Grrl Power #208 – Arc-LIGHT earns their keep
Arc-LIGHT is more than just Zeph, Leon and Gwen in case anyone was curious. They have researchers and even field agents a la X-Files or Fringe. Arc-SWAT needs to know who to go punch when the bad guys don’t conveniently introduce themselves at dinner after all. I skipped over most of that since this story arc was already pretty long, but it’s a fair bet the next story arc will have some additional Arc-LIGHT involvement.
I want to talk about the action on this page. I want to draw good action and I think the action on this page is pretty tepid. It’s functional, you can tell what’s going on, but while I was coloring the page I decided it could be a lot better. It was too late to change it, so I used my discontent as an excuse to re-read some One Punch Man and Cammy Manga (by Masahiko Nakihara) and I think the page that follows this one is much improved. Oh and if this page seems a little light on content (seeing as most of my pages hover around the 8-11 panel count) it’s because this page was supposed to be a double page, but due to the way the layout of the next few pages went, I had to either cut it here or make this page a triple page. These action pages with the big panels will sometimes break down like that, but the good news is at least the next comic will be a double page. Sequential art is hard.
In case you missed it, I posted a bonus comic of sorts yesterday. It’s an old vote incentive that disappeared from the web when I replaced it with the next incentive. It’s a Dabbler’s Science Corner answering some questions about Harem.
Speaking of bonus comics, I’m doing some guest comics over at GynoStar. There’s a bit of a story behind these. Basically I came up with some jokes that didn’t quite fit the flavor of Grrl Power so I wrote them into a series of strips and presented the idea to Rebecca over at GynoStar. She liked them, but I only had a few strips worth of material at the time. Not quite enough for a whole arc. So she filled out the rest of the story, which starts here, and we’re now up to my strips. I’ll be doing them for the next… 7 strips I think? Half of them are already drawn and the coloring is much simpler than Grrl Power so I’m planning to keep to the regular schedule here.
I’ll do some more streaming today. Here’s the link. I’m trying it on Twitch.TV this time. Spoilers for pages 211 and 212 obviously. Stream’s over. Thanks for dropping by is you got a chance. I don’t think the stream got saved… I must have missed that button.
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Is the space marine behind Zephan Seneca? I am assuming she can hold her bangs back somehow (like a couple times before), but then she lacks the chocker and the t-shirt seal.
Not unless she’s a gender-morpher. That’s a dude.
The face could look like maybe, but not the body. But If so would be a new not seen before guy
Seneca has had that frowning expression before.
I took it to be one of Arc-light’s support troopers. Their equivalents of the space-marines, but presumably equipped with more discreet gear than powered combat armour.
Body of Seneca, head of Steven Seagull
Dangit, it’s supposed to be her. I need to update the art.
Yeah, compared to here, she looks more like a young slim Steven Seagull
May I ask to give her her plump lips back? :)
Oh, you were talking about Joan of Arc? Why did you not say so? I think she aught to keep with tradition and wear a sword as her hand to hand weapon.
But I agree with the lips. Even with the small faces in the group shot, they gave her a distinctive appearance. Of course, a nice flaming (or icy) sword would be an even more distinctive trademark, but we can hope she gets a level up later.
Not just the lips, her bangs were pretty distinctive as well (and too short to be simply tied back)
You shouldn’t feel self conscious over breaking up your typical layout to handle big action scenes. That’s been a standard comic book motif since I was a child (over 40 years). You’re doing just fine.
Ah, the Goofy scream.
Oh good! I’m not the only one (aside from Dave, obviously) who remembers that and recognized it instantly. LOL
Admittedly this is the first time in my 34 years I’ve seen it expressed in text. :P
Yes, it’s written as the Goofy scream, but considering this is Achilles, I read it as more of a “Wahoo, I’m enjoying this ride!” as opposed the standard Goofy “AHHH!!! THIS IS GOING TO HURT A LOT!!!” Written the same, different emotions behind it.
Since Dave already went with the comedy angle on Achilles sudden departure, I have a suggestion for his return. Achilles is the king of the mini-comic. I want to see the next one with him landing nearby and then walk up out of the crater carrying Sandra Bullock in a space suit and saying ‘Hey, look who I found!”.
Heh! Or George Clooney… “Hey, good thing I was punted into this guy’s orbit, his air was running low!”
Yup, save Clooney, nothing can save Bullock now
He’s streaming right now at justin.tv/davebarrack
I just read through the archive and am now disappointed by my lack of patience. Anyway, you have created an excellent comic that has easily displaced its way into my top ten (which could also indicate that I need to read more comics) and I thank you for that.
No I fully agree this is a top ten maybe even #1. The art, the subject, the cast, the dialog and it updates TWICE A WEEK EVERY WEEK. I think the last one is part that really separates it from the rest.
Clearly it’s #1, it just won first place, after all!
^^^ +1 ^^^
LIKE!!
Just realized. What is that behind Gwen? Got she a executive chair in the equipment run? :)
Well, she does need to be comfy if she has to be projecting that “Shultz Shield” for an extended time :D
It’s a silhouette of a roof A/C unit.
So something I’ve been thinking about. We know there’s teleporters, blasters, bricks, illusionists, mages, espers, and more, and we have someone like Achilles that is pure invincible. But what about the other end of the spectrum? What about nullifiers? Are there any people/tech/magic that can turn off powers, like you see in Marvel with some mutants, or Genoshan tech?
Maybe? We know from Dave that there is no handy generic power nullifier available through technology or magic. There may be some individual out there with that power (Whom I now name the “Party Pooper”) but generally speaking no. You have to deal with each super as they come, there is usually a way, Sydney and mittens for example.
Given the range of power sources, magic or tech won’t be effected by a biological solution to supers.
Magic stopper won’t suppress tech or supers etc
How do espers work any way?
ESPers work by reading the electrical impulses in your brain and then recreate the same impulses in their own brain, thus getting a reconstruction of your words and visualized images. Blocking the EM field (i.e. tinfoil hat or Magneto’s helmet) will block the reading.
Warning: as brought up in Babylon 5, headaches are contagious. Don’t even try to read someone having a seizure. Also, trying to read a non-human would be like playing a VHS tape in a Beta machine (if you are too young to get that, go look it up.)
Another way would be “Tuning” into a person’s Bio-energy field (What is commonly called an “Aura”) like it was a radio or television transmission. But that would most likely be a short-range version since you’d likely have to be within 5-6 feet (The combined area of both people’s field)
Depends on the story/reality but in Anne McCaffrey’s Pegasus series, psychic abilities are Quantum Molecular Observer effects. Psi’s are literally changing the world around them by believing that that is the way things really are (or observing things as not being the way others thought things were).
