Grrl Power #149 – Let’s cut to the chase
I know some people are a little impatient with the press conference, so I’m compressing it a little, I think it will only last 5 or 6 more pages, and I’m also making sure that I’m not repeating myself. Most of what’s been talked about is new information and nearly everything we’ve yet to cover should be as well.
Here’s a fun article about (tabletop) Superhero RPGs. Personally I think the Marvel RPG was the best one. Not the SAGA one. The 1984 version that got honorable mention. The reason it was so memorable was that instead of having numbers for ability scores, there were ranks. Feeble, Poor, Typical, Good, Excellent, Remarkable, Incredible, Amazing, Monstrous, Unearthly, Shift X, Y, Z, Class 1000, 3000, 5000, and Beyond. Not “and beyond” like et cetera. Beyond was an actual rank. How is that not the best stat system in the world for a superhero game? My friends and I always thought there should be a “Marvelous” rank in between Remarkable and Incredible, and there was probably room for one more rank in between Incredible and Amazing.
Anyway, Dabbler is a highly evolved version of a character I rolled up in the game. Basically there was a table you’d roll percentile dice against for origin (mutant, altered human, cyborg, etc) and I rolled a 00 which meant roll for a dual origin, then I rolled 00 again. I think she started off as an alien mutant cyborg? It made me think it’d be funny to have a character that was basically a little bit of everything and she evolved from there.
As for the rest of the games on that list, I’ve played about half of them. And when I say played, I mean my friends and I had a bad habit of buying RPGs, learning the character generation systems, building characters, then never actually playing the game. I’m a terrible rules rapist, trying to min/max and squeeze every last drop out of character generation systems. If I remember my timeline correctly, Maxima’s power set evolved from an exploit I found in the Champions system where I was able to build a 250 point character that could transform into five different forms (like Bruce Banner transforms into the Hulk) each with 200 points to spend, only all 5 bodies looked exactly the same. So he had a super strong body, a super fast body, super armored, etc, and he played it off like he had all those powers at once, which made him seem like a 1000 point character in a 250 point world. That idea merged with the new “Silver Surfer only gold and female” chick I was drawing since she didn’t have a powerset at the time. She just existed so I could draw a “nude” shiny chick. Obviously like Dabbler, she evolved pretty far from her origins as well.
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I don’t get the bulldog
Traditionally, Paul Bunyan had a giant blue Ox called Babe that accompanied him. I’m guessing that is at least part of the reference.
Ah, thank you. I’m not from the US, so I’d only vaguely heard of Paul Bunyan from US TV, but I don’t know any of the details.
Luckily this is not the world of Dr. Mc Ninja. There Paul Bunjan (Disease) is as dangerous as any Werewolf or Vampire:
https://drmcninja.com/archives/comic/1p7/
Lockjaw of Marvel Universe fame being the other
The guy is implied to be Paul Bunyan, only instead of Babe being a blue ox, its a blueish bulldog.
The irony is that Paul Bunyan is entirely fictional. He was invented for advertising purposes, iirc.
Actually his origins predated the advertising, as campfire tales amongst lumberjacks. With a researcher having determined that such were circulating at least thirty years before the advertising campaign. With some lumberjacks even claiming to have met him.
So whilst it is likely a modern legend (there is some dispute), it is not one invented by the advertisers.
When you get that drunk, you might mistake a large dog named Blue for a small ox, which later evolved in later retellings in a large ox was blue, even if that started out as the name. Back before the days of diesel trucks, often teams of oxen were used by lumberjacks to move the felled trees out of the forest, but they were useless if you disturbed a predator, like a bear or puma. Thus many camps would also have a dog or two to deal with uninvited guests, human or otherwise.
Plus, there are oxen out there with a blueish grey coat that have a sort of dappled appearance.
I dunno. Seems to me that a giant bulldog would make for one heckuva deterrent to roving woodland predators, whatever its colour.
That was the point.
Very smooth transition :P
its a reference to the american folktale of paul bunyan. who was accompanied by babe the blue ox. as per retelling a story when drunk a bulldog turns into a bull turns into an ox.
damn forgot to hit reply. meant it as a reply to michael
What’s going on with that one reporter’s eye?
Amblyopia?
I knew a guy in University who looked a bit like that – his right eye was a glass replacement, and it would occasionally roll off to the side on it’s own.
I agree with HappyHead that it’s probably a glass eye. If you’re old enough to remember, Sammy Davis Jr’s Glass eye would pretty much look one direction only no matter what direction his other eye looked.
Also Peter Falk (Columbo)…
I think he is just below Sydney and is getting dizzy watching the balls rotate. Aha! A power of the mystery balle is mesmerizing reporters…
Mouseketeer Roll Call! =P
Maxima: “Did you just call me a gold elephant?”
I am very curious if Maxima has already dealt with Supervillains.
Sure she has. Don’t you remember her appearance in the movie Goldfinger?
Heh. That woke Sydney up.
If TV and anime have taught me anything, supervillians ( and superheroes for that matter) are huge egomaniacs, at some point, they WILL come and challenge supers to fights. If Maxima gets enough street cred (of space cred technically), uber powerful aliens will come to challenge her, just to prove they are the strongest. The downside is that such fighters, while they may not particularly set out to destroy planets or be evil, may have no qualms about holding a planet as hostage, just so the hero will fight them. TV has stated it, so it must be.
Time to set up a super-MMA fighting arena.
Preferably several miles from the nearest town and in a valley, where the explosions and power beams won’t hurt anybody.
Who smells $$$$?
Check out the limited series “America’s Got Powers” by Image comics for a story like that. Not exactly though. It’s more like a reality TV show where supers are trying for a position on the government sponsored Super Team. Actually it’s a pretty good story.
Could you provide a link? I know how to program a simple search engine but I am still terrible at using them, I once ended up on a Russian website… I can’t actually remember what I was searching for though
In Firefox, highlight the text “America’s got powers” (exclude the quotation marks). Right click and select Search Google for “America’s got powers”.
It’s really that easy.
While not a supers novel per-se, Streetlethal by Steven Barnes had very good descriptions of the nuances of a super-powered MMA-type fight (called null-boxing in the book). It predates actual MMA (1983), but had some interesting variations on the sport, some of which sound really cool (like having the fights in a zero-gee environment)
Havn’t read that series in over 20 years. For it’s time it was a decent almost cyber-punk book.
