Grrl Power #266 – Schooling before the schooling
Arc-SWAT will definitely need to review their arsenal and tactics after this fight. That’s something they’d do anyway, but you know what I mean.
I had a few names to pick from for the violence absorbing demons. Succubi means “to lay under,” Incubus means “to lay upon.” My first thought was “to stand over” but the Latin for that wasn’t great sounding. I don’t recall what it was, I found a really comprehensive Latin dictionary when I was looking up names, but I can’t seem to dig it up again which is a shame since it’s probably not the last time I’ll need to look up a bunch of Latin words. I hate that when you can’t remember the search term you used, or the chain of links you followed to find a good resource.
Hah, as I was typing that I did a few more searches and found the page.
Anyway, there were a lot of latin words I could have gone with, I chose to call “violence eaters” Malumus just because malum also means apple or fruit, which I thought would make for a cute scene with Sydney as you see on this page. Actually for the sake of accuracy, mālum (long a) mean apple, malum (short a) means evil, cataclysm, etc.
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.
I just have to give a shout out here.
I absolutely love Vehemence! I’m kind of hoping that he is already an undercover agent for ArcSWAT sent to infiltrate and bag a bunch of potential super villains and put the team through some major testing at the same time.
He just seems built too perfectly to work well with Sydney’s character. It seems sad to waste him as a villain with the occasional cameo appearance.
My fingers are crossed for him joining the team, whether as a open member, shadow support, or as a drop in consultant, I don’t care. :)
Thanks for creating such enjoyable characters, DaveB!
I like him, too, but I’m perfectly with him as a recurring villain or, at best, a loner.
I would love this too, as I said before, he’s just too…well made to be a throw away.
Absolutely yes.
Vehemence is awesome, but he doesn’t strike me as a team player. It’s cute the way he dotes on Sydney, but I wouldn’t put any money on him joining the team.
Heh. Well, there’ve been cases of Villain/Hero romantic relationships- why not a Hero/Villain Awesome Uncle relationship?
I approve of this line of thought. XD
“not a team player”
Yep, Vekter & Opal can attest to that…Whenever they wake up.
Yes, that’s what I came to ask – whether it’s a problem that the big villain is also one of the most engaging characters.
I guess not – it seems to work out well enough for Loki.
for a comic the Villains have to be at least as fully nuanced as the Heroes.
I don’t think I’m hoping for it, but I keep thinking he’s viewing this like Cha0s (Wil Wheaton) in the season 4 finale of Leverage: as a tryout.
Has anyone thought about Mathias as the solution? There are plenty of martial arts out there that use an opponent’s strength against them. Math may not be the strongest on the team, but he does have better defense than most members and we are trying to drain Vehemence’s power not beat him to a pulp. The fact that one wrong move would turn him to paste would only add to the challenge of the fight. I do admit that he might not be in top form after page 237 but its been a few months he should be mostly healed by now. He is looking for a tougher opponent after all. (yes I realize that it is still the same night in comic time, but again comic time allows for faster healing.)
The problem with supposedly “non violent” martial arts is that while the practitioner might only use a minuscule amount of force anything but submission holds will cause damage to the recipient. For Vehemence any violence, wherever it’s directed at him or not, will power him up. So if a highly trained Aikidoka would use Vehemence own energy to throw him that would power him up. If said Aikidoka was able to keep his mind still and clear while doing this the energy would be less “nourishing” and tasty than if he did throw V with the intent to hurt him.
Submission holds are a problem with someone who are as tough as V currently. What is the limits of his pain tolerance? How vulnerable is he to having his joints targeted? How quick are his reflexes now? There are so many unknowns that I don’t think you could find many who would be willing try, and extremely few who would have a chance of surviving if they make even one mistake.
I was actually thinking of simply deflecting and evading the attacks without throwing his own. The real problem is that we don’t know the extent of V’s power and how it works. He claims to gain power from any violence in the vicinity, but what range, and what qualifies a violence. Does tripping and falling cout? How about a fight club style solo match? If he were to punch himself would he gain more than he lost?
Just some ideas.
They need to drain Vehemence’s batteries without fighting him, and he’s not stupid enough to passively let that happen. I’m really interested to see where this goes.
DaveB posted about his ability to “feed” on violence and said that he had not yet decided on exactly what kind of range this ability had. All he could say was that it was probably less than a mile, but the closer the better for V.
As for powering himself up by punching things, probably not to any significant degree. That would be way over powered as he would then theoretically be able to slowly build up his power without any need to employ the goon squad to kickstart his power before he’s having a go at Maxima.
Vehemence CAN gain power from any kind of violence, be it thunderstorm, earthquake or other natural disasters. Intent, or even the presence of any living thing, is irrelevant. sure, he gets a better “flavor” of power when there is intent with violence but it’s not necessary…
…Besides, Math is already out for the count with a nose that’s in not-much-better shape than Maxima’s.
