Grrl Power #174 – You got your explosion all over my press conference
On a scale of one to “I will invent a time machine explicitly for murdering your parents,” how mad do you think Arianna is? Probably something between “I will soak your panties in Icy Hot” and “I will stab you in the ear while you sleep.”
I didn’t want to cover this page with sound effects, but imagine enveloped in an explosion like that is really quite loud. Not deafeningly loud, Sydney’s shield cuts the decibel level off at a tolerable level, but still it’s all “BOOOOM CAT-ROAAAAR AAARG!” in there or whatever mix of onomatopoeia that would sound like. It’s unclear that the people in the back heard Sydney, but at least with the force field clipping the decibels, Maxima isn’t being totally drowned out by it.
This page doesn’t have a whole lot on it unfortunately but it’s a needed transition to the next page, which is why I said that this sequence benefits from a fast read. The next two pages are pretty cool if I do say so myself. And… a few pages after that. I like my own comic if you can’t tell.
There will be another bonus comic this Thursday (yay), but after that I need to buckle down and start with the job hunting (boo).
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Sydney, I know you think you’re cool and all, but I’d appreciate it if you never said “It ain’t no thang!” ever again.
keep thinking Ain’t no thing but a Chicken Wing
Another bonus comic this Thursday? Good, cause I can’t wait to find out what that “one more thing” is.
I knew that Max’s little stunt isn’t going to go well with Arianna. I don’t care who you are, doping a nuke is not good PR. If looks could kill Arianna would have killed Max ten times before she hit the ground. You can be shore that she will be having words with Max latter. Quite venomous ones at that.
And I agree that the only thing Max seems to be doing is painting one hell of a big target on herself and her team. Who wouldn’t want to be known as the Villain that took out a person that did that!
She’s also displaying a major weakness to anyone watching this press conference. There’s no way this wouldn’t be on tv live. And also, there’s no way this would be on the list of things to do to display how much firepower they have. Always sandbag and never reveal everything. Maxima is dangerously impulsive at times. Now they know she can be baited even without bait. You can lead her to make a mistake. Just avoid the Godzilla Threshold and you can actually take her down pretty easily.
Just because she made a big boom she’s impulsive?
She had this planned out since it was just Max and Sydney at the range, and probably before that. She tested Sydney’s shield to see if it could survive the blast.
She knows exactly what the effect of this action will be: Potential supervillains will go 1 of 2 routes after this:
The weaker ones will be scared. Great, mission accomplished. Better than if they had just kicked against a tank
The stronger ones will take it as a challange and try to attack Max. Awesome, as they are not attacking civies. Also, Maxima isn’t the only one on the team that’s this powerfull. Noone knows just how powerfull Dabbler is, but she can go face to face with Maxima, so very powerfull.
Both results are better than the villains trying out their stuf on the general population.
Max just doesn’t care what the people higher up think of her action
There is nothing to say that they won’t go another route. The weaker villains can ban together to form a stronger unit by pooling there resorts . This doesn’t ensure that the stronger villains will not try to kill a few civilians to get the hero out in the open, or lead them into a trap. Things don’t always go according to plan. Especially for this hair trigger hot head.
Where do people get that she’s impulsive? Everything we’ve seen of her so far is that she’s right ontop of everything that happends around her
Only if this is at or near Maxima’s upper limit. Which, honestly, I doubt. At the very least, it doesn’t seem like she’s stat dumped her personal forcefield into this blast.
This cant be live. The signal would have been blocked by the explosion. Everyone watching if this is a live feed probably think they were all killed.
Most channels have a small time delay attached to live feeds. So if so then what will they do ?
They didn’t bring satellites with them to transmit so I think this is recorded although the first section might have been live.
Eehm, you don’t bring a satalite with you…
To all the guys who are saying Max just ruined the artillery range — have you ever *SEEN* an artillery range? I mean, if you ruined one, how could you tell?
At most, she gave the exercise planners some interesting new terrain to test things on. Y’know, training the guys to guage distance correctly when firing at the far side of a crater as opposed to just firing on level ground and so on.
Well, I do know most shooting ranges don’t look like a gigantic crater with a single pillar of sand in the middle, where a forcefield used to be
Artillery ranges are not the same as shooting ranges. Just sayin’.
I still don’t think they test nuclear bombs at an artilery range though
Compared to a common hand grenade, pretty big boom. Compared to a fuel-air explosive device? About the normal size. Compared to a nuke? This is the snap-crackle-pop Rice Crispies makes.
that is a damned good comparison
beat me to it. *Hands ARCmage the PRIZE!*
actually this is the don’t bother prepping a plane I brought my alice pack nuke like the army is currently stocking several hundred in a series of classified depos across the country. big enough to knock out a few blocks but not level a normal sized town.
