Grrl Power #1137 – Sitrip
“The Auger” is what they call the minigun with the bayonets on it. They used to call it “The Augur,” but explaining how “If you see someone pointing it at you, then portents of your future trend negative.” required too much explanation, so they switched to calling it The Auger instead.
A lot of the Ascenders were taken down off camera with by the numbers breaching tactics. Flashbangs followed by blitzkrieg takedowns. If you’re not fighting a guy with tough skin or force fields, guns are still pretty fantastically useful against supers. It does bug me a little in comics when someone casually dodges a hail of gunfire to kick three thugs in the face, and sure, when Daredevil knocks out the lights and does it, that makes sense because no one can see outside of muzzle flashes, and I will grant that if someone can literally jump over people and reverse directions by bouncing off of walls and beams, I can excuse the average thug for not being able to hit a guy in those circumstances. Average thugs are, by definition, average. They’ve probably shot guns before, probably quite a bit at a gun range, maybe played some paintball, maybe even broke a guy’s knees with a bat, then put one in his head before kicking him into Gotham Bay. What the average thug hasn’t done is graduated from the Army Ranger School, or weren’t poached from the SEALS or SOF. They likely haven’t seen combat.
What bothers me is when Joe Superhero routinely wades through a fully lit room of “elite” AIM/HYDRA/HAND soldiers with advanced weapons when the heroes themselves are basically just martial artists. Sure, the heroes are the cream of the cro, but part of being a better fighter is using superior tactics. That’s why the Arc-SWAT people flashbang a room, put a three round burst into every knee in the room, (both of which make it difficult to focus on using superpowers), and anyone who doesn’t go down gets rushed by Achilles, Mr. Amorphous, Heatwave, Ren, Hiro, etc, while the soldiers knock out and secure everyone screaming about their missing kneecaps.
Being a Super who uses their powers to commit crimes subjects you to a new set of… artisanal laws that are rather a bit more punitive than the vanilla stuff. Being a rich asshole who hangs out with supervillains doesn’t subject you those particular laws. However, being a rich asshole who funds supervillains…? I’m not sure where this puts them. Accessory to, for sure. They’ll probably land somewhere in the middle.
The February Vote Incentive is up! The March one is mostly finished. Just need to do the clothed version and finishing the bonus comic page. I dunno if it’ll be ready by the Thursday page, but Monday for sure.
Kat, you remember, the newly minted were-hare? Well, someone forgot to give her a copy of “Are You There God? It’s Me, Were-Margaret.” She has questions is what I’m saying.
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.
Well, lightning bolts are beta particles. Considering Jiggawatt can produce ANTIMATTER and how the Flash got powers, it wouldn’t surprise me at all.
I don’t think she can produce antimatter. According to her description, she can generate POSITRONS, which are the electron’s antiparticle. Positrons are not antimatter.
https://www.grrlpowercomic.com/archives/comic/grrl-power-234-annihilation-application/comment-page-3/
(panel 5,6,7)
Jiggawatt: “Quick science lesson! Positrons are the electron’s antiparticle and I can generate them! They basically erase lightning! I call it darkning!”
Dabbler: “Positrons? Positron-electron annihilation creates massive amounts of gamma ray photons, you idiot!”
while it was never explicitly stated I assumed due to it never coming up again that Jiggawat then was found to the cause of the local mystery radiation spike that was on the map back when they asked Sidney to point out where she caused a fire so they could write off a mystery possible super related incident.
Nah. Simpler solution is I was hilariously and completely wrong in my post and I couldnt delete my post because I confused positrons with neutrons :)
okay, doesn’t change what I said. The comic said it causes radiation, Jiggawat didn’t know that. So mystery radiation spot on map could be from her practicing her new fancy black lightning move.
I think Pander just confessed to being an in-world character… <_<
I… I don’t know what you’re talking about. You’re talking crazy talk now.
Stop talking crazy talk, you crazy talker you.
Now I’m REALLY confused…
Electrons, anti-electrons, neutrons, anti-neutrons, protons, and anti-protons are all matter–they have mass. Yes, we typically call the anti’s anti-matter, but really, that’s just matter going backwards in time. (Look up Feinmann Diagrams.)
Photons are not matter.
… She does lightning, not light.
… dude. No. dude. “The positron or antielectron is the antiparticle or the antimatter counterpart of the electron. ”
dude. how can you be so confident about something you are so wrong about? Antiparticle means it is a specific kind of antimatter.
1) You’re right. Antiparticle means a specific kind of antimatter.
2) I was clearly not acting confident because I started with ‘I don’t think’
3) After googling, I saw I was wrong but there’s no way to delete a post.
*gives Tempo a T-shirt of ‘I accurately showed that Pander was definitely wrong about something and all I got was this T-shirt.’ :)*
Lucky, I’ve been trying to land one of those for years.
Have a few of them. One notable case was when he kept claiming that the missionary that Deus had killed was a rapist with the rape being key factor, even though the commentary clarified that the missionary was killed for slandering contraceptives and associated, and the mercenaries were the rapists. Dave even confirmed that the missionary wasn’t a rapist.
Bonus was getting pander to actually admit that deus was being evil.
Admittedly true. You belong to a rare club. Congratulations. :)
Alas, Deus acted in an evil manner that one time – a rare exception to the otherwise pinnacle of perfection that is Deus, like a single flaw in an otherwise perfect diamond.
Positrons are antimatter in exactly the same way electrons are matter. If you take one positron and one anti-proton you get an atom of anti-hydrogen.
Yeah I found out a few seconds after posting it and googling. My post was wrong but I have no way to delete the post.
Why would you want to?
Because mere seconds after I hit enter I realized I was ridiculously wrong.
That’s the fun of making era’s ;)
Positron annihilation only creates 500 Ev x-rays, not 1 GeV gamma rays. They will still fry you if there are enough of them.
according to wikipedia at least, positron annihilation creates two 0.511 Mev gamma rays. which is off from 500 ev by a factor of about a 1000. 0.511Mev is about half typical gamma ray, but 5 times a typical hard x ray, so it fits in with gamma rays.
Hmm, Remind me not to get on Goose’ bad side…
Never mess with the guy with a minigun with bayonettes.
Yeah, expecially as an evil mook.
https://www.grrlpowercomic.com/archives/comic/grrl-power-1071-goon-life-and-death/
The bad side is anywhere in front of him…
We saw one lightning super get taken down by drug (which are wildly op), so apparently they had two supers with lightning powers if goose augered one?
If they end up under US jurisdiction, then RICO laws would likely come into effect. Basically, they’re all part of the same criminal conspiracy so ALL of them can be charged with ALL of the charges brought against any single one of them. (E.g., if one of the super-thugs is charged with attempted murder of Seneca, everyone at least at that command level and above… including those obtaining and providing funds… so if the regular thugs hold bake sales and candy bar fundraisers they go in the same group.)
It’s pretty much a simplification… but it’s harder for even the incredibly wealthy to fight off 50 charges against them rather than one or two. And there are likely similar legal setups in most other First World countries. Even if it’s through something like Interpol or the Hague… depending on if they’re charged with war crimes or not. (That’s when the latter comes into play.)
As for the comment about it bugging you when you have a purely martial artist superhero dodge a bunch of shots from elite forces to kick three of them in the face… You do realize that from how you’ve shown him, Math could likely do just that.
Then there’s the high chance that they murdered at least one of their kidnap victims, in a state which explicitly makes that a capital crime. Oh, hey, is it still 2011-2012? If it is, then yeah, funny thing: that state’s governor is running for President.
(It may or may not matter, depending on whether Arc-SWAT uses the Insurrection Act to justify military ops on US soil. If they did – and it would have been the easiest bureaucratic path to take – then the governor had already brought this up with the President, prior to giving permission for the raid.)
Who did they kill?
I dunno. That’s why I said ‘high chance.’ We do know they were engaging in dangerous biological research on involuntary human test suspects, including invasive surgical implants; all the prosecutors would need is one person dying in even a botched snatch attempt to have the whole lot of them be candidates for the needle. Including that one janitor.
They enslaved & tortured that Spirit/Concrete Gal. Concreta?
That’s in addition to what they tried to do to Sydney.
Head dude of that squad was “unwound” during that kidnap and attempted murder of Halo. Somebody died during the commission of a crime. That’s felony murder right there.
Not so sure that counts the same if the person committing the crime is the one who dies. Although if it turns out he was under someone else’s orders it might still apply.
OMG! They killed Kenny!
Math has a brain. Yes, it’s usually focused on pretty women, of which there’s a lot around him, but he uses it actively when fighting.
How many steps ahead did he tell Sydney?
The way he takes in a room and fights almost nonchalantly, he might actually have a minor superpower regarding reading a room and anticipating what opponents are attempting. Of course he’s got such an ego that he would never admit it or get tested for it.
