Grrl Power #269 – Made you flinch
When Maxima says Vehemence is beyond conventional attack, the asterisk is “with the equipment we can bring to bear against him right now.” Obviously they haven’t tried a bunker buster against him or even an 80mm tank cannon, but then they didn’t have the foresight to bring either of those with them to dinner. Besides, when the best you can say after shooting someone in the eye with a .50 is “Made you flinch” conventional tactics pretty much go out the window.
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Oooh, Max got the plan! Surprise twist, everyone forgets she’s actually good at this.
Whatever Max’s plan, it had better not involve going in nose-first…That’s worked soooo well so far.
:/
I suspect Maxima thinks she can still pummel him into submission.. -.-‘
So yeah, I’d put my money on Sydney who seems to have a plan for the last few pages.
Agreed.
She might be able to. He hasn’t faced her strongest level yet. If she goes all out on him, turning her strength way up, she might be able to rip him apart before the violence of it makes him strong enough to survive it.
I don’t. Max isn’t an idiot, despite what everyone here seems to think. She’s an experienced soldier with the qualifications to lead an entire elite military unit. She’s capable of planning beyond just “punch”, and certainly recognizes that they need a passive take-down of some sort.
Since she is holding up a fist, her master plan is obviously to engage him in a game of Rock Paper Scissors.
Well, if you count that concrete pillar Max used as “rock,” Vehemence countered that move by “papering” her nose for the second time…
Has Maxima genre-savveyed out his weakness?
If her plan involves attacking – No.
Unless attacking is used as a distraction while they setup the take down.
I’m not sure that a bunker buster or an 80mm tank cannon should be considered “conventional” when used to describe an attack on just one person.
Can you attack just one person with a 80mm?
And damn veh had an epic chin if a round bouncing from his Eye lands on it. I
Ofcourse you can. Actualy, an 80mm is quite piddly for a tank cannon. Most MBT´s i can think of are at 100mm+.
120mm is standard amongst NATO forces, pretty sure the Russians are using 125mm cannons on their current MBT’s.
No, no you can’t. And don’t forget about the part where you could miss and hit whatever there is behind.
that’s why you get Max to pick the tank up and fire it from above.
And why you get Peggy for aiming.
Well, Peggy DID exhibit a significant delay between the moment when V stopped moving around significantly & her second shot here. But then again, I can’t fault for her hesitation…It was only a few seconds ago she got a real eyeful through her scope.
Not the tank itself – just the barrel aka Bunker Buster.
Actually if you use an armor piercing fin stabilized discarding sabot round of depleted uranium it is just a big dart no explosives involved.
Doesn’t depleted uranium fragment when exposed to pressure and heat? Thought that was the point… hard as hell going into a tank’s armor but turns into shrapnel inside the tank to kill the crew.
Seems like that would be even worse than explosives. Especially when you factor in Gulf War Syndrome (which is associated with the use of DU rounds).
Thought it was they superheated and burned as much as penetrated
DU shears & self sharpens during armor penetration and in powdered form is highly combustible, providing an incendiary effect to along with armor penetration/spalling/super-heated metal (from the transfer of kinetic energy into the targets armor) etc.
Oh, and as a heavy metal, its highly toxic/carcinogenic to boot.
The most advanced anti tank shells that I know off, HEAT (high explosive anti tank) actually have a small amount of metal that melts and pushes in a small liquid stream through the armor (by directional explosive behind it)
But it isn’t actually the temprature that does it. That stream of liquid metal simply punches through the armor
Modern tanks aim with computers and advanced gyroscopes to keep the barrel stable even while driving 60km/h over rhough terrain. And Vehemence is the size of a tank right now.
As long as Vehemence isn’t TO fast, he’d be pritty easy to hit
And give him even more power? ANY violence is a power source for him and you are suggesting upping the ante.
They need to drain his energy, not see if they can overload him.
Where is Nono when you need her? https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GFppdq6vEPg
So is that a preview of Syd’s PPO when fully upgraded?
Max: Sydney.
Syd: Yes….Colonel?
Max: Remember when I told you to look BEHIND your target?”
Syd: Yeah, well it was up in the air, and the ISS isn’t due to pass overhead for hours so….
Max; putting that aside…. YOU SHOT THE MOON!
BHAHAHAHAHA!! +1 for you!
Currently occupied with saving the Earth.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mLPCMpY4wvc
That fanart you linked is reallly good. Very impressive
Well, my idea worked every bit as well as most of my ideas so.
Nooo…. Max for the love of God listen to Sydney u.u
I’ve got faith in Max’ ability to come up with a plan. Sydney might or might not have an idea, but Max DOES have the super-killing experience and she knows what she’s doing. Don’t fall back on Sydney just because she’s the main character. :V
Maxi has two plans.
Plan A: Beat ’em down.
Plan B: Get a bigger hammer, then see Plan A.
I also have faith in Max coming up with plans. Just not certain about a working plan in this instance.
Max is smart, as well as strong. I trust she has something up her sleeve other than her arms.
A shirt?
That muscle mass must burn through a lot of oxygen…
And Max can fly. How hard would she have to throw him to keep him in at least higher troposhpere (once she gets him there, probably not a problem; Max demonstrated supersonic flight ability already), before he passes out?
Or play catch-and-toss with herself until she can dump him in the middle of the nearest large body of water, and let him burn up all that energy getting himself back to shore. Repeat as necessary.
