Grrl Power #274 – Master sham
Well that’s concerning. The team is going to figure out something and fast. Vehemence’s own plan isn’t terribly grandiose, admittedly. He’d obviously thought about what he could do with a huge amount of power, but all those things spiral into violence on a scale he doesn’t seem to be interested in. I think if asked about it, he’d reply that stirring up that much chaos would just be rude. He’s only interested in fighting fighters, but he’s not above benefiting from free form violence either. Ok, maybe he’s helped facilitate it here and there as well, but nothing that would lead to wholesale slaughter.
Anvil of course absorbs kinetic energy, but that thing that Vehemence did was more of a short lived push-you wall of force. He normally can’t do that, or really most of what he’s doing tonight, but then he never sucked up all the V-Juice from a 50 super person battle royale before either, not to mention took on 5 supers directly afterwards. In RPG terms, he basically has nearly any power he wants now, but he’s paying a big cost penalty for making them up on the spot. That’s fine with him though as his current pool is wide and deep. I say nearly because so he’s as much as admitted he can’t fly, and he’s yet to show that he can come up with powers like telepathy or other indirectly employed abilities. It’s all been direct physical stuff, maybe except for the anchor, but that’s a very bricky power anyway.
Panel 3 was almost a parody of political cartoons, with a caricatured Vehemence sitting on a throne as people labeled “poor” led people labeled “rich” to the gallows or something. I was about 5 minutes into drawing that before I decided spoofing political cartoons is a tall order since they’re all basically parodies of themselves already.
Here’s the link to the new comments highlighter for chrome which I can’t live without anymore, and the GitHub link which you can use to install on FireFox via Greasemonkey.
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SeriouslySeriously you guys. If you like Grrl Power the check these out.
"Mature"Mature subject matter and occasionally something explicit but usually safe. Can't guarantee the ads are safe though.
Dongs Ahoy!Full frontal and backal. Lots of skin, sex on some or all pages, explicit or otherwise.
Definitely starting to expect an overload. But Dave has a habit of surprising me! I’ll be interested to see what comes out of this.
I’m now leaning towards a KO myself. V has now confirmed for us that had Max made the kill shot instead, it would be the end for him. I’m guessing this new source to power up will render him unconscious before he can gain a charge, and that will be the end.
Itching powder.
I’m leaning toward a PPO to the head. Followed by no head on V.
Its been stated that Dave wants V to be a recurring arch villain. whatever happens he won’t die.
Maybe he’ll change his mind like he did with the airtight forcefield. One can hope. Can’t stand V as a character.
The problem with Maxima having any recurring arch villains is that they need to be able to eat a gigaton-range attack, which makes the rest of the team worthless against them. If V is going to be recurring, Max is going to have to buy the farm.
D’oh! And now I remember Maxima being in the flashforward panel a few months from present.
Rob Tapert told his fans that he wouldn’t kill off the Xena character and looked what happened to her.
Just the arms and legs left and the head flying off to regenerate him miles away. Him needing the new power boost he is talking about now just to recover and end up weak.
As V would say:
Dum Dum Dum Dummmmmm!
Interesting enough, he wasn’t considering killing Maxima until his amputation…
His reasoning is perfectly logical.
Now, does this make him more or less terrifying?
More terrifying. Nothing scarier than a logical sociopath. All his decisions are based on a benefit analysis with no emotion. He does not hate anyone. No wonder he is so polite. Right up until he rips your head off because it is easier for him to achieve his goals that way.
I dunno about the sociopath tag. If he really didn’t care about anyone other than himself, he ‘would’ be doing all the possible world in flames scenario’s he just laid out for Max. He’s just well adjusted to the fact that violence is his food, and that concentrated super violence is his bacon. Mmm, bacon….
Hzwa? Sorry, drifted off on a bacon cloud..
He arranged this ruckus to get a five star meal, and has just inferred that he had been planning to leave without killing anyone. But once again, MAXIMA escalated, figuring she could outviolence her opponent, making this a matter of self preservation for V.
Honestly don’t think V’s a sociopath, or even really a bad guy. Despite his current position. Like Tarn said, he’s just thoroughly absorbed the fact that he feeds on violence. He has an ‘evil’ powerset, but I’m quite firmly convinced that he himself is no more ‘evil’ than Maxima is. Even now he’s only looking to kill Max because Maxima as much as told him that *she’s* going to kill *him* if she ever catches him with his pants down (tee hee hee…). If he doesn’t take her out now, while he CAN, then he’ll have to be looking over his shoulder for her for the rest of his life. He would’ve vastly rather let her keep on being violent as hell, since she’s such a good source of vitamin V, but…well, he also likes his head where it is.
