Grrl Power #270 – Options dwindling
One thing I haven’t really established in the comic so far is that Max has a sort of “golden triangle” of power distribution. We know she’s quite tough, and she has a power pool on top of that she can use to max out one attribute, but usually she just divides her reserves up between strength, speed and armor. That usually makes her stronger than most strong guys (like Hiro but not Stalwart) and tougher than most tough guys, but Vehemence is nearly matching her in all three now, which is a very unusual situation for her. If he manages to exceed her in any of those attributes she’ll need to make some choices about how best to redistribute her power, like dropping her armor and putting it into speed and playing keep away.
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Godness, considering how big Max is, Vehemence is easily towering over the Hulk himself at this point.
Question, is he going to explode eventually if he’d just keep going or what?
unlikely. He only got bigger because he wanted to.
I kind of want to see Sydney go on a rant after the fight about the other supers misusing their powers. Maxima intentionally fighting a guy who feeds on violence, Jiggawatt not bothering to learn how her ANTIMATTER LIGHTNING works, Dabbler holding back the mummy missile until after she nearly gets cut to ribbons while her teammates could use the help.
I feel like Sydney, as a comics nerd, would hold herself and the team to a high standard, and probably get angry with them for not taking superheroing seriously. That, and I think it would be cool to see her look Maxima in the eye with anger and no fear. Even if she has to be behind her shield to do it.
The same Sydney who spazzed out on Dabbler when she saw her true form? The same Sydney who ‘stop drop and rolled’ when the sun shone on Max? The same Sydney who Tiger Uppercuted a ceiling? The same Sydney who made randomness during I terviews?
I didn’t say it was particularly likely. Besides, someone should call them out on it, if it’s not Sydney, it’ll probably be Arianna, and I expect Maxima would just brush her off.
Dabbler, given how she constantly embarrasses people, will only get a slap on the wrist for trying to win in a sword fight out of ego. Max is not fighting V offensively as much as she’s working on containment, a viable strategy given V is still an unknown. The darkening, the only one who even knew was Dabbler, and she already smacked Jigawatt for it. Math will still be a pervert. This gross level of abuse you’re saying is not there. You can say certain people were acting less than professional, but if anyone were to dole out the proverbial book, it sure as hell won’t be Sydney.
“Dabbler, given how she constantly embarrasses people, will only get a slap on the wrist for trying to win in a sword fight out of ego.”
Not only that, but Dabbler’s “official status” with ARCHON is only as a Civilian Consultant type of affiliation; Dabbler DID specify that during the press conference. She’s not integrated into any kind of military or government chain of command & is not subject to military laws or disciplining…She CAN still be held accountable according to Civilian Law, but is accorded *some* privileges & protections with her affiliation to ARCHON.
I’m also not entirely sure how civilian laws would apply to an actual alien
It would also depend heavily on whether or not the government gave her some kind of “diplomat status.” If they didn’t do that, then it would also depend on whether or not she’s been resident long enough to obtain either State or US citizenships (yes, State & US citizenships are of two different classes), according to immigration and/or naturalization laws. If *none* of these points apply to her, she could still be held accountable to Civil & Criminal laws in accordance to “alien” status.
Also, Math is also officially considered as a Civilian Associate/Consultant/Specialist, like Dabbler. this kind of status does carry some advantages of it’s own. A good example is that, if someone who is officially subject to Military Law, they can be subject to “Double Jeopardy” if they should violate the law in certain instances…If they violate a Civilian Law, face a judge & subjected to some form of punishment, they can get back to the military only to face those same charges under military law for Court Martial AND perhaps additional charges for being AWOL too if the Civil punishment kept them from reporting back in for duty!
It doesn’t seem like her to get that preachy about it but I could see her feeling that the experienced and in some cases trained heroes might have worked some of this out already. Since Sydney, and apparently others, have to go through some kind of cadet training then it holds that the others were already trained this way or have enough field experience to just “test out” or something. So they should know how their known powers and power stunts work and any obviously dangerous side effects they have. Unless they are holding stuff back from each other intentionally so they can show off later in which case they do deserve a bitching out from somebody.
P.S. I don’t know about the OP’s whole, “Maxima intentionally fighting a guy who feeds on violence” thing since she only knew that for sure just recently and her first act after was meant to be a hold, less of an attack, that resulted in him “fighting” vacuum in space. It wasn’t that bad an idea to be worth getting scolded by the newb.
True, I guess I had a bit of a kneejerk reaction to her diving right back into the fight, even if she did have a plan.
I’m kinda onboard with Jorbun. Thing is Bleh, none of those events you mentioned were life threatening, supers fights. Also, when the battle is over, in the military there is something called an After Action Report/Brief (AAR/AAB). The AAR the official documentation. The AAB is where the team players nit-pick and explore all weaknesses, strengths, mistakes, brilliant maneuvers etc. Of the action. I’ll be a bit miffed if Dave doesn’t do something along those lines. Regarding Sydney’s actions during this fight, I’d say she’s acquitted herself very well and has shown some very strong leadership qualities. It’s possible her actions and battlefield analysis has moved her into the “cadet” category for future officer material. Heheheh, just as long as they don’t try to send her through OCS.
