Grrl Power #247 – If violence fails, violence harder!
Hopefully no one is disappointed this fight was resolved of screen. Basically the team dogpiled him with every different sort of attack at once and overwhelmed him. Obviously, Goose’s knife got Death Toll in the butt artery, which is a thing. (Don’t look it up.)
There’s a lot going on in this page but as usual I wanted to include more, like between panel 1 and 2, Sydney saying “Actually I guess a pair of handcuffs would have worked too.” Maybe it would have and maybe it wouldn’t have. Anvil’s choke hold didn’t work, but she was also trying to cut off his air supply, which is more attacky than just restraining him.
The other thing is a reversal of a decision I had made earlier, which is that Sydney’s shield actually is airtight. Originally I had planned on making it so it filters out bad stuff like viruses or sleeping gas the same way it filters out too much light from a laser or too much sound from a flashbang. This way, her incredibly powerful shield has one major weakness, which is she can’t keep it up indefinitely, so if she’s flying so fast she has to put her shield up, she’ll have to stop or at least slow down and refresh her air supply every so often, and it limits her ability to go into space or underwater without additional equipment.
Is it just me, or does Maxima in the first panel remind anyone else of Nathan Explosion? It’s that one stand of hair going down the front of her face, plus I drew her face slightly taller than usual. Consistency is one of the more challenging things about any comic, whether the art is simple or complex.
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Doesn’t it take much, much longer for Max to say “Stop Her! No one escapes!” than it would for her to shift into superspeed mode and punch Opal into near earth orbit?
Well, she’s still human, her first reaction was to point her out and have everyone target her. Not a bad reaction really. His powers are unknown after all, he might be able to detain Max somehow when she goes for Opal.
Talking is a free action and takes no time.
Mechanics it is then! I take it you are referring to d&d or pathfinder. I shall debate from the latter position.
A free action may take no time, but she may not have rolled well on initiative.
Also, one could argue that this is a surprise round and she is using her one standard action to use something like the cavalier’s tactician ability, which takes a standard action, and grants allies a teamwork feat.
Or perhaps you might consider Opal’s power. It is generally not a good idea to punch a portal, and Opal could simply create the portal in front of the opponent. Rather, having everyone targeting her prevents her from defending herself as well.
Making portals is pretty powerful. Just open a portal with one end in front of somebody’s fist, the other in front of their face.
BAM! Stop hitting yourself.
Too powerful actually, just open a portal across somebody’s neck and let their heart pump the blood out of their body.
Or just create one very wide portal in the group of super heroes and portal two inches of everyone’s waist line to five feet away. BAM, everyone’s dead
Or just one side of the portal on space and the other in front of people, suction power would crush them.
I think the presumption for portalling has to be that she can’t create it inside of solids/liquids, or she’d be slicing everyone alla time. She’s not, so she can’t.
Even then there’s a lot she could do with portals inside of people, basically it would be a death gaze. So, presumably, she can’t do that.
(You can sort of backwards extrapolate powers like this in any kind of coherent narrative. No power’s side application will be more important than its primary, as it would be more useful, narratively, to create a character with the secondary power as his/her main schtick.)
My guess is that she can’t put portals anywhere she can’t see. Haremport kinda works this way, so its somewhat more likely.
Similarly, we shouldn’t presume that she can move a created portal about, or grow and shrink them. She might be able to, but that brings up the question of what happens when a portal edge intersects something. Once again, I’m going to guess that she can’t move her portals around, other than creating new ones.
the problem with that is saying solids and liquids wont work is because the air itself is full of solid particulates and gases. this means that she’s have to be very lucky to open the portal where she wants to
Well in this instance I believe he refers to solids and liquids as referring to the fact that they have a higher density than say air does. It takes a lot less force to create a temporary vacuum in gasses than it does to rip a person in twain after all.
For shits and giggles let’s mingle comic science and real science. An Ion is an atom that has a quantity of protons dissimilar to the number of electrons. The atoms by that very nature are either positively or negatively charged and have magnetic interactions with each other. This means that the like charges repulse and opposite charges attract.
Let’s assume that the energy from opening a portal results in destroying some of the bonds in it’s desired area, you now have some lose electrons. If you look at the periodic table, elements at the bottom left can easily loose electrons and gain loose protons and this reverses as you go to the top right of the table. Nitrogen and Oxygen the two largest components of air are nearly the best elements to pick up lose electrons and least likely to lose them.
So now we have ionized nitrogen and oxygen more or less repulsing each other in the area where the portal wants to form and a temporary vacuum zone. So a portal in comic logic can force gasses out of the way but not solid and liquid matter who’s density would force the ionized particles together anyway.
I think he was talking about portal power in general (as myself).
As you said we can easily guess that Green Hair and Opal are acting with huge restraints, either on their powers or their actions (superior orders) cause otherwise almost everybody would be dead by now.
Champions. 4th Edition specifically since that’s the one I game mastered in, but it was the same for all prior editions and probably remains true in whatever the current rule set is. It was also true in the Marvel Super Heroes game. Talking is a free action which takes no time.
It’s just one of those odd elements of the comic book genre. People can have long and convoluted conversations while attempting to kill each other, with whole paragraphs taking place between punches.
I got a no prize from marvel once for pointing out how its impossible for the serpent society to be talking at the same time as biting head off while underwater ;)
In some anime’s they have entire flash-backs to their childhood and showing all the training and events leading up to the fight
I almost think Sydney is more powerful in a fight if the shield is airtight than otherwise. It means she can use the shield the way Invisible Woman does, occasionally, to compress (or decompress) air to create concussive attacks via recompression. It does lower her versatility outside of a fight; space travel being the most noticeable thing it excludes, probably.
