Grrl Power #250 – It’s only overconfidence if he loses
Sydney will explain “Inverse ninja” on the next page, but this is one of those cases where I probably need to scoop her so those of you unfamiliar with the trope are up to speed. Basically it says the more bad guys the heroes face, the less of a threat they are. In other words, 100 Stormtroopers? No sweat. One Darth Vader? Big problem. Weirdly, the way the trope works, 100 Darth Vaders are exactly the same threat as 100 Stormtroopers. It’s only when you get down to the last one that he becomes a threat. It’s like, conservation of action. Normally there’s no way the hero could beat 100 Darth Vaders, and that’s why it makes a good cliffhanger to end on, but when the next episode starts, the hero gets a lucky shot and hits the gravity suck death vortex thingy that 99 of the Vaders were clustering around, but that last one? No way he’s going down in one lucky shot.
Two hundred and fifty pages. Part of me wants to pat myself on the back and part of me wants to kick myself for doing a 50 page fight. I really didn’t intend it to last that long which is especially ridiculous considering how much I cut (ahem, saved for later I mean), and as you can probably guess from this page it’s not quite over yet, but I promise I will make the remainder as concise and entertaining as I know how.
I don’t know why I’m so bad about remembering little details panel to panel, other than there just being a lot of details to remember. But I bring it up because I want to point out that Vehemence’s coat didn’t repair itself in the last panel, I just forgot to draw it all torn up somehow. It’s a fairly minor art repair, I just didn’t have time to fix it as I’m scheduling this post at 1 am.
Remember the Who’s Who is just people with dialog, otherwise it’d be taller than the comic.
<— If you enjoy the comic, consider supporting it via Patreon or the Amazon referral link.
SuperheroThey're super, thanks for asking!
Meatspace ComicSeriously these are awesome. Check 'em out!
Not UpdatingNo longer updating or only updates sporadically, but definitely worth reading.
SeriouslySeriously you guys. If you like Grrl Power the check these out.
"Mature"Mature subject matter and occasionally something explicit but usually safe. Can't guarantee the ads are safe though.
Dongs Ahoy!Full frontal and backal. Lots of skin, sex on some or all pages, explicit or otherwise.
Another web comic has used that same logic before, both used for and against the antagonist, it’s called https://drmcninja.com and it reminds me a bit of the webcomic, well worth reading.
More specifically, this is the page that references it. It’s a pretty good example too.
https://drmcninja.com/archives/comic/17p70/
Panel 2 is made of pure awesome. Seriously, look really closely and you can see all the little awesomes that make it up.
His smirk really put it over the top and almost demands the panel become a demotivational poster.
I’ve got a bad feeling about this….
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sBknAcTaMiI
Yeah that’s exactly what I was thinking lol…
The correct answer to “why did your car explode?” Is that ALL cars explode if hit, dropped, or hidden behind in a shoot out of course. At least in movies, TV, comics, and video games.
I though everyone knows that?
yes, but remember this is a deconstruction of that kind of thing. my older brother is a firefighter who specializes in getting people out of cars (the guy who runs the Jaws of Life). Cars don’t explode much IRL because gas is in liquid form in the tank most of the time, they do, however, get lit on fire a lot, and do explode if there was explosives present in them, as shown here and in a certain FPSRussia video where he narrows escapes being sheared in half by a flying truck door.
Mithbuster did a chapter about cars explosion. Search it.
Trope: “Every Car Is A Pinto”
Every time I see the third guy from the left in the last panel, I can’t help but think of Duke Nukem. Just which ARC Member is he supposed to be?
He’s just some guy with a blonde flat top. I drew him in a red tanktop and he looks like Duke so I rolled with it. I’m sure Sydney will say something about it at some point.
You shore you don’t have to worry about stuff like, copy right infringement?
It’s just a face, you can’t copyright a basic face.
If you were to add the clothes and weapons or if characters have facial scars etc that would be getting too close to the copyright character.
Someone changed the banana man character but kept the name and published their own comics. Apparently that is acceptable.
Simply being close to another character is not enough to warrant legal action.
Its not just the face, though: he used my body too.
It’s a bit more than just the face.
Nope. This is a free webcomic, and is not profiting off the use of the character. Also, it isn’t using the character in the first place.