So, we should expect to see The Main Man?
That plot is quite cliche at this point, but there have been good (and bad) works written according to that plot. The best one may be about be Marvel’s: the Champion of the Universe versus everyone’s favorite blue-eyed Thing. This was wonderfully parodied and homages by the cartoon Dexter’s Lab, in the Dial M for Monkey short “Rasslor”.
Ah, Sydney… Time to pay attention and warm up your juggling skills.
I just want to jump in and say how much I am enjoying the press conference. I get that we live in a society of instant, always intense gratification where anything not the Big Fight Scene is considered ‘boring’, but I disagree and am quite liking seeing this unfold. If I wish it were going faster it is only because I want to see the next page, not brush the ‘exposition’ under a carpet to get onto ‘real’ content! The desire I have can never be sated, because it is purely a need to turn the page. You could draw 24/7 and I’d eventually hit that wall all the same. ;)
In short, don’t let whiners discourage you or force you to skip bits you think are important. I am sure I am not the only one who enjoys every page and thinks you should take it at whatever pace you feel is best, not force yourself to ‘compress’ things. Do it right, and the readers who matter (And who have made your comic so popular!) will be happy. The transients who will always find SOMETHING to whine about, before stamping their feet and claiming never to read again, should be ignored as much as possible. :)
Seconded.
Besides, I’d like to hear what kind of answers the last few questions garner (if any).
Agreed
DaveB has been thinking about this press confrence for a few years now.
The least we could do is let the man answer a lot of the questions that have rose in the back of our minds as we have enjoyed this comic.
Agreed (pt 2)
+1 thumbs up.
I’ll name myself a “whiner”. 5-6 more pages is cutting it down. There are already 6 pages of press conference. So this comic, which is about the characters does not feature the characters talking to each other for 12 pages. That’s a long time. Most of this background stuff could be in a FAQ that was marked “Official in universe background information” and it would be disseminated more quickly and more completely. And we’d have had 12 pages of Sydney (and the others) being kooky instead of Sydney standing around doing nothing.
Don’t assume the whiners just want there to be fights. I’d have preferred 12 pages of the team sitting around a poker table DOING something to 12 pages of straight up exposition.
At least there’s an end in sight.
I think part of the “problem” you’re referring to is because comics on the web are vastly different from the comics you’d buy in print. For one thing, print comics have limited space & even have to include room for advertisements. Although web comics still have to have banners & side-margins for ads in most cases, but the length of story is far less limited & can delve into a story far better than print comics could ever hope for.
Or have you lately compared the size & length of a purchased print version of a webcomic to that of an issue of “normal” print comics…It’s like comparing the size of a full novel to that of a political pamphlet. Even comparing the content from a print comic transferred to the internet, it nowhere approaches the amount of content in a “internet release” comic.
In any story being told, content quality is just as important as length & pacing…On the internet, pacing can be eased a bit & get more in-depth than a paper-print story. I mean, who would want to carry a story book from the library or book store if it’s so thick you’d need a two-wheel hand cart to get it home? Not to mention the savings in tree-lives that were spared. :D
Ah so you’ve read the Wheel Of Time then? The final book ended up in three parts (I think) because they hit the limit of what you could actually bind between two covers without printing on bible paper. That said I enjoyed them a lot. And the last one totally justified buying an e-book reader instead of the hardback!
My main complaint is the pacing in real time. 12 pages is 3 months at the current release schedule. That’s a long time to spend on background. It’s also a lot of space in a book. All of this information could be a page in a FAQ and we could have 12 pages of a poker game that would tell us a million times more about the relationships between the various members of the team than this 12 pages ever will. If the updates were daily or weekdayly, spending 12 pages on this might not be so bad.
And I disagree, a good story can be utterly destroyed by bad pacing. That’s why they give out an Oscar for Best Editing. Because pacing is extremely important. You almost can’t have comedy without pacing. I’m not saying Grrl Power has been destroyed by this pacing. But how many people might have found this comic and tried the last 2-3 episodes and are left wondering who would write a webcomic about a press conference?
You love the background stuff. I’m not saying get rid of it. I’m just saying that when you are working in a visual medium, the visuals should convey much of the story. Comic pages do not suffer walls of text gladly. FAQs love walls of text.
Fairly argued, on all points. But, hey, it will just have to be a big book.
And seconded also. (Fifthed, whatever)
I’m actually kinda hoping for another explanation of Harem’s powers, despite all the elaboration in the comments I still can’t quite get my head around her brand of teleportation+duplication. Could she spawn off a ‘new’ copy of herself now if she dismissed one of her existing five? Or is she now stuck with those 5 customised bodies? Do dismissed bodies age or require upkeep? (I’m guessing not from comments, and she’s just been careful to keep all her bodies roughly the same age). When she teleports any significant distance does it have to be the same body that appears at the other end, or could she do a switch in the middle? I’m guessing not.
Ok so maybe that’s only really one question I haven’t been able to answer myself. Although I’m interested as to why five? Is it a fundamental limit, or just what Daphne decided she was comfortable with? If it isn’t, I’m slightly surprised she hasn’t kept a larger pool of alts to draw from should the circumstances require it (eg a heavily disguised one for emergencies, or even a younger one to really confuse people – although that might just be too weird mentally for her).
Of course I fully understand there might be spoilers involved in answering these (or just limiting future possibilities) so I don’t really need an answer :) I guess I just find it a slightly strange mechanic to get my head around. Maybe it’d make more sense to think of her as having the ability to duplicate herself, and then learning later that she also had a way of dismissing the original at the same time. Yeah that makes more sense to me at least, although it doesn’t explain how she can coalesce down to one body then re-summon her pre-existing modified bodies, unless she every teleportation is actually a snapshot she could re-summon if she wanted to.
Under that logic, a new extra body is “take snapshot, make copy”, a teleportation is “take snapshot, make copy, stash (or not) original”, dismiss a body is “take snapshot and stash it”, and resummoning a body is “restore stashed snapshot”. Can’t you tell I’ve been working with backup software today? :)
I’ll answer a few of these but I think some of it will be more fun to just show in the comic. She can currently create 5 of herself, but it used to be only 2, then 3, then 4. Whether or not she can exceed 5 in the future remains to be seen. She also seems to be stuck with the bodies she has, once created, they’re persistent.
