Grrl Power #185 – Our chief weapon is fear. Fear and surprise!
This is definitely one of those pages that would benefit from just being able to turn the page or hit the next comic button right away. As soon as most people read Maxima’s examples they’ll start thinking of their own counter examples, which is of course what the next page is.
I’m going to keep this comment short as I strained my back a little.* I’ll be fine but I’m a little tired from the muscle relaxer I took right as I’m writing this. I’ll update the vote incentive later today with something.
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*by lifting over 2000 pounds! Granted that was spread out over lots of reps, but it sounds much more impressive when added up.
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hi,
thanks for the new page
I would give you a thumbs up if I could if only for your common courtesy. Yes, thank you for the new page, Dave.
I think we can trust Arianna to be a negative Nelly in the next page.
Someone has to.
And you have to think how different parts of the population will react, supers, non-supers, military, law enforcement, politicians…
vigilantism and homicide attempts on anyone with even a minor power out of fear and stupidity?
Oh yeah, people get all hysterical & bigoted against those who aren’t “pure strain human.” People will label them, deride them at every opportunity, lamb-bast them in the media & petition the government to get rid of them the same way Hitler had his “final solution” for the Jews.
Oh, wait a minute, that’s already been happening (for decades) even in the comics industry…One of the major publisher companies has a MARVELous example of it.
Yes but it is based on the fact that humans don’t like things that are different. There were witch hunts for centuries because some people were smarter than others and could do things others couldn’t. The reason it is used so often is because realistically it would happen, heck in a lot of stories the super community has to fight for the right to bear super powers.
Sounds about as silly as the “right to bear arms”. If you are born with them you have the inalienable right to use them. Just do not go around doing illegal things with your arms or hands. Like using them to hold a gun, in a stick up, or to tear the door off a safe.
MMMMM…. basted lamb!
Vigilantism and homicide? You mean witch hunts?
“Welp, we’ll strap her to a plank and dunk the plank under the water. If she lives, she’s a witch and we burn her at the stake. I she dies…she’ll be with god.”
aka
“Kill the all and let god sort them out.”
Never was a big fan for either. But the hunters I am sure see many advantages, which can be summarized as one of two things: ” I get to do brutal things to others and get away with it”, or “I’m doing something to make the world a better place, so it is now better thanks to my killing those folks.”
Sadly, only the first of thse two views is someone being truthful with themselves.
Or the second, if they’re total nutcases, aka religious fanatics (doesn’t matter if part-time).
In religious fanaticism there’s always two parts. Those who use religion for their own selfish gains and those who’re just douches enough to actually believe and act on it. It’s the basics how religion works and why it was invented; other parts being self-delusion about the afterlife, delusional reasoning of existence and delusional reasoning about bad experiences.
Personally, I’m just waiting that some whacko Christian fanatic militia gets hold of a nuke or an ICBM, probably in the US.
Uh…huh.
Clearly you do not understand the religion.
Suicide and killing are both specifically verboten in Christianity.
There are however other religions where one is rewarded for killing non-religious people. Where one is excused or rewarded for dying while killing the non-religious.
My advice, worry about the religions where the religious leaders are calling for your death, with any weapon possible, and with WMDs left on the table.
Odd, I always thought the Crusades were conducted at the behest of the Christian church. I guess it must have been the Dalai Lama behind it, rather than every country in Christian Europe.
But probably best not to get too heavily into the religious side of things, as that can get debates rather overheated.
I think it fair to say that extremists of any persuasion are not healthy. And it would probably be unwise to hand any of them the keys to a nuclear arsenal or bio-weapons laboratory.
Mind you we are entering the era of household bio-labs. And home nano kits will not be too far down the road. It is just a matter of time until somebody’s home experiment crawls out of the kitchen and starts rampaging down the street. Be it accidental or some flavour of nutter behind it.
Oh, how I wish that were true…but there are, and always will be, people who will do the things out of an honest conviction that they are right. Even more frightening, many of them will regret those things…but will not hesitate to do them anyway.
I want to know what news channel those clubs have on.
Scaryness: 8 Coolness: 9
Compeltly epic
Channel 5 /rosemary nod
Does Suzie Wen work for Channel 5? The news ticker looks familiar.
She does.
Channel 3 (or was it 6?) was April O`Neil’s station
2000 reps
Yep, gotta watch those reps…That’s what can do you in.
For example, getting stabbed isn’t usually fatal (unless a major organ like the heart gets it first), but *multiple* stabbings are more likely to become fatal.
Actually human bodys are remarkably resilliant to stab wounds
hense [i]multiple[/i] stabs
Indeed, it bothers me a lot when a movie character get stabbed and instantly drops dead.
Not as much as slasher movies bother me. The number of times where the hero and/or innocent victim number 5 bashes the man-in-the-mask/monster over the head and he/it falls over. At which point custom dictates they either turn their back and attend to something really important like feeling bad for themselves or checking to see if victim number 4 is actually as dead as they look. Or they go prancing off looking scared.
What they do not do is bash the crap out of the ‘corpse’, hack its head off and burn the remains until they are just ash. Frankly they deserve their Darwin award. Why not just stab themselves (multiple times) and save the villain the job of getting up?
:) Same reason that the villain goes to push some buttons instead to wait until the tied hero dies?
https://nonadventures.com/2014/01/25/acid-splashback/
Note to self, if I’m ever confront a slasher/serial killer only turn away from him to find a better weapon. Like an Axe.
I didn’t see the movie, but here’s the parody:
https://www.angryalien.com/0605/screambuns.asp
True fact: the number one cause of death in horror movies is not being familiar with horror movies.
Actually the movie “Behind the Mask: The Rise of Leslie Vernon” does a pretty good take on the thought process behind being an ever returning killer. Was done like a documentary following around an up and coming undying killer and he explains alot of the behind the scenes things they do to create the perfect slasher film type setting.
ah but it is entirely reasonable for them to drop to the ground in pain,
and any doctor will tell you, any surgery is serious and carry some risk of death or (ok not all of them will [i]tell you[/i] the second bit,) and someone stabbing at you probably is less concerned about your health than a doctor…. then again, given all the supervillains with PHDs…..(Dr Doom, Doc Oct, Dr. Horrible, Dr Evil, Dr Dracken, Dr Doofensmertz, Lex Luther, Dr Nefarious, Doctor Sivana, Doctor Hugo Strange, Doctor Demonicus, Doctor Light, Doctor Polaris, Dr Egman/Robotinik Dr Mindbender)
Sure it’ll hurt, but a stabwound in a muscle is far from serious. All it takes is some stitches, and time to heal (not even that long).
It might cut a tendon, which would cause long lasting problems, but that’s not killing anyway.
A stabwound would only cause real problems if it hits a big artery, or some vital organ. And most of the areas you can stab are neither of those
On another note. One of the worse things you can do is to yank the weapon out of the wound! I see it in almost every movie but this is a very bad idea. Not only does the object block major blood loss but in most cases it will cause even more trauma to the victim. Most objects thrust into humans are not smooth and tapered and removing them will rip and pull flesh and undamaged veins and arteries and in the case of many sites bone and ligaments too. It is a stupid thing to do.
Honestly kind of hope panels 2-5 are canon. That guy seems fun.
He’s rather going back to construction than considering to join Archon…
I like him already for his love of personal independence but that likely means that we won’t see him again.
Super hero/villain fights cause much devastation. Rebuilding after them will be a lucrative branch of construction. We will see him a lot. Just as part of the clean-up crew visible in the background as the heroes poke at rubble looking for clues and the one that got away.
:) That is pretty much plausible indeed, like it.
Heh :) Agreed, indeed!
In one super hero world I made and used for a game I was DMing there was an entire construction company based around rebuilding after super hero fights and reinforcing buildings so they could survive them. Naturally it employed mainly supers, thus the personal wages were quite high, the code they built to was better and the price to hire them was cheaper because it only took like three workers and some specialist to make a multistory building. Eventually they even got government grants to do the work and many supers started working their and moonlighting for the hero stuff because they felt guilty about the damage they did while on the job.
Marvel had a limited-run series with exactly that premise – what it might be like for the construction crews who clean-up the rubble after a super’s battle.
Hey, wait, what kind of company Machina Industries is?
Not Construction, not that kind anyway
I always wondered about that.
How the heck do people get by with a lot of that?
Just imagine the bills on normal people.
High insurance, rebuying of destroyed stuff all the time (if you can get it again, that is), the ever-looming threat of being one of the next victims…
Imagine your kids are on a school trip and then some random super-villain decides to hold them hostage as a taunt to some hero, then a few months later, another villain ruins the tram you’re in in a fight with a hero.
Or maybe you’re one of the people that suddenly have their apartment walls ripped out by said hero in an effort to stop said tram?
Kinda sucks living in that place, doesn’t it.
Yup. Hell is the place where other people have super-powers. The appeal of the genre is in imagining what you would do if you had them. Not so much fun if the school bully gets it and you do not.
There was this one episode in Smallville where that kid got Clark’s powers and rather quickly changed into a total douche/bully. Then again, his parents were the cause for that, mostly.
You’re speaking of the New York shown in the Spider-Man movies.
And yeah, that place would really suck to live.
Say, a good time for Arianna to invest in a little side business — ArCon-Struction
Of course there would be a little thing like conflict of interest…
I think not everybody wants to be (or fits) inside a military organization.
Never said he had to join Archon. Just want to see more of him.
May be a good match for Anvil. Somebody she could be with and not be afraid of breaking his pelvis.