If you couldn’t legally use somebody’s character in your own personal works, there would be no such thing as fanart, and the webcomic “Manly Guys doing Manly Things” would be illegal. Using somebody else’s characters or other media in a parodic manner doesn’t even need permission from the owner of the property (even though some jerks get upset when you don’t ask permission, see Weird Al’s “White and Nerdy”). However, there are stipulations, and I’m not intimately familiar with all the rules, but I’m confident in the accuracy of what I’ve said.
Sorry for the double post, but I forgot to click the “notify me” box.
Copyright law and Trademark law vary from place to place. Copyright applies to a creative work, such as an illustration, photograph or written work, including computer programs. Trademark and service marks apply to the name, logos and distinctive images and phrases that are used by a business or individual. DaveB’s story is covered by copyright. All his distinctive characters are covered by trademark.
The usual test for trademark is possible confusion between the trademarked name, image, etc. and that of the potentially infringing party, along with who used it first. Copyright exists for a fixed term, usually a certain number of years after the death of the original creator(s). Trademark exists so long as you continue to defend the trademark.
Steamboat Willie was the first movie by Walt Disney that featured Mickey Mouse, way back in 1938. Walt Disney had all the creative control over the movie and so he is recognized as the creator for the sake of copyright, even though there were dozens of people working on it. Walk Disney died in 1955. The copyright in Canada is until January 1, 50 years after the death of the last author/creator. Steamboat Willie became public domain in Canada January 1, 2006.
The Walt Disney Company aggressively defends its various trademarks, including Mickey, Goofy, etc., as well as the characters it got in various acquisitions, including Marvel and Lucas Film. If it did not, the courts could rule that the strength of a character was too diluted and not enforce trademark later on. This has happened with many brand names over the years, where their names were used to describe the entire class of product and not just one particular brand of that product. e.g. Kleenex, Aspirin, Zipper are all brand names that now refer to a class of products and not just the brands the originally did.
A particular image involving a character is covered by copyright. A distinctive appearance and behaviour of the character itself is covered by trademark.
I remember reading a story in the 1970’s as a child where one of the main characters was named Peter Parker, but it was clearly not the one most who read this would think of. He was 10 years old, lived with both his parents and his older sister. He did not exhibit any super-human abilities, like super-strength or sticking to walls. Just because a name is the same does not mean that there is confusion between the two identities.
In Canada, there is Purolator Courier and Purolator Filter. Same name, but two totally unrelated companies. A client of mine is a nutritional supplement chain called Nature’s Source. This is also the name of a brand from S.C. Johnson. There is no confusion or overlap between the two, so no infringement exists.
All that said, …
The code name of the character in question is Goose, but there is no confusion between this character and, say, a pilot in the Top Gun movie play by Anthony Edwards. The way the character is drawn can be seen by some as reminding them of a particular video game character, but the all the rest of the characteristics of the character are distinct. I see no significant confusion between this Goose and Duke.
Sometimes, there is confusion when two distinctively separate companies have the same name
Down here, years ago there was a case with Farmers Trading Company and Farmers Cleaning Company, the only connection was the ‘Farmers’ name but people (read: idiots) assumed that the Cleaning Company was a sub-division of the Trading Company (the Cleaning Company was rubbish and the Trading Company’s reputation was tainted, again, mostly by the same idiots who thought the Trading Company was the parent company)
Pointg is, people tend to be idiots at times and figure that two somethings with similar (if not identical) names/appearances must be connected (or one is a deliberate and blatant rip-off of the other)
Kinda like how Shawn looks like John Cena in this page.
Why does Harem get mentioned in the who’s who even though I she doesn’t speak
And Vekter doesn’t have a who’s who when he has a speaking part
Harem talks in the mini comic, and I just forgot to add Vekter. He’s in there now.
you got a lil problem with that poor vekter i swear hehe
Nice symbolism with the shallow ditch there.
If the guy could throw a car through telekinesis, why didn’t he just throw Vehemence away?
Apparently his TK has no effect on living things because we never see him using trees or ground covered in grass.
Then move the clothes of the guy… Or the ground under his feet.
he has only telekinetical powers over things that isnt alive. otherwise he wouldnt have wasted time making shield of concreate in previous issues. so he isnt real telekinetic.
How is he not a “real” telekinetic? Telekinesis is the ability to move objects with some kind of boogedy-boogedy, depending on the setting. He can do that. Just because he can’t move everything ever doesn’t mean he doesn’t use telekinesis.
