Grrl Power #212 – Premature Articulation
Ok, that’s enough chaff villains for now. I just had to get a little of the heroes kicking butt out of my system before they start getting in to more serious fights. I think it’s also fairly evident that Sydney is going to start getting antsy about just turtling up for the duration. Also, clearly this page answers the question as to whether Sydney can use the lighthook while her shield is up. Sydney’s issue isn’t incompatible combinations of her powers, its that she can only use two at a time. Mostly this will become an issue when she’s flying. Normally she’ll have her shield up to deflect the wind, but if she needs to haul something with the lighthook or shoot at something, she either needs to land or drop the shield which could be quite dangerous for her.
Surely “Lee Press on Claws” knew his claws could cut his own skin and he was just trying to intimidate. There’s no way you could have claws like that even if they’re retractable or summoned from the dimension of sharp things and not nick yourself while practicing. (And presumably passing out then too.) Still, telling people you’re tougher than you are is a curious strategy. If they’re not intimidated by it, all you’ve done in assure that they’ll hit you much harder than they would have done in the first place. “Well he said his skin is impenetrable, so instead of hitting him with the tranq dart, let’s start with the .50 cal.” It’s a good way to lose a limb if you ask me. I would instead start a fight by announcing that I’m delicate like the Princess and the Pea, and please don’t hit my face or groin or kidneys. Actually that’s probably just an indication that I wouldn’t be a very good brawler.
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TO DAMN FUNNY!
On so many fronts.
Defeated by a slap on the wrist.
Would that mean he is limp wristed?
No it means he’s a naughty boy, of course it usually followed by the words “now don’t do it again”
Oooo, someone has a new Gravvy :D
That panel was just begging to be used
Bhahahahaha! Go go Halo and Lighthook! That was even funnier than the “home run” takeout, I think!
And now we know that Lighthook can pass through the force field, too. And that Sydney has a tendency not to count enemies her fellow players take down even while observing them.
On that topic, the “home run” attack on anyone with a normal anatomy would be impossible. There’s a rather large fleshy area called the “glutous maximus” in the way. Now if it happened as drawn, Mr. Shadow guy must have been “LONG JOHN SILVER” endowed, and those pants don’t particularly allow for that… (Stops typing before the implications catch up.)
Er.. “LONG DONG SILVER.” NSFW reference.
Actually those are both porn stars, “John” being from a few years earlier than “Dong”. What? I read the magazine ads back in the day.
Problematic, I would grant, but “Impossible” not really. All it takes is that the orb dropped down just after it passed out of our field of view. The zip line gives the impression that it was starting to go up at that point, but there is no reason why that could not have just been the first part of a loop to allow it to go steeply down. Then it just follows the contours of the body (cruise missile style) until it homes in on the target.
Huh?
You do realise that the Orb hit him from the front, right?
If you think that doesn´t hurt like hell, you must be a woman.
A blow to the gonads is damn painful for women as well, believe it or not!
Even more so, considering the whole are is nothing but raw nerves and mucus membranes
A blow to the groin on a woman can even be fatal. The female pelvis is a bit weaker because it has to allow childbirth, and there is no… well fleshy padding to absorb some force. So if kicked it will break more easily than a man’s pelvis.
Speaking from a martial arts/self defense point of view though, the gonads shouldn’t be the target of opportunity. For both women AND men, the pubic symphysis (that bit of cartilage where the front portion of the pelvis comes together) is a much more effective target.
A man can recover from a gonad strike and still be an effective fighter and a “cunt punt” can hurt a woman, but her thighs can be effective in blocking or mitigating the strike.
But a blow just below the belt buckle only requires 18 psi to rupture the cartilage at the front of the pelvis and takes several weeks to recover from. and with that cartilage ruptured a person cannot run, walk or even stand, breathing is incredibly painful and even crawling is difficult.
Actually, if you look again you’ll see his junk got crushed by TWO orbs. One came in from the front as you say but another came in from behind.
Actually, as shown by the zip lines, the second orb came in from behind AND from below. His glutous maximus was circumnavigated.
The sad part was: I didn’t even notice the second orb until you mentioned it and I went back to check. I just figured it was one orb flying straight into his junk.
Push come to shove, you can simply assume that the rear orb prevented him from flexing at all to absorb the impact. So, the front hit would be far more effective than a simple knee to the groin if the back hit prevented the front hit from folding over the unfortunate recipient as a response to that hit.
Does the Lighthook go through the shield or is it generated outside of it the way the PPO generates its blast some distance away from its orb?
It definitely appears to be generated completely outside of the force field.
Actually, panel 4 makes it look like it’s coming from within, and extends out
It could be either. It may simply be passing through the force field. Or Halo might be holding the orb close to the force field, so that it can be generated beyond it. With the angle we can see, there is no way to tell which is the case.
Actually, we can reasonably estimate that: just look at her body posture and how she is holding both arms, even if the Bubble is not a sphere but a ‘torpedo’/’shell’, look at how much space there is between her hands and the edge of the Bubble on either side and figure it would have the same ammount to the front and back
Don’t feel down Syd, there’s still plenty of bad guys left to bag, if you hurry.
Yeah she’s the new girl, it’s her first day and all that (besides the rest of the party tends to get upset if you defeat all the bad guys on your own)
*pats Sydney on the head* “Hey, Halo. You DID notice you already beat two super-villains on your first day, right? That`s more than most heroes can say.” #
I can hear Syd complaining even then. About one being a trash-mob, the other a low-level mini-boss…
And that`s where the dude with that cape walks in (the one who slapped Concy out of the way) enters the restaurant and manages to harm her THROUGH her shield.
I’m still waiting for the “Nice transparent forcefield!” attack from the intro to make a comeback.
When her force field is being attacked, it gets lines that go more solid, and the gaps between take on a faint blue tint, shown here: https://www.grrlpowercomic.com/archives/1145
This could be a suggestion of the shield taking stress, or coping for different nearby attacks. It’s already shown to block solids but let air through (I think I remember someone mentioning that), so why not let vision through, but not lasers. Sufficiently advanced tech wouldn’t remove the advantage of sight, and an adaptable shield that alters slightly for the exact threat would be the most advanced defence I can think of, beyond “I’m completely and utterly indestructable, lol” that achilles has.