Really though, if I had a way of dying with a smile on my face, that would be it…
Snoo Snoo! https://www.hulu.com/watch/4476
Snoo snoo is the only way to die. Personally I advocate not dying though. Much more snoo snoo that way.
I don’t know, being chased off a cliff by a ton of naked women is a pretty nice way to go as well.
If you’re not stopping, you’re doing it wrong.
So trampled to death by naked women. Still pretty nice.
I think Achilles could be covering that. You know, what happens in Archon…
Next page: bunch of grim looking supers get together, watch the clip, then look at each other and nod. “Challenge Accepted”
No, I think Arianna will be more interested in the political side where people that shouldn’t be serious enemies come up. The senator that develops the anti-Maxima contingency Hulk-buster and runs on putting legal restrictions on the powers of scary superheros, etc.
Because the military trying to stop the Hulk always turns out so great
They always such great plans like, “Let’s make an indestructible monster that is powered by rage even angrier by throwing all kinds of conventional weapons at it. We will sneak on him with tanks and helicopters (he’ll never hear them coming) and see how many lives we can throw away ineffectively.”
paranoia over the most powerful super in the region?
yea probably, imo fear leads to paranoia which leads to stupidity.(though with fear and paranoia it can be vice versa.) and everyone knows the military tend to be paranoid in comics. always thinking “what if she goes rouge?”
Well, she does have the lips for it, but have we seen her blush yet?
And when the monster’s genius alter-ego ever builds a machine to get rid of the monster permanently, we have to sabotage the procedure, preferably at the last moment.
Yeah, but which one is which?
And that’s when the Hulk isn’t part of the military.
Don’t think I have seen villain groups before who dress in pink. White and black have been done to death.
I have – in CA – they picket military recruiting offices
And waiting outside the diner? The Avatar of Earth (as depicted in the Last Airbender series trumpet to 11 or better) / God or anything closely powerful.
“You were saying?”
Cue the news switching to Sidney leveling up, nothing on camera except Sidney hanging on the yellow one, crude paper sketches and scribles of AWESOME skill trees with lots of arrows pointing at stuff.
Dabbler said she mesmerized the press, so they didn’t see the skill grid
When did she say that? Thought she just said the Grid didn’t show up on/with electronic devices
Never mind, I read a previous comic wrong. I thought she was saying she mesmerized the grid; so the reporters couldn’t see it. Instead she said memorized the grid. In my defense they were talking about the grid being seen on TV
She said she memorized the grid, not mesmerized
“Grrr” and glint in the eye. Ok, I have chosen my next superpower. Low key, but cool.
+20 to intimidation?
Looks it to me. I would not mess with the guy after that.
I’ve done it. ADHD with the capability of obsession is not a thing to be trifled with. The time I did it, it was an ex wanting me to stop and continue talking to her then thought it might be best not to push it cause I may decide to entertain myself.
Of course for each of those possibilities there’s someone else saying “so if I can beat her then I’ll be #1?
I see a kid beating Maxima on the head with a stick while screaming “There can be only one!”
It is called, “Gunning for #1.”, from western books and movies.
That reminds me of a Star Trek fanfic where a young officer states to Picard that she would not leave the Enterprise without getting his chair (at best, his job). Que to her being transferred to Voyager.
Yep, she personally took said chair off the bridge of the Enterprise (the actual chair item).
I’m sure Arianna is thinking about the good ol’ human vs. superhuman debate. Are supers going to protect mankind- or rule over them? How can the US government (or any government or political body) protect itself and it’s people should someone like Max go rogue? What guarantee do they have Archon will remain on the side of angels?
I’m with this one.
Forget supers deciding to pick up the glove. Arianna’s concerned about normal powered people picketing Archon. About a news cycle that digs up that mosque demolition again. The headlines like “Our new Heroes, or our new Overlords?” and “YOU might be living next to a WMD!, we’ll tell you after the weather.”
You raise another excellent point. Here’s also the supers who aren’t bad and just want to live peacefully but who ear terrible, uncontrollable powers. Does society lock them away to keep everyone safe but at he cost of violating this person’s rights, this individual who didn’t do anything wrong and possibly was neither responsible for nor wanted to gain powers in he first place? WMD next door indeed!
When we come back, in Sports, the world’s fastest pitcher has been disqualified, not for abusing steroids, but because he has super-strength!
Also. Also.
That particular example was actually discussed in Aaron Williams’ PS238. Or we have Math and Peggy- at what point is someone just really good at something and at what point are they superhuman?
Dogs are superhuman. You poor humans. Such a cripplingly poor sense of smell. Super canine is more interesting. Imagine the capability to open cans with an opposable thumb! But that would make dog-carers feel inadequate, loosing their primary usefulness in life. So rather a double-edged power.
Um… Dog’s aren’t human to begin with. They’re dogs.
Super human as in having capabilities greater than human. Actually being human has never been a requirement for having super powers in this genre. Be it some aquatic race from under the ocean, a robot, an alien or some kind of animal. Superhumans come in many forms.
You can’t outlaw an Tornado.
Maxima is like a tornado, exept that she’s actually helping people. Might be smart for those people to ensure that she wants to keep helping them
You overlook your own metaphor. Tornadoes by themselves don’t help people- they usually kill them while causing massive amounts of property damage. They destroy lives, they destroy families.
Keeping a super like Max happy doesn’t matter if the decision to destroy rather than protect has been made. After all, why bother receiving, say, a paycheck and some authority if you can just take it ALL for yourself.
Max is on the side of law and order because she chooses to- what if she chooses not to?
That’s why you have to keep her happy with her choise. If she likes being on the good side of the law, than she’ll stay there
You’re missing the point- or, more precisely, only looking at the possibility without any problems.
What GUARANTEE is there that Max or others like her in Archon will ALWAYS be happy serving law and order? And what can you do should she ever become unhappy and rebel?
That is what the rest of Archon is for. Batman made plans to incapacitate the rest of the Justice League, just in case one of them went rogue. Sydney, Dabbler, and the others are their to contain her until her can brought back to the side of the good guys.
Bad guy Maxima: And there isn’t a thing you guys can do about it!
Sydney: [ crying ] But I looked up to you. You were my hero.
Maxima: Tough! Sometimes people lie. Grow up and get over it!
Dabbler: I liked you more when you went trying to destroy Oklahoma. You know we can’t let you do this. I can’t let you do this.
Maxima: You are welcome to try, but both you and I know that will never work. I beat you before and I will beet you again.
Sound effect: *Vorrp* *Vorrp*
Maxima: Hey, what happened to my clothes? Harem, do not think you will get away with this.
Harem: [ 200 m away, each body holding some of Max’s clothing ] So the carpet does match the drapes. [ New Body ] I thought she would shave, but [ New Body ] with what?
Maxima: Why you … [ Starts running up to supersonic speed ]
Sound effect: Whump!, with reverb.
Max crumples with a concussion a few metres from where she was standing, after running into Sydney’s force-field at Mach 1.2.
Yikes! I meant not trying to destroy Oklahoma.
The other way works better here in TX. ;)
Let’s be fair, it’s not like anyone is going to miss Oklahoma anyway.
If they do, they will probably just hit one of the other states in the middle. So pretty much the same result.
hey I live in Oklahoma and it is a nice place. and I think it would be a lot better for her to take out cailifornia
“Batman made plans to incapacitate the rest of the Justice League, just in case one of them went rogue.”
Yep, he even had plans in case HE went rogue…He knows the Justice League could stop even a rogue Batman.
Yeah, but do they know the plans to stop an Owlman on the loose?
Nothing can stop a rouge Owlman
Sure there is: take away his make-up bag
you keep using that word…
Or Max simply wipes the floor (read: KILLS) every super sent her way, whether pre-emptively or face-to-face.
Max is NOT Batman. I dunno if she’s as smart as Batman, but she (as far as we’ve seen) is the most powerful super here where Bats is just the most willful and well-trained human being in the DC Universe. Bats can beat foes where he can prepare for them and outwit them; but as, say, “overpowered” as his modern depiction has made him, he can still be overpowered and outmatched when it coms to pure physical force. The problem with comparing Max to Batman is that we don’t know who and how can she be stopped. The better comparison would be Between Max and Superman, except without any weaknesses to kryptonite and magic.
Thus the idea that Archon can surely just take her down is very optimistic. Maybe they can, but it’s not going to be given. Very likely there WILL be casualties and collateral damage and I’m talking on a national tragedy scale.
None. And she exists, nothing you can do about that.
So you have 2 options: Either try to piss off the extremely powerfull person that has no intention of hurting you, because she ‘might’ hurt you.
Or be happy with the situation and try to keep it that way.
You can’t outlaw a tornado. She exists weither you like it or not. Live with it
You’re still missing the point.
Not pissing them off isn’t the issue. It doesn’t matter because that’s a given.
What matters are the consequences of her or any other powerful super getting pissed off and/or simply going rogue despite all attempts to keep her happy doing her job. That is the fear that Arianna is referring to.
It may be a fact of life in this setting, but people are not going to simply accept that the only thing they can do is trust Archon to be good all the time. They’re not going to be happy with the idea that they’re all screwed or dead if Archon goes rogue even if they can’t do anything about it.
And this is particularly the case for politicians and anyone else in power, such as General Falk’s peers. They’re going to do their best to find ways to control Max and Archon in an effort to prevent the going rogue scenario, even if such measures are ultimately futile. And that is bound to cause friction between supers and non-supers.
