Grrl Power #173 – Biiig Bada Boom
I knew this was always going to happen from the start of the comic, Maxima going a little gung-ho in the demonstration. It’s funny how much the comic has changed in little ways since I first started drawing it. (I have roughed out pages of this whole scene from 4 years ago that I’ll post once we’re past the next few pages to avoid spoilers) I hadn’t put nearly as much thought into the whole PR angle beyond them becoming celebrities, and now this page with Max cutting lose does seem… well, the more I think about it the dumber it seems of her. People can be convinced that superheros are a good thing… fewer of them will be ok with “Daisy Cutter” walking around their neighborhood. Maxima just really doesn’t care what the public’s opinion is of her. This is all about scaring bad guys into not being bad guys. Plus it’s probably been a while since cut loose like this. Why not entertain and terrorize at the same time?
Oh and one thing I didn’t establish in the comic is that they’re not standing right there by the parking lot. They walked like a kilometer further down into the range, so the shockwave from this isn’t going to total the Osprey or anything.
I made a video showing off the relative power levels. I was planning on doing this for a number of powers, but it’s harder than I thought it would be. Coming up with an appropriate clip for level 4 and 5 powers is easy, the 1-3 stuff is much tougher. For instance, for the marksman ability, there are at least two scenes I can think of off the top of my head where someone intentionally shoots bullets out of the air with their gun. That’s perfect for the level 5 slot, but then what’s a good clip for Level 1? James Bond taking out 5 guys with 5 shots? Then what’s Level 2? Doing the same thing from horseback?
Anyway, here’s the energy blast levels. Like I noted above the mid level clips are somewhat less distinct, but I have a breakdown under the video on YouTube.
Here’s a direct link in case you don’t see the video: https://goo.gl/7qveBL
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.
next time on grrrlpower, “are maxima’s clothes as durable as she is?”
She can extend her own power to things she touches. So yes, they are
Not because she can that she should.
what ?
Next invotive: Maxi’s clothes look intact, until she turns around and we see she ‘forgot’ to extend her coverage to her shiney golden heiney (ala TGK from “By The Book“)
“col. maxima. would you like to tell me when assless chaps where included in the standard arc uniform?”
Just to clarify
Spiky Ball (5 on max, 3 on Halo, dabbler, heat, and math) represents Energy Blast?
Hollow Circle (5 on Halo 2 on Dabbler) represents Shield?
Bird Wing (5 On Max, 3 on Halo, Hiro, 1 on Heat) represents flight?
Bicep (5 on Maxima, 4 on Stalwart, 3 on Hiro, Anvil, Amorphous, 2 on Harem, 1 on Achilles) represents Super Strength?
Shield (6 on Achilles 5 on Maxima 4 on Stalwart, Amorphous, 3 on Hiro, 2 on Math) Represents Invulnerability?
Fist (5 on Math 4 on Dabbler 3 on Harem 2 on Anvil) Represents martial skill (Brawling, MMA, Wrestling)?
Hermes Boot (5 on Max 4 on Math) Represents Super Speed?
Floating Weight with T on it (3 on Halo) Represents telekinesis?
Two people with lines between them (3 on Harem, 2 on Jig, 1 on Halo) Represents teleporting? (I guess Halo’s case it’s just telepresence, hence the 1)
Inward Arrows (4 on Jig and Anvil) Represents Power Absorption?
Bullseye (4 on Peggy, 3 on Dabbler) Represents Marksmenship?
3 People (3 on Harem) Represents having multiple of yourself?
Brain (2 on Dabbler) Represents Super Intelligence (Technospeak Linguistics and Macguffin Creation)
Lightningbolt (3 on Jig) Represents Electric Powers?
Fist with arm wrapped around it (4 on Amorphous) Elasticity?
Yup! It’s remarkably difficult to make tiny icons of the more esoteric powers. Knowing what the characters can do definitely helps in decoding them.
I was wondering about this the other day. How does no-powers Math get “Energy Blast” as a power?
…is it something to do with lechery?
Lechery powers ACTIVATE!