Lasers use a pretty narrow section of the EM spectrum when they fire. All the field would need to do is temporarily reflect that wavelength. Even a laser that cycled through several wavelengths could be foiled without totally blacking out the field.
Considering how Sydney was recruited about noon-time & this is still here first day & she’s still completely untrained by any ARCHON standards, the fact that she was still “in the running” for a body-count is still impressive.
But it’s also noteworthy that LeePoN was called out on his obvious inconsistencies. Sydney really nailed Nails on that count…
the thousands year old “Impenetrable shield vs can pierce anything spear/can cut anything sword” match though in most of them both shield and spear just get destroyed by paradox (my favorite application of this is in Saint Seiya aniime where Seiya makes Dragon Shiryu hitting his own shield)
It would have been rather amusing if LPoN had destroyed himself via paradox when his claws hit his skin.
But not as funny as watching him faint dead away from a few puncture wounds. Although that’s not as odd as it might seem.
As a very young man I once opened a box of radiator fluid the wrong way, with a box knife (handle holding a razor blade held at about 45 degrees) and pulling towards me. After neatly cutting the side of the box, the blade ended its journey in my kneecap. I pulled the blade out, pulled up my pant leg, and in the gaping wound I observed the skin layer, a thin layer of yellow fat (and I was 6′ and about 155 lbs at that time, everyone has fat all over their body), a layer of red meat, and the shiny white bone of my kneecap with a tiny nick in it from the blade. And then it filled up with blood and started welling out of the wound.
I yelled for my manager (I was working at an auto parts store) and she came out of the stock room, looked at me bleeding, and said “You have to go to the hospital.” I knew the company policy that said that the shop could not be open with only one person present (anti-theft policy), I wasn’t really hurting, and said that I’d just need a couple minutes to stop the bleeding. So that’s what we did.
Then I got home , showed the wound to my dad, and he said “You have to go to the hospital.” And dad knows best, so we went to an immediate care center. The doctor said I’d need a few stitches, injected the knee with a local and a bunch of saline to puff it up, and started to erect an odd kind of frame and sheet thing at waist level (I was lying on an examining table at this point). I asked what he was doing and he said he was keeping me from looking at the injury and the stitching procedure. Now recall that I had no issue receiving the injury, no issue (and quite a bit of fascination) looking into the wound and seeing the various layers of my body that I had just violated with a knife, no issue cleaning the wound, taping it up, and working about 6 hours on my feet until my shift ended, and no issue riding a bicycle home about 5 miles up and down hills. So I said “Don’t. I’d like to watch.” And he removed the screen and left the room to allow the local to take effect.
And then maybe 5 minutes in, while looking down at my knee all numb and puffed up with the saline, my dad is suddenly stopping me from sliding off the table and I am regaining consciousness. The doctor comes in, we explain what happened, and I say “Yeah, I guess I need the screen after all.”
Shock is an odd bird. The injury had no real effect on me, it didn’t even hurt much, but the combination of the knee being numbed and feeling foreign to me, and it being all unnaturally puffed up, that is what triggered the shock reflex and knocked me out for a few seconds.
That sounds more like the Shock was subsiding, leaving you with the realisation that you were seriously hurt.
Adrenaline and shock can keep you up for hours, without any ill effects. Those start when the shock wears off.
Also i´m no doctor (which doesn´t stop me from roleplaying one) and i could be completely off the mark here.
So, as always, feel free to completely ignore me.
Believe me, there is no adrenaline component to working at an auto parts store… Waiting on a bunch of people who know nothing about their cars and trying to drag the information out of them you need to sell them the right part might be frustrating, but it’s not exciting.
And while adrenaline can help you ignore wounds for some time (like not feeling how busted up your hands are until after a fistfight is over) , shock doesn’t work like that. Shock causes your blood pressure to drop and that’s what knocks you out.
Not from your work, from the wound.
Adrenaline, endorphine, noradrenaline and whathaveyou are byproducts of being wounded, not working in a car shop.
And when all those selfgenerated happy pills stop working, you faint (possibly). Not really a secret how that works.
Really… My wound was trivial. I observed the wound, saw the layers of my own flesh, watched the wound fill with blood, and was not affected *at all*. I then patched the wound using the shop first aid kit, and worked the rest of my shift with the wound.
The only issue was when I was staring at my numb and foreign-looking kneecap. That’s when shock took hold and I passed out for a few seconds.
Your opinion and your bodies may have differed. Even a needle injection can trigger defensive responses. Because I have small, hard to find veins, I have been told, on more than one occasion that if any doctor or nurse fails to draw blood on the first two attempts I should stop them from trying again. This by specialists who would know better than more general medical personnel.
Any breach of the skin can trigger the defensive reactions. Toidillov clearly has solid knowledge in this area. That said though, I can empathyse with your argument too. As I had minor surgery once. Got bandaged up, went home. Chilled out. Went to the bathroom to inspect the dressing. Which peeled off unexpectedly (just looking at it, not fiddling with it), dragging the wound open. Likewise only a minor wound. But I went down like Lee did here.
Yet other times I have had my entire arm drenched in blood (top to bottom), other gaping wounds, shattered bones, collar bone poking above the shoulder height, dried blackened blood matted in dressings, you name it, and had no problems whatsoever. I think there is a big difference if you are expecting or have become de-sensitised to it. Likewise if you have been pumped full of the ‘happy pills’. But if realisation hits you that you are looking inside your body, unexpectedly, and you have nothing to counter that, then you can go all wobbly.
“Toidillov clearly has solid knowledge in this area.”
I tend to doubt this is correct, since Toidillov seems to think that shock acts like adrenaline. It does not, not even slightly.
I don’t know why your doctor wouldn’t let you watch what he was doing…My doctor let me watch what the camera was showing during my Colonoscopy…
You didn’t read carefully enough. He was going to block my view as a matter of SOP, but when I told him I wanted to watch he had no objection and removed the screen. I was the one who told him he’d best put it back after I passed out for a few seconds just from staring at my numb, swollen kneecap.
In my case, the doctor already had the viewing screen up & running. Considering that I’ve always treated that particular part of my anatomy as an “exit-only valve” during my entire life, I had no desire to watch anything going IN. He still didn’t turn off the screen after I told him that.
You should have complained
LOL! :)
Well that was over quickly.
Lighthook + shield = good to know.
