Grrl Power #206 – The Velma reversal
Yes he was indeed trapped in there with her and not the other way around as most people predicted. Hopefully even if it was predictable the execution was amusing/cringe inducing. There were several ways Sydney could have dealt with him but this is the most straightforward. Really anyone getting within 3-4 meters of her is risking a similar fate, but of course, some supervillains might not be as dramatically affected by the orb blitz for various reasons. Originally I drew a 7-10 split instead of the Homerun marquee, complete with pins and one of the orbs in place of the bowling ball, but then I realized I’d used the 7-10 split gag already.
Streaming! I will attempt to do this today. Assuming you want to watch me ink and also want to see the page I’m working on spoiled. It’s not an earth shattering plot development just some fighting. I’ll post the link here when I figure out what the best service is for it. I had it all figured out before my hard drive crashed several months ago and now I don’t remember if I’ve got myself set up again. I’ll shoot for 12-1 pm CST but I may start earlier while I’m getting stuff sorted out. Stream’s done. I’ll see if there’s a better way to do it in the future.
So apparently, Grrl Power won the ComicMix tournament! Well, Paranatural edged us out in actual votes, not by a lot, but some of you guys dropped a few buck on the paid votes, which I admit to having mixed feelings about. Paid votes do make it feel a little too much like actual politics, but I’m not complaining, and the money does go to that fund. Thanks for all your support throughout the tournament! I think the prize is just exposure, but maybe I can convince them to make a little badge for me. Not for the comic. For me, to wear on a gold chain.
In other news, remember the Master of Understatement gag from page 193? Well, people requested a standalone version of it, and I made it then forgot to link it anywhere. So here it is, along with a larger one you can reduce to whatever size you need.
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Now we may have already predicted how this fight would end, but DAMN if you didn’t make it hilarious DaveB.
I love how she actually played with him, made him think it was an easy kill
yeah, I actually literally LOL’d at that!
So next page:
Sydney keeping her shield up with this guy in it, flies out to the parking lot to show Maxima her first kill
She could leave it on Archon’s back porch, like a kitty!
Thats actually pretty dang funny and adorable.
Adorifying
If I was her I’d use the lighthook to throw his unconscious body into her next target.
Use the Lighthook to slingshot her shield bubble with her and the perp in it into whoever Maxima is fighting. ;)
Ha! That would be awesome(ly adorable)!
And then she uses lighthook (as suggested below) to start beating another bad guy with the unconscious perp.
“Scoville! Stop using unconcious perps as weapons!”
Aye Aye Col. Mam sir.
“Drops Shadow boxer”
“Picks up nearest awake per and continues smackfest”
+1 Such a sweet image. Kind of gross, if looked at without knowing how adorifying Sydney is, but she gets certain cuteness dispensation.
And this is why you never, ever gloat over your victims. If you are a villain and are capable of making your first shot a kill-shot…DO IT! If shadow boy had simply stayed on the offensive, he’d have won while Sydney was down, but noooo, just had to stand there and gloat.
“Speaking in battle is the most unforgivable of sins. Every breath you waste on words is one that should have been directed at trying to defeat your opponent.” (From Hill of Swords, by Gabriel Blessing)
The Top 100 Things I’d Do If I Ever Became An Evil Overlord
6.- I will not gloat over my enemies’ predicament before killing them.
12. One of my advisors will be an average five-year-old child. Any flaws in my plan that he is able to spot will be corrected before implementation.
They probably should have heeded that one as well.
My favorite is:
7.- When I’ve captured my adversary and he says, “Look, before you kill me, will you at least tell me what this is all about?” I’ll say, “No.” and shoot him. No, on second thought I’ll shoot him then say “No.”
26. No matter how attractive certain members of the rebellion are, there is probably someone just as attractive who is not desperate to kill me. Therefore, I will think twice before ordering a prisoner sent to my bedchamber.
What gets me is that this guy actually said “Oh you’ve got to be kidding.” And he STILL didn’t see that yeah, she WAS kidding?