An example would be that a Telepath is ‘seeing’ that the person he/she is ‘path-speaking to ‘hears’ an echo of the telepath’s voice in their head. Or a telekinetic ‘sees’ an object being somewhere else (like the building material rockets Peter Reidinger sent to the space-station/’platform’).
That’s too bad. You can get some good stories when there’s a guy on the other side who can take a superpowered person like Maxima and turn them into ‘just a normal girl’ temporarily.
Ask Adam Warren :) In an “Empowered” issue almost the whole pack of superheroes was taken down with the most… creative… use of a nullifier that I ever saw.
Indeed. Nullifiers are a blind spot most supers forget about. Especially if they are one of those ‘passive’ nullifiers like Leech from the X-men comics. Simply put, within a set radius of him, mutant powers just don’t work, even mutants as powerful as Magneto or Phoenix. The nasty thing about nullifiers is that they are more damning the more powerful the person being nullified is. Negate Wolverine’s healing factor, and he’s still a trained martial artist with frigging metal claws and bones that are unbreakable. Negate Phoenix’s powers, and she’s a normal human woman, with a little combat experience. If someone was able to negate Maxima’s powers when she was expecting to be bulletproof…
I saw a trade paperback where that happened (the Wolverine bit). SHIELD put him in power-blocker arm cuffs (covered to the elbow type) and when he didn’t feel like playing along anymore, he just popped his claws and trashed the power blocker.
Actually with adamantium being poisonous to a human body and he himself mentioning that it causes agonizing pain every moment its in him, nullifying Wolverine’s healing factor would ultimately put him down within seconds due to the pain.
You are right though that a person whose power set merely boosts their natural abilities wouldn’t be that slowed down by a nullifier.
Then again I wrote a fic about a mutant who used a technological power dampener when he wasn’t doing super heroics because a side effect of his power meant that when he wasn’t eating his body was eating itself and the dampener let him live a normal life. It of course got demolished many times and he had to find solutions to prevent death.
Actually, not quite true. They did that before, too. During a point when someone used a world-wide mutant nullifier, Wolverine was slowly dying from the adamantium, but it wasn’t something that was instantly debilitating, more like something that was taking a few weeks to bring him down.
re: panel one
WTF!
OK, it is a cool visual, but why is Arclight out on the rooftop? Sure, Leon can remote in to his work station from anywhere, but he isn’t gonna be looking over the edge at the battle; he has multiple camera feeds to watch and prioritize. So he might as well be hiding in a less exposed location. The same goes for Zephan & Gwen. I’m sure Harem could bring them laptops too. No reason to be exposed, even with Gwen providing some camo-cover, when there are multiple feeds to watch. Because things like concrete carstoppers, and people, may rain randomly out of the sky at any time, and a guy with a gun just isn’t gonna be able to do much about it. Now, if Halo was there with her shield, inside Gwen’s no-see-um field, that might make more sense…
Just my 2 cents.
At least, if Zephan is gonna be looking directly at the battle, he should have the HUD glasses too.
That would make it easier for him to see which hostiles are labeled, and which still need to be ID’ed.
Maybe he has his pair magically enhanced to also receive the HUD feed? Though I really don’t see how that could work without the camera for a computer to work from…
More likely Daphne still hasn’t had time to get him the special goggles designed to fit over his glasses. Everyone else gets a standard pair…
They were at the dinner – go back a few pages and you will see some of them at the tables. Since Harem can’t teleport people around, they would still be there. I am guessing when the fight started they relocated and hid.
It is an open question as to why they would be on the roof when it had enemy supers on it a few comics (few seconds? a minute or two?) ago. Maxima said she was clearing the roof, but that was too fast.
Your point about crap from the sky is good, but the building currently has a super fight going on inside – better random junk than being targeted.
Well, IF they are on the roof, they are still safe from observation so long as the ‘you can’t see me’ defense works.
I am not sure they are on the roof, that has little sense, the “sky” do not matches previous strips and there is not roof like that showed far now.
I guess that is the table and the sky is a “magic working here” effect.
Ok, the more I look at it, the more I can see it. The shadow edge over them (light from below) is the main key.
Hiro could’ve fly them up along with chairs cause if not the perspective regarding the space marine would be strange (1). But that is still too high parapet to what has been shown so far. And certainly Maxima should have cleaned the roof really fast (2)
The only alternative I can think of is that they are in a neighboring roof.
(1) unless they are in lotus position what would be suitable for any of them :)
(2) true that at least one of those at the roof is now (was) inside the room heating Achilles’ hand.
Zephan is an artefact user. They are in his portable hole.
Archiles was inside when that guy was being a hand warmer. Look at the walls and windows behind.
I didn’t do a good job of establishing where exactly those guys are. I’ll do another establishing shot later to make it clear. The restaurant is a stand alone building in front of a large strip mall, one with big box stores in them like a Best Buy or an Academy. Like this, assuming the link works. They’re back on one of the large buildings maybe 300 feet away from where the action going down.
You’re right though, with all the stuff flying around, they should be as far away from the action as possible. The only reason they’re not is Max can’t spare her fliers to move them further away. There’s only a few people that can fly, Max, Hiro, Halo, and Heatwave. (Dabbler can probably cast a flight spell as well or has antigrav horseshoes… or whatever you call shoes for cloven feet.) Heatwave can’t carry much, and she has to be careful not to burn whatever she’s holding. Hiro’s a heavy hitter, so Max could only spare him for two short trips.
The link works.
Ok, thank you. Not a bad job after all, you can notice that we were slowly realizing it :)
Despite my joke to the contrary, that is pretty much what I had been assuming. The view from Maxima’s vantage reminded me of the kind of restaurants that you see around cinema complexes or out of town warehouse type shopping areas. Which is pretty much what the reference view does too.
Far enough away that they will not get splashed by area of effect blasts. And having the ‘nothing to see here’ field to discourage even super senses from casually spotting them.
But I bet he does have a portable hole, or some similarly cool alternative. :-D
When was in California in ’01 (first time out of the country) staid at a Hotel in Ontario a short walk from the Ontario Hills Mall, and they had a Denny’s on the corner of the parking lot
Why shoes is what you call them even if they fit hooves or feet.
Nice to see ARCH-Light in action now. Really get the feel of all their training and expertise in the field of action.
Concreta is a good name for her. I do wonder what would happen if a chunk of her was blasted off of her body?
