Grrl Power #263 – Don’t do it you fool!
The number of people who can call Maxima babe is extremely short. I think it’s literally just Anvil and Peggy, and obviously just in a “buddies throwing slang” sort of way when no one else can hear. Baby is right out.
Seeing someone slam into the ground after getting clobbered looks cool, but I figure as long as Maxima is conscious and can stop herself in time, she’s not going to give the bad guy the satisfaction. Also I guess there’s issues of property damage to consider, even if that whole parking lot is going to have to be torn up and repaved at this point.
This page is obviously mostly just transition. I would have liked to fit more on it as I too am getting anxious for this fight to wrap up, but it didn’t break down that way. I toiled with what Vehemence says in the last bubble, and I wanted to be more leading, but we’re so close and I didn’t want to tip my hand yet. The next page is a double though, I’m excited, I think you guys will like it.
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.
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I’m just wondering why she even dodged the meteor smash from Vehemence?
Because Maxima can’t absorb impacts, and she’s aperenlty not powerfull enough to fully tank either.
So best get the injured lady out first
That was a missed opportunity, Anvil shoulda just thrown Max out of the way and had V land on her. I mean, with HIS power up, she’d have been able to hit back with some REALLY serious power.
While having Halo tie the Light Hook around her ankle or something as a life line in case she Blasts Off again.
Place your bets. What are the odds that is power involves getting stronger the longer he’s in a fight. I just hope they beat them this fight, because having him escape while creating a good villain would be anti-climactic. Plus I’d actually like to see Max win I fight.
Powering up the longer he’s in a fight would explain why he eliminated the last of the baddies before beginning his attack on the team.
A lot of people are saying it’s pain/damage and others are saying it’s V’s climbing anger that power him. My bet is that he feeds on the anger (or bloodlust, or something to that effect) of those around him to power up (the fight as a whole while he was watching and learning everyone’s abilities, then Vektor after Vehemence took out Opal, now Max who was enjoying the pain she was inflicting – just before his most recent color change).
the whole point of this fight was to establish the big bad guy of this whole series. why would you knock it out in the first fight? that would be bad writing
Exactly!
Who’s saying he’s the series’ Big Bad? He was simply one of a large number of folks who reacted to Maxima’s ‘threat’ in a less-than-expected manner. Besides, this is a Superhero Comic, not Serial- there’s not really going to _be_ a Series-Long Big Bad, I’d bet- just a Rogues Gallery. Then it’s up to the readers to decide who’s the favorite/archnemesis of the group.
This.
Unless almost everybody on the “villains page” was part of the same dark organization then I guess he is establishing their overall rep. (“You are bragging cause you defeated Vehemence? He’s like the baby of our organization….” ;D )
What are you talking about? You don’t knock off the big bad one you establish him at the start of the series.
About freaking time!
Would be cool if Fedorka only has maybe two sentences to say, and everyone is just waiting for him to continue speaking but he resumes pounding on the gold brick(head)
Or cooler yet if she just takes a small rest, flies him a couple of hundred feet over the ocean, and just drops him.
Looks like the more damage he takes the more he powers up. Similar to Anvil, but sustained.
So… Lung’s ability from Worm, minus the gradual polymorph-into-dragon. I’ve been expecting that for a while.
Well NOW she looks like she’s in pain. I guess there’s only so much that training and innate toughness can let you shrug off.
Well her nose was already broken, and now it got hit again.
That HURTS
Yes, but a couple of posts ago I’d made a comment basically saying that it didn’t seem believable that Maxima could get hit hard enough to break it in the first place and not show ANY reaction.
A couple people explained to me how it might have worked out, and now I’m just saying this page seems a lot more real.
Deepbluediver, I think I might have been one of those who posted in response to your earlier post.
As I remember it the argument I made was that how you react to having your nose broken is probably a very individual thing. Some people just deflate and almost goes into shock while others hardly notice the pain when it happens. There’s still some things that is kind of inevitable such as not being able to breathe through the nose and the eyes tearing up making it hard to see. Some minutes later the eyes may start swelling shut depending on exactly how the hit took, but how you react to pain is very individual.
