Grrl Power #237 – The tongue is mightier than the sword. Also boobs
Why would you wear a fishnet tanktop to a fight? Especially if we consider that Jabberwokky might be Suicide Girled up all over if you know what I mean. Piercing wise. Well it worked out so good for her.
This was definitely planned as two pages, but I’m always wanting to move things along so despite the extra work I stitched them together. It gives me a little more flexibility with the panel layout so that’s fine. The page presented a minor challenge for me coloring wise. Normally I stick to a set palette because otherwise I’d wind up doing much more dynamic colors like we see in the shadows under Jabber’s jacket. It looks great but it does take longer. Originally my plan with the art in the comic was to do it Tony Wong style. Or Wong Jan-lung if you’re nasty. He’s a Chinese artist who does epic kung-fu comics like Mega Dragon and Tiger, The Legendary Couple, Weapons of the Gods, etc. I reference him because his comics are good “production” level art, but then every few pages, he’ll have a big splash panel where he goes all out on the art. I’ve tried that a few times but I need to speed up more before I’m able to do that.
Speaking of colors, the eagle eyed amongst you (or at least those of you who aren’t mutated wolves with thumbs who read my comic) might have noticed that Dabbler’s stripes go all pink when she’s putting the sapphic whammy on Jaberwokky. Originally Dabbler’s skintone was supposed to reflect her emotions. It would go red if she was mad, pink for randy, etc. Like a lot of other things I refined that idea before she debuted in the comic. So now her stripes change color, but not in response to her emotions, but rather as an indicator of something she’s doing. They have turned another color in the comic before but I don’t recall anyone pointing it out in the comments. It was a busy few panels though. :)
To be clear, I’m not picking on mutated wolves. They could probably tell hot pink from luminous green, but probably not luminous green from aqua. And now that I’ve typed that I can only imagine what percentage of the comments will be about color perception and animals. I’m sure it won’t be the last time it comes up in the comic.
The RSS is still broken I think? I messed with the page a little last week and it seemed to start working for me again, but I keep getting people telling me it’s broken. Unfortunately fixing it starts with eliminating possible sources of the error which means turning off all the plugins I have on the page and seeing if they’re responsible, so if you see the page blowing up real good sometime late Tuesday or Wednesday, that’s probably why.
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Math: To succeed in your endeavours, you must always know what you will be doing at least … uh, Boobs!
Halo: Come on, Math; focus! I can’t believe I just said that.
stares… drools… Bobby power strong…. MATH HOW THE HELL ARE YOU NOT WATCHING PANEL 9?
you mean 13 don’t you?
Sometimes boobs make it hard to count.
Well, Math went down on the count of two…
Only because someone other than him was counting.
(Yeah, I know that sounds wrong grammatically).
Well, I’m busy watching panel-16…
(no – that’s *NOT* why!!!?!)
…it’s because I think I’ve found DaveB’s easter-egg for this page!
Jabber’s left-boob (on our right) is mis-colored!
Compared to panels-2, 9, & 10, you’ll see that the eagle-tattoo’s coloring covers too much of her skin in the final panel!
Math is so happy and I am just so happy for him. He’s probably the one person who’s getting everything they wanted out of this night.
No, no. Achilles got to eat his steak with aioli. Well, maybe he didn’t get to finish it. Not sure.
The power of bewbs.
Its over 9000!
Nah, she was only maybe in the 650 range. Well, maybe 750 if she really DOES have all the piercings.
Bah, I can’t stand nipple piercings. Nor augmentation. Use what your momma gave ya, it’s just fine as is.
I completely agree,
I agree, but to each, his (or her) own.
Hmm. INteresting little thing just popped up in my head. So Dabbler has now effectivly Jabberwokky under mental control. What happens if Jabber goes thermonuclear and kills someone? Who is the responsible party?
That’s easy. Jabberwokky.
To the best of my knowledge, “The Devil made me do it” has never gone over well in court.
Only works if Daniel Webster is the representing council.
To elaborate: Jabberwokky is still able to make her own decisions, and has not been told or influenced to use lethal force. If she chooses to do so, it is her own responsibility.
Now, if Dabbler told her to kill someone, Dabbler would probably share some responsibility. (How much to be determined.) And if Dabbler actually took over Jabberwokky’s mind (removing Jabberwokky’s decision making from the equation), then it would be Dabbler’s fault.