Of course, this hinges on Vehemence not being able to fly or have superspeed himself, which now that he’s all charged up, who knows.
Max’s nose can not stand being anywhere close to V. I bet whatever she does to him will be from a distance.
Well, it was worth a shot.
…You know, I didn’t realize that was a pun until after I’d decided to say that.
ANYway, Max, the more YOU attack him especially the worse this is going to get. You unleash more violence than the rest of your team put together. Unless you try to go with my “throw him into space” plan, which I am no longer sure will work, given the revelation that he is developing unusual abilities with this high level of power he’s got.
I hope her tactic involves something like “attack the ground he stands on” and not “pumel him harder”.
That wouldn’t work, the vehemic absorption should affect nearby objects.
Especially since most of the power he’s got now came from violence around him, not at him.
Yes, but he still can’t fly, he has to use more energy to bury out of that hole than he gets from the violence (at least I hope so).
Up until one strip ago we didn’t know that he could transform the remains of his old pants into something that would fit his new stature. That means we now know that he can use magic. The limits of this is currently unknown, and of all present only Dabbler, Zephan and possibly Gwen can have any idea of what this means, and they too will be guessing.
So do not say that he can’t fly, say that we don’t know that he can fly. Using absolutes limits your thinking, and if those absolutes are shown to be false things can get dangerous.
It wouldn’t be violence. It would be construction/demolition work.
Isn’t that what they tried across the road? Demolishing a construction site?
Not long ago, someone suggested a *teamwork* tactic with this basic idea that stands a good chance of working: Sydney shields herself & Maxima, grabs Vehemence by an ankle with Lighthook, then Maxima pours everything into flight & speed up to the edge of the atmosphere. Vehemence is outside the shield, so he has little chance, between acceleration & air drag to free himself or climb up the Lighthook…Even then Sydney & Max are both shielded. Sydney & Max will have some air supply trapped in the shield with them, but V won’t be in the sheld.
He’ll have a hard time powering up any more along the way because it’s the *least* violent way to do this & still make it work. He passes out, they bring him down non-violently, then gas him to stay unconscious (since hypos aren’t likely to be capable of piercing his skin at this point) until his power charge depletes over time (assuming that it does bleed off even without his actively using it).
If they had someone with psionic power (no one has yet been shown who does, though), he could be “mind-blasted” into unconsciousness…It would be just like the most effective way Juggernaut can be stopped. Then gas him to stay asleep, as mentioned above.
There’s also the possibility of using magic spell that would specifically infuse him with apathy or hypnotize him to become calm & passive, but as he’s shown earlier, it would have to be a pretty powerful spell to work on him.
Of course, I’d still prefer the use of itching powder (probably be more effective if it’s doused with DMSO)…This could effectively be played with “the rule of funny” unless it got serious enough to the point he winds up flaying himself alive from the scratching. Even then, it would still be kind of Karmic Payback for all of the violence he’s dished out so far…
That’s actually reasonably clever. I’m wondering, though, to what extent intent is a necessary component of “violence”. I’m guessing that if a building accidentally fell on V it wouldn’t have the same result as if you knocked it over onto him. And that means that intentionally trying to suffocate him could conceivably make him even stronger.
Hmm… I’m not sure, with his strength being what it is now, that he can’t overcome the acceleration and wind resistance of Max’s super-sonic flight and pry the lighthook off of him with his fingers. In fact given that he has shown he is in the same strength region as Maxima I would say it’s more a foregone conclusion that he *is* that strong.
The big question there is whether or not his fingers are stronger than the lighthook. And that’s quiet a big “?” for me.
I also figure that, even if V can escape Sydney’s Lighthook grapple on the way up, Max is the one concentrating on the flying, so Sydney can watch V…She might be able to grab him *again & again* if necessary before he drops out of Lighthook reach.
I would be cautions about “violently” mind blasting a being who eats any mental energy that is attached to violence. Good chance if you shove psychic energy at him in an aggressive manner he’ll just eat it or worse.
Maybe some kind of subtle but strong sleep suggestion by a high enough adept?
*testing a deep link…*
I agree he might escape – but what would they lose by trying? It must be safer than Max grabbing him on her own!
Dabbler has psionic powers, according to her bio.
As a “dabbler” but not a master, her psi ability might not be strong enough to get past V’s defenses…He *blocked* her sleep spell earlier & that was *before* he reached his current level of power. I figure if Dabbler has something that could take him down, it’ll have to be some device that she’s built rather than something she can *do* now.
Full power lust aura, especially if she can direct it at only one target. Hope those new pants of his are stretchy.
Ummm…As much as Vehemence is pro-violence, stirring up his libido might not turn out too well. Lust & Violence mix together all too easily…
“It was worth a shot”
Hehe.
Unfortunately, the second shot was more of an eye-opener than an eye-closer.
So both Maxima and Sydney seem to have a plan, and both seem to conflict.
As it is, Sydney has a better track records against unconventional villains (FWTDT being the only other example, and Sydney was right there).
I can’t wait for the next page
Another unconventional strategy by Sydney
“My claws can cut through anything, and my skin is invulnerable”
Sydney takes two seconds to lighthook his claws into his own neck.
“What? Clearly one of those statements was false!”
Dousing Vehemence in itching powder would work out in much the same way; Make V turn his violence back onto himself…
Specially his back. Extra powder on his back.
He can’t reach his back right now
right now, pour it down his buttcrack would serve as well.