I’ve been kicked in the face once. Got ambushed by a smallish gang of five or six guys who figured they needed my wallet more than I did. One guy distracted me and another got up from behind and tried to kick me in the back of my head. I saw a movement and turned right into the kick. It was a good hit, his shin bone hit straight over the bridge of my nose, rocked me back a few steps and pissed me off like you wouldn’t believe. The pain didn’t even register until several minutes later, that was after I had scared them off. I had a broken nose and was bleeding like a pig. The morning after I looked like a raccoon with two black eyes, one swollen shut, and my nose being blue/black shifting into green/yellow and swollen. It was straight though as I had pulled it back into place. Now that hurt!
That was one hit, or kick rather. I do not now what it would have felt like if I had taken another one as a follow up. Perhaps it would have been good night and good bye, but I don’t think so. At least not from just the pain. As this is the only time I’ve been in an actual fist fight, or kick fight or what ever you want to call it, I have no experience with being knocked out so I just don’t know how close I might have been to something like that.
Yup, and I appreciated all the feedback and the info from you and other people. Doesn’t change the fact that I prefer this page to the last one where Max got hit.
Aww – Max pushed his health meter all the way down to green, but as he’s standing their it’s already refilled to yellow! Don’t give him a chance to re-generate! ATTACK! ;p
*there
I thinks its time for the ppo to be unleashed
I wonder if Sydney can consciously shape her force field in specific ways? It’s already been seen that it shapes itself to be more aerodynamic when she flies. This was seen back when Syd & Max flew out to the “testing range” while the press reporters were being shuttled out by the other teammates.
If so, Syd could make a Large forcefield, leaving an indentation on the bottom of it that holds V down *under but outside* of it. Thus, she could no only isolate V from the rest of the surrounding real estate (or what’s left of it) but also PPO him through that “bump” in the shield & isolate it to affecting HIM ONLY.
Interesting idea. It solves the “Sydney can only form the shield with her inside it” problem. Doesn’t mean that she can do it, only that it’s something we don’t know if she can do. Might be a powerstunt she has yet to dream up, a power set she has to unlock or perhaps it can’t be done that way at all. Time might tell, if Dave feels like it…
Even if Dave feels like it’s something for Sydney to try, we still probably won’t see it in *this* fight; the story is probably plotted, scripted & on the drawing board at least that far in advance, I’d wager.
yup it is, at least dave mentioned that a dozen pages ago orso
The other problem is that if she makes a shell-dip on top of him, like throwing a handkerchief over an object, there will still be plain old street below him and we have seen he’s more than capable of moving through concrete at an alarming rate. Unless you mean for her to indent the membrane to the point where it essentially becomes an inverted cavity inside the shield as a whole, like “swallowing” V whole. Could work though I seem to recall the author mentioning that the shield is meant to be defensive, ie it cannot be pushed against someone to crush them. Not sure though.
With the PPO blasting away he’d get some help in digging down, but the question is what he thinks about wading about in molten gravel.
The real problem with this, apart from the fact that we do not know if the forcefield can be reshaped like this, is found between Sydneys ears. She has a problem controlling the PPO that’s probably caused by her being afraid that she will hurt or even kill someone with it. That’s something she would have to work through before she’d even think of using the PPO point blank on someone she’s trapped like that.
I can’t see Maxima allowing that. Letting Halo deploy the PPO in a population center is probably a bigger risk than letting Vehemence go, what with her being untrained and the two times she’s used them (that we know of) both causing collateral damage beyond what she was expecting.
Besides Max has her own explodey beams that can scale beyond what can be used in the current theater. So it would be a poor tactical choice to use Halo’s highly unreliable beam over her own combat proven powers.
I’m still going with the theory that Vehemence powers up as energy is expanded in his proximity. He had to gather up the villian team and set up a brawl as a appetizer to get himself rolling and now that he is past the breakpoint where the majority of supers can’t even touch him there is nothing that can stop him.
my vote for his evil plan is to ask Maxima out on a date. Cus I want to see Sydney’s reaction to such a reveal.
Told ya’ll he’s an X-Box. The rings just had to light up a bit.
In a few pages V will go all 360 and get the Red Ring of Death.
