Grrl Power #273 – Power… drain?
So a bit of a mixed reaction to the last page. That’s ok, not everyone is going to agree with everything in the comic and I felt that the stakes needed to be upped before we hit the resolution. As always, my pacing could arguably be better, but I’ve written out to the end of the fight and the entirety Vehemence battle is actually less than two comic books worth, (American comics, not 100+ page manga) so take that Dragon Ball Z. Hopefully the bi-weekly posting schedule is what’s making it feel drawn out, but that’s really only something that can be fully judged when it’s possible to read the whole fight in one sitting.
Oh and I just want to say up here in the comments that the solution people are suggesting rather a lot, which is that Sydney put an airtight shield around him probably isn’t a viable solution, because as far as has been revealed in the comic, Sydney doesn’t know how to make the force field around someone else. She has to be in it, and by default it’s centered on her, though that can be adjusted. I only mention it here because I’ve seen it get suggested about 14 times per page for the last several comics. I’ll go ahead and spoil this: she doesn’t know how to do that, it’s not a deus ex I’m holding on to, and it would be super OP if she could anyway.
On this page we see Maxima’s weakness, if it’s fair to call it that. Force her into a high armor state and she’s only able to bring her default strength to bear. It’s not much of a weakness since she’s so strong to begin with, but in the rare case she’s up against someone hugely powerful it can become a problem. Vehemence stumbled onto it but didn’t quite guess its nature. Dabbler did figure it out on her own which is how she was able to fight Max to a standstill. Dabbler forced Max into an armor dump and left neither one of them capable of hurting the other. The real trouble happens if someone forces her into a strength dump – someone with gravity powers or enormously powerful telekenesis or something like that. It would leave her only slightly tougher than a really butch tank, which again, not that much of a weakness, but against right super powers that can still be a problem, as we saw how the tank fared in at the firing range.
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Nice to see V suss something out wrong. I rather hope they figure out how to use that against him here.
I think the main use is to distract Vehemence until one of the others finds a solution, possibly Dabbler (or Sydney after she takes her meds).
Well, I *did* say that Max would have to shift to more armor if she didn’t want V to snap her neck like a toothpick…
Now lets see if this does the trick
What a shocking development .
Oh. Dr. Revenge…
I’m afraid I must now beat you to death with the Pun Hammer.
You have to find the real me first.
Clones are very useful in that reguard
Just no swearing when he finds you..
I’d hate to see an obscene clone fall! :-)
chain lightning let the hammering commence:D
What? You’re calling out Dr. Revenge? A lot of his charm is that most of us realize he’s just cloning around.
Don’t bother driving in that getaway car or we’ll find out just how many clones fit in it.
Every clone car I’ve seen at a circus can fit 2 in the front seats, 3 in the back seats, 4 in the trunk & 1 more in the glove compartment.
At least max is well-grounded in efficient use of her own powers. Much more of this & V might solder her to it.
First sentence pretty good bad pun. Last one wsa just bad, since Solder fuses things together … unless your suggesting that the solution to beating him is a Fusion-Ha!
To make a functional circuit, there must be a connection to ground…One of the solder-types is gold. Vehemence could very well solder Max to ground.
:-/
Ah! Was only familiar with the silver solder … so while an esoteric pun makes sence. So I guess you earn double points then.
He’ll have to amp it up to do any real damage.
What a revolting development. By maxing out her armor, Maxima just joined the resistance.
Punfest 2014 is now officially open!
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We all know that Maxima has a short fuse (she’s on Team ARC after all)
With Vehemence so wired, he wouldn’t conduct himself well
That’s something else to charge him with (but to lock him up, they’d need a bank volt)
Watt? Too much?
Not enough. He is giving Max a very POWERful statement.
Really though, Vehemence needs to chill out. Maybe learn to meditate. Let’s all sit in a circle & start chanting…Ohm. Ohm.
All these electricity puns.
Well this is certainly a shocking development.
but I must say I like V’s new Arm-or
Don’t know if that would work. He’s got way too much spark in him.
Vehemence: “Into battle! CHARGE!”
small point manga books are more comparable to graphic novels and tpb ie a collection of multiple comics
I know Sydney doesn’t like that level of violence but…
PPO seems to have a cutting/slicing action there comes a time when you must “cut off the head or destroy the brain”
I think it is too weak.
In the cast page her PPO gets a 3 star rating, I doubt that is enough now.
Is there a guide anywhere to what the little icons mean? I wasn’t able to find one, and not all of them are obvious (or maybe my color-blindness is getting in the way).
Not that I know off, perhaps Dave used one from a game.
But given that many powers are known most are easy to interprete.
I am pretty sure the icons are:
Shield = defense
Muscle = strength
Wing = flight
Winged heel = speed (reference to Mercury/Hermes)
Power Blast = well, power blast
Sorry I wasn’t more specific. I didn’t mean Maxima’s power selector, I meant the ones that every character has if you click on the “Cast” button up at the top. Every character has from 3-10 icons, each has 1-5 pips of “power” next to it, and some of those aren’t obvious what they mean.
Given Sydney’s lack of training and the fact she almost missed the tank at the demonstration, shooting into a melee is a bad idea. Anvil is still up, she may have enough stored strength to at least distract V from killing Max. because at this point, that looks like what he is about to do. Or at least make a good try at it.
I think it is extremely clear that Sydney is not that accurate with the PPO at this stage.
Can she hit a stationary target? W-e-l-l, she recently managed that in specifically NON-COMBAT conditions – and even then it didn’t go smoothly.
Can she hit the bad guy WITHOUT also carving up a friend in very close proximity AND, quite liikely, any and all bystanders in the immediate vicinity? All things considered, I sure wouldn’t want her to try, and I suspect she wouldn’t want to try either. Time to think of something else.
