Grrl Power #1258 – Prepare the slo-mo wind machine
I did start writing the actual smash cut page to see what “the bad guys” are up to, but as I was working on it I realized I wasn’t quite sure where it was going, so I decided to do this scene while I gave the other one some more thought. Don’t worry, this won’t be nearly as long as the Parfait girls night one… he said, tempting fate with a fresh from the oven, slightly gooey chocolate chip cookie.
Dabbler made some minor adjustments to Max’s choker. Primarily, as they had “discussed,” her skin now feels less “weirdly slippery,” which extends the choker’s capabilities way beyond its original capabilities, which… may have consequences at some point. Although Dabbler did remove that extremely low level “Charm Person Aura” she’d added, so the overall power consumption is only a bit higher than it used to be. Max’s skin is normally a little bit less frictiony due to the fact that she doesn’t really have any skin texture to speak of. Well, it’s there, but it exists at a much smaller scale than what you’d expect to see on human skin. The other factor is that her personal, cellular level force-field that reinforces her body far past what would otherwise be impossible with even very advanced material science, is always on. Even if she lowers her shield to really enjoy a hot shower for example, it’s still there.
The other thing Dabbler did to it is to make it hide her fairly distinctive eyebrow horns. (The little notches at the top of the arch of her brow.) As far as her pointed ears go, Dabbler would have to replace the choker with something a lot more sophisticated.
Oh, and if you guys haven’t seen Tacoma FD, I recommend it. I think it’s on Netflix and Hulu in the US. It’s helmed by two of the Broken Lizard guys, and is kinda basically more Super Troopers, but with way less drug use. The premise being firefighters in one of the US’s rainier cities don’t always have a whole lot to do so they keep themselves entertained. To be clear, it’s not must see TV, but I found it amusing enough to recommend. And if you have seen it, then you might recognize the fire station here, and also two of the guys at the table, even though I kind of tweaked their appearances from the show a bit. Though I realized after I colored the one guy that he kind of looks like Sydney’s dad, but, oh well.
*************
To cover some stuff that’s been brought up in the comments on the previous few pages, some people are assuming that Maxima has been acting as both cop and judge, as well as, I suppose, jailer. I haven’t shown any of the legal proceedings that happen to criminals in the Grrl-verse, partially because I would be hilariously inept at representing actual legal happenings, partially because I can’t even imagine how many pages it would take to scratch the surface, and partially because I don’t think I could make much of it funny and/or entertaining.
So the quick rundown of the legal fate of super criminals in the U.S. is basically 1) They go to jail, which is hugely expensive. Many of the accommodations need to be customized for the occupant, and the complexity of including things like exercise time in the yard means it’s almost unavoidable to tie up a not insignificant portion of a very limited population of supers with guarding other supers. So the other option is 2) Reform/rehabilitation. Maxima is a proponent of this. Basically, putting a valuable resource to work is better than sticking it in a cell to cost the taxpayers a load of money, especially when there’s little to no effort to prevent recidivism.
Lapha will get an actual trial at some point, and it will be a fucking mess, starting with “not a U.S. Citizen and/or not a human being and/or Earth is still hammering out treaties with space governments and/or does the U.S. recognize magends as sapient beings with rights” etc., etc. Lapha already has a ton of insider information that she shouldn’t, so there’s no harm at this point trying to integrate her with the team while all that shit is being sorted out, especially since Dabbler is the only person on Earth (with a work visa) who knows how to keep a being like Lapha from jumping on to the President’s head and doing something regrettable.
So, Lapha committed a bunch of crimes and has access to some pretty high-level top secret information. Namely, that Sydney’s orbs are Nth tech. Granted, she blurted that out to a crowd of aliens and demons that are probably spreading that tidbit all over Space Reddit or whatever is in vogue at the moment, but a secret getting out doesn’t automatically declassify something, nor does it excuse the crime of putting that information into the wild. Giving her the option of jail or work release is not slavery, as some of the more hyperbolic commenters suggested. Criminals get punished in literally every society ever, and being given a choice is more than most criminals get.
The new vote incentive is up!
Every so often I get the urge to try and draw Maxima all properly shiny, and this… isn’t my favorite attempt if I’m honest. I’ve been sitting on this for a little while doing little tweaks, and decided to finally publish it cause I’m already behind on these. The next one will (almost definitely) resume the trend of including a little mini comic to extend the scene a bit.
