Grrl Power #242 – Well that sucked
Well that’s concerning.
Anvil doesn’t run on the kinetic energy she absorbs, but she’s never had anyone just yank it all out of her at once like that. The shock was like a sudden drop in blood pressure which is why she passed out. She had a lot of it power saved up at this point in the fight too. Seems like a waste but you know, battles are chaotic that way.
I know it’s come up before, but superhero battles in real life would likely be super deadly. A regular human punching another has a minute chance of killing them. A trained boxer or martial artist or powerlifter or whatever has a better chance, but only marginally (unless you’re intentionally targeting the throat or something.) It’s still meat and bone connecting with more meat and bone, but with super powers, there is such a potential gulf between the damage that can be dealt and what can be absorbed. If Gigaton Punch sees an unknown villain battling police, and all the cops’ bullets are bouncing off the guy, he might think he’s pretty safe using his low level Kiloton Punch to start off with, but then the guy explodes like he was crushed in between two colliding cement trucks. Turns out the bullets weren’t bouncing off him because he was super armored, but because he had a super accurate pinpoint forcefield generator that was perfect for bullets but nothing else. When the scale goes from 1 to 1 million, misjudging someone’s defensive ability by 10% could be catastrophic. Luckily this isn’t that sort of comic, but that’s still why Anvil decided to start in with a grapple instead of, as she said, risking punching his head off.
If you are in a mood for a significantly more violent Superhero webcomic, check out Vanguard. It’s not to say Grrl Power won’t ever have some good ‘ol proper violence in it, just that it won’t be a feature. I could totally see Dabbler bisecting zombies or something, but guts are a pain to draw, even though personally I do enjoy reading ultra violent comics like Ricky-Oh/Fist of the Northstar and good macabre stuff. That link (which is now fixed) goes to a manga about creepy spirals. I know “woooooooooo, scary.” No seriously, it’s creepy. Uzumaki is da man. (Whoops, Uzumaki is the name of the book. Junji Ito is the man.) It’s also $20 for 650 pages hardback… well shoot, I’m going to buy that for myself. It’s uh, comic research for when I have to draw creepy stuff in Grrl Power.
Here’s an art tip. When you see a hand in the comic that’s as well drawn as the one in panel 4, there’s a good chance at some point I was gnarling my hand up in front of my webcam for reference. Seriously my webcam folder is like 25 pictures of my hands and a few shoes.
Reader Outrider created a 3D animation of Sydney’s Orbs’ skilltree. It just spins around it a few times while it rotates but it looks all professional. :)
Well, again, the back end failed to post the comic on time, which is just not acceptable. I’m going to look into this with godaddy, but if they can’t offer any help I’m going to have to sump their hosting and move somewhere else.
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this guy is my new favourite character im glad hes a threat stupid name aside it seems his power is being able to absorb energy and release it at a later date.
So if Death toll can copy powers, does that mean he’s really…Kopy Kraut?
If you’re looking for good hosting, I’ve been quite happy with DreamHost.
So far Death Toll has only responding to things that have come directly at him. I wonder if his power, whatever it turns out to be, is actually purely defensive. He can respond if attacked in some way, but otherwise he’s got nothing.
Aaand looking back I see someone suggested something much like that on the first page of comments. Oh well.
Nooooooo Anvillll :(
a guy in a skull mask, saying excellent, I’m sensing some Mortal Kombat classics here, oh and I bet everyone who knew anvil needed to get their brown pants on when Maxima gave the Anvil is one-shotted announcement
Achilles would probably be the best person to throw at him, both figuratively and literally. Since his ability is basically infinite, if this bad guy is absorbing powers, it’s very possible that Achilles could overload it.
The other thing is, if Achilles did the same choke hold on DT, he wouldn’t be sparked off.
I’m also thinking that DT’s blocking/absorbing ability is only available via his hands. Otherwise, why zap Anvil when he could have drained her then? Maybe each part of his body does something different…
seems like he absorbs attacks using powers but not powers themselves. The buster buddy lasers hit him and dispersed along his leg and he got grazed by Jiga’s lightning but he back-handed concretia when she was flying toward him and had to get anvil to back off a choke hold using just straight up strength.