Oh yes definitely more fun to show! I can just image the monologue attempting to explain this to her parents: “hi, I’m your long lost…” no wait “I’m the daughter you don’t rem…” “Erm actually I’m the same person you remember only now there’s two of me. How COOL is this!?”
The ‘coolness’ factor would depend on how much the parents liked the ‘original’ :P (don’t mean they hated her, but some girls can be real diva-brats even the most loving parent has trouble putting up with, now imagine them having to deal with two :D)
I tend to think the limit of 5 is a (perhaps subconscious) narrative limit. It’s enough to define her character, but not so many that she could handle all her missions “solo”.
Seconded and everything. This is the only super hero comic I enjoy, and I enjoy it all the more for this conference. I love that there are quieter scenes. Too much comedy tends to get on my nerve. I love world building. I love politics and ethics. I love that Dave does not shy away from bringing up these questions, because way too many comics just chicken out and ignore them, and I suspect that half of them don’t do it for pacing but for fear of rising the issues. Also, I love characters, real characters that have more than good looks and superpowers, and I think this conference is a great way of giving insight into Maxima’s character, as it shows her under pressure in a non-violent situation. Same goes of course for Arianna.
What about Spinnerette? Do you not know about that one or do you just hate cute gals?
list of thing maxima was told not to say or do at the press conferance
1. Bring it (or any variation thereof)
2. Insults
3. Everything else. Just sit and be quiet
no that one was Halo.
how about “I’ve endured the endurable and suffered the insufferable”
Hat guy is kinda layering his questions. That’s likely to leave some unanswered & forgotten (which is why reporters, in general, stick to 2 or less, usually one complex question). Maybe he’s nervous. Unlikely to have 2 noobs at the same press conference.
This is all normal. If we could see into Arianna’s head, we would propably read: “Attention has drifted away from ordered Conference, commence phase 2 and 3 – introduction and showing off. Yes, I am that good at this!”
Inexperienced or not, he clearly has not done his research. If he had, he would know that Suzie already addressed the gold skin issue and got a reply. News agencies have clearly been caught on the hop here. The announcements for the press-conference will have only gone out some time after the robbery, so it does not surprise me that some did not respond quickly enough to get their best people in position.
Back at the comic shop.
“So it really was ancient artefacts that give Sydney superpowers.”
Bwahaha. I forgot about him. It really would be great to see his reaction. What do you bet that the comic business really takes off there when they learn she is co-owner?
early material in the writeup said that Sydney’s activity as a super was going to improve her business at the store.
Assuming they disclose the orbs as the *source* of her powers; Max declared it classified. I’m betting they’re going to explain them as a *manifestation* of her powers instead, with most of the details unknown by Archon.
Only certain orbs were “classified”. The “true sight” one for sure, and I think the “remote communication” orb. It’d be too hard to function as a super hiding ALL of her orbs, especially when she starts shooting at people…
You forget the first rule of politics. Don’t let them catch you in a outright lie.
Many people forget, especially certain politicians, that it is the duty, and job description of people like soldiers, police, fire-fighters, EMT’s, and such that we put ourselves in the way of danger in order to protect and preserve the common health and welfare. That includes assuming the big bullseye for the bad guys to to aim at. Of course, saying things like, “Bring it!”, and “No problemo!” are just asking for it, and definitely to be avoided.
She didn’t say that. All the implied was they were ready for any so called super-villians who were stupid enough to challange them.
Well, bear in mind that Maxima is military, and thus could be considered to be used to wearing that bullseye, but perhaps not used to the idea of more personal grudge matches.
That, and she is one of the most powerful supers in the world. She may not even know of any others approaching her level of power.
Thus she may be a little blasé and just assume that she could handle anything a supervillain would bring.
Except the guy who’s power is to take away other peoples powers.
From my point of view, a true super-villain would be someone who just takes what he wants because nobody can stop him. He is after personal profit. He generally will not be the one to start the fight, but he will finish it. Well, that is not technically true. Going up to somebody and saying “Give me your debit cards and PINs,” could be construed as starting the fight. Same with, “That was a great meal, but you don’t honestly think I am going to pay for it do you?” Of course, when the people he is confronting are saying “Put your hands on your head, turn around, and lie down on the ground. You are under arrest for theft, assault, resisting arrest …” over the tactical unit’s APC’s speaker, well the chance for a fight might have gone up a bit.
That would imply a smart, practical super villain (and in fact most criminals). It also requires one whose only goal is profit.
It’s a totally different case when they’re not after wealth (or even power). Getting and being rich is just a means to an end to Lex Luthor; he wants more than that. Wealth and power is nothing to Magneto either; he wants mutant liberation. Riches are nothing to the Joker; he just wants to have fun (exception: the classic Joker story where he inherits a ton of cash and is forced to go legit, until he discovers it was all a plot to torment him). And then you have Darkseid, who will gladly call you out to conquer you.
and then you have pure crazy like lobo,,, who just do whatever cause he feel like it at the moment,,, or something akin to doomsday,, something that simply destroy/kill everything in his path.
lets not forget another classic villain,, the reconnaissance freak,,, often scientist but not always,, who simply wasnt acknowledge for his capacity and want to be,, so he turn to crime in order to get the attention he crave.
then there is the pure intelect(who for some reason are almost always evil?)..cant realy describe any motivation,,i mean it just does thing because its logic tell it it must be done
The pure intellect ones are usually disconnected from morality and humanity – It’s not that they are evil, exactly, it’s just that they no longer care about being good. Or being nice. Or being people.
Liberation my ass, unless you’re talking about one of the alt-versions where he’s a “good” guy, mags wants nothing less than complete domination of the earth. Just because someone claims to want peace and puppies doesn’t mean they really do.
Hey!!… that’s a TOTAL LIE… i love puppies… it’s just that I’m allergic to them…
I love puppies. So do the locals here. But I try not to get too attached to any that I meet when on walkies. Sadly there is grinding poverty here. Many of said locals are too poor to afford chicken or other meat except for a special event like a birthday. If they are lucky enough to buy it even then, anyhow. So their dogs get fed exclusively on ‘dog bread’. Discounted stale bread. Whilst they can afford it. After that… well they sure do love puppies.
