Grrl Power #267 – Don’t worry, he’s got nothing on Frieza
Ok, NOW he’s growing. His size has fluctuated a bit just due to my art. Turns out drawing a really muscular guy like him throws off my sense of proportion fairly easily, but yes, now he’s all growed up. All upper body, though. Typical guy, right? To be honest his size may continue to fluctuate slightly throughout the remaining pages. He’s supposed to be about twice as big now. Turns out it’s even harder to draw hulk sized dudes the same size each time.
I really wanted this page to be a double, just cause I’m sure a lot of the comments will mention events that occur on the next page, but it has 13 panels on it and I couldn’t just couldn’t swing it.
#makecomics: The nature of sequential art can make for some weird word bubble placement. I needed Max to talk first in order to give Sydney something to react to, which is why Max’s word bubble isn’t right above her head. Normally you either arrange the characters in the order they speak or flip the camera around to put them in the right order. The problem this time was they were already lined up a certain way and I wanted to show their faces, so I couldn’t flip the camera. The more characters there are in a scene, the more complicated your character blocking becomes. The ballroom scene where the team interviewed Sydney was… quite challenging toward the end.
Edit: Whoops, I forgot his missing teeth, they’re back… or gone as the case may be.
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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Dongs Ahoy!Full frontal and backal. Lots of skin, sex on some or all pages, explicit or otherwise.
Looking a bit like Hannover Fiste from the Captain Sternn segement in Heavy Metal.
Just imagine him saying “Hangin’s too good for em…BURNIN’S Too good for em…He should be torn into itsy bitsy pieces and buried alive!”
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tHgMsvpFm08
I always liked “The best we can hope for is to have you buried in an unmarked grave so they won’t desecrate your corpse.”
What I liked most is the sheer length of the list of charges he read off…and ending with, “And one moving violation.”
He made it very clear that they weren’t just “throwing the book” at Stern, but the equivalent of the whole d*mn Library of Congress.
Isn’t that always how they catch the bad guys? He got pulled over and thus got caught…heh.
https://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Main/ArsonMurderAndJaywalking
yes, I’m evil, why do you ask?
https://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Main/TVTropesWillRuinYourLife
Just by linking to TVTropes, you’ve proven your evilness…
https://i0.kym-cdn.com/entries/icons/original/000/012/367/evilest.gif
take the Loc-Nar of him and he should return to normal (or failing that just pay him)
According to the Heavy Metal stories (in the actual magazine, that is), it’s a natural ability of Hannover Fiste to do that…It wasn’t the Loc Nar’s doing at all.
so that leaves paying him, any idea as to the going rate?
35,000 Zuleks…plus a little extra as a tip for good service.
Look! Magic pants! THAT is his secondary power.
Big and tall men and women rejoice! He’s going to be rich. People will never have to buy pants again because they gained weight!
This entire fight has been leading up to this reveal! He’s marketing his new fall lineup of pants!
Where can these clothes be bought? What is the cost? And how frigging stretchy is that belt? That is the true ‘one size fits all’ brand. Jacamo, eat your hearts out. He’s taking you out of business.
magic pants yes, but his non-magic underwear are currently doing violence against his scrotum – which is just what he wants
That’s called the Bruce Banner effect. No matter how big a character gets he/she will always have their naughty bits covered. If it weren’t for that Dave would have to use some creatively placed word balloons and the fight would get super awkward!
…But it *would* result in having a more visible target for the ladies to attack…
And be FREAKING HILARIOUS!
does pain = violence becouse if you strike any man in the gonads hard enougth he’ll go down. of course it may just make him angry
I’ve said it before and I’ll say it again. Sydney needs to order takeout. Not even Vehemence can not stand before the raw power of THE UNMAKER!)
She needs the spicy food. They can have a spice off. See which one falters first
DaveB, MAKE. THIS. HAPPEN!!!!
If not, I’ll make it happen. >=d
But they would need a team in hazmat suits and an armored, airtight truck just to deliver it…
Or I could deliver it. I eat food just as spicy as Sydney :)
Just before Sydney was hit with the atomic-powered noodle slap to the eye, she was asking if they had pure cap…AS A GARNISH!
