Grrl Power #1286 – Super clique
I bet you want to know who won?
I kind of want to leave the question open, but… Math did “lose,” in the sense that he eventually got pinned. But only after taking on four experienced adventurers/fighters that out weighed/strength/reached him, with at least one guy who can nearly match him on speed, and another guy who is basically as tough as a rhinoceros. Still, it took them over 10 minutes and a mess of bruises to get him. But everyone involved leveled up their, as Sydney puts it, “being punched a lot” skill, so they’re all fine with the outcome.
I’m one of those guys who thinks martial arts is cool but could never picture myself getting involved in a sport that involves being punched in the face a lot. Something like Judo or Aikido, sure. I took a few Aikido classes when I was in college. Not like, Aikido 101 or anything, I mean I attended… 5 (?) free classes being taught by some brown belt. My belt color is clear. But something like boxing? No way. And that was before everyone had a much better understanding of what prolonged weekly concussions might do to you in your not so old age. I wonder if sports like boxing are seeing a decline in enrollment now that terms like CTE are entering the common parlance, despite the best efforts of NFL owners and I’m sure boxing promoters. My guess is… probably a little, but not as much as I would initially guess.
Or if there is a falloff, it’s probably due to a being raised on Playstation and iPads, and not “ride your bikes over to your friend’s house and otherwise disappear into the woods for hours and no one knows where you are and show up barely in time for dinner covered in bark and mud.” I kind of straddle those generations. Really I’m more of a Commodore 64/Atari/O.G. Nintendo kid. By the time the Playstation 1 came out, I had recently graduated college. Or… maybe I was a few months from graduating. Doesn’t matter. The point is, I don’t recall off the top of my head when I graduated from college.
I think Peggy needs to get that chest tattoo colored in, because just the top of it poking over her collar makes it look like she’s got chest hair.
The new vote incentive is up!
It’s Escorpia/Sciona, fresh off her successful… extortion campaign? I’m not sure if extortion is the right word. Addicting someone to superpowered narcotics then withholding to compel directed behavior? Kind of a ransom/extortion/generally being a butt kind of thing. There’s probably a better word for that. Anyway, check out Sciona’s business casual getup at TWC, and Patreon has a bunch of… let’s call them increasingly casual variants.
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.
Cora is really small compared to her boyfriends.
She probably has some sort of cyber modification so that she doesn’t need that potion Sydney uses.
She’s a gene-mod, I’m sure her “parts” were designed to be able to handle extremes. I wonder if the mods were responsible for her lack of limbs though? A “slight” error in the coding?
She was born without limbs, or was that what you meant? Her parents tampered with her genes so much the cost was no limbs?
I think, considering the environment, her lack of limbs is probably due to inbreeding, or jacked up genes due to generational exposure doing the most dangerous jobs on shipboard. That’s my take.
I think the sizing is off in the first panel. Frix is supposed to be 7’6″. The sizing in that panel would make Math less than 5′ and Cora about 4′
No kidding. Back when we first met the crew, Cora was getting a massage from Slyv, and they seemed to be roughly the same height.
In any of the martial arts, you’re going to get bruised or have a chance of breaking/injuring something. I took a semester of judo in college, and you don’t get thrown around without feeling it the next day, and some of the moves have a very high potential of tearing ligaments or worse.
LOL! Trying sparring with the Bo(staff), I trained for a few years, you get some pretty shocking bruises from those. I hated some of the other weapons, they were just brutal! I used to call them “numb-chucks” for a good reason…
One of the big points of weapons is that they are brutal.
We used the training versions, mostly light weight. But that made them VERY fast, so bruises were common. I liked the Bo because it was both a defensive AND an assault weapon and is rarely thought of as being dangerous in the eyes of the cops. Try walking down the street with a katana on your hip and see what happens.
Yes, one of the reasons why stick fighting was popular at times. No one thinks about outlawing a walking stick.
You might take a look at Canemasters
Your staff.
Oh … you wouldn’t part an old man from his walking stick?
