Grrl Power #228 – 1.56×10^20 electrons walk into a bar…
How do you keep Jiggawatt from shooting lightning? Take away her credit cards. Wait, that’s not right.
When Thor gets an STD, he gets the thunder-clap.
An atom walks into a bar an asks the bartender “Have you seen an electron? I left it in here last night.” The bartender says, “Are you sure?” The atom says, “I’m positive.”
A neutron walks into a bar and says, “How much for a beer?” The bartender says, “For you? No charge.”
Ok enough of that. Jiggawatt can do just about anything involving lightning, including obviously turning into it. Not necessarily a unique power for a lightning wielder, but usually when you see it the have to travel through telephone wires or something. I’m not sure if Jiggawatt can do that actually. I always envisioned her arcing through the air, and she can move a considerable distance before she has to bounce off something like a cloud or just connect with the ground again. I guess I need to add teleporting to her badge on the cast page, even though it’s not quite teleporting. It’s more like really fast super jumping that can also be used as an attack. Like it combines super jump with Bison’s Psycho Crusher. (Or Vega’s, if you’re reading this in Japan.) She can’t go through most things like walls (unless she’s just tying to blow a hole in it) unless they’re moderately conductive like a squishy person.
All these one hit scrubs that keep getting knocked down were supposed to be in the parking lot shot, but I ran out of time to draw them all, plus I hadn’t quite designed everyone yet. The plan was always to add these guys into that shot, and bump Maxima’s estimate from 30 to 40. I don’t want anyone thinking more villains are showing up in the meantime. A lot of the minion scrubs are just that, and may not ever show up in the comic again, unless I show them incarcerated or if there’s a prison break or whatever, but a few of them will be seen again. In fact some of them had larger roles they were supposed to play in this fight, but their parts got cut because I don’t want the battle to be 100 pages long. Gauntlette, the gal with the purple fist on this page was one of those. She would have been labeled as Tenti-Gal by Leon, since she can wrap her energy thing around her so it looks like a big tentacle. You can actually see her on the parking lot page, though she’s mostly obscured by Hex’s lasers there. She would have fared much better against Jiggawatt’s attack if she was still wrapped up all snugly in her tentacle, but there’s always next time.
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If Jiggawatt could do an EMP (and I don’t see why not) she could have a HUGH effect on any Tech villains.
Who’s this Hugh of whom you speak and why do you use him as a unit of measurement?
I Grant that it might be to do with the willingness to provide sexual services. But, outside of normal relations, that would typically involve money, rather than an Electro-magnetic-pulse. Perhaps I was misinterpreting that and Gamesman was referring to something else, say an Extra Monetary Payment?
That’s not Hugh, it’s HUGH: High Ugliness, Great Hurting. A HUGH effect is one that really messes you up.
Except any thech-villian/hero worth a damn would screen his tech from EMP, especially considering its so easy to achieve with a simple grounded conductive net.
unless Jiggawatt bought her power to be piercing…Or simply overwhelmed the poor device.
It depends on how her power works, if she charges her destination(positively) and then “flows” to it, a cage of faraday wouldn’t really do anything against her. If she creates and excess of negative charge on her person and then directs it to the target she couldn’t penetrate one without saturating the entire surrounding area first(or just the cage?), which might be impossible for her to do because the charge would want to spread out.(this would be overwhelming it?)
A cage of faraday is basically a cage that is so conductive that any electricity will flow through the cage and not through the objects inside. Because electicity always follows the path of least resistance to it’s target.
PS: Do note that charging something positive is kind of like creating a vacuum in that there is a clear limit to how much you can charge it. So it might not be entirely effective. And saturating the cage could only really lead to the insides becoming as negatively charged as the cage itself. She’d probably be better of sending a circular current through the cage to melt it/parts of it(assuming that’s something she could do).
That does raises a question.
Jiggawatt can control lighting. So the question is:
Could she force lightning to enter the inside of a cage of ferrady?
I suppose that depends on how her powers work. If she generates lightning and than steers it by creating an ionized path in the air (like regular lightning), than she couldn’t. But if she could literally control where the charge itself goes, she probably could
Based on the above image: She can control it. Which means a Faraday cage isn’t much help against her, at least against a direct attack from her. It’s probably useful against any area or indirect attacks she has though.
1. It’s probably magic. ;)
2. There is clear limit how much you can charge something positive side – you can’t take away more electrons than there are, but you can make rain them down. But it’s irrelevant, since if Jiggawat took away electrons from 1 cubic feet of matter, it would propel surrounding cubic mile of matter clear from the atmosphere in a split second. If she can generate enough energy to shoot standard lightning from her finger, she is gruesomely powerful.
3. Faraday’s cage is no protection against sufficiently high energy flow – until it’s made of superconductor. If it’s not, it will simply heat and melt. If she has direct control of arc path, she can take it down piece by piece – or simply lead arc between cage’s elements.
4. Protecting electronic devices from EMP is not only matter of Faraday’s cage. Conventional devices that utilize hot plasma or high-frequency radio generators are pretty weak (I mean relatively short ranged), since it’s a matter of pure EM field. Nuclear (not only from detonation) EMP is much trickier, because beside actual EMP, there is flow of electrons (beta particles), and gamma radiation, which causes ionizing of matter and secondary emissions. Since gamma can get INTO the cage, and cause emissions there, where they will be trapped inside, the device needs also radiation shielding.
5. There is slight possibility that Jiggawatt can manipulate matter’s properties on subatomic scale, i.e. changing conductivity – this may be way she ‘turns’ into lightning to travel. It may be limited to her body, and closest surroundings, like Maxima’s Zero Range Psychokinesis, or subconscious, in which case the cage won’t work against here for one more reason – she could possibly make it conducting only where it needs.
6. I think all supers that manipulate basic aspects of energy and/or matter, are insanely powerful a dangerous, both to their adversaries and storytellers. For example: freezers. If one could quickly drop temperature of something to something close to 0.1K, and keep it that way, it would be extremely easy to convert matter to some exotic state, and then effortlessly move it around (no friction!) – imagine moving half ton of ‘ice’ at supersonic speeds around effortlessly that also shield from any level of damage (freezing is basically sucking energy out… so kinetic energy too?). Quantum magic, baby! Or displacing anything through anywhere – superfluids are insanely cool (pun intended).
At this point I recommend reading xkcd first and then , (which was linked in discussion about speedsters by some kind commenter).
There were some similar ideas about Ariana’s idea about a super that can ‘douse fires with her mind’ example here https://www.grrlpowercomic.com/archives/962 (as example that not all powers can be used to harm)
I think the conclusion was that, if you can douse fires, you’d be able to do that by either taking away oxygen (which is really deadly), or take away heat (which is your example of cooling down), or take away fuel (which means making matter go up in smoke), or disrubt chemical processes (which means you could shut down any and all life with a thought).
So I do think all possible super powers have some really funky ‘wow this is way more powerfull than I thought about’ gimiks if you think about them far enough
Not to mention a good Tech Villain could easily use her powers to supercharge his machines. Like when Thor tried to fight M.O.D.O.C. in the Avengers Assemble cartoon, or Iron man in the movie.
To helll with EMP, all she has to do is absorb the power from his/her gear and said techie is now mostly useless.
Good point. Or she could selectively interfere with it’s operation, for alternative options.
On the battlefield absorption is the fastest and safest option
Indeed. But her flexibility will allow her to do more than just mundane fighting. For instance a high-tech villain might scan somebody wanting to make a drug deal, say, to see if they have a wire or other concealed recording device.
Jiggawatt could either mask the actual detection process, or hack the device to scam the results into indicating a negative result. Or frame some other villain, by getting it to indicate a positive, when it was used near them.