If this guy has the copy powers that everyone was worrying about with Toll it would crack me up. He was just sitting back absorbing powers and working out strategies. He even helpfully suggest they attack Toll so he could get data that is probably somewhat useful for a mimic even if Toll wasn’t really one. And no I don’t really think he is unless he skipped Maxima or can’t handle her power set cause his invulnerability isn’t protecting his clothes as well.
Sydney is almost disturbing in her ability to sound like she is enjoying the fight like a little kid. Some of that is probably how she reacts to the stress and shock of this new bizarre situation but it comes off the other way on the surface. Probably part of why Vehemence likes her so much.
This should be fun… if the team already suffered injuries to the chaff.
I’m not surprised at all. I’m pretty sure her body pumps caffeine and capsaicin instead of blood.
Besides, she’s a huge nerd with the most extreme case of ADHD I’ve ever heard of. I would be shocked if she WASN’T this excited.
Shawn: Ex-Seal. Ex-Caddy Owner. Loves baby animals.
drives shock sensitive explosives around
and everyone says he “probably wasn’t that bad”… yeah suuuuuure guys…think again
Who said he “probably wasn’t that bad”?
Never bought the whole “reverse ninja logic.” Numbers have time and time again proved to benefit whoever has more of them. That’s why they use the term “Playing the numbers game,” if you have the numbers on you’re side you win. Plus there are other factors like skill and weapons to factor. Even though it is sad what passes for a ninja nowadays they still have to have some training in the art of stealth, deadly weapons use and killing. There is no way that in fighting 100 ninjas you do not get a poisoned dart, or sword to the back or major artery, NO WAY!
This guy is just a major over achiever. Even still that’s no reason for him to knock out Opal, and probably critically injure Vekter!
You are talking about real life. Fiction is different.
When the author wants it to be. Like pom poms that materialize out of the air for no reason at all! XD
generally the trope is making fun of this tendency in lazy fiction writing. Not that I am accusing Dave B. of laziness, the trope doesn’t really fit as well for superpowered beings of different power levels and skill sets and so there can be legit reasons. Boba Fett and storm troopers would probably be a better example.
Like how there are allot of storm troopers and they can’t hit worth a dame. But one Boba Fett is suppose to be such a bad ass? And yet he didn’t do much in the second and third movie, and in the end got rocketed off into a giant gaping mouth like a punk.
ignoring the fact of Boba Fett not “doing” much to portray his Bad-Assed-ness in the movies, i’m not really surprised… if the clone army were clones of him, why aren’t they better at stuff than they are portrayed? probably because they ARE clones of him, and he really ISN’T that good, but he talks a real good game, and when we see him in actual combat, he’s showing just how much bluff he can throw out there for everyone to bite into, versus his ACTUAL combat capability…
Actually, Boba is a clone as well, Jango is the original, but nice attempt
argh… you’re right, though i’m pretty sure that Boba is the one clone that Jango brought up by himself and NOT raised by the cloners and their ways of processing thousands of clones all at the same time…
Yup, part of his deal was that he got to raise one of those clones ‘normally’ as his son
So which is this suppose to be? Because he plays it like it’s logic, but then goes all fiction rules? Kinda like he’s flip flopping.
Um…are you asking if this comic is supposed to be fiction or reality? I’m super confused, or you are, but to be entirely clear this comic is fiction.
Don’t worry too much about being confused by the things some commentators say, especially when making sense isn’t that person’s particular forte.
And that is the joy of Sci-Fi tropes. Its as though all fights are considered to be even. So 1 against 100 means those 100 are really weak.
“‘When seven men go out to fight an army 100,000 times bigger there’s only one way it can end.’ said Twoflower. ‘They’ll win. They’ve got to. Otherwise the world isn’t working properly.'”
~Interesting Times, by Terry Pratchett.
Much love for the Pratchett.
And of course if the odds are a million to one against, it’s a sure thing.
“million to one chances happen nine times out of ten”
at least that’s better than the 50/50-90/10 dilemma… basically its that on a fifty/fifty percent chance of xyz happening, ninety percent of the time it’ll be bad…
Fiction. Be it Science or Fantasy …
Logic is Trumped by Story. Unless Logic enhances the Story. Otherwise, Logic gets to take a backseat to the Story.
The only time someone suffers critical or mortal injuries is when you plan to take them out of the action or its a gritty and dark series. Even then, the people who die are either of no importance, or die due to the Plot.
Also, every badass has to prove a point by dropping at least one person who was a potential threat. It just shows that he’s so much stronger the guy is nothing in comparison.