…He’d rip himself a new one, for sure…
Well, I still think Vehemence has been possessed by a Malumus, but if exorcism is impractical, then let me pose a question: if violent acts are expressed against someone who cannot be hurt, are they truly violent? The problem here is Vehemence is working on a seemingly infinite feedback loop: since he gets more powerful by attacking others, he’s invented perpetual motion and therefore bent the universe. There is however one other player on the field who has already broken the universe: Achilles is absolutely invulnerable: nothing can harm him in the slightest. Max should therefore amp her superspeed, grab Achilles out of his pile of rubble, and interpose him everywhere Vehemence strikes, therefore denying him his fuel and eventually burning him out.
Achilles is however not immune to knockback. So even if a punch from Vehemence would not harm him, it fling him away. Even with Maxima supporting him Maxima must use a force equal or greater than that of Vehemence’s punches to keep Achilles in place.
Force does not equal Violence, though, or else Vehemence could get a ton of power just watching drag races.
There’s some violent forces at play there, so I wouldn’t rule that out…
Even more so if one of the racers loses control & wrecks the car…
Point, however, is that it’s a lot more work to keep Achilles in place than it is to keep Anvil in place. People are overrating Achilles’ invulnerability here.
Violence does not require injury to be violent.
I think Anvil would be a better choice since she absorbs kinetic energy and not just damage. I don’t know exactly how her power works, though. She’d have to not absorb all the energy that Maxima uses to move her at the same time. I guess Max could use Achilles, and Halo could work Anvil.
Achilles isn’t invulnerable, for forgetting his heel
The original Achilles had the heel weakness. This Achilles apparently swims in volcanoes and survives tactical nuclear strikes; I think it’s safe to say that if his heels weren’t invulnerable, he wouldn’t have feet.
Nope. Anvil would make the ideal human shield.
80 mm is too small caliber for tank cannon. Usually around 120mm.
Yeah, was thinking that too. 105 to 120mm. Might be refering to Sabot penetrator, but ar those not around 40-50mm?
I have a dummy anti-tank round from the first Gulf War, it’s 30mm and the non-dummy round the bullet is made of DU instead of steel. It is from an A-10 and they had to load them for long flights to keep the center of gravity in a more stable position when there was no live ammo to be used (ferry flights).
Actually, there’s a few scout tanks around that use them. no MBTs though.
It’s the ‘Iron Giant’ dilemma.
Attacking makes the problem worse.
No one on staff has the power to make him think
he’s surrounded by bunnies and kittens?
Dabbler has… something like that. Except it’s Playboy bunnies and pussies.
Close enough.
OMG.
Burst out laughing while surrounded by family.
Whoops
What? Is your family sooooo self-serious that they can’t appreciate the fact that you actually *have* a sense of humor?
:P
Yeah, kind of saw that one coming.
Noting also that Max says that V is “clearly beyond conventional attack”. Suggesting that she has something UNconventional in mind.
Well, even before ARCHON was formed, Max was already an Air Force officer with *experience* in unconventional warfare…It’s not really surprising the she would have *some* ideas by now. The only question left is how *effective* her ideas can be with a super (who already classifies as an unconventional foe) whose very nature is unconventional, even *as* a super.
Vehemence technically did too… though whether his optic nerve could report that fact to his brain prior to impact I’d somewhat doubt.
It makes me happy to see Peggy bulls-eye (pun intended) the shot as I’ve advocated in the past for blinding the bastard as a way to mitigate his combat effectiveness. Too bad it’s now far too late to be effective.
Shooting him might be, I guess, depending on just happened. Maybe you can’t destroy his eyeball but what about just throwing some dirt in it?
Throw some Unmaker instead. That oughta sting a little. ;p
I suggest some kind of durable paint. Nothing exotic, just something intended to stand up to serious wear’n’tear.
In V’s current state, it should blind him without causing any major harm – but should be a real b######d for him to rub off his eyes.
The problem would be drying time. Unless magically activated I don’t know of any instantly curing opaque liquid coating. Maybe one can make a slurry of some opaque powder in superglue and slap that on him?
There are quick-drying paints around, including some heavy-duty ones made for use underwater. I kid you not.
Reminded of a ‘Cyberpunk 2020’ rpg campaign I was in long ago. The character I ran specialized in the use of martial arts and compound bow rather than fancy firearms like everybody else. For dealing with particularly nasty opponents (such as high-end cyborgs), she had attachments for her arrows that delivered a mix of paint, superglue, abrasive material and bits of copper wire. Just the thing to shoot into a machine’s sensor array or exposed circuitry.
I had a character in a GURPS supers campaign that also carried packages of magnetized iron flakes. He used those to jink electronic security systems once he got access to their innards.
One time, he was fighting a cyborg, attacked the cyborg’s armor specifically to open up a small spot & shoved a packet of those iron flakes into the cyborg’s internal systems. A creative use for a tool normally used for an entirely different purpose that worked out better than I’d expected.
:D
In case anyone might be wondering, my avatar is a picture I drew of that self-same character…Classified in GRUPS supers as a super-normal; Pure-strain human, but highly skilled to the point of matching the point-costs of creating actual super-powered characters.
so… Batman?
Batman and Green arrow in the DC universe and Black Widow and Hawkeye in the Marvel universe are super-normals.
Tony Stark I’d rank as a super with the tinkerer or super inventor advantage. (It’s a long time since I read the supers rules so I’m no longer sure what the advantages were called, but I remember that there were both a tinkerer and an inventor kind of advantage. The rules regarding the inventions, ability to replicate results and so on was different for these.)
