Grrl Power #249 – Much like gravy, the plot thickens
Much like…
- the waist of a quality tester at Doritos
- the glasses of an aging nerd
- someone taking steroids and thinking that by itself will make them buff but not really working out
- the skull of an increasingly stupid person
…the plot thickens.
So this page may bring up a question or two. Will they be answered soon? The answer is yes, obviously, but stay tuned all the same. Same Grrl Time, same Grrl Channel.
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OH MY FREAKING GOD!
seconded, altough ever since sydney sopke to him i kinda had a good feeling about him : ). if he’S a good guy( altough it would really surprise me) AWESOME, if he’s just upping
seconded, although ever since sydney spoke to him i kinda had a good feeling about him : ). if he’S a good guy( although it would really surprise me) AWESOME, if he’s just upping the other bad guys then he just leveled up on the bad guy scale of awesomeness…
…
…
awesome
The guy definitely has his own agenda up’n’running.
;) ….. whatever that might be.
dude, he clearly intends to inflitrate arc. but he isnt evil, otherwise he wouldnt have liked sydney, so i guess he is twisted good.
Like licorice
Maybe he is Dutch licorice (salty rather than sweet)
well put. THough licorice can drive blood pressure up, and I think he can too, so… even better.
… Or maybe just twisted.
All we can say for sure at this point is that, whatever he has planned, it requires those supervillains getting captured. At least for now.
I’d say that he does have an agenda. But he also has a code of conduct.
What he thought about Sydney kind of says that. Just a gut feeling, but I have a feeling that if he saw anyone in serious danger of dying, he would have stepped in, on either side. Doesn’t mean he’s not a threat, just a guy with a code of conduct.
These are often some of the most dangerous enemies out there.
So his name is Vehemence then…. I notice the uncanny resemblance in taste in clothes, style, and features to Stalwart. Just say’n….
Vehemence
ˈviːɪm(ə)ns
noun
Great forcefulness or intensity of feeling or expression.
An interesting choice of nom de guerre, no? Seems to suit him at the moment though.
No superhero comic is complete without an evil twin/doppelganger.
Hahahaha! Literally laughed out loud at that!
But does this mean ALL of them get caught? Huh.
Will be interesting to see what his agenda is, at least.
Pretty sure hex crawled away in the bushes. But it shouldn’t be too long until she’s caught
wasn’t she off looking for a new shirt?
Time out. I’m gonna go sit on the old Confusion Couch (tm Brooke McEldowney of Pibgorn) and catch my breath.
He he, at Wapsi Square we used to have something similar. People would bring donuts and coffee and little pastries (until a coffee shop became a major part of the story, then we just bought them there.)
It’s always good to have a quiet spot to sit when the plot takes a two-wheeled skid turn into left field.
Wapsi still has the “confusion corner”.
They don’t have a comment section under the comics any more though :(
*Drags in a furnished Semi-Trailer and puts up a sign that reads :CONFUSION BOX!”
“I like him he’s silly!”
BTW leave my glasses out of it. ;)
If they are on your face, gladly.
So then, double agent, Sydney turned him, just cleaning up lose ends…?
…..or has gotten what he wanted from them and is doing the good guys a favor. For his own reasons of course.
I think it’s a turf grab.
With all these bad guys locked up, who is left to manage their territory/gang/drug ring/etc…..?
Maybe this guy thinks he can thin out the competition and make the “good guys” do the heavy lifting.
How do you know they had a territory/gang/drug ring/etc…? May have been too early for them to get that far.
Or he went with them for the sole intention of joining Arc Swat
Or went with them to fight ArcSwat, saw how badly they messed it up, and changed his mind.
I just received an email notification today that there was a new comment here, apparently it took until now to receive the notification from Deof
It’d actually be pretty neat if he’s a legit card-carrying member of Arc-Dark. Though unless he was under constant surveillance and couldn’t get out to inform, that doesn’t gel with the confusion Arc-Swat had over the attack’s numbers.