I can understand the Strength, Toughness, Ki-Attack and Speed symbols but what is the upper right symbol?
I’m guessing flight.
Wings for flight.
It’s a wing, for flight
Flight.
Wing = Flight.
Flight. Pumping more “points” into it allows Maxima to fly faster, I guess.
Flight
Clockwise from the top
Strength, Flight, Speed, Blasts & Armour
Flight is what that means. As in how much power goes into it.
Control about winged creatures
*LOL*
Pleas, please…Don’t anybody Tweet this comment…
Why not? Let it fly. :D
Naw, there’s no way it’s gonna fly. It’ll go over like a Led Zepplin.
So wildly popular and a classic for at least 3 decades?
Order Chicken Wings for lunch!
No Buffalo Wings though! I’m on a crusade to prevent buffalo from having their wings chopped off! Buffalo are nearly extinct now & most of those that are left can’t fly anymore…Poor guys.
Perhaps they maxed out defense so they don’t go extinct and had to dump their fly stats.
My OOTS senses are tingling :P
I have that superpower, too.
Wonder what happens when you dial it to Max’s level…
Red Bull supply.
The consensus seems to be flight.
Ebil Plick
You say that like you hadn’t any input in the first place, much less that your input has any importance whatsoever.
Note Ebil < Evil and Plick < Well you know
Not at all. Please spell it out for us.
^______________^
Ebil is less than Evil and Plick is less than something else.
In case you’re not sure, I already know what you mean. ;p I deal with some really awful ones on a regular basis. :/
Dr. Revenge might tell you, considering who his avatar is…
He might even provide some visual aid. O.o
I have a Fwoosh and I am not afraid to use it.
The 3rd moon of your home planet can attest to that…
Well, not any more.
Want to see my Fwoosh little boy?
Don’t you need to save someone guilty first?
Save a local politician from a Q&A session so I should be good for a week or two .
Most politicians, if they ever gave truthful answers to questions, would most likely be confronted by a lynch mob…So, yeah. That qualifies as a “save.”
Ooo-kay. That’s bad.
Sydney and Dabbler are going to have to put their genre-savy and magic-savy brains together NOW.
Oh, he’s misinterpreting her dynamic superpowers distribution for an electric weakness. That’s going to bite him hard.
Incidentally, can he regenerate his head if Maxima were to atomize it?
Problem: she can’t do that when she’s in full armor mode.
Actually, if I remember correctly she has a reserve pool into which she can dump a large number of extra points for a short period of time. I’m guessing that will be instrumental in her either atomizing V’s brain or escaping from this situation without a snapped neck (and on that subject, V might not try than and instead opt for killing her with her “weakness”, which would be preferable since I don’t think that that’s lethal force against her).
EDIT: She has a reserve pool from which she can use extra points, not into which, that would be illogical.
Which she’s just dumped into Armor.
DaveB talked about how her power pool works normally – she’s got her base power level, and then the power wheel we see is the reserve of points she can dump into various stats. Usually she keeps them spread between Flight, Strength and Armour to be the universe’s Superman analogue, but in this case she’s putting all of her reserves into Armour to avoid being broken.
Her Max-out is when she draws away from other stats entirely to fuel one. I think one of the examples was that she could put everything, even her Max-out into armour, to the point she’s not able to move but is near-invulnerable.
I’m not sure if she can put her main pool into one and stat dump into another though – I feel like she might only be able to dump into a category she’s already using all her pool on.
Not if he’s human. But some have suggested he might be a demon, in which case who knows.
Myself I think he’s in symbiosis with a demon, what with his mood swings and the way his eyes go full silver sometimes when he attacks. So maybe decapitation would kill the man and let the demon take over.
I’m betting either a half demon, or a really screwy human.
I’m still voting for tiny little alien piloting a (slightly larger than) human-sized meat-bot.
You think Vehemence is a Yeerk? Wouldn’t that be a twist.
Now I want Dave to draw a Hork Bajiir and an Andalite.
My first thought was more along the lines of the Arquillians from Men In Black, but that works too.
I’m kind of wondering, does that new eye do anything cool, or is it just cool looking? I like to think it grants him +10 swag. Also it should glow in the dark and be worth 100 gold if sold.
…First you got to pry it out before you can sell it. Good luck.
Well, the way this fight is going…
It makes him hip enough to address the Pew Pew Orb as a PPO.
YES.
Vehemence battle is actually less than two comic books worth (American comics, not 100+ page manga)
One whole “American” comic book for a battle is plenty.
Hopefully the bi-weekly posting schedule is what’s making it feel drawn out
That definitely contributes. Regardless, I do really like the characters and the humor, and am looking forward to getting on track with what you originally said the focus of the comic would be.
A lot of times, American comics will split a battle between two books…Generally, they try to split the issues at a cliff-hanger point. Most of the time, it’s not both issues being full-out fighting all of the way through.
But then again, it’s not often that comics will have 30-40 (or more) supers fighting in them over the course of a single battle…It happens, but not very often. Other times, when they script out a *large* battle, they’ll jump scenes around to different fronts of the fight & can split to different issues that way. Dave’s a bit different in that he’s drawing a large scale battle (at least, until the majority of the supers became casualties & pulled “out of the scene”) & it’s all on one, relatively small front.
I see 3 books here the league of super semivillians to VH reveal, VH fight to the zapped arm, ending with the laughter and then issue 3
But what if Syd held her shield orb in BOTH hands? Could her generate two shields, both centered on her but with one large enough to hold V between it and a smaller shield protecting Sydney?