Like other people have mentioned, she’s nowhere close to actually suffering CO2 poisoning yet (unless she’s hyperventilating for some reason), and if she makes a habit of making a larger shield and shrinking it down, she can triple the shield’s lifespan trivially with no consequences other than popping her ears.
Come on, Pidgey, Sydney has to be INSIDE her Force field…if she uses re-compression attacks, she would always hit herself…hardly a recommendable stratagem.
For now, at least. What if one of the nodes on her Shield Orb allows her to put the shield around things other than herself? I can see some really good ways to abuse that function.
1) compress the forcefield until it’s the size of a ballbearing
2) place inside target/person
3) expand forcefield
She’s still got to worry about decompression.
…but she’s a diver so she can figure out what to do. Dave you magnificent bastard.
It doesn’t “pop” when it resizes so it probably can’t be used to create pressure differences. Though if you made it the size of a round tube and moved down the tube it could create pressure differences outside of the bubble.
Probably not the first to say this, but too lazy to go thru the comments right now. Did someone stick a knife up his butt? Oh, DaveB answered that already. Glad I read his commentary before posting :D.
So, is the “Tum” in panel five Max giving Halo’s shield a thump? Or the shield going down?
Maxi hitting the shield to get Sydney’s attention
Either that or product placement after Sydney’s antics cause Maxima stomach distress.
Hitting someone in the butt artery? That would be a great conversation!
“This one idiot called death toll or whatever started being a big nuisance, so I stabbed his butt organ”
The butt artery is actually on the inside of the thigh, the femoral artery. If that knife is just stuck in his gluteus max it is not a fatal wound. Just humiliating as hell.
…not to mention causing a great amount of discomfort when sitting down, I would imagine.
Which makes sure the world knows your plight.
Tollhouse is looking at about 2 weeks of laying in the bed on his stomach with his nearly naked arse in the air like a cat in heat.
Do not know if anyone said this already but there are three arterys that could the butt artery. From the position it could be the middle rectal artery. Which, as you would think, supplies blood to the rectum. If that was cut, they should get him to a hospital because that means he is going to die from either a) internal hemorrhaging, b) Hypovolemic shock, c) Sepsis, or d) all of the above. Also he may need surgery to repair the rectum or to be able to use his legs again. So yeah, have fun with a colostomy bag. He may be able to sue for unnecessary force and mental anguish on top of hospital bills which I would love to see Arianna do her legal kung-fu on.
A good legal counter-argument is that this was the MINIMUM required force to subdue him, and he was engaged in assaulting law enforcement with deadly force.
He was only ‘assaulting law enforcement’ with equal force they were aiming at him
So does DaveB slap us in the face with the fact that Sydney’s shield expansion makes the lack of oxygen thing odd, in comic no less, so that we can collectively solve the issue for him in the comic? Cause I think its gonna be a tall order to come up with a reason why expanding the shield doesn’t create air problems without giving Sydney the “embiggener” as a method of getting around the having to drop the shield for air thing. The idea that the shield actually sort of super fast drops and reforms when expanding (someone above’s comment) and such automatically refresh Sydney’s air defeating the author’s reason for creating this issue in the first place….
The idea that one of the other orbs, or a later “level up” option of the force shield orb, solves this issue (also above somewhere) is so far the best, though still leaves some of the embiggener issue if its a level up…. , but means that eventually DaveB would have to abandon this programmed weakness. He should have just made it that certain orbs could act through the force shield, as many of us were expecting early on anyway, and that would have created a hell of a lot of weakness moments that would force Sydney to learn awesome coordination and battle senses early on or die trying (or just hide in the bubble and watch folk get hurt… ). It would have made her less active in this fight but we would have been OK with that as she is a new recruit. You can’t have everything and it would have freed up more opportunities for the others to shine this fight.
This is just messy now and I don’t know if one of the commenters is gonna be able to fix it for him if that is what he wants. Still gonna read the comic and am grateful for it just stating my opinion on this writing decision its not intended as a slam so sorry if it sounds like one.
Actually, I’d say he brought up the point so that he didn’t get 400 people posting in the comments about that very issue. “Because Space Magic” is a perfectly acceptable answer in a comic book.
…. not sure that’s gonna work out for him. Maybe it’ll be a lot less than 400 though as the fans of Space Magical Grrls are now overjoyed! :D
You CAN do anything in a comic but you usually satisfy more people if as you are making up your own personal natural laws for your world you stick to them in some logical fashion. If increasing the size of the shield keeps it solid the whole time then perfectly breathable air is being piped in or created quite casually so why wouldn’t that function be available without enlarging the shield as it is most useful all the time? (perhaps a button toggle she hasn’t figured out yet lets the air in or an upgrade… )
The only answers I can think of all involve her orbs not being “perfected” or just being a prototype and the software/hardware needs tweaking for actual in the field use or the being that made them was in a hurry to complete them before the baddie seeking ultimate power knocked down his door so he barely got them finished or even didn’t get them finished and they are gonna blow up down the line if Sydney can’t get them to his apprentice for a patch… Anyway clearly I can bullshit myself enough to move past this quickly but I would have preferred something a little cleaner logic wise. Its usually a sign of how good the comic (or project) is doing overall that I should worry about stuff like this.