Actually, about 10 years ago I had an incident with a young cop while I was walking to a bus stop, I carry a cane due to my back injury, suddenly this kid jumps out of his squad car and demands I drop my weapon! when I turned to face him he pulls his gun and demands I get on the ground! Luckily his trainer was with him and started to jump on his arse while picking up my cane and apologizing to me. It depends on the town/city and the type of cop I guess…
A cane could be taken as a weapon, mine saved me once when some jerk pulled a knife on me. tapped him in the jewels, hooked the knife and cleared it, and drove the grip hard into his chest. The look on this bum’s face was priceless. Old and gimpy does NOT mean weak and defenseless!
Here in SC, if you’ve got a concealed carry permit, you can legally carry a sword cane. I’ve sworn that if my arthritis ever gets bad enough that I need a cane, it WILL be a sword cane.
Just as consolation for having to carry it around.
Not illegal to carry a umbrella on a sunny day.
I’ve literally had that happen to me. Long story why it was necessary. The cop was not amused. Fortunately, it was a non-sharpened display-only piece. Also fortunately, I’m white, so… the cop was less jumpy than they might have been.
Sharpened staves are called spears
and the entire phrase ‘staving off hunger’ now has more meaning, as in, ‘yeah, I’m spearing an animal for dinner’.
I’m curious to see where this Lapha scene leads. I assume Sydney invited her to sit with the cool kids because she felt sorry she had such a shitty childhood…
One of the most likeable aspects about Sydney is that she’s friendly towards pretty much EVERYBODY. Remember, she befriend Vehemence BEFORE they captured him. She’s definitely a fan of tropes like “defeat means friendship” and “go-karting with Bowser.”
And she befriended Concretia while she was still being captured by her. She helped the Alari refugees for purely altruistic reasons when her only experience with the Alari were being told by Dabbler and Cora that they were all evil megalomaniacal baddies and Sciona, who tried to bleed her out in the MARS Factory. And I’m pretty sure that she was the first person who befriended Jabberwokky when she was put on the team. Her first reaction to Gregor dire-wolfing out was to hug him because he was so fluffy and declare he would be called Barkly, then got him to do a photoset. Her first reaction to Ingol trying to scare her was to say “Neat!” and take a picture of him, before asking if he could say Nuclear Wessels.
She’d probably befriend the SuperMannekiller if given half the chance.
Her danger sense often ticking a bit late. But her personality help to deescalate things, as opponents take her less seriously or just just find her more understanding about their situation. Makes even her enemies like her – bit like Flash from DC.
For my money, there are no two characters better acquainted than Syd and Lapha, also Lapha and Garamm, thanks to time spent in memory merger mode. Heck, Syd may have inherited Garamm’s memories. The whole “getting to know you” stage is effectively leapfrogged to “we grew up together” familiarity. Syd likely knows these two as well as a sister does.
Sorry, no CGI images of L and G or Cora’s crew. My library of stock characters is varied, but not that varied.
Plus I just find Garamm being in love with Lapha was adorable as I find with Sydney and Frix. Garamm is just such a ‘nice’ mercenary-for-hire, from what I saw of him talking to and being protective of Lapha after the New York fight and talking to the humans who spotted them (“because he loves love.”)
Ummm…
Peggy doesn’t wear a choker ?
Math wasn’t wearing one either.
So I guess they only wear them when on duty.
They are high-tech and prone to damage, so there’s no point of risking damage while training. Sydney is just eating while the rest are training, Peggy might have just wanted to watch the show before heading home or going on duty.
Got to humble brag here.
At uni I used to “spar” with a heavyweight who in turn sparred with a pro boxer (future world champ I think in middleweight).
He wasn’t allowed to hit me at all, just dodge and block. I was fast and accurate but hit with the power of a wet noodle. Apparently it was good training.
Heck, you might have been sparring with ME. Yeah, light sparring with lighter partners is excellent training for us big guys.
Aw, I really wanted Math to win. Still, I understand this is a more plausible result. I just wanted to see the aliens super shocked and at least I can see they are impressed, so that is enough I guess.
Well this is why he is on the team. To find and fight people like that, people who can actually challenge him and potentially beat him.
He may not have ‘won’ (and very little chance of that against four in a sparring match), but he didn’t ‘lose’ either
Sparring is training, not competition. The only way to lose a sparring match is if you learn nothing from it. I guess they all won.
That too
You can almost hear Sydney purring in the top panel.
At first I couldn’t figure out why she was in that pose, then I realized Fritz is stroking her shoulder.
She’s also leaning into his hand, I think.