Do YOU ask for pure cap? If not, then you’re probably not in Sydney’s league.
I suspect they’re going to intentionally feed him until he’s too buff to move.
Hevonly actually seems to grow larger when he wants to. Probably won’t work.
I saw something similar to this in Gyno-Star: https://www.gynostar.com/archives/comic/a-lot-of-look
I’d like to think that this demon is going to explode but I’m not counting on it.
“No. I will not be done in by amateur-hour horseshit like taking in too much power and exploding. I am Sarda. My will be done.”
Also similar to one of the rules that Evil Overlords (https://www.eviloverlord.com/lists/overlord.html) should learn:
22. No matter how tempted I am with the prospect of unlimited power, I will not consume any energy field bigger than my head.
Okay, I get that he’s still got pants because of comic book clothes, sure. But a buckled belt? That’s pushing it man.
Whatever it’s made of, Dabbler should’ve used THAT for her ribbons instead. :p
Mr. Huge? Is that you?
Cue the opportunity for dabbler to say something about how she appreciates men who can get all the way large without any performance issues.
Nice Johnny Bravo physique.
That’s how you beat him. Power him up to the point where his torso becomes so huge, he falls over.
That’ll teach him to keep skipping Leg Day…
Drag him up to a nice high altitude and let oxygen deprivation do the work?
o.o
don’t need altitude – Sydney has a nice airtight shield which should work
Oh, Captain Obvious, where are you?
I’m taking a break and just sit here watching DR. REVENGE hand out signs, Pynchon A. Loaff having a few drinks and bleh blowing things up.
*drink* but points for a variation on Sydney can obviously control where the shield goes even though she can’t.
Another one falls…..and for those who could not be here today.
Here good sir…is your sign.
…Aaaaand you have just effectively wrote up the “order form” for one of Dr. Revenge’s signs, which he’ll fill that order to deliver next time he shows up.
I salute your dedication.
You are here by authorized to pass out the signs MD.
*KA-BLAM!*
True. I get the impression though that the shield is not project-able. It has to be around herself. Putting her in a bubble with him might not turn out so good. Oh! They could stick that chick in there that’s making their info-team ‘invisible’. Make sydney invisible inside the shield with hulk-wannabe and just hope she can stay out of his way?
Plus…she’d run out of oxygen too…
For final form he clearly needs a classy tophat and a cane :)
This is getting quite interesting keep it up!
Dave finishes the fight with a classic song and dance routine of “Putting On The Ritz”. Then goes into hiding in South America.
Super-Duper!
I believe this is the part where the hurting happens.
Honestly, though, if all he wants is a steady diet of violence and mayhem, I’m surprised he didn’t think of trying to join Arc-SWAT. That way, he could anonymously pick fights with every super-bozo around and get health coverage.
No one ever accused a super villain of making intelligent decisions.
Too true.
I had so wanted this to happen earlier.
He can’t have much training with moving while he is that big,when he needs this huge amounts of violence to hulk out.He probable would fight better unhulked.
Why fight at all? He’s already proven he’s stronger than all of them. Unless he just wants to test the limits of his destruction then there’s really no need to push himself.
Why hulk out,if you don’t want to do something with it
That would be like creating the atom bomb and not using it on Japan! Utterly Ludicrous!
Okay, he’s doubled in size, which means his respiratory requirements have octupled (square-cube law) but his lung-capacity has only quadrupled. No matter how super-strong he might be, he’s still only getting half the air he needs. If they can force him to grow again, he’ll suffocate even faster. Kill him with science. 8^)
He doesn’t need air. He’s being fueled by violence.
We are assuming all the various systems have in creased in size. What if it is only his muscular frame which has increased? His various joints would separate, his increased muscle mass and density would hold his frame together, his inreased joint strength would prevent his muscles from tearing his bones away from on another, Also, we’ve established he powers up through violence, at some point the vehemic energy would take over oxygen in powering his muscles, so it’s likely that his various bio needs have actually decreased. This also explains why hes hasn’t been rendered paraplegic by the sudden increase in spine length
If his cells need oxygen at this stage,they could run on violence energy
Super powers are unpredictable. For all that we know he could now be able to survive without any O2. It’s not likely but possible.
