Grrl Power #272 – Sandbagger Vance
When you blow someone’s arm off in a superhero comic, it’s really only going to go one of two ways. Since Vehemence is an Arch-Villain, it had to go this way. Maxima just needed to face someone who wasn’t going to be out-powered. It’s a rare situation for her to be sure. I’m sure some people will be disgruntled by this and others will be… uh, gruntled I guess, but don’t worry about the fight resetting or anything though, we’re entering the home stretch.
I needed Vehemence to be so tough that if he ever shows up in the comic again, everyone knows that the proper response is “Oh shit, run!” He was always my guy who could go toe to toe with the Hulk or Juggernaut, Superman or even Darkseid, assuming Darkseid didn’t open with the ol’ Omega Beams. Vehemence is smart enough to know not to face off against a threat like that without warming up a little, which is a large part of what makes him Arch tier. Ooh, I just had a thought, I know I said him vs. Vegeta in the little byline, or whatever it’s called, but imagine Vehemence vs. DC’s Parasite. I’m actually not sure how that fight would go down but it would definitely be bad for the city it takes place in.
Drawing armored limbs that don’t look like Colossus’s is challenging. I tries doing vertical strips of armor, but he wound up looking like a metal eel or something. Which… is kind of cool, just not the look I had in mind for him.
So the Patreon campaign recently exceeded $3000 which is amazing! Within a few weeks of a year after I lost my job actually, or as I prefer to think of it, was promoted to full time comic dude. I want to thank everyone for their support as it’s been a great year. It turns out I really don’t miss the commute to the office to grind away in a cube like I had done for the last 20 years. The milestone goal for $3000 was “really making a living for realsies” so when I my wife had the chance she signed me up with her health insurance. Being without for a year was a little harrowing, but spending 10-12 hours a day drawing is inherently less risky than commuting and being around other germ bags. Still, yesterday I got a gentle reminder that living lean is really only a short term solution. I woke up and some nerve or tendon in my shoulder had decided to twist around the wrong way so I was in a fair amount of pain and had a super limited range of motion. Fortunately sleeping on it the next night fixed it (hooray for the human body I guess?) I was hoping it would since I didn’t want to live out the rest of the month like that until the health insurance kicked in.
Speaking of the health insurance though, I picked $3000 because it’s a round number and that’s how our brains work, not because it was the number I came up with after sitting down and doing a budget. Since American healthcare is enormously expensive, riding on my wife’s plan is more than a car payment. At least it includes dental and vision, which the cheaper Obamacare options don’t, and I could definitely use some new specs and a good tooth scraping. Unfortunately I will probably have to add at least one more ad banner to the site to make up the difference. I don’t want to, and I know it’s a first world problem, but the good thing is that I should be cash positive after that which is nice since I don’t want to be one of those webcomicers that has to run a kickstarter to afford to attend an out of state con. It also makes the next Patreon milestone easy to pick, which is to ditch some of the ads.
So I’m looking forward to next year! The first story arc will be wrapped up, and I’m excited for the next one. I promise more than one day will pass during it. :) I can put together a book (honestly it may wind up being two or even three volumes just cause a 300(-ish) page color book might be hella expensive), run a kickstarter for that, and even start looking at some of those out of state cons.
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Predictable…
The regeneration was predictable. The armor-up on the other hand…. well, maybe in hindsight.
It certainly was.
But there now are little of non options left to overpower him, no possible ways to Maxima to try out at least, which gives this strip a nice arc of suspense. :-)
Because, seriously, how to go on from here ?
A simple Syndey moment won’t do, though I certainly believe there is a big surprise in store.
Maybe her ADD and Genre Savvyness blend together to pull a Jimmy Neutron? That might be enough more of a Sydney moment to get things in gear.
Brainblast?
> Because, seriously, how to go on from here ?
Well, in principle:
PEEEAAACE…! – Only way I can think of to counter violence.
Now, how to perform that… well…
…
Thinking about it, there may be another way: LOOOOOVE
Maybe Dabbler could charm him… but as up-powered(?) as he is now, and obviously being able to do magic-like stuff, I doubt that a simple spell will be enough. Also (and especially!) he seems to know that Dabbler is a succubus and shows no fear whatsoever about that.
“Love” that a succubus gains power from is not inherently non-violent.
It… actually kinda is in this context, milkequake. it’s not love she gets power from. it’s lust, which is described as “very strong sexual desire” Even phrases like “bloodlust”are a recharacterization. they aren’t actual lust.
Whatever happens, Max had better guard her nose more carefully for the next page or two at least. You know what they say, “Third time’s the charm.”
Yep, sure was.
Sidney will defeat him, probably with a mystery ball (TM).
Looks like it did backfire catastrophically! Time for dat thinkin’ tilt.
I’m pretty sure the “oh shit run” level was reached quite a while ago…
Agreed!
For most of us. Max takes a little more persuading.
Just about the same time the newly formed, government sponsored super team decides to cut and run whilst leaving behind the god of violence to do, well, whatever the god of violence wants to do, they will find that their support and funding drops to zero.
Not to mention the impact on public opinion, so Ariana will be pissed. She will suddenly develop super powers of her own and spank the team for being utter cowards.
On other words, not happening.
Soon he will run out of distinguishable colors for his markings and can no longer power up
Look & you can see that even his *new* arm has the markings. I’m thinking less of the possibility that they were applied some time during his life & more that he was born with them.
It’s possible he was born with them…but remember that Dabbler said those that can manipulate vehemic energies are very rare. I still feel it’s more likely that they were bestowed upon him in some form or other and that they, themselves, can regenerate upon remade body parts following a blueprint that’s baseline encoded into them.
And that they’re demons. She said a human with those abilities is unheard of.
I’m thinking either part-demon, or demon-bound-in-human-form. Damage may possibly weaken the bindings, allowing the demonic self to come out.
Being possessed would explain the personality shifts.
Alternately, absorbing vehemic energies could be the magical equivalent of doing PCP.