Hawk Man and Hawk Girl in the DC universe could be classified as super-normals, but as they are extra terrestrials with access to exotic technology I guess it could go either way.
Not to be the nit picky one, but shouldn’t we see Sydney’s bruise on her right cheek in panel 9?
Max must have some sort of super healing ability for her twice broken nose to have stopped bleeding already.
I wonder what an incendiary or armor piercing round would do to V. That just looks like total copper jacket rounds. Armor piercing rounds from a .50 cal Barrett can penetrate inch thick armor plate steel. If V can shrug off that with narry a scratch, I doubt even Syds PewPew orb can do anything against him.
About the .50 AP and the PPO´s… Well yes and no. What stops on thing does not automaticly stop another. Take a bullet resistant vest for example. Those things have problems, or used to at least, have troubles with knifes because of the different physics, item cross-section and timescale behind the hit. (We are talking soft armor here, hard inserts worked better.)
Pretty sure that the PPO is a whole lot more powerful than a .50 AP.
Judging from what we’ve seen, all of Sydney’s orbs give her powers that are EXTREMELY powerful.
The shield can take Maxima’s strongest punches, and have taken her blasts without a problem.
The truesight (comm orb) sees through Dabbler’s glamour ‘like it was nothing.’ Also saw through anything X was doing like it was nothing.
The fly ball lets her fly just as fast as Maxima (and possibly faster) – and Sydney wasnt even aware of how fast she was flying, not to mention she was doing all these weird aerial moves while Maxima was just flying straight forward, and Sydney was still keeping up effortlessly.
The lighthook already was shown to be able to easily trip Vehemence, and can grab Anvil from rather huge heights and whip her back down on Vehemence had enough to really hurt him. The only time Vehemence countered it, it wasnt about matching with strength. He used leverage to get loose of the lighthook,which caused Sydney to fall over. Ole!
So…
It’s not exactly a leap of logic to say the PPO would likewise be insanely powerful as well if Sydney focused it on a target. It’s like touching a star, after all :)
That being said, I don’t think the PPO will be used as an attack against Vehemence.
While I concur in your reasoning about the strength of the powers that the orbs grants I think you are overstating the power of the shield a bit. At this time we do not know how tough the shield is, and we have no idea if Max can break it or how hard it would be for her to do so.
I base these statements on the fact that while testing the shield Maxima could not use more power than that she could be reasonably sure Sydney would survive if the shield failed. It would have been a bit anticlimactic if when the bulk of the Archon team arrived with the media crews all that remained of Sydney was a hole in the desert.
So given that she was had to keep things survivable for Sydney there’s no way Max came anywhere near her own limits during the testing.
that being said, that was pretty much a small tactical nuke Max had set off, though.
Ah, yeah, her bruise should be back.
Anyone else thinking Vehemence appears to have some kind of robotic eye in the fifth panel? I’m getting ‘robot pirate’ vibes from staring at it too long.
No one else is thinking that. He’s just too powerful now for a .50 cal to be effective anymore. It WAS effective before Maxima though because Maxima’s violence put his powers over the top.
I know Vehemence doesn’t have anything cybernetic, as far as we know, and that it is the shell of the bullet. I was saying I thought the shell looked like a cybernetic eye while it was stuck on his eyelid.
That jaw!! :D
Yeah, I thought the bullet bouncing off his chin as it fell from his eye was a nice touch.
:)
It’s the crimson chin!
Well, V has already demonstrated that he doesn’t have a “glass jaw” by any stretch of the term…
Well, duh. It’s an anti-materiel rifle. Not supposed to work against personnel.
Well in theory personnel are made of a material too. A leather like substance covering them called ‘flesh’ and they have different ratios f oher materials under it :P
Materiel, with an ‘e’. Meaning military vehicles, usually armored.
Nice joke though, I did laugh. :)
Hey it is a tomato tamato thing or was it patato potato one hmmmm :P
It’s more of a “sentence sentance” thing. Both are real words, pronounced the same, but one vowel different.
…*and* different meanings. Unlike potato potahto etc.
No one on the planet ever says potahto.
Except both “materiel” and “material” are words, while “sentance” isn’t.
Quite correct. It appears I need to minimise my level of distractions when posting. The actual pair of homophones I intended to post were “dependent” & “dependant.”
Sentance indeed!
actually, it is a word, via this definition! XD
sentance
The improper spelling of sentence by a high strung person, normally a Republican.
This sentance was misspelled by Mr. Kyle Shook.
-Urban Dictionary
The phrase you may have been looking for is – “Bags of mostly water.”
This makes me think of an Edgar suit…
well, Max DID say that enemies will be interred… i’d count Edgar as interred… well, sorta… we think he got eaten rather than buried, but still, it’s the thought that counts, he’s certainly NOT in traction or incontinent…
Well, judging from Edgar’s displayed personality traits, I’d say he was a sh*t to live with & became a real sh*t after he died.
Wait, his left eye is still out? He has no depth perception! Max, fly like a drunk hummingbird!
best comment so far…
Look in panels 1 & 5, His eyelid’s open: His eye is still there, but thanks to Peggy it’s quite bloodshot (pun intended & inherently obvious in the artwork)
There’s no way he can see through it in it’s current state though
I wasn’t implying that the eye was still *usable* but only that it’s still *there*
It’s really good to see that Max is finally contributing something that requires a brain. Before that, her best intellectual contribution I can remember was that rock-paper-scissors-thing she shouted at Math for being tied up with his opponent for too long.
