Grrl Power #145 – Let’s talk numbers
I’m experimenting with ways to get a lot of dialog on the page without giving it the wall of text look. I think this page is borderline, and I’m not sure I like the big yellow “narrator blocks.” In fact I’d prefer to avoid them. It just seemed to be the only way to get the page to end on the panel I wanted this time but hopefully I won’t need to lean on it too much.
Coming out of A-kon I’m a little behind, but I’ll update the vote incentive with the colored version sometime this week.
I’ve added an Amazon referral link for the book I’m reading down at the bottom of the right hand column, and eventually the plan is to make a page with brief reviews and more links so I can get some sweet pennies. Literally it’s a few cents if you buy something through one of those links, but it may pay for a few books eventually. It’ll mostly be superhero novels since that’s the kick I’m on at the moment, but I may stick other stuff in there I particularly enjoyed it or think you guys might.
Oh, one minor change I made to the site, you can now drag the comment box’s lower right corner to resize it, which should make writing/reviewing long comments a little easier.
———-
I just learned that Antarctic Press is running an Indigogo campaign to help pay for… basically they’re publishing into Walmarts but didn’t allow for the returns they have to pay for. They’ve already met their goal but I thought I’d point it out in case anyone would like to help out and get some swag. AP has published a number of titles over the years that have been rather influential on me and, well, it’s just nice to think that independent publishers can still exist in our world of corporate mergers.
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.
What about a police badge? Can’t a super join the cops if he wants to fight crime?
They’ll probably reasign all public service people with Powers to archon, getting them all under 1 command, making it easier to coordinate them
Just thinking of Savage Dragon. He’s a cop.
If they start that they could get it trouble with some of the left wing groups for discriminaion. Having superpowers and wanting to help out, all you have to do is join one of the many groups out there like firefighters, paramedics, or police. There are lots of options.
If you’re a fireman using superpowers, you’re not breaking the law. If you’re using superpowers for various corporate reasons (as an invulnerable stunt man with built in “special effects” in Hollywood, for instance), you’re not breaking the law. Presumably, if you’re already a cop with a badge (like Savage Dragon), you’re not breaking the law.
However, if you fight crime and beat up bad guys without benefit of a badge or other authorization, then you are breaking the law regardless of whether or not you have superpowers (Bruce Wayne as Batman, Charles Bronson in the Death Wish movies, etc.) — and then you’re in trouble. It’s only the use of super powers to break the law (and vigilantism is illegal, that’s why in some universes Batman has been legally deputized by the Gotham PD) that will bring in ARCHON.
Or so I assume.
Seems like a reasonable summation to me.
Yes, reasonable summation.
There is a slight loophole in what Arianne said that can give Archon and Arcswat a bit more scope for action. “… guard against extraordinary and atypical threats, whatever the source”. So, a militia compound with a few tons of C4, or a dirty nuke, might get a little visit. For just one example.
Extraordinary crimes against the people and the state, one might say…
“… must be avenged by agents extraordinary. Two such agents are Maximillia Leander, top professional, and Sydney Scoville, talented lunatic.”
There is a difference between a normal militia that reports to the Governor of a State, verses the atypical grouping of men who just want to group together and, for example, go Terry Nichols or Unabomber against the Government at large.
I don’t know yet the whole story on Ruby Ridge, nor will I equate that with Waco (David Koresh). However, if David Koresh and the Branch Davidians were Texas Militia legally, then there is something wrong with what happened in there. On both parties. Even the feds coming in when they did not tell the State to clean up their act, superseceding Constitutional Authority right there.
Savage Dragon is acting within the law, as he is out in the open in the public eye. There is no other way that he could act. I think that the best analogy to draw is that from the movie “The Incredibles.” Of course, the law did let the same rule that applies to good samaritans fall by the way side in that movie with reguard to supers, it may have also opened the way for same individuals to be sued for acting in good faith with regards to medical assistance. But that was one of my pet peeves with that movie. On the other hand, how could someone afford said technology, like the Incredi-car without some form of backing?
I don’t think that 6 Bacons is going to have a problem, unless he is using that Super power to have sex with those people that he convinces that he knows Kevin Bacon, and in doing so, spreads a super herpes complex seven. And things start to fall off of people. The CDC estimates that patient zero was in Bevery Hills, California.
Is knowing Kevin Bacon really a powerful enough pick-up tool to count as rape? Wow.
It’s actually not a loophole, it’s intentionally worded that way to give them whatever flexibility they need. If you present a big enough threat, they may come after you.
It’s B.S. thought. (A PR person talking B.S.? Inconceivable) If you were in New York City, any superheroics you might choose to engage in would be covered by N.Y. Penal Law §35.30(4) to whit:
A private person acting on his or her own account may use physical
force, other than deadly physical force, upon another person when and to
the extent that he or she reasonably believes such to be necessary to
effect an arrest or to prevent the escape from custody of a person whom
he or she reasonably believes to have committed an offense and who in
fact has committed such offense; and may use deadly physical force for
such purpose when he or she reasonably believes such to be necessary to:
(a) Defend himself, herself or a third person from what he or she
reasonably believes to be the use or imminent use of deadly physical
force; or
(b) Effect the arrest of a person who has committed murder,
manslaughter in the first degree, robbery, forcible rape or forcible
criminal sexual act and who is in immediate flight therefrom.
In New York State it is _legal_ to be a superhero. What isn’t legal is being a superhero with a secret identity. Nor would you get the benefit of the doubt that cops do that your use of force was justified, or the protection from civil action that cops get.
You keep using that word, inconceivable. I do not think it means what you think it means.
Next you will be saying:
Sorry, I do not get the reference. Mine was from Princess Bride.
as was Yorp’s – albeit a slightly more obscure quote. Westley (then known only as the Man in Black) was climbing up the Cliffs of Insanity. Vizzini had already cut his rope and run off with Buttercup and Fezzik in tow, instructing Inigo to kill the Man in Black if/when he reaches the top…
Inigo Montoya: I donna suppose you could speed things up?
Man in Black: If you’re in such a hurry, you could lower a rope or a tree branch or find something useful to do.
Inigo Montoya: I could do that. I have some rope up here, but I do not think you would accept my help, since I am only waiting around to kill you.
Man in Black: That does put a damper on our relationship.
Perfectly explained. Contextually I was just saying literally the next line of dialogue from the same character David Nutall quoted. The scene being just after Vizzini cut the rope the Dread Pirate Roberts is climbing up.
Again, not entirely accurate (though your point is well made)…
to wit:
[Vizzini has just cut the rope The Dread Pirate Roberts is climbing up]
Vizzini: HE DIDN’T FALL? INCONCEIVABLE.
Inigo Montoya: You keep using that word. I do not think it means what you think it means.
Vizzini: We’ll head straight for the Gilder frontier. You catch up with us there. If he falls, fine. If not, the sword.
Inigo Montoya: I’m going to duel him left-handed.
Vizzini: You know what a hurry we’re in!
Inigo Montoya: Well, is only way I can be satisfied. If I use my right… over too quickly.
Vizzini: [exasperated] Oh, have it your way.
Then, after their departure:
Inigo Montoya: [looking over cliffside] Hello there. Slow going?
Man in Black: Look, I don’t mean to be rude but this is not as easy as it looks, so I’d appreciate it if you wouldn’t distract me.
Inigo Montoya: [apologetic] Sorry.
Man in Black: Thank you.
Geek Flag = Flown
Oh yea, I forgot that bit in between. Visualising the scene from memory I only recalled his boss telling him to stay, and decided that any reply he made was some inconsequential agreement. Whereas it provides critical foreshadow and eventual hilarious payoff in the sword fight that follows the climbing scenes.
There is a difference between what that law says and being a vigilante. If you witness a crime and the bad person is getting away and/or the police obviously need assistance, then you are fine as per that law.
Legal liabilities are another matter. Good Samaritans often get sued by perps.
Being a vigilante means you go out *looking* for bad guys to beat up. Assuming you can find them in the first place – bad guys aren’t all that easy to tell from average citizens quite often.
Good Samaritans may be sued, but the judge will more than likely throw the case out of court, in the case of saving someone’s life. You are alive to sue this person, because they saved your life? Get the **** out of here.
While it is true that citizen’s arrests and intervening to save people’s lives are not the same thing as vigilantism (harming or imprisoning people to punish them for their crimes without reference to the courts) Arianna is conflating them in her speech.
Just to point out Federal laws trump state law so a smart monkey would make the Federal law in such away that it makes it illegal to be a vigilante even if there is a state law on the books that says you can which all that New York state law says is you can use force short of deadly force to act upon a citizens arrest this covers bouncers and security guards if they preform a citizens arrest or even a normal person protecting someone from harm.
No I suspect there is a clause in the Federal statue that creates Archon that basically says you can not go around being a vigilante. This would again trump stare codes and allow the Federal government to act as the top power to regulate this behavior. No a state may not opt out you can not nullify a federal law despite what some people out there think. We fought a war over this the side that lost was the side that thought you could nullify Federal laws at the state level.
I need you to show me exactly where Federal Law trumps states law. Federal law can not in any instance trump states law, because the Federal is only governed by the states in that it came into existence when the states joined together to form the federal. At least in the US.
That is what the founding fathers had in mind, and in doing so, made sure that the law of the land never left the people. Federal Laws can not ever, in malpractice, trump states law.
Archon can only be effective in full 100%, if all of the states agreed to its existence.
Anti (some) Drug Laws trump any state laws. Just ask California.
[“I need you to show me exactly where Federal Law trumps states law.”]
Altria Group v. Good, 555 U.S. 70 (2008), just for starters.
State governments are not allowed to nullify federal law. We literally fought a war over this back in the 1860s, and the nullification side lost.
Also, Article 4 Clause 2 of the Constitution.
“This Constitution, and the laws of the United States which shall be made in pursuance thereof; and all treaties made, or which shall be made, under the authority of the United States, shall be the supreme law of the land; and the judges in every state shall be bound thereby, anything in the Constitution or laws of any State to the contrary notwithstanding.”
Which having been said the 10th amendment limits the Federal Government to those powers specifically listed in the constitution. The feds are NOT allowed to simply ignore state laws, and they need to justify and federal laws on constituitional grounds.
For example the interstate commerce is used to justify a truely amazing array of federal statutes including the anti-drug ones. Within any particular state however the interstate commerce clause does not apply. So to apply federal charges against any stage of marijuana grown, sold and used within California is extremely dodgy on constituitional grounds and no one is eager to see a test case brought up.
I didn’t write that the feds can simply ignore state law, and I certainly didn’t write that federal law doesn’t have to conform to the Constitution. The issue was whether federal law trumps state law, and it very clearly does. Pat wolfman dude was quite bluntly claiming that states can ignore federal law, and that is laughably false.
There are also many other cases where this has been attempted and failed. My state is currently doing this with Pot I live in Washington while I know that the state law is valid the Federal laws take precedence in court.
But since you asked the Wiki on it actually touches on the big ones and explains the legal reasoning as well. Nullification is what this is called and as I pointed out we did fight a war over this issue it was dealing mainly with slavery at the time and the fact that some states didn’t want to be told they had to give it up. Below is the wiki page on nullification.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nullification_(U.S._Constitution)
The founding fathers directly intended nullification to be an effective tool for the states to use against the federal powers. It’s the Federal Government that is supposed to be strongly restrained, not the states. This is not Canada, this is the USA.
The federal can not supersede the states, because the States were the ones who came together to create the federal, therefore the federal can not be greater than the states. The war on drugs, pot, and immigration can not supersede the states rights to choose for themselves what needs to be done. If 2/3s of the states, or even all of them decide to nullify a federal law, then that law is moot. Federal can not move in a local jurisdiction without being invited into it.