Don’t gloat till the fight is over and this is just the lowest string going in first and then the next and the next till the strongest ones come in and your team is tired out.
Panel 5: an unconventional use of…
…2 balls!
=p
forgive me for using an Austin Powers joke
Jinkies! But seriously, it’s apparent the years Halo spent role playing (and cartoon watching) prepared her for this real world event. Good show! Also, let’s don’t make the villains TOO ineffectual. Give one or two of them at least a fighting chance (no pun).
All the villains who would be effective are probably smart enough to not rush into a fight the second a challenge is issued. Still, you’re right, someone who can last more than 60 seconds would be neat to see.
Picking a fight with the police is not the move of potential candidates for Mensa. If there is any one of them that has a brain, they won’t be involved in the fight at all. They will be the one observing this all from -way- back via hidden cameras.
Also, consider that with around 30 bad guys, at two pages per week, how many weeks do you want DaveB to spend on this one fight? Do we really want to still be on the first “day” of Grrl Power six months from now?
Considering we have been on the ‘first day’ since shortly after the comic started, 6 extra months to do the first official Super Battle true jstice would still be over too quickly imo
This comic’s been all sorts of awesome over the past few weeks.
It does make me wonder just how strong a physical strike from the power orbs is. It looks to be at least as powerful as a punch from a stong person. About like a professional pitcher throwing a billiard ball maybe?
Sydney is built on a lot of points. :)
Considering that Maxima couldn’t move the orbs when Sydney was stationary, I’d imagine they hit like the metaphorical truck.
Nah. They are Immovable when you try to take them away from Sydney, just like she can’t move more than a certain distance from them. That does not imply they can exert any particular amount of force actively.
Both Math and Sydney have taken hits from them, and suffered no long term ill effects. That keeps them below the threshold of super stregth. Presumably that means shadowboxer is a glass cannon with no special defenses. I doubt the orbs would have the slightest effect on a real tank aside from perhaps being annoying.
They would still make quite a good defense though.
Actually in order to be a glass cannon you have to be able to put out a lot more damage than you can take. While he didn’t get a solid hit on Sydney, she doesn’t have a broken arm and her vambrace didn’t take any cutting damage so I’d guess he’s primarily super for his ability to get in anywhere undetected. Why a man with that power would join a team of supervillains instead of just living a prosperous low profile life as the world’s best burglar is beyond me.
His main advantage is his ability to counter “Glass cannon” types, one of which he’d take sydney for once he gets inside the shield.
A rogue is the best counter for a mage after all.
Because
https://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Main/CutLexLuthorACheck
Then again, they at times move fast enough to blur and speed X mass=energy or something to that effect. So even if the orbs don’t possess a large amount of mass, given enough speed they’ll strike a human target pretty damn hard. And 20 XP to Sydney, that’s some pretty fine control to strike three targets in different areas in quick succession from different angles with four different orbs. Nice :D
E=1/2mv^2 is the equation you are looking for. Which means yeah these things might be able to hurt alot without direct use.
More likely, the ORBS are built on a lot of points.
And it seems likely that there was a previous user, before Sydney found them in the ocean. When the skill tree popped up (during the press demonstration), it appeared that Sydney had never seen it before & there were already some XP invested!
Are you implying that it is the ORBS themselves that are leveling up, and not whomever they are ‘attached’ to? o_O
Oh.. wow.. panel 5… that’s not just a glory shot.. it’s a Double Newton’s Cradle!
It is actually a 4-ball Newton’s Cradle, just not a very efficient one, due to differing materials.
told ya he was in for a world of hurt XD
1. 1st panel answers the question; of the villian’s actual position relative to Sydney, fromthe last page. Thank you, Dave.
2. Love the Carver comment. You can also call this the “General Anthony Clement McAuliffe Manuever”.
3. Love this page.
Ahh, nuts.
I feel like there should be more speedlines or a reaction or something in panel 4- it looks like the red orb is just moving to cover that spot instead of actually nailing him hard.