But right now Jabberwokky’s no more influenced by Dabbler (from what we can see) than say a mother is by her baby child (bad image, but closer than ‘a guy with a crush’) – Dabbler’s safety/health is her top concern, but Jabberwokky’s still calling her own shots.
I disagree. Jabberwocky is clearly mentally influenced right here and not in full control of her mental faculties and decisions. If she was in full control of herself, then she would currently be attacking dabbler, not obeying her. As such, she cannot be held completely responsible for her following mind controlled actions. Her illegal actions pre-dabbler mind control however (such as attacking archon members), are a different story.
I agree
I also note in a universe where it is possible, outright mind control is one of the most heinous things you can do.. if it’s not illegal, it should be
It’s not mind control like “super villain ray gun” mind control. It’s succubus lust based control, and let’s be honest, horney teenagers everywhere have acted the exact same way for pretty women. I agree with DStaal. There is definitely some powerful suggestion going on here, but to call it outright “dance puppet dance” mind control. And that is most likely the defense that would be used in court if it ever came up. We all make suggestions every day like “please pick up that cup” or “pass me that pencil”. Dabbler simply has some positive reinforcement going on in the mix when she makes hers.
Or to put it DnD style:
This is suggestion/charm, NOT domination. A person under a charm effect will not violate their alignment or otherwise act against their nature. their point of view on one person has been shifted, but it’s an absolute trust and affection, not slavish levels of mind control.
Charm Person, like Domination, typically gives another saving throw if you ask the person to do something they ordinarily wouldn’t do, such as attack an ally. But then it’s possible that Jabberwonky has never met this guy before.
It is implied when the Barberian said that he was only here because some of his friends are also here that he doesn’t know or consider everyone here on Team Evil to be a friend, and the same probably applies to most if not all of Team Evil.
Darn I was about to make a post that is all summed up in this chain (That this like DnD charm.) I wonder if that’s on purpose on DaveB’s part. Ah well that’s what I get for waiting a day to post my thoughts >.<
I think that is what's going on here though. She is charmed, not being controlled and that means that she really doesn't care for the guy she's about to attack anyway. If that is intentional on Dave's part, then kudos for the hidden clues.
Dabbler would be accountable. She induced an artificial state of mind on Jabberwocky without her permission.She then used her knowledge of said state to aim Jabberwocky at someone else. Mens Rea.
Due to the circumstances this is probably not criminal at the moment but she will be accountable for what Jabberwocky does during her altered state.
While not domination, Jabberwocky can not make informed and reasoned decisions in her current state.
I’ll reference what Shadow Commenter mentioned about hormone-addled teens – there have been court cases of women manipulating teen boys to harm/kill their husbands/boyfriends/exes/etc, by feeding their lust, telling a sob story, and simply suggesting that something needed to be done… I don’t know how any of those cases went, but would put this in the same category.
I would guess that if Dabbler can suggest that Jabberwokky go beat the snot out of someone, she can also suggest that she leave them alive but unconscious and bloody. Still, it’s a good point. When you go messing with the mind of a super, especially if you don’t know their tendencies and history, the most harm can come from the best of intentions.
If that photo of Dabbles in the last panel gets submitted for evidence, it will clearly show motive and intent on Dabbles’ part
The thin is, Dabbler has a rather tenuous control. Using lust to control someone just puts them in an artificial high state. If she told Jabberwocky to leave the guy alive, that would be more information she has to pass while still retaining the sexy glamour. The more information she has to pass to her, the more she makes Jabberwocky think. The glamour doesn’t work by making Jabberwocky think what Dabbler wants, it works by making her not think and instead work on instincts. Telling her, “Oh, but please don’t kill him” would, to use the DnD standards of answer, effectively offer her another saving throw. Not to mention it’d take up more space on the page.
LOL well in this case it as “The Demon made me do it.”
Dabbler has a whole lot of tricks up her sleeves…for someone not wearing sleeves :)
well if she had, she’d be having four of them. so yeah.
It may be the modesty lighting, but the anatomy in panel 6 seems off. It’s like you’re trying to pull a 3/4 side view of her front when her shoulder is pointing directly at us, and it just ends up looking like she has a boob growing out of her armpit.