Well, for one thing there ain’t no more ground left to lob a shell into. I’m fairly sure that would do the job.
Oh yes I’ve seen an artillery range, several if you really want to know.
There is a difference between the place being cratered and the place being a crater.
Hm. Looks like under stress Sidney’s shield has lots of copies of the old Xwindows logo.
Oh, and for those who think Max’s clothes might not survive the blast, here’s an NSFW link to an artist whose work I think is a lot of fun.
https://andersson.elfwood.com/Too-Much-Power.2524411.html
if max doesn’t have a personal shield, she’ll be lucky if she has that much of her uniform left.
It’s powered by google drive
Looks more like an upside-down recycle-logo to me
I’d say Ariana is thinking about unleashing the PPO on Maxima…
I love Hiro’s face: “Wow, impressive!”
In panel 1 the debris coming up and over Maxima’s back + the glowing makes me think that she looks like the Queen of Blades.
Damn cool page!
If Max did lose some of her close and showing a little of her….woman-ness, would probably make Arianna a little happier. just a little.
Though I’m curious if after the flames subside and the dust settles if there will be a naked Achilles unabashedly standing just outside of the force field… :-/
You mean climb out of the exact center of the crater :P
Nah. I think it would be funnier if he just happened to have been missed by Sydney and wasn’t expecting his clothes to get blown off. Ending up at the epicenter of the explosion would be too convenient and he’d be too far away from the press to make it worthwhile to even mention.
Though if Dabblers rail gun had really sent him flying away from the press and now Max’s blast propels him back towards them and he smacks the forcefield, well, that would be funny too. :-)
Come on, dave.
Poor Achilles didn’t have much of a gig here, since his Zidane-ing didn’t really impress anyone.
Give him some credit at least here.
You mean, like a naked Bart Simpson?
or you know he could fall naked out of the sky and land ontop of the force field, cause the wonder child to freak and do something outrageous
And then the slow slide down the side of the shield. *squueeeee….plop!*
so it just occured to me how is sidney floating. flying is one orb, this forceshield is another and now an enlarger. or is the flying the enlarger?
i think the enlarger is actually built into the shield orb. if you recall a few comics back, she was looking at symbols on her shield orb.
As has been discussed since she made the shield so big, the embiggener is just an option of the shield orb.
In the who’s who there is a list of what each orb does. As you can see, there is no embiggener there
I love how a pattern appears in the force field when it’s blocking something. as if to say, “Yup, I’m still here.”
Dave, just a minor nitpick, looks like Sydney is missing her wrist radio/GPS/whatever thingy on her arm.
The thingy is on her right hand, if remember (Ok, ok I looked few stripes back :-P) correctly, its on her right hand, that we can see just a bit. It could slipped or whatever.
Whoops, yup, need to add that.
I just hope you won’t forget about the ground (soil?) under the shield to be blown away too, so they’ll be floating in mid air.
I’m guessing the shield is extending underground in a complete sphere.
Yes, but underneath this sphere?
Sydney’s forcefield keeps things in as well as out, so even if the ground around them is scraped clear, they would still be standing on a “disc” of solid ground.
At least until Sydney drops the shield, then hilarity ensues.
I think he means what happens if the ground below is stripped away. Will the shield-sphere start falling or even roll down into the crater of this Mythbusters-worthy boom? Probably not, since Syd’s hanging in place still and the shield focuses on her. Would be an awesome prank to pull on Syd’s part though.
Nope, read the first message again :-) It should be floating, according to to 1088 (Nov 11th) strip
Now she is flying blind in the explosion. She could move about and not know it. The shield might even get a carbon coating blocking sight which wont collapse until the shield drops or hits something or such.
Calling it now, the ‘one more thing’ is that’s not her strongest attack
1) does pinky perhaps have metahuman hearing?
2) looks like arianna may have a serious ‘not in the face’ issue.
3) i wonder if this little display is at least partly aimed at showing that (untrained, harmless looking) sydney has badass protection to discourage villains from casually targeting her, and also perhaps to show that they have ways to protect innocent bystanders.
I had a thought similar to the one anatman had – we went from Sydney being the out-of-control danger to bystanders with Maxima being the tempering/protective force to Maxima being the slightly crazy one and Sydney being the protective one. A rather neat reversal that will throw off some risk estimates for anyone thinking of going up against the team.
Hey check it out, Ariana has to cover her eyes because the Force Field don’t block photon light damage.
(Reference to comic strip #2)
Big explosion just yards away with a transparent field between you and it?