X-Boss*
chances are good V already has at least a few flunkies working for him…If he actually gets beaten here, he’ll become an EX-Boss.
“You goons realize that the moment your boss hit the pavement 30 stories below this window, you were just taken OFF his payroll, don’t you?”
Vehemence is powered by people being upset, the way he acts kinda tips it.
…even if its NOT in a super power way, it’s how he calculates “high score” in his brain, at least…
Trolling as a superpower? I need to remember that one.
But I don’t think that’s the case here. Vehemence isn’t being nearly as obnoxious as he could be.
Based on the super powered table of elements V’s crippling weakness is sonic damage if they don’t have a super that has that power, Sid’s shield and max and anvil pounding away at it with increasing velocity might do it but that attack would be considered AOE instead of the most useful version of Direct damage.
don’t think so, he did take about 8 flashbangs about four inches from his head a few pages back. that’s enough to completely rupture someone’s eardrums.
V is taking a big risk powering up here. If he is killed in the Avatar state, he won’t be reborn into a new body.
That last speech bubble makes me think that one of the next few pages is gonna include Maxima attacking V mid-speech before he yells “You sly dog, you got me monologuing!”…. I suppose that would fall victim to copyright claims though
Just a note, but V’s wounds are healing.
That may or may not be the case remember as good an artist as he is he is still iffy with his consistency. Also it’s a lot harder to make out the older scratches from Dabbler’s from all the new ones from the pylon pestle, not to mentionwe never get the best look at this arm on this page. That said the eye and teeth are still plenty messed up.
Eye is still missing and it’s the only really visible wound he’s suffered so far. (not discounting internal injuries)…
It’s not necessarily missing. All we see is that he has that eye closed. In panel 7 of the page where Peggy shoots him we can see the bullet bounce back after hitting the eye. It has mushroomed but looks very clean, no icky stuff stuck to it like it should if the bullet had actually punctured the eye and ricocheted off the back of the eye socket.
So it’s very likely the eye is still there, just not in tip top shape right now. There might be some nicks to the eyelids that has V blinded by blood in that eye.
And here is a link to that page: Grrl Power #259 – Dirty pool
Please don’t take this the wrong way, but I’ll be glad when this fight is over.
Week after week of action does a lot less for me than the plot, character and comedy pages that came before it.
Dave did mention those were always the parts of story that were the most fun for him. I’m sure once it’s done he’ll be “bringing silly back”. Until then remember the occasional fight are a slice of a heroes/heroine’s life as well and take it with the few nuggets of comedy it affords until them.
hate to say it but this is becoming DBZ’s Frieza vs Goku fight at this point i just want Sid to break out the PPO and decapitate him. (not really that not in her nature but you know what i mean)
Thing is, not really. If you read this as a comic book, in other words do an archive dive, it reads through pretty quickly and with good pace. It’s just getting 2-3 pages (counting doubles) a week that gives it the impression of being DBZ like.
i’m just waiting for them to take off their weighted clothes. or both of the say I’m not actually left handed. and the other say neither am i. but the overwhelming villian get boring fast as boring invincible hero. but even Doctor Doom and Thanos have been beaten but an unlikely foe. and I hope Maxima Does what Super man did against DARKSEID.
Unlikely foe eh? Well, we have seen one or more *squirrels* in this fight. Are we are about to see a guest appearance from a young female about Sydney’s size? Maybe we can get V to utter the immortal words “Confound these wretched rodents!”
I doubt V would say that, at least in those exact words…He’s not nearly as erudite as Dr. Doom.
*wait for the moment where halo will put her shield around the bad guy and wait for him to pass out from lack of air*
Halo can only put her shield around herself. She can’t change the center point to anywhere else.
Three.
A few problems with said plan. She has not had a upgrade that will trap an enemy within it without her being trapped in it as well. She’s not splat proof. It would take a while for him to exhaust the air quality.
The fact that she has not done a thing does not mean she can’t. The “embiggener” option was one of many on the force field and the only one she has identified. There may be an “over-there-inator” option as well. Upgrades and points spent aside she has yet to plumb the entirety of what she started with –ex: today is the first time she flew at 400 mph… Given a flight power that is one of the first things I would have to try out fully.