I jst realize patreo reached to top goal. Congtz dave for your medical insurance oh also when you are going to 3/day schedule? :P
3day/week damn keyboard ate my words :P
so his body adapts to damage type too.
It doesn’t matter that his eye didn’t get taken out. I still laughed.
I don’t know that it’s “adapting to damage type” so much as just “is a lot tougher now”.
As said, that’s 120mm for the tank gun (russians use 125 just for laughs), with an APDSFS sabotted round. Or 155mm for an artillery round, those are fun as well.
But besides the military trivia, I am doing an RPG mod and did some checking on physics for superheroes that might interest you.
This was about the hulk, all about 500kg of him. Consider he is so tough that the bullet doesn’t hurt him, but he is still bowled over by it. If he got shot by a 120mm M829 A1 at close to point blank and absorbed it *all*, he’d be thrown back at close to 13m/s, or roughly the same as if falling from 9 meters.
This round could have gone through 67 centimeters of steel, wiki says.
Use a newer A3 round, its much worse – like falling from 45 meters.
The math for captain america and his shield is much worse, of course. The shield would hold, the cap would be puree.
Caps shield has vibranium which absorbs kinetic energy so he wouldn’t move at all or would knockback very little distance.
Cap’s shield isn’t *all* vibranium, but that’s what vibranium does. His shield is a unique alloy of vibranium & adamantium that can’t be duplicated.
Except for when it does get duplicated.
The original attempt to alloy them together involved some kind of accident…As far as I’ve seen in the comics, no one has yet been able to duplicate the conditions of the accident.
I keep waiting to see if Sydney will put the shield around him and let him run out of oxygen and pass out. But can she do that? hmmm shall we wait and see. or have max take him up into space and let him cool off a bit
Spoiler: she can’t. She has to be within the shield, so she would suffocate as well (Assuming V didn’t just punch her into red mist).
SHE. CANT. this has been covered by word of god and we have been playing whack a mole on this idea every page.
Don’t have any signs to give, all the trophies are taken, and I’m all out of booze. Hmm… How ’bout pancakes? O.O
I’ll flip some up.
The trophies are doing good work. I acquired some slightly waterlogged property and has been using them as landfill. Soon they will break the surface and the world will once again see the continent of Atlantis rise from it’s watery grave. I might have to import some topsoil though…
nice writers block cap. obvious egs:D
I’ve been known to prowl the corridors of the EGS forum. I’ve even had a close (to close in fact) encounter with the Lost & Found. If you dare the EGS forum make sure you keep away from the Lows & Found, it’s dark and clammy inside…
Is that a demonic duck over there?
Nope. The duck said something about feeling exploited and took off…
Let me know if it comes with a pancake recipe.
Or ancient words to a pop song.
I’d prefer an omelet. All I have to do is warm up a skillet because earlier in the battle, Sydney already cracked Shadow Boxer’s eggs…
Cool. Now we just need to scramble them. :p
Quick Harem. Turn your lust aura on MAXIMUM POWER!
Edit:
Quick Dabbler. Turn your lust aura on MAXIMUM POWER!
Quick Dabbler. Turn your lust aura on MAXIMA POWER.
THAT would get everyone’s interest.
Sure got mine.
Be funny if Maxima did a “No Sell” on the Lust Aura. I suspect Maxima might place on the asexual scale.
Remember Maxima did get flustered when Dabbler did it during Sydney’s meeting
Let’s see… Who do I ship?
Maxima x Dabbler
Anvil x Vehemence
Math x Jabberwocky
Sydney x Leon
So far, only one with any on-screen chemistry is the last one.
What about everybody else? Who do you ship?
Maxima and Xuriel
Kenya and Xuriel
Daphne, Daphne, Daphne, Xuriel, Daphne and Daphne
Math and Xuriel, and Hiro and Stalwart and Achilles
Mr. Amorphous and Broke (and Xuriel sulking as she sees huge potential in Mr, Amorphous, but Broke doesn’t want to share and can be kind of scary…)
Sydney is collecting information about Leon and keeps writing everything down in her book. So far he has been able to keep from being cornered, but his luck isn’t likely to last forever…
As far as it goes with Dabbler, she’d probably ship with anyone & everyone…
As for Sydney, I think Leon would be the most likely. When Syd wrote Leon into The List, she flipped the book over *first* which puts him in the back of the book…Unlike most entries that wind up in the front. That’s the strongest clue, right there.
Two separate lists, one book. Leon is sweating no matter which list he’s on.
No foolin’
Even Maxima considers The List as being intimidating…
https://www.grrlpowercomic.com/archives/453; last 3 panels
Sydney’s force-field would be fantastic to use against Vehemence. Cut off his oxygen, leave him alone to rage it out in the bubble with himself, eventually burning out the energy he has up till a point that conventional means can be used to restrain/contain him. Both are passive means to deal with him. Problem is how long can Halo keep it up.
Well seems that someone else reminded another the problem with this being Halo having to be in the force-field as well.
Drink!
Plus Capt. Obvious gets another trophy & Dr. Revenge has another sign to hand out.
Those are never in short supply. ;p
Atlantis will rise again!