Yeah, I might flinch too.
Nah, this force field does block harmfull levels of everything. So if you’d shoot a laser at it, it would probably turn opaque automaticly
This seems like some “their greatest hero turns into their greatest foe” foreshadowing. Maxima always seemed a little too eager to display how powerful she is, and a little too gleeful in saying that she could kill anyone who opposed her.
Except, we see that she is still part of the team months later, unless when she went ‘rogue’ she took Anvil and Sydney with her (might explain why Sydney didn’t have the choker or wrist-shackle)
I don’t know who is more impressive. Halo or Maxima.
Halo is an versatile wizard type (technique). Maxima is a offense type (power).
Maxima set off a nuke and Halo is riding the explosion while being close to the epicenter and protecting news crews. I can imagine anyone wanting to be a super-villian and proving that would target both of them.
In a battle Maxima may be more useful, but in demonstrations Halo is more impressive.
We haven’t yet seen how powerfull Halo truely is though. Her PPO is pritty damn strong offencively, if she can learn to control it
Even better if Achilles just didn’t made it into the sphere in time, and walked back after the blast unscrached
You know the pattern you are using is the same pattern as “Our” logo for the animus? That can be copyright infringement?
Google of the animus
It’s a simple geometric tessellation. DaveB isn’t referencing the animus in any way. (In fact, he’s using it in an completely different context.) Copyright won’t cover it.
(If he was using it to reference an animus-like device, it might, but this isn’t even close.)
Seen it before in a few obscure places. Mainly dated ones now as few still find a use for it. It’s been around in slight variations for decades.
It’s hard to copyright simple geometric patterns like that. Trademark? Maybe. Ignoring the fact that the patterns are slightly different, GrrlPower and Assassin’s creed are not in the same market; so trademark laws don’t come into play either.
Off to copyright circles, squares, rectangles and triangles, hell maybe even just lines. Ima be rich!
Nice trolling mate
Thinking about it, I think Max’s strategy is pretty sensible – or at least I can see what she’s trying to achieve. “Do not **** with us, we will crush you with overwhelming force”. The SAS’s storming of the Iranian embassy set the tone for special forces tactics for a long time after. As I understand it they are still respected and feared even though they’ve done nothing so public in over 20 years.
Moderately powered and only-potential super villains will be seriously freaked out by this and might well reconsider their career choices (lion taming sounds safer). The serious crazies won’t be put off, but well they were going to be crazy super villains whatever you did right? And as for pushing otherwise-law abiding supers into calling out Max just because she appears so dangerous (Campaign For Maximilia Disarmament anyone?) – she’s in the military, clearly in a chain of command, and ARC have so far been more open and forthcoming than any other government agency ever. That’s some pretty major points against her being perceived as a bad guy.
So yeah, Arianna will have some serious headaches to deal with, but the overall effect will have plenty of positives. If she did this to someone as a result of a parking violation, then yeah THAT would be a problem.
Lion taming? That’s actually pretty straight-forward. Lions are pack-hunters, so you just have to get to the top of the pride by outsmarting the lions. Do not try to overpower them, but get on their good sides and you can direct the action. Solo hunters like jaguars and leopards are much more difficult to train and control and in the wild leopards cause many more injuries and deaths than lions and hyenas combined.
So the potential super-villain might choose to take up leopard training as an alternative career path.
Maybe swimming with Hippos.
Maxima just went Alucard crazy! Glowy shades and extreme power display. Definitely Alucard crazy!
Nah, this isn’t Alucard-crazy.
Alucard-crazy would involve lots of damage AND mountains of really-messed-up foes.
I know that ARC had warned the local authorities that they were going to do a ‘live fire’ demo out in the desert, but what are they going to think when they feel a magnitude 5.6 quake and see a mushroom cloud rising into the sky? Either NORAD or Homeland Security is going to issue a bulletin to the president that a suspected terrorist attack has occurred in (insert state name here). They may even go to DEFCON 4.
Tropes in this panel
– posing all cool looking in front of an explosion.
Upcoming tropes in the next panel:
“And that tank was only two weeks from retirement.”
Reporter in crowd: “I’m getting to old for this sh!t”
Arianna: “You’ve just made a powerful enemy.”
“…we are the Sultans of Swing!…?”
+1
And Max’ message?
“I have a friend who does stuff like this for party-pranks.”
or
“I have a friend who did stuff like that as a kid.”
Indicating that whoever it is, he’s way more powerful than even Max.
Oh, and one more thing, clothes are not bombproof.
No, but she is.
And her powers extend to whatever she touches. So her clothes are
If thats the case then could she touch someone and they also gain that? In theory could this be like the Golden Goose where a chain chain of people could enjoy the buff so long as one touches Max?