He more than likely was born with them, being an innate user and all, but people with superpowers is being acknowledged in the comic as unlikely to be a natural occurrence. Alien experimentation many years ago, demons and their lewd ways, or all of the above and then some. So in a way, it can be both.
Considering that Dabbler has some alien heritage in her demonic succubus family line…Yeah, at least her parents were capable of swinging both ways.
She is also part doppelganger so all directions are available.
The fact she got four arms should be obvious.
The actual…mating ritual…must have been interesting…
In this world magic is mostly learned. So, he probably found out about vhemant deamons from some book somewhere and then figured out how to apply that to his body.
The solution is probably going to be for Sydney to use her tentacle to lift him off the ground.
Most magic is Eart based, and on the last page you see how he growned his excess energy.
Maybe he’s born with it, maybe it’s Demonene
Vehemence goes metal…
Terminator much?
Yeah…. Who didn’t see this coming? If you can power up so much that you have a growth spurt then logically you can also regenerate. The only question is the speed of which you can do it. Also does this make Vehemence a saiyan?
A super saiyin.
How could we tell? He has no hair to change color. (Although, for a moment there the team had a glimpse of another area of his body that may have supported that claim)
In V’s case, we’ll have to judge his “super saiyin level” according to the glow of his tattoos, not his hair…
So now V has a….. Goldeneye?????? :P
Thumbsup
He has also rearmed himself.
He’s armed to the teeth. We better keep our eyes open.
And thus we are coming to the conclusion of the comic. Next Monday, V kills off the entire team. Pity, I have grown fond of the series…
Nope. If you’ll recall that the beginning of the comic actually started a few months *after* this fight, we know that Sydney, Max, Anvil, someone who strongly resembles Stalwart & someone waaay in the background (https://www.grrlpowercomic.com/archives/60) survive.
Obviously, sarcasm is a lost art on this one.
The internet killed it especially one of the key traits to sarcasm is tone.
Nope. What you missed is the sarcasm I put on top of the sarcasm.
Was that sarcasm?
Now you’re just being sarcastic…
Sarcastic? Never!
That wasn’t sarcasm, but this is.
:D
I don’t know which is scarier: With Vehemence regenerative uber power boost or that all this time, this was Sydney ON the meds.
Actually, the thought that her meds might be wearing off is *much* scarier…
Oh dear lord. I’m not sure what would be more destructive. Full charged V or Sydney sans meds and hungry
Well, she’s already had 2 lunches either barfed up or left unfinished today…And while she *might* have finished off her potato before Mr. Boop-Nose came through the roof, we only saw her take two bites of that.
Yeah, she’s probably pretty hungry…
I’m just gonna leave this here.
Considering how long ago that Dr. McNinja strip was posted, it’s too late to feed HIM a Snickers. But it’s not too late for Sydney!
Funny, forgetting to eat can be an ADD trait. From both googling, and experience.
(Seriously, when I’m actually focused on something, interrupting that to eat is not something I think of.)
There are a number of things that one can forget about due to ADD or ADHD. Eating, Sleeping, Work …
Animals can be helpful to people with ADD/ADHD because they can help maintain a sense of order in their lives. Try and forget to give your cat food/water, watch what they do! Lord knows I’ve forgotten to refill the food dish in the morning before and she’d make a ruckus until I went to find out why.
I don’t have any experience with those types of meds but do they metabolize quicker with activity? Would all this fighting, stress, and adrenaline make them wear off quicker?
I like the way Dave approached this moment, concerning Sydney’s meds wearing off. This whole day was all *new* to Sydney & very distracting just in the sequence of the events that drew her to this point.
Bank robbery, meeting super-humans, here time spent in Archon HQ…The whole *day* had her distracted. I’d find it a wonder indeed if she had remembered to take her scheduled dose. That’s a nice little detail Dave thought of.
Actually, it’s more likely that the whole day had her focused. Some studies have shown that focusing is more of about blocking out the other things that are attracting your attention, rather than paying attention to the thing that must be focused on.
Hence her paying attention (mostly) to all the cool superhero stuff, yet not thinking to call home at all.
Also, it may not be that she forgot to take it, some ADD/ADHD medications can interfere with sleep, and are avoided/taken at times so that it does fade in the evening. Theses drugs are basically stimulants.
I think after this the crash would help her sleep through anything.
It’s starting to appear that intimidated, incarcerated or incontinent aren’t on the menu for V.
Trashing the restaurant isn’t going to help them to serve any either.
Actually, it’s starting to look like the U.S. government may have kicked a nest full of super-hornets by founding ARCSWAT.
How exactly would he have found out that he can regenerate whole limbs (and get stronger, because that’s not spending energy at all, right?) in the past? Who exactly has been going around blowing his arms off before Maxima?
I wasn’t exactly surprised by the regenerating but the “It makes me stronger” part is a little over the top for mine.
Underground super fights. :V
Unless one of the unknown orbs gives Sydney the power to telekinetically control metal – in which case he’ll find himself dangling in the air…
Metal isn’t exactly a rare thing on this planet, so you’d think that her experiments would have discovered that by now if it was the case.
Well, it seems to be a magic thing so he might have studied his way to it. Alternativly if it is a natural effect to an inate ability it might be that he was criticaly injured during a war, and that was his first powerup to the form we first see him in.
DaveB suggested in a previous comment that he’s been in underground fighting clubs before. It’s easy to loose teeth if nothing else. Hell, maybe he was organizing some papers at the office one day and cut his finger off. Whatever, there’re millions of ways to injure one’s self. Maybe he first noticed that his stubbed toe healed really quickly, and his bench press went up five pounds that day.
Since his teeth were replaced by metal too, I have to go with the “study” theory. He knows what his powers are capable of, even if it’s something he’s never used before. What’s even scarier is that he’s powered up again, just from Maxima’s violent act and his regeneration, if that wasn’t BS about it making him stronger.
I have to agree with the above comment Quote: “I’m pretty sure the ‘oh shit run’ level was reached quite a while ago…”
The metal part, not necessarily. This level of power is something he apparently has never achieved before, so not surprisingly this would also be the first time his body would adapt like this. He’d probably admire himself if he wasn’t too drunk on his power rush and too busy about to pummel Max. Hmm… gave me an idea.