You know, she always has the battering ram option…
And there it was! The obligatory shield suffocation post for page 2…
Thank you Carmeops for making sure my theory still holds true!
And another Obvious trophy for Cpt. Obvious .
I’m obviously going to have to order a new trophy cabinet soon.
Wait, he has a plan besides “kick the shit out of the baddest super dudes in town”?
Presumably he is letting the world know how powerful he is to prepare to ransom peace and generate steady income to fund his real dream of helping street kids form basketball teams.
hope max has regen
also I wonder if Sydney’s forcefield can with stand vehemence since max could withstand her own destructive projectile (singularity shot?) and so could the forcefied but is the forcefied…I just answered half of my own question by remembering the energy redistribution wheel a few pages back near the beginning of max’s fight with vehemence but how much can the field take before failing…
Did not read all comments, but perhaps Sydney will reveal his big plan before he manages to do it himself, perhaps she has him figured out by now.
A few things to say at this point…
1: His left eye is still shot out, so he probably isn’t going to regenerate it any time soon if ever.
2: He has a huge blindspot on his left side on account of missing an eye, I’m surprised Maxima’s not taking advantage of that.
3: Missing an eye, he has a lack of depth perception. Meaning he won’t be able to judge distance and changes in distance very well.
4: My plan is this… Maxima puts him in a full nelson and then pile drives him into the ground repeatedly… That much muscle has a habit of severely reducing dexterity, not that dexterity would help with a full nelson very well. Sometimes grappling works better than striking.
Eye out? I do not see that. What I saw was a flattened bullet coming out and a little blood. We are talking a shaving nick level here that hurts (like hell) and is getting him to squint, not missing. Do not trust the appearance of damage done for that is how he got Maxima with the punch.
It was already established that his eye was “poked,” not destroyed. So he still has it and will probably regain use of in shortly.
The bullet did bounce and wasnt covered in eyeball-gore, so yeah its likely his eye has been injured as he -is- most definitely bleeding and keeping it closed.
On the other hand he is acting Way, absolutely Way too calm about it in the aftermath to possibly be worried that he might never get it back. Maybe he knows another super-doctor, maybe his magic tattoos can fix it in time and/or has done so in the past. Also if he was worried about not being able to recover the eye I think he’d be a lot more concerned with not getting the other one shot out to grandstand and monologue.
I want Halo to be the one to kick this guy’s ass. Seriously how epic would that be for him to be her arch nemesis. Uber big bad guy itty bitty good guy.
That would be too much, I think. She already clobbered a couple and in epic style, so now it’s time for others to… shine…
Vehemance isn’t willing to kill people, and there’s nothing else he could do to Sydney (she doesn’t seem to get scared and it doesn’t seem like he could hurt her without splatting her.)
He seems like he could be one of the tough gals nemesises (nemesis’s Nemesi? whatevs) though, maybe Anvil or Dabbler.
Nemeses, pronounced NEHM-eh-SEEZ.
Oh god no! That annoying wonder spaz already has enough chips on her shoulder. She needs to go down pegs not up!
Why Vehemence, you are positively GLOWING!
…I doubt if it would be due from pregnancy though…
At least, if he IS, he’s not showing it yet.
And GOLDEN perhaps. Like maybe something akin to Maxima…?
Darn, Sydney had to have a regular baked potato for dinner. I only mention it because some part of me would’ve loved to see her put Vehemence in the hospital with a very SPICY kiss to the lips from way left field. The surprise factor alone would probably put a serious halt in the fight, about long enough for the heat to kick in which would have been hilarious to read. I can’t quite picture the expression on his face but have no doubt that Dave’s art would have made it absolutely priceless.
On a completely unrelated note, is max more out of it than she looks and had to have Anvil lift/jump her out of the way or something? Because otherwise I can’t quite seem to figure out why Anvil dodged. Taking a hit like that and sending right back at him (along with any other energy she has stored) seems more in line with her power set. Which leads me to wonder if she has some slight delay between absorbing energy and when she can unload it, or failing that, a maximum energy cap that she thought that hit might exceed. I suppose it could just be reflexes but that makes me want to check her bio to see when she got her powers.