Math has powers. His origin makes even less sense than most supers and he’s described as being stronger/whatever than some supers who have that as a power.
Math is just extremely fit and well-trained (even more well-trained after Maxi-mandated porn sessions… on company time none-the-less ;) )
Math seems to be at that level that is the cusp of ‘powers or no powers?’ He probably does not, but his martial arts ability is so extreme it essentially might as well be superpowers – like Cassandra Cain or Lady Shiva from the Batman comics.
He is described by Maxima as:
“He’s a martial artist. A really really really good one.”
https://www.grrlpowercomic.com/archives/comic/grrl-power-96-you-know-a-hair-tie-wouldnt-hurt/
(panel 6)
“Good enough that trying to differentiate between his abilities and someone with actual super powers is a futile exercise.”
https://www.grrlpowercomic.com/archives/comic/grrl-power-97-this-is-the-martial-artists-version-of-pulling-on-her-pigtails/
(panel 5)
DaveB himself describes Math’s martial arts abilities this way, on the cast page:
“Math is a preternaturally skilled martial artist, capable of moves that many would call superhuman. His reflexes, speed, attack and defensive abilities exceed many members of the team that actually have powers in those categories, making him one of the more dangerous members on the team, despite him not technically actually having any powers.”
It’s not exactly unknown in comics to have characters like him. ‘Normal humans’ who seem to be practically superhuman.
Jango Fett – defeated and killed six Jedi Knights on his own… without a weapon.
Lady Shiva
Cassandra Cain
Master Shihan Matsuda – teacher of Lady Shiva, Richard Dragon, Bronze Tiger, and Batman.
Richard Dragon
Batman
Green Arrow – He and Arrowette have such insane aiming ability that it’s hard to not see it as superhuman. Makes Robin Hood look like a rank amateur.
Arrowette
Captain America – the super soldier serum made him ‘peak human’ – not superhuman. But peak human might as well be superhuman because peak human is freakishly powerful.
Kingpin
Green Goblin
Bronze Tiger
Harley Quinn – after taking Poison Ivy’s injection which made her peak human ability
Deathstroke (Slade Wilson) – capable of taking down multiple superhumans with no powers
The Question (Vic Sage, not Renee Montoya – Vic was such a supernaturally good fighter that even Lady Shiva was impressed)
Deadshot – such a good shot that it borders on superhuman
Bullseye – same as Deadshot but with ANYTHING not just bullets.
Deathstroke can lift and throw a car, and has superhuman healing ability and ability to process information faster and more precisely than human. He definitely has superhuman powers.
For the rest, it’s the ‘high stats’ vs ‘high skills’ comparison, all heading to the same place, although it really is impossible to justify superhuman reflexes and strength as a ‘mortal’. However, if anyone on the team would have profound martial arts ability with internal ki/chi, it would be Math.
At least, that’s how I wrote him up in a bit of fan fiction. Also, his boob fixation is because he’s obsessed too much over his Yang/physical side. He needs more Yin to get his physical desires under control. So he can advance further.
You’ve written grrl power fanfic? Might I ask where? I haven’t been able to find much of *anything*. Which is odd, the setting seems like fertile ground for it, and I’ve been inclined to write some myself.
Which I will get around to.
One of these days.
It’s not complete, and it’s set in my Power of Ten storyline, where one of the characters is coming home. He gets dropped into Grrl Power along the way, just has to make another Pyramid and keep going. of course, shenanigans abound.
If you think a D&D archmage getting plopped in a superhero world, it’s not that far off.
If you like fanfiction and want a flavor, my Power of Ten Book Four: Dynamo is on Royal Road. A couple posters have recommended it in the past!
:)
Yeah, you would think that there’d be more but I only found 7 fanfics across both Ao3 and FF.net, 5 of which were written by ONE person. I guess it shows that most people following Dave’s work are pretty satisfied with his storytelling *shrugs*
what is Ao3? Guessing six of those stories came from there.
just checked Fanfiction . net and only the story I wrote is there.
I wouldn’t say its a matter of satisfied or not, more a playing around with mixing concepts and worlds. Also it had been years since I last did a fanfic and wanted a hand at one that wasn’t a one sided fight (writing doodles) or pitting two monsters against each other, like actually try and make it a story. Which is harder to do with a series from a single author than say using some mix of traits of big name characters that have had dozens or more writers *like pick a Superman any Superman and mesh them together LoL*.
Ao3
Archive Of Our Own
https://archiveofourown.org
Archive of our own
I remember them. I think back in like 2013 or 2014 when I was trying to salvage my old stories from a forum that was shutting down and checking out sites to repost them to that was one of the ones I checked out. I seem to remember there was a reason I didn’t; which couldn’t be poor set up for posting stories as I did and continue to post stories to deviant art (of course deviant art also allows posting backstory and character pages and random dialogue etc..idea which no story focused site allows making it a useful backup, better than pastebin which I lost track of what I posted on there and couldn’t at least link stories to each other like deviant art can.
(that is without the expectation that sites like Hentai Foundry would have with posting random stuff…its a hentai site so awkward to post non erotica there..yet their story posting options are the most direct and user friendly I have seen, even being able to add chapters with little fuss).
However I think Archive of our own is…or at least was back then by invite only. Like someone had to recommend it and then when trying to join tell them who invited you or something like that. No need for that to read, just to post. That said I might have or had an account on there…but never used it in the last ten years or so.
Heard of Ao3 through Hentai Foundry (or more accurately, Hentai Reserve, their discord site)
I have written a short fanfic series myself.
based on one of my own characters who has a tendency to go exploring the superhero corners of the multiverse and getting a tad in over her head as a result. Especially when certain older family members tag along for fun.
“Deathstroke can lift and throw a car, and has superhuman healing ability and ability to process information faster and more precisely than human. He definitely has superhuman powers.”
I do not think Deathstroke has the powers from the Enhanced Soldier Initiative + Lazarus Pit anymore.
When I checked the DC Wiki, it listed those powers as ‘former powers’ when the ESI was enhanced by The Great Darkness. I believe the Great Darkness powers that he got from the Lazarus Pit were expunged from him at the conclusion of Dark Crisis. He still is peak human though.
I am actually not sure what you are referring to.
The Terminator was created with superhuman reflexes, speed, tactical analytical ability, strength, and endurance to far exceed humans. His Terminator vs the JLA in the 90’s stuff showed him throwing a car (albeit not very far). His healing factor has also been a huge thing in fights, and why he can beat more skilled fighters, as he can take the hit and recover from it. His personal series showed him getting shot and knifed all the time, just healed up.
“I am actually not sure what you are referring to.”
I’m referring to the source of his superhuman powers, which he no longer has. And yet he is still a very dangerous person almost on par with Batman.
“The Terminator was created with superhuman reflexes, speed, tactical analytical ability, strength, and endurance to far exceed humans.”
No, he got those from a combination of the Enhanced Soldier Intiiative serum and the Lazarus Pit, during which he got Great Darkness powers. Deathstroke the Terminator vs the JLA was after he had the Great Darkness powers from the Lazarus Pit, but before he lost those powers. When he lost the Great Darkness, he also lost most of the Enhanced Soldier Initiative serum powers as well, although he was still a peak human.
“His healing factor has also been a huge thing in fights,”
He no longer possesses a healing factor. That was also from the Great Darkness from the Lazarus Pit coupled with the Enhanced Soldier serum, which he lost when he lost the Great Darkness powers.
“His personal series showed him getting shot and knifed all the time, just healed up.”
Again, you are referring to stuff before he no longer had the Great Darkness powers and the Enhanced Soldier serum.
> He is described by Maxima as: “He’s a martial artist. A really really really good one.”
We already know that description isn’t accurate, we’ve seen him exhibit superhuman strength. There’s also fairly obvious combat precognition in there, and likely super speed too.
I can’t judge most of your examples, but bad writing/inconsistent worldbuilding is a common thing especially in comics. That doesn’t mean we can’t correct it here.
(I do know Captain America is actually superhuman, and Batman uses equipment to take on those with powers.)
Its super normal strength. As Ren himself says Adrenaline can allow a human some amazing abilities. I would also like to point out that a human tripping on various drugs will ignore the pain, but not the damage that those feats cause. While I was going through emergency medical training in the late 80’s we were going over backboard techniques and one instructor recounted a walking backboard takedown they needed to do for a guy walking around on a broken ankle. They couldn’t get him to realize it was broken.
If that was adrenaline-fueled super strength (I don’t think adrenaline (except Ren’s) can do that though, he would have broken his wrist against Concretia’s body instead of punting her away.
Where have we seen Math displaying superhuman strength?
He’s only been in one fight
Against Concretia.
You mean when he kicked her while keeping his hands warm in his pockets?
