Grrl Power #233 – What a (Insert Electricity Pun Here)
Whoa, Glowbug just took out two Arcs in as many pages. Someone ought to do something about that.
When bad guys go down, it doesn’t really matter where they fall, but when good guys go down, you have to ensure they don’t become hostage bait, especially someone like Heatwave who isn’t armored in any way without her heat corona.
I think characters like Mr. Amorphous get created because in every artists career, usually sort of early on, they get really frustrated with trying to get proportions right, so they make up a character who can stretch or change the size of his body parts independently. Then if they draw their arms too long, they can just say, “Yeah, he’s stretchy, that’s on purpose.” Then you eventually get better at proportions right and that character gets retired. And then you start experimenting with foreshortening and he’s back in the lineup! Ok probably one artist in ten goes down that road but that was my experience.
Superhero novel update, I just finished Please Don’t Tell My Parent’s I’m a Supervillain, which I enjoyed, and now I’m on to a prequel to one of my favorite super novels, Confessions of a D-List Supervillain, appropriately enough titled Origins of a D-List Supervillain. I enjoyed Confessions so much I went straight out and bought another novel by the author, Jim Bernheimer. Yes it’s about 13 year old girls training to become unicorn knights and yes I assume the target audience is 13 year old girls. Actually I think I bought my kindle so I could read it without anyone seeing me reading a novel with a unicorn on the cover but it was really good. Good world building, good character arcs, so even though it’s not a superhero novel I recommend it as well. There’s two in the series now, Rider: Spirals of Destiny: Book 1 and Sorceress- Spirals of Destiny Book 2.
I’ve had to upgrade my hosting plan; a combination of the comic’s traffic and a (probably intentionally) overbooked server prompted the move, only I haven’t made the move yet. At some point this week I’ll need to switch the grrlpowercomic.com domain from the old hosting to the new. I’ll try to minimize the pain, but expect part of an evening this week (probably Wednesday or over the weekend if I can swing it) where the page will be hard to get to just depending on where you live and how quickly the DNS servers update. It’s sort of a good news bad news thing. Sure the new hosting costs more, but once it’s switched over the site should be (had better be) hella fast.
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Yay! new commix!!!
Also First!
Also also…
did she just motorboob his face while electrocuting him?
i don’t think so…
Perhaps so, if unintentionally. With that kind of electrical application to his head, Mr’ A’s face (& quite likely his whole body) is going to uncontrollably twitch way out of human proportions…Which might include what you’re talking about.
Not a bad way to go.
Until his girlfriend finds out :P
He will be dead by then and she’s already on her way out. Till death do we part right?
I read guest as saying glowbug will die when brook finds out what she did to Mr. A. after all GB is already half burned by brook from an accident and is pushing the jealousy button hard.
Go GLOWB!!!!!!
With evil grins those in the last two panels, you don’t really need to ask yourself…
“Is this woman a good or bad?”
Yeah, the burns really sell the evil. I can see now that they were intentional.
the way glowbug walks at first i can’t help but wonder if she has something stuck in her ass lol sorry for my odd mind.
concerning where she aimed on amorphous it was probably the most logic place since the brain and the rest is well “rubber”
or perhaps she’s shaking her booty because that’s the part of glowbugs that glows?
NOW you got me wondering for sure lol
Nah, just shaking the last of the water off
in a VERY odd way i might say lol
No, not really (if you look closely, you can see 2 water drops coming off of her left boot)
dripping water from the waste pipe that was shoved up her ass?
Now this is the sort of character you actually wont feel bad about when Hentiorb comes to pay a visit to her nether regions. Either that or do a hulk on her……..pfft, puny Glowbug.
Umm, the water dripped on her head
And it was soaking her costume again.
Yes, but it wasn’t “shoved up her ass”
About the new host: please!!! don’t use Disquis for the comments
Seconded. Disqus sux.
Eh? What is the problem with Disqus?
Why not? It gives you the edit feature where one could correct typos.
It is far better than those that require a Facebook ID or similar.
I’ll second that.
Among other reasons since I have an older computer Disqus doesn’t work for me. I can’t see the comments when they are in Disqus.
Agrecian
Nothing will change on the page, it’s just better hosting.
Thank you :)
Why couldn’t we use the 910CMX Community forums. You have it more less set up and everything. A few subforums and it’d be a relatively painless to use.
The EGS forums would seem an over engineered version of what we’d need.
Don’t most forums require you to register? And tend to take you away from the comic?
Usually and depends, repectively. I’ve seen some where it doesn’t detract (EGS is fairly notable in that respect) and some where they do. On the other hand I’ve seen the same with with this or Disqus style comments as well. It depends in no small part on the content and the type of readers it attracts.
Meant literally takes you away from the comic, as in takes you to another window (suppose could just put it into another tab, so you don’t have to re-open the comic)
Ah yeah I see what you are saying. I kinda wish most comments worked like Ars Technica comments do in that respect, where you can see the content, the comments, the comments, or both.
First thought: depending on the source of his elasticity, electricity ain’t the best weapon against him.
If it goes through his brain though, he’s out
Rubber = isolator – not conducting. Lightning + rubber = maybe superficially burned surface (perhaps, depends on surface coating – burned skin/hair? Ruined haircut?) but whatever is inside the rubber, should be unaffected. The Lightning goes around the rubber and searches for something conducting to flow through (like a communicator). That’s why rubber boots and car tires protect you somewhat in thunderstorms. So, if Mr Amorphous is like rubber – he might be the perfect nemesis to Glowbug and Jiggawatt.
But that is real science – comic science … we shall see.
One thing you are forgetting: ear holes don’t tend to be sealed, thus the lightning has a way to access the juicy non-rubber brain
Unless something in human anatomy has changed significantly, the ears do not simply open up to the brain cavity.