Another probem with that is that V can simply choose not to fight Math. No attack = nothing to redirect. Remember, villains are allowed to be smart, too.
Then Math can shadow him and redirect his attacks on others. Wait isn’t he unconscious? He’s gonna be pissed when his whole reason for being here waltzed right on through while he was mentally chasing booby birds around his head… Sad.
Um, Mathias is a human person. Vehemance hits hard enough to lift the space station. Mathias is more or less made of smoke in terms of how effective he’d be at doing anything to Vehemance.
He took a concrete golem down. And hitting him has proved an exercise in frustration except for another martial artist type, Jabberwoky. He’s probably going to miss this go around with V since he’s still dreaming. Nerve clusters and joint locks are his key attacks on a super muscled mook.
And you’re assuming that V has a physiology like that of a human. Whether he’s full-blown demon, or a half-human hybrid, everything being where it would be on a human would be extraordinarily unlikely. At which point we’re back to the “one mistake and Math goes splat” conundrum.
My apologies if this has already been suggested, but I’ve read through over 1000 comments (so far) on today’s and the last installment and didn’t see it. And, I don’t recall seeing it otherwise mentioned or discussed previously.
Dabbler, cast your highest level most intense and epic Super Succubus Seduction Spell and fuck him dry. Not only can you reduce or drain his accumulated energy, as a bonus you will power up to at least his levels.
Problem over.
Well. Except it might take a day or three of fucking, and no violent kinky. And, try to get out of the parking lot first. Cameras are still rolling, I believe. Although, the royalties off the video might fund ARC for some time to come …..
Mentioned it while you were reading the posts ;)
Actually, there were quite a few mentions about Dabbler’s Lust Power…With replies that also mention that violence mixes really well with sex/lust. And the results are never pretty.
Dabbler’s sleep spell did not work on him, so he has some mind resistance that will not allow her to control him tightly enough to, uh. Not get hurt herself if she sparkles his lust for her.
Well, shrugging of Dabbler’s spell doesn’t necessarily equate with mind or magic *resistance* as much as it would indicate a mind or magic *defense*
Vehemence actually kinda reminds me of an old character in Bleach. He had a similar sort of thing, where his main power took a while to ‘warm up’ based on how much damage he had dealt or taken, but when it finally hit critical mass he was insane. Though, Vehemence has the advantage of being able to use other people’s violence instead of just his own.
Speaking of his own, though, I have to wonder if he can sustain his own powers at some point. It would be interesting if he could hit ‘critical violence’ (which at least sounds super-cool) and basically fuel his own destruction with more destruction ad infinitum. Or maybe that’s what he’s doing now.
Well he did say he powers up no matter who causes the violence, so possibly he could power up by beating himself up (I didn’t want to use other phrases including “beating” but now you’ve thought of them yourself so my job is done).
While he definitely gains power from his own violence, I doubt that he “powers-up”, because this would violate the law of conservation of energy. No transfer of energy is ever 100% efficient (the percentage lost is in the form of heat), so while he might gain power from his own violence, it would be less than the energy that he has put into it. The only possible way for him to “get more than he gives” is if the enemy responds to his violence with their own. The alternative is to posit a universe where perpetual motion is possible, which seems like more of a plot “stretch” than this story would want to make.
Of course, this is NOT my “playground”, & if our Esteemed Author chooses to follow that path, then who am I to gainsay him? Time will tell.
As for me, I’m hoping that Syd can save the day, here.
I understand that she must be inside the force-field that she creates, but if she can make 2 CONCENTRIC fields, of different diameters, then she can hold him between the layers with impunity. It’s not ideal, since he can still pound violently on these barriers, but it may buy ARCHON some time. Perhaps Zephan might come up with a spell for this occasion…?
I also feel that way. Though if I were to play devil’s advocate I could say that his violence is an act that breaks bonds which releases the energy of those bonds right? Couldn’t he feed on that natural violence as well as his own released with intent to get a near 100% refund of expended charge? Sort of like a fly that spits acid and then sucks it up plus whatever it managed to dissolve in that amount of time.
Oh, I think he’s very efficient indeed in harvesting that “violence feedback”.
Just not 100% so – which means he must absorb the violence of his opponents to make up the difference.
Strategy-wise, it’d take far too long to wear him down, of course.
Plus, I’m sure he’s far too clever to just wear himself down, without engaging our heroes somehow.
No, I’m sure that the answer will be something clever that DaveB has hidden up his sleeve, waiting for the right moment to spring on us.
If his lungs are still permeable, if he still needs to take in gases like say oxygen through them to live, then the solution might be fairly simple.