With suitable training, Jiggawatt could be a top electronics/counter electronics warfare operative.
Ummm, don’t believe “Electrical Manipulation” works like that
It can do if she knows how her power works and applies it correctly. Clearly she can control both matter and energy at a fundamental level, so there are lots of different ways it may work. I shall pick just one, as a means of illustration.
Let us say that she controls the path that her lightning takes by altering the resistance of the matter, along the path that she wishes it to take. So she can lower the electrical resistance of the air, in the route that leads to the villains. Likewise in the villains themselves, but increasing the resistance of the ground at their feet, such that the next path, of least resistance, leads to the adjacent villain, rather than going to Earth.
Now apply that concept to an electronic device. Presumably, in order to be able to manipulate such energies, Jiggawatt is able to sense their presence and operation. So, with her eyes shut, she can examine a villain’s gadget, using her power. Being able to feel that this item is a resistor, that one is a capacitor, the battery is in such a position and has so much power.
Given sufficient education in electronics, she will be able to identify such items just from associating them with the schematics. She could tell that a car was parked around the corner, because of the distinctive arrangement of electronic devices within it.
Likewise humans would stand out, thanks to the electrical impulses in their muscles and organs. Sharks can actually hunt, in pitch black conditions, because they have precisely this sense. Smelling blood is useful for finding prey at long distances. But sensing a wounded fish flopping around, allows them to home in on it, precisely enough to bite it.
So, back to the villain, and his tricorder. Jiggawatt senses it’s presence, but it is of an unfamiliar type. She has never seen a schematic for this unique device. However various elements are obvious, such as the display screen. And a couple of lights on it. Contextually, she guesses that it is a scanner, from his actions and speech. So decides to simply modify her hidden pip-boy, such that it will be invisible to detection.
Temporarily she alters the resistance, and other tell-tale electronic features that she is familiar with, from being distinctive for a electronic recording and transmission device, to being close to the properties of the air. The tricorder operates, finds nothing suspicious, and is turned off. Jiggawatt then restores her pip-boy to normal operation, and sets it to recording and transmitting evidence.
Later, a murderous villain is on the verge of exposing her undercover role, so she decides to frame him. She considers creating a fake equivalent to her pip-boy, on him, by modifying the air to have electronic properties similar to a pip-boy. But she decides that it would be too complicated to do, in the time she has.
Rather, she had noticed that the tricorder did have a very simple option for bug detection. Either a green light came on, for ‘no bug’ or a red one for ‘bug’. So she simply turns the air leading from the circuit which is currently turned off, due to there being no bug, making the resistance match that of a conductor instead.
Allowing power to flow from the wires leading to the battery, through the now conductive air, to the red light, and completing the circuit. Simultaneously, she turns the conductive path, which is currently causing the green light to illuminate, into having enough resistance that no electricity flows that way. The green light turns off.
His fellows think the murderous thug is actually an informer, for the cops, and turn on him.
First rule of battle field tactics:
Keep
It
Simple
Stupid
We are talking espionage tactics here. Different to battlefield. But, it is a valid point. Which is why I had her go for a simple scamming of the lights, rather than a complex electrical illusion.
There are times when a subtle trick can be worth more than a room full of lightning bolts.
All she really needs to do is this
https://evil-inc.com/
The type of Electromagnetic Pulse Hollywood is so fond of, the sort that disables all electronics in a large blast area, doesn’t really exist. The nearest thing you can get to that requires the detonation of a thermonuclear bomb and it doesn’t damage -all- electronics. It is likely that this is beyond Jiggawatt’s power.
So Basher’s ‘Pinch’ is just a Prop?
There are several EMP based weapons which don’t use nukes. And that’s just the ones the military have told us about. Lightning has also been known to cause EMP effects though in small areas.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Electromagnetic_pulse
The Hollywood version of the EMP, where it takes out all electronics in a wide area, is an exaggeration of the effect you can get with an airburst thermonuclear blast. There are much, much lesser variations that qualify as “electromagnetic pulses” but the effects are considerably less impressive.
A lightning bolt can damage electronics that aren’t grounded within a few feet of the strike. That’s the “EMP” effect.
Research into EMP weapons does of course go on, but you’re still not getting anything that shuts down a large area without popping a nuke.
I’ve seen the effects of an EMP blast. Douchebag in town gets it in his head to blow stuff up….again. Goes and blows up a transformer box up on a power pole. We hear the big bang and then everything electrical in the near vicinity goes up in smoke due to power outage. However, even stuff in a short radius that were hooked up to independent power went down due to the pulse it created.
Thankfully he wasn’t near the hospital. Sure, hospitals have their own power, but that EMP could have caused significant issues.
EMPs tend to be a bit…imprecise. If she could pull it off she could disable any tech-based villains sure, but also any tech-based allies at the same time, and their nifty communicators.
Flashy appearance, Jiggawatt!
If she tranformed into an electrical charge (effectively a lightning), it might be a bit much to handle something like 1.56×10^20 electrons (just re-used the value) in a flash. So I hope her full charge did not really go through the people she shocked.
Well, she hit them all in the stomach, which means any electric runoff (assuming it acts naturally and doesn’t all hold within her) would be confined to their lower extremities. By avoiding their hearts and brains, she significantly lowers the odds of a lethal strike. Numbers aren’t exact and don’t account for a lot of variables but about 10% of “victims of lightning strikes” die. That said, they’d all be seriously injured and need medical attention, they could have ruptured organs, broken bones, and such. Unless she specifically avoided those. But still, burns and nervous system damage. Unless she can be significantly less powerful than 1.21 gigawatts. Maybe she can bring her voltz/watts/joules/whatever down and can effectively be as dangerous as a Taser or stun gun. (“Non Lethal”)
It’s amps. It’s always the amps that get you.
(Amps are basically the “speed” of the flow.)
I meant when all or her would transform into an electrical charge, that would very likely be a voltage & current that would probably burn a human’s belly to ashes. Say, imagine to all protons and neutrons of your body into electrons and have that travel via a lightning strike.
“10% die” – only? Not having looked it up, I rather thought that about 90% would die…
“Maybe she can bring her voltz/watts/joules/whatever down and can effectively be as dangerous as a Taser or stun gun.” – that’s what I meant: Could she do that while she was not yet in human form?
(Right, it’s the amperes that get you, but to have the amperes flow between 2 points (say, your spine and your belly button), you need a certain voltage between these 2 points to get the electrons going. In the end, you need both voltage and amperes to do real damage, just because all the amperes you could provide won’t flow if you don’t provide the voltage, too.)
“imagine to all” -> “imagine to transform all”
Yea, lighting is suprisingly easy to survive
The human skin has a lot of resistance to electricity, so most of the charge doesn’t actually enter the body, but rather flows over the skin.
That’ll burn and scar, but it won’t do any lethal damage
Even the burning and scarring is no guarantee. It’s possible all will happen is pain and blackouts here.
I just compared the numbers listed on wikipedia for victims/year vs fatalities/year. It came to 10%. But that includes, apparently people injured or killed not by the lightning itself but also related stuff like fires and things? Dunno if that would increase or decrease the number of fatalities.
great page and awesome entrance by jiggawatt,, love her attitude and all,, but for some reason,, the backup,, is here,, sound weird to me,, i would have said backup,,, has arrived!
dont know,, but sound better to me,,still she is awesome,, and now in my top 5 grrl power persona,, with sidney, max and anvil,,, still waiting on a fifth tough heavenly blade and hex are close to making it
Now that I think about it…. ‘has arived’ does sound better
But… how does she electroport her clothes? Are they laced with metal and… er… something about electromagnets? Or is she transforming her clothes into lightning, along with her body?