Max sees herself and Archon as having scared crooks into going straight. Arianna’s point is that people cannot trust what they fear.
Seeing as there are more supers NOT affiliated with Archon, there is a higher chance one of those would go villain. And you wouldn’t even know that until it’s to late.
So that’s a stupid concern. But than again, people ARE stupid
Non-sequitur. Just because non-Archon affiliated supers are more likely to go rogue doesn’t make Archon supers any less likely to turn on their own, nor does it assuage the fact that society’s superhuman guardians are still threats should they ever go against the public. Which brings us back to Senators talking angrily on the phone to Arianna.
What I do not get is why adding ‘super’ makes any difference in moral, legal or ethical arguments. This debate is ‘do we trust police or don’t we’. Basically we do not. That is why we have police complaints commissions, internal investigations departments, public scrutiny, principles of accountability and transparency, prosecution of police involved in mis-conduct etc etc.
Just because the individuals have super powers does not change that equation. All it means is that you have to factor in how to counter any super capabilities the wrongdoers have. It does not alter the principles of whether what they do is right or wrong or how the legal justice system should work.
Good points, Yorp. My one caveat is that we’re not just dealing with well-equipped, well-trained warriors but with people who basic existence above that of normal human beings. I don’t know if it’s possible to find and utilize countermeasures for the strongest of them. The bar has just been raised way too high for any kind of fear or worry to be placated.
Because the “super” makes prevention and accountability of a metahuman wrong particularly difficult or even outright impossible.
We don’t (and shouldn’t) trust our authorities to a careless, irresponsible extent, thus we have oversight systems in place in society. But those oversights have to some real, practical effect in curbing abuse of authority. A huge chunk of that rests on physically being able to stop, hold, restraint and even punish abusers.
Supers are removed from that by varying degrees, but people like Max can easily overpower- much less evade- any and all accountability in its most real world form. Her power places her beyond being deterred, stopped, prevented, incapacitated, incarcerated, penalized from doing morally reprehensible actions.
This is the fear that is at the heart of this discussion. We should not and do not trust police officers and soldiers to be good- history is full of rogues who threw aside duty in favor of using its power- but at least the system can restrain or even eliminate them.
But with god-like supers, all bets are off. For the utterly powerful, there is no system possible or real to contain rogue supers on which ordinary people can rest easy. When it comes to supervillains, sure, send in the heroes. But if it’s the heroes themselves who become villains and there’s no one left powerful enough to fight back?
The “super” changes the ethical, legal and moral evaluations where ***ethical, legal and moral discussion cannot and should not overlook practical consequences and hard realities.*** Where an effective oversight is impossible while the consequences are even more dire, all the more can and will abuse of power be feared. (Not really intending to quote Spider-Man, BTW, but) Greater power *requires* greater responsibility to guard it because much more is at stake.
A cop gone bad shooting people up can be taken out by another cop with a gun. I don’t know who else can fight and stop Maxima should she go bad. I do know that if she goes bad, her effect won’t be so much like a mass shooting as it will be like a series of moving firestorms in the middle of a populated city that’ll keep burning for quite awhile.
Try it this way: if someone robs you with a gun, you can try to offer them, say, half the money you have to let you go wherein you get to keep half your money.
What makes you think they’re not going to ask for ALL your money in exchange for not killing you?
You are not getting it: you want to keep them happy so the idea of mugging you never occurs to them! Or, at the least, they dismiss the idea before making it reality
By the time they have decided to mug you, it’s too late to make them happy enough to not mug
I think we are getting it, just we do not concur with the idea of “do what the powerful want” regardless the situation.
A well intended dictator is still a dictator :)
The point, at least to me, is: if they are going to go rogue, they would already do it (or do it when the novelty of being ‘good’ wears off), and there is not much you can do about it, except, maybe, (attempt) killing them while they are still ‘good’
It’s not a case of them being bad from the get-go simply because… that’s not the case. I’m sure Max hews to duty and honor as a soldier.
AS OF NOW.
Rather, the fear is if, down the line, she changes. It doesn’t matter how, what matters are the consequences of such. Can she be stopped? If anyone else goes rogue with her, can they be stopped?
And even if imagined and unlikely, people are not going to like that and what it means.
You assume good intentions. Going rogue can involve a distinct lack of those- and usually does.
Depends on the point of view.
If you’re going rogue from an organization that (you think) is doing bad stuff, you’re actually one of the good guys; even if everybody says otherwise.
Of course, some people might be deluded to think that way even if they aren’t.
That’s a good point. But back to the main issue is how much damage and destruction they can and will cause as a result.
It is not your prerogative to take the law into your own hands. If you are part of an organisation which is going bad, you should expose the wrongdoing to the courts and allow due process to take place. If you do not have sufficient evidence to do so, then it is reasonable to remain in place and gather it until you do. Preferably with the support and supervision of a trustworthy external law-enforcement agency with jurisdiction.
If you are in a regime that is so corrupt that there is no arm of law enforcement that could be turned to and the courts are so corrupt that there is no prospect of justice, then you are in a different ball-park. Where you should be campaigning for regime change by political means or joining the rebel army if things have gotten completely out of control. Or seeking asylum in a safer country.
That analogy is completly worthless, because Maxima has no intention of robbing you
And when she does?
Again, missing the point. The government and general populace aren’t going to be worried about keeping her happy. It’s the possibility of her becoming unhappy and not being able to do anything about it that gets them.
You’re both missing the point.
Maxima is, by nature, a Good Person. How can we tell?
She volunteered to go into the military, to use her powers under the direction of the government, rather than just her own initiative. She volunteered, therefore, to follow rules and regulations (and oh boy does the military have a lot of ’em).
She asserts that she is not a hippy, she is a colonel, the exact opposite of a hippy. Again, pointing out the fact she follows rules and regulations, that these rules-and-regs MEAN something to her. She is proud to be a colonel in the military and all for which it stands: law, order, helping the good guys, defeating the bad guys.
Yes, she occasionally torments Arianna–but honestly, that’s one bellpull chain that has a huge “PULL ME& listen to me scream!” sign blatantly attached to it, so yeah, she’s gonna yank the PR lady’s chain. Max is HUMAN (even if she’s super-human, she’s still human), so she’s going to occasionally do stuff like that.
But overall, she’s a Good Person. It is part and parcel of her nature. She may be -tempted- from time to time to blow up another (fill-in-the-blank, doesn’t have to be a mosque), but A LOT OF US face that temptation every day, yes even other Good People types. Hell, I’ve had opportunities left and right to shoplift over the years…and you know what? I don’t do it. I see the opportunity is there, I know I can get away with it, I know how to get away with it…and yet I don’t do it. It’s not in my nature to actually go through with it. Same with a LOT of other people.
Evil is noisy. In an auditorium where there are 1,000 people seated, if only 20 of them get into a noisy fistfight, it’ll sound and maybe even look like everyone is fighting…but in truth, it’s just 20 people fighting. There are still 980 people–nine hundred eighty people–sitting quietly in their seats, behaving. That’s a huge number of Good People types compared to just twenty.
So y’all both miss the point. Max isn’t going to snap and turn Totally Evil Dictator Type anytime soon, and probably will never snap. Because she’s Good, plain and simple.
Hell, even Sydney, who is several monkeys short of a barrel, is a Good Person, and she’s far more likely to do something weird but intended to be harmless that’ll actually end up causing harm to those around her…but she’s not the type to do so deliberately. Same with Max.
+1
(Except for the bit where you imply that Sydney is insane. She is not. She is just more fun than average folks).
Well, this is a good analysis, yet I think it is not applicable.
First this is not about Maxima. If you read the original posts of Messenger and Sean (https://www.grrlpowercomic.com/archives/1183/comment-page-1#comment-55072) we are talking about the supers as a whole, Max is just a (notorious) example.
About Maxima, I do not think we know her well enough. Sadly volunteered into the military do not have a clean history as guarantee of goodness. Yes, she seems to be good (and is a lead character in the comic) but in fact we do not have any proof of her having a good nature. All what we know for sure is that she has an anger control problem.
Actually we know all this people (Syd included) since just a few hours ago. I do not think we can tell the true nature of anybody.
On other matter, Max was not just tormenting Arianna. At the very least she was acting against the directives of who was officialy at charge. What Max did could damage Archon and even defeat its purpose. She thinks not so, but is just her opinion. She is a super, a colonel, a active fighter, but something else? Nothing of that come with wisdom or anything what matters in this topic. Does she have the expertise needed to act on her own neglecting all other opinion? I frankly doubt it.
Coming back to the point if Max is going to turn Totally Evil Dictator I can not tell now (she surely has showed some characteristic of the kind) but do I think there are many others supers that could try doing that.
THANK YOU, NotFred.
Well argued. Keeping the focus on Maxima, although she does serve as a prima facie example of supers, I think this just boils down to a debate about moral character. One good indicator of which that we have seen is Maxima’s concern about steering Sydney down the right path. Placing high priority on setting an impressionable youth on a morally sound route indicates that her own character is basically good.
Of course her ‘plans within plans’ comment indicates that she does have a scheming nature, and that one cannot judge purely on superficial actions. But they do help to provide indicators. And at the moment, my judgement is that Maxima walks on the side of the angels. Even though she does have character flaws such as a bad temper, cockiness and enjoying winding up Arianna. Whether that will change in future, is indeed another matter.