Well. It’d still be pretty neat.
Its cool how the stones are turned to dust when the hit Vehemences,it shows invulnerability and Vectors strength at the same time.
I especially like the invulnerable hat
Oh, I missed that detail. Note to self: Do not engage in hand-to-hand combat with this guy. Can he do that to fists?
Even better is how he’s nonchalantly dusting his hands off. It’s like “Walking through your impenetrable shield mildly inconvenienced me.”
I can’t think of anything that screams ‘power’ more than that.
Absently flicking dust off shoulder or blowing on his nails?
He never intended for this batch of losers to win. I bet he just cleared out most of the serious contenders for his job as Big Boss right there. Still unknown if anyone but Sydney has been tracking him.
Or the simple question was:
Are they good enough to win against a surprised ARCHON?
At least he was visible for everyone (Sidney saw him while using telepresence). But it is obvious that not everyone was watched, after all they only reacted when he and Opal started to act. And knowing there is at least one powerful super around mostly watching is important.
okay that guy has an agenda of it’s own for sure.
i wonder if that’s not mr “gooffing off with a nefarious laugh and a late thunder background” that hired him to put the team a bit mroe on the spotlight or learn more about them at this point….
certainly could be.
Than he would have know that a lot higher number of superpowered beings exist than the government who has know about superpowers all the time thinks or has imported lots of villains.
guys like him always know more than they show. that’s why i think it’s a possibility so far.
Or maybe he has a relation of the familial kind in the group and decided he doesn’t want to be a cop, but decided to try working the same beat from a different angle.
that i have a hard time believing it could be true sincerely…
My name is Vehemence You Portaled my Brother, prepare to Lie! (unconcious)
Karmakat, please no.
Vehemence has a sense of cool and badass. He has an agenda and has a code of conduct.
The Tool(he’s so annoying I forgot his name already) is neither cool nor badass, and he’s little more than a moron with lots of money.
i agree with you on both.
but vehemence might be cool and with a “code of conduct”, if vilains can have one, but he could still be a gun for hire. and like you said the other guy is LOADED in money
Oh god that grin. That would impress the cheshire cat.
And that look in his eyes. They’re saying: I’ve waited so long for this….
This guy has huge potential as Villain or Chaotic Neutral Hero.
Yeah, that was my first thought – oh shit that grin. That expression took him from imposing (size and looks) to downright creepy in a single jump.
Not to mention that grin is so large, you can almost see if this guy still has his wisdom teeth! At the very least, he’s keeping up with his oral hygiene. lol
Yes, far too many molars in that grin…
Counting them off, he at the very least has his upper right wisdom tooth, since it’s showing at the edge of that frighteningly large smile.
#250 is up next and we’re up with a cliffhanger, I’m stocked.
is stocked meant to be a sarcastic shocked or an excited stoked both would be easy tipo’s and make contextual sense
I mean I’m excited for Thursday’s issue.
So stoked and I agree not that I probably wouldn’t anyway.
Stocked = both shocked and stoked?
Well I didn’t see that coming. After his little conversation with Sydney I figured that guy for a ‘good’ guy at least a little bit. Now I don’t know what he is!
He is what he is.
And that’s all what he is.
He’s Ink Eye the well tailored man.
My money’s on chaotic good and Stalwart’s brother. The taste in clothes and approach is a bit uncanny as well as their facial features.
with added markings to not be confused anymore lol
Even if he’s not a “good” guy, the physique … yeah, I could see him being related to Stalwart. Perhaps worse than a brother, imagine if Vehemence was his father.
Stalwart, I am your father.
Come to the dark side.
We have BACON!
You have bacon? That’s it, I’m in.
“I plan to use my new fame to sell toothpaste. See my teeth? SEE THEM?”