Much more likely is that his physiology has adapted his oxygen uptake to compensate for his increased requirements.
The way his torso swelled, his lungs have the space to expand to pick up the slack. If he’s also sprouted the blood vessels to feed those muscles of his, I don’t see why his lungs couldn’t sprout the extra fine structure to take advantage of the full volume boost.
On the other hand, if he hasn’t sprouted the extra blood vessels…
Science and superpowers usually don’t mix all that well.
I think that in this case the square/cube law is the school nerd and his power to feed on violence is the school bully. It knocked the law about for a bit before hanging it by its underwear on the school flagpole.
Or even worse…
https://i.imgur.com/ca52yA8.jpg
***Possibly NSFW, but definitely Cringeworthy***
*shudders*
I think every man who saw that felt just a teensy bit of pain to say the least.
Duuuuuuude…….that….. was awful.
Of course I save the pic.
;)
Dear Mr. MidnightDStroyer, at this time I must say I have the utmost respect for you.
But this post is just WRONG!!
Even the evilest of squirrels doesn’t deserve this!
Is that a suggestion of what should happen to the mastermind of this confusion?
No, I was just going that one (two, or maybe 100) step further than Cybertramon described for that schoolyard bully (V’s power with violence) hanging up the school nerd’s (square/cube law) shorts on the flagpole. The way V’s powered up, I think he’d be perfectly capable of…er, upping the ante…from this point.
Maybe he could just breathe faster? Maintaining a high oxygen concentration at all times would help… Although judging by the size of his chest, his lungs may very well have dramatically increased in size. Clearly he’s not growing proportionally, so he could have grown a larger lung surface area as well.
Or, you know, maybe he’s respiring magically.
Why wouldn’t his lungs have also octupled in size along with the rest of his body? His lungs aren’t two-dimensional…
Two-dimensional lungs do have a label: Collapsed Lungs.
Yes but the Oxygen is absorbed through the surface area of the lung which means that it takes more time to make use of all the air in his lungs.
He’s loose again. Where’s batman when you need him. Then again even batgirl has beaten him.
We don’t need batman! We’ve got Grrl Power!
The author is free to include this in his comic as a title drop. I don’t care, I’m unlikely to ever use it. ;)
His teeth ARE back now, either continuity error or metamorphosis heals wounds (That’s a pretty common one though). But the eye’s still closed. I’m wondering if it’s gone or still sore from the .50 and he’s just blinking.
Although DaveB may have done a retcon after you posted this, his teeth are clearly missing in the last panel and his eye is either closed or missing.
Yeah I fixed that. I can’t believe I forgot it after this many pages.
Don’t sweat it, Dave…You’ve already been forgiven for forgetting (& fixing) the bruise on Sydney’s cheek so often that this doesn’t even count as a drop in the bucket.
:)
But we will require you to put a quarter in the continuity error jar.
Eh, I’d settle for Dave sawing a penny in half & dropping in a half-cent because I DID liken Dave’s omission to being “a drop in the bucket”…
I love Dabbler’s ears in the last panel.
So, if Max picks up Anvil, and beats V with Anvil, wouldn’t Anvil just absorb all that kinetic violence out of the guy?
Oh, and a bucket of tar (or something similar in consistancy and tackiness, like baby poo) on his head would at least blind and deafen V, possibly even suffocating him.
Plus, there are several gas or liquid chemicals that are readily absorbed through the skin/eyes/nasal passages that would slow this guy down, if not knock him right out.
No, whacking V with Anvil probably wouldn’t have her absorbing his stored energy. At best it would power up Anvil while doing nothing to V. But I can’t shake the feeling that he’d get at least a minimal boost from it.