Then there are his markings (hears voice directed to and from myself) “Now don’t start that again.” Ah right that would be my cue to stop thinking about this before I get stuck spending most of the day thinking about stiff that will probably be revealed shortly, “sigh…”
Given that maxima, though able to use her power of flight to orient herself, isn’t even managing to stand up straight… I think she’s suffering from the Hammer guy in Dr Horribles problem. Pain tolerance isn’t really something you build when you’re so crazy invincible nothing hurts you. She’s been INJURED before which is why the initial nose breaking didn’t illicit a bigger response then it did, but she also had a LOT more of her power pool in defense. She just got a broken nose… CLOBBERED along with the rest of her face, hard enough that blood was flowing AROUND THE DUDES FIST. I doubt she’s completely out, but at the moment she’s dazed enough that she can’t stand.
“my evil plan and all that”
*There’s* the V we know and love.
i’m thinking one of Syd’s unknown orbs will come into play somehow.
I fear a endless monologue to put “shame” on kamehameha power-upping XD
But hope Max going all quick and might to finish this moron in the next page (without help, Sydney done enough for a first battle without training).
And good night to this day.
Personally I think he is going to find himself with a Sydney in front of him blocking the path to the rest of the team, force field as big as she can to lock him off. The she will begin a pong drawn out PPO buildup from the inside with her evil grin going full tilt and he will bow out –using a bit of Opal’s power he stole when he hit her. And yes I do think he is a Power-Thief and was here to get as much of Maxima as he could.
grrrr. Long drawn out
OMG–V in panel seven of that comic (that Cpt. Obvious linked to, if this doesn’t end up on the right post)!!!
Also, how’d they get Maxima to say “Trouser ferret”?
I’m hoping in one of the upcoming pages we get a badass “nose snapping back into place” moment from Max, cause I doubt it’s going to be looking all that great after that hit.
But also, like a few other people have said. Vehemence probably draws his power from emotion, or the emotion of others given his emotionally based name.
*everyone stops to listen*
V: “you’re seriously going to let me monologue?”
M: “By all means, please; it will be extremely useful to know all your plans.”
Heh. He’s gonna charge in and attack instead, and if Maxima is smart, she’ll punch the snot out of Anvil at full power to give Anvil a a huge boost, and she’ll call in help.
After all, Pride goeth before a fall.
Already know how this can or should end. But then again, anyone that’s been paying attention knows it.
Invunerable people or ‘bricks’ in general have one failing weakness. Same said weakness that Sydney almost fell to be accident…. they need to be able to breathe.
Stick him in the force field and let him waste time trying to break out until… *gasp* thud gurgle
Sorry but you’re only number two to suggest that on this page of comments. Carmeops beat you to it by 2 hours and 4 minutes. Better luck next time!
I wonder, do you still win a prize for second place? ;p
Second place = first loser.
No place… wasn’t a race
The joke here is that for the last 16 strips people has been suggesting the same thing over and over in the comments, often several times on each page of comments for each strip. It’s always the same thing: “I know how Syd can take [insert name here] down! She just have to project her force field around [insert name here] and wait for [insert name here] to suffocate!”
A few strips back I wrote a comment joking about it, and I made a prediction that at least one post on each new page of comments, for each strip published would be about this. So far it holds true, and it looks like it will turn into a running joke.
Looking back all of this started with the strip where Max told Syd to pop the force field as she was starting to show signs of suffocation. This shows that those who post has actually read at least that part of the comic, but some how they all failed to remember that at no point in the story so far has Sydney been shown projecting the force field around someone or something without being inside it herself, nor has she, or anyone else, mentioned anything about her being able to do so.
What knowledge we the readers have at this time suggest that as of now she can’t project the force field in a way that would let her use this tactic. It is highly unlikely that this is something she wouldn’t have tried to do while experimenting. There is a chance that this is a feature that can be unlocked by assigning skill points to the shield orb skills, but how these should be spent is not known at this time as Sydney haven’t found a users manual.
The discussions that has taken place both in the comment section and in the forum has many of us readers believing that it would be a very bad idea for Dave to actually allow Sydney to acquire this power as if it’s used competently could be vastly over-powered, making the comic either predictable or he would have to make Sydney a permanent holder of the idiot ball[warning! Link to TV-Tropes!].