No, Jiggs attack missed him completely
If he’s absorbing powers, the best person to throw at him is anybody BUT Achilles, if he’s STEALING powers, Achillies would die, but the best would be Halo, as she doesn’t have any actual powers (she has artifacts), followed by Math, who has nothing.
I’d actually use Achilles last, given that he absorbed (or drained, we’ll see which probably) all the kinetic energy from Anvil. If he absorbs or drains the invulnerability from Achilles, that would leave Achilles subject to injury, and he’s been so reckless for so long that he’d be bound to get himself seriously injured or killed in a hurry.
Plus, if it is absorption, you’ve just created a villain who is immune to all damage.
Halo’s patented DEATH BREATH. Bet that’d take him down a notch. Those bees could sting de eyes….
I wonder if he is a power-copier and he tried that, would he get mouth burn too? He wouldn’t necessarily get Sydney’s ability to handle the hot stuff since that isn’t really a power.
I don’t think her dinner was spicy enough to activate her breath weapon.
Wait…is…is Anvil wearing a Scouter? Like from DBZ??
COOOOL! Why could I see Halo beg for one of those then make spazy Ginyu Force poses during fights. XD
It’s not really a scouter, they’re a pair of glasses that Arc-Light has been using to collect and display data on their opponents, Anvil’s pair has simply had one of the lenses broken sometime during the fight.
So yes, it basically is a scouter.
They can’t hand out too many of those, because it costs… over 9000.
Hm, is Death Toll= Cue Maniakal Laughter from #131?;> Just look at his chin:) He is probably some kind of evil millionaire, so he don’t want to be recognized.
hhahahahahahaha “guts are a pain to draw”. I love this guy.
I believe that was two shots, Maxima.
No, he grabbed her hand, absorbed her energy, and then using the same hand tossed her empty tank aside (it’s like a vampire tossing aside the empty juice-box that used to be a human)
I don’t like this page it seems the villians are way too prepared any group this well prepared and with this many supers would have been known about and they would have been ready. I always hate it in comics when the bad guys seem to always get the drop on the good guys a group like Arc would have intelligence on all possible enemies.
As history will show, getting the drop on a highly organized military faction has been done, and is done with relative frequency. Intelligence is absolutely never all-inclusive.
Way too prepared?!? Just check the current “body” count, the good guys are well ahead despite being well outnumbered even if you include their non-powered support staff.
And the bad guys preparation, for most of them at least, appears to be “what we saw on the TV.”
Really, when you’ve got guys surrendering because “I’m just a hair dresser” and “I only came because couple of my friends were going”, it’s hard to take team evil as a whole very seriously.
They only started getting organized near the end, when it was just a bit too late. So organized is hardly the word to describe these guys. I think this was more a situation of a small handful of semi-competent villains as well as a bunch of chaff than any organized assault.
The villains are down to three or four active fighters. They are outnumbered and neither Max or Halo have gone into action in a major way. Jiggs, Hiro, Stalwart, Dabbler and Harem are also fully active. Plus the non-powered backup. DT will take some creativity but I bet ranged power can drop him. Or an entangle/ freeze. Anything not involving direct contact is on the test bench.
And when they have? It’s been one-shot take-downs for the bad guys. Even from the most junior and inexperienced member of the team.
True but up to now the villains they have dealt with have not been overly complex. Max has outpowered them or Halo outsmarted them. DT is a new species.
I’m guessing DT’s a generic energy absorber with a bunch of inherent strength/armor. And that he’ll take down a few more of the team before Sidney figures out an exploit for him – and gets the appropriate members to act accordingly by yelling a lot.
That’s a really stupid and pretentious cowl, though.
While sad to see Anvil fall (although we know she is still around), very much glad to see this page after the last one
Death Toll is probably the most righteous supervillain name I’ve heard in some time. I hope he decides to roll with that.
Death Toll wouldn’t be a bad moniker. For Whom the Dork Tolls, however, is so hideous I can’t think of anything that hideous to compare it to.
It’s a Phrasic Portmanteau!!!
One of the heroes in Magellan insists on being called “The Man With The Plan” and gets upset when anyone tries to shorten that or give him a nick-name.
A quick thought inspired by this page, but not directly related: An interesting power for one of Sydney’s unknown orbs would be some sort of ‘power scanner’. Start out with a general sense of the types of powers they have, and as it levels up add in more detail (and specific weaknesses). Also could have range/area limits. (Either direct range, or ‘can only focus to this area’.) (Could also have some level done as a one-point buy off of the truesight.)