One orb per hand. Sydney tried alot of ideas right after she found and we got a look at some of thexsillier ones at her interview. https://www.grrlpowercomic.com/archives/589
That comment needs editing or to be taken out behind the barn and shot. Ignore everything between the first sentence and the link. It will save you from eyestrain.
Sydney: It’s time to take the kid gloves off!
Hmmm…Mittens are her Kyptonite, but would gloves count?
Yes, in the “Testing Montage” she did, she had white gloves on for the test where she touched it to her head, that way it wouldn’t register her HAND, but only her forehead for that test… it obviously failed…
Boss-man said she can’t do it right now, so she can’t do it right now. That means all the “what if”s are irrelevant, because she can’t do it right now.
No.
points for originality. immediately taken away because Sidney would likely suffocate first.
And a rebuttal that I always have to rebut- Syndey is smaller, less muscular, and has SCUBA training. She’s probably able to survive in a low/no oxygen environment twice as long (if not longer) than Vehemence could. She doesn’t burn as much oxygen as big muscular hulks do!
Even then, Syd has a teleporter on her team. She could have the foresight to ask Harem to get some suba gear for her before she tries this trick.
Rebuttal to that, Sydney ain’t superhuman, and the laws of physics pertaining to said superhumans can be kicked to the curb.
Scuba diving has nothing to do with surviving a low/no oxygen environment. The supply is *limited* but has normal-to-slightly higher oxygen content in the tanks. Smaller body uses less oxygen, sure, but Sydney’s has ADHD, which includes hyperactivity, which burns a bit more oxygen in comparison with her size.
Vehemence, having higher strength & endurance than Sydney (even before powering up with *more* energy) would be able to withstand the effects of depleting oxygen better than Sydney. If they’re both relying on the same limited supply of air, Sydney would pass out before V.
First of all:
“as far as has been revealed in the comic, Sydney doesn’t know how to make the force field around someone else”
Thank you! for spelling this out in the comments. I was thinking that same thing each time I saw someone mention Sydney using her shield as a cage to trap someone in it. Her shield is powerful enough already without her being able to cast it onto others to capture them.
Little to comment on the page itself other than that I find it interesting that the crystals seem to appear inside the semi-circles of his markings.
We know that people still aren’t going to miss this either, since he did already state this once and it didn’t stop anyone before.
Hmm. Electric spikes pop up at the focal points of his markings. More to the point, he’s using electricity. Can they wake Jiggawatt up? Now might be a desperate enough time for some positron-electron interaction!
I was just thinking Jiggawatt might be the girl for the job. Not sure about the positron-electron thing, that’s probably still attacking him. Energy is energy though, and I can’t see why she couldn’t drain him of all his energy by draining his electricity. When you’re dealing with electricity strong enough to arc, it is rather hard to hit the off switch.
The law of conservation of energy doesn’t care about conversion – so Figaro Jigga does start the drain could they drain him faster than he could recharge from ambient “vehemetic” energy?
That would be a “Wile E Coyote” moment with a repeat of the “Uh-oh”.
I think that may fall under the Evil Overlord list as:
I you are using a device/artifact to drain the hero of all his power, make sure it does not come with a reverse switch.
I thought it said, “Always include a self-destruct button (somewhat) easily accessible for you enemies”?
Looking closely at the spikes though, you can see that he actually gets extra focal points to pop them up from. Even in panel 1 he’s missing several of the circles on his arm that show spikes just moments later.
Hey Jiggawatt, this guy’s stealing your gig!
So normally using violence to hurt somebody would just recharge him over and over. Fighting back. even more. But what happens if what he is using his force does not get hurt? Not taking any damage to speak of compared to the amount of energy put in there. Cause the team has 3 punching bags that can soak it up.
Anyway.. my suggestion is that Archon just get Dabbler as fast as possible to a couple of orgy’s so she can powerup enough to kick his butt. Hell she can probably just go to a place with loads of people, push her lust aura with enough people around, they all get horny and lusting for her and she gets supercharged.
in the immortal words of Red Vs Blue’s ucker. “Bow chickka Bow wow!!!”
Because people arent going to sue the pants off of archon if dabbler does that, no.. it’d just be a little mass rape for the greater good :P
Also, getting hurt isnt the issue, unless he wants to regen for a powerboost, V gets stronger which makes him harder to hurt, but he also gets stronger when something hits him hard enough to do damage, either way violence is being used and thus vehemic energy produced, you cant really tire him out by hitting him or letting him hit stuff, either one makes him stronger.
Even if Vehemence tried to pummel Achilles into a paste (to no avail), he charges up with violent *actions*
I don’t think it would actually matter if there’s any resulting damage or not.
Another thought: it’s probably good character development for Maxima to get schooled like this at this point in her career. A little humility is a fine thing.
…Yeah, we can safely say that Vehemence is pretty nearly wiping the floor with her now. The only thing missing is the lateral movement along the ground.
Funny thing to consider. Beyond two punches to Max’s face, has he actually hurt anyone in ARC-Swat? If you look at number of opponents taken out or injured both Death Tole and Glow Bug have done better than he has.
hurt? Yes, greviously injured? Not really which is noteworthy. He doesnt seem to bear the gang any real malice or desire to harm them.. he just wants his violence noms as far as we can tell.. The exception is now that he’s electro-torturing Maxima.. but then again after Max blew his fricking Arm off wanting to hurt her back a little is a pretty human sentiment. Eye for an eye you might say.
An eye for an eye? But Vehemence got his eye back. Wouldn’t that be superfluous?
And tooth. An eye for an eye, and a tooth and a tooth for a tooth for a tooth. I think V misunderstood the meaning behind that saying…
Yes. having a confident, competent, powerful, female leader in the military is something that just will never work. :-/
Confidence is great. Overconfidence and hubris can get you or your command killed. Maxima will learn from this and grow, making her a better leader.