Maybe his one inch punch is just so extremely strong?
No powers but martial arts training, with cinematic skills. Some cinematic martial artists (in particular the arcade inspired ones) can launch fireballs or lightning. So he could have super-like fireball power through his training, but without requiring the super-gene or whatever it is that makes someone inherently super. As opposed to Sydney who is a normal person with shiny balls.
Or his ‘blaster’ symbol might just represent abnormal skill with shurikens or the like.
Your argument is that every human could, with training of 1 lifetime, learn to do energy blasts?
Well that is the very basis of Ki. Ki is the natural energy that flows through a person, which is a mixture of thier physical and mental energies. According to most known info, a true master of Ki may use it to heal themselves, protect themselves from harm, and even extend it from their bodies in order to attack from a distance.
As quoted from TVTropes, “true masters can tap into that energy directly and use it for what amounts to superhero-style attacks.”
Yup. In the world of cinematic martial arts, anyhow. Which was integral to my initial comment. They go to great pains to show that the practitioners are normal people who just have the dedication and grit to stick to their training.
AeonsShadow expresses the rationale behind the genre and it’s underlying philosophy very eloquently.
No-powers Videl was also able to shoot energy blasts after some intense training with Gohan.
She had little to no control over them, though.
(Just to stick to the DBZ references)
Crap. Clicked “submit” too soon :(
Think of Math to be in ultimate control of his Ki/Chi
Except that ALL humans are ‘unpowered’ like Videl
krillin was unpowered before training. Saiyans do not inherently throw energy blasts, neither do Namekians they need to learn and train
I think you got a point there.
Although Krillin, Yamcha, Chiaotzu, Tien, Piccolo and even Videl were “gifted” with super-human strength.
Vegeta, Trunks, Goku, Gohan and Goten topped them off, but still, they were much stronger than any normal human would be with similar training (most would die).
Although here, you can’t learn to shoot energy blasts: you either can, or can’t depending on your super powers, and that’s where the DragonBall Z similarities end.
So simply put: They were ABLE to learn because of their super-human strength they had already, but never honed untill training.
Except they arent…Krillin did NOT have superhuman strength before he began training in martial arts.
A saiyan is stronger inherently, but not that much, it’s just all the Saiyan and 1/2Saiyans we saw WERE trained, and from a young age
If shooting a bullet out of the air is Marksman level 5, then I submit this as Marksman level 4:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mraK-zRfWL0
Hah hah that’s awesome.
That’s fantastic!
That’s one way to tale out 2 birds…
Here’s a level 3 marksman:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Lt5M8CXLkzQ
With a side order of coolness under fire:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uW3vklH3oYM
Support Your Local Sheriff and Support Your Local Gunfighter were great little films, using (mostly) the same cast in each.
“Here’s a level 3 marksman:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Lt5M8CXLkzQ”
“I hope you didn’t take no offense at nothin’ I may have said earlier.”
This elicited a belly laugh from me!
There’s a corollary to marksmanship, and that is quick draw ability. After all, if you can’t get your gun into play faster than your opponent, it may not matter how accurate you are. Here is an excellent example:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oNHfHmDkv3Q
This, imo, is a better example of the speed-draw (Maverick was just being a cocky twat, simply asking for someone to shoot him in a brightly lit alley)
And you just linked to my favourite cowboy. Although Clint Eastwood is a close second. Shame this clip has not aged so well. But it shows real speed if you have time to do a completely different action before even starting your draw against a professional gunfighter.
Here’s another example of speed work with the pistol.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VTrxTOFxA50
I have an alternate to marksperson5, but I can’t find a clip and I don’t remember which episode it was in. One of the early Dirty Pair mangas had head shot from space. The shooter was prone on the side of an orbiting space station and shot the target directly in the top of the head with a laser rifle. The shot cored the body hitting all major organs, even if they somehow managed to not have the brain where everyone else has theirs.
Nope. The anime is SOL BIANCA, and is awesome. Hard to find the original OVAs, a few years later they did a reboot with the same characters….sort of….
