-someone-with-super-powers/
When her hand glows like that it’s because she’s “powering up” her beam casting, she also did it when she took out that Fel ship. With most of her reserves spent on flight/strength/shield it takes a bit longer to build up enough to make a blast. Also let’s face it, big scary woman with glowing, sizzling hands…
Please, someone tell that Gravity Stain what a G-Spot is (he wouldn’t believe you though) and that his look like pretty purple roses :P
I’m sure SM would believe, he just wouldn’t care. BTW the structures that make up the G-spot are the same structures that cause female ejaculation at orgasm, which is the reason why not all women can “squirt”. only an estimated 50-80% of women have G-spots. The one I ran into without one was also anorgasmic, now coincidence or correlation I don’t know because I only have the one datapoint.
He’d not only believe, he already knows and thinks he’s clever for co-opting the term. The man unironically bought and wears a tearaway suit and cape “to look good in case of a fight without damaging his investment”, for crying out loud.
He also wears the initials ‘SM’ on his belt buckle. That man is hardly one to shy away from innuendo.
Or, he is a clueless child who has never had anyone stand up to him before
Look at him in panel six: he gets super massive pissed that they stopped paying attention to him for two minutes
I get it, you don’t like him. That’s fair, nobody likes him.
But what does that have to do with what I said?
That he doesn’t know what else ‘SM’ can stand for
Lack of emotional maturity in an adult is not really related to lack of trivia knowledge.
How many men believe in the G-Spot?
Researchers have been unable to find evidence that the G-Spot exists.
Let me guess: all the ‘researchers’ were males, and no females were allowed in the study (not even as test subjects) because ‘they are icky’
*facepalm* Let me guess: You didn’t click on the link before responding.
I knew where that would lead before I even hovered the link. The man gets how my brain is wired.
Sarchasm claims another idiot
You probably believe there were seven other formulas before they reached ‘Preparation H’
Are you familiar with Poe’s Law?
What do raven’s have to do with this?
Nothing. Wrong Poe. As per wikipedia, “Poe’s law is an adage of Internet culture saying that, without a clear indicator of the author’s intent, any parody of extreme views can be mistaken by some readers for a sincere expression of the views being parodied.”
There are people who would say the things you say seriously. Some of them will say those things seriously, and retroactively claim that they were joking if their audience takes offense. Someone reading your comments must guess whether you are serious or not.
Jokes are more easily recognized as such if they’re actually funny.
And when will irony stop striking on the internet? Nevermore.
You’re completely missing the meaning of my post because you couldn’t be bothered to click on a link and saying something that doesn’t fit the context. The issue is not that your non-sequitur response happens to be sarcastic. The issue is that you’re not getting the joke.
In case your link-clicking ability hasn’t improved: The link led to a humorous comic strip, not a study.
You missed the joke, in response to your joke (yes, figured out what you posted was a joke without needing to follow the link)
Didn’t need to click the link, already familiar with xkcd
What? Only you are allowed to post something humerous?
Clue should have been in the “no females were allowed in the study (not even as test subjects)” line
How the living FUCK can there be a study about the G-Spot without females being part of it?
> Clue should have been in the “no females were allowed in the study (not even as test subjects)” line
Except I wasn’t making a reference to a study. So that response didn’t make sense, because it didn’t fit into context.
And frankly, you say stupid things all the time in serious discussion, so if you say something stupid, that’s not much of a clue you’re joking.
> How the living FUCK can there be a study about the G-Spot without females being part of it?
That would make sense as sarcastic exaggeration, either to criticize a study or mock criticism of it. But only in reference to a study.
> You missed the joke
Explain the joke to me, then. ‘Pretend to misunderstand and say something unrelated in a caustic tone’? Doesn’t seem funny. ‘Make fun of something(what)’? In that case you messed up the delivery somewhat seriously, because even in hindsight I don’t see it.
Researchers do not perform studies? How do they perform their research then? Specially if it involves people?
And how can you ‘research’ a biological phenomenon without including the people that it affects?
That was the joke, and to emphasis that it was a joke by including the bit about excluding them because the (alleged) male researchers find females to be ‘icky’
You linked a humorous website in response to me, so naturally thought it would be okay to post a sarcastic response
> Researchers do not perform studies?