Magneto does sincerely want mutant liberation. That’s what gives him depth as a super villain. He does want something good- it just so happens that it’s for a particular group of oppressed people, it’s at the cost of everyone outside of that group, while he’s willing to step on fellow mutants that are in his way. What evil he does is in still support of his own race- homo superior- rather than focused on his own benefit.
Reducing him to your typical global domination villain looking out only for himself is to belittle and misunderstand his deep character and rich history.
Maybe, but I also think that even your stereotypical global domination supervillain would probably have a bunch of ‘reasonable’ justifications for why THEY should be running things.
I’ve got a few, but I feel that “I’m awesome” is the only one that’s really needed.
How will Joel react if he is watching this on tv? What will “Tony/boyfriend” and “Olivia/sister/cousin” think?
Guessing we’ll find out, sooner or later.
I think Joel will understand. He’s Syd’s friend and seems a very good one at that. More importantly, it will shed light on Syd’s unusual behavior at the comic shop.
unusual is kinda relative for her though isn’t it?
Well, more unusual than usual. ;-)
“Why is Halo wearing an eyepatch?”
“We had a ‘noodle incident’.”
(It’s a Calvin & Hobbes reference. Look it up!)
Been there, done that.
Is the expression ‘elephant’ or ‘gorilla’?
I’ve heard it as both actually.
I believe it’s ” The Elephant in the room” because it is the biggest most obvious thing they could think of. The gorilla reference is to “Where does an Eight hundred pound Gorilla sit? Anywhere it wants to!” One is passive the other isn’t.
So my question is, will Arianna’s fake bank robbery get found out during the press conference and throw her off her game? Maybe Harem leaks it? Find out the group saying “We’re here to protect you” is willing to put people in harms way for publicity. Or Harem let’s it leak that “Not only are we here to protect you, but make a huge profit from it.” :)
Arianna: “Ok, it was a publicity stunt. But no one was in any danger, as the robbers were never going to harm anyone. The one gunshot was aimed at the one person who it wouldn’t harm, and the bystander that got involved turned out to be a super who chose to enlist and train with us.” Or some version of that, since Arianna’s better at it than me.
As for the latter one, it’s a duh statement about Capitalism and Commercialism. If anything, I doubt Harem would even bother with that one, as it would have less chance of hurting ARC than the previous potential leak.
Plus
“And the supers who acted as the bank robbers can’t be hurt by over eager security personnel or civilians, so we didn’t endanger them either.”
You really think “Publicity stunt with a gun with live ammo involved” would go over well? Or even, the people involved fearing for their life, since they didn’t know it was all a publicity stunt?
I’m all for capitalism. Others, not so much. Do you not read the internet forums? :p
So they did notice Sydney. Since this is the superhero genre, at least they’re sharper than a certain lady reporter who happens to work alongside one of the most powerful characters in the medium.
Only once did DC have a story to explain that. A couple decades ago, before the last 2 reboots, they did a story line where Supes was unconsciously using his “Super Hypnotism” (yes I know, but it had appeared in the series before, just rarely) to make people see him as more frail than he really was.
To make that work though, they had to say that any photos taken of him as CK also projected that hypnotic power. Stretched a bit far for that answer don’t you think? I’m guessing that’s why they’ve never tried that explanation again.
I’ve read Supes saying that he vibrating whenever someone snaps a picture of him to blur things up, but that would require practically omniscient awareness to work; Superman is super, but even he has his limits.
The most plausible explanation I know is that he’s one amazing actor. According to Blackest Night, as Clark Kent, he slouches, raises his voice an octave and wears clothes too big for him. Or watch the first Superman movie starring masterful Christopher Reeve; a change in posture and tone of voice shows how they can look like such different people.
It’s just that Lois has worked with him for so long and has had a ton of contact with his alter ego (and vice-versa). By now, even that should fail simply because they look *identical* (of course).
Definitely. To me Christopher Reeve was the only convincing portrait of Clark Kent where it was not completely flipping obvious who he really was. I can’t think of anyone since who has pulled it off so well. The Nolan Batman is pretty good I suppose (as not obviously looking like Bruce Wayne), and the idea of the character was that no one should really ever get a good look at him anyway.
Of course, this is played with nicely in The Incredibles where one tiny mask is entirely sufficient to hide your secret identity. But that was deliberately messing with the genre trope rather than trying to seriously suggest it.
Superman is a rather interesting case. I don’t really care for Superman, but he’s a great examination of the people around him when it comes to his disguise. Yes, he doesn’t wear a mask and from what we see, his only disguise is glasses because context is hard to convey.
They’ve shown him slouching, looking like he has no confidence to him, he probably changes his voice, and even the lack of a mask helps. Most people simply believe that because he wears no mask that he simply has no secret identity to protect. Along with he’s a newspaper columnist, only those closest to him regularly see his face and they get to see what actually amounts to a decent disguise. It helps to have backup from Lois, and as implied, Perry White.
In the end, Clark’s disguise is more presumptions about the kind of man Superman is. As Lex has said in one form or another in many ways, “Superman is everything you’re not Clark, he wouldn’t deign to reach as low as you.” Most people that see his face think they merely look the same. With 7 billion people on the planet, that’s not out of the realm of possibility.
In line with the comments about Superhero games, the original DC Heroes system had an exponential attribute system – 2 was “normal”, 3 was 2x normal, 4 was 4x normal, and so on. Superman’s Strength? Pre-Crisis 50, post-Crisis 25. Superman’s eyeglasses? Illusion 80!
in the original comics, superman was able to alter the way he looks using makeup and superior facial muscle control. Although they never say, to my knowledge, that he does this to protect his identity, it certainly wouldn’t be very hard for him to do as CK or SM in order to protect his identity. in addition to everything else everyone mentioned it is easy to see how nobody, not even Lois, could connect the two.
That and, every now and then, Clark would do something so incredibly ultra-wimpy that Lois would basically throw up both hands in disgust and say, “I cannot believe I ever suspected you were Superman.” I recall that sort of thing happening a lot.
And, speaking from experience here, little changes can make a HUGE difference. My hair has always been short. When I was working in Yellowstone, I shaved my head. Now, when I got close to home, my mom told me that she would pick me up in one of the local towns near here. And after some confusion, I had to stay in a hotel over the night. Not a problem.
She came the next morning to get me, I was sitting at the continental breakfast in the lobby. She took a deep look at me. I was wearing a shirt she had seen often enough, I was wearing the same glasses. The only new thing was my shaved head. She turned away and went to the guest desk and asked if I had checked out yet.
