Grrl Power #1278 – Alpha sucker punch
In reality, I don’t actually know how much of a speed advantage the smaller guy has in a fight. Overall mass is probably more of a factor. A chonky 5′ fighter vs a 6′ 4″ lanky dude? I suppose fighting style is a factor as well.
The thing is, given the square cube law, there’s probably more of a difference between a 5′ 10″ lean muscled guy and a bunch of beefcakes topping 7′ than there is between a 5′ and 6′ fighter, so speed could actually become a significant factor at some point.
Drawing this page taught me a few things, 1) Drawing a shitload of speedlines isn’t necessarily faster than drawing proper backgrounds. 2) That for as long as I’ve been doing this comic, I’m still not very good at drawing action scenes. There’s a lot more of an art to speed lines than I really appreciate until I start trying to lay them in. I think the ones on this page are too… thick? Dense? 3) Flipping through One-Punch Man for action scene references will make anyone feel inadequate about their ability to draw action scenes. The fact that there are dedicated background artists and there’s probably a guy just for speed lines and I wouldn’t be surprised if there was a guy whose job is just drawing rubble doesn’t change the fact that I want my action scenes to look better. I recognize there’s another huge difference between my comic and something like OPM, in that shonen type manga tend to put out roughly two pages a day. At that rate, they can spend 8 pages on one guy sword slashing another dude to bits, where if I tried that the scene would take a month. That doesn’t mean I can’t still do a cool action set piece, but in practical terms it probably means my action scenes will be a little more terse.
That said, I’m going to try and improve my action skills over the next few pages, though I am limited by the fact that no one is going to chop a city block in half during this fight, or shatter the entire base, or do anything that would register above an 8.5 on the Richter Scale.
Oh, and I think this will be explained a few pages in, but they decided to go full contact because between the med-bay on Cora’s ship and Doc Chevy, anything short of a torn brain or a missing eyeball can be fixed up in fairly short order.
The new one is almost ready! Just have to finish up some clothes so… soon?
The new vote incentive is up!
Oh no! Superheroines in a deathtrap! Well… a tickle trap. Okay, not trapped, trapped, but… look, three of the girls are getting tickled. Actually, in a way, seven girls are getting tickled since the other four Harems will feel this as well, but technically it’s only the three shown in the picture since Harem insists there’s only one of her – it’s just confusing since she can be in 5 places at once.
As you can probably imagine, Patreon shows what happens if they laugh, and also has a comic revealing who is behind this nefarious situation.
Double res version will be posted over at Patreon. Feel free to contribute as much as you like.
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Ah, in panel 5, did Math’s foot pass harmlessly through Gellen’s head? Because your speed line behind his head, and the way his hair is trailing, sure makes it look like it.
Gellen dodged by falling forward and down, that’s how I read it.
That’s how I read it, too. And that doesn’t work, because the speed line shows where Math’s foot was earlier, and if Gellen is falling *down*, he was higher earlier. While the fact that his torso was vertical earlier and is now horizontal means his head has been moving back, not forward. So if the speed line is behind his head NOW, the foot should have hit him.
Really, the speed line should have been *above* and *in front of* Gellen’s head, if he’d successfully dodged the foot strike that way.
I guess you can put it down to an awkward upward looking perspective, though.
Can’t argue with Math here, though. Doesn’t matter how strong you are if the other guy is enough faster that your punches never land and his always do.
I’d say it’s the perspective. That frame is being viewed from below. Gellen’s hair should be disturbed by Math’s foot passing through it but that can probably be forgiven here.