First rule of fight club is you do not talk about fight club.
Second rule of fight club is you DO NOT talk about fight club.
Even though V can absorb violence around him without his active participation, do you think he would have been passively standing by *every single time* he wanted to charge up a bit? He’s probably suffered injuries before & yet he started *this* fight in pristine physical condition.
I may or may not be rooting for V going the Kenpachi route and being a somewhat goodish guy later. In fact I now feel like drawing V and Sydney As Zaraki and Yachiru with her holding onto his shoulder being adorable as they charge into battle. Now if only I could actually draw.
Sydney’s meds running out? Or maybe she could be near the end of her current air supply in that shield?
Either way, Harem at least is recognizing Syd as the “go to girl” when it comes to strat-er-i-giz-ing.
I don’t think it’s the air supply. It looks like she’s dropped the shield right now. It’s not visible in scene and given that Harem is in a panel with here and the shield isn’t between them I believe this is a correct assumption.
Yeah, it does indeed look like Sydney’s shield is down in both of those last two panels. It might be that if her meds are wearing off, she got that momentary “oh shit” moment & let go of the orb.
They made a reference not Too long ago about the shield and getting light headed. So I don’t think its the air supply.
…And if V ever went to Apokolips, he would get monster powerful just by sleeping…
And after a nice, refreshing nap, then he’d go have a “talk” with Darkseid…
Or maybe he could watch Darkseid and Superman face off, and then challenge the winner. Heck, if Darkseid decides to use V as a “hostage” against Superman and blasts him with those Omega Beams, like he did that one cop, V would go Nemesis on both of them.
As for the Parasite, it would depend. I remember a Firestorm comic where he faced the Parasite and couldn’t be drained. Parasite asked, “What gives? I could drain you before.” Firestorm replies: “That’s because I no longer have power, I AM power.” Vehemence might have reached that point as well.
I said before, I think the big V is a human possessed by a Malamus demon and this strip just reinforces that belief. I also think he’s lying about regenerating. The replacement arm, eye and teeth are clearly inhuman and I believe they belong to the Malamus. So the solution, if not exorcism, may be the utter destruction of Vehemence’s body, leaving the Malamus with nothing to keep it anchored to this plane, because COMICBOOK LOGIC.
I’ve postulated a few pages ago (bottom of this thread: https://www.grrlpowercomic.com/archives/1541/comment-page-2#comment-268596) that Vehemence might actually *be* a demon, but your thought that he might be trying to *become* a demon is equally noteworthy.
So was Max’s power blast just a handout for V?
So it would seem. Sydney tried to warn Max. I missed the mark as well. Any attack that does not kill him makes him more powerful. I’m wondering if decapitation would actually kill him or just leave Max fighting an iron golem.
V has just said that his regeneration makes him stronger. Even though Max’s blast on the last page may have given him a boost, apparently using his regeneration power gives him a boost too…The process that makes it work must also count as a “violent act.”
Dave could have saved us a lot of speculation on his power-set and just introduced him with the villain name of ‘Nietzsche’. Then we would have known “That which does not kill me makes me stronger.”
Hmm. I don’t think regenerating boost the level of vehemic energy that Vehemence has.
But it does boost his physical power by recreating the lost limbs as a stronger version. They MIGHT require a certain level of power to maintain, as might the growth effect.
Something will work on him. But it’s probably not going to be overwhelming force.
While I did hope that his regeneration attempt would fail, this was the only way it could reasonably have gone given the style of the comic. It would have been admittedly disappointing, though certainly interesting, if Maxima had shut him down here and now. I was thinking it would be cool to not have Sydney be the deciding factor, and that may still happen, but this is just fine too. It’s a fun comic, and I am happy to wait and see where this goes. (Well, maybe not so happy to wait…)
I’m just kind of happy that Maxima isn’t the most munchkinized character anymore.
I’m sure Death Toll could beat him easily
Yeah, except all V has to do is ignore him to beat him.
What I’m thinking is that someone could wake up Death Toll & convince him that he might bargain for a lighter sentence IF he’d agree to shut down Vehemence. If he agrees, then Sydney could Lighthook him to put him into the path of V’s blows…
Actually I thought of that too. Sydney could use the lighthook to move Death Toll into the path of V’s hit. Since he drained Anvil’s Kinetic powerup, he might drain V’s Violence powerup.
Emphasis on “might” at this point.
All V has to do to beat Death Toll is cycle through multiple forms of attack in quick succession. Pretty sure he’s both smart and fast enough to at least make a decent attempt at said approach.
This being a superhero comic, and still part of the origin flashback started way earlier, it is a given Vehemence will be beaten, or at least that they make it out alive. But I am getting more and more curious how they will pull that off.
tbh, I don’t think V actually wants to kill anyone, I think all he’s looking for is someone that can put up a good fight.
Well, by his own words he doesn’t really want to kill anyone. He came here to beat the crap out of them.
Actually, that makes sense if you remember that Vehemence feeds on violence. To him, the people he’s fighting are a reusable energy source, so killing them just deprives of him feeding opportunities in the future. Plus, they might decide to try and get revenge after he beats them – which would involve them either training to become more powerful or just being less restrained in using the powers they already have, both of which mean more destruction, more violence, and more vehemic energy for him to soak up.
Who said Vehemence has to be beaten for the team to survive? He’s already gotten everything he wanted from this fight after all. He’s grown uber strong, amp’ed up his powers and proven that no one on this team of heroes can match him and they know it. He’s so powerful now he doesn’t need to fight them into defeat. Vehemence could just turn and walk away, laughing his head off! Unless Sydney can pull a last minute Hail Mary from somewhere, who’s gonna stop him?
‘course, this is a hero comic, so I’m still rooting for Sydney’s Hail Mary save.
The problem with Vehemence trying to just walk away is that he is coming across more and more as a junkie. One who is addicted to both Adrenaline AND Violence. He’s not going to leave this veritable feast behind if he has a choice in the matter. No junkie in their right mind would!
