Grrl Power #248 – Mo’ portals mo’ problems
For those wondering, L.C. = Lieutenant Colonel = Maxima
Originally I had envisioned Stalwart coming out of the portal and clobbering Maxima, somewhat ineffectively, but that would have meant that his intention was to punch Opal, which would have left her as a wet smear on the asphalt. He’s the second strongest member of the team after Max when she’s maxed out. (Everyone who is the best on the team at something is usually the second best at it after Maxima when she’s maxed out. Achilles being the notable exception.)
If Opal really wanted to distract Max and endanger Stalwart, she would have aimed his hand at something else. A buttock or boobock, for instance. I considered drawing that actually, but it’s such a predictable thing to happen in a comic like this. Not that it’s off limits, comedic groping is always on the table, but I’d like to find a more creative use for that particular trope.
I wasn’t sure how to draw it in the space I had, but the portal Stalwart is coming out of in the last panel is moving around him, forcing him through it. It will also snap shut a second later, or else Max could easily speed through it and probably clobber Opal before she saw it coming. Not that a rocknado would slow her down all that much either. The difficult part about writing a powerful character like her is always having to have an answer for “why doesn’t she instantly beat everyone always?” For the majority of the fight, she was using the ambush as an opportunity to shake down the team, ready to step in if needed, but as to why she hasn’t stopped Opal herself yet, basically she’s waiting to see if the team can without her, and she feels she’s fast enough to jump in at the last second if she needs to. We’ll see.
I’m working on the next vote incentive, but for some reason I’ve decided on a rather ambitious piece and I’ll have to post it in stages. The upside is that the nature of it requires it to be full color, so I won’t leave it as pencil like I have with quite a few in the past. Since basically every page in the fight is a big ‘ol spoiler of some sort, I haven’t been streaming much lately, but stuff like vote incentives would be fine to stream actually. I’ve set up a Picarto account, which I guess is the hot new art streaming site. If you sign up there you can set it up to email you whenever someone you follow starts streaming, which is probably the best way to get notified besides twitter. I’ll only be able to do it on the occasional evening when I get a little ahead on the comic, so if watching my very slow art interests you, sign up.
Totally unrelated to the comic, is anyone watching The Strain? I think I like it better than Penny Dreadful, which I like better than True Blood.
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Ooh, that’s gonna go on the peer review. Poor Stalwart! :D
At least it was just the head. Some other areas would have been dangerous.
Let’s have a big hand for Maxima folks.
She’s obviously more annoyed in general it happened than she is at him. I read it as “Just let go of my head and try again.” in response to his “OH FUCK!” look.
Fondling your CO is not listed in “Things Skippy Is Not allowed To Do” but it can be dangerous no matter what you grab. Of course Max isn’t angry at Stalwart or she wouldn’t make a joke out of it.
I’m glad he decided to wait to use the groping trope, I’m sure he can find much more dramatic scenes to add it to in the future and it would be a shame to overuse the situation. It’s the difference between OHHH!, crap he/she is going to be killed for that and oh. the character got tricked again.
To those saying ‘why does Maxima not snipe them with her gold beams?’, it seems she tried in the first panel but was blocked by a piece of floating rock.
I’m not sure what is going on in the first panel on the left side. Lighthook being wound up like a drill/corkscrew, or some other power from someone?
Sids best move may just to be to put the sheild back up and walk/run right into the rockstorm till opal is just on other side of shield then lighthook her. Or if shes feeling kinda evil PPO her in the foot. its a cutting beam most likely the rock shield won”t do crap. But that would technically be mameing her.
Yeah I actually drew that so it’s quite clear, then the giant work balloons covered it up. :P
The curly Lighthook looks like Halo and Vektor are wrestling. He’s trying to deflect it and Sydney keeps pushing it back on course.
I’m watching The Strain, but after the last episode I have two major complaints. The biggest being that The Master might as well have his zipper showing. Big letdown there.