As for speed, Math’s smaller frame and comparable musculature (from a scalar perspective; he’s about as well-muscled as Cora’s boys, but has overall less muscle mass simply because he’s smaller) should indeed give him a sizable speed advantage, thanks to the square/cube law – if he’s 70% their height, he’d be roughly 70% as strong but roughly 50% their weight, making him 1.2x as strong per lb. Math has also trained specifically to make use of his speed, in addition to having an incredible level of skill, which is likely to functionally make him even faster. A 50% speed advantage over them wouldn’t be too out there. Is that enough to make up for the fact they each have about a 50% strength advantage over him in addition to outnumbering him? We’ll see, but unless Gellen was able to tank that hit to the solar plexus (or whatever the equivalent is for his species), their 4-to-1 advantage may have just dropped to 3-to-1, at least until he can catch his wind again. In theory, their best bet may be to try to force it into a grappling match, where their greater strength can make the difference – he’s got too much of a speed advantage for them to be able to make use of their reach advantage. But skill is a strength of its own, so if their skill at grappling is too much lower than his, he’ll probably be able to escape or even reverse the grapple. My guess is that if two of them manage to grapple him at the same time, or if one manages to grapple him long enough for another to land a solid hit, the boys will win; if they can’t, victory will go to Math – and indeed his best bet is to divide and conquer, turning this into a series of brief 1-on-1 bouts to wear them down. But, again, we’ll see how it goes.
I’m pretty sure he actually has the strength advantage. Any of the boys would be hard-pressed to ragdoll Concretia like Math did.
It should have whipped through his hair. I could have done that better.
His hair is holographic? Damnit DaveB. This is one hell of a hard way to figure things out. I’d guess Math would be confused by the lack of hair drag too.
It’s always entertaining when Math cuts loose. His preternatural skill just makes him a natural slapstick entertainer in these events. And we haven’t really seen him fight to a point where he can show off. After all his previous best fight had him against his natural weakness, cleavage.
Well, apparently it does help if you can get in the first hit and take initiative away from the other guy(s).
…and stamina. If you don’t have the necessary stamina to do all the speedy moves, you can’t maintain a fight for long (which means that taking out your opponents as fast as you can is obligatory).
People underestimate how exhausting a fight is. Most people are fulled gassed out like 30 seconds in. Lucky if they make it a minute. Even if you’re strong and have decent stamina, it engages everything in a different way and adds adrenaline. Even fit people get burnt out fighting very quickly.
‘Atomic Blonde’ handles this well.
Frix looks worried, he probably understands that this isn’t going to be easy given Maths can take on all but two of the team in a fight.
Nah, he was just caught offguard, and possibly thought he was gonna be the first target
And unless Sydney has been spilling team-secrets, how would he know that Math can beat all but two in a straight fight? (almost typed ‘fair fight’, but fights are never ‘fair’)
It’s not much of a team secret since Sydney was told about it even BEFORE she joined the team officially.
Plus Frix was probably told it if Math was being given in depth information on Cora’s crew’s biological makeup (and weak spots, from what I was seeing with the tablet last comic).
Math better take it easy on Frix if he doesnt want to incur the wrath of Sydney though.
Right in the squiggly-whatever-Galen-has-instead-of-a-human-diaphragm-spooch!
“A man can’t breathe, he can’t fight.”
Math just cut their numerical advantage by 25%, so I am adjusting my odds to 3:2, still in Math’s favor.
Eh, size is a literally massive advantage in real world fights – that’s why you have weight categories. Also, the weight categories tend to be narrower in striking martial arts than grappling ones, which is initially counter-intuitive, but being bigger in, say, a boxing match means you can hit harder, block a heavier hit, have more reach and tend to be punching downwards (more effective) while your opponent is punching upwards (less effective).
Comic book logic differs, obviously :-)
Punch upwards means you can target the soft organs usually protected by the ribcage more easily than punching down
Also, if you are smaller (or shorter), you can more easily dodge and duck head blows, which is where taller fighters tend to focus on
Punching someone in the head is a good way to end up with fractured or dislocated fingers, and an angry and irritated opponent. If you knock someone’s teeth out you’re just going to piss them off and end up with a nasty infected wound in your hand. There’s only a few very small places on the human head that’ll knock someone for a loop. Nerve bundle at the temple, bridge of the nose, throat, boxing their ears, and base of the skull.
Throat and base of skull have a chance of accidentally killing your victim, and boxing their ears can deafen them.
It’s pretty rare to have such a height advantage that you can’t nail someone in the guts, groin, nerve clusters in legs or arms, etc…
In a lot of full contact martial arts the goal is to knock your opponent off their feet and stomp them while they’re down.
As I always say, “The way to a man’s heart is through his stomach, then up behind the ribcage.”
