Grrl Power #268 – Vehemence revealed
You can see why I wanted this page and the previous one to be double. There were… a number of comments on the last page about how V has magic pants or whatever. You can see that is clearly not the case. Even though most comics don’t have that comics code authority seal on them anymore, certain items of clothing are still for the most part curiously immune to battle damage. If that was the case in this comic, I might be tempted to have Sydney suggest making a suit of panties for use as armor. All that being said, Wolverine does tend to get all his clothes blown off at least once every dozen issues or so. I guess the writers like to remind us how hairy he is every so often.
Male nudity is almost always played for comedy cause guys are gross or just funny looking without clothes, and even when it’s a sexy guy who gets caught with his pants down in front of a woman, her reaction is usually comedic. Women are so sexualized in media that it’s more challenging to play female nudity for comedy, but I’m sure I’ll find a way at some point.
Those of you who recognize the “KA-Sound Effect” gag know it from The Wotch, which is one of the webcomics that made me think I should do my own. It has some pretty rough art in the beginning but good expressions, characters, humor and writing. It’s a curious comic, filled with stuff that I, being a well traveled denizen of the internet, associate with a lot of impossible sexual fetishes, like magical gender swapping, petrification, people being transformed into monsters and other stuff, but the comic itself never gets into anything sexual at all. If I had to describe it in one sentence, I’d say it’s like Buffy the Vampire Slayer meets El Goonish Shive. EGS by the way is the comic that inspired the Who’s Who widget on my own comic. Characters in EGS tend to change gender and hairstyles, sometimes even species at the drop of a hat and while it’s one of my favorite comics, I will admit to being kind of lost as to who was who more than a few times while reading it.
Drawing Bulk Vehemence is proving to be a bit of a challenge, and he looks a little weird in a few of these shots. I will attribute that to his size being a little uneven while growing and endeavor to sort it out quickly in upcoming pages.
Vehemence isn’t still growing by the way, this is just the last thing that happened right as he stopped. Also, his power set isn’t Vehemic absorption… and making pants, but he said it already, he has a lot of power to burn at this point.
Edit: Whoops, I forgot V’s battle damage like a boss. Fixed now.
Here’s the link to the new comments highlighter for chrome which I can’t live without anymore, and the GitHub link which you can use to install on FireFox via Greasemonkey.
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I heard of magic pants before but not magical pants.
Magical pants made out of energy harvested from violence. Aren’t those pants gonna have some side effects? Besides looking really cool?
I’d imagine they have stat bonuses like +5 to attack or whatever. I mean, they are made of condensed violence.
Never heard of The Wotch before. On the other hand, No Need for Bushido uses “ka-sound effect” quite frequently.
NNFB mostly leaves out the”ka-” part, though.
What’s that, Sydney? Are we experiencing a bit of henticle-envy ..?
Brain Bleach Orb. Hmmmmm. Interesting possibilities there, and potential for abuse.
Still thinking the best non-violence option here is for Dabbler to charm & port away with The Big V to one of her secret research
bedroomslabs and drain him. I think she likes that idea. If she ropes Harem in with her succubus glamour at the same time, pretty sure they could reduce him to an exhausted, snoring puddle within a day or three.Why would she need to use a glamour on Harem?
Plausible deniability?
I wouldn’t be surprised if they tried to recruit him after all is said and done, I have never actually seen him as a really bad guy, just a guy who REALLY likes to brawl
I’d think that they’d keep him on some kind of “reserve” status & even then, only after he’s paid for all of the punishment under the Due Process of Law. At best, V could be with ARCSwat as trainer/sparring partner for most of the time, but out in the field, he’d be a “loose cannon” they couldn’t depend on for anything *less* than an “ultimate throwdown.” He’d be too busy trying to *escalate* the violence while ARCSwat’s job is to defuse it quickly.
^ this last point. A guy who REALLY likes to brawl has no place in law enforcement of any kind. But he would make a great (and always willing!) sparring partner, officially or not.
He might get converted kinda like Vegeta in DBZ, but first the ‘good’ guys need to whup him
In one word: Giggity In another this: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6nSKkwzwdW4
just gonna say, if his growth was proportional and it got to the point where his pants started ripping from the strain, there definitely would have been visual bulge. :P
Going by the rest of him, proportional is one thing his growth has NOT been.
Unfortunately, this mean that the moment they manage to KO him, the ongoing active effect will also shut off…
Not necessarily. Maybe if V cast a spell of illusion, it could…Or if there’s a limited time-duration the pants will still be there until the time runs out. If he used an actual conjuration spell, then the pants are permanent until either more damage destroys the material, even if he gets killed.
Pretty sure it was transmutation on his old pants and shoes.