It’d be a really interesting power in the context of a team, although it wouldn’t be great on it’s own. It’d also be one that wouldn’t have shown up so far: She hasn’t ever used those two orbs in the presence of a super.
Though up a perfect strat this morning. Sid grabs toll with light hook drop shield and fly straight up at high speed. We already know sid has some sort of limited air/inertia shield from fly orb (otherwise her 300+ mph flight would have torn her and her cloths shirt to bits on the way to the test ground. at 20,000 feet or so toll will pass out. if he stupid enough to attack sid she drops him and hes street pizza. Max following along to slow/stop her fall if she is attacked would be a good idea.
When she was flying, she had the Shield orb activated
Which, due to the “only two at once” limitation on her powers, pretty much prevents Sydney from using Lighthook to grab DT and then flying him up to a nice, defenisterable (look, I made a word!) height.
Unless she does it without her shield, which would be a very, very Bad Idea (™).
or go till she feels the air is thin and chuck him up higher with light hook… he may make orbit ot just end up falling back to earth in a half conscious state.
After all she can keep things at a distance with that so it can move DT past her out of touch range
a third option that may work on the ground uses the tentacle as a pithon and squeezes the air out of him. something that could be done faster at previously stated altitude.
That strategy is nowhere near perfect, something so simple as Death having more electricity stored, or being stronger than the tentacle, is already enough to make it fail.
I just noticed that D.T. proved how powerful he was by easily beating one of the toughest persons in the group. Do we have to start calling Kenya ‘Worf’ now?
https://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Main/TheWorfEffect
Only if it becomes a pattern. Besides, all he really proved is that he has a power they didn’t anticipate or know, that was useful in this one way. Anvil could probably have easily beaten him by picking up a pebble and flicking it at his forehead – but without knowing how strong he is, that could have been lethal, and she didn’t want to do that.
Except that Anvil is one of the -weakest- members of the team.
Just caught something there (feeling stupid about it now): In panel 5, Anvil winds up to hit; in panel 6, FWTDT catches Anvil’s hit and drains her. So either Anvil didn’t go all out for the hit or FWTDT can soak it. Either way, FWTDT can catch her (telegraphed) hits. Oh, and too bad Matthias isn’t awake to chew Anvil out for telegraphing the hit.
If he hadn’t attacked anyone before that, she had no business threatening him with incarceration much less assaulting him. He’s just a spectator in a silly costume who happens to have powers and defended himself when some dumb c*nt put him in the sleeper hold. Self defense, plus he could sue her.
As has been stated previously: She asked him to surrender, and he didn’t. He also has made no attempt to leave the combat area. If he was a disinterested civilian, he should have left or allowed himself to be arrested until the end of the fight. (I.E. Allowed them to put him in a safe location out of the way of ongoing operations.)
At this point he’s being arrested for resisting arrest and conspiracy to commit a felony. Both are legal and valid charges.
For those people who still insist that Death Toll Cookies is Deus, let me just point this out: Deus couldn’t even get the Lightning-clicker to work properly!
As much as I hate to defend the guy, it’s not his fault the design team added a sleep “feature” that he apparently didn’t request and has a flaw that he immediately recognizes once he does know about it.
Speaking of whom, I wonder if DaveB will fill us in on how he got his scar.
As was pointed out about the weakness Anvil’s powers woulda had against Atomic Bombshell, a good move at this point would be to aim blasts at the ground Phrasic PortMantle (wait, that makes him sound like his powerset works like Cloak…nevermind) is standing on. This offers a minimum of danger to the party by not getting into melee range, and even if it doesn’t shake him up or damage him will give the intel folks more info to work with.
And if it DOES damage him, or even just throw him off his game, hey, bonus.
I had a disturbing thought / realization at work.
Death Tolls with his skull mask and what have you reminds me of Dabbler’s Fiendish Foe.
I just thought of it today and how easy it might be for that fiendish foe to perhaps possess a willing body.
And also being Demonic in nature could probably have access to a variety of spells and abilities.
Having ‘found’ Dabbler from Maxima’s Fiery eruption.
Meh, just a thought.