This was a woman that knew me more intimately than even a wife ever could and just a minor change threw her off. Superman isn’t seen as Clark by most people so his glasses are actually a better disguise for most people than you think.
I agree with you there. Good acting skills can go a long way in creating a alter ego.
Look at John Malkavich, in just about every movie he has appeared in you don’t even think of him as John. Instead, you see only the charactor he portrays.
He’s called SuperMan, You’d think great acting skills, or at least decent skills would be one of the things he can do.
When it comes down to it, the Superman/Clark thing is just a conceit that you have to accept and move on. In the 60’s maybe it made more sense, but today anyone with a copy of Picasa can do facial recognition, not to mention FBI-grade computer face recognition programs. Those don’t get confused by haircuts. Something that may come up in my own comic at one point or another.
I just thought of a possibility. The average person does not have access to magic or kryptonite, despite what the silver age would tell you. There’s a possibility that everyone knows his secret identity but keep it quiet.
There’s this man that flies around protecting us. He can bend adamantium girders, punch the world out of orbit, breath gouts of arctic wind at you, fire death lasers from his eyes, hit the speed of sound for giggles, and if that’s not enough, come up with a million and one different powers as need be. Now, yes, I know who he is. Yes, I could threaten everyone close to him to cow him to me. Why don’t I? Because he can do all of that! I’m not pissing him off!
But what about villains? Doubt they’d keep quiet about that.
In case of Batman, at least NORMAL people would probably do it, though.
“So, you’ve just uncovered that your employer- who happens to be one of the richest and most powerful men in the world- runs around in his spare time fighting insane criminals and supervillains, has special weapons and regulary beats up bad-guys with his fists? Are you really sure it’s a good idea to blackmail such a man?”
Not to comment that the heroes probably have saved the world from ending a couple dozen of times.
So, yeah. Bad idea to tick them off and/or make them leave.
There’s a fake iPhone IM going around of a couple of Superman’s villains discussing this – one of them just realized Clark is Superman, and wants to out him. Luthor talks him out of it – He’s known for years, and figures as long as Superman thinks his cover identity is safe, that’s ~8 hours a day Superman isn’t working on spoiling their plans…
I’ve mentioned in previous posts, but I’m using the same conceit in my Divine Blood setting.
There’s a population of around 56 million people that could be classified as “supers” in Divine Blood setting. The most accurate assumption anybody has of numbers is the psychic temp-agency organization’s assumption of a population of about 40 million. With governments usually guessing at under 20,000 total and only a handful even realizing non-human sentients exist.
Despite this, the general public either does not think psychic powers are real or else has severely off-base assumptions about what they are. The reason for this:
The expectation is that if you have superpowers, that you will stand out and seek to show off these powers and this isn’t really happening.
For example, there are probably 400k to 500k “therianthropes” in the setting, which is one of the races that can be termed as werecreatures. So far the only therianthrope in the stories has never been shown to shapechange, even when things got dangerous, because quite frankly, he wasn’t a fighter….he was a math geek and his parents are accountants.
Most non-humans have evolved to blend into human society with the idea of sharing in the bounty, not preying on humans. Likewise, most born psychics grow up and get normal jobs. There’s rarely any reason for them to display their abilities to people around them. And for them, having powers is just about the same as happening to be born tall. Likewise, the shapers, channellers and sorcerers all have training and despite likely making a living on their powers, they do so within the greater community for the most part and, like all the rest, don’t try to stand out. The handful of psychics and nonhumans that have combat mindset are mostly actively trying to blend in.
“Akiras” – irresponsible psychics or psychics that are unaware of what they are by being born outside the Community, who do something public are rather rare.
To be fair to Lois, she spent a large part of the Silver Age nearly but not quite certain that Clark was really Superman. She could see what was right in front of her. However she had also seen plenty of occasions where Clark and what seemed to be Superman were there at the same time so she couldn’t entirely rule out the possibility that Clark just had an uncanny resemblance to Superman. In Fans! they actually had a television newsman who had an uncanny resemblance to a Superman-like being…but only because he was the model the shapeshifting alien had used for his form….
Bruce has also posed as Clark in the past and it’s been established that they look almost identical to the DC universe. So there is a precedent for people saying they’ve seen Clark and Superman have been in the same room together.
Alfred posed as Batman once, doesn’t really say much about the population of Gotham, now does it? :P
That would make getting out of dates with people you don’t respect easier.
Bimbo: Bruce! You’ve gotten old!
Alfred: I’m from the future!
Bimbo: That explains everything. I just thought you were the butler helping him blow me off. Silly me, TEEHEE!
Alfred: *Grumbling to himself* I guess this is what I get for working for a crazy man that swings through the city in his underwear hitting people.
I don’t see posing as Batman as being all that difficult, at least for a quick ‘I’m here’ type op: The suit covers everything except a portion from the bottom of his nose to the top of his chin, after all.
Bruce is also about as close as you can get to being a doppleganger without actual shapechanging powers. It’s the Sherlock Holmes element in the character, he can really do a quick change.
There was a one-off comic in the late-70s in which Kal-El was growing uncontrollably. He enlisted the help of Ant-Man(?) to stage an interview of Superman by Clark Kent, in which he kept moving back and forth between the chairs, changing clothes along the way, between each frame of film, while speaking normally and diffusing the rumor that Superman was growing into a giant monster…
Arianna knows PR, but I’m eager to see how she handles further questions about Sydney, especially given her involvement at the bank.
Sydney’s the perfect example of what they’re talking about. She happened to be a “super” at the bank (wearing the tube holding the orbs). Based on her actions at the bank (taking down one of the “robbers” basically), they explained who they were and made her the offer to help fight crime. Newest recruit and all that.
Tell the truth (as regards Sydney herself, anyhow) – the media would NEVER expect that.
Count me in your group as one of those who created more characters than they ever played. I never got my hand on the Marvel or DC systems as yet but I id dabble in Champions. Yes champions, 2 hours plus character creation and one round of combat before starting over. I didn’t twink onto the switched power sets but I did a wonderful awful cascaded power feat – how far can you go with 15 points and cascading dice? I also did Mindok from Thundar the Barbarian – ended up with more points than I knew what to do with.
Good times, good times …. narf.