This is not what you think it is. This is a pre-emption case. Not a case of direct violation of the rights reserved by the people. This is also a case about cigarettes. Something which may be used later on down the road to prevent people from using what they purchase for their own pleasure. Who knows. Maybe one day, you will never be able to eat that hamburger, because it’s not good for you, but you have to buy one anyway.
This case has to do with the allowance of the manufacturer to promote their product, in this case, cigarettes as being low tar and therefore misleading through advertisement into tricking the consumer into using the product in good faith, and as such, letting the consumer use the product under false circumstances into overuse and manipulating the health of the consumer because of said packaging and advertisement claims of low tar.
Hell, this could even open the door to relatives of a victim of a drunk driver who drank only light beer to sue the distributor, bar, and brewing company because of the light status on the beer. When in reality, they only have claims against the drunk driver, because the drunk driver is the one on which the fault pivots on, not the product.
The advertising in this case, is an attempt at who has more the more relevant claim of protecting the consumer? The state courts, or the federal courts? So, the question could be, since this involves a company with interest in interstate commerce a federal case, or a state case? This has nothing to do with nullification, and the attempt at providing evidence to that fact is moot, therefore irrelevant.
[“This has nothing to do with nullification, and the attempt at providing evidence to that fact is moot, therefore irrelevant.”]
You could not possibly be more wrong. The court ruled quite broadly in that case that state law is preempted by federal law. Also, you ignore that the case in question is just one minor data point. Among many other things, the Constitution states the same quite clearly, in Article 4 Clause 2. The Constitution was written precisely with that in mind, since its authors had witnessed the problems with letting the states over-rule the central government during the era of the Articles of Confederation.
Federal law preempts state law. That fact has always been central to US government, particularly from the 1860s onward.
Any federal law against vigilantism would be ruled unconstitutional on any of a variety of grounds, or would just die from non-enforcement. [“He rescued the kidnap victim and caught the kidnapper, and you want to arrest him? The papers/internet would be all over me, and I couldn’t be elected dog-catcher. He walks, unless you want to lose your job.”]
Now when we move to the practical, our vigilante has all sort of problems. That Zimmerman? fellow in Florida is finding this out. But most of our comic heroes violate a variety of laws and could wind up in jail pretty easily if the law didn’t like them. In theory, our vigilante can have a long active career and no trouble with the law. But he had better have a lawyer on call, not to mention a very good understanding of what is self defense and what is brawling [where it is routine to have both sides claiming self-defense.] Plenty of chance of being arrested for assault or sued or…
Our flake is exaggerating the law, but it is pretty likely the typical super with a desire to be to be some sort of cop is much better off joining up.
However in this case there is an enforcement capable group which is tasked to do just that enforce the laws dealing with supers. Also it isn’t unconstitutional and wouldn’t be that hard to enforce, yes he rescued the kids caught the kidnapper but he still broke the law. Endangered the child life and cause grievous bodily harm to the suspect who now has the right to sue said vigilante for the harm done.
See it is better to do things within the law rather then go outside of the law. Best example of this the movie Hang’em High in the end the law won. He hung each of the vigilantes that strung him up shot a few of them as well. So the lesson is don’t take the law into your own hands unless you have no other choice because you need to defend yourself or someone else. Which is what that New York law covers you aren’t actively seeking bad guys. Like the New York Subway shooter did back in the 80’s yes he was hunting bad guys.
You are missing the point at issue. Now the law can, and will, look at a lot of his actions in a suspicious way, And the comics do gloss over a lot of legal points. But the vigilante, super power or not, is safe from the law as far as being a vigilante itself is concerned. The basic outline of the vigilante can be found in the Constitution.
And the successful vigilante would be protected by good publicity. Would someone want to arrest him for child endangerment? Not unless they were willing to risk their career, Now if the kid actually got hurt.. But we are here talking about the base vigilante case, where no such problem can be assumed.
The solitary vigilante has a lot of legal problems, especially if someone wants to make it hard on him. So joining our sponsored group is probably be wise. But he can, with care, survive on his own and not be touched by the law.
Well I feel dumb now. I didn’t realize it’s actually not illegal to be a vigilante. It’s just that most vigilantes eventually break the law in one way or another in the course of vigilantism. I may need to go edit the speech bubbles a little.
Just how explicit is that? Does it say “it is ok for private citizens to decide who is a criminal and exact justice, without being deputised?”
Or is that an interpretation? The same way that justification for just about anything from infanticide onwards can be made from the Bible, depending on what passages you pick and what spin you choose to put on it.
Note that laws which relate to the right to self defence, to bear arms or to apprehend and detain someone in the act of committing a crime, which you are witness to, are things which can be exploited by someone wishing to justify vigilantism, but do not inherently justify setting oneself up as an extra-judicial authority.
Sounds like a Citizens Arrest.
Actually, Laws and the Multiverse made a good case that Batman (at least the Adam West version) was a state actor whose position was perfectly legal as a member of law enforcement.
Also, depending on which continuity you’re dealing with, Batman has been officially deputized by the Gotham police force. That makes him legal.
Except he kept doing illegal entries into hideouts that would result in the case getting thrown out.
A number of those hideouts though were abandoned warehouses and buildings owned by friend of the city Bruce Wayne who would phone up Batman personally to give him permission to look ^^
I swear, at least half of the propert in Gotham belongs to Bruce Wayne. XD
His family has been really powerful in that city for over a hundred and fifty years, what do you expect?
Every building in Gotham is one of two things. 1: An abandoned warehouse/factory. 2: Owned by either Waynecorp or by Bruce Wayne personally.
i’d say it likly depends on your powers if the worst you can do is Stun someone you are probably better off as a cop how ever if you can level a building you should probably register with arcon
In the UK stun weapons such as tazers count as aggravated use of weaponry in determining the sentencing of a criminal. Because they can cause death. Either directly because they are not perfect at stunning without risk. Or because of some other factor, such as someone with a heart condition or simply being in a precarious position, where they might fall into traffic. And any fall can kill, if you hit your head on something with a hard edge or corner, for example. No reason to give supers more leeway than the rest of society. If they use it in accordance with any relevant laws, fine, if not they must face the consequences.
Reminds me of the original premise of Image Comics’ Savage Dragon.
“You’re either with us or against us. No pressure!”
ARCHON’s approach actually makes sense. If you have an ability that is usefull for commercial use, why would you have to register with the government as if you were a criminal? Secret identities are easier to maintain with government support as well.
I agree completely. This is the most realistic, and sensible, reaction to superpowers existing of any comic or webcomic I’ve ever read, and I’ve been reading them for close to 50 years. Marvel’s relatively recent fiasco with mandatory powers registration is completely bogus.
As for being easier to keep an identity secret with Government assistance though, No. The old joke is very true (What do you call a secret known by two people? Public knowledge.) Look at how quickly Russia got the Atom Bomb after WW2, the biggest nightmare of any intelligence service is the knowledge that it’s impossible to keep something secret.
Nooo….that would be a(/the) Superhero Registration act. As in; “If you’re registered, you’re good. If you’re not we will deliver a bitchslapping of epic proportions and throw what’s left in super-jail. This act only states that if you’re a super and break the law Archon will deliver said bitchslap; rather than the police. Oh, yeah, and being a vigilante is illegal, so, you know – don’t. If you do, se previously mentioned bitchslap.”
Of course, the “proper” legalese in the act mentioned in the comic could leave it open for, shall we say, “adaptation”…
Feel free to ignore any tpyo’s and missing or misplaced punctuation. I forgot to sleep tonight. :p
Oh, life on the outside ain’t what it used to be
You know the world’s gone crazy and it ain’t safe on the street
Well it’s a drag I know, there’s only one place to go
Baby, back where I come from, I’m coming home
— Superjail theme song
The Super Human Registration Act was actually one step worse than that. It mandated people with superhuman abilities BECOME Superheroes for the government, or be imprisoned.
The fiends!
*signs up for the resistance*
What’s so you’re with us or against us here about it?
You don’t have to register if you don’t want as they point out. If you’re using powers like say flight to be a better cameraman, they don’t care. Go, make money, they won’t bother you. Got a dimension where you can pull stuff out of thin air and you’re using it to pick up women? Maxima will be annoyed with you, but go, have fun.
All they’re concerned about is the people that use it for military or police exercises. Which makes sense. A vigilante on his own with no training can get himself or someone else killed even without powers in the real world. Which is why it’s illegal. With super powers in the mix, it gets more dangerous. I think, even if I wanted to stay a civilian, with powers I’d register and ask for training. Safer that way. Training grounds and medical help that’s geared towards my needs.
A super could still get into potential trouble if he secretly used his powers for personal gain. What if a person with time travel or prescience used it to keep getting next week’s winning lottery numbers or stock tips? Unless you had proof, the person could just claim to be really lucky.
And there are some powers that could cause havoc with parts of the economy. Say we have a person called The Crystalizer who could hold charcoal briquettes in his hand and transform them into diamonds. He would get fabulously wealthy, but flooding the market would cause the prices for the rest of the diamond industry to plummet.
Let’s imagine somebody is an Avatar who can control the basic elements.
At what point would Archon intervene?
How about he stops a volcano from wiping out entire cities or a tsunami?
Now, let’s trump it up to 11 and imagine a perfect elementalist who can manipulate elements on a subatomic level.
Transfrom water into wine? Fleeting thought.
Make the desert into a tropical paradise? Handwavium.
Cleaning up radioactive leftovers by turning them into air/water? Pft, not even worth mentioning.
How would Archon react to somebody who can literally unmake/remake the world?
All but the last one do not involve him breaking any law, so why would they do anything. For your final point, I suspect they would politely ask his intentions, and if the answer was not hostile they would go about their business and do their best not to irritate him.
Being able to make diamonds isn’t a criminal offence. If you flood the market then the value of what you’re selling drops as well, but even if you’re some African kid whose dad died in a diamond mine and you just have a grudge, it’s still not illegal. But you can bet that DeBeers would start lobbying the shit out of every government in the world to make it illegal. At the very least. More like “Whatever happened to that kid that could make diamonds?” “Oh, he accidentally, brutally cut his head off while combing his hair.”
Wow, my reply about tyres was meant to be to this post. No idea how it ended up on the other one.
The key difference is that Archon’s arrangement offers a third option; if you have powers, and you don’t want to join Archon, don’t use them to fight crime. Just have a normal life making what use of your talents you can,
I want to spoon my way to health.
Lucy had super powers. So much is explained now.
And superpowers are so tasty!
Hello friends. I’m your Vitameatavegamin girl (err… person). Are you tired, run-down, listless? Do you poop out at parties? Are you unpopular? The answer to all your problems is in this little bottle. Vitameatavegamin. Yes, Vitameatavegamin contains Vitamins Meat Vegetables and Minerals. Yes, with Vitameatavegamin, you can spoon your way to health. All you do is take a great big tablespoonful after every meal. Mmmmmmm….. It’s so tasty, too! Tastes just like candy! So why don’t you join all the thousands of happy peppy people and get a great big bottle of Vitameatavegamin tomorrow! That’s Vita-meata-vegamin!
Coincidentally enough a, shockingly old cartoon gave that as the origin of Mighty Mouse. HE was in a Super Market and ate his way to super powers.
The last pannal with Max and Sydney looks reallllly freaakking COOOOOOOOL.
Could you turn that into a walpaper of sorts? (without the guy in the front, just Max and Sydney in shade on the roofs)
The guy in front? You realize they are arresting Batman for vigilantism, right?
Meh, doesn’t look batman enough to be anywhere near as cool as max and sydney behind him
Plus, Batman wouldn’t be using a gun on anyone, himself included.
That’s not his hand. Hint: count the fingers. Who do we know, roughly that color, who has that number of fingers per hand?