The ‘speculated abilities’ block suggests moving pre-existing concrete (petrakinesis) or creating concrete (petragenesis) to create armour. If she loses a chunk, that would leave a patch of unprotected skin (until she puts more armour over the hole).
That would only be if this is a sheath of armor over her body an not her body itself which was what I was speculating on. Would it regrow or would she just be minus whatever was blown away. That is the question.
There is a character in Magellan who is made of sand, she got caught in some sticky crap and they couldn’t recover all the grains, so she ended up losing a few extremity details like nose and ears (possibly fingers as well, can’t remember)
Pretty much, unless they can re-absorb the ‘lost’ chunk somehow, they will have lost body-mass (talk about ‘extreme dieting’ :P)
Isn’t Concretia a character in the flint stones?
Fred Flintstone and Barney Rubble would be so proud.
Yes. I already commented that on previous page:
“I name this concrete after my niece Concretia
…
Stone age is over! Concrete age begins!”
I think Concretia is a reoccuring villain (she is on the who’s who sidebar.)
All that getting an entry in the Who’s Who requires is an introduction (and/or a speaking part, depending on the circumstances). In this case she has been introduced, by name, via the heads up display. If you check DaveB‘s reply about her, on the first page of comments, you will see that mentioning her in the Who’s Who does not imply that she will be a recurring character. She may be, she may not.
I chose you, Bulbasaur!
Haha! love the goofy laugh!
Here’s hoping Achilles and Amorphous are good at meta-dodging. Otherwise, Archon’s down two pairs of really expensive glasses.
“Hey, Zephan. This pair of glasses is totally wrecked, right? I should toss ’em?”
“They’re cracked a bit, but still gathering data pretty well. Keep them on, Achilles.”
“But…But they look so stupid this way!”
As the joke was just made over on Guilded Age:
She will, she will Rock You.
Also,
Achilles is now supporting Maxima as Archon’s Eye in the Sky.
Need to position a target for him to land on.
Even falling he can be useful.
“Concretia?” LAME!
Hopefully to be replaced when they discover what name she uses among her own teammates. But in the meantime, “Rocky” or “Rock” or “Hardcase” or “Flint” or “Stoner” or just about anything…. would have at least avoided tacking the “-ia” ending on a noun that has nothing whatsoever to do with that suffix!
She looks like concrete to me, so visually it matches. And the name has a great cadence to it. So the audio is good. Plus it avoids clichéd names. I like it.
The Department Of Lame Names takes pride in coming up with quick, easy names to tag supervillains with. They especially enjoy having the members of Arc-Swat keep right on using those lame names -after- hearing what the supervillain in question prefers to be called. It drives the villains -nuts-.
Unfortunately, I must point out that after his encounter with Sydney one villain no longer has -nuts-.
But “Conretia” has never been used. All your other choices have already. It is the opposite of the lame recommendations you just gave. Just go with it whether you like it or not.
It just … doesn’t go with a NOUN, damnit. -ia, as a feminine suffix, makes a name of an adjective. But it only goes with an adjectives, not nouns. And it kinda has to be a Latin-language adjective at that. Think of how you’d respond if someone called something “Toaster-ness” or something. It’s a grammatical mismatch.
So? There are no rules for names. Why you have family names that are minerals, jobs, flowers, foods etc. And concrete is a noun so what really is your beef?
Agreed. If one of the villains in the car park has really weird powers, with no common theme, she could be called “Abstractia”.
“Confusion” or maybe “Grab Bag.”
Or ‘Lucky Dip’ (would that be more the name of a brothel-worker/street-walker though?)
Better than her sister who can produce ooze from her skin. She is called Secretia.
I really am feeling the need for some sound effect bubbles on this page. Might I suggest something descriptive like “GLOM!” and “FLING!”? Maybe a “WHOOSH!”? I realize that’s kinda Bat-tastic, but I think it would help reinforce the action.
Aside from that, I absolutely love that there’s tactical support personnel for a super team. You rock, DaveB!
Yeah I should add in sound effects.
Oh, I’m already satisfied with sound effects you use already. For one example, the sound that accompanies hands rustling on cloth…You used “Invisible Grope” for that one. :D
What about ZIDANE?
something about Achilles arm looks “off” in panel 5
No, it’s just perspective/angle
That may be the original Goofy scream, but Mario also co-opted it in Mario 64 when he fell in Lava.
Do they have a pair of HUD glasses in Sydney’s prescription?
Not yet… there hasn’t been enough time. Remember, we’re still under 24 hours from the start of Sydney’s first day with ARCHON.
Ariane fail if she did not have a Pearl One Hour Glasses in the mall section of the Archon building. There was plenty of time to set the HUD to correct the light passing through to focus –and Sydney had an eye exam after the Tai Noodle to the Cornea incident.
Alternatively, there are ways of converting prescription glasses into sunglasses, with an attachment. Doubtless there is a similar means to do the same for a HUD.
I would be surprised if Google Glass does not (or will not, in fairly short order) do the same. Without bothering to research it at all, it certainly looks like you can just clip it onto the side of normal glasses. Although it would not surprise me if it required some specific coating or treatment, to make the display stand out.
But, failing that, Sydney does have her pip-boy. Although it may be prone to erratic displays and glitches, having suffered a recent knock.
Oh Boy! Pip is going to develop a personality all its own now! Sydney and Pip are going to end up argueing together (kinda like Al and that fancy calculator of his)
That was a really poor showing by Achilles. Getting tossed far away is the same thing as getting taken out of the fight for him. Maybe if he’d actually put in a little effort he could have stuck around and been able to do some good instead of getting defeated easily. Doesn’t even look like he tried to dodge.
He didn’t dodge because he didn’t even see her fist (look at his eyes, he is focussing on the Cyclopes wannabe, Concretia is coming up from below-right)
Also, if you are completely and totally (aggravatingly) immune to damage in all shapes and sizes I’d imagine learning to dodge things effectively wouldn’t be high on your priority list.
I have a feeling from the angle he went flying that we’ll see him again in a few pages using his greatest weapon: gravity.
Unless that punch sends him miles away, he’ll still be in the engagement zone. Keep in mind that while he doesn’t have super speed, the fact that he’s compeltely invincible probably means he can’t get out of breath (he can’t be suffocated, so…), which means he can probably sprint endlessly. Coupled with his boosted strength, this means he can probably maintain 30-40 MPH indefinately, meaning he can get around pretty fast despite not technically having super speed. Even though he only has invincibility, that one power can have a lot of secondary effects because of how powerful it is.