On a side note the game like interface that allows “leveling up” stuff with point buying but only after you use it so long kind of suggests this is either actually a game (keep the shield up kids while using The Wonder Balls TM) or a learning device for children/students/trainees of some kind.
My pet theory on the Orbs is that they are part of a super hero roleplaying game created by some race other than Humans. Live action fun! If so, one of the orbs that Sydney hasn’t figured out is the one that allows you to respawn if killed.
For an interesting thought project, try and come up with a difference between a Game and a good Learning Device. I think they are the same thing.
what if the race that originally made and used those orbs was a Hydrogen breather? it could be totally “transparent” to hydrogen but “opaque” to anything else, the fact that it is stopping the OXYGEN from transferring/entering would be a GOOD thing to them even though it’s a bad thing for us humans… but until Dave has Sydney get the effects of each Orb tested comprehensively (i’m SURE the nerve weasel won’t be necessary..) we may never know if I’m right or not…
This is an interesting line of thought.
I second The ARCmage.
I would think that even if her shield filtered the air, she would still have an issue with space and underwater because there is no air in space or underwater to filter
There is air underwater (what do you think fishies breath?) just not in any form most humans can use before drowning
Methinks thou confusest “air” and “oxygen.” Water contains oxygen dissolved in it which is what the fishies breathe. Air in water remains gaseous and forms bubbles. Air, of course, is a mix of gases, of which oxygen is one, but only fish with lungs can do much with it.
If we’re going to get all semantic-y about it, I’m sure that somewhere in the world, there’s a sunk ship that has a captured pocket of air that is underwater, which would make at least the first part of his sentence technically correct, although not in the way he probably meant. =OP
well… yeah there is… The Poseidon… i seem to recall a movie based on the original movie that had some people surviving under water in the capsized cruise liner for like 50 years or something crazy like that…
The movie was Goliath, and they also used the boilers to make air to.
I can’t be the only person who’s thinking the shield could be airtight at the moment because it’s actively protecting her from a gas attack.
Hypnotic pheromones or something mr sidelines is emitting as he “multitasks” that takes time to build up and have an effect. He staged this massive supers battle so he could start infecting everyone involved (even better if it has a gradual effect level as exposure rises).
I think that there is going to be a plot development involving Sydney’s shield coming down and Opal teleporting a bunch of people.
And green haired guy doesn’t have a who’s who.
Because he hasn’t been formally introduced/named yet
I called him The Tosser in another comment. Captain Marble or Ball Boy might be sufficiently rude. Or we could call him The Boyfriend. Team Opal and Boyfriend. And the press keeps forgetting to capitalize the b.
Chia-pet
I think the limit is very reasonable. It’s space magic after all, probably. If it filtered the air it should filter things that are harmful to the original user, not necessarily things that are harmful to Sydney. Of course if it’s terrestrial in origin then maybe but still impenetrable bubble is easier to make than filtering bubble. For sounds and light it’s just a hard cap.
Personally I am disappointed that you skipped the combat scene. It wouldn’t have needed more than 2 or 3 panels. It’s a minor issue though, won’t stop me enjoying your story :)
I get the reason behind it, and it does supply some comedic effect, but I think it would work better if there were a banner on the panel that read something akin to “10 seconds later”. That way the comic would read something like:
“Ok, I know how to beat him”
-10 seconds later-
*thud*
“I knew it!”
That way, there is a clearer transition from one comic to the next without feeling like you missed a page. But, maybe that’s just me. ;)
I agreed, that would work. I had to check I hadn’t missed a page this morning!
You mean you didn’t see the super-secret extra special link to what will be most assuredly be referred to in the future as “the lost page”?
The news crews from across the street probably have good images of the big fight even though we don’t.
Arianna isn’t the only one with an agenda to push. Later that evening on VNN (the vulpine news network):
“Secret government super-soldiers attack unarmed man standing in restaurant parking lot! Is this part of the president’s tyrannical plan to take away our freedoms and our guns?”
While the VNN is agin’ big government, they’re contradictorly pro big military, so who knows how they’d report it.
Not so difficult to understand:
Big government is more likely to restrict their freedom to do whatever they want regardless of right or wrong.
Big military is more likely to restrict someone else’s freedom to whatever they want regardless of right or wrong.
Maxim number 6, if Violence isn’t your last resort, you failed to resort to enough of it
I’m actually a little disappointed with Death Tolls and the rests endings, I do hope they get away.
It seems like they should have a ton of relatively good options here to partially or fully deny this enemy action, regardless of the earthen shield:
* Goose shoots them with machine gun
* Peggy shoots them with sniper rifle
* Maxima turns them into a crater
* Maxima super-speed punch
* Sydney PPO cuts through like butta
* Dabbler sleep spell
* Dabbler rail gun
* Harem lightstorm or standard grenade
* For the a partial victory, Sydney could fly there and use her shield to block the teleportation of most the prisoners.
Some other factor would need to change for me to expect the enemy’s action to be even close to mostly successful. The firepower-to-defense ratio is just out of proportion.
Heavy Plot Armor. The bad guys get away about 99.44% of the time in comic books.
Especially if supers really are rare. Who’s ARC gonna fight?
At least this partially explains the stupidity of sending this bunch of untrained, mostly uncoordinated, greenies into a boss battle (they could have wiped Maxima’s whole team and then she still might have ended them all… ) if he really believe he could always cut and run with the most important of his assets (like himself XD ).
