I hadn’t originally planned on doing this page, I was going to leave it as wrote that spicy food was had, alarms sounded, etc, but then I thought of a joke then another and another and here we are. I’m actually fairly pleased with this page. If the art looks wonky at all in any places it’s because I did a lot of it over vacation on my drawing tablet instead of the Cintiq and it’s fair to say I’ve gotten spoiled on it.
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I think my favorite moment has to be that last panel with the look of sheer horror on Peggy’s face, along with that quiet “medic”. I can almost hear the whimper in her voice. Once, after having a hot sauce eating contest with a friend and laughing uproariously at his antics when he was unable to handle the uber hot sauce (I forget the name), I wiped tears of mirth out of my eyes, and realized 10ns too late that I had hot sauce residue on my fingers. I literally had to run about 25 yards through the corriors of the building we were in, with my eyes welded shut from the burn, to get to a bathroom and stick my head under a sink for about fifteen minutes.
I know her pain.
* Searches, in vein, for the thumbs up button*
Vain. Veins carry blood, or ore if it’s say a gold vein.
Oh but for an edit feature (as a way of speaking, we can live without it). You will notice that I corrected my typo on the similar post below.
BTW, love the avatar and screen name. Great series of books.
Thanks. All credit to DaveB for the avatar though, from way back when Sydney tried her hand at marketing. In fact, even the name comes from there.
I did not know of any books by that name, so I am afraid that is just a co-incidence. Unless Dave slipped in one of his references, under my radar!
Sorry, Yorp. Your name and Avatar are pretty cool, but I was referring to Sleel. I recently finished reading the Matador series by Steve Perry, after having read one of the books a few years back.
also ‘likes’
This my friends, is why when you serve stuff like this you’re sposed to give them GOGGLES .. the plastic ones.. XD .. AT least we do with the hotsauce competitions.
The Goggles! They do nothing!
Goggles are fine up to a point. But if the food is that hot, and bearing in mind that this is a comic universe, it might simply melt through. (I doubt that would actually happen, particularly on the necessary timescale, but I’m fairly sure we’ve already seen rule-of-funny beat law-of-nature at least once.)
Sydney wishing for a medic; bad Sydney.
A geek/nerd like her should know da rulez.
Medics are there to make yu feel good while dying;
Doctors are there to make you better while being in death-pain.
Then again, there’s the standard rule of writers:
If in doubt, blame The Doctor.
* Searches, in vain, for the thumbs up button* for The Doctor.
sorry but the tardis is still in inpound from a few of the jokers here joyriding in it back at the deshanti/brook confrontation so the doctor is unavailable.
Ah, less than a month to the next Christmas special, which I understand introduces the new companion.
*wags tail excitedly*
(Christmas is the only time I get to see Dr Who, or practically any TV)
They call him “The Doctor,” but really…what is he a doctor of? Is he a PhD? MD? JD? DDS? DVM? And what is his specialty?
“Okay, Mr. Dalek, I need you to turn your head and cough.”
“EXPECTORATE! EXPECTORATE!”
“…close enough.”
Time
Yes, for who else could help fix the the problems with the timey wimeys thans The Docter!
Funny as Hell, Sir!
I think “Doctor” is just his ‘name’. Or a title, just not in the way you’re expecting. Like his former friend turned nemesis “Master”. Guy wasn’t really a master of anything… except in being a douche.
Hmm, that sounds like Inspector Spacetime.
Some knock-off, probably.
heh, as a gamer, I’d expect her to cry out “cleric”
Maybe she was a fan of Final Fantasy Tactics? They had a Medic class after all….
I don’t know that she didn’t say the right thing…She could feel like she was dieing, lmao, love that look on her face.
I think that was Red vs Blue
It could be a TF2 reference.
Actually medics, paramedics are skilled at keeping you alive till they can get you to a doctor.
Red VS Blue joke by chance?
Yeah, sorry. Didn’t realize that had already been said.
When I read the “Medic!” line, I keep thinking of fighting the soldiers in the first half-life, and how they’d call out for medics as they get blown to ragged gobs.
Little plaintive cry that is far too late to do any good.
you will need to call a little louder than that to get the Corpsman to you Sydney…
and i too can hear the whimper in that cry for help.
I love the impossibru face in panel 9.
Im glsd someone else caught that! I lol’d til I cried.
On that note, the three bottles next to what I can assume is a lead and steel safe containing the mother of all hot sauces, reminds me of the old bugs bunny cartoons. Specifically the wild west ones.
