Grrl Power #260 – Adding injury to injury
The sound effect “BootToTheHead” is a nonomatopoeia. It’s a sound effect that doesn’t sound like the sound it’s supposed to sound like, and they amuse me. I thought of the word nonomatopoeia as I was writing this, and I was duly pleased with myself, but a quick google reveals that it’s already a word. Damn you millions of people who lived before me! (shakes fist)
Vehemence really needs to turn this fight (beating) around or throw in the towel, although it may be telling that he considers a .50 caliber round to the eye “poking.”
That last panel could really use more shrapnel from the shattered slab of parking lot now that I look at it fresh a week after drawing it, but man, I’ve been pulling a lot of late nights with all the double pages of late, so do me a favor and imagine it with chunks of asphalt spraying out and the whole thing looking about 20% cooler. :)
Here’s something you guys will hopefully enjoy (and hopefully not abuse). Fred Perry, who does Gold Digger, both of which I’ve mentioned several times before as Gold Digger is my all time favorite comic, has put the first 199 issues of the comic online for free. I believe the thinking behind this is it’s difficult to see issue 225 of something on the shelf in the comic store and think you’ll jump right in. Obviously there’s a lot of history there, and unlike a comic from Marvel or DC that reboots every 12 months, Gold Digger is one contiguous story. By offering 20 years of backstory for free, I think Fred is hoping to pick up some new readers to the current storylines.
I’ve been vacillating as to whether or not I should link this archive from the comic, my concern is that a sudden influx of traffic and the subsequent downloading of 199 PDFs times 10,000 will cause Fred either some bandwidth or expense issues with his server. So I’m putting the link up with the hopes that you guys won’t go in there and just leech the whole library all at once. I’d suggest reading the first few issues, see if you like it, and if you do, have at it, just remember this is the last 20 years of Fred’s professional life on offer for free, so please make use of the donate link, (edit: to be clear, the donate link on the Gold Digger page, not my donate link) if for no other reason than to cover any surprise bandwidth costs. Also there are links to subscribe to the latest issues there on the side if it turns out you do like it. I think if you enjoy Grrl Power there’s a fair chance you will.
Here’s the link, please enjoy Fred’s quality responsibly. :)
Here’s the link to the new comments highlighter for chrome which I can’t live without anymore, and the GitHub link which you can use to install on FireFox via Greasemonkey.
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.
Protect the family jewels!
did anyone else cring when she almost stomped on his crotch it a comic and i still had sympathy pains
It made for an excellent ‘You aren’t taking this seriously yet, I’ll try something else’ statement.
Nothing’s more serious than almost killing millions of unborn children, or just one if Vehemence was ever going to copulate.
@Lisdian:
I don’t think they count as kids until they reached @ least week 3 of the pregnancy as that’s when the odds of a miscarriage first takes a significant drop (if I recall correctly, the next major reduction is at 3 months).
If the sperm haven’t even made it out of the epiditimus, then they’re still only potential children.
Also;
365 x 6= 2,190 1,000,000 / 2,190= 456.6
So unless part of his power set includes a much faster recovery time* and an extended life span, Vehemence isn’t going to be having a million kids (let alone sleep with 1 mil women).
*Guys have a period of recovery time they have to go through between orgasms.
While it’s true that Vehemance wouldn’t be able to father a million children, it is true that Maxi nearly destroyed millions of potential children. The average male ejaculation is approximately 5 mls (1 teaspoon) with each ml containing an average of 40-80 million sperm cells, each one of which is capable of fertilizing an egg. I would guess that Big V is above average…
Details can be found here: https://www.harryfisch.com/the-male-biological-clock.html
Even with so many only one may bond with the egg, usually, in any scenario. There are rarities when two eggs are impregnated by different donors. But that is another matter.
Unless as part of a super’s package to hit the bullseye every time. Except the prevelant data shows no. Still rare in the number of Supers in any given population. Unless strategic impregnation is going on from a Strategic Genome Repository is being done to breed more supers than what would normally occur.
IN fighting against an opponent that wants to hurt you there is no such thing as “fighting dirty.” All vulnerable areas are targeted. Bruce Lee was not above hitting an opponent while they are down to make sure they won’t get up soon.
We’re talking about hyptothetical jokes here, don’t take it to seriously.
But yes, it’s very possible if they’d use IVF
I’d imagine (not counting ethical ramifications) supers could sell their product for good bucks if the population believes super powers are genetic
Jesse I make a joke and I get people on the Internet using statistics to make a counter argument to a pun
isn’t that just the best thing about us though?