I mean when he punts her out of the building right after, but that too.
… That was the kick was talking about, but thank you clarifying
Her defenestration was actually accomplished via hand strike, hence the confusion.
Thank you brichins, remembered the kick, forgot the Kamehameha-push
Isn’t Wolverine essentially just peak human as far as strength? maybe not, but I thought it was because he can heal impossibly fast that he can push his muscles literally beyond their limit, so they literally break, and then heal as he unflexes them, being immediately available to push just beyond the limit again?
nah, there’s a pic somewhere of Wolverine going up the side of a hill with a piano tied to him, or something.
He’s definitely way stronger than a normal human, it’s just not played up.
Yeah, read that comic: it was a piano for Kurt’s school, and after lugging it all the way up, he found out there was an easier way, but he was doing it for penance (or something) after Kurt died (or something)
I think Wolverine has superstrength in the same way that Achilles has superstrength. Because his bones won’t break + his healing factor heals his muscles almost instantly, rather than because his muscles won’t tear and fatique. I couldnt find anything in the marvel wiki to show otherwise.
or they have action hero default “super powers” because comic book writers like action movie writers take creative licenses with what is physically possible in terms of speed, strength, endurance, recovery, etc…
Batman, Green Arrow, Hawkeye, they are all human but have clearly done and survived superhuman feats, no different than say the supposedly human action hero in Die Hard (who while obeying laws of physics in earlier movie) in later movies does things like jump twenty feet from a Helicopter onto concrete and somehow a roll keeps them from breaking every bone in their body.
or Jack Sparrow holding a boat upside down underwater with an air pocket in it (something that would take Captain America levels of super strength to pull off), or every action hero thrown by an explosion who survives because in movie explosions its the unnecessary incendiary properties of every explosive in said movies that kills rather than the shockwave which in real life would rupture their organs and blood vessels.
Rule of cool, this is also why non-speedsters can dodge lasers and lightning (someone tell Death Battle this is a non-feat, no better than pushing clouds aside *when the needed shockwave to do that never hits the ground so its obviously not a shockwave of force being used*…sorry anti Screw Attack rant…rule of cool breaks the laws of physics.
or we assume these fictional worlds obey different laws of physics.
“Luck isn’t a superpower.”
“Yeah, it is.”
– Domino arguing with Wayne, Deadpool 2
Curveball is on that train too.
I’m mainly just relying on the Marvel wiki for what I wrote, and it sounded VERY similar to how DaveB described Achilles’ strength level.
As 999th, or whatever number he actually is, in a line of martial artists you could suppose that Math is a product of a eugenics program
Most likely 7th son of a 7th son is all it would take.
NO. NO. Alvin maker, no more. please I’ve adjusted to the utter lack of closure. do not grind that stone any more.
Man I read that book ages ago.
Ha, wasn’t even thinking of that – the folklore concept of 7th’s 7th son shows up in lots of media.
But if you’re starving for more great adventures with a lack of closure, I heartily recommend The Kingkiller Chronicles by Patrick Rothfuss.
“How many steps ahead did he tell Sydney?”
3 steps ahead. Once you have mastered that you will have begun to learn.
Yes! Yesssssssssssssssssssssss!
When Math is bringing his A game, is is, almost, unstoppable. When someone else is bringing their DD game, he is in serious trouble.
… Why wouldn’t they end up under US jurisdiction? They are operating on US soil and caught under US soil…
It’s a matter of federal versus state jurisdiction. If nothing they did crossed state lines (yeah, right), then most federal laws don’t apply.
But they are still in the US…
Depends on which state and who is in office in it.
US law means NOTHING to many of them, especially these days.
It’s. Still. US. Jurisdiction!
As opposed to Canadian or Tibetan
You’re missing the point being made.
A significant portion of Federal Law only comes into effect if state lines are crossed.
This is how the wire fraud act became a thing. Previously, the defense would argue that that their client could not be charged with a crime in state X, because they themselves were in State Y, and they could not be charged in State Y, because the alleged crime occurred in state X.
Additionally, there are crimes where there are no Federal Laws.
Murder, for example. There is no Federal Murder Statute, and it is always prosecuted by the state, unless it occurs specifically in the commission of a Federal crime (robbing the post office, for example, or smuggling).
This has been a bone of contention for a long time, but the states – and police unions – always fight it tooth and nail. A Federal Murder Statute would open them up to Federal oversight, which would make it much, much harder to get away with both judicial murder, and extrajudicial murder by cops under the cover of “qualified immunity.”
That said, it’s nice to imagine a world where American cops don’t get away with murdering people, isn’t it?
No, you are missing the point: it’s not about Federal vs State Law, they were arguing country, or why else bring up “US jurisdiction”
It would be a wonderful world if no one got away with murdering people, wouldn’t it?
“US Jurisdiction” refers explicitly to the Federal Government.
That’s why such cases are “US versus So-and-So.”
And good job trying to deflect from my point that cops get away with murder largely due to the fact that there is little or no oversight. Would you like to add some explicit copaganda while you’re at it?
I would not underestimate the lawyers. ours periodically sends ninjas even pirate ninjas at times.
1) They attacked a federal building when they attacked ARCHON HQ, and kidnapped (or attempted to kidnap) an ARCHON official, so Archon has jurisdiction anyway and federal laws and rules apply.
2) ARCHON is a military branch of the federal government SPECIFICALLY for dealing with extranormal (superhuman) groups and criminals. If a state was to try to argue that their laws conflicted with ARCHON’s charter, then federal laws can apply here because of the supremacy clause to the US Constitution… ie, if a federal law and a state law come into conflict with one another, the federal law will take priority over the state law.
Pander, you’ve told us that you’re a lawyer, so you should have expertise here. What do you think the chances are that a bunch of rich white men in America would suffer any meaningful consequences for what we know or strongly suspect the non-super backers of this organization to have done? By “meaningful” I’m thinking something on the order of “spending 5+ years *actually inside* a real prison, as opposed to a glorified summer camp or getting out quickly on good behavior” or “fines large enough that the person in question has assets below $1 million USD”.
She repeatedly stated that she’s not that kind of lawyer
And where was it stated that all the backers were white men?
Jesse H Christ you are defensive.
The one that electrocuted Seneca die and there were felonies o’ plenty going on. That means there is a Death in the Commission of a Felony. That makes it Felony Murder for everyone. And that doesn’t even include if it is found that any of the prisoners they had died during experimentations.
Most countries have some form of Criminal Enterprise Laws for those who are accessories to crimes.
And those can implemented quite harshly.
The UK used to use them in gun crime during its capital punishment era, to the extent that bank robbers wouldn’t allow any of their gang to use a gun as the entire lot didn’t want to face hanging if some innocent bystander got shot and died.
Math as shown has martial arts superpowers.
If he really were unpowered as he claims, he’d die to goons with guns, as well as having a much harder time fighting supers.
There’s no such thing as….
*wa-POW!*
… just human.
:)
Math is talking out of his ass there, he has no idea what “just human” looks like.
Who cares, it was a badass line. :)
Not for lack of peeking.
I guess Math isn’t peak human but “peek human”.
What is going to happen to the custodial staff of the Evil Lair?
Is the lair itself evil and it’s against the law to mop it?
Were they being paid off the books and not paying taxes and FICA and SSA (or whatever)?
My understanding of that law is weak, but I think employed by a criminal enterprise, even if it is for mundane non-criminal things, makes you part of the criminal enterprise. They may decide not to prosecute the custodial staff, but they could.
It’s possible that the janitors aren’t even aware that this is a criminal enterprise. Nothing obviously illegal about an underground complex, after all.
Considering one of them was carrying a taser, I think they’re aware.
Seems wildly unlikely that any of the unpowered backers will ever see the inside of a jail cell. They are vastly wealthy white men in America; they’ll be in custody long enough to whip out their credit cards and post bail or, at the very most, the time it takes for their lawyer to drive across town to the precinct.
No idea who Seneca is, maybe it is time to update the cast page?
Seneca is the female Space Marine, along with Goose and… the other dude who has never been formally ID’d
Oh, and she has a serious sweet-tooth
Seneca is one of the non-powered team members. She is the one with the sweet tooth.
https://www.grrlpowercomic.com/archives/character/seneca/
And that doesn’t show her first appearance (the one actually used in her Who’s Who sMugshot)
Thanks for the link.
If Seneca is alluvasudden a Super…. Will she need a new set a bras?
With the mention of the Auger, I think it might be the mad-scientist chick.
That would be Gadget
Digit. Gadget is from Chip and Dales Rescue Rangers.
And no. Seneca is not Digit. Seneca is the sergeant who was training Sydney while Peggy was offworld. Space Marine with a sweet tooth.
… “The mad-scientist chick” would be Digit
Right. That’s what I said. :)
My brain went ‘bonk’.