If she was laying on her back it’d be in her armpit am I right? Seriously though it could probably be better, but finding a reference picture of a 5/8th rear view taken right as a woman the same cup size threw her arms up probably wasn’t going to happen in a timely manner, but I’m always on the lookout for good reference pictures.
I actually do have a reference folder for boobs, though that mostly consists of differently packaged cleavage from various angles.
I can see the scene now: It’s night time at young DaveB’s home. His mom walks into his room unannounced.
Mom: David! What are you looking at on your computer?!?
DaveB: Mom, I swear it’s a reference folder for boo…, um, I mean my artwork! Promise!
We leave the scene with DaveB being grounded for a month for looking at porn and lying to his mother.
If I was half my age maybe.
Now you’re telling on yourself. ^_^
Which is why I said:
Sorry if the attempt at humor hit a sore spot.
This is what Poser was originally meant for, realistic models that could be posed in any way you could think of.
Well, I just stayed up re-viewing EVERY SINGLE strip before this one looking for the last time Dabbler’s stripes were anything but turquoise while she was not under a glamour. I did not find it. Grr. Can anyone help me out?
Hm, try page 164? Can see the stripe color change on the arm pulling something out of hammerspace
Hmm… It DOES look a little extra glowy as she is summoning the hammerspace pocket, but it still looks roughly the same color to me. Oh, well. :)
Kinda disappointed the boobs got the better of Math. Always thought he was a lech who managed to stay on top of things despite it because of his incredible capabilities.
It says in his bio that “he is almost comically distractable by sexy women. He has been knocked to the losers’ bracket in several tournaments because of it”
Oh. I didn’t notice that. Eh well :/
I disagree. Jabberwocky is clearly mentally influenced right here and not in full control of her mental faculties and decisions. If she was in full control of herself, then she would currently be attacking dabbler, not obeying her. As such, she cannot be held completely responsible for her following mind controlled actions. Her illegal actions pre-dabbler mind control however (such as attacking archon members), are a different story.
Oops, it appears this reply didn’t quite post right, please ignore it.
Out of curiosity what browser are you using? It seems some people are having problems with replies going in the right place. I may have to switch back to the “jump to the bottom” style of commenting.
I tried to reply to this post and made another accidental post again, but I think I figured out what caused the miss-post. When I posted earlier, I did so from a tablet. But I might not have had javascript enabled, so I think that caused the miss-post.
thus we discover maths achillies heel.
*facepalm*
Mathias… you are an embarrassment to men everywhere.
Dabbler… I’d hate to be on the same side as you, even if you are scarily effective.
^^; Eeeeesh!
No problem. Dabs can fix that for you!
Unless the person is eunuch (for males) (and for females, whatever the equivalent of that is)?
Dare I assume that Pangolin Style increases Jabberwokky’s defense, reducing the damage she takes from impacts? Because that would (partially) explain how she took that punch to the gut so well. ^^
Better armor. As someone said earlier, pangolin is another name for the scaly anteater.
Yeah, I looked it up. ^^
The look on Math’s face as he’s getting kneed is some special kind of terrifying.
Yeah, his mind has already left the building so he won’t feel anything until he wakes up in hospital wondering how he got there :P
Props to the amazing detail on jabberwocky’s back tattoo. Keep up the great work.
RSS works fine for me.
There’s a leading carriage return in the rss feed. That seems to be a problem for some readers and not others, so I still need to look into it. Good to know some people are still getting it.
RSS back for me since the previous page.
I use Tiny Tiny RSS
RSS is fine for me too, I use Feedly. Though… on further inspection it appears 3 pages came out on Monday? Okay, this requires further inspection.
and the RSS update for this page came through 21 hours ago there don’t seem to be any other oddities
I have never had any issues with RSS here, but I only subscribe to the update rss feed. Might the issue be the comments rss? (i use feedly)
Dominatrix style. Very nice.
You have been missed puppy, people even started putting up “Lost Yorp” posters :P
We wuz worried.
Hi. Hope your OK.
https://i.imgur.com/FuHXKUn.jpg
I’ve searched in vain for a way to upvote you, but you’ll have to make do with a +1…
Mebbe what the internet needs is an upvote(dot)com. Just add a link to a post you want to upvote and then post a link to the upvote in the comments where the post was found. Or something like that.