Sydney might have the right idea, V’s form must need a lot of engery to maintain. since we dont know which Violence powers him up (Violence done to him or Violence he does to something else), so if you don’t attack him the energy he’s using wont get replaced (or at least in theory)
Problem is we don’t know what the bleed off period for his power is. So we don’t know how long you will have to try and not attack him.
I’m thinking that maybe there is a way to bleed off his pent-up power FAST. Kind of lightning going to ground – but for the life of me, I can’t think of how to do this.
According to the comic, it doesn’t matter which way the violence goes or who does it, as long as there’s violence.
There doesn’t even have to be any intent or even conscious living things involved in the violence. Earthquake, rockslide, thunderstorm…All are violent acts & he can power up from any violence that happens within his (limited) range of absorption of violent energy.
IF geological phenomena works for V (Ie. counts as violence), then he should be getting a massive and constant feed from tectonic movement and tidal stresses. Those things mightn’t SEEM that dramatic to the casual observer, but when you consider the enormous masses involved and just what is required to shift them about ….. Yikes.
No, unless there is proof to the contrary, I think that there has to be a conscious component to the violence before V can “use” it.
If the epicenter of an earthquake is outside of his *limited range* of absorption, he won’t get any power of it. When he mentioned being at the LA riots, he probably didn’t get as much energy as he’d hoped *because* of his limited range…the violence was pretty well spread out over large areas.
V’s primary motivation to set up this fight is because a *very* violent fight with super-powered people is going to take place in short-range proximity. As long as he can keep the fight focused on and around himself, he’ll keep getting more power than he’d ever known before.
But it’s also by the Word of Dave that there does NOT have to be any intent or consciousness involved. It’s by HIS word that rockslides & thunderstorms can power V up. It’s also by Word of Dave that his ability to absorb violent energy is limited by range, which includes a steep drop-off as the distance increases.
The only proof available is the Word of God (also known as DaveB). Being the author of this web comic he tends to have a rough idea of what’s going on…
Anyway, WoG is that Vehemence can feed on any source of violence, no matter if it’s intentional or not. A storm has no intent or intelligence but Vehemence can feed on it’s violence. Intent behind the violence is a bonus for him. It “taste better” and is more filling or nutritious. There is a limit on the distance he can feed over. In a comment DaveB wrote that it was less than a mile. He might have written “considerably less than a mile”, but my memory is kind of sucky so don’t hold me to that. No links for now as I’m a bit burned out on trawling the archives and comments.
Uh-huh. I stand corrected.
But even that alleged range limit of a mile or less makes me wonder how well it has been thought through.
There is an awful lot that can be happening almost constantly within that distance. Think Chaos Theory – could be an enormous number of tiny instances of “violence” happening within that radius (air turbulance, geo shifts, etc.). Each individual instance so tiny as to be barely measurable, but when multiplied a thousandfold or more, the amount of energy involved gets scary.
Another example of what I’m trying to get at is from a book I read about hurricanes. Apparently, hurricanes have been known to sometimes trigger earthquakes. How? Consider the major changes in barometric pressure that come with a hurricane passing over a techtonically sensitive area. When considering those changes in pressure happening over that area, this can equate with a shift in mass of millions of tons plus.
Dave has admitted he wasn’t certain what kind of number to give as far as distance goes, not even the so-called mile is absolute. Then there’s the part where there is nothing to measure how much lower he gains quantitatively from even violence with intent, never mind violence that simply happens, which, by the looks of it, is a huge difference. Either way, I wouldn’t dwell too deeply on the numbers.
From what we’ve seen during this fight sequence, it doesn’t look like V can absorb *all* of the energy from violence, even at close range…If he could absorb it *all* then violence could not have any effect on anything else.
It would be sort of like how Anvil absorbs kinetic energy…The more kinetic energy she absorbs, the less that energy can have an effect; if she absorbs it *all* in any given action, then that kinetic energy has no physical effect.
Vehemence is limited to absorbing violent energy only, but violence still has physical effects within the surroundings, even if he absorbs *some* of it.
Shooting a guy in the eye and the bullet just bouncing off with no damage. Bullshit.
Shooting a guy in the eye but him catching the bullet with his eye. Now that is impressive.
Actually, the first shot DID do some damage. In panel 5, v opens his left eyelid…The pun there is evident; His left eye is looking *very* bloodshot.
I wasn’t saying it did no damage to V. Just doing no damage in general, like in a certain superman movie.
Shadaan is a great artist…he did art for one of my short stories:
https://fav.me/d6vokpx
The Demoness Lilitu vs the Nameless Thing uncovered at Grimsvotn.
POPPIES. Poppies. poppies…
Just sayin’
Right idea, wrong plant.
New plan (from bad ’70s movie): Cheech and Chong drive up in their van. The door opens revealing a large cloud of vapor within. Max tosses him inside. Everything gets quiet for a few minutes. The door opens and V staggers out saying ‘Hey you guys. Why is everyone so tense? Peace out, OK? You know, I could really go for some food right now. (turns around) Hey, what happened to the restaurant?”
My reference was to a certain song (“Existential Blues” – Tom “T-Bone” Stankus), and thus referenced to a 1950’s classic movie. I had completely forgotten about “The Wiz”, which I thought was an okay show because of the music.
Mostly, I was saying, “Drug the guy with something he has to breath in or can be absorbed through the body’s membranes.”
Plus, Papaver somniferum makes a much more potent crude narcotic, opium, which was often smoked, thus inhaled, and is more quickly incapacitating; than our lady Mary Jane.
They need sleepy gas. Or to wake up the portal lady and have her send V to the moon.