That’s actually not a bad thought! It would make this fight about to become very interesting. Though I do doubt it is actually the case; one could always hope.
adding to this bet!!
It’s not a bad thought, at all. But DTs dorkish manner of speaking ruins the comparison for me. If he was a demon possessing a mortal body he should be speaking a lot more “dark and evil.” Saying things like “I find the cowl rather helps with looking imperious”, and “it’s a phrasic portmanteau!” just doesn’t seem to jibe with being an actual demon.
You saying that demons can’t be dorks? o_O
Panel 6: Osmose at work. Colour’s right too!
Not sure if anyone has noticed yet, but Anvil got cheeky in panel 7 :P
Well we know she’s not wearing bike shorts. (see Dave’s comments last comic.)
Hmm, DT’s last comment: was that because he one-shotted Anvil? or because he’s now the focus of their attentions? Why isn’t it Monday yet?
The latter I suspect. He may have a bunch of tricks ready to go. If it is Deus he has inside info from Harem and may have specific counters for most of the team. Which leaves Halo to save the day as the wild card character.
Death Toll’s name is now justified.
Still not a good name, but no longer mock-able.
Bad names can always be mocked. Now we just have to do so outside of arm’s reach.
Ok so why does he say “Excellent.” Lets not assume its because he has drawn priority attention and is that egotistic that he thinks he can take them all. Is his name supposed to be Death Wish? Or is it really that he is for whom death tolls? Maybe indeed he is pleased at the name given or even accepted by Maxima….or delighted since she has suggested the name “One shot” to him. He could make a title along the lines of “The poor person one shot” or something. I prefer to think of it as homage for Mr Burns from Simpsons. If he says “Release the hounds” in the next frame then I will be vindicated.
Death Toll will be a recurring character, or should be, for one simple reason-
Any lawyer worth spit knows that Toll is going to WALK OUT OF HIS ARRAIGNMENT/JAIL AS A FREE MAN. Given the recent police overreaction in Ferguson, MO and the current public view of police brutality against the press and the assembled public it would be a pathetically easy case to make in a court of law, and the press would be all over it. It ought to happen even if Dave handwaves it and moves on.
You can make the case that Toll might know a few of the people in this fight; so does Anvil. You can question why they have assembled, but assembly is a legal right in the US. One over muscled steroidal picked a fight with another one in ARC-SWAT and the government force decided to overact and turn a fight into a riot by use of excessive force turning it into a potentially deadly brawl involving dozens.
We may know different as the readers, but perception carries a lot of weight with judges, the press and grand juries. As a super powered individual Toll has no doubt sought out the company of others. But when you get right down to it, Toll never did anything criminal at this scene and laying a hand on him would have been far down the list of things that needed to happen.
Putting on a cape happens in the US in RL right now. Not illegal. Perhaps he was going to ask for a job. Hard to prove he wasn’t. Watching a two-man brawl turn into a potentially deadly confrontation in what might well be another ARC-SWAT demonstration…not illegal. Standing there peacefully and then defending himself however he sees fit from a super-powered lethal attack from behind? Still not illegal and in fact HIGHLY protected under US law.
Self defense trumps excessive police force against an apparent bystander who was given no warning whatsoever. He could have killed her and he would probably still walk after a hearing and viewing of the video that ARC is making. Instead he used NON LETHAL FORCE and ARC is escalating the fight against him again. Like I said- he needs a lawyer.
Defending yourself isn’t a crime and any decent defense lawyer has wet dreams of getting one of these sorts of police brutality cases. The fact that he’s actually a scumbag will not matter one bit. The settlement would run into millions, which buys a lot of henchmen.
And of course the lawyer subpenas the video feeds that show Maxima deciding to further escalate the encounter. Really, this guy could turn into GP’s Lex Luthor with a simple phone call from jail.
At this point he may as well be the next incarnation of “Nyah nayh can’t hit me man”.
People come at him and get their head handed to them, and he walks away a richer, free man for defending himself against police use of deadly force. Won’t happen. But it ought to.
I’m sure that isn’t the plan by him or Dave B.
But it oughta be, just to make life interesting for ARC.