UM… Yeah… if you hadn’t read thru all the comments yet, you should, as Dave practically did a cut’n’paste of the safe used in “Drip Along Daffy” he added in the tinier one with the “Unmaker” in it though…
All Sydney needs to do is ask and I’ll share my Ghost Pepper sauce. *smirks*
that’s only 800,000 scoville, Sydney right here is eating 3,000,000
Took me reading it twice (and reading some comments) too get that the spices went into her eye.
Now I am left to wonder if she will go blind and one of the “unknown” orbs will heal her.
YES, I AM CALLING IT. 1812CST 27NOV2012. Now no one can say I am calling it after the fact.
Heh, you are not alone. Personally, I doubt it. This page was inserted as an unplanned extra. Unless Dave happens to think of some particularly funny way of doing that, I do not think he will waste the story potential that the mysterious orbs have. I see more comic potential from her trying it and failing, than the reverse.
In comic, it has even been suggested that one may heal, but even if it does, Sydney may not think to try it, in her current state. Or it could be that it will heal wounds, but not help for pain without physical injury. Or it may be ineffective against poisons, with similar results.
Sydney is already very powerful. Too much more and there will be little to provide her with challenges. Making it harder to provide interesting stories. Lex Luthor: “And then, once we have tricked her into wearing these mittens, with superglue smeared on the inside…”
that last paragraph … +1 thumb
We really need +1 buttons in these threads. That last paragraph was pure (weapons grade) awesome.
It’s already been said, but I must say it again:
You Sir (and your comment as well) are funny as all get out!
Though how will they trick her into putting on the mittens? So far I have two guesses:
1. Tell her she can win Convention tickets by staying in a refrigerated room for a given period of time, and “to be nice” they’ll give her a pair of mittens to keep her hands warm. However, she’d probably be carrying around a mini-bottle of super-hotsauce which would help spike her body heat thanks to inflammation and other physiological processes.
2. Put her on a game show with a bunch of well built male models and tell her that if she can fit this tiny pair of mittins on within 30 seconds, all the other contestants will have to remove their shirts. Thus, one weakness will cause her to fall prey to the other.
*Blushes* I really cannot take credit. I was doing no more than running with the ball. Dave had already implied this concept (final panel). I was doing no more than verbalising the image he had conjured up in my mind.
love. couldnt stop laughing at the medic comment cause i can imagine it, i live in a korean household and yes, ive done this to myself many a time.
Four words: Sydney with and Eyepatch.
^This
OMFG. panel 7 mad me laugh so freaking hard!
something that slipped by me earlier,
so she knew what 5 of the balls did how come?
i mean the truesight how did she know what that did?
she just happened to see some magical illusion during vacation?
not really much she could have tested that on.
and this is now my favorite comic, followed by schlock mercenary.
Ooh, I had better answer this quick, before the G.P.A.A. come to haul me away!
But this is something that I can answer, as Sydney is of the same species as me! i.e. Roleplayersapiens, a highly specialised form of Homosapiens. Typically recognisable by extreme geekyness in a variety of manifestations.
Other characteristics often include advanced development in: Problem solving (perhaps limited to specialist areas like maze navigation or answering riddles); Understanding the motivations of others (including non-human sapient lifeforms – be sure to include one on any first-contact team you assemble); and, coming back to something relevant, an insatiable curiosity about what any mysterious artefacts that come into their possession actually do (especially ones which glow, levitate, have mystical runes or most worryingly, refuse to be separated from their discoverer)!
Experience teaches Roleplayersapiens paranoia, so the first step would be to implement various safety protocols. Such as conducting the tests where others cannot observe or be harmed by them. Say in a forest*.
Also including attempting to investigate artefacts at a safe distance. Which would quickly lead to finding that impossible. Sydney obviously knew the power of this, as she was unconcerned about an obviously super-strong individual attempting it. I suspect the involvement of a sixteen wheeler truck in that test. Perhaps a train.
The glowing and telekinetic movement of the orbs themselves is mentally controlled. No roleplayer worth their salt would take more than two minutes to discover this. Detailed examination of the pink orb* would discover a miniature pink tentacle, possibly writhing, in it. Attempting to mentally command it, would result in it manifesting the pseudopod tentacle thingy, which could then easily be manipulated likewise.
Lacking any other clues, experimentation would default to attempting various mental commands, initially directed at objects or (where applicable) local unwanted vermin, such as slugs. Sydney obviously included this precaution, in some form (or the orbs have built in safety features, which is possible), otherwise the Pew Pew orb would have turned her into a pile of ashes.