As usual, Patreon has some outfit variations as well as sans flagrante.
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.
lmao they’re about to eat their words
Ready for 1,85 m of pure awesomeness … Maximillia Leander aka Harper Dee Luxe …
https://www.grrlpowercomic.com/archives/comic/grrl-power-1157-max-cant-drive-165/
Perhaps the we will have a good imitation of Slick Joseph “Wolfie” McWolf* by his two colleagues.
* The Tex Avery wolf
I’m really looking forward to that moment when they notice Max has forgotten where the ground is.
The return of Rowan the firefighting mustache with superhero-tier chin.
Gotta admit, he made a good first impression last time.
Looks like the moustache is part of the uniform for this station. As long as they avoid evil moustaches I fully support this.
Rowan did say there was this ‘stache brotherhood support thingy happening at his station.
I can confirm that the three firemen I know all rock a moustache.
I can confirm that as a trainee volunteer FF there is definitely a big portion of staches going on. Mostly due to safety reasons because facial hair can put at risk the hermetic integrity of the facemask. Essentially, a stache is the only face hair they are allowed to grow without risks. Plus staches are now charged with a lot of things cultural and medical wise
I found it funny on Reno 911 all the cops had moustaches but none of the firemen did.
Verner has a strong V for Vendetta / Guy Fawkes mustache going on. I leave it to the reader if the latter was a villian.
I don’t know, the guy on Rowan’s right has the handle-bar mustache thing going on…
At least it’s not the “Dastardly Dan” with the curls at the ends…
Good point. Verner do look a bit suspucious with that moustache. Not thin enough to be truly evil but still.
I could see Verner rocking some dandy whips.
It’s because firefighters can’t grow any other kind of facial hair, otherwise their oxygen masks won’t fit correctly and they’ll, y’know, die. SO it’s mustaches or nothing.
“So, Lapha committed a bunch of crimes and has access to some pretty high-level top secret information. Namely, that Sydney’s orbs are Nth tech.”
Wait, are those orbs established to be Nth tech by now? I thought the Nth tech people are those invisible intangible super highly advanced beings that are only assumed to exist, but I might be misremembering that. Also, if they do exist, I SO want them to encounter Sydney at some point. :-) I bet they have to power to yoink her orbs away if they so desire, so there better be some tension there in that regard once they meet.
@current comic: Maxima trying to do “girly shit” is going to be hilarious! Overall I’m rooting for them to actually get serious with each other. That dude is really well-written, i.e. humble but confident. I hope he won’t lose attraction to her now that the spell is gone.
I think its more than everyone who makes a guess on it, who knows what Nth tech is, thinks that the orbs are Nth tech.
Yeah, that’s what I was thinking, too. I mean, it’s not 100% impossible that there’s a species out there that isn’t Nth which has developed this tech without Dabbler having heard of them or having figured it out herself, but with her connections it’s on the rather unlikely side.
As far as I can tell, “Nth” is more of an abstract theoretical category than an actual specific faction.
Really all that’s known about the orbs is that they look like technology, and no known faction technology that advanced, hence probably Nth.
As an aside, it’s unclear to me what the hard difference between Nth and whatever the third level categoryof “beyond FTL” is called. These seem cryptic and advanced enough that it could hardly be said for certain none of them can build something lik3 the orbs.
Cora told Sydney straight out that she’s has a device that creates a gateway that only capital ships can create, and it fits in her pocket, so while it can’t be proven per-say, it’s pretty likely she does. Which is why the nega-sqidward went all “GET HER!” after it scanned her.
I think the presumption is that the “beyond FTL” are incredibly advanced, but still bound by the laws of physics, while the Nth can rewrite the laws of physics.
Even if it’s just the working theory it’s still not something they would want released.
Yes, I am not disputing that, I was just curious about what’s the status of the canon.
So is this DaveB subtly confirming that they *are* Nth tech?
(By not explicitly using the words ‘allegedly’ or ‘possibly’)
Or is this DaveB being lax in his notes-writing and merely *forgetting* to use the above conditional adjectives?
*Or* is this DaveB being really sneaky and trying to prompt this very response?
(Into which trap I have almost unwittingly fallen)
The discussion here really shows what the reaction to the secret ‘getting out’ should be:
*shrug* “Sydney has a very vivid imagination.”
