Grrl Power #264 – The team receives some bad news -OR- Oh crap is right
Yuuup! Do me a favor and imagine the dramatic music rising as they talk, then the sting right after Dabbler says “…violence” Dunnnnnn! In fact it’s probably best if you read the remainder of the fight while listening to some track from Two Steps From Hell, who are hard to beat when it comes to god damned epic music. Actually, listening to some good Two Steps From Hell tracks makes stuff like shopping for groceries feel a lot more life and death. If the comic was movie or tv show, I’d definitely use that gag. I do have some “audio required” jokes that I’m saving for the movie version. :)
Drawing a 50 person battle royale for my first fight was daunting, but this was a big part of the reason for it. I knew Vehemence would settle for nothing less, and now the team has unwittingly powered him up to the point that he’s capable of trading blows with Maxima. In fact actually trading those blows was quite helpful to him. Like a succubus, it’s good to be near the action, but much better to be directly involved.
As villains go, I think Vehemence’s powers are pretty original, at least to my knowledge. It’s a good part of the reason why genre savvy Sydney didn’t peg him before he gave it away. After I thought him up, I was able to come up with a few other antagonists with similar abilities though. Certainly a few entities from Star Trek fed on conflict or anger. War, from the Incarnations of Immortality books owed his godhood to ongoing wars, and Ares from DC comics is powered by conflict, but I think making it akin to tantric magic is more or less unique, so I’m pretty proud of him. It also makes me think of what other abilities could be derived from a normally intangible source of energy. An angel powered by charity? An Avaristic user, powered by wealth and greed? Straight up good or evil? There’s a lot of potential there, something I’ll probably explore a bit more in the Grrl-verse. :)
Boy that last panel took a lot of work, and I’m sure it’s missing many a scorch mark and crack. I know panels prior to this haven’t really shown the cumulative damage very well, and if I have some time I’d like to go back and fix that, but like I’ve said before, drawing rubble is quite tedious. I also would have liked to have shown everyone laying unconscious where they fell for maximum effect, but I already established that Harem and Sydney were carrying them from the field of battle and sedating them. There should be more flaming bits of Shawn’s car scattered everywhere and stuff like that, but I basically worked on the panel until I ran out of time and had to start coloring. Still, I think it carries the impact I wanted pretty well.
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Okay, now that he has the power, what does he plan to do with it?
Whatever he wants.
possibly, he’ll protect Castle GreySkull….
Powered by violence so maybe Castle RedSkull…
Open a coffee shop and drive Starbucks out of business ?
Dance, of course!
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nm6DO_7px1I
The same thing we do every night Pinky.
Nailed it. Not that this comic is predictable, just making very lucky/educated gueses.
Wow, eight pages of comments. New record?
I do believe so, plus one for over 800 comments
Kill him with kindness!
So there is this quote from DaveB:
“A surprising number of super powers come down to gribbly little semantic arguments. Throwing a rock at someone is violent of course? Is being hit by a rock? Yeah, by most people’s definition that is. Rockslides are violent, as are earthquakes. For Vehemence’s purposes, he gets power from any source of violence, but violence with intent… tastes better and is more nutritious, for lack of a better way to say it.”
And some folk, mostly one, are summarizing this part, “For Vehemence’s purposes, he gets power from any source of violence, but violence with intent… tastes better” to let folk here know that officially V gets juice from any violent activity whether a living being is involved or not. And that’s great.
However this part, “and is more nutritious” which indicates a better charge from violence with intent seems to be being ignored by these summaries. Possibly leading the individuals they are trying to help into believing Vehemence could have gotten the same kind of charge at the same speed of charging from the same level of violence even if living beings hadn’t intentionally committed it. They may believe this themselves.
The idea of increased charging from violence with intent is further backed up by this quote from DaveB further down that same page:
“I posted about superpowers and semantics earlier, my conclusion was all violence works on him, but violence with intent is a higher quality.”
So violence with intent is more “nutritious” and of “a higher quality” as power chow for Vehemence. Exactly what effect this has on V’s powers is not nailed down here but a few possibilities immediately present themselves.