Its a balance. Arc is a highly-trained military organization. It would be weird for it to be essentially ineffective when they shouldn’t be.
Unless something changes (green hair having something more effective than an Earthen shield), Arc should at least force Opal to retreat at a faster rate than planned. It seemed like she did have the speed to get a few people out rapidly, so getting some but not all seems like a reasonable outcome here.
From what we have seen Maxima to be capable of, she ought to have no difficulty at all in flying entirely around Green Hair’s defenses and hitting Opal hard enough to send her flying long before Opal can finish locking on. Maxima is Faster Than A Speeding Bullet.
I don’t think Green Hair has any way of stopping Harem from taking Opal down. Harem can travel even faster than Maxima, and can ignore defenses placed in her way even more easily.
It should be noted that Arc-swat is -not- unwilling to kill. Their orders were “non-lethal if possible.” Death is just not the preferred option.
All that said, I still expect the bad guys to get away. Because Plot Armor. Because that’s how things work in comic books. The bad guys get away most of the time.
There is also the fact that the Crying Guy hasn’t made his move yet.
Yeah, it seems showing Maxima being fast enough to actually catch, not block but catch, a bullet is gonna make for some writing believability issues for DaveB here and there. Maybe we better find lots of important missions, natural disasters and shiney villains for Maxima to play with while the others are assigned elsewhere?
Well, you might be right, and we might be about to see one or more of these actions taken and succeed.
Then again, we don’t know the limits of Green Hair’s powers.
* Goose shoots them with machine gun
Bullets hang in the air, like Neo
* Peggy shoots them with sniper rifle
Ditto
Further, the above two seem to indicate that Archon is willing to kill folks. What gives you that idea? The only people they’ve shot are those they are certain will survive.
* Maxima turns them into a crater
And the rest of the city, including Archon? Her nuke is much bigger than you are giving it credit for.
Moreover, it would kill the enemy, and thus far Archon’s behavior indicates that they aren’t willing to do that.
* Maxima super-speed punch
Once again, a Maxima punch would probably kill someone, but there’s certainly room for Maxima to zip over there and then execute a comparatively wimpy punch. Only risk of this is that getting close to that guy may allow him to put his TK on you, and Maxima isn’t invincible when she’s being strong or moving fast.
* Sydney PPO cuts through like butta
Look, if Maxima isn’t willing to kill someone, then Sydney is double plus unwilling. Her earlier suggestion was to let Death Toll walk. After Shadow Boxer punched her in the teeth her response was to knock him out, not vaporize him.
* Dabbler sleep spell
Great suggestion, bet they try this. Might not be in range yet, but this seems like what I’d go with. We don’t know if Dabbler can do this again this fight, but presuming she can (since she did the frost thing multiple times), she might go with this. Then again she might go with Modern Dance, Dabbler’s hard to predict. She seems to act to maximize her own enjoyment. I could see a TK off.
* Dabbler rail gun
Reiterate once again that Archon at this time isn’t trying to kill the enemy, and they CERTAINLY aren’t trying to destroy a line of the city directly behind this guy. No way to use the Rail Gun in this fight unless she can get Achilles in place to deflect it down, or fly above them. Further, we don’t know that Green Hair wouldn’t just snag the projectile.
* Harem lightstorm or standard grenade
I don’t think she has any more stun grenades, probably used them all with the last operation. Real grenades would (say it with me) kill these guys. She might port over and try the stun juice though, if she’s willing to get close to dude.
They could always try the Holy Hand Grenade of Antioch.
would they need to feast upon the lambs and sloths and carp and anchovies and orangutans and breakfast cereals, and fruit bats, etc first?
Yes, Green hair could be more powerful than we have seen. Perhaps he can apply large amounts of force to a large number of tiny moving targets simultaneously (still, no preparing for the sniper rifle), or passively put up a powerful shield that stops bullets and other projectile attacks.
Maxima can alter the size of her explosions (as seen with the attack on Budget Halo), so she could launch an appropriate attack.
Harem has access to the armory, so she essentially can’t run out of ammo.
But besides the tone of the comic, the ROE already permitted killing. But now, the situation changed.
You have multiple extremely dangerous criminals fleeing. In real police work in America, that tends to end with deadly force. Its an organized group, the captured soldiers are also necessary for intelligence to prevent future deadly attacks. If deadly force wasn’t banned before, it wouldn’t be now either.
I’ll give you that Sydney probably isn’t psychologically capable of killing someone right now. But Goose, Maxima, Dabbler, and Harem would all be capable of doing so from what we’ve seen so far.
The order from Maxima allows for killing, if necessary, but states alive is preferable. The author has a strong but not complete aversion to killing people in his comic, especially anything above the status of nameless cannon fodder.
I should say not necessarily complete aversion, he never said he’d never kill anyone off but he did say he didn’t plan on ever killing anyone in the series, especially any major character because it’s a comedy about the day to day lives of superheroes.
Haven’t seen anything to suggest these particular people (who you shouldn’t dehumanize simply based on lawbreaking) are a danger to others now that they’ve been beaten.
ARCHON!
ARCHON!
ARCHON!
ARCHON!
I’ll
Teach you
Who
Rock
ARCHON! ARCHON!
Anvil
Taller than a tree
Sydney Scoville
Not a bumblebee
Harem whatserface whatserface whatserface
Dabbler the Succubus
screwdily doo, ding dongs screwdily screwdily doo
Maxima Explosion!
OK we have the theme music. Where’s the 80s style cartoon show?
