Grrl Power #235 – The rad muncher!
Yes, Dabbler has a plush toy that eats radiation and even makes cute “nyom” noises while it’s doing so because why wouldn’t she? I made some assumptions about the nature of energy/dark energy annihilation (that’s a good word isn’t it? Annihilation.) and assumed it wouldn’t cause a massive explosion, since the particles are much more loosely packed in a lightning bolt, there’d be like 1/1,000,000th the chance for a chain reaction to occur. Apparently even in dense matter like Uranium 235, only about 1% of the matter actually chain reacts. Dabbler just had to react to the not inconsiderable amount (I assume) of gamma radiation the lightning/darkning reaction was generating. Oh, and here’s what made me pick on Garnier.
I found a new webcomic to read, you’ve probably seen it as they’ve had a banner up here on and off for a little while. It’s called 3 Minute Max. It’s pretty good so far. Less humor and more violence than Grrl Power, but it’s… technically in the superhero genre. Maybe very near future sci-fi action. I’m not sure, I just started reading it, but it has a pretty good premise. I suggest reading it at least until you understand why it’s called 3 Minute Max (about halfway through the second book.)
Armando Valenzuela who does Atomic Laundromat dropped some random Sydney fan art on me. She’s super adorkable! I can only imagine under that skirt she’s wearing opaque leggings or heck, just some sweatpants. I’m not sure she even owns any skirts to be honest. Well, no, I bet she has some from a cosplay outfit somewhere in her apartment.
Danielle Corsetto of Girls with Slingshots fame will be stopping by Zeus Comics in Dallas this Saturday, which is my regular comic shop BTW. From the looks of it on her website, it’ll be from 4-8pm, and Randy Milholland from Something*Positive will be there as well since he’s a Dallasite and they’re buds and all that. I will definitely stop by and hang out for a bit since I need to pick up my comics anyway.
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Okay just had a thought. Why is he shirtless and shoe-less? Does he Hulk out to fight? If so he could look completely different when normal. He could also work off his offences in a salon Arianna would love to open in the Arc building (assuming he’s good).
so he doesn’t ruin a shirt or shoes when fighting.
DAMN LACK OF EDIT BUTTON:
Anyway, i’d like to wager stomping or punching the ground hard enough to make chunks would ruin anything worn, and the shirt’s likely just pragmatism, since most people go for blows ABOVE the belt.
Don’t wanna get a super-fist meeting super-chest with a shirt in the way.
Not everybody has Maxima’s ability to protect her clothes. In fact judging from the shredded outfits, nobody else does.
Sort of why Stalwart removed his shoes to kick the tank.
To keep the sand out.
Also, ever seen an MMA fighter fight with clothes on? No, you don’t, because clothes restrict movement. They also are grapple points that allow your opponent to throw you around.
What’s really interesting is… why is he here? He doesn’t seem to have any motivation to commit a crime seeing as he’s employed, and he doesn’t seem to be the sort to be motivated to hurt anyone.
I think many of us are under the same impression: someone, probably that big creepy guy in the fedora who’s been watching from near the tree, is manipulating people into attacking ARC SWAT.
He’s probably wondering the same thing
peer pressure he’s a push over
And yet, people complain when female characters wear very little… o_O
Not me the less they wear the better I like it. 8D
https://womenfighters.tumblr.com/
I prefer my fantasy-setting female protagonists to be properly equipped. (and that is not an innuendo)
While I do get the point fantasy is somewhat outside of reason. What an Elf woman would wear is up to whoever made her up as she’s not real nor ever has been. So if in my fantasy world beautiful women walk around wearing next to nothing it;s just as valid as one where they are fully covered.
Yeah, that depends on their role: tanks should be wearing armour plating (for the figurative tank type, the kind that are slow moving/less agile but do decent damage) or be built like a tank and have a dedicated healer up their arse (for the ‘meat-shield’ types, the ones that act more like a figurative road-block and don’t do much damage, just enough to keep the pissed-off target focused on them and not on the squishy damage-dealers)
Like this?
https://kaeto1.deviantart.com/gallery/?offset=240#/art/Archer-redux-254641710?_sid=cc9abcd
She’s a Ranger specializing in archery.