Dabbler. And I think she should be added to the list of appereances^^ for that alone.
It would also fit that the gun looks custom, but only maxima has a custom gun confirmed (that looks differently) – but we do know dabbler tinkers (inlcuding with weapons).
only the more modern versions that wear a bat style costume older versions had no such hang up and where government licensed to carry or use it.
No, they’re arresting a super who thought that he could BE Batman. Which is self-evidently false, anyway: it’s really for the best if they get that poor man off of the street.
Looks more of a cat themed outfit to me.
more like the panther or whatever his name was. the one that taught batman how to box, later to be found out to be a “masked vigilante”.
Are you by any chance referring to Ted Knight, AKA Wildcat, from the silver age? He was a member of the Justice society too.
At least give him some credit for even getting up there (and not wearing pink).
It’s Flying Mouse Man!!
Thanks! But unfortunately I didn’t draw the stuff he’s covering up, boots and roof and stuff, so I’d have to spend time filling that back in, and I’m sure you guys would rather have the next comic. I can put a high res versions of it up on DA if you want though. Someone else is welcome to try and erase him.
I for one would love that. Although I cannot guarantee that Halo’s glasses might not keep changing on my personal wallpaper of it. *hangs head in shame*
Not I. Personally I think that he is essential to the composition of that work of art*, and does not detract from the heroines in any way.
* Even though it is purely a foible of mine about the glasses, that actually enhances my appreciation of the whole work. In a strange way. One philosophy of Japanese art is to leave a small part either unfinished or to make a deliberate mistake. This then allows the viewer to visualise how they might complete or improve the work themselves, drawing them deeper into it than they might have otherwise come.
Which is what you have clearly done with me, otherwise I would not have had the temerity to vandalise a gallery-worthy piece by my crude attempts to alter the perceived “flaw”.
One example of the principle can be found in an Imperial palace. Each garden within it has its own theme. Be it swirling patterns of sand, topiary or the like. But the last garden has not, and never will be finished. By Imperial edict. Another example can be found in some shrines faced by a row of ornate columns. But if you look carefully one, and only one, will have been put in upside down! In this case, it is also to avoid angering the gods with the presumption of perfection.
Is, is that a _coil_ gun with glowy blade and green dot laser? <3
Interesting to see the U.S. government at least has gone the no registration route here. I wonder if we'll see the effects arising from other nations instituting mandatory registration. Refugees claiming asylum and immigrating? Archon shipped in by the U.N. to assist in a major crisis outside the U.S. and the local policies lead to tension or drama between Archon and those they want to help? Enemy nations impressing all supers in the military and keeping their numbers/abilities a state secret? Would the U.N. consider that a human rights violation worthy of military/Archon action?
Would the U.S. / Archon even bother with U.N. requests or strife outside their home turf?
And that purple vigilante obviously doesn't have good situational awareness / spot checks as a super power!
It’s an almost-batman.
Obviously not the real one though, as he’d kick both theyr asses. Yes even Maxima. Because Batman wins by default
The hand aiming the gun looks like it belongs to Dabbler.
It does.
She should pull the trigger.
I never liked Batman.
Little damaged rich boy with to much money and to little sense to use it for counseling.
“To” abuse! “Too much money and too little sense” FTFY
Right, sorry.
“Zu viel Geld und zu wenig Hirn es vernünftig zu nutzen.”
Better?
Perfekt.
I’d support registration if for no other reason than the fact that there might be potentially lethal medical concerns to worry about. Also, education, you can’t teach a telepath the same way you teach another person for instance.
Sure make it POSSIBLE to register, but don’t make it obligated. Like Xman does
As in: Don’t do what Xman does
Anytime someone says you should support mandatory registration of a minority group, just imagine yourself as a member of that minority group being forced to do so against your will.
Even if you (naively) trust the government of the day, all it takes is for a less tolerant party to get into power and some act of provocation to justify it and the register becomes a handy list to immediately round up all the members.
Down that route lies Magnito’s antipathy due to his treatment as a Jew in World War II. Well-trodden ground that is best avoided, in my opinion.
I’d add my signature to that post.
There definitely should be a semi-easily available training for supers. If a person can easily kill another person, and do so accidentally, they need a way to learn how to regulate their power. Any person convicted of this sort of negligent homicide should require some form of mandatory powers training before being allowed back into public. Details to be ironed out through Archon.
It may not have sounded like it but I also agree. Not only is the registration incredibly wrong, it would cause many people and groups to go super-villain just because of that singular law.
How many pluses does this make?
Smilr, that’s Dabbler working with Halo & Maxima to take down Flying Mouse Man [TM]
gotta say this one really cracked me up hehe
Ha! Vitameatavegamin. Classic.
Hey, Luuucyyy!
xref: Futurama, “Less Than Hero”. I compared the warning labels, to see if they are related, and I’d say probably not.
Citizens, never fear
Crazy do-good freaks are here
Until they run out of steam…
Miracle cream, miracle cream
Gives the power to the team
Its effects wear off for sure
So they just slop on some more
The New Justice Team!
— New Justice Team theme song
Yaaay! I’m so glad I’m not the only one who got this reference. I used to watch old I Love Lucy reruns on the Disney Channel late at night when I was a kid and not feeling well. That, and Zorro, and The Mickey Mouse Club.
“The only law in the act that specifically affects supers is this: vigilantism is just as illegal…”
Um, shouldn’t the law cover non-Archon and non-vigilante supers (read: villains) as well? I mean, shouldn’t it penalize the commission of crimes using powers as a- what’s the word? the opposite of incentive- whatever to deter and discourage people with powers from using them for destructive and oppressive purposes? For example, if I were an indestructible, invincible and super-strong criminal, I’m just going to keep robbing banks. What are the authorities going to do, lock me up in a jail I can literally bust out of? As long as my crime doesn’t escalate into something that demands, say, the death penalty, there’s really not much that can be done to me that I can’t just walk out of. (And, possibly, even if the death penalty was involved, I might not even need fear it according to the nature of my powers.)
Robbing banks is already illegal. If the local police can’t handle the SuperRob they call Archon. Problem solved. (Sort of. Unless Dabbler knows how to build power dampers I see no reason why Archons cells should be more escape proof than any other facility.)
I’m not saying that robbing banks and other already established crimes aren’t illegal.
Rather, I’m surprised that this law says nothing about supervillainy, especially where superpowers make it easier to commit crimes (including the heinous ones), evade (or subvert) justice and even render any punishment and containment futile. I should give supers an incentive not to the supervillain route. Just because Archon’s around doesn’t mean the law itself shouldn’t make things easier for Arc-SWAT.
Depends on what you are doing as a supervillian.
I have a guy who is basiclly a mad scientist type, who on the side runs a protection racket. He creates supers for a fee, or takes 10% out of what ever you make until you have paid up your bill.
As for the protection racket, he puts a sign on your front door and if anybody robs the place, well he always needs new test subjects…
If you refuse to pay up your head mysteriously explodes.
Keeps others from trying to get out of paying.
Well, the law does go into what Archon can do in pursuit of supervillains, there’s actually a fair amount of tedious detail there. Arianna just meant “if you’re basically a law abiding citizen but have read a few too many comic books and get the idea to help out, you need to be accountable in case you punch someone through a daycare.”
What about Kick Ass?
He goes to jail once he is caught, if he wants to be a costume hero he needs to sign on the contract and be trained and follow orders.
Oooh, daycare.
Anybody ever bothered to concern themselves with the damage of just about every Power Ranger episode where they had a mega-fight?
Example:
*13 city-blocks destroyed
*1425 dead
*4522 injured
Or maybe some bylines.
*SUPERMAN RETURNS!*
Byline:
*Planewing hits orphanage, 126 children, 67 adults dead*
*Planeengine strikes gas-main, 7 city-blocks obliterated*
*Costs of removing plane from Wayne-Stadium estimated…*
Dave B has already stated there are no universal power dampeners here, but that individual counters to powers can be built.
For example; Someone with Anvil’s type of strength, pure physical instead of tactile tk, might be restrained in a round reinforced sphere mounted on shock absorbers. A sphere is the strongest single shape to use and in extreme cases the cage could also be surrounded by shock absorbing fluid or gel for extra resistance. While someone with Brooke’s fire abilities would need a cell made of extremely heat resistant material, probably in layers since a coolant/heatsink outside that would absorb heat and a lead casing would be necessary to shield against the microwave nature of her heat power. Sydney is unique in this world, so far as we know, but someone with her abilities is the easiest. Just lock the balls in a safe. She’s going nowhere after that so no cage is even needed.
What can I say, it’s fun thinking about these tech solutions to the problems. =)
Yup. Much more fun than saying “put a power damper on him” Less fun will be when the taxpayers find out how much a spherical jail cell surrounded by shock absorbing liquid costs.
That’s where the heroes come in, I think. Plus, knowing Ariana, there’s probably some ways of holding supers. Remember when they asked Sydney about her weaknesses? I’ll bet there’s a whole R&D department working on villain containment.
Containing Sydney would be easy. You just have to keep her from putting her hands on the spheres. A straightjacket would do that, as would putting her in a cell and putting the spheres (in a tube) in the next cell over, just out of her reach. Or just bury the spheres in concrete — Sydney will be unable to touch and use them, and also unable to move away from them. Sydney, powerless and contained — problem solved.
Or course, you have to catch her first.
She said it herself: Mittens are her kryptonite(tm).
The straightjacket, or mittens. But the others, ie, trying to immobilize the spheres, seem unlikely to work, imo. The spheres can endure and exert *vast* amounts of force on their surroundings (eg, Max’s “do you have any idea how much force I can exert” or words to that effect, while the orbs resist her pull).
I expect them to be able to break out of almost any attempt to restrain them. Maybe embedding them in titanium or carbon nanofibers or something would do it, but concrete seems unlikely. All Sydney has to do is summon them mentally; she seems to control their orbits, so she has formidable powers even without touching them (eg, her first encounter with Math, and even her unsuccessful attempt to clock him the second time seem indicative).
She was unable to summon them when the tube’s strap was in her car, under another car, or under Maxima’s foot. And Maxima was only unable to move the tube beyond the maximum distance from Sydney; as long as she was within that range she was able to lift and move the tube.
I conclude she was merely unwilling. Her goal (or a major one of her goals) was to avoid revealing the orbs. So, in all those cases, if she simply summoned them, she’d give herself away. As, for example… when she summons them and gives herself away. She remembers to keep them in the tube, but I don’t expect she had to.
https://www.grrlpowercomic.com/archives/373
“Jedi in the hizzouse say whaaat?
Uh… can we pretend that didn’t happen?”
Oh, and re: the orbs vs Max, you make the excellent point that the orbs were merely staying put, not exerting a force as such. But… physics says, equal and opposite, so they had to be exerting a force. On the other hand, the orbs are *known* (via VoG, plus examples) to act differently when refusing to move vs refusing to stay put. My mental model of that is, it’s an effect the orbs simulate; that is, they *decide* the cases are different, and kick whatever ass is necessary to make it so, even if galilean relativity says they aren’t different cases.
So, I can’t be sure. But my tenative “imo” so far is, she can summon them, and do tricks with them much like Magneto with the metal balls in the second movie. Though perhaps at not so long a range, and forming a platform would be tricky… maybe three of them under each foot to give a tripod of support points, and the seventh to wreak destruction…. um, but I digress.
So anyways, I could be wrong, but it sure seems that way to me.
Of course the orbs might just be really sneaky. They might just be implanting the suggestion in Maxima’s mind that they can’t be moved, so no force would be involved. She would just be convinced that she tried and failed.
Sorry, I just can’t resist mind games. Your arguments are sound and have merit.