OLD Champions player here… The multiform power you describe for Maxima is not an “exploit”. It’s a basic feature. In a typical 250 point campaign, while it might seem powerful…Maxima couldn’t change powersets fast enough to deal with a pure character with similar powers.
She could be a 200 pt brick vs. a 250 pt brick…or a 200 pt speedster vs. a 250 pt speedster, but not both at exactly the same time. Not a huge power gap but still enough to leave her at a disadvantage. I grant you it is a nice power set….
As a GM I’d have to see her background, that justified that setup.
Well, a lot of “exploits” I came up with wouldn’t have worked out in the game but I never paid attention to that because we never got around to playing. That pre-maxima character really would have always walked around in the full armor form, but if it takes a round to switch forms, they’d never be able to attack.
Well like I said it was a neat idea. Champions was always a hard game to find willing players. Either the character creation process or the math involved in playing scared everyone away. What everyone missed was once the character was built all the rules needed for the powers, were on the character sheet.
1st Ed Champions was the first RPG I really played….I’ve termed the later editions “The game that taught me algebra” because it was a case where the math was fun.
That said, I’m liking the Strands of Fate system now and Fate Core also looks interesting, though it has a sparsity of example powers.
Poor, poor Arianna… Gonna have Sydney ruin her precious press event.
Why am I hoping Sydney has crippling stage fright?
“Wake up Sydney, they are talking about you and it’s Show Time!!”
Who else says “Showtime!”. Well… Mr. Incredible (often just before mayhem ensues), and of course Agatha Heterodyne, as the key word to activate her Battle Circus.
“Ordinary…” (stage 1 Madness Place; nothing wrong with me…)
“*Ordinary*…” (stage 2 Madness Place; nothing wrong with me…)
“SHOWTIME!” (stage 3 Madness Place; let the bodies hit the floor…)
“A merry-go-round that can level a small town seems a bit overboard…”
“Well, it could be a really *evil* small town…”
— Krosp and Agatha
To see the activated Battle Circus, see the double page
https://www.girlgeniusonline.com/ggmain/doublespreads/ggcoll06_122_123.html
Was thinking of Al Pachino (or was it Robert De Niro? they both look a lot a like to me)
Beetlejuice says Showtime. But he would be behaving quite differently at the press conference. You think Halo is having a hard time not showing off and getting bored.
I would LOVE to see Girl Genus as a animated series.
They already have at least three seasons written.
The mixed power set most likely comes from Legion of Superheroes. Ultra boy has all the powers of Superman, but he can only use them one at a time. It’s why he enjoys having a Legion Flight ring, since it makes it so he can fly and be super strong at the same time.
Yes, Champions even calls that kind of power division “ultra slots.” Or used to.
I’d be interested in seeing the various cable news networks take on this revelation.
The business one will ask how this will affect the stock price of the cape and spandex markets.
The ‘left’ one will ask if the government will allow the admission of gay supers.
The paranoid (vulpine) one will start ranting that this is proof that the government is a tyrannical menace out to forcibly take everyone’s guns with their special-powered jack-booted thugs.
The network morning news shows will say ‘Wasn’t that just the cutest kitten video? Stay tuned for a great new recipe for gazpacho’ .
“Hear, hear!”
Supers are already known about (see the conversation in the comic book shop), so the business networks probably won’t care as much. Supers are old news.
As for the ‘left’ and ‘paranoid’ ones, that depends on whether this world is “ours but with supers” or “similar to ours with supers.” With the former, sure… perhaps. With the latter, the ‘left’ question may be moot or a non-issue, one way or the other (IOW, no homosexuals allowed at all or it’s never been a question). As for the ‘paranoid’ one, that depends on which political party’s in power in this world, at the time of the press conference. It’s all about spin.
There is a difference between the public being aware of something and it being officially acknowledged. Just look at how long the stealth fighter/bomber was not discussed publicly. Even though you could go into any toy shop and buy an accurate model of one! Up to this point, there would have been some debate about if supers were real or a hoax. With many people choosing not to believe the incredible. So this is a seminal moment in their world history.
Grrl Power #6
Sydney: “Superhero comics haven’t changed much considering that there actually are superheroes now.”
Joel: “…The few people who have powers are usually in the private sector or in the military…”
Grrl Power #7
Sydney: “Weren’t they going to make a TV show about the flying rescue guy?”
Grrl Power #9
Sydney: “Too bad. I wouldn’t mind seeing some super hero reality show.”
Joel: “It’ll happen. Everyone is scrambling to make one. There’s a lot of public interest and apparently anyone with superpowers is fantastically photogenic.”
So the public already knows about supers enough for there to have been plans for a reality show about a specific one. And it’s known that some work in the private sector.
Not saying that they’re common place, but the cat’s already out of the bag. This press conference’s monumental factor is about a government sanctioned supers agency, not supers in general.
Just because the public knows of Supers doesn’t mean they know the history or how far back they go.
I prefer to think of this as a line in the sand. Not to challenge villains, but as more of a clarion call to other supers that want to use their powers to make the world a better place and to give accountability to any super group. In every comic book team they play accountability differently. Some like the Avengers or Fantastic Four operate in full confidence of the public. If they damage the world, someone can track them down and hold them responsible for their actions.
Some like the Justice League operates in semi-public confidence, but they keep their identities secret. Their base is even in space. Despite being public, they can’t easily be found. I mean, if Batman accidently destroys a building, who do you turn to for legal aid?
The X-Men don’t even operate like that most of the time. Despite having altruistic intentions, by the very definition of the words, they are in fact a domestic terrorist organization.
This press conference, while also to attract other supers, is also to put Archon strictly in the former camp of full accountability.
With supers like Achelies out there, what I wonder about is who is the oldest?
Look at the comic book Powers, it’s main charactor is 2 and a half million years old.
To be fair to the Marvel universe…
Most people groups would probably be like the X-Men, just because of what they’re fighting against.
Which sadly includes the public, at times.
Sure, there are exceptions like the F4 and the Avengers. But both are easily seen as special cases.
The people comprising the X-Men would never be able to operate without a secret identity, simply because they’d suffer from the generic b****yness of the general public and government.
Or look at Spidey. All it takes is ONE ticked-off newspaper editor and Spidey’s one the Top-10 Most Wanted list. No proof whatsoever or anything. Cops just start shooting, asking questions later and it goes downhill from there.