Nevermind that, other than Jigawatt using her darkening, none of the team has been misusing their powers during the fight, including now. What I’m implying is it’s not in-character for Sydney to be preaching to the team, at least not as thorough as being suggested. I can see her gloat about it, I can see an ‘I told you’ thing, but a full ledged, thorough rant? About ‘abuse’ of powers that isn’t there?
More chance of sending her to OCD than OCS.
Look at the cast page she is listed as a cadet. Jiggawatt is listed as a recruit, so maybe Dave has decided she is going for officer.
I don’t know why Dave has Sydney listed as cadet…He’s the one who specified the difference between cadet & recruit, during the press conference (using the mouth of a character to say it).
What I’m thinking is that *maybe*…
At the beginning of the comic (after all of this “flashbacking” is completed), sydney is referred to as Corporal. This IS a non-commissioned rank, but she still has to gain some ranks as a non-comm before they put her in OCS training. To me, this implies that Sydney may currently be a non-comm, but is on the track for an officer’s commission.
Then again, maybe not & Dave didn’t get his own wording right in the cast page…
Either is a possibility. We will just have to wait and see.
DaveB has just never corrected this in the cast page from before learning the difference between recruit and cadet
Ah, well, I just started a comments archive dive and am still waaaaay back. And, it will probably take me quite some time to catch up.
I thank you for the information.
The same Sydney who argued that light based lasers should be able to penetrate a clear shield? That’s our first memory of Sydney!
I agree with the OP, a nerd lecture is totally plausible.
A nerd lecture, yes. Not the same as what the OP is thinking.
Who is going to argue (about the shield thing) in the future. When she is already part of teh squad with a rank and all.
Keep the timeline in mind. We are in a very, very long flashback after all.
Actually, we’re only in the *first day* of Sydney’s flashback…But considering which day it is, there’s been a lot happening in just the one day. So far, Sydney’s had two lunches (loosing one of them on Maxima’s boots & didn’t get to finish her second lunch due to the attack of the atomic-powered noodle slap to her eye) & even her dinner tonight was only a fancied up baked potato…And I’m not even sure she had time to finish THAT off before this attack.
Yeah the only thing that super spaze is going to be disappointed about is how she hasn’t gotten her supper suit yet.
I think she might have gotten a couple of bites of her potato before the roof came down…Then again, maybe not. I only saw one forkfull of potato in Sydney’s hand (https://www.grrlpowercomic.com/archives/1247) & even though you don’t see her eat it, moments later, the fork was empty. Next page, you can see the fork in her mouth, so that would be two bites…then Mr. Boop-Nose came through the roof.
Ohhhh, you menat *super* suit, didn’t you?
Silly me, but you actually said “supper.” Heh!
I’d expect Sidney to come up with off-the-wall, outside-the-box uses for their powers during the AAR before I’d expect her to critique their actual actions… She’s the newb in field action after all, and she knows it.
Look for a lot of “Why didn’t you…?” and very little “You should’a…!” IMHO…
They (ARC) will be having a debriefing. It has been confirmed. And they will talk about stuff like Dabbler not using her mummy missile in time, Math staying with “his” target, Anvil making her absorption to ovious.
In the early pages it was even in the room that this might have been a “practice match” orchestrated by Maxima, Arianna or a third organisation.
We will see if Sydney will play any relevant part in that debreifing. She is after all meerely recruit and does not even know most of the peoples powers.
That girl is many things. A geek and nerd, a sensory masochist given her love of hot spice, a eager and overconfident space cadet, and last but not least nutter than tree vermin shit! But a preachy sage of wisdom? No, oh hell no!
It is always easy to tell what the smart thing would have been in retrospect.
Challenge him to a dance-off!
…it worked for Peter Quill >_>
Not going to post spoilers…but that wasn’t the reason that worked :p
and it worked for Slamacow too!
“…or whatever the genie said…”
Hmmm…What *else* did genie say? Oh yeah…”Itty bitty living space.” Magically stuff him into a container that’s so small that he can’t get any leverage to move, let alone cause any violence.
Ooops! This was supposed to be a reply to what Observer said on the previous page (https://www.grrlpowercomic.com/archives/1549/comment-page-1#comment-271034). Don’t know how it got *here*
Throwing him into orbit would be hard. A suborbital arc, or a loop which reenters maybe, but orbit?
They’d have stay with him to add energy at the apogee.
#Nerd #KSP
What about an escape trajectory? That would solve all their Vehemence problems for a very long time.
It’s virtually impossible to impart enough energy on an object at sea level to get them on an escape trajectory.
Air resistance WILL slow him down enough
Obviously you don’t do it at sea level. You fly upwards.
Preferably, adding an occasional blaster-beamy while flying up from below him…Not only to keep giving him more upward inertia, but to keep yourself out of range of his fists.
Doesn’t matter now that the guy can super stick himself to the ground the sky high plan is out the window.