About martial arts in my country they are more common than in US – mainly judo – we are are second nation by olympic title in this discipline (18 gold , 15 silver , 34 bronze) , US ( 2 gold , 4 silver , 8 bronze) , and the nation of the Teddy Riner (5 gold (2012, 2016, 2024 individually and 2020, 2024 in mixed team), 2 bronze (2008 and 2020)).
In France judo is aviable even in the smallest towns own a judo dojo…
Perhaps a greater focus in martial art is due to a martial culture – maîtres d’armes , and since Charles Lecour (1832) French kickboxing became popular, but WWI had decimated the masters , it’s an hollow of himself.
Se we skipped the good parts of the fight scene for weird alien sex propositions?
The opening moments of the fight took seven pages to get through. At two pages a week, that’s 3.5 weeks – right around 25 days. The rest of the fight probably would have taken months to get through unless resorting to some sort of fight montage sequence. As much as I would have liked to have seen more of the fight, I think cutting away to check in on one of the villains to see what she was up to (we’ll see later if this has further impact on the plot, but at least we know she isn’t spending all her time on evil machinations) and then coming back after the fight was over was probably the right call.
Yeah, I wouldn’t cut away from a fight with more story impact, but I didn’t want to bog the comic down in a 3 month spar. Now, if I could draw a page a day… that scene might have gone on a little longer.
If my lottery ticket hits tomorrow, I’ll hire you a staff. X’D
Then the best of luck you to you!
:D
lol, even if I ever won a lottery, I’d probably never have enough to hire someone a full staff. Maybe a shillelagh.
If you can’t afford a full staff of the kind that could allow Dave put out a page a day, the smaller version you want is a wand.
a wand is not usable as a walking stick, tho. I was keeping it within the same reference frame
As far as I can tell, the “walking stick” reference frame was just added by you as a deliberate misunderstanding.
I thought the joke was funny, but “magic tool” reference frame fit better.
A staff doesn’t have to be a walking stick, but a shillelagh makes more sense as an alternative to a staff as something other than ‘a group of employees’ than a wand
You know “magic staff” is a thing? A wand is a perfectly reasonable alternative to that.
Reading “staff” as “magic staff” makes as much sense as “walking staff”/”quarterstaff”.
You’re gonna have to show Math using his hadouken sooner or later, you can’t keep edging us forever!
Why not just do a page or two hitting the highlights? The cut to the villain was really jarring and didn’t seem to mean much. It also made the build up of the sparring kind of fizzle, rather than have a satisfying conclusion.
I love Sydney.
Willing to be decent towards pretty much anyone.
Also, anyone else getting “new kid in the cafeteria” vibes? Just me?
*queues up 1980’s teen romp movie soundtracks*
I’d be willing to bet that Syd had her “odd girl out” moments growing up. I remember when that invitation meant a lot.
I transferred to a new school in 10th grade (for the non-Murikans: second year of secondary school / ~15 years old). I remember walking into the cafeteria for the first time and the feeling of despair I got from trying to figure out where to sit.
None of the schools went to had a cafeteria: if the weather was nice we ate outside (usually outside our own classrooms) or inside
Closest to a cafeteria would be Intermediate School (1st and 2nd form, around 12 and 13 years old) when we ate in the school hall, and we had to sit with our classmates
Hey, hey, hey, hey!
Oooh, wooaah…!
Poor Lapha, getting busted and “jailed” sux huh. Buck up and join Sydney, maybe it’ll help you to learn more about her and the rest of the gang. Which could be a bad thing if Lapha got free before she learned her lesson.
The image of Sydney in panel one is one of the best images her, IMHO.
Yeah, she and Frix do make for the warm fuzzies
For what it is worth, a few years ago I asked a group of professional military what martial art they recommended learning for actual combat (my son was planning to go into the Army, and I was researching the Hell out of ways to give him advantages), and they virtually unanimously recommended boxing.
Before you elaborate as to why, I’m gonna take a guess and say it has something to do with keeping your (unarmoured) face defended and encouraging you to keep your center of gravity lower, and even when in full gear your arms are probably the least encumbered parts of your body – which leads to the next part being that you’re in 60+ pounds of equipment, doing anything at all “fancy” is beyond the scope of most people’s ability to do at all, nevermind effectively. Also, touching back at keeping the face defended, the chest and abdomen are armoured, so you don’t need to waste time and effort defending your get when all that’s gonna happen should you take a blow there, is getting jostled.