Yeah I’m with you on that one, from the looks of the hit it was a straight uppercut so Achilles is likely to be in the general area still, plus depending on how high he’s been flung up he can guide himself back towards the area pretty easily provided he has any skydiving experience (which I’m guessing he does considering the whole invulnerable thing plus his bio mentions doing stuntman work in his spare time).
I’m expecting him to cream someone via a dive-bomb attack in a few pages time, apparently terminal velocity for a human when streamlining is upwards of 210mph dependent on size and mass of course, now that’s got to hurt someone at least a little.
I agree with you in general, but disagree over a specific point. Namely the breath one. Whilst he will not die from lack of oxygen, there is nothing to suppose that he generates free energy. We need air, water and food to supply our bodies with the necessary components to create energy and sustain our bodies’ normal operations. If we interrupt the supply, or get a bottleneck in processing them, then our energy levels suffer. Hence why we run out of wind.
I see no reason why Achilles would be immune to that problem. Whilst it is possible that he may be able to generate energy from nothing, given that supers seem to be able to do that, or something similar enough that it makes little practical difference. But we have no indication that he does have extra powers beyond his invulnerability. Other than the spin-off ones, such as modest super-strength.
Personally I think that Achilles will need to eat, drink and breathe just as much as the rest of us, if he wants to sustain normal levels of activity. Granted, if he runs out of any of those things, he will not die. But, as I see it, he would enter a hibernation-like state, until he once again gained access to them.
But as to the gist of your comment, I think you are right. If he lands on a roof he can just step off it, rather than having to look for a staircase. And he can run at full speed through a hedgerow. Even if it has spiky thorns. And he can ignore levels of exhaustion that others would be fearful of, because he knows he will not suffer direct damage from them. But he could still risk falling unconscious, if he did not get enough oxygen to his brain, for example.
So, his endurance, like his strength, is probably higher than an average human’s. But not unlimited, as you were stating. Not that such would be a problem in this instance, because, as you correctly indicated, he is not going very far horizontally. He is out of the fight, for now, unless one of his team-mates intervenes. But will be back soon.
A lot might happen in the meanwhile though, in an intense battle, like this.
It’d require some input from Dave to be sure, but remember that he can’t be starved either. It very explicetly says that no harm of any kind can come to him. He may still sleep, and he can obviously eat, but he doesn’t apparently have to. The main factors in people not being able to sprint forever, I believe, are lack of oxygen and acid buildup in muscles. Since he can do deep-sea welding, he obviously doesn’t need oxygen, and he’s also obviously immune to the acid buildup (assuming this even happens, if he generates energy from nothing), he should be able to sprint for a very long time.
I do have to wonder:
how many Arc Lite teams dot hey lose in these situations do to random fire or AOE?
at least they could get under the table or something…
I wonder if they have Arc Heavy teams too? The ones who’s powers are too dangerous to use in police work, in the confined areas of cities. But who would be invaluable in all out warfare. Blasters who do not have a sniper option for their attack. The smallest blast they can do is a city block sized one. Or the Hulk… maybe a slightly more controllable version that won’t also attack friendly tanks. The kinds of supers you only unleash when you are also deploying other weapons of mass destruction.
Wouldn’t that be Arc-SWAT? Not in the typical “Special Weapons And Tactics*” but as in “they ‘swat’ bad guys like bugs being hit with a rolled up phonebook”
*(or whatever the “T” stands for)
Got it right in one.
In the Series “Sapphire and Steel” we are told about the “Trans-uranics” that are “too dangerous to be used around life” but they must have been powerful. I would say that any supers that are that dangerous would be pulled out of the ARC-hat if doomsday was nigh and they have ran out of options. Now that tantalizes me. (I pictured S and S escaping their temporal prison with one or more of the T-Urs being summoned to free them. A real emergency.)
That sounds interesting. I’ll have to check that out if I can find the series.
Loved that series, you won’t be disapointed if you can find the entire series (the 2 ‘episodes’ can remember most are the one with the light-ghosts {not much of a spoiler to say they were ‘made’ using a normal flashlight on the wall/floor} and the haunted train station {being killed at the 11th minute of the 11th hour of the 11th day of the 11th month would make plenty of angry ghosts})
Likewise. One episode that springs to mind is where they are able to step into photographs. Something that has been replicated in other stories since, but I cannot think of anything that pre-dated it. Mind you I was a bit young to fully appreciate it, so may simply have been unaware of previous usage. But a lot of their stories were ground breaking. Or seemed to be, at the very least.
Personally I am wary of older TV programs and films though. I find the poor special effects and (generally speaking, rather than necessarily in this instance) dated production values to be a distraction. That said though, the actors were top-quality and the series was professionally made, rather than some budget affair. It just pre-dated the special effects revolution. But it was the X-files of it’s day, and I am sure that many of the stories, and certainly the setting, will stand the test of time. Even if the rest of it seems dated.
Don’t let the poor effects distract you. This show is like no other before or since. Though in some ways it reminds me of the best of Outer Limits the first season like “Don’t Open Till Doomsday” and “The 6th Finger.” I found the S & S episode “The Faceless Man” to be the most frightening. Yes it could step in and out of photographs and put you in them. It can use any such reproduction technology to find you. You will never look at selfies in the same way again. The series was from 1979 to 1982. Check out Amazon.
Okay, for those complaining about the name, what is so wrong with “Concretia”?
It’s got too many syllables, and it ends too softly for a brick-type super. I’d be tempted to call her Tonya Bricks, but the shreds of my self respect prevent me.
3 syllables is too many? “Con-cree-SHUH!”
How many do you believe there are in ‘Maxima’ or ‘Achilles’ or ‘Mr Amorphous’?
Depends on how you pronounce it. And all those names are too long, ripe for being replaced with annoying nicknames. :)
Like ‘Cur’?
I call them “Con”, “Maxi”, “Achy”, and “Amor”. :)
You can bet that Stalwart didn’t get to pick his own ARC name. It is way to easy for him to get labeled ‘Wart’.
:D
If they have any kind of popularity all supers (hero and villain) will get nicknames. Usually different ones from allies and foes. (unless their allies are very playful or slightly dickish…. ) And if their names don’t lend themselves well to an embarrassing nickname then their nickname will be based on the way they look or what they do or both. These things were made for children originally after all…
Leticia, Morticia, Lucracia all work why not Concretia? As they say these days what is your damage? The name is easy to say, rolls of the tongue. Except for Americans who need simple names like John and James.
Concretia is simple, easy and tells what she looks like and powers of.
Yeah, was thinking of ‘Lucrecia Borgia’
And there are three syllables….
You want a bad name, Ten Ton Tina. There’s your bad rock based hero name.
Or villain, either way.