Yorp:
That is interesting. Are you talking about the “Gwen Stacy’s neck” talk? I had interpreted it as practical advice on do not mess things up rather than as a moral guide, but I can see your point.
I had also considered whether it was a good sign the “…no one is getting whisked away…” attitud, but there are a couple of issues with that statement so I dismissed it.
About Maxima I agree, so far I consider her Neutral Good :)
Yep.
The other talk you reference is an encouraging sign for both Archon as an organisation and Maxima as a key player in it. Not condoning rendition of people to secret laboratories is a healthy policy for a government organisation to take. Especially one which could have a case to argue for behaving in the opposite fashion.
+1 thumb up for Archon and Maxima in taking the moral high ground.
“I totally agree with you…
“Which stops your argument before it gets going…”
Her refusal of a reprehensible order is predicated on how she’s going to weigh out which is more important: obedience to the chain of command or any of her own contrary opinion on the matter. But on that point, much of Max’s characterization as being a good person rests on her voluntary submission and service to the military, as Ladyofthemasque said. That there’s conflict in that area puts obedience as a distinct possibility. That’s even if her intent is not so much selfish or evil but out of military tradition.
“But, as you keep on insisting that she will change her basic good nature…
“Archon, the US and the UN pool their resources to stop Maxima…”
But you don’t know that. You don’t know how much understanding Archon or the US government or anyone else has of Max’s powers and capabilities from which they can devise a plan to neutralize her. It could very well be non-existent beyond mere measurements of what she can do.
And more importantly, whether they did or didn’t, whatever confrontations occur will result in lives lost and property damage. For the common human being, that is to be feared: getting caught in the crossfire. Arianna’s opposing view is justified.
Lastly, I never said she *will*; I’m just saying she *can*. And people *can* change, including formerly loyal and good folks- or else defectors and traitors wouldn’t exist.
“In the unlikely event that a super-team assembled with the combined resources of every major country on the planet fails to take down Maxima…
“End of story…”
Or they’re all dead by then and no one with even the slightest chance of just holding Max off is left. Indeed, end of story.
“Or eventually they give up and we bow down and accept the dominion of our new world-leader Maxima…”
She just went through the trouble of subjugating the world. Why would she do it just so she can chill and chug beer when she’s already doing that as good guy? For her to dominate mankind would mean she’s after more than just being able to chill and chug beer. She’ll be after more power in order to do something with it. Positing an evil Max who just wants to chill and chug beer doesn’t add up at all.
Nonetheless all my postulations are based on what we have observed of Max and her character. Yours are based on some other individual of your own imagining.
Granted the author might choose to take her down such a path. But as yet, there is no indication of that, and therefore it is speculation about an unlikely possibility.
That is a horribly simplistic point of view.
Truth be told, you’re arguing similarly to RobK. His argument is, “As long as we keep them happy, we’re okay. But if they go rogue, we’re screwed. But since we can’t do anything about it, let’s not worry even if our worry is legitimate.”
Your is, “Someone is Good. Therefore, she’ll NEVER be Evil. Thus, do not worry.”
You particular assumption here is that Max can’t change. She will always be loyal to the government and her military superiors. She is a patriot and a creature of law. No matter what happens to her, she will ALWAYS stay true.
That’s too big an absolute. And none of us know how impossible- or possible- such is.
Besides, if your explanation is perfectly true, boy scouts like Christopher Dorner would never have made the news. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Christopher_Dorner
I didn’t say keep them happy.
I said ‘don’t go out of your way to piss them off’.
This includes not trying to lock them up/kill them/limit them for fear of what they MIGHT do some day in the far future
And that’s supposed to stop them from choosing to go rogue should they choose it on their own?
What is to stop anybody? Yourself included. Nothing except that person’s strength of character and satisfaction with their role in society. Legally we are obliged to treat people based on their actions to date and at present. Maxima and the other members of Archon (five-faced double-dealing traitors being ignored as her actions are currently secret and unknown) are behaving in a law-abiding socially conscious fashion at the moment.
Choosing to treat any segment of society differently because of what they might do is discriminatory. Should they be conspiring to act in an unlawful fashion, or there be any indicators of criminal actions, then it becomes legal to take action against them. Until then the fundamental principle of law is that they are innocent. They have not been proven to be guilty of a crime and should not be persecuted because of the unjustified and unsubstantiated fears of the great unwashed.
The point being, Yorp, that if I go rogue, I can still be shot dead with a gun. We don’t know how well that’ll work with supers, including Max. We don’t know if there’s someone more powerful than her we can call and who’ll do the job. We don’t know if we have the technology or magic or whatnot to effectively neutralize her. Perhaps ultimately the fear Arianna’s speaking about is the fear of the unknown, but that’s the point- a human being on a shooting or stabbing rampage has limits; we don’t know what limits there are for supers, or how we can even utilize them.
No. Max won’t get a free pass just because someone gave the order. The Nuremberg defense doesn’t work. Her carrying it out makes her explicitly involved and complicit in it. She effectively agreed with it by carrying it out.
Also, as far as this is a “fear supers” discussion, you’re STILL missing the points that:
1) Even if the command could have been given to someone else non-super, it’s precisely the super that makes it easier to accomplish and harder to stop, especially someone on Max’s power level. Normal humans would need some sort of weapon or destructive device to do such damage; Max doesn’t need weapons to do that. Normal humans need vehicles, devices or at least a plan to enact such; Max flies and can move inhumanly fast. Normal humans can be physically restrained; you need someone on Max’s level to even have a the slimmest chance with her. A person likes Max makes such an immoral and heinous order so easy to carry out and hard to stop. She is part and parcel of the threat.
2) As a superhuman, she definitely has the physical power to resist such an order. So why didn’t she? And if she sincerely agreed with it, then she personally imperils the public good.
Ultimately, all the public is going to see is that Max was the one who did the act. She wasn’t just the one the who made it possible- she made it a reality. No amount of blaming the higher-ups is going to NOT make her the threat, whether in terms of public perception or objective reality.
“
I totally agree with you. Maxima has shown us every indication of being a good person, so would refuse the order. And would therefore not need the Nuremberg defence.
Which stops your argument before it gets going, as the rest of it is predicated on her willingly obeying a reprehensible order.
But, as you keep on insisting that she will change her basic good nature and decide to become a super villain, then this is what happens:
Archon, the US and the UN pool their resources to stop Maxima. They have exhaustive files detailing her abilities and weaknesses. They assemble a team that includes magic and psionics. Maxima has no defence against either. She is defeated and either imprisoned or killed. A new, more trustworthy, person is appointed to take Maxima’s place in Archon.
End of story. Again.
In the unlikely event that a super-team assembled with the combined resources of every major country on the planet fails to take down Maxima, then they learn from the mistakes of the fist team and try again. And again. Until they succeed.
End of story. No, really, this time I mean it. Maxima is not stupid, she knows that is how it will end. Which is why, even if she is tempted, she would not go rogue. But, just in case you want to go completely into fantasy land, here is the alternative:
Or eventually they give up and we bow down and accept the dominion of our new world-leader Maxima. Who seems to enjoy chilling out and chugging beer, which seems far less threatening than eating babies on the scale of ‘who is the worst dictator to have running things’.
The only way to be sure is to change the superpower system to EGS magic system rules…
not tengu ended up looking like a demonic bat. Eliot got a spell that turned him into a super hero that kind of looks like a cheerleader, and Nanase got a spellthat literaly turns her into a guardian angel.
Tedds magic? Basicaly lets him literaly be extremely gender fluid (thanks to a magic mark given to him because his literal fairy godmother was being nice, well in theory…she was completely batshit crazy at the time but she died and got better…..Did I mention that Grace is an insain ly powerful alien hybrid, and also part squirl….)while being a Seer (of magic and how it works) and wand maker.
There’s also the possibility of Archon being ordered by the US government to do something ethically wrong. If Max is the creature of law and obedience you posit, does this mean she’s surely going to be complicit with said order?
And how would this scenario be any different than the REGULAR military being ordered such things?
Between all the hardware the army is packing, they can do just as much damage, just as easely
Because between a superhuman like Max and a normal guy with a gun and training, it’s still far easier to contain and hold accountable the latter.
Which has absolutely nothing to do with any moral argument. It is easier to contain and hold an armed bank robber than a hacker. You can surround the bank with police and he cannot get out. Whereas the hacker may have robbed the bank from the other side of the world and be a lot harder to find and contain. It does not mean that you let the armed robber go ‘because it is harder to capture hackers’.
They are both criminals and both need to be pursued and apprehended. It may take a lot more effort for the hacker, and the cops may ultimately not be good enough to find them, but the moral principles are crystal clear.
Equally you cannot persecute people who own computers, using the argument that they could become hackers and rob banks. Any more than you can pre-emptively imprison people who own ski-masks or stockings on the grounds that they might wear them someday in robbing a bank.
You’re missing the point, Yorp. That’s in response to Ladyofthemasque’s argument of Max being a creature of law and order and thus Good. By no means does being such- being defined as such- guarantee that the public’s worst fears can’t come true. In this manner, wherein she obeys orders that are morally reprehensible, what supposedly makes her trustworthy- being obedient to the chain of command- is exactly what makes her the biggest threat to the public.
In other words, being a creature of law and order does not mean she’ll always be a Good guy. Rather, it justifies what fear the public may have of Archon after Max’s demo.
If she gets moraly wrong commands and excecutes them, she is no more a threat to the public than a bomb is.