Yes, well, the problem is no one can tell you’re really joking when you make a “joke” like that, because unfortunately there are people on this Earth so stupid that they actually believe that. A lot of them. There’s even a law that almost got passed in Montana I think it was? Colorado, Montana, something around there, where it would be possible for legally a life to be considered to begin up to 24 hours before conception. Talk about anti-abortion legislation, with a law like that, someone potentially could go to jail for murder for not having sex with someone else and thus preventing a pregnancy! Yes, this happened on planet Earth.
ug. 3 good ones in a row and you spoil the chain. even the first serious replies could be played off as joking…but now you go and blabla about not being able to tell he was being silly :(
sad people are sad.
I’m going to play the “Future Guy with Spoilers” meme here, and add that not each and every sperm is capable of fertilizing an egg. A large percentage (I can’t remember the actual number offhand) of sperm are non-viable, and back in your time they were thought to just be defective. However, the truth turns out to be cooler, and sadder. those “nonviable” sperm are in fact hunter-killer sperm designed to find and kill sperm from other males. Because faithfulness has not always been a part of the Human paradigm…
You do realize that not having sex kills a bunch of sperm too, right? Sperm are constantly being produced in the male gonads, and they die after a certain length of time. Then there’s eggs in ovaries. Every time a woman menstruates, eggs are lost, and a woman is born with all the eggs she will ever have, there can be no more after they are all gone.
The “potential children” thing basically means that men who do not father one child for every sperm they ever produce, and every woman who menstruates without getting pregnant with fraternal twins is committing murder… and this goes for children who have entered puberty as well…
Be careful what kind of puritan nonsense you invoke, you just might unleash a monster.
Well, isn’t that wat Pro life people are basicly saying?
The so called “pro lifers” are all about births. Which explains why they are against any kind of protection from pregnancy, masturbation, homosexuality and other forms of sex not related to reproduction. And they don’t care a flying fig once birth has happened. They just demand a woman become a brood slave for the time she is pregnant. Which is why they must mind their own business.
I doubt my wife would us the term brood slave for anyone. Please remember that there are variations in beliefs among any group. Demonizing groups is not a very useful tactic unless you are trying to stir up unreasoning hatred. Abortion bothers me, but I feel the Supreme Court reached a fairly reasonable decision. Even they, in the Roe ruling, stated that medical progress might require it to be re-evaluated. Iirc, an infant born during the 5th month survived, which might imply that the limits be rolled back a little ways. The Roe ruling was based on IMO a questionable basis, but… Stare decisis, iirc is the term.
And like many, I don’t feel contraception is evil, nor do I think abstinence only sex education is particularly useful.
I do believe our entire society would greatly benefit from an increase in personal responsibility. I used to have a friend who used abortion as her backup when she either was too drunk to use contraception or did not bother to plan for it, and so take precautions. I did not approve of her choices, but it was not my place to control her choices. In retrospect, perhaps she would not have been a good mother, but… again, not my place.
I’m pro life and here’s why. My best friend was a “mistake” and only badgering from his mother’s mother’s Christian beliefs is why my friend wasn’t aborted. I just think about how many things would be different if he was aborted. How I wouldn’t of been inspired by him to fend off bullies and be more willing to stand up for myself. I think about how without him I wouldn’t have half as many friends as I do now. I also think about all the people he has affected in his life. And it makes me wonder.
How many potential doctors, teachers, and hard workers have been denied the chance to live? How many times has a abortion stopped the creator of a cure for cancer or a truthful politician from being born? How many times has God sent the solution for social issues into the world through a potential birth only to be aborted?
I get how it’s a woman’s choice to get a abortion but I really believe that the issue has been taken too lightly by our current government. Aparently to the government a baby is perfectly legal to get aborted three days before delivery. Aparently the legality of a abortion is only based on the location of the baby. Inside the womb it’s called a “fetus” and isn’t “alive”, but if its outside the womb its a baby.
Sorry for the rant but I haven’t been able to tell anyone this in real life or else they’ll yell at me for being a “religious pro life nut job”
As one of those “unwanted” children…. my mother said that having a child at the age of 44, in 1962, I was definitely “unwanted.” I can sympathize. She made sure that I knew that those signs that said “unwanted children are unloved children” were lies. She said, that at the time of her pregnancy, due to ongoing issues, if abortion had been legal…..she might have been emotionally distraught enough to use it, even going against her Catholic faith.
Because she could not…and because I don’t actually believe she would have anyway….. I am here.