It’s all those puns. They melt brains
Yeah, I’m the same, can’t remember who that is
That would make sense since she only shows up about once a year.
Hiro has two was to go. Either try to get nigh-indestructible shirts from Ashley, or just buy black Ts in bulk.
He is already shown to have gone the second route… His pants are likely clothes magic though.
Hiro gets his shirts from the same place that Caitlin Fairchild gets her clothes. Probably the same place Empowered’s costume actually came from. :)
his shirts are made of the deconstructed /reconstructed leaf matter normally used for beverages
they’re tea shirts
I’m not even sending ninja hit squads to you for that one. Ninja hit squads cannot do worse than what you did with that dad joke. You know that was a bad thing you did. Go sit in the corner and think about it. Go on. Scoot.
I approve. carry on.
You go sit in the corner with hypnobubbles for being an enabler.
No that will just mo-Tea-vate him to pun more. Can’t we all just get oolong?
Yeah, if you put multiple punsters together, all you do is create a tea-m that works on brewing up more puns.
If the group sits there long enough they’ll turn to kombucha and that will ferment violence from Pander leading to in-sani-tea.
You guys derive waaaaay too much pleasure from this. :)
Who wouldn’t enjoy sending somepun to the drink of insanitea?
I thought I smelled trouble brewing, just didn’t have the cupability to come see how steep the effort was until just now.
In fairness, I very matcha doubt anyone can even remember oolong we’ve been at this. Pot I’ll tell you, I doubt the strain will press her to leaf before giving her all to the chaillenge.
Bharda. It started back when that concrete girl captured Halo and took her utility belt . I made a pun about how it was a futility belt, Pander threatened me with ninjas and it escalated from there. I love this forum.
Yes, Ro Jaws is Patient Zero. And he has infected the whole lot of you with this horrible plague of unfettered pun use!
(I’m sort of impressed about the use of the words matcha and oolong though – it’s still evil… definitely worthy of ninja pirates attacks which are most definitely incoming… but impressive anyway)
Pun plague? More like pundemic am I right?
Pander continues to chaid us for this bevyrage of puns, claiming such behavior is not herbane, but this thread is just one cinnamon many.
Or accept that his fate is to be shirtless.
He already does the second, and Ashley has orders (from Maxi herself) not to provide him with special T’s ;)
Max wouldn’t order that herself, but could be less vocal about it than she’d like to admit. But I can see Arianna ordering it for marketing reasons.
Maxima: [eyebrow raise] “…. meh … ” [shrug]
I feel that I should point out that the blades on Goose’s minigun are knives, not bayonets. Those blades would only work if they are sharp, and it’s against military law to sharpen your bayonet. ALL bayonets fielded by a Hague/Geneva convention signatory military MUST be dull.
… What’s the point of having a bayonet, if it can’t cut bureaucratic bullshit? If they are dull, then it’s just a lump of metal
Believe the ruling is, they can’t be serrated
All of the bayonets issued with our C7 rifles were sharp from the factory. Crappy metal that wouldn’t hold an edge for long, but still sharp when issued. The FN bayonets weren’t sharp when issued but were sharpened before potential combat.
Back in earlier times, swords and bayonets weren’t kept sharp until proceeding into action in order to cut down on training injuries. The order ‘sharpen swords’ was a real one that was actioned as any other and everything that could take an edge was put to the stone until it had one, ‘service sharp’ is pretty durned sharp.
I sure wish I could edit or delete posts I make here, because I kinda screwed up. Also, I admit I am wrong about bayonets.
I feel that I should point out that the blades on Goose’s minigun are knives, not bayonets. Those blades would only work if they are sharp, and it’s against military law to sharpen your bayonet. ALL bayonets fielded by a Hague/Geneva convention signatory military MUST be dull.
How do they define “dull”? Tomato?
Modern multi-purpose bayonets are knives.
That dull bayonets are mandated by Hague appears to be a myth.
It is a myth. I searched the entire Wikipedia article on Bayonets for the words “dull”, “Hague”, “Geneva” and “Convention” and came up empty. I would assume it would be mentioned on there if it was factual. That being said, there are mentions that some militaries, like the German Army, stopped using serrated edge bayonets after outcry over them (it was made public that any German soldiers with sawback bayonets would be tortured and killed by British and French soldiers), and THOSE were banned in 1949.
Can confirm that bayonets are sharp as issued and have the scar to prove it. Note: remind everyone not to stick a loose bayonet in their back pocket. On the other hand, the one WWI era cavalry saber that I have had a chance to handle had a distinctly blunt edge.
It might have been a dress, or ceremonial, saber
When dad was in the Merchant Navy, he and his mates went out to get their dress swords, but, unlike his mates, he spent the full allowance on a decent sword (they bought cheap and drank the rest). We still have the sword somewhere: sword, scabbard, carry sheath and the box it all came in :)
The back story I got regarding bayonets is that dull edges leave tears/lacerations in flesh, not the clean incisions you would get from a sharp edge. The wound is harder to close, and takes longer to heal. Not to mention the debris a rough edge would drag into the wound.
Also, a triangular bayonet leaves a three sided hole, which is much harder to stitch closed.
If you disagree with any of the above then it is possible that the various war history and combat programs on TV are not 100% accurate.
Well, I’m gonna have to do some research myself. I thought bayonets had to be dull for a long time, but everyone here says I wrong, so…
Sorry for the double post, the first post didn’t show after I posted it, and as I’ve been having trouble on other sites with me posting a comment and said comment never shows up on the page, I tried again.
I don’t remember Seneca.
We’ve mostly seen her involved with Sydney’s training. For instance, she was the one running the gun range when Sydney first used her new alien-tech glasses to improve her targeting.
She’s also obsessed with eating sweets.
Etymologically, “electrocute” comes from “execute,” in the sense of “put to death,” so when I read that Seneca was electrocuted I assumed she had died; I did a double take when I read about her being medevacced. I’ve checked Wiktionary, which says that the formal definition still includes lethality, but casual use includes nonlethal experiences, formally called “shocks.” I suppose it’s plausible characterization that Hiro might use the informal sense of the word; it just tripped me up, because I’m used to the technical usage.
In my experience the non-lethal usage is the more common. Every electrician I (a former construction worker) have ever met referred to getting “electrocuted” at some point in the course of their duties. It’s a common and (relatively) minor hazard that goes with the job, especially in areas that are more cavalier about safety enforcement. In some regions the other tradesmen are so used to hear a ‘zap’ or having something suddenly turn off, usually followed by some swearing, that they call any given electrician they don’t know “Sparky” as a nickname / title.
Electrically triggered Heart stopped (temporarily) definition of death could also have been likely in play. Revival by CPR would still have required medevac.
Outside of RICO, most US jurisdictions have laws that allow property to be ‘charged’ with being part of criminal activity separate from their human owner. It seems to be often mis-used, but its how local authorities seize assets like cars, boats and bags of currency.
In my part of Australia its ‘Custody of goods reasonably suspected of being stolen or otherwise unlawfully obtained’
Dave – Panel 3 should read “minor injuries” not “minor casualties”
It was pointed out to me that anyone removed from combat for any reason is a casualty, including just being injured, so minor casualties is technically correct.
Knowing those wealthy backers,they’ll demand that Archon be disbanded and that means various members will be reassigned or sent back to their regular military service branches(and it’s a safe bet that Max and some others never rose beyond an enlisted rank in said service branches…)
They can demand all they want… from a prison cell!!
It would take an insane amount of clout and pressure for the Illuminati to get congressmen, even ones they already ‘own’, to propose disbanding the incredibly visible new military branch. Saying it out loud would draw far more attention than sacrificing the Ascenders dumb enough to get caught here, even if they are pretty high level.
its more likely that the illuminati will wait for the press to die down then the imprisoned ones will win an appeal, walk, and get paid for unjust imprisonment.
Or, they will simply… disappear into the system
You really think that “the government” is this malevolent black box that exists in a vacuum, don’t you? An Eldritch being that simply exists, and does stuff for no reason comprehensible to mortal minds.
Anyone rich enough to buy their way into something like “the Ascenders,” is going to be politically connected. People with those kinds of connections do not simply “disappear.” At worst, they get a high-profile arrest and a few months of bad press, maybe a few lesser convictions that are ultimately hand-waved with a fine or perhaps a year at Club Fed at the absolute bloody worst. Remember, this is America. We do not hold power accountable, and the only real crime in a capitalist state, is poverty.
Then again, this is Fiction, and as I already stated before, fiction is the one place where justice is permitted to carry the field. And Dave is generally a “pro-justice” kinda guy, so I expect that will probably have some influence on events in the Grrlverse.
In the “real world,” though, these people already have an army of lawyers and squads of political operators shielding them from any and all consequences.