Besides, Vehemic Energy may have emotional, psychological or physical side effects while its pumping through his system. He may HAVE to burn all of that energy off or there will be nasty side effects later.
it would have been nice to actually see and not just been told that Maxima is strongest known super in the world before getting her ass kicked, which I assume will happen next.
Yeah, my sentiment exactly, which I have mentioned that several times so far. However, seems Max has been chosen to be a Worf of Grrl Power.
Nonsense. Max was doing fine in the big fight. She more than established that she’s in a class above the rest.
She is not doing fine. She is doing the opposite of fine. V is toying with her. And she is not only failing to make anything right, she is actively making things worse by making Veh more and more powerful all the time.
He pratically one-shotted her several pages ago.
He powered up immensely twice since then.
Well everyone who thinks that is working off the extremely flawed premise that there are like a hundred superheroes total, much less actually powerful ones.
Their intel is apparently shit. Maxima not being as god-tier as believed is therefore to be expected.
Not necessarily. I, for example, am working off the premise that informed abilities should correspond to the demonstrated abilities for the characters. And informed abilities we got are both first-hand ( characters in the comic said so ) and second-hand ( the author said so ). Otherwise, the discreepancy between the two is just irritating.
The gross incompetence of their intelligence sector stands though. They are completely clueless and useless.
I think the Demonstration with the Tank pretty much proved that. However, there are now 3 names on the list of people who can beat her IMO, and she hasn’t met every super in this world either.
vaporizing a tank only proves she’s pretty powerful. I meant it would’ve been good to see her beat someone very powerful compared to rest of the team and then Vehemence could’ve showed up and kick her ass a little bit. but even that would be a little too dragonballzy to be good storytelling IMO
Blowing up a tank only proved she can blow up a tank. We have seen several supers so far that can do that. Nothing impressive there. We have seen nothing else from her, besides overpowering some c-list no-name (metal chest plate guy ) via sneak attack.
Maxima’s problem in this scenario is not that she isnt “powerful enough”, she’s still the only one able to remotely go toe to toe with V and do limb-loss level damage… no bets on wether that is still the case though.
The problem is that V is not a nail, he’s a firing pin, and she has been trying to solve this issue with the blunt end of the hammer rather than the claw, her strategy wasnt completely foolish, go big or go home can work at times. But in this situation that did prove the wrong way to go and we’ll see just what the heck happens next :)
Lets face it, the woman has seen actual war, has fought other super powered foes in actual life or death combat.. and has probably never run into a situation where using more force than the enemy can handle did not work in the end. Hence why her instincts told her to keep upping the ante because, lets face it.. to any conventional sense of physics and logic, getting hurt should Not make you stronger… and yet here it does, hence the oups.
as for her impressing us.. the girl fired off a Nuke-style megablast.. toe-punted a tank a few miles before that… she’s taken every hit V has given her so far and the worst she’s suffered is a broken nose. Only Achilles could take more punishment im pretty sure and that wasnt even with her armor on max. All in all against pretty much any foe short of V here (and possibly Death toll and his counters, we never did find out) her aproach of overwhelming power applied in the most devastating manner possible just is not (for once) going to work.
That “for once isn’t going to work” is the main problem here, since “for once” is all we have to work with.
See, all comic book supers meet their match ( or superior) at some point in their career that can either couther them perfectly or simply overpower them. Spidey got schooled by Dock Ock, Supes got “killed” by Doomsday, Wonder Woman got trashed by Genocide, Thor got his ass kicked by Gor the god butcher, and so on.
The main difference is, all of them have had many heroic feats and victories under their belt by that time. Max has zero.
With Max and Veh, the problem is twofold.
One, having her easily outmatched in the very first showing really doesn’t do her any favours, and simply makes her look overrated and incompetent.
Second, which is a direct consequence of the first, bringing in Veh as “Oh shit run!” type of a threat significantly loses the desired impact since he is beating on a character with no history of succesful, impressive deads/victories.
Without second-hand info, we would have no idea Max is supposed to be that big of a deal, and as consequnce, Veh neither.
Considering this is their first outing after the Big Demonstration, this does not bode well for anyone. Not the team, not for Max, and not for the reader. I keep seeing n the comments that this is supposed to be a Comedy/slice-of-life comic, but right now it seems like we’re opening the team’s first appearance with The Death of Superman. We have a team we have barely seen use their powers (and a few that *only* appeared during this fight) getting curbstomped by someone that is clearly the most powerful person on the planet (thus far).
How do you top this? DO you top this? Can we sit through another 3 months of fighting before we see story everytime a Doomsday/Galactus/Darkseid shows up? Because after Vehemence it’s going to take someone like them, or something like a massive alien invasion, to even seem like a threat that takes more than a page or two.
And this battle has been going on for *months* now. So long that I had completely forgotten this is all a flashback, they win (somehow), and Syd gets into the convention.
Nitpicking and nigh excessive criticism.
This might put Max against one of the few people she can’t just beat into submission, but it’s also establishing that brute force isn’t going to be the only solution.
Max said it herself, but didn’t follow her own advice. If the enemy is matching your rock with their own rock, trade dance partners so that someone else’ paper or scissors (or fluffy love beam) will work better.
Heck, up until V, this has been an a rather good showing for the team, as they gave better than they got against greater numbers, and thought their way through more than one tough to beat super.
Kinda figured he was gonna grow the arm back, wouldn’t be much of a villian if he couldn’t. The eye and teeth are a surprise though, and I love the pattern of the arm-our. Looks really snazzy, kinda like scale mail, which makes sense, given he grew it back. But what’s his eyeball made out of now?
Well, that does indicate that regenerates automatically like Wolverine does…Vehemence has to consciously initiate it.
Arrrgh! I meant to say “indicate that he doesn’t regenerate automatically.”