Come on Sydney, keep up -.-
So now we know what the orb-to-orb connection points on the skill chart don’t do.
It also means Shield + PPO is a go.
So, Sydney is now a re-usable grenade (with enough upgrades to PPO she could be called a tactical nuke).
Yup, and Sydney now has significantly greater chance to become rated as the world’s first ten star hero. Once she has had gained comparable experience to Maxima and fleshed out her skill tree. Especially as she is not going to have to use any of those slots to allow the powers to work with each other.
Who would have thought that the Quisatz Haderach would be a nerd? Roleplayers rule… the world!
Being a walking bomb is not at all the same as being the savior of the world. In the contrary to what Vaarsuvius says, there is indeed a limit to the number of social situation which can be solved with a large enough explosion.
Halo can’t solve a hostage crisis, or even prevent a bank robbery where the tellers and other innocents aren’t being threatened, by simply rolling in with her shield and the PPO and letting fly a few blasts.
Have you seen how many upgrades the PPO has? If you manage to make up a list of ten upgrades and not include one that would be useful in a bank robbery, you have no imagination (or are going out of your way to pick nerf upgrades). Here is an example set:
* Straight-line beam (single target)
* Split beam (up to five targets)
* Triangle-shaped attack (two dimensional)
* Cone-shaped attack (three dimensional)
* Sphere-shaped attack (radiating from a distant point)
* Sphere-shaped attack (radiating out from Halo, with a safe eye in the middle of the blast)
* Homing (can go around corners **)
* Discriminatory homing (can attack types of targets or named individuals and hunt them **)
* Selective effect (can stop the blast from harming friends and/or objects, so literally no friendly fire **)
* Incorporeal attack (even ghosts, demons, those on the astral or ethereal plane, etc, can be hit **)
** Note that using the principle of compatibility this can be used in conjunction with any of the other modes.
And, even without the PPO, the tentacle orb could take out an entire team of bank robbers. They would pose no threat to Halo. Although if they threatened to kill the hostages, then Sydney would have to consider using some of the PPO functions. Unless, of course, either of the mystery orbs provide her alternatives. Say using the green orb for ‘mass selective polymorph’ to turn all the villains into loaves of bread and fish. And the brown one to heal and/or resurrect any hostages, that had been injured or killed before she arrived.
Then, of course, there are the thirteen upgrades to the tentacle orb to consider. I shall let your imaginations run wild on those possibilities, rather than listing them. But, if you still think that she would not rate a 10 on the scale, do the above not seem more powerful than Maxima? Who is a 9. That was the serious comment. The other one was a bit more tongue in cheek. However, in Dune it only referred to the most powerful human (and then only with the power to see the ultimate consequences of actions and make the best choice).
But, it was not pure hyperbole. Being able to transform anything on the planet into anything else, and raise anybody who died from the dead, would give Halo fair capability to impersonate a deity. And who would be able to stop her if she chose to? I think Maxima is very wise to prioritise teaching Sydney ethics.
“Have you seen how many upgrades the PPO has?”
Speculation is as speculation does. Right now the PPO is just a big, fire starting blast. Which is not terribly conducive for protecting innocents.
Which, if you go back and look at my initial comment, you will see I was not talking about. Nor was Prototype Cyborg, who I was replying to. I was saying about her eventual potential when she has gained experience and has developed her powers. Likewise in each subsequent post.
But, even now, she is near invulnerable to any physical or energetic attack. Plus can choose between devastating, tank destroying, power or precision control capable of lifting a car. So not exactly weak, even starting her career.
Not that is a bad thing. There is plenty of scope for humour, character development and interesting stories. And there are various ways to bypass even such a powerful shield. All sorts of psionics, magic and the like. So it should still be interesting to see where this goes. And it is interesting to see what might happen to a (fairly) ordinary person who gains god-like powers.
Why do I see Syd as an oribtal weapons-platform now?
Get her up there with precise targeting equipment and anything else she needs to stay alive for at least how long she needs to, then PPO the target tactically.
Maybe just drop Archilles.
Just because the Molestorb can pass through, does not automatically mean the PewPewOrb can (if you believe it does, by all means, join her inside her bubble while she tests it out, without any form of protective gear)
True. But check out DaveB‘s editorial above. If you read through the whole opening paragraph, you will see he is clearly indicating that the PPO will work the same as the tentacle has here.
It will make it very hard for readers to feel that Halo is in peril. But Dave has already shown ways that it can be done. And, unless she keeps her shield up 24/7, she can always be caught by surprise. It will make writing good drama and suspense that much harder though, in general. On the other paw mind, it will allow more scope for comedy and banter, in situations that weaker characters would not be able to pull off in a remotely realistic setting. So there are both advantages and drawbacks to the capability.
But that’s the thing: if the PewPew can go out then similar can go in, unless it’s a one-way mirror kinda thing, and then you are just going Mary-Sueing
No, it’s a “the orbs are designed to work together” scenario. That doesn’t mean a similar blast to the PPO (even from a similar set of orbs, if there are any) can get in. The shield isn’t ‘one way’, it simply doesn’t block the use of other orbs.
Hey, such deep cut in this place would be fatal- big arteries…
Well, he is turning white pritty fast.
Though I doubt Sydney realized she killed someone yet
There are people who don’t mind seeing others bleed, but faint at the sight of their own blood; maybe Lee is one of them? I hope so for Sydney anyway, or else she is having her Gwen Stacy moment sooner than imagined.
Wouldn’t a Gwen Stacy moment involve someone she cared about though?
I realised that as soon as I hit “Submit Comment”. My bad.
+1 for the Gwen Stacy Moment!
Especially with a thorough lecture from Max after the fight.
He fainted at the sight of his own blood. With his (near)impenetrable skin, he’s probably not used to being the one cut; except during the awkward new-power stage. (When he was still learning to not scratch itches.)
The ultimate prank against this guy – put itching powder in his drawers…
“MY SPURTING BLOOD??? Yipe!”
It is not that the arteries and veins are particularly big, but two pair of vessels are feeding a very important organ. By the looks of it most of his claws ended up in his upper left pectoralis muscles, but that index finger gets awfully close to the jugular veins and left carotid artery. You might to do some first aid regarding blood flow if you do not want this to be Sydney’s first “kill.”