His face wasn’t actually that bad, the problem is they built it up too much. If you just saw his face without any of the buildup, you’d think “ok, he’s ugly, got it.” but after the old dude kinda freaked out after seeing it I was expecting more. Still, that aside it’s all quite enjoyable.
Yeah, I kinda pictured him having a gross bug head that looked like a continuation of his… proboscis? But I wasn’t that disappointed, really.
Don’t those knockout watches have trackers (https://www.grrlpowercomic.com/archives/1380)? They do. On matter where Opal goes they’re going to get at least some feed. Even if its to a place with enough shielding to block radio signals, they’ll still back translate through her own portals for a short period. You’ll get usable information out both interal 3D compasses (https://youtu.be/T85Af1o_YAs), gravimeter, and possibly a few other sub-sensors, maybe altitude/pressure. If all the “watches” are ending up in the same relative location you get several working data points to help figure out general location. All of which should be enough to get at least a regional fix on the first teleport point (assuming they have more than one very paranoid secure location). This also discounts out and out magic such as clairvoyance or object finding divinations.
They can run, but can they run fast enough to keep ArcLight/Dark from getting a position fix and for Maxima and Halo (plus bubbled team mates) to speed their way to them.
That would be great and would explain some of the present command style but they really shouldn’t depend on it.
Then there’s the tactic of talking to the ones who hopefully did NOT get away and maybe asking them where the secret headquarters are.
1) Send in some of the heavies and have them do the ‘intimidating knuckle cracking’ posturing.
2) Send in Dabbler and have her ask in a more friendly way after a nice smooch.
3) Send in Sydney and have her give them a two hour lecture on her position of who’s better, Kirk or Picard until they beg for mercy. (This one may violate some of the Geneva conventions on prisoner treatment)
Especially if she just came from Mama Boolang’s place.
Can the molestorb create the tentacle from a decent distance? If so, Halo could just use it to capture Opal, or suffocate Vektor.
Halos intent of aim versus what vector try’s to do with it… That would be interesting.
Then Opal posting it through multiple portals till the place looks like a spiders web.
Attacking Opal is starting to sound like a chase scene in Scooby Doo. XD
If they actually escape, Imma be mad. Vekter can somehow keep an entire field of rocks up while simultaneously handling specific and extremely fast threats from multiple supers simultaneously? And Opal needs so much concentration she has to keep her eyes shut but can somehow open them and generate a portal at the split second Stalwart puts his hands through? Seems legit -.-
Also Maxima refuses to actually dash in there and punch opal’s head off, presumably because she wants the team to do the work. Which makes sense, except that if the team fails, she’s failed too and very probably endangered the world because of her ideals.
I suspect Vekter was expecting Harem to teleport in having observed her earlier exploits, so no hyper reflexes just prepared. Opal was warned before Stalwart made it through so she was prepared to portal. It’s been indicated that she can do a fast port for a small group, my guess is that portaling Stalwart further delayed the portaling her entire team.
I was referring to all the stuff happening in the first panel. Bringing up a rock to interrupt Maxima is kinda ridiculous given her speed and the beam’s speed, not to mention everything else Vekter’s also doing. And Stalwart must be really slow for Vekter to be able to call out in alarm, for Opal to calmly respond and then react >.>
But really I’m just mad that one dude can suddenly hold off an entire team of supers.
Its amazing he can hold off Maxima but she’s goldbricking (ha get it? GOLD-BRICKing cause she’s gold and a brick?? I kill me!) on purpose per WOG. I could see him slowing down the rest of them in concert with surprise portals when he fails to do so (this is the first time we’ve seen him cut loose fully and he’s so bad ass ARC-LIGHT actually knows him… wow, cause they didn’t know anybody till then!). The rest of the team need to learn to cough up more targeted strategy a bit faster in response to sudden new threats rather then just reacting and attacking in the same predictable manner, and individually no less its like they aren’t even a team, which is why Maxima is goldbricking (I can see the need but I think its too risky to play with in the field like this… )
I don’t think Maxima is goldbricking at all; I think either she or DaveB (probably Maxima) is running up against the limitation of her own tremendous power. It’s no use threatening lethal force because the happy couple already know ArcSWAT isn’t in the killing business. Unless she can fire a stun-only pwee-bomb (a power stunt that she has not yet demonstrated, not to mention her well-documented penchant for overkill) accurately enough to penetrate Vek’s shitstorm (such accuracy is likewise yet to be demonstrated), she personally has no non-lethal option other than to fly down there and grab Opal. If she does that, she will simultaneously abandon her command and expose herself to a very serious risk of capture. Hotheaded or not, you don’t make it to short bird by pulling such bonehead moves.