Well there is also the green one behind him.
So basicly she’s crushing his nuts between 2 orbs, rather than just hitting him
Mr. Engine Block-puncher should just stop trying to fight and enjoy the unique position he’s in.
Looks to me that he might be at risk for Death By Motorboating….
Looks like Anvil is doing a Boob Attack!
It’s Super Effective!
Or, as someone mentioned below, Death By Wubbie (See the song by Tom Smith: https://myspace.com/tomsmithmusic/music/song/death-by-wubbie-74519532-82240348 )
Or to stick with the description of her as an “amazon,” death by Snoo-Snoo!
If he had any sense he’d of taken advantage of Anvil’s weakness – she’s ticklish.
but how would any of the villains know that Anvil is ticklish? Were any of them there at Archon when Math tickled her?
Maybe via Harem if all this ends being Deus’ idea.
This guy is one to talk about vision problems. He has solid-color opaque eyeballs. Which leads us into today’s topic: “Supervillain vs. Superhero. Which side to choose?” As we can see, the vast majority of ARC members are highly photogenic idealized humans. Many of the Bad Guys ‘R Us contingent range from the merely weird to downright creepy on the attractiveness scale.
It is entirely possible that their choices were basically made FOR them by society. Growing up, the beautiful looking ones were given special treatment and praise, leading them to think the world is a good place worth protecting. The ‘ugly’ ones were probably teased or bullied as children, and denied access to good schools and job opportunities. This lead them to act out of frustration or revenge to join in with the criminal element of society. What this universe needs is for ARC to set up an outreach program to find unusual but gifted children and teach them they they are valued members of society and not monsters. (bald man in wheelchair sold separately)
Or it could be that their choices influence the way they look.
Tho I dout that either way is correct.
Because referring back to Miss Bossy on the roof, she is quite pleasing to the eye.
Although the logo on her headband is a heart with an X through it. I think there is a revenge story in there somewhere.
she’s from a Family of Martial Artists that Math’s Family arranged a Marriage with and Math stood her up at the Altar.
I don’t know if that’s the case, but I since you pointed out the heart X thing, I wouldn’t be surprised if that was the case.
So if someone could manage to douse Math with cold water, does he become a she (maybe with red hair)?
As a great man once said. “Society is to blame.”
Yea, well I feel I must also say, great men once said a lot of things. Not that I disagree with everything every great person once said, I just thought I should point that out.
As Einstein once said, “Wait, what?”
“Right, we’ll be charging them too.”
I really doubt he’s all that nonphotogenic, he’s a standard pretty boy with burning shadow hair and glowy eyes.
Big stupid and ugly might look better if he wasn’t using that hairstyle, or that unsmile.
He still looks like a heavyweight bodybuilder with a top-heavy physique more than a gorilla.
The Nudist is less exaggerated but much the same.
Yeah, when Betty wasn’t snarling, he actually looked quite attractive (and fairly sure, with a competant dental surgeon, he can have that winning smile back again :D)
It’s probably too late at this point (as she’s already absorbed large amounts of kinetic energy now), but seriously, STOP PUNCHING HER. You could still overpower her, but it would take holds and other non-impact usage of that strength. Edged weapons would probably be pretty good, too.
Using an arm lock and then breaking her elbow would be mightily effective, I’d wager… but not if you’ve already juiced her up with ongoing useless punches.
We know Anvil can be beat with proper Martial Arts.
Math can do it, he fought her without actually hitting her, he ONLY redirected her own punches
Math was also mostly a nuisance to her. Of the one “fight” between them that we’ve seen Math didn’t actually affect Anvil in any way other than to annoy (and tickle) her and then buggered off, declaring himself the victor.
I’d imagine any form of joint lock on Anvil to be mostly ineffective due to the sheer amount of force her muscles can exert in the direction she desires (even without being ‘charged up’). Unless of course she runs into a super-strong martial artist. Fortunately in standard super-hero stories those two tend to be mutually exclusive.