Once having established if any of the orbs are dangerous, testing could be aimed at the user. Mental commands could include “activate”, “move”, “protect”, “destroy”, “heal” and so on. Sydney has had these a while and will have tried a LOT of variants. The flight, force field and PPO could all easily be discovered this way.
Likewise the telepresence, although it may have been discovered in various different ways. For example thinking “teleport me over there”, or “I want to see/hear what is going on round the corner”, or it may be as simple as trying to move the inner orb that is visible inside the Tan/khaki orb*. Once that is moved to a remote spot, the telepresence might automatically turn on?
You are right in saying that there is no way to discover truesight in typical everyday life. But, being a geek she may well know that, we can already make things invisible in the laboratory. So could have potentially tested that aspect of it, by sweet-talking her way into a demonstration.
Or simply by observing a hero showing off invisibility in a public display. She was obviously not surprised at being able to detect the invisible observer when she was interviewing Maxima and the rest of the panel*.
As for the breaking Dabbler’s illusion*, if you re-check the scene, Sydney was clearly totally surprised, as she had not been attempting to do that. All she was doing was turning on her tan/khaki orb* so that Dabbler could use her own detection powers on it. I do not think she knew about the illusion-beating capabilities it has, prior to that event.
* Rather than embed various links here, I practiced my linking on a list of the properties of Halo’s orbs, offline. But I am reluctant to do yet another long posting, unless anyone would actually find that useful.
PLUS, as illustrated in some mini bubbles during her ‘interview’ — Sydney is the kind of geek who um… how to put this delicately?… stuck orbs ‘all over’ to ‘see what might happen’. Part hardy adventurer, part foolhardy nerd.
And, even using the worst of these possible ‘techniques’ — she learned how some of those things worked (or not).
after all that i dont got a clear answer
but after thinking about this for a while i figure she probably used to comm ball and the truesight ball at the same time and she saw through her own illusion, and that is the best scenario i can come up with.
as for her trying it on a superhero that wouldn’t exactly have been very low profile, and probably same is true for trying it in a lab.
as for the lab one i am not sure it would work i mean yeah she can see through illusions, well the most scientist have managed is to make the light bend slightly and we are talking microscopic amount so any object you want to hide you would need a microscope to see it anyway, truesight dont seem like much help there.
Umm … Chatles I believe those are the same orb unfortunately.
Yep, you are dead right that it would be high profile if she had the orbs circling overhead. I had thought of half a dozen ways that Sydney could make use of her orbs unobtrusively. The simplest of which being to tell the orbs to stay in their tube, except whichever one she wants to discreetly hold in her hand whilst testing. She could even swap them over, when no one was looking.
I cut that out though, as I felt uncomfortable with how much yacking I had already done with my reply. So I limited it to the broad principles of how she could have found each of the properties she knew about before the meeting (which, as stated, I believe did not include the ability to see through illusions, so did not need explaining).
Hologram dish. A lot of nerds and geeks have them. For instance, there is one in the office of the band teacher at a local High School. Simply put something inside, and an image of it appears above the dish. The image looks totally solid, but you can wave your hand through it. Great optical illusion.
This is certainly something the orb could help her see through…
Heck, she works in geek paradise, so she could get one at a discount, or just borrow the store display model, if they keep ’em in stock…
Must admit, though, even if I had a floating orb myself, I might not think to try it. Well, now I would…
I doubt the Truesight orb would dispel the image of a Mirascope, as that image is purely a product of ‘baseline’ reflection between two parabolic mirrors and so optically indistinguishable from the actual object. I would guess that Truesight only works on Power-based images, where the mechanism of projection isn’t explicable using ‘baseline’ optics alone.
The Comm Ball and the Truesight are one and the same.
She did not know about the Truesight function of the Comm Ball. She was attempting to activate an orb at random so Dabbler could get some sort of reading off it when she discovered the Truesight function, there being two illusion-users in the room at that time.
she didn’t know what it did until comic 103. when she put the gold orb in her hand she pierced Dabblers illusion that is the first time that power was revealed. In 105 Dabbler explains why her illusion drops and Names the power. So apparently the gold orb has two powers…cast and illusion and see through illusions.
Yup, the truesight and the comm ball are the same ball. I don’t belive she knew it could do it. THe reason she didn’t immediatly freak out over X is that she had a purple alien up close and personal with her. That and with her ADD she may have forgot as soon as it happened.
*nods* Yea, that thought did cross my mind too. And, taking time to think on your comment, it feels highly plausible.