If that’s the case, she’s transforming matter into energy, but more remarkably, she’s also doing the reverse!
The old “Secondary Powers”trope. If she can convert herself to energy, no big thing to add a little more to accommodate an outfit.
Apparently the vast majority of supers have powers that protect their clothing. Achilles may be the only one who does not.
Well of course otherwise all comics would be rated “hard R” for nudity. While I would enjoy the female aspect seeing a pants-less Hulk is not something I would seek out or enjoy. Can you imagine trying to sell comics with full frontal nudity in the 50s? Never happen. So Supers HAD to have ways to keep their clothes on.
There’s a She-Hulk comic where her nipples are showing, but that’s still a very rare occurrence and yeah. Clothing damage is usually kept to a teasing minimum to keep out the mobs with pitchforks. Even in RPGs powers like teleportation typically also affect the gear someone is carrying on them
And shooting electricity out of her butt is not remarkable?
But, yea, matter to electricity and back to matter is a pretty profound power. I am sure she can do a lot with just the electrical side of things. But, with Sydney’s tutoring, you are providing a hint at the extra capabilities Jiggawatt might be able to unlock.
Cause she’s the William Wallace?
No blue woad, nor Australian-Scottish accent and noticeably more feminine. So probably not.
Well, she has a lot of free electrons following her.
I can see how you might think they would not be content to remain in their previous orbit. However, their votes only count if they appear on the electoral register. Although electronic voting may be allowed.
The most interesting part is that, if she actually did turn her entire body mass into pure energy, she’d command enough power to vaporize a country.
There is aLOT of energy locked up in mass. (about the equivilant of 1000 hydrogen bombs aperently)
Though I’m not sure what effect this would have on herself. If she used her own energy to blow something up, would she still be able to command that energy and turn back into mass?
If she can’t, can she still use some random mass (like a rock), turn that into energy and use that to blow something up?
The amount of mass that actually turned to energy when the Hiroshima bomb exploded was less than a gram. So turn a gram of mass into pure energy would release that kinda blast (if not controlled).
1 gram of matter converted to energy releases 89.9 Terajoules of energy, equivalent of a 21kt nuclear detonation (give or take a few percent). About a third more powerful than Little Boy, and slightly more powerful than Fat Man.
Two guesses why I hope that humanity never discovers a naturally occurring source of antimatter :p
I have a theory that antimatter and matter repel each other so it wouldn’t be anywhere near matter.
Except, it’s demonstratable that matter and antimatter attract, since they have opposite charges. That’s kinda the whole point behind virtual particles and Hawking radiation, and linked to the fact that light has no charge… (Technically, a photon is also antiphoton. See various theories that antiparticles are just particles travelling backwards in time.)
Well I’m talking more on the lines of gravity and antigravity. In very small amounts these would not have much effect but in larger amounts gravity and antigravity would work over distances the charges wouldn’t.
We don’t actually know how gravity effect antimatter
In order to check, we’d need bigger quantities than we can currently produce and hold. Though as far as I know, the most popular theory is that gravity will effect antimatter in the same way as it effects matter.
Either way, gravity is the weakest of the forces. So electromagnetic pull (from oposite charges) will win anyway
But gravity is stronger over distance. The forces your talk about are strong when very close but weaken far more quickly of distance then gravity. Take magnets as an example. When close together they can overcome gravity easily but move them inches away and no effect. Gravity works in astronomical distances.
Sure, but when we’re talking about annahilation, they are already relatively close
Well technically we already have bombs that can blow up the world, and we are kinda smart enough not to use them.
It’s not like antimatter is going to blow up the world even MORE if it came to a nuclear war.
So if you take into account that it wouln’t make a difference between nuclear war and antimatter war anyway, there are only advantages.
Though we won’t find an actual source of antimatter anywhere in this solar system. We’ll have to make it out of energy.
We MIGHT someday find a way to harvest black holes for antimatter, but by that time we would already be so technologically advanced there would be no danger to having easy acces to antimatter
No, we know the annahilate eachother.
We are already able to make minute amounts of antimater, and they do get annahilated after awhile (or right away if they aren’t captured in a vaccum by electromagnetic fields
Antimatter hydrogen has been generated at CERN, by generating anti-protons and positrons (anti-electrons) and letting them combine. While the anti-proton and positron can be controlled with magnets because of their magnetic charges, the combined atom of anti-hydrogen is neutral and is no longer affected by the magnetic fields. They have only been able to tell where the atoms are when the run into the wall of the container and go poof! But they have used a huge amount of energy, only to make a few dozen atoms of anti-hydrogen, so this is not a practical method of energy storage.
In the future it might become.
If (when) we can figure out a way make the production of antimatter cheaper
It does sound like rather a one-time experiment to me.
I don’t see people naming the quick-down supers, I’ll name the three that got jolted using the style of Arc-LIGHT: Brittania, Smokescreen, and Runec.
Also, Dave, look at what you’ve done! You’ve sparked a shockwave of puns! Don’t worry though, as long as it doesn’t reach an electrifying magnitude, we here in the comment section will take care of it free of charge.
*Giant electrical insulator falls on your head with a sign* Critical mass achieved*
In his comments, Dave dubbed the shocked girl Tenta-gal (Seriously Dave, are you trying to get Sydney to rape Leon?) with a real name of Gauntlette.
T-t-t-triple kill!
And just like that, Halo falls behind yet another teammate.
I already like Jiggawatt’s attitude. Polite to her superior while being slightly sassy, and not afraid of poking fun at herself with the “Backup” line while pretending to drive a truck. And her power is amazing, being able to turn into lightning as well. Quick travel and no plane costs.
She could even hitch a ride on one, safely, as they are all properly insulated. Beats having to navigate all the way, on a long-haul flight.
She could even do the ball-lightning trick, and manifest herself in the cabin, without harming folks. “Hey, look, I am a willow-the-wisp!”
Hahaha, that’d be amazing!
I think that travel using power/telephone lines would be MUCH easier for her than arcing through the air. There’s also the fact that her arcing through the air, she would either be partially at the mercy of the atmosphere/weather conditions OR she could significantly muck up the weather wherever she’s traveling at the time. I would think that while she was traveling along the power lines, she would have some sort of awareness of whatever was going on in whatever power grid she was merged with, and that she would be able to be anywhere within said grid almost instantaneously. Of course, if some bad guy shut off/blew up whatever substation routed power in that grid, she’d be taken out of action really quickly! Probably not lethally, though. That would be too easy. Knocked out for a few hours, however…
But do not forget the horrific risks of being captured on an answer-phone, and having to listen to dreadful “on hold” music!*
* Sadly I could not find any footage of it, but the electrical gremlin, from one of the Gremlins sequels, is an absolutely perfect illustration. Being directly the power that Jiggawatt demonstrates.
https://youtu.be/33PSQjs3lrk?t=5m14s
Thanks :-)
Or being lost in the Labyrinth of Automated Directory Service.
I agree, established power lines seems better at first. But if this is a universe with at least some real-world consequences she would be sued by the electrical company for damages caused.
Someone else’s character in a Champions game I played in for a bit had teleportation based on jumping through lines but he used phone lines since power lines had too much interference (this was a couple of decades ago, cell phones were not common). He took a disad of being hunted by the phone company – they were pissed at whatever super kept shorting out their stuff. Eventually they contracted with a gadgeteer and managed to capture him mid-port. Once they got him they figured out he could regenerate power they tapped from him, so they got their money back by keeping him as a perpetual battery for a while.
I hope they obtained a court-order to do that? Or else it would amount to both illegal imprisonment and slavery. Nor, for that matter, does it sound like due process. Being denied access to legal council, trial by jury, or means of appeal.