YES GAS FUCKING GAS
I guess they haven’t had the oversight to bring that to dinner with them either but
they have communication with their headquarters
I mean Harem if nothing else
so…
What? Why use poison gas, it’s like with Jedi – he’ll totally see it coming and not breathe it in.
Put it in the tea! He’ll drink the tea! (He’s way too polite not to.)
And the disturbing thing is you’re probably right…
Unless the gas is dosed with DMSO…If he gets any of the gas on his skin, it should absorb right in.
Reminds me of an exchange I read about between Lady Nancy Astor and Winston churchill
“Winston, if I were married to you I’d put poison in your tea”
“Nancy, if I were married to you I’d drink it.
Nancy Witcher Langhorne Astor, Viscountess Astor, b.1879, first woman Member of Parliament (elected 1919, served until 1945) and wife of Waldorf Astor. She was an American, born in Greenwood, Virginia.
Although a Conservative, like Churchill after 1924, she clashed often with him over Dominion Status for India and British relations with Nazi Germany and Soviet Russia. She was a strong backer of the appeasement policies of Prime Ministers Baldwin and Chamberlain
Tea & sympathy? (Allow me to introduce myself, I’m a man of wealth & taste…) :P
For one thing, Vehemence isn’t going to give up on his Banquet of Violence just to stop for a spot of tea.
Dude’s constitution is unreasonable, I don’t think gas is gonna do much unless he’s breathing nothing but that for hours. And portal lady is NOT waking up. She is severely concussed.
this calls to mind a discussion I had with my brother over a character:
“I found an advantage you’ll want to disallow me to add to my teleport usable as an attack, variable advantage.”
“Oh? What’s that?”
“Megascale.”
“Uh…yeah, that’s a no go.”
To deal with tanks, the best way is to use a good plan
In this case, Halo can use a energy tentacle to tick him and the shield to hold.
Maybe something like “Hold Person” ;)
Did my comment not post?
Ahem.
Sigh… Maaaaaax…
Throw him in the ocean.
Throw him in the ocean.
Throw him in the ocean.
Throw him in the ocean!
THROW HIM IN THE OCEAN.
THROW HIM IN THE STUPID OCEAN!!!
*headdesk* Look, I get the impulse to Wile E Coyote this, but that’s not how you beat the Roadrunner.
V is much more Mister Mxyzptlk than he is the Hulk. Bullets bounce off his eyes, he shrugs his way through cables that could tow asteroids. He creates matter at will. In a very real sense their arms are too short to box with V. Everything they could do is literally worse than useless, it just makes him stronger.
Here’s a very serious question.
Why not surrender? They are already at his mercy, apply Litany of Tarsky and acknowledge it.
Maxima (or more likely Sydney, after V knocks Maxima out) tells everyone to sit down on their hands and close their eyes. If V wants to kill them, he can already do it. If he wants a fun fight, stop indulging him. If he wants some object, he gets it. If he’s trying to terrify the earth, or show that he’s Alpha Dog, Mission Accomplished.
Wow, surrendering to the powerful and violent mastermind of a large scale attack on authorities at a civilian run establishment on their first day, after dramatically declaring their intentions to smash any such opposition overwhelmingly hours before, with both the challenge and their subsequent surrender soon to make its way to international TV… At least Sydney has a day job.
Nah, as amusing as that was to say, they are rare enough super assets they probably won’t get fired in the face of the sudden upswing in public fear of super villains but I bet management/oversight, standard procedures and strategies, training and perhaps Maxima (and her career) will be gone over with a magnifying glass and get some huge changes.
If they can think of anything reasonable they can try first I would probably risk it. Risking themselves for the public’s safety is what they signed on for. And he’s just so darn nice about everything like having his eye taken out. If that doesn’t phase him he’s probably gonna be just as open to peace negotiations later as much as now. *shrug* (seriously if I lost an eye in a fight, and you know… didn’t die or fall unconscious like normal… , I wouldn’t even CARE whether I was right, wrong or sideways anymore I would be out for buckets of blood!)
So, your plan is, “I, for one, welcome our new insect overlords?”
Not to hug or hump in hopes of sapping his power, not running in different directions, not erecting obstacles, using annoying sounds or smells, or ANYTHING else non-violent to try to slow or dissuade him?
It should have been tried sooner, but he’s clearly susceptible to things, and he may now be impervious to pain or damage, but he can be moved, and Max has the speed and strength to do it. Theoretically she could keep flying even as he’s beating on her – if he fails to stop her she can deposit him midatlantic and he’ll at least have to use up some stored energy swimming back. If she fails at it, she fails, but grabbing him by the foot isn’t, on balance, much violence with regards to pumping his power up. Definitely less than she’s thinking right now.
I’m pretty sure they’re in New Mexico. That’s a long way to throw a guy as strong as V is who can also use magic.
This has been asked many times (including the space version… ). It sort of reminds me of all the times they asked about shooting him in the other eye at this late date (should have done that immediately after the other one the goody little two-shoes!) and you can see how that worked out.
But yeah. Might as well if they can grapple him safely in some way (big IF!). It would give them more time to think and set something up on whatever shore he would be running and probably jumping for. He would use up energy traveling (possibly even have to use magic to fly) with no return in violence. Its a decent stall tactic IF they can grab him and carry/throw him that far safely. If this comic is any clue then Dave is quit possibly taking ideas from the comments so it might happen.