Arianna is about to say “Bitcoin”
For marksman level 2 or 3, you might consider using the segment from Iron Man where Tony’s suit shoots a bunch of guys who have taken hostages: https://www.youtube.com/watch?feature=player_detailpage&v=3o2ACEr9NmQ
More in general, tool-assisted speedruns may be good sources of low or medium-level demonstrations of agility and precision. For example, there’s a moderately ridiculous video of Gradius here: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hETRzNzpFAI
And what would be the energy blast level for Stellar Converter?
I remember that game … ah fun times …
What about the black hole generator
6
I love MOOII! You can get it and Master of Magic for something like $6 from good old games (gog.com)
This goes beyond beyond upstaged. Maxima just stole the show and rewrote the script essentially. People are NOT going to remember 90% of the rest of the demonstration. They’ll just remember that Maxima is one of those “Thank God She’s On Our Side!” supers.
So…..read thru…..didn’t find a “bonus comic woohoo!!!” post……are yall getting spoiled already?
I second that woohoo.
I’ve been doing that since monday. No need to post it here to
But there was a bonus comic ‘EEEEE!’, on the first page of comments.
The gift of this week’s bonus comic was like Christmas in,…um, December.
Energy Blast level 999999999 can be seen in the Anime Gunbuster OVA Episode 3 on this scale.
What about the final fight in Gurren Lagan? Would that then count as Inifnite + Infinite x Inifnite + 10?
First infinite covers all that. You can’t add to infinite. No “infinites plus one” nonsense. It is already in infinite.
Well if you can change the gravity of anything you are in god range power. Alter any of the constants in our physical universe, you are what the primitives would call “god like.” Or a Type 5 species. We are Type 0.
From my analysis the original function of the spheres can be done hands off. But then they were designed for humans to use so it is not surprising the fit isn’t exact. Maybe in the future Sydney will figure out how to control them all at once without touching them. Maybe a flash forward or visit from the future might happen one day.
Correction; “From my analysis the original function of the spheres can be done hands off. But then they were not designed for humans to use so it is not surprising the fit isn’t exact.”
Infinity is a concept, not a number, so it is definitely out of the running.
People use “infinity” as a number so it is in. It modifies what you are talking about. The god head is infinite. Infinity is bigger than your number etc.
We can certainly let them say it. But even mathematicians, you know those folks who believe in ‘imaginary’ numbers, have come to realise that if you can’t put infinite grains of sand in your pocket it isn’t a number.
There has been a lot of mathematical development around “actual infinity”. You can get a mere introduction by looking up that term (also “ordinal number”).
There is a small subset of mathematicians (some of whom call themselves finitary mathematicians) (e.g. E. T. Jaynes) who eschew actual infinities, pointing out the contradictory and physically impossible results produced by the mathematics involving actual infinities (e.g. the Banach–Tarski paradox).
I will correct my statement then. Change all those Infinites to Googleplex.
Clearly, you have never watched Gurren Lagann. Just to give you an idea of the absurdity in that final fight: the readings were literally off the charts – as in, the readings filled up the charts and continued to fill up the air around the charts. Infinity math would be tame.
Let’s see, in Gunbuster the entire center of the Milkyway galaxy was destroyed by the “Black Hole Bomb” which used the planet Jupiter as it’s core. So they transported Jupiter through N-space to the center of the Galaxy, and then used it as the core of a super singularity to start a chain collapse of the galaxy which lasted over 10000 years leaving only the outer spiral arms relatively intact. I can’t recall if Guren Lagen took it further, though there was plenty of “tunneling” going on if I remember.
in gurren lagan, they were using galaxies as throwing stars… and shields. I think they went farther.
And floors, remember they were jumping from one to another.
Don’t forget, before all of that, when Simon upper-cutted one of the enemy ships out of both Space and Time. That has to count for something, right there.
Odd, I would have thought that the super-massive black hole already at the centre of the galaxy would have had it for lunch?
you and your logic getting in the way much like the fact that there wouldn’t be enough mass in the whole galaxy to make a black whole large enough to eat that much of the galaxy. lol
no BustGunners necessary
I like the swirly clouds around the explosion. I think that affecting meteorological conditions is more impressive than the level 2 DBZ explosion.