I’ve got it. Anvil can Absorb kinetic energy right? So Maxima should throw her at him, Anvil latches on to him, and then Maxima takes them flying up into the atmosphere. The more Vehmence struggles the more power Anvil can absorb. When Maxima goes high enough that it becomes dangerous for Anvil, anvil should release her stored energy to launch him into space. Maxima could use her blasts to power up anvil as well or just use it to help anvil’s kinetic burst. If they hit hard enough they could launch him out of orbit, then Maxima could follow him around until he runs out of energy then give him a space suit. All giving time to the people on the ground to figure out how to contain someone like him.
Halo TIE HIM UP WITH LIGHTHOOK
Sydney has tried holding him with the lighthook. It’s not strong enough to hold him/he can maneuver to keep it from getting a good hold.
Anvil is one option. Sydney, if she can place her forcefield the right way, can make Vehemence suffocate. Achilles is invulnerable. For Whom The Death Tolls could be awoken and offered a deal to help.
Heck, for all we know, Vehemence IS a demon, and he’s about to waste a lot of power on transforming into a more obvious/weaker form.
Oh, right. Sydney’s shield isn’t a projection, it’s centered on her.
Still, goading Vehemence into pounding on the shield and wasting his energy might help. Just surround the whole team and let him pound away. Something like “Oh, you can’t break this? Maxima could!” would probably work.
Except that he’s already proven savvy enough to avoid trying to pound on anvil.
The guy isn’t stupid.
Also he’d be getting stronger as he pounded it, and would probably eventually break it. He can’t really “waste his energy”, expending it generates it.
That depends on what powers Sydneys shield… Have we ruled out Vehimic energy? If they share the same power source in theory he might just be leveling her up as he powers himself up… (As in her powers getting charged up at the same rate his are…)
That’s a bit of a stretch to assume out of all the multitude of posiblities it’s that particular one.
Far more likely they’re powered by Nut Ball energy (search for latin equivalent purposefully avoided). The crazier the wielder the more powerful they are.
This would explain why the orbs seem to have darn near god-like levels of ju ju.
Revive Opal and coerce her to put a teleport circle up when Vehemence leaps towards someone. If he’s suddenly in orbit or at the bottom of the ocean he might find things …difficult.
If Opal were that powerful a teleporter the fight would have been over in seconds.
You saw what she did with Stalwart right?
Do you mean Ikkaku Madarame cause it sounds a little like his Bankai you are describing.
Response to Geddian’s Above Post
Yeah that’s the guy, couldn’t remember his name since I haven’t read the series in ages. I thought he was one of the more interesting side characters, but he got like zero screentime for some reason. I don’t think he even used the bankai twice.
Of course, if his bankai became public knowledge. He’d have been transfered out of Zaraki Kenpachi’s squad and given his own, especially after Aizen’s defection. Despite Zaraki wanting all the good fights for himself most of his squad members had plenty of good fights for themselves. It was more or less a squad of Blood Knights, even the smallest & cutest of them.
Well, my first thought is what I said some time before; a big hulker like that most be burning oxygen like there’s no tomorrow. Cut that off – a few hours in space or above 25,000 feet, or Sydney throwing her shield thingie over him (if it can do that) and it won’t take long for him to go all quiet on you.
The other thought is that if he gets stronger no matter what happens, at some point he’s either going to pop like a zit or overrun his heart and lungs. He may just keel over from a coronary, although that won’t be much of a story line. He’s on a “positive feedback” loop – kind of like a short circuit that, as it heats up, allows more and more electricity through it. Or a hole punched in a dam – the hole gets bigger and allows even more water through, etc. Either way, problems for the being in question get worse in a hurry, whether electric wire, dam, or somewhat likeable bad guy. (He does seem to have an intelligence, depth and an interesting character to him.) We’ll see.
I’ve not read thru all this page’s posts (sorry), but it seems as though Mr.V is acting like an addict, whose “drug” of choice is the violence that powers him. If true, then your talk of “positive feedback” might be his version of a “drug-overdose”…? I’m hard-pressed to imagine any effective counter-measure, short of the “zero-gee” version of a sensory-deprivation enclosure. Even then, how would one monitor the interior, to determine his rate of energy drained?
By positive feedback, I mean a process that continues until the materials involved destroy themselves…. maybe I should have included “runaway” as another adjective. Yes – a drug addict with an unlimited supply of drugs would probably kill himself, given most of the more nasty addictive drugs such as coca based or opium based compounds. An electrical circuit that allows more and more current through as it heats up will catch fire. A hole in a dam widens as water pours through it, allowing more and more water through to do ever more damage. As the British showed in 1943, it doesn’t take much of a hole in a dam to wreck the thing.