1) He gets a larger charge from such “food”.
2) He is able to absorb this power “food” faster than other sorts.
3) He gets a more sustained burn from such “food” meaning the charge lasts longer at the top level it reached.
4) He gets extra powers added to his power set from such good violence chow instead of just powering up his base set.
5) Some combination of the above up to possibly all of them.
This last part is just guesses of course. I post them and the wog quotes above to help correct an oversight by another helpful concerned citizen of our community. This oversight might lead people to believe that DaveB said that the types of violence are only “flavors” and have no effect on the type or size of charge V gets and that therefore Vehemence had no special strategic reason, as far as his powers are concerned, to create this fight this way and in fact the quotes support the idea that this fight committed in this way may have been very important to his ability to fight so well. (as opposed to just spending the day blowing random stuff in an uninhabited field somewhere up then heading over to challenge Maxima by himself )
If a later wog quote proves that this was an accidental misdirection fine but for now the quotes I have found support more thought on the subject of how important this fight laid out in this way truly was to V’s chance of success.
I think it’s possible, however, that ARCHON might be able to convince him that the cost of getting his meals this way outweigh whatever “nutrition/taste” benefits he gains by it.
A preview of tomorrow’s comic?
Panel 1: Shot of Vehemence’s back while a lone squirrel charges towards him.[\spoiler]
Panel 2: [spoiler]A look of concern on V’s face as he feels something running up inside one of his pants’ legs.[\spoiler]
Panel 3: [spoiler]A loud “crunch” sound effect is heard while V’s face looks suddenly ashen.[\spoiler]
Panel 4: [spoiler]A shot of the ARCHON members left standing, with Dabbler standing a few steps back and Maxima nodding towards a vorping Harem. All (except Maxima) are trying hard not to giggle.
Dabbler: I wonder what it would have been like if that had been a snake instead of squirrel going up his trousers?
Panel 5: Harem vorps back with a bag of ice, which she hands to Maxima.
Maxima: You mean like… a trouser snake?[\spoiler]
Panel 6: [spoiler]Side view of the two sides, with Maxima walking with the ice towards V. Behind her, Dabbler does a double fist pump behind her and hoarsely whispers “Bingo!”
Maxima to V: I want to hear the magic words.[\spoiler]
Panel 7:[spoiler] A shot of V’s face, twisted in obvious agony.
V: Please?[spoiler]
Panel 8: [spoiler]Maxima places the ice on the ground, just out of his reach and hovers where she grab it again if he tries to get it.
Maxima: Not quite the words I was looking for. Care to try again?
Panel 9: Same shot of V as in panel 7.
V: Um… I surrender?
Panel 10: Shot of Maxima handing the bag of ice to V.
Maxima: Much better.
Panel 11 (double-sized panel): Side shot of the two sides, with Maxima turning towards the remaining ARCHON members.
Maxima: Now what did we learn today, class?
Sydney, Dabbler, and Harem in unison: With great power comes the need to protect one’s groin because all the power in the world is useless if you’re too much in pain to use it.
Rassing-frassing html tags.
That ending is nuts.
The nuts ARE the ending…
And possibly the nuts are ending.
ALL HAIL SQUIRRELY !
“Puts on adamatium cup”
Or at least the end of someone’s nuts.
…And let’s wrap this up by queing up the music for the Nutcracker Suite…
Except it would have to be renamed The Nutchomping Suite in this case.
I. Would pay money. To see this scenario happen!
Seems like the last colors were Green, Yellow, White, seems to be more or less white for a loong time then blue and some kind of Purple or Pink (sue me its real faint). Its not dissimilar but the long white steak seems odd. (unless there was a real subtle shade in there I’m just not ready to see… Octarine?)
Hmmm…. this was a reply to someone talking about his colors. After I submitted it I checked and it showed up attached to his comment properly. Further more his comment was riiiiight above where this is so my reply is technically still in the right place its parent comment has just been eaten by the sock troll.
