Grrl Power #27 – The Calorie Denial Force Field
Oh hey a comic. This seems… significant.
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Oh hey a comic. This seems… significant.
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Hey Sydney… Forget something?
It didn’t!
Hm…. I love the sources of power that make it a rule after bonding with someone, that they must be within a certain vicinity at all times…. makes it more difficult and can be used as a weakness against the super if the enemy knows how to keep them apart…
I wonder how that works if a superhero has multiple artifact power sources
Suddenly relevant. lol.
you could suspend them in a sphere around them, pinning the super in one place.
I did that to a fighter in DnD once. Their sword and shield were bonded to them, so I had to summoned monsters disam him and go opposite directions. THe four rounds the summon lasted after that was enough for the barbarian to have a field day with the fighters hitpoints.
Hey! No dissing on Cypher!
…
we still miss him.
Sniff.
I should say that I haven’t read New Mutants in a long while. At least that was the last title I saw him in. The problem I had with him isn’t his powers, the ability to understand any language would be flipping amazing. The problem I had with him was that he was at a school that taught mutants how to deal with their powers and basically did nothing besides fight the Brotherhood of Evil Mutants and other jerks. Really? It’s so hard being able to understand anyone and have the ability to facilitate communication. Go work for the friggin’ U.N. or something, but no, he hangs around and fights people who can cause earthquakes. And how does he fight them? I have no idea. I can’t remember him ever being useful except the time he reprogrammed Warlock’s dad.
Stop! I know French!
(record scratch.wav)
What?
Well, I don’t actually know French, but if you did I could say something to you in French.
(Cypher has been crushed by a boulder – everyone applauds)
IIRC the New Mutants had this longish arc where they were off planet, and Cipher did a lot of translating. Also, he was bonding with Warlock for a while.
Still, power level’s an ongoing problem in team books. They keep putting ninjas in fights against giant robots, and they typically end up looking useless.
The problem is that they’re putting in ninja’s that aren’t Dr. McNinja. But who am I to say that that’s the problem? I don’t read printed comics. *weeps at lack of money*
Also, in Second Coming, where he jumped forward into Bastion’s future with X-Force, where he used his power to communicate with the piloted drone systems and convince them to not only reject their human pilots, but also help in the fight against Master Mold. It was just about a Crowning Moment of Awesome for him.
The Official Way too form an Avengers, or Justice League team. Something bad happens a bunch of heroes show up to deal with it an using a small amount of team work they succeed an they decide to make it a regular thing. The official way to form an X team. Set Cerebro to shuffle an anyone who does not turn you down is on the team. Neither system works for balanced power sets.
To be fair, Cypher never really reached his full potential. Think about it, he could understand any language… ANY LANGUAGE. This includes body language, and forms of communication most people wouldn’t consider. In reality, the government would have snatched him up for his code-breaking potential alone. He would have made a killer martial artist since he could predict what his opponent was about to do almost before they even knew. He also would have been teh 13373z7 h@kk3r EVAR!!!111oneone All in all, he had James Bond level potential coolness, but didn’t live long enough to realize it… until he was resurrected by the Phallanx. /facepalm
Sure in the real world (or at least in this one) he wouldn’t be fighting crime. He’d be getting fat bank from the government or corporations to break codes or whatever, hence the reason for the setup in this comic. Supers exist, but none of them waste time brooding on rooftops waiting for the Joker to start up with his 598th shenanigan.
I never got on the superhero bandwagon. It just plain doesn’t appeal to me, for reasons akin to what you just pointed out. Take any combination of contextual changes to what is and isn’t possible… and it would still never play out the way it does in superhero comics. Ever. So it mostly just comes across as nonsense to me.
Still, there is an interesting meta in how individuals isolated from the main industry choose to express their personal interpretations of it… and THAT I can appreciate.
Well, in the last couple of decades (as I’ve said before…. or is it after?….. anyway, I never got too into comic books either due to my location making it a near impossibility. However, I know a fair deal of stuff, but most of it’s general about comics themselves, not specifics about characters or stories. The vast majority of what I know is uselessly random, though), maybe beginning in the late eighties, comic books have started to try to focus more on the characters themselves, not so much on HOLY CRAP ALFRED BEAT UP SUPERMAN (yes, that happened, it was glorious, I think it got retconned away with the most recent rewrite of the DCU), or any other type of thing that primarily ran on the Rule of Cool.