It looks to me as if his body’s getting bigger as he gathers more power. Where’s the material coming from? Maybe in a world with magic, it can just appear. But pretty soon he’s either going to over run his heart and lungs, or not be able to wlak, or move effectively.
I’d also be curious to see what happens if Peggy could manage to put a .50 round into his open mouth. There’s got to be soft tissue in there somewhere.
WOG has it that he is not actually growing:
Even if we discover he *IS* an addict, it might turn out to be a psychological (rather than chemical) addiction. Is ARCHON even equipped to handle such types?
I’m sure someone already said this, but whatever.
He’s going to summon an apple!
Given his powers it would be the Golden Apple of Discord. And that started a twenty year long war.
…He summons Steve Jobs, who tries to sell Apples of Discord…
Or maybe we have an MLP:FIM cameo, and Dischord shows up juggling fruit.
I figure Sydney is calm because she understands that getting uptight may also fuel Mr. V’s powers. Plus, she’s google-ing the most ticklish parts of the body so she can use her ‘tentacle’ to tickle him from a distance. Hard to keep angry while being tickled.
Unless he’s annoyed by getting forced to respond in such an undignified manner…?
Anger isn’t violence. I suspect Emotion doesn’t enter into it, only action.
I had merely imagined his annoyance goading him to further violence, when calming him down might be preferable.
As for Emotion not entering into it, “WOG” has it that emotion can improve the “flavor” of the vehemic energy. Violent intent is “tastier” than emotionless mayhem. In that regard, he resembles “FWTDT”, but Mr.V has done a much more skillful job of getting the heroes to do as he wishes.
Dabbler turned an opponent into attacking someone with her powers, can, vehement do the same?
Why do I think he only has offensive violence based powers and the team can wear him down physicaly although defeating him like that would power up his offence.
OMFG!!!?!
HOW DID I MISS THIS!!?!
Everyone has been posting over-&-over about Panel_3’s lack of Orb,
but in that same image, Sydney’s Left hand has only a THUMB & 3 FINGERS!!!?!
:P
Somebody please tell me I’m mis-reading this somehow!
:O
DaveB – dude – you gotta allow yerself ta’ get more sleep before proofreading, man!?!
If you work your exhausted self into an early grave, you’ll be doing no favors to either us OR to yourself!
I wanted to convince myself that her index finger might be hidden behind her wrist-console, but the width of her palm plus the amount of space between each of the 3 fingers makes this anatomy-theory unfeasible.
She is using the index finger to type. But yes, the anatomy is not correct. But as soon as the orb is included you won’t see it any more.
Hmm, what if someone will try to heal Vehemance? Is it opposite to violence?
What if Halo just put her sheild around him so he can’t get out? Her sheild could handle Maxima’s hits.
She’ll have to be inside the shield with him.
Dr. Revenge has a sign for you.
Yes but she also has a telepresence orb. Make holograms and put up the sheild so he can attack anyone else.
If her shield is active when she uses telepresence, the shield around her remote image is also just an intangible image. On https://www.grrlpowercomic.com/archives/1422, you can see that Vehemence can lean into & intersect with the shield with her remote image.
Heres your sign
And here’s a shot.
“K-BLAM”
Could just try google translate for latin names….may not be perfect, but can still be used.
I think the most interesting thing about Vehemence, really, at the end of the day, is the fact that he still doesn’t particularly seem to have a motive here. Even if it really is just “I really like violence (what with it giving me super powers and all), so I staged a giant fight, so that after that I could have an EVEN MORE GIANT FIGHT!” that, as a motive, doesn’t inherently make him entirely antagonistic. I mean, he went out of his way to make sure the other guys didn’t escape, and he is hoping for at least one member of the team to survive… And when he’s not using his “THIS IS MY GRIN WITH ALL OF MY TEETH!” look he tends to be displayed rather casually rather than VILLAIN FACED.
So the question is, after all of this setup and planning, does he even have an endgame? Or was he possibly being honest at the beginning by saying he wanted to show the nation just how necessary the team could be?
Or is he just really bored, capable of wielding nigh unto god like powers, and looking for something that at least looks like a worthy challenge at full strength? I suppose that’d be at least somewhat consistent with the mood shifts, he wants to be menacing enough to get them to give it their all, but doesn’t have a particular reason or desire to see them dead, just to have a good fight. He is, after all, pro violence.
I don’t know that he is pro-violence. I think he is more a gifted amateur than a pro. A pro works hard for years to build on his talents. Now Maxima is a pro. No matter what ability or intelligence, can he really match up to the tactics Arc-Swat can throw out?
Thus far. Yes, yes he can. Better than in fact since they’ve all been playing into his hands Mwahahahaha! etc.