So the real answer to the question “Why isn’t Maxima doing something?” is that she is doing something: she’s commanding. That’s what commanders are for. Nobody above the rank of Captain does much trigger-pulling.
The WOG I used in the post you replied to meant word of god or in other words the author. I added some silly stuff to it with the “goldbricking” comment but I was basically repeating what the author said in his post above us there if a bit “colored” by my opinion. DaveB said, and I quote directly so you don’t have to scroll upwards, “For the majority of the fight, she was using the ambush as an opportunity to shake down the team, ready to step in if needed, but as to why she hasn’t stopped Opal herself yet, basically she’s waiting to see if the team can without her, and she feels she’s fast enough to jump in at the last second if she needs to. We’ll see.” So she isn’t doing all she herself can do AND she is not telling the team exactly what she thinks they ought to be doing because they need to learn something here… hence my “Goldbricking” comment (that and I think I’m terrribly funny for some reason! X-P )
I’m with you on this one. I sort of expect some of these schmucks to escape (Hex has probably already jetted) but if this mass exodus actually works, that will be at least mildly frustrating.
Well they do need reoccurring villains.
After this bunch, I expect Fedora will start with a blank roster and plan the next batch with more care. there are a few who made a good showing, even among the mooks. Boilerplate was fighting Hiro to a draw.
Other notable exceptions would be Halo (does Maxima have truesight of any kind?) and Dabbler (Maxima can’t out-succubus a succubus… and wouldn’t want to.)
Halo’s Truesight seems to be unique. Dabbler may have a spell or two that are similar, but even she was impressed.
OK, ArcLight just reported names for these two; so they’re known quantities. Why am I not hearing recommended strats (always first, please), known weaknesses, and a powers summary from field intelligence?
…one of these days I’ll learn to thoroughly read the page before commenting… Harem made my point…
is it just me or is Opal wearing a bath robe?
She’s hiding her Tennis outfit under there. This attack was kind of thrown together suddenly. ^_^
Her hands have circles around them much like dabblers do when she is working magic so, Mage robes?
Good deduction. You see the runes at the edge of the circles as well?
But she doesn’t have a big, flashy, pointed hat. How can she be a wizard with a tennis cap? o.O
She planned to port right back to her bubble bath when this ride thing her boyfriend dragged her into ends. Why bother changing?
OOOO, absolutely love this page, makes up for the last couple pages :D
Had a huge chuckle at the last couple panels :D
Is it just me, or would it be cool to have Harem call Maxi ‘Elsie’ from now on?
Everyone allergic to paprika if you throw it in their eyes ;)
Not For Whom the Death Tolls. He is the Nemesis of Paprika. Also all other spices and some of your more pungent herbs.
Now i’m curious. how would “nemesis” counter an eye full of paprika?
Probably it would just look like it had no effect. Any chemical reaction would be neutralized or the powder would never touch him.
Milk squirted through the tear ducts, natch.
If I were DMing the fight, a wind would carry it back into the face of the one who threw it…
It’s a shame Arc Swat doesn’t have a burrower. Coming up from underneath Mr. Green Hair would probably work fairly well.
Maybe Halo can use light hook for the same effect?
Using the monitor watches to track the escapees is s good idea, if Opal Portal is locking on to the ones who have been monitored, so far we have only see her locking on to THCM and the first meat head under the rubble in the first panel
Weeeell damn, Dave just confirmed that opal can Move her portals, meaning she can make one.. force it around the thing she wants gone.. and then suddenly youre grabbing maxima’s you know what (if opal is feeling cruel).