Of course for every rule, there is a way to break it.
SCORE: Story 3 = Logic 0
You forget the resurrection thing.
I do believe he did.
Thank you, Someone. Even if you see the body, burn it to ash, decapitate it, and/or sacrifice it to an Old God, there’s no guarantee they can’t come back.
Good Twin, Even Eviller Twin, Clone, Cyborg, Controlled by an Old God, Wasn’t Really Him, It only Looked like a Mortal Wound, Insane levels of Regeneration, Resurrection, the list goes on for ways that an apparent “Death” is actually Not a Death.
OK, so what did Vektor actually get hit with? In panel 5, Vehemence appears to be winding up for a big right hook, but in panel 6 there’s no arm showing so it appears he got hit with a left backfist?
The Fist you see is his Left fist (look closely and follow the arm) He actually back fists Vektor.
Yeah, twice in a row he has slapped folks with the back of his hand. Trying not to kill the squishies, methinks.
Anybody else notice that Vehemence’s markings turned blue after he was hit with the car and are slowly turning back to white? Since DaveB made a point of Dabbler’s markings indicating her power level and/or the type of power she was using, I doubt this is a coincidence….
On second look, they may not be turning back. It may just be a sign that he’s through charging up.
I thought that was just the color they have when they Avatar State glow which they do whenever he uses enough juice. Its like his skin tone shows through a bit when they aren’t glowing but when glowing they overpower the background color?
I’m immensely happy to find this after getting to the end of the current battle arc. :D
It’s actually a rather well known thing- I’ve never heard it called inverse ninja though, it’s generally referred to as “The law of conservation of Ninjutsu”, as seen here: https://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/Law_of_Conservation_of_Ninjutsu
Here, have a more dangerous link: https://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Main/ConservationOfNinjutsu
Yay Shawn. :)
I have NO idea why I’m so attached to him since he hasn’t really done anything in the comic yet, but seeing him makes me smile.
Maybe it’s his great taste in T-Shirts?
It appears this guy is a priest of Avacyn.
https://archive.wizards.com/magic/magazine/article.aspx?x=mtg/daily/arcana/809
His head looks like my computers on button…. great… now I have to be paranoid that my computer is plotting against me! >.<
You mean…you have doubts?
Computers have been working against us since the dawn of the Internet. They are just pretending to be useful to lull us into complacency.
Citizen GUS, the Computer is your friend. Please report to the nearest processing center for treasonous thoughts against the Computer
Citizen Anifreik, I cannot seem to find records of your security clearance. Please report to the nearest processing center so that your beliefs in Communism will not spread any further.
It’s been too long since I’ve played Paranoia. Good times.
OOoooohhhhh….make Sydney a Paranoia player. That should lead to ALL SORTS of goodness.
Cargo, I could actually see her playing that game.
Two years ago at a Con I got numerous members of our group killed with radiation. We knew we were going to a place with radiation. So of course I made a request for something to protect us from the radiation. We were given glowing boots. Need we say more?
Oh, and I volunteered to test a weapon for R&D.
You can imagine the results. Oh and yes, I also accidentally outed myself as a secret society member at the end.
I don’t think Anyone survived that mission.
A good Paranoia session indeed.
As I remember that is referred to as a Code 7 mission. All six clones of all the characters done in. In any other game the ref would be lynched. In Paranoia everybody helps bring that result about, at least as far a wrecking the other characters.
Part of me wonders if his the frenemy type. Only here to test his Mettle before leaving. but shows up now and then with a continuing hidden agenda
How about he was here doing a mission, possibly for pay, which involved stopping the others from getting away, gathering data etc… (who knows how many mission objectives = multitasking to him?) Aaand couldn’t resist gathering data the old fashion way by smacking them around a bit. Or he doesn’t have enough info on Maxima’s true fighting and leadership style cause she was purposely holding back to train the others so he decided to force Maxima to engage an enemy seriously. (no no, I’m not still upset about that, much, I’m making a completely different point! XP lol) He was the only one available that could handle her for a few minutes before bolting.
Which should make the people who are looking for a proper smack down “win” just as disappointed as the V&O’s surprise non-finish did (and to a lesser extent Tolls off camera smackdown). The the only fans left reading will be those of us who love the wacky in between fights fun! ^0^ XD :-P
Every so often I realize how much I’m like Sydney. I call out various tropes all the time, including one here when Max first dropped in to take out Death Tolls, I immediately went “Forgotten Super Weapon much?”