That seems to work Kaeto
I don’t see that anybody is COMPLAINING about his lack of a shirt (I’m certainly not). They’re just wondering about it.
He said it, some of his friends wanted to go, and being a good friend, he followed along when his friends did something stupid, even though his heard wasn’t in it.
Good guy villan. probably the designated driver to the fight aswell ^^
That’s dumb. A good friend would rather prevent his friends from committing heinous acts of violence…
…
Wait, was that sarcasm? I’m bad at detecting sarcasm ^_^;
I don’t think it’s sarcasm. There are people who just don’t have the skill to talk friends out of doing dumb things. So they sigh and follow along to try to minimize the damage and pick up the pieces while calling 911. Who knows? Maybe Dabs attacked him first and all Babarian did was grab a chunk of rubble to defend himself.
Babarian first appearance: https://www.grrlpowercomic.com/archives/1393 panel 1. I have to say he doesn’t look particularly menacing.
Maybe he did attempt to talk his buddies out of it, but realised they were going to go with or without him so decided best to join them to keep an eye on them
Or maybe he’s lying and he was the one who suggested to go and attack the new Super Police
I know no one likes a pedant, but I believe they are “Ammonites”.
You are completely correct that the animal you are thinking of is named that. However, I believe that the comments you are responding to were actually talking about Omanyte, a Pokémon based on that animal.
Here’s a Useful link:
https://bulbapedia.bulbagarden.net/wiki/Omanyte_%28Pok%C3%A9mon%29
And here’s a link of what happens when an Omanyte gets fed too much power:
https://thepunchlineismachismo.com/archives/comic/this-is-probably-the-fastest-ive-cranked-out-this-many-panels
I made the same mistake but then I was never into Pokemon except maybe some Rule 34’s of the girls.
I volunteer we call this one a Nyomanyte!
+1
wow. a +1? I’ve never gotten one of those before! what do I do, what do I do?
*gleam*
(thank you!)
They are internet cookies.
So you can internet eat them
You know, i like this guy… he has two braincells to rub together, and maybe half the normal amount of commun sense. That’s quite rare for a “bad” guy. Please keep him, i wanna see more of him, his hairdress shop and (assumption) his pal’s tattoo shop next door
I’m sure that the could make room for a hair salon at the Archon Building.
Oops! Just noticed Gamesman’s comment
It seems there a comment out there somewhere that says “Great minds think alike.” but it never landed.
I really like Dabbler, but lately she is seeming to be overpowered? she is a genius, knows tons of stuff about magic and science, is an expert fighter with tons of spells and gadgets are her disposal and really seems like she can easily take out a number of bad guys in quick succession. She is an army unto herself.
But all in all I still love her!
Remember, she fought Maxima to a standstill once.
Hence: Dabbler! Until Halo gets a much better grasp (pardon the pun) on her powers, regardless of the power ratings, she’s going to be the next most dangerous one to Maxima. She may not be even second-best with anything, but she’s at least third-best with practically everything.
The thing about Dabbler is she has a lot of tricks, but she’s not really good an any ONE thing, she’s the ultimate JOAT, she can do a lot of things, but her ratings and like 2-stars in all of them.
Actually, she *is* pretty damn good at everything.
So far, the only times she was shown to be “beaten” at anything were when Sidney looked right through her glamour (but then, Sidney’s shield can withstand hits from Max, so her powers are pretty high as well), and when swordy lady was a better swordfighter.
Her technological gadgets seem peerless so far, and we haven’t seen many mages around either.
She *is* very good at everything (except at “not getting carried away”, I guess), and the only way to defeat her in *one* thing is to totally dedicate yourself to master that one thing… and then she’ll just pull one of her hundreds of other tricks to get around whatever you mastered.
Or to win the Super Power Lottery.
But then, this is a story, not a game. In a game, every character should be balanced. In a story… well, Superman is OP, too.
And I choose to believe that Batman is prepared for Dabbler.