We also see she’s able to form portals in reaction to an attack (given at least some warning), she does really appear to be better than harem for all intents and purposes when it comes to getting pretty much anything from point A to point B. The only question remains her range and how often she can do it (though it certainly doesnt look like she has a terribly tight portal budget to worry about). Kind of finding myself wondering again why this woman is not earning silly ammounts of money completely legally by using her powers to transport goods and/or people for unbeatable prices at equally unbeatable profit margins compared to pretty much any other transport method available (short of another teleporter obviously)?
This isnt a complaint mind you, I think she and vector make for an awesome power couple duo, having such flexible and useful powers makes them a fine choice to lead this not so well organised posse of supervill’s wanting to step into the big leagues.. not every badguy has to be a mastermind with all his cards set up before the show starts. Juuust kind of wondering why these guys did not at least decide to get filthy rich First and Then look into taking over the world as supervillains cause, well, it’d be an intersting story I imagine.
What makes you think they haven’t knocked down a couple of banks in there time?
… What part of they can make more money than that Legally with no real risk of going to prison was unclear hun? Hell between opal making portals and vector moving things with his mind.. the two could pretty much deliver cargo or passengers pretty much anywhere (dependant on just how long a range opal’s portals can get per jump and how tiring it is to make multiple jumps in a day with x mass), and do this for a fraction of the time required by even the fastest of conventional transportation methods and since they pay 0 dollars for fuel, machinery or other tools needed to perform the transportation part of the service.. they can knock a few hundred dollars out of the ten if not hundreds of dollars they can ask for to provide such a service for some good eatings to fuel their super-metabolism and call pretty much the entire rest of that tasty cake profit.
Long story short, being (one of a very exclusive club) able to teleport pretty much anything you want almost anywhere you want is only a reason to become a supervillain, bank robber or other kind of thief if you are actually too dumb to use what is essentially a god/author given license to print money by using it intelligently. As for those conserned with the whole “yeah but what about saving lives?” angle, just get a job transporting donor organs from any hospital in the country to any other hospital in the country (or world.. depending on your range) in seconds and thus not only get paid to save lives, you get to make it Possible for a lot more lives to be saved by increasing the number of donor organs provided by accidental deaths that can actually be transported in time to a compatible and needful recepient in time before they spoil, just to make one such example. Obviously harem’s ability to do this particular version might be hampered if the donor organs still count as living tissue and so cant be transported by her ability… But even if restricted to transporting a more modest mass of inorganic goods there’s definately ways to turn a legit and massive profit off of a talent like that.
Again dont get me wrong, its not like I want Vector and Opal to give up their super vill ways and take up day jobs. Heck that could be a pretty fine way for them to get out of jail, get themselves contacted by actual giants of industry or corporations looking to exploit their talents.. and using their vast legal staff assorted influence to get them some kind of work-release program or just getting them off on a technicality.. maybe even letting them transition from enemies the archon team can punch.. to lex-luthor style villains who they cant legally nail but Know they are up to no good when noone’s watching. Lord knows that’s definately the kind of villain archetype maxima is the least personally well equiped to handle and it opens up for interactions between villains and heroes that arent either an ongoing battle, having a chat in prison or during court proceedings etc.
I agree that they could make whatever money they wanted, legally, but money’s isn’t really a thing to a super being.
I mean, why rob a bank/work for a titan of industry? So you can have enough money to have nice stuff? Well, Opal and Vektor can have any nice stuff they want. If its small they port it over. If its large they port the owner into space. If the nonArchon world makes a fuss Opal threatens to warp the earth out of its orbit.
Money is a means of exchange that makes total sense in a society where “All men are created equal”. That’s not the world this author is depicting. No amount of human labor can equal Opal’s disregard for spacetime. Maxima renders the entire notion of a military obsolete. Dabbler controls the human mind (among MANY other powers).