You know, I think this is perhaps the most valid argument I’ve yet seen for ‘pro life’. Thank you for sharing.
As for myself? I’m Pro Choice. Why? Because I do not believe the government has the right to tell a woman what she can and cannot do with her body. I feel that the government does not have the right to legislate morality, because the function is to keep society as a whole running as smoothly as it is able to.
I’m not a particular fan of ‘abortion as afterthought birth control’, in fact I rather disapprove of that particular line of thought. However, I find it far preferable to arbitrarily banning a procedure which is, in some cases, medically necessary.
thats a blindly cartoonish view that could only have come from american politics. the equivalent of that statement would be “choicers want the ability to scrap their todlers for parts” or “feminists want to castrate and enslave all men”
sigh…no. does everybody get their information of opposing political views from political cartoons comedy sketches and 4chan/reddit trolls?
yeah….nobody means that lol.
I don’t know where you got your facts, but its wrong. not having sex for too long can cause a man to painfully ejaculate live toads. it happened to a friend’s cousin’s brother’s classmate’s former flatmate’s childhood rival.
Best. (Sarcastic) Comment. Ever.
Agreed
Dude, with the kind of hit Max just laid on him I figured the asphalt and rock probably became a dust cloud, so don’t worry about it.
As to Gold Digger, I saw a picture of Max that Fred had done, which turned me onto Grrl Power. (Geez, that reminds me. I owe him an email!) Well, until Vehemence vet’s it through his head that he really is over matched, or until Sydney steps up and takes him down, (and yes, there’s at least a dozen ways she could do this, by herself, just from the abilities she’s demonstrated so far.
Get him inside her forcefield and fly in circles to build his speed then drop the field to throw him is one I have been waiting for, need the large size field used for that. As her field passes through walls and the ground then she can just fly in an vertical oval to repeatedly slam him into the ground.
Well, Light hook could be used rather intrusively, (not that way, get you mind out of the gutter!)
Send it down Vehemence’s troat and use it to create a forcefield in his throat JUST wide enough to block air to his lungs until he passes out.
Use the PPO wit a forcefield behind him, fire the PPO at him sealing the field into an orb just as the blast hits him, bouncing the beam around in there like a blender. Will He Blend?
Tie him up with the Lighthook, and start blasting him with the PPO with progressively more powerful blasts until she knocks him out.
Put him into a ‘sleeper’ hold, with Lighthook, pressing on both the carotid artery and the jugular vein long enough until he passes out.
Get a couple of anesthetic darts and use Lighthook to slam them into him hard enough to penetrate his skin and make him pass out.
If she can project her forcefield, surround him tightly with it and rapidly expand it outwards to produce a near vacuum in the field. If he’s still conscious, turn off the field and brace for the boom. (A 14.7 pounds per square inch implosion from a volume of approximately 100 meters in diameter. Gonna be a SERIOUS owie!)
I think that’s enough for now. (I figure one of her unknown orbs is likely a teleport orb. Just imagine the mischief she could do with that! Especially if she could teleport items from another person, weapons, glasses, clothes…)
#1: Lighthook doesn’t create forcefields, and that would take micro-control even if it did.
#2: Since Halo’s shield has to centered around her, this would not be a good idea. She certainly is blendable.
#3: Disintegration would be a more likely outcome…
#4: This could work, if he didn’t break out of it again…
#5: Wouldn’t the wrist bands Harem already has on site work just as well?
#6: Once again, shield appears centered on Halo. No Invisible Woman projection allowed.
1.5 out of 6.
Believe with #1 they meant the Hentorb itself expands
I don’t remember seeing her do that with it, but I won’t discount the possibility. However, that would still be a rather bad idea, especially as she’s had little training with her powers at the moment. It would be too easy for something to go wrong and next thing you know she’s killed someone.
If she can make it form letters and a faux tumbleweed, making it expand shouldn’t be too much of a stretch
Best way to test it is by not testing it on living people: bottles and tubes and the such
Exactly my point. Micro-management training she doesn’t have and doesn’t have time to get atm.
You missed an obvious combination of her powers. We don’t know her top speed as of yet for her flight, though we do know it is probably in the triple digits. Build up speed by flying and then slam into the target with your force field up.
And while she’s flying around he’ll just whap her in the head. Also there’s no indication the field can carry things while she flies. It may just keep objects inside it safe as opposed to acting like a solid object.
Actually after firing the PPO on the test range her shield was full of sand, so it can hold things, but yeah, a violent tough guy like V would be a really bad idea.