XD And you don’t seem to have noticed that you were mentioned in DaveB’s comic-comment-description thing. Not by name, but I think everyone knew who he was referring to.
Math isn’t down really. He dropped to get a better angle while he was still showing “pudding face”. Dabs came up and made the scene even more intense (girl-on-succubi kiss) so he is lying there with a smirk. The nose smash? Been there, done that, didn’t effect him any more than any other attack she threw. He’s a team player willing to let Dabs be the closer for this one. Besides, while on the ground he isn’t drawing fire from a random blaster trolling for targets (is Hex still in the bushes or running?).
Is it just me who is hoping that when Jabbs gets to her ‘target’ he simply glares at her and says “What are you doing over here? Get back to work!” and she shakes her head and says “Have just the person in mind!” and starts chasing Dabbles around the parking lot
I think that’s just you. :D
Yea! another fan of Tony Leung’s artwork. I was so sad when Jademan stopped the English versions. Thank you for an awesome comic.
Gosh! If I only had a dollar for every time I was at a big to-do, standing alone, off to the side, watching the pretty girls and playing with my— What?!?
Cell phone?
For the record, your RSS has worked for me throughout. Or rather, I’ve not missed any strips. I mean, I don’t actually know if there was a delay between you posting it and the RSS picking it up, ’cause I only see it when the RSS does pick it up…
One of the most interesting ‘discussions’ I’ve ever seen on that in fiction was (surprise!) from Piers Anthony- one of the Incarnations of Immortality books, where two women go to confront Nyx (Incarnation of Night) about something. Nyx goes and turns one of them into a dude (not sure how, but when dealing with beings among whom God is merely a peer…) and he’s immediately on the other woman with, well, un-savory intentions- until Nyx turns him back into a Her.
The characters were, of course, quite put out, and surprisingly defended Male-dom, saying how they’ve never had guys act that way, and how society wouldn’t work if men were that lust-driven… Then Nyx says something along the lines of “But Men _are_ that lustful- they’re just also so incredibly stubborn that they refuse to give in to their desires most of the time.”
At once a blow and a salve to the egos of men reading it, and I think a rather interesting look at gender self-identity from an author who’s not particularly shy about these things.
So perhaps it is actually harder for a succubus to ‘Charm’ a male, simply due to their culturally and upbringing-ly strong willpower in regards those things? I’ve heard that Females are more sexually flexible, biologically and neurologically speaking, so it could be possible that whatever the glamour uses, though effecting both genders equally, is more adroit at causing actual tangible reactions in human females?
Long story short, men have more lust to use in Dabbler’s attack, but because of that are more adept at controlling their lust, while women have less lust but almost no defense against a lust based attack because of it. I’m fairly sure it’s more a person to person thing. All the women I know experience lust, they just don’t talk about it the same way men do. That said, anyone who uses glamour would probably have ideas of when/how to use it and give guidelines like you said. Jabberwocky sure seems like she’d be just as prone to this form of suggestion as Math, though.
[“I disagree. Jabberwocky is clearly mentally influenced right here and not in full control of her mental faculties and decisions.”]
Eh, this is a gray area, and I’m not sure which side I’m on. I will point out that being under the influence of something does not necessarily take away your legal responsibilities. Being drunk, for example. So it’s a pretty big question whether Dabbler’s psychic equivalent of getting Jabberwocky really smashed relieves Jabberwocky of responsibility for her decisions and actions.
Of course, that’s regarding the overall issue rather than this specific case. If we limit it to just this specific case, the fact that this is a war zone started by Jabberwocky’s team against Dabbler’s team takes away a fair amount of the moral ambiguity. Anyone who dies here, regardless of the circumstances, is the fault of the bad guys who started this kerfuffle.
Dammit, this was in reply to PancakesAreAwesome way up above. How the hell did it end up down here?
I think the new “reply below the comment” is doing it in some browsers. I think I’m going to have to change it back to the old style.
That’s a bad comparison because it normally is only possible to get drunk by your own voluntary choice; nobody can make you get drunk.
Google up “involuntary intoxication”. Being under the influence can take away your legal responsibilities if being under the influence is not your fault.