That’s the reason you live by the mottos: “One for all, and All on One!” or my personal favorite: “Fair fights are for suckers”
In Mayfair’s DC Heroes book many of the main characters are listed in the back. I stat-ed them with the character build system, and Batman eats up the most points. At least among the heroes. I don’t remember how he did against Darkseid.
you are right that less than 1% of the Uranium in a fission reaction gets converted to energy. this has to do with the fact the protons are really really small and so are the particles trying to hit them. think a bb hitting a bb in an area the size of Nebraska The fact that there are so many particles involved and the process grows geometrically accounts for the 1%. In the Anti-matter regime though it’s different. Electrons are actually what touches the world and while the proton is 1835 times more massive than the electron, 100% of the electrons get converted to energy. Times two cause the positron gets converted to energy as well. Big boom. Still I love this comic. and hey it’s a fantasy universe…keep up the good work.
The trouble is it is more like trying to hit a bunch of north polarity magnetic BBs with a bunch of south polarity magnetic BBs in a cyclone the area the size of the US.
On top of that, he got it right. Gamma radiation would be the net result, not a cascading chain reaction. This is a good place to start on just what would happen. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Electron%E2%80%93positron_annihilation
Technically the electrons don’t touch things either, they repel other electrons. Also antiprotons are attracted to protons and would annihilate as well.
“Big Bada-Boom”
…That’s what she said…About how she wound up in the taxi.
Who’re you gonna call?
Rad Munchers!
“Ka-teleport”? Have you been reading The Wotch?
Indeed.
Side note: Damn it Jim, we’ve got it; you like Star Wars. Throw out a Trek reference every so often too.
But that would be highly illogical, commander.
It has never been illogical to mix so many metaphors in a comic book venue.
and mixed metaphors make a lovely smoothie
And they taste like “BRAINS”!
But needs of the many readers outweigh the needs of the few authors, or the one.
@Peter, wouldn’t Jiggawatt’s shirt be a Trek reference? It’s been clearly visible for 6 of the last 8 pages which would put the number of pages with Trek references far above those with SW references. What we need though are more Dr. Who, Firefly, Red Dwarf, Stargate, and just to really play to the meta, Monte Python reference.
No it wouldn’t not unless it was something so unbelievably obscure that I missed it in all my decades of watching the various Star Trek. We’ve had a green woman (who might have been an Orion slave girl or Shulkie) and the lengths of Federation ships named Enterprise.
You missed the reference. Major Kira wore the same type of top on Deep Space 9.
But Jiggs pulls it off better (we can only hope, for a special invotive ;))
Never read (or heard of before) ‘The Wotch’, but figured adding ‘ka’ to everything was the new thing
The Wotch is kind of related to El Goonish Shive, so it’s chock full of gender- bending, swapping, morphing, furries, magic and mayhem. If you like EGS chances are The Wotch is right up your alley.
Nope, EGS is another never read (but have heard about, many many many times)
Save EGS for when you have a few days off. You’ll need a bit a time to get through them all and after reading it a bit, you will want to read them all.
Keep in mind, though – as with all early work, the first bit is kind of rocky. The plot gets better before the art does – I’m not going to go through the entire archives to figure out where the plot first improves, and I suspect it’s a matter of opinion anyway (the first large chunk has more concentrated drama/action than the later stuff, for example) (not that the new stuff doesn’t get dramatic sometimes).
Have been a long time fan of both Questionable Content and WapsiSquare, and they both started off with art the evolved better over time, at the moment limiting new webics to ones of the ‘naughty’ persuasion or ones that are really really good (still slogging through Legostar Galactica and Mansion of E, only up to July 2007 for MoE and February 2004 for LegoTica)
The other webcomic advertised on the sidebar Stand still stay silent is also really good. The art is fantastic and the world-building is excellent. A bit on the “mystical side” but it’s the same author as A Redtail’s Dream (Which is ended and is also quite good: https://www.minnasundberg.fi/artd.php).
Just in case something else took its place: https://sssscomic.com/index.php
I want to make 1 request. If we do see Barberian again PLEASE don’t make him stereo-typically gay. I wouldn’t care normally but I am SO tired of that cliche. Anybody else feel free. Hell even if you made Sydney gay wouldn’t bother me.
Hey at least he isn’t over the top if he is. Dave could have put his last line as “Could I? That would be so FABULOUS!”
I’m so glad Barberian is catching on. *sniff* so happy
“Tosses Zephy a bunch of flowers”
Just to understand: you wouldn’t mind if he was gay, just not ‘flaming’? Like Bronson Pinchot in the ‘Beverly Hills Cop’ movies?