This was from the outset, at the very least, a violent (which in turn means unlawful, and everyone there can and should be detained) protest against ARCHON. Which is a branch of the military (some might object to that… but assaulting them is not the way to do so), so some of the backlash will be contained there in. And when asked (very crudely but asked) to come along nicely, FWTDT responded in a very agressive and hostile manner. So how is an officer supposed to detain someone, without force, who isn’t cooperative? Which leads to the here and now, where charges of resisting arrest and assaulting an officer CAN be tagged on. So yes he probably will do some time in jail. Maybe not as much as Bombshell (who depending on whats recorded, his interactions with might add yet more charges) but still some. Assuming he doesn’t escape.
Just to make it clear: The point where it escalted from spending a night in Archon’s equivalent of Jail while they sort everything out, to almost certainly having charges pressed (and likely to stick) was last page, where he threatened Anvil. To the law, for an officer in a hazardous situation, that is ASSAULT. Everything else is just compounding the problem.
If the ARCHON video has sound, then what Anvil did could be claimed as provocation: she said she was going to arrest him simply because of his name!
She told him to surrender, he declined and, just as she was, apparantly, in the right to arrest an innocent by-stander, he is in his right to refuse, and he warned her what would happen if she tried (specially seeing the excessive force she employed against Lil Boomer just moments before)
If anything, Anvil could be viewed as the aggressor right from the start of the evening!
Oh, and this article may or may not play a part in DT’s defense
People keep forgetting that Arc-swat is a -military- police unit. They aren’t bound by the same laws and rules as the civilian police are.
Pick up big rocks with molestorbs and drop on his head. No power to absorb. If that doesn’t work, pick up him AND THE DIRT HE’S STANDING ON with molestorb and lift into sky and leave there. Deal with at leisure.
If that doesn’t work, pick him up and dump into nearest body of water and bury with rocks. Drowning might be sufficient.
At the very least drop about 100 flashbangs in front of his eyes (Harem). May prove interesting since I don’t think he absorbs that, or he’d have the power of the Sun already.
The rocks would have KINETIC energy. If he absorbs energy the Molestorb is made of energy.
Dave, could we get the exact limits to Anvil’s powers? (sorry if you’ve said in a prior comment) I mean it makes sense on an intuitive level, she absorbs motion but not other forms of energy. But why? Kinetic energy (in scientific terms) just means actualized or currently happening energy. Plus, most/all understood forms of energy are motion on some level. Heat is simply motion of the individual molecules/atoms. I believe other forms of energy break down similarly, with the exceptions of light and other forms of energy we don’t understand yet.
Don’t get me wrong, I’m not trying to criticize. I fully understand from a balance perspective – if Anvil could absorb all kinds of energy she’d be fully invulnerable to any direct attack, and only certain power sets would have even a chance of stopping her. The biggest reason I’m wondering is that I created a character a while back with the inverse powers, I originally excluded motion, but realized I didn’t have a legitimate reason not to include given my understanding of energy. So, what’s your thought process?
Hopefully this isn’t still classified information…
Actually there’s a mistake. At the top right it says Death Toll “Has not been affected by any attack so far.” I am pretty sure he was cut by the verbal ones.
Im not a law expert but from where I stand FWTDT can be charged with resisting arrest and attacking officer of law. Additional charges depend on the skill of prosecutor. And I wouldnt go down the “self defence” route, he was stupid enough to issue a challenge to Anvil or asked her to fight alongside him against the “Merry Band of Super Protesters” depending on your interpretation. First makes him a perp second makes him a vigilante (and we know the ARC policy against those). It reminds me of a texan guy with concealed carry license who wanted to help policeman stop a robber and got shot by said policeman after he did not drop his gun when ordered to do so. Nobody even thought about giving the policeman grief about that.
As to how detain FWTDT: Illusion magic, hentorb squeeze, Dabbler tech (maybe the bondage gun), Stalwart`s “and maybe something else” power.
On a side note: Where and how, ARC is going to imprison those guys they caught? Normal cell just wont do.
As always, sorry for my english, its not my first language.
Your english is very good
You made some very good points, but… he did not challenge Anvil after she decided to arrest him simply because of his name, he warned her what would happen if she did attack him, and we saw the result of that: she attacked him, he re-acted in self-defense, he did not strike her
By the point he gave his name he was already resisting arrest. (The first attempt at arrest was her asking him to surrender. When he refused, she escalated. Proper procedure.)