Then where is all the experience that was talked about at the press conference? This isn’t supposed to be her first rodeo.
Until now she has rarely met anyone on her level, as far as I know, dabler was it. even if before her powers completely came to the fore, she dealt with stronger opponents. She hadn’t for years. Until now she was convinced she was top dog EVER! Now she knows the old saying of “Biggest guy around, He just doesn’t know about the bigger one.”(Paraphrasing)
There was also the one who is supposedly dead. She was supposed to be in a war zone. She is supposed to know how all this works, and she just fails on all fronts?
Dave has a great comic here, and I have said many times he can write it however he wants. I am just disappointed that Maxima has turned out to not be what was claimed of her. I admit she could still turn it around even now, but it is getting unlikely.
Personally, I think it’s only human to let lessons fade. She has been spending so much time dealing with those who thought themselves the best until they ran into her.. After a while, you begin to believe the hype.
Last thing I am going to say on this. It was all hype, because we were never shown anything that showed it to be true. So the powerful woman is just another damsel in distress.
Max has already been shown to be stronger than almost everyone else. She’s not a a damsel in distress, but a high-level superhero who has become arrogant–now finding that she’s not the biggest dog on the board.
And it’s not like Superman, Spider-Man, and Green Lantern haven’t had the same kind of arc.
Gravity powers? Is that a hint to Sydney learning to use her flight orb for attacks?
No, that’s more of a suggestion that there are more supers out there than just the “uggh, I punch you!” type, and that’s one possible power that some random person might have. Achilles is just as likely to develop Gravity powers as Sydney at this point. (That is to say, neither is likely.) But that Zebra-mowhawked hair dresser? He might have them – we never saw what his powers are. Or he might not.
Boss-man said she can’t do it right now, so she can’t do it right now. That means all the “what if”s are irrelevant, because she can’t do it right now.
…stupid comment system always screwing me up when I mean to comment to a specific post…
The comments follow the name.
Panel 1 looks like a romantic scene. <3
I ship V and Max! :)
If that were a dancing scene with background music playing, yeah.
The bad part is that Max is getting Dipped, always fatal to a Toon…
I ship Sydney and Dabbler!
Dabbler would ship with anyone & everyone…Preferably all at the same time.
His hand is on her neck
Some folks Like that sort of thing…
Some call that foreplay.
Looks like a romance of a lifetime in the making there. But some lifetimes wind up shorter than others…
I thought it looked hot. Electric, even.
At a loss on the way out of this that doesn’t require a Deus ex machina. Personally I was thinking about a massive long distance teleport into deep space (or at lest somewhere between the earth and moon orbit). Of course this would come from one of the unknown orbs. Either that, or one them functions as a all purpose energy sink (as a way of fueling the others), and starts draining V. The way the PPO seems to tap into the energy of a sun, maybe it can also tap into a black hole.
Just wild guesses here, but everyone of them requires the use of a unknown element or ability. I’m definitely struggling to come up with a solution based solely on known capabilities and elements.
No need to dip into the magic hat when you have a whole rogues gallery of powers just laying around.
The trick here is getting one of them conscious enough to give vehemence a bad ending while earning a get out of jail card and medical expenses being covered.
Are these cristals growing out of V’s body?
And they are conducting electricity… like carbon.
Hmm, diamonds?
Vehemence is about to be assaulted by a mob of hobos.
Or I’m doing waay too much assumptions.
Probably the latter. ^^
Diamonds don’t conduct electricity, Graphite is the allotrope of carbon that conducts.
Metals form crystals too though, so it could be titanium or something.
Or it could be magic. Magic crystals.
Just sayin.
In the absence of hard data I must concur with cake beater.
Well… one option might be to have Anvil choke hold him from behind. She likely has the stored up strength to overcome any strength he would put into his neck. The attack form has minimal violence. If he tries to deal with her he would likely have to release Max, which would free her up to either vaporize his head or assist in restraining him.
There’s also the possibility that Dabbler could help by turning her Succubus attraction to full and directing it all at Vehemence while Anvil and Max subdue him.
Let’s also not forget that instead of Anvil choking him out, she and Achilles can work to restrain Vehemence’s arms and weigh him down while Mr. Amorphous wraps himself around his head to smother ye olde supervillain out.
All are minimal violence attacks chat would have a chance to work.
Besides… if the conclusion would rely on a “Sydney power”… there’s always the two unknown power spheres waiting in the wings. Having Sydney grab one and activate it as a “hail Mary” with a power that would neutralize those of Vehemence (massive stun ray, mind control, power drain, and so on…) would be one of the only real “Deus Ex” approaches.
Well Achilles isn’t strong enough to do much but get thrown into the next county and MrA is currently brain fried, but otherwise not bad ideas.
mrm… My error. I was thinking of Stalwart rather than Achilles. (Grab onto one of Vehemence’s arms and pour on the density/weight increase per #254. I get the feeling he was lifted by the punch because he was caught by surprise and thought weighing as much as a space shuttle would get the job done.)
Then have Anvil go for the choke hold. Frees up Max most likely… she can restrain the other arm.
Depending on how strong the Lighthook is, Sydney might also be able to do a pretty good job of helping to tie Vehemence up as well.
I believe the key here will be to do one of two things:
1 – Find a way to siphon off Vehemence’s strength but through nonviolent means. (e.g., Jiggawat pulling all the electricity not only from his arm, but from his body if she can do that. Nerves, and even the brain, use biochemical induced micro electrical bursts to transmit energy and even aid in muscular contraction. That’s one main reason tasers and pacemakers work. Drain off almost all the electrical energy in his body… and it’s like trying to run a car with a bad alternator. You’ll peter out VERY fast.)