Sydney is easily contained, hole in the floor put the orbs in a tube fill hole with cement. Make it the center of the room and make the room the max ranger she can move away from the orbs. Or if you want her to be able to leave the room. Tube mounts to the ceiling for containment, and make it so the tube can be removed and handled by a guard. The others are more difficult Harem is nearly impossible I suspect that there would be some way to interfere with her quantum tunneling that allows her to teleport.
Sydney is even easier than that to restrain. Forget countering her orbs, just superglue a penny to the ground and close the door behind her. Even with ADHD, she’d keep going back to that penny.
I don’t think they’d need to pass any additional laws against a supervillain. When a person commits a crime bigger than speeding or busted headlight, there’s often other crimes attached to them. Murder for instance is rarely ever just murder. And supervillains, even the normals with the gadgets are carrying lethal weapons with intent to cause harm. Assault and Battery, the list goes down even so far down as Disturbing the Peace. No, you just get their powers recognized as lethal weapons, not at all hard, and any use of super powers to commit crimes will result in a criminal on the most wanted list without making any extra laws.
Harem is easy to contain. She can only teleport either where she can see or to a few, very familiar spots. Contain her somewhere that she cannot see beyond her prison cell. Inform her that all the familiar spots have had obstacles placed throughout them. So that she does not accidentally killl herself by teleporting to them and her brain intersecting with a section of scaffolding. Redecorate the public areas of Arc so that she cannot visualise them well enough to teleport (and runs a risk of hitting a solid object in a different location in case she manages it).
For any mildly ruthless regimes with similar teleporter problems just say “exit this cell and we will issue an order to shoot you on sight”. The really ruthless regimes will skip the threat and just shoot her in the head when she is looking the other way. Realising that no imprisonment is perfect for a teleporter.
Mildly ruthless tech solution: Implant a small explosive device in the skull. Which will automatically detonate if it does not receive a coded signal. Which is weakly transmitted in areas she is allowed.
Humane tech solution, for use in conjunction with the mundane precautions above: Implant a tracker device with a sedative delivery system, triggered if not within range of the transmitted signal. Harem teleports out of the cell, the sedative floods her bloodstream and she falls unconscious. The pick up crew follow the beacon signal to her location, retrieve her, put up scaffolding throughout the area or cement it in. Let her know that has been done. One less unknown familiar location.
re: containing teleporters.
xref: Steven Gould’s “Reflex”; similar methods should work on Harem, but she’d have to be made unconscious during initial capture to insert the implant(s). Times five. And make sure the sedative darts have GPS locaters you can ping.
xref: Alfred Bester’s “The Stars My Destination” (aka “Tiger! Tiger!”) uses techniques somewhat like the “cut off visual contact” per above (except by “blue jaunte”, which is normally fatal)
The difficulty with Harem is not in the containment (though that’s difficult enough), it’s in the capture itself. She seems to have an extended response time (probably from the constant cross-indexing of her multiple instantiations), but even then you’d need to assasinate/tranq all of her bodies as close to simultaneously as possible to avoid her panic-teleporting away. Even if you have a multi-layer trap set at her preferred teleport locations, she could simply “disappear” some of her bodies temporarily.
“shouldn’t it penalize the commission of crimes using powers as a- what’s the word? the opposite of incentive- whatever to deter and discourage people with powers from using them for destructive and oppressive purposes?”
You believe people who just through random chance have superabilities should face harsher criminal penalties than typical people?
That’d be just as wrong as giving people with disabilities higher sentences. They didn’t choose to be that way.
Their punishment should be based on what they do, not who they are born as.
Actually, not only is it already (I believe) established law that using a weapon while committing a crime, I seem to recall hearing this has been applied to stuff like martial arts training (if relevant to the crime). It’s a rather small step from there to include super powers.
No, it’s a rather large step, since people choose martial arts training. They don’t choose to be a super.
Basing sentencing around a person’s DNA would be huge.
Agreement. Should someone who just happens to be above-average strong automatically get more jail-time than someone who isn’t? The crime itself is what counts.
If I’m thinking it through right, you wouldn’t get more jail time than someone with the same sentence without superpowers. You might, however get it in a different jail. (One that is capable of actually holding you.)
Of course superpowers would make it easier to commit worse crimes than a non-super, which would lead to a more severe sentence.
Superpowers can have a bearing on crimes, but would need to be judged in appropriate context. If an individual is publicly known to have super-strength commits a crime then everyone who sees him doing so will treat him as if he were armed with a gun. Even if he politely asks you to empty the cash register, without making any overt threats. The same as if he had a gun in his hand, the implication is that he could kill you if you failed to obey.
So even having, but not using, lethal force can influence sentencing. His inability to put the super-strength down before committing the crime does not stop the fact that he was doing so with the ability to use deadly force.
Certainly.
But if our hypothetical super, for some reason, does NOT use or otherwise take advantage of his powers (via intimidation, etc.) in the commission of a crime, that is another story. If he is superstrong, yet gets bailed up for white-collar crime, for example . Might be unlikely, but the possibility exists.
I wholeheartedly agree on your counter-point. I was drafting a similar reply to one of the other commentators last night, but decided that it would need to be extremely lengthy to properly respond to the various related issues he raised so abandoned it.
I know this is an old post, but I’m doing a lot of catching up on comments.
Anyway, “assault” and “assault with a deadly weapon” in Tennessee work like this: If you attack someone without using a weapon, that’s assault. If you threaten someone without using a weapon, that’s assault. If you attack someone while weilding a knife (for example), that’s assault with a deadly weapon. If you threaten someone while waving around a knife, that’s assault with a deadly weapon. If you attack someone while carrying a knife in your back pocket, that’s assault. If you threaten someone while carrying a knife in your back pocket, that’s assault. If you attack someone; and while you’re rolling around on the ground, he sees a knife sticking out of your back pocket, he feels a handle sticking out of your boot, and he feels what he thinks is a nightstick on the inside of your thigh, then there’s probibly more going on than just a fight; but it’s still just assault. (Sorry for the horrible punctuation on that last example.)
However! if you spent the whole day showing off your latest concealable knife and start making threats at someone while carrying it in your back pocket later on, that’s the gray area; but it probably leans toward assault. If, in the same scenario, you attack someone while carrying that knife in your back pocket, that’s the gray area; but it probably leans toward assault with a deadly weapon.
I think most states follow this pattern, but super powers kinda fall into those last two scenarios at least for well known supers. For unknown supers, it would almost always be the mitigated version of the crime.
Thanks, it is always interesting to learn how different jurisdictions interpret such things.
The argument could be made that while someone didn’t chose to be born with powers, they did chose to use them to melt a $10 million dollar bank vault, and that plasma beams are even more deadly than a gun. It would likely come down to a case by case basis, unless you’re dangerous enough to be labeled a terrorist threat, and post Patriot Act, that basically means you’re boned.
Can a super be disarmed? Maybe by giving them a drug that can suppress super abilites, or some anti superpower suppression field collar, or something?
Back in this one:
https://www.grrlpowercomic.com/archives/428
Gewn noted quite a few Classifications of Supers. At the same time they do not seem throughly explored scientifically:
https://www.grrlpowercomic.com/archives/880
So it propably is a case-by-case basis.
If it is a focus, they propably can take it away.
With magic, just tying your hands and/or placing wards on your cell might be enough. Magic seems to be a little bit classified/researched.
Oh, sure, most didn’t choose to have superpowers or at fault for what they are, whatever they are.
But if they committed a crime using said powers, then there’s no denying that they CHOSE to take advantage of said powers to commit an illegal, unethical and possibly even heinous act. That they have such a huge advantage over the average human being makes what wrongdoing they do worse.
If we were to argue that they shouldn’t face additional penalties for involving their superpowers in a crime on the basis of being fair and non-discriminatory, then similarly can said super criminals argue against any super-powered measures to capture, prosecute and contain them effectively and in account of their powers. Why should they be locked up in a special, extraordinarily reinforced cell, isolated from the rest of the prison and under constant watch as if they were a bomb? To use your terms, they didn’t choose to get powers that made them the equivalent of a miniature nuclear reactor whose abilities they just happened to use in the commission of a crime.
But the fact is that possession of superpowers by definition and nature does make a person a very different case from the rest of humanity. It may depend on the actual nature of their powers, but for the most part a super will be so far beyond everyone else.
Furthermore, take note that any superhuman containment, like any penal measure, can only be legally permitted by the existence of a law that recognizes the need for it, allows it and empowers it.
It may seem unfair, but such is the case. To not recognize that and take it into account for the purposes of criminal prosecution has practical, very real consequences that cannot be ignored. If they commit a crime using their superpowers, the law cannot be so blind as to overlook it.
You lock them. There are maximun security prison, low, etc… The existence of supers just make a new category. You lock the criminals are supers or not. But if you are super you go to superprison. Not so hard to understand.
In which case we ARE making a distinction and taking into account that they’re supers and not ordinary people. It may seem simple to you, but it will still require the mandate of the law and legal definitions that recognize and identify the different between normal people and metahumans.
For that matter, whatever measures are required to build and operate superprisons can and will include measures that would seem extreme, even cruel, when used on ordinary people. Thus, in order to be able to ethically and legally use them, the distinction between normal and super has to be made and recognized. Either way, the law must thus penalize people who use superpowers in crimes more than ordinary criminals.
The same way you difference between dangerous criminal or not. It’s not about they being supers is about the means they have to escape and their behavior. You don’t have to lock all supers in the “superprison” you have to lock the dangerous ones, supers or not.
Yea, a super who can make geraniums instantly grow in any soil is not a higher escape risk than a normal convict. Someone who can punch a whole through a bank vault door is. No discrimination required. If it is believed any criminal will abuse the option of a low risk prison they go to a regular prison. Those who prove capable of escaping from a normal prison go to a high-risk prison. Those who cannot be contained there go to a super-prison. Which would include normals with extraordinary capabilities, such as Houdini.
*hole
Poison Ivy. Jason Woodrue. The Swamp Thing (good guy, though). Even V from “V for Vendetta”.
Furthermore, this assumes that the information that said super convict can only grow geraniums and do nothing else is perfectly correct. What if he has other abilities that the authorities don’t know about? What if he develops a new one while in prison and keeps it a secret? What if he figures out a dangerous and powerful use for his ability to grow geraniums?
Superpowers can have an unknown element to them and where the Grrl Power universe includes a huge lack of knowledge on the subject (Syd’s 2 unknown orbs; Math being only human yet capable of taking down superhumans; unexplained origins of superpowers; etc.) it’s a huge risk to not take such into account.
The logical extension of that argument is that any human could potentially develop super-powers. Ergo all prisoners should go to super-prison because they may spontaneously gain powers to escape. However, I suspect that it would be rather costly to upgrade all existing prisons to that standard. And would be rather pointless.
All you can deal with is the known and likely risks. Plus to make good use of observation and intelligence sources to determine if such a development has occurred.
Simple, the first time they are gonna scape, next time we take measures. The same way you have a common criminal scaping a prison next time you take him to a high security one. Doesn’t matter if they are supers or not. You scape Prison A, next time we take you to Prison B.
No. It IS about them being supers simply because you can’t rely on ordinary police or even most military units to effectively apprehend or neutralize them. It IS about them being supers because you can’t employ ordinary methods of imprisonment to effectively contain them. It IS about them being supers because an ordinary man can’t shrug off bullets and just smash through a wall to freedom, but most supervillains can.
For that matter, the fact that you’re using the term “superprison” indicates a difference between them and normal prisons. Why make that distinction? We already lock away very dangerous criminals in *ordinary* prisons. It’s because the threat a supercriminal poses is so much GREATER than even the most dangerous of ordinary criminals. It’s because their powers put them on a totally new level.