I mean, try to prove it. Lapha doesn’t obtain truth; she obtains what the person thinks is the truth.
It’s a working theory that Cora came up with. Cora had not even studied the orbs, so I’m not sure how others would not be able to come up with that theory as well. At least among aliens.
I guess I should have said “Are assumed to be Nth tech.” even though the existence of entities fitting the description of Nth hasn’t even been confirmed. What’s for sure is that they’re advanced and saying they’re Nth tech has become shorthand around Archon for implying a ne plus ultra tech tier.
Btw Dave. If I may ask. How do we canonical pronounce nth? Ents? nnts ? Ennth? Ennis? Ants?
say the letter ‘n’ as it sounds when you say the alphabet. (en) then just add the ‘th’, like from ‘seventh’ ((or just say ‘seventh’ but leave out the ‘sev’. there is a phrase already in the English lexicon ‘to the nth degree’, so, say it like that.
I guess it’s shorthand for “We wants it” for pretty much any alien political entity with ambitions.
No “Nth race” to have an actual “Nth tech” base. It’s not even “magic”, since magic (or what might as well be magic to humans) is totally a thing, and lots of people seem to have it.
There was a character in a series I read who did stuff based on (I think) hermetic magic, which he called the True Science. “There’s no such thing as magic” he said. This sort of thing probably would make him say “Ok, I was wrong.”
Ok, thank you for clearing it up for me! :-)
Nth technology is a category beyond the most known advance tech of the known intergalactic races.
In page 689 Cora explain that there are civilizations capable of manipulatin atherium like Sydney’s orbs do, but they need a massive capital ship or the sacrifice of a thousand psykers. Syd has that and more in the palm of her hand.
I’m actually looking forward to this.
tempting fate… I would suggest not trying to find out the color of her panties. she gets annoyed at that. that being said I have a bunch of new minions. I could send them out for cookies to attract her attention further. Tiffs Treats specializes in hot cookie delivery and there are some in the DFW area.
as someone who actually watched bits of court tv before OJ killed it, the legal system is designed to be long, boring, unentertaining, I won’t say its unappealing though. I recommend the opinions with sci-fi references. I don’t have the relevant search engines though ask the resident lawyer (who may also be bribable by cookie).
finnaly, we are all down for some stealth golden feminine shit. let the insecurities fly!
I’m tickled the firefighter isn’t a one shot, and they’ve actually got a relationship going :)
As am I, Max deserves a semi normal life experience. Let’s be honest Rowan is a great match for her, and on the plus side if he is okay with dating a super-hot, super tall and super successful woman who takes no shit, his ego is plenty stable enough to handle the fact that she is a golden super heroine in disguise.
I love this. The slice of life stuff is some of the best stuff in the comic, and the idea of ‘the details of Maxima having a normal relationship’ sounds like something REALLY fun to watch.
Also I thought Rowan and her sister were great characters in the first place.
Some point after Rowan notices that Max forgot where the floor is, I really want to find out that Shioh (sp?) is in Sydney’s gaming guild or something. Mostly because I want to see those two in the same room at the same time.
I lean towards the theory that she’s already told him. I think he knows, but is keeping it under wraps because that makes their relationship possible—without destroying his life.
I don’t see Max keeping that a secret, it’s too important. Fine for a one-night stand, but not for a relationship. Also, she wouldn’t want to date someone who couldn’t handle her being who she is.
That said, it might still be early enough days that they haven’t had the conversation quite yet…
That could be fun.
I can see Max telling him she’s superhero but not explicitly WHICH superhero.
I’m hopeful it’s still early enough that she hasn’t told him yet.
Because I want there to be hijinks that force it. :D
Dunno how much Dave checks the comments, but the “Rowan” tag hasn’t been added to his previous appearances, and I humbly posit that it should be.
Agreed. That’s two of us so that makes a quorum! He’s gotta do it now right?
Make that 3. I vaguely remembered Max connecting with someone the last time she “went out” under Dabbler’s illusion and wanted to read that mini-arc again, but don’t have time to do a page-by-page search right now.
here’s a 4th, just to make the quorum a quartet in quantity
here’s the start of the arc
https://www.grrlpowercomic.com/archives/comic/grrl-power-1155-war-paint/
Thank you, but it was really more of a global request. Any time a character gets upgraded to “regular guest” status they should get added to the “Who’s who” both on the current page (see Rowan and “Max in disguise”, above) *and* to the prior pages.