I read this too quickly Monday. Instead of “medic”, I thought she said “magic”… which would certainly explain the terrified/horrified look Peggy has in the last panel.
Well that went not quite how I expected..
That went almost exactly how I expected
She can consume hot sauce that would send normal people to the morgue but a drop in her eye and she whimpers for a medic… I have a similar experience so I won’t laugh but leading up to it was funny.
I guess removing her protective lenses was not a good idea.
thats an exaggeration besides people get sprayed in the eyes with mace and thats like 5.3 to 7 mil rated, hurts like hell (5.3 for civilian where legal and the higher end one for police) as for send to the morgue or hospital its all a matter of quantity the worst i ever had was 25 ml (milliliters) of 1 million shu pepper extract on a hamburger, hurts like hell to eat and i only managed to eat half of it lost that bet too, as for the spiciest thing i had a milligram of pure capscasin it didn’t really burn any worse than the 1 mil extract but it did burn alot longer.
and note i am not one of the people who will always eat the spiciest thing on the menu and will only got there on a bet. for those of you unaware pure capscasin is rated at 15 million shu, which she wants to garnish the meal with, that i would call hospital level event.
as for the worst thing i have ever done was eat a spoonful of cinnamon, tip dont do it, it is possible but you dont wanna try.
The law enforcement pepper spray is 1.5-2 million scoville, civvie ones are around 800k
weird tried to double check that info according to Wikipedia your right,
according to three other sources they go from 2 mil to 5.3 mil
ill keep looking
ahh ok apparently the 7 mil part i pulled out of nowhere must have either heard it from someone or just made it up, but foxlabs pepper spray which the stuff they use in prisons here in the states is rated at 5.3 million shu, and as far as my search goes pepper spays go from 2 million to 5.3million, i am gona keep looking for my 7 mil reference but i think i am gona lose on that count.
don’t need it’s in military weapons the 7 came from or was based on old material handling certification paperwork I need for clearance records …… do we even still use this stuff?
forgot to put in there its not pepper spray / teargas equipment but ordinance system. not going back though to find what explosive or device it said. (twiches) damn long and doesn’t have scan skip capabilitys.
From Monday on I’m reading and rereading this page and can’t stop laughing! Absolutely hilarious!!
Maybee the kitchen has specialized for such invulnerable hunks like Achilles. I bet he would have chomped down that stuff without breaking in sweat.
I don’t think so. While his skin is invulnerable there is no mention of an increased pain tolerance, after all if you are invulnerable to injury it is likely that you have never had any true pain and therefore would actually be More sensitive to pain when it does occur. Spicy foods do not actually cause injury they merely trick your pain receptors into reporting an injury.
Well, I thought, that Achilles has something like the ultimate invulnerability, as is described in his character sheet:
“Achilles can’t be poisoned, suffocated, starved, irradiated, crushed, cut, pierced, burned, frozen or injured by any method yet discovered.”
But you are right, spicy food doesn’t mean any real injury, so maybee he could actually be vulnerable to capsaicin, menthol and similar stuff. It just doesn’t seem right for me, that somebody, who could survive a nuclear attack without injury, couldn’t bear hot, spicy food! But I agree, that with invulnerability there comes a bigger sensitivity to pain, when it occurs.
If you are right, we know, how to attack Achilles: with a simple pepperspray!
Achilles can feel pain.
one of those orbs has the super ability to eat spicy food. maybe with no indigestion later or 2nd degree burns along the tongue as a side effect
beautiful.
See, this happened to my friend once. I almost died because of it. Not because of him. Cause I couldn’t stop laughing. for 10 minutes.
Am I the only one who noticed the lack of a cap on the Old Panther?
Capsaicin to the eye, been there, done that. I don’t care HOW much heat your mouth can take, your eyes, maybe ONE Scoville!
I’ve eaten habaneros, Ghost Chili’s. Buffalo wings are like Jello Pudding to me. But rubbing my eye after washing my hands after making chili, whimpering on the floor for three hours.
pepper spray hello mace that stuff is like 5.3 to 7 mil and that goes to the eyes i assure you the eye can take more than 1shu whether you will like it though different story.
OK, that is perhaps a better description. Will the high Scovilles cause physical harm to your eyes? Probably not. Will they make you want to dig your eyes out with a dessert spoon? H377 Yeah!
oh hell yeah i agree there seen my spicy stuff junkie friend try
My brother talked me into putting some capsaicin muscle rub on my hands. He said it really burned. It didn’t bother me. Then I wiped my eye. Found my way to the bathroom sink by bouncing off of every wall between me and it.
Yahvool!