He’s been working on his skills at least since 1992 (LA Riots) and possibly 1965 (Watts Riots), either of which give him plenty of time in for Pro cred. He’s almost certainly older than Max – even if he was in his early 20’s in 1992, max would have only been 12-14 at the time.
Give the well-dressed, methodical, scary-glowy man some credit.
Keep in mind, though, that ‘professional’ just means you get paid/reimbursed for doing whatever you are professional at. Doesn’t necessarily mean you are really good at it. Just look at professional wrestlers after all…
Now, with that said, professionals do tend to be good at their thing. But only because in most cases if you are bad at it people tend to stop paying you to do it.
Maxima would be a professional at violence. The US government literally paid her to commit it. Vehemence would most likely be an amateur, how ever gifted at it or practiced in it he may be, because it would be hard to find someone other than a governing body that would pay someone to commit acts of violence.
/Rant off
Assuming, of course, he hasn’t ever been employed as a hired thug, mercenary, hitman, bodyguard, MMA champion (assuming there was money with the title), Wrestler (choreographed or not, some of the violence is actually pretty real), or any of a number of other, albeit uncommon, jobs that do, in fact, sometimes (or consistently) pay people to commit acts of violence.
I mean, technically, one could argue that the Police are “professionals” when it comes to violence, as that can be a paid part of their job. Though I feel as though that particular angle might be uncomfortable contentious, as, let’s be honest, outside of “Solider” most things being called “Professional violence” tends to make people uncomfortable.
Though, I was mostly referring to originally.
Also pro as in for, not professional. But no doubt he’s earned the professional grade too, he’s shown knowledge in many an area, like being able to accurately figure out Anvil’s power on the fly, accurately able to know his own strength at the moment against Stalwart, and knowing exactly what kind of spell Dabbler was using against him, and telling her exactly why it would not work.
He’s got plenty for pro cred. Maybe even Hip cred? Who knows.
V is bipolar, as a possible Half-Demon (Vehemence, Son of Spa..ähm Malumi…) There was this Comment about Violence as a Drug for him, This is a interessting point.
AND I think he will send a Rage Aura who will awaken the other Villians as “Rage Zombies”, they break their Cuffs and wreak Havoc in the City and the Team.. Power UP for him!
BUT this will be only plain Evil…this would be not his Style…hmh..I like him, he is complex..
There is always “exercitu suo” “Army of one”. Though that might be Harem or Maxima right there :P
At the moment I’m going with Vehemences motive being “I consider myself top dog, and someone has stepped up that could challenge that. As such I must step upon them to prove that I am in fact unstoppable. Otherwise my manhood will be challenged and I will feel bad.”
Yet nobody has heard of him before this. If he’s convinced he is top dog you’d think he’d have let people know at some point. If this is that point he’s been awfully quiet about “Hulk is strongest.”
umm, not to sound stupid or anything, but, why doesn’t halo just surround him in a forcefield and suffocate him till he passes out. problem solved.
She’ll have to be inside the shield with him.
Dr. Revenge will have a sign for you too.
Heres your sign
Bill Engvall FTW! xD
I’ve asked, but the “good” Dr. refuses to confirm or deny being Bill under that mask of his…
To explain for at least the 25th (personal) time, WORD OF GOD (DaveB) is that Halo must be in the shield when it is put up. THEREFORE SHE WOULD SUFFOCATE WITH HIM, AND PROBABLY SOONER!
Maybe relax a little and consider how that sort of post might put off someone who’s new around here.
The wording on some of them is starting to get so similar and short I think they are baiting the “Those Who Correct” now.
It just might be turning into a copy/paste war…
Or a surreptitious attempt to turn “Halo would die too…” into a trope.
Is Sydney playing Angry Birds on her wrist thingy?
Even though this guy is kinda a violent prick, I like the way he humors Sydney
Probably because Sydney actually…amuses him? Perhaps in a way similar that Sydney amuses Maxima & the others in ARCSwat with her crazy, off-the-wall antics? Yeah, that’s the vibe I get from Vehemence…he’s at least treating her politely & acts (mostly) cordial with her because he’s amused.
clearly the only option is (assuming he’s about to demonstrate the ability to project energy blasts) is a non permeable semi viscous polymer introduced to his upper airway…. or Sydney shielded up and then tentaporn… i mean gag vehamence till he passes out.
I -just- realized this… I know he wants to be called “For whom the bell tolls” and everyone is calling him “Death Toll” …but shouldn’t he be called “Death Troll” …after all… he has to troll you into attacking him or he has no power…
The dude is an internet Troll in real live… horrible if engaged… totally pointless if ignored…
YESSSS. DAVE. DO IT. Have him wear memes and be super annoying.
any news article about the fight will have to call him “Death Troll”, lol. It’s just something the press AND any youtube channel comment thread would do. It will waste this guy’s strategy FOREVER! Thanks internet!!!
