Grrl Power #257 – Let’s get ready to rubbllllllle!
Not too much to say about this page, just a little pacing mostly. Clearly Vehemence is not finding Maxima’s act terribly intimidating. They are each being pretty overconfident which is bound to go bad for at least one of them.
#MakeComics: For those of you interested, here’s the original version of this page. I was trying to make it a one pager but it was just too rushed without the big faceoff panel. Plus it let me fit in the tumbleweed callback, which is a page that always makes me laugh.
In the meantime, here’s another fun webcomic I found recently. It’s done by Katie Rice, who, if any of you watched it, is the gal that won Penny Arcade’s Strip Search show, but it’s not her Camp Weedonwantcha comic, it’s the one she did before that (and is still doing). It’s called Skadi, and the best way to describe it I think is like The Legend of Bill only with a gross girl barbarian, and a little more Cartoon Network. It has a few strips that are slightly NSFW due to stylized cartoon nipples, but they’re few and far between.
Here’s the link to the new comments highlighter for chrome, and the GitHub link which you can use to install on FireFox via Greasemonkey. I’ll make a permanent link for those somewhere on the page eventually.
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So, is nobody else concerned about Sydney having dropped her shield? That might not end well.
She COULD be using her Telepresence thing.
She isn’t holding any of her orbs. On the other hand, she is probably far enough away that she feels safe for a few seconds, especially with V’s attention focused entirely on Maxima (whom he has obviously wanted to fight this whole time).
The last time she used Telepresence and Forcefield at the same time her copy also had a (nonfunctioning) copy of her shield.
It would be funny if her hologram shield could keep out other holograms.
Oh no. That would result in two years of holographic battles.
The shield is airtight. She probably listened and opens it periodically to let more oxygen in.
You are right, all 7 balls are up.
I asumed it was to not deprive herself of oxgen (again). Also this places her clearly in the “out of combat” crowd for this round, wich will hopefully be respected by Vehemence.
Also not having any orb in use seems to give her more flexibility at wich Orb to use at any one time. Max might still give her orders to shield everyone.
Plus if Max is about to enter the fight, she may want to get everybody else under it.
A few people mentioned it but most of us agree, her dropping it a minute during a regroup against an honorable opponent isn’t a serious foul, especially considering it’s airtight nature. However, if it stays down once Max and him start trading blows then it’s a problem.
Vehemence may be a bad guy but he not a “bad” guy.
Sorry that was a response to Ehrlich.
As in, he may relish a good fight, but he isn’t inherently evil?
Yeah but it not as fun when people ignore the reference used.
Wreck-it Ralph :D
Well, the biggest problem with someone who can relish a good fight is that they also want to see how far the ketchup splatters…
Condiment Fight!
First, though, they have to make sure they’ve mustard the troops.
Lettuce not get ahead of ourselves.
Get them bun-kered down.
Well this is a fine pickle we are in.
If this fight gets out of hand Sydney may need to expand her shield to keep the team from being killed in the crossfire (Achilles would be fine). With the amount of strength maxima has shown with her energy blasts, and the fact she can maximize any stat, her punches could literally cause earthquakes. Vehemence is likely almost as strong because of his comment “is that all” when a person weighing near 100 tons stomped on his foot and he just lifted him like nothing. So two “maxima strength” supers fighting will cause a lot of collateral damage, damage the rest of the team will need to work to limit.
So battle of the Titans here! Please don’t make us wait another page for the final showdown to begin!
Irrelevant physicsy speal:
Her big energy blast look smaller than MOAB blasts by a fair bit, I’d estimate it at from 10^9 to 10^10 Joules (which is still a HUGE amount, it’ll kill people within 100m). Earthquakes, even the smallest ones you can feel, are MUCH more energetic. A million times for a light earthquake and a million million times (the difference between Maxima and a beetle) more for some of the biggest ones we’ve had.
Funnily enough,1 meganewton of strength shouldn’t actually result in collateral damage (in fact, you don’t get any collateral for strength below that where you’re accidentally fusing the air when you crack your knuckles), but comics has punches as things with a mystical significance, not physical objects moving at <100m/s through air :D
Don’t believe people killed would really give two craps about the actual levels of Joules used to kill them (whether someone is crushed by a 10ton boulder or a 100ton boulder, in both cases, they are still dead)
And it’s the shockwaves from the blows connecting that does the collateral damage slash deaths
What I meant by collateral damage is because of the following:
A. If someone has Vehemence’s level of strength and punches someone, that someone is going to fly quite a distance unless they can counteract the force to stay in the same general vicinity.