There was that classic exchange in Ramna 1/2, where Akane was telling Shampoo that the way to a man’s heart was through his stomach. Her reply was in that vein; Obviously, otherwise the ribs got in your way.
Yeah it’s a good thing comedy and superhero comics don’t have to care about realism.
Well, one of the big reasons size matters is that it corresponds to strength. But Math gets to cheat with super martial arts and therefore can hit hard enough even though he’s significanctly smaller.
I used to do a little judo when in school. Worst matchup for me was the little guy. My hip lined up against his chest so I could generate basically no leverage.
Though in an actual fight I’d probably have just sat on him.
If you want to see a truly absurd example of comics ignoring that, look up a webcomic called Star Impact. It’s a sort-of-boxing strip (with magical gloves) that tries to play things straight, but the character designs are so over-the-top that the protag is just starting a major professional match against an opponent whose fists are about half the size of her entire “hit box” and that’s if you include her hair. It would be nearly impossible for either of them to land a legal blow without connecting below the belt.
It’s very hard to remain invested in the premise, frankly.
It’s only an illegal move in ‘Professional’ Boxing (which is completely rigged by the way)
You may wish to do some research on Kung Fu and potential fight scenes. Math is on one foot and over extended. It’s a clear exploitable mistake unless Math can defy gravity and physics (which canon suggests he cannot). Clearly the opponent is not great at fighting and lost his form near immediately and Math would have exploited this but likely with a drop kick or stamp from using the moment from the same roundhouse. Against a better fighter this would be a mistake as consecutively large moves leave you wide open (but not as open as falling in mid air over extended with your core wide open for a swift kick).
You don’t need to worry too much about speed lines, make a simplistic background then blur against the direction of the main action. So if punching left, blur right. Don’t you can add three to four lines if the punch has suddenly changed directory maybe with a spiky bubble to indicate a strike. Really doesn’t need to be complicated or hard work.
Technically you don’t need to blur at all you can completely do it strike by strike as long as we can logically interpret the movements our imaginations will do the rest of the work.
That said, all credit, I cannot draw for toffee and have been following for years (including voting :D), your efforts are appreciated and I hope my comments are taken as constructive and not a slight on your excellent work.
I think considering Math’s general attitude of feeling unchallenged by most opponents, and things like the “idiotic grapple” he displayed, that he’s deliberately fighting in non-optimal ways to make it more interesting for himself. He’s valuing flashiness over safety. He’s not worried about leaving himself open or off-balance, because he can correct fast enough should anyone try to actually exploit those states or punish him for them. One day maybe he’ll underestimate an opponent and his arrogance will actually cause him to lose a fight.
Yes,no one wants 6 pages of posing/explaining your style of kung fu before someone throw’s a punch.
Do you want DBZ?! Because that’s how you get DBZ!
The problem is the small guy can hit more often
But the big guy need to hit only once
Size does matter (or why do weight class exist in every martial art competition)
Probably because in the real world there is not that much of a disparity of speeds among the contestants so another criteria was required. In this Barrett Universe, Math is in a class by himself – real world criteria does not apply.
They *really* should have asked the question “why is this normal human on a team designed to combat people with super-powers?” . Math is probably the most skilled combatant on the team and the fact that Max acknowledges says it all.
In hand to hand unarmed combat , perhaps in melee , but definitively not in ranged combat.
And his style is four color kung-fu a supernatural martial art without any pretense of realism.
Despite Max’s demonstration, and how generally impressed Cora’s crew was with the whole team, I don’t think they quite realize that Math is considered to be near the upper, rather than lower, end of the scale. The cast page, though horribly out of date, puts his power level above everyone but Max, Dabbler, and Hiro.
Max has beaten Hiro in a sparring match. The only ones he hasn’t beaten are Maxima and Dabbler… and he only was beaten by Dabbler because she used magic (”sticky air”).
Draw Fight Scenes Like a Pro by Jeff Johnson. I used to have this book and totally recommend it. The author has a legit experience in both martial arts and western comic book drawing. see Marvel’s Wonder Man in the early 90’s. Malibu comics Solitaire and CrossGen comics Way of the Rat.