No luck necessary… didn’t read every post. Just wrote down the action I used to undertake when gaming against characters like this. Always had my characters carry around duct tape and plastic bags as an anti-invulnerable defense
Honestly I want him to kick her ass. Maxima kinda needs to be taken down several pegs.
But so does he. So it is hard to root for a winner when you want to see both of them knocked off their high horses.
Thus far Vehemence has been nicer to people he doesn’t need to be nice to than Max has. He was perfectly pleasant to Halo when he had no reason to be, even thinking good things about her afterward, showing that it wasn’t just an act. Maxima’s a dick to people who were just in a hostage situation, as the “fake bank heist” showed way back when.
One of the old caveats is that a person’s true self is revealed by how they treat those whom they’re not obligated to treat with respect. Thus far, the villain’s been acting better than the “big hero.”
Huh? The only person that Maxima talked to from the heist was Sydney and the closest thing anyone could have characterized as negative was her very slight criticism that tongue-fuing one of the robbers was poor strategy, since it gave his partner a clear shot at her.
There’s also the guy who complained that she didn’t take down the bank robbers before people got shot, and she responded “you were never in any danger.” It was a bit obnoxious, but honestly, I don’t see how she could realistically have done better. The chances of civilian collateral damage were just too high.
My goof, I re-went through comics #35-#50 and figured that she didn’t have any interaction with any of the former hostages after showing her badge in the last panel of #50. But that does bring up some interesting points:
1) Like many of Maxima’s detractors, SleepyBulldog fails to mention the context of a particular incident and any extenuating circumstances surrounding it that might paint Maxima in a better light. True, she could have handled it better, but she was right, she had other pressing concerns (the strange behavior of Sydney’s tube), and he could have taken the hint the first time.
2) I wonder how many of us wouldn’t have reacted the same way in a similar situation?
3) His “Thus far, the villain’s been acting better than the ‘big hero'” based solely on that one incident ignores that “being nice” to Sydney doesn’t quite make up for setting up this situation in which she almost got killed (by Shadowboxer, which would have been a likely result if he hadn’t stopped to monologue) and in which three others (Jiggawatt, Math, and Heatwave) got seriously injured.
Given Maxima’s capabilities the moment the bank robbery was announced she could have disarmed both of them, and put them in chairs. Then told them to wait till the police got there. Would have taken 30 seconds tops.
What she did do while nessacary to the story was no where near acceptable for a “police officer” with her abilities.
Yeah, add her to the list along with Sidney.
At least Sydney is learning the difference between making a claim & backing it up; pages 132-134. Math made THAT point quite clear to her.
I don’t know about the rest of you, but I’m starting to get a little bit concerned for Vehemence. That glow looks a wee bit toxic, there. Is he possibly suffering from radiation poisoning affecting his mental processes?
Ooh, and you put a new Sydney headshot into the cast banner! It’s a pic of her in her ARC blacks looking bored/petulant at the press conference! Just noticed that…
As a previous poster put it a long ways back, it’s fun to look at all the various random headshots of characters (anchored as always by Sydney and Maxima) and try to imagine what sequence of events/actions/comments led to each of those headshot’s expressions. Just one of those little touches that makes the GrrlPower website as well as the webcomic that much more fun to read. Thank you! XD
BTW, here’s how to beat V.
Max punches V into the air. Halo drops her shield long enough for Max to get inside, and then puts it back up again. Before V lands, Max flies Halo into lighthook range of V, and Halo snags a leg. V should have crap for leverage, so would not be able to extricate himself in any sort of timely fashion. Max flies the three of them into outer space (which is actually really close, especially at Mach 2). V either dies of asphixiation, hypothermia, or just starts drifting off into interplanetary space.
Mission accomplished, and everyone buys them a beer.
Or Halo could just use her shield as a battering ram/wrecking ball. She can fly silly fast, so she should be able to get the drop on him if she has peggy or harem tell her which way he is facing.
I’d have thought that any concern for property damage at this point would be pretty much out the window. And to quote a certain boomerang boy from a certain series… “BOOOOO! NO TALKING!!!”
Though I do wonder what it means exactly when V’s markings change color?