I like how this was played for comedy and still made him out to be quite endowed. A lot of writers would’ve went the obvious gag route of saying how small he was.
Sydney’s blush is great and love how Dabbler is licking her lips. Can’t help but hear George Takai’s voice for the camera man.
“I like how this was played for comedy and still made him out to be quite endowed.”
I just had a thought: Dave mentioned that most of his growth was in his upper body…Maybe his legs didn’t grow in proportion to his upper body because the growth that was channeled to his lower body got limited to…just one specific area instead.
When I saw this, I thought of something from DBZ. Trunks was going up against Cell when Trunks powered up. His body got a lot stronger, but all the extra bulk slowed him down and hindered his movements.
V has not grown before and would be unfamiliar with his current form, so these 2 things would be factors which would hinder him.
Well, sure.
On the other hand, all Dragonball characters are trained fighters who utilize every aspect of their bodies, including speed.
V was never a danger due to his speed. Sure, he surprised Syd, but Max played pretty much pinball with him.
He is mostly dangerous because there is literally nothing… forceful they can do to stop him.
Try as i might, the only solutions i can think of right now are:
Boring him to death
Letting Dabbler seduce him
Recruit him
A character from the Marvel universe was treated much the same: Sebastian Shaw. For the uninitiated, his ability was basically Anvil’s, except he could absorb all energy, not just kinetic. When the X-Men faced him, knowing they can’t actually defeat him, they simply removed him from play. That’s my bet about what goes down. Sydney, being Sydney, figures this out, binds his arms, and takes off with him. Takes him to a mountain, something isolated, until he has no choice but to lose his energy.
This assumes he still has no ranged attacks available, and that Sydney’s tentacle is strong enough to hold him at this point.
Gas! Why do you people always forget the mundane solutions that are outside of the scope of video game mechanics and standard DnD powers… oh wait, I think I know why :P
He can just make pants? Fascinating. I’m still wondering what his motives are considering he straight up apologised for pantslessness and frequently shows some amount of respect to Sydney.
V has shown himself to be polite when it suits him. And I bet tearing out of his britches embarrassed him as much as it did the team. There’s only one exhibitionist in that fight and Dabbler hasn’t needed to try a “nailer” attack yet. (see Modesty Blaze novels or comics)
Well, now we know that his motives don’t include malicious exhibitionism. Glad we got this out of the way!
Ka-Pants? You borrowing sound effects from Dan over at Rip Haywire? Not that I mind at all, especially since this page was all about ripping anyway. (shoes, pants, muscles…)
Hmm, never heard of that one before but it’s been brought up a few times in the comments today.
There’s also “Ker-Everything” at Raven’s Dojo. I had to do a double-take to realize it was “Ka-Pants” rather than “Ker-Pants.” Halfway through Dave’s commentary I was still wondering why he wasn’t giving a nod toward https://ravensdojo.com/ as the obvious source. I figured he was citing comics that had been using it even longer and maybe inspired Raven’s Dojo (which may well be the case) before I finally clicked on the slight spelling variation.
It would be kind’a cool (just sayin’ ;-) ) if one good ker-SLAM! or such could be worked in as a shoutout to Raven’s. Especially in a knockdown brawl of this sort of epicness. Raven’s has been doing gawdzownwerk there for years upon years.
I bet if I wanted to read through thousands and thousands of comments, I could find at least one that speculates energy leech is one of the mystery orb powers.
Yes. But the counter-argument is based on Dave’s writing style and skill. Unveiling an orb as the way to stop Vehemence is poor writing. The orbs are a big deal and the reveal of the other two’s powers should come with a big build up. Right now, despite all the ideas flying around, only Dave knows how to stop V. Although there were a couple possible hints Sydney may have a clue at least. Of course there may be room to do a build up on the mystery orbs as V starts using his new, to us, powers
I’m still firmly holding on to the belief that they Vehemence will NOT be defeated here, and instead will stick around as a red line through the story
Except that V has made it very clear that his intention is to FIGHT – not just flex his muscles, do some monologue, and then stroll off into the sunset/sunrise laughing maniacally (assuming ARCHON would let him do that, which I doubt).
Whilst I have no doubt that he will return in some form or another, remember that this is all one HUGE flashback from Sydney’s POV (“How I Became A Superhero”). Months later, ARCHON is very much a going concern, at least some of her teammates are still around, and heroes in general (and Sydney in particular) are held in high regard.
He may win the upcoming round 2 and escape, but I don’t think so.
weeeeeeeellll! i said that literaly yesterday
the energy drain thing that is leaving an openig for dabler to say somthing about sydney having sucked him dry
I have already decided that one of the orbs is matter creation. Sydney will be unable to use it to create anything but Tacos for some time while she figures it out. Hijinks will ensue.