While Math’s positioning is not great, he is right. Speed and technique matter a lot more than size and strength in martial arts. Only when speed and technique are equal does size or strength matter. Considering that even as an orange belt (and I am trained to much higher) I was breaking boards and capable of breaking bones with technique, strength really isn’t a factor (unless it gets to a grapple of some sort like Judo or Aikido).
> (unless it gets to a grapple of some sort like Judo or Aikido).
Which is where it becomes important in this fight. Math absolutely cannnot deploy grappling techniques here, even though he’s skilled with them. The instant he goes to ground with one opponent the others start kicking. But Team Cora’s Stud’s can use both striking and grappling. One valid technique is to simply encircle Math, then take a few hits while closing the circle enough for two people to grapple.
This page is the first round, and Math clearly has the initiative. I’m curious how Dave will show the reaction from TCS. Will it be 100% one-sided Math, or will they get a few licks in?
And Math would see that coming and simply leap over their heads out of the impending circle. (Remember, he is super agile!)
Jumping into the air is usually a bad idea as you lose the ability to change your motion. Surefire way to get hit and not much can be done to defend.
Exactly.
But here’s where “super” vs “so good it’s basically super” comes in. I don’t care how “good” you are, no non-super is doing a standing jump clear over an opponent who’s 7ft+ with a 3ft vertical reach, and that’s ignoring that the opponent can also jump or step backwards and catch him on the way down. And if Math slips through the ring once they just re-form and try again and again until one of them gets a hold.
But that tactic would be boring in a comic, so I don’t think Team Cora’s Studs will use it.
Related, but I had a thought about the background action in the last comic and didn’t say anything. Jabberwocky is shown at the top of a straight vertical leap where she is 3x her body height in the air. That requires “super” leg strength, but it’s been confirmed that she is actually a “super”. They keep saying Math is not.
It’d be very amusing if they were lying when they said Math wasn’t super.
Obviously if you were VERY skilled, you could run with the supers crowd.
But the way opponents would try to deal with you would change if they had no idea you were super so it’d be a sensible thing for your organization to keep secret as long as possible.
The bad guys might try to tie you up with rope or lock you behind normal bars while not knowing you had some amount of superstrength. Or try to subdue you with poison gas while not knowing that breathing is optional for you. Or try to wear you down while not knowing that you never get fatigued from physical activity. Or try to deal with you in darkness while not realizing you can see in the dark.
There’s a lot of subtle powers which become more useful if they’re kept secret.
It’s important to mention that “super” means something specific and there are other ways to get superhuman powers. For example, Sydney is not a super, and this can be measured: https://www.grrlpowercomic.com/archives/comic/grrl-power-80-she-used-this-spell-to-scan-a-hotdog-once-once/
The list Gwen gave, demons, vampires, weres, etc., Krona, Vale, Sydney all have superhuman abilities without being supers.
So when they say Math isn’t a super, that’s likely true, but that doesn’t mean he’s limited to human anything.
A smaller person can absolutely put a less skilled bigger person into a joint lock.
They have to be WAY better at fighting than their victim and be strong for their size though.
I have firsthand seen a woman (a very strong woman mind you) put a man half again her size into a wristlock that had him on his knees.
If Math is as preternaturally good at martial arts as he’s supposed to be, he can probably look at a Woof and see how the bones and ligaments are arranged.
the post your replying to is more saying that the moment Math puts one of his four opponents in any form of grapple the other three are free to attack him
Depends on if Math goes for a joint lock, or a joint manipulation (or snap)
One maintains contact for a counterable duration, the other is almost instant (and very painful)
This is why grappling is so very good in one-on-one yet essentially useless on the battlefield or any other “group on group” – the one doing the grappling is just as vulnerable to other people as the one being grappled (and quite possible MORE vulnerable, depending on the hold).
Of course, there are some techniques that would technically be considering a type of grappling that are quite fast to execute, do not result in any kind of longer term hold/grapple, and do injure your opponent rather dramatically*… but considering this is a friendly spar, those are very unlikely to be used.