It can still be done if they just let him take a chunk of ground with him…
Is the “no-Ariana friendly manner” dumping the energy blast and going for speed and strength to rip Vehemence’s heart out of his chest? Because that’s what I thought it was.
The last Arianna unfriendly act was to use an uber blast to explodey/implodey/explodey a tank in front of the press. At that time she informed the press that that attack was not her best (with added laughter for emphasis). I kind of doubt it is her top energy blast unless she evacuates the area first (for a few miles… ) but Dave sure did make it sound like she was referencing that blast.
Dave says she becomes so rigid she can’t move her own parts when she goes all in to armor. I wonder what would happen if she got V distracted enough to go all in to strength to grab and squeeze his testicles until very deformed and then went all in to armor becoming a nearly invulnerable and frozen in place statue for all intents and purposes? That would seriously distract him for the rest of the fight, possibly making his “spell casting” or whatever it is difficult, and screw up his movements while the rest either work on a strategy she gave them first or use the time to come up with something better. Normally I would think it would end the fight or maybe even cause him to pass out from the pain but the way he is taking that shot eye makes me doubt he is going down for long to any mere pain. Anyway that wouldn’t be a great thing to have on camera so maybe… (also it might finally shake whatever vestiges of the “gentlemanly brawler” politeness etc… he has been showing till now in favor of death to everything nearby)
I can’t really think of anything else at the moment. I mean he has to be too strong to simply tear him apart at this stage unless she went all in to strength, maybe, and then she wouldn’t have enough defense (speed or armor) to prevent him from landing an attack.
She will need the rest of the team and some top level on the spot strategic thinking (either from her or from them while she distracts). No more this Maxima vs. the world business. (yeah she’s used them a bit before this but she thought of it as training for when she wasn’t there! All her experience until now had convinced her that she could handle anything, anything in the world that might pop up, nearby herself if she really wanted to) I think its a little early in the comic for this wake-up call but its better than it not happening at all.
Thought up 2 new situations.
1) Sydney gets Vehem to say something, has the molestorb tentacle jump down his throat and coil about his head so he can’t pry it off. Leaves it there choking him til he stops struggling.
2) Sydney asks Dabbler if her railgun can shoot anything. Then hands her her emergency bottle of Carolina Reaper extract to act as ammo. Dabbler then fires it at Vehem’s face so he can enjoy the wonderful and extremely painful experience of having it in his eyes, mouth, nose, and wounds. They then casually take him down.
Considering the number of times it’s been suggested, I really don’t want to see a man deep throat a tentacle. :p
Well, besides that, at what power-level does V need to get before he no longer needs air to survive anyway? At whatever point that is, he could be surviving on just his V-Energy alone.
HALO HAS AN IDEA! RUN LIKE HELLL!
Halo on the scene is cause to run like hell. Without using her orbs or superpowers she mauled at least one (possibly two) would be assailants (one of whom actually had superpowers) and inadvertently ‘maced’ another. She also reflex punched another super in the face so hard she has a PTSD reaction.
And if nothing else, her cursing and ability to eat spicy food is probably second to none. ;p
Running is futile. Syd will first trip you, THEN implement her Master Plan.
Escape is futile. Even if you get past her physical range, she can still track you with the Comm Ball & ambush you at her leisure.
Hiding is futile. For the same reason.
When you draw Sydney’s attention, *everything* is futile…You will be assimula….er, uh…*humiliated* into submission.
Maybe she’ll finally think to trap him in a shield. Please, just do it, I’ve been waiting for her to do it since strip #264.
kinda agree with you there
And the Captain Oblivious award goes to you this Thursday!
They can’t trap him in Sydney’s shield, the only one available, because Sydney would be required to be in there with him, at which point he could just wipe her out and pew, shield comes down again.
And since we have another in agreement, it looks like there will be TWO trophies!
And DOUBLE SHOTS!
Drink!
And two of Dr. Revenge’s signs.
Nah, trap him in the shield with Sydney. He’ll be begging for mercy in minutes. Especially if they play a game of Nine Men’s Morris.
forget nine men’s morris just give her some chow. not an attack so he can’t feed off of it but he’ll be begging for a prison cell in minutes.
He ‘feeds’ on violence, not attacks, that’s why being on the defensive won’t work if they still do it violently
the way to defeat him couldnt be that they have to be more violent to him, simply forcefeed him violence until he pops
The problem there is, how violent of a “pop” would that be, considering it’s using violence energy – ie: would the city be reduced to a crater? Not good to experiment with things that could feasibly cause mass civilian casualties like that.
The shield :D Why not put him inside that when he blows, everyone justt assumes she has to be inside the shield, just because she has so far, it doesnt state anywhere that she cant project it.
Except that it is Dave’s words here. Evidence from the pages themselves and added commentary also support this, such as the laser test, or the commentary of the shield specifically forming with Sydney centered around it.