It was a brawl between teammates. Math wasn’t trying to hurt her
And arm locks are such primitive ways of defeating someone. A good martial artist (and he’s a good one) knows every weakspot on the human body. He could block the arterys feeding blood to the brain with one hand, and keep her busy with the other. It only takes like 10 seconds for someone in that position to start losing focus, not much more to get knocked out by lack of oxygen to the brain
Wonder if lobbing a few grenades her way would do it?
They don’t know she can absorb kinetic energy. Some of the smarter ones might be beginning to suspect it, but as far as anyone knows she’s just really strong.
And exceedingly tough. She has been pummelled by several of their strongest bruisers and just seemed to shrug it off. So she is looking like being a flying brick without the flying part.
Yeah, I know, but after the first brick failed to hurt her, and the SECOND brick failed to hurt her, you might stop, you know…. throwing bricks at her and try something else. ANYTHING else. Enormous blunt force has been shown to be useless against her, so TRY SOMETHING ELSE. Idiots.
Bad guys, and people in general, are piñatas.
It’s just that most people don’t want the particular candy you find inside.
His pinata’s candies are already crushed…
Oh! New Level Achieved- Candy Crush!
That joke needs to be used later.
…there’s already a type of candy on the market that’s called sour balls…
Just watch: Invulneraballs will be one of Giant Orange Boxer Shorts Guy’s powers.
David, about the ComicMix Tournament you must remember that “Paranatural” even made it to the finals thanks to paid votes, so it is no more that fair.
I can assure you that we do are truly happy with the outcome. Fully deserved.
I just notice the autocorrection: David = DaveB
That’s a good point. I hope that didn’t sound ungrateful.
Not at all. I appreciate the bit of hesitation regarding the paid votes. But there are two very good points for not considering this to be any kind of detraction from your win:
1) It was the rules of the game, and all comics could have paid votes;
2) The paid votes were for charity, and how can a person criticize that?
+1
3) Grrl Power had the HIGHEST voting in the WHOLE tournament (254 individual votings) with 773 NORMAL votes in the Semifinals.
Undeniable popularity since none else equaled that even with paid votes (Paranatural’s higher was 656 normal and with paid votes reached only 754).
Nah, made you sound humble
What the hell is Anvil doing wrestling with Super Hiro? :P
So two new foes and the count climbs to 26, with al least 3 APBs.
Next, please…!
Sydney must have planned this move all along. You don’t come up with this when you were just punched almost unconscious. I bet there is a whole chapter in her book with drawings of orb tactics and she probably practiced it.
I was thinking something similar cause that was surely tough, the second after being surprised and hard beaten and while in danger of being stabbed she planned and executed a diversion plus a complex attack, and on top remaining all cool afterward.
It is unlikely preplanned thought. She was freaking, paralyzing and even barfing at facing a death threat, not to say suffering “adrenaline crash” later, just a few hours ago.
She really improved.
Can you link the page you’re referencing? The closes thing I can think of that matched that was her reaction to using the PPO, which was more along the lines of realizing that she had awesome power & being afraid of how she would use it in general.
Sure: Crime Fightin’ Lessons and the next three.
Link not working :(
Again: https://www.grrlpowercomic.com/archives/251
it seems she took Math’s advice (“3 moves ahead”) to heart
Personally I’d say the only good reason to pull the “I’m blind without my glasses” was to buy time to think about how to attack.
Nah that was the pull the putz into range and to make him lower his defenses completely. Many years ago in King country there was a female guard making a transfer and the prisoner got uppity as in trying to rape her. needless to say he will not be reproducing. She got a full kick in which is all was needed.
“King country”? NZ?
I don’t think it was down here. Try King = Presley.
Thought you said that this wasn’t going to be a bunch of one shots?!
This fight is starting to get predictable and lame!
With something like 30 bad guys around, unless you want to spend the next year reading about nothing but this fight, there will have to be a whole lot of very short fights.