Not having an edit function grates on my nerves sometimes…
I think Dave once mentioned that not having an edit function lets some of the funnier typos survive. =)
Yeah, but the typos that suck also stay here too…
:/
The, “if it doesn’t kill me makes me stronger” makes me wonder how he knows this. Other than the growth spurt, he looked normal. Does this mean his regenerative ‘power up’ fades over time?
If Superman were deprived of sunlight for extended periods of time, he does gradually grow weaker. Just as Superman is an innate Solar Battery, I’d say Vehemence is an innate Violence battery. Just as normal people have to eat food or they weaken & die, Vehemence & Superman *use* energy just by their own natural, biological existence.
So yes, I’d say Vehemence *does* indeed gradually deplete his stored V-Energy…But it’s the time factor involved that’s in question.
You know Spiderman went toe to toe with Firelord, the X-men and a few others who seemed to be out of his league so never count the little guy out, especially if you catch him on a bad day. It did take a lot of heros just to pull Spiderman off Firelord.
Everybody forgets that Spidey is a super team unto himself.
He’s super strong, super tough (He gets thrown through brick walls and is only bruised) super fast, pre-cognitive (spidey sense), super accurate, and super smart (He invented the webbing and the shooters)
His one main weakness is that he truly doesn’t realize all of this.
He’s also content to act small. He’s the “Friendly neighbourhood” hero.
The fun thing about Spiderman, is that unless we’re talking mook level thugs, when he leaves a fight, it looks like he earned the victory. Seldom is he shiny and spiffy after a tussle against any of the “big guns”. I’ve seen him leave fights with bruises, fat lips, broken noses, costume in tatters, the works.
I can’t say the same about a lot of the supers out there. Unless its meant to be the kind of villain that even hearing they May be in the area is cause for Concern.
In one Spidey comic I’ve read (in the What If? titles), Uatu the Watcher pointed out that any situation involving Spidey just seems to move naturally, quickly & smoothly to a positive outcome, compared to how events would flow if he’s NOT involved.
Well his toughness mostly comes from having a very flexible body and bone structure that can handle crazy amazing acrobatics stuffs in the mid air about a skyscrapper height. None the less I agree with you. I had a comic of spiderman where he was fighting against one of jack-o-lanterns and he claimed that fighting against armored opponents is actually fun because he can punch with full strength without worrying about irrepairable injury (when I first saw superman’s World of cardboard speech it reminded me spidey’s talk :P )
Most of the Spidey’s fights were won by Peters incredible intelligence. There is only a couple or so cases where he beats his opponents with power difference except mooks or third-rate süper villians.
Spidey also faced Juggernaut solo. The only non-psychic hero to at least slow him down to a *near* stop that lasted several months.
Easy solution. That amount of regen would cost a lot of power. Simply destroy the arm 10 cm further up, where is had not been improved by regeneration. Rinse repeat, each iteration would cost more to regen (more limb to fix each time as the armored part feel off) eventually the violence input would be less then the regen cost and from then onwards it’s an energy drain.
Hopefully V would be out of power before he becomes v completely upgraded. If not then they’re all boned.
That makes far too many assumptions for my comfort.
Also, that’s not counting the fact that V said that *regenerating* also makes him stronger…He’s actually powering up even more when he uses it.
The problem with that his body apparently becomes more resistant every time it is being destroyed and growing even tougher armor.
This, however, got me thinking:
Why the heck did he plan to attack Arc-Swap in nthe first place ? With him being a super villian and obviously clever, educated and polite even, there has to be a more elaborate plan aside from: I wanted a workout.
Maybe it is more along the line of NEEDING a workout. I mean, hypothetically, if he has plans elsewhere requiring him being beyond his usual best, were better to gather the strenght required than facing of Maxima ?
What if he came there simply to charge his batteries ( and possibly to look some “heroes” look bad ) ?
If that it true, then he probably won’t kill them but simply leave when he is full. But how is he going to hide himself away while pursuiting his actual goal ?
Does him being able to muscle up mean that his core is a simply plain looking small guy without tattoos bordering enough on shape shifting to hide ? Or is he simply so high up the food chain that he can’t be touched ? But if he was, then what plans has he got since most villians try to achieve exactly that ?
Questions over questions.
Well done, DaveB; you certainly keep us guessing ! ;-)
I’d say he definitely does have plans that required this fight to set him up to accomplish. He may even have some “preliminary” tasks all ready & set up, but just needed a *really big* charge up to continue.
What he intends to do *after* the fight with his new power level is a whole ‘nother can of worms…
Did you take account that blowing his arm off is probably boosting him with vehemic energy like noones business? Remember he was draining whole teams violence while they were trying to have non-lethal takedowns how much energy he is getting from ones that are volunteered to be lethal only Go((D)ave) knows.
She did. She specifically mentioned “diminishing rate of return.” For example, you work alone, and you hire an assistant. Your job just got 50% easier (under ideal conditions). Now, you have a company of 9 people, including yourself, and you hire someone. Your job just got 10% easier.
Apparently, we haven’t reached that point yet.
I think that the only diminishing rate of return would have been blowing his head off or a hole through his chest, instead of a limb.
basically what doesn’t kill him makes him stronger. (past a certain point of violence im assuming the regen has a start-up cost)
Regenerating doesn’t COST energy, it makes him stronger. Regen ADDS vehemic energy.
When you put it like that, aboo, it makes me wonder. He says it makes him stronger, but he technically didn’t say anything about it adding to his supply of vehemic energy. Traditionally, at least in comics, any robotic part is inherently superior to its biological model; that would mean that the addition of a steel arm would make V “stronger,” even if it drains his energy reserves, right? So the “wear him down” might still work. I say “might,” of course, because it’s a risky assumption based on the semantics of an increasingly dangerous supervillain in the middle of an extreme battle, even assuming that regenerating doesn’t futz with a person’s clarity of thought.
Of course a lot of the comments speculating also rely on that the characters both actually know what they are talking about and/or not lying.. How would Maxima know 100% for sure that Vehemic Energy has a point of diminishing returns if she has never faced off against one before, Dabbler might know but she wasn’t the one who said it. Vehemence could also be lying about regeneration making him stronger and trying to disincentive blowing off more limbs since it MAY drain his energy reserves by an uncomfortable amount. That may explain why he didn’t regen his eye and teeth earlier, but felt he needed both arms to continue fighting, though that makes the assumption that if he activates his regen he must regen all damage instead of just what he wanted.