They’re doing… acceptably, but they ARE commercial superhero comics, so that means (for reasons unfathomable to my diagonally-thinking mind) that they can’t put the focus wholly on the characters, and there needs to be lots of action. I read about an awesome comic from a few years ago (it sounds rather like that Gotham show coming soon) that focused ENTIRELY on the Gotham City PD, and how they deal with all the crime, super- or not, and with The Goddamn Batman, but mostly on how they dealt with LIFE and each other.
That kind of thing is the big reason why I love webcomics. The majority focus on those kinds of things; they’re character-driven, not action-driven (well, there are action driven ones. And smut ones, but frankly even those categories have immense focus on characters. Which to me changes the smut stuff to its own genre that doesn’t have a name yet; like a really good visual novel, the naughty bits are there, but they don’t interfere. They fit, and in REALLY well-done cases, they actually help).
Well, I think that’s my biggest wall yet on this site, and as always, thanks for reading and I’m sorry can’t seem to make it more concise.
Alfred beating up Superman happened in Injustice. So, it’s an Elseworlds kinda deal, not the main universe, but still totally happened. And I don’t care what DC do to the multiverse with big events, I’m sticking to that. :p
That explains why she does not leave them at home.
I’m confused…is this something I should read the cast page for?? I have been avoiding the cast page like the web comic plague since as I understand it is rife with spoilery evil.
No not really. What’s going on in this comic isn’t even really addressed on the cast page. Just take it as a “huh, that’s curious, I’m sure things will be explained via long winded explanation later.”
Sounds good to me. On a side note, I don’t know what I would do if not holding my weird poster tube prevented me from entering a Thai restaurant, Thai food is delish
Keep up the good work! We all love it and you seem to also. Thanks for an interesting and funny story so far!
Hrmmm, I take it the erm, power artifact thingies inside that tube that she uses, are sentient and dislike being a certain distance away from her when she will either need them, or it just thinks its too far, and she managed to negotiate a list of things that she should be allowed to do without it?
Just some wild mass guessing.
It could be that she just treats them like they’re sentient because she’s a goofball.
That would make the most amount of “sense” :P
Or just that people tend to anthropomorphize stuff. “Ok keys, when I find you I’m gonna rue the day! Well, and I’m going to use you to turn on my car. BUT YOU WILL RUE IT!”
What is could be as seen before it is her being her, again. XD
Im inclined to agree here i mean they are orbs of indeterminate age and orgin at the moment and it has been in my experiance that object given eoungh human contact objects may develop a soul and an awareness of itself and its suroundings swords being the most common of these objects because of their almost intimate realationship with their owner and the nature in which they were used and if they are infact super weapons of an ancient people or some sort of alienartifact left here long ago im sure the orbs have developed a sort of awareness and dont wish to be left alone for another couple thousand years
Hey I’ve installed a spoiler tag for commenting, you can use it by wrapping text in [ spoiler ] and [ /spoiler ] (without the spaces between the brackets and “spoiler” just so people don’t give anything away to those who don’t want stuff… well, spoiled. I’ll style it and fancy it up later. Just mouse over it to read what’s under it.
Thanks guys.
Awesome i anew spoiler thing that really neat actualy Dave thanks for watching out for the peeps
Or she could be referring to the list that she put the thing on for getting caught on the door, which may or may not translate into any actual ability of it to understand her. I know plenty of people who put inanimate objects on ‘the list’. Either way, I’m sure she isn’t referring to a list of things she is/isn’t allowed to do.
Huhu, this girl is funny °w° I discovered this webcomic only a few days ago, and I already love it <3
I have nothing else to say, so let's add something in french : "Mangez des pains au raisin, c'est vachement bon !"
One update per week is not enough ;_; I need more ! T^T
I second the motion.
More updates (^_^)
More updates (^_^)
I third the motion!
For the comics I’m working on right now, (which you guys will see in 3-5 weeks) I’m hitting a new batch of strips that I did in the 2 years running up to going live with this little project, so the up side is that I’ll be able to post those with a little less work. I won’t be posting more often since I won’t be able to maintain that schedule, but it helps with my buffer so that’s nice. On the down side, some of the art is kind of shit IMO, so I’m redrawing half the panels, but on the up side, I feel my art has improved enough in the last 2 years that it’s worth reworking some of the old stuff, and that’s pretty encouraging.