Seems like he has a few more than the usual number of them, too…
Actually he has exactly the right amount. I’ve been counting them. I think in a few upcoming pictures his teeth randomly get bigger for effect and suddenly he only has 28 instead of 32.
I can see that now, but like Observer says below, usually you can’t see that many in a smile. That said, there are some people out there with reaaaaaaally wide mouths that you probably can see. Steven Tyler and Carly Simon come to mind.
Right amount just normally humans can’t expose them all that easily without sticking our fingers in the sides of our mouths and pulling back! lol
…Which implies *very* strong facial muscles…
…Along with the rest of them.
Available in Lime, Vanilla and new Vehe-mint flavor!
(Sorry Sydney, it doesn’t come in a jalapeno flavor.)
Jalepeno would be too mild for her anyway.
Scorpion pepper toothpaste?
Carolina Reaper pepper toothpaste with a couple drops of pure cap.
eh, i thought the way he smiled was brilliant/hilarious, the expression he’s got is perfect fit for the dialogue and it’s one of my favourite panels in the whole comic, one hell of a way to give a character presence/ super memorable (another one is maxima after atomic bombshell burns half her jacket)
(also who the hell has time to count teeth?)
“Your strengths have been assessed and found lacking. You failed against a much smaller team, both in tactics and their execution. Do enjoy serving your time.”
… which, doesn’t fit Vehemence’s interaction with Sydney one tiny bit, but would fit the last panel, I’d say.
Well….
damn
Opal’s Who’s Who thingy has gone back to the old discription (about making small portals)
Whoops, used the wrong tag. Should be updated now.
Arc-dark has been busy ( …apparently?…)
Noun vehemence
1: intensity or forcefulness of expression;
2. the property of being wild or turbulent;
I’m inclined to say the name fits the character.
Vehemently so.
So are the bad guys going to play “King of the Mountain” now? Or has Vehemence switching sides? He is a bad guy or Green Hair wouldn’t have called him a double crosser.
Not necessarily. Vehemence could have been working undercover or something.
I’m more of the “Legitimate Businessman” persuasion that is a pillar of the community. Everyone KNOWS he is a bad man that does bad things but the law can’t pin anything on him. Added bonus for him is that he helps out the law on occasion and they HAVE TO thank him.
“Well, having just taken a good look at how your collection of sociopaths and overpowered clowns did against ARCHON, I’m confident in making an informed decision to go work on the side of the angels. Thanks for the demonstration.”
That’d be my interpretation of things, and I would be pleasantly surprised if they stuck to it. Let’s have a “villain” switch sides to good for reasonable reasons. He may not have had any idea Archon existed and stuck around in the villain crowd because there was no alternative. Now that he knows he doesn’t need to black-hat his powers and join a sane, reasonable, very skilled hero group, why stick with the villains who can’t properly complete an ambush.
He told Sydney he was multi-tasking. The tasks involved might include gathering intel and taking out the competition.
I was wondering if anyone else would mention that. Makes me wonder if he has more than one agenda here. It’s possible that he came to fulfill a vendetta against Vek and Opal, study ArcSWAT in action, get a handle on a number of other villians, and more besides.
Personal theory: he has the hots for Max. Good luck, brother.
So, Deus in disguise?
Doubtful, not unless he’s a shape shifter.
At least as much as Bruce Banner could be called a shape-shifter…
He’d trade facial scars for one or more tattoos, brown eyebrows for black. a buzzcut for whatever wont show with a fedora on, and a nose that’s obviously been broken to a very straight nose.
He is a bad guy, obviously, but I get the feeling he may be out to get favors with ARC SWAT or something, at least for now.