Tony Stark/ Iron Man? He comes out and the second later the government wants his tech, figures. They don’t get it? So, they easily steal it or simply draft up a law.
/start sarcasm
Good job, guys, being the good guys.
/end sarcasm
In Tony’s case, he owns probably the most powerful weapons platform of all time and keeps improving it. If I was in the government, I’d want it too. Plus this is a government that spends trillions on a floating battleship just because it looks cool, despite the unimaginable loss of life if it crashes in a city. The Marvel government isn’t casually mean or cruel, they’re stupid.
But this brings up an interesting situation. JJ’s true motive for hating Spiderman is the mask. He feels that a guy wearing a mask is taking attention away from the true heroes in life. That’s fair enough, Mr Power and Responsibility did sell his marriage to keep an old lady around that realistically probably only has 5 years left in his life. If he didn’t have the impossible standards Uncle Ben forced on him, he truly might be a menace to society considering his love for the easy way out.
Imagine if JJ was a wrestling fan, the masked Luchadores taking the attention away from the unmasked wrestlers.
Sydney & Joel are believers. Sydney having particular reason for her conviction. But I would bet that a big chunk of the population would be having a conspiracy theory about “its all a hoax by the TV networks to get ratings.”
Just like as IRL where there are things that people refuse to believe in.
It’s the human capability for self-deception, aka the tunnel-vision. You don’t want it? Your mind ignores it until it goes away. Something strange from the corner of your eye? Nope, nothing there.
And, yes, I believe our lot has mastered that capability completely.
Best seen in the Dr. Who universe.
As for parallel universes, the reporter in panel one just might be some guy named ‘Barry’ from Chicago who decided to be a journalism major in college, rather than go into law school.
I totally agree that the classic Marvel Superheros RPG was the best, though you really had to get The Ultimate Powers Book if you wanted to make interesting characters. I still have my copy with numerous handwritten corrections due to the horrible editing. Seriously, there were powers on the power tables that weren’t actually in the book, and there were powers in the book that weren’t listed on the power tables. But despite that it was still good enough that I have a binder filled with character designs. My friends and I used to make up characters (using house rules where you could either pick category and roll powers, or roll category and pick powers) and then have them fight all the time, though actual campaigns were few and far between.
Another great system was the HERO System RPG. I played 5th edition with just the basic book (no Champions stuff), and it was quite good with a fairly well balanced point buy system, though a lot more math heavy as a result. Did a couple of campaigns with that, though the GM tried to be a bit too smart for his own good sometimes, so both campaigns ultimately petered out.
Marvel Heroic Role playing game is nice too
Yep, of the half dozen super hero RPG’s I played in any depth Marvel was clearly the best. The fact that the power ranks scaled perfectly for the genre being one of the strongest aspects. You had the normal range of variance for every day attributes and regular folks. Which then rose up in truly heroic fashion to literally infinite power. So many hero games (table top and computer) just do not capture the massive capabilities that super heroes have. Sadly, even including City of Heroes.
At the end of the day many of them just emulate fantasy mechanics. Sure you can have a fireball. Oh you want a nuclear explosion as your attack? OK you can have that. Use the stats for fireball, but describe it as nuclear. Yea, like that is the same.
Actually there’s a game called “Icons” which fairly clearly arose out of some guys house-ruled MSH. Clearly enough that you could use MSH RPG modules for Icons games and vice versa since they have the same stats ranked the same way.
I still have a lot of respect for the earlier edition (pre-Fuzion) Champions / HERO system. Once one understood the mechanics, it was theoretically possible to create just about any character imaginable. Something like Superman or Magneto, yeah, you’d need more points than the norm, but it could still be done.
The introduction of “megascale” as a modifier in the more recent Hero rules made it a bit easier to create things like the Flash or people who control weather over miles.
Out of curiosity, speaking of weird old superhero tabletops RPG systems, did you ever play Superbabes?
I don’t think I’ve ever heard of that one. I wouldn’t be surprised if I had seen the cover somewhere, but no I never played it.
Here’s a review of the system of you’re interested.
https://www.rpg.net/reviews/archive/14/14764.phtml
I’m going to be insulting. You are an amateur. Only a 4 fold increase and not even useable at the same time.
GURPS 3rd edition. 500 point super, managed to abuse that into 100 points for the normal we were to build the character on and roughly 10k worth of powers that could be used at the same time.
You know weirdly I never played GURPS. I don’t recall if I ever made a character in that system either.
GURPS is really great. The basic premise is to have a role playing system which can handle any genre. Which it does by creating basic playable rules for human-scale interactions. And then providing optional rules for any level of extra realism that players want. To which they then add a huge range of world settings and genre-specific supplements. One impressive thing being when you check out the credentials of the folks writing them. Their qualifications normally look like they should be lecturing on the particular subject at a major university.
Many of their source books are really fun reading in their own right, even without using them in a game. Plus they manage to attract some of the very best writers to use the system for the role-playing version of their settings. For instance Alan Dean Foster’s Humanx stories.
I prefer HERO and BESM over GURPS for generic systems. And now my top favorite is the FATE system, with Strands of Fate preferred over Fate Core.
I loathe GURPS but I will admit that’s due to a BAD GM in my first attempt to play.
Piece of advice to anyone who likes this comic. Never let Maxima know what her origins were.
I dunno; her nerdier side may appreciate it.
I’m actually talking about the other half, how she just existed so he could draw a “nude” shiny chick.
Wait, you saying that not even Maxi knows where/how/why she turned gold and started blasting holes through walls?
When she was a kid she wished she was like Betty White, turns out ol’ betty hits like a mack truck.
too lazy to do the archive dive right now, but when asked by Suzy about her coloration, Max responded “that’s classified”, then her sad-faced chibi-head added in “also, nobody knows”
She knows how/when. She just doesn’t know the what, as in, what material her skin is.
I wonder how Arianna will get the journalists’ attention back after introducing Dabbler? How many times she will have to introduce Harem?
Dabbler is most likely prohibited from demonstrating her powers. And the separate Harems are only different in their wardrobes, so they will only need one introduction between them.
Hay DaveB Awesome !! build up here keep it up i like how your are going about we get a good feel of how this world works and the people thier in. also I’m with you on The Table Top RPG’s I Did Champions, Marvel , and many others And I all ways did like the Marvel System the Best and yes i Mayed a girl Nighwing character that pushed the rules to make and was all league :P relatively speaking and i love her!! she’s still one of my fav memories..!! I love Max and Halo!! got to see more of them and yea i love Dabbler to she’s my kinda of Girl uhum Alien uhm Sucubi .. well you know what i mean !!!