That’s what meant by ‘disappear’: couple weeks or months in the spot light, and then… just forgotten and they just show back up on the streets somewhere as though they always had been there
Wait, did you think meant they would end up in a bodybag or an unmarked grave?
Yes, that is exactly what I thought you meant.
And I would imagine pretty much everyone else would, too.
*sigh*
…okay, have you never head the word “disappeared,” in the context of political violence? It has its origins in Latin America, where US-backed dictators would abduct people, and absolutely no investigation into these disappearances would be forthcoming, for obvious reasons. The people would refer to the victims as “los desaparecidos,” or “the disappeared.” Initially there would be vague assertions of “fighting communism,” but ultimately it was just how US allies in Latin America eliminated political opponents & dissidents.
As I recall, the practice began in Chile, under Pinochet, but was also super popular with other US-backed dictators in Argentina, Guatemala, El Salvador…really, everywhere the US had any interest in Latin America, and had installed a cooperative fascist dictator to do the dirty work for them.
The victims literally disappeared. No bodies were ever found, no investigations ever undertaken, and in some cases records were destroyed to support claims that “no such person ever existed.”
Super Electroctues Seneca.
Goose: “HOOOONK!”
It is a lovely day in the villain lair, and you are AN AVENGING GOOSE WITH A MINIGUN.
Evil cannonfodder: Oh no! Its Goose with a minigun! This can’t get any worse!
Goose: Fix bayonetts!
Evil cannonfodder: Oh no! It got worse.
Yeah ok, I know Goose don’t talk but if he did he would say something like that.
They could probably be prosecuted under the various funding or supporting terrorism laws, since they did bankroll an attack on a federal/military installation.
Let’s see. 18 U.S. Code § 1382 – Entering military, naval, or Coast Guard property (only 6 months in jail?!). The big ones are 18 U.S. Code § 1389 – Prohibition on attacks on United States servicemen on account of service, 18 U.S. Code § 1114 – Protection of officers and employees of the United States (Assault and Attempted Murder), 18 U.S. Code § 1201 – Kidnapping (just not the federal employee they think they took), 25 CFR § 11.434 – Resisting arrest, 18 U.S. Code Chapter 96 RICO, etc. That kind of thing. That will apply to anybody in the organization.
Rich Nancy: But I didn’t know that was what my million dollar membership fee was used for. I thought it was just a country club. Umm, so not guilty.
I feel ashamed that I didnt see this post in time.
Nice post, David. :)
Yeah David is a writer, and writers have to know about, Things. I write about Bike Things so I researched Bike Things to death. I used to do some metal fab, so in case I decide to write about making things out of metal I did some research about that.
Your description of writers reminds me of the TV show ‘Castle.’
David is also a science and math teacher, from time to time, so I like finding out about Things. :) Things like quantum mechanics and general relativity (will those guys ever get along?), mushrooms, giraffes, space telescopes, parasitic and carnivorous plants, kinesiology, nutrition, differential equations, squirrels, stellar life-cycles and the main sequence, exotic matter, state changes that allow freezers to work, lasers that can stop atoms at 0K, computer networks, teaching techniques, evolution, stellar nuclear fusion, etc. You, small stuff.
I think I did pretty well searching the University of Connecticut on-line law library yesterday morning to find all the federal laws these guys broke. Probably more than I found, but these ones should keep in custody for a while until the federal prosecutors can pull out the complete laundry list of charges.
Federal Prosecutor: Your honor, the defendants present here are all individually extremely wealthy and pose a very high flight risk, and if released into society, the likelihood of recidivism seems very high. Collectively, they have demonstrated an extreme level of elitism and contempt for social norms and government institutions established to support those norms. The people request the defendants be remanded in custody up to and during trial.
*stuff about no known priors, upstanding citizen, etc. etc.*
Bail set at a significantly higher amount but one easily obtainable by most of the wealthy capes.
warning- this post is cynical. it may also contain sarcasm.
Bail set at an amount higher than the GDP of several third-world countries. Surrender passports, no contact with criminal associates, etc.
‘No contact with criminal associates’?
What about family members who JUST HAPPEN to be hardened and experienced criminals? Do they count?
Oh, wait… This comic is set in the wonderful land that was Made Great Again! Money is all that matters, not stupid things like ‘laws’. Forget I said anything.
The bit in the author’s notes about the new laws around powers used for criminal activity reminds me of My Hero Academia, where the use of your Quirk in the commission of a crime is an automatic classification of Villain. Rob a store with a gun, you’re just a criminal. Rob it with your fire blast power, you’re a Villain.
All these name drops and my memory so crap after a few weeks I forget who is who. Cast page is still… outdated. Guess I’ll reread the last 20 pages? Webcomics be like this and I wish I nad more brain storage space.
Goose is the big, blonde, muscle-y guy who looks like Duke Nukem. Doesn’t talk much, has a face seemingly stuck in a perpetual “action hero” grimace. Seneca is one of the soldier-ish types we’ve mostly seen around training Sydney. She’s the one running the testing course here: https://www.grrlpowercomic.com/archives/comic/grrl-power-861-exemplarum-showus-offus/ We’ve seen her around several times.
Ren is the black guy in the background of panel 3. Super adrenaline powers, able to amp himself up to incredible super strength/speed levels without a known limit so far.
Doc Chevy is the doctor associated with Archon. Has healing powers. Got tackled by Sydney once when Sydney confused the bindi marking on her forehead as a sniper laser sight.
And Jiggawatt is the one pulling the incredibly dick move of slapping Ren’s fresh gunshot wound. Maybe those two are closer than we’ve seen so far, but no matter how close they are that’s below the belt.
Given that his power relies on him being in an excited state, that slap might be to his benefit. A little sudden pain to keep his power going to prevent him from really being affected by the actual injury.
I’m curious about Ren getting tagged – super-speed wasn’t really up and running yet? Same probably goes for his toughness (which would have to scale as he gets stronger), just wasn’t amped up yet to be bullet-resistant enough to shrug off a 5.56.
Hiro did specify it was an A.P. round.
Not 10p% sure how that correlates with super powers, but… it has to mean something, or it wouldn’t have been brought up in the first place.
Wait, they used to call it “the Augur” but now they call it “the Augur”? So explaining the thing about portends is too complicated so they simplified the name to the same name it had?
Not quite – it’s now called the Auger (with an “e” so now it’s a drill rather than a portent)
One letter changed. The Augur -> The Auger
ah
Changed from “Augur” (to portend) to “Auger” (a drill or spinning digging device). Yeah, English is weird, especially American English.
For being a “Supervillain-funding-asshole” charges would probably start at Conspiracy, accessory before, during and after-the-fact, aiding and abetting terrorists, and the list goes on. If anti-government actions are taken, sedition, insurrection and potentially treason charges become very possible, including things like “Seditious Conspiracy”.
So that was a SitRep, situational report. The AAR, after action report, comes later at the base and is an in depth analysis of the mission. What was done right, wrong and how it could be done better in the future with emphasis on individual actions.
At this stage I’m just waiting to see wich female is gonna have to suffer the “Hiro’s curse”.
EQUALITY!!!!!!!!!!!!
I think both genders get plenty of clothing damage and shower scenes in this comic if you think that is important. Hiro more than the others though since that is a running joke. That is the kind of humor the ladies and gentlemen of class, culture and education appreciate if I know this forum right.
Maxima has perhaps received the most clothing damage of the women, in kind of a Wolverine-gets-stabbed-a-lot-to-show-off-his-regeneration-powers sort of fashion. Or perhaps it’s more of a Worf Effect thing. Maxima’s field extends to her clothes, which means they normally don’t take damage. So in order to show how powerful an attack is… Maxima’s clothes take damage.
Perhaps Hiro’s “rakish good looks” are a part of his superhero power suite. His appearance is such that anyone who doesn’t have resistance experiences an urge to remove his shirt. Said urge will override any other attack strategies.
Not trying to nitpick but the title of the page should be “sitrep” for “situational report”. Just a typo.
Nah, ‘rip’ as in what happens to Hiro’s shirts every time he goes on a mission (it’s also one letter away from ‘strip’ :P )
Also as in “ripped” i.e. his physique, as observed during the now-running gag of Max flirting with him in an unclothed state immediately after a team fight.
27 capes with just under half being supers. Given previous discussions about the numbers of supers and that a relative minority become villains, sweeping up a dozen supers in one operation would be a pretty significant haul.
Archon’s original estimate were just too low. Word of God appears to be they underestimated it by a factor of 10.
And that’s just the ones they caught, and didn’t need a bucket to hold them
The numbers were corrected pretty much right after the Restaurant Rumble
Probably dating myself a bit here…That dialogue about the “tango in question” brings to mind an old X-Men comic, where, in the days of the squeeky-clean heroic action (and the Comics Code Authority) they had to very obliquely inform you that Wolverine killed someone.