Not lame enough. I’d suggest “Concreterella”. Or “Concretilly”, even though that has less syllables.
Obviously a closet Barbarella fan. ;-)
shame on you if you didn’t hear Achille’s voice become Goofy.
“These aren’t the Intelligence agent you’re looking for.”
lol
i have no idea what happened here. Achilles got knocked into the air as he parried?
This page immediately follows on from the scene in panel 5c of this issue. In that you can see four key protagonists fighting in the background. Achilles, Concretia, Mr Amorphous and a Cyclopes wannabe with lasers coming out of his eyes. Which Achilles is effortlessly parrying.
That continues in the panel you are querying. Although the guy shooting lasers out of his eyes is out of panel, you can still see his laser being blocked by Achilles’s hand.
Because Achilles had been showing off, in not having to pay full attention to his opponent* (and, more importantly, the opponent that his partner, Mr Amorphous was fighting) he has been blind-sided by Concretia. So has only just returned his attention to his own opponent, when he is grabbed by her and goes for an unexpected flight.
* Something he can get away with, personally, because nothing they can do will harm him, regardless of how careless he becomes. Although, as part of a team he has dropped the ball here, because he has been taken out of the fight at a critical moment. Not that he may have been able to prevent a super-strength brick from doing what she liked. But he could have tried dodging, if he had have been on the ball.
Dave is very much in keeping with both comic book tradition and realism here. Invulnerability breeds a lack of attention to the immediate combat environment and lack of practice at dodging or other basic defences. In fact such was actually built into the early Marvel Super RPG rules. Invulnerable heroes suffered an automatic penalty if attempting other defences.
Cree didn’t grab Les though, she plain sucker-punched him through the roof
True enough. “Grabbed” was a last moment edit, that would not have survived another read through, as it clearly does not match the visual. “Sucker punched” is the perfect correction.
Yes, Achilles is showing off, but there might be a valid reason for it. Achilles is a pure tank, and in this crowd, he doesn’t register as much of a physical threat; he needs another way to keep bad guys focused on him rather than squishies.
He’s using a taunt to hold aggro.
If Laser-Eye Guy just turns his head, he could potentially hurt several people, and maybe do structural damage–we don’t really know how powerful his beams are, because he’s only hit Achilles with them so far. Achilles could be deliberately pissing him off to keep him from doing so. Meanwhile, he’s got his glasses-cam trained on the guy so that Arc-LIGHT can identify him and/or analyze his powers. He may have been hoping Mr. Amorphous could keep Concretia busy until he got feedback that would tell him what to do about LEG.
(Or I could be giving Les too much credit. Just offering a counterpoint.)
Your counterpoint is a perfectly good one.
Not to contest it, but just as a matter of interest, I must confess that I have always had a dislike of tanks and the arbitrary concept of taunting. If I am in a battle and have a key objective to achieve, will I really care that some bloke, off to one side, is giving me the finger? And if a glass cannon is about to blast all my friends into smithereens, will I instead go to attack some guy, who is saying bad things about my mum?
The other side of it being that I found Superman intensely boring. Nothing could hurt him, and he had a shed-load of powers that made him invincible as well as invulnerable. Achilles avoids that by being just a normal person who cannot be hurt. He cannot fly, punch supers into the air or shoot lasers out of his eye (the above comic being quite an ironic multi-level play on DaveB’s part, if intentional).
As such, I avoid playing characters who emulate him too much in games. Basically any tank-like build that is invulnerable to most hazards in a game. Yawn. Especially if they can also easily overcome all enemies.
And if they can’t then about the only use they have on a team is to act as either a shield or to use the (to me) irritating concept of taunting. Whilst I appreciate that a well-timed jibe or insult can indeed have that effect, I do not see that it would always work. Nor might it serve as more than a momentary distraction, even if it did.
Why I liked the 1990’s animated Superman. He was tough but he could get hurt. Several including Darkseid beat him up hard. Supes didn’t start out all powerful, they just kept making him stronger and with the ability to levitate. Originally like the Hulk, Supes could only make really long and high jumps or bounds.
Personally, I much preferred characters who could directly protect their allies (such as with force fields) or have more versatile powers to give concealment or mis-direction (such as illusions). But did find that playing glass cannons could also be fun, if you found a way to compensate for the glass jaw.
Eventually I perfected playing combinations of the two. Designing crowd control type characters who could deal out fair damage. Or blasters who also had enough crowd control to keep themselves out of trouble (typically locking down the specific enemies who were targeting them).
Which kept things interesting. Provided you remained constantly aware of your enemies, and did not allow yourself to be blind-sided, you could incapacitate them long enough to finish them off. And paid the price if you got sloppy. Whereas a badly played tank could still survive, even if he allowed the rest of his team to be wiped out.
Sucubes, * one of my characters in City of Heroes, invariably taunted tanks (verbally) **. She could could do anything they could do, and usually a lot better, and certainly much more impressively. Except stand toe to toe with powerful arch-villains ***. And resented that they could do the latter, with impunity. But, even then, she had illusory decoys and other ploys that made her a strong ally in such climactic battles.
* Correct spelling.
** She also had a PvP build optimised for fighting tanks, and other melee enemies. So was extremely good at separating tanks from their allies, and thus allowing their team to be brought down fast. Whereas they could not do the same against her. One on one, she would typically fight a tank to a stand still. But if their powers were of a sort that could be disrupted, she had many ways of achieving that, and could then output enough damage to kill even a tank.
** Most of these were given near-immunity to powers that could control them. Whereas tank taunting worked more often than not. Which I found counter-intuitive. That world-shaking foes, immune to mental attacks, and the like, would be just as sensitive about harsh words as a kid in the playground. You would have thought that, having fought their way to the top rank of the underworld (criminal or hellish as the case may be), they would have gotten over that.
Fortunately, as the game evolved, more were introduced that required complex tactics, to defeat, rather than being based around simple tank-taunting.
I love that cloaking field…
“You can’t see us! You can’t see us! You can’t see us!”
I’m sure that’s a rough translation of an ancient and arcane tongue both venerated and horrifying… but it sounds like a school-yard cloaking field.
“Bang! I shot you”
“Nu-uh! I’m cloaked, you can’t see me!”
You mean like the cop shooting a crook with his finger/a>?
Wouldn’t it make more sense to put the HUD and camera tech into goggles rather than glasses, so they’re more likely to stay attached to the wearer in combat conditions? I know my father has lost at least one pair of glasses just swimming at the beach, even using a strap, but it takes a lot more to dislodge my goggles.