Yes, that’s the joke. The implication is that the researchers (in an unrelated field, the guy in the comic researches solar cells) failed to find the G-Spot while having sex with their girlfriends, not while doing research.
That’s why making fun of a study that doesn’t exist doesn’t make sense. And involving women is the one thing the presumably did, so talking about not involving women is just weirdly disconnected from my/xkcd’s joke. That’s why I presumed you misunderstood something.
> You linked a humorous website in response to me, so naturally thought it would be okay to post a sarcastic response
In general yes, but you just didn’t pull it off. It happens.
“You want a fight” trope engaged.
Max declares since all hostages are clear, time for full power blasts instead of 1% beams.
Check and Mate
Okay: Prediction:
Varia made For Whom The Bell Tolls (still a stupid name) feel like a bitch a few pages back, and he sank to the floor in self-reflection.
He’s going to show up at the fight, do a hero face turn (an anti-heel face turn) and fuck Suck Hole’s shit up. Maybe not join the group, but not be such an asshole anymore.
Probably wrong, but his journey into good guy appears to have been telegraphed.
The problem is that Death Toll (not bell) apparently has no powers other than countering someone else’s. He would almost certainly need a rescue, which (to be fair) is totally possible, but it’s just as possible that at the end of the current story arc someone will say “I feel like we’re forgetting something” and it will cut to Death Toll in the cage, meekly calling out for rescue.
It’s entirely possible that Purple Buttsniffer can activate his power to escape the cage. He is in danger of being captured, for instance, so it’s a matter of mental constructs and activation rolls until he finds one that pulls up a power.
“Oh, my god, if I don’t get out of here, I’m going to pee myself…”
Power is to counter other POWERS.
He ain’t getting out.
not just powers, attacks
“Heel” and “Face” are wrestling terms for “villain” and “hero”, respectively. So a “Heel-Face Turn” is someone switching from villain to hero, while a “Face-Heel Turn” is someone switching from hero to villain.
OMG Sydney! (dies of laughter) I was eating some spicy noodles yesterday and sneezed. Had to grab a noodle that was hanging out my nostril like nose floss and slowly pull it out so it wouldn’t break. Yes, that means the spice goes with it. On the plus side, it cleared up my sinuses.
I am loving Super Massive, he is giving Maxima a challenge, and that is very unusual. I feel like in her heart of hearts Maxima is appreciating that.
No its not unusual. She meet challenging opponents all the time and usually need help from her team to win.
Yeah, it’s called a “choke hold” but it really doesn’t mean you’re choking off one’s air or ability to breathe. Properly done it cuts the blood supply to the brain and causes unconsciousness in a few seconds, less than a minute. I know because we practiced this under controlled conditions I’ve done it to others and had it done to me. It’s a dangerous hold and can result in death but it’s very effective in neutralizing a threat. The effects of being “choked out” are bizarre and can be described as hallucinatory. Once the subject is unconscious, you have to be prepared to induce CPR.
On the subject of the carotid restraint – https://youtu.be/bnleaSnBd8I?t=1045
There are multiple forms of holds all considered “choke holds” some cut off blood to the brain, some cut off your ability to breathe, some do both. I think my Martial arts school had between five and ten chokes we practiced. Some were more… you’re doing this to kill and not disable… than others. One of my favorite ones was pushing fingertips/knuckles/elbow into a person’s manubrium, the indentation in their throat where the collarbones meet
“One of my favorite ones was pushing fingertips/knuckles/elbow into a person’s manubrium, the indentation in their throat where the collarbones meet”
My favorite was actually the index finger into that spot just under your ear, the Dokko. It’s the real “Vulcan nerve pinch”, except that they scream as they pass out.
There are no spectators for the grand melee portion of the evening!
Umm, yes there are, there are at least three
I think the implication is that if you’re close enough to spectate, you’re going to get involved in the fight, whether voluntarily or not. And thus will no longer be a spectator, but a participant.
Maybe Death Toll, who is currently caged. Maybe structural damage will free him and he will join the fight though.
When they were spectators, SuperMasshole could AOE Maxima with a high gravity field. Once they are in the mix, they either need to be able to withstand his AOE, he needs to be able to focus it just on Max & Stewart, or he’s going to have to turn off the AOE and focus on his G-Spots. This might be a fatal tactical error.