She Asks him to surrender, he says “…don`t insult me…” and continues with something that can be construed as a death threat, she tries immobilization (probably not excerting any force just locking arms), he zaps her (thats resisting arrest). Now shes in the right to use force to take him down (maybe not deadly force) so she tries punching, he drains her (thats an assault).
What is essential to me here is that he did not warn her, he challenged and threaten her. You should not threaten police officer when hes arresting someone with a weapon, much less when you have gun. You also dont issue challenges and threats to civilians that are being attacked by someone if you dont want to be considered hostile. Also he does the stupid thing by admitting he has a vigilante/villain name, this by itself would land him in trouble.
I think that the only line of defence (assuminghe will be caught) that FWTDT`s lawyer could effectively pursue is what tor said below. Anvil and the rest of ARC team are not in uniform and they dont wear badges, so they do not have the authority to order someone to submit. But then FWTDT should say something like “why should I surrender to you woman?” not issue something that resembles death threat.
No, you have it backwards: he warned her, not threatened her
Resisting arrest isn’t exactly illegal everywhere. If the arrest is wrongful. I.e. if you prove in the court that the officer had no right to arrest you in the first place then you can get off with defending yourself against arrest. Of course just like standard self defense the force must be of a reasonable level. Not generally considered a good idea mind you, but common law recognizes this right and so have several US courts. That said many states have put up further legislation to block the right to resist a wrongful arrest(I believe most literature says this began around the 60’s). So depending on what state this is in Death Toll may or may not be able to take that route. Of course even if he was in a local where the right to resist an unlawful arrest is enshrined he would have to prove that the arrest was ‘wrongful’/unlawful. Given the situation that could be difficult.
It can be tough to find recent case law on the issue since it is rather rare for law abiding citizens to resist even an unlawful arrest. And most of the time it is rather difficult for one performing criminal activities to prove that an arrest they resisted was not lawful. Furthermore such cases tend not to get a lot of publicity. And finally there is so much Bullshit on line regarding resisting an unlawful arrest that you spend a lot of time sifting through false attributions and the ilk. As such most of the cases I have read affirming right to resist arrest date the mid 1900’s and earlier. Obviously laws have changed since then. BUT, There was a 2003 case in GA, Land vs. State, where part of the ruling was “As there is no [admissible] evidence showing [Land’s] arrest was lawful, [he] had the right to resist with all force necessary for that purpose.” So he wasn’t law abiding, but the officer still had no right to arrest him and as such his attempts to kick/fight off the officers as they arrested him could not be held against him. Anyways GA is supposedly 1 of 14 states that still allow it. Which is actually up from previous years from what I have heard.
Thats something that continues to confuse me though, Anvil has no uniform or badge, why should Deaths submit to the authority of a random stranger?
She might have appeared in som random press conference, but Deaths lawyer could prove he had not seen that while asleep most likely.
Agrecian
But, we have to remember that this is an action comic, not a lawyer comic, so none of that has any bearing
Off duty police (even military police) are STILL police officers. She was in a press conference where ARC-Swat was publicly displayed as a police force. It’s not Anvil’s fault that FWTDT neglected to take that into account. It’s also not a good idea to resist a police officer, even if not in uniform who is trying to get you out of harm’s way. It is not illegal to wear a silly uniform. It is not illegal to talk like “Death Toll.” It is not illegal to be a douche, unfortunately.
It IS illegal to threaten police officers in the performance of their duties. It IS illegal to willingly enter or loiter in an active crime scene. It IS illegal to resist arrest. It is most certainly illegal to ASSAULT a police officer which FWTDT certainly did both in trying to tazer Anvil, and literally taking her down.
Death doesn’t have a lawyer. Its the Devil that has an advocate.
+1
Sydney should put a shield around this guy when the others stop being potential death to her.
Then this guy can try to teleport out, or copy sydney’s full power range, he cannot get thru the shield. Wait for him to starve or something. (-;
So, you want to put Sydney inside a closed sphere with Death Toll? o_O
Possibly mentioned someplace already (if so, I missed it), but the HUD display shown in Anvil’s glasses in the first pamel is a very nice touch. Previously suspected (and discussed) that the team had something like this, but it is good when this stuff is confirmed.
Well, that’ll teach her to call people names.