I’m honestly expecting Vehemence to make his escape at this point and remain at large. Heh, after all, no real point in building up a supervillain capable of fighting the entire team to a standstill – or plowing them all under if he plans well, which he’s clearly capable of doing – only to toss him in the nearest supermax and forget about him. I’d expect Vehemence to be the Bogeyman in the wings for most of the comic’s run, honestly. He’s too smart, too powerful, and just too much FUN to toss away now. I mean come on – he played Maxima like a fiddle this bout. Be a crying shame to never see him again.
… how is a person who lives on violence and is trying to now kill Maxima, after having PLANNED AND CAUSED THIS FIGHT I THE FIRST PLACE….
not a bad guy?
It wouldnt be a shame not to see him ever again. It would be a blessing at this point. As long as if the reason for not seeing him again is because his head is blown off. For all this to happen and him to just escape after kicking everyone’s butt?
That would be a let down, and seems like it would primarily really appeal to mysogynists who want to see the superheroines get schooled by a male supervillain, which is unfortunately a regular thing for a lot of male comic book readers to like to see (or seeing superheroines only fight supervillain-esses and winning that way, or making sure superheroines are only more powerful than a male supervillain if it’s NON-physical might (like healing or psionics or magic or empath or stuff like that)
You have got to be kidding me. It may not be his fault he thrives on violence, any more than it’s Dabbler’s fault she feeds on lust/sex. Killing him would defy a huge trope, that being that Maxima effectively saying she could beat any super.
Like in Sydney v Math, where Syd says Math cannot beat her – Math wins that fight and Maxima points out that trope. That there is likely foreshadowing.
Personally, I’d like to see more female supers with power sets putting them on even footing with the male supers. Isn’t that the entire point of this f*cking comic anyway? What with the majority of the protagonists being female and all?
Let’s look at the power sets of the girls here … … … mainly physical might and related powers, such as kinetic absorption, the ability to spend points to increase strength etc. The male characters are the ones getting knocked about…by the female characters. Such a misogynistic storyline for sure. Isn’t it just female superheroes left standing at the moment anyway!!?
Maxima saying she can beat any super is not a trope. In fact it’s a trope subversion because Maxima is a FEMALE superheroine, and in comics, female superheroines are never the physically strongest in their respective worlds without any male superhero or being more powerful. Feel free to show me acounter-example.
I’ll wait.
Back? Okay. Don’t have any? Of course not.
Btw, Immediately showing that the toughest person in the room is being utterly beaten IS a trope.
And yes, lets look at the power sets. Then how all that was built up is set aside to say ‘thank god we didnt KEEP it where Maxima is the strongest, we almost had a woman as the pinnacle’
I personally think the team is going to manage to beat him and make him escape. He now has an objective other than “fight” for them to disrupt, which makes him beatable without being killed, which would indeed be a waste.
I don’t think him being able to beat Maxima now makes him “stronger” than her. This was a carefully executed plan that went off more or less without a hitch, while the supers made all mistakes they possibly could, powering him up to uber level.
This is all the element of surprise + luck. He’s not stronger, generally speaking. Next time they won’t make these mistakes. This is a one-time thing.
Maxima was setting herself up to failure anyway. Her conflict with Ariana has so far being showing Maxima as the one in the right, but frankly, she’s not entirely right and it’s very good for the narrative to knock her down a notch.
(Again, it’s not knocking her off her pedestal entirely. Vehemence is basically bursting with HER power, that she thoughtlessly gave him, entirely in keeping with her character. He’s only this strong because she is)
Seriously, given the scale of the setup needed to make Vehemence the threat he is right now, given the precision with which the plan was executed, this is NOT that “boy schools girl” trope at all. Nuances matter.
(and I’m willing to give the author A LOT of benefit of doubt after that beautiful “woman should be a lady in the ballroom etc” debate between Max and Dabbler)
The Southern Knights had a woman as the strongest member of the team. And she was also petite and not muscle-bound, which is another aversion of the typical comic strongperson.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Southern_Knights
Witchblade.