She’s just doing as commanded. The threat is the source of the orders. And if Max had not existed, he could have just as easely given the command to drop a bomb on whatever he wanted destroyd. Making Maxima do it doesn’t make a damn difference on the matter
First off, let us make sure that game jargon is not clouding the issue, as I am getting a D&D vibe from your reply. In the event that is the case, please bear in mind that D&D alignments were created as quite an arbitrary means of describing moral behaviour for a game. Whilst it is useful in context, it should not be used when talking about real world (or in this case real world + super powers) morality and behaviour. It is not fit for that purpose and does not stand up to even basic scrutiny.
With that in mind, and reading Ladyofthemasque‘s comment in plain English terms, without game jargon, she is not saying that Maxima is good because she is lawful. Contextually she is just using lawful and good as synonyms of one another. And is citing Maxima’s long and honourable career in the military as being an example of her good character. The same as any court would do if trying to establish a person’s basic nature. Are they a good, law-abiding, person or a bad, anti-social, person?
Ladyofthemasque made her case well for Maxima being a good person. Which makes a nonsense of your assertion that it would lead to
As stated by another reader earlier, US officers are trained to disobey orders which are contrary to the constitution and/or illegal. Making the reasonable presumption that morally reprehensible orders will be precisely that, means that a good officer will not obey such an order.
Note the emphasis on good. As a society we function by assessing the character of people in positions of power and responsibility. Whilst they continue to live up to the expectations we place on them, then they receive our support. If they fail, then we remove that support. Maxima has given no indications of evil or anti-social behaviour, therefore deserves the respect that her past good actions and reputation have accorded her.
That’s sort of what I meant, though you explain it alot better.
The chance that a normal, sane person goes on a ‘mass shooting’ is neglectably small.
Hell, the only ones that do such a thing have severe, untreated mental conditions, and even in that group the chance is extremely small.
So basing your reactions to someone on the extremely tiny chance that they MIGHT snap and blow up your city is just stupid
Oh, absolutely, because extremely tiny chances NEVER happen.
No. Even these things have to be faced and dealt with. Every victim of such crimes never imagined they’d be in such a scenario. To hold your viewpoint is to simply say, “Oh, too bad, eh?” rather than actually try to deal with the situation and prevent it.
Which is an important point: it is far more feasible that a mass shooting can be stopped in its tracks. But superhumans?
You overlook the fact that we’re not talking people with guns who can be neutralized by other people with guns. Superhumans are a league unto themselves and Max is at the top, especially given her demonstration. That’s not going to be a mass shooting. She’s practically a walking nuclear arsenal.
So what would you propose to do that would change that? I understand that you speak for those who are afraid of the situation. How would you make it better?
I can’t say or do anything to make it better.
That’s the point. That’s exactly why non-supers are going to have these fears to being with. If something could be done to make sure that Max and Archon could never turn on the people, they wouldn’t be afraid to begin with.
But there’s nothing currently known that can stand up Max and the like. So at least Arianna trying to make Archon look, shall we say, family friendly was at least the wiser- if more deceitful- course of action. But with the fireball out of the bag, now people have something to be afraid of, whether they’re on the wrong side of the law or not.
How do you feel the fearful sheep would react if, in a years time (incomic time :P), Maxi used a fireball even 1/100th as powerful?
They would be bleating about how such a creature (and that’s the polite wording) could be allowed to run around free and uncollared!
“Won’t someone think of the children!?!?!?”
Whether D&D jargon-based or not, the problem here is that Ladyofthemasque’s characterization and understanding of Max’s goodness IS predicated on her being a lawful person.
“She volunteered to go into the military, to use her powers under the direction of the government, rather than just her own initiative. She volunteered, therefore, to follow rules and regulations (and oh boy does the military have a lot of ‘em).”
“She asserts that she is not a hippy, she is a colonel, the exact opposite of a hippy. Again, pointing out the fact she follows rules and regulations, that these rules-and-regs MEAN something to her. She is proud to be a colonel in the military and all for which it stands: law, order, helping the good guys, defeating the bad guys.”
Obedience and deference to authority, order and tradition, therefore good. In this case, law comes before good. And the sad truth be told, being good doesn’t always follow abiding by the rules and the higher ups.
That’s awfully close of protection racketeering.
She hasn’t given any indication of wanting your money.
Just leave the things they are as they are, and she’ll leave you alone
Zack Tilly! She has given no indication of even thinking of going rogue, don’t give her a reason
It actually does raise the question well. In this case, the ubermenschen are mostly just human-plus, so from a democratic rights perspective, they should absolutely have the same political power as everybody else (no more, no less). What if they truly were supermen? If there was a collection of Max’s, could we really make an effective argument that they shouldn’t be in charge? Say what you will about equal rights for all, we frankly don’t believe in it, as nobody paid Flipper a salary with benefits (and I would happily argue that a bottlenosed dolphin is more intelligent and capable than half the people I see on the interstate every day); heck, even the concept of all humans having the same basic rights is a relatively recent development in our history…
Yes, although that’s a bit down the line. The more immediate question is how well can anyone trust the supposed superheroes. How truly dangerous are they if they turn on the general populace? Archon is back to the good ol’ “Who watches the watchmen?” question.
“Ladies and gentlemen, uh, we’ve just lost the picture, but what we’ve seen speaks for itself. The Corvair spacecraft has apparently been taken over — ‘conquered’ if you will — by a master race of giant space ants. It’s difficult to tell from this vantage point whether they will consume the captive earth men or merely enslave them. One thing is for certain: there is no stopping them; the ants will soon be here. And I for one welcome our new insect overlords. I’d like to remind them that as a trusted TV personality, I can be helpful in rounding up others to toil in their underground sugar caves.”
Do you trust a cop to not go on a rampage and shoot 20 people?
Do you trust a squad of soldiers to not blow up your home?
And in the exact same line: Do you trust a squad of super powered soldiers to not blow up your home?
I don’t. Maybe I rest in the fact that chances are the cop or soldier or authority figure before me is a decent, dutiful, good person, but that’s hardly being bulletproof against someone in a rampage. The fact is that most victims of such were simply at the wrong time and at the wrong place; the fear of such will always be there.
Like Arianna said, our sociaty can’t opperate without a level of thrust.
The chances of such a thing happening are EXTREMELY low. Per year there are a couple of ‘mass shootings’
Putting it extremely generous, that’s 10 people. Out of a couple of billion in the western world.
In other words, the chance of a given person going on a rampage is neglectable. And the people that do have severe mental problems. Not the kinda person you see in Archon
For someone quoting Arianna about public trust, you’re glossing over how utterly intimidating Max made her demonstration. Max didn’t go for confidence- she went for fear. Her target may have been criminal supers, but the entire world saw it as well. And given what she can do, they have a right to be afraid should those powers be turned on them.
As for mental problems, that can also be said of shooters who came from law enforcement or the military. “You don’t see people with mental problems there.” Except that we have, and with awful results.
I think it would make an interesting story to see Reed Richards and Tony Stark and Forge whoever else decide that since they’re so off the charts smarter than everyone else, they should run the world, or at least team up with some terrakinetics and create New Atlantis somewhere in the ocean and invite all the supers and mutants to live there. It’s fun to fantasize about a super utopia, but I can see it devolving into a combination of Animal Farm and GATTACA really quickly. The super intelligent supers believe in a meritocracy where only they qualify to rule, and everyone else is sorted into categories of usefulness according to their powers and power levels.
Isn’t the point of the Marvel Universe’s Illuminati, the best and brightest of the Marvel good guys meeting together to discuss superhuman policies as if they ruled over all of them? Note that Iron Man and Reed Richards ARE among this council. Similarly, Tony Stark setting the rules led to stuff like, you know, the Civil War event or Hulk’s exile from Earth- both of which led to horrendous consequences.
Look what happened when they tried to settle the Hulk problem.
Hulk not just mad, but seriously pissed off, and he brought a few friends to help.
Which is exactly why you don’t try to limit Maxima.
Maxima is exactly like the Hulk here. Capable of completly and utterly destroying everything, but no interest in doing so. Why the hell would you want to piss off someone like that?
Because people are idiots and love to poke a grumpy hibernating hungry bear?
Yup. Now lets hope the people in charge are smart enough to NOT try and destroy the massively destructive friendly giant
wait, you actually expect an american politician to NOT go ahead and poke the sleeping bear with a cattle prod?
Good luck with that.
Because every car thrown and every building smashed, etc. belonged to someone who deliberately and directly annoyed the Hulk. The same goes to the people hurt by the Hulk.
No. Most of them had the furthest intention of doing any of that. It just happened that the Hulk got pissed and they and/or their automobile and/or their house was in the area.
And you can’t even say that it’s still because someone was after the Hulk. The Hulk’s driving, defining emotion is anger. He just needs to get pissed over something to go on a rampage. And woe unto you if you’re nearby when he does.
And now you’re taking the analogy to far. Bruce Banner (the sane person) has no control over the Hulks actions.
Maxima still has full control while she’s in super destructive mode
If you think that it was never Banner (or at least the sane part) but always just the Hulk throwing those cars and smashing houses, then I’m afraid you don’t know the character well enough.
You’re also ignoring the possibility of going full destructive mode on the public WHILE being in control. In other words: the deliberate and willed choice to hurt people and destroy property. This may actually be worse where it’s calculated and planned.
You better hope that you have someone like Maxima on your side when somebody with super powers is doing just that. Because the alternative is firing nukes at them, and I cannot see a good outcome on that scenario.