But they are a way through the skull-bone, which does give the lightning access to the brain
The ear is a hole, yes, but inside that hole is an eardrum, which might still block an electric arc from traveling thru the brain.
If his brain-circuits (i.e.: neurons/synapses) survive this attack, I could picture him with a very dangerous response:
– his arms need only be longer than hers, but
– one hand goes behind her head, to hold it still, while
– the other hand goes down her throat
– once inside, he expands this hand until she can’t dislodge it
– now he can look deep into her face while she struggles vainly for air
– picture the wordless face she’s seeing as she’s passing out: “You Hurt My Beloved, You Bitch!”
– once she’s properly out, he can retract, & (if needed) Jiggawatt can jump-start her heart (“CLEAR!”)
If *-that-* scenario doesn’t cause her to re-think her career-choices, then we must seriously question her ability to learn from her mistakes.
Thing is, he’s not rubber. He has a few rubbery traits (stretchiness) and also notable non-rubbery traits (size/mass alteration).
Given the effect on his hair, we should expect he’s conducting well. Or badly.
I think conducting electricity through one’s head always qualifies as “conducting badly.”
If he sweated, the sweat would conduct really well. That aside – I think the point of rubbery quality vs rubber is a good one. So he has just got an involuntary electroconvulsive therapy?
You’re all forgetting a small detail.
DaveB’s comment under the comic said “Whoa, Glowbug just took out two Arcs in as many pages. Someone ought to do something about that.”
2 Arcs. So Heatwave AND Amporphous.
And he’s not MADE OF rubber.
He has LIMITED control over his mass, size, and composition. That’s a pritty long big step from ‘turning into rubber’
Yeah, you are right – this raises the question how much lasting damage was done – electroshocks can cause severe, long lasting brain damage. I think I wanted him to be rubber/rubbery – hence remain unscathed and not a drooling idiot coming out of the fight; the wish was the father of the thought.
… on an unpleasant thought – does he still have a complete tongue?
Rubber will conduct electricity if the voltage is high enough.
Monkey D Luffy vs Eneru?
Electric motorboat, instant finisher on male supers.
Panel 5: looks like her left leg is broken
Wow. I hadn’t noticed it before, but now that you point it out that is a really unnatural her leg is bent at. Perhaps Mr. Amorphous struck so fast he had to jump into the air before she had finished shaking the water off that leg?
Oh?
Are we in the 2nd act now?
That means the real villians will be in action soon.
Also, please, can this attack at least take him out of the fight? At least that way Brook and Morph can have beds next to each other in the hospital :P
Is Mr A really out ? Afterall, if he can alterate is composition to that of rubber – rubber makes a pretty good insulator :p (that don’t protect him against the flashbang – but i think the lightning attack won’t have an effect – only on is haircut :p)
Except, she is making an arc with his brain-pan in the middle, unless his natural state is rubber, he won’t have had time to turn his head to rubber to protect it
Stretchability doesn’t necessarily mean rubber. It’s interesting that Plastic Man, in the DC universe, is the most powerful stretchable character of all. In a trip to the distant past, JLA comic, he was scattered in tiny bits across the ocean. The JLA couldn’t recover him but when they got back to the present there he was. It took a long, long time for the bits to get back together but they did. His only weakness is his mental state, just south of reality.
Did he collect in the Pacific Garbage Patch?
‘Just South of Reality?” The guy who created Plastic Man said he’s on a permanent Acid Trip and if he was in his Right Mind he could fight Supes to a standstill.
Yeah, I remember that comic about Plastic Man. When even BATMAN is making comments about how potentially powerful you are, you know that he’s got some serious mojo.
I no longer take anything Frank Miller says seriously. The guy’s gone… batshit.
Wasn’t he always? (he’s the one that makes Charlie Manson look sane or captured Saddam look well-dressed isn’t he?)
That wasn’t the guy who created Plastic Man.
From Wiki: Created by writer-artist Jack Cole, he first appeared in Police Comics #1 (August 1941).
stretchy guys are the assassins of the comic book world. sure the victims skin is like iron, but does he have to breathe? Does his brain have to have oxygenated blood to live? I think Reed Richards could have killed the Hulk, and any other non-immortal super by the simple expedient of either smothering them or putting the superhero equivalent of a blood pressure cuff around their necks and squeezing.
I thought that was tried and hulk just inhaled him then coughed him out?
And not sure pressure cuff would work since you still have to compress the invulnerable body.
So, probably work on a ton of others. But Hulk I think is on another power level.
Invisible woman on the other hand. Forcefield inside lungs.
Agreed, she went solo against Dr Doom once and held her own. When she described how she could use her force fields to attack the joints of his armor and separate them, he gave her what she was after. I’m sure he started working on a defense for that immediately though.
I thought that was when she told him she could make a Force Bubble in his brain and then expand it.
As with most things in the comics, everything depends on the relative powers of the opponents at the time of their fight.
I’ve seen the Hulk knocked out by gas, and I’ve seen him floating off into space for days/months/years without dying.
I’ve seen the Invisible Girl limited to being invisible and having a force field, and I’ve seen her with a dozen power stunts such as ‘hurling’ (she doesn’t really throw them, they move via her power) small spheres of force at opponents. I must have missed the era where she could fill lungs with a force field to suffocate someone, or make a force field marble expand into a beach ball inside someone’s brain, but I’m not surprised to hear about it.
The question is, if the Hulk is at the power stage where he doesn’t need to breath, and he is of course always nigh-invulnerable, what could Sue possibly do to him? Could Sue even create the force field marble inside his nigh-invulnerable brain? Hulk isn’t just a soft human-meat bag surrounded by a tough skin, after all. If that was the case he’d be breaking bones constantly just due to concussive impacts. And Sue is occasionally shown as taking some damage when her force field is pounded on by terrifically potent attacks, so just walling the Hulk up might only last until he beat her unconscious by constantly beating on the force field.