I need to jump in here a bit too. As I am having trouble seeing a credible threat making this misogynistic. I mean do you want the just let the girls fight girls and never really hurt each other extreme? IE beauty is never tarnished? Max has gotten her nose broken. She has been amping up this fight at every stage and has now come to face someone that is Matching her. Matching her strength, her power, Her durability, and HER ruthlessness. If V gets away but does not kill Max. (I kinda doubt it since this is still in Sydney’s flashback. And since Anvil is noted as calling her ‘The big guns’ before this began, I am waiting for our scrappy Halo to deal with V by using style and her ability to see through powersets.) Back to my point, if V gets away but does not kill Max then they have a pyrrhic victory. A major villain is out there but they have a small army of them to lockup.
1) Actually yes, I’d like the girls to win. Especially in their first major fight to show that they are a credible fighting force. Amazing that I’d want the protagonists to win decisively, despite them being women huh.
2) If V gets away without actually being beaten FIRST, it would suck. At the very least, he should get beaten first. THEN manage to get away after he regains consciousness, or whatever. Or escapes after being locked up, if he wasnt killed (which someone pragmatic like Maxima should do). Probably by instigating a prison riot.
He now has an objective for them to disrupt. If they manage to stop him from killing Max (which they will, let’s not kid ourselves here), this will already be a victory.
And this has been a very Maxima-centered fight, and not in a gender way. It’s her Fatal Character Flaw backfiring on her. This isn’t laziness of characterization that girls often suffer from, this is the PRECISION of characterization. Vehemence is Maxima’s very personal nemesis, one she has to come with new tactics to deal with (other than her standard VIOLENCE VIOLENCE MORE VIOLENCE). Which is /not/ “putting her down”, it’s giving her additional depth and conflict. Basically the exact opposite of the problem you see.
Also, they’ve already had their decisive victory – over the rest of the crowd. Even Sydney managed to beat one close and personal without relying on her shield. “He’s trapped in there with her”, indeed. Holy shit that was awesome.
First of all, the comic is called ‘Grrl Power’. I don’t think misogyny is ever going to be an issue.
Second of all, I said what I meant and I meant what I said. V’s not a bad guy. He’s not a GOOD guy, either, but realistically? Him planning and inciting this big ol’ furball isn’t conceptually anymuch different than Dabbler planning and inciting a mass orgy somewhere. He eats violence, and everybody’s gotta eat. Second of all, don’t forget that Vehemence handed over thirty-plus REAL bad guys – criminals who have actually broken laws with intent to harm, several of whom *did* try to kill members of Archon – to Max and the team here pretty much on a platter, and until Maxima herself turned it into a lethal confrontation, Vehemence was intending to mostly just scrap, pick up a bellyful of vitamin V, and showcase some serious holes in Archon’s tactics.
Up until now? He’s done the team far more *good* than he’s done them harm, and in fact one of my own pet theories is that Vehemence is DELIBERATELY setting himself up as Archon’s arch-nemesis, in order to keep them on their toes and ensure that they’re at the top of their game and ready to handle *real* villains, out to do serious harm.
Remember. Maxima’s alive and well in the future. It could turn out that V’s bluffing here, and that he’s deliberately pretending to misunderstand Max’s powers, in order to force the team to kick it up a notch to save their leader. I don’t know if that’s the case, but it wouldn’t surprise me.
V’s not a bad guy. Nor is this a misogynistic smacking party where the author of a webcomic about badass female superheroes fulfills his inner fetishes of watching a big burly MANMANMAN smack dem hussies around. The team needs a serious threat to help it develop, and here V is. Like I said, I think he’s doing it deliberately. Time will tell.
Yes. He’s a bad guy. He’s a sociable bad guy, but so is Vandal Savage. So is Ra’s Al Ghul. So is Dr. Doom when he’s safe in Latveria. He has not done the team ‘good’ at all and I’m bewildered at certain people twisting common sense and logic to say that Vehemence, a person who got together 30+ metahumans to attack and try to kill the heroes, then betrayed them only once he was strong enough to start taking them all on on his own in order to get powerful enough to be a god, and now is trying to kill Maxima… is not a ‘bad guy’
That’s the friggin definition of a bad guy!
And I do notice that a lot of people who defend V also say how they’re happy that Maxima is getting knocked down a peg. Considering it’s called ‘grrlpower’ – it would be nice to see the most powerful ‘grrl’ actually being powerful about the biggest threat, rather than consistently being beaten by V’s