2 – Find a way to incapacitate, restrain, or contain him in a nonviolent manner. Someone in the thread mentioned some of the passive restraint neutralization methods the military has. I’m thinking some effect similar to the sonic cannons can slow or stun him long enough for containment. (Think the sound canons from “the Incredible Hulk” and you’ll have the idea.) Or if there’s any cement trucks in the area (there IS a construction area right there) you can dump them on him and have Heatwave quickset the stuff. Or, and this is a classic comic solution… Have them grab a bunch of the rebar and girders, get Heatwave to melt them down, and dump it on Vehemence while Sydney uses the Lighthook to *fwoop* her out of danger. (This can work particularly well if Heatwave has the never before mentioned ability to also absorb heat… because she could quick cool the molten steel around him.)
As a comic book geek, Sydney would probably easily figure out #2 on the list, as it’s been used to deal with a number of normally unstoppable foes. Thor used it to contain Juggernaut long enough for him to space warp the latter to another planet to remove him from the fight in an early issue of the New Warriors.
Just a couple of other ideas there.
the biggest problem with all of these is that you say the word non-violent, but what you mean seems to be non-lethal. These two concepts are not at all interchangeable in the current situation. Tazers? Violent as fuck, lethal? Usually not which is why they get used for non-lethal takedowns.
Chokeholds, bodypins and generally wrestling someone into submission are all violent, theyre relatively mild and unlikely to inflict permanent harm as opposed to trying to give the perp a concussion or just riddling them with bullets. But at the end of the day you are still using force to put them down.
Using Jiggawat to neutralize electricity is not a horrible idea, provided dabbler can get her squid out again (or its still laying around). But I do not expect it to significantly drain him since.. well.. he made those crystals, what makes you think he cant just turn them off?.
Heatwave got knifed in the foot and then zapped through the wound, she is out of the fight. Plus.. at this point pretty sure common steel in any ammount is going to hold V in place about as effectively as cotton candy would stop normal folk.
As for stunners in general, be they sonic, nausea inducing and so on… He got his ARM blasted off, he got shot in the Eye, twice, once with it popping and the other with it not.. and the worst that came of it was him going “ooooooooooowch!”. If it doesnt knock him out instantly, its not going to at all and will just make him stronger by trying.
As for dropping him in concrete… the guy can apparently grow lightning generating nodules, what makes you think he cant grow some kind of vibration inducing equivalents and rock ‘n roll his way to freedom out of a concrete bath? Plus at his current level of strength such a thing probably wouldnt stop him from moving in the first place… it’d be like getting burried in one of those plastic ball baths, to everyone weaker its like a concrete encasement, to V’s superhuman strength the stuff pretty much comes apart if if he twitches.
In short, its arguably true that any and all methods for trying to force someone into doing something they dont want to (in this case surrender, give up, go unconscious etc) is an act of force. And as has been demonstrated any act of force, long as it doesn’t kill him outright we presume, will make him stronger.
In fact, it should be V’s catchphrase: “It makes me stronger”, because pretty much anything done to, by or near him does, even if just a little.
1- Vehemence will create a shield which he suddenly creates because he has power to burn to prevent siphoning off his power. Because he has power to burn. Because.
2- He’s too strong for cement to hold him.
3- He’s too strong for the lighthook to hold him, just because he has power to burn. Because.
4- Anything you try against him, he’ll develop a new power to defend against it because he has power to burn. Because.
Interesting…. note that V’s power strip reconfigures to where he needs power. Also to be noted is that all the strips are still linked and simply extent over his body…. destroy the origin point maybe?
That could be. In the Mistborn series, the Steel Inquisitors are next to unstoppable, but when you remove one of the huge spikes that impale their bodies, you broke off the connection that kept them alive and killed them. Possibly something similar with Vehemence. The tattoos could be some kind of soul binding that ties his consciousness to whatever form his body takes.
Oh Dave! The blood splatters from V’s exploded arm has been missing from Max’s face for the past two pages…
definately a very bad spot
I knew she couldn’t airtight shield remotely, but she could always pull a heroic sacrifice and just airtight shield herself and Vehemence :P
‘course, keeping the shield up long enough to be relevant would be the issue.
I am pretty sure he would turn her to paste and the shield would drop.
He just need to grab her wrist and squeeze it a little or twist it to make her drop orb he does not even needto use any süper power other than toughness to do it.
Technically, he doesn’t need any super power other than Pineapple Pokopo’s power: Being very large, and dealing with someone who is very small.
This may be a strange question to ask, but, assuming they beat, which considering this is a flashback they will, what do you do with him? You put him in prison since he’ll just break out again.
I suppose you could send him to a Buddhist monastery in the middle of the Himalayas, and spend his time surrounded by monks meditating, and thinking non-violent thoughts
Solitary. Or keep him sleeping/sedated most of the time. Or really any place without a lot of other people nearby. We do not know the range of his Vehemic absorption if he himself is not affected.
I am willing to sell ARC my summer home in Antarctica so they are able to keep him on ice.
we’ve had duck season, we’ve had rabbit season, we’ve even had elmer season, now it’s bad pun season
It is always bad pun season here.
In space no one can hear you rage. Stick him on Mars till he calms down.
Mars is the God of war so I suggest Venus the place of Love. Warm climate and the precipitation exfoliates I hear.
Why not Uranus .
“Retreats to Citadel of Aloneness “
Looking at pictures of Uranus, I’d say something that happens only rarely shouldn’t be referenced as “once in a blue moon”…
Unless you hit it hard enough till it turns blue.