Given the fact that there have been numerous variations of the Hulk and with each personality having slightly different abilities, I’d say it’s safe to call the Hulk a reality warper with some hefty psychological limiters
Sue beat She-Hulk at one point by just making a force-bubble around her head and waiting for her to use up the oxygen inside of it. She could beat the Hulk the same way.
As mentioned above: In some comics, the Hulk could even survive deep space. If he can survive in a vacuum, trying to suffocate him would be futile.
But then, what he can and can’t survive varies from comic to comic.
The Hulk would be able to knock her out before he suffocated.
She-Hulk’s got more limiters on her than her cousin, though. Or rather, Hulk’s got fewer than She-Hulk does.
She-Hulk is super-strong, and super-durable, and super-other-things, but her transformation is based around confidence more so than anything else. Hulk, on the other hand, is Rage- and similar to how Rage can build off itself, Hulk becomes stronger and more powerful the stronger and more powerful the thing he’s up against is.
Chloroform? Non-life threatening, doesn’t provoke much of a response, his physiology doesn’t respond fast enough to stop it. Hard Vacuum? Death within minutes, severe damage within seconds. His physiology toughens (in various ways) nearly immediately to stop that from being an issue. Concrete in his way? Becomes strong enough to break through concrete. Similar to any fight with another super. About the only reason folks like the Juggernaut and the Thing won against him was because they themselves were “Avatars” (if you will) of primal concepts- the Hulk is Rage Incarnate. The Juggernaut is the Unstoppable Force. The Thing is an incarnation of the primal concept of Matter, Earth or Solid itself.
Let’s get back to the stretchy guys, though. From the bony knuckles Mr. A’s formed on his smashy-fist, it’s probably safe to say that, clear of Plastic-Man levels of molecular fluidity, Amorphous is a ‘Shifter’ rather than a ‘Stretcher’. That is, he simply has control of his body’s morphology, and can change his shape and composition- as opposed to being formed (in his day-to-day life) of non-human flexy-stuff. He’s more like an unbound Beastboy than an Elongated Man, or like Martian Manhunter- capable of changing shape and doing things like elongating his arms or making himself bigger, but not stretchy per-se. That simply seems to be how he’s found he can fight most effectively, and kudos to him for refusing to conform to society’s idea of what a shapeshifter can and can’t do.
That doesn’t account for Sydney being able to stretch his tongue without his consent when she did the tongue based judo flip in the bank robbery scene. He is at the very least formed of stretchy stuff.
I’m not sure what the parenthetical “in his day-to-day life” is supposed to mean, since he doesn’t appear to have any kind of non-powered secret identity. The only one of the entire group who even exhibits a trace of this trope is Heatwave, who becomes “slightly taller, stronger and fuller” when she manifests her powers. There are no Shazam types or Dr. Donald Blake Thor types on the ARC team, so far.
The reason it turned out (in the second, short Peter David run) that the Hulk doesn’t need to breathe makes perfect sense: his major power is the ability to create living tissue from nothing, turning from Banner to Hulk and back with no apparent source of mass. In David’s first run, he demonstrated that this let the Hulk regenerate so fast that it’s usually impossible to tell he’s been hurt at all, on top of his sheer toughness. So instead of breathing, he can CREATE OXYGENATED BLOOD IN HIS VEINS. Or maybe just oxygenate all the cells in his body directly. Kinda scary, no?
(I also subscribe to the theory that he’s Rage… literally. The Beyonder tried to measure his strength and discovered that he had no upper limit. Hulk is a cosmic being, Rage, right up there along with Order, Chaos, Anomaly, and so forth.)
If superheros went all out, with no limits or morals, things would look vastly different in their universes. There is a reason why the good guys don’t kill. They’d never have recurring villains or die themselves very quickly. Plus it tends to be the core of their personalities and integral to the overall plot.
Spiderman can shoot a string of web down the length of a block and hit his intented target, despite the nature of the projectile, wind and gravity. Imagine him using a sniper rifle. Or making a noose with his web strings.
Sometimes you see Superman fighting against a human and having a hard time. Sometimes he even loses (Batman). That’s mostly because he’s holding back the majority of his power so he doesn’t accidently kill someone. Plot armor aside, Superman going all out could destroy the planet – there is no way squishy Bruce could stand up to that. Batman wouldn’t even have the time to react if Superman used his full speed and/or his heat vision to take his opponent out permanently.
Btw… I am not convinced trying to choke out Hulk would be such a good idea. At least some versions of him are able to adapt to threats and changes in the environment – a little like Darwin in the X-Men reboot.
In the end I also have to say, many comic book heros are dumb. Even Superman suffers from it. It’s like after getting their powers they stopped improving themselves and concentrated all their attention on finding a catchy name and a cool costume.
While I can look at their powersets and get a dozen ideas how to use them more effectively or how to enable useful things not related to fighting. Which I would then train and test in great detail.
This is why I enjoy Worm and Legion of Nothing so much. People aren’t stupid about their powers. Or if they are, they suffer for it.
There was once a superhero comic that had a heron name Hardcase. Strong, tough to hurt, could leap about a city block at a time, but way under Superman levels. What impressed me most was his intelligence. His house was attacked by some guys in Armor after a super powered woman he had found. They claimed that she was the villain and they were trying to capture her. He looked at her hard and then back at them, then asked the one question that showed they were lying. Impressed me immediately.
well?, don’t keep us in suspense… what was the comics name, and what was the Question?!?! ;)
The comic was called Hardcase (part of Malibu Comics’ Ultraverse, which died in the 90s speculator crash), but I don’t remember the question.