If she figures out how to create the cap to spice her food with, may God have mercy on us all…
That would be textbook Deus ex Machina. No thank you.
It won’t be only if they get pushed into the corner and there is literally no other hope and there’s buildup around Sydney’s orbs as the last chance they have. But that would be bad writing in another way – there are so many possible ways to stop Vehemence, their problem right now is that they were caught with their pants down and especially did not expect to face someone like him. He would not be worth this degree of dramatic tension.
Two things that will work against him are sonic damage (yup still nerding on bout that) and dabblers succubus abilities cause he’s still a guy and she looked interested
GAS. TEAR GAS.
Unfortunately he has already demonstrated super-human resistance to pain and damage. Tear gas likely wouldn’t faze him any more than being hit with a freeway overpass support column did. You’d have to get out something much more damaging… and there’s no telling what would happen to him when he changes back and loses that resilience if he has something like mustard gas still in his lungs.
If he was coughing from dust inhalation, then tear gas would do a number on him. Tear gas doesn’t ‘hurt’ per se, but it’s not a pleasant experience either…
Even then, if he sees gas canisters coming in, he could just hold his breath & jump out of the gas cloud. BUT if the gas is mixed with DMSO, just being IN the cloud for any period of time will dose him.
Having been exposed to military grade CS gas, I can tell you from experience that holding your breath only delays the inevitable. And not for very long. That crap crawls up your nose and dropkicks its way down your esophagus into your lungs while bitchslapping your mucus membranes along the way. Any part of your body exposed to air that is moist or sweaty starts to burn, which only gets worse with time. Not to mention what it does to the eyes. Nasty shit.
Military grade CS gas will also cure the common cold.
Good times……
Try being drenched in it! Didn’t happen to me, but there was an officer who had a brain fart and thought it was a good idea to open a CS canister with an axe. I don’t think he’s done that again…
True enough, but by now V has what could be termed as “superhuman” levels of endurance, resiliency & resistance. It’ll have *some* effect certainly, but probably not enough to stop him without something like DMSO to further intensify the dose he gets.
Guy can make a pair of pants out of PUNCH TO THE FACE.
That is impressive power
+1
Makes me wonder what he could make out of a “boot to the head?”
Depends on whose boot and whose head, I’m thinking,
It was Maxi’s boot and his head.
But which head?
We’ve already seen that Max’s boot got him in the head that has *eyebrows*
I considered mentioning just the eyes, but only one of those is still evident…which only makes the resemblance between the two closer.
I considered mentioning the head that has hair, but from what little we’ve seen that still resembles both of them…Except that the only hair he seems to have on either of them is his eyebrows.
even with accelerated growth and increase of power, healing is not affected by the amount of vehemic energy, interestingly enough if this proves true(and seems to be by the looks of his eye) an overload attempt would work, as long as you make sure to damage key areas, like his good eye, and the knees, (only completely invulnerable types can take knee hits) and with his size knee hits would really mess with him
Wondering if the inverse square law will get a look in at some point. He is a LOT bigger now, and simply increasing the size of knees and other support areas in proportion wouldn’t cut it.
Human beings have a psychological link between violence and sex. People who really enjoy violence tend to respond to it in a sexual manner. So while pondering what exactly Sydney needs brain bleach to deal with, consider that Vehemence -really- enjoys violence. He is probably at full mast.
which in turn means dabler is too
It might be intriguing if one of the unknown orbs would allow her to control the others in different ways, like ‘sending’ the shield to surround someone, like an impenetrable hamsterball…
Just kidding Dave.
Anybody actually figure out what those little emoticon looking yellow things are on his underwear? Just curious.
Evil grin probably. But not enough is seen to be sure. They could just be his lucky rocket underpants.
I think that we are about to find out what one of her unknown orbs does
You hope!
Perhaps they can get him to show off and ‘drain his batteries’?
…or use up all that power making clothes?
This suit is made out of the finest HRRRNNNNGGGG!
Apparently he was raised with manners. . . teleport his momma there, she will set him straight.
I LIKE bulk Vehemence, thank you kindly. This page is perfect for what it is trying to show, the sudden and gruesome looking expansion of a body to a terrible muscle bound massive size. Very Hulk-ish. If anything, I would prefer him to keep the misshapen look of the last couple of panels.
I was thinking that if his family name was something like Maas, he’d be living up to it quite aptly; He’s certainly got enough of it right now…At least as well as Sydney lives up to her family name of Scoville.
ok so i know this is unintentional but it made me laugh even more Dave your random pics of the charicters at the top of the page had sydny drooling and looking down and it was somewhat in line with the frame just be form the magical mending pants
Anvil and Dabbler need to have a new picture added to their rotation at the top.