You’re assuming he cares at all about greasing his teammates, which I find unlikely.
I really like Maxima’s look in panel five. :-)
So I see the next group of hooded idjits that hasn’t learned to not stand near a supers battle has queued up for their Darwin Awards.
Like Okies watching a tornado.
Flyover State population control.
I was having trouble last comic with my posts. I had started trying to use the “Website URL” piece to unobtrusively include the GrrlPower wiki that I’m building. I’m posting this comment and another as a test to see if it was a one-time thing or if it has to do with using the Website URL field. https://grrlpowercomic.fandom.com/wiki/Grrlpowercomic_Wiki
I thought to post a third time, to see if this last one makes it through where the second did not.
Well that proves that. I see other people posting with their names linked elsewhere – this seems to imply that the Website URL field can be used successfully. I wonder what I’m going wrong? My plain copy/pastes of URLs is preventing the posts from showing up at all.
They’re probably just held up in the moderation queue, waiting to be manually approved. Presumably once DaveB approves one of them, the URL will be added to some kind of whitelist, and automatically approved from then on. The point is to prevent spam, which you might notice very little actually makes it into the comments. Despite that, I suspect that a considerable amount of spam is actually submitted. I wonder how much time DaveB has to spend on the moderation queue on a regular basis.
I’ll grant Gravity Goon this; he’s persistent and fast thinking. He might well have earned the right to be called Supermassive with this fight.
Ok, that settles it, suck hole was just showing off, and like any bully, the moment he thinks he might loose, he calls in his buddy’s to bail him out! It is time for this clown to go down! (insert bad puns and jokes here)
Sure, he’s showing off. What’s your point?
He’s gone toe-to-toe with the person who is purportedly the most powerful super on the planet, and was winning until her teammate joined. He STILL managed to win a round AFTER the teammate joined.
There’s no shame in being smart enough to even the odds when the opponent gangs up on you.
Of course, it may not come out how he expects. If he frees Death Tolls, and Death Tolls does a face turn, then he’s toast. Death Toll would have the perfect counter to SuperMassive (whatever that might be) and Max would be free to take him down at top speed.
He wasn’t winning, it was a stalemate: all he could do was keep Maxi from getting her grubby-glowing hands on him, and now he has to concentrate on not only keeping Maxi away but also Wart, who is mostly immune from what ever bullshit he has been throwing
What I meant was he wasn’t taking in the fact that this wasn’t a “fun” fight, it’s that he’s being arrested. And the MOMENT it started to look like it was going to stop being “fun” he called in help. I know this because when I was studying Martial arts, it was still pretty rare for a white kid to know it, and I got cocky. Up until I met someone that also had training and it rapidly turned into a real fight. But I was 17 (1977) while this suckhole is a grown man acting like I did! Like I said, a manchild bully.
If Maximas hair is super durable, tangles must be an absolute bitch to get out. Hell I used to spent hours every week brushing my GFs hair (it’s way too long, think anime-girl hair) and hers actually breaks when you brush it too hard.
Ugh, I know what that’s like My wife’s hair has tried to take me out on more than one occasion.
It occurs to me that SM’s most effective ability might be to center gravity on the target(s), so that detritus builds up on them, until it obstructs their functionality, i.e. breathing, vision, hearing, etc.
… also, third book please
… Where did Sucky’s nipples go? Did Maxi burn them off already?
I assume that the source of his gravity powers resides in his nipples. He’s just sucking so hard that they went inside.
See, this is why you don’t threaten to choke somebody out, you just DO IT.
Actually, that principle applies to basically every attack imaginable, except maybe gradual attacks you hope the foe won’t notice in time, where you threaten to do something else.
As has been said in movies multiple times:
“If you’re going to kill someone, kill them. Don’t stand there talking about it.”
This is irritating. If Stalwart’s immune to gravity, why can Suck Hole pull out of his grapple? SH has been presented as using gravity powers to simulate super strength, so he shouldn’t be able to break that grip. This suggests Stalwart is so busy bantering that he isn’t bothering to hold on, which is ridiculously stupid, because it cost them the one advantage they had. He should have IMMEDIATELY started breaking bones, not wasted time talking. Now the situation’s right back where it was, and they STILL haven’t beat this aggrevating asshole.