The problem is if it’s Max herself doing that, with no one else with power like hers around to stop her.
Wasn’t that the reason T’Challa basically told Stark to shove it when he was invited to join? Something along the lines of “It is not our place to do such”
We all believe best system is that where we are best.
Nah, would never happen, because…
https://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Main/ReedRichardsIsUseless
Personally, I don’t see super-geniuses even staying on Earth. Head for the moon, and from there out into the Solar System, then out into the galaxy. If anything, should you want to influence Earth, it is best to be darn near out of reach yourself.
In my superhero novels I’m going the path of letting the supers group (aka my Justice League) try and figure out all the good stuff they come across first. After they think it’s relatively safe for current humanity to work with and/or if they can’t use it for being superheroes, they give the tech to a good-deed Foundation that will figure it out complete, reverse-engineer it and distribute it to the world, in a slow enough and deliberately focused enough way not to whack society above the head with it.
They wouldn’t be ruining the economy by distributing a new energy source that would wipe out the need for fossile fuels all at once; they would tell the world they’re working on it and first test it on big scale, such as replacing nuclear reactors. Also, they wouldn’t distribute high-power anti-grav tech, merely low-power for society to work with and adapt to the actual concept.
Yes, of course there will always be the nutcases that will use the good stuff for their own less sane / illustrious ways, but that’s what going slow is for.
Which side is which, I’d like to ask. What happens if the government goes bad (if it isn’t already)?
That’s another great point. Archon is a government organization. What happens should they ever give Max and the team an order that they don’t like? (And when I say, “They don’t like”, I mean a horrifically unethical one.) Will Max obey and thus become complicit in something morally wrong? Or does she go rogue and become public enemy number one even if she did it to avoid doing wrong?
one of the ongoing internal stressors of being a (US) military member is they swear their oath, not to the president or even to the nation, but to the Constitution. It includes the words “…support and defend the Constitution of the United States against all enemies, foreign and domestic…” It therefore becomes the solemn duty of every individual military member to turn against their leadership, should that leadership turn their backs on the things that make this country what it is. They are held legally liable to that standard, as was demonstrated in April 1969 when the military successfully prosecuted Lt William Calley for his actions in the My Lai massacre, and for not refusing illegal orders. This creates a double-damning sword held over their heads as they will surely also be persecuted should they refuse to follow the orders of their superiors (as was done to Gen Billy Mitchell, for attempting to stand up a separate branch of the US military (the US Air Force) – he was Court Martialed by the President).
+1
Shame that the then current society was rather on the bad side. If I remember right they actually tried to kill the reporter and officers who leaked the massacre (and that was the least of their problems). I don’t mean the military here, I mean the civilians back at home. That in itself is scary and sad.
But how the heck can trained soldierts and officers actually do simply hellish stuff like that?
And if they try to bring Max for a court martial and she refuses wherein she sees the awful thing she did as the lawful thing to do with her prosection being a betrayal or a farce? What power on earth is going to contain her violent resistance?
Oaths are not only broken- they can be twisted and interpreted. Even for someone who hews to military morals, it can still be her ethical downfall.
Wooo~ riots on the streets! Down with america and its ‘red son’ maxima! Kill any super you can find before they kill us all! Overthrow the dictators who are trying to destroy us with their kill death emmy! Secede~! Immigrate! War! Burn down Halo’s comic book store!
This post wasn’t up when I started typing, or I’d have had no reason to post.
The world did not exist until I was born. Then time started, the universe appeared, the back-story got filled in, the sun started to shine, birds started to cheep and I replied to a post that had not existed before.
At least there’s some good source material for riots out in Seattle from last night.
That’ll teach ‘m to start counting their rings before they score a touch down (or something American Football-y)
I vote for the usual *patent* mutant or meta-human hysteria, with a dash of “the government will use them to take away or civil liberties, and a pinch of stock market frenzy from speculation on how this will effect corporate espionage vs. profiteering.
Maxima: “Yes, your job is dealing with the politics, my job is to ensure they are safe to be bloodsucking tics… Hmmm, can see your point. Okay gang, if we want to be loved by the people, we need to stop protecting the politicians. Thank you for pointing that out to me Ari, you are the best.”
Ari: “Whuh? Tha, that’s not what I meant!”
Dabbler: Didn’t some human say Don’t forget “Kill all the Lawyers”
Maxima: Yes but let’s not get carried away
Ari:*sigh of relief*
Maxima: We’ll just stop protecting them too.
Sydney: What about Telemarketers? They burn my….
Fifteen hours of straight swearing later.
Max: All right all right! No protecting telemarketers, lawyers, politicians, anyone in this day and age that smugly tells pro-wrestling fans it’s fake, anyone who was in the SNL lineup from 1995 on, the current Denver Broncos, the fans of Dominic Deegan, or the leadership of North Korea. Anyone else with ideas?
Hands go up.
Why fans of Dominic Deegan? It’s great webcomics! :|
In a joke list, there’s always one group that’s being punished in the list for no real discernable reason. So I’m not going to say why cause I’m not going to explain the joke, more than I already have.
No protecting beleibers either!
You can’t protect something doomed to self-extinction anyway.
Well… She has just demonstrated that she’s a walking nuke, hopefully minus the radiation, but John Q. Public won’t care about that. They will only think about what happens when Max is battling someone in their neighborhood and she lets loose with her megablast. Now, on the international scene, there is definitely going to be a whole new WMD race… The Chinese have a much larger population, so it stands that they have a good chance of producing more like Max. Intelligent villains will be trying to get leverage on Max via her loved ones. This bodes ill for any normals closely associated with Max.
I just see a mundane WMD race happening. First to come up with a weapon that Max can’t handle “wins.” Who needs to worry about containing a more powerful super when you have a weapon that separates supers from the process of living (and a good chunk of collateral real estate and those existing upon it)?
Singularity laser cannon.
Dabbler could make one easily.
Normally considered to be required to be mounted on a suborbital weapons platform. Dabblers version would probably be a large rifle.
Just one team member could survive that.
In case of a “Maxima’s Family Held Hostage” scenario, I picture her response as being the same as Liam Neeson’s in the film “Taken” (massively paraphrased):
“I don’t know you, but the instant you interacted with my family you became *THEIR* hostage. This is what happens next. If you release them INSTANTLY, & UNHARMED, I forget this ever happened. If I have to hunt you down, I will make you suffer. If they are hurt, you die. If they die, then you, your bosses, your families, your bosses’ families, they all die. But you in particular, will die slower than you ever thought possible in your sickest, most twisted nightmares, because I’ll do things to you that would make Clive Barker puke. The choice is now yours.”
Zack Tilly! But, if they were smart to start with, they wouldn’t have gone after the family/friends in the first place (as you said, the villains are only alive because the family/friends are)
In short: Gibbs.
Grrl Power #185 – Our chief weapon is fear. Fear and surprise!
Sounds like The Spanish Inquisition has just turned up
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Tym0MObFpTI
of course no expects the spanish inquisition
NOBODY expects the Spanish Inquisition! Our chief weapon is surprise…surprise and fear…fear and surprise…. Our two weapons are fear and surprise…and ruthless efficiency…. Our *three* weapons are fear, surprise, and ruthless efficiency…and an almost fanatical devotion to the Pope…. Our *four*…no… *Amongst* our weapons…. Amongst our weaponry…are such elements as fear, surprise…. I’ll come in again
But always expect ninjas.
It’s the last thing they expect
The regional governnments now have direct control over their territories. Fear will keep the local populations in line. Fear of
this battle stationArchon.Hmmmm, the pattern on Arianna’s vest seems to have changed. And Maxima sure looks utterly smug!
I think it’s the same vest – DaveB just decided to hand-fill the pattern because of all of us giving him crap about the obvious pattern-fill last time…
There wern’t just negative comments about it. Although I do much prefer the close-up version.
Well sort of negative, I recall reading something about “stationary plaid”…
Sounds like somebody wants to sing “soft kitty“. In a round.
ooh!! I’ll start
[ahem]
Soft kitty, warm kitty, little ball of fur…
[looks around]
nobody?
[sad face]
Given my vocal skills the best I can do is to howl in support.
*howl*
[earscratch]
Yeah, I know my comment was at least a little negative, but time and effort saving techniques aren’t necisarally bad.
Isn’t this all dependent on max not getting into trouble? That Arianna will not throw Max to the wolfs? I don’t think she will let the team suffer as much as she wants Max to suffer for interfering with her job.
Or it’ll be something more like the comic from Dark Horse called Martial Law, who if ya can believe it is a cop dealing with a bunch of after the war government made suppers who have become cast offs and formed street gangs, others who have the equivalent of side show booths and parlors, for normals as they call em, to go to, and a host of other things centering around where the vet is an augmented human.
Now why would you want to hurt the wolves by throwing Max in amongst them?
+1
Seems to me like not so much fear and surprise as fear and inevitability.
Well, this is unexpected.
One way or another Maxima is an law agent, as it is the police too.
Police can not shoot to the head without a reason. I doubt Maxima is authorized to be rougher with a super committing a theft, that normal police could be with normal offender.
That police exist do not deters many normal people from committing crimes, why would a super cop deter a super bank robber? The most that they can face is to be imprisoned as everyone.
I thought Maxima was addressing supers throwing serious threats (https://www.grrlpowercomic.com/archives/980 panel 4) against whom Maxima could act full force, as well as a suicide bomber can be shot in the head. And I think it could work.
But those examples kinda disappoint me.