Yes… actually. :/
Just blame Arianna for the design use as a way to make them “more approachable with better merchandising options.”
They are also less intimidating for use around civilians. Just think about how peacekeeping troops are often required to switch from combat headgear. To options that civilians are more comfortable around, such as berets or no cover.
Given how important we find it to make eye contact, even dark glasses can be off-putting. But at least they are familiar, and often used by law enforcement personnel. Whereas goggles (especially in conjunction with helmets) would be that much more intimidating.
So, in non-combat situations the glasses can be kept on, where goggles would be inappropriate. Such as in a restaurant. Therefore the fact that the team had these types to hand need, not prohibit that they also have goggles and/or helmet mounted versions. To the contrary, it would be logical that a well-equipped organisation would have both, budget permitting.
I would ditch my issue goggles as soon as combat started. The loss of peripheral vision almost got me killed in the first gulf war.
Well, that depends of the goggles desig; ones specifically designed for combat HUD utility would probably ensure good periferal vision, aside from providing handy threat alerts/assesment
There is a rule in magic, one must hold the fingers in a way that will cauls severe cramping them after a few minuets. Is there some sort of physiological crutch behind this? Least there’s no gibbering word phrases to add to it. “By the hairy unshaven legs of….”
DB I can understand you wanting to move things along but Arc-Light is a story unto it’s self and should not have a short introduction I would not mind in the least having a 6 pager on them.
I think such uncomfortable positions for fingers is related (or included under) the Law of Conservation of Power. Physics tells us that matter or energy cannot be created or destroyed but can be changed into different forms: In magic usage, the more powerful the spell, the more uncomfortable the casting. Maybe includes the idea that the more damage potential a spell has, the higher the potential of it fizzling out or causing unwanted backlash. In this case, the greater effect of cloaking means greater discomfort in maintaining the spell.
Of course, DaveB may not be running the magic rules like that in his comic…
… klaatu barada nikto …. FIght ends…
Just make sure not to cough.
Those words stopped a fight, but in *absense* of those words, it’s just simply…
…Game over, man!. Just, game over!
yes I am counting.
Third Aliens Quote.
I now as guy who did Hudson’s armor. I think I am going to do a Sydney quote on mine!
Just which one?
How about…
…BADGERS!
Why do we use ctrl-alt-delete to shut down a PC? Because it is hard to replicate by accident. Although this one is fairly innocuous, compared to a fireball, you really do not want any magical effects being triggered by accident. Especially if they have visible or audible elements that might give away both the existence of magic and that the person activating them is a practitioner of it. This line of thought makes the following assumptions:
1) Magic is invoked by the use of gestures and/or vocal incantations.
2) There is a mechanism by which the precise gestures can be customised.
Obviously comfortable finger positions are ones that we might assume unconsciously. So by making them hard and/or painful to replicate, it reduces the chances of inadvertently replicating them.
Or, of course, it could be a bluff, to conceal the mysteries of the dark arts from observers. If spies spend time trying to replicate difficult finger positions or obscure speech, then they will not be working on the correct mental state of being.
But, given that we do not tend to see contortionists accidentally summoning Lolth, it is more than likely that there are both physical and mental elements. Which is the way the majority of settings handle it. Although more than a few make a point of the gestures and incantations being pure showmanship, to impress the masses.
“You have made the \m/ gesture four times in the past twelve seconds. Would you like to activate sticky fingers?”
I wonder if anyone caught that Achilles did the Goofy scream.
If you use your browser’s search function * and enter “Goofy”, your question will be answered. Four separate threads, on this page of comments alone.
* If your’s works the same as my browser, you can bring it up with CTRL-F
One question – are the power ranges in the HUD the same range as you use for the cast page power measurements? IE: could we take her strength here and compare it to anvil, for example, and conclude she is of similar strength before Anvil powers up.
That is certainly the way I read it. And would draw the same conclusions about the estimated power levels. Although if she is in the upper half of the estimate, that would put her above Anvil, and on par with Super Hiro and Stalwart.
Two ideas for when Concretia gets taken down:
a) Laser-boy shoots her (she is in front of where he’s shooting already).
b) Maxima grabs the parking lot wheel-stopper which was thrown at her and fast-balls it in a ‘safe’ direction (at an enemy).
KRYTEN!!!!!!
If Concretia is not modeled after (google images link) from Red Dwarf, then I’m amazed at the similarity.
PS: If you haven’t seen Red Dwarf, it’s pretty funny. The first episode starts out a bit slow, but gets interesting. And by interesting I mean that all the characters from the first half of the episode (save one) are dead.
Err woops. Guess I mangled that HREF. I meant to say:
“If Concretia is not modeled after Kryten ……”
I would have gone with Camille myself, rather than Kryton. But, other than the angular features, her face was not really screaming ‘droid’ to me. I think the concrete/rocky texture kept the separation in my mind. Despite being a long-term Red Dwarf fan myself.
That said, I have no idea what DaveB might have used as references, so you could be spot on.
No reference, just drew a face then made it angular, though Red Dwarf and especially Kryten rock.
Yeah, in hindsight Camille would have made more sense, but she slipped my mind so I went with my first thought.
@DaveB:
I guess there really are only so many ways that you can construct an angular/planar face. BTW, I’m really enjoying the comic; Sydney makes me cackle. Thanks for sharing.
What would really top it all off is if Concretia calls someone a “smeghead” before the fight is done…
The first angular features I can recall was with the introductioin of the Bizarro knock offs of first Superman then an entire cube Earth with Bizarro analogs. Batman, Joker, Lois Lane etc.
Did you think Concretia would look better in orange :)
How do her stats stack up to the thing?
Her (preliminary) stats are in the HUD popup in panel 3.
We really could do with a Grrl Power Wiki. Which would then make it easy to compare with other sources, and answer questions such as this. The easiest of which would be looking at super strength ratings, as Marvel RPGs publish such information. Whilst we can do it on a case-by-case basis, I am sure there are enough readers who would be interested that it would be worth tracking the various stats and powers of the heroes, in a common place.
I would happily update entries in it. Sadly I lack any knowledge of how to set such things up. Whilst I am always willing to experiment with things, for private projects, it is not wise to have someone inexperienced creating the basic framework for a shared initiative.
So, if there is anyone out there who would be willing to get the ball rolling, it would be appreciated by me, for one. Plus it will be a really handy resource when we publish Grrl Power the RPG, the MMOLG and the movies. :-)
If she was a nod to the Marvel rocky one, she would have to be from the South, talk with a twang and her name would be “Thang” . That would be Orange. If she was Red, she would be Brick or perhaps BrickHouse. (She’s mighty mighty… nod to whoever did that gag already).