* One of the quickest I’ve heard of is, I suppose, technically a form of joint lock? You get one of your opponent’s hands in both of your own, taking 2 fingers in each of your hands, and pull apart vertically – that is, two fingers go UP, two fingers go DOWN. The stuff holding the hand together (between the knuckles and the wrist) aren’t really all that strong, so the victim’s hand will generally split right in two to the wrist. Can be executed very quickly, is really nasty and messy… and incredibly effective. Or so I’ve been told by people with more combat expertise than myself.
Math could use the body of his fallen opponent as an obstacle to keep all his remaining opponents from closing on him at the same time.
If he can deal with them essentially one at a time, the odds of him winning the fight go up dramatically.
That’s oversimplified. Strength/size and speed/skill both matter.
“Considering that even as an orange belt (and I am trained to much higher) I was breaking boards and capable of breaking bones with technique, strength really isn’t a factor”
The bigger and tougher you are, the more resistant to damage you are. Sure, a healthy human able to hit at will be able to whittle down any other human, but a) that takes a rather large skill discrepancy b) in Grrl Power, there are those who are tougher than any human c) the weaker you are, the longer it takes, and the more risk of eating a counterattack or simply tiring out.
Kung fu is faster than the punchline?
The cast page says Math has energy projection on par with Heatwave, are we finally going to get to see that?
No it doesn’t.
Alright, I missed the mugshot panel that claims he does.
Not sure DaveB’s going to stick with that claim though.
Have we seen Heatwave shooting balls of fire? Or is that what happens to Morph after they ‘play’ a little too rough in bed?
So far, it’s just been a heat aura and melting cans in her hands?
When the Fel attacked she projected heat over a distance to cook off their grenades. So not fireballs, but she can “shoot” heat.
All else being equal, smaller guys will have a slight advantage predominantly in stamina thanks to needing to expend slightly less energy to move their slightly reduced mass and having a higher ratio of surface area to internal volume that will let them cool off just a hair faster. As for speed, it can drop off with size, but real life not having to be as balanced as a video-game (or being subject to DBZ’s “bigger muscles are slower” issue) means it doesn’t usually do so nearly as fast as power, durability, and reach provide advantage that more than compensates, hence why there are so many weight-classes in fighting sports.
Shut up Sydney! You think ‘Kung Fu Hustle’ invented that phrase?
Do you have any references prior to Kung Fu Hustle for that exact phrasing? The idea is older, sure, but the line seems like a specific reference.
Sydney should still shut up.
She’s not the only one who knows pop-culture references, and getting tired of her getting pissed when someone else uses some
In reality a skilled fighter will not stand in the middle and try to fight one at a time. There lies being dragged down and stomped. S/he will moved around the outside lining them up, redirecting one into others, and cracking through as needed.
What you want to do with OPM is go back and look at the original web version that ONE had to draw himself. It looks like shit, BUT- and this is the amazing thing, the bad art lets you see that ONE is the master of the layout. Even with everything drawn in an incredibly crude fashion, the way he positions the characters communicates movement and action. It’s a great way to show yourself the difference in importance between art and layout, and layout is arguably more important in action scenes.
There’s a reason there’s weight classes.
Weight classes are for fights with rules and referees.
Sure the reason there are weight classes is that the point of the match is to evaluate skill, so ideally you want skill to be the only difference between the competitors. You don’t want a big, relatively unskilled guy to beat a small, highly skilled guy, just because he can tank a few blows and then fall on his opponent. That’s boring.
But skill can compensate for weight difference, in a match between Andre the Giant and Bruce Lee, Bruce wins every time, even if Andre would clean the floor with a guy Bruce’s size who only had Andre’s skills.
I love the mental image of Andre fighting Bruce Lee
The other reason is to demonstrate how good the fighter’s trainers are at rigging the weigh in process.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MmvARGcG-Ns
If link does not work Dr. Chris Raynor YouTube video on dangers of extreme weight cutting.
Mostly because Andre’s back was so messed up he couldn’t really fight that well irl ;)
Once he got his hands on Bruce though, it would be over. Remember, they were BOTH working off of scripts and size does matter.
That said, one of our sayings was “there isn’t a criminal made six Officers can’t take” and that’s the way it works outside of movies and gyms.