B. If they start during it out super hero style then this fight is going to travel.
C. Super hero battles usually travel either into the middle of a forest or into the nearest populated city.
<100m/s (his punches aren't too fast to dodge with non-superspeed) won't actually send you flying that far or do much damage on your collision, the friction with the floor is pretty high.
But this is me using real physics, the comic uses comic book physics, which work differently (for instance, given the cap on Vehemence's strength given by his punch and pain against Mr HeavyAsASpaceShuttle and the fact Maxima can apparently take things on the level of anti-tank rounds even without maxing durability, Vehemence can't damage her at all).
Ok last panel, she has a smartphone. If copies get these, could she start a business churning out small electronic devices? How about precious metals?
I don’t think the copies would.
As far as I can tell, Harem only makes a copy of herself. All the rest is provided and goes where the copy goes.
Harem has not shown the power to copy anything, including her body. She can just teleport stuff from here to there. Or into her personal teleport storage/hammerspace.
Which means, that by this logic, her mother was pregnant with at least five bodies, all harems.
I don’t know if it’s actually been shown in the comic, but the commentary for some comic pages and character page for Harem explain that she can merge or split down to 1 body and up to 5. But apparently she really likes doing 5 things at once, so she’s stayed at 5 copies for a while and individualized all 5 copies with different styles. We don’t know if the individual styles would be reset if she were forced to merge some of her copies, since that hasn’t been shown, but this is likely one of the reasons she never merges if she doesn’t have to.
Actually, her character bio mentions that she is routinely splitting and recombining, so I have no explanation for how she keeps all five copies looking different.
It actually explained in Dabbler’s “science” blurb about her that all of the copies are persistent, even when merged out to allow for greater strength/teleport capacity. So, de-teleported copies seem to be “stored” and it even mentions that whatever gear they were carrying at the time is “stored” with them. So, when she goes back up to her full five, all of them appear as they did when they vanished.
The relevant strip is Grrl Power – Dabbler’s Science Corner #2, panel 4.
She actually had to ‘store’ 4 of the bodies to enable her to ‘hump the Barret (not sure how many ‘r’s or ‘t’s in that, and don’t care, bring on the pedant grammar snots!)’
It would be funny if someone snuck up behind him and pantsed him while his attention was on Maxima.
Volunteers Deof for the job.
I can’t, since civilians have been warned to stay out of the combat area.
deshanti remembers leanders corrective training from the last time she tried that stunt so she wont do it again now scoville may have the balls to do it. LOL
I’m gonna guess Harem’s YouTube account gets plenty of hits already.
I’d believe that Dabbs YouTube account was closed very quickly…
Long time reader, first time commenter. Having Sydney say, “Oh damn, you done fucked up son” made me spurt wine (thankfully not through my nose.) Beautiful!
Yes, I’m still laughing…
Ruining people’s keyboards is how I know I’m doing my job. :)
Sorry Dave, I know better than to be eating or drinking when reading your comic. I still love it. Keep up the good work. :-)
This is why I prefer to do my first reading of a new strip on my tablet. Everything wipes off with a damp cloth and no damage.
It’s a good feeling, knowing you wrote something that caused someone’s wife to check on them to make sure they’re OK and not say, having an aneurism.
Well, if the wine *had* spurted out of your nose, you could honestly say that you had a snootful of wine…
I’m hearing Shao Khan’s voice…
“Round One. FIGHT!” with a certain jaunty .
Sydney would do an awesome Scorpion “GET OVER HERE!” attack with the Lighthook.. unfortunately her voice is more Darkwing Duck than him, so it’ll kinda lose that intimidating effect he has when he says it….
oh great, now I’m imagining Sydney dressed up as D.W., and spouting her own version of ‘I am the terror…’ and the villains all rolling on the floor laughing, and Sydney gesturing towards them and saying to Maxima ‘there, crisis averted’
Okay, that made me laugh…
Of course, then she would open her lunch bag as she walked up to them and most would be further incapacitated..
Well, with Halloween coming up, I think Sydney really could masquerade as Darkwing Duck & get away with it.
so seeing as the spelling error is still there at time of comment, i am going to assume noone actually read the little comments that show up when you mouse over the actual comment for monday.
“let’s get ready to rubbllle” ruble?
It’s a stretched out “rubble”
nope just means there gonna break lots of stuff. rubble.
boom. bang…. guess we dont have to pay the dinner bill.
Buffer has copywritten the phrase “Let’s get ready to Rumba!!”
Still in 3rd, but picking up steam.