Legally, Sydney is pretty safe even if Bleeder were her first kill. He was using lethal weapons and showed full intent to keep on using them. & while Math might have some legal problems for doing the same thing, Sydney is an innocent, and would be able to plea she did not know the dangers of what she did, unlike Math, who would be presumed to know them [probably very precisely]. There would also be the image point. Tossing a knife at a target full of obvious kill point is clear lethal intent. Slapping a fist to hit a spot that is not usually thought of as dangerous is default “harnless” looking.
Screw ‘legality’ and being ‘safe’, do you really want a(n accidental) death to be on Sydney’s conscious? Nothing any of them could do or say that would make it ‘right’, and, if we didn’t know that this was just a flashback, could have been something traumatic enough to force Sydney to go be a hermit in the Amazon or become a villain
Actually, his wound doesn´t look so bad. When i first saw the panel, i thought he hit his neck, but he implanted his claws into the shoulder.
Should be ok.
And that he turns white is understandable, since he´s about to faint.
No it won’t be fatal. This is still not a grimdark comic. Stop trying to argue it into one.
He cut himself slightly. He fainted on teh sight of his own blood. Hilarious pathtetic end for this fight.
I also not that this is the second melee attack user Sydney has taken down without much of a fight. She seems to become “anti-melee specialist” – Math should really look out.
Well, there was that mugger.
“Oh, the humanity”.
As a medical student, I disagree – it looks to me like all he’s done is lacerate his left trapezius. Although the blood splashes / off-camera pinky make the exact points hard to identify.
Only without medical assistance and they have a magical healer right there.
They do? Where? The SuperDoc is still at ARC-chu (yeah, that’s just a silly way that ‘ACHON HQ’ sounds to {Arc+aitch+queue = sounds like a sneeze})
Also, does Sydney have the orbs in the wrong hand in panel 4? Lighthook is coming to the forb in her right hand, and in panel 7 she has the forb in her left hand again.
Looks like it to me.
However, since her shield orb was in her left hand here; https://www.grrlpowercomic.com/archives/1317
I’d say it was panel 7 that’s wrong on this page.
No, still panel 4. The shield orb is in her left hand (as it was) in panel 7.
Why would she not be allowed to switch hands? It would not take that long to do.
Not saying she shouldn’t, but it seems unusual to have the Lighthook tentacle return to the shield orb and not its own.
It looks like panel 4 is wrong. The orb colours have to be exchanged.
The light hook is coming from the flight orb.
we are also working on the assumption that halo`s powers don`t work unless she is holding the orbs in her hands. following that train of tought, if she let go of the shield orb then the shield wouold go out for the time she is not holding it. and max told her to keep it up at all time.
Well, she can pass a orb from one hand to the other without let it go, like with an egg (unless you are a crazy juggler).
Yup, she did. Not sure how I managed that but it should be fixed now.
I suppose in a similar vein of tiny details, Lee Press On Claws has blood on his pinky-claw when he pulls them out of his shoulder, but not when he examines his hand to see his own blood.
Okay, that didn’t work, try again:
:)
Dammit! Quoted the wrong thing
Hah! Very punny :P
So I logged in expecting to see some Math destruction, and then…
Bwahahah…. Way to ruin the moment, Sydney. But, still… Bwahahahah!
Another possible comment for Math from Syd:
“Dude, really? Cliche-dialogue instead of ass-kicking?”
Or as Canderous Ordo once stated: to kick ass on the dude who chose to blab instead of insta-nuking.
Why does he go ‘my… own… blood’
That doesn’t sound like something you’d say after you just cut yourself. Except maybe he’s not used to it?
Like my big strong motorcycle riding brother he faints at the sight of his own blood. A serious weakness in a “tough” guy.
It actually seems to be worse in more ‘macho’ guys yea
I have given over 8 gallons of blood and at the donation sites that does seem to be a trend. Though I do give them points for trying.
I tried giving blood several times, even with my phobia against needles.
First time I had to go to the hospital afterwards because the 3 dudes trying to take the blood used me as a pin-cushion and actually managed to disable my arm by hitting nerves.
The other couple of times were only marginally better.
At least I got my blood tested for donations when somebody needs something.
Hopefully, you’ve been giving your blood in relatively small amounts over long periods of time…After 8 gallons, you shouldn’t even be writing anything here…
Yeah started giving when it was a pint now it’s half a liter which is slightly more. My mom made it to 13 gallons before she had to stop.
If his claim about impenetrable skin is true, he wouldn’t be used to seeing his own blood.
“Psychological Limitation – Faints at sight of his own blood”…what, 10 pts?
Well that depends. If his skin really was impenatrable, it wouldn’t matter
He’d have lost anyway.
Either his skin was impenetrable, then his claws would have been broken by it.
Or like this.
This is what happens when you try to score free disad points by taking one that you don’t think will actually apply, in-game. Inexperienced GMs say no. Experienced GMs say yes. *Evil* GMs just smile.
And “REALY EVIL’ gms seem to think about it a bit then say yes nonchalantly.
at this point any experienced role player would start rolling a new character (it’s gonna be one of those games)
either that or start making bets about what’s gonna happen to that character
I must get together, and GAME with you guys/gals!!
You can get blood out of someone without breaking their skin.
Just ask knife-tooth guy.
Except that the knife would have broken the skin of the palate or the gums.
That’s not skin, though, that’s mucus membrane. Different thing entirely. So it might not apply. Same with an eye poke, since even if the eye lid is invulnerable, the eye is modified neural tissue.
A real downside to LPoN, though, would be the difficulty getting vaccinated. But that’s a bit more realism than a straight up fight would do… and might not apply, depending on when the invulnerability occurs.
Common level disadvantage? Why not? He get nosebleeds on the first impact over 2d6 physical. He’s gonna sleep through ALL the really good fights. Kinda like Nails up there.
Dave likes DC Heroes (it is the RPG that Sydney is playing in the first few strips). This looks like “Catastrophic Irrational Fear: Own Blood”. This means that Lee Press-on Claws would need to roll 18 or better on 2d10 (roll again and add for doubles) to avoid flight or paralysis. 50 build points.
if i where math i would also be upset. Someone comes in and promise you a fair fight, and someone else kill steals him during pre match banter…. Sure, he is still in the lead, but it was his kill god damn it….