I mean, I always thought Dave added people to the “Who’s who” box when they both had speaking lines and were named, so Rowan really should have been added back when he was named, along with Shioh. Verner should as well, since he’s both talking and named. At least, that’s how he’s explained why someone *isn’t* in the “Who’s who” box before.
Not all rules are reflexive. Even if the rule was “they need to be named and have a speaking part”, that doesn’t imply that “all named characters who speak” will be shown in the Who’s Who. A requirement can be necessary without being sufficient.
And characters have been added to the Who’s Who before they were named, anyway. And even when they don’t speak on the page. It’s just if Dave thinks it’s important to remind the audience who a character is, and if he’s able to put in the work at the time to create an entry in the tagging system for it.
After Maxima comes into the break room:
Verner: Hello Ma’am. Can I help you?
Max: No, I’m here to see Doc. I know I’m a little early for our date, but I just got back from New Brunswick and wanted to see you.
Doc: What were you shooting up there?
Max: Ironically, a western. The working title of the movie is Trails of Justice.
Verner: Wait, you really are a stunt-woman and you are his girlfriend?!
Max: Yes and I think so.
Black guy: So what kind of stunts did you do in this movie? I guess you were riding lots of horses and shooting and stuff.
Max: No, I didn’t do equestrian stuff. We had other people for that. Let’s see. In one scene, the heroine is driving a team of horses on a stage coach. When the stage coach was really moving, we had a teamster up there, doing the actual driving. When the character fell from the stage coach, that was me. When it was the actress’s turn in the driver’s position, the coach was stopped and we just wiggled the thing to make it look like it was moving over rough ground, for a fixed camera.
While it’s good that you addressed what a mess the Lapha thing is, it’s kinda just lampshading since the outcome is predetermined.
“Greetings, hu-mon, I’m Garbulon IV a representative of the Federation here to talk abo-
“No.”
“Understandable, have a nice day.”
“Greetings hu-mon. We’ve been trying to get in touch with you about your car insurance…”
It would be amusing if they looked somewhat like geckos.
Or is that a different set of annoying ads?
Pander is conflating two things. so this is the Gecko’s scammy brother in law. he is selling car extended warranties.
*slow golf clap*
so, he’d look like a lounge lizard, then
Am I the only one who thinks we need more blue-eyed black haired biker maxima ? I dig this tangent with rowan and I’m all there for it ^_^
Definitely.
Anyone else think this relationship can’t possibly end well? Apart from the “you lied to me” aspect, is Max even capable of being in a ‘normal’ relationship? She’s the most powerful being on the planet since she was a teenager, spent most of her adult life in the military, and is now the head of an organization full of stress normal people can’t fathom. Sure, firefighting is stressful and requires a certain amount of discipline but in my opinion this is like Sarah Connor from T2 trying to date Bones Conway from In the Army Now.
Any guy who’d be mad that she didn’t tell him she’s a superhero when they first met would have shown a lot of other red flags by now.
Agreed. Plus ARCdark surely is watching any family member, business partner and paramour of ARCswat *thoroughly*, or they’d fail their duty miserably.
Ehhh. Knowing Dave’s style by now, when a reveal is going to happen there’s gonna be a shock, followed by discussion followed by a mutual understanding of each other’s situation.
Would be cool if they ended up fighting together in parallel to respond to a scene.
Back when the woods got caught on fire during the Succ-Off, I thought it would be hilarious if Rowan showed up to fight the fire, with Max showing up around the same time. As for keeping it secret, I think he’d be fine with it – they both went into it with the understanding it was going to be a fairly casual relationship (they’re both largely married to their jobs, and he has two “spouses” between the clinic and the firestation), so it’s not some huge betrayal that she wasn’t truthful with him. Plus, he’s clever enough to recognize the necessity of her keeping her identity secret. I hope that, when the truth does come out, they decide to keep dating – as others have noted, they’re a good match.
I’m so here for the inevitable “Batman meets Catwoman” moment of recognition when something’s on fire.
Or Harper forgetting she can’t fly.
Or them both having simultainious “Clark Kent has to hide” moments.
Or…
Maxima seems mostly well-adjusted and down-to-earth. She doesn’t have much of a superiority complex.