The first thing I thought when I heard “non-Arianna-friendly” was a big boom like the last non-Arianna-friendly one, and I am kinda worried about what they are surrounded with. This doesn’t seem nearly as good a place to try that stuff as that target practice place in the desert :\
I really hope I’m just being dumb and Maxima means something else. Or at least, ah, measures her strength well enough to not harm anyone in the range beyond who Halo can take in.
ehh.. lloks like this fight needs my chaotic neutral hero Ned. His power pool is celestial and charged similar To Dabbler and Vehemence, But rather Ned’s charge is built by actions of Good and Evil. That being said Ned can hit Rampage levels on both sides of the coin, Evil builds up to high and he rampages in blind rages (you could probably bind him if you have a magic binder device, they don’t sell those at future shop though) it basically takes a lot of altruistic actions that rely on tactical strategy.
So what happens if too much good charge builds up? Well you know why people hate templars right? or when Venom takes over parker? All Evil must be stopped at all costs, including Jaywalking, littering, and public loitering.
I never made him into an official character as I can’t draw humans worth a damn. But he’s fun to brag about, and well in reality I doubt this anti hero will be up against Vehemence, one day maybe he will do a quick tie in when i have some money to unload in patron, Girl power is a worthy comic of my money.
It sounds like you (or the character) is confusing “good” with “order” – they’re not strictly connected concepts, but people who go into an excess of order do tend to believe that they’re doing “good”.
thats the basic idea really, he goes so good it actually hits a rebound point, his good side or Light Side can mostly defuel itself easily, of course, the evil or dark side needs a hell of a lot of kittens saved from burning houses.
not impossible just tactically annoying since his universe is the other guys one world war 2 and the nazi’s controll the world.
so ya, Neds superpower is also his kryptonite.
Vehemence arc is becoming a little too much like World War Hulk
also the one thing they could do, is have Harem merge back to herself and teleport herself and V to Mars with her wearing an oxygen mask, and just leave Big V there. then Teleport back resplit back into Herem Mode and beers are on Goldilocks for inviting every derp villain to fight them
the problem with harem’s teleporting is she either has to have been to the destination enough times to have it memorised or have line of sight (think jumper). so it’s possible to teleport in short jumps but her best bet is to teleport him to the moon then back to base.
The problem is, that by Word of Dave, Harem cannot teleport living things! Even if she could, even condensed back to one body, Big V would still be about 5X her weight limit, naked. Not that I wouldn’t mind seeing her try…
Interesting consequence of Harem’s inability to teleport living things: No parasites or bacterial infections, ever. One teleport, and it’s left behind.
Presumably living things already on or in her body would teleport with her, otherwise she’d be in trouble.
From Wikipedia: “90% of the cells in (or on) a human body are microbes, by number (much less by mass or volume). Some of these symbionts are necessary for our health”
Ok…Andrew beat me to it.
Actually, V would be far more than merely 5x Harem’s weight limit, even if she could teleport with a living thing (which she can’t); with only *one* body, Harem’s ‘port limit is only 50 lbs. 5 x 50lb. = 250lbs…I’m pretty sure V would’ve been beyond that weight even *before* he grew to his current size.
MidnightDStroyer where did you get the 50 lbs. limit? She could teleport the Barrett with all bodies out and that is about half that weight. I agree V is way past her limit, but I just seem to think her limit would be closer to 125ish lbs. with just one body.
Word of Dave, though finding said word will be a chore and a half.
Yeah, I’ve already tried to find it & couldn’t…That kind of digging is a bit beyond my patience.
Ah, I must have missed it. I rarely went past page one in the comments before the highlighter came out, and missed most of the comments for the last couple of weeks, just getting back into them. Thank you both.
Might as well start digging back to the first page of the comic & go from there. A lot of Dave’s discussion about Sydney’s orbs might show up in the mini-blog under the comic, or could even show up in his replies within the comments.
Like I said, I lost patience…After I’d already checked some of the most likely places to look first.
Ooops! I meant to say “Harem’s limits” instead of “Sydney’s Orbs.” My bad.
D’oh! It is indeed on Dabbler’s science corner, specifically written on panel 4… on the chalkboard!
*head desk*
Well, I think I may have seen it but just forgot about it. You know us old folk. Thank you both again.
I emulate your *headdesk* bleh…I looked only at the spoken text, ignoring the the chalkboard…
CTRL + F5CTRL + F5
...
CTRL + F5
Best I can find is this summary.
Ack! That would be CTRL + F (not much of a joke anyway).
Thank you for taking the time to find that. It was quite helpful.
ooo…my brain is working on overdrive…have sydney put vehemence in her bubble with her and use her orbs in a pattern that would prevent him from reaching her. she just needs to make the bubble max size and hide close to the edge…then have her do a pinball impression (fly around at high speeds making sharp turns before running into buildings to smash V against the sides of the bubble without causing damage to anything but him). this suggestion is due to max being unable to move the spheres beyond their tether length so i’m guessing sydney is the only one that can move them.
option 2 is to put the bubble at large size and use the lighthook to make a weblike structure between them and taunt him into submission. i know he could get out of the lighthook earlier but in this scenario she would use it in a pattern that would prevent him from crossing a line instead of holding him back it’s easier to pull an object than push it. and even if he did push her lighthook web around all he would succeed in doing is keeping sydney out of reach. her bubble will eventually run out of oxygen and his larger mass will pass out before her. she should still keep the bubble up until she herself passes out and drops the ball/shield which would then allow the rest of the team to arrest V.