Keep in mind also that those examples are what’s in Maxima’s head and some minor level supers would probably come to those conclusions. In fact, those really are likely happening as of this strip.
Mind you, the big global level threat supers that Maxima is set to go against are in all likelyhood getting excited at the thought of taking her on and are figuring ways of negating her powers. Hey, if the team spaz’s force field can stop an explosion she created, they can too eh?
I was picturing that scene playing on a tv in the background whilst a group of various powered and non-powered villains are playing poker.
“Hey did you see that?” one battle armoured Doom-like figure mentions to those nearby.
“Yes,” replies one who places his cards and brings out a mobile phone and texts…”Hey Math is this her time of the month?”
“So anyone want to do anything about her?” another asks after a moment.
“Looks like their new recruit handling that pretty nicely…” the texter answers him and shows him a clip playing on his phone.
“D**n seriously… I thought Karma was the only one playing double agent?” he exclaims and then a moment later thunder and lightning insues.
“STOP THAT!” says the rest of the table.
“Don’t be silly, Math supplies me with pics on Anvil that’s all…” he mutters and then grows silent.
“Does she know that?” the wannabe doctor doom asks curiously.
That catches everyone’s attention as they look back at the texter.
“Ooh nice catch, now how to let her know without letting Math know I did it…” he grins back.
“So how do we stop her in the meantime?” whines another villain.
“Use a teleport belt like everybody else!” another retorts,”She isn’t Superman after all!”
“Certainly not Wonder Woman!” another agrees.
“HEY! No dragging Linda Carter into this!” the texter blurts out.
They stare back.
“Well SOME of us actually WANT a Wonder Woman movie!” he picks up his cards and focuses on that instead.
Oh n**s I meant Harem not Karma!
We already know Maxima can whack faster than a teleporter can Zorp.
You are right, surely some of them would do, but what I say is to to threaten minor level supers I do not think you need to go nuke, thus the contradiction I feel between the topic and the examples. I would just expected Maxima had referred to high business.
Archon isn’t police. Archon is MILITARY police. Different thing.
And I’m pritty sure a supervillain threatning an entire city is reason enough to ‘shoot at the head’
They are not police at all, they are a Super Strike Force, like SAS, but on Kryptonian steroids
A few counter scenarios to Max’s.
Crime bosses see the clip.
Crime boss 1: Looks like we an’t gonna be able to do buisness with this bitch around.
Unnamed super villain: I believe I can fix that.
Crime boss 2: Or we can offer a million dollar reward for anyone that takes these broads out.
Or
Various Suppers see the clip in different places.
All: Challenge accepted.
Or
Alien overload sees the clip.
Alien overload: It would seem that the earth has even more promising recourse than we anticipated. Begin the invasion once we arrive.
Or
Every military leader and dictator see the clip.
All: I want that!
Then there are the bull political and bureaucratic red tape about having a walking nuke. So yeah Max, enjoy that.
Earth, new source for gladiator games.
The problem in blaming those scenarios on Maxima is that as soon as this press conference went live all the crime bosses and every ultra powered (and up) villain out there targeted Archon and started to consider counter measures. Max possibly scaring a few out of the game might have been the best to be hoped for after all.
The entire point of Maxima’s little show is that those supers target Archon.
Cause if they target Archon, they ain’t targetting civiliains.
Also it makes it alot easier to take them out
Right because the Joker never targeted innocent civilians when he targeted batman. Nour did Dr. Doom or any other supper villain do that when they were targeting there enemy.
Looking at it realistically though, rather than from the traditional warped genre point of view, there really is no incentive to go up against a bad-ass like Maxima. Firstly she is likely to win. Secondly, if you do win, all you do is paint a huge target on yourself. Not only do you become the US & UN enemy number one, but all the villains out there will be wanting to take you down to prove they are the best. And numbers will win. Somewhere amongst the vast resources those three groups can wield there will be somebody who has whatever is required to whup your super-butt.
In all likelihood what they will do is exactly the same as organised crime does already. Keep off the cops’ radar. All Maxima has done is remind folks that the status-quo still applies and that just cause they may have gained some super power, they do not suddenly get to do whatever crazy stuff they feel like. Not without consequences, anyhow. Shiny golden consequences, with hard fists and a tough attitude.
If you prove you are strong, smart and crazy enough to actually take out someone as strong as Max then it is safe to say that no mere military is going to stop you. Especially after what you did to there precious poster girl. Secondly, why would other Super villain or criminals be after you? You just championed there cause and did them all a collective favor by taking out Max.
Besides I listed a number of different scenarios that would happened because of her stunt not just one supper that would be powerful enough to do it.
Because there will be someone waiting in line to take you down (what? you thought that it would end because you are now at the top? delusional much?)
Hunters don’t hunt other hunters. And I doubt it be as quick as you say.
But Like I said that’s only one scenario out of many I listed yet you didn’t pay attention to. One tract mind much?
Best outcome in her mind as unrealistic as it may be. I mean did criminals stop doing crime super or otherwise when they heard about some guy of steal that could fly be super strong and was practically a god? Did they stop for some crazy guy in a bat outfit that was in cahoots with the cops and was beating all there guys to a bloody pulp? Did they stop for a guy that could do everything a spider can? Or for a collective of earths mightiest? NO. Military backing, government funded, or otherwise it didn’t stop a dame thing in the end.
You know I am just hungry enough to eat multiple “suppers” and I am sure that Dabbler wouldn’t mind joining just to get her fill of gluttony.
By far, the largest response to seeing the video will be from various self-appointed guardians of the internet: “FAKE! I mean, just look at it. The explosion is clearly CGI, and you can see that the skin color is from body paint. And also… First!”
Don’t forget the obligatory ‘GAAaaaaAaAAaaaaaaY’
“I never said, “The superman exists and he’s American”. What I said was “God exists and she’s American”. If that statement starts to chill you after a couple of moments’ consideration, then don’t be alarmed. A feeling of intense and crushing religious terror at the concept indicates only that you are still sane.”
“Miguelito” is about six years old, “Mafalda” about eight.
Miguelito: “Before I was born, did the world exist?”
Mafalda: “‘course”
Miguelito: “What for?”
Old comic named “Mafalda” (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mafalda) about a gang of childs (something like Peanuts).
Damn, this was intended to be a reply to Yorp’s https://www.grrlpowercomic.com/archives/1183/comment-page-1#comment-55103
Ahh, but they are kids, they made a simple mistake in logic. Of course it did not exist. Time is no more real than the world. So when the world poofs into existence, time did so too. It cannot be proven that anything existed prior to that point, because it was simply created in a state that made it look like things had happened before. Even memories.
Of course, the world was created Last Thursday.
Outside of mathematics, few things can be proven without a doubt. That’s why science is about plausibility and probability. The Universe being as old as it appears requires far fewer assumptions than a fully formed universe “poofing” into existence, so Occam’s razor supports the former.
The world not existing before I became aware of it’s existence is a simpler explanation from my point of view. All the other explanations require really long, boring, back stories.
But the explanation for how it could have “poofed into existence” fully formed would likely require a far more complicated back story than any universe produced purely through natural causes.
Not at all. I had need of an interesting world to live in therefore it came into being.
See, explained in one sentence. *pokes at it* Yup. Solid enough. Satisfies me.
I JUST realized that this had actually become a true twice-a-week comic. Congratulations, and good job!
The point is, no matter what Maxi did, you would still have 3 groups of people: those who would rethink their criminal-future and return to their regular dayjob, those who would view it as a challange (they were going to do it anyway, now they have a large target to focus on instead of the orphanage), and those who would go “meh!” because they had no criminal tendencies to start with
The believe that just because Archon is new, Supers in general is new, is large fallacy (remember what Heatwave, Les and Mister Morph were doing before being ‘recruited’ by Archon? They would har-har-hardly be the only ones)
Kind of want to see Arianna make a comment about how the late night comedians are going to make jokes about Maxima PMSing just to show her that she really hadn’t thought about all the possible responses to her demonstration, and take her down a peg.
I hope they pause long enough to think that they might need Maxima someday. Say the day after they improvised a really cutting comedy routine about somebody, who it turns out is a world-league super. And has decided to go villain, starting with anybody who has ever insulted him. Paying particularly gruesome attention to anybody who did so live on network TV the night before.
National presidents you can insult, because there are loads of other people in the country who’s job it is to look after you, who will continue to do so regardless of their politics. But if you insult the one person who can drag you out of an inescapable-very-slow-and-painful-death-trap, you might regret it.
“Sorry, today’s my day off.”
Some people use humor as a defense mechanism against fear. It’s a “see I can laugh at it so its not scary” kind of response.
And… there are far more ‘comedians’ who use humour to belittle others to make themselves look clever
Those usually don’t get on live TV
Like who? I can’t think of any.
I see plenty of comedians that use self-depreciating humor, though.
Ok that is now the second time I have read that as “using self-duplicating humour”.
Beware Copy Comic, the comedian who can clone himself with a witty joke.
Either all of the Congressional members want to bed her, grill her, saute her, security check her, deflock her, fire her, or just poke her in the bra to see if those things are real.
That or they all want a piggy back ride so they can spit on the White House 2nd Floor balcony.
Dave, sorry to hear about your back, but remember the basic Xavier guidelines, “Lift with your mind.”
Plus his less-stated “if you tweak their memories they will think this is the first time you have accidentally gone into the girls’ changing room”.
Or simply the usual way of a low-key mental deception filter.