Same problem with most of the baddies, actually. No solution I can think of.
it is not a strange question and is in fact a pretty appropriate question for a lot of the supers they have caught here. It’s actually kind of a nightmare scenario, I’m sure archon have plans for a super-prison and stuff.. but they Just announced the official launch of the organisation… and now by the end of that same very day… They have more combat ready supervillains to put into lockup than archon had estimated Existed in the entire country.
What are the odds that they actually have a proper jail, set up to handle superpowered prisoners built already? Much less one with the facilities and staff to handle this many all at once? Lots of them have superstrength sufficient to break through conventional barriers, several have energy projection powers that make them essentially impossible to put behind physical barriers for long, some can Phase through walls via shadows or nega-whatits… some have nails that can cut through Anything… others can make portals or telekinetically rip concrete out of the earth to make a jabberwocky-sammich.
And that’s not even counting concretia who can not only phase through solid matter, but can possess it and turn it into a superstrong body for her to use.. and so on and so on.
The only feasible way to keep all of those under lock and key for any length of time is pretty much to keep them in a coma and not let them wake up, at least not for however long it takes to build specialised holding cells for each… and then hope that the villain in question doesnt have some hidden talent you dont know about that would circumvent whatever specialized solution you used.
The costs of this alone are daunting to say the least. Worth it obviously compared to letting these yahoos run free, but still probably going to eat up any budget they had
Maybe V would do something too fancy and just glitch out. It seems like even he doesn’t know the extent of his own powers. He’s pushing his luck mate.
Time for a berserk Sydney and a cutter beam then.
That would likely cause more collateral damage and civilian casualties than any other attack in the fight so far, including Hex’s squirrel-induced fit.
Halo’s force field is not necessary to relieve this guy of vital oxygen. Several CO2 fire extinguishers would do the trick, as would a fast wind vortex, but I’m of the opinion that Dabbler, since she has both magic and advanced science on her side, should be able to come up with some manner of removing the oxygen in the vicinity of V’s head. Of course, one could simply hit him with a canister of riot gas just to see if he is susceptible to the air option.
Of course, as this guy appears to have a variable power pool that grows in capacity and variety as he absorbs more violence, there is a good chance that mundane options are no longer viable.
Seems more & more that one of the powers he gets from V-Energy is Adaptability, almost on the scale of nearly instant evolution…Not to the same level & range capability as the Imposible Man (from Fantastic Four comics), but still a very useful power.
He has already shown ability to create matter using his energy. Oxygen should be easier to make than a new arm, tooth, eye – or even a pair of new pants.
Or maybe she can just use the lighthook to get a LOT of those tranqs down his throat.
I’m waiting for someone to damage one of the lines that he’s got drawn on him. Maybe tear some skin off with a high velocity sniper round. Whatever. Then he short-circuits and loses all his power.
You mean like when Max blew his arm off? That disrupted the lines pretty good. They grew back with his new arm.
If those patterns could get disrupted by anything at this point, it would have to take some powerful level of magic to do it.
It’s silly, but in a technical sense, she didn’t disrupt the lines, because that’s not what she tried to do. I’m talking about intentionally defacing them.
The thing about Vehemence is that his main power seems to be amazing scads of Plot Armor. Logic is no use in trying to figure out how to defeat him, he has a power that gives him an Answer For Everything. The power To Not Be Lifted Off The Ground, strong enough that even Maxima with all her might can’t lift him, is a good example of that.
He’s like a villain from a computer game. Unless you do the exact right thing, it won’t work. It doesn’t matter if what you did was 99.44% the same thing, because whatever it takes to defeat this guy, it has to be this one exact specific thing.
Defacing his lines is as likely as anything else. Maybe finding out his true Demonic name is what it will take, and you have to say it backwards.
Another fun way to defeat him would be to discover that he’s not really a demon either. He’s a god. The god of War, to be specific. The Greeks called him “Aries”. The one who figures it out for them will be Achilles, who just happens to be the real Achilles, from Homer’s story about the Trojan War, and remembers what Aries looks like.
You ever notice that they don’t know Achilles’ exact age? I’m sure they have asked him. It would only be on every single government form he’s been asked to sign, ever. It’s very curious that they don’t know how old he is…
Here is his demon name backwards: nikstlitselpmuR
I like your idea that this could be Ares… it has potential, though I seriously doubt that’s the path DaveB is taking us down.
I’d say less video game boss (I don’t think he has a weakness) and more roadrunner. No variation on “overpower him” works, period. They are all just wile e coyote + acme attempts.
The reasonable attempts fail because the roadrunner is just too fast/V’s just too strong. Anything you can logic that ought to work fails because the roadrunner runs into the painted tunnel/V usese his more exotic powers.
This is an opponent that, expressly, cannot be defeated. Not by overpowering him, nor by finessing him. He is literally beyond defeat. The team must either retreat or surrender. Sydney tried to express this a few panels back and Maxima was certain that THIS package from Acme would do the trick. Meep Meep.
And then he grew some crystals out of the nodes in his “network” for the electricity trick
And when there werent enough, more lines and nodes appeared.
I wonder what that is about…
Dabbler cut them a while ago, no harm done to his powerlines. sorry its a no go in that sense
If defacing his marks could work at all, it would probably involve a magical means of deleting some part or adding magic-based markings to make a different pattern. The marks are apparently magic, so it would take magic to alter them.
Sydney should be using the Truesight orb to see what is really happening.
Also…
I would have liked to see Max’s ‘control panel’ use five sliders and a bar graph.
But… the polygon power map is a manga tradition!
Good point. She’s only seen him through her projection, which doesn’t penetrate glamor.
Interesting page, and I don’t think the meds are part of the problem. Since without them she gets an initiative bonus and she was able to tongue toss a supe. So it might be better if she lets her meds go this one time.