I think that his official name has become “Angry Muppet” thanks to Sydney and Harem. Also I think that Leon is assigning the names, see Lee press on claws #211, so any new villains tonight will likely not have their prefered name.
So I’ve decided there is nothing scarier than a Villain with a sense of humor and a bit of charisma. It shows intelligence. Intelligence is not something you want on the beefy guy that could rip apart a tank as a morning warm up…
Question, what happens if he gets exposed to too much violence? Is that possible?
Separate thought, besides the obvious of not wanting to get hit back, is there a reason he had a strong aversion to fighting Anvil but not to fighting Maxima? I mean if he wanted to get powered up, I feel like he could have just started an infinite loop of stronger punches with her. Just thinking of various power stunts they could pull off with the tools at hand…
I’d conjecture that, not only does V want to avoid giving more kinetic energy to Anvil, which powers HER up, his reason might even go deeper than that. Vehemic energy, which is V’s “food source,” is a matter of the *action* of violence (ie: Laws of Physics, Action-Reaction, Cause-Effect).
For an action to be violent, it would require kinetic energy having an effect on something…Anvil absorbs kinetic energy, preventing the effect of violence. No effect of violence, no Vehemic energy, Vehemence can’t absorb it.
The overall effect I think Anvil has on how V-Energy can be generated, is that she’s like putting a silencer on a gun, or a muffler on a car. This would go quite a way towards explaining *why* V throws Anvil as far away as he can, instead of just trading blows with her…
Hey, that actually make sense. Anvil is effectively a powersink for V… So if he could be tricked into pummeling Anvil, the best she could do with the energy gained would be to either spend it on something unrelated or just letting it drain off over time.
Lesson learned, apples are evil!
Oh, and Sydney needs to pull that lie detecting orb and figure out V is powered by nearby emotions and you defeat him by thinking of not attacking, or somesuch.
No, beans are evil!
No, *semi-digested beans* are evil, because it’s an evil that spreads throughout the area, a debilitating weapon of mass destruction that only a self-contained air supply can resist.
How evil are they?
I hear the Daleks are planning to use them to keep the Doctor away.
An apple a day keeps the Doctor away. (Heh, you asked for that one.) :P
Before anyone jumps on me, I am not about to say V is testing the gals. When he stood wearing a fedora and saying “nice kid”, did anyone else think he has a streak of 50’s detective about him? Its been so long, I cant remember the comments and, since it is the internet, I will rely on those more mentally capable than myself to find the answer. :) Maybe he is in some strange way a romantic. Ok, standing in trenchcoat and hat could be totally another type of observer but I sincerely doubt he is making those kind of moves and certainly not so publicly. I think it might be underplaying the psychology of it to suggest that he just wants a fight – I think we all like to think that we would appreciate knowing our own limits and for him, its a big question. To sandbag him with a suppression field, a tranquiliser or so on would just leave it unanswered for him. So they either need to uncover something in his tattoos that is a total weakness that would make it impossible for him to rampage again or…cure him. The final resort for any super is to be stripped of their powers, surely?
He stated that Sydney was a nice kid and he hoped she survived. But I believe that’s because he wanted to get the chance to fight her not because he has warm, fond feelings for her. I don’t care how much you people admire him; Crybaby is a menace and they need to take him down QUICKLY.
In the Star Trek episode, Space Seed (the first ST appearance of Ricardo Montelbahn as Khan), Spock was astounded by the human ability to admire someone that they were duty-bound to oppose. Illogical, but true.
Of all the people posting about the ways they admire Vehemence, they also post ideas on how to take him down & take him down quickly, avoiding the greater threat he poses if allowed to escape. Again, simultaneous admiration & opposition is illogical, but it IS possible.
Sydney, Harem and Achilles save the day all need to is have Achilles to simply taunt his opponents until he can get his hands on him. As he is doing Sydney use telekinetic pseudopod, telepresence orb to talk to Harem and her get Death toll. Than have one Harem out in open next to Achilles when Vehemence attack. Harem teleport Death toll at the last sec for the win.
Sorry I mess up that first comment I trying to say. Sydney, Harem and Achilles can save the day all need to is have Achilles to simply taunt his opponents until he can get his hands on him. As he is doing that have Sydney use telekinetic pseudopod, telepresence orb to talk to Harem and her get Death toll. Than have one Harem out in open next to Achilles when Vehemence attack. Harem teleport Death toll at the last sec for the win.
Harem teleports unliving matter, ‘cept herself of course, so unless his corpse still defends itself like Medusa’s head after it was chopped off… in which case I’m totally making a shield out of his bones! XD
Also Harem would have to unmake or store several of her selves in order to increase her weight limit that far. If it can be stretched that far.