My theory is that the bad guys have been experimenting with transferring and stacking superpowers, and SM is actually using powers stolen from one or more of the gang’s victims.
He’s got gravity powers, super speed, and super strength. He’s not using the gravity to simulate the later, he actually has them.
And, SM has super speed, and Stalwart doesn’t, so Stalwart is out of the game now, he was only able to grab SM by surprise.
Stalwart presumably loosened his grip from the surprise of getting a mouthful of hair. He could have, and should have, held on, but it was presumably an involuntary response that he hasn’t trained himself out of. And presumably he can actually be smothered, unlike Achilles.
He loosened his grip before he got a mouthful of hair. From the very first panel his grip is looser than it was in the previous strip.
If Max’s hair is that durable, let’s hope she isn’t into heavy metal. She’d be like a blender in a mosh pit
Maxima’s hair as wire filament just slicing up everything… I wonder how she even gets a haircut or if her hair is fixed like Achilles
Note for Future Archon training policies:
Explaining how your power works to a perpetrator is NOT the smartest move you can make. It’s usually better to keep quiet about that kind of stuff, and let their imaginations, preconceptions, and stereotypes fill in the blanks.
Sneeze cut!
I mean, the easiest explanation for him countering gravity powers, is… basically just getting rid of his mass. Or making it negligible. That way even if he’s under 100 Gs, that would still be, like, 1 pound. Assuming his strength doesn’t nose-dive with his mass, so long as he has things to grip onto, gravity just wouldn’t matter. This wouldn’t lead to FLIGHT, but some really really big jumps, which he can alter the trajectory of but only in the downward direction.
… Well, it COULD lead to flight, if he had some big cardboard wings, or something like that. He could then fly like a bird. I suppose getting his mass low enough, he could fly just by flapping his arms, but without any wings, it’d be really hard to control.
Flying, falling with style, jumping good… it’s all just semantics. At least until the engineers get handed a spec to implement.
How does Maxima not know the extent of Stalwart’s abilities? Do they not all train together in order develop effective team tactics? It’s weird to me that Maxima would be curious like this.
Because he presumably hasn’t shown off his attempts at flying because he’s embarrassed by it.
Dabbler is laughing in panel 4 because she knows that the Japanese folk belief that when you sneeze it means someone is talking about you behind your back is 100% true.
No, she’s laughing because Sydney has a straw stuck up her nose, the same reason why Anvil is looking concerned
Dabbler enjoys things getting inserted into people’s orifices in more than one way.
So, how would Stalwart’s graceless flight compare with William Katt as Ralph Hinkley?
Nah, TGAH could fly goodish, it was his landings that always sucked :P
Nah, sorry Dave. That handwaving wasn’t “skilled”, it was poop.
Eh… Lacking in detail, but the implication is that he can control a lot more properties of his mass than simply increasing or decreasing it.
Poo-onna-stick is a perfectly good weapon. Like all things one has to be willing to lower themselves to using it.
Pun, inuendo, pun, sarcastic supposition, pun, blasphemy, pun, incorrect science, and finally, TvTropes Link.
Internet Bingo! And I didn’t even have to use the squares with Rule 34 or Godwin’s Law!
+1 INTERNET
I’m mildly disappointed that Panel 8 doesn’t extend further down. I think a good joke was missed.
Suck Hole is between Maxima and Stalwart with Maxima heading towards them, then Suck Hole forgets on trying to hold Maxima back and instead sets up gravity on Stalwart to bring Maxima suddenly forward so her burning hands hit Stalwart.
…Except with Stalwart behind him and Maxima in front but both taller… Suck Hole should have a face full of… Maxima.
There’s a simple explanation, it would of been a VERY bad idea to let Max get that close to him, she was about to do the explodey-hand thing to him, and pulling her in for a “motorboat” was just helping her end him! Yeah it would of been funny as hell, right up until his chest/head exploded between both of them. Plus Max can do that everywhere if she wants, like in https://www.grrlpowercomic.com/archives/comic/grrl-power-65-a-slight-overreaction/ she went extra “shiny”, she started to flare light from her face to tease Sydney, which sparked her “I’m on fire!” bit. So I’m sure if she wanted, Max could be her own flash grenade.
No, Maxi didn’t go ‘extra shiny’, she simply took her hat off letting the sun hit her full on