I just prefer he not be cliche. For one thing it’s lazy thinking. For another most of the gay guys I’ve known were as normal as anyone else, Playing into stereotypes makes idiots believe them. Plus I’m sure there are many straight hairdressers. Think of the opportunities,
Right, besides demonstrating the ability to follow instructions, be a good listener, and have good taste all at the same time, the girls pay you when you are done. With those kinds of skills you can Mint your own brownie points!
If there’s one one thing nobody can accuse Dave of, it’s being a lazy thinker. Barberian may start sending flowers to Dabbler.
“Thank you for not chopping me into chutney. Would you like to see a movie this Saturday? Lucy looks like a good comedy.”
Assuming of course she doesn’t slip a note down his pants with an invisible hand.
Well, since she was drooling over the guy buying comics, I’m guessing she’s straight. Still, she’s a healthy, if unattached, girl, and she was experimenting with the orbs, and there’s the Hentorb just floating there, asking for it really…
Hi Dave, there would be no chain reaction from an electron/position beam pair firing at each other, but that wouldn’t really help – *ALL* of the positrons would undergo an annihilation reaction with the nearby electron beam. It would also produce an explosion proportional to how many lightning bolts worth of matter glowbug and jiggawatt were outputting. A “normal” lighting bolt would produce a relatively small explosion since the electrons in lighting only weigh about 0.142 micrograms whereas a small nuke converts 10grams or so into energy.
I was actually surprised by this result – I really assumed that “darkning” would cause a ridiculous “Ivy Mike” style explosion, but unless jiggawatt can dump a few million bolts at once out, that isn’t the case.
^This
I’m kind of disappointed that the thing Xuriel summons is a machine of some kind and not a cute, minorly eldritch creature from another dimension :(
Maybe it’s a squeak-toy from an eldritch dimension.
Maybe it is an eldritch dimension!
Or a portal to one.
or maybe it was given to her in childhood because she lived in a very unsafe environment.
Like Earth?
No Comment
Probably more like a dimension that very closely resembles Japanese Manga…
Probably could have phrased that better. I didn’t mean she grew up on Earth, but that she grew up in an environment that is, like Earth, unsafe.
But Earth’s only “Mostly harmless.”
“Mostly” being the operative word.
What you did there: I see it.
Don’t Panic
OK, so it may be necessary to suspend disbelief for the last two panels: still trying to rationalize – shooting a directed lightning is OK – dump electrons, telepathically bias electron path through air (path is ionized air aka plasma) – shooting a directed positron lightning a little tricky – dump positrons, telepathically shield from air, telepathically create a lightning shaped path for them to flow along… path would have to be vacuum?? Looks like “dark” lightning, because that’s what Jiggawatt’s telepathic field looks like when it’s working hard (or it’s actually octrine-coloured, the colour of magic!). Electron-positron collision – ok – low energy case, so gamma radiation – expect two conical beams directed back at the two sources (since collision is from two sources directly opposite!?!) (everyone in vicinity gets a little gamma for when collision events create more than two gamma photons?). No explosion – not enough gamma generated to ionize air to cause super-heating of air (usual reason for explosion with lightning – that’s the “krak-thoom”). Um gamma-muncher – not like a light-muncher (we call them plants), because it can “suck” in the gamma rays… um maybe it’s interfering with the electron-positron collision causing one beam to hit it, and the other to go in the opposite direction (ie up into space) – hmm but needs to shoot beam of particles (exotic?) upwards to allow conservation of stuff (angular momentum I think). Or it could have just stuck it’s tongue out – would have been much simpler… argh, far too much thinking!!!
Three words – comic book physics. Enough said.
But since the author is applying some hard science into it, makes it very inconsistent. Dabbler is turning into a “deus ex machina”; team in whatever kind of hopeless situation, Dabbler can just port the right item to save the day. It goes from “Crazy Prepared” into “Mary Sue” territory.
Yeah, but it relies on Dabbles being focused enough and aware of the situation: hearing positron lightning meeting electron lightning grabbed her attention by both ears and Barberian allowed her to keep focused enough to deal with the situation
And then handwave a thing that somehow eats radiation?