Oooooo!!! panel 7 introduces how to defeat halo. Hit her with oil so she loses her grip on her orbs. Srsly, someone give that girl a pepsi before she vibrates out of phase.
“You came to this fight confident that you were orders of magnitude more powerful than I. But my organization wasn’t using an exponential scale but rather towers of power.
Orders of magnitude over what you have seen isn’t going to be enough.”
2↑↑(1−1) = 1
2↑↑(2−1) = 2
2↑↑(3−1) = 4
2↑↑(4−1) = 16
2↑↑(5−1) = 65536
2↑↑(6−1) ≈ 2.0 × 10^19728
e↑↑(1−1) = 1
e↑↑(2−1) ≈ 2.7
e↑↑(3−1) ≈ 15
e↑↑(4−1) ≈ 3.8 × 10^6
e↑↑(5−1) ≈ 2.3 × 10^1656520
3↑↑(1−1) = 1
3↑↑(2−1) = 3
3↑↑(3−1) = 27
3↑↑(4−1) ≈ 7.6 × 10^12
3↑↑(5−1) ≈ 1.3 × 10^3638334640024
That is just the first level of Knuth’s up-arrow notation, which can specify integers so big they could not be written (even approximately) in scientific notation. It would take longer than the expected life of the universe to even write the exponent. Even more ridiculously large numbers can be specified in Conway’s chained-arrow notation (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Conway_chained_arrow_notation). That article also explains Knuth’s up-arrow notation. These numbers are all finite, yet mind-boggling in a way that just saying “infinity” is not.
bahahahahahaha i love Sydney’s reaction!!!! and Maxima’s getting back at Arianna, the PR-obssesed woman. hehehe I love this comic!!! :D
Actually… That really wasn’t very smart on Max’s part.
As someone else observed, her stunt is pretty much the only thing anyone’s going to remember about this demo. She, and by default her team, are going to be strongly associated with NOTHING other than massive destruction potential. There’s soooo many more constructive things they can do, yet nobody is gonna think about any of that in light of one huge BOOM.
Probably why Arianna is pissed, because she knows what the public view is going to be.
Dumb move, Max. Dumb amateur move. We expected better.
The entire shooting range demo has been nothing but destructive power.
The ‘look we are good guys’ demo was before they went to the range, and there was an hour in between those for the first message to sink in a little before the destruction came
I think this one isn’t so much a PR show as it is letting the supers have fun. That’s the only reasonable point to this part that I can see.
Actually, not so dumb. Yeah, this is going to bring home the sheer destructive power of Max’s power, but that blast is close enough, and powerful enough, to catch the press corp in it too. But if Sydney’s shield can withstand it, then that will help solidify that they’re not only destructive, but they have the means to /contain/ that destruction. Furthermore, it goes a long way to prove that Sydney is actually one of the more powerful members of the team, simply by virtue of being able to counter that blast while keeping everyone safe. That’s a rather powerful point right there.
unless of course the girl who has only had a very small amount of practice with the orbs screws up and they all die…….
Can she trap maxs blast and a bad guy in the shield with herself outwith the shield ?
take out only 1 building and a mega bad guy in a built up area – yay :)
SWEET! 2 comics in one week! ^_^ is this Xmas already?
and for all the people bitching about maxima showing off…
shhh shh shhh…. let it happen ^_^ enjoy the fireworks
In the case of super powers you probably want to define the space of the power, so marksmanship, then identify what they can’t do. Level 1 can hit any stationary target within visual field, can’t hit multiple targets simultaneously, less accurate while moving less accurate while target is moving specialized in single weapon. Can’t shoot blind. This would get you into the olympics for archery, and leaves space for the next level.
Does Sydney have 32 teeth on display?