This is somewhat realistic however. Real fights, as opposed to comic book battles and WWF matches, tend to last only a few seconds.
Well, Sydney didn’t give Shadow Boxer a mere “one-shot.” She got him 4 times.
I find myself wondering why there are people wearing comic book costumes running around.
We were told that supers were very rare. From the comments that Joel made, and things said by the people in the bank, many people have never knowingly seen a super, and some people don’t believe they exist. When Maxima gave her “Be Afraid Of Me” speech, she mentioned that fact that if you had powers, you had probably never met another person who had them.
This isn’t the Marvel universe. In Grrl Power, there are probably fewer than 9 people in New York City with powers. Just having powers doesn’t mean you would become a Hero or Villain. Most of those people are likely to be just normal citizens.
None of the members of Arc-swat wears a spandex costume.
Why would any of the bad guys dress up like they were in a comic book? Is it Halloween?
What are you talking about? They aren’t dressed in spandex.
They got normal clothes (well, atleast the ones that aren’t really really BIG)
Take a close look at the panel where Max is flying over the parking lot and people are shooting at her. Some of them are in street clothes, others are in costume. Heartbreaker was also wearing spandex.
Points to DaveB. He has Shadowboxer sinking into the ground in that scene.
I was looking at that panel when it suddenly struck me that it made very little sense for anyone to be wearing a comic book costume.
Not spandex anyway. And not much more in “costume” that Harem or Gwen. Weird clothing granted, though.
I think Archon’s supers do not have costumes because they have to wear uniform.
“He has Shadowboxer sinking into the ground in that scene”.
Where? I do not see him.
https://www.grrlpowercomic.com/archives/1280, final panel, just to make sure we are on the same page.
Left hand side, a little further back than the burning tree and a bit to the left of it. Look for the purple streak he leaves in his wake and zoom in on that.
Unlikely, I think. Shadow leaves a dark trail not a light one, that person do not look sunk into the ground to me, seems to have white hair and also a light red shirt or something.
The red shirt kills the reference for me.
Because these are silly villians looking for the exposure. “The world will tremble in fear at the mention of… shit, we really need to decide on a name….”
Ooo! He dropped the Jika-tabi of Shadows! Only +5 to armor, but they give +18 to evasion!
It just occurred to me as possible that his power is coming from his shadowy pants. Given his idealized build the Hero Gene or whatever is more likely, but Sydney should relieve him of his pants to make sure!
Safety first!
“Scovile! Don’t strip unconscious perps!”
“What was that crack you made earlier about ‘crook fetish’?”
So, am I the only one who noticed that not only did she slug him where the sun don’t shine, but that there is a yellow orb hitting the same spot from the back?
So, you do not read your comic-mates’ comments?
OK, um, how to say this…”where the sun don’t shine” is up your back side.
As in “I’ll take that gun away from you, stick it where the sun don’t shine, and pull the trigger ’til it goes “click””
The sun does shine on the nads.
…I guess that depends on the individual – I’m sure there are guys who’s junk has never seen direct sunlight
The dilemma here is what to do with the guy once he wakes up. If he can just nega-move through the floor, no prison is going to be able to keep him in place.
Indeed. Also they already have two defeated mega strong in the room and surely more enemies coming. It is going to be a growing pile of foes hard to keep secured.
Maxima made that pritty clear though.
Either she locks you up, or she kills you. Your choise
An earlier comment here involved using a *very sturdy* GPS tracker clamped on a prisoner, that could be equipped to deliver a nasty electrical shock if the GPS strayed away from the “confinement area.” For those prisoners that are effectively immune to electricity, just substitute it for high-level heat or something else they might be vulnerable to.
nah, do it like the movie Fortress (with Christopher Lambert) they use “Intestinators” that they force you to swallow and once inside you, they clamp on to the stomach lining to prevent passing them out of your digestive system… then the things give you shocks that vary from mild to death-inducing for various levels of infractions… i would assume that if it was INSIDE him then it would also phase out whenever he tried to escape (or he would have problems staying nourished if he keeps having to eat again after every single phasing attempt if he couldn’t phase with a full stomach), and the GPS function would kick in as he left his designated area… OR… do the explosive-pellet-in-the-carotid-artery thing that Snake Pliskin had to go thru in the movie “Escape From New York” only a bit higher tech than that, it’ll have a GPS trigger as well as just a timer.