Then Sydney stepped in and stopped that and I was like “Hmm…Dave must want to avoid obvious tropes unless he has a pun for Sydney…”
I still can’t wait until Sydney really starts using the PPO and hearing the various attack calls she’ll yell out. A few suggestions: “DRAGON SLAVE!” “SHINING FINGER!” and “MIKURU-BEAM!”…just because Kamehameha would be too obvious.
She started to do a Kamehameha at the press conference but changed it mid-syllable to Sydneyhameha.
I was just perusing casually through the comments when I realized I FOUND WALDO!! :D Ah, nostalgia…
Anyone else hear the sound effects in their heads of guns cocking and powers activating? Because I TOTALLY DID! AND IT WAS AWESOME!!
Or…if a Schlock fan….
“ominous hum….”
So, things Sydney will need with her super-gear:
1. Light adjusting shades. Never know when big flashes and light will happen and her shield won’t protect her eyes from something like that.
2. Emergency air supply: To be released into her shield when she /needs/ to keep it up and the air inside is low. Like if she needs to make extended outer space jaunts.
3. Really Powerful Hotsauce Dispenser: For when she just wants to either do bioterrorism or just wants a snack.
Her shield has proven itself time and again that with it up Bright and powerful lights won’t affect her
Her shield actually does protect her from flaring light. Check out the comic when Harem uses the bandoleer of flashbangs on Death Toll.
Whay are the chances that one of the two balls she cant figure out is her air supply?
DaveB originally had the shield permeable to oxygen, decision made outside comic in comments I guess, and then reversed it in comic and the related description. I’m betting he has the functions of the other two balls mapped out since the beginning and so don’t relate to that. Of course by not exposing their function he has left himself an out just in case things get real messy in the comics logic…..
True. It would just be funnily ironic.
What would be funny if one of them is the control ball for the others (automatically handles stuff like the leveling up etc… ) and when held in one hand with one of the others in your off hand thinking about the off hand ball will cause the other ball to try to telepathically answer your questions about its operation etc… But all she did was desperately try to make it work by itself and has now forgotten about further experimentation with them for now….
Don’t apologize for this pacing! It’s the best of any webcomic (and a lot of books, lately) that I’ve read! You balance humor and action perfectly, and the story moves enough to keep both relevant.
Also once this is done and you have a few chapters under your belt you’ll be the guy with the “Epic 50 page battle”.
To which Akira Toriama rolls his eyes and say “Bitch please!”
Dude who writes Hajime No Ippo must be the king. Last boxing fight went on for 11 months.
Thanks! I still wish I could produce the pages faster, though I suspect if I did, the story wouldn’t move any faster, I’d just be able to edit out less. :)
Believe you going faster than I am I’m still fleshing out an outline and your early art makes mine look atrocious. I’m just hoping that improves as much as your’s has. Ironically I’m decent at buildings but living things not so much.
In a way, that actually makes sense. Buildings often need more detail, sure, but living being need LIFE. That is a lot harder, and more time consuming, than making details on a building.
Unless you’re making some kind of ancient Greco-Roman building with those awesome carvings of the gods and heroes. That’s a bitch.
Either way, if this kind of art is the kind you want to do, then keep going at it. Take it from somebody who knows, don’t compare yourself to others. I haven’t drawn in six or so years, because I kept looking at others at getting upset about it. So don’t do that, it only causes problems.
Alternate or parallel world, multi cultural city, classes based on technological, magical, and skill based affinities, representative leadership representing each class, wilderness is quasi-D&D/FF in nature, so forth.
Isn’t there a movie based on a book based on that idea? o_O
If you are talking about Divergent I don;t think so but I’m not positive as I have not actually seen or read read it yet, I’ve only about it. If you are talking another about movie maybe but it’s probably not one I’ve seen.
While I think there will be some low level animosity between those with an affinity for one or more class skills and those with with what I can only describe as anti-affinities (I really need a better way to describe that) as while the ruling pantheon truly tries to make sure all citizens have equal rights, resources, and representation, individual people can be bigoted assholes and the nature of any anti-affinity can makes some resources useless and jobs impractical to that individual. While it’s possible for an individual to have multiple strong affinities and/or anti-affinities it’s rare, rarer still to possess both in the same skill categories. The protagonist will have strong affinities and anti-affinities in all of them making him both respected and rejected by all groups (leading to a bit of a cynical & reclusive though still genial nature).