Just looked at Achilles bio again and I gotta ask, if he’s invincible, then how is he not a 90 lb weakling? In order to grow muscles you have to strain and slightly damage the ones you have, if he’s completely incapable of straining or damaging his muscles then he logically shouldn’t be growing new muscle fibers. On top of that, since he can’t strain them he’s effectively not using them and they should atrophy.
They would likely be immune to atrophy. And as a super, he’s incredibly photogenic for no reason.
His body would still grow new muscle, he’d just need to work tonnes harder to do so, but would have to work less to keep it. If he was so invincible he couldn’t grow new body tissue, his hair wouldn’t grow.
hair doesn’t grow because it’s been damaged tho, it just…..does.
Anything on your body grows due to your body creating more of it. Muscles get bigger, hair gets longer. If his body kept his muscles from growing, his hair wouldn’t grow.
Achilles apparently ‘acquired’ his invulnerability at some point in his life, so would have done all the normal things like growing up from a baby, building muscles and the like as a normal person. And just because a super has a power that prevents harmful destruction of their molecules and atoms does not necessarily prevent them from benign chemical breakdowns or other molecular alterations within the body. Otherwise he would die from the inability to metabolise, breathe or otherwise carry out the normal processes of life.
He can’t drown or suffocate though, so I’m guessing he doesn’t actually need to breathe? And it would almost follow from that that he doesn’t need normal human respiration, I think?
Reasonable comment. Strike breathe and replace with think. Pretty sure he still wants to do that.
he has a mullet, so it’s debatable whether he thinks.
Have sympathy for the poor guy. He is just having a bad hair eternity.
To loop minorly back to the point, Maybe his hair can’t grow, but can’t be cut due to his invincibility leaving him with a poor choice of hair style forever.
For marksmanship:
Rank 1: Expert with guns. Hitting your target pretty much every shot. Think Spike from Cowboy Bebop, or Gene from Outlaw Star.
Rank 2: Similar to rank 1, but with non ballistic weaponry. Think how good batman is at hitting things with batarangs.
Rank 3: Using pistols instead of rifles for long distance shooting. Think at how good Vash is, he also works for several of these ranks.
Rank 4: Rank 1 but without seeing your target.
Rank 5: Shooting bullets out of the air.
Rank 6: Your opponents should just quit being bad guys, cause as long as you have a gun, or anything that can be a projectile really, you’ll going to beat them.
hmmmm
actually I thin removing Rank 3 and adjusting the numbers would work best.
Rally Vincent is somewhere between 3 and 4…I naturally lean toward 4
So Vash the Stampede is a 6 since he can shoot deflect bullets in flight minutely enough to turn a lethal wound into a non-lethal wound but without making it miss (and thus cause more shots to be taken)
hmm, I should try to do something like this
Actually. I think this is perfect setup for the villains to come out. You have Maxima basically showing she is Superman. She’s done nothing but gloat over just how powerful she is.
Time for a bunch of superpowers to step up as supervillains. Not because they’re evil. But because they have the same level if not higher levels of power and they were willing to keep it hidden from others, to never use it for anything bad/destructive. And then having Maxima basically calling them out because of their smug attitude. Maybe some geeks like her (Maxima has admitted to being a geek at one point) who now see Maxima as the bully she’s obviously displaying herself to be.
Perfect!
Then Maxima can really see just how terrible she really is.
Except that she is battle-hardened and tested against the best that enemy countries could throw at her, so she clearly is not terrible. But bringing out the toughest villains in the world (if they are better than her and willing to attack a cop they meet that criteria) and having them fixate on her, rather than the rest of the populace, is a good thing.
Against the best enemy countries they have seen so far. Obviously there are other supers they don’t know about. Look at Sydney.
Maxima has even stated it’s been only a couple of real threats against her.
So, either she’s Superman and no one a threat to her (most likely) or up and coming threats have to be at her level if not past her level, so the rest of the team is needed just to help Maxima slow the villain down and put them into retreat mode to come up with a new plan.
And the plan to fixate on her is a terrible one. You had powerful individuals (if we take how I would do it so it really sinks into Maxima how much of an idiot she is) who were geeks, picked on, who then see’s the ultimate bully come out, and that becomes their breaking point. All that power at their finger tips that rivals Maximas and they want to show they’re not afraid of this bully.