Hmm, it seems Dabbler is Mercking most of the threats. I understand she is a Jill of all trades but it would be nice to see some of the lest featured characters getting some wins under their belts.
Agreed, but on the flip-side of this argument is the issue of trying to reach the end of this fight-story…
(…& the end of the flashback…)
(…& the end of the rest of this story…)
…in a period of time that allows the Esteemed Author a chance to avoid dying of extreme old age before it’s over. There’s a LOT of people here in this fight, & a lot of character-detail that will doubtless need to wait for (at least) the next fight before getting revealed to us. We can’t just get ALL our answers in the first story, some of it needs to get “spread” across multiple story-arcs.
—
“It’s a marathon, not a sprint.”
—
Relax, & enjoy the fine, fine, ride we’ve been given.
:)
“This isn’t an anime.” THANK YOU! That needs to be mentioned more often! I don’t mean this comic, I mean in general.
He looks very “fate accepted” in panel 8. Nice ass too!
Smoochie smoochie! :D
….Is that supposed to a Magneto knock off?
How is it not Anime? We have Chibi characters, sweatdrops, pound-sign stress marks on the forehead, speed lines, etc. The style is completely Anime.
No I mean in the fight. In anime loads of people fighting transform and all of those transformations are long and colourful. Hell, I went to the fridge, got a snack and got back before one transformation finished one time!
OK boys and girls it is time for today’s ‘Find the Easter Egg’ game. You may start now.
(..plays Jeopardy! ‘think’ music..)
It is in Dabbler’s collar. Did you find it? You win one free click on the vote incentive page.
Is it just me, or does Jabberwokky’s bird tattoo just kind of disappear when her jacket opens?
Or is it just that it’s smaller than I thought it would be?
I’m sorry, the following joke is mandatory. Dabbler made me do it.
“it’s smaller than I thought it would be” – – – That’s what she said!
Hah, fair enough. And honestly, who could say no to Dabbler?
I remember that a few pages ago DaveB said that Maxima was not getting involved in the fights too much because she was too powerful and she wanted to give the rest of the team a chance to test their own skills. However as entertaining as this page is, it’s starting to feel like Dabbler is the too powerful one that is winning all the fights for everyone. First she interrupted her fight with the sword girl that was actually giving her a tiny bit of trouble to instantly defeat someone else. Then she turns around and one shots the sword girl. Next she is stopping an anti-matter explosion from occurring and “defeating” another 1-2 opponents (depending on how you count the guy who didn’t want to fight) at the same time. Now she after Math is knocked unconscious, she stops his opponent in such away that yet another bad guy is probably going to be knocked out. By my count, that makes something like 6 people she’s downed when the most anybody else has knocked out is 1 or 2, including Maxima.
Don’t know about that. Back at strip #212 it was stated that Math had taken out four and Anvil three. And I can’t remember seeing more of Anvil since, so who knows what her count is up to by now. Point is that even if we don’t see them the rest of the team is still working. Screen time is limited so David has to choose and pick which fights to show in detail.
Dabbler is taking down almost all of the villains with a certain degree of exposition or that were actually a threat. It’s like “yeah, you guys can beat the crap while i defeat everything else”.
I’m inclined to agree that Grrl Power has turned into “The Dabbler & Friends Super-Powers Show”. Max can’t punch through her shields, Dabbler can casually dismiss anyone put in front of her (I have killed GODS!), and she hasn’t even pulled out any of her tech yet. She’s been running on *just* her magic and sword-fighting.
Anyone that could challenge Dabbler would utterly decimate the rest of the team, save for maybe Max. Unless Dave writes in a McGuffin-of-the-Week to take Dabbler out of play, I see zero challenge for the rest of the team if Dabbler is in play.
You forgot about the bondage gun…
Indeed I did. And we haven’t seen her pull out the railgun yet, either.
Sooo… she’s death with swords, death at range, death in hand-to-hand (kisskiss, fight’s over), can teleport, cast shields Max can’t break through (Dabbler’s smirk implies it wasn’t even a strain)…
Dabbler’s character sheet *seriously* need to be updated to reflect the fact she’s hands-down, bar-none the most powerful person on the team.