I think what CplDiablo was suggesting was a “Cannonball” maneuver, having Halo fly into Vehemence at top speed with her shield up.
I didn’t even read CplDiablo’s comment this time, I was just responding to Bolshoi. One of the perils of the new app just looking at the latest comment and not what started it. :-/
Either that thing on top of the pillars got twisted around as it is falling, or it was placed the wrong way around (the construction company was going to have to pull it down and rebuild that one anyway, so Fedorka did them a solid, with help from his golden assistant :D)
that yellow thing?… Nah, that’s how most companies store their portable air compressors… those things can get into the hundreds of thousands of dollars, depending on brand and capacity… and it has a nice convenient trailer-hitch for towing… NOT a thing you want just able to be driven off the lot… at the end of the shift (if they are not doing round the clock operations) they hook it up to the crane, and hoist it into the air, the next day the crane operator lowers it, the riggers unhook it for the shift, and go on with their day.
the compressor wasn’t even near the pylons that got taken out. (just like one of the Wicket’s behind the Batters, in Cricket…)
No, if you look at the 3 concrete pillar toppers, the one that got knocked down is facing the other way compare to the two still intact
But was wondering about the yellow thing, thank you
AH!… “I SEE” said the blind Carpenter, as he picked up his hammer and saw..
yeah, I’ll bet that as he hit the first of the three pillars, it started to twist, then as he hit the second, it really twisted more until the strain was too much for the third one that’s why it sheared just below the top like that, but since it was already in motion, and no longer attached to the top of the column, it kept on spinning even after he finally hit and took out the rest of the third column.
Awesome the shop I used to frequent was sure Fred stopped putting these out around issue 100.
Still going strong. And giving Dave a challenge for multi-year story lines. All the characters are older and new characters keep getting introduced. It’s a fun read, but lately I prefer to let them accumulate and read a bunch at a time.
“A man’s GOT to know his limitations…” – Lt. Harry Callahan, SFPD
Well, consider that someone as tough as Vehemence probably never really found his limits before now. Who else would have been able to stand up to him long enough to even approach his limits?
Looks like Vehemence is learning his limits right now, though.
And only half enjoying it. I think he’d enjoy it more if he could get a shot or two in just for the sake of getting a shot or two in at this point.
he got a shot in…a haymaker to the face…a free shot at that. if you are going to pick a fight with a super that has said that she has flight, super speed, strength, armor, and can generate particle beams, you should be ready for them to beat the crap out of you if you cant match at least their speed factor.
Yeah, I was really hoping for more than a one hit freebie with these two and then a curb stomp battle dished out by Maxima, it’s kinda like watching a Kung Fu movie, watching the big bad terrorize the area, showing just how valid a threat they are…and then the hero wiping the floor with them in 10 seconds.
Sorry, but you pays your money, you takes your chances.
Hmmm…Considering that we’re not really paying anything to read this comic, it stands to reason that V doesn’t really stand a chance here.
I was talking about V, not the audience. The idiom means “something that you say which means if you do something that involves risk you must accept that you cannot control the result“. In this case, risk = attacking ARCHON and control the result = getting another chance at hitting Maxima..
IOW, V paid his money (attacked Maxima) and took the chance that he would get only one shot.
I’m probably a little late to the party in this regard, but I’m going to hazard a guess into Vehemence’s power level. He’s definitely at least a paragon (7) and possibly as high as an 8 or even 9 (penumberate) according to the author’s power levels. He’s got top level strength and invulnerability, as he seems to exceed pretty much anyone elses’ strength or toughness except Maxima when she min-maxes (or Achilles, but we don’t count him, the cheating bastard :) ). Since he was fast enough to surprise even Sydney, I’d guess that he’s also probably faster than most of the team except Maxima (duh), Dabbler, and possibly Math (all of whom have proven to be faster than Sydney).
Thoughts?
Well, he was tanking most of the team that wasn’t unconscious at the time, so I can agree with him being about an 8 on the scale. This kind of scale leaves a lot of wiggle room at each stage, so if I were to hazard a guess I’d say he’s an upper-8. I wouldn’t use the word invulnerability unless referring to Achilles, who IS invulnerable, but I’d agree on him having maybe five points in strength and resilience. He’s fast, but I don’t think as fast as Math is, so maybe not a 4 in speed, but a 3 is nothing to laugh at when you’re this durable. From what he’s shown he’s like a sooped-up version of Stalwart unless he’s hiding something, as a lot of us have wondered. Hand to hand he’s got some skill, so a couple of points there wouldn’t be out of place.