So lets see here. He has as of now:
Regen. [Magical, non-Bio]
Super Strength and Toughness [don’t know what his speeds at]
High Level magic user
and his metal parts are conductive to electricity, but non-magnetic [since all the metally goodness in the battle field didn’t go flying at him like bitesized Vehemic Snacks].
______________
Anyone Savy enough to figure out a weakness?
I was thinking for a second that with metal, regen, and lightning. The first Fantastic Four movie solution to Doctor Doom, would be pretty awesome. But that’s all kinds of violent. First you have the super violence of the suns hate beams sustained in a field of somesort. Then the violence of being super heated [which would make him stronger]. Then the even greater violent reaction of water hitting that metal.
Sure for a bit it might freeze him, but I’m sure he’d come back from it in minutes rather than months. And that level of violence would really power him up.
______________
Then I thought about the US Militaries Passive Denial Weapons. Both the Microwave Guns, and the lightning portals. While still violent to a degree, have a high enough damage to low amount violence, to be at the very least distracting enough to get Max out … but couldn’t stop him.
Honestly I think that heatwave would have been the best at taking him out with heat prostration. Like she was doing when she took the knife to the foot.
Yeah that would have been good at the beginning. Lots of pain, and the inherent violence of the surfac cells being blasted wouldn’t have fueled him up quick enough before he could power up. Now with his level of defense the amount of heat needed to get any effect would only add moe fuel to the flame at this point.
Man I’m happy to see an Arch-Villian that can go toe to toe with Maxima, but beating hims going to be tough.
High pain and/or damage with low violence… you both use those combinations of words, but I dont think it means what you think it means. Violence is, well, being violent. If you think that frying someone with electricity to the point where it knocks them out with painful shocks is not being hellishiously violent, you have an interesting definition of the word.
People use various forms of stunning and nonlethal weapons because they incapacitate without killing the target (ideally, in the end many of them have the potential of killing or greiviously harming a target if used improperly or more than the target can safely handle). This does Not make them non-violent. Needles delivering sedatives could arguably be called less violent, possibly, but its already been made pretty clear that getting under V’s skin is easier said than done. Pretty much all other forms of non-lethal techniques all still rely on applying force in ways that inflicts pain, disorientation or otherwise beats the target into a condition where they have no choice but to surrender or are rendered unconscious. All of which aught to give V a charge and thus make him stronger. Plus at this point he’s probably too strong for any of them to do him any harm in the first place, A fricking .50 cal to the eyeball didn’t even phase him now, no non-lethal weapon made to subdue a human being safely is going to do anything to him.
I was more talking about your Heatwave comment. Iwas thinking you were talking about the Microwave Gun that sends a powerfful blast of MASER radiation that bakes the surface cells. Is very painful, but as DaveB mentioned earlier, even an earthquake is violence he can feed off of.
But an Active Denial System, like Heatwave’s ability would not feed him fast enough to initially powerup as much as he has. Although a High Voltage, Low Amp bolt of electricity (like that one Active Denial system that makes an invisible fense of lasers that when tripped sends laser guided electricity into a target) would be high enough violence to stun him for a while before feeding him to a high degree.
It’s all a mater of what force of non-lethality to use, vs. how much has he ate previous to the battle.
While I may like the Comic, Vehemence is coming across as a Doomsday type. We know what that cost Superman to take down.
He’s just Too Perfect as a Villain. No apparent psychological flaws, extremely Intelligent, knowledge about magic, powers up insanely fast, seems capable of creating new powers on the fly, could probably kill most of the cast off easily, and has shown absolutely ZERO weaknesses so far.
He’s coming across as a Villainous version of a Mary Sue. I’m honestly getting bored.
Also, after a crushing fight like this, EVERYONE is going to compare future Fights to this one. Once you drop a proverbial tacnuke like him as an enemy, if you want future fights to feel threatening, they have to TOP Vehemence in destructive power. You can’t drop the threat level down, unless its a lull period before the threat level starts scaling back up and BEYOND what Vehemence has done.
That might be the point. Vehemence, despite being the ‘perfect Villain’ is so polite and seemingly well-adjusted that he probably will never have any larger long-term plots than ‘Fight things, have fun, test my limits’. He’s not out to assassinate anyone, he’s not robbing banks or slaughtering civilians. He’s not secretly (we think) controlling everything from the shadows or manipulating people into buying poisonous bottled water.
And that’s the brilliance. The focus of the comic overall is meant to be day-to-day Superhero stuff- life with Superpowers and a quirky cast of characters. After Vehemence, fights will be, if not easier, then less frustrating. The cast has this super-hot tempering fire at the start, so they can know that they’re up to handling anything else thrown at them, and so can focus on doing well and, in a literary sense, having fun.
Oh no, CopyKraut is attacking! No problem, we’ve fought Vehemence and gotten away! You hold no fear over us, Kraut! Dabbler, get his pants off him!
No! You Vill Kneel! Vait, vhat are you doing down zhere?
Okay, maybe Dabbler wasn’t the best choice to do that…
That sort of thing. And then when the script/plot _does_ call for major physical action… A wild Vehemence appears, set to challenge ARC again! Luckily, he’s seemed to show up out at White Sands base during a missile test- Don’t worry about collateral damage, folks! So you can separate the crazy physical brawls from the more psychological challenges, as well.
Can’t blame me for being worried. Too heavy of a fight, like it has moved toward, can create a whiplash effect when things go back to “normal”. That’s just my biggest concern. That and why they’re calling Sydney the “Big Guns” without it feeling awkward. I’m not a guy who dislikes the series like some who post here every so often. It’s Because I like the strip that I’m concerned.
I am with you on being concerned. It is like Maxima is being turned into a damsel in distress. Everything she said at the press conference was just a braggart blowing smoke.