Can you say Sculpted Abs? I bet you can.
Something I’m expecting to show up later in this battle (might’ve been in the stream, I missed it). Remember the rules lawyering from the first comics? Is that from Syd’s personal experience?
Oooh scrolled back a few to Last Harem Orders: Lightstorm and then the unteleport comment and have a thought about a couple of 4/5 Harem’s vorping in near the bad guys wearing bomb squad armor and military grade flash light effects.
Port in , no night vision. Suit is big and awkward for a normal 20 year old, but for a double strength woman it is just clumsy –and she doesn’t even have to walk in it, just maintain balance. The armor is enough to survive a hip shot from any of the baddies (she could maintain a “spotter” position to avoid tag team hits). Add in a tear gas dispenser for fun.
I assume most of you are fans of Science but do you F**king Love Science?
https://www.youtube.com/watch?annotation_id=annotation_3566218435&feature=iv&src_vid=IC0m31P_qyk&v=RECuQaaGGfA#t=7s
When the video starts you can chose a clean version if you wish.
I certainly am. And want to make it better. To do which, it is necessary to recognise and accept it’s weaknesses and limitations.
And that is a science itself.
Shouldn’t at least -some- of the supers showing up be of the ‘Looking to Join Up’ variety? They can’t ALL be looking for a good ass kicking. . .
Indications are they are a team of mercenaries gathered together ahead of time to take on Archon for infamy and profit. It’s not likely they are dozens of wandering supers who just happened to met up outside the restaurant right after the press release.
Regarding the name of the new super-villainess, and how some people find it somewhat inferior… I am the translator of “Grrlpower” into Spanish (Dave graciously provides a link next to the comic), and while translating this comic into Spanish I ran smack-dab into that problem.
The straightforward translation of her name into European Spanish would be “Cementia”, and it sounds beyond hideously stupid. The phonetics don’t work for a threatening villain, and it is uncomfortably close to “Demencia” (in English, “Dementia”), which is not a concept that I’m comfortable associating that particular character to. And leaving it as “Concretia” (which would work for Latin-American Spanish) would be confusing for European Spanish readers, where “concreto” means something completely different and unrelated to construction materials.
After much thinking I ended up calling here “Porfidia”, which in my opinion works much better in Spanish, as it references the following:
(1) The rock called “pórfido” in Spanish (in English, “porphyr”), which is an igneous rock harder than granite.
(2) The concept of “perfidia” (in English, “perfidy”), which I think goes well with a super-villain.
(3) The Spanish words “porfía” and “porfiado”, which mean, respectively, “the quality of not stopping in front of opposition or adversity and relentlessly going on in order to achieve one’s objectives” and “person who displays that quality”. For some reason I get that kind of vibe from this character :)
Well, and that’s it. I hope you liked this glimpse into the mind of a translator at work!
I think I get the idea of how difficult translations can get. As the saying goes, there’s *always* something lost along the way. Also consider how much more context gets lost as languages evolve & change over long periods of time…This is why there are so many different “versions” of the Bible, for example. At least you don’t have to deal much with the “excessive time” factor between English & Spanish because this comic is totally contemporary.
Thanks for the insight. Sounds like you are doing a great job!
I know that some things are notoriously hard to translate, such as puns and many types of comedy. I was always surprised at how well the British TV series Allo Allo sold to international audiences. Given that it was set in wartime occupied France, I was particularly bemused at how popular it was in both France and Germany. Given that both the French and Germans were portrayed as bumbling buffoons. But, when I thought on it, the only British characters, a pair of airmen, being smuggled out, were shown as being even worse.
But, given how much of the comedy dealt with plays on words. Such as the gendarme who spoke with very foreign sounding phraseology. Bearing in mind though that, like all the other cast members, he was speaking in English, but just putting on a French accent. But the mangled dialogue he spoke made it sound like, say, a Frenchman pretending to be English.
Just how the heck do you translate that kind of gag into French, German, or any other language? Especially as, if say, a French audience hears it, and he sounds like an Englishman pretending to be a Frenchman (simply reversing the premise), then they would be wondering why the Nazis do not arrest him for being a spy. Yet the logic was just as weird to the English audiences. But still funny.
Are you familliar with the Warhammer 40k Universe? We played a game of Only War where my character was the unit Commisar. Whom I based off of Lt. Gruber. He was both hilarious and terrifying. Some of the most fun I’ve had RPing.
Actually, the gendarme was an Englishman pretending to be a Frenchman, that’s why the ‘accent’ was so terrible
Well since concrete and cement aren’t quite the same how do you say cement? The same word? Just wondering. Why not translate it at all. Concretia a female concrete.
Language is not exactly what you might call “logical” ;)
The semantic space for what in English is called “concrete” is described by two words in Spain: “cemento” and “hormigón”. “Cemento” is your run-of-the-mill concrete, and “hormigón” is reinforced concrete (the kind that has steel bars inside and all that).
Could I have used a variant of “hormigón” for this super-villainess name? No, because it would end up too similar to the word “hormiga”, which happens to mean “ant” :P (did I say that natural languages are anything but logical?). I might have got away with using the word “hormigonera” (which is a cement-mixer truck), but I didn’t like using that because it wouldn’t exactly indicate that the lady in question actually *becomes* rock-like.
In Latin America the word they tend to use is “concreto”, which pretty much corresponds to the meaning of “concrete” in English. However, in Spain “concreto” is only an adjective — the adjective “concrete”, like “un libro concreto” = “a particular book, this book and no other”. It wouldn’t work for the readers in Spain if I had gone that way.
As to your question regarding how to say “cement” in the English sense of the word, in Spain we have several words (with regional variations): “mortero”, “argamasa”, “granza”, and so on and so forth. Quite often we also use the term “cemento” in that meaning, but it is not the only word we can use.
So, TL;DR: The semantic spaces for that concept, in English and Spanish, happen to overlap in a somewhat weird way :)
Thank you for the explanations. I have studied language not just the nightmare amalgam that is my American English. But I am no linguist or philologist. Thanx for the data.
So the best thing for DaveB to do would be to provide you with what he wants the name to say to the audience and you pick the Spanish name based on that completely ignoring the English name in the process?
Well, that might help, although I usually can “get” what the name intends to convey. Changes, sometimes, are unavoidable, and compromises must be made. “Traduttore tradittore”, and all that… We often have to settle for conveying a “feeling” in a very different way.