And then we cue the massive damage to the public.
How the hell would she be a bully? She’s warning people that are thinking about using their powers TO BULL OTHER PEOPLE. So she’s an anti-bully.
It’s also pritty basic army tactics what she’s doing here. ‘look at how awesumly powerfull we are, don’t mess with us’.
Also, she’s not the only one this powerfull. She has confirmed she fought someone of equal power and won (presumably the reason she was wounded. https://www.grrlpowercomic.com/archives/989). And there is also Dabbler, who’s a match for Maxima, and thus presumably also fror anyone who’s of equal power off Maxima
“‘look at how awesumly powerfull we are, don’t mess with us’.”
That was basicly Military thinking during the Cold War. have so many weapons that are so dangerous no body wanted to tangle with ’em.
I did say she said there was a couple who could draw her. She’s still using intimidation tactics against other supers. Non military supers. She’s used intimidation on other members of the team in the past.
You notice Dabbler, who’s just as powerful, hasn’t done any of that.
Maxima is Superman on a power trip. She’s showing just how powerful she is, and how no one can stop her. And for being the most powerful super in the world and in the military, I have to wonder why the military hasn’t made better use of her.
She’s the team leader. Sometimes you have to yell at people to get through stick skulls.
Here https://www.grrlpowercomic.com/archives/716 you see how intimidating and power tripping she is.
O and this https://www.grrlpowercomic.com/archives/389. She’s pranking. Not to intimidating
And here https://www.grrlpowercomic.com/archives/989 you see how the military has used her
Look up the MOAB. The most powerful non-nuke warhead.
What Max is doing in giving a clear definition of power. As she said, most people with power would likely not have a scale to compare. They end up thinking that they are the most powerful being there is. Some would try to change the world ‘for the better’. Good intention or not that means using their power to make change the system which would be wrong. By showing them what she can do and that she is ‘powerful’ they can say “well I can’t do that so maybe I’m not as strong as I thought”.
A note would be where you grew you were the strongest. Say you could deadlift 250lbs. Every strength contest you entered you won. Then you entered a world wide contest. The winners each lifted well over 400lbs. How do you think you would see your ability then?
to show what I know… Just looked up world record deadlift, 1100lbs or thereabouts. so yeah….
I finally placed what Sydney’s ‘EEEEE’ and all-teeth smile reminded me of in panel 7. Wallace and Gromit.
Yep that there is a beauty of an explosion.
The Mythbusters are gonna die of joy because of it.
If Sydney leaves her powers like this, she should be able to fly the press back to the conference much quicker than they came. Considering the way her powers work, they may not even fell the movement at all.
What makes giving examples of the different dot ratings so difficult is that there’s a huge variance in the scales being used for different abilities.
The Strength ability is measuring “super” strength. Achilles is given just one dot in Strength because he is appreciably stronger than human, but only by a little. Compare that to Marksmanship, where Peggy is given four dots. She isn’t a significantly better than human marksman, she’s just a talented normal human. If Marksmanship were being measured on the same scale as Strength, then Peggy wouldn’t have any dots at all.
In similar fashion, Math is given five dots in Martial Arts. He is supposed to be so talented that he might as well be a Super, but not so skilled that he is clearly inhuman. If Martial Arts were being measured on the same scale as Strength, Math would have at most one dot.
mmmm…. heavy pondering from the physics department. all i have to say is great work on the explosion, DaveB, pretty accurate for a representation for a high yield blast.
IT’S UNDER 9000!!!
Okay… again this is why I prefer Champions/Hero system: Special Effects vs Damage.
In Hero System a low yield damage can have various special effects, that make it a much different ability. An attack no more damaging to a super hero than a standard .38 special, not much of a danger to someone like Maxima. Add Armor Piercing to cut her defenses in half, Area of effect to negate her speed/dodge, and multiple levels of Knockback to throw her through a few buildings.