“Vehemence: the display of strong feeling; passion.”
Going off of this definition, I’d say that he’s fueled by either his own feelings, or perhaps (and more intriguingly) his opponent’s feelings. Maybe he gets stronger as they feel more and more anger/hate/rage towards him? Of course, that would put him in much the same category as Death Tolls, with the exception that he has decent powers even without an emotional charge-up.
It would explain his recent betrayal and all the fanfare he put into it. If this is indeed the case, then Maxima had better lay off the taunting. Saying something like “you can’t win” might actually fuel him with the desire to win… both figuratively AND literally.
I am hoping we haven’t seen everything that vehemence can do yet.. so far he’s mostly been just taking hits..
And going by that definition, now that Max has displayed her *first* wave of offense, Vehemence will continue losing ground as his own “passion” for battle begins to wane.
I for one have come to worship without hesitation the gigantic other shoe currently hanging over all our heads, ready to fall down upon us. All glory to the shoe! Let the laces be tight!
…and the soles be free of hobnails.
Singing: Boot to the head.. nah nah.. boot to the head…
Oh Max, got to love that ‘entire vast BOOTtoTHEhead’!
I was kind of hoping for a better fight between the two,if for any reason to show a better handle on how Maxima handles a fight when the other bloke is just as tough. The free shot just seems like a give me before a curb stomp and right now the big bad of the arc is being made to look like a Jobber, just there to show how dangerous Maxima is.
I’m curious about this myself, but I think, since V’s been taking it so well, he’s not out of the fight yet. I think, if he starts taking this as seriously as Max is, he WILL give her a serious fight- and might actually showcase something- how do you practice using your full powers/powerset, when using your full powerset allows you to defeat any opponent in a matter of seconds? It’s like how Superman isn’t actually that good a fighter- he just punches stuff really hard, but never really has to worry about things like joint locks or focusing attacks on single parts of the body or limiting his opponent’s mobility, and I’d bet he actually doesn’t really know how- now Max is military trained and has been in active combat, but she’s only fought a single other opponent her ‘equal’, and there’s strong evidence that they were an untrained religious zealot who was supremely overconfident.
Actually, it would be kinda funny to see the two of them really going at it, but in a really ‘amateur’ way for Bricks- volley punches, smashing each other with concrete pillars, that sort of thing.
It’s not impossible for V to make an escape and come back for round 2. He’s already demonstarated the ability to hurt Maxima, and if he can find the method it would be a much more even fight.
Something I noticed: Max knocked down *all* the pillars of that unfinished support brace. If she appeared on the “Bowling for Villains” show (& there probably ARE TV cameras recording this by now), that would count as a strike.
I thought it was just a funky cricket pitch with four wickets, in which case it is not a strike. Vehemence has been bowled out.
Wouldn’t that be “Bowling with Villains”?
I am wondering what is up with Top Web Comics. I just went there and Dave had 9792 votes I then voted and it still said 9792, what is going on? It is no wonder that the other comic is only 30 something votes behind.
We are 13 votes out of 2nd place.
Pick it up people we can’t let Dave down
That poor squirrel just can’t catch a break.
His insurance rates must be going NUTS.
How he’ll happen to keep up the premiums up after this is a mystree.
Inverse ninja turns out to be another paper tiger.
Not quite paper, more like concrete exoskeleton tiger.
If he grows his teeth back, can he really be hurt for long enough to loose a fight?
He has not grown his teeth back (yet). His missing tooth is still a hole in the same place. The LAST blow was his eye being shot with a sniper rifle, and the bullet mushroomed before falling to the pavement.
Damn it, Dave… I CAN’T WAIT for next comic!
I want it all
I want it all
and I want it now!
3 point shot!
The bill for this dinner is going to be OUTRAGEOUS!!!!!!
GODDAMNIT LADY
You know, the first time I read this page, I read this as the construction site for an aqueduct. Now I see that it is a freeway/bridge. I feel silly.
I will never, EVER stop laughing at that scene, “God DAMMIT LADY!”
I’m surprised you aren’t familiar with the trope “unsound effect”. I now feel slightly smug about having exceeded the trope-fu of a real awesome troper webcomic artist.
I think that’s basically the same as a nonomatopoeia. I’ve been a fan of them since I first saw them in Ninja Highschool 25 years ago, I just didn’t know what they were called.
I love Vehemence’s face when he’s getting hit :). Big oof!
THE ALMIGHTY POWER OF BOOT TO THE HEAD
And another for Jenny and the wimp