The thing with chocking the Hulk can be problemmatic. Trying to cut off his oxygen won’t stop him. He can hold his breath for hours. But, if you wer instead trying to close off one of the arteries in his neck that supply oxygen to the brain, that might work.
Superhero novels have the potential for high body counts, depending on how dark the author wants to go. I’m not usually a fan of supers dropping like flies, but in the [i]real[/i] world, being a super would probably be a profession with an immensely high mortality rate.
Marion G. Harmon’s Wearing the Cape series & Brandon Sanderson’s The Reconers series definitely agree with that logic. In a world of superheros when a supervillian emerges social order can fly out of the window as the body counts soar.
The Aces High novels edited by George R. R. Martin aren’t terribly shy about killing the heroes. Which is probably not much of a shock to people if they’ve seen or read about the character death toll in the Song of Ice and Fire novels.
The book I am writing isn’t supers based. The old kids and dragons formula with a few twists and some fun high body count scenes where you won’t expect.
Wait… I’m not really sure how to interpret that. Without spoiling anything, are you saying that you ARE going to be that dark? I agree that in a super hero novel, and the concept of supers in the real world, the potential for a high body count is there, but I read stories for success and the dashing of that particular potential against as many rocks as possible. That’s why I’ve enjoyed your comic so far, it’s been fairly lighthearted. I’ll admit I expected some forms of injury from this massive melee, but I wasn’t expecting any casualties. Not that I think Mr. A is dead right there, by the way.
Not criticizing at all, but if super-hero casualties is going to be the norm in your fight scenes, I think I may have to bow out of this one. I can’t stand Song of Fire and Ice(Which I do criticize :P) for that exact reason. It’s just absolutely no fun for me to read that sort of story.
I guess I’ll also try to be on topic here: Page is well drawn as always. Does Glowbug glow from the inside when she uses her power. I think her skin being all singed from burning herself makes her look way more evil regardless. I gotta say though that I’m not a big fan of how easily she seems to have taken Mr. Amorphous down. I was kind of hoping for a longer fight between the two of them, but then I guess the Supervillian Blitzkrieg might be long enough as is. Guess We’ll see what happens next.
I didn’t mean that to imply that I’ll have a big bodycount. I want to keep the comic light, but that doesn’t mean there’s no chance of someone getting offed, especially henchmen and the like.
If ARCswat is responsible for the death of a villain henchman I have a strange feeling Arianna would get her own legal drama side story… AECLaw & Order
You know what if that ever happens you should consider selling it as bonus content? I’d buy it…
Oh okay. *Whew* Glad to hear. I would expect it to always be possible. And a character death (or even two if it’s spread out well enough or done in a very very good way) won’t turn me off from enjoying a story, it’s just when it goes too much further than that I can’t enjoy the story anymore. Thanks for the clarification.
I understood what you meant. It’s easy to go that route if you are so inclined because of how much potentially destructive energy the characters, who are arguably still mentally human (at least as much as any fictional character can be), can use to do anything the author imagines. You personally don’t want that to be a trap you fall into and you prefer not to lose any interesting or even potentially interesting characters that way, especially when it’s a team of heroes (not anti-heroes or vigilantes) you are using in your story. I can completely respect that, especially since you’ve found a way to do it without falling the trap of turning them all into overpowered boyscouts.
Damn, GB looks evil in that last panel. At least Hex had the decency of considering she was out of her league.
Hex picked a tougher fight though. Glowbug isn’t nearly as outclassed because she’s picked easier targets!
True, but Hex still thought by herself that she shouldn’t have come to the fight in the first place. I can see Hex reforming and joining Archon, whereas I don’t see Glowbug reforming any time soon with that attitude.
More’s the pity but I agree with you.
At least it might mean a powerful nemesis for Archon in the future, especially if Glowbug gets away at the end of this fight. Storyline fodder!
Send in Jiggawatt for shock absorption, I’d say.
Jiggawatt is a little distracted atm though
Smart from DaveB to introduce a lightning using villain after Arc’s lightning absorber has been hit hard. Wouldn’t be a challange otherwise
I think Glowbug is just about to find out what kind of spasm an electric arc will cause in a second. Mr. A already had setup a grab and he is pretty strong. With his arms clapping together he could squash her like –well– a bug. She seems one of those “why me” types who always manage to cause a backlash when they use their power… Oh wait its a limitation: 1d6 Unluck on power use.
He had done nothing of the sort: he attempted to splat her but she dodged him, in the 2nd last panel he put his hand up to protect his eyes from the flash(er), the last panel he is in no condition to do anything but fall down
Amorph has just taken a big shock right in the brainpan. Guessing most people subjected to that would be generally spasming out, and it seems probable that Amorph will react similarly.
Very strongly suggesting to me, given these cicumstances (ie. pointblank range), that GB stands a better-than-average chance of getting the mother of all involuntary headbutts and/or walloped by flailing limbs (and maybe other body parts) and/or getting zapped yet again by her own power.
Great! Now I have “Don’t wizz on the electric fence!” from Ren & Stimpy running through my brain.
Hadn’t thought of THAT possibility. Thank you so much for that mental image.
People have been ‘tossing’ their girlfriends since forever.
Yeah… Well… On first sight it didn’t seem a good idea to toss a girlfriend who is severely weakened / nearly unconcious. At least not that high up into the air towards Max – to get Heatwave into safety, Max must give up her position of coordinating her team… Can she even fly full speed without causing harm to Heatwave?
Max with her zero point telekinesis shield can protect anyone she holds from… A lot.
Her Invulnerability is telekinetic too?
Well, i guess Max doesn´t have many powers at all. In all probability she is just an inordinately strong Telekinetic, with her best powerstunt being fusing particles telekinetically to simulate Daisycutters.