This completely breaks the power levels outlined in your video. The level Four blast could just have multiple levels of Knockback to simulate a blunt force that pushes instead of burning.
It looks incredibly powerful, but a normal human in bomb squad blast armor might survive the initial hit. Going through 4-5 skyscrapers might kill them… but it wouldn’t vaporize them. Not like Maxima’s ill thought out showing off above.
The International Arms Groups are going to be calling for the dismantlement of Arcon and the development of a method to control Maxima immediately.
Ok, I have no idea what you are arguing for in this post. On one hand you sound like you want to throw out the idea of the video and levels altogether, on the other hand the video above would still be relevant in that system: It’s just a comparison of the ‘base’ damage, not the special effects.
People like to know who’s stronger/faster/more accurate, etc. Go watch ESPN for half an hour if you don’t believe me. I can see Adrianna putting something like these power levels together: Not perfect (nothing would be), but so people have some idea of how to compare different super’s power levels.
People might want to know, but the less that is fixed in cannon the more flexibility DaveB will have in his writing and art. That way when he has an inspiration, such as the long-held desire to do the above scene, he will not have painted himself into a corner by already having established that a particular character is too weak to perform a particular feat. Or, potentially worse, too strong. If a character should be able to easily overcome a particular foe or problem, but is failing to use their known capabilities, it will start to alienate readers.
“Why doesn’t he just zap them with his laser attack?”
By not defining these things too precisely at a time when it really does not matter, then later, when it is really important for a key plot point, a character can be conveniently just fast enough, or just too weak as may suit the story.
Of course, we as readers should allow a certain amount of artistic licence in such matters, but everyone has their own limit beyond which their suspension of disbelief gets broken and the story is ruined for them. Some folks having more flexibility than others.
For example, personally I never had an issue with the cage in Buffy the Vampire Slayer’s school library. But it bugged the hell out of Joss Whedon that something, so visibly flimsy that even a feeble person with a crowbar could clearly peel it open, would be so strong that it would be able to contain a raging werewolf one week and the next a powerful vampire. Characters who, in other episodes, could rip steel doors off their hinges or punch enemies through brick walls.
he should have realized silver and iron bend neutralizing there power and/ or making actually trying to break out to painful.
My point was the video is too simplistic and the power “levels” shown prove nothing. That individual special effects can make an attack stronger or weaker. Raw power (i.e. Joules) expressed are not accurately displayed in such a case.
Good Lord. She pulled a freakin Rozalin.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PC2Mnxtuobc
For whatever reason Sydney’s smile in panel 7 reminds me of a Titan’s smile/eyes/general demenor (of Attack on Titan)… kinda unnerving.
Love Arianna’s reaction though.
I love your comic, have been reading it for about three months, and I must say it has been awesome. Glad you have that link to amazon, i just spent a fair amount, I hope it helps you out some. Keep up the excellent work.
Thanks!
You rolled up Maxima with the UPB didn’t you…:D
I think this clip is good for level 3~4 marksmen/sniper
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Xh05zuIdaEM
Start watching the fight from 7:40, the best part is 9:00, where Cait (the girl cop in the clip) hit Katarina (the girl with the throwing blades) by calculating two ricochets.
The subtitles for that was really really bad
How can someone like that get away with pretending to be a cop?
See, to me that’s level 5, because that’s totally unrealistic. There are too many variables to know before taking that shot, like how hard and or brittle the surfaces she’s shooting at are, plus that knife wasn’t embedded in the wall very deep. That’s bullet magic on par with shooting another bullet out of the air. If it was a single ricochet off a more stable and predictable surface I’d say Peggy could have done it, but after the first ricochet the bullet would be tumbling in ways a supercomputer would have trouble predicting.
That show does look sort of entertaining in a guilty pleasure sort of way though.
There is a game by the White Wolf peeps called “Aberrant” and it deals with super powers in 5 rank sets. They talk about rank 1 super dexterity vs rank 3 and what is the “Expected” output. But as a roll playing game the dice are all that really matter :P They also talk about flying and power blasts too, All the comic book goodness. Might be worth a looksee.