For hand to hand the Special Air Service reference…
The hand to Hand section is fairly usable mowadays even if it dates back to 1942 https://www.ep.tc/problems/46/index.html
“In war you cannot afford the luxury of squeeamishness.Either you kill or capture, or you will be captured or killed. We’ve got to be tough to win, and we’ve got to be ruthless – tougher and more ruthless than our enemies” W.E.Fairbairn…
Love the drawing of Sydney in the first panel.
That is all.
One thing I almost don’t want to see is what’s it like when Math doesn’t hold back, when he fully intends to *kill* the person he’s fighting. A freaking Succubus had to use some of her magic to win in a fight.
And a non succubus won easily by (accidentally) applying succubus tactics.
look at Frix and Sydney being cute together, so adorable.
As I thought, we got bored with the fight and moved on…
I thought Math was supposed to be effectively a baseline human, apart from the fact he has mad skills and a really fast brain. Does the fast brain really come that close to a super-fast [alien] physiognomy?
I think that Math has long-since passed the point where it’s realistic to claim that he has no powers.
It depends on what you count as “powers”. He isn’t a super, but his martial arts are definitely supernaturally effective. Is it a martial arts power? Are martial arts just super effective like in some asian genres? Does the latter count as “just human”?
Is human potential in Grrl Power greater than in real life/some humans just have superhuman “talents”? Goose apparently has reflexes fast enough to hang with Mach the Knife in a knife fight. Peggy and Seneca are unreasonably skilled with guns.
His performance is definitely way beyond what an unpowered human could achieve using realistic martial arts.
He’s only ‘baseline’ in that, as far as anyone can tell, he is not a Super, he’s just that good at what he does he might as well be
Batman, but without the childhood trauma & inherited wealth.
Comic book martial artist who can match it with supers with no powers is a long established trope
and Cora’s crew don’t seem particularly high-end compared to the Earth supers
Hell, I had a Legion of Super Heroes issue where Karate Kid managed to delay superboy enough that the mind control wore off, and he referenced going up against Mon-el not long before and apparently he used to regularly spar with Supergirl (didn’t win often)
At that time Karate Kid was established as not having any super powers
Karate Kid actually did have powers. He was able to tell the weak point of any object or person. Sort of like Karnak in Marvel.
Just because he knows where to hit, he can still only hit as hard as a non-power
No, I mean it’s an actual power he has – not just knowledge. Karnak also did that to The Thing, and Karate Kid was able to do it to UltraBoy and to Superboy.
Although Karate Kid was NOT able to do that to Supergirl, so there’s obviously a limit.
Yes, understand that, but it’s not a physical power, any more than having 20/20 vision is a power
And the fact he couldn’t do it against Supergirl just means she’s stronger than Superboy and Ultraboy (if memory is working correctly, believe UB was similar to Maxi: he could only use one power at a time? could use super speed or super strength, not both at the same time)
Yes. Supergirl is canonically stronger than both Superboy AND Ultraboy. And yes, Karate Kid was unable to hurt Supergirl even with his ability to find her weak points. But he WAS able to severely hurt (remove the arm of) someone who had been able to fight Supergirl (who wasn’t stronger than Supergirl but at least was giving her a good fight, including throwing a train on her).
The thing about Supergirl is that, like SuperMAN, she has what’s called a biomatrix field around her and every cell of her body – it’s what allows full-blooded Kryptonians to be able to be invulnerable and also lift things which should by all accounts crumble under their own mass (and also allows their clothes to not be completely shredded like Caitlin Fairchild’s clothes get shredded in Gen 13 all the time). It’s sort of like a skin-tight force field. In a lot of ways it similar to a suped-up version of Maxima’s ‘armor’ power and her zero point telekinesis (which is sort of like Superboy’s Tactile Telekinesis), except ramped up a LOT more.
Handy features I want in “Space bandages”; Quick or instant blood clotting on contact, ability to selectively harden into a splint/cast, numbing agents, antinflammatory agents..
And antibiotics / antivirals to prevent infection
Sydney looks a bit taller/more mature on this page.
Why should Lapha worry about sharing a table when she’s already shared a body?