Harem’s maximum teleport capacity (with only one of her bodies manifested) is about 50lbs. With all 5 of Harem, maximum ‘port capacity of each one is about 25lbs. That’s the WoG from DaveB.
Sydney:
Ok, so here’s what we do. Some of us distract V. Harem goes and gets Dabbles highly experimental thermonuclear Lazarus device. Harem unteleports everyone of her doubles but the main one (whichever that is). We stop Death Tolls heart and then chop off his arms, legs, pelvis, ears, etc… till he gets down to 50lbs clamping and cauterizing as best we can but at least he won’t bleed much with his heart stopped. Achilles jumps in front of V and starts playing Rush Limbaugh on his phone with the volume as high as it will go. When V goes to smash the source of his pain Harem teleports in and shoves what’s left of Death Toll in front the phone having just activated the highly experimental thermonuclear Lazarus device to start his heart, make him conscious and activate his powers.
Piece of cake.
Everyone including Vehemence (it was taking so long to explain he wandered over): *crickets chirping*
*crickets chirp for only a few seconds before the silence is broken*
Everyone, including Vehemence (& the readers):
https://i0.kym-cdn.com/entries/icons/original/000/008/491/dafuq.jpg
1: Vehemence most likely knows Achilles’s one trick by now. He’ll most likely just throw him into next week.
2: Vehemence isn’t a big dumb beat stick, he’s actually quite intelligent, so the effectiveness of taunting is questionable. He’s more likely to try to figure out what you’re trying to pull.
3: Using an unconscious perp like that, intentionally putting them in harms way, is probably against the law and they are technically cops.
4: Harem can’t teleport anything the size of a human being, and WoG is that she may not even be able to teleport living things at all (Dave hasn’t entirely decided yet). Pearl would be able to do it obviously, but she’s a little too concussed/unconscious/possibly drugged/the enemy to take care of it for them now.
While I entirely agree with you on 1,2 and 4, let’s not forget that Dabbler used the power of sexual assault to put down Jabberwock. I think they have a somewhat loose chain when dealing with active threats.
And Sidney got cautioned by Kenya for kicking a downed perp. Death Toll is not an active perp.
In Dabbler’s case it might very well be that she doesn’t know and/or care about the law/rules/man. Max on the other hand is demonstrably someone who toes the line. She wouldn’t go for it. Nor would Anvil apparently.
The main point there being that Death Tolls is NOT an active threat right now, so ARCSwat could be charged with negligent endangerment if they used him that way. Besides, he probably has to be conscious & aware of incoming attacks before his power works to counter them.
Has anyone added the possibility of simply leaving yet?
He wants to fight supers with his energy and the area has been evacuated by now, so if you all just pull out he doesn’t have a whole lot of options to catch up before he runs out of juice.
So, run away while he destroys the city, and maintain his vehemic energy in the process?
This is going to end with Sydney tickling him into submission. Making him laugh uncontrollably will drain him of his powers enough for a Dabbler tranq round. He’ll then be imprisoned in a cage made out of puppies, where no violence is possible.
This guy pisses me off. While he’s fighting he’s the king of douchebags and I want nothing better than for someone to take him down. BUT THEN he has to act like such a sweet dork and I kinda want to give him a hug and to see him and Sydney being best buds and going for ice-cream together or something.
He also has really pretty eyes somethimes which is very confusing because I like my men lean and Vehemence il looking more and more like the end scene of Akira.
GAH! Solve this dude already!
I know Sydney has to be inside her force field, but “inside” a malleable concept if she has some control over its shape. Imagine her in a 10x10x10 room, with a 6′ diameter spherical field around her – most of the room is outside her bubble. But if she expands its surface so that the “bubble” fills up all but a 1′ diameter sphere in the room, she’s still “inside” the field and the bubble is “outside” it.
Now do that, but with Vehemence and the world.
The only time we’ve seen Sydney’s shield, it’s been either spherical or elliptical in shape. We know she can activate the shield at whatever size (within an undefined limit) she wants & include or dis-include individuals within those given shapes. What has NOT been seen yet is any other specific shape, or if she can alter its size or make the shield “phase through” or “shape around” someone during a size-change while it’s *already active*.
Sydney *may* be able to expand on these known properties…In time & leveling up her skill with the shield orb, but Dave hasn’t yet shown us if those options are or will be available.
She definitely can and has altered its size, during the demonstration that Maxima put on for the press. Also, if you look at the vitrified sand around the big block o’ steel that Maxima first tested Sydney’s shield on the proving grounds, there are at least two different sizes of curved glass splashed upwards.