If you can get him to actively hit Anvil things get a bit more interesting. A theory that has been proposed says that when V spends energy on causing violence to Anvil she will absorb the energy without V getting anything back. Effectively this would mean that she could act like a energy sink and it’s thought that might be why he tried to throw her clear in a previous strip.
Whack V with Death Toll. Sydney cAn do it
DT’s power cannot be used offensively. His power of Nemesis only *counters against* whatever attacks him.
He’s also unconscious & (by now) probably drugged to stay that way for quite a while.
Tactics time:
Option A, “Big guys need oxygen too”, People keep talking about Sydney trapping V with the shield (and ignoring that she’d have to be inside with him), but we’ve been missing that the lighthook could probably trap him as well. Same technology, probably equally indestructible. She probably wouldn’t want to trap him in the shield and use the lighthook for defense, since that’s untested. So, that leaves jamming the lighthook down his throat.
Option B, “Eh, what’s up, doc?”, use the comm ball to float in front of his face and make silly faces at him, thus distracting him and obstructing his vision until he calms down. Possibly couple it with other disorienting effects if any are available.
Option C, “Is it warm in here?”, go the straight up lethal route and have heatwave start melting body parts. I really doubt he can charge up before she can incinerate his skull, considering how fast she was able to melt through tank armor, and the fact that his transformations don’t actually affect his head, or at least affect it much less.
Option D, “Living Handcuffs”, Achilles gets V into a full body lock. Might be difficult, but as long as he wraps his arms around V’s in a way such that he can grab one hand with the other, it should be literally impossible to get out of.
That’s just what I can think of off the top of my head as ways to defeat him. I doubt any of them are how it’s actually going to go, but hey.
Only D seems entirely impossible. Achilles isn’t nearly strong enough to hold V now.
Mr Amorphous or Maxima might have been able to control him with a submission hold early on in the fight.
Options A and B are the only ones that viable right now. Heatwave is out of commission, as is her boyfriend, Amorphous, and Achilles is only really indestructible. He has only limited strength, and not nearly enough to actually imprison this guy.
Brooke is unconscious, sedated, and needs surgery. Choking him on the lighthook doesn’t sound right, and I wouldn’t doubt he could usethose pearly-whites to bite it off and eat it. (And gain its courage.) Achilles hasn’t got the power… and he knows about telesydney. He’d just walk through her. I’m curious to see what DaveB will do.
Option E, someone wakes up Opal and she drops Vehemence through a portal into the void of space… where he probably wouldn’t stay forever, but at least the team would have a chance to regroup before he finds a way back to Earth.
Option Omega: Keep pounding on him. Despite being fueled by violence, he is clearly not immune to it; or else his eye would still be perfect, he wouldn’t have lost any teeth and he wouldn’t have been afraid of Maxima almost crushing his gentleman bits a couple of strips back. No matter how powerful he gets, eventually he’ll take enough damage as to be taken down. Ideally this would be accomplished by somehow turning his raw power back on him.
Option A: Even *before* his current level of power-up, he’s already shown that the Lighthook isn’t strong enough to hold him.
Option B: So, keep him distracted by constantly “badgering” him? (Panel 5 on https://www.grrlpowercomic.com/archives/494). Probably won’t work, because V is apparently smart enough to keep the fight going one way or another…Like threatening the city & civilians while daring them to stop him.
Option C: Heatwave is out of the fight, so anything that Heatwave *could* do, they’d have to find some *other* means of doing it.
Option D: Achilles is only *slightly* stronger than a normal human only because he knows he can’t injure himself with straining. V is far, far stronger than any kind of grip Achilles can achieve & would tear Achilles off as easily as you’d pick a strand of cooked spaghetti off your arm. He can’t *hurt* Achilles, but he can’t be held by Achilles either.
I get that Achilles doesn’t have super strength (beyond what a normal person could do by pushing themselves past their safe limits), but if he’s indestructible, then his grip should be much more difficult to break than his strength would normally allow for. I guess it depends on how his indestructibility works, but I would figure it would be nearly impossible to force his joints to bend if he doesn’t want to. Presumably his joints can’t be pulled out of their sockets or his muscles torn, and thus… how would V get him to let go? Regardless of how much force V applies, if the grip can’t be broken without injuring the person performing it, then it should be unbreakable when Achilles is doing it.