That aside, it would certainly fall into the category of being cruel and unusual punishment, holding the character in prolonged isolation, with no social contact, means of entertainment or exercise.
I think I should get out more.
Right on all counts, but he had knowingly vandalized their equipment for years and they didn’t know who or even what he was until he was captured. The GM could really keep secrets so all he told players was that the character vanished. The player quit about that time so the players assumed it was just a plot device to allow him to come back if desired. We did talk about a “search for spark” session but it never panned out: no-one in-character knew about the phone company problem and his character was a lot more careful about team equipment, so none of characters even knew where to look. Years later (in-game and out) we fought a villain who powered his base with an ever-renewing battery and we broke the battery to stop the damn base defenses from kicking our butts. Which released a now-insane and much more powerful super who everyone recognized. The updated super proceeded to kick everyone’s butts, trash the base, and escape to become a recurring villain. That’s when we finally figured out what happened. Defeat or not, that was a good session because of the long-term revelations and plot-resolutions.
Your GM is a superhero like no other.
Respect to the GM. I trust you tracked down the evil corporate hierarchy of that company, once you realised what they had done?
That sounds like a FANTASTIC game! I’d LOVE to play in a supers game of that caliber!
Any chance you live in the SF Bay area? :-D
I would think she’d carry far too much voltage for the lines, but if that was the case she’d probably explode people when she jumped through them.
^– That.
So I take she was not jumping through them. Thanks for implicitely explaining!
No she did jump through them, but she can obviously control her voltage enough not to kill people. I guess she wouldn’t have any problem traveling though another medium like heavy duty wires. I just never envisioned her doing it for some reason.
It is the amount of amps that causes death and injury, not the voltage (sort of). Even a small amount of amperage is enough to cause fibrillation. An extremely low amp, high volt electric current is a very effective way of incapacitating somebody by causing severe pain. It is also an effective torture method.
Not really. High amp, low voltage will give you a hell of a localized burn but you’re very unlikely to die. Relatively low amps and relatively low voltage (say, european mains current of 10a – 240v) does a pretty good job at killing in the right circumstances. American mains current of 15a – 120v will give you a nasty shock, but needs very particular circumstances to be deadly.
Amps can kill, given the right conditions. Volts can kill, given the right conditions. Neither component can be evaluated in isolation of the other.
“Amps can kill, given the right conditions. Volts can kill, given the right conditions.” – welllll… I cannot say that’s wrong… But I feel that it might give a slightly wrong impression.
“Neither component can be evaluated in isolation of the other.” – that is crucial information!
Given “something” that has a specific electrical restance (a thin wire of gold, a thick wire of copper, a glass of salted water, a human body with skin), you need a certain voltage between 2 points to get the electrons moving – once they move, you have an electrical current which is directly dependant of:
– the voltage between the two points and
– the electrical resistance between these points.
That’s Ohm’s law. Strictly considered, all you need to know is two of three values to calculate the third.
Now, in the real world, every power source has an inner resistance, this will limit the maximum current. Ohm’s law still applies, because the inner resistance causes the voltage between the two points of interest to drop, which causes the current between them to drop until the power source can keep up. So if you want to limit the current, you simply add a resistor outside the two points, thereby lowering the voltage between them.
If you want to consider voltage and current “independently”, you need to cheat:
– Very high voltage (but practically no current): Requires a very good insulator, much better that a human body. By adding an extternal insulator you can charge up a person with a high electrical potential against their environment to make their hair stand up. Once you remove the power source, the charge will degrade slowly as long as the person is isolated – this is perfectly safe, just wait – or in a flash when the person touches something that short-cuts the isolation – this might cause a short timed inconvenience but very hardly a health issue.
– very high current (at very low voltage): Requires a very low resistance and is therefore not possible when a human body is involved and the current cannot flow around it. “Power lines” that can provide several 1000 Amperes at 1 Volt or less are safe to touch. But don’t shurt-cut them with a gold bar.
Not that I recommend experimenting at home unless you know very well what you are doing. It’s too easy to make mistakes and any current above a few mA is likely to be deadly.
https://www.mpoweruk.com/shock.htm
It’s a more nuanced topic than a simple “Amps/Volts kill” statement can appropriately cover.
…Well, the voltage is what causes the burns. Voltage is the amount of “force” propelling the current. Basically, amps kill, volts cook.
No, the Amps cause the burns. You cannot have any current without a certain voltage, but voltage alone as an isolated charge does not hurt. When you discharge the voltage, a current flows and does the damage.
I realized after I posted it that it doesn’t really matter considering it is her super power, meaning she can just make herself whatever strength of electricity she feels like, rendering my original point moot.
It’s probably alot easier to control where you are going when you’re in the air, rather than having to go trough the power lines
Unles she could jump out whenever she wants offcourse
Phone lines are not only insulated but generally are limited to 14 watts, pole to house. I’m not sure the limits on main lines but i suspect its nowhere near 1.21 Gigawatts. Lightning has been recorded to 1.68 gigawatts, that I’m aware of anyway. The trouble is directing a lightning stream. There is a research laboratory in the mid-west that has some success triggering lightning bolts on demand with Ionic streams. How do the get the ionic stream? They launch a model rocket. =) The lighting follows the rocket’s trail to the ground.
Canadian researchers have done it in the lab with frickin’ laser beams. The laser ionizes a path through the air, which the the discharge follows. Of course, then the lightning wants to hit your laser, and therein lies the reason this isn’t in field studies yet.
Lines are kinda a maze, and sorta fragile to a degree, if cloud hopping can be done she should not bother with causing highly visible property damage.
Especially now that the press knows she exists.
1 Jiggawatt: the amount of electrical power needed to danse one awesome jig.
Not really teleporting. More like high speed, short distant flight. That’s how it was treated in heroes unlimited.
That is not an unreasonable way to describe it. Check out DaveB‘s comment about having the potential to pass through walls though.
Plus she can go down phone lines. If you are talking to somebody, in a remote location, on a land-line-phone (or via mobile, come to think of it), suddenly appears, standing next to you, you would consider them to have teleported there, rather than flown. Especially if you are in a building, or underground.
How exactly does she travel down fiber-optic lines?
Hey, I never specified that. The old copper lines are still in some places. :-P
Besides which, she could just follow the water mains next to any modern lines. ;-)
Yep there’s still lots of copper out there! A valuation recently judged that the market cap of British Telecom was less than the worth of the amount of copper wire the company had laid over the years. In other words you’d make more money by buying the British telecoms industry and selling it for scrap.
(BT is no longer strictly a monopoly on the whole industry but in a lot of aspects it still kinda is)
I can tell you right now: She can’t.
Fiber-optic lines are plastic. They work using light as the data, not electric current. In fact, they are non-conductive; the only reason they are sheathed is because it would be bad if excess light went through them, so there is an opaque sheath on all fiber-optic lines.
Yea, that will be what TheARCmage was alluding to. Somebody who is very adept at spotting holes in my arguments. I have to work like an octopus on speed to counter the probes, and plug my leaking defences.
In Champions terms it is Teleportation, limited to line of site, must change direction in clouds or within reach of solid ground. SFX are electrical. linked power like around 15d6 energy blast touch ranged. This means in turn she can be hurt during the attack -say going through an explosion.
That said, let’s get Jiggy with it.
One of the most kickass entrances I’ve ever seen :D
Jiggawatt Score:
Flashy and effective entrance: 5
Sexy punny announcement dance: +3 style points.
Reminding commander about buying dinner: +1 style point.
Jiggawatt total: 9 points out of 10
Great introduction. or is it conduction for her?
I don’t think I have the cell capacity to store any more electrical puns.
*dodges before anybody can attempt battery*
How about a short joke?