They just don’t see you or instantly forget you once you’re out of sight.
Thus far in this and previous comics, the possible responses of potential super villains have been distilled into “Pre-emptively Give Up” and “Challenge the King of the Mountain”
I would choose a slightly different path. Like most criminals, most super criminals fully understand that there are consequences to being caught – they just don’t think it’ll happen to them. This is where you see the difference between a common criminal and a criminal mastermind. I would fully acknowledge the ugly outcomes should I get caught, and simply plan around detection systems, and ensure my own culpability would be minimized (i.e. acting through intermediaries, hiding behind legal loopholes, etc). Use my mind-affecting powers to rob a bank? No. Instead, I’ll convince all the stockholders to sell me their multimillion dollar portfolios for pennies, and I’ll own the bank. Break into Ft Knox? Fine, then store all the gold in an underground vault where I’ll melt it into replica 1829 gold dubloons and have my 3rd- or 4th-tier gangsters sell them on the open market.
“Over the last thirty years, Virtucon has grown by leaps and bounds. About fifteen years ago, we changed from volatile chemicals to the communication industry. We own cable companies in thirty-eight states. In addition to our cable holdings, we own a steel mill in Cleveland. Shipping in Texas. Oil refineries in Seattle. And a factory in Chicago that makes miniature models of factories.”
…
“Virtucon alone makes over 9 billion dollars a year!”
And in the end bribe the right people to buy the Presidency.
Very Lex like.
Leading me to wonder what ARC’s auditing and forensic accounting section might be like. Scary, I reckon.
This kind of thing could result in retired super villains coming out of retirement to join Math’s facebook page…
And I can see quite a few offering to help Arianna with her “problem”!
what problem? removal of the stick?
Another scene.
“How many like her are there?” one villain asks another.
“Don’t know, whose these villains she mentions killing?” the other asks.
“Hmm hold on… nope well the bright side is that I know what to give Achilles next time I see him,” the third asks.
“What?” the second asks.
“Another bag of marshmallows” he responds.
“And her?” the first adds.
“Good god I’m divorced not insane!” he answers.
Now I wish there was a delete button!
Yea, we have all made marshmallow comments that we regret.
For instance, whenever somebody cuts in before my punchline and says “and then you woke up and your pillow was missing!”
Beware all who transgress, Santa Maxima is watching you and if you’re naughty will stuff you in a stocking.
I hear that costs extra in some parts of the world.
Dabbler wants to see this ‘Stocking Stuffing” you describe
We’ll see how much of a deterrent it is. One can never be sure how many changed their minds. However it will be good when she and ARC-SWAT goes into action. Can’t wait. But I will.
Of course it’s not going to be that much of a deterant, we are talking about humans afterall, powered or not, just have to read the comments
whaaaatt i wake up and i get this as a birthday present? that’S awesome!!
ok maybe not as a Bday present but its still nice a nice coincidence in dates ^-^
Many happy returns of the day. And may you find your choice of Maxima, Arianna or the super construction worker delivered wearing nothing but a ribbon.
[narrow look] I notice, herr pup, that you did not include your personal fave in that offering…
Dead right. If, by some cosmic divine prank, Sydney turns out to be real, I want her at my door. Wearing clothing or ribbons at her own whim.
Just wondering, did they ever say what her condition for joining was yet? If not I’m guessing that it might be that she can keep her day job of working at her shop when not training, on patrol or doing missions.
Nope, no word on the condition yet.
Also: what’s the pay?
The smart money is on Archon agreeing to install a petting-zoo in their headquarters.
You just know there are probably a few supers out there going “Mwahaha! Finally a worthy opponent!”.
The best delivery of that line I have seen is in King Arthur, where the villain, played by Stellan Skarsgård, just flexes his shoulders and says it matter of factly, to himself. No menacing laugh or booming lightning required.
Arthur’s sword wielding speech, on horseback was very impressively delivered just prior to that. One heck of a dramatic display to follow. But Stellan stole the scene with his line. Even though it was delivered to the empty air and dust following Arthur’s departure.
This is the sort of situation one always runs into in a universe where supers are relatively new. (One generation = new, and it can be argued that if it’s less than three, it’s still pretty new.) In one game within which I not-so-recently played, but wound up having to take over for a while, it became clear that the only individuals who could control the supers was, of course, the supers themselves. Any of them – most of them, anyhow – had the capacity to tear off an old-style city gate in five or six hits, punch a hole in a 3m-thick city wall built of stone in ten to twelve; all that without anything designed to put a hole in such things. The main NPC was, essentially, someone who was there to tell everyone what was going on, and to serve as the final judge of issues. (Well, in a way.) It worked in the same way as the wulin and the jianghu in classic Chinese wuxia films; the martial artists policed themselves, and there was always a supreme judge of sorts who could be relied upon to make a fair ruling on any disagreement.
That’s where Maxima is. “Look, we’re policing ourselves. ARCHON is here – sure, with the government’s oversight – to police other supers. But when it comes down to it, we’d be policing ourselves, I’d be doing this anyhow.”
On the flip side is the ‘all the normals riot’. It can be argued that the supers can’t be awake all the time, and that humans are reactionary animals that kill anything different; this is a fallacious argument (in that ‘kill the different’ is a learned action, not a natural one), but the results are potentially true. The issues lie primarily in the question of ‘how different are they?’ At least half (and maybe more) of the current superpowered cast appear, or can appear, completely normal; Maxima really is the only one who sticks out completely. (Yes, even Anvil can be passed off as ‘just’ a very tall person.) So it’s not just a matter of killing some very tough customers, it’s a matter of finding them – which, in part, is why it’s become obvious that though supers have existed for centuries, most people haven’t really known about them.
Arianna is going to point out the social and political issues, and while these are real and problematic, they are not unsurvivable.
Given all we’ve seen of Arianna’s moral compass so far, her notion of the Big Picture may have *some* valid points …. but only some.
That old saying about “When you’re a hammer, every problem looks like a nail” comes to mind. Arianna is ALL about the legal/political/business factors. From what I’ve seen so far, she barely recognizes that there is anything outside these issues.
All optimism aside there would be quite a few supers who would previously be thinking “who’s going to stop me” and “who would ever suspect me” who would be stopped by realizing they aren’t at the top of the food chain after all.
And plenty of others who just said “challenge accepted,” while cracking their knuckles.
You raise a valid point that was stated outright by Max, but glossed over by most: superpowers are sufficiently rare that a lot of people that have it could, and probably are, the only people they’ve even heard of that have superpowers. It would be very easy for such an ego to become inflated, and that reason alone could justify a very definite and highly publicized show-of-force, to let that ego understand the reality of the situation.
the real problem is the white collar super villains, who also know that because they’re actions aren’t violent, it’s less likely the government would condone siccing Maxima on them
The problem is that the smart super criminals (the ones who would be intelligent enough to walk away after seeing the news) are already in Politics and business, where they can get away with their criminal activity.
Folks have mentioned “who polices the police” sort of comments and they seem to forget about Arc-Dark. Maybe the whole reason for Arc-Dark is to put the “lights out” of any good guy that goes bad.
After all, even the most uber powered super still needs to be conscious so there is bound to be an idiot savant the government keeps in saliva wipes but can “turn off” the conscious mind of anyone he concentrates on. Or Dabbler could be on contract to have a Hammerspace closet for a time out…
And we never did cover the cosmetic surgery they did when Max had her appendix out in the service. Special lasers, magical artifact based scalpels –and ooh did we accidentally leave a remote detonating device in there to provide a reason to observe chain of command?
Remind me not to put you in charge of public relations. Or a police internal investigations division. Or appoint you as a military unit’s morale officer. Or to have anything to do with my health care. Ever.
I thought I was in charge of police interrogations! I so wanted to play Bad Cop/Bloody Insane Cop. That’s where the first cop starts threatening to get what he wants, then gets dragged out by the second cop who proceeds to tear the room to pieces for half an hour to an hour, then calmly asks the guy if he wants cream in his coffee.
Variant of that seen in the movie ‘Tango And Cash’. Only they used a hand grenade and described it afterwards as “Bad Cop, Worse Cop.”
Watch Dominion Tank Police. They have their own variations, like stuffing a grenade into a man’s mouth, tying it to a bucket with a long string, and then putting another grenade into it with an M16 while everyone takes bets. It could be called recreation.
The second time, they tie a guy to one of those Vegas spinning wheels, stuff a grenade into his mouth, and the female officer shows up in a bunny suit and tells him that they’ve all put bets to see how long he takes before he cracks and he better let her win. Then she spins the wheel and they all start throwing knives at him.
That’s the kind of sociopathic let’s forget about not stooping to their level interrogation that gets results!
*Holding clipboard*
So, I will mark that down as “Strongly approves of state-controlled torture”. Now, on to the next question. How do you feel about the following proposal? “Having your loved ones dunked under the water until they either drown, or prove themselves to be a witch. So that they can be burnt at the stake.”
Before you answer that question, please may I point out that the gentlemen behind you are state licensed torturers, and if you answer anything other than “strongly approves”, they are authorised to take you to the ‘re-education’ room over there. Where you will remain until you respond in a fashion that shows your patriotic approval of the state position.
My answer is are they the same weight as a duck? Because then, they’re made of wood. Either that or tiny rocks or churches.
Beware the ducks of February.
The difference between the average paranoid and the really paranoid is the latter know _I_ am out there. But I do so like the idea of being paid not to be any of the above, perhaps I should start a Patron account over such…?