Hey, he stole Dabbler’s kill. Math *totally* had it coming.
Nah, she deflected it with her sword.
Dabblers kill was still up.
He claimes 4, the 3 guys at the same time, and concretia
I doubt Math has problems with impenetrable skin.
After all his attacks (as a rule) do not penetrate skin.
+1 My thoughts exactly. You can take a heck of a lot of damage without skin penetration. In fact that’s what kills most accident victims, the internal trauma. If she had Hulk slammed him he’d be a bag of goo and bone splinters with perfectly intact skin. Assuming the skin was impenetrable of course.
But it will be a pretty corpse.
At least compared to someone sliced and diced.
Depends on what you consider ‘pretty.’
There are some very strange places on the internet…
If you look at the beefcake scene, you will notice that Math’s body is covered in long scars, possibly from knife fights.
Agreed. When I saw this page, my first thought was “Math could have taken him. One, maybe two, kick(s) to the head and he’s down, like Brass Knuckles’ buddy.”
Also, Math seems to have no problem with his math. He did rack up 4 takedowns.
Sydney does need to learn a little challenge fight etiquette. On the other hand, Lee Press On Claws did go down in one hit, so Math probably wouldn’t have enjoyed the fight much anyway.
Oh well, looks like a lull in the battle anyway, so now that the chaff has been cleared, it’s time to a real chew toy.
If he could be taken unawares by the lighthook, Math probably figures it wouldn’t have been much of a fight. Besides, he was the one telling Sydney to start thinking ahead. :)
From my pov she was perfectly fine.
It`s not kill-stealing if they`re still in the cliche pre-match banter.
Also, Syd probably could reason with: “Nuke first, laugh later.”
If he hasn’t thrown a punch yet, the encounter hasn’t locked. Not a kill-steal.
“I say, We take off and nuke the site from orbit. It’s the only way to be sure.” ;-)
Four (yes, DR. REVENGE was not the only one counting).
In the bottom left panel, did you forget to color in a tiny piece of his wrist? Because it kinda looks like his hand ends in a stump.
You win the easter egg hunt.
Syd is missing the bruise on her face too.
Don’t be sad DaveB, we nitpick because we care :-)
Whoops! That should be fixed now.
At least the nit-pickers here realize that, if/when you get around to putting your comics in actual print, you would probably prefer that all the nits get picked out.
We are just DaveB’s unpaid (and some are paying to) spell/content checkers.
We are compensated by being given 2 AWESOME comics to “nit pick” each week.
(I do think DaveB leaves some stuff out just for fun)
One hand is tucked under the other arm. We are actually seeing back to the doorway behind Math.
It’s how some people cross their arms (ignoring the ‘left over right’, ‘right over left’ variations), some people grasp their other arm other with the hand that goes under, others tuck both hands under, like Math
Nice detail on Anvil’s ripped off sleeve.
That’s the most damage that guy could do
Aw man… Her new blouse. :P
And I just noticed: 1 of the lenses in her glasses is missing.
Impressive detail
Almost as much as the missing button… and the lingerie peep.
“Dammit man! You had a chance to go for her blouse and you tore off the SLEEVE?” Prison beatdown ensues.
Which is strange, because prior to that panel, she wasn’t wearing glasses.
Cue Harem’s ability to vorp in and out :-)
most people have reading glasses, she has fighting glasses
It’s one of those HUD VR glasses
https://www.grrlpowercomic.com/archives/1303
Thought it might have been one of them Balls of a Dragon Scouter thingiemejupiters, but if you look carefully, the left lens is just not as ‘shiny reflective’ as the right
I don’t know. Anvil probably could have also shown him. “Impenetrable skin” is not “Unbreakable bones”.
Very true. But, he may have unbreakable bones to go with his claws. He could have just been experimenting with cutting down his really long slap talk boasting, by omitting that. It is not like adamantium claws and bones are without precedent.
Either way here is the proof of Sydney’s ‘bad powers’ theory.
Farming henchmen AND kill stealing. Halo, that’s just inappropriate behavior! You bring shame to our geeky brethren. Though, points for attempting witty banter.
The “hey if you need to bring a knife to a fist fight it’s fine with…” is Math’s not Sydney’s, thats why it’s cut short when she take him out in one hit.
That makes much more sense, thanks! I was wondering why Sydney would have cut off the line.
Ahhh, got it. Since it was from the tentacle side, I thought it was Sydney, cutting herself off after a Math-based glare (and/or the blood spurt from Mr. Press On).
Of course, that means we have to remove the points for witty banter…
It is perfectly natural to think that the banter comes from Sydney initially there. I did, at first, too. Before re-assessing. Trouble is if you put the speech bubble tail on the left of it, then it looks like it is Lee Press on Nails who is saying it (as it would be pointing at him in the previous panel). And putting a chibi Math head in would not work as there is not the room for it. Likewise it would make that panel far too cluttered and would reduce the impact of seeing the tentacle hit.
The only solution I could think, to avoiding that tendancy to create an initial confusion, is to put the tail to the left, but have it curve so that it points straight up. Although that could make someone think there is a flying speaker involved (especially as there are flyers in the area), a quick process of elimination, due to none being otherwise involved in this scene, would narrow it down to being Math, as he is facing Lee and so the tail has no way of pointing at him directly.
Or do not put the tail at all, actually DaveB did it a few times before.
Every bubble has some form of tail (even thought bubbles), usually when spoken by someone off-panel the tail is placed inside bubble (or, if there is room in the bubble, put the persons name or initial in brackets)
“Every bubble has some form of tail ”
That’s not true in general nor in GrrlPower either.
Show me an example (of an artist simply not being a moron) where that happens (am aware of the ‘generally speaking’ rule, and that there are exceptions to every rule, just would like to see an example)
Sorry, I had not seen this.
There are a lot of examples, it is pretty common when the speaker is outside panel, DaveB did it several times like in panel 2 and 4 here: https://www.grrlpowercomic.com/archives/1204.
Also when it is totally clear who the speaker is, like in panels 1, 2 and 3 here: https://leftoversoup.com/archive.php?num=512
Does that suit?
I hereby dub this thread the tale of the manx bubble.
Another approach is to color code the speech bubbles. I’ve seen that a few places, usually according to clothing or hair color.