By the time you make a good one, we’ll have come full circuit.
Resistance is futile!
Yoda of Borg I am.
Jiggawatt of Lighting she is.
No talking about youself
But, for other people, mentioning “charging”, “cells” and “electric” brings up dark images of the criminal justice system. I like to use electricity to keep things light.
I see the light at the end of the tunnel. Not a dirty nasty tunnel or a dry dusty tunnel but a Hobbit tunnel and that means comfort.
I amp not so sure of that.
You named the sassy black character JIGgawatt?
*taps out*
There was some mild concern generated about that, when the character concept was first introduced. But not enough that anybody went nuclear. Or even reacted very much, for that matter. I doubt it will spark public opinion enough to make a buzz.
“Insists her name is spelled correctly because ‘That’s how Doc Brown said it.’ “, from the little character side-bar, above..
Don’t think that he intended any sort of racial slur with that, if I am registering what you’re inferring properly.
Heh, hadn’t occurred to me until you mentioned it.
It never occurred to me either. I think Jig/Jiggaboo is such a dated slur that no one under the age of 40 would make the association unless they recently watched a movie about the civil rights movement or something. Jiggawatt herself is mid 20’s so the term means nothing to her.
Or listed to the soundtrack from the musical Hair.
Or studied any African-American history.
Really, it wasn’t that long ago when the public went rightfully apeshit over a U.S. governor’s use of the derogatory term “pickaninny”, which, IIRC, is at least as “dated” a slur as “jigaboo”.
But hey, as long as she’s okay with her handle. Besides, maybe “Gigajoule” was taken.
That gov was in the 40+ bunch DaveB alludes to. So am I but frankly I’d have knocked his dentures across the room for using that or any related term. In certain small ways, I’ve got issues.
DaveB get the free pass because he’s doing “Back To The Future” humor. And getting Jiggy just sounds funny to me.
Well, if she happens to have some Irish heritage in her, then she’d be good at dancing the Jig…
Or she could make like Will Smith.
…or watched the original Police Academy movie(why Hightower flips a patrol car)…
Passed me by entirely, but then colloquialisms are quite different this side of the pond. Even when pointed out I wouldn’t have realised that was a racial slur.
It passed by me as well. Then again, it was inside a word that had nothing to do with racism anyway. Even if I realized the slur I would have ignored it or else everything gets taken as racist. Playing cards have spades in them. I wouldn’t take those as a slur either.
With a little luck some further linguistic shifting and the passing of a couple more generations, you’ll need to be a historian to run across words like that. Too bad I’m one of the ones who will pass first. I’m gonna miss not missing that attitude.
Jiggawatt’s ability reminds me most strongly of Enil/Eneru’s.
I’m quite interested to see how a hero will use that sort of god-tier ability in contrast to a villain.
Holy crap that was awesome! No, really, that’s just godlike! Wow!
I mean, not all that impressive considering it’s been done a million times before in every other comic and cartoon and anime, but those are usually electricity-based villains. So it’s cool to see a good guy with it. Plus she’s got a good sense of humor! Neat!
The comparisons between Jiggawatt and Storm are quite interesting. I note that Jiggawatt’s cast list details indicate that she dyes her hair, so it need not always be white, as we see it now. So, whilst the visual similarities are strong, at the moment, they do not need to stay that way.
I bet Sydney will comment on it though. I love the fact that these characters are set in the real world, so can, quite legitimately mention such.*
But, concentrating on powers, Storm can affect all weather, not just lightning. Whereas Jiggawatt covers all aspects of electricity, not just those which are related to the weather. So should be able to do some very interesting things with technology. Beyond the crude burning out of circuits that Storm would be able to handle.
And, of course transforming into lightning is just … awesome. Storm has some pretty amazing things she can do herself mind. Plus, overall, is probably more versatile and thereby ultimately stronger. But she can’t match that trick.
* I find that stories which are set in the real world, but where the populace seem to be ignorant of some common facet of entertainment, to be totally bizarre. Fairly understandable if it is from a rival franchise. We can turn a blind eye to a company ignoring a rival’s products. But when it is a general non-propitiatory concept, such as vampires, that I find just strange.
For instance with the huge crop of zombie movies, there are a few where members of the public do not seem to know what a zombie is, when they see them. “We call them walkers.” That is actually quite a reasonable one, but some names they come up with are just weird, and do not trip off the tongue. Let alone folks who need to pause, in fleeing for their lives, to be given the exposition.
EGS once lampshaded the whole “Just call them zombies” thing with this “Just call it a vampire” bit:
https://www.egscomics.com/index.php?id=1096
Jiggawatt’s ability to do funny things to computers (and other electrical tech) is going to be surprisingly limited, depending on HOW she controls electricity. For one thing, most circuits these days are pretty heavily insulated, to enable them to resist lightning strikes and solar flares and whatnot (yes, I know this isn’t perfect). That would create a great deal of “friction”, which Jiggs would have to overcome. As for control of, say, computers or robotics…again, it will depend on how she does it–if she controls electricity as a field effect, similar to how power companies treat it, she’s going to have one set of abilities, which may well include generating lightning out of nowhere, but which is also restricted to essentially being able to discharge lightning at any strength and duration, along with a bunch of other neat tricks. Treating electricity as a field effect is essentially focused around power, and the control of said power, and would seem highly superior in a combat role.
On the other hand, if she can treat electricity as a cloud of individual high-energy electrons, like, say, an electron microscope does, she could conceivably be able to do a whole different set of things with it, including, well, seeing things too small for a regular microscope to see. There is nothing to suggest that she wouldn’t be able to fling lightning bolts like this, just that doing so would be harder, and slightly more slower.
P.S. Jiggs’ ultimate nightmare? A guy in a chainmail suit of armor. There is NOTHING she can do to such a guy–the chain mail will bleed the electricity off harmlessly no matter how much she throws.
Just because you are wearing chain mail does not make you immune to electricity. The chain mail used for electrical protections is different from the chain mail used for protection from sword swings. Soft metals like copper conduct electricity well, but strong metals like iron or steel are less effective at carrying electricity and heat up more as electricity flows through it
Since she melted part of a tank (not the crappiest of steels … ) in one bolt, I doubt she would have much trouble with some chainmail. Or plate armor. Or a tank.
Storm and Jiggawatt are both just copycats jumping on the Drow Elf bandwagon. Black skin and white hair is seriously cool looking and anyone who has seen the D&D artwork featuring Drow Elves knows it.
Storm (1975) pre-dates the drow(1978).
But no arguing about how cool drow look.
I gave my drow (think Riddick) silver eyes to go with his onyx black skin and ice white hair just because of how cool it looks. It certainly does look awesome.
Ugh yes this! Any purportedly-contemporary zombie movie where the characters have no idea how to take out the zombies really annoys me. I mean, motor control and sensory input have been known to be centred in the brain for hundreds of years so WHY would you not think to shoot em in the head?? Nothing, zombies included, is going to be able to attack you with its medulla splattered out the back of its head. Unless we have a super crazy scifi plot with mutations growing secondary brain stems or something, which for the record I’ve never encountered in any film, but I mention for completeness because zombie films are usually already crazy far fetched.
This also applies to things like the wraith or gua’old in Stargate where repeatedly seemingly experienced military personnel pump round after round into the torso, which the baddies can heal from, without trying a headshot. A bullet to the brain simply is not recoverable without invoking magic because you’ve pulped and scrambled all the neurons and you just can’t unstir a mess like that. I can swallow that you could in theory regenerate muscle tissue super quick but the brain has crazy amounts of state you would simply lose. Usual caveats apply about the rare few who have survived horrendous brain injury, but on the whole the trauma will guarantee they’re taken out of the fight at least medium term.