If Dabbler knocked Glowbug out first, that’d stopped the streams and annihilations from occurring and eliminate the need for “Rad muncher” to come out.
Super advanced technology! Star Wars uses antimatter (and sometimes confuses it with “dark matter”) which is real and the force which is not. Soft science and hard science don’t preclude each other and any universe with tractor beams or artificial gravity would potentially be able to bend light of a dangerous frequency (and grrl power’s already got force fields that do that)
Was thinking about the fact that their weapons fired discrete energy “Packets” instead of beams myself.
No, that would just stop Glowb’s beams (and her high-beams), but not Jiggs’
Or do you mean when Barberian was playing with Dabbles while Glowb was still having a cold shower?
True for the bomb design shown on Youtube. More recent designs are a lot more efficient.
I just love the fact that the plushy goes nyom nyom to do its work. Dabbler has shown that she has a very active sense of humor. Don’t start a prank war with her; it’s scary to think what she could do.
Her and Sydney, a l’outrance to the last prank.
Doesn’t Dabbler know what happens when you feed an Omanyte too much gamma radiation!?
https://thepunchlineismachismo.com/archives/comic/this-is-probably-the-fastest-ive-cranked-out-this-many-panels
Lord Helix! Grant us your power!
Well now that the radiation thing is solved, Hiro might be getting his ass kicked a lot.
As a major I’d say he’s expected to know better than to allow someone who’s unable to receive new orders to keep fighting. Especially someone who’s head injured and need medical attention as soon as possible. ( When you’re not a doctor you should consider most head injuries as potentially lethal. )
We have slipped to 4th people get to voting!
Um, looks like your RSS feed is not updating.
Geeze, Glowbug’s skin is all jacked up. That’s less a sunburn and more a 1st degree burn.
Response to Glowb in panel 6: guess she has never suffered from Chronic Fatigue (lucky girl, read about a not-so-lucky girl who had spent the last 8 years confined to bed because she didn’t have enough energy to even sit up, she spent about 20 hours a day asleep)
Dabber: “Go, Omanyte!”
Omanyte used NYOM NYOM
IT’S SUPER EFFECTIVE!
GLOWBUG FAINTED!
:D
Well that scenario ended lamely. We got this big buildup and what happens? The second most over powered hero there takes the wheels completely off with a rip off Pokemon plushy, and a two second sleep spell. Good god even the villain dabbler was facing off ageist turned out to be a poser!
Sad when a good senario set up eventually leads to a incredibly lame end.
both of which she was only able to do because her opponent was kind enough to allow her to do it.
There always has to be that one guy that is just there but does nothing to help. Could have used Dabbler as a radiation shield, she probably wouldn’t have even minded being belted with some gamma rays. But noooooo.
This comic is more about the funnies than the action scenes
This is funmy
Heh, I keep hearing Dabbler say, “Bad puppy! No biscuit!” in panel eight. :D
Personally, I keep getting the visual of a rolled-up newspaper myself! :P
DaveB, we really need emoticon support in the comments… :(
I did some digging on the exact effects of antimatter weapons and you’re dead on if for slightly wrong reasons. The gamma radiation release is super high energy and as a result has a high probability of passing through rather than impacting (this is actually bad for the radiation poisoning thing, it’ll pass right through stuff like air lead and skin that normally provides pretty beefy protection from radiation). DARPA reports estimate you;’d need at least a microgram to plasmify surrounding *heavy* water (which the stuff around her isn’t) and thus chain react it, and electrons are super light, while lightning is actually lower than you’d expect in electron count.
On the other hand I’m not sure how the hell you eat photons, but I’m gonna go with a wizard did it’ since a wizard actually did it.
I thought all of her tech vanished once it left her hand?
Possibly something more like “when someone else tries to hold it.”
It’s mammary trapped!
Like most other things tech, I’m sure that there is an “off” switch for that function.
Dabbler does not lie. But she may skip over many boring details. “Oh didn’t I mention that grabby sorts get locked in a stasis box? My bad.”
Well this is designed to be thrown
I doubt her explosives would teleport back to the lab once thrown either
I’m pretty sure y-ray radiation doesn’t work that way…or at least in a way that can be siphoned off into a mechanical? Organic? thing, considering that it’s one of the most damaging forms of radiation biologically.