I think there might be one major thing that’s being forgotten here: Dabbler’s character flaws. Yes, ability-wise, she could mop the floor with just about anyone she faces, but her pride (and possibly her limited attention span) work as impairments to this, as seen when she was wasting time sword-fighting the sword-lady, instead of using a method that the sword-lady was weak against to quickly take her out.
This tendency, if Dabbler doesn’t learn from it, could be her downfall. (Of course this all depends on how the honorable author wants things to turn out =D )
So what happens if Jabs accidentally says “Gang Nam Style” whilst fighting?
well played.
she would become the Korean equivalent to a Jersey Shore guido d-bag
How do you accidentally say “Gangnam Style”? I’d almost find that more disturbing than if it turned her into the drag version of Psy and had her perform the dance…
She hears the song playing in the background during a fight and she starts to hum along. Right as she decides to change styles, the chorus begins and she begins to sing along without consciously realizing it.
Noooo!!!
Just writing that last comment had me balancing on the edge of insanity. Your comment now sent me plummeting into the insanity that lurks deep down in my mind, where now Grrl Power the Musical – Gangnam Style is playing…
Brain bleach! Quick!!!
I hate to say this, but really the focus on Dabbler is making this incredibly boring. This entire fight has become “Everyone look at what Dabbler can do” as she has dispatched almost every villain who has fallen on-page. I read this to see a team of superheroes at work, not a team of superheroes floundering helplessly while a grossly overpowered succubus mops up. I thought the whole idea of her was that she has many skills, but is not necessarily good at any of them. Thus far she has been ridiculously competent in everything she does, and it’s coming off as incredibly Mary-Sue-ish.
You have no idea how happy it would make me to see Dabbler get thoroughly thrashed in the next several pages, just to balance things out.
To be fair, Dabbler did almost get slashed to death several strips back and she’s got the wounds to show for it. She’s not invincible, just Batman-like.
It was clearly stated (and demonstrated) that she sucked at swordplay. Batman was a master of all of his skills, and he had a seemingly endless supply of gadgets, just like Dabbler does. What Dabbler has is a teleport function and a seemingly endless supply of technology. She is clearly working with her teammates. If anything, Dabbler only faced one opponent so far full out, and that was Heavenly Sword. She’s just picking off her friends’ opponents when they’re focused on her friends.
Compared to what the rest of the team is dealing with, Dabbler is doing fantastic. Hiro, Amorphous, Jiggawatt, and Heatwave are in pretty awful shape right now. Dabbler has some minor cuts. Hell, poor Amorphous just got his brief cameo before getting taken out of the fight all in one page. And what happened to Anvil? Why is Halo doing absolutely nothing of consequence when she was already ordered to “pull aggro?”
It also doesn’t really matter that she sucks at swordplay when she can just pull out some Deus-Ex-Machina magic to solve literally every problem she can’t brute-force through. Was it really necessary for her to have a radiation-absorbing plushie on hand? Why did that scene even need to exist? Because it seems to exist purely to take the focus off a more interesting character (Jiggawatt) and put it back on Dabbler.
Characters are interesting when they struggle, that’s storytelling 101. Dabbler thus far has been breezing through this fight while everyone else is getting trashed.
Curious what an Asexual would feel when she puts the whammy on them.
non-specific lust. just ordinary old arousal, without a specified target.
Or possibly a deep craving for something specific, but not sexual, like chocolate. Although some consider chocolate to already have that power.
Your rss feed is broken.
I think everyone in Arcswat is bleeding now, well except for Maxima.
Also the gothy black & purple haired Harem looks like Sydney’s & Morticia Adam’s love child.
You mean Gothamer?
Well obvious exception is Achilles. Still buried though…
And four of Harem (possibly doesn’t count as Harem is a single entity) and Peggy. Uncertain about Anvil. She’s able to absorb kinetic power so it’s likely she doesn’t get bruised or get nosebleeds, but uncertain about puncture wounds and cuts.
Have we seen Stalwart? Was he even at the restaurant? He’s listed as having a defense/toughness rating of 4, third highest after Achilles (6) and Maxima (5). Could mean that he’s just that hard to wound, or that he can absorb a ridiculous amount of damage.
Hmm…now I have to ask, ESPECIALLY due to the title of this comic.