My brother and father apparently have such weak taste buds that the only things they can really taste are extremely spicy, and that’s just a mild sensation to them. I suspect Sydney is similar, though neither my brother nor father respond the way she does.
Some of us enjoy the burn for exactly what it is. Not in the eyes, though.
Gotta love Sydney, One of the only people I can think of who considers Bear Spray a condiment! One quick Caviot; a Friend of mine was dicing Habenieros for salsa without gloves wasn’t thinking and had to go to the Bathroom! We hear this THUMP and a Moan, seems he didn’t wash his hands before hand. He stay in the fetal position of almost an Hour. I think I’d rather have it my eye in some cases!
thus the need for protective eyewear when eating at “fusion” places.
Don’t they make crystals of pure capsaicin? If I remember correctly, they come with goggles and tongs, because you can’t touch them and the fumes alone will hurt your eyes… Sounds like a Sydney thing.
you can litteraly see hear and feel her pain at the precise moment the noddle hit her eye
And now I’m grateful I wear glasses…
Oh, no. If Sydney gets to wear an eyepatch, the medics will have to stay around for everybody else’s sake. Or run for their lives, rather.
i can picture her going all pirate on everybody if that happens
My thoughts exactly. THAT would add an interesting extra dimension to the press conference.
I’m liking the impossibru! Face.
Well, at least Sydney now gets the chance to check out the one orb they were considering to be able to provide healing. Even if it isn’t a hospitalizing event, the eye is still suffering some damage, which the so-called healing orb might rectify. Since she is in a high level of pain, she might consider using the orb right away, considering her gaming experience. Just a thought :)
well if it did something like that she would have probably already noticed, paper cuts and scrapes are probably something she deals with very often, so pain negation and healing unless its from sickness seem to have already gone out the window, as for the obs letting her eat spicy food i think that too goes out the window she seems to have always been a spicy food nut.
First, I would like to say that this is one of my favorite comics of all time. Second, I would like to say that I love the fact that there was a pause before she said medic (makes it sound like she had to bear a lot of pain just to say it). And Finally, I would like to say to everyone, she WILL be okay…..eventually.
It is the intervening bit between “now”and OK that will be interesting. Noting that this is all one HUGE flashback, and that the “now” Sydney is not wearing an eyepatch, or showing any signs of having had major reconstructive surgery, or of now having a prosthetic eye.
Rule of funny applies more than anything else, I reckon..
She needs to irrigate her eye with some milk NOW.
Love your avatar. Followed EQ since the ‘little number one’ came out.
personally I have never found milk to be at all helpful other than the physical sensation of cold while it is in contact, running cold water is just as effective and much less messy
Saline is most recommended.
Random geekery:
Did you know that you have no such thing as “spicy” tastebuds? You probably did. However, do you know how you taste spicyness instead? Capsacin directly stimulates pain nerves (as well as heat-sensor nerves). Yup, that’s right. The “Spiciness” sensation is really just pain.
As has been mentioned a couple of times here, capsaicin chemically triggers the same mechanism that registers heat damage. That is why it fells like the pain of burning, instead of some other form, like chewing broken glass (not a recommended activity).
Oh wow! I just found your comic today, and I must say I love it! I haven’t laughed this much with a comic in a while – great job!
Thanks!
I was gut laughing so hard after that third panel it took me 20 minutes to get through this page. I think my room mate almost called the dudes with the strait jackets.
Just taking a moment to make a tribute to the deaths of tens of thousands of super heroes, less than an hour ago. When the servers closed for the last time on City of Heroes. The world’s first super hero massively multi-player online game. A sad loss to a lot of dedicated gamers.
Food so spicy that it makes your eyes water when you taste it: Sydney did it wrong…VERY wrong…
This happened to me last time I made salsa… Or was it the time before? I rarely have trouble, but got a teeny bit on my sleeve I didn’t wash off and it got into my eye. x-x That’s what you get with unlabeled organic peppers ^-^
(Posted in the wrong place.)
Which would be hotter; The Big Bang or Heat Death of the Universe? (Both pale by magnitudes to ‘Total Multiversal Fusion’ and ‘Absolute Omniversal Meltdown’) And where you things like ‘Event Horizon’ and Singularity Collapse fit in, let alone Quantum, Temporal, Philosophical and Religious Thermal Factors. ‘String Theory Compression’, ‘Timeline Burn’, ‘Immovable Object Meets Unstoppable Force’, and ‘Infinity of Eternal Hell’. And that’s only the tip of the iceberg. (And I mean ICEBERG.)