Honestly, it’s kinda like saying because he is indestructible, he should be able to stop a moving vehicle coming towards him simply by bracing himself and push back. He may remain in one piece, but said vehicle will still run him over. V doesn’t need to break his joints in this instance, he just needs to pull the hands apart. After all, the part that isn’t invulnerable is the space between Achilles’ palms, and fingers still bend.
Option Infinity: Lick him to death.
Option Meat puppet nought said.
You could combine options A and D. Get Achilles, coat his hand with Super Glue, shove down V’s throat. It’ll end up being lethal, either though the choke or the torn up larynx.
He bursts through material that can tow an asteroid but not those pants? WTF are they made out of?
Same stuff as Bruce Banner’s pants, I suppose.
Required Secondary Power: Creates illusionary trousers and belt. WARNING: Do not use Comm-Ball.
Well, guess it could be worse. could have gone full blown energy being.
Soooo Dave. … When’s Halo going to get her orb in her hand last panel? Or is my refreshing it not working for some reason.
6 orbs floating + 1 shield orb in the off-panel hand
I meant the last page.
Which does appear to be fixed now. It wasn’t half an hour ago.
It was actually fixed yesterday.
It was fixed yesterday, actually not long before today’s update.
YOU ARE HUGE! THAT MEANS YOU HAVE HUGE GUTS! RIP AND TEAR!
…
Yeah, not sorry.
Max: “Peggy? Do you have a bead yet?”
Peg: “Yup. They are in my scope. He just made them a much easier target.”
Max: “Then do it.”
*Gunshot rings out* Vehemence doubles over, clutching at his crotch.
Sydney: “Max! Nut shot? Not cool!”
Best strategy yet. ;p
When results matter, Effectiveness > Coolness
I think he has the Bane weakness: Too much violence! Keep pounding him, beating him up and he’ll get bigger and bigger unable to stop and soon he’ll “pop” and be easy to take care of.
For some reason I was really hoping he could use the energy to heal himself. Eye and teeth popping back into place and declaring round two seemed like fun.. but going full Hulk is good, too!
I haven’t seen it mentioned, but aren’t we missing some blue blood on Maxima’s face?
She could have wiped it off off-panel.
She had partly wiped it off in the last comic. Probably just finished as V was talking.
I hope he has a strong foundation or he’ll throw a punch and topple over.
Why is everybody suggesting plans that would only work on an idiot? Vehemence is clearly intelligent, educated, and in-the-know. He personally knew more supers that Arc thought existed. He recognized Dabbler as a succubus (Which is interesting because she’s a non-standard cross-breed.) He’s been name-dropping extra-dimensional magic stuff.
He’s been around guys. Tear gas or bewbs will not solve this problem.
My best guess? Even if he wins he’s not going to kill anyone, deliberately. He’s either going to skip out to return another day for a heaping helping of violence, or apply for a job. He might lose too, although the team is not rich in non-violent solutions to a Hulk class problem.
Or the magic users under the SEP field cast an overpowered “tranquility” spell, and we see him depowered and surrounded by fluffy bunnies.
I require illusory carrots.
Only real carrots for you.
Ok. Run underneath him, squeaking like a mouse and see if he jumps on a chair. Bet that one aint in next 13 panels, Dave.
Don’t post your bet with Waldo’s bookie…He’s already lost his bets on how many pages & panels this fight would last.
Get an ID on the guy, find some family and bring them in to talk him down. A wife or GF if possible…
If he is part deamon then that could add to the problem…
On that note has anyone checked to see if he isn’t a deamon with an illusion spell like Dabblers?
Hulk pants.
Sydney suffocating V in forcefield. Creator says shield has to be centred around Sydney.
V in space. Not an option right now.
FWTDT attacking V. FWTDT cannot attack as his power is strictly reactive.
These appear to be the main threads on the go right now.