The artist is getting progressively more skillfull.
Frix in the first panel, “This is my human. She likes it when I pet her like this.”
This is not likely to be the most well reasoned analysis, for which I apologize. I may well simply be wrong. Math’s “loss” here (as described in the commentary) seems curious. While he probably doesn’t have super powers, he is on the team because he fights on the same level as supers. He was subdued by 4 members of Cora’s crew, here identified as seasoned adventurers, who are not empowered.
The seeming problem is that, assuming that each of the crew’s species only had one planet (which seems unlikely) the number of strong fighters just from the Aliens represented here would vastly outnumber the population of Terran supers (well beyond the seeming 4x equivalency established by Math’s “loss”). In other words, Earth (with some notable outliers), despite notable recent feats, would seemingly be vastly outclassed in a “real” interstellar fight.
There’s a lot of slop in this analysis – It’s a friendly sparring match, so neither side is presumably trying to end things as quickly / lethally as possible; actual combat probably wouldn’t be hand to hand for most of these fighters; etc. etc.
TLDR – Given previous reports of Math’s relative fighting strength compared to the rest of the team, his being eventually subdued by 4 experienced non-empowered aliens suggests that either he was pulling his punches a fair bit, or that Earth (outside of a few exceptional individuals) is not really notable on the intergalactic stage.
You are assuming that it would be a physical confrontation: Heatwave could probably burn them down before they get close to touching her, the Daphne’s could *VORP* in and out (planting nasty surprises) before they even know they are in danger, Wart could possibly solo Altus into the dirt
And remember, Math ain’t no Super, so imagine how they could do against an actual Super with martial abilities… someone like Maxi perhaps?
Math can beat anyone on the team other than Maxima in a minimal-powers fight (he’d beat Maxima in an actual no-powers fight, but she literally can’t turn her powers off, just tone them down), but when powers get involved, he’s a lot worse off. Granted, his performance against Vehemence’s impromptu crew showed even most supers couldn’t handle him, but I would suggest he was fighting a lot harder against them.
It should also be noted that these four likely represent some of the best their species have to offer, and are also likely much better coordinated when it comes to fighting together than others would be. Certainly, we can almost guarantee there is no other group of these four species that are as good at working together, and it’s likely they took advantage of each of their advantages (Sylv’s speed and flexibility, Altus’ strength and resilience, and whatever unique abilities the other two bring to the table in a melee – they didn’t really get the focus the other two did, unfortunately).
Of course, the real issue with a fight against aliens is that they’ll likely have advanced technology that Math may not be able to handle. Note he wasn’t involved in the fight against the Fel, for example. That was a good example of what happens when aliens try to invade and come up against Archon.
Before this fight and for reasons completely unrelated to hand to hand combat, it seems obvious that Earth is not very notable compared to the established civilizations of the universe. Max and some of the more powerful supers might be of note because an individual with that level of power is rare, but a powerful civilization that can melt your planet from orbit is obviously not going to find earth threatening or all that interesting.
Earth is the interstellar equivalent of Zanzibar with a squad of F-35s with full logistical support.
“Globally innofensive.”
Firstly no planet should be able to solo the rest of the galaxy so I don’t see what the problem is, secondly he faced 4 to 1 odds so I don’t think he’s coming off as weak here.
Disclaimer I’m tired and might have missed your point, if so I apologise.
First of all, yes, earth’s notability always has been about the outliers like Maxima, who can win a broadside duel against a Fel supercarrier.
Second, I don’t think scaling is as simple as your analysis assumes. Math’s power is really well suited to one-on-one fights, allowing him to look good against supers (but even then it’s often more of a win by points, because Math doesn’t have the “firepower” to take out the likes of Stalwart or Hiro – he can dodge their attacks, and his connect, but he doesn’t do any damage), but against a large group of strong and competent melee fighters, he’d quickly get overwhelmed, whereas Stalwart can probably take on any number of Cora’s crew’s clones by simply wading into the fray, no-selling all attacks and bowling over a dozen guys with each swing. So you can’t just “calculate” 1 Super = Math = 4 strong aliens and derive “total combat strength” from that.
Also, a melee fighter is unimpressive to a space warship, or even an infantry force armed with gun(-equivalents), that’s where Maxima, Halo et cetera with the ranged firepower come in.