Unlike most people, your “Trap him inside the shield” actually has some thought behind it. However, point two in particular wouldn’t work. Animal metabolism actually scales inversely to mass. The larger the animal, the less oxygen they need per kg. The result is that while, say, an elephant does need more oxygen than you or I do, it can hold it’s breath longer. At the extreme end of this you have whales, which are enormous, but can hold their breath for about 2 hours, but they also have other adaptations for this. All this to say, hyper little Sydney would probably pass out, or at least get groggy, before V did.
Why do people assume she could make a shield that big to begin with?
probably because it’s just a little stretch of her imagination to use of the shield orb that way from when she completely protected the news crews out at the Demo site, maybe?
Covering a crowd, however, is not the same as covering a skyscraper.
Then there’s the part where Sydney could dodge V. No.
If Fedorka can’t fly, as everyone is so certain of, then it shouldn’t be too difficult for Sydney to make the Bubble as big as before and stay near the top and dodge when he leaps for her, but… all it would take is for her to mistime his leap once for it to be game over
Given his leap and speed, do you really think the shield used to cover the crowd of reporters would be even high enough? Then, again, there’s this assumption she could even dodge him at all.
closed, airtight bubble + vehemence inside clapping hands real dang hard = pressure wave that will probably knock Sydney unconcious even if it doesnt pop her eyes, ears and possibly other squishy organs depending on just how strong he is… concussive blasts in an enclosed enviroment are murderous.
As for pinning him with her orbs, not going to happen.. he was able to drag her (and the orb she was holding on to) by the lighthook Before the powerup, at this point there’s no way they could keep her safe for any length of time.
It is my personal theory that the orbs have two forces at work, one is the one sydney has control over, letting her make them move around and whatnot, this one has a finite level of strength. Then there’s the force that engages automatically when someone tries to pull the orbs beyond a certain distance away from her (or her a certain distance away from the orbs). This one was strong enough to dead-stop Maxima when she tried to pull against it and Could probably hold V too, but unless she’s using the balls to keep V from running away that’s not going to do her any good. (an ominous question indeed would be what happens if, say, Sydney gets caught inside an elevator and one or more of her orbs manages to get stuck outside? would it kill her by pulling her up through the ceiling of the elevator? Would it endow her with some level of protection that forces the elevator to grind to a halt or be torn a fresh sydney-shaped hole? Or would it make the orb move through the floor in an effort to follow the elevator/sydney so as to avoid injuries to the user? Basically, just how dangerous would it be to play tug of war with sydney and her orbs?
It still assumes that Sydney’s shield is truly completely invincible.
There is no support for this as far as we know – in the write-up, her defensive powers are on the same level as Maxima’s, not Achilles
Have we thought about maybe just leaving him alone now? He’s super powered, oh well. We honestly haven’t seem him really try to hurt people or property except in self-defense.
V set up this fight a restaurant was destroyed a construction site was damaged and people have been seriously injured, with lives having been attempted to be taken. He is completely responsible for what he set up. So, yes, he has tried to hurt people and damage property, and no it wasn’t in self-defense.
You could also argue that, if Maxi hadn’t set off that explosion in the desert, Fedorka wouldn’t have accepted her express challenge
So if the police go on TV and show a new weapon, then anyone has the right to go out and attack someone and destroy property as they were “challenged”? Criminal is criminal.
Just saying, that Maxi actually issued a challenge
To those committing crimes. If you are not a criminal then there is no challenge there.
Multiple times, and every conclusion we come to is ‘not a good idea’.
Not enough trophies to use here to raise Atlantis compared to the shield suggestion, though.
Opal disagree
Vektor’s ribs second that.
I’m starting to wonder why V first action was to knock out Opal –
Would it be that he needs the violence perpetrators near him (even if they are unconcious) to fuel it’s powers ?
In that case, Halo might ask max to go away to see if his tatoos colors go back to their bluish state. (Instead of moving V – move the violence generators away :p )
In this case, once those ‘generators’ are away, the hero who stayed behind to stall V would just need to immobilize him once is powers got back to manageable state.
I’m thinking that he knocked her out because she was going to teleport them ALL away from here… and HE DIDN’T want to leave. so the only way to stop that from happening… prevent her from portalling… and to keep it inline with his “being a nice bad-guy” he only knocked her out, he beat the crap out of Vector because vector was being a dick about it…
V knocked out Opal first because she was the only real threat to him once he got powered. She could have portaled him to Mars… Before he gave her a huge concussion.
If they keep hitting Vehemence, the cube-square rule suggests that eventually he’ll get so big that he won’t be able to move. Of course, the drawback is that no-one is sure how long ‘eventually’ will be…
He grew voluntarily.