That doesn´t sound very interesting, does it?
Fine. Her body projects a telekinetic integrity (A.k.a. Deus ex machina) field so Objects she lifts are not destroyed by inertia and gravity, and she might even have the Deus field that keeps her clothing intact, but a fist fight would be UTTERLY POINTLESS if she would project her invulnerability around everything she touches.
Just think about that for a second. you´ll get it.
So jea. Carrying Heatwave to safety should probably be her Priority right now.
One would assume that her telekinetic field only expands to objects she wants it to cover. Thus why she can backhand people through walls and such.
Do you remember how Max’s uniform survived unscathed while she was standing in her fireball, while Achilles’ uniformed suffered some damage at the same time? That was attributed to her zero-range TK.
How is her power a Deus Ex Machina, while all other super powers are not?
Here’s how it works:
https://www.grrlpowercomic.com/archives/376
Not really. She is by far the most powerful super on the team, until Halo gets trained up. Her priority should be to pass Heatwave off to one of the far less essential and less contributing members of Arc Light and have them take it from there while she gets herself back into the fight ASAP.
Maxima can easely fly to the ArcLight setup (https://www.grrlpowercomic.com/archives/1303 remember, they are setup close and hidden), drop her off, and back in les than a second.
That’s probably what she’ll do
I started tweeting Superhero novel suggestions, but I think I’ll just link my reviews here:
I’ve already bombarded Dave though….sorry about that.
More urban fantasy than superhero, but modern people with powers:
The Prodigal’s Foole
https://thrythlind.blogspot.com/2013/10/the-prodigals-foole-by-rb-wood.html
Excellent superhero novel:
Legacy
https://thrythlind.blogspot.com/2013/10/legacy-by-jon-davis.html
Another good superhero-ish novel:
Cowboy Ending
https://thrythlind.blogspot.com/2013/10/cowboy-ending-by-adam-knight.html
Another Urban Fantasy one about people that hunt immortal monsters:
https://thrythlind.blogspot.com/2013/10/the-forest-bull-by-terry-maggert.html
Another Urban Fantasy about a reporter who happens to be a werejaguar:
https://thrythlind.blogspot.com/2014/07/book-review-faerie-tales-revelations.html
A sort of cross between superheroes and The Secret World:
The Academy (Central Series book 1)
https://thrythlind.blogspot.com/2014/07/the-academy-by-zachary-rawlins.html
and forgot to reference my own works:
Divine Blood is paranormal/urban fantasy and Bystander is near-future superhero-ish
http://www.amazon.com/Luke-Green/e/B00ECEF3BG
There’s the Curveball series by Christopher Wright, who also does the webcomic “Help Desk” and a science fiction novel “Pay Me, Bug!”.
https://www.smashwords.com/books/view/374384
The Fall of Doc Future and Skybreaker’s Call
https://docfuture.tumblr.com
Both free online novels by the same author.
Well there is always the Wildcards series (A shared universe like Thieves’ World, but with superheroes in a modern setting)
Looks like Glowbug is trying out for a part as the Plot Twister!
https://www.theherobiz.com/
In a vein more similar to the tone of Grrl Power, I’d suggest the superhero novel by Mur Lafferty. Lot of humor, asks the question: what if the folks with the best powers aren’t the best people, at heart?
Whoops…I messed that comment up…Book is “Playing for Keeps” by Mur Lafferty, click on the link above for the amazon page.
What’s the villain’s plan here? Even if you take out a good guy or two, the end game is Maxima, unless Halo Lighthooks you and starts using your body to deflect your associates’ attacks.
As someone mentioned on another page: you don’t go for the Raid Boss until all the trash have been dealt with
Doubt that even Maxi could stand up to a concerted attack, not without doing more damage to the neighbourhood and forever destroying the good impression Archon has been going for… unless, that is what happens and Archon evolves into the leading Super Villain organisation
While I’m sure there would probably be a few people who would blame Archon for such hypothetical destruction, I think the vast majority would realize, first, it would be more the villains’ fault than Archon’s, and, second, it beats the alternative of giving the villains carte blanche to do whatever they want, including possibly causing more property and other damage than trying to stop them would.
How cute, you still have faith in the grubby unwashed mass of humanity, specially the US American sub-group
Glowbugs power seems much lower than Jiggawatt’s and during training I’m sure Mr. A. went up against her at least once so I seriously doubt he down. Also she hurt his GF and that is a big motivation factor. Even if he does go down she might end up like the grenade a soldier jumps on the save his buddies. Wrapped up in an unconscious Mr. A. would render her helpless.
Although some powers can appear the same, they can be acheived by some very diffrent methods.
Those methods also can have varying power levels and effectivness in how they are used.
Electricity is still electricity though, and if it shorts through your brain it’ll short your entire body.
So unles his powerset protects him from that somehow, he’s out
There needs to be a super with background music powers.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=l3fZuW-aJsg
I will be sincerely dissapointed if Glowbug does not have this face by the next comic.
https://img2.wikia.nocookie.net/__cb20131212015841/onepiece/images/0/04/Enel_Shocked_Face.png
No, that’s Morph
No, I mean Glowbug and you don’t obviously don’t get the reference.
No, that’s Moprh because Glowb just fried his brain
What reference were you implying?
That’s Enel from One Piece, an individual with electrical transmutation, (more of a Jiggawatt equivalent than a Glowbug equivalent). He’s shocked because he tried to use his electricity to take down Monkey D. Luffy, an individual with rubber-like powers (Dr. A equivalent) and failed.
Oh okay, only seen a few episodes of the cartoon way back in the day, once it’s been explained it makes sense
I’ve a hard time drawing stretchy heroes, because my brain keeps wanting to get their proportions “right.”