If Duke really did get Death Toll in the artery, chances are he’s bled out and is dead by now. That one is a gusher.
Yeah, total gusher (at least it’s red and not brown/greenish-yellow)
Where it says Hunnn is that as in “Hunnny I’m home” teleportation?
First off, I am dissapointed that it resolved off screen. A major take away from the fans and audience when big stuff like this just gets done when no one is watching.
Secondly, stabbing someone in the butt is beyond wrong. This shit goes beyond cruel and unusual not to mention excessive use of force when it’s deliberately targeted at a person’s artery which would kill a person! If Death tool does make it out of this I hope he sues the hell out of these jokers for personal physical and psychological damages!
Really? Don’t you appreciate the perspective offered by the way Dave has done this? What detail did we really miss? He has shown impact of a number of attacks – this is about plot. Nothing is added to plot by having all the attacks blow by blow and taking up space. I like the view of aftermath of a quick intense exchange. It would have been easy for Dave to pen the whole scene (well easy decision) but what would we have gained? This way we have had conversational exchanges, a few important images and the satisfaction that he has not patronised us with something we could recreate with a little imagination.
What plot was there that needed so much attention in this page? All the good action is over, Sidney brags, Again! And then they go into a discussion on how she’s zipplocked herself in a airtight bubble(Real smart on her part.). I’d rather have seen that action seeing as the only good thing on this page is Opal porting all the bad guys away.
Well, no. We get a reminder that Sydney is new to her powers and that Maxima is levelheaded. There is conversation on both sides, not just a slugfest. The distraction of the air bubble is a plot mechanism to let the villains prepare their plan to escape. More importantly, the frame where you picked out that Syd was bragging is the fantastic image of the group that reflects the use of perspective I was talking about. Dabbler is perfect, balancing 2 attack forms but the whole composite speaks volumes about the action in a passive pose. But sure, if you want more punches thrown instead….
Sorry 3 attack forms from Dabbler not 2. To be fair though, the one criticism of this strip page is that Maxima is pasted from frame 2 to frame 3 but I didn’t even notice at first.
All I’m seeing in this page is just idol chatter. Given the choose between that and more fighting yes I’d want to see more action. But sorry I don’t see any relevant or important reason why they needed to chop out that last fight scene.
I think we’ve been spoiled by all these X-Men and super assassins and such in movies that can aim a throwing blade like Xena Warrior Princess can throw a Chakram. Just hitting him in an unarmored place or for that matter at all from a distance is pretty good knife throwing. Hitting an artery as a called shot…. I’d start checking that boy for powers!
Though it’s one thing to richoshay a chacram like in Xena. But trying the same thing with a combat knife is impossible.
And seriously, who st abbes a person in the butt?! That is messed up.
LOL, true which is why I didn’t suggest he did or could. Quite the opposite!
If he threw it and was a so so shot maybe that’s the best he could do. Maybe the real crime here is that he threw it at all when he COULDN’T be sure where it was gonna hit. *shrugs*
“My Butt Artery! My Only Weakness!”
This is no joking matter man, that thing is spurting blood! Were talking about a serious injury!
PLEASE DO NOT FEED THE TROLL.
One of my local burrito chains is doing a promotion that is right along Syndey’s taste: Ghost Pepper Burritos! I have tried them before; I like the Wimpy version (lots of flavour, bit of a kick). The Full-powered burrito is a bit much, even for me, but Sydney should like them, maybe if she cools it down with some of the suicide sauce.
That just sounds mildly suicidal. depending on how much actual ghost pepper is in there
If you like spicy food and Great Jerky you should check out SavageJerkyCO. I backed their kickstarter and loved it. everyone I shared it with at work raved about it. Unfortunately they are sold out of their Ghost Pepper Buffalo Jerky right now. So I just had to go with Mojo Habenero.
If Sydney’s bubble is airtight then nobody would be able to hear her talk. Sound waves use air as a medium for sound which is why sound is different underwater or in other atmospheres and why you can’t hear sound in space (exploding ships would just be flashes of light). The ONLY way someone outside her bubble would hear her talk is if the sound waves vibrated her bubble and then translated to the air outside… or, you know, space magic.
The nature of Sydney’s shield has been discussed at length before, and I think it does have to come down to “space magic.” If sound were able to cross the barrier via the barrier itself vibrating, then it should conceivably transmit any vibration, and there would have been serious ramifications when Max was punching it back in the conference room.
Again: a matter of intensity.
But Sydney WAS taunting Maxima while the shield was getting pounded. So I vote “Space magic”
I believe they are allowed to vibrate through the bubble, like you said, as human speech is of “unharmful levels” which is magical enough that it would allow that while simultaneously dispersing harmful levels…
The question here is: Is Sydney susceptible to subliminal sound and light effects as they might not be seen as “harmful” unless the maker was A) Human like in make-up B) Making the orbs to defend against intentional attacks like this as opposed to just defending against a hostile environment C) That good.
There are powers that deliver subliminal messages and telepathy might be said to use very low levels of energy to work as well. It would be interesting if Sydney had to find out the hard way that the shield is worthless against such low energy “attacks”. IT would further be cool if she had to use the telepresence/truesight/illusion orb to filter out such things forcing her to either drop the shield or surrender what ever other orb she was working with in order to hold it and stay safe.
Its starting to look like for some supers Sydney’s shield won’t need a weakness at all. Their powers will just go right on though! (unless the author wants to make writing harder on himself by making the shield totally super smart when it comes to filtering all energy levels in which case one of those other orbs without known powers better be where the “artificial Intelligence” that makes all of this awesome adaptability possible is [ Jeeves, can we do opaque shields?])