Sydney had to catch this guy by surprise. If she had just fired orbs at him he would have phased or dodged. She did a marvelous job of it. I did not think of that possibility when I said the orbs would be ineffective against him.
Megalomania?
That guy is a broken glass cannon.
So let me get this right. Assault with intent to harm. Assault with a weapon 2 counts. Assault on a police officer. Assault with a deadly weapon on a police officer. Attempted murder class one of a police officer. And that’s just on one villain.
Then there’s. Conspiracy to commit murder/mass murder. Of police officer/officers.
And rioting, conspiracy to riot, fancy way of saying (you all got together to do it.) property damage. Endangering life wakening up the dog who started to bark ect. Surprisingly there’s also intimidation charges of different levels, including with, and or the banishing of a weapon.
Now that aside looks like this guy is going to be famous. At the hospital they will talk about how a small woman proud hung him. In the media they will talk, 3 sec most likely, how a raw and untrained recruit took out her first villain. Wonder if this is her first bitter enemy? She did fake him out, completely, and harem will I think scold her about it later.
For myself. I wonder when there going to tell her the oversized pip boy is doing diagnostic’s on her? Or that her microphone is always on?
Poor Anvil’s new blouse physics are kicking in. Also did she just give recruit Scoville permission or an order to continue? Could be fun.
Sooooo much discussion about the nut shot, and nothing about the finishing right hook plus rabbit punch?
On the discussion about how hard the orbs hit, I’ll suggest that they hit significantly harder than Sydney can with her fists. And even harder than Sydney’s strength applied via an object both much harder then her flesh and bones, and which allows her to ignore the damage you can cause to yourself when bare knuckle fighting.
Yea, in terms of speed/strength I basically imagine a second invisible Sydney swinging her fists but wearing brass knuckles.
Oh and to people debating the Modified Guilotine that Anvil is using. The Guilotine choke is somewhat different then most choke holds. It applys pressure to the windpipe rather than the sides of the neck. You would have to hold it for a minute or more to make someone pass out. People tap out because of the pressure on their neck and the possibility of a broken neck. Anvil is tall enough to apply that pressure by straightening up and leaning back. Especially if she steps on his foot to keep him anchored.
Took me a sec to make sense of the comment under the comic about Carver .oO( George Washington Carver?..OH yeah! Peanut Butter! X_X
I still don’t get it.
To make peanut butter you need… need to… to… gulp… to cru… to cru-crush… faint
ON a slightly different track, Sydney just made an omelet out of him…You know, gotta break some eggs first?
Just to be clear: Women have eggs, not guys, but scrambling a mammalian egg (other than for platypuses, echidnas and the like) takes a whole lot of work.
George Washington Carver developed many uses and products from Peanuts.
” He also developed and promoted about 100 products made from peanuts that were useful for the house and farm, including cosmetics, dyes, paints, plastics, gasoline, and nitroglycerin.”
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/George_washington_carver
Carver did a lot of research on products made from peanuts, Of course they tended to be Crushed nuts…
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/George_washington_carver
Yes, there are people that blind. They get to be Daredevil!
Right. They don’t get to be cops. They get to be *shudder* lawyers.
So with the force shown previously to deflect his strike, and Math’s whack, being hit with one of those should be equivalent to being hit with a heavy shotput at speed (moreso for the family jewels as the other is doubling as an anvil).
Pinata man: like the metroid series’ chozo statues but human.
Boob submission, bow down puny mortals!
Dave, I demand bad guy piñatas!