For them to trade their gifts for unpowered society’s money would be silly, like letting a child pay you in buttons to give him a ride to a school. You can do things that the child cannot, and it is powerless to resist your will. You might elect to help the child (Maxima & Archon), or you might be cruel to it (supervillains who rob banks and destroy stuff), but the reason for your decision isn’t the amount of buttons to be gained.
This is not to say that supers should be villains. I’m just saying you posed the question of why she isn’t earning silly amounts of money. Occam’s razor suggests she doesn’t feel a need for it.
Money isn’t everything. And what’s the point in being a super villain if there just going to get regular jobs? You can steal money, gems, or whatever. But taking down a bunch of tyrannical, government supers. That gets you infamy, and a name for yourself.
That would be a great idea if only they could find some tyrannical, government supers.
@Walter Very good points, as maxima said during her little speil, when you are probably the only person you have ever met to have powers, it makes you feel invincible or better than others. In counterpoint: Maxima and Peggy. You can be all the magneto you want, there’s always going to be either a bigger fish in the pond or a small fish with a big gun and the ability to use it well for that kind of lifestyle to ever work out in the long run.
@Iron Rogue, money is not everything indeed. Moreso for someone who can teleport things around where and when they please more or less or someone who can litterally move the earth with his mind, I can see why they would want to take on a challenge but I guess my point is that Lex luthor got closer to taking over the world by wheeling and dealing his way into the oval office and being a filthy rich bastard than he ever did by putting on a suit of powerarmor and getting into streetbrawls.
@ A.Benson, yeah they really Do give a bit of a pirate band kind of vibe dont they? A rag-tag band of rogues, knaves and toughs who either cant or dont want to abide by society’s rules when they can posse up and take what they want, Lee press-on-claws went after Sydney mainly to get famous for the kill, there was plenty of attempts to grab glory and “first blood” amongst them as well and more than a few headscarves and bands and ye olde colourful outfits yarr.. Not the activities of a tight-knit unit of trained soldiers or even a gang that’s been together for any real length of time to establish who does what. This naturally came to bite them in the ass tonight more often than not but it certainly made for a more exiting battle/brawl to watch than having everyone fighting strategically, lobbing beams and blasts and the odd bullet from behind cover and so on.
Still, good points from all three of you, as opal and vector and most of the others certainly do seem to have been in this to gain a mean rep for flipping the big bad Archon off and/or establishing themselves as badasses not to be messed with than any more sensible plan. Note I said most as we clearly do have at least one scheemer with mister snooper near the trees and probably a few others we have not even seen yet. Opal’s powers certainly explains how these guys managed to gather so many people together so fast for this thing as well, which does suggest opal can claim to have international range at least by using multiple jumps.
Yeah, they’re not quite the Guild of Calamitous Intent…
Think less ‘thief’ and more ‘pirate’. This isn’t about profit or even power–it’s about notoriety. They can take what they want whenever they want it and probably do, but tonight is all about flipping ARCHON the bird, supervillian style.
Well nice to know they finally Gave green hair a name. Good one too “Vector,” fits. Can’t say the same for the “phrenology,” comment.
Though looks like Vektor is quite the good multitask-er too. And harem’s weakness came back to bite her. Now if only that rock hit her head instead.
“Phrenology” is the ‘scientific studying of the lumps on your skull’, or what people say when they get caught groping your head :P
I still can’t see many people actually saying that. Or people actively going around feeling heads.
That’s because those who do do phrenology tend to be crackpots, and sane people who like their hair un-mussed by crackpots avoid them
Even more proof that Max is a crackpot!
Like I stated last time When most of of us don’t like something we don’t stick around trolling it. We sometime make a comment about it not being our thing and then we typically drop the subject and leave so we’re not bother by it anymore.
What your excuse for not doing the latter?
Please stop using logic… you’ll only confuse him.
This comic has promise but there are still quite a few probables that need to be addressed. Also I can’t help if I’m more a villain fan, especially if there isn’t much to like about the heroes.