I too enjoyed Confessions I especially liked some of the Twists.
One small peeve of mine about stretchy characters is the author’s tendency to ignore their center of mass when using their powers. One easy example is something like this comic (but more extreme) in which the character stretches way off to one side then catches/picks up a heavy weight and still manages to not fall over when doing it.
As for Mr. A., his power involves an ability to selectively increase his mass/length in certain areas (as suggestively referenced in https://www.grrlpowercomic.com/archives/323). Which brings up a question:
Can he just go ‘supersize’ all over and turn into a larger version of himself? Would this give him more strength in that form? Would he have to start wearing purple pants?
I came up with a guy who has stretch powers, who when all of his limbs are all engauged or held down extends his neck and bites his opponents heads off.
Gross, but very, very effective. It also scares the @#!% out of everybody.
I saw that image in my mind’s eye, and I let out a yelp, half amused, half disgusted. Something you’d see in a horror movie.
Presumably, if it costs the user of the super power some kind of concentration or energy to use the power, than it’d be to exhausting to simply hulk out (I’m working on the asumption that it does require concentration)
I’ve read both books DaveB mentioned above and loved them both.
Considering that GB’s electrical arc appears to be going through Mr. A’s brainpan, at the very least he’s going to lose control of his stretching ability…”Ah, that’s you, all over.”
If Glowbug really does seem to have Unluck using her powers, as we’ve seen so far, then I’d guess he uncontrollably “morphs” all over her like a tidal wave & she’s captured due to pure serendipity factor.
The reason (well, one reason. There are others.) that lightning doesn’t always kill people it hits is that it doesn’t go through their brains and/or other organs. It travels along their skin. Unless Mr. Amorphous has a different level of conductivity in his skin, his brain is just fine.
But I guess those power 4 levels in Shield only apply to the blunt and piercing attacks mentioned.
Electroshock therapy does go through the brain because they line up the electrodes to either side of the skull. Lightning usually grounds out at your feet so your brain is not necessarily in the best path to ground. Admittedly the type and properties of these 2 types of electricity are VERY different but the basics still apply. The charge will follow the “Best” path even if that is through the air.
Might be a good time for Halo to intervene. Maybe with her Lighthook – I suspect that would be a non-conductor.
Wouldn’t it be a stinker if the Hentorb was highly super conductive?
Ouch.
Good thing it’s outside the shield, then, isn’t it?
Wouldn’t really matter, though, as the tentacle is essentially “attached” to the outside of the force bubble. Even if it’s conductive, the electricity would just go through the lighthook tentacle, strike the field, and be dissipated/rerouted into the ground. It would take something seriously major (like Maxima going all out) to really get to Halo through that field, I think.
actually it’s not attached to anything not even the shield
Forget I said this misunderstood
If conductive, it could make for an effective attack in the right situation. Just wrap one loop around a grounded opponent, then stretch out the end to touch an overhead power line.
Given that Sydney has been actively using the Lighthook to deflect or block various different zaps and effects, I’m pretty sure it is a non-conductor. So far, no instances of Sydney saying “Ouch!” from its usage.
Don’t believe she has “DENIED”ed any ‘zaps’ or ‘effects’, just solid objects
I’m so tired of the Supervillain Blitzkrieg. I’m bored. Can we skip to the end, see the fight with Maxima in it, and get this over with?
I’ve been unhappy with this fight since the guy came crashing through the roof. I had a feeling he was just being suicidally stupid, and that’s how it turned out. I looked at the roofline and saw a bunch of other figures and thought to myself “Crap, this is going to take a long time.” I was right about that, only I had no idea just how bad it was going to get. We are now coming up on the 4th month solid of this stuff, and the real fight hasn’t started yet.
There are aspects of the fight that simply make no sense. It’s really frustrating to go for page after page after page and get no answers.
Where did all these bad guys come from? There’s way more supervillains present than could be logically accounted for in a world where supers were rare.
Why are they attacking? We don’t know what their goal is, after all this time. Why are they risking death or long term prison sentences? What could have convinced all these people to take such a risk?
Given that fact that they -are- attacking, no matter how stupid that idea seems, wouldn’t you expect them to be fighting like their lives depended on it? There’s been no sign of that kind of attitude. In fact it has been very much the opposite. People who are risking their own deaths, or going to prison for 25 years to life act as if they are out on a lark. Why aren’t they fighting seriously?
Why is Arcswat doing such a terrible job fighting back? They aren’t fighting like their lives depend on it either. Why aren’t they using effective combat strategies? Good stuff like double-teaming their opponents. They should be taking down bad guys quickly and efficiently instead of fooling around with single combats.
Also, why is Maxima not on the front lines? She is letting the bad guys dictate the terms of this fight. She -should- be on the front lines, either chewing up minions or dragging one of the real threats out of the shadows to slow her down. If the team really needs someone to stay back as overwatch, that should be Hiro’s job.
I get that the Patreon cameos are paying the rent, and all credit to DaveB for giving people their money’s worth, because each cameo villain is getting plenty of time on stage, but they are really dragging out what was already a long and boring fight. If the cameos had to be, then people like Concretia should have been dumped to make room.
The Supervillain Blitzkrieg has just been going on and on, and lately it has seemed like instead of the fight progressing, DaveB is stalling. For example, there was really no need to bring Jiggawatt into this fight. Maxima couldn’t possibly have felt that with Arcswat kicking as much ass as it was, they needed backup from one of the less powerful members of the team. All bringing her in did was make an overly long fight even longer.
I have held off on complaining about this. Time and again I have started to write a post like this one and stopped. If I was completely new to the comic, reading it for the first time, rather than having to wait a few days between pages, would I feel like things were dragging so terribly? Can I honestly say I wouldn’t be enjoying the fight if it had not been for the 4 month wait?