The slow blade penetrates the shield.
ok, Mu’adib… but seriously folks, let’s just let Dave tell his story, at his own pace, and with whatever amount of hand-wavium he wants to use…ok?
My comments and their replies don’t really impede him unless he wants them to or find them interesting to use (as he has found others). In many of my larger nitpicky posts I have stated that I like the comic and will continue to read it regardless of whether he listens to my nitpicking or not.
This seems to be what every body does with comments and I enjoy being a part of the “fun”. I think he understands and maybe even enjoys our peaceful nit picky discussions. I don’t know how he feels about the more heated kind….
I agree 100% some of the best ideas and advice can come from your “players/Readers” bantering about what may or may not work.
oh, no, don’t get me wrong, i love the comic too, and i also agree that our ramblings here are pretty good natured, but for me, it’s just 400+ comments on the same few sticking points is a bit much IMNSHO… huh, rereading my original post, i guess it was a bit, overzealous? ?sarcastic?… sorry ’bout that, my bad…
True, and I’ve replied to many of the 400… but I do my best to add some extra or put some spin on it each time! :D
I am fine with the encounter being played off screen. For one, it allows Dave to continue with the story faster.
Hmm, I wonder if it’s actually lack of oxygen. What if it’s more extreme fatigue? Her use of those orbs hasn’t been shown to have major personal energy costs yet, IIRC, but they fact that they seem to be more or less attached to her implies there’s some potential for burning her own energy. So maybe it’s just she’s burned through the energy reserves she needs and is about to pass out from overexertion (it happens!)
DaveB, the comic’s creator, said it was lack of oxygen due to air tight shielding in his descriptive post just below the comic. He said it was a reversal of an earlier decision to allow the shield to filter darn near anything harmful be it energy, air, matter, whatever…
He said he did this to give Sydney a weakness so she would have to drop her shield once in while for a brief moment to oxy up which would also mean finding a safe moment in a fight/hostile environment or slowing down in flight. However I think Dave may, not sure yet but maybe, have forgot he made his character a >>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>SCUBA DIVER<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<< so logically when she realizes this air thing is the only thing standing between her and happily wailing away on others in combat, dealing with hazardous materials, or flying for long periods through dangerous environments safe and snug behind the second best defense (or maybe the first best) on the team she is just gonna go get her oxygen tank and rebreather etc… and suit up with an air tank for situations requiring defense thus giving herself maybe an hour, maybe more but certainly at least a half hour of extra air even if she is running around crazy like.
Having to suit up with an air tank is a limitation and depending on how much she brings maybe an encumbrance when not flying (so far she seems to have no limit to personal weight when flying which could be REALLY like superman fun later on!) but I don't think it is as much of one or the type of weakness DaveB was hoping for.
And if she doesn't //eventually// think of her own SCUBA gear being used in concert with the orbs when that is how she found them (so she was suited up with an air tank the first time she USED them!!) then I will be calling serious shenanigans on the "convenient writing" going on here. Oh yes! MUWAHAHAHA XD *dry washes hands evily!*
S C U B A A I R T A N K *mental beam* :-P
What? I'm extremely mature……
Also besides Max’s broodily Nathan Explosion look in the first panel her “No one escapes.” line and face makes her look like a real bad guy. And yes I do mean guy.
Maybe that’s one of the things she can shift power points into? Testosterone?
That or the army’s been using to much super solder steroids on her.
Oooorrr. Dave just had an off drawing day and didn’t notice until too late, and just thought it was funny (hence the picture) and thought we’d enjoy it too.
That’s not how you play the game! Play pretend with us Raconis. Bang-a-rang!
I’m actually surprised by the extremely small amounts of detail that we see in the comparison picture compared to the actual panel. Though if I had to go with one in the comparison panel I’d go with Nathan. Don’t know whether it’s the scrunch lines on her face or the “grr,” thing she’s doing with the lips but it is not a good picture of her.
Really hope these guys get away. Better story that way. And a good way to stick it to these bullies and power mad over zealous “heroes.”
Right, criminals attacking a civilian establishment “for fun” is a good thing because the police take their duty seriously.
You know, I’m pretty sure I’ve seen people almost word for word say the same thing, except the topic was 9/11, and America deserved it for being “arrogant neo-colonialist”.
Iron Rogue has made several statements over the pages that indicate that he doesn’t like the comic, does not like DaveB’s writing style, and prefers to see the bad guys win. He’s doomed to eternal disappointment.
And yet in spite of that, he keeps coming back.
yeah, anothe psychopath… or were trolls classified as sociopaths… i don’t remember exactly which, but there was a study done recently that showed that most trolls could be legally considered one of those two classifications… either way, IR seems to only post bs and crap that is intentionally inflammatory, and I’m sure that if it were possible to ban him from posting, he’d only come back under another screen name… the only real way to defeat him, is to do nothing and ignore his posts. and not hit reply either, as i will be taking my own advice and not replying to this topic anymore either, in hopes this topic will die a quick, forgotten, lonely death.
Reply to what topic? I don’t see no stinkin’ topic here.
Wait, so everyone who is cheering for the bad guys are trolls and should be banned? Well screw you Mr Self-appointed Moderator, personally have been cheering on several of the ‘villains’ and hoping they will win
Here here!
I seem to be missing where he appointed himself moderator.