Thanks!
INTRODUCTIONS and Shenanigans in 3…2….1…..
Next week in GP: Tailhook!
DaveB I was wondering if you have changed something about the RSS feed this week? Because the latest comic is not showing up in GoodNoows. Despite me trying to force it to refresh and even re-importing it. When I set it up, it imported several back issues just fine. And updated last week’s comic on schedule. But no joy with today’s.
Possibly it is a problem at their end, because protopage is showing Grrl Power in their widget with no problems. Trouble is that GoodNoows is growing on me as being the best reader for my purposes, being good with comics, podcasts and written articles. So I would like to get to the bottom of what has changed.
Incidentally, I have also fund out that subscribing to the comments by RSS feed is much more convenient than by email. Given that, unlike the email notifications, it takes you directly to the comment, when click on it. No more need to search to find.
Does anyone have a suggestion for how to set it up to capture any new items though? All I could be bothered doing was going back for a few comment pages to add them into a tab on my reader. Given that each has to be added in separately. Likewise I can do the same for new pages every issue. Which is similar to hitting the “Email me when new comments are added to this thread” button each week. But it would be nice to know if there is a way to automatically grab any new RSS feed from a specific website, rather than having to micro-manage each new page individually?
Hmm, I haven’t changed anything. The comic showed up in TheOldReader like usual for me.
Thanks for checking that out, it must have been some problem at my end, as I managed to find a way of forcing it to display eventually. I have been doing a lot of fiddling around and customising, so its likely something I did myself without realising. My only big issue with it is that it did not allow items that were marked as “read” to be changed to “unread”. But I see that is flagged as being implemented, so I can live with that one lack for now.
Although its main feature is making the news items very readable, it is actually also by far the best way of viewing comics, of those I tested. I was wondering if anyone else managed to find a good reader solution for comics?
This is still the SAME DAY? Good grief, feels like months…
See: Webcomic Time. (Warning! TVTropes!)
This would be maybe an issue or two of a print comic, but instead it’s being posted at one-page-a-week. I have no issue with the pacing.
Look at Marvel. I think they age one year every seven years. Unless there is a recon.
Heh, I wonder, could Max’s feminism be a holdover from the earliest days of her origin when you drew her as a nude gold shiny chick? XD
Honestly it was more of a “If I was a woman, how would I act” and it seemed that I would easily go one of two ways. One, revel in being a woman (like Harem does) or two, be incensed by the male gaze and the “woman tax” (bras cost how much? Why are guys’ haircuts only $12? etc), and especially in Maxima’s case where she’s talking about being the vanguard of an airstrike into Afghanistan or something equally as serious and noticing the general is staring at her chest, or hearing soldiers around the corner talk about the imagined honor of letting her “do” them, etc, etc, etc.
Well, the reason her hair cuts are so expensive is the need for diamond-edged blades.
Guys haircuts are cheap because we don’t really care all that much as long as it’s fairly even. If haircuts got too pricy we’d all just decide to shave our heads at home instead.
Marvel Super Heroes RPG mention.
Props and respect to you, Dave. But if there were anywhere to squeeze in a couple extra ranks like a Marvelous or whatever, it would be between Amazing and Monstrous, and/or Monstrous and Unearthly since the numbers jumped in an odd way between those. From Good to Amazing, the increases were 10 points each. Then from Amazing to Monstrous to Unearthly, the numbers jumped 25 points each, then 50 points for Shift-X and Shift-Y, and then 300 points from Shift-Y to Shift-Z… and even more so in the Class 1000 and up.
Well, you’re right on the point values, but we were concerned with the jump with in-world stats. Remarkable STR let you lift 1 ton, Incredible was 10 tons, and Amazing was 50 tons. Those stats are right at the level where all the mid-range supers live, and non-superhero but still more than human characters go, so if you’re trying to build Cheetah from Gold Digger, or the Bionic Man, or Goliath from Gargoyles or Hellboy or He-Man, it’d be nice to have a few more waypoints on the stat meter.
Champions ), love that rpg. Gotta disagree with buying multiform being an exploit though. You just get a slightly more adaptable character that way. Most exploits start with a variable point pool, or an aid.
Here’s the champions sheet for a character I’m currently running;
https://i1156.photobucket.com/albums/p565/kaeto3/Indigo1.jpg
https://i1156.photobucket.com/albums/p565/kaeto3/Indigo2.jpg
And her picture which I think I’ve posted here before.
[IMG]https://i1156.photobucket.com/albums/p565/kaeto3/Amanda2399.jpg[/IMG]
Oops I goofed on the pic
https://i1156.photobucket.com/albums/p565/kaeto3/Amanda2399.jpg
Maxima would have… concerns about the practicality of that outfit. Sydney would suggest adding a tiny cape.
You know, I’m surprised the half cape worn by a lot of female supers isn’t its own trope.
The costume is created by the nano-machines in her body. It don’t come off unless she wants it to.
One problem I’ve encountered when running/playing a old-school Marvel RPG is the way defenses worked. In short, the same random tables were used to generate the rank of offensive and defensive powers. However, damage in the game was often (offense – defense) with no random factors. This meant the average damage dealt in combat was around 0, and situations often arose where the GM had to put some plot element in their game to allow the heroes to harm the villains at all (or vice versa).
Some of this is understandable – don’t expect to hurt Ultron much using the normal combat rules! Then there were things like “Wolverine has claws with Class 1000 material strength, but his strength is only Excellent. How much damage does he do?” We had to discuss it a while before we arrived at “Excellent damage, but it gets through anything less than Class 1000 armor”. And even then that seemed like a house rule.
Since I played with diceaholics we would generate the powers the Marvel way then translate every 10 pts to 1d6. The result was a Farkle fest where a 1 was 10 and the rest were tallied as they fell. So when you matched attack and defense you still had random results without GM twisting fate as it were. The folks who had luck powers could choose to bring them in as direct dice or pick another number as resulting as a 10 for each 100 pts of luck…
The actual rule was Wolverine does +1 level damage (Remarkable), but if Colossus throws him at the target then it’s +1 off _Colossus’s_ damage (Monstrous)