“Bad guy” is a maybe, this guy strikes me as chaotic good on the D&D matrix. Not real enthusiastic about following the law, but not real happy when people get hurt by the aggression of others. I play two such characters in D&D, one of whom is quite powerful now (25th level Warlock/17th level Wild Mage). The villagers around his Keep love him, the neighboring lords not so much, but he does tend to keep the peace and everyone’s economy is churning along wonderfully, so nobody is complaining (except the destructive monsters that sometimes wander through). Even the established local monsters are quite happy even though they are not looting and plundering, because they’re eating regularly and not getting stabbed/shot/blown up. As I said the local economy is booming, thanks to the potions of good harvest my character churns out by the thousands (each potion treats one acre and protects against insects and disease while ensuring maximum yield, think super fertilizer/pesticide in one)
might be the rarest of all birds, the intelligent Chaotic Evil, the one who sets things up purposefully to go to absolute hell with the Idea that regardless of how things turn out the outcome will benefit them.
think of a casino owner, the dice may fall randomly but as long as they keep rolling the house is winning.
A casino owner of that nature would be lawful evil to pure neutral. Making Order out of Chaos. Keep in mind that the majority of people are defined as Netural in the 2-axis alignment system. We generally don’t have super strong pulls toward any of the poles. Although there is slight bias trend toward Lawful (order, structured, social).
Examples of intelligent non-self-destructive Chaotic Evil are much harder the twin callings of dismantling everything ordered and empathic (Good) tends to lead to instability in humans. Since humans are social creatures, the destruction and total disregard for those ordered attachments is classified as psychopathy. Perhaps the best examples of partly stable Chaotic Evil in literature are the Sith of the Star Wars universe. Emperors Palpatine, Vitiate, and Krayt, great examples. We don’t know where Vehemence falls yet.
Compare these to Darth Vader and his grandsons Caedus (Jason Solo), and an extent Darth Bane. Palpatine and Vitiate both built their empires as little more than playthings and not as some grander adherence to order. This is especially true with Palpatine in the way he ran his Empire, imposing ruthless order while setting things up to encourage an abandonment of empathy. In Palapines Empire there was only one true law, his will. Everything else was just vanity dressing and could be discarded, and frequently was (like the Imperial Senate). Darth Bane is an exemplar of Lawful Evil, his creation of the Rule of Two, making Order out of the Dark Sides tendency toward Chaos, and its lasting binds on the Sith Order (until Palpatine). Vader and Caedus were almost so blinded by their adherence and drive to uphold their vision of ordered civilization they nearly destroyed it. Vader was held in check by Palpatine. There were many things Palpatine allowed that Vader would not have approved of on his own. You can see that unrestrained super no-holds-barred lawful with Caedus. Palaptine played all sides for himself, Caedus was a wreaking ball against all sides but his.
Palaptine: Intelligent Chaotic Evil
Caedus: Dumb Lawful Evil
“Walks up to Vehemence and hands him his official ARC get out of jail free card.”
So…. he’s been an agent already planted in the criminal world, and Maxima almost certainly knows about him. This was the time for him to come out – to secure 30 criminals. Also, no witnesses left conscious, so happy days there.
“Plans within plans” as Maxima said. Maybe she knew he would be connected enough to be invited to any action. She would have seen him from the air, but known not to say anything about him and leave him be.
They didn’t even know that that much villains exist,if he had worked with them they would have known.
given that there are probably many more supers with unknown powers and one of those powers could be a form of spying, it is safe to say that Vehemence could ne an undercover agent who was instructed to NEVER report unless he is absolutely sure that it will not endanger his missions and he could also be the one who gathered those villians to enact a publicity stunt
Max may not have spotted him; he was standing under a tree, while she’s been about a hundred feet in the air the whole time. In the few panels that show Max having a clear view of him, he’s standing quietly in the far background while there are a dozen or more bad guys actively doing bad guy stuff in between them.
Vigilante! Get him!
Okaaaaay. Just like Opal, I sure didn’t see that coming.
One possibility I saw was they get away and Vehemence stands there and smiles, “Ok, warmup over. Let’s dance.”
That or “Thank you for getting rid of one of my problems. Let’s do lunch some time.” and then walk off, whistling as he does.