That was towards the end of Andre’s career, not if we are talking Peak Performance (no ED) Andre
Who do you think wrote Bruce’s scripts? And those were mostly for the other actors
Yes, because those are supposed to be fair.
In a streetfight, the bigger guy will have a notable advantage (especially in the case of similar fitness levels). The smaller guy will need a skill advantage to equalize it.
You guys are applying real world rules to a fictional universe where Math’s speed and skill is so far advanced as to not even be contemplated.
Yes, but my comment was more to the comment made by the creator on speed advantage.
There was a fight I recently watched, with 2 MMA fighters up against a bigger MMA fighter. The two small guys lost. :p
But you’re right, the rules are different in a super power universe, which is why I like super power universes. It allows me to accept things that if I saw otherwise, I might go “Well…I don’t know about that…”
Well, insofar as energy matters, kinetic energy is 0.5 mass * speed squared, so if halving the speed decreases linearly with mass, smaller and faster is better (e.g. half the mass, twice the speed gives you double the kinetic energy at constant momentum). I doubt it’s linear in reality though.
The equation is correct, but does not apply how you say. “Big” guys are always assumed to be slower, but that only applies when they are trying to move their entire mass like with sprinting or dodging. So yes, a big guy may have trouble dodging blows from a more nimble little guy, and may have trouble hitting him because his punches can’t change direction as quickly.
But that doesn’t apply to the punch itself. A punch from a big guy is as fast or faster than a punch from a small guy. So the mass is bigger and potentially also the speed.
I watched a show several years ago that measured various fighting parameters on a dozen or so masters of a variety of fighting styles, from grapplers to kickboxing to kung fu to an American heavyweight boxer. They tested speed, agility, grip strength, punching force, kicking force, etc. The American boxer was the biggest and slowest of the group in almost every test. EXCEPT, he had, by a wide margin, the fastest and most forceful straight punch. This result surprised even the boxer, but it makes sense if you stop to think about it.
On the subject of speed lines:
I’m not an artist, but it feels like having them follow notable features/potrusions of the object moving at speed is a good idea. For example, in the foot swipe, have them follow the (gaps between the) toes. Have them simmilar to the vapor trails of wing tips.
You could also try something closer to a mach cone for tha ‘aura’ around the heel/fist.
Marvel’s Master of Kung Fu comic book series (1974-1983) did an excellent job at layout, speed lines, and letting the reader follow the progress of a martial arts fight from panel to panel.
Steal from the best, and Kung Fu Hustle is Teh Best. (One Punch Man is also Teh Best)
well the speed thing is more in line with it doesnt matter how hard you hit if you cant hit, but on the other hand the speed fighter will either need to compensate lesser power with either number of hit or precision.
Speed Counts. A Lot! Consider Bruce Lee, 5’8″ 140 pounds. He was not a big guy. He was hard to hit and was capable of packing a lot of power into his strikes. It’s kinda like wrestling with a 3 year old. they are a pain to outfight without hurting them.The problem isn’t power. They have short arms, short legs, and your only option is to overpower them, because they are so damn quick. If someone in that size had the skills of a seasoned fighter they would be devastating.
Bruce Lee had the perfect balance between muscle mass and tone. I was 5’8″ but I hit 175lbs. So I never did match his speed. That’s the real trick: to find the balance. He also did something that no other martial arts actor did, he used REAL moves. In most cases it’s not real fighting, it’s a dance practiced in a gym mat until it “looks” real. I’d get tips just by watching his movies, other movies you can see the wires if you look close enough. Or spot the gap the actors had between the fist/foot and the opponent. Master Lee could punch you and to the world, you got punched, when in fact he’d pull it at the very last split-second so he’d touch you hard enough to make it look real, but almost no harm done, his control was THAT good. Yeah, I’m a fan…
How can you NOT like a martial artist who could play ping pong using nunchuks, and win? The guy was a real world Math.
From the point of a normal person untrained in martial arts, you would still consider him superhuman if you watch a few videos aside from his movies.
Some of this moves brought fictional moves into existence, like Pei Mei punching a hole into a wooden board in ‘Kill Bill Vol. 2’.