Jabberwokky evokes the power of the pangolin to help her win her battle against Math’s attacks. I assume this is mainly due to the physical protection it would provide, but I have to wonder…does Form Of Pangolin also carry a corresponding increase in tongue length? From Wikipedia:
The tongues of pangolins are extremely elongated and extend into the abdominal cavity.[…] Large pangolins can extend their tongues as much as 40 centimetres (16 in)
If so, Dabbler could’ve gotten quite the surprise there in the pink panel.
And that could be part of what made Jabber very popular at those parties she mentioned…
I suddenly had a thought. A lot of these “villains” seem to have been coerced into coming here, and likely by the man in the fedora. I have a feeling that Jabber was actually on her way to a concert or a rave when the man in the fedora picked her up.
Um, I am supposing this based on how she’s dressed. You don’t normally go to a fight with a fishnet tank top on.
Dave is this why Dabbler has 4 arms? so that she can capture the chicken with one pair and then choke it with the other pair? ;D
Why not?
Of all the villains so far, I want most for Jabberwokky to get the Heel-face turn. Partly to encourage the MathJab shippers, and so we get to see more of her powers.
Also, Both Math and Jabberwokky could have a lot to learn from each other, both on the mat and off.
So… when is Dabbler going to die or become the big villain? Because honestly, she’s the embodyment of Mary Sue right now, so the only good outcome right now is any of those two options…
You do realise that DaveB is a guy, don’t you? So please to be explaining how Dabbles is a ‘Mary Sue’?
A Mary Sue does not have to be an author insert. And even if it did neither you nor I nor Robert know enough about DaveB’s gender identity to either rule out or rule in the gender of any such presumed author insert.
What Robert appears to be saying is that Dabbler has expressed enough power that she could easily wreck a rational story arc simply by using her known powers to their best ability*. As a character who is purported to have fought the most powerful (known) character in the story, Maxima, to a draw, this isn’t terribly out of character.
* Note that Maxima has only taken out a single opponent in this fight against 30+ supervillains. That has been handwaved away as Maxima holding herself in reserve for the supposedly inevitably boss fight(s), but in reality all it has managed to do is to get several of her team wounded or possibly killed. If Maxima had done the 2 second “arm break, you’re done” maneuver on Jabberwonky, Math wouldn’t be unconscious right now. If Maxima had done the 2 second “arm break, you’re done” maneuver on Diesel Glowplug, Heatwave and Amorphous wouldn’t be out of the fight right now. But if Maxima had done this, she would probably be being called the Mary Sue, and not Dabbler. Instead Maxima is being called (by me, at least) the leader who is willing to see their troops wounded and/or killed just because the leader feels that they need blooding in order to get better. This is pretty much what the author has said is her motive for not actually acting effectively in this fight, at least.
I’m already loathing Dabbler. Frankly, when my friend showed me this comic I refused to read it because of Dabbler being an obvious Mary Sue. I’ve enjoyed it thus far because the focue was mostly on character inter-relationships, and I did like the dynamic between her and Maxima. However, now that the fighting has started the comic has gotten incredibly boring. Dabbler is a walking Deus-Ex-Machina solving every single problem her team has instantly, and the brief moment where she did get challenged was instantly solved by pulling out more bullshit magic. The entire JIggawatt “darkning” scene existed purely to give Dabbler a problem to solve instantly with another bullshit spell and gadget. It’s getting old.
In Maxima’s case, at least she isn’t solving every problem instantly with her godlike powers, but the fact that she CAN is a problem. It’s the Superman problem, there needs to be some contrivance to give the rest of the JLA a reason to exist. We all know that whatever finally forces her hand will not challenge her at all, and that nagging thought is pretty much ruining her character.
I never thought that a sequence of pure action could be so damned boring, but really this comic was way better when it was just a bunch of superheroes talking about meaningless crap.
Or some technomancer manages to hijack her HammerSpace vault and makes of with who knows what kind of technology. Reclaiming the lost tech could do for a very long and involved arc. Possibly running as a background for the rest of the series with the stolen tech turning up at when least wanted.
Hasn’t that already been done with a certain guy who clanks around in red and gold power armor? And why did he do away with the roller skates?
Yes it has. and since he can fly, roller skates were just silly.