Huh, does Dave mean the actual “The Good, the Bad and the Ugly” theme song or “The Ecstasy of Gold” (the song played during the final showdown)?
Never mind, they’d both fit.
Wow! Just realized it has been over four years now building to a fight we know Maxima will at least survive. Time flies!
We knew that on the 4th page of the entire comic lol
That’s what BrandX meant: after 4 years, we finally see the fight she survives (along with Anvil and Sydney and possibly Wart), still no confirmation about any of the others
Ugh… It’s only now I realized that Xuriel is “Dabbler” because her skills cover a bit of everything…
Hmmm…Maybe your jar could be cleaned off a bit better so you don’t miss the obvious stuff any more?…
either that, or change the nutrient solution? i’m sure that after four years, it’s a bit grungy…
He dragged the balls but maxima couldent
No, he is dragging Halo and the balls follow her.
The orbs can’t be taken from her. But she can still be dragged. She doesn’t have superhuman weight or strength. The orbs give her abilities. And the shield does not prevent her from being moved if the ability she’s using is extended beyond the shield.
Max did a similar trick to stop Sydney in her tracks. https://www.grrlpowercomic.com/archives/268
Max’s second attempt got wrapped up in some legal problems. Laws of inertia and friction to be exact. https://www.grrlpowercomic.com/archives/370
is it me or has Vehemence’s smile gotten creepier now that he is missing a tooth?
It’s definitely not helping his clean-cut college guy looks.
The guts of the strange radiation eating critter are about to hit the fan if Maxima uses energy attacks (unless Dabbler de-summoned it).
This is going to start with punches…
Something tells me we might get to find out what one or both of the unknown orbs do..
They are squaring off like there’s about to be a huge fight, but its actually super unlikely their strength/speed/durability balances off well enough to have one. Most likely one of them far surpasses the other. I’m guess Maxima increases speed/strength and just takes him apart.
I have much respect for Vehemence. He is a true gentleman to plan on going shirtless and remembering to leave his nipples in their special case on his dresser at home so as to not expose their cool night air pointiness to the females present.
To a true gentleman. *pinkie out hat tip salute*
Can never understand that, but then again, can’t understand why it’s perfectly fine to depict on Primetime TV explicit and graphic mass slaughter but can’t have swear words or show certain parts of the female body
I think you may be on to something there sir. He _has_ no nipples showing. Nor does he have a belly button (neither innie or outie he). Therefore this is either 1) an exosuit in the shape of a man 2) the body is a construct missing certain details not obvious on dressed men or 3) he is a metamorph and has erased the offending marks of natural birth and gender in an attempt to prove he is above all that…
Or DaveB was too into how many teeth were showing. LOL
Seriously though, on most men the belly button comes in somewhere ABOVE the beltline, and I am not sure even the six pack of Hercules would cause an Innie to close up enough not to be seen…
Looking all the way back to the “Hot Beefcake Injection” page, all the guys there at least have an attempt at displaying nipples., and 2 have noticeable belly buttons. Mister V here may not be a naturally born human.
He might be a golem. That would explain his toughness, his lack of certain body parts, and the symbols on his body.
So, this is a good spot. He does have a belly button (Old Italian Man page). But no nipples. Stalwart does have nipples only a few pages back.
It may be stylistic. Or it might be a hint along with his glowy lines.
I’ll be perfectly honest… if tomorrows update has them both pulling top-hats & canes out of their asses and dancing a review in front of the flabbergasted Arcon team-members.. I will send you all my money
Less than 100 till 2nd place people, please vote often.
Dave needs our support.
I do not understand myself. If I enjoy this so much, why does pro wrestling bore me so badly?
Because Pro Wrestling is real people in pretend situations no-one with a functioning braincell would find themselves in.. while this is Pretend people in situations everyone with a functioning braincells fantasizes about being in
While I think “Pro Wrestling” is ridiculous, I have a certain level of respect for a few of the actors. In the past a some of these demonstrated high acrobatic and choreographic skills, and even some acting ability.
I was never a fan, but now it’s been 20 years or so since I saw more than a glimpse of anything related to this circus, so I don’t know what is going on today. What few clips I’ve seen only served as deterrent.
And it is now time for Maxima to Layeth the Smacketh DOWN!
I’m happy Sydney finally got her serendipitous tumbleweed! :) Keep the jokes coming please!
I think he’s finding it intimidating in the sense that he knows he’s about to face the most powerful attack yet. Its just that he finds that exiting, and appreciates the respect they show him.
I like how Sydney’s mind works! No serendipitous tumbleweed around, so she creates her own! What a go-getter!