Phrenology was a hypothesis about how to gauge human behaviour from the 19th century. As our scientific and medical understanding grew during the 20th century, phrenology was relegated to the dust bin of ideas for which there is just no evidence. It turned out to be no better than change as a predictor and is thus considered scientifically unsupportable.
Personally I would have loved to see the portal grope outcome. Would have been funny er than this one.
I Googled phrenology, did you?
Didn’t need to. It’s the “science” of reading the bumps on the head. :P
It confused me until i said it out loud, i’d curiously only heard it spoken until now
Hello! As a new reader of your comic, i felt it necessary to tell you how much i love your comic.
This time last week, i had never heard of it, and i think monday or tuesday i binge read the entire comic!
I am thoroughly addicted, and i need more of my plot development heroin! (You see thats a joke because heroine sounds like heroin…)
Anyway, i love your comic, please KUTGW, as i will be reading this mondays and thursdays for quite possibly the rest of my life!
also, if i did some art, about a possible form for the rock golem aliens that might have made Halo’s orbs, (just conjecture) would you tell me if its even remotely canon? im addicted to backstory almost as much as plot development!
Welcome to the group. Many of us are similarly addicted. We meet on these comment pages at various times on Monday and Thursdays, with drop-ins on other days. We look forward to your contributions to our community of the fans of GrrlPower! DaveB does accept fan-art, which posts from time to time when he starts falling behind or goes on vacation, and may include it in the story for his patrons if it fits his plans; see the Patreon link under his comments above..
Always wanted to play a telekinetic hero in champions. This guy is giving me so many ideas! But I don’t know how many of them might work in 1st edition.
And halo’s corkscrew idea is probably gonna get stopped just like the portal chicken stopped her face from being pummeled
somehow I don’t think the corkscrew tentacle is Halo’s idea…
Couldn’t Halo stop the escape? Harem said she couldn’t teleport through her force field. She could trap at least the unconscious combatants by putting her shield around them. They have been gathering them up all in one spot.
We don’t know if the Bubble stops porters from getting out, just that Harem couldn’t get in
And we have no way of knowing if that is a limitation on Harem’s *vorp*ing or a strength of the Bubble
and we don’t know if what Opal does is the same as what Harem does, or if it’s even the same as teleporting. Syd and Max and Brooke and Hiro and probably Dabbler can fly, but do any of them do it by the same means?
Zack Tilly
The thing is this:
Teleportation is the displacement and rapid relocation of matter between two locations, meaning that if a substance that the displaced matter cannot pass through is in the way, the teleportation cannot take place.
The opening of a portal is a whole in space allowing passage between two points, nullifying the intervening space in terms of “matter” if you like to think of it that way, making the barrier matter of no relevance.
If the portal connection is already in place, then Halo’s shield isn’t going to stop it. HOWEVER if Opal was INSIDE the shield already, i would be interested to know if she could place a portal on the outside of it.
I got to thinking about what would result if Opal decided to try to sweep a Harem through one of her portals and she tries to teleport out during the process. Worst case scenario is it sets up a similar reaction to the D&D ‘portable hole in a bag of holding’ reaction and BAD things happen.
Result? One Harem splattered over a wide area? That might make more than a few Harem-haters happy
she can ”dismiss” the duplicates rather than simply teleport them elsewhere. i imagine she would do that rather than try to ‘port in that situation
… you forced me to look up the meaning of “phrenology”.
And then there’s retrophrenology. =OD
Is that where they examine the bumps on your arse? o_O
Nope. You decide what traits you want, and the retrophrenologist hits you on the head with small hammers until you have the proper bumps.
Oh right, have heard of that
I hadn’t heard the term before, but I do remember Bugs Bunny applying the technique to Elmer Fudd.
ALERT
DISCWORLD READER LOCATED
how’d’do old chap? :)
It’s on my list
I’m still trying to find a copy of The Joye of Snacks. =OD
Halo is going to pull the same trick on Vector that Math pulled on her, calling it.