The other one that has some credence is getting V to punch Anvil. Non-violent due to the lack of violent effect on Anvil as she just absorbs the kinetic energy as power. So she may be V’s FWTDT. Word of god is not yet out on this theory.
Another idea: Shoot out his other eye with dabblers Railgun.
At least he will become totally blind, making him hardly able to focus his attacks anywhere. He won’t be defeated, but at least he is at a distinct disadvantage then.
At best it might just go to the area behind the eye, ending this combat. It would be a bit dark, but then again he made it clear he is a deadly threath to them
On the other hand, it could be he is not interested in taking them down. As he said, he needs a source of violence. And super battles are his “Vehemic Christmas”.
It was shown that he was still succeptible to peggies gun before max started waling on him, so at least normals could kill him. When in doubt they could always send a squad without powers after him. They know that “disabling him hard before he can power up” is a viable strategy against him now. As are several non-violent takedowns.
Hmm
Unless he’s increased in durability more than a hundredfold since Peggy’s shot, anti-tank weapons will still do him in (people often don’t realize how high power our weapons get, cruise missiles have the power of a hundred thousand sniper rifles and nukes are way way way way way way off the charts).
Nukes also tend to wipe any city they’re used in off the charts, which is often said to be a bad thing even when there’s a war going and part of the reasons why nukes aren’t more often used…
Of course, Vehemence just tossed Anvil aside last time, and it looks like he may have a better throwing arm now, so I really don’t think it will be that simple.
Surprised there are no sweat drops.
At this point, he’s powered up enough that he considers this fight to be “no sweat”…
I meant the kind of sweat drops that say “Oh crap.” It’s a trope. Like when Hex was firing at Maxima and having no effect.
Wow Dave,
I just realized that Vehemence is a metaphor for internet Trolls… was that on purpose?
Yeah, yeah. And the squirrel was met-a-furry.
I don’t think V is a perfect analogy for internet trolls. For one thing, if ignored long enough, an internet troll will get bored & go away…Vehemence will just keep feeding directly off his own trolling & get more power.
Y’know, with his intelligence, knowledge and speech patterns (“Miss Scoville” etc.) one would think that V’s day job is a teacher, principal or headmaster at some upper class, finishing or prep school. This would also explain his ingrained concern for Halo’s safety. Also, being surrounded by rich, spoiled, jaded elitists could go a long way in explaining his “vehement’ origins.
I don’t think so…The basis of V’s power requires that he shows enough restraint to avoid *incapacitating* those who feed him violence. If he kills or even knocks people out, he’s effectively biting off the hands that feed him. He’s definitely got reason enough for arrogance in that he doesn’t see how they can stop him from doing any damn thing he wants to do…His arrogance just comes out in a faux-display of politeness or he that has no problem enjoying some minor amusement about ARCSwat’s predicament.
He IS intelligent enough to have either researched how to obtain his power or research how his power works after having gotten it accidentally in some way. He’s intelligent enough to know the benefits of LEARNING & inquisitive enough to seek the answers he’s looking for.
He’s also intelligent enough to know how to plan ahead by the way he set up this fight scenario. I’d say that this fight with ARCSwat is only *one step* towards some other “higher” goal. what that goal might be hasn’t been revealed yet, so we can only guess for now.
He’s got contacts & can manipulate people into doing what HE wants done. He can make arrangements like this on short notice, since he knew nothing of ARCSwat before the media broadcast just a mere few hours before now.
He’s NOT your typical “brute,” by any definition of the stereotype (& that’s why everyone seems so highly intrigued by him). If he works in some kind of “criminal underground” organization, he’s doubtlessly in a high position, if not outright *leading* it. Vehemence is very-well established as a “go to” kind of guy that gets things done.
With everything he’s shown so far, I doubt very seriously that Vehemence holds any effective “lawful occupation” to earn his source of living that would pay off any better than a criminal lifestyle would.
Is it just me or am I having a flashback to Dark Wing Duck where he went to a planet of superhumans because they needed a normal. Only to be thrown into a superhuman formula drink-off until he and his opponent stood toe to toe on top of a tiny ball of rock
I meant to say “or are others having a”
Now for the big finale. It just requires two simple things.