After all, besides this one action all he’s done is watch. They Could probably find a reason to arrest him but … save that backhand, which could be considered assault, he’s done nothing.
And he assaulted Dabbler’s sword with a stick.
Speculation!
So there are a few things that Vehemence could be.
He could be part of a rivaling crime gang, he could be a double agent.
OR, he could be part of their group, but not really.
Say this group was hired by some underworld kingping. The biggest of the biggest crime bosses. And Vehemence would be his bodyguard or something.
So he was sent with the group to keep an eye on them. The attack has failed, so he has to cut the losses to prevent his boss from getting stung.
Everyone else is hired through people that don’t have any connection with the crime boss, so they can’t lead back to him. Except now.
Maxima was standing ready to jump through the portal as soon as it opened, which would have led her to the higher ups. So to prevent Maxima finding the real boss, Vehemence sacrificed the entire team (who were expendable anyway)
Actually, that’s the most sound theory yet. He probably works for Deus.
Then he’s either getting a Fat Paycheck to be able to put up with that loon or someone below him gives the orders. However, I’d prefer to assume that nobody working for Deus is actually competent. Well, unless there were signs they were getting ready to throw him out of the building after removing his status as CEO or something. Then competency would be expected.
If it is Deus I think it is Vale who is running the op.
So his hat is staying in place, dispite tons of rock crashing into it.
Looks like he has the same type of invulnerablilty as Maxima does
I figure that this guy is using the Restaurant Battle Royale to assess potential recruits for his own, not necessarily virtuous, organization. Cross off the list the stupid, insane, uncontrollable, and/or otherwise unacceptable candidates: the rest can be acquired later – because, hey, the government has thoughtfully gathered them up and will now be processing them through the legal system.
Which should be interesting. I mean, it’s not like there’s a Stronghold or other metahuman-specific prison in this universe – yet – and there’s no rule against keeping a secret identity secret until conviction, either. I suspect that the government won’t even be allowed to keep at least some of these people from making bail.
That wouldn’t leave him much, if anyone, to recruit from this “team”.
Right now my list of possibles would be Hex (ran away), Hairdresser dude (did the smart thing and surrendered when he realized how stupid he was being), Glowbug and Concretia (both paying attention to what they did wrong) and *maybe* Heavenly Sword (good balance of skills and abilities; just needed to be taught that she’s not always going to win). Opal is a maybe *not:* frankly, cutting losses should have been the order of the day. Yeah, I know that something unexpected happened – but hey, something always does.
“No battle plan ever survives contact with the enemy.” Anyone who didn’t know that I would have serious reservations about having on any team that I was a part of as well.
No argument from me. ‘Course, it’s just so darn *handy* to have somebody with that amount of power AND skill at exoteleport.
“No battle plan ever survives contact with the people who are supposed to carry it out.”
–Bujold
The Barberarian is off the list because if Ari is on her toes, the Archon mall will soon have its own salon called POWER CUTS.
With the Barberarian as its star.
The stripes on his face remind me of X as does the hat tbh. Who knows maybe he was planted and he was the one to give Arc Dark the info on Vector and pointed Sydney in the right direction to see if she could sus out the passive guy as a test. X did say they need her if only because of the truesight and comm ball.
I do believe we have a double cross to clear out those that would be a drag on the bad guys side. Sort of set them up and get them out of the way so that you don’t have to deal with them when they screw up sort of the much easier to deal with problem children when you don’t have to deal with them at all.
What.
The.
F***?
Has this guy actually done anything that he can be arrested for? I think not. Which leads to the interesting conundrum of ARC knowing he was involved but having to let him go because the only thing they have as evidence is the word of the chief bad guy.
Unless he is actually working for ARC all along, but I doubt it with that grin.
They can, and probably will, take him in for questioning, but they don’t directly have anything prosecute him on, no.