Anyone else getting a Juggernaut vibe from Vehemence?
As long as it’s not Red Hulk.
Even that would be better than the grey Hulk when he was known as Joe Fixit.
What was wrong with the brainy Hulk doing work for the Vegas Mob?
Since there is some confusion about the Inverse Ninja thingy:
First off, it is a storytelling trope. It has nothing to do with how the real world works.
Second, it arises naturally from a few properties stories tend to have:
– They build up to a climax aka if there is a really strong enemy to overcome, the big duel will happen towards the end of a fight, not at the start. Ergo, the strong enemies hold back until their time has come.
– Scenes cannot go on forever. If the same stuff is happening for too long it gets boring. Dealing with 100 enemies can’t take 100 times the time of dealing with a single enemy because that would be way too long. Most if not each one of the 100 enemies is going to be very easy to get rid of, otherwise the battle takes too long. (50 pages for instance is a little bit on the too long side. *winkwinknudgenudge* :P )
– Conversely scenes cannot be too short either, otherwise they can hardly contribute anything meaningful to the story. This means that a single enemy can’t be easy to deal with, otherwise the scene would not be able to really serve a purpose.
Note, that these are just tendencies and not absolutes. Writers can definitlely go apeshit and turn everything on its head. It’s just that they usually stick to the tried and trusted formula.
Or just have the less important battles take as long but put them in the back ground or during a time skip. Is also something authors do to get around this. Like when Toll’s battle no longer appealed… (not disagreeing with you just making a related point)
I dunno…I’d have found it quite appealing to see the pretentious ass get a knife stuck up his…well, you know.
The ‘build up to big boss battle’ trope can sometimes be subverted, either as a direct choice or by outside forces. In one well known example Indy was supposed to fight the big guy with the big sword in the first ‘Raiders’ movie. When the day came to film it Harrison Ford was to ill to do all the rehearsed moves. He said ‘I have a gun. Why don’t I just shoot the guy?’ The director liked the idea and filmed it that way.
The way I heard it, he was sick or something and wanted to get done with filming for the day quickly.
Had diarrhea. I would’ve shot him too. lol
Yeah, but they kept the sword-swinging part because “This is frelling amazing, we need to keep this.”
If any of you get the reference (not that I’m using rule of cool; that’s not a reference), you get huggles.
Oh, I meant “kriffing”, not “frelling”. Sorry.
Large groups tend to be over confident due to their numbers and make tactical mistakes as a result. Mooks are often worse in this respect because they generally aren’t overly intelligent in the first place. Dragons are more intelligent and usually have the power cover their ass for the most part so it takes more effort skill and luck. Standard badasses usually fall somewhere in between.
Right, new here, anyone considered that vehemence penetrates shields? including sydneys shield?
https://www.grrlpowercomic.com/archives/1422 <– check his arms and shoulder there, goes right through.
Q is of course is it due to the projection or does the shield transfer along with the projection. If it transfers along it also explains vehemence cracking Vektors shield like it wasnt there.
and yeah awesome mix between fighting, dialogue, characters being shown and jokes. So don't stress over the 50 pages. Wouldn't mind to see another 50 available right now if its this way :D Though I am somewhat afraid of what comes after.. emptyness? non-stop fighting comic? that might be the biggest challenge for DaveB
Hmm. I wouldnt think the shield would transfer over but Vehemence does not seem surprised that he is going right through it.
IF it had transferred along with the projection that would have greatly expanded Sydney’s powers but I think the whole thing DaveB is doing with that projection is that it is only good for illusions, trickery and scouting, and not a true Shadow Clone. Doesn’t mean he can’t eat shields, and possibly other powers directed at him, just means that isn’t really evidence of it IMHO.
Im thinking he is a juggernaut type as in “Nothing can stop the Juggernaut!”who disguised himself as a simple strong man when auditioning for the Not So Super Squad that he just betrayed of course a juggernaut would eat shields.
Juggernaut eats shields? Bust shields I guess but EAT them? I don’t read comics but I don’t find that in a casual perusal of his original powers…
It’s also good for yelling “Badgers!”.
That’s just a projection. Projection-Sidney can’t actually block anything.
Indeed.
“You could be irradiating my brain!”: https://www.grrlpowercomic.com/archives/494
I have plenty ready for after the fight is done. I can write so much faster than I can draw. :)
Good thing that. The story would probably too weird the other way around.