And don’t get me started on all the other scifi shows that totally break immersion by having characters do such amazingly stupid things because the plot demanded it. If a non-military scifi fan can point out a humongous flaw, you’d expect a futuristic military-trained expert wouldn’t make such dumbass mistakes.
So Dave, it makes me happy to see ARC having contingency plans set up already and the HQ (or at least the secure areas like the armoury) having good sensible anti-super precautions in place :-)
check out John Scalzi’s book “Red Shirts” it plays very well with this trope…
Agreed, but epidemiologists do study zombies. That is just one example of several, that I have come across.
Obviously the ‘rising from the dead’ bit is not that practical. But think of rabies. If you get a not-too modified version of that spreading fast, through human populations, the effects would be very similar to zombie movies.
Regular rabies makes otherwise docile animals (which includes humans, although the ‘docile’ is debatable)
Odd, something I hit, on the keyboard, must have posted the comment, because there was some odd behaviour, on the comment screen, at that point. Although I categorically had not clicked the “Submit Comment” button.
The weirdest part being that it did not take me through to show the finished post, but I was able to carry on and complete my comment, unaware that it had already gone live, half-way through.
So sorry about the inadvertent double-post.
You didn’t get a visit from Rod Serling, did you?
Ahh, the Twilight Zone writer. No, computers doing weird s**t is normal, not spooky.
That’s what the computers want you to think.
Agreed, but epidemiologists do study zombies. That is just one example of several, that I have come across.
Obviously the ‘rising from the dead’ bit is not that practical. But think of rabies. If you get a not-too modified version of that spreading fast, through human populations, the effects would be very similar to zombie movies.
Regular rabies makes otherwise docile animals (which includes humans) become uncontrollably aggressive and inclined to gross violence, with a desire to bite others. It would surprise me if there is not at least one weaponized version of it, in some laboratory, somewhere in the world.
And plenty of zombie movies have played on the idea of what games Fate likes to play with such laboratories.
True that sort of thing is a much more plausible scenario. It’s the “rotting corpses shambling around” style of zombie that are the worst offenders. As someone pointed out to me (I forget who), nature’s scavenger population would explode and within a quite short time you’d have a lot of fat-looking vultures/hyenas/wolves etc and not a lot of zombies left.
Mind you I don’t know for certain whether rabies infected critters attack other rabies infected critters but I assume that would be the case, which would be the difference between zombies and rabies. Mind you if I’m somehow wrong…….i may freak out a tad.
Very true. Mind you zombie movies gloss over that fact too, so a bit of artistic licence is fair.
Imagine if she somehow gained part of Harem’s powers…you could have…
wait for it…
1.21 Jiggawatts!
Heh, why do I see Jiggy fitting in perfectly with Sydney and Dabbles? That trio could very well be unstoppable!
“Back that thang up…”
(I couldn’t resist.)
Now that is an entrance! I am sure there are people at DC and Marvel banging their heads on their desks cuz they didnt think of it first. BRAVO!
+1
And they can’t have him. He belongs to the world!
If he becomes too well known Disney might try to buy him out. (quickly makes gestures to ward off great evil)
At the voltage and amperage shown here, Jiggawatt COULD jump through telephone lines (in theory), but doing so would pretty much erase all the other traffic along those lines. Plus, she might or might not have any way to get in or out of the lines.
On a totally unrelated note, you are rapidly approaching the point where you NEED separate comics, just to keep track of everything.
I like her. >^.^<
Backup? Why would Maxima call for backup? They have yet to meet anyone she couldn’t one-shot. You call for backup if you think you might not win the fight without more help, not when you are utterly stomping on the opposition.
If there is something around that has Maxima worried, why bother calling in Jiggawatt? She’s one of Arcswat’s weaker members. What’s the point in bringing her?
I guess it goes with the “there should be a smart villain hiding, waiting to have enough intelligence about us to attack right” thing and the “if we take them down faster we can limit random property damage and wounds” thing.
Guess she want’s to give their aoe stungun some feildtraining, while finishing up faster and with less collateral. Also, in case Max needs to focus on one big bad, Jiggawatt can contain the rest working with Harem as a support TP
The thing that is worrying Maxima is that she just gave a demonstration that should scare off anything. Yet they still came. Something scarier than Maxima is out there!
An excellent point, it seems likely that Max would have at least considered this. Perhaps as one possibility alongside “they didn’t believe it was real”, “there’s a huge conspiracy already in place which we knew nothing about” and everyone’s favourite: self delusion and/or mob mentality.
Given that Max and the others are in effect a military team answerable to the government over unnecessary killings, they are most likely to play non-lethally and are not allowed to take hostages without reasonable explanations. This means that the minions are most likely being blackmailed in some way by villains. The important thing for the minions is that they appear to be fighting properly while doing their best to be taken out fast. It’s highly unlikely that they wish to take on ArcSwat as shown in Maxima’s response to Arianna’s questioning of Max’s power display. I would say roughly half have been forced in, and the others are playing with the supers to get a rough idea of who they’d be dealing with.
Sounds like a reasonable hypothesis to me.
Thanks. I try. Also, I think the reasoning behind the mix is to make it difficult to identify which minions are in which category. I feel that a few in both camps are using the opportunity to properly flex their powers and find out their limits.
Actually, I think the reason she’s calling for backup isn’t that she’s afraid of something badder than her, but rather that she doesn’t have much capacity for dealing with the enemy non-lethally. As you said, she could one-shot all of them, they just wouldn’t be getting back up. It’s like bringing a nuke to knife fight.
Also, Jiggawatt appears to be their best ‘area attack’ option, especially if they want to stay non-lethal. Anvil, Peggy, Dabbler, Math, even Harem are all one-on-one combat specialists. Maxima can do area attacks, but they are highly destructive and lethal. Their only other super who’s been shown to really have a non-lethal area attack is Heatwave, and she’s weaker than Jiggawatt, and can’t take down people quickly. (Her attack just disoriented them, while it was in effect. They recovered immediately when she dropped it.)
Given that Arcswat is heavily outnumbered, you want to start taking out multiple opponents quickly, before they get smart and start attacking in teams. Jiggawatt has demonstrated the ability to do that already, while no one else really has.
If nothing else, having multiple options for an area attack means you can deal with someone who might be immune to one for some reason.
The biggest problem Maxima has is that she is the lead tank. Anvil and Achilles are good, of course, but they lack the showy threat potential that she has. Whilst she is flying up above and forcing the bulk of the villains to concentrate on her, she is allowing the rest of the team to pick off the others, in a controlled fashion.
I think both of you are missing one very significant feature that Maxima could bring into play, if she was not currently tied up tanking. Which DaveB made reference too. She has high level super speed/reflexes. Which means she very much does have the capability to incapacitate and disable the enemy.
Once the tipping point has been reached, where there are sufficiently reduced enemies to free Maxima up from tanking duties, the mop-up could happen very swiftly. Unless something happens to her before then.
A photon checks into a hotel, and when the bell hop asks for its luggage, it replies “I don’t have any. I’m traveling light.”
I already like her.
I don’t know about anyone else (and I’m not really complaining or anything) but I’m kind of getting worried that with the superheroes being this powerful, that no villian will be strong enough to beat them (not that I want them to) or at least give the whole team a challenge and an actual threat (that I WOULD like to see).
These guys are unprepared and not working as a team, which may come across as me just wanting to draw my characters thrashing all comers, but there’s more going on. I’ve only barely hinted at it because you guys are pretty sharp and I want it to be a cool reveal. :)
The only hint I’ve seen so far is the Red Cape
And that’s just a hint that SOMETHING is going to go down hard. Are you saying there are other hints?
Time to hunt!