By this point, I think even if I was new to the comic I’d be annoyed. The fight has no drama. There is no feeling that anything is at stake. The good guys aren’t fighting to protect anything but their own backsides, and those don’t appear to be in any real danger.
Bored now. Can we move on?
You remind me of my friend who complains about not knowing about something happening during the middle of the movie who would figure it out if you kept paying attention instead of complaining during the exposition.
“Why doesn’t he like him?:
“I don’t know, the good guy just met him”
“This is stupid, they need to explain this to me…”
Actually I have to agree with TheARCmage, although I’m personally not looking forward to seeing more of Max this fight does seems to be dragging. [I](I personally figure that it’s because Dave wants to give all of his rather large cast of characters a chance at the spotlight after so much real world time has passed since their introduction.)[/I]
People bitched about how long the initial interview int he boardroom was taking, people bitched about how long the Press Conference was taking, people bitched about how long the dinner was taking, and now people are bitching about how long the fight is taking
Guess what it boils down to, is there are a lot of bitches complaining
Most of your questions should be answered by the end of the fight, but I think it’s a fair complaint that I haven’t hinted that these things aren’t oversights. Mostly I’m worried that if I work some clues in you guys will decipher them right away cause it’s hard to do subtly in this case. I do think I could have planned the battle a little better. This being my first big fight I knew I’d have some issues with it, but my biggest one was underestimating the amount of work it would take to get it all drawn. Ideally most of the fighting would have other battles going on in the background and I could resolve several fights at once, but I’ve been focusing on individual fights like they’re one on ones and that’s definitely something that could have done better.
The other problem is simply having too much content, some of which I’ve cut, and I’m continuing to do so. It’s always painful cutting stuff, especially when I think there’s good stuff I’m losing, but I need to be better at considering the fight as a whole, and most of what I cut now are jokes or action I can use later.
I’m going to go do some more editing to see if I can take my own advice here and compress some of the action before I get to drawing this morning.
Perhaps you could add some of the cut scenes when you do the Book.
Or they could be mentioned/shown in flashbacks/debriefings later on. You know “why didn’t X help with Y?” “Oh they were busy with Z, didn’t you know?” “And the BIFF and then POW and SLAMMO! It was awesome!” etc.
Dave,
Apparently there is too much free ice cream.
No complaints here.
Okay my vote is keep them coming. I like the fact you give us a lot of things so we see most of the battle not just the big guns. That’s the best part IMHO. Lots of comedy and drama in all the stuff happening around the major players. Not to mention this comic’s main character is Sydney NOT Max. Now if we could see more of Sydney kicking butt and renaming names I like that too but do what you do. I want the whole story. It’s your world we just visit it.
+1
Dave, I have said before, your comic is great.
Too many kids today think they have to have everything right now or they are going to just “die”.
Okay, it is going to take you quite some time to show a large anything at 2 comics a week. People need to understand that. I love the quality of your work and I would hate to see you lower it for more updates. (Yes, I know I have joked about you updating hourly, but quality always beats quantity to me). I hope you don’t keep cutting things because you tell such a good and funny story, that is why so many of us are here. I think most of us can wait while you give us the story you want to tell. Please don’t give up on the humor and action because a few people can’t be bothered to not know everything from the beginning.
I totally disagree with ARCmage. you spent 200 strips with jokes and no combat action in a superhero comic, and I enjoyed every one. Now we see 33 pages of heavily joke-peppered super-powered combat and people complain…
This is a brilliant comic about a super-powered combat squad and actual superpowers are used LESS THAN 15% OF THE TIME. If a superhero MOVIE were less than 15% action scenes Americans might ask for their money back.
Dave. Do not bend to the nay-sayers! I’m enjoying this battle royale immensely.
Seconded!
Some people would complain about the scratchiness of the rope they were being hanged with. Let’s let Dave do what he wants with his own comic and enjoy the ride. If you’re are really bored, drop Grrlpower for about 3-4 months and come back and read it in one go. It will feel faster.
I get where you’re coming from, and personally I think it’s only due to the twice-a-week schedule.
I think the comic addressed this, that estimates were probably off, or these represent nearly all the potential villains in the world (probably the former).
Why are they attacking? We don’t know what their goal is, after all this time. Why are they risking death or long term prison sentences? What could have convinced all these people to take such a risk?
I think these are questions that we (and the characters) are supposed to ask, and that will be answered later, much later, or (unlikely) not at all.
Given that fact that they -are- attacking, no matter how stupid that idea seems, wouldn’t you expect them to be fighting like their lives depended on it? There’s been no sign of that kind of attitude. In fact it has been very much the opposite. People who are risking their own deaths, or going to prison for 25 years to life act as if they are out on a lark. Why aren’t they fighting seriously?
Why is Arcswat doing such a terrible job fighting back? They aren’t fighting like their lives depend on it either. Why aren’t they using effective combat strategies? Good stuff like double-teaming their opponents. They should be taking down bad guys quickly and efficiently instead of fooling around with single combats.
This is also fair, and I think it has to do with the tenor the comic is trying to achieve. It could be more realistic, and you could have several deaths by now, sort of like the end of Squadron Supreme or something. But I don’t think Dave wants to make a high-body-count comic (at least not in the first fight).
Also, why is Maxima not on the front lines? She is letting the bad guys dictate the terms of this fight. She -should- be on the front lines, either chewing up minions or dragging one of the real threats out of the shadows to slow her down. If the team really needs someone to stay back as overwatch, that should be Hiro’s job.
Why is Maxima not the only member of ARCSwat? She could probably handle all these mooks, especially if she was free to go full power. This fight represents everyone’s first super-powered non-sparring fight (and for some their first real fight ever), that experience is invaluable. They might reevaluate that decision if someone is badly hurt or killed, but as a Military/Police force, they’d all be expected to face danger eventually, and at some point without Max being around to save them.