*probably be too
There goes my “He’s part of ArcDark”-theory…
Unless a little public and video taped patty-cake with ARCSWAT is how he is building cred for, or just maintaining, his cover amongst a supervillain organization (one that DIDN’T stage this attack) as an ARCDARK mole. I mean his getting away may hurt ARCSWAT’s reputation a bit but he is making sure they actually got ALL the real bad guys!
Yeah, once we start bringing spy stuff, and the requisite paranoia, into all of this, I’m one of the few people whose heads won’t start screaming.
But as I’ve said before, there are several highly intelligent people reading this comic (wait, that was on Yosh!…. Still very true here, though. You guys are great!), so it’s only natural that many of those have Batman-like levels of paranoia, as I do, so many of your brains are probably wired for paranoia as well.
It still gets confusing rather easily, though. It turns into facing a Sicilian with poisoned wine.
Clearly, the way to defeat him is to smack the back of his left hand and turn his powers off.
So THAT’s why he smacked Opal!
‘Cept he must have two power sets cause the same symbol is on the other hand… hmmmm….
The move is: left hand + right hand + forehead = control/alt/delete
We Have A Winner! Please pick up your internet at the door.
That’s not the worst part. You know those reset buttons you have to flip the device over and use a pen to push? Yeah….
…Just because of the way you phrased that, I’m NOT gonna ask where Vehemence keeps his reset button…
let’s hope it isn’t a TOGGLE switch either…
Great.
Now I have to clean up all of this coffee.
You still venture to consume foodstuffs and drinkstuffs while reading the comic? I would have thought people would have learned better than by now.
As Einstein said,
Only two things are infinite.
The universe, and human stupidity.
And sometimes I am not sure about the universe.
I have given him a pseudo british accent. It quite fits him. Smooth as Vanilla Creamy Tea. I give Him three arcs, a early death, and a revived by the blood god.
I personally hear him as one of the sophisticated Klingons, like the admirals from The Undiscovered Country.
On behalf of bald people everywhere, I thank you for increasing the awesome cosplay options.
Now I need to make more awesome cosplay options for people with Van Dykes. So far there’s Gordon Freeman… various klingons…
Fu Manchu comes to mind, if you can get the Van Dyke long enough.
Congrats on 250 comics! (Pages, posts, whatever.) And actually it’s more than that, counting incentives and side art and such. Yay! Good stuff! Keep it up! Generic encouragement!
I can’t resist pointing out that “Stay back! You’ll never get through my shield!” is the kind of thing that only gets said by someone who isn’t confident in their shield. Tsk, tsk, Vekter. Didn’t they teach you in villain school that confidence is as important as ability?
Yeah, that was supposed to read like he was panicking.
Panicing? Wait, why the hell does Panic end with a C but panicking have a CK? What’s wrong with panicing?
Stuff like this is why I need inline spellcheck for everything. Or possibly inline spellcheck is why I need inline spellcheck for everything. :P
Picnicking works the same way.
Its tribute to Fleeman whose superpower of Extreme Exit was so powerful that he was known as the Panic King.
I thought it was to differentiate from the remains of cakes with way too much frosting.
I guess it is about pronunciation: “panicing” should be pronounced as “icing”,”juicing”, “pricing”, et cetera. To retain the final sound it adds the “k”, it is the same as “mimic” and “mimicking”.
Wow, been a while since last time I did three searches and was not able to find something. Maybe I am taking something wrong way (*)
This will interest nobody but I like tying the loose ends so anyway:
I was unable to find an online official page on the topic but here are a couple that can work.
– At oxforddictionaries.com in the grammar section they give the rule to follow:
https://www.oxforddictionaries.com/words/verb-tenses-adding-ed-and-ing
And as examples give: picnic (picnicked, picniking, picnicker) also mimic and traffic.
But it do not say why.
– At “English Language & Usage”, a site for linguists I didn’t know but looks fine, somebody asked the same and the main answers were “because pronunciation”.
The rule, supposedly quoted from the OED (Oxford English Dictionary), was:
(… frolicking, I should have remembered it.)
That’s all folks.
(*) English grammar is not my strongest suit. I know, I know, it is hard to belive, but truested me.
“Mimic King” would make a great name for a shape-shifting character.
“Panic King” would make a good villain name. “Frolic King”. . . not so much.
“Frolic King” probably would have made a good supervillain name for Gorgeous George if he had become a cape.
Which ‘Gorgeous George’ would that be?