If however that thing works is justified, then Dabbler is now the single most broken entity in the world, if she’s the one that created or tamed it.
No, gamma rays are photones, you can’t just bend specific photones and nothing else
But it’s magic, so it’s fine
Where did I claim that gamma rays are anything but photons? Where did I say that that thing is bending photons? My post is saying there’s no way radiation works that way.
And if magic is the answer to everything then what’s the point of the author introducing actual science concepts? Even magic has rules that it follows.
I didn’t say anything about you saying that, I’m just providing extra information.
And magic has rules, but we don’t know those rules. So we can’t draw conclusions on what it can’t and can do.
I’m sure DaveB knows the rules though
Isn’t ‘absorbing gamma radiation’ after you’ve stopped generating it a bit like ‘bottling daylight’ after you’ve drawn your shades? It doesn’t exactly hang around. You’ll still have that sunburn. The damage, it’s done.
Zebra guy seems alright. Hope he gets away with a slap on the wrist.
*Ahem* The Barberian. I want it to catch on.
I see your Berberian and raise you SkunkTop… ;-)
Nope, Barber-ian is the now-preferred name for him (at least until DaveB decides otherwise), and that’s more a zebra-mane than a skunk’s arse anyway
Dabbler has radiation absorbing pokemon now??
7th generation, evolves when traded while holding plutonium
Maybe I missed it, but why when Glowbug was falling asleep wasn’t she getting “hit” by Jiggawatt’s powers?
“Sava Lava Cuti” ia a powerful demonic sleep spell from a TV show, so it’s Dabbler who knocked Glowbug out, not Jiggawatt.
Darkhound: I know Dabbler put her to sleep, but wasn’t Jiggawatt still ‘firing’ as she passed out?
the Rad-eater was absorbing the Lightning Bolts as well as the Gamma radiation?
Possibly because Lord Helix stopped the Darkning (doubt Dabbles would have put Glowb to sleep if there was still the chance of her getting fried)
Hey, by the way, the RSS feed hasn’t updated since you migrated the site.
Second panel looks a bit uncomfortable for Dabbler.
if your friends invite you to attack a team of superheroes they are not your friends
Just an FYI, Feedly isn’t updating with new pages. Dunno if the other feed services are either. Not since the move.
Dave, I REALLY like this guy. Could he get a partial pardon so that he could start a hair salon on the MWR (Moral, Welfare, and Recreation. The restaurant level.) level of Archon? I would love to see him pop up now and then as a hairstylist.
Also, it would be good PR for Arianna. “If you do not fight us, you can make more money working for us. Even cutting hair pays better here then anywhere else.” Might even promote smarter villains (soon ex) who choose to join instead of fight.
First offense (if it is) and no harm done. He’ll probably get probation, especially if Arc has someone speak on his behalf. Assuming he wants to go the super hero route, Arc will be happy to have some more help after this fight. If he wants to quit the powers biz, a hairdressing shop would make a nice add to the mall level.
I do not want him to be a “Super” per-say, I want him to be the strongest and most talented Hairdresser in the world. I am picturing a comedy side arc about the life and times of being a Stylist in Archon.
Uh, did you mean “Moral” or “Morale”? It could go either way. The Government loves to legislate morals.
*Morale* was meant.
[size=150]I want a Gamma Radiation Absorbing Creature Plush!!![/size]
but I think you have to get the rights from Dabbler first.
I suspect that few people are actually interested in this, but I did the math on how much energy is released by the annihilation of a positron lightning bolt.
TL;DR, basically the concept of positron lightning bolts is completely ridiculous, and totally awesome. It does far more that just erase regular lighting.
I couldn’t really say how much charge there is in a super powered lightning bolt. Jiggawatt could easily be manipulating electric fields to allow a stable bolt with a small charge but at the same time she fights supervillans so her lightning should be stronger than normal lighting. This calculation is for the energy per coulomb of charge of positrons. In the real world a very weak bolt has under 1 coulomb but lasts something like 50 microseconds. Strong bolts might have about 25 coulombs. 1 coulomb is defined as the amount of charge transferred by a current of 1 amp in one second.
The rest of the numbers in this equation are basically indisputable facts from the laws of physics.