Yeah, Flaky Pastry does that, but man, I don’t need that many more details to keep track of. :)
True, I do not like it, makes some bubbles hard to read to me.
Hey now, if DOTA games have taught me anything, it’s that you should let your carry player get as many kills as possible. It’s not kill stealing, it’s strategy.
Thing is, I’d put Math as the carry, surely?
He’s got the whole ‘overwhelming right click’ thing going on.
Sydney is definitely an Invoker-analog at best :p
Not sure about DOTA terminology but in League he’d be more of an Assasin than a Carry. He’s also obviously more than far enough along in his build so giving Sydney the kill would be the better option. She’s clearly an AP Carry since it doesn’t take much to knock her down, but her skills are ridiculously effective.
I’ve never played DOTA (Google helped me know what that even meant), and I don’t know what a “carry player” is, but in Excom: Enemy Unknown you try to let your lowest ranked squaddie get the kills so that they can level up. There’s no point in having your Major make all the kills when you’re trying to promote a new Lieutenant up to Major.
Yep. That is true in many games. And in this world, Sydney is the only one (known) who actually gains extra super powers as she levels up! She really needs the experience.*
* Assuming that the skill tree is tied in with a game-style xp reward system, as Sydney thinks. Whereas it could simply be a power certification tree. Showing when new power combos are discovered through actual usage. Rather than unlocking them. Although her being able to allocate a ‘skill’ did seem to support her take on it.
Did something similar in a turn-based WWII computer game (can’t remember which one, but it wold have been the late 90’s), would send the medic in for ‘mercy killings’ just so that they got some experience (plus a bit of a kill count :D)
I find games which only award xp for killing to be irritating. A medic should gain xp every time he heals. A wizard who paralyses a foe should gain xp. A team-mate who distracts an opponent, should gain xp for an assist. In war games, if multiple units attack an enemy unit, then all should gain experience from it, even if only one gets the kill.
And if a foe has been weakened from 50 hp to 1 hp, the guy getting the kill should only get 1/50th of the xp.
But, yea, I have been there and done that. It still feels silly though, whittling down an opponent, so that a medic or other unit can get the kill. But, if that is what the game mechanics force, in order to advance the unit, then you do not have much choice.
in the rifts game system points for imagination creativity and skill already existed but a later add to rules set tech or medic get bonus for skill use, brawler bonus for melee take downs, mage bonus for spell use to complete task
Yea, modern pen and paper role playing games tend to have more flexible xp systems. Something that is easier to implement where you have a games master, as opposed to an inflexibly programmed computer.
Interestingly some have completely different advancement mechanics, that do not have arbitrary experience levels or quantities. For instance, in one early edition of Call of Cthulhu, you would simply keep track of any skills you used in the adventure. At the conclusion, on the off chance that you survived and were still of sound enough mind to use skills, you would roll percentile dice versus each skill level. The skills themselves being rated as your percentage chance to use them, under normal conditions. But the chance to improve it was the opposite of that.
To put it another way, you would have to fail your end of adventure skill check, in order to advance.
Which was actually quite a clever mechanism. Because a beginner will pick up the easy parts of a skill fast. Gradually, as more is learnt, the rate of improvement slows down. Eventually it takes a lot of effort to get any progress, if already near the top of the profession. It is easy to spot a quick gain when first learning a skill. Later you might need a moment of inspiration to understand some subtly that has escaped you before.
Didn’t mean to imply that that was the only way to gain experience for a medic, but played well, there was little need for the medic to heal (and was mostly just going for their kill acreditation rather than the experience from it, but you try having a relatively weak medic armed only with a pistol try and kill a full health machinegunner with a full mag without help {and no, this game preceeded the ‘one-shot head-shot’ games} :P)
And here I thought you got slapped on the wrist in court.
So Sydney CAN use the tentaclorb through the shield! Oh boy! This is going to be awesome! “Why do you keep hitting your head against my shield?! Why do you keep hitting yout head against my shield?! Bwahahahahah”
Also Math would probably had kicked Lee’s ass anyway, probably while saying things like “Ultra sharp claws aren’t much good if you can’t land a hit” or “You know what else isn’t much good? Impenetrable skin vs bone breaking kick”
At least it would not be an open fracture, but it could make bone-resetting surgery quite difficult.
Nah, you just use his nails to make any necessary incisions. Easy-peasy!
I bet Maxima has the lead though when it comes to people taken out. Or Achilles. To whom go the points the time(s) Maxima used Achilles as a club or thrown brick?
They probably split those points equally between the 2 of them
Maxima gets the point, Achilles gets the assist. And Halo’s still working from the charity stripe, to continue the analogy.
Wait, is this the first time we’ve seen Math without his shirt?
https://www.grrlpowercomic.com/archives/672
No
Though now that I look back at it, it seems that in the old comic, Math had alot of scars.
In this one, his skin is smooth.
EASTER EGG!
You only get half of one.
Under magnifacation he has one on his shoulder but is missing the one on his bicep.
Seeing as both comics are only a few hours apart (in universe time), it should not be as faint as it is
but it is still there
The “Doctor” has healing powers so the scars fade faster.
Scars are already healed wounds though
Over time scars fade or stretch out.
Not all scars, and not this quickly
Which is why I mentioned the Doctor Sydney saw after her eye thing. https://www.grrlpowercomic.com/archives/709
BTW every scar I have has faded over the years including some surgical scars. But then I’m middle aged so it takes a while sometimes.
As far as memory will allow, the only scar got was after jumping into bed with a knife about 26 years ago, still have the scar (every other scar healed without scaring using special nail polish from Avon, before they decided to remove the formaldyhide. Heck, mum had a huge leg injury where a triangle of the skin was pulled back, but the nail polish helped seal and repair it {after the stupid nurse removed the stitches the doctor had put in to keep the edges of the skin back in place})
I’m guessing LPoC is smart enough to lie when it comes to the mandatory “explain your powers to the enemy” showdown. Just a shame Sydney called his bluff.
I’m guessing he only exaggerated the “impenetrable skin” bit. Maybe a normal knife or bullet wouldn’t have harmed him and he knew Math didn’t had any “cutting power”. Maybe he genuinely didn’t knew that he could be harmed by is own claws too, even if it would be a bit surprising.
If you have claws on your fingers, you WILL cut yourself at some point.