When last seen, Kitty Pryde had freed Wolverine from a cell. Then some goons shot Kitty in the back (with a DEW set on stun, but still.) Later as Colossus gives an AAR to Cyclops:
“Kitty is alright. Some guards stunned her as she was freeing Wolverine.”
“What happened to the guards?”
“Wolverine…dealt with them.
“…oh.”
I guess Hiro will need to fill out another 5H1rt form.
That’s a 5H1 (loss or destruction of equipment) r (reimbursement/personal) t (t-shirt)
He have probably made a template for it by now to save time.
Presumably the quartermaster has a stack of prefilled copies and just initials, dates, and files a couple every time Hiro leaves the facility. Possibly before he even gets back.
the logistics officer probably brings 5 extra shirts Hiro’s size to any engagement. weddings to… after the New York incident there is a complete outfit for Max in the ‘essential supplies’ section of the vehicle.
There has to be a special name for a pun like this, but I’m at a loss. Well done, sir!
I totally think it’d be hilarious if his shirts now started getting 5H1rt printed on them
The team, being military, will of course invent their own version of the backronym, e.g “5 Harems, 1 ripped tee”
The rich folks will likely get hit with all the same laws as anyone else there under Rico. They were not only funding it, they were actively there, so they won’t get the same plausible deniability that rich people in our world tend to get when funding shady stuff. They can’t say “I thought I was giving them money to help puppies and kittens, not experiment on supers” like say, dues could from his office, since they were physically at the scene of the crime.
Yeah, they were at the scene, giving out orders. They might be able to plea bargain the charges down, but they will pay and be marked from then on. Any “working rich” will no doubt be “removed” by their boards as CEO for the sake of the company, and on the off chance any are “non-working” rich, well maybe daddy/mommy can pull some strings, but they are going down. If they are lucky they will wind up in a minimum security prison that has bathrooms and a private cell.
It’s a simple distinction between “adding and abetting” and “conspiracy to commit” and as far as that janitor goes, he assaulted an officer. Otherwise he was just an employee. Adding and abetting is like if a friend tells you he’s going to shoot someone and you say “Ok, I’ll keep it to myself” rather than calling the cops, Conspiracy to commit is when you loan him the gun. It’s a lot more complicated than that, but that’s the basics.
Hiro should wear shirts with, well, not boob windows, maybe pec windows? It would throw any masc-attracted attacker off their game.
if they are rich enough they are all gonna walk.
and max is gonna be in trouble with the government.
Why?
And what the fuck are you talking about?
here in the US we have the finest congress money can buy. (just not taxpayer dollars) the Judicial branch is not wholly bought but, one can shop around for a sympathetic judge. (I recommend a clever one, the direct ones can sometimes loose on appeal.)
He thinks the rich run the government, and that this whole thing might have government backers like a Weapon-X program. (one possible theory)
that said even if there are lobbyists, and those with government connections, and if as we suspect some in the government that knew about the list and where to find it at Archon of known supers.
these people were caught red handed AFTER assaulting and attempting to abduct government officials.
The laundry list of crimes here starts at abduction/human trafficking, non-consensual medical experimentation, torture, attempted murder…and works its way up to abduction and torture of federal officers, assault on a federal building, etc…
these people aren’t getting off that easy. Maybe some rich asshole is going to argue they were only a backer and try to claim they didn’t know it wasn’t volunteers as they never went to the lower levels and only stayed in the Court of Owls board room…but that is going to be hard to claim for everyone, especially those they have footage of and their probably now in protective custody witnesses saw.
Honestly this does go back to asking what happened with the ones on the boat in New York after they went after Sidney and were caught coercing Concretia with threats to her life.
Yeah, let’s make this real simple. Max’s power levels can be rated in terms of aircraft carriers. That gives her a budgetary worth, over her career, in the tens of billions of dollars. She is not being paid nearly that amount. The Ascenders can’t AFFORD to make the US government a better offer, even assuming that anybody would be stupid enough to want to take that bribe.
Yeah, with all those crimes stacking up, any governmental backer will be staying quiet (and maybe arranging for a few ‘accidents’ to ensure their involvement never gets revealed), because Archon will be looking far and wide to find said backers
In the real world, the rich do run the government.
It is only within the safe bounds of fiction that justice is permitted to carry the field, and even then, almost always in ways that explicitly define “justice” as “the neoliberal status quo.”
Here’s how this would go:
“Excellent work, Lt. Colonel, you and your team are to be commended. Your discovery in this matter is clearly a vital matter of national security, and as such will be immediately classified and given over to the House & Senate Committees. We’ll undoubtedly be calling on you all as the investigation proceeds, and I’m sure none of you need reminding that any and all information relating to this matter may not be discussed without expressed instruction from the relevant committees. Naturally, we don’t want to spook any other as-yet-undiscovered accomplices, so that must necessarily include the identities of those who are currently being identified.”
*breif, meaningful pause*
“I know we can count on you, Lt. Colonel.”
*sound of Maxima bring her teeth*
“Yes. Sir.”
*smug silence*
“That’s a Good Soldier. Well, I won’t hold you up any longer.”
…and that is last that gets heard, where anyone “important” is concerned.
“Hey, Leon.”
“Yeah, Max?”
“You’re not a soldier, are you?”
“Uh, no, Max.”
“So it wouldn’t be a violation of your orders if details about the people arrested and charged during this operation somehow escaped from the offices of Senator Dipwad and his people, but could get traced back to them?”
“Max, I would happily spend many hours looking for the source of such a leak as part of my duties to the bright, shining name of ARCHON and my obligations as its resident computer specialist.”
“Just checking, Leon.”
“I’m sure I’ll find said leak very soon, Max!”
—-If you think that experienced military people don’t know how to fuck with bureaucrats and politicians, you haven’t met enough military people. Does that guy think Maxima doesn’t have a brain or free will? Eesh!
I like the way you’re thinking, but civilian resources – and most especially contractors – are also bound by constraints.
Not saying Leon couldn’t pull it off, but if there is not absolutely obvious and undeniable proof positive that Senator Dipwad is guilty of criminal conspiracy, then Leon is likely going to be bunking with Snowden, assuming he isn’t iced first.
You are doubting Leon’s abilities? o_O
And Senator Dipwad is the one you were talking about, the one who was going to bury the details of those involved
“There’s always someone better.”
It’s been a while since I’ve down a WoD-style teardown, so let’s go.
Senator Dipwad (his official name now) does not exist in a vacuum. The fact that he is connected to the Ascenders means that has money, utility, or both. This in turn means that he is a valuable assets inside the halls of power, and puts him on the radar of literally every party with an interest in operating within those halls. This will include not only multibillion dollar corporations and billionaires – who’s interests are going to be rather more mundane – but also various players in the hidden world, which we already know includes the Twilight Council.
The Twilight Council is an interesting amalgam, which is fractionally divided, and very clearly has an explicit interest in not only the government, but in Supers. We’ve been informed explicitly that Supers are A Problem for the supernatural community in several ways, and there are bound to be those who view them exclusively as a threat. This guarantees that the Council has a vested interest in any and all research on Supers. And we already know they have the resources to buy their way into the Ascenders’ circle.
No, I am not saying that the Ascenders is operated by the Twilight Council, I am saying they have parallel interests, and a strong motive to cooperate to at least some extent.
It would actually make less sense for there to be no overlap
And this brings us back to Senator Dipwad, who is all but guaranteed to be a common vector, owing to the fact that he is too useful for both groups to ignore, and consequently _both_ need to be invested in him in order to hedge their bets and avoid ceding too much influence to other interests. This parallels exactly how the real world works, in terms of political donors aiding both parties, and politicians soliciting donations from all groups. All of this means that Senator Dipwad is well connected with people who are strongly motivated to protect him, and by extension, each other. If Dipwad is exposed vis a vis the Ascenders, there is a strong chance that his other associations will be compromised as well.
Now, you might be inclined to think that this is actually an argument in favor of “disappearing” people into the void-maw of your imagined bureaucratic Azathoth, but that actually creates questions and leaves ripples which can and do draw attention. It is far simpler, and more effective, to simply follow the established pattern, and have the villains plead to lesser charges with little or no real consequences. It not only preserves the status quo – which rarely ever elicits outrage and action – but it preserves valuable resources, and all while achieving the most important goals: keeping the populace ignorant of the hidden world, and preserving the informational supremacy of the interested parties financing all this faff.
…in WoD games, new players are often astounded & disappointed to discover that the real power of the world isn’t invested in Disciplines, Gifts, Spheres, or other supernatural powers. It is in controlling the systems of power, and using that control to maintain a status quo that is familiar to the Masses. Familiarity, the saying goes, breeds contempt…but more accurately, it breeds complacency and comfort ability. A false sense control, because people think they “know how it all works,” and subsequently they imagine themselves in control of their own lives, at least.