My theory didn’t rely on diminishing returns, but instead increasing cost to regenerate the larger and larger amount of body destroyed/ removed..
Remove the limbs by destroying the limb just above the reinforced area..
The violence needed to remove the limb doesn’t change, the cost to regenerate increases. eventually either V has burnt out his power regenerating OR V has completely regenerated and reinforced everything and well, if this happens the team is boned
That is a good assumption actually except one point, we don’t know how much energy he needs to burn to regenerate if it is less than the energy he absorbs from violence energy off destroying limb (remember it required a DBZ level energy blast to rip off his arm) than your plan will back-fire and as we saw in the last few comic strips including this one making assumptions that are convenient for oneself is a bad approach towards V.
so im gonna guess that he was saving the regen for something like this but was it for surprise value or is it a limited use ability ???
I think V needed more power to pull off this stunt. He was probably hoping Max would blast him if he bragged hard enough.
id put that under “limited use”
Needing to be nearly killed to use a power reduces the build cost, but you have to be nuts to do it.
It seems to be paying off tonight though, considering that he’s probably getting a big chunk ‘o XP to boost his total point cost up.
It’s probably another reason he kept a low profile early on in the fight. He was not only feeding on the vehemic energy the fighting generated but also carefully analyzing the team tactics to see how hard he would dare to push them before they would go for the lethal options.
It was only after he was reasonably certain they wouldn’t default to deadly force that he revealed himself. He’d seen Max take the bomb bola and she didn’t kill Atomic Bombshell. The Dork Troll was an immense threat to the team before they figured him out, yet they took him alive. They were bending over backwards to avoid killing anyone, even accepting that some of their own were injured worse than the goons.
If he’d thought that bloodying Maximas nose was likely to have her go for the nuclear option he would have tried a less aggressive approach, letting Max throw him around until his powers reached a sufficiently high level. And if they had simply killed the goon squad and stacked them in body bags he would have done his best to sneak away or just surrendered at the first opportunity.
Once he felt reasonably safe (and Opal tries to port everyone out) he joined the fray and confronted Maxima in a way that he thought would provoke her to provide some delicious violence. By avoiding to hurt the squishies and being unreasonably polite he got Maxima to go for a nonlethal approach which only served to strengthen him. Up until the last strip she could easily have killed him. I believe that she still could do it if she went all out on the blasting, but that would probably cause immense damage to the city and she’d end up killing a lot of people, and that’s what he is counting on to keep her from disintegrating him here and now.
As for Maxima, this is getting to be a very dangerous game. Now she’s ditched the notation of necessarily going for nonlethal, but at the same time she doesn’t dare to go for a safe level of violence to kill him. If she calculates this wrong and he survives she might have pumped him up too far for her to be able to take him down. At the same time she can not go all out here in the city, so she’s been effectively neutralized unless something changes.
Question is what’s left here for V right now? If he doesn’t intend to kill anyone then he’s painted himself into a corner. The Archon team can’t afford to attack him unless they have no other option. So either his days work is done and it’s time for him to say good bye for now, or he has to step up the game and really start killing people. There’s not much else that could force Max and the rest to attack him again now.
A number of us have already figured out that giving V one final chance to surrender (blowing his arm off) was a calculated risk. Her general attitude aside, max probably figured out the same. But acting as a Law Enforcement officer on US civilian area, giving those opportunities to surrender are built into the rules of procedure.
Max KNOWS the difference between the rules of engagement during military combat & combat in civilian territory. Her attitude seems to be more like “I know the difference & I’m complying with the difference, but I don’t have to like it.”
Now they just need Magneto and he is finished
Magneto’s power can be overcome. Colossus has done it a number of times. I don’t think old Maggy gonna make a difference here.
Assuming the metals are ferrous. Which leads me off on a tangent. Dabbler’s sword is partly made of material from the demonic realm allowing her to amplify spells. What if Vehemence’s new parts are made from another demonic source material, brimming full of vehemic energy? That would explain why they boost his power instead of costing energy.
There was something I should have brought up as early as when Max took that 1st hit.
How fast can she change stat dumps? Is it affected by speed of thought? If so, does her own speed stat affect speed of thought, and by extension, changing stat dumps?
I would think so, but let the guessing commence! Unless DaveB comes in.
Brain impulses work pretty darn fast…Probably a bit slower than speed of light, since even the physical material of the brain structure is likely to have *some* resistance to conductivity. I would think that as long as a super-speed power doesn’t make the person faster than that, it wouldn’t be any actual problem.
For someone like the Flash or Superman back in the Silver Age DC, yeah, their brains would actually have to work faster than near-light speeds, or they’d also be super-clumsy.
And yet she wasn’t ready for fear vomit.
Max did dodge (most) of it…
Sydney nailed her boots probably more from surprise than anything else.
Not as fast as you might think, actually:
“Signals can travel at up to 120 miles per hour in healthy nerves.”
https://voxmd.com/articles/nerve-conduction-study.html
Give that a person’s head is roughly a foot across and a mile is roughly five thousand feet, that means that it takes roughly 1 / 160th of a second for a signal to travel from one side of your head to anothing — something like 7 milliseconds.
But yes, speedsters (including Maxima when she’s optimized that way) must have enormously faster nerve conduction (and muscle-fiber-twitch time) in order to not run into walls.
Actually, everything we see is processed by the brain in a series of “snapshots,” much like an old movie strip (frame by frame). Nerve tissue has to have a slight “charge-up” period of time after each impulse, but the brain sort of fills in the time gap…We only *think* we see actual motion.
I was already aware of & described how that process works, but thanks for going out & finding some of the actual numbers that I couldn’t remember & didn’t bother to look up.
;)
Well, I called that wrong! I judged due to Dabbler’s cybernetics and his lack of healing prior stuff that regen was probably out, but seems otherwise.