This is the buggiest comment system I have ever used I think. I’m gonna have to start quoting the comment I am replying to, the original persons name and mention that this is a reply to it every time I post for something to be safe from now on?? LOL
ARCSWAT won’t defeat him. I look forward to Vehemence just leaving. He got what he came for and who’s going to stop him. Potentially he returns down the road as a recuring or series vilan. Its the smart play and whose to say that as a mage he cannot teleport or fly, etc? Once they wont fight, wheres the fun?
Its a heck of a way to introduce an antagonist, But what ho we expect from the twisted mind of DaveB?
Guesticus pointed out to me that he was an “innate” user by his own words so he may have been born with or naturally developed the ability to eat this type of power chow and so may not be a mage. I agree he seems like one to me though.
So you think he has a plan somewhere (that he has arranged quick transport to) that requires Maxima or greater level powers to complete? That’s reasonable as long as he is going to do it soon. I doubt his charge stays indefinitely.
This is a definite “all your powers are useless” moment. You really don’t get them normally either because the hero has a power not often used (good writing) or pulls a new power out of nowhere (typical writing). The ‘not often used power’ here might be Gwen. But I’m not sure how powerful her magic is. Dabbler had one spell bounce, but she may have something else ready to go. An ‘out of nowhere’ would be some ARC Dark agent we haven’t seen. Zero chance of that from Dave.
It’s practically a comic convention to make a foe look unbeatable just before the hero(ine)(s) figure out a way to beat him or her.
Actually, this was supposed to be a response to Maltheos above that timed out and attached to the wrong comment. The fat lady might not have even begun to warm up yet.
As long as Sydney has those two “Unknown” power orbs its impossible for DaveB to write himself into much of a corner though he may have to give up some other cool ideas he had for one of them if he uses it as a “get out of writer hell free card”.
If I’m not mistaken, DaveB has already mentioned somewhere that he already knows what those “mystery” orbs can do & even has Sydney’s entire skill tree plotted out for all of them. Even though many writers leave themselves this kind of loophole on purpose, I don’t Dave is one of them.
Arrrgh! I really gotta proofread myself more consistently before hitting the “submit button!”
I meant “…I don’t think Dave is…”
I also believe he already has them plotted out but as long as they haven’t been revealed they are always hanging there if he wrote himself into a corner and couldn’t figure a way out that wouldn’t make the readers “annoyed”.
Which is what I was going for when I said, “though he may have to give up some other cool ideas he had for one of them.”
If Dabbler cranks up the lust aura, does lust outweigh violence? Or does that fall under the angry sex clause?
Lust mixes quite well with violence…SM&BD, for example. Then there’s also rape.
If anything can depower Vehemence, I’d have to say Apathy would be the best weapon. However, I don’t mean the heroes should display apathy; more like manipulating Vehemence to become apathetic. I just don’t know if ARCSwat has a means of doing that, however.
I’m thinking mind control or restraint and isolation are the 2 best ways to beat Vehemence.
I love the fact that he already told them his evil plan before he began to fight and the girls just blew it off.
Play a mix of Barny and Spongebob for about 10 minutes…
I’m playing the “Refresh the page every few minutes because i’m crazy addicted to this awesome comic” game…. again…. anyone else?
Hmh..He is there because of Maximas Challenge:
https://www.grrlpowercomic.com/archives/1189
I like this Character….and do also refresch the page every few minutes..:-)!
I like how Dabbler’s facial expression went from happy to an “I just realized something” face to her “oh crap” face. Priceless!
I noticed in the last frame, you have the parking block things that were thrown in view. But none of the parking spaces actually have blocks. Where did they come from?
I basically ran out of time to draw them all. I’ll just say they got dispersed throughout the fight.
And here I thought a villain was toting them around as a part of their arsenal
There is a manga called “Ultimo” that’s been licensed in the U.S. that is about 2 androids made to decide the great good vs. evil debate. One is powered by good and the other is powered by evil. It’s the only manga I know of where a mainstream western comic publisher (Stan Lee himself) collaborated with a manga author/artist to make a series. (Fun fact: the guy that made the 2 androids was drawn to look like Stan Lee lol)
You know…. I just really love this page. It’s so well laid-out, the pictures are perfect, the set-up perfect… I just love it.