That’s not enough?
I’m guessing that another hint includes the fact that a majority of the fodder has been eliminated. One or two of the smaller villains (a couple of whom will be working for themselves, others working for the arch-villains) will make an appearance at the end to tease ArcLight/Swat. They will not utilise their powers because they do not want their powers documented as of yet.
Kind of like POOF!
https://www.wowwiki.com/Illidan_Stormrage?file=Illidan.png
(Shouts) YOU ARE NOT PREPARED!
You mean like this?
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CafflnJxJAI
Naughty elf! Extracting life-force and/or souls, just to power spells, is unethical necromancy. So pretty too, until her true face was revealed.
They don’t call them Blood-Elves for nothing.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HNrLMob39qI
And that’s what I truly feel of elves, even if I’ve played a drow. As for creepy soul wrenching blood elf chick, I wouldn’t turn her away from bed.
Technically, it’s not life force she’s draining, it’s Mana…that’s a Mana worm, a creature of pure magic…it dies because magic is all it is, and she sucked it up.
Blood elves have a mana addiction problem, due to their race living so long in close proximity to the Sunwell…their bodies have adapted to use magic to augment their biological functions. Without magic, they get sick.
And don’t forget they joined the Horde so (according to the Alliance) they are evil.
That fact that the Alliance is a bunch of self-righteous pricks who kill everyone who doesn’t kiss their ass (according to the Horde) shouldn’t change that.
I would think that many potential opponents would also rather take a moment to strike where not most of the fighting force of Archon is gathered in one place, ready to pounce.
Yeah, I’m kinda waiting for the REAL bad guys to show up. These people seem to be little more than cannon fodder.
Bastard Tactics 101: Canon Fodder is immensely useful for testing your enemies talents. Use them.
We often used bastard tactics in Risk ™. One my brother did was to drop his border defense to allow another player access to a weaker opponent. And when the other player failed to overwhelm the weaker one (defender wins all ties) he dropped all his armies on the already massively defended new border and took them both out winning the game. We started using the term “Bastard Tactics” that day.
Your brother is in esteemed company. Cortés used such tactics against the Incas. Allowing a few hundred men to conquer an empire with tens of thousands of warriors, that could have been deployed against them.
Likewise the British Empire used a policy of divide and conquer for centuries. Notably in India. Using the fragmented society, divided into various religious and political groups, to turn one faction against another. Never fight an enemy if you can get one of his other enemies to do the job for you.
I recently had the big bad of my Shadowrun game do Bastard Tactics to one of the players. He went at length about his node’s (basically website but a location you can interact with, in this case a park) defenses and protocols. He tried to make the defenses impregnable. To make my big bad a nasty threat I increased the failed attacks on his node and described what happened over a couple sessions. Then when it was time to show the villain it turns out he sent all those people to fail so he could observe every defense and the responses.
Never saw a player ready to kill the big bad so much as this villain invading his pride and joy and breaking all his toys. And recreating a crime scene of the one Johnson that never ripped them off.
how you describe the effects reminds me of the hirashin from naruto, which is in essence a technice which teleports the user to a marked target and leaving behind aa trail that looks like lightning.
https://naruto.wikia.com/wiki/Flying_Thunder_God_Technique
can give you some ideas on what to do with her
Please tell me that Jiggawatt is into Transcendental Meditation. You know, so she can go “Ohm” alot.
She could take that as her stage name. With her lightning-fast movement, she could probably play two positions in a band. All she would need is a couple of other members. Perhaps Mani, of the Stones, on bass guitar? And Padmé Amidala looks like she would be a demon on a drum kit.
Their band name would, of course, be Ohm Mani Padme Ohm.
…You mean she wouldn’t even consider recruiting anyone from the AC/DC band?…
Maybe an electric guitarist? Or somebody from the Electric Light Orchestra.
Meanwhile, they could be supported by Lightning Bolt. I am not sure if they would be welcome at Glastonbury mind.
Specializing in electro-trance-dance?
They would need somebody on the electric keyboard. A conductor might be handy. Someone who could read musical sheet lightning.
I’m sure she would feel at ohm wherever she was.
The “traveling through phone lines” idea doesn’t make sense. Just arcing through the air makes perfect sense to me but not the phone thing. How would she get in, how would she get out, how would she control the phone switching equipment to route her the direction she wants to go, and how would she handle the sections where the electricity is converted to digital data packets? (Sure, digital data packets are sent as electricity, except that it is very low-power and low-voltage and except when they are sent as photons over optical fibre.)
A “travel through phone wires” power would be much more plausible in the 1960’s, as all the wires were heavier and the switching equipment much simpler, but even there I would be dubious.
P.S. My wife and I have a two-person bicycle (a “tandem” bicycle) and when I roll it in reverse, I make a “beep-beep-beep” sound.
Oh I like her. She is way cooler than expected. Traveling by turning into lightning and jumping from cloud to cloud? Sign me up for that trip! Also she’s there for .0023 seconds and has surpassed Sydney in the head count. Sorry Syd, maybe next time.
Oh, it would be cool to see Jiggawatt traveling through high-voltage power lines or phone lines… with a little arc of lightning showing how she hops from one line to a different line, and avoids any switching stations or transformers. If she is literally traveling through the lines, that makes sense. My objections about switching stations and digital segments are moot if she does that.
But if I ever see her pouring out of the earpiece of a telephone handset I will be slapped right out of my willing suspension of disbelief! (Of course, if you really want to draw that, just do it and ignore me. I’ll live.)
“with a little arc of lightning” I read your comment and missed the of and thought “Is ARC-Lightning what Arianna calls one of Archon’s strategies?”
Nothing ruins a superhero comic more than a bragging superhero(Even if she is kinds hot.). Or a pun crazy writer might I add.
There was no bragging.
Really, Jiggs little victory dance doesn’t count as bragging?
It was not a victory dance.
It looked for me like a weird version of coming to a halt after a sprint, like being a bit out of balance due to an awkward step / jump. I think she just had some remaining momentum after decelerating from “lighning speed”, and did the “lucky dance” to cover it up.
If she did, then even more credit to her, for fast thinking. It seems an odd conclusion to come to though, given that the only impression of movement given in panel 5 is the lightning rising upwards, to form her. There are no horizontal zip lines, for instance.
Plus, if travelling too fast, and trying to bleed off the excess momentum, the last thing somebody would purposely do is face backwards. The risk of falling is bad enough under normal circumstances, let alone in the middle of a battle.
Not to mention that the only source of said momentum would be from the electrons contained in the discharge we saw. It seems unlikely to me that their mass would carry sufficient kinetic energy to propel her fully re-formed body any noticeable distance. The differential in respective masses would mean an almost unnoticeable nudge, rather than pushing her backwards a couple of metres.
That was so a dance, and a bad pun on top of it.
Nope, it was a mime. It takes more than a couple of backward hops, to be considered a dance. It will probably become a dance, mind you, emulated by an adoring public.
And a good pun, not a bad one.
I thought the idea here was to keep it the take downs non life threatening? How the hell is having Jiggs here punch threw a couple here with a jagillion volts of electricity non life threatening?! People have died from being hit by lightning you know, not to mention it can warp there minds and lead to organ and hart failure.
You obviously missed the part where DaveB said she can control her powers: what passed through them was no more than the typical tazer ie enough to put them down but not kill them
Tazer’s don’t leave black scorch marks on the person’s skin like that. That’s more of a lightning strike as opposed to a tazer, and lightning strikes can and do kill people. So that strike had allot more power than that.
It is just a bit of soot carried from the smoky guy, behind him, when the electrical arcing took place between those two.
Sorry, not buying that.
Don’t care.