The stress she’s under at her job mostly has to do with people (wrangling “independent” subordinates like Sydney’
and Dabbler, dealing criminals on work release like Lapha, getting annoying suits off her back), which isn’t that different from a regular manager’s job and should be relatable for most humans.
I think a “normal guy” where she doesn’t have to be powerful heroine or hardass boss is exactly what she needs.
“You lied to me” is of course a potential issue, but at least she had a very good reason.
When you can’t really challenge a character physically, you challenge them with things they can’t solve by punching.
None of her stress can be solved by punching it. She probably finds actual attacks to be a relief.
Fortunately she’s not the main character. I found Superman fairly quickly got boring. Most of the stories I read were rising tension caused by things he couldn’t punch, until the climax when he finds out that it’s caused by something he could. He punches it, the end.
Count me among those who don’t think it‘s ~likely~ to end well (︶︹︺)
I for one think Rowan will be cool with it after a few minutes of introspection. When not goaded to crap by his sister, he is not a fool.
His sister now… Um… yeah. That might not end so well.
I dunno. Yes, she’s lying. But I don’t find it as much a breach of trust as they haven’t gotten very far into the relationship and being a super gives you a little leeway to hide things from your date.
People don’t usually expose every secret about themselves on the first date. And it’s not like this is an immoral lie (such as pretending you aren’t married or that you’ve had a vasectomy and don’t need condoms).
She’ll have to open up about it if things get serious, though.
Honestly, the bigger red flag for me is the guy bragging about her being his “girlfriend” when this is the first date (second of you count a brief meeting at a bar).
Sure, labels are bullcrap and people should move at their own pace. But I still think it’s a red flag.
We don’t know how many dates they’ve been on, but probably more than one. I doubt he would have mentioned it to his cow-orkers after just the initial encounter
I’d agree with you, except we don’t know what happened between them off-panel after they left the bar. They could have simply talked and decided to try dating for a while, under the condition that they don’t see other people until they both agree to call off the relationship. Dave already mentioned that Max isn’t someone to just jump into bed with a guy, and with both of their careers eating up so much of their time, taking the relationship slowly makes sense. Especially since Max is referring to Rowan as ‘her man’ in the last panel.
There have clearly been more dates than just their initial hookup from the bar.
A not insignificant amount of time has passed between that evening at the bar and now.
It would be rather odd for Maxima to just randomly pop into the fire station for a visit AND refer to him as “my man” after only 1 date.
More dates and actual mutual confirmation between them of being in a relationship has definitely happened between the scenes here.
Yeah, there is for sure at least one villain mustache present, one Apone mustache and our erstwhile Rowan has a mustache that screams protagonist (evil or good he’s da man) ;)
I just noticed the hoses hanging from the ceiling. They would never do it like that. The reason the hoses are hung from the fire hall ceiling after use is to allow them to drain and dry. They are always hung so the openings are down to allow them to drain. As drawn, these hoses would hold water at the bottom of the loops and take forever to dry out. Many fire halls have a tower where the hoist is to lift the hoses in an out-of-the-way location. Two-story (or higher) halls can hide the hose hoist in some of the structure for the second floor.
Hey! I know of two firehouses with towers, both in the same style and probably built around the same time. I always wondered about the towers. Now I know what they’re for.
While a lot of fire stations still have a hose tower, modern hoses made of synthetics (instead of cotton) have led to newly-built stations often not having one at all.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fire_hose#Modern_usage
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hose_tower
Chances are that *these* hoses have been put up to do some repair work on them, while keeping the brunt of their length out of the way of the vehicles.
Just walk in and say.. hey long time lets get a steak ..
“Giving her the option of jail or work release is not slavery, as some of the more hyperbolic commenters suggested.”
No, it isn’t. But… Probably worth mentioning, just for context, that the 13th amendment actually has an exception for slavery when it’s a criminal penalty: “except as a punishment for crime whereof the party shall have been duly convicted,”
That’s why prison labor isn’t unconstitutional, for instance.
Always good to see an informed comment from a VC longtime member.