I don’t understand the aetheon thrones joke.
Dabbler said part of her sword comes from an Aetheon throne, which doesn’t sound like something common to Earth, so he’s assuming her backstory is a cover.
Okay, but what does he mean by “pull the other one”. Thanks for responding.
That is just a common English coloquialism. It is a shortened version of “pull the other one, it has bells on”. Which simply speaking means ‘I do not believe you’.
Without looking it up, it harkens back to music hall acts or jesters. Comedians who might have bells attached to their limbs, to help their performance. If you think somebody is trying to make you out to be a fool, you can tell them to “pull my other leg, it has bells on”.
Which, come to think it, would be implying that you are a fool. But, well, such is comedy.
it comes from the phrase “stop pulling my leg” which means to stop kidding.
Indeed. The one I used is just a more developed version of that.
In order to convey the full emotional, and linguistic undertone, to at least one of Dabbler’s parent races, the speaker will need to be able to have full control of certain body parts, that humans are under-developed in communicating with.
*cocks ears at a significant angle*
We need to get Zenpool in on this! This sort of thing is right up his street.
Well, for once I had something like that (scratch that EXACTLYS like that) in my head from the moment we knew his name.
Cant surprise me every time. Still, looks fun.
So THAT’S why he’s pro-violence!
Is the title Super Ghandi… taken? Because that would be an amazing super hero!
Isn’t that the Ghandi you face in the Civilization series?
I don’t. Given that I prefer playing him, in the version that gives improved workers, if you do. I find that, combined with the early religion advantage, is more tempting than the limited-era special combat units.
Plus it eliminates the risk of a nuke-crazy Ghandi starting WW3!
Is there really a trigger-happy Ghandi that likes to use nukes in (I assume) Civ5 or is that just a really funny joke?
Suprisingly, it’s true! In the early versions of The Civilization games, there was a programming bug that made Gahandi a nuke happy pacifist. (Don’t ask, it’s just weird)
Later, it became one of those hidden features in the game, because everybody thought it was kind of funny.
“It’s not a bug, it’s an unplanned feature” –some programmer somewhere.
Shouldn’t the super-genius have been a bit quicker on the uptake? That had to be a good five seconds between hearing the bad guy tell her that he is powered by violence and he realizing how bad things are.
Trust me, being a genius doesn’t always mean having the answers right at your fingertips. Sometimes you can know so much that you run into information overload.
In other words, the more things you know, the longer it sometimes takes to parse out the particular data that you are trying to remember. Especially if it is in reference to something rather obscure!
In this case vehemic energy, which appears to be a fairly obscure power source for magic users, is something that other mages, especially those who use tantric energies, would very rarely encounter. (Unless one is into especially rough sex, in which case, all bets are off!)
I could just see the last panel in an anime. Just as Dabble says violence the building collapses the rest of the way.
I saw a show with a demon that gained power from violence.
Basically, they hit it so much that its muscles started to rupture from its body, and the power killed itself.
Violence is not only a source of violence, but an exterminator of it.
If you rely on it, it can only cause you harm.
I gotta say, I do really like how subtely savvy Vehemence is. Even just in the first conversation with Sydney, he was just kinda chill and clever. And the Inverse Ninja bit where he seemed to non-chalantly get it. Even this page where he’s all on board with doing an evil monologue like a cool duded. I don’t know, as I’m reading this, I’m kinda thinking that he’s basically just a reverse-o Sydney. Chill instead of excited, geeked about being a villain rather than a hero, but otherwise still just a big nerd that goes “WOO I HAVE SUPER POWERS!”.
Oh, and DUH! When he takes out Vektor and Opal with the “Dun dun DUNNNNNNN!” Like seriously, this is a guy who knows how to have some fun, I’m having a hard time considering him as an actual ‘Bad’ guy.
I think beating him is best done by, Sydney, Anvil, Achilles and Dabbler.
All of these are either absorbers or highly invulnerable, wich can get them to exhaust him.