@TheARCmage, in most weeks, I would agree with your assertions; Iron Rogue does tend to drop some troll-ish comment and leave, as though attempting to maximize his Troll Game [TM] score. This week, however, he seems to be actively participating in conversations (admittedly with his usual perjorative tone and truculent language), so I’m not quite ready to simply write him off as a stereotypical “troll,” and am now leaning more toward “vulgarian”
::Former moderator mode engaged::
To be fair to Iron Rogue it’s not exactly kosher to call him names, even if you do find his behavior tedious and annoying. I’m sure Dave would prefer you to reign that crap in.
To be fair to everyone else, if you dislike Dave work so much why to you continue to read and complain about. When many of the rest of us don’t like something like this, we stop reading it and go away sometimes after a few words to that few affect. It make many of the people who honestly do appreciate the work and are willing to constructively discuss it wonder what your reason for being here is other than to troll.
I think the best thing would be the exhaustion limit. It’s a retcon but doesn’t look like one. It will give you more flexibility. It also makes sense. Until now Syd’s been careful and slow with use. But here Halo taxed her powers by using them continously at the high end. This solves both problems. And you can alter the exhaustion limit for each ball of give a time limit.
Hmmm…can Maxima sing Murder-Train-A-Comin?
Or maybe the Joker’s version of “Slaughter Your World”
Well this does answer one thing; more than one group was attacking ArcSwat at the same time.
what I wonder is, why does she bother “Saying” get them and doesn’t just “sonic boom” -> “flying tiger uppercut” or throw a small tactical nuke at them and go provide cover for someone (spending the time saying “duck” instead).
-S
To get them alive, of course.
Also, lethal force on someone trying to flee is a big nono.
Poppycock! These are criminals in possession of powers that can well be considered weapons of mass destruction. They have shown no regard for the lives of others as they attacked. Claiming that it’s not OK to use deadly force to stop them because they are trying to flee is ridiculous.
Except, that those 2 in particular have done nothing overt, but that’s okay, they still deserve to die because they were in the area when Sydney and Co got attacked, right?
Yeah, just because they were there they must be the bad guys. Like to see that hold in court.
All green hair’s done is knock out someone that dabbler brainwashed and sent to attack them. Just like DT it was all in self defense.
1. As Dave has said, Maxima ordered all of them to surrender. (yes, in this situation that is an authority the police does have) Yet they did not, nor did they disperse.
If your friends start a shootout with the police, you don’t get to just walk away just because you yourself had personally not shot at anyone, especially not when you then fail to comply with the police talking to you.
2. Green haired guy FLUNG A BOMB AT MAXIMA.
3. Green haired guy has made open statements about “wiping out their teams/take out Maxima” that have obviously been recorded.
4. Opal is quite clearly trying to escape with all the suspects, which removes any doubt that she’ a fully involved accomplice.
Wowee you have a selective memory.
Uh, when did they show a disregard for the lives of others any more than the “heroes” have?
As far as I can see this is just them taking their powers for a joyride.
I’d throw them in the slammer for a couple of weeks to drive the point home, but they certainly have done nothing worth killing for (which is a bad idea for practical reasons too, make a precedent to keep things civilized and the villains won’t be killing people trying to escape).
Like the hole saying don’t let them get away, but that just ensures they do get away trope?
I have a thought for you, one of the unknown power balls could be an “AIR” ball. That way she wouldn’t be able to easily figure out what it does because it’s making oxygen. So she would use the shield ball and the air ball together creating oxygen while in the shield. But, since she hasn’t realized that the air ball makes oxygen she doesn’t realize that it would supply air. This would also mean that she couldn’t fly, hold a shield, and make air inside the shield at the same time, but she could make air and raise the shield at the same time being unable to use a third power while shielded and making air. I mention this for a few reasons. Some of her powers seem redundant in a way and having one that makes air, could be handy in some situations once that power is realized. Keep in mind this is just a stray thought and could even be handy unless you already have the powers of the two unknown balls already figured out.
Well… Maybe one of the unknown balls or one of the upgrades lets her produce oxygen?
Uuuh…stabbing someone in the rectum is damn near fatal if it isn’t treated. o.O whoever did that to Death Toll is trying to kill the guy, especially since they aren’t doing anything to help him as he bleeds.
Well Maxima made it pritty clear that her enemys will either be locked up, or dead.
If she can’t just capture them (which would be a massive pain with FWTDT), then they die
wasn’t Suzie news there at the start of the fight, making a comment like that when there a member of the media there isn’t a good idea.
Exactly, arch swat should get the book thrown at them for excessive lethal force, police brutality, and failing to help a victim!
I hope they all get away
I don’t. I’d rather see them in court getting the book thrown at them (for the non lethals) and a gitmo-waterboarding situation for the more aggressive, lethal intent/power ones.
I missed the spurt of blood before, and yes, a soldier named Goose was probably trying to stab him. Stab wounds, much like bullet wounds, are often fatal. Chances are, they are catching their breath before they deal with him, until Opal decided she wanted to escape with everyone.