Either when you’re drunk, or when you have an itch that’s so distracting you forget you have claws
Well, he probably learned to not scratch itches pretty soon after he got his claws. Also, does “impenetrable” skin even itch?
If the claws add a couple inches you could finally scratch that one place you couldn’t reach before. AAAhhhh oh yeah!
Reminds me of a story my dad once told me. He was pruning trees, and had a ring knife on his finger (like this one). He got an itch on his nose and wanted to scratch it. You can guess the outcome.
Auch
ah yes – reminds of the tale of orangebeard the pirate – he had a hook for his left hand and wore an eyepatch. He earned the hook while plundering a ship under the protection of the Orange Dutch company. He lost his eye when an albatross shat into it – apparently it was his first day with a the new hook…
If I had near impenetrable skin I would be hesitant to test the limits on my power, you know, seeing as finding the limit would mean crossing the limit. As for the whole ‘can I cut myself?’ argument, the whole fainting scene would imply he is to chickens**t to start cutting himself.
On the other hand, some people always faint at the sight of their own blood, no matter how often it happens.
Poor Sydney. But she should know, the new member never beats the experienced members in a headcount challenge, and absolutely never their first headcount challenge. Unless it’s with overwhelmingly unnecessary destructive force that the more experienced members all disapprove of, the type that would take out a couple of city blocks and nearly kill a lot of innocent people. It’s like proclaiming invincibility then immediately challenging someone to a fight. Which Lee Press On Claws just did.
(In Susie News’ voice) Is beginner’s luck a lie? Update at 11.
actually there was no voice-over for those, it was in the ticker-tape at the bottom of the screen…
at least the guy doesn’t have to keep playing Diablo anymore… (so far, that is.)
Oh, I know. Just sounded more amusing to me to have Susie say it.
Plus, Moar Suzie!!!
Seconded.
She may not win on numbers in the headcount challenge, but most of Math and Anvil’s opponents (except Mr. Nose Boop) will at least be able to brag that they got taken down by a tough fighter in a cool way – Halo’s targets will never want to speak of this again. Ever.
“How did shadow stalker get taken out?”
“He got beaten up by some girl’s balls”
“…LPoC?”
“Same girl whipped him into submission.”
“Right… Maxima?”
“No the thin spindly one”
“Wait, that was a girl? Thought it was some skinny short guy!”
“The one with the guns? She looked damn accurate firing those things!”
“Um, no. The girl that joined ARCHON this afternoon. You know, the one with the big force field and dorky glasses at the firing range?”
“You mean the one that ran around like a total spaz at the end? How could she beat anyone?”
The molestorb can penetrate the shield. None of us are safe. [shudder]
It also means Shield + PPO is a go.
MABY.
Per the explanation above, it is a go. Dave states “Sydney’s issue isn’t incompatible combinations of her powers, its that she can only use two at a time.” That means all combinations of Orb power will work together, including through the shield orb.
How about you join her inside her bubble (without any form of protection) when she tests it out?
I would but I can’t quite fit in my monitor.
We must respect Sydney’s actions as she did it FOR SCIENCE!!!
At the bad guy debrief: “How about we don’t get chatty with the good guys. Huh? Could we NOT tell them what they are dealing with?”
For those of you that think that Sydney wasn’t playing fair; this is NOT a fair fight. This is a military operation. What Sydney did here was disobey orders. As she has not received any military training, she will just have to be forgiven this slip, but that doesn’t mean she is not in for a stern lecture.
Not even that. Her orders were just to keep her shield up. There was nothing about not engaging the enemy if she could.
Exactly! She could even combine the shield & flight to mow down the mooks – some sort of HamstORBall attack…
Halo-bowling or Halo-ball, maybe Halo-Throw with the use of the Molest-Orb.
Image of General Grievous’s four legged one tire motorcycle popped into my head.
https://www.seibertron.com/images/products/large/sw-generalgrievous2.jpg
Actually Max told her to put her shield up and keep it up and she has. Max did not say she couldn’t attack from inside the shield (mostly because she didn’t know she could).
Fair enough. So Sydney is off of the hook, except she did cock-block Math, that is, if you are willing to accept that the villain is a dick.
Well if he hadn’t been a fainting wuss she wouldn’t have. Math would have had a new bleeding hacky sack to play with.
I’m sure Sydney was just as surprised as anybody Nails went down like that. She was just trying to to see if Math could turn those claws into a “stop hitting yourself” weapon.
LPOC’s powers remind me of the fantasy trope where the protagonist finds out the antagonist is searching for the only weapon that could kill them so they go find it first because, clearly, the best place to keep the only thing that could kill you is in close proximity and not far away where it has remained safely hidden for the last millennia.
Genius.
Well it still may be a good idea to know where it is.. or better yet.. relocate it somewhere where only you know about and some crazy ancient legend does not point to.
Or start a bunch of crazy legends (hire some witches, fortune tellers, and bards) about the locations of a few dozen artifacts which can utterly destroy you. Except they don’t exist. Make sure you don’t shirk on the deadly traps anyway, because anyone looking for one of these faux artifacts is surely no friend of yours.
That worked SO well for Oedipus.
And Macbeth.
Evil Overlord rule #49
If I learn the whereabouts of the one artifact which can destroy me, I will not send all my troops out to seize it. Instead I will send them out to seize something else and quietly put a Want-Ad in the local paper
Especially improtant for aspiring evil-overlords: “Follow da rulez.”
Nr. 221: Whatever my one vulnerability is, I will fake a different one. For example, ordering all mirrors removed from the palace, screaming and flinching whenever someone accidentally holds up a mirror, etc. In the climax when the hero whips out a mirror and thrusts it at my face, my reaction will be “Hmm…I think I need a shave.”
I love the weakness fakeout, yet it’s so underutilized.
The Velma-reversal was proof of that :D
Actually that was a whole trope of itself, more of a moment fake than a persistant faked weakness.
Wait, what? Scoody’s attractive ‘handler’ “Velma”?
Please don’t just give a link to TVTropes, will not willingly/knowingly go there (same with using Google to search for something, only have Google as homepage because it has interesting images spelt out in ‘GOOGLE’ sometimes)
according to Wikipedia “Scooby-Doo is the male dog and lifelong companion of Shaggy Rogers”
Guess you didn’t catch the too subtle innuendo :P
No, Velma is the geeky girl in glasses.