Hm, I am guessing it takes a super-charge to do so, and can’t be done repeatedly.
…I wonder if V’s regen is limited to once or twice a 24hr period, such that he waits until max damage has piled up(npi) and he fixes it all at once-I’d love to spec his power out in the HERO system…
A Regeneration that will only kick in when BODY damage is taken. With an END cost that goes through the roof, maybe 3X or 4X.
I’ve already started working on a GURPS workup for Vehemence, but we’ll all just have to wait until this fight is actually done before anything (semi-)solid could be written up.
Maybe I should start working on Mutants and Masterminds 3, cover all our bases.
V is a fascinating character. It’s not often someone comes up with a unique concept like this. As an ex-Champions referee and player, designing him to fit the game is a real challenge. I think start with a basic medium-level Brick (STR 45 and other stats to match). Add an END Battery for storage and a modified Damage Absorb to fill the battery and you have a good start.
Yeah, the tricky part is when it comes to his individual powers, figuring them out even as they’re being revealed for the first time. Not having any idea (beyond Dave’s scarce wording on the matter) of V’s personal history & origin doesn’t help much either; until we know the extent of V’s knowledge & previous experience, it’ll be difficult to efficiently juggle point-costs effectively.
Sydney’s dropped her shield again… why now? There’s no way her air’s running out that fast.
I read that as: Sydney dropped her shield out of suprise/dissapointment at being a party to dismembering V.
Distracted, maybe also meds running out. Or she’s got a combo planned that doesn’t use the Shield. Although “planned” might be an overstatement….
The solution to their predicament may require Halo to use
the Truesight orb and an orb other than Forcefield.
(Mystery orbs not included.)
Is Sydney on meds????
Yup. Remember when they were going over her file back before she had that interview? They said she was on adhd meds.
Yeah, said here.
https://www.grrlpowercomic.com/archives/416
Adderall for ADHD
I nearly forgot about that…! :D
Yeah, and her dose is still not enough, despite the fact that increasing it is basically going with METHAMPHETAMINES.
Adderall is NOT methamphetamine. Adderall is a combination of amphetamine and dextroamphetamine. Methamphetamine is a double methylated phenylethylamine. This is what makes meth so powerful, rapidly addictive, and thus dangerous. The high created by meth use is about 12 times as strong as the one from sex, good food, and other fun stuff. This makes all these other fun things seem not so fun, and over time (but not a long time) will destroy the dopamine receptors in the neurons of the brain, causing the user to be literally unable to experience pleasure. (Melega, W. et al, (1997). Brain Research, 766, 113–120.)
Both are powerful drugs, but meth, unlike amphetamine, has no medical or therapeutic use. It is important to remember that any substance is dangerous if taken improperly/in excess. It just so happens that the “excess” for meth is basically any amount at all. Never put anything into your body unless you know what it is, and what it will do to you.
The joke was that they’d have to switch her to meth.
Congrats to Dave on reaching Patreon economic stability!
Those armor plates can’t be permanent. After all, he can’t know he’ll regenerate without having gotten injured before, but we’ve seen him without clothes, and there was nothing armored on him. So I’d guess the regenerated body parts go back to normal when his power runs out.
How do we know? We never saw it (oh myyyyy). ;)
i get the feeling that v doesn’t just regenerate he adapts as well who wants to bet his new skin is more resistant to maximas blast.
The metallic sheen certainly points to that direction. That was pretty much my take on the physical changes.
while it is more than likely true he has regenerated things before (else how would he know for sure he can do it in time to stop maxima from taking his head off for trying?) But its also confirmed by his own words that he has not had this big a charge of violence in a very long time which means he might be able to not just regenerate but make structural improvements ala the living metal arm.
I personally quite expect these same alterations to be persistent, it is quite possible not even V knows just what kind of stuff he can pull with this much power to burn. We’ll find out in time I imagine!
Having never achieved this level of power before doesn’t mean he has *no* idea what he can do with it. He’s shown at least enough magical knowledge to precisely identify Dabbler’s sleep spell. He’s probably studied magic enough that he would already have ideas of what he *can* do, if he just gains enough energy to do it.
Well, he’s getting that energy now!
It would be funny if Sydney TALKS him out of it…why it would be better NOT to fight it out…this time…!
All this fighting has greatly raised V’s stats. Suddenly we hear a ‘Ding!’ and a skill tree appears in front of Vehemence along with a little glowing token in his hand. Sydney sees this and says “What, you too?” They start geeking out about what each of their cool powers do and walk away forgetting that anyone else is there. We see Sydney get out ‘The List’, and flip to the page of her with Wolverine at the altar. She crosses out Wolverine’s picture and draws in a picture of V.
That… Yes. I approve.
Huh, is Maximus’s face missing the blood spatter?
Also ohhh dear.
Maxima’s*
Yep, it’s missing all right.
Hey Dave! Somebody’s found another “Easter Egg!”
;)
The two regenerate Teeths are a little like fangs, so….transformation to a “battleform”?
If it weren’t for the fact that this is still part of Sydney’s flashback, I might suspect that V is one of the actual 4 Horsemen of the Apocolypse…Conquest. As he powers up & bits of him get blown off, he’s getting armored up. The final stage would be fully armored, his horse is summoned & he begins his unholy task, riding across the face of the Earth with death & destruction in his wake.
But that would be the way to end a comic (the penultimate GAME OVER, really), not flashback from a more peaceful time just a few months after this.
I think if any horsemen V would be war :P
There’s very little difference between war & conquest. From the Bible, that Horseman’s actual function is more in line with the specific definition of conquest than war. It’s merely a matter of semantics.
I’ve played Marvel Super Heros (tm and all that other bs), the TSR version, not that crappy card game. The best power in the game to defeat unstoppable villains is Gateway. Juggernaut charges, open a gateway in front of him to the Gobi desert. If he decides to hold a grudge, there’s always the gateway into space, bonus points if you develop a power stunt to orient the end gate toward the sun. Let the momentum of his charge carry him slowly, but inexorably toward an inescapable gravity well.