In other worlds, the real horror of the World of Darkness is not the supernatural elements stalking the familiar landscape, but rather that very landscape itself. The lens of fiction reveals the terrible truth of the real world. It’s not the blood thirsting monastery’s or secretive cults that make things awful…it’s the banality of normalized corruption and the influence pedaling of the powerful, all to further enrich & empower themselves at the expense of others.
Oceans of ink have been spilled explaining that vampires are a metaphor for the aristocracy of old Europe, but functionally, they’re no different from the Ascenders. They use their wealth and position to afford themselves great powers and special abilities denied to mere mortals. And in this instance, they do it using the same basic tactics as the monsters in WoD games & fiction. Same as the Twilight Council does, in a more direct parallel.
You want a Rogue Superman scenario? Because that’s how you get a rogue superman scenario.
Not saying they won’t use a scapegoat and throw some “rogue elitists” under the bus to protect the more connected members. But they aren’t likely going to gamble on totally screwing over and brushing aside individuals who could theoretically decimate entire military bases by pointing at them.
some wealthy idiot: “Oh ho, ho. We had the military totally dismiss the case so we got away scott free, and let their soldiers know to keep their mouths shut and heads down. Standard protocol after all. I mean what are they going to do? go rogue and take us on their selves”
-repeat one too many times-
and
*today in the news the S class super vigilante, Maxima and her dedicated team of “Justice Lords” have assassinated another backer of the “Ascenders” today. Without any kryptonite and a growing army of supers fearing for their own safety given the Ascenders’ methods joining her ranks an outright war against the privatized forces of the Ascenders and the vigilante Archon Revived group continue.
or something along those lines, even if with other disenfranchised members of the group.
Its kind of a bad gamble to assume your living nukes are going to “play nice” if you disenfranchise them to your cause too much.
But as I said, someone is going under the bus, even if its just the people at this one base and someone who talks too much.
In real world comparison, this scenario would be if a militia funded by corporate backers raided a military base, attempted to kidnap a civilian contractor, and steal top secret documents from a general’s office. On top of the prior abduction of civilians and abduction and torture of a federal agent *Sidney* during the New York incident.
there would be NO WAY, they would just brush that aside. Someone would be going down for that.
Notice your use of “repeat” and “too much.”
You are acknowledging, implicitly, that it can be done at least once.
Well luckily for that guy these groups tend to have a mixed council.
Okay let’s put this in perspective If someone, especially someone used to getting their way, gets away with something once, they will do it again, testing the breaking point of the forces against them (although they won’t think of it this way), they will believe they can keep getting away with what they are doing indefinitely .
However if there is any military backing, like someone trying to run a secret Weapon-X program who believes the ends justifies the means *some enhanced humans project, or believes other countries are doing this so have to beat them to the punch*. They may realize that while under normal circumstances pushing a regular soldier, detective, officer, reporter to the breaking point is a small problem they can usually get rid of either by discrediting them publically pushing the public opinion to their side or…an accident occurs… however in these extra ordinary circumstances individuals like Maxima are not so easily removed and other considerations should be taken…like letting the backers keep getting away with this possibly leading to their breaking point means a living nuke with free will is now very upset with their own government…and possibly others like them following suite.
So to appease these individuals, a sacrificial lamb may be in order. Toss these more openly and aggressively operating elements of their organization under the bus. Let Archon believe they have saved the day and suffer the loss of those onsite backers and supers playing supervillain. While the rest of the project goes back to being secret and operating subtlety. Ya’know not abducting federal officers, attacking government buildings, or playing super villains with an evil lair dress up.
Max will NOT be in trouble with the government. Max is soldier and does everything by rules and everyone knows it. If government would be giving trouble to her, what super would be willing to work for them?
One without “a functioning ethical compass.”
Never, ever underestimate the lows to which the wealthy and powerful will sink.
Commentary reminded me of this one. A good example of what would happen to a lot of non-super super heroes in a more…realistic world
http://drmcninja.com/archives/comic/9p16/
“It does bug me a little in comics when someone casually dodges a hail of gunfire to kick three thugs in the face-”
So many years ago a friend and I came up with an idea for a superhero story we called “Chaos Men”. Obviously it came to nothing (but it’s always simmered on the backburner in my brain), but the general thought was some nigh Godlike Superhero was so good at his job he had effectively enacted world peace. Every villain is afraid to do something bad, because he WILL stop them (like literally anywhere on the planet), and every wannabe caped hero eventually goes back to their day job because, literally there’s no crime to stop. Then one day the Godlike guy (“Destiny Man”, if anyone cares. He was supposed to be extremely over the top justice hero cheesy… but undeniably unparalleled at what he did)… dies.
And chaos erupts. Every cape, villain, generic street mugger, and wannabe vigilante comes out overnight. After the first couple times one masked cape approaches another and is met with “Woah, wait. I’m a hero too,” only to get shot in the back the second he lets his guard down, well after that no one trusts anyone without strong reason, and you’ve basically got one gigantic super powered battle royal.
Anyway, I mention this because (besides just wanting to type out our old story idea) a running thing was going to be that ‘Super Powers’ don’t automatically make you an amazing ‘Super Hero/Villain’. Near the beginning, we’d see a few guys have a scene like that Indiana Jones bit of sword vs gun. Guy approaches a mugger in an alley, introduces himself with full grandeur, shows off his A-lister level pyrokinesis or whatever… then just gets shot and dies because the ability to melt a city block in half a second doesn’t magically make you able to survive a bullet to the face.
Naturally there would eventually be some ‘main characters’ with finer control of their powers or competent know how such that they could trivialize most ‘mundane’ threats, but the early days of the ‘battle royal’ would see a lot of dumb supers winding up easy casualties because comic books always show the good guys charging harmlessly through a hail of gunfire.
That’s because most comic books have skipped the establishing part of your story: who would want to spend weeks (or months) following a story where the characters die faster than Game of Thrones? Readers would lose interest real quick
Shooting people in the knee caps is actually a bad tactic. No matter how good of a shot you are, knee caps are tiny targets that move in various directions and can change directions in an instant. What’s more, check your fire… Often times floors are better reinforced than walls are and if you miss you could ricochet and hit an innocent person.
Part of being a better fighter IS using superior tactics… flashbang and knee cap is not one of them. Flashbang and arrest is more like it.
Also, being government agents, kneecapping would probably not be covered by “qualified immunity”
The usual complaint about “qualified immunity” is that it doesn’t seem particularly qualified, and is more like “unlimited immunity”. Or at least “first time doesn’t count”, as it’s been interpreted so broadly that if there isn’t specifically a law against something, it’s covered. So they can get away with anything the first time, and then, once that’s been determined to be something they shouldn’t have done, they’ve got to think up something new for the next time. Even if it’s the same thing, just done a different way. “Oh, I thought we just couldn’t kneecap people with small arms fire, and that it was still ok to break their knees with blunt impact.”
Yeah, they say ‘knee-capping’, but if you look at the movies and TV shows, they are usually simply getting hit in the leg, not the knee
You can’t stop and handcuff everyone, that is what the ‘knee-capping’ is for, arresting is after you have secured the entire location
And giving the option of ‘knee-capping’ and ‘head-shooting’, which do you think would be the preferred option? (hint, the option that leaves them alive)
Wrong. There is no such thing as ‘shoot to wound.’ You shoot to stop the threat, center mass every time. Combat is deadly, if you don’t want to be killed you don’t hang out with people who bring combat upon themselves.
If there are few enough people in the immediate area and you outnumber them sufficiently to control the entire situation (or they have surrendered) you can stop to handcuff them, but if you’re in an uncontrolled situation and danger to your team still exists some of them just pulled the short straw.
It was a shoot to incapacitate, a leg
woundinjury is more survivable than a head or body-mass injuryIf you want no survivors to question or arrest, then you validate Bharda‘s paranoia and go in full-bore blowing away anything that moves, otherwise, you go in with the intent of minimizing loss of life
This is how we know you have exactly zero experience actual professional violence.
I am a USN Hospital Corpsman. During my training, it was strongly emphasized that my role was not fighting, and that I should avoid engaging wherever possible.
It was also made clear that if I was ever required to defend either my own life – which is expected of even a medic – or those of my patients – which did include possible enemy combatants – that I was to use lethal force, because once the violence starts, there is no other kind. Not because, “rawrs, we are teh bad assets,” but because the only guarantee that someone is not going to succeed at killing you or your patient, is if they are dead.
Yes, if you get the drop on someone and they stop, you can make an offer to take them prisoner instead, or if they make an offer of surrender, but any – and I mean ANY – indication of threat, and you drop them, immediately.