Have Sydney stand over DT, with her shield up. That should stop the portal. It would also be hilarious to see Opal attempt to be a greedy witch, and try to portal a Orb away from Sydney, and get stuck there long enough to get her block knocked off.
i think that it was more of Sydney yelling out “hey everyone!… attack this guy here all at the same time!!, on my mark! 3…2…1…Go!” and that it was the only attack available to him that did NOT involve himself getting in close and personal-like… and therefore also in range for all the OTHER members attacks to hit HIM too… so he stood back and threw his knife, and because FWTDT has shown prior capability to deflect or ignore that simple type of an attack before, Goose was probably not EXPECTING it to penetrate and actually stick him, thus it was probably not AIMED very well, nor aimed as in a “called shot” would have been had he been expecting it to go in, so that’s why it’s just randomly in his ass, versus some other place that is a more effective, but less lethal, “stopping the bad guy” target…
So you’re saying Mr. Duke Nukem ripoff just chucked a knife when every one else was dog piling him? That is the dumbest idea ever! Not only did he inflict a serious injury to the person there trying to bring in but also could have hit any one of his team mates there!
no one seems to have closed in for physical hand to hand combat, they all seemto be operating under ranged combat rules…
as for him just chucking a knife in while everyone else was attacking him… not quite…. what i said was that for him (Goose) if he closed the range for personal one-on-one combat HE would ALSO get hit by just about everyone ELSE’s RANGED attacks, to avoid getting blasted by Dabbler’s Fire and Ice blasts, plus whatever that third spell effect is, (presumably, but not shown) Maxima’s beam finger attack, and whatever Halo did to him, plus whatever attacks anyone ELSE presently off screen did, he would have to stay OUTSIDE the range of those attacks in order to NOT get hit HIMSELF BY those same attacks… therefore he apparently performed two ranged attacks as well… number one being the knife throw, AND a second one using the frickin’ machine gun on him… i think that because of the need to attempt as many different attacks all at the SAME TIME in order to overwhelm FWTDT’s Nemesis ability, he threw the knife as an un-aimed-but-in-the-general-direction-of-the-enemy type of attack so that he could concentrate on keeping his machine gun AIMED (versus just wildly spraying the target area with bullets) at either a non-vital organ (yes, yes, i know it would most likely still kill him, but after he took out at least 4 team mates in one-shots, i think Goose would have been justified in increasing FWTDT’s threat level to “kill him now and sort out the pieces later” category), or possibly, him trying to aim “just” far enough away from FWTDT’s actual body such that it would still miss his body, but it *would* still cause the Nemesis effect to TRY to counter it, BUT (no pun intended :D )… due to all the OTHER attacks happening, his power went Poof just prior to the knife intersecting his buttocks… again, like i said in my first post, Goose probably didn’t EXPECT it to *actually* hit him, he probably expected it to bounce off like all the other attacks against him did previously, IE he didn’t really believe Halo even though he was following Max’s orders (off-screen) to follow thru with Halo’s attack strategy…
I find it almost criminal that nobody seems to have mentioned “cake” or “lie” yet.
Opal cheescake is a lie!
I just finished the comments…….it was my first thought. Opal gets the entire contingent away…..”This was a Triumph.”
Because the cake is fake, the pie is a lye-pie
Anybody else think it’d be a good idea to investigate what happens if someone uses an in Halo’s bubble?
Probably would also want to give her a CO2 scrubber.
…Need to practice my HTML coding, as I forgot to close the reference.
Well, Telekinesis is another good power to incorporate into foreplay :)
just don’t piss her off before that or he’d be singin’ soprano afterwards…
She could open a portal in her pants.
(Which is the sort of sentence that Dabbler would have a field day with.)
If her portals work like “contiguos space” the possibilities truly are, delightfully, infinite.
And not just indoors.
Quick question: What’s the range limit on the trackers in the watches they are putting on captives?
If they’ve got a decent range, letting them get a captive or two away might be useful…
(The other question I have is how fast Opal can move those portals. Could Arc just pick up and start moving some of their captives to keep her from teleporting them out?)
Well they are GPS trackers. So they use satelites.
So aslong as you stay on earth, and near the surface, it’s fine
That’s the range limit for where they can locate themselves. I’m asking about the limit to where they can be tracked from.
GPS receivers use satellites to locate themselves, but they don’t tell the satellite where they are.
It’s entirely possible that they can transmit their location to ARCHON via satellite from anywhere in the world, but we don’t know that.
yeah, i’m seeing the scene from The Incredibles, where Elastigirl hits the tracker button at Edna’s place and Mr. I was “JUST” about to get clean away, when the response radio pulse went off, alerting Syndrome to him even being there in the first place… so yeah, i can see the trackers operating that way as well, they keep track of where it is itself, but only transmit that info when it gets the command to do so…
Or they could broadcast a continuous standard signal – range would depend on the power of the signal.
Or they could connect to some com network – the cell network would be an obvious choice. Wider range, but blockable. (Other choices would be to some satellite – much harder to block, but need more power, and possibly line-of-sight, or to a specialty comm net – much higher cost, but has whatever characteristics you want and can afford.)
Lots of ways to do it. Some are continuous, some intermittent, some on-demand. I’m guessing it’s not satellite, or long-range continuous beacon, just because those would be hard to fit in that size watch, due to power requirements. But even that can be worked around – especially if they are willing to spend lots of money.
Strangely enough, when the flash grenades popped, the googly eyes that Harem put on DT’s mask stayed put; but one of them falls off when he falls face first to the ground?
Here’s a new joke for Grrl Power readers:
When is a knife like a case of hemorrhoids?
when it’s being a real pain in the…
apparently his power doesn’t work when he’s unconscious. That would be my guess.
… i forgot the moment when duke nukem join in. pleas tell me why this copyright?
Read the description: he just has an unfortunate ressemblance to Mr Nukem
awwww one of Death’s goggle eyes came off