I also feel like Maxima’s display was a bad idea, though from a gene-savvy standpoint rather than PR. Not even “what’s the worst that could happen?” is quite as dooming as “I am INVINCIBLE!”.
(I kind of wonder if Sydney will notice that, because it seems like she might.)
I think she knows exactly how strong the blast is though, and exactly how invincible she is. So doesn’t that still count as safe?
I don’t mean “invincible” in the sense of invulnerability as a power, I mean it in the sense of “Nothing can stop me now!”.
BAM! Sohma doche badeendo scalla, nella deendo.
D’jella boom.
Ba-adda boom.
Bi-ig badda big boom.
Big! BOOM!
Badda Boom!
Because NOTHING is disturbing about the idea of the same government that brought us Waco and Ruby Ridge having that much raw power on its leash….
The US government has 5,113 nuclear warheads under its leash.
The old chain of command has now gotten a parallel line, as follows:
Maxima.
Feh, RH’s only saying that because 2013 was an Obama year, and those two groups are– aheh, were– christian terrorists. If it was during the Bush or Trump regimes, he would have never said anything.
Can you imagine how the Russians or Chinese would react to this?
“Why have you restarted nuclear testing?” “Oh, no, Minister, that’s not what we’ve done! We’ve, well, just watch the tape…”
What kind of deterrent would a nation-state have against that?
What Maxima just did is -nothing- compared to a nuke.
As far as deterrents go… assuming that Daveb’s world matches the real world right now, can you imagine the damage that could be done to the US economy with some simple trade sanctions?
Then there’s always falling back on that great Cold War stand-by, Mutually Assured Destruction.
That’s a popular myth, but China is actually heavely depended ON the US for it’s export, not the other way around
while that may or may not be true, as i don’t keep up with world economy that well, i’m sure that if a few countries were to call in on our DEBT that WE owe THEM, that would put a crimp in our day…
First off: awesome comic. Unlike many commenters, I really *like* that Max didn’t mess around. She didn’t play nice for the cameras or act demure so she doesn’t intimidate anyone.
Max isn’t that interested in being `liked’. I’m pretty sure she doesn’t care how many people follow her on SuperTweet or CapeBook. She has a job: beating up bad guys. The more bad guys she can convince not to mess with her just makes her job easier. She’s not interested in their self-esteem or hurting their feelings or identifying with their feelings of oppression. Her stance appears to be: if you’re a bad guy, she will beat you.
And what’s wrong with that? Appeasement has never worked. Maybe it’s a sad indictment of the human condition, but the only thing will stop a bad guy from doing bad things to whoever he wants is a good guy getting in his way and saying, “No!” No matter how much you talk and empathize and try to understand and indulge…ultimately it rests on violence. If the understanding, the cookies, the pats on the head, the affirmation of the bad guy’s desire to murder kittens…if none of that works, then what? More cookies? How many murdered kittens is too many? How far do you allow it to go before you say “That’s too far!”…and if you ever get to that point, how do you enforce it?
That’s where Max comes from. It’s not a game, it’s not P.R., it’s not a popularity contest.
There’s valid points to both Arianna and Maxima’s approach. Arianna wants acceptance, lull the populace into complacency…blow smoke up their butts so they don’t realize the cops have tanks and armed drones. By the time they do…well, it’s just the way things are, been that way for a long time, what’s the problem?
Max is saying screw the smoke-blowing…this is where it goes. We all know it, you all know it, it’s not a secret. You can make soldiers and cops and any other instrument of authority wear frilly tutus and carry pink guns with plastic daisies painted on them….it doesn’t change the fact they will put you down if it becomes necessary.
Max understands all government rules by force…and at least she’s honest enough to admit it. I prefer honesty over Arianna’s snow-job and spin cycle.
Just my two cents.
I hope that Halo in panel 7 gets added to the banner rotation.? I absolutely love the look and it would be nice for it to pop up from time to time. Like others already in there, it will bring a smile to my face whenever I see it.
Yeah I need to update those. Haven’t added to them in a few months.