The whole Math fight seemed more like a “greased pig” situation. It’s not that there was ever any expectation of flat out WINNING. The challenge was “how long will it take, and how big of a fool can he make you in the process?”
Look at all those empty tables, why is Laph grumpy?
I recognize the interaction. Lapha’s done something unforgivable to people she now has to look forward to interacting with for YEARS. Possibly even DECADES. Her grump is realization that if they treat her as she deserves to be treated, given that she can’t leave, her foreseeable future is going to be miserable and it’s her own fault.
Sydney, fortunately for her, seems to see the same situation from the other side; there’s the person who tried to do something unforgivable, but she’s serving in the same unit with Syd for years to come and there’s no getting rid of her, so the choice is try to learn to be friends and build rapport – because otherwise serving in this unit is going to be miserable and enraging forever.
This is actually Syd acting like a mature adult. She faces the choice between nursing a grudge and trying to get over it and realizes that it will be miserable every day for years to nurse the grudge.
Sydney may not have the attention span for nursing grudges. She may try, but she’ll forget to feed them and they’ll run away.
This is where The List comes in.
Also, we saw that Lapha’s horrible childhood hit her hard. And that was AFTER Lapha had possessed her. In spite of Sydney often being extremely obnoxious, she’s got a good heart.
Could understand if the other tables had people sitting at them, but they are empty!
So, again, why is she grumpy about sitting at an empty table? Why would she care she has sit alone with her boyfriend?
Way to go, again, Sydney, assuming only guys like to beat each other up
Sydney in panel 2 looking real good.
… Damn I do have a type…
I mean, I’ve always found Sydney to be very attractive. Though on this page with her hair up and her position seemingly pulling her shirt a bit tighter does add some to the physical attraction. Also her grin when talking about Charisma.
Wait until the 2 new members of the team realize the value of their paycheck, LOL, lizard guy might invite his family over.
OH, and these 2 will have to make a presentation on common alien weapons, powers, and tactics to arclight at some point since they’re career mercs. This intel alone is probably worth far more than mr. lizard guy’s physical skills as a soldier.
I’d be surprised if they were getting paid, given how they became part of the team.
If they’re prisoners they don’t get paid. If they are risking life and limb along with everybody else, they are part of the team and it’s very very foolish to give them more reasons to resent their teammates. This is a major thing in the Military; your pay depends on your rank and seniority and not a damn other thing that somebody might think was unfair.
Pay differences are fights waiting to happen and members having a chance to exercise privilege over others that will lead to lingering resentments and screw up the team. Military types have actual faith that other members of their squad are getting paid exactly the same as them and that heads off a whole lot of problems.
I guess ARC-SWAT is on a different pay scale from every other branch of the military, but the principle is going to be the same at least within ARC-SWAT.
Dave is older than I expected: graduated college when PSX came about. I was only getting on later grades of grade school (English language may call it ‘junior high school’ or whatev) at that time.
Lapha: There’s no way we could ever be friends! I literally tried to steal your body!! You can’t… oh, you befriended the Big Bad from your very first fight, even when he tried to kill you…. And befriended the rock ghost that kidnapped you…. Dammit, you WOULD try to befriend me!
Sydney: Isn’t it GREAT knowing EVERYTHING about me? *smiles*
Lapha: grrrr….
Sydney: “We have a lot in common! For example, we’ve both been in my body.”
Sydney is totally a Charisma fighter. She’s generally non-lethal, throws mad quips, and tries to persuade people to back off, surrender, or even help her. And sometimes she succeeds!
Hey, it’s Peggy, haven’t seen her in a good long while.
As a goju ryu karate black belt, I can say it’s totally possible to do martial arts without expectation of grievous injury. The worst I got before shodan (1st dan, or 1st degree black) was the wind knocked out of me.
I can also say it’s not possible to do competitive martial arts without at least some bruising, that if you train safely enough to not get any injuries you won’t be nearly as “combat capable”, and it is NOT possible to advance to ranks above shodan without expectations of grievous injury eventually.