Oooo they could have chibi piñata mock-ups of a few bad guys, such as “Shadow Boxer”, the “Nose boop” brick, or even Deus, to name a few. Then sell the “dropped loot” that goes inside separately, like chocolate “coins”, orb colored jaw breakers, or video game themed toys like mini squirt guns. Think of the marketing and cross promotional possibilities! (Arianna would be so proud)
Okay I’ll take on Anvil to suffer that kind of defeat.
Clackers, i can’t stop laughing, CLACKERS lol
Wack Wack Wack Wack OWW!
…are you perchance confusing this with JoJo’s Bizarre Adventures?
Clackers were a toy made of 2 balls of High impact plastic and a string. You bounced them together harder and harder till they impacted both on the top and bottom of the swing. They were infamous for injuries to children.
Had a classmate who insisted on playing with the infernal things on the school bus.
Don’t know why…I used to have those when I was a kid. Nobody ever got hurt & nothing ever got damaged.
ref:https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Clackers
https://img2.wikia.nocookie.net/__cb20130207231743/jjba/images/4/4a/Ripple_Clacker_Volley.png
Two things,
One: hah I knew! I didn’t write a comment so I can’t say called it but I knew that she would be using her orbs in an attack pattern. Although I did comment on them probably being used as close range weapons way back when they were shown to have free movement, so called it like a year and a half ago.
Two: if your eyesight is bad enough you actually become a better fighter when you take them off. Let me explain, if your eyesight is bad enough that you can only see a few clearly for inches in front of your face then all you see beyond that is colours and motion. Because you can only see colours and motion you are able to react to the motions faster than you would be with them on. You just can’t pick up on subtlties like who is an ally versus an enemy.
Well it does get hard to resolve small objects, like ball sized projectiles or small children.
Really bad vision is bad to have. There is a point where it really is a significant handicap. That is that a fist, a fist with brass knuckles, or a fist with brass knuckles with spikes on it? It would also get harder to read more subtle changes in positioning.
However Sydney didn’t seem on that level. The relative thinness to the size of the lenses suggest so. Generally the bigger the lenses the thicker they have be do the same job. Having really thin, really big lenses, often perched on the end of her nose really suggest she only really needs them for distances like lecture halls or driving. But please, super villians do go on underestimating the visual acuity of heroes sporting big glass when you knock them away.
It doesn’t hurt that Sydney hammed it up. I’d say that’s a 16+ roll on the Bluff check.
I would say Syd needs her glasses for driving not reading.
Point 2 only works for people that aren’t trained. Otherwise at these close ranges you look at the other fighters eyes, works even faster.
One of these days she will actually use her powers in a fight.
Controlling the orbs counts as a power
Or is it more a powerstunt?
In the realm of power stunts:
We’ve seen her hang off of one – I’m waiting for her to use one (or more than one) as a step, to gain altitude while she’s using 2 orbs besides flight.
Given we have seen these guys fly independently at up to 400mph (and can probably go faster), that they appear to be both indestructible and implacable (they happily resist considerable force put on them by Maxima, and we’re seeing them block and bounce all kinds of damage up and down the force range), hitting someone with the orbs at full speed isnt a punch, it is firing a (really really big) bullet. Or really, a smallish round shot from a black powder cannon. Roughly, a Falconet (light field gun, early 16th century).
Granted, I make some assumptions here, primarily about the speed and momentum (I assumed an effective weight 1 kg, though “implacable movement” suggests anywhere from 0 to infinite momentum.) But “just knock em out like a punch” is on the extreme low end of the potential force of these bad boys. The ability to hit and block like that really should be counted as another of Halos powers.
In short, she could have chosen to put several large, messy holes in this guy. He should be grateful all Halo did do was remove his ability to breed…
My guess is that the orbs don’t hit any harder than Sydney herself could hit using her fists, and can’t hit anyone further away than she could normally reach with her arms. Looked at that way, her ability to hit people with her orbs doesn’t give her anything extra, so there is no need for her to buy another power.