One of her powers is called “Zero-Range Telekinesis.” It means that she can lift an ambulance from the side without ripping the side off, tipping it or herself over, despite all the leverage disadvantages, kick tanks without her boot exploding, stand in the path of a large explosion and not have her clothes shredded from her body, etc. So it means that anything she is touching is covered by her power. In theory, a whole bunch of people holding hands could be affected, but the mental strain on Max could become taxing.
Of course, that is my opinion. DaveB would have to give the final word on the topic.
We’ll leave that up to Dave to deceide.
But she can grab the side of an ambulance, and make it fly. https://www.grrlpowercomic.com/archives/373
If she had tried to lift it with strenght it would have simply ripped open.
As explained here https://www.grrlpowercomic.com/archives/376
weird-looking squat pose is weird looking
“… Since we do not expect many incidents, we will be assisting more conventional Law Enforcement when requested and practical.”
cut to a plush office in back of a strip club
“Hey Fat Tony, I want out of the Rackets, I want to move up to Toe Cuter”
“What’s a Toe Cuter?”
“A Stand-Over Man that works over other Stand-Over Men, If the Feds can borrow a guy that can Punt Tanks or a Dame that’s a walking Nuke I want extra time to go to the mattress….. I’ll even provide my own Bolt Cutters.”
Those will have to be pretty impressive bolt-cutters to affect Stalwart or Maxima.
Hmm I’d rate that a Vash pose. About his level of explosion too. Poor little steel test beam. She probably took That out too.
I love Sydney so much. xD
Ummm… But Maxima is outside the force field too… which means whatever she’s saying is also being clipped by the same logarithmic scale… and with the explosion as long as you say it is… how would she be heard again (unless her voice’s volume rivals that of the explosion’s)?
how much boom is that?
I had a thought after watching your video’s yesterday, the energy blast levels from 1 to 5.
I realize it’s fairly odd, but, i had an idea for swords.
Level 1: Ability to use sword in a swordfight at kill-bill level.
Level 2: Ability to use sword to slice a speeding bullet in half.
Level 3: Ability to use sword to do a ranged attack (basically getsuga tensho from Bleach.)
Level 4: Ability to use sword to do a stronger ranged attack with damage at high levels. (Still getsuga tensho, but the black version. Just a little less powerful than the final version, actually)
Level 5: Ability to use sword to slice a hole in the fabric of time and space to create a portal to an undetermined location. (No matter how good you are at swinging a sword, you probably won’t be able to decide where the portal goes.) Alternatively, splits atoms.
The trouble is having a sword good enough that can actually withstand anything above level 2. Katana’s are good…. but they aren’t THAT good.
That last one actually Happens in one of the tales games for the PS3.
Level 4 would be Excalibur from Fate Stay night. Level 5 I’d guess would be Ea.
Just infuse it with chakra or…
“Use the Force, Luke.”
Level 5 is a easy power for a character in Mana Khemia,but than other powers are a cat that turn into a sword,a bag that contains almost anything,orbital laser attacks,a sword that fires deadly boomerangs,a whip made of playing cards and a teddy bear.
i have a sneaky suspicion that her next words are going to be: “… THAT was NOT my most powerful attack…”
Many people have commented on how Max’s demonstration essentially paints a target on herself. However, the kind of attention she attracts may not be another big bruiser looking to “throw down”. Given the super hero setting, it seems entirely possible a Psychic / Empathic opponent could simply body snatch her and use her as their own wrecking ball. If she really is, as she claims, the best at physical violence; every one else would be hard pressed to stop her without great cost.
I do believe you may have called it.
Now I can only hear Maxima speaking like uncle from Jacki Chan adventures. I half expect her next line to be “Yu Mo Gwai Gui Fai Di Zao” as she hits Stalwart on the head with two fingers.
That explosion expanded to encompass the shield.
Is it now DBZ grade c- ? Or the smaller size it was before?
Max’s big reveal: “I have a number of powers and they are all this powerful. This is just the best way to demonstrate the extent.”
She may add “this is not me giving it my all. I can hit harder.”
Or perhaps a team statement regarding how members of the team can equal or surpass her in some power areas and as a team their powers cover such vast diverse range that they are ready for anything.
This whole scenario looks like Max saying, “I won’t be ‘managed’.”
Where’s Dabbler while all this is going on? Outside, inside, up above somewhere? I doubt if she’s very impressed by all the fireworks.
She’s standing behind Hiro.
Hmm now that I look at that shield, it looks more tech then magic or super power. I am seeing it as some sort of advanced defensive system of sorts or something.