Noted ;)
If Sydney could do it, they wouldn’t need Math. I’ve seen a guy squirt milk out of his tear ducts; that doesn’t mean I can do it too.
True but Sydney is getting good at smacking things with the lighthook, so she might be able to pull off that trick now that she is aware of it (though it’s likely she’s need practice).
As far as not needing Math, he’s not a one trick pony and isn’t afraid of creating new and unorthodox attacks as needed. He could teach her all sorts of crazy attacks and probably come up with oh so many more. You always need a guy like that.
First there was tongue-fu. Then there was flail-fu. Or maybe it was the other way around, as in first flail-fu, then tongue-fu. There may even have been ninjas, because one should always expect them (not that really has anything to do with the rest of the comment, but I’d just thought I’d warn anyone who missed Sydney’s advice. But none of that matters right now anyway. Prepare yourself for what comes next: pseudopod-fu.
Hold on to your orifices!
Bah! Bad tactics. First stun Vektor then Opal. It’s better to work back to front and it’s better to take out an offense capable shield than to waste attacks on a defended target.
that or send max and a few more pain withstanding heros and the rest at opal but that will take time since
for whom the death tolls put a number on a few of them
Attacking the enemy’s strong point is a poor tactic. So is running directly into suppressive fire.
Severing the enemy’s communications and route of egress are very sound tactics, however.
The rear is almost never a strong point. He is powerful and a good multitasker but he doesn’t have eyes in back of his head. Keep their attention and flank him. Their defenses will fall and she’ll be defending her self too much to pull of a mass egress.
What? He’s a telekinetic!? Really Zeph, we had NO idea! What with him throwing everything around with his mind!
Seriously though, nobody had really paid any attention to him before this point so I don’t actually hold anything against him on this matter, but I can imagine myself having that reaction were a member of ARCswat.
Actually, I think my own reaction would be along the lines of “NOW you tell me!”
OTOH, some ArcSwat agents might have thought he was just a regular TK instead of a powerful TK.
Easiest way to keep these guys would be to simply jump into their portals and throw out all the incoming sleeping beauties. Unless they are one way only.
Well, Harem could do that. It’s not that hard for her to return, so long as she keeps one of her here.
Dave mentions elsewhere that the portals Opal is forming are attached to the person, not the location they are laying on.
Stalwart should have signed up for one of those Medicare supplement plans… it appears he’s in the donut hole.
I keep flashing back to the phrenologist in Arcanum: “By studying the bumps on your head, I can conclude that you are indeed a (superhero).”
Well, as much pounding as any super (hero or villain) seems to take during the course of a comic, it seems a Phrenologist would have a lot of knotted noggins to examine…
A lot of folks are saying Harem came in out of position or too far back. That’s just silly. She has no way of knowing how her teleportation would react to crossing the field of one of those portals … It might send all or part of her to another dimension or part of the world. That is just being prudent.
I would not automatically classify Opal as a Mage –seems more likely to be a psionic as Vektor is. Both of them might have been involved in the same secret program to create psionics in the first place. A lot of these guys could be classed as neophytes with power –that goes well with a “program” kind of background. They may also have been told that ArcSwat was linked to the “program” as way to force a confrontation.
Maybe it’s just me, but it appears he was already reaching for the latter in regards to Opal.
He seemed to reaching to grab Opal’s neck or shoulder or just to give her a hard shove to distract her.
I just wanted to say, Dave, thank you for going with the subversion of “accidental inappropriate grab” – the regular version is overdone. Having Max’s head snagged by accident makes it much funnier than a butt- or breast-grab.
And much, much safer in this case.
Had a sudden thought, and apologies if somebody has already mentioned this, but is it possible that Opal can’t change the orientation of things going though her portals? i.e. something going east to west comes out the other end still going west, not up or north.
I mean, sending Stalwart into Maxima from the front rather than the side would throw off her aim more, cover up her eyes, and possibly lead to an accident with her explodey beam thing – injuring between 0 and 2 of her opponents.