Max’s plan: buy time for someone to come up with something that will work and/or everyone else to evac.
You mean, someone like Sydney? Or someone other than Sydney? o_O
Either or
Quick! Try shooting out all of his teeth so he sounds ridiculous!
Granted, that likely wouldn’t work as an eyeball is much softer and that turned away a shot from a .50.
Dabbler, pull out your railgun and shoot him in the kneecaps. Maybe the elbows too, for good measure. Point-blank railgun would almost certainly at least break bones, even for him. Problem solved!
Harem, have sex with him with all your copies! At the same time! Let Dabbler join in too! And Anvil. And Max (Max, just do it and stop griping)!
It’s your only chance to make Dabbler powerful enough to beat him! Orgy for the safety of the world!
And even if it’s not effective, just do it anyway. Cmon.
Please?
I don’t know too much about railguns, but I get the feeling a railgun is big enough to do SOME amount of damage to him.
Yeah if Dabbler removed whatever it was that makes it teleport back to base if somebody else uses it. Cause the best bet for it hitting him and in a vulnerable spot would be giving it to Peggy. Who hasn’t trained with it or mounted her own sights on it. Who they just sent away…
But yes, hopefully at some point Dabbs will start trusting the team enough to designate some things to them.
Not big enough. FAST enough. In theory railguns can achieve speeds several factors higher than ‘conventional’ munitions.
if Dabbler was worried about the round she fired going THRU the “hill” that was a MILE+ (estimated) away AFTER it went COMPLETELY THRU the TANK (the long way at that!)… then I’m pretty darn sure that it WILL have enough kinetic energy to go thru him, at point blank range (for that gun) with NOTHING in between the end of the barrel and him, even at his current level of power-up… though I’ll bet that it’s still gonna be Sydney with her PPO that does the coup-de-gra
Am I alone in thinking they need to go full on Bugs Bunny on this guy?
Pure slapstick with absolutely no attempt to subdue, just distract him until he winds down.
Lets see, Bugs Bunny huh? OK first someone needs to dress up as a girl to distract him and… well I guess they have that part covered… O///O
What would be more effective to distract V is if some of them started to *un*cover…
I think that would raise my blood pressure. I think Sydney would be able to pull off a decent Bugs, while Maxima could be Elmer, and Dabbler would make a pretty good Wiley. Throw in a Road Runner and Vehemence should laugh himself to death.
Sydney would be the focus of it all, so even if he did decide to attack her it would be like punching a balloon, it might fly around, but you’re not going to hurt it, and that might be worth a laugh.
When you get him all calmed down, recruit him.
Why shift Sydney over to playing Bugs? She already did a credible imitation of the Roadrunner, dropping Anvil on V’s head…
Complete with accurate sound effects.
…which Dave even included (in the mini-blog under the comic page) a link to the audio because he wasn’t sure how to spell it.
My Email informs me that Dave just hit $3000 on Patreon. Woot!
Max digs up Achilles to use as a human shield.
Dabbler uses a small force field and chloroform to know out Vehem.
Sydney suggest waking up Periw… Death Toll to use him as a shield as his nemesis power will remove Vehem as a threat. Since Vehem did make a point of alerting Syd to him during the fight.
The defeated FWTDT by overloading his power and all attacking him at once. It’s likely that Vehemence would be able to do that too, and then they’d have his blood on their hands.
If for no other reason than the butt artery.
I don’t know how Harem (most likely person to know that kind of first aid & be first to administer on DT) handled that blood flow first time, but she HAD to deal with it or he’d bleed out from his butt & die.
If it was me trying to treat that kind of wound, I’d just say “He’s gonna die from blood loss.”
They only overloaded his power because it can’t counter multiple things. Vehem only has the one thing, he can’t overload Death Toll’s power unless his power can’t be countered. However, I see at least 2 ways for it to counter him. The first is doing what it did to Anvil and just drain the power straight up. The second is to convert it to it’s opposing force. For violence that might be tantric energy, which would superboost Dabbler.
Well, at least now everybody that was clamoring for them to do what they thought was the obvious, shoot him in the other eye, can be at peace. (making me wonder if this was actually planned all along or a reaction to the endless comments)
Dave likes to subvert or play with tropes but it looks like he is playing the “Talking is a free action” almost straight. We can give some allowance for what a gentlemen Vehemence is but wow we spend a lot of time standing around talking in a fight. Sure its not over the top by DBZ standards but then almost nothing is (and that goes for several other categories).
And V really is quite nice about everything. OH! That gal that totally blinded me in one eye, perhaps permanently, went for the other one. “That playful little minx! Naughty naughty. Well, she’s just a norm and I’m really strong now so it just wouldn’t be right to go after her with my speed and super jumping. But good one!” or that’s how it seemed… Just wow, what a gentlemen he is.( I was half expecting him to do the anime thing and put the bullet in his thumb and pointer finger and flick it back at her at full speed!) I guess it could be some kind of God delusion level arrogance or something but even though – wow. Other times he just seems wild with the rage and the crazy and then boom – its all inside again. Spooky mental shifts. Maybe he is Jubal Early’s ancestor?
This is the second time Sydney has insisted they don’t attack V like they didn’t all hear the same speech. I think recent events seem to be weakening what faith she had in Maxima’s strategic mental capacity. She’s not the only one. Hopefully the next few updates go a long way towards rectifying that.
Thanks for the great comic post Dave. :)
Well, he is here for a good fight. He’s getting it