Yes, I’m very bored and irritated with this character at this point. Anything that’s thrown at him or if nothing is thrown at him, doesnt stop him, and everything makes him stronger, and able to form new powers ‘just because’. Actually that should be Vehemence’s power. Just Because. Because that explains everything about him.
Why did he start this fight? Just Because
How did he form pants? Just Because
How did he grow? Just Because
How did he get regeneration? Just Because
How did he start shooting electricity? Just Because
How did he get magical abilities to not be budged? Just Because
Why am I getting bored as hell with this this stupid Mary Sue of a villain, when I had been loving the comic since it started? Just Because.
Just because Dave hasn’t yet revealed any subsequent plans in V’s mind yet doesn’t mean he doesn’t have any plans. Remember, this is his *first* appearance as an antagonist & Dave shouldn’t have to reveal *everything* about him all at once.
To reiterate: Lack of evidence is not the same as evidence of lack.
kentda, I would like to point you to the Extra Credits video on “Differences in Kind vs. Differences in Scale” as a demonstration on how to resolve this kind of thing, in terms of narrative scale.
On the one hand, Vehemence is super powerful. On the other hand, he’s also super generic in terms of his powers, and he doesn’t seem to have a particularly complex goal in mind. Don’t expect this to remain true with other villains (particularly since I’m almost certain one of the foreshadowed villains is supposed to be a succubus).
Not to worried about the future. Yes he sets the bar in terms of conflict, but on the other hand, this is mostly a light hearted comedy fic. Once you get one or two good arch nemesi under your belt. The rest is just fun and day to day stuff. Not every villain gets to be a Doomsday or a Galacticus, or an Madara Uchiha.
And those fics didn’t suffer to much when the big guns weren’t brought upon them. Rather different villains bring different things to the table. Vehemance is just in it for the lols and for the fun of fighting. But that makes him less dangerous than a Lex Luthor based villian or that Demon that Dabbler pissed off and swore his revenge against her. Especially since they know what he feeds off of now, they’ll be better prepaired for when he breaks out of prison [which is only a matter of time. Depending on the level of innate violence of the environment / prisoners].
But yeah, I’m not to worried, as long as the next villain isn’t one with he ability to Stretch himself, or release noxious clouds from his anus. I’m perfectly fine with waiting till the next entry of their rogue gallery steps in. And Maxima needed this villain, as is. She’s too strong of a hero, so having an Anti-Max is good for her. And I can’t wait to see how she comes out of this. *fingers crossed for potential character growth*.
Surprised he didn’t turn into a unicorn what with the distribution of those power spikes. Kinda glad Syd’s not doing the ‘shield you till you pass out’ move, it would’ve been too easy and I’d rather see a more imaginative way to deal with Baldy McAngryface.
It would be interesting to see if data from the Truesight orb could be copy/paste to the tenticle orb
for complex shapes.
Say for instance… Matching the tattoo pattern.
“Baldy McAngryface”? Nice but I might have gone with Baldy McAngryPants instead as he made them out of Anger or Violence,
OH MAN! When next the team meets Vehemence, I SOOO hope Syndey calls him Baldy-McAngerPants!
All my yeses. That so neds to happen at least once in their next meeting / battle.
“Oh and I just want to say up here in the comments that the solution people are suggesting rather a lot, which is that Sydney put an airtight shield around him probably isn’t a viable solution, because as far as has been revealed in the comic, Sydney doesn’t know how to make the force field around someone else. She has to be in it, and by default it’s centered on her, though that can be adjusted. I only mention it here because I’ve seen it get suggested about 14 times per page for the last several comics. I’ll go ahead and spoil this: she doesn’t know how to do that, it’s not a deus ex I’m holding on to, and it would be super OP if she could anyway.”
Any bets we’ll still see one or two people suggesting it today anyway and it going back up to 6 or 7 Thursday.
Only a fool takes a fool’s bet
<..>
… ask Dr Revenge
Thanks for your money.
^.^
So, what do they have left that could still hurt him? Dabbler’s railgun?
Errr the light hook and a feather, tickle him untill he submits
I like this answer!
Only thing I can think of is to use diplomacy. EXTREME diplomacy.
For some reason, the phrase, “aggressive negotiations with a lightsaber” just came to miind…
Okay, I seem to remember DaveB commenting that if Max’ at full defense, she basically becomes immobile, like a solid gold statue, but nearly invulnerable.
My prediction, is she’s going to play possum, and he’ll assume he’s killed, or at least incapacitated, her. He’ll turn to deal with the others, then she’ll zip up behind him and ‘splode his noggin. Later, after the fight is done and everybody goes home for the night, (with appropriate post-credits dramatic music, of course), we’ll flash forward to the gov’t scientists eeeevil laboratory and see a new Terminator [tm] skull growing in place.
…of course, I’m about 1:12 for predictions right now >.<
Max needs to get free first then go speedster. Non flying tanks are always vulnerable to a speedsters wind tunnel. That is she needs to run around him so fast it creates a cyclone that sucks the air out the general vicinity. Clasic Flash move.
Other option might be for Harem to go down to one body, which might be enough for her to teleport somethinh V’s size and weight. If so dump him in orbit.
Im also thinking Dabller could summon a slime demon and stuff it down his throat, suffocation once again. A super long range glue gun or grenade like projectile might work too as long as it gets in his mouth and nose.
They could also try for the kill shot. Explodey beam to the forehead.
Harem’s max limit is only 50lbs and cannot teleport people.
Well, there goes the option of sending her for a take-out order of Soylent Green.
Dead people may be possible.
Partly…
If they were children or had dwarfism of some kind.
I think all V. has noticed is that Max is not generating as much lift as she did and the pulling on his hand has become weaker.