Again, to overlook that they have powers in both law and practice is very bad, very foolish policy when it comes to superpowered crime.
difference*
i’d imagine supers who have those 3 particular powers, who attempt to escape after being caught, would get restrained in a fashion similar to juggernaut in x-men 2(or in other words they’d get a smaller box with full-body restraints instead.)
Disincentiveordeterrentare a couple of words that are opposite toincentive. So going on a highly destructive rampage through the city nets you charges of disturbing the peace using super-human abilities, vandalism using super-human abilities, destruction of public property using super-human abilities, destruction of private property using super-human abilities, reckless endangerment using super-human abilities, negligent homicide using super-human abilities (if you ended up killing someone), murder in the first degree using super-human abilities (if you meant to kill), assault causing bodily harm using super-human abilities (if they were only hurt), etc. How far you go through the list depends on just exactly how destructive you were.The format works but it is a little weird. The fantasy panels would have worked better if there was someone fantasizing them like Sydney and Lincoln.
Frankly you could have done this as a jokeless strip with nothing but a views of Arianna and the audiance, but if you really wanted to do the last panel you did need to set it up.
Don’t be afraid to not be funny once in a while. Some drama builds attachment to the characters, which them makes humour more effective. :)
I could probably do non-humor if the tone of the strip was different, like if I did Peggy’s origin tale, but generally if there’s an opportunity for a joke I can’t help but stick it in. It’s just my nature.
The format works for what you intended, that’s all that really matters. Every story has to inform the audience of fact at some point, that’s why the Doctor has a companion. So he can explain to her/him, and thus the audience, what’s going on.
Need drives form in this case. You had a press conference and this avoided clouding the page with speech bubbles. In other circumstances you might have a report someone is reading. Variety will help some with this but the best thing is to use them when absolutely necessary and be done with them.
A professional writer I know absolutely hates what he calls the “mirror” approach to describing characters. [Character falls down in front of a mirror and mentally evaluates his/her appearance and all it’s variations.] In his opinion the audience is quite capable of filling in those details for themselves so it’s unnecessary to do it. You should establish the character’s personality without someone describing them. Mack Reynolds, in a book called “Rolltown,” did this quite well. You didn’t know the main character was black until someone called him a racial epithet toward the end of the story. In the beginning of the story you find out quickly that he’s smart, competent, somewhat quiet and has a strong sense of what’s right or wrong. The same thing applies to most things in any story. Your audience is able to fill in a lot for themselves and most things will come out sooner or later anyway.
This one was obviously necessary and fit the stream of the comic. I think you handled it very well.
Weirdly enough that happened to me watching a movie! Some disaster movie, I forget which one. But, contextually it pre-dated the current US administration. Really enjoyed the way the president was portrayed in the movie. So often, especially in disaster movies, the role will be very shallow.
I was just about to comment on how good his acting was, as we were walking back to my car, when it struck me. “Wow, the president was black and I did not even think it was odd.” Which, having been born in apartheid era South Africa, is really saying something.
It’s an interesting writing technique, keeping physical descriptions to a minimum and letting the audience fill in the details. I read a huge online novel once, something like 2,500 pages, and it wasn’t until I went to go do some fanart for it that I realized that the author had never described the main character’s hair length or color, only occasionally saying if she was wearing it a pony tail when she was bent over a workbench or something.
I do think it’s important to establish certain basic things about a characters appearance. You don’t have to go reference the paint swatches at Lowe’s to describe their eye color, but I just finished reading 1,200 pages of the two Blackjack novels, and I think I was 1/3 of the way through the second book before I was sure he wasn’t black. You don’t have to introduce each character with two pages of description, but I’d say don’t leave major details in the aether for quite that long either.
Usually the reader will fill in the details themselves, unconsciously. It is one of the reasons why there is always heavy debate about how successfully a character from a book has been converted to the screen. Simply because every reader paints their own mental image of the character.
When independently researched, by asking readers to describe the characters, it is found that many of them do not bear much resemblance to any details the author actually wrote!
The complete opposite of Robert Jordan (Wheel of time). It is said that it would be impossible to make movies/tv-series based on those books because they are to long, but really, they would be a lot shorter if you left out all the descriptions of the characters and settings.
Of course, that leaves the open question of just what are the important details. If you read a novel and didn’t realize that you didn’t know the hair length or color of the main character, it probably never was an important detail. (Though if she put it in a ponytail it was probably at least shoulder-length.)
There’s a concept in writing of ‘conservation of detail’: Don’t bother the reader with details that don’t matter. It’s an imperfect rule: Detail helps build the world, so some details only needed for world-building are necessary. It’s tricky.
On descriptions, in my experience, it’s usually a good idea to work out what a character looks like early, even if you don’t use the details in the story. And if you do use the details, make sure you go back and add it early on: Surprising a reader three quarters of the way through a story that the character is a redhead when they’d been picturing them as a brunette tends to startle them out of the story. (Of course, some of the race examples given here the whole point was to startle the reader out of the story.)
As an obviously visual person, I appreciate a certain minimum of detail, but you’re right, there are plenty of times I can remember where I just started skimming when I’m on the 3rd page of reading about how giant and overcrowded the continent sized hive city is in the Warhammer universe.
Having a little head in the corner frequently would be a bit odd in its own right. Although I agree that it would be useful to have some visual indication when things are canonically fantasy. In this instance it is quite easy to view it as the collective imagination of all the viewers. Each seeing some image in their mind’s eye anyhow, if not as funny.
Perhaps some change in the look of the panel itself, would help convey the intent for when it is not so clear. Such as the cloud-like appearance of a thought bubble? Or drawing it in sepia tones? Pretty sure I have suggested the former before, but the latter is also a handy convention that should be easy for a new reader to catch on to. And not too hard to apply a retroactive sepia treatment to the existing fantasy panels if you chose to. Err, barring that ever-present lack of time.
Look at Sid all lurky lurking like a lurking lurker! Squeee!
What about if you’re a super, but you want to be neutral, as in, not under any government command?
Or if ur a member of an ancient order or wizards who have protected the earth against evil and villainy for thousands of years, you’re not going to suddenly turn over to an organisation younger than you, governed by those who know little about magic… Not to mention that most original magic orders and guilds are based in Europe and Asia, countries like England, China, Italy, etc… Not many old orders in places like US, unless there was one founded by Natives. Orders like that are usually not aligned with any particular country, So members are not likely to join an American Organisation. I get the feeling magic as a whole will not be entered into very much in this comic, though, magic users do not seem to be supers, for one, magic is usually learned, and there is a much larger percentage of people ABLE to learn magic, than there are supers, so there are probably more magic users like Gwen. And most magic users probably won’t become vigilantes, or fight crime, for most, it’s just a lifestyle thing. Or that’s my theory anyway
BTW, this is the part I’ve been waiting for, the ‘law’ for supers, how they are actually recognised by society. Also, I just like poking holes in things like this, if it annoys anyone, just ignore me :P
odds are they won’t care what the excuse is, if they catch a vigilante or super-criminal in the act they are going to jail.
Of course, we have to remember that the law actually (as far as I can tell) did not change the legal status of vigilantes, super or not – they’ve pretty much always been illegal once the rule of law is established in an area.
No to forget the probably best-known US vigilante group is ,,,
… the KKK.
Once people take the law into their own hands, they usually cease to be good neighbours in one way or another.
Besides being a NGO, the KKK is our own home grown terrorist group and secret society. Still out there but lots of competition theses days.
Eh, you try arguing with an Ancient order of wizards who believe they have a right to protect all earth… which they probably have done so for a thousand years, with modern law, question is, does the US REALLY want a legal and/or otherwise war with wizards.
Also
“as a wizard of an ancient order, it is my duty to kill that evil demon who steals peoples souls’
Archon:” That’s a US Senator, we can’t”
Course, that’s the problem with government agencies, they usually have to work within the law, or at least, one this public will have to, its particularly bad when evil demons use said governments to protect and serve them.
“I KNOW that US Senator was an evil demon – because the voices in my head said so.” :)
Just because your hypothetical wizards may or may not have been around for a thousand years, that doesn’t mean they are necessarily right. Or even sane.
Been plenty of groups in history (and in the present) that have done all manner of horrible things for what they considered to be perfectly sane’n’good reasons.
I’d actually suspect that Archon’s reaction in this scenario would be “He’s a what now?… Got proof? Okay, leave him to us to handle. YOU however, go back home and stay out of it or become our newest recruit. Do anything illegal with your wizardy super powers, especially assaulting the senator or interfering with our investigation and we _will_ place you under arrest.”
The organizations entire reason for existing is to deal with criminal supers. I’d honestly expect them to be more rational than “But he’s a , we can’t touch him!”
Apparently forum comments simply don’t show things inside of less than/ greater than signs if they aren’t recognized tags. I was trying to say:
… more rational than: “But he’s a [high ranking official], we can’t touch him!”
Depends on what ‘vigilantism’ is defined as.
Stopping a tsunami from wiping out several islands and killing millions?
Stopping a volcano from burying a city or two?
I doubt it.
But just in case…
remember Hancock?
Though, it does make me wonder with these government/country based super organisations, if at some point they will liase or work with individual supers or super organisations (or ancient wizard guilds) from other countries
I’m overthinking this… should go to bed…
In fact yes. That will be addressed in a page or two.
“Ok, Ms. or Mr. Ancient Order people. To operate in the US, you need to be part of Archon. That’s the law here and you don’t want to be criminals. Now, let’s sit down and figure out how that will work so your members can operate here legally in the US. Oh, by the way, that guy in Chicago who’s listed in the yellow pages… get him on board too.”
easily arranged. Said order of mages would simply assign a local magic user to act as liaison (such as Zephan Zeong, mayhap?) between the organizations. It’s done in existing military units with other countries in our mundane world, why not in theirs…
Poor Harry xD
Yeah, i have to agree that in this hypothetical situation, the most logical solution would be to establish a liason, and am very interested to know how archon would deal that.
Your secret order was already illegal.
*Magical ability gained by arianna*
Disappearing/reappearing eyeshadow.
Yeah I need to fix that. ¬.¬
If it was like like this every week, that might be a little too much, but I have no problem with doing a major info dump like this from time to time. Especially when it’s this informative. Nice to finally get some numbers of how prevalent superabled individuals are.
I’d really like to see the reaction this world would have to the population stats here: https://fav.me/d61spkp
Note, the reasons for why that population goes unnoticed is in the comments below.
This works and doesn’t cover swathes of art.
So why are they going after Brucy? He does not have any superpowers! That means he does not qualify for Archon. Besides, he still has a day job, such as it is. I guess, because vigilantism is officially illegal, hanging out on rooftops could be seen in an improper light.
Bailiff: In the case of the People vs. Bruce Wayne. The charges are stalking in the second degree, criminal trespass, and voyeurism. How do you plead?
Bruce: Not guilty to all charges as I was staking out a suspected criminal, not peeking in that woman’s bedroom in the apartment next to his.
as they mentioned in the second to last panel “vigilantism is illegal powers or no powers”
And plus, we already know that regular cops can’t catch The Batman.
And doubleplus, not everyone knows (depending on the universe) that Bats is just a normal guy in a suit. In some tellings he’s considered an urban myth, with all sorts of tall tales surrounding him (which Bats encourages; criminals are a cowardly and superstitious lot, after all).
I’d be hard-pressed to consider him “a normal guy” when he has a super-genius-level intelligence, borderline super-level physical fitness, and of course, the ultimate super-power: a bottomless bank account. I think Dave’s depiction of the 3 most powerful supers in the strip being brought in to take him down – it would probably take that.
whoops!
“I think Dave’s depiction of the 3 most powerful supers in the strip being brought in to take him down *is particularly apt* – it would probably take that.