It is a tiny bit of a stretch. On the one hand, she is getting the benefit of a free surprise attack because her enemy isn’t expecting to be pummeled by the orbs. On the other hand, it is perfectly justified by her character concept, and it’s cool. If I was a game master, and she were a character in one of my games, I’d probably let it pass.
Well, they demonstrably hit harder than she can, I doubt Math would have even faked going down from a punch from Halo. How hard they hit is a matter of conjecture though, Im just going off of observed effects.
It is not that I object to her being able to do it, it is just that it should probably get listed on her bio. :)
Hard enough to leave Math’s cheek bruised. And Syd surely used way more strength against someone who was going to stab her.
Um, that was a hell of a “CLANK”.
while she doesn’t have to carry them, they don’t seem to fly at high speeds when she’s not flying at high speeds, for example when she was imitating an atom
also, there’s no indication that it’s inertia, and therefore mass, that keeps them from moving, as Math was easily able to nudge one with no more then human strength
on the one hand, this might leas to an awesome scene where, while flying without a shield, her sphere’s could be cannonballs that punch through things…. but let us also remember early on when her balls in a case got stuck, she couldn’t move without them either…. so they might just punch through no problem, or she might get slowed down, or she might have a sudden jolting 400mph to zero stop…
Yeah, though using “the amount of force Math can deflect” as a negative is probably not safe, given his performance vs folks like Anvil, Maxima, and Dabbler.
Basically, it comes down to what the rules for the “implacably tied to Sydney/move the way THEY want to” really are, followed closely by “do they really move at her flight speed on their own”. Just cause she doesnt orbit them at that speed doesnt mean they cannot.
Still, they are definitely tough (getting yanked by Maxima alone should qualify for that, and deflecting the nega-knuckles adds to it), they definitely have their own opinion on how far they will get from Sydney, and they definitely hit harder than she can.
So, for now, call “small cannon” the outer limit, based on “move at >400mph” and “have momentum like they weigh 2lbs” assumptions. We’ll see if Dave ever gives us an answer to whether those are safe assumptions or not.
Math do not nudged the ball, he nudged her leg into the ball path.
“…as Math was easily able to nudge one with no more then human strength”
If you look at panel 6 at https://www.grrlpowercomic.com/archives/838, you may notice that Math didn’t nudge any or Sydney’s orbs…He nudged Sydney’s *leg* into the path of one of the orbs.
Is anyone else here a Tom Smith fan? That last panel with Anvil immediately got the song “Death by Wubbie” stuck in my head.
What are you licking? Even zooming in I can’t tell. It’s a really dark fluid, so not scotch or bourbon. Not most forms of mead. My best guess would be a really dark beer, such as a Russian Imperial Stout.
When I see panel 4 it reminds me of those cartoons where you hear “sucker!”. lol
Man, somebody has already updated TvTropes.com with this averted trope.
That’s quick
I can’t find it though. Where is it?
Under the Deconstructor Fleet entry on the Grrl Power TVTropes page.
And in the webcomics examples under Blind Without ‘Em.
Good to see Sydney already implementing Math’s advice, if in terrifyingly Sydneyish fashion.
So after reading the entire page (plus 10 more. Curse you TVTropes.
It’s at the bottom. Wounded Gazelle Gambit
I don’t understand why they have Grrl Power down for the “Bleached Underpants” trope just because he used to draw some stuff that was in furry fandom? I mean the trope stands for something the author was ashamed of and is now trying to move away from quietly but Dave actually mentioned and linked to such examples proudly… I think they need a separate trope for this. Like a trope that says the author used to do a lot of work in an area that they are fine with but OTHERS might be uncomfortable with.
What I’m curious about is whether Anvil could absorb the kinetic energy from a hit from an orb. I doubt they can hit hard enough to seriously injure her regardless, but the question is interesting. The orbs seem rather… exotic. The usual rules might not apply.
Absufreakylutely lurve Sydney’s face in panel 4 :D
Now that gives new meaning to “Sucker Punch!” :D