I don’t know Max, you better be careful. Having Dabbler tinker with the collar with the way human tech is able to shrink a camera size down you have to know that Dabbler can cram a smaller one in that choker. If not to keep tabs on Max then to work on getting that full Monty shot she’s always wanted.(or just entertainment) Adding the feature to not make her weirdly slippery, I can see it now. Someone uses a microwave near her and suddenly she’s broadcasting live and chewing through the battery at twice the rate. Setting up for one HELL of a reveal.
She got the collar from Dabbler in the first place (technically it was a gift from everyone, but Dabbler’s the one who procured and presented it). And immediately after they first tested it and found out she was still shiny (making her look oily), Dabbler tinkered with it (with help from Cora, Krona, and Leon) in order to make a shader to avoid that issue. So she’s already had ample opportunity to put stuff like hidden cameras, trackers, poorly-considered charm auras (which she already put on and almost made Maxima’s first night out a disaster, but has now removed), etc in the collar.
It wasn’t how the collar made her skin look, it was how the collar made her skin feel.
I was talking about the first modification Dabbler made to the collar, back at the triple birthday party (Sydney, Max, and one of the clothing ninja). When Max activated it, they found her skin was still shiny, making her look oily, so they coded a shader into it to prevent that. It was only during her first date with Rowan that Max discovered the “weirdly slippery” issue and asked Dabbler to fix it. My point was that Dabbler already had ample opportunity to do something sneaky with the choker (and in fact already did by putting that charm aura on it), so letting her tinker with it again wasn’t some new risk.
She could have done that at literally any point in time she wanted.
If she’d put a camera in it, she wouldn’t have been freaking out about potentially accidentally ramping up Maxima’s appeal with the choker the evening Max went to the bar the first time. She’d have just checked the camera to make sure everything was going right.
Besides, Dabbler has pretty much toned down the getting into Maxima’s panties to half-sincere harmless running joke levels. Especially with Max willingly going out on the prowl.
“Point water at hot thing ”
What a burn
Its good they are at the firefighting station, they will provide enough help for that
There’s a bit more to it than that, but I did see a trainee during class trying for several seconds to jam the nozzle of a 3″ hose onto the coupler on the pumper truck… I still don’t know how he got the hose backwards in the first place! I was working the controls of the of the pump and he comes up, in a big rush, poke, poke, “what’s wrong with this thing?” I couldn’t breathe… He got the nick-name “wrong way” LOL!
heh. you’re a fire-fighter, the fire isn’t supposed to WIN. So, how do you use a funnel at home? What end does the ketchup come out the bottle in your universe? Soooo many burns could be made.
Enough stress can make you forget your own name.
It was a training exercise, I had already been through it more than once but we have to “refresh” it every 6 months or so, plus new trainee’s get the input from guys that are more experienced. But this guy, Jeesh! Must have been his first time! We all kept telling him to relax, it’s just a fake fire in a fake “house”, relax!
It sounds hilarious, don’t get me wrong. And “Wrong Way” sounds like a perfect handle – you’re not going to mistake him for someone else on the radio.
But stress is odd. In many ways it acts in a multiplicative way, not additive. So if the trainee had other stresses immediately before that particular exercise (taxes, trouble at home, not enough sleep), it could have caused odd interactions.
Dabbler _will_ find out about this.
And _I_ wanna sell tickets.
Max shut down Dabbler when she went out last time, and about set her hair on fire with “the look” when she came back. If anyone knows, it’s be Anvil!
I’d love to watch Max go all “girly”, walking up, working her hips, squeals, and trots up to give Rowan a big kiss on the cheek and says “Here you are baby!” lol! Rowan reaches overt to shut the big guy’s jaw before it hits the floor… I got the same crap about my wife until I showed the guys our wedding picture…
“How the hell did you land HER?!?” just treating her right.
“Does she have a sister?” Yeah but you’ll have to wait until she’s of age…
And of course my least favorite: “How much did it cost you to fake that pic?”
Some people…
My wife is coming up on 60, but I still see that shy, sweet, hot babe I met SO long ago ;)
The wait for the next strip is gonna kill me
“but as I was working on it I realized I wasn’t quite sure where it was going”
I mean, that’s an observable state for large swaths of this comic lol.
Generally the nature of a long-running serial. Few comics are thoroughly planned out, and even if the author does have a plan, they’re likely to be inspired to change it by the time they get around to actually creating some specific portion of it.
If they mentioned Canada, maybe there’s hope that Max has a lookalike cousin,but with a reddish brown hair, from Quebec and works for the RCMP…!?