I like Batman, but unless he was specifically prepared for the fight, I don’t think Bats would have a shadow of a chance against Superman… if Superman didn’t use his powers like a moron. He constantly forgets he has most of his powers because if he didn’t and he used them intelligently, most of his fights would be over in a single panel.
He could zip to Batman’s side and thump him in the temple before his exceptionally trained yet still human reflexes could register the movement. Oh hey you prepared and have some Kryptonite? Guess I’ll hover a mile up in the air and use my telescopic heat vision to burn your costume off you. Oh what’s that Batman, a smoke pellet? I have X-ray vision too dummy. Remote controlled Batwing? Lets be real, the missiles on that thing can’t scratch me. That assumes I even let them hit me. Between my speed, heat vision and cold breath, there’s really no way that would ever happen. Also I just cut the Batwing in half with my heat vision. Oh look you hid while I was dealing with that. Did you forget about the X-Ray vision already? Hope you enjoy surprise lasers through the masonry.
You know that sort of makes me want to write a Superman comic for a while. In the meantime I have Maxima.
sadly I must defend saying sup’s never forgets his powers he deliberately trains himself to not use any more / more dangerous power than he needs to protect against potential collateral damage. he hamstrings himself to avoid doing others unneeded harm this regrettably results in real high power fights ending up drawn out and more damaging as he systematically opens the gates to further ability.
Sounds like he is tactically-challenged then. If the practices he keeps repeating result in the opposite of his ethical intent.
The problem with not ending a fight as quickly as possible means there’s that much more chance of you being punched through an orphanage. The real reason he doesn’t end his fights as quickly as possible is that it makes for potentially boring fights and the writers would need to fill up the comic with other material.
Yea, corporations have their ways and means. When I was growing up, one of the friends of the family was a nice scientist. He had worked on improving the durability of car tyres. And succeeded. To the extent that the life-expectancy of his tyres was greater than that of the average car. He approached some corporations about it, and it scared the hell out of them. It would cripple their industry if people were no longer willing to buy replacement tyres every few years.
Their solution? Give him enough money that he never need work again. Subject to a non-disclosure agreement and never publishing the work or taking it up again, of course. All the work and prototypes were destroyed. He was quite happy to never have to worry about money again, and was one of the relatively few multi-millionaires who did not let the money take over his life.
Bruce has the exact same super power Math does.
His brain and physical prowess. A dynamite combination backed by money.
Math isn’t SUPERmillonaire xD
Yeah i know batman feats as martial artist.
And the main ingredient in that health tonic is alcohol.
Which makes you think you have super powers at least.
Being drunk naturally releases my body’s limiters allowing my powers to shine!
btw does anyone else think Sydney kinda looks like the franken dude from soul eater(the professor) in the last panel?
If she starts wanting to dissect things, everyone better watch out.
I agree with comments above; I wouldn’t want every comic to have this much text, but sometimes it’s necessary… and I did think it was balanced well with the visual digressions.
And Adam West is on the roof again.
So ok, vigilantism is out….
It just seems that there would have to be more rules than that…
For example, I’m wondering about the implications to corporate espionage…
Given that traditionally, anything that can be seen from a public place such as a street or sidewalk is “fair game”, what’s to prevent the evil Dr. Plagiarism from sitting on a park bench across the street from Ubermegacorp Inc with his x-ray/super vision and stealing a billion dollar patent right out from under them? (and how would you prove that he had?)- That kind of thing would make a armored car heist look like chump change…
Along the same lines- could Sydey’s ‘telepresence’ potentially constitute a “illegal search” even though she never actually entered the building?
Corporate espionage is a civil matter, not criminal. Since it’s unreasonable to require them to shield themselves against a one-in-a-million chance, Dr. Plagiarism would be liable for theft of trade secrets. They’d get an injunction preventing him from using it anymore and he’d be on the hook for any money he or anyone else was likely to make off the design, somewhere in the eight-figure range at least.
If it’s a patent it doesn’t need to be hidden, since patents are publicly disclosed, but I assume you meant a billion-dollar trade secret, like the eleven herbs and spices.
Dude copying your DVDs is a crime in the United States. Of course corporate espionage is a crime. To be specific it’s covered by the Economic Espionage Act of 1996.
Actually, I was thinking more along the lines of the “who invented it first” cases that have already cropped up in real life…. (Tesla v Marconi (radio), Edison v Swan (carbon filament lightbulb) ect…)
xref: the powers of “The Archive” (aka, “Ivy”)[1] in the Dresdenverse.
Luckily she doesn’t hire out for espionage work.
[1] Ivy is a little girl who has enough power to act on equal (or better) terms with the White Council (of Wizards), The Order of the Blackened Denarius, any of the major Vampire Courts, or maybe even one of the lesser to middling Fairy Queens. Sure, the OotBD captured her once (once!), but they cheated. A lot. If they hadn’t found a way to deny her access to magic temporarily, she’d have curb-stomped them lickety split. And even without (most of her) magic, she might well have never been captured, except that she felt she had to protect Kinkaid and Dresden, and she defended against several of the OotBD simultaneously.
She has that much power, because her mind has direct access to anything that has ever been written down. Ever. And people tend to write down magic spells and formulas. I suppose using her for espionage is sort of like using tomahawk missiles to go after fleas and ticks.
Similarly xref The Library in the wapsiverse.
As far as the Fourth Amendment implications of Sydney’s telepresence go, it would probably be treated similar to cops’ ability to look into windows. For anything other than a person’s home they need a good reason and for a home they need a either warrant or both probable cause and exigent circumstances.
So, what was Sydney planning to do with the hentorb? Also, if that’s going to be her official uniform, we gotta see it, soonest!
Clearly it is a means of restraint. You would not want to use the PPO on a deluded vigilante in a costume. She does not appear to have considered him a threat, anyhow, as she looks to be landing from flying up to the roof or scouting above it *. Other than her pose, she has the Fly Ball in her left hand. If she considered him to be dangerous, the Forcefield Orb would have been a more appropriate choice.
Although, I would guess, she initially flew up with the force field on. Figured out that the guy was just a powerless nutter, and swapped force field for tentacle. Had she still felt threatened, landing and keeping the Forcefield Orb in hand, if not necessarily turned on, would make sense to free up the other hand for the Pseuedopod Tentacle Orb. Or the PPO if he was a serious enough threat to life to justify the use of deadly force.
* If she can see through the Comm-Ball without the illusion being up that would be perfect for surveillance needless to say. Unless immediate action, such as detention, is expected.
Alternate outcome of the scene:
After flying to top of the building and seeing the caped cuckoo perched precariously on the edge of the roof, Sydney swaps in the telepresence orb, appears behind him, and yells BADGER! Problem solved.
(mop-up crew may be required)
Seconded.
Does anyone else see Mr. Boddy from the Clue movie when they look at the reporter in the green suit in panel 3?
Ok, so, uh, that’s great and all, but what super, exactly, is going to feel like prison is anything but a free apartment they can leave anytime they feel like?
I don’t think we’ve seen a single super in this universe yet that couldn’t break out of prison easy as breathing. Even if you account for “special” conditions set up to keep prisoners secure, ARCHON must realize by now that it’s naive to suppose they can ensure a criminal super gets confined. Harem, for example: they’d have no way to even find out if their efforts to confine her were successful, let alone actually manage it.
For the majority of superpowers, this won’t be a problem. Sydney could be confined easily if it weren’t for the PPO; the rest of her powers are near-useless in starting a jailbreak, though flight and invulnerability will help once she gets out of her cell, and telepresence has some creative applications. And Sidney is near the top of the super scale; people with only one power generally won’t be a problem, especially if that power is something like X-ray vision.
A few supers will have Kryptonite-like weaknesses. C.f. Magneto and his plastic/ceramic prison cells.
For the rest – if you needed to confine someone like Dabbler or Maxima – we know there are such things as magic and aliens. Magic probably has esoteric limitations, but binding a demon or djinn to your will is fairly standard fantasy stuff. Perhaps there’s some related technique you could use to shut down a human with magic-based powers. As for aliens, you wouldn’t want to bother them too much, but I’m sure if someone pops up who tosses around planetoids and who can take a supernova to the face, anybeing who notices will be only too happy to help contain them before they become an actual threat.
Confining Maxima would be simple. Simply order her to remain in her quarters and ask her to give her word as an officer that she will comply, until her release. If she agrees, no further action need be taken.
Dabbler would take more variety. I imagine chaining her up in a sauna, or the like, would demotivate any attempt to escape. For a while.
Incarcerating supers will be a particular challenge in this universe since I think power dampeners are a cop out.
=) My comment above would have been more appropriate here.
7-10 thousand out of over 7 billion? Well less than 1% even.
2 other examples of where Archon might be employed: Cartel muscle with lightning powers is electrocuting a whole SWAT team, send in ArcSWAT to take him down! ALF adds super-powered enforcers to their ranks, they’re now in Archon’s jurisdiction.
Well yes, one in a million would actually constitute less than one percent.
Gold star for attending school… ;)
(Sorry, no offense meant, but that was just too inviting)
About one ten-thousandth of a percent.
What I wonder is, if America has between 4 and 6 hundred, how much antisupervillain work would Archon/Arcswat really have? Archon has, what, something like fifteen supers or so? Maybe more? One of them being Max? Sure, that’s something like 30 or 40 supers per Arcswat team member, but most of those are probably just living their lives, maybe like That Flying Rescue Guy or whatnot. Let’s say 9 in ten don’t succumb to supervilliany. That leaves 3 or 4 supervillains. Once those are in superjail, one would think that’d be an end to it.
Hm. I suppose some could be like Dr Doom, in which case a) there’d be a larger pool of potential supervillians, and b) he has diplomatic immunity, so they have to just catch and release. Though I rather expect his diplomatic status would be terminated if the US govt were sane, monarch/dictator-for-life/whatnot or not.
But it certainly does affect the character of the work the team would be doing.
Just like the bad guy in Lethal Weapon two
I got diplomatic immunity, so Hammer you can’t sue
Can’t touch me.
— Peter Griffin
They are living among us. Average citizens, average heroes.
Quietly and anonymously continuing to make the world a better place.
—- The Incredibles, re the Superhero Relocation Program
You forget, that supervillains have a nasty habit of escaping without ever explaining how they did that (“I escaped jail, and now for my new plan in all it´s tedious glory…”).
And since Archon is an “accountable” Department, they wouldn´t kill their enemys.
I think it´s save to assume that the World of GP is more in line with classic superheroes. Not like Vanguard, where they treat each other like glorified lightswitches… rather rare to see so much blood in an Online-Comic.
The foreshadowing on this page particularly implies that ARCHON’s gonna be dealing largely with “atypical” threats, which are certainly not limited to just supervillains. Don’t forget that Machina is plotting something potentially nefarious already that we’re aware of, and as far as we know it has nothing to do with being super.
He is super dastardly.
You can tell that by the convenient lightning/thunder… =^_^=
You forget that he had to push a buttton to get the lighting to work. So that makes me think that he is just a normal person, not a super person.
So what does that make Iron Man?
Genius, billionaire, playboy, philanthropist.
And that’s without the suit!
Also remember, this is Arianna speaking to the press/public, not “word of God” authorial exposition. That number could be just what they want to admit to the public, or it could be what they think the real number is, but they’ve wildly underestimated the number of supers because most of them stayed hidden like Sydney.
“Extraordinary or atypical threats whatever the source” implies they won’t be facing supers only.
Hmmm..
Would an asteroid be an atypical threat?
I mean there are so many movies about that it borders on boring…
No, wait there was a three-hour-movie that crossed that border already…
Actually, I saw a two-hour documentary on Discovery Channel regarding a potential asteroid impact with the Earth; I thought it was pretty good. Say bye-bye higher forms of life. How people and animals will behave prior to the impact is a matter of speculation. How people and animals will behave after the world-wide shock-wave hits them is a matter of physics.