1) Max needs to stand there in one place for several minutes gathering up a big ball of life force from all the beings in the galaxy while V does not notice AND does not disrupt this by attacking her.
2) She lobs this huge glowing ball of energy slowly towards him while he thinks “There is no way this thing could possibly be dangerous.” and “I should just stand here and let it hit me instead of easily stepping out of the way.”
Yeah, I didn’t buy it the first time either.
Considering a lot of the DragonBall battles consisted of the villains receiving hits like that a hell of a lot of times before finally there’s this one time, it kind of makes sense.
Even skinny Buu took an engulfing explosive hit from one character, then smirked and beat the crap out of him.
Hey Dave, what’s the ultimate tensile strength of Dabbler’s ribbon?
You know, the fundamental problem with someone constantly increasing their strength exponentially is that at a certain point their muscles will literally crush all of their own bones. Yes I know that the bones will get stronger with their muscles, but the muscles will eventually exceed the bones’ limits. I mean, “Oops, I flexed my back and crushed my spine into paste. Guess I’m paralyzed now.” Not to mention tearing the tendons and bones in the arms and legs, likely tearing things like the femoral artery and giving themselves a hernia while their at it.
Speaking of his arteries, his over powered, and likely to explode heart, will be circulating blood with so much force that he’s likely rupturing veins and arteries all over his body, including inside his brain.
Ah, the fridge brigade logic. always entertaining
I not familiar with fridge brigade logic. I’m just saying that any super power can be turned back against itself with some self destructive results.
Once when playing a game of D&D, one of my friends created his own super defensive spell that was impregnable to anything. Which the DM felt included air and the ability to be taken down.
There is ‘Fridge Logic’ where after the TV show you think of a major plot hole that was skipped over and derails the the plot line. https://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Main/FridgeLogic
Yours is more akin to ‘Fridge Horror’ where you think of something that would lead to something very bad, but is glossed over in the story. One example is a very early Batman comic where he is in an abandoned tunnel and after a fight locks the wounded villain in maintenance room and walks away. The end. You think, ‘If he never tells anyone about this, the guy will slowly die of thirst in that room’.
There’s also the “comic book standard” primary power will also require secondary powers in order to support the primary power. Such as the Flash in DC comics…He has an aura that protects him from the effects of friction & the biological processes that allow his eyes to process visual input is also greatly increased (Speed-geared Eyesight). without these secondary powers, Flash’s primary pwoer would be useless or even dangerous to use.
Consider Vehemence’s power to absorb the energy generated by violence: As he absorbs energy, his strength increases certainly, but also his very cellular structure would also have to gain endurance & resiliency just so it can *hold* that energy & prevent self-injury from his increased strength.
Apparently, when he reaches a certain threshold, he can use it to increase his size (Growth power, like Giant Man in Marvel comics). The Growth power alone requires several secondary powers just to support his Growth: For one thing, just growing is going to require either a source of extra mass or the ability to increase the spaces within his atoms & molecules. In the first case (increased mass), it’s usually determined that his power includes a specifically-tailored kind of extra-dimensional link to get that mass from (Only God & the writers can say HOW that happens). Increased growth & mass generates several other problems, such as the effects of gravity! Either the power can diminish the effect of gravity in proportion to the increase of size & mass, OR physical strength & resilience (of his bones, muscles, tendons, heart efficiency, etc.) increases in proportion to *compensate* for the greater effects of gravity, so that he just doesn’t *feel* any difference & can still act normally. In the case of increasing the spaces between his atoms/molecules, he doesn’t gain any weight or mass, but his physical structure begins to disperse & he gets closer to intangibility, like Vision in Marvel comics.
TL-DR; It can normally be assumed that for the problems that a Primary Power can cause, the person has Secondary Powers that supplement & compensate for those problems.
And yet the Evil Overlord list felt the need to include the warning about never absorbing a power source larger than one’s head.
Up until now, Vehemence never got any more that LA Riot levels of power. He’s only now getting to that proverbial point where he can *begin* to judge how much power he can absorb…In other words, V is still in the “trial & error” stage on his limitations.
So far, he *hasn’t* actually bitten off more than he can chew.
I was really hoping he wanted the power for something else and now that he used them to get all this power he would just exit dramatically after saying “this”.
i have a feeling the answer is simpler than all of these. Think of his center of gravity. Now think of how much all of this new mass ‘upper body only according to Dave’ is. Now how hilarious it could be ro watch him try to manuver around, especially with Syd tripping him up randomly. What is the opposite of violence, which is his trigger? It might just be jocularity…;)
The opposite of violence is apathy. Violence occurs when something *happens*. Apathy is when everything becomes passive. Apathy may not “discharge” whatever power V has gained so far, but it *will* make him less likely to *do* anything with that power.
“And NOW, my second power, which is behemoth. The ability to become a super-sized dolt!” Dun, dun, dunnnnnn! Ok, how much longer until this “Goku battle” ends? Not that I’m not enjoying it, it’s just… just… seriously, how much longer?
I made a similar comment back when Vehemence first revealed the source of his power.
And the longer this goes the more I fear that this is going to end with a degree of Divine intervention.
Well if you have a gang of superheroes do you want a sewing circle or Secret Wars?
Reminds me of Bane. What would happen if someone were able to distort his tats?
That question will remain unanswered until someone manages to actually alter his tattoos. The quickest & most efficient way to do that would be to *mutiliate* the flesh under the tattoos. As powered up as he is though, good luck.
Whatever you need to do to affect the tats it seems that it takes quite a bit to do it. Dabbler managed to cut his arm several times. Some of these cuts seems to go right over the tattoos on his left arm, but that doesn’t seem to have had any effect so far.
So they’ll just have to mutilate *more* flesh…
You know, lather, rinse & repeat until satisfied with the results.
That assumes they are tattoos not implanted material that may reach much deeper. Or painted on via a magic spell and unremovable without a counterspell. In any case they are handling being distorted by his muscle growth and now size increase.
Some have pointed out a similarity between V’s stripes and Dabbler’s. So they could be naturally formed by his being a part-demon. If so their presence and effects have nothing to do with his power except to indicate it is active.
There’s nothing in the comic or Dave’s comments that imply that V is part-demon, like Dabbler is. For one thing it was never stated that he’s had the tatts & the power during his whole life from birth.
He’s obviously done some studying in the subjects of magic & the supernatural, so it’s knowledge he picked up either before he got the power, or afterwards so he could learn more about the power itself.
He *may* have been infused with the power (& the tattoos) by a demon (for all we know, he got them by ritual worship or summoning of a demon). Or he may have sought out some kind of mage who might have been willing to infuse the power into him. I wouldn’t think he “cast” the magic himself, because he would’ve been most likely to have used some kind of spell-magic in battle before now if he actually could.
Vehemence may even have found (either accidentally or with deliberate research & actual searching) some kind of Ancient Artifact that infused the power to him, like in Marvel comics’ Marko Caine (Prof. Xavier’s step brother) that got turned into Juggernaut because of the Crimson Ruby of Cytorakk.
Maybe Vehemence IS a demon that royally screwed up something in the Nether Regions & is being punished by being banished to Earth in human form, until he can earn his way back “home.” Perhaps part of the “curse of transforming” makes it undetectable, so neither Sydney’s Comm Orb, Dabbler or Gwen’s mystical “scrying” can detect it. Maybe he has to cause so much strife & suffering on Earth before he counters the curse & ends his sentence of punishment. He IS excited (well, he said it anyway) about fighting a group that could provide him with so much energy is so short of time & he did manage to gather a whole LOT of super-villain types on pretty short notice. Maybe, as a naturally-manipulative demon, he was a bit less subtle than he normally preferred BECAUSE he’s anxious to go “ome” & rushed the arrangements on this fight.
No matter how you look at it, any of this (or other circumstances I haven’t thought of) could be true…We just won’t KNOW until Dave reveals his fiendish plot (for the story).