Although I might just be over thinking this.Go, Bat-speculation
The TKO: Dabbler’s lust aura, full power.
The Unexpected: someone throwing Achilles at them.
The WTF: underground attack crocodile.
Hmmm…I wonder if Dabbler’s lust aura might transfer through television cameras to the viewers, if it happens to be a live broadcast?
Talk about an instantly high level of positive PR for Archon…
Yeeeeeah…no. Lust aura is an AOE type power, not good for melees with lots of friendlies around.
Achilles missile just gets ported right back to you.
Hey, Dabbs honey! Got a landshark or sandworm in that pocket universe of yours? ‘Cause this one has possibilities. :P
from maths sorta girlfriend and sparing partner we see it can be somewhat targeted if only at short range
Wow. So Vekter (Because the first thing that happens when you become super powered is you purposefully forget how to spell :P) has such amazing reaction speed that he can stop harem from Vorp-tranquilizing when Mach the Knife couldn’t? That’s scary.
Also, sorry if this was mentioned because I didn’t read all the comments, but am I seeing something wrong or is Opal’s leg in the bottom right of panel 2 not colored in?
No your seeing it right about the leg and you are the first to mention it.
My bad so used to it being thecomment box after the post on a reply.
I wonder what would happen if (Dabbler, say) tosses a micro black hole into Opal’s gate?
Her name was Opal,
She was a ‘porter,
With blue lines covering her face, she moved things from place to place,
Sorry, but that’s about as far as I got.
And could win any race.
She looks so nice,
You better be too,
You want not to meet the spell, want not to face her “go to hell”.
sorry, sorry, sorry… *slowly fading away*
If “phrenology” isn’t on the “Make Maxima Say” list, it sure as seven hells ought to be.
Make Max say Bingo.
Works like conventional bingo.
Or Buzzword bingo.
“Hey, Maxima, come help us sing some campfire songs.”
A few minutes later
“There was a farmer that had a dog….”
Not a bad defense. Vekter is powerfull & fast enough to block most attacks (even harems teleport that gives a speedster trouble) and what can walk through slowly can be blocked by opal herself. Propably even Sydneys lighthook.
First they would have to delay her. Propably moving her targets around could do that. Especially if they take Death Toll or A-Bomb (the ones she is not likely to leave behind no mater what).
It is also possible they can follow opal, using the tracker part of those armbands as guidance. If they are not aware that they work as trackers (if they are, Vekter can quickly remove them before they port again).
However the defense is nowhere near on the level of death toll:
Both a vulnerable to Flashbangs, in particular Vekter.
And opals reaction speed while she focuses on the main port is propably the weakpoint.
Both can be fooled via illusions, wich are at Sydneys and Dabblers disposal.
Oh, Syd`s illusion is actually a good one, can make an open for Harem.
Mach the Knife was being distracted for another Harem.
Was already pointed out that it is possible that she is locking onto the persons and not onto the place they are. If so moving the person will not work. It worths a try though.
My suggestion for the next move by Arc is for Halo to try another distraction ploy. The bad guys know from the live fire demo that she has a powerful blaster available. Her move is to send her hologram copy (holo-Halo?) directly in front of Opal while holding out an orb and shout out ‘Surrender or I will be forced to open fire!” Opal’s instinct will be to sweep her out of the way with a portal. The portal will have no effect on the projection and Halo can counter with a suitably comic-book response of ‘Your puny powers won’t work on me!’ This whole interaction will divert her attention long enough for someone to slip in and actually do something to take her down.
That’s a cool piece of misdirection. Let’s hope that Dave comes up with something equally cool to finish up the fight.
I am still betting on the more powerful villains getting away. Plot armor.
Before someone else corrects me, Plot Armor should read Contractual Boss Immunity and/or Joker Immunity.
[Smartass response]Yeah, yeah, of course you’d say that[/Smartass response]
Honestly with Dave I wouldn’t be surprised either way. The safe bet with him is not to bet.