If he, Vektor and Opal know each other and considering how he just shafted them I’m sure V&O will give the Arc teams many excellent reasons to hold him on prior charges, outstanding warrants and jaywalking.
Unless Vecktor has proof it will only be hearsay which is inadmissible in court.
In court certainly. In fact I would bet on 90% of it being outright lies. However, for making things hard on Vehemence it is a perfect ploy. The old “we’ll sort this out downtown” thing. That will mean a formal arrest with all the trimmings. Besides he may really have some paper to hang on him once he gets officially IDed.
But is the source a credible one?
If not, then V will walk out of ARC hq a free man very quickly.
they could technically arrest him for vigilantism since he is not part of ARC ( unless he is and we don`t know about it yet). then he would be interferring with official governemental bussiness.
At the very least, he’s a witness to a crime. For that fact alone they are able to detain him to get his statement. This does not mean in a cell, he has to be treated as a witness, nothing more. IE at “worst” he’ll end up having to give his statement in an office. After that, unless they gain evidence in the meantime, they cannot legally hold him.
Don’t know about other countries, but in the US, even if you’re not involved and you leave a crime scene (unless you’re calling the cops to report it of course) it can be considered a crime as well. Most don’t enforce it, but its still on the books.
The reason for that is because, if you’re aware of a crime being committed & DON’T at least inform the authorities, you can be charged with “aiding & abetting” (for doing nothing that could stop it) or even as an “accomplice after the fact” (for simply giving the criminal impunity by your own inactivity). It IS a Civil Duty to at least inform the authorities, but there’s no legal obligation to do anything more than that.
Midnight, the first two bits, I forgot the exact terms when I posted. Thank you for the specific terms.
After reporting it, they can ask you to stay to answer a few questions. Mostly this happens if the cop sees something that seems “off key” about the scene. After which they’ll often give you a number to call if you remember anything else. If they want to ask you questions but staying in the vicinity is dangerous, they’ll escort you to a safe location. This doesn’t happen often of course.
I have had cops do that to me. Where the incident happened near me.
Detain was too strong a word in my original post.
Of course the second the military gets involved, a lot of rules change.
But he has not left the scene.
Sorry if these has been mentioned before. I haven’t been reading the comments lately. But just some thoughts:
Vekter’s telekinesis, while powerful, can’t affect living flesh. Or else he’d simply be tearing people apart given the level of control and power he’s been demonstrating.
Similarly, what’s to stop Opal from slicing people in half by letting them get halfway through her portal then shutting them down (like Stalwart)?
Just some stuff that occurred to me recently.
That would depend on how the portals work
Given it hurt Harem, it can obviously affect human flesh. Stalwart has high resistance to knock back, which is why he was able to walk through the derbies. Vehemence likely has a similar ability, or Telekinesis of his own.
Harem’s arm was hit by a rock that Vekter was controlling.
Actually I think his TK is a bit more ‘blunt’ than precise. The whirlwind is just ripping up chunks of concrete and keeping them circling. Not a lot of skill or precision required for that. Flicking one chunk out toward an enemy, besides ability to target, still not a matter of fine control.
In short, it looks like his power is strong, but not very precise. It could be a lack of skill, or it could be he has sledgehammer like TK, and not a fine knife level of TK.
The slow quarter starts the jukebox.
Mocking Vektor in the last panel makes me like him a little bit, while knocking him down a peg on the potential mastermind scale. Real masterminds tend to cleverer exposition. If he is a bad guy, then he has a) a clever escape plan, b) a power that will allow him to evade Maxima, c) a really good lawyer.
Possibly a good cover story.
“I’m a Powered-American who didn’t want to get involved, and go to jail, but I couldn’t stand to see the bad guys get away. Please don’t prosecute me.”
I’ll be satisfied to wait and see what happens. In the meantime, is this the first all-villain episode of Grrl Power? I think it may be.