Hmmm, forming a gateway would mean waking and convincing Opal very quickly – not very likely.
Dumping him into the Gobi desert is essentially letting him go free because he’s too strong, can’t see that happening.
Dumping him into the sun? Nice idea, but what if he manages to (even barely) survive THAT? We’ve just created our own little Galactus!
I’m thinking that Sydney dragging Death Toll into V’s blow with her lighthook is the best play at this point. Granted, this would be a one time use, since he’s probably going to prison after this, but it would help them out here.
Well, he just signed his death certificate – anything that doesn’t one-shot him is useless.
As far as Vehemence is concerned, Nietzsche was right: https://www.brainyquote.com/quotes/quotes/f/friedrichn101616.html
From the moment information about Vehemic energy was added I opted about one possibility (though i don’t know if it’s possible.
Sydney can surely pull up an energy shield that is practically impenetrable. What if she could put it around V? That way he couldn’t move around and attack anyone – if he couldn’t penetrate it. This would also spring up the question how fast does his power fade when no violence is present around him. Also, the shield would have to be up really long for this to happen.
Other routes it could go is V being possesed by the demon, V being just bored or Sydney coughing up the powers of one of the unknown orbs (for example one can leech the energy off V or manipulate it somehow or even put him to sleep). First two will definitely be V getting out of the battle and leaving the team to heal up before another match.
Capt Trophy bonus awarded. EVERY USE OF SYD’S SHIELD REQUIRES SYD TO BE RIGHT IN THE CENTER OF IT.
Let’s say this real nice and slow. Shield. Forms. Around. Sydney.
Also, Dr. Revenge should be along shortly to award you a sign.
As for some others, drink.
“In best Evil Overlord voice”
Commence orbital bombardment.
And here’s your sign.
can we go at least one page without some genius coming up with this idea. please.
Nah. It’d be the end of us if it stops. ;p
sorry if im coming across as cranky but we’ve had this suggested at least one a page since v showed his power set maybe earlier im not sure
Yeah… I’d need to read more of the comments more frequently XD
But the other solutions are still in the air. Orbs or V being possessed. Another one could be that his motives (presented at startup) were clearly stated from the start, Max just did acknowledge the last of them.
I know, and I get it. I just figure since it won’t end any time soon, might as well have fun with it. ;p
What? You don’t want to see Capt. Obvious’ pile of trophies collapse into a singularity that brings Atlantis back to the surface?
Well, that should be a given. ;p I still want that secret pancake recipe the continent has buried. :d
I’ve read that they also had some trade deals with the Tartars. Their secret sauce recipe might be there too.
And they still owe me for the bet on the last dolphin race.
Is that why it went underwater? How much did they owe you? O.o
Psssh! Sinking the whole continent just so they could welsh out on a gambling debt. The legendary “superior civilization” INDEED!
Or was it?…
Considering who your avatar is, was that YOU who sank it?
O.O
Meanwhile, here I am, going “OMG HE CAN SAVE SO MUCH ON DENTIST APPOINTMENTS WITH THAT POWER!”
… what? They’re expensive.
And the only requirement is a kick to the teeth. Sweet deal.
For him it is- the way he talks about vehemic energy, getting the tar kicked out of him is like foreplay.
(sigh) And Vehemence could have had such a fulfilling career as a referee in the WWE.
Shoulda gone straight for the head.
Well, at least his tattoos are yellow now. I assume next stage they’ll be glowing red.
The only question remains – what goes after that – it’s either going “Boom”, going berserk or some new form?
Black ^_~
Actually they just appear black. They have powered up to the point that they have gone ultra-violet and you just can’t see them anymore. We would have to call back the nom-nom creature if they ever get to the x-ray spectrum.
Perhaps, perhaps not… Google “ultraviolet catastrophe”. The gist of it is that there is a limit to how high of a frequency light emitting from a black body will become, and it never goes into ultra violet. It was a catastrophe for the physicists of the day because it meant all their models were wrong. Quantum Physics was later invented to solve the problem…
Basically… he might just stop glowing at blue or white, and from there the tattoos will just get brighter, not move along the frequency range.
Also… If we look at the history, he started off bluish white, then greenish, now he’s gone down to yellow. Next is probably red, and then infrared and black if we follow that pattern…
He started at blue: https://www.grrlpowercomic.com/archives/1526 so he’s not doing the black body progression (also he was green at one point).
I said he started off at bluish white and progressed inversely to black body progression, at the end of my comment.
Hrm. If they go infrared, does that mean they’ll be emitting enough heat energy to ignite the atmosphere around them, essentially wreathing the tats in fire?
No, infrared is not the same thing as heat. Heat emits infrared light, but it also emits visible light, google “black body”, but to summarize we know how hot a given star is because of the color of light it’s emitting.
Furthermore, to have fire on the tattoos would require more than just heat, you’d also need a fuel to burn. Fire isn’t so much plasma oxygen as it is the plasma of the carbon dioxide created during the chemical reaction that’s creating it.
There are forms of fire that are invisible to humans. sprinkle elemental sodium (not salt or anything of the sort, but pure, raw sodium) all over a swimming pool. It’ll seperate the hydrogen from the oxygen in the pool and burn the hydrogen on the oxygen, creating sodium hydroxide (NaOH) and hydrogen gas (H²). Of course that formula isn’t balanced, as there’s 1 sodium, 1 oxygen, and 3 hydrogens, where you start out with 1 sodium, 1 oxygen, and 2 hydrogens. At any rate, the resulting flame burns in the ultraviolet so humans are unable to see it. It will however cause a heat based shimmer in the air as the heated gasses rise.
Hydrogen flames being ultraviolet has actually fed into the moon landing hoax conspiracy theory, as the conspiracy theorists point at the LEM taking off and there’s no flame from the rocket. Gee maybe because the flame is a hydrogen flame and burning in the ultraviolet. It’s there but you can’t see it… Conspiracy theorists are rarely very knowledgeable about physics.
*Definitely* should have gone straight for the head.