Cleverly put. :-)
One of the issues that we’ve never really explored much before is the ego factor.
Even in our mundane world, people of extraordinary resources (whether that resource be money, looks, power, fame, etc) tend to become somewhat arrogant. Imagine the person that has stunningly good looks, a body that won’t quit, and superpowers… Now imagine some chucklehead cutting him off in traffic, or snatching the last candybar out from under her hand at the grocery store, or stepping in front of him in line at the Barry Manilow concert, or trying to cop a feel of her on the subway…
Maxima’s arrogance at the bank was on full display, and that was from a disciplined military officer. I suspect amongst the superpowered, Sydney’s display (during her introduction to the team) may be more the norm than the exception.
That “don’t you realize who you’re dealing with” arrogance could result in a rash of, if not necessarily supervillains, at least a bunch of people that don’t think the rules apply to them, that norms would be hard pressed to actually deal with…
DaveB, does this comment section ever cause you to change what you were going to write? Maybe because someone pointed out a flaw in something you were going to do, or thought of an interesting point or idea that’d be fun to explore. Anything like that?
Not plot points so much, but details here and there definitely, and even a few gags. I’ll try and give attribution if I’m using something straight up, but usually I’ll see something and my brain immediately goes off on a tangent. I’m not such a worldly person, having lived most of my life with my nose stuck in a book/comic/video game, so I will gladly rely on information from people who have been there. You can see me asking for input on military stuff and I’m still trying to get that right.
Wow! that super knows Kevin Bacon!
How do you think they met?
Probably working in a movie with that flying camera guy.
I’m not sure, but I think he knows 6 friends of mine too!!
I personally think that amount of Text-vs-Pictures is okay.
Sometimes you just need to make a info-dump and that one is still pretty mild. It is sometime simply nessesary to pave the way for future jokes. And we are 145 strips into the comic, it was about time to define those core values of the setting.
There is just a bit of confusion: Could a Cop with Powers stay a cop while using his powers to fight Crime? Or would he run into legal problems when using his powers on Criminals, just by being not in Archon?
I could think it would depend on the powers: You don’t need archon training/employment for not dropping dead from beign shoot. But powers like Telepathy, Shapeshifting and the like would propably cause legal issues outside of archon (where they can train you and check if you follow the laws yourself).
I think that the replies above to similar questions are perfectly reasonable. Basically if a cop happens to have super-powers and is otherwise acting within the law there is no reason why he should be required to hand in his badge.
However, if he is actively using his power(s) as part of his law enforcement, there could be an issue. He has not been trained by an officially recognised and competent body capable of properly assessing the powers and giving guidelines on appropriate and/or dangerous use. A body capable of that does now exist. The details of the act will clarify the issue, but it may be mandatory for anyone intending to use super powers for law enforcement to join Arc.
Possibly other act(s) will address the issue of super powered use in a civilian work environment. Perhaps the US equivalent of the Health and Safety Executive will have a department which specialises in such matters. Maybe, given the low incidence of powers, assessing each super on a case-by-case basis to clear the ability as safe for use at work and/or in public. Firemen and ambulance personnel falling under civilian rather than law enforcement legislation.
Yeah like you said it would depend on the powers. They’d probably want to put you through some sort of enhanced training course, but if your power was that you were bulletproof, they’d probably be ok with you being a detective or a beat cop.
That got me thinking about something not really addressed yet: what if your “superpower” was actually a “super-vulnerability” – not quite Sydney’s description of “bad” powers… What about the guy who attracts angry bees? or the girl that sneezes flames (and isn’t fire-resistant herself) every time Tainted Love is playing within earshot? or the guy that can only digest carbohydrates if they’re drenched in motor oil?
When I start thinking of supers vs law the first thing that comes to mind is unintentional consequences due to powers. Road divots when landing, fingerprints in steel, hurricane force sneezes, overhearing mental thoughts, etc etc etc. Not to mention most insurance companies will have “act of super” clauses. Legally supers are a real bucket of worms.
DaveB
I have a simple solution to your problem of too much dialog on the page: DON’T DO IT!
YOU need the backstory for these characters to inform their reactions and motivations, but WE don’t. In fact, these last three pages have been pretty boring. Tell us a story, don’t tell us a backstory. Backstories are boring. Nothing is happening. This comic began well, but do not, do not, do not continue writing every little detail about this silly little organization you’ve invented. Have your characters DO something interesting. All they’ve DONE for the past three weeks is stand around listening to somebody talk to SOMEONE ELSE. If you were in their shoes you’d be falling asleep where you stood.
Show us a story! Please!
I can understand your frustration, it is always nice to have action and/or the comic’s trademark humour. Not that the latter is lacking from this page. I love both the six degrees of separation gag and the cure-all side effects one.
However, I should point out that DaveB is telling a story here. Had the story been set a few years down the line, then sure enough the characters should behave appropriately and not keep interjecting exposition which would not be natural to their situation or dialogue. Personally I enjoy stories which give no exposition at all. Speculating and figuring it out through the actions of the characters can be fascinating in it’s own right.
This story though, at the moment, is following the life of Sydney. And she lives at that interesting transitional moment when super-powers become public knowledge. She is becoming aware of it the same way as the rest of the world is. Except she is sitting there as it happens, in front of the cameras, rather than at home, watching the TV.
Other comics may fixate on the action. But DaveB has stated in the comic’s About section that his interest and focus is in the interesting stuff that happens beyond just the combat. I am sure action will come. With the final panel giving a beautifully dark hint. But far better to get all the exposition, which Sydney would naturally and organically be exposed to at this time, over with now. So that it will not get in the way later.
For example, in the future, we will know that if a vigilante is on the scene he is a criminal, not a good guy. Rather than either having a confusing arresting scene or someone having to say “he is a criminal because it is illegal to be a vigilante”. Which would both slow the pace and be really irritating as a cop would not say anything like that under those circumstances.
Thank you, Yorp.
Speak for yourself Bill and leave the rest of us out.
DaveB, I have a better idea for your problem of too much text: Instead of bemoaning the limitations of a one-page-a-week webcomic embrace the fact that it is a webpage and make it interactive. For example, you could have a JavaScript image rollover where when we move our cursors over a small, unintrusive, wordballoon it expends into a full text version and then drops back down to the small size when the mouse moves off it.
That’s not a bad idea, and I can see some comics wanting to do stuff like that, but I’d prefer my comic basically be just a comic delivered via the web. I think that would be too easy for a lot of people to miss, and there’s no way to include that rollover into when I make a book out of it. That’s not to say I won’t ever take advantage of the web medium, I’ve wanted to do simple animations on the page for example.
I have seen a number of web comics which use interesting techniques and/or tech. But the one which enhances the feel of the comic book medium itself the most, is Turbo Defiant. The use of the technology is really clever. Loosing any disadvantages of an on-screen vs paper medium and making it considerably better than a standard comic-reading experience.
Plus the setting, art, story etc is really interesting and well done too. I had forgotten about it, as I have not visited it a while when there was a gap in updating. But I see that there is new material there, so I will likely do a complete re-read to refresh my memory and hit the subscribe button too.
Is there some reason you want the book and web page to be the same? I would have thought that when you got around to doing a book you would have thought of different ways of telling the story, or a different story altogether. Do you really think your fans are going to want to buy a book that’s tells the story they’ve already seen here?
Well I hope so. That’s how a lot of people doing webcomics generate income. They sell merch and ad space too, but compiling their comics into books is one of their primary revenue streams.
You’re right, a big exposition dump can be a bit of a drag, and I’m torn between wanting to rush through this because taken one week at a time, it can be a bit of a drag to read, and doesn’t present much opportunity for zaniness or action. On the other hand, the nerd in me does dig the world building that comes with a good “here’s what came before that informs current events.” I think this scene will wind up being an abbreviated version of what I had originally envisioned but still hit the major points. Anything else that I skip over here will be referenced more organically by the characters later on as you suggested.
If you really need a big info dump, you could try doing what Erfworld is doing right now, sort of.
Post the regular comic on Monday and on Thursday post a text update with infodump or text story.
People who don’t like to read skip thursdays and everybody wins.
So who is holding the gun? Dabbler?
A purple hand and non-standard-issue-to-human number of fingers makes it seem more than likely.
Three fingers, purple skin or skin gloves, alien gun
Yes, that’s Dabbler.
That actually means they have the top three agents (power wise) at one place. Either the guy is extremely powerful or totally unknown or it is a training mission for Halo and the other two are there for damage control. :)
In the current cast page, Math has a higher power rating than Halo. Mr.Amorphous has an equal one.
(My memory says Halo used to have the 7 and Dabbler the 6, and it changed, but I may just be misremembering; anyways, wrt the current page, there’s at least one stronger than Halo.)
As far as I recall Dabbler has always been rated above Sydney. Albeit that is not definitive as I studiously avoided reading the cast details until Halo’s powers were revealed.
You are correct and their ratings haven’t changed since I looked last.
But I only looked at it before Math and some of the others were added.
Okay, I gotta admit, the last pannel made me think of the “Step-in Time” music number from Mary Poppins. And you know Sydney would use any rooftop excuse to either bust out an umbrella or renact her favorite scenes from Gargoyles.
Yeah the rooftop image I referenced was definitely a bit 1900’s England, but I liked it better than concrete rooftops full of AC units.
VITAMEATAVEGAMIN!!!
I can’t believe you actually put that in here!!!
You sir, are my hero!
(And I can less believe that google chrome has vitameatavegamin as a word in its spell-check.)
It might have determined that such a long word as Vitameatavegamin is some technical term and given up trying to spell check it, or it tried to see if it could build it out of known root words, all smushed together, like vita-meat-a-vega-min, where each part is a valid word, so putting them together makes a valid technical term, maybe.
… or the developers of Chrome were fans of “I Love Lucy” …
I watched that scene on youtube to get the design of the bottle and the logo and all that, and it’s really incredible that Lucy was able to do it like she did. That word is hard to say once, but she nails it every time and even messes it up exactly right when she’s getting drunk. There are multiple cuts during the scene, but it wouldn’t surprise me if it was just a live multicamera setup and she did it all in one take. Actors those days I think had a different standard, where they’d memorize a whole show like it was a stage play.
I also want to say how how I like your subtle-but-true statement that registering people with powers is declaring them to be criminals. (Reminding me of certain other types of people certain folks want to register, despite them not being criminals.)
I wrote a page that I knew wasn’t going to appear in the comic because it felt to political, basically about supers being weapons and making some 2nd amendment jokes. I’m tempted to post it here, slightly hidden in the comments, but I might revisit it when we get around to Peggy and Sydney at the firing range.
Put my vote down for the yellow text boxes working. Far better than looking like a balloon vendor has just walked by and blocked the view.
hahaha, holy shit, +50 points of awesome for having an I Love Lucy reference in there. i see at least one cool dude who was hyped to see it. i hope there are more.
Sid’s gonna tentacle Batman :-O
I’m sorry, so by this ruling Batman, Superman, Spider man, Iron man, Thor, and the Hulk would all be bad and go to jail because there all vigilantes? I’m sorry but I call Bull on that.
Some of the greatest hero have been or started out or are vigilantes and did the right thing for the people by the people not by some bureaucrats. I was ageist the super human reregistration act. And I’m ageist this forced agency signup for superheros.
Batman isn’t a super and Thor has diplomatic immunity.
That still leaves plenty of other superheros. Besides you don’t need powers to be a superhero.
Super Man would not go to jail. His ethics prevent him from acting illegally unless there is no other alternative. There is an alternative. Join Arc.