The Supervillain Blitzkrieg has just been going on and on, and lately it has seemed like instead of the fight progressing, DaveB is stalling. For example, there was really no need to bring Jiggawatt into this fight. Maxima couldn’t possibly have felt that with Arcswat kicking as much ass as it was, they needed backup from one of the less powerful members of the team. All bringing her in did was make an overly long fight even longer.
Sure, several parts of this fight could be dropped (pick your least favorite, none are really more or less critical than introducing JW), but Dave is clearly taking this chance to introduce many of the powers of his rather large cast. (Show don’t tell – would you rather they just talk about their abilities, or wait several issues, then introduce a power so that readers claim it was a Deus ex Machina added in later, like Superman’s flight?)
By this point, I think even if I was new to the comic I’d be annoyed. The fight has no drama. There is no feeling that anything is at stake. The good guys aren’t fighting to protect anything but their own backsides, and those don’t appear to be in any real danger.
Obviously you feel how you feel and that’s valid. Depending on the kind of story Dave wants to write, we could see Mr. A (or Glowbug) quite dead in the next panel. I highly doubt it, but that’s where my mind went when reading this page. GB fries A’s brain while he & Max are concerned over Brook, formative moment, etc. OR Peggy ‘splodes GB’s head, and suddenly the fight isn’t “non-lethal” anymore. Either is possible and would greatly change the mood of the fight. Again, unlikely, but this page is probably the closest we’ve come to serious consequences so far.
This HAS been a long fight – 34 pages so far, including the drop-in entrance, and even if it’s close to finished, as Dave intimated a couple pages back, at least 6-7 pages more to come.
But compare that to the rest of the comic – 199 pages of no (unstaged) fights.
3 pages of RPG, 11 pages of power discussions, 6 pages of side characters, 3 pages of tube conversation, 2 pages of leaving = 25 pages before Sydney ever left the store.
10 pages from store to bank, pre-shitwank.
11 pages of bank holdup.
29 pages of fallout/setup pre-Chapter 2
8 pages pre-interview
27 pages of interview
14 pages of eating/injury/head adjustment/chatting
15 pages of joining/pre-press conference
16 pages of press conference
24 pages of travel/practice/press conference/ding
18 pages of dinner
So, this fight IS the longest section (as I’ve broken them down – if you combine both halves of the press conference and the travel between, it’s still 6 pages longer, same if you combine the holdup & its aftermath, the interview & its setup, or everything pre-holdup). I think it may feel longer because there are no cut-aways/meanwhiles, and fewer tonal shifts. Also because it’s a straightforward super fight in a comic that spent 200 pages without super fights.
Nice evil face on Glowbug
You guys missed one of the best superhero series The Wild Cards series Edited by George R R martin well worth the read about 15 books so far
Didn’t miss it at all and have mentioned it at least a couple of times. One of my favorite characters was “The Great and Powerful Turtle” who’d stomped 90% of these baddies flat. Another fav was Croyd the “Sleeper” (Sleeper speeding people bleeding).
Sadly, there will probably be no more stories featuring The Sleeper as a main character. He was a Zelazney character and with Zelazney dead he will probably only be seen in the background of other author’s stories.
I haven’t read any of the second series, and I still have a few books to go on the first series, so I could be quite wrong. I enjoyed the uniqueness of the character greatly so this is a case where being wrong would be a good thing.
I read the first two Wild Cards novels and loved them, but then couldn’t find the next one and didn’t want to jump ahead in the story. You’re right it is an amazing series.
Kudos to DaveB for reading Confessions of a D-list Supervillain, one of my favorite superhero books of all time. I was so excited when the new one came out and I can’t wait for the third one.
They don’t seem to get much shelf space in bookstores, it’s true. Amazon is your friend here, order 3 or more books and you’ll probably cross the “shipping is free” level as well.
I’m not complaining! Keep up with the fight! I mean, in world time, this fight’s been going on, what, maybe 15 minutes?
Shining Armor is the world champ at The Girlfriend Toss.
Next Panel:
Hentacle comes zipping by where Glowbug was before the flash.
Sydney: “DENI-aw, man.”
I’m guessing he is not like Monkey D. Luffy and thus not made of rubber and immune to electricity.
Hey can we get some kind of literature page? Ya know like a page with the names and possibly links to the books that you have recommended through the comments in this comic. itd be useful as its hard to go back and look up the books whenever im looking for something to read
What a (load).
It it me, or does Mr. A have armored knuckles in panel 5?
It’s not the first time we have seen his knuckles like that, just normally it is a different colour (unless DaveB forgot to colour them this time)
The Who’s Who says he has limited control over his composition. I guess he toughened them up in preparation for impact.
This the best view we have gotten of the reenforced fists. It looks like bone or callus. obviously as dense as he can make it without being too brittle.
Correction. When a bad guy goes down it’s not all that impressive that’s what there suppose to do. But when a good guy goes down then that’s a accomplishment to be proud of! And seeing how Glow bug just took down two heroes in succession that’s a really good accomplishment. Poor Mr. A just got blinded by the light, and got into a shocking development! HA HA HA HA HA HA HA!
The slash on the right side of Glowbug’s costume is missing in panel 5. Possibly the left-side slash too, depending on how far it curves around.
Figured those were just front panels
Possibly, but the taper doesn’t suggest it, and the left-side slash (I got mixed up last post: her left, our right) should still be visible in the side view either way… which it isn’t.
You know what this means, don’t you? More time examining Glowb’s clothes!! :P
WOAH! She turned evil face! Not good for the goodies but I like it!
What a revolting development. :P
or perhaps a “shocking twist” “hair-raising” or “Amped up”