Also magic and super powers trump physics.
I tend more on the line of thinking that magic & super powers are a sub-set of the Laws of Physics that haven’t yet been sufficiently learned as fact…
Think of it like this: this whole universe is chock-full of stuff that we can’t even *perceive* yet. All of our “sensory tech” is completely derived from the same Laws of Physics that our own biological senses use to work; Infra-red cameras for example, just translate that particular part of the spectrum into an image that our own eyes can see. This same principle is the same, regardless of whether we use radio-telescopes, X-Ray scanners, electron microscopes, sonar…everything is nothing more than an artificially-constructed means of expanding what our own biological senses can do.
We hear about new discoveries pretty frequently. Neutrinos (a few decades ago) & the Higgs Particle (more recently) are things that have existed but we’ve only just begun to perceive them…That’s why they’re called “discoveries.”
For that matter, we don’t even yet fully understand the entire human DNA & how all of those billions of combinations work out. They’re all mapped for sure, but that’s different from knowing how all of the possible combinations work out with each other. Even during growth from childhood onward, the DNA can be triggering the body into all sorts of potentials. In the real world, what we call genetic defects are really nothing more than a detrimental mutation. Just by the statistical analysis, most are harmful or deadly to the point that mere survival is questionable; Cancer is one class of mutation that literally turns one’s own body against themselves. Perhaps super powers are some quirk of the human genome that takes a strange twist that doesn’t prove detrimental or even fatal…And even maybe could, in time, prove to be a new evolutionary trait that helps with the survival of the species.
Perhaps “magic” is just a poorly misunderstood physical law that few can utilize…And even then don’t even fully understand the how & why it works, at least to the level of detail that our modern “sciences” can quantify & define. In this example, think of the old-time practice of Alchemy: Their ultimate goal was probably human immortality & the transmutation of one form of matter into another. Most people think of modern Chemistry to be the ultimate expression of those goals, but really was only the next step: Now people CAN transmute the basic form of matter & have even added new Elements to the Periodic Table! Those so-called “man-made” elements were not really *created* by people, but are really just expressing a different way of mixing together some of the more basic elements into a new form. What the old-timers used was chemistry on the scale of molecules, but with the invention of atomic super-colliders we’ve been able to transform matter on the atomic & sub-atomic scales.
In the medical & biological sciences, human lifespans have been gradually increasing over decades & generations. We can test male & female genetic samples from the moment of conception & find out if genetic deformities are likely to occur…If all seems well, the newly-conceived can be re-introduced back into the womb for normal development to birth. Who’s to say that “healing magic” isn’t just a poorly-understood method for channeling ambient energies that result in greater health & overall vigor?
All in all.even this real world universe is still full of unknowns that we can lump into the overall super-category of Laws of Nature…But as we come to observe, contemplate & learn them, we eventually re-classify them into sub-categories like Physics, Biology, etc.
“Any sufficiently analyzed magic is indistinguishable from science!”
Sorry, but it just had to be said.
Heh! As one of those “TL;DR” blurbs goes, you summed it up eloquently.
Afraid I’m not seeing how some seem to think that this and some other pages are evidence the writer’s changing the story in response to their comments rather than what we’re seeing is simply his already anticipating those concerns like he has other issues (such as Maxima warning Sydney to make sure if she uses her beam weapon that whatever behind her target isn’t something she wants to hit as well, like an orphanage or bus full of nuns). Seems reasonable that Vehemence anticipated certain basic responses like ‘toss him to the moon’, hence why he held back to soak up vehemic energy and didn’t display enough power early on that they’d go for that kind of maneuver until he had enough energy to counter it.
I never did think of Dave as changing the story to fit the comments. Besides the fact that the next page or few is already plotted out & in the works by the time a current page is posted, I see the comments section as a lot of people coming up with a lot of ideas & *someone* is likely to make a good guess.
But I can see the possibility that we’re also giving Dave some ideas further up the line & even giving him good rational for how some of this sh*t actually works out, like some of the physics during certain events & actions, or better detailing on how someone’s powers actually might work for background references.
Umm, Ari is only mentioned in passing, why she get called to the side-bar? o_O
We miss her. ;)
Cause we miss her, we also miss Suzie and Pinky
As always, I love the comic. No page has been disappointing. Giving yourself more and more to live up to each time, Dave. One thing I do wonder, though, is why isn’t Sydney just sitting there going “Man, this is awesome – real heroes!”
She got over that when you punched one in the face, turns out, they are not as super as they seemed :P
Ooooooooh. Sydney is about to get smart. :D
“Missed it by >< this much!" :P
Sounds like a good plan!
Obvious answer… Halo puts her shield around Vehemence, just him, and wait until he passes out from lack of air while he exhausts himself trying to punch out of it.
Which would ALSO explain exactly WHY Halo had to get light-headed in her shield a few strips ago.
(Chekov’s Rifle asserted!)
First one here to remind people once again, Sydney can only form her shield centered on herself. A ninja will be by with your sign after he recovers from his turkey coma.