Oh man. If this were a sitcom, you just know there would be an episode where Dabbler has to join her in some sort of double date in disguise thing…
new vote incentive!
I can’t get over how goofy he looks with that moustache
I can’t get over how goofy he looks with that moustache
Regarding trials for bad guys, I don’t think you need to go into great detail unless you want to. You could wrap it up in one panel. Have Lapha in court standing in front of a judge. The Judges word balloon would be something on the order of :
“…Lapha I hereby find you guilty of body snatching with the intent of kidnapping. You are sentenced to be remanded into the custody of ArcSWAT for the next ten years.” Done. Oh you could use the whole page if you want to get into detail.
Max looks super hot in that last panel, but hen she usually does and Rowan is one lucky sunuvagun.
No need to bother with minor details about minor characters. This comic have a lot of them it’s probably best to be efficent with limited space on the pages.
Evangeline Lilly is not real, just like birds.
And France
I don’t exist , therefore du to my geographical location, and my citizenship.
Its like saying you are from Narnia or Oz or Hyboria.
“Laughs from the GalactoNet…
“There’s this hoax crew trying to convince the Galaxy that this planet full of intelligent chimpanzees (a few pictures of humans, taken by UFO over Iceland) that can barely get into low orbit also builds Nth Tech Omnitools (that is what it is, isn’t it?). The planet is a favorite of hoaxters, as witness the equally crazy claim that an earth person destroyed a Fel warship…by staring at it.
How can anyone believe this nonsense?
If they are sufficiently far , it could be an out of date new.
Imagine you are at 85 LY and you will catch 1939 BBC television broadcast , your image of earth is a little bit outdated.
Imagine a technological leap for il a second Fel warship go to EU and even if they don’t had maxima a bunch of level 6 to 8 super blow it up.
If earth enter in conflict with fel a common foe could unite earth , and if the war last like le longest on earth – 116 years – it could change views , specism becoming the new racism.
FYI, max acting as “both cop and judge” is actually not that unusual. One of the dirtier aspects of the modern US justice system is that prosecutors routinely have massive amounts of leverage in plea discussions, and they tend to unfold more like mafia shakedowns than actual negotiations. Theoretically a defendant could always go to trial…but doing so will cause the prosecutor to add like a dozen extra charges, bumping what might be, say, a couple months in jail for drug possession to a decade behind bars, for possession with intent to distribute.
Need to go back and tag rowan on 1158, 1163, 1164, 1165, 1166, 1167, and 1168
Isn’t this supposed to be numbered as the 1258th one? not the 1256th?
The rather easy handwavey explanation is that Archon has a US Attorney essentially permanently attached (probably has an office a few doors down from Ariana) who is empowered to draw up plea deals based on Archon’s recommendations (with the bill that established Archon probably having some fine print to pave the way for some nonstandard solutions to ensure everyone’s safety in as humane a way as possible), a judge signs off, bing-bam-boom, done. No trials involved unless the supervillain in question is REALLY stubborn about getting their day in court.
Arianna *is* Archon’s attorney. Remember when Sydney was signing her contract? Arianna told her she wasn’t going to have Sydney sign anything that would cause Arianna to sue herself.
And busting Hench Wench’s contract?
Yes, that as well. :)
I missed that. I’m pretty sure that’s not allowed by any bar. It certainly seems to me that it would be a conflict of interest to act as counsel for both sides in a real or potential lawsuit.
Each side retaining a *different* lawyer working for the same firm? That might be allowed. I think you’d have to have different researchers as well as different representation in court.
I’m not a lawyer though.
Time to be a girlboss (extra girly style).
So what happened to Garahm? He get an Archon super cell? Being interrogated? Does he get conjecul visits with Lapha?
He’s probably still in an Archon holding cell while the higher-ups discuss Lapha’s suggestion of him working alongside her. I’d assume they had a dossier of whatever Cora was able to dig up about him so they can assess what assets he would bring to the team and how much of a risk having the both of them work together would be (he seems reasonable enough to make a reliable addition to the team on his own, but he’s admitted difficulty in avoiding getting caught up in Lapha’s schemes). I’m assuming the two will ultimately wind up continuing to work together, for Archon rather than for themselves.
I’m always down for more Max & Waluigi
Seriously, human-disguised Max makes me think of the late Julie Strain. 6 foot 1 and worth the climb, as the line goes. Teenage 90’s crush for me.