For a fight big mass versus multiple opponents check out “Eddie Hall vs Neffati Brothers”. I do not know how much faster the Neffati Brothers are, they did not show much of it. Enough to win the first two rounds because Eddie was not able to touch them. So at least a bit faster.
The memetic part is in the third round. (Spoiler: Nobody dies.)
Speed is certainly important. Bruce Lee was known (among other things) for his incredible speed.
Bruce was told to slow down because the camera could not catch his movements. That is mainly due to movie cameras not being sports cameras.
Bruce would lose to most professional fighters. He was a movie actor with limited actual fight experience.
One thing I can say for Bruce Lee, when he lost to Gene Lebell, his reaction was: “Well, here is something I still have to learn.” An other famous action star had a worse reaction in the same situation.
Many people thought that, but he was a true master of the art. I studied for years, trust me, those moves were quite real. I used a few when I’d have to defend myself. Jackie Chan had worked with Bruce Lee in his younger days (as a stunt-man/punching bag), and said as much. I know it’s hard to believe, but I’d suggest a deep dive into his past, he only acted because her was a poor man and hated it. Plus he was a bit of an asshole, so he refused to teach his art.
I’m not saying Bruce had no skills. Far from it. I’m sure he could get very far, even win, high level amateur competitions. He is just not the best there ever was or something. Comparing him to a professional fighter does neither one justice.
Well, no one has done that in this thread. But he was put on a very high pedestal as example for exceptional speed in fighting.
But there is a detail that should not be overlooked.
Bruce Lee rejected traditional styles, which makes it hard to put him into any competition or comparison. And competitions need those rules, limits and regulations to make comparisons, but then, it’s a sport.
So it’s hard to figure out how good he really was in an all-out fight.
“Game of Death” is an example of what would happen if Bruce was in a real fight: he knows so many disciplines there is really no way to counter him, as soon as you try he switches techniques
That’s the mark of a true master, accepting that he didn’t know everything. I am very sure after every loss he would study his mistakes and try to correct them, rather than do like most and pretend they cheated. Bruce Lee was a master of the art, he just used his skill to become an actor.
A classic fake-out, like a fake left-handed swing at the head followed by a groin kick or punch. Yeah that’s commonly called a “bad-sport” move, but if you’re fighting for you life against an opponent that’s twice your size, fair play goes out the window, you take the fastest route to success. Primary targets are: the nose, throat, the center of the chest, kidneys, solar plexus, groin, shins, and instep. If you can hit any 3 of those, any opponent will lose interest in the fight. If you can do all eight, they will be begging to surrender. All of those targets have the largest number of nerve endings, so hitting them is like getting hit by a tazor.
Your target list is very polite. You’re missing(at least) Eyes, Nasal Septum, eardrums, philtrum, ACL / MCL / LCL, Achilles Tendons.
I think the list he gave is the “not wanting to maim your opponent” list, as appropriate for sparring.
In life-or-death combat, yes, those are at least as good, but any of them can easily lead to permanent disability, and nasal septum can be fatal, depending on the angle of the hit (not just super common, but not nearly as rare as one would like is a spar, for sure).
“but if you’re fighting for you life against an opponent that’s twice your size, fair play goes out the window, you take the fastest route to success. Primary targets are: the nose, throat, the center of the chest, kidneys, solar plexus, groin, shins, and instep.”
If you’re fighting for your life, do not rely on pain compliance. Adrenaline is a hell of a thing. Over half of the listed “primary targets” are non-vital. Break things on your opponent so that it isn’t up to a choice of whether or not to continue fighting, remove that option from them altogether. If you’re not fighting for your life, one shouldn’t be fighting.
I don’t think that smaller guys have a significant speed advantage if any.
Also at least for the straight speed lines I expected you to have a configurable algorithm to do that for you. The curved ones in the final panel are more difficult to automate of course.
Years ago I met this Grand Master. He was 5 foot nothing. He told me that technique and speed can beat most every one. Also a good knoledge of the human body and how it’s put together can do a lot.
@DaveB speed lines…too many, too Straight, too tightly spaced.
I might suggest talking to Adam Warren who draws Empowered.
https://www.empoweredcomic.com/comic/volume-1-page-96
Empowered is easily tied with (if not a little bit ahead) of Grrl Power as my favorite super comic. <3
Nice background lines there, how did the author do that?