Also, for karate at least, you are more likely to have significant injury to hands, forearms, shins, and toes. Rib and ankle injuries are less common but not rare. Concussions are probably the least likely, as most modern practitioners use head protection and discourage head strikes for all beginner ranks. By the time you hit shodan and nidan, everyone is learning to pull punches on offense while reducing the strength of unavoidable hits on defense, so head strikes are more likely to be glancing blows or partially redirected, weakened, etc. Ironically that’s also when a full hit is most devastating, as form and speed and strength are finally at dangerous levels, so if you do eat a solid hit to the face it’s gonna hurt bad.
Are those vending machines against the opposite wall where Daphne keeps getting those disastrous soft drinks?
Yeah, I wonder when we’ll see one of those again? The last one was right before Tom showed up, I think.
There’s no way in hell’s half acre I’d be all buddy buddy with the person who kidnapped me in my body and had every intention of killing me if that’s what it took to get away with it.
And that is what qualifies Sydney as a hero. It’s not the power that matters, but what you do with it, and how you treat other people, including those who have wronged you.
But this is Sydney we’re talking about! Common sense need not apply!
Regarding the popularity of boxing, it’s impossible to tell whether common knowledge of CTE has affected it because it’s been on the decline for 20 years, mainly due to greed. Moving the fights to pay-per-view, having multiple titles instead of one, and managers and fighters more concerned with keeping their undefeated status than challenging other top fighters, plus the rise of MMA, basically killed the sport before CTE became a “thing.”
In the ’90s, the Heavyweight Championship of the World fights were on par with the Super Bowl. Now it’s a niche sport.
The multiple titles have been a thing in boxing for a long time
Normally not a big deal historically but problematic when a champion retired or moved divisions, there was a 10 year dispute between 1931 & 1941 in middleweights
The boxing managers have always spent a lot of time trying to keep their fighters in fights they can win because that’s how you make the most money
Tyson Fury and Oleksandr Usyk fought in May and Fury allegedly made $150 million from the fight, Usyk around 65 million
So I’d say that MMA might get more publicity but Boxing is still the much bigger sport (the PFL world championship billed itself as the richest prize in MMA and the purse for each fight was $1 million)
Ah, love me a cold can of…
CUKE!? What the…
Cuke’s been in the comic for a while actually. Vance was drinking it way back when he was first introduced.
https://www.grrlpowercomic.com/archives/comic/grrl-power-331-my-god-its-full-of-spiders/
Yes, Vance! Will we ever see our Spider-Guy again? We never even learned what his powers are!
Sounds like it should be a cucumber flavored soda. Apparently that’s a thing.
Cuke sodas I’ve had are pretty good. Refreshing, relatively subtle, and not heavily sweet like the usual Coke/Pepsi/knockoff competitors.
I wonder if there should be a series of comics featuring Lapha trying to hit Dabbler over the head with a lead pipe or a ball bat in order to get that ring from her….?!?
(Then after awhile, Maxima would order Lapha to cease her hostilities on Dabbler…?!?)
The way the characters interact showcases their unique powers and personalities perfectly, making it an enjoyable read for anyone who loves a blend of humor, action, and clever storytelling. Can’t wait to see how the story develops from here!
Grew up in Japan, started with Wado-Ryu, then Goju-Ryu, Chinese Goju, and Aikido. Fought in multiple full contact tournaments at the Tokyo Budokan. Moved to the states when my Dad retired and entered a Chung Do Kwan school in the new local area. Joined the USAF and got sent back to Japan and got into a Muay Thai gym and fought professionally in the Tokyo area for a couple of years. Back to the states, got into Tae Kwon Do and Kenpo. I am a nearly lifelong Martial Artist and won’t stop, still like to spar with the younger adults. Probably will get some kind of debilitating brain condition when I get older (have been knocked out and knocked stupid several times) but too addicted to the Arts to stop.
I fence, fight in historical wma, do Aikido, Shorin-ryu Karate and Kobudo. I only spar in wma because we use armor, and I’m not interested in getting brain damage. But I get the comradery that some people have with people they’ve fought. It looks like the guys have that kind of attitude.
I’m not much of a fan of fighting sports either. I get that learning martial arts is useful just in case you have to defend yourself, and I assume that those sports were invented to stop people from just beating each other up without rules for fun, but other than that I’ll just enjoy the privilege of not living in a warzone or in a place where tribes and gangs murder each other (especially since guns are often involved).
I love being a couch potato who watches eSports when exercising, and being a software developer is one of the best jobs ever if you’re an introvert.