Shioh said the same thing about the Maxima / Julie Strain similarity.
https://www.grrlpowercomic.com/archives/comic/grrl-power-1163-abracadatebra/
isn’t this supposed to be 1258?
Yay! I was hoping Max had established a relationship with Rowan. Not sure why she wouldn’t just call him, but this is fine. :) Kind of surprised he works with kids, though; I was expecting more physician than pediatrician, but meh. On the other hand, plenty of opportunity for him to ID super kids before they cause a lot of property damage, perhaps?
As far as fire-fighting shows go, can’t say I’m familiar with the one you’ve mentioned. I have, however, been following Fire Department Chronicles on Youtube (or Tiktok, if you have it), which has proven amusing in the “dumb things people have called emergency for and people who haven’t taken XYZ seriously enough” category.
Also, not sure ‘paramour’ is the word you want to use, here? It sounds like it should be fine, but it’s defined as ‘a person with whom someone is having a romantic or sexual relationship and especially a secret or improper relationship.’ Which, I mean, the secret part works, since she likely wants to keep Dabbler far away from Rowan, except Kenya would likely know the details, but neither is having an affair, and that seems to be the main usage.
Where are you getting the information that he works with kids? Or that he is involved in preventing property damage by super kids?
He’s probably getting the information that he works with kids from the Who’s Who that says ‘A pediatrician and part-time fire fighter.’
No idea where the property damage by super kids part came from though. I think that he’s just saying that, since he does work with kids, it would give an opportunity for him to ID kids who wind up being super.
I hadn’t noticed the Who’s Who entry, so that accounts for the “works with kids”. I’m just confused as to where the assumption that he has any particular motivation to “ID super kids” comes from. Just seems like people engage in wild fantasies, and then treat them as facts. They want someone to become a main cast member, and engaged in all the same things as the other cast members, rather than allowing for a complete world where the characters do different things. Not everyone’s lives in the Grrlpower universe needs to revolve around supers.
It’s almost like how Dave is amused by labeling everything that involves aliens “space whatever”. Like there’s nothing normal in space, it’s all space cops and space college and space ice cream. But I think the point is that it’s a joke. The comic itself isn’t premised on everyone’s lives becoming about supers now that they’ve been revealed. Life goes on. There’s just super crime and super cops now.
Dabbler’s gonna be soooooooo mad to miss this.
Meanwhile in Archon; “..Succubus…Senses.. Tingling!.. Somewhere, a protege is learning to ‘spread her wings’!… AND I AM MISSING IT!!!”
Dabbler: Max is about to haz Sexytimez? *Strikes superhero pose* THIS looks like a job for-!
*glances across the room to where Kenya is GLARING at her*
Dabbler: – Max to handle herself! *grins sheepishly at K* While we… root for her on the sidelines! Yay?
Kenya: Damn straight.
Dabbler: Yay! *to herself* UGH, prudes…
You know it wouldn’t be a superhero pose, it’d be a magical girl pose!
*imagining Dabbler going through the entire Sailor Moon spiel, (or attempting to) and being unable to finish it because she’s giggling so hard*
I’m not sure if Sydney would be laughing or helping with that.
Vote incentive idea?
Sydney showing her the moves
After seeing these two doofs, Rowan’s awesome 70’s porn star moustache is looking better by the minute…
Well, it was only a 50-50 chance of a smash cut to supervillains, Sydney can’t always call it. Come to think of it, she almost never calls it. But when she does, we remember! There’s a phrase for that…
I’m guessing Max and Rowan haven’t actually done anything that would get Dabbler worked up, yet. If I were Max, I’d be worried about that choker passing the “naked test”.
Max asked for Dabbler to attempt to tweak the choker to make her skin feel less “weirdly silky and slippery“, and implied that someone had reason to comment on it to her. So there was almost certainly some touching, though it’s unclear how much disrobing or other activities may have occurred.
Yeah.
“Weird skin? Yeah sorry, I tried a new moisturizer. I don’t think I’ll be keeping it.”
You know, ever since the night out I’d been wondering whether Max thought of Rowan as a one-time-fling or relationship material. Looks like they are indeed dating now, so good for them :)
This also means there’s a potential to have some Shioh/Sydney craziness interaction in the future.