Speed will land more hits, but if ya don’t have the power behind it to affect the other guy it’s like getting tickled. Look at Eddie Hall vs the 2 blond guys as an example.
Also in that last panel…it irks me so…that punch would have no power cuz Math’s unbalanced! But it’s wow factor :p
That’s it. That right there sold it. Favorite webcomic. Possibly favorite hero verse published.
Strength and size have qualities all their own and no matter how often you tell yourself they’re slow and easy, that doesn’t make it hurt any less when they hit you. That said, I’ve seen a 5’8″ skinny Officer dump a 6’10” mountain on his face with one lucky move. Only once, but it was worth it, the guy was a complete ass who liked to hurt people and it looked good on him. I’ve also seen six 6’+ Officers try to control a 5’8″ guy on pcp and it wasn’t happening easily.
I really really really want someone to hand Math’s ass to him in a fight. Without using cleavage.
Be aware that most larger people are much faster than than they appear – it’s that if a large thing covers the same amount of distance as a small thing, they look slower. Um, consider a person one a motorcycle versus a big mecha walking. They might be moving at the same speed, but one of them is walking.
Now the square cube law does matter, particularly when you start topping 7′, but in my experience (ex-martial arts instructor, dabbler in many styles), what generally matters more is endurance / overheating. There’s a reason elephants have no fur and radiator ears, and outside of some alien physiology quirk, it’s really hard to improve how well you can dump heat.
Now, all of that said, Math has a massive advantage here, because what’s better than speed? (arguably under the category we perceive as speed?) Being early (and your opponent not being early). If Math can read their tells and they can’t read his tells, the difference there is going to be more than most physical differences.
And we know that Math is pretty good at this, which is what I figure for successes against assorted supers, etc.
(Another para-speed factor is reach: speed = distance/time, thus time = distance/speed. It’s one of the factors that makes up for square-cube, etc., particularly given how most lighter fighters prefer to exhaust their opponents by dancing around them and letting them chase. That said, Math almost certainly has what it takes for some spectacular in-fighting, which is generally a bad idea due to some amount of trading blows.)
Just some musings on size.
Back when the MMA was just starting they had a David vs Goliath contest, big guys vs little guys. The final match ended up being the biggest of the little guys vs the smallest of the big guys. Size matters but its not everything.
Center of gravity can be a significant influence on maneuverability. (this is why hot-rodders used to lower their cars for street racing-you can pull harder turns with a lower center of gravity before your tyres leave the pavement), so a short guy CAN be faster in the footwork than a tall guy. Mass is also a factor in terms of ‘inertia works on everybody’-the more mass you have to move, the longer it takes to get it in motion for a given amount of power. A smaller target is also harder to hit (for you gamers out there, Math has a much smaller ‘hit box’ than his opponents do) Finally, within a given range of mass, smaller guys are denser guys. 150 pounds at Five foot nothin’ can have denser musculature, tougher bones, shorter connection runs for their nervous system, thus faster twitch, than 180 pounds of six footer.
this means he can TAKE hits more readily, and is more likely to DELIVER hits within limb range both faster, and more often (ceterus paribus-aka assuming the same nervous system conductivity, muscle tissue reaction to stimulus, and so on.)
Where size has the advantages, are in raw power (longer moment arm) and reach. IOW all other factors being equal the bigger opponent’s punches will hit harder, at longer range.
But there’s that whole ‘getting a hit’ thing to consider, because size can actually be a PROBLEM rather than an advantage at close quarters.
A Martial Artist of Math’s calibre can probably react and strategize on the fly to minimize hit opportunities on himself, while maximizing his own ability to deliver hits.
This was actually demonstrated in real life when Cassius Clay (later Muhammed Ali) faced Sonny Liston, a man with exceptional reach and size. Clay basically beat the hell out of him with medium-power punches delivered in quick succession, while Liston’s signature blows (which would make prime Mike Tyson look pretty weak) failed to connect with their full power when they managed to connect at all.
Scanning the bar code in panel six rings you up for a can of whoop ass.