“Embiggener”: https://www.grrlpowercomic.com/archives/1112
“Splash”: https://www.grrlpowercomic.com/archives/1043
As for the “embiggener,” she used a specific “rune mark” on the orb to activate the shield at that size. There’s no way to tell that Sydney actually changed the size of the shield while it was already active. Sydney *might* have had to drop the shield & then *re-activate* it to get Maxima on the outside of it. Panel-by-panel pictures can’t show us if the shield itself actually changed size.
For the “splash,” those rows of glass were kicked up from Max’s beam as it deflected off her shield…Probably in a concentric circle pattern, like what happens when you drop a pebble into water. The heat waves of Max’s beam caused that, not Sydney changing her shield.
I think the most likely explanation for those “splashes” are that they tested the shield strength at different sizes. After all Max would want to be sure that the shield would hold even when Syd stretched it to cover all the reporters and their crews.
Or Max used two different blasts with a different level of power to test Syd’s shield…A smaller circle from a lower powered blast, then a larger circle formed from a higher powered blast. It IS a logical method for Max to test the shield strength & doesn’t require the shield itself to change in size.
But it doesn’t answer the question of how much changing the size of the shield would alter it’s resilience.
Without testing that they wouldn’t know that it could stand up to a pea shooter when stretched to cover the media crews.
You could try to guess what the effects are. A logical guess would be that the shield strength falls off according to the inverse square cube law. But we’re not dealing with regular physics here. What we’ve got is something they don’t even know if it’s technological or magical. It might even be something totally new for all what we or the cast knows. And this is after having it looked at by both magical and technological means. In fact neither magic nor science has so far been able to determine that the balls actually exists. So the forcefield could behave in some entirely arbitrary way. It could even depend on Sydney’s mood when she raises it. Without testing the shield when stretched to cover different size areas there is no way to know what it’s capabilities are.
So there is no way Maxima would think that using a untested size of the shield was an acceptable risk when dealing with civilians in a non-critical situation. Not even pissing off Arianna would be worth killing a few dozen reporters.
What you say is a valid theory, but there’s no evidence shown that her shield resilience *has* any drop-off in accordance to size.either. Either way we look at it, we’re both just theorizing only by *what we’ve seen* already. We *both* have valid theories but there’s no proof or evidence to support either of us…We just have to wait until DaveB shows us or tells us.
By the Scientific Method of Inquiry, we need more Observation…
Agreed!
Long time reader first time poster. I just wanted to say, Vehemence is starting to become my favorite character X3 I love the way he interacts with Sydney, even acknowledging the tidbits she throws in. I really hope this fight won’t kill him off, and he can be the Lex Luther or Joker of Grrl Power.
I can go along with that. My biggest bitch about ALL the Batman movies was that they kept killing off the villains! Haven’t those people ever heard of a rogues gallery? Thankfully DaveB has stated that this comic is not intended to become a slaughter fest.
Well, that’s Hollywood for ya’
They really never stay true to the source material that they’re filming.
Do what, turn into a nightlight?
We’re going to get another 3 chapters into this series and find out that Sydney didn’t find the orbs in a coral bed. She gained access to the orbs when a nigh-omnipotent being decided it liked her.
Because endearing herself to ridiculously powerful creatures is Sydney’s actual super-power.
Quick give him a hug, it’s the only way.
I probably won’t ever read any responses to this post because seriously four pages of comments is just way too much for me to read, but why not grab him and fly him off into space? As far as we’ve seen so far, he doesn’t have any magic flying power, so just fly him up and let him go.
So V is just going to let himself get carried to space?
Where’s Super Mr. Rogers when we need him?
There are already quite of few of the commentators here that already “like V just the way is is”…
:D
there’s so many options if you aren’t the good guys – how would vehemic energy help if Sydney’s shield was brought into existence halfway through him? Would it bisect him, or would the sphere have an inbuilt safety to prevent that?
I get the impression that the shield comes with safeguards to prevent that kind of thing.
Error 404 – Orb not found….
Panel 3
He posted this at the top in his overall blog comment: “As I’m posting this at 1 am, I realized I forgot to put the Shield orb in Sydney’s hand. I’ll fix it when I get up.”
I have no idea when he went to sleep or how long he usually sleeps for but it is getting a bit since posting I admit. Perhaps since this seems to be his job now we should encourage him to take a couple weeks and not post any actual canon comic but just silly things and cartoony looking mini comics while he catches up on his to do list and maybe… um, you know, sleeps some… ^_^’
I would tend to agree with you on that…As it is, scripting & drawing a huge fight scene like this is always going to be a major time-sink. Fortunately, Dave has implied that he wants to wrap it up very soon so he can get back to his normally-scheduled routine of insanity.
Training could be almost as bad if it involves powers though at least he can make the training areas spartan as he wants cause you would assume they would be bare of anything that didn’t have to be in there or out there for those training outside cause stuff gets destroyed during super training I’m sure.