Nope, those signs belong to Dr. Revenge…
He’s needed to put his ninjas on distribution duty. The sheer volume is overwhelming.
Yeah, HIS ninjas…Just not THIS ninja.
;)
Where is Dr. Revenge? I don’t recall seeing him in the last couple of updates. Though I apparently am oblivious to things at times. :-/
It’s a good thing he’s got some good people posting these notices for him when he gets back, huh?
;)
Yep, he should give warning is he decides to just up and run off. :-P :-)
The added weakness of making the shield air tight was a reversal of a decision Dave made to limit Sydney’s usage, nothing more.
So, one more trophy, one more sign, and another shot.
*KA-BLAM!*
I wonder if Max sees the irony in her comments about being pissed off because her enemy has an answer for everything and is able to increase his speed. Given the adaptable nature of her power set, I imagine any number of foes have thought the same of her.
LOL something similar recently happened in an EGS card game story setting. I doubt the irony was lost on the two players it happened to, especially as that ended in a draw. I doubt the similarity is intentional here but I’m sure Dave’d get a chuckle now that we’ve mentioned it
I think that Sydney will be quite useful during After Action Reviews, once she understands their purpose. The thing is, even solo supers can get free AAR’s via the internet. You just know that the nerds will tear apart every move and discuss it to death on the World Wide Web. I would show all of you an example of this, but am unable to find any at this time…
Has a Care Bear Stare been suggested?
Those bare Bears are nothing but violent!
“bare Bears?”
Have you ever seen a picture of a bear with all of its fur shaved off? Me neither.
But somewhere I have seen a very detailed artist’s rendition of what a hairless bear would look like…Terrifyingly hideous!
I’m thinking that Sydney figures out the best way to dissipate vehemic powers. Tickle attack with the molestorb! See if his powers vanish in a hurry as he laughs! Or try to get him to mellow out some other way. Weed grenades. Or get Achilles to challenge him to a drinking contest! It worked on Galactus. Or get Anvil back on her feet to soak up his attacks alongside Achilles, except it seems likely that he’s powerful enough right now to just ignore both of those two. I know! Surrender to him and become his personal army. Overthrow the existing world order and everybody gets promoted under Emperor Vehemence. Absolutely *nobody* would expect that plot twist.
Why am I being reminded of Sigma when I look at Vehemence? Maybe it’s the face markings…
…or maybe it’s because they’re both bald as a cueball…
Look at the orbs PPO, Lighthook and Florb are orbiting her, that means she’s using the truesight.
DUN DUN DUN!
see previous message block. Or, in a nutshell – the Truesight is NOT in her hand, it is hidden partially by the BOOM effect in 7th panel.
Just happy as hell to see the method of dealing with V was addressed in the pages, Peg did go for the good eye and Max did try for a super speed grab and lift to try to get V in orbit, man it really feels like Thanksgiving now, great work on the launch to orbit plan!
V seems to be a little drunk on power. he is burning power on all sorts of things bulking up, pants, not being lifted into orbit, and the enhanced speed probably burns a little bit of power I wonder how long it will last
The man may be high as a kite but at least he’s staying down to earth, well grounded you might say.
Let’s try to not let these puns dig us in so deep that we get buried under them…
I forsee it like this:
Arianna Unfriendly
= maxxed out Max-style world-shaking kaboom
= great burning (Dabbler’s Ex) + Sydney DING! (Mothafuckas!)
So, how many tanks worth of reserve does Maxima have to distribute?
Just get Sydney to relate to V all her knowledge on DC, Marvel, Dark Horse, and Various Manga Related publishers, in alphabetical order (Alphanumerically in alphabetical) Don’t say she can’t do it, She’s a True Geek, a Paladin Level Geek, Actually under the circumstances shes more an ascended geek, it be like if comic shop guy from the simpsons was teleported into the holodeck for 4 minutes with 7 of 9. only cooler cause this is real.. in that the universe she was born of is real and actually has metahumans.
Maxima appears to have healed her nose injury.
Just the angle makes it look that way
Not really. In panels 2 and 6 we get a clear look at Maxima’s face, and there’s not a hint of blue blood or the damage you would expect from a broken nose which has taken another good hit even after the hit that broke it.
I haven’t fleshed it all out yet but here how I think at least part of it goes: Maxima is about to do her extraordinarily major explodey thing and Vehemence is coming at her from the opposite direction with annihilation in his eyes when Sydney pops up between the two. Both stop dead in they’re tracks, with WTH looks on their faces (maybe both screaming Sydney, not sure about that part). Sydney calmly states, “We’re done here” in a matter of fact kind of way. Both Maxima and Vehemence both get the cartoon confusion look on their faces. Then Sydney (and I haven’t figured out how she would accomplish this yet) syphons Vehemence energy by…He returns to his original state. I wouldn’t make him a ninety pound weakling, too cliché, but an average size guy with an athletic build. He’s left dumbfounded, screaming how. Maxima is just as dumbfounded but looks at Sydney with a smile and chuckles a bit. She makes the mistake of asking Sydney how she did it and Sydney goes into this long drawn out comic book superhero diatribe to explain. Maxima interrupts by telling Sydney okay, okay just finishing telling me AFTER we get the perp sewed up (or whatever she would say in those situations).