Methinks this person is a another web comic author who is displeased with its competitor
Another sucker looking for blood. Sorry mac&cheezy. The Arc SWAT gang has been practicing and training long before we met them. They know their own powers and each others very well indeed. That is why Sydney/Halo is not allowed to use the PPO. And has been warned to go easy with the molestorb.
I’m boiler-plating this and using it as a reply to those seeking a Dark Hero story line or whining about “that should have killed them” or “let’s just kill the villains”.
Grrl Power is a comic about a crazy nerdette that becomes a superheroine. Humor, action, cheesecake, beefcake, ‘splosions, and maybe some drama. Possibly ninjas.
Updates Mondays and Thursdays.
Rated PG-13 for violence and gratuitous cheesecake (and beefcake)
Rated R for language. Seriously, Sydney has a filthy mouth.
© DaveB of course.
Check out the comments. That point has been raised and answered at least three times.
Nikola Tesla has had so much electricity inside him he was glowing and he came out without even a scratch. Electricity isn’t a death sentence by itself.
is that a Union Jack on Gauntlettes Leg?
No. Her trousers are not flying on the flagship of the British Navy, so it cannot be. But, name nit-picking aside, you are right, it does look like the Union Flag.
I don’t mind being corrected. (as long as it isn’t a stupid thing that doesn’t matter, which Official names for Patriotic things do matter)
Heh, folks are free to use whichever term they prefer. All three I linked are linked are widely used and thereby common knowledge and acceptable terms. I just like spreading interesting trivia. In that instance though, I was mildly concerned that it was coming across as more overbearing and pompous than usual.
I decided though, to keep the post as was, rather than omitting the mention of the name issue. Feeling that it would seem hypocritical not to mention it, when there was a patriotic comment, despite having recently brought it up, in a more general context.
A decision I now regret, both with hindsight, and your post. Sorry about that.
I didn’t mean to make it sound overbearing I meant to say Thank you for Correcting it.
Steveha raises one good point, she’s made of electricity when she goes lightning-form meaning that while, she Can clearly go through solid objects, there’s pretty good odds she’d have to do some damage to the medium she passes through in the process. Hence using telephone lines and the like would Probably either damage the lines for regular use and rack up a pretty serious repair bill and/or require a lot of concentration and possibly slow down or just plain annoy her.
Which leads me to think of it as this way: To her going down a wire or like stretch of conductive material is like a person trying to squeeze their way down a tunnel, sure you can fit.. and I guess it might make you harder to spot, but its also tight, cramped and generally uncomfortable. You might do it if you had to or once for the novelty but really why crawl when you can Fly?
Good points, and using wires could be used as a form of stealth infiltration
Go in during a lightning storm. Noone will suspect a thing from just another lighting strike
I love how this is the first we see of the red cape guy doing anything other than standing there with his arms crossed looking menacing and he just gets smacked down by Max.
We have no idea who she smacked down, and after all the subtle buildup with Rad Cape, do you really believe DaveB would just throw it away like that?
Random thing that I kinda wanna know… Is Jiggawatt batting for the home team, so to speak? Or is she just screwing around when she shows up?
Have no idea what you are talking about
Ditto. Whatever you are alluding to whooshed over my head. I see nothing to tie that term to the actions portrayed or dialogue spoken. Even with double entendre circuitry engaged.
She’s on ‘clean up’ . Sorry Yorp, they used an alliteration or entendre that was nowhere on your radar scope to slip it past you. It does look a bit like she ended up tasering one of the Arc-team when she jumped down to the parking lot. (I thought the same thing) .
What makes you think one of those guys is Arc?
Guess this exlains where Jiggy was, and how she could get there in time
How are Jiggawatt’s clothes not ash?
Who says she is wearing any?
The same reason her skin and hair are not. Her superpower converted the various bits of matter into electricity and whooshed them on an exciting journey, before being restored to their normal state.
If the process had gone wrong, it would probably have taken out half the city, rather than just her clothing.
Maybe one might be able to explain it like this:
E=mc² -> Mass equals an insane amount of energy.
This also means that mass is a localized bound form of energy.
Electricity, which includes lightning, is an energy current – a ( temporary ) manifestation of energy.
If Jiggawatt has the ability to transform mass into serialized current and back without ever losing the molecular setup and structures, taking objects / clothing with her would not be too hard.
Personally, I am more intrigued by how her mind keeps functioning while turned into a current. Does this means that her brain is mere decoration for its functions have long since been converted into a purely energetic quantum field of sorts ? What about all the chemical ( hormon ) based interaction with the brain ? Wouldn’t it be interrupted at least while flashing through the sky ?
There is still a healthy debate about whether the mind and the brain are integral. Although the source of the debate clearly springs from the concept of a soul, there are ways to envisage and argue the case in a secular manner.
If consciousness and the mind are external, but merely manifested in the world via a brain and body, then there is no reason why she could not continue to function. Provided she had another medium, that remained under her control, and which provided her with the necessary conduit for senses.
A supporting argument could be drawn from the out-of-body experiences reported under various circumstances, but most notably in near-death experiences. Again this could be taken from either a secular (open-minded) point of view, a religious one or a secular (de-bunking) stance.
Personally I am awaiting the results of a clever trial. It is a long-term one though, and is not due to report yet. But the concept is good. Various operating theatres, and intensive care units, in more than one country, have had pictures placed on top of the structures, which hold up the lights and/or other equipment.
Carefully positioned so that it is impossible to see them from the operating table, or even walking around. Each of the pictures is something readily identifiable by anybody. Likewise the staff are not informed (and presumably are asked to co-operate and not attempt to contaminate the experiment by climbing up and taking a peek).
This means that someone, who does have a near-death experience, and reports seeing the scene from an out-of-body vantage point, can be questioned. If (as is often the case) they describe seeing the theatre from an elevated vantage point, then they can be asked if anything stood out, that was out of the ordinary.
If proper protocols were maintained throughout, and such reports show that the correct images were consistently being observed, then we will have conclusive evidence of genuine out-of-body experiences.
Good point.
There are a few problems with trinity though:
1. Out-of-body experiences usually imply a detachment with ones body, effectively if temporarily loosing all reign over it. Using powers derived from or attached to your body are likely to fail then.
2. Depending on which believe or concept you want to adapt, the “soul” can be quite a number of things. Is it, for instance, “body, spirit and soul” or “father, son, and the holy ghost” or “the physical, the spiritual, the aetherical”, … making the soul either a godly gift that grows and allow freedom of choice, the essense of a being that needs riping through challenges, the source of a beings drive and energy, what the spirit is striving to become, another word for “spirit”, a peace of god, … . Its hard to theorize upon so many uncertainties.
3. You are taking “out of body experience” rather literal, expecting for the spirit to experience the material world the same way it would residing within a body, even though those essentially are but sensory and not spiritual. Since our awarness of spiritual appearances seems to be about a warped as spiritual entities perceive us, many believe that time, space and form are out of sync and follow pretty much the same concept as “residual self image”s – and incomplete interpretation based on an entities experiences and memories.
4. Those who believe #3 usually suggest that spirits perceive the world through spiritual residue clinging to objects and places, which “after image” like flashes people/spirits, events, … that touched them / it in the past.
It therefore would be questionable if and how those “pictures” were perceived. Those likely would have to be older and passed through many hands until enough spiritual residue of a dominating image for repeated identical identification would remain, and this most likely only if it was a picture which, at least in essense, was known to the test subjects.
An intriguing attempt for answers, but one very hard to follow through.
it was nice of the bad guys to line up with each other without any arcswat people to maneuver around. I guess they were all long distance fighters or something?
They could have formed an equilateral triangle, if they wanted to, it would not have protected them from her. She could just arc from one to another.