Captain America had huge ethics too. But that didn’t stop him from defying the Superhuman Registration act, and America itself.
Remember the mantra “DaveB is wise”. If you look at the comic you will note that Arianna specifically states there never will be registration. No registration, no need to act in defiance of it.
The whole only join us(Which is pretty much completely under the government.) or don’t do anything else you will be arrested is pretty much the same thing. Hardly wise.
Supers can join or not join whatever organisation they want. They can work for a Hollywood film studio, a construction firm, a heath-care company, the Chinese Army or whatever. But if they want the right to beat up US villains they better join Arc.
Dr. Doom has diplomatic immunity and he isn’t super either unless you count his scientific genius. Which I do. Just as Edna Mode is a super too. Fashion sense and her technical skill in creating costumes that look elegant and can survive the super’s powers. The same with Batman and Robin.
However no vigilantism. Regardless of physical status no vigilantism, just like in our world. So become a cop or Federal Marshal etc. They would love to have you once the laws are worked out. Liability is a bitch which is why nuclear power plants are only backed by the full faith of the US govt not any private concerns. The same applies here.
“Kick Ass” was all about costumed vigilantism. Now Hit Girl seemed super in her uncanny fighting prowess. I’d say as close to super human as one could get from intensive training.
Hit girl is a vigilantism too, so are some of the best hero’s out there. Which is why I’m ageist this. Just how are the supers suppose to protect us from a tyrannical government if there working for said tyrannical government. Like Watchmen all over again. Pretty soon they will send Sidney to go fight in Iran or some other 3rd world country.
Super powers make no difference to the basic principles that everybody acts under. Civilised people act within the law to ensure that such tyranny does not start in the first place. But if that fails and tyranny is at hand, then you end up with rebellion and civil war. I fail to see how encouraging people to act as vigilantes would comply with the rule of law in any society. Only if the rule of law has collapsed and there is no other recourse does one turn to force to resolve the problem.
I’m talking about the corrupt politicians, cops, and government officials that hide behind the law. And civil war wont even start of the government sends superheros that work under them to destroy any upstarts. Just like what the Comedian did in the Watchmen comic, hence my point.
Hit-girl, Rorschach, Batman, all go after the criminals and corrupt were the government and police can’t or won’t go. The whole guardians from the guardians deal.
The difference being if your cops are incorruptible. Elliot Ness style. Within Arc, we can already see realism in that even super heroes are not. Namely Harem. Hopefully she is playing a double agent, but if not, I am sure that Maxima will do her utmost to deal with her, when the time comes. Her aside, we have no hint that there is corruption within Arc itself. As a newly formed body it should not come with the baggage of corruption that can gradually form up, over time.
Perhaps, with sufficient numbers, Arc will start up its own internal investigation division, as with other police forces. Which would help with the public image, if there is any cause for concern.
Over the years I have formulated a strategy by which a corrupt political and legal system could realistically be redeemed and made, if not incorruptible, then at least, far less likely to succumb to corruption.
Given somebody fearless enough to risk assassination by taking on the system openly and with full transparency to the public. Not to mention public support. Without the will of the citizenry, no such change could be successfully implemented against an entrenched corrupt system.
Oddly enough, setting myself up as judge, jury and executioner of anybody who I felt looked guilty did not feature. Which, at its core, is what vigilantes do.
I have an issue with Watchmen (granted I’ve only seen the movie so there may be something that I’m missing) but as far as I could tell, none of them were superheroes. For one thing, it didn’t seem that any of them had super powers, except for Dr. Manhattan, and… I forgot his name, the guy at the end who caught the bullet. And two, none of them ever seemed to do anything heroic. The Comedian in particular was just a sociopath which a shotgun. Why anyone ever called him a hero is beyond me.
Ah yes Ozmendas. He’s super intelligent, and is able to train his body to beyond human degree. Not entirely shore he has superpowers beyond that or if that counts.
Owelman, miss Jupiter, and Rorschach seem to do heroic things, and they did in the past anyway.
As for the comedian, I don’t know what his deal is, all I know is that his name was a sort of inside joke.
I still remain that Watchman is a warning about heroes being solely under the government.
It depends on the government. Who we elect to lead us has consequences, so we shouldn’t vote for inconsequential reasons.
The problem with movies is that they try to fit in so much stuff in so little space. Or, even if they faithfully do that, watching it all happen in real time leaves one little time to really process and digest what they’ve seen.
You’re best off getting the book, DaveB. It answers all your points. Yes, you’re right that only Doc Manhattan was truly superhuman among them (they’re mostly referred to as “costumed vigilantes”), but they *are* superheroes in the same way that Batman, Green Arrow and Blue Beetle are superheroes despite not having any superhuman abilities. As for being heroic, including the Comedian, the movie only shows short glimpses into their past wherein they fought crime. The movie focused mainly on their being “retired” or doing other stuff. Within the movie, they did try to ramp up the action to demonstrate what makes them count as “superheroes” (all are amazing hand-to-hand combatants, Nite Owl is an engineer who made amazing gadgets and an amazing vehicle, Rorschach is a crazy but sharp detective, etc.).
Ozymandias is a particularly telling example. He’s perfectly human; he just trained himself to be the peak of physical and mental fitness. But to have the reflexes to catch a bullet before it hit him is simply a feat. In fact, the movie actually downplayed it- you see, in the book, he didn’t use gloves.
In the comic book, his hands were bleeding after he caught the bullet. I think in the movie they just didn’t want to deal with that messy detail.
Watchmen was intended as a sort of deconstruction of superheroes. You are right that none of them had superpowers except Dr. Manhattan, but I think Ozymandias was so smart that his brain qualifies as a superpower (much as Math qualifies as a super due to super martial arts). Ozymandias has also trained his body to an amazing degree but I think that is a second-order thing from his brain, not a separate thing.
As for the Comedian, he was sort of a cracked mirror version of Captain America. (Arguably Captain America has powers, but work with me here.) The Comedian was basically just a guy in a costume, but he was used by the US Government propaganda machine. Which he found funny. You aren’t supposed to like him, but if you read the comic you find out he wasn’t 100% monster, just 98.5% or so. He was a reasonably interesting character, even though he mostly served to provide a McGuffin (“Who killed the Comedian?” Not really a spoiler, we find out about it right away in the first issue).
One thing that’s weird about comics: we see all these world-changing inventions and plots, yet the world doesn’t change. Teleportation is common enough in Marvel comics that SHIELD agents can use it and it’s no big deal, but the world doesn’t look any different. Well, thinking through the consequences of these inventions would be nearly a full-time job and the world would be so different that it would lose the “superhero” vibe and gain a “science fiction” vibe. Anyway, the reason I mention this: At the end of the Watchmen comic series, we find out that Ozymandias invented clean power sources, efficient storage batteries, and who-knows-what else and the world really does change drastically. Yet one more way Watchmen is different than other comics.
It’s very simple to answer your concerns: None of those guys are real in the GP universe, and in the GP universe they are handling the super situation in a realistic manner. There is no forced mandatory joining of ARC for supers, they simply have to do what any normal person would have to to legally enforce the law: JOIN IT.
The thing is that a lot of superhero comics don’t deal with the realities of the world. There’s any number of comics where the human torch is having a dogfight with someone over Manhattan. The thing is, he misses more shots than he hits. Think about what happens when he misses. Sure, some of them are angled up and don’t happen to hit a plane, but he’s shooting firebolts that can melt a tank. What happens when one of them hits the 14th floor of a 30 story office building? That never gets drawn in the comic of course. It’s just an artist drawing an interesting looking dogfight without thinking about stuff like that. But in the real world – that would be a problem.
Also, what of the problem of Spiderman leaving a crook hanging upside down from a lamp post? Not him stopping a bank robbery in front of security cameras and 20 other witnesses, but just a mugging. If the cops find him before the webbing dissolves (and he doesn’t crack his head open or die from the 10 foot fall), there’s no evidence against him and Spiderman won’t show up in court to testify. So basically the guy will walk. People have the right to face their accuser, so secret identities just wouldn’t fly.
Even if there was some special exception given to Spiderman because everyone in Manhattan knows Spiderman and he’s saved the city a dozen times, etc., any competent defense attorney would have him thrown out. “How do we know this really is Spiderman and not someone with a grudge?”
Spidey fan though I am, those are undeniably true points.
don’t know all the restarts on spidey but from what I read the web arrangement would have the hanging line stretch as it dissolves lowering the criminal to a relatively safe height. so the scare of getting caught and hung upside down was supposed to encourage the person not to do it again. if the cops find the criminal before the web fully dissolves the criminal is questioned as to why the web was used, often with more clear and lasting signs leading to the in alleys crime scene or a written report of why the person was restrained. a repeat offender would be hung outside a police station with a written report of the crime attached.
Trouble is said written report would not hold up in court. Unless Spidey brings along his lawyer, with notary public capability, to stamp the report and verify that the person making the report was Spider
Man and who signed it in his presence. I do not think the defence lawyers would have much difficulty getting an unverified report by an anonymous individual thrown out. Even if Spider Man himself is well viewed publicly, there is no way to prove that it was him who made the report. Courts do require that the people who’s reports are presented to the court appear, if required, to verify the authenticity.
spidey is a photographer so gets a couple pics with the report to confirm events and even if the case is thrown out, that the report was made with the pics goes on the persons file, so repeats do build to make a persons of interest status and the police monitor him. he will be caught or spidey will show a habitual offender with repeated reports that will result in investigation that confirms the crime. add that spideys report will support the victims report to the police and it will receive more credit than being called a rumor.
Perfectly well played in Superman Returns.
Supes didn’t show up in court to testify against Luthor, so Luthor walked free to do his schtick.
Dave, as for your point about collateral damage, I think you really need to find a copy of Destroy! by Scott McCloud. It’s laugh-out-loud funny and… well, no spoilers, but it ties in.
https://scottmccloud.com/2-print/older/destroy/index.html
That’s prevalence, not incidence.
Arianna is giving a sound byte friendly answer.
So somebody with super-speed who wants to work as a bicycle courier is clear to do so, so long as he does not violate too many traffic laws (dangerous driving, speeding, Newton’s Third). Somebody with super-strength could get gainful employment working in a warehouse. “Ever since we hired Jim there, we were able to retire the big electric forklift.” Oh, by the way, your teacher really does have eyes in the back of her head; they are just hiding behind her hair, but she can still see you throwing stuff. Strength and flight combo could make for a decent replacement for a crane.
I have an incomplete story where a woman with super-strength and invulnerability joins the police force. During her training, the instructors are evaluating the progress of the various students.
Chairman: Next is Henderson, Lisa.
Physical fitness: If you tell me her family crest looks like a big red S on a yellow background, I would believe you.
Firearms instructor: I always thought that she had a one-piece bathing suit that is patterned after the American flag.
Chairman: Physical fitness: A
Physical fitness instructor: A+
Chairman: We can only assign A as the highest grade.
Psychologist: So what was her score anyway?
Physical fitness instructor: 107%
Psychologist: So how many bonus points are there on that test?
Physical fitness instructor: 10
Psychologist: So she got 7 of the bonus points?
Physical fitness instructor: No, she got all the bonus points, but only score 7/10 on the flexibility test, which is typical for the men. I am surprised that she scored that high, given how much muscle mass she must be carrying.
Chairman: Anyway. Hand-to-hand combat: A, Law: B, Firearms safety: A, Psych: B, …
Don’t you know that all superwomen have an ability to bend themselves into pretzels that look alluring to anyone but a chiropractor?
You’re forcing me to post an Escher Girls link, aren’t you? ;-P
Psychologist: I think she would be a good fit on a tactical unit.
Physical fitness instructor: I think she would be a tactical unit.
Heh. +1 thumb up.