Otherwise, someone would start reading it as “pan icing”.
An Album Cover.
Attention readers. There has been an update to the cast list for today’s episode.
The part of ‘Cabbage Merchant’ in today’s comic will be played by Shawn.
Ok, if Shawn is going to complain about his “lovely melons” getting destroyed along with his car, I wonder how Dave is going to slip in a merchant with “a lovely bunch of coconuts?”
That merchant would have to be female, or a male who walks funny :P
Hey DaveB, don’t listen to people complaining because they got 50 pages of awesomeness and they want 50 OTHER pages that would have to be equally awesome. 50 pages for a big battle is completely reasonable as long as they flow well and every page is worth reading… as yours have been. I’m perfectly happy with how you’ve managed this, and if the battle runs another 5 or 10 or 70 pages I’ll still be happy because they will all be great pages.
And this has nothing to do with my own personal tendency to draw things out and write immensely long scenes and arcs and stories. :D
Had a story, long ago, moving and all that, lost it. Blegh.
There was one fight, between two “relatively” normal people. IE not superhuman or anything. It took about five pages, for a fight between TWO people.
So … yeah, its easy to have a good fight take some time to finish.
Of course that same story also had a full page of him trying to escape from bed! So go figure.
Honestly I can think of worse things like padding those 50 page with stuff like power up sequences, meanwhile at some other place completely removed from the main story where they can even see what’s going on, or contracting a three day fight between two characters into a single page of comics.
Harem’s supply run doesn’t count as removed, it showed interplay between the front line and HQ and had impact on the main story, besides she can see the main story from HQ.
Well, I’m sure probably a good half dozen of us can say “we called it!” But I’m sure most of us threw around at least eight different theories. Throw enough balls and one is bound to hit the target. Still … its cool.
So … we have a guy who wants a good fight. As separate individuals they’d be no Challenge to him. But after a ‘workout’ and a bit of teamwork … now That is Fun! Well … to him anyway.
His wording about Sydney brings up an interesting point.
“Good Kid. Hope she doesn’t get killed tonight.”
Makes one wonder, did he want her alive for the Real Fight, or does he have a code of conduct of some sort? Either one makes him dangerous in terms of dealing with him on a psychological scale.
As to Inverse Ninja … nah. The best place to hide is in plain sight. Who’s going to notice a ninja at an anime convention? Really? It’s just great cosplay!
To your first point, as I’ve stated before, authors (at least Joss Whedon) have occasionally been known to change what they’re doing because somebody correctly guessed the original plan. For him it works out, though, and I think Dave might view that as kind of a dick move.
As to what Sigma (too lazy to go see what his name is, and he reminded me of Sigma from Megaman X as soon as I saw his facial tattoos) said about Sydney, while there’s every possibility, even likelihood, of there being a hidden meaning, I personally think he just likes her. Maybe reminds him of somebody, or to him she just has an agreeable personality, or the fact that she’s WAY smarter than she seems, even without her genre savvy.
I agree with the ninja point, except it’s been pointed out by Dave that she doesn’t mean he’s a ninja; it’s a trope known as Conservation of Ninjutsu, or Law of the same, or what have you.
Never apologize for the story Dave. You’re doing a great job. Don’t rush the pacing just for the sake of rushing it. Tell the story how it feels natural for you. It’ll take as long as it needs. I’d rather you concentrate on the quality then the speed. You don’t see us complaining. Except that it updates only twice a week and not five time a day as we’d prefer.
Agrecian
But spend enough time reading the comments for twice weekly updates, any more than that would be an overload :P
Amen
NOOO!!!! NOT THE FEDORA!!!
That poor innocent hat . . .
Dangit it’s been what? Four years since this comic started? And Sidney’s still on DAY FREAKING ONE!!!
And what happened to her car? Is it still at the bank?
Quit complaining, DaveB manages to fit enough action (figurative and literal) into one day of comic-time most other artists struggle to spread out over a month of in-world time
So…. Duke Nukem is Part of Arcswat?
Grand.
You wish, his name is Goose and I bet most of his grunting comes from the barely suppressed tirade stemming form years of having people comment on his unfortunate likeness to Duke
That could drive anyone crazy. Anyone.
Wanna bet The Periwinkle Buttsniffer said something about it in the fight?
That would explain why the knife ended up where it did.
A thought which probably makes Dave chuckle as much as we would .
BOSS FIIIIIIIIIIIIIGHT!!!!