It looked like one of those magnet jokes from a cartoon, like where some one has metal in their poket and is slowly being pulled towards a gaint magnet.
What, exactly, is the spoiler tag supposed to do? Pop up a “tooltip” or something? I mouse over it and nothing happens (Firefox browser, Linux machine)
Figured it out; I had javascript blocked via NoScript extension. Functions now, under FF, Chrome, and Opera…
I actually changed it last night so that you have to click on it now, I thought it was too easy to mouse over and accidentally see what’s underneath, especially if it’s a short one like Aeris dies.
Aeris dies??? no way!!! jk i knew that, but thanks for the spoiler tag doohickey, comments are safe again. Except even tho I don’t want things spoiled, I have an overwhelming urge to click on spoiler tag thingies when I see them, they are my kryptonite, or my calorie denial field as the case may be.
Snape kills Aeris.
AERIS NOOOOOoooo ! T^T
Actually, a Calorie Denial Forcefield WOULD be useful in a super brawl.
You remember alllllll those old comic book advertisements for Hostess brand baked goods, right?
You mean you could scuttle a hero’s food related endorsements?
That’d probably be pretty effective – no one would want to fight you.
I am now curious about this list. Do you plan on having that be part of the exposition on the tube?
I did catch the cast page prior to it changing, but even if I didn’t, it is still easy to figure out. Well partly figure out.
Furthermore, I wonder how the people inside the restaurant are reacting to her.
Just like in real life.
“Hey, look! A crazy person! Let’s pretend we can’t see her.”
Or
“Hey, look! She’s acting weird. Let’s stare!”
Sidney’s car is the only car parked in front of the restaurant, so there is probably nobody inside =D
An unfortunate consequence of me being a slow artist and also not being great at backgrounds in the first place is that I’m trending toward drawing the minimal amount the story needs to populate the world, so in this case we’ll just say she’s getting lunch a little early. I’ll have to do something about that as the comic is going to get quite a bit more crowded here in a bit.
In areas with many commercial/industrial buildings it’s not strange to find a busy restaurant with no cars parked in front. When the walk to the restaurant is faster than driving, all but the laziest will walk.
So basically no one will walk. At least not in America, the land of the Fat. Or something like that. Speaking of which, given people with super powers, I wonder what kind of position the world governments are in.
She put the tube on the list two issues ago when it caught her in the door.
Yup and it doesn’t seem to care about “the LIST”. =D
If you factored cannibalism into it, a calorie denial force field would be pretty effective.
Later we’ll find out that the tube feeds off of Syd’s sanity, and is actually starving, thus the recent punishments. Or Syd’s being a goof and doing all this on purpose. Lord knows I do too…
Or its something far more simple.
Since the orbs can’t talk when in the tube (don’t know if they can communicate at all – info yet to be revealed) they are reminding her that she needs to do something before going into the restaurant – Like make the bank deposit maybe?
-Edited by DaveB: Added spoiler tag.
Opps! I forgot about this comic, have to read back some. This page was well done, and I never did like Cypher.
*thick brittish accent on*
BALLS!
ok a thought just ocured to me it has been showed in the later comics that the tube will move with syd, unless stopped by an object inturn stopping sydney. but in this page sydney gettes stopped by the tube yet it’s just sitting on the seat? wouldn’t it be on the floor of the car under the dash??
It got caught between the seat and the dash longways, and when she stoop back up it bounced back. At least that’s my story and I’m sticking to it. But yeah I should have drawn it on the floor.
hell tubey knows where it is and can choose to be the set point or syd the set point or % of each
Curiosity strikes, she had to remain within a set distance, I wonder if attempting to pull the tube at that distance limit will mean you also have to pull her weight, I’d assume so, but it’d be pretty cool just sorta fly her off just by flying off with her tube. Or just fly up and hang her in the air flailing. Oooo, wonder if she’ll bug Maxima enough to the point where she does that regardless of weight.
I still don’t agree with this no matter how many times I read this, Cypher was a very useful mutant. He was also a natural code breaker and could get you access to literally anything. Not to mention after he was infected with the tehnovirus he became much more interesting…