This is why so many of us are so adamant about oversight, deescalation, and just not sending cops – people with guns – to every single public incident. Because once the shooting starts, you aim center-mass, and you shoot to kill.
Also, to clarify, this mentality & practice was taught in order to “minimize loss of life,” under the theory that dead tangos do not kill more people.
I once saw a cartoon called “Why armor is better than dodging”. The artist drew a version of himself in a lab coat and holding a .30-06 bolt-action rifle, and in the cartoon he explained that he was going to use this rifle to demonstrate. Then we saw what was obviously the Batmobile (looked like the one from the 1960’s TV show) and with obviously Robin in the passenger seat and Batman driving. He showed the telescopic sight reticle centered on Batman’s head, *BOOM*, and Robin said “Wha–?” and then the car crashed and exploded. Final panel: “And I got the sidekick too for free!”
TL;DR even if you grant that a martial artist could dodge through a room of bad guys, the martial artist will have lots of “down time” where he’s not dodging and could be assassinated.
I was looking through the archive again, and I noticed a detail Dave seems to dropped on later art work of Daphne. Her blonde clone use to have some interesting, pornstaresque tattoos: https://www.grrlpowercomic.com/archives/comic/grrl-power-339-superheroes-in-the-shower/
I could be that she has fine enough control that she could teleport and leave the tattoo ink behind.
Yeah, that could work as an excuse to remove a tattoo that must be a pain to draw each and every time…..
Of course, that leads to the question if she has fine enough control of her teleporting power to remove viruses and bacteria….. that has almost unlimited possibilities other that just “never get sick”. She could decontaminate equipment, even possibly set up a true clean room………….
I might also be reading the Web Novel of “I Saved 80,000 Gold in Another World for my Retirement”. That power is truly OP.
considering she unmakes and remakes her bodies as her teleporting came with limited duplication at first and she just likes to keep them all active at once. She might have some customization options during this (although we do know thanks to a broken or sprained bone earlier in the comic she can’t reset the bodies, so no Steven Universe customization after being poofed (granted this is teleporting and none of them have been killed so if they poof or are permanent corpses is not established; and makes sense she wouldn’t know in a world where powers don’t come with a user’s manual).
that said one of my teleporter ideas, a gross idea, was someone who could only teleport their own body mass. Which at first is like, oh he teleports everywhere naked, what a lark…until its pointed out this means dirt on the body, foreign substances, invasive organisms, and…undigested matter (food and waste) so…when he teleports please step back from the “splash zone”.
*and typing that I just remembered I think I actually named this guy Splash Zone because of that*
lol, I had one named Strobe, ’cause they could only teleport line of sight (or approx. 4 yards max) while running, and the two were linked abilities, so it tended to result in an afterimage effect that looked like they were under a strobe light.
(side effect of the ability combo was that it could cause epileptic seizures to onlookers)
What is the line between his “own body” and NOT his own body? undigested matter becomes his body at what point? absorption into the blood stream? Into individual cells? Actual processing by proteins?
What is the distinction between invasive organisms and not? at some point mitochondria were separate organisms, but I would call them a vital part of our bodies now. Whereas prions are hard for the body to distinguish from it’s own proteins until it’s too late (maybe not even then)
Just wondering if you got that down and dirty with the idea or not
Hard to remember, this wasn’t one of the guys that made it in the file migrations, back then I think someone did ask me this and I probably came up with some metaphysical awareness. But today if I were to rewrite his character sheet it would be more in universe with him shrugging and going, ” I just know if I feel sick and teleport then I feel better, disease, poison, venom, I know I get over. I also know I leave behind a splashing pile of my snot, dirt, vomit, piss, and shit. So…good question, I have no idea.”
Another note pretty sure he was on the Gross Outs. A set of characters known as the rejects of the Rejects. People with powers that have a gross or otherwise not public friendly PR side to them, so not even the low power teams could hire them.
At an after action hearing:
Major Hiro: This hearing is to determine the appropriateness of the use of force by Corporal Goose during the Arc-SWAT action at the Ascenders facility. Corporal, can you describe the incident that involved you using your firearm against a person?
Goose: Yeah, so Corporal Seneca and I were going around the Ascenders facility, looking for more of them to arrest, when one of their caped people jumped in front of us and zapped Seneca, pretty hard. He just pointed his hands are her and lightning shot from his hands to Corporal Seneca, kinda like I have seen Jiggawatt do. I told him to lower his hands, but he turned towards me and aimed at me. He was a clear and present danger to my life and well-being, so I used the firearm that I had available, the Auger, to stop him from attacking me. I then rendered what first aid I could to Corporal Seneca and called for an evac for her.
Hiro: Did the Ascender survive the encounter?
Goose: Not to my knowledge sir.
Hiro: Why were you carrying around the Auger?
Goose: I admit it is a bit more awkward and heavier than most, but it is the firearm I brought to the scene. Besides, the Lieutenant Colonel said I could use it if I was willing to carry it.
Hiro: Why not carry a smaller firearm?
Goose: Well, it was available and I can lug that thing around, so why not? It can have a hell of an intimidation factor.
Only a corporal? o_O
Major Hiro: This hearing is to determine the appropriateness of the use of force by Corporal Goose during the Arc-SWAT action at the Ascenders facility. Corporal, can you describe the incident that involved you using your firearm against a person?
Goose: *grunt and nods*
Hiro: Did the Ascender survive the encounter?
Goose: *grunt and shakes head, followed by shrug*
Hiro: Why were you carrying around the Auger?
Goose: *grunt and points to Maxima or her picture, salutes, then goes back to polishing up the Augur and lubing it with gun oil*
Hiro: Why not carry a smaller firearm?
Goose: *gives a single badass fist pump*
*keeps sunglasses on the entire time*
Hiro: I guess I shouldn’t be surprised since you usually keep it less than five meters away from you.
Goode smiles affectionately at the Auger.
And by ‘smile affectionately,’ people mean ‘his frown is grimace is slightly less extreme.’
I await the inevitable Goose x Auger fanfic.
Quartermaster: “Of course I signed out whatever he requisitioned, it says ‘atypical threats’ right in the charter and all super personnel above the rank of private are authorized to determine what equipment will make them most effective.”
Arianna: *gasps and drops head into hands*
Goose, Sydney, Dabbler, and many others: *maniacal grinning*
Upper lines on Hiro’s torso muscles are too sharp. Looks like his head and neck are sprouting out of some separate thing.
Most action heroes are the cream of the crap. They think they’re the shit but, usually, it’s just that the writing stinks.
If you have a problem with the writing, wtf are you still here? o_O
I often style “why the fuck” as “ytf” to distinguish it from the abbreviation of “what the fuck” – it’s not “proper” of course, but if you’re interested, you can feel free to copy me without hesitation or fear of disapproval or derision from me.
Did mean ‘why’, will hope to remember that next time
I don’t think he was critiquing DaveB’s writing. He was critiquing action writing in general, like what DaveB was critiquing in his blurb.
Did I say here? I did not say here. The only writing I find fault with here is yours.
… So why bring it up? o_O
I failed to properly consider the reactions of the Jerk-niis in the comment section. Most people will simply let a crappy pun pass without getting all constipated over it.
What pun?
Pretty sure that RG was A, just speaking to “action hero writing” in general, and B, using it as an opportunity to make some witty puns.
I have lost the plot… who is Seneca again? :/
read above comments?
Dave, Dave! For a vote incentive can we have a Seneca collage at Seneca College?
Do you think they will convert the building into a secondary base for ARCHON?
Do you think they convert the building into a secondary base for ARCHON?
Sydney will insist on it. If Batman can have a cave then so should she.
If that’s true, then she gets to call it the Orrery.
And when it’s no longer owned by ARCHON and is sold off to a foreign investor, it can be a former orrery for a foreigner.
You crazy bastards! You went and done broke Pander… or is that now Punder?
Well, it’s probably a unique origin story for a supervillain.
Not really.
“Stare into the Abyss long enough,” “Beware when you go uniting monsters,” etc…
It was a tongue twister not a pun!
A tongue twister dangit!
*shakes fist*
You got all twisted up in the game. So much for those cool points…
She’s slipped a few times in the past too, but her journey to the dark side is not yet complete. She still maintains a system of belief that states puns are inferior to wordplay, but I say that’s just rules lawyering.
She’ll clear that hurdle in time.
One might even say she’ll…
…pass the bar.
That wasn’t a pun dangit!
*goes to her happy place to get away from the pun miscreants who seek to lower her to their degenerate wordplay abusing levels*
*rocks back and forth*
Yes, spend time alone with your thoughts.
You’ll start to hear the voices, soon…
Yeees. Give to the pun side. Let the dad jokes flooow through you.
Pun murim is the strongest. After all, there’s no place like ‘ooooooommmmmmmmmmmmm’.