No it isn’t: https://www.grrlpowercomic.com/archives/1435
Okay, the dun dun dunnn has me rethinking this dudes connection to X. His frame is different, but he could be the type of super to switch forms, and this is his battle form or what have you. So it could very well be X. Or, perhaps WORKING for X? They have a formal relationship, so this could be a private sector super working for X, assessing archon’s combat performance and, at need (such as here) stepping in. For a fee.
The Who’s Who is missing Heavenly Sword and potentially any of the identified face-down villains (although I don’t see any that I recognize as identified). Unless unconscious doesn’t count.
Only counts if they have a role in the page. Laying face down on the grass doesn’t count
Depends on you point of view! Standing behind her might make it count. 8D
That point of view always counts.
It’s all a matter of perspective…
Just spitballing the next scene
Maxima: Thanks Uncle Vehemence.
That I think would create a massive facefault in the audience.
Which would result in, “you know this musclehead?”
Or other such comments.
Soooo…….
perpetratin’ evil….?
Not yet he ain’t.
evil has many layers, and just because you have done evil to an evil-doer does not necessarily make you a hero. Case in point, when two rival gangs start shooting each other in the streets.
Soooooo…… perpetratin’ evil? Multitasking …. (evil?). Great response, with depth of which we just now are becoming aware.
Wonder if grinning so widely that you are showing the side of your wisdom tooth is a super power, because that is awesome.
32 teeth –> 16 top teeth –> 8 teeth on one side (counting…) yep, all 8 showing. You are right, he is showing all the way to the back. And fairly well drawn too, you can tell the differences between the types. He’s not the only one – there are a lot of people with very toothy grins in this comic.
Figure that most supers would probably have their wisdom teeth.
Seeing as they all appear to be in peak condition for their body types. Their wisdom teeth coming in right and having the space for them on their jawbone would make sense.
for the reccord, i love his smile, he manages to put arrogant, crazy and PWED into one big teeth showing smile ^_^
awesome!
I especially like the way he went from “smugly self-satisfied smile” in the previous panel to “arrogant, crazy and PWED” in the last panel. The artwork did well for the transition from one expression to the other.
…Downright creepy…
I just got my intuition powers tingling.
Maxima KNOWS this guy
I wonder if he’s going to turn out to be that “other” person who could challenge Maxima. The one she hoped is dead.
Considering where Max was operating before Archon, I suspect the probably late challenger mentioned is of Middle Eastern extraction. Of course that could be way off. A hired gun or volunteer could have come from anywhere.
No. We already (with 99% certainty) knows who that is. The guy speaking Arabic, saying “dead, am I?”
I missed the translation, thanks.
My 2 cents. He’s either the pied piper of bad supers (it’ll be easy trust me) or he’s eliminating the competition.
this has to be a double cross/ weeding out process probably arranged by Vehemence himself. does no one else recall his first appearance way back in February? he set out to take up Maxima’s “challenge” and he wanted to test ACHON’s capabilities and get rid of some potential future competition.
While you could be right, there’s still two problems with your analysis:
1) although I think that both appearances are more than likely to be the same person, DaveB still has yet to confirm that to be true and until he does, I feel it safer not to assume they are*; and,
2) “challenge accepted” is vague enough that it might have any number of interpretations and not all of them are malicious. For example, maybe the “challenge” to him is showing them that he’s every bit as good as they are.
*He be a twisty lil author (which I mean as a compliment) and the present comic is a prime example of that. How many people guessed that it would be Vehemence that would stop Opal from ‘porting the baddies out of there?
It seems like he has an Agenda. Which may or may not be good. His thought about Sydney implied at the very least he has a code of conduct. Which leads me to what I’ve said in other responses. He doesn’t seem the sort who’d let people die. Maybe I’m reading him wrong, but that’s the feeling I’m getting from him.
So yeah, it’s going to be interesting seeing details on just where in the “spectrum” he is.