To me, Velma was always more attractive than Daphne
Whacked on the wrist with a pool noodle of light. If he survives he is Never living this down.
Was there a May vote incentive coming up anytime or no due to overworkings?
I think this is till the March one :P
He’s still making 2 panels a week, AND 2 gueststrips atm. So DaveB is a little busy
2 still isn’t bad.
And I don’t think Math’s upset about it. Saved him time on figuring out how quickly he could beat the guy.
I agree, Halo should get an alternate rate given that it is her first day. Kind of like how low levels gain more exp from a given enemy than high levels.
And while he might be pissed at first because he was looking forward to a challenge, just a minute or two of thought should convince him that this guy wasn’t that.
Well, i’m gonna start dropping the comic. It’s starting to become stupid and Sydneys’ starting to become unlikable.
And you felt the need to tell people about this…why?
I’ve never understood the “take my ball and go home” crowd. Feeble people.
I considered saying something sarcastic or dismissive but decided he’s probably a troll so I just ignored him.
I’m more amused about the “start dropping” qualifier. As if he’s trying to say “change it to my tastes or I’ll stop reading.”
As Yoda would say: Drop, or do not drop. There is no start, it is an instantaneous effect.
combat starts, and you drop a superhuman comic where combat will happen sometimes.. makes perfect sense
Well, don’t let the door… no wait, on second thought, DO let the door hit your ass on the way out.
Trololol
“Waves bye-bye”
You won’t read this since you are a trolling-troll, but you do know that Sydney has been narrating her first days’ experience since issue 5, don’t you?
If you don’t like it, just leave, niether DaveB nor any other author is going to change just because some moro-troll finds it ‘stupid’ and the (current) main character ‘unlikable’
We are 500 votes from 3rd.
Kick it into gear people.
we are a 1000 out from 3rd people
There are LOLCATS, and then there are LOLVILLAINS now. Its a thing now.
Can I has slap on the wrist? -Mr. Claws
then a lolcat gives him a slap on the wrist and he faints. Opportunists start selling the T-shirt. 4 garage bands do a song on it. Demotivational Poster sales are up because of this one guy. Darwin awards have a new section called “nice try”. Letterman does a top 10!
while Matt and Anvil… got a count of 4 and 3 respectively. So who is winning so far???
Likely Max and Achilles, after the roof sweep Max performed.
Even if he skin WAS impenetrable, that wouldn’t help much against Math. Your skin doesn’t need to be damaged for you to get massively concussed by your brain slapping back and forth inside your skull.
Today’s strip gives off a strong vibe of the ‘sword vs. gun’ fight from the first ‘Raiders’ movie.
wasn’t it a bull whip Vs a gun?
It was supposed to be a bullwhip vs. a gun. But Ford was coming off of being sick and didn’t feel like going through the physical effort of playing out the whip vs. sword action scene, and on a lark just pulled his (fake) pistol and shot the sword guy. And the director liked it so much that it was written into the script.
But on a whip related note: We know that Lighthook is a strong ability, able to carry at least 3 grown women, so about 300-450 lbs minimum. And Sydney did use it like a whip, which increases the force at the end of the ‘Hook by a great deal. A weak person might just be able to push LPoC’s claws up against his skin without piercing it, but Sydney hit him with a great deal of force.
Actually Syndney said she could lift her car with the Lighthook. Guessing from the prebank exterior shots it looks like she drives a Scion xB, or something similar, which weighs apx. 3000 lbs.
Halo’s car is a Honda Element I think, at least that’s what it looked like to me, and yeah if she can lift that the LH has a pretty good carry capacity.
DaveB went on the record that it was a Honda Element, in the comments
I actually have a character that brags about things that are above human level and yet far below her actual limits.
Granted…she’s still a sucky fighter.
Did we just get a Peter Pan reference? In the unexpurgated pre-Disney story, Captain Hook hated the sight of his own blood, “which was of a particularly ugly colour”.
*shakes head*
Math, I thought you knew the benefit of striking first and bantering later? You could have extended your lead over the rookie to five to one, instead of letting her narrow the gap.
Sydney, way to go! First slap talk the master, so he is too embarrassed to strike before he has had his retort. Then, when he falls for your ploy, dive in and get this kill for yourself. However many steps Math thinks ahead you just got one further than him.
And another ninjatype enemy was defeated by Sydney
Ninjatype? How so? He had (supposedly) impenetrable skin and (supposedly) claws which could cut anything. Aside from that, the most “ninja” characteristic LPoC was even hinted at having was a ‘2’ estimated score on speed, and there is a certain elegance in having speed being estimated far more accurately at lower levels and far more error ridden at higher levels, if the estimation is being made by slower humans/computer systems.
Math has a ‘4’ score on ‘winged boot.’ (and hopefully that means Speed…), so he wasn’t going to be challenged by LPoC since Math would act twice as fast as LPoC could.
Well, he did do a “Ninja Land”
https://www.grrlpowercomic.com/archives/1326
No, that was Math, unless PaperCut-Man gets his boots from the same store
Actually he is barefoot.
I really love Sydney’s poor facial expression in the final panel. You can really feel how disappointed she is XD. Honestly, I suspect she’s used to having a higher body count than her peers for games like D&D, etc. She was probably hoping that’d carry over to this stuff ^^
Don’t feel too bad, Sydney. Considering that your orders were to just play turtle, and that this is your first supervillain brawl, the fact that you’re earning a body count at all is something to be proud of.
Mind you, this page does show that Mathius deserves the nick name Math.
Does counting to 4 really qualify as Math now?
Actually it is adding up three different totals, then comparing them to find out which is the greatest. Which, simple though it is, is maths.
LPoC is missing his neck buckle in panel 5. It’s shown to be right in the middle of his throat in all the other panels, and in panel 5 we can see the middle of his throat.
Actually it has been to his left in previous panels (and previous page), and that is why it is not visible in panel 5. If any it is a bit displaced to the center on panel 6.
Meh, the center throat placement of the buckle is enough to make its absence glaring. Show me another panel where his neck buckled isn’t visible, when it should be. It’s even visible in frame’s 2 & 3, even if it is shown as a minimal effect.
Panel 6 is the one that is in error: the buckle is supposed to be to the side (you try and put a buckle that tight in the middle of your throat and see how long you stay conscious)