For example: Anvil’s name in Spanish is not Anvil. Why? Because in Spanish all nouns have a gender (either masculine or feminine), and the Spanish equivalent of “Anvil”, which is “Yunque”, happens to be masculine. There are no alternatives for that, so I am unable to use that name (I tried “feminizing” it, but all variations of the word “yunque” with feminine endings I could devise were astonishingly ugly).
So I went looking for something else smithy-related and settled on a feminine word for “hammer” (which usually is “martillo”, which is masculine). That word is “maza” (cognate with “mace” in English), but it also has the following connotations:
(1) It reminds readers of the Spanish name for The Hulk, which is “Masa” (meaning in this case “something massive/enormous; a big chunk of something”).
(2) In Spanish slang, somebody who is very well toned and with a muscular build can be described as “está maza”, or “está hecho una maza” (“this person is built like a hammer/mace”).
(3) And, as mentioned above, “maza” is a kind of hammer, so it kinda keeps the “anvil+hammer” thing.
This is the best I could do with that name, without straying too far from the original.
Now, there are situations where you cannot keep the original meaning *at all* if you want to have a smooth-flowing translation and don’t want to clog the reading experience with footnotes that kill the joke by explaining it. Foremost example? Strip #200. Harem’s joke about vegetarianism being “a mistake”/”missed steak” is *utterly* untranslatable. In the end I was constrained to change the joke because there was no way I could keep the original without it becoming unbearably clumsy.
Translating be hard, yo ;)
I think that JoseB managed to do that perfectly well without DaveB‘s guidance. And he made the right call, as there is no cultural history, baggage or previous recognition merit. Even Spanish speakers who are familiar with English names would not know it.
Especially as, in this instance, it is not just a name, which is a stand alone thing, and may have no meaning other than being the sound that ape-descendants make when grunting to identify each other uniquely. It is a descriptive name, both used to identify an enemy visually and provide a best-guess at their nature. Two very different concepts. So the judgement call was spot on.
That aside, I find it quite appropriate that villain names are designated by Arcon personnel. Villains who provide (genuine, rather than misleading) clues to their power, by their choice of super-name, are being foolish. Unless their powers are so obvious that there is little merit in attempting to misdirect their enemies.
Actually, there is the name from the Flintstones. But, given that was a play on the same source we may well find that the Spanish translators, for that movie, made the same or a similar judgement call.
Actually, in the flkintstones movie, the boss’ daughter IS called “cementia” :)
By the way, I do appreciate the merit of keeping names as originally pronounced the same, in other contexts. For instance the names of movie stars or other famous people, such as heads of state. I dislike the practice of Anglicising names, and prefer to use the original-language version, if I know it, and feel that it is not likely to confuse whoever I am addressing.
Living in a country where I may see films in foreign languages, it is nice when I can pick out the name from the subtitles, because it is phonetically the same. And, although that can often be inferred just by watching the movie, the same cannot be said for actors’ or directors’ names on DVDs. So it is nice to be able to look at the box, and be able to pick out a familiar name. Whilst that might sound obvious, trust me that when the local alphabet is not Latin-based but Cyrillic, you appreciate a phonetic name translation.
Dave could solve the whole problem by simply having the supervillains do what supervillains in Marvel and DC always do. If they are not introduced via a few panels of exposition in their lair (or whatever), then they always announce themselves. You know, like this:
“Fools! You thought your demonstration against a helpless tank would make Sapphire* quail in fear? Well, think again!”
And then the punching begins. If it wasn’t even a whole pile of villains, we could also expect further exposition describing how she got her powers. Thus:
“Dropped by criminals into a machine intended to create artificial sapphires, my family thought I was dead. They divided my fortune and fell to squabbling amongst themselves like hyenas picking at the corpse of a gazelle brought down by tigers. But a year to the day after my supposed demise, I arose out of the cooling slag heap. And leaned that my death was no random killing, it was caused by my family, who were jealous of the fortune I had amassed on my own merits. But I was now well equipped for the revenge that was so rightfully mine. I was better, harder, stronger. And pissed off! After wiping them out I learned that there was no way I could recover my companies and assets, and so now I use my powers to take what it mine by right!”
Speech is, after all, a free action.
* Sapphire is a form of corundum (also called adamant, which is no doubt where “adamantium” comes from) , which is one of the hardest minerals, at 9 on the Mohs’ scale. It also is a suitable female name, and so rather appropriate.
The thing is, names should not be translated/changed into different languages (What is ‘Halo’ in Spanish? Or ‘Maxima’? ‘Harem’?)
The thing, though, is that those are not exactly personal “names” — they are *codenames*, designations that tell *something* about the person who has them. As such, I disagree with you there: I think that they *must* be translated, if one wants to convey those nuances of meaning in another language. And if direct translation is not possible (either because they are not , then they must be *adapted*.
An example from Marvel is Wolverine. There is a straightforward translation of “Wolverine” into Spanish: The animal in question’s name in Spanish is “Glotón”.
Unfortunately, “glotón” has another meaning, which in fact is the one most people think of when they see that word: It can also mean “glutton”, “piggish”. That would be a very unfortunate name for a superhero, not to mention a superhero of Wolverine’s caliber.
So, his official name in Spanish is “Lobezno”, which literally means “Wolf Cub” (whoever created “Lobo” as an over-the-top parody of Wolverine *must* have known some Spanish — The Spanish for “Wolf” is “Lobo”).
So, anyway — there is a big tradition of doing this adaptation of codenames when translating comics. As to your question– “Halo” in Spanish is “Halo”, “Maxima” in Spanish is “Máxima”, and “Harem” in Spanish is “Harén”.
I left “Halo” as-is because, although “Halo” is of the masculine gender, Sydney’s tomboyness allows it to more-or-less fit. I could have tried to use the word “Aureola” (which is feminine) instead, but that also happens to mean “Areola” (as in the one surrounding the nipples), and that seemed to me to be too risqué.
BTW, Sydney still is named Sydney, Peggy is still Peggy, Kenya is still Kenya. Those are *personal names*, and as such I *won’t* translate them. However, codenames? I will translate them, definitely.
Blag, messed my message up — I wanted to say: “if direct translation is not possible (either because they have not a direct equivalent, or because there are unfortunate meanings associated to the word in the new language, or because the translation sounds odd or silly), then they must be *adapted*”
Sorry :P
Actually, calling a wolverine a glutton is pretty approriate
To me, a codename is still a name, but it is not for me to say how you do your work :)
I don’t know if anyone mentioned this but that text around arc light is very funny. It is another great example of the humor that makes this comic worth reading.
Yea, I think it is great it too.
Yeah, it’s little things like that that cause you to examine the pages more intensely than you would with other webics