One bit of confusion is the question of whether or not there will be a chain reaction causing all of the positrons to annihilate. The problem is that the concept of a chain reaction is from nuclear bomb explosions where the particles released by some of the uranium/plutonium atoms exploding causes more atoms to explode which again cause further explosions. This is important because the atoms cannot explode without being hit by these particles. Positron annihilation is completely different because the only thing a positron needs in order to explode is an electron, and electrons are everywhere. Therefore every single positron jiggawatt creates will be annihilated.
E=m*c^2
Energy =num positirons in bolt * mass/positirons *2 * c^2
1024805.57737=(1/(1.6*10^-19))*(9.10938291*10^-31)*2*(3*10^8)^2
So, the energy released by 1 Coulomb of positrons is pretty much 1 MJ. This is actually the same amount of energy in a stick of dynamite which is helpful because it makes it really easy to find a similar scale explosion on youtube. It probably would be a bit different because the energy is released as gamma rays so it must be absorbed by its surroundings before it becomes heat. This could spread the heat over a much larger area and end up looking exactly like the comic is portraying it but we really have no idea. The real world has ever seen an antimatter explosion like this before and it could be completely different than anything we expect.
A more important fact is how much radiation is being made here. Converting Joules of gamma rays into units of radiation is extremely easy. 1 Joule of gamma radiation = 1 Sievert. However figuring out how much gamma ray energy will actually be absorbed by someone is a bit harder. I assumed a 1 coulomb bolt just to give an idea of the effects. We do know that with current medical technology, a dose of 8 Sieverts is lethal to any human and since we have so much gamma radiation being produced we can say that anyone within 500 ft of the positrons would probably die. (this was actually loosely calculated based on the area a person vs the area of a 500 ft sphere but might be off by quite a bit.)
This kind of radiation damages DNA which stops cells from being able to reproduce.
Luckily Dabbler has Oma-Spock (combined form of omanyte and spock) to reverse these effects. I think Oma-Spock must somehow reverse radiation damage because it has definitely happened by the time it is deployed. There are definitely ways it could be reversing the damage. It could for example use a cloud of nanobots that go into everyone and repair the DNA. It could also be powered by the gamma rays which is why its eating them.
Another cool effect is that anything hit by the positrons will suddenly have a very large positive charge.
This would pretty much be just like an enormous amount of static electricity to the point the “shocks” caused by it would basically be more lighting. Something similar to this should actually also be happening with the charge build up from Jiggawatt using her regular lighting. In fact this should also be happening whenever she uses her powers and basically would look like the last two panels of comic 228 when she joins this fight.
Thats probably enough science…
I am one of the few who are interested, the few, the proud, the science nerds! Thank you! That was fascinating!! :)
I find repairing damage from radiation much easier to accept than simply absorbing it out of the air. Thank you for the math crunching.
FYI Dave: The Cisco Ironport firewall problem I previously reported seems to be OK now. The service is no longer blocking your site as a malware threat.
I’ve been waiting since the site migration was announced to updates on the comic, but nothing was showing on the RSS feed, so finally I decided to come in and check. Found two updates the feed hadn’t informed me about. Is there a new RSS feed I need to add or will the old one be fixed or what?
Something that occurs to me. This strip confirms this is not a military or totally focused attack. Likely a loosely connected band of local supers *maybe via some secret super protection group the government doesn’t know or more likely an online forum.
So why then would they gang up and attack a group of elite supers right after a press conference?
Theory 1: group is angry for supers now being officially outed as existing. Where before it was shown a good number of people thought they were a hoax.
Theory 2: Witch Hunter Robin/Pain Killer Jane scenario. They fear this team despite what the press conference says is going to hunt them down and take them to some secret facility without trials or anything…not like they have reason to think this…its not like there was a Bank Robbery earlier where as far as the public knows two supers tried to rob the bank, were beaten by two other supers who happened to be there *suspicious* and are part of this team, and said two robber supers were taken away on a military aircraft and the news has not released the names of the robbers, or where they are being held, or if their case will ever even go to trial.
Yeah, that wouldn’t look too good to a society fearing a (witch hunt) type scenario.
“Government vivisectionists”. I’m just sayin’…
All those who have said the RSS feed’s not working. DaveB said he knows about it and he’ll look in to it