I forgot, Sydney also puts a dampener field around Vehemence so he can’t absorb enough energy to hulk out but enough to survive (that is if he needs it to survive). Maybe she finds a way to combine her powers with Dabbler’s to make some kind of anti-Vehemence dampener shield? Hmmm…
They should try to put Heatwave on melting his good eye.
Seeing how she can melt through the tank, this is at least a sporting chance, and since she can fly, she will be in relatively little danger
Heatwave is sedated and awaiting(?) evac to the infirmary. Out of commission.
Yeah. I don’t get it. How would this be an ass pull? How would it be “out of thin air” or “without explanation”? If it would be unacceptable to unlock an orb here, exactly WHERE would it be acceptable to you? Do they forever have to sit there unused because invoking anything new that wasn’t explained as there at the beginning is an ass pull?
Ok, it’s not out of the question that Sydney learns the capabilities of one or both of her unknown orbs during this fight. As you suggest, they will probably be discovered at some point, and during the midst of unusual activities is the most likely scenario since that exposes Sydney to different stimuli.
But it would indeed be an “ass pull” for the newly discovered orb to conveniently beat the unstoppable force that the whole team can’t take down. That is the worst kind of story telling.
This. Exactly this.
They mean it would be weak or convenient writing. Which is somewhat true. I would rather see this fight concluded some more interesting way myself. I don’t think it will be that big of a pain when reading the archives. First fight on the first day with the first villain with enough crank to take on more than two of them at a time when we know this is all a flash back where they win and Sydney is at least partially responsible for some kind of “big guns” moment between here and there. How much more foreshadowing do you need? A giant flashing neon sign?)) People reading the archives for the first time up to and past this fight will laugh a bit, enjoy the light show and most likely have no serious problem with it. But for those of us who have been following twice a week slowly going over all the various potential powers and possible fight options in between updates it seems like a massive let down.
They apparently have never taken the time to familiarize themselves with the trope named “ass pull” and have given it their own definition over time. Or they prefer their own (and the confusion it brings) *shrugs* No its too well foreshadowed to be of the trope “ass pull”.
The must want it revealed in a training arc or a one on one fight against someone unimportant. Though this would be a flashier place to do it. Would they rather he wait till a truly important fight with the world in the balance against a super villain and his evil extra-dimensional organization five chapters from now? I don’t think Dave is going to reveal an orb now (especially not as he seems to read the comments so unless its vitally important to reveal it now… ) but I don’t see it being a deal breaker this early in the comic to do so.
It seems unlikely that, after some time spent in private & secret practice, Sydney hasn’t found out anything about either of those 2 orbs…Only to have 1 or both purposes discovered on her *first flippin’ day* in the group & before any training whatsoever.
If anything, Sydney now has access to quite a few people to help her try various uses under safer, more controlled circumstances & with plentiful resources, both material & intellect-wise. It just seems more *probable* that training sessions would be where someone actually figures out the mystery orbs.
Sure, discovering it in training is a real strong possibility. I have enjoyed many stories like that (*cough* Whateley *cough*). But while discovering it in training with lots of high paid experienced folk is a more likely possibility it doesn’t follow that discovering it in a super fight is “unlikely” just less likely. The fight had lots of powers flying around. The fight had the potential to cause a lot of circumstances less common in Sydney’s normal non-super life (wounds of herself and friends, bizarre energies flying around, emotions of combinations and or intensities she had not experienced before, etc… ). The fight, if it keeps going less and less in their favor, might result in a lot of pressure on Sydney to think outside the box. Necessity is the mother of invention and all that. Surely discovering one of the orbs powers in this rather long and increasingly stressful super powered fight is more likely than say Sydney discovering it at home while carefully hiding any evidence of power use from government sponsored vivisectionists.
So:
Orb Discovery During Training is more likely than Orb Discovery During Fight is more likely than Orb Discovery At Home Pre-ARC
I would rather she win this fight with some other strategy than Orb Discovery = Checkmate of V but it there is some foreshadowing and logic to support this so I’d accept it. I don’t think Dave is going that route but if he did I’m sure he would make it as fun a ride as possible.
I never said that Orb Discovery During Battle would constitute an @$$pull dues ex machina…I was merely talking about the *probabilities* & I applaud you for noticing the difference.
Erm… thanks? You had me going there for a moment. I started reading my comment for mention of “ass pull” before I even finished yours. LOL
Speaking of ass pulls, consider the relative heights of Max & Veh in panel 2…
More of a butt rub…
She’d have to fly up just to give him the Heimlich.
Right now, V’s chest is much bigger than his waist (Dave mentioned that his upper body proportionately grew more than his lower half) & Max could barely reach around his waist. Could she even do the Heimlich at all?
Done properly, she’d still be under his ribs (which is where his growth is more evident), but it might be tricky.