Pretty sure Dabbler just got a small power spike from the reactions to the ‘Reveal’
reminds me of the amazing crotch shot of Hank Pym aka The Giant aka Ant Man from The Ultimates (aka The Avengers from the Ultimate Marvel series):
https://1.bp.blogspot.com/-UYgEll0kDlE/TdsD0UW7aXI/AAAAAAAAHYU/xFyQMeolBBw/s1600/Ant+Man+2.jpg
That’s what happens if you leave your tent-sized trousers at home.
Heh! That reminds me of a ‘toon animation of Batman at the NSFW website.
https://nsfw-comix.com/nsfw410.htm
I’m not entirely sure if this particular animation is NSFW, but the rest of the website certainly is, so go there at your own peril.
is it wrong that I read the second oh my in George Takei voice?
I ain’t even mad.
Lets see him summon some nipples and a navel.
I still think the big reveal is his entire body is a magical construct and there’s a person controlling/piloting him. Like a Billy Batson/Capn Marvel variant transformation or something like Concretia, but with magic and a meat-body (he does bleed)
Also why hasn’t Peggy shot out his other eye? He’s been standing still for quite a bit. he’d be much less effective blind.
Hey, If Harem can act six times in differents ways at same time, Dave can make a special six panel with each reaction of Harem
There are only 5 Harems
It would have been great if the squirrel had pounced on him while he was pantless. It wouldn’t be violence per se just a hungry animal going after nuts. :D I’m thinking the ensuing embarrassment, comic display and terror of a small mordacious mammal going after the family jewels should have helped bleed off some of his power.
And the squirrel did so…..just as the new magic pants covered him up….trapping said squirrel…..
That would be almost as good as the Trouser Ferret mentioned in earlier pages…
Does he remind anyone else of Hanover Fiste?
https://youtu.be/tHgMsvpFm08?t=3m
Okay, V just made me giggle, not once, but TWICE. He’s actually a modest super villain! Most would have taken advantage. >.> Course, that could lead to awkwardness later. But still…BWAHAHAHAHAH!!! And poor Sydney’s reaction! Heeheehee! Still giggling!
Also…Where the hell is the George Takei Cameo when we need it?!? George! We need you! *^.^*
Shawn handled that very nicely, I think.
am I the only one that read Shawns comment in George Takei’s voice? I haven’t read all the comments so i dont know.
That was Dave’s intent and I think everybody either heard Takei’s voice or do not know how he sounds.
For someone so genre savvy you’d think Halo wouldn’t have Tempted Fate by openly mentioning his pants like that.
HAH!!! Excellent point but then she declared herself invincible right before demanding a rematch with Math, even though she normally knows that means a guaranteed defeat. My guess she gets temporarily forgets when she gets cocky and this time it got her an eyeful.
As Piccolo in DBZ Abridged said, “CLOTHES BEAM!”
I am sorry but is anyone else seeing Vehemence as the most polite and cordial “Berserker” Brawler ever? I mean this is a guy who LOVES to inflict violence and pain for no other reason than to have it and he is all “Yes Miss Scoville.” “Oh dear please excuse me!” “Oh let me try and clarify my statement I do apologize about the obscure term.” I mean its so odd. Not bad odd. More funny odd.
‘ You are bad guy, but this does not mean you are *bad* guy.’
HAHAHAHA. Ok you got me there. That is a nice reference.
So far as I’ve seen he doesn’t love inflicting pain so much as he just loves a great fight and will do many things to keep it going,
So far as I can tell no one else has asked this so… does this mean Shawn is gay or just as geeky as Sydney?
Considering that Shawn is ex-Navy SEAL, I doubt it…But Dave felt the need to channel a bit of George Takei there.
What does ex-navy seal have to do with sexual preference?
If anything it might make it a bit more flexible but only a bit.
There are plenty of gay guys in the army and navy (SEALs included) you know :/
Probably more now than just a few years ago. That is, there were fewer before Congress & Obama nullified the “don’t ask, don’t tell policy” & allowed for open homosexuals to join. I’ve also seen some reports indicating of a huge increase in cases of sexual assault occurring since then.
I would think that the increase in the number of cases of sexual assault is due to an increase in the number of people willing to report. Prior to the repeal of DADT a male that had been raped would have feared reporting it because there was a chance he would be discharged for being “gay”. I assume you aren’t implying that openly gay men are more likely to sexually assault people than closeted gay men?
If you want a good model for the bulked up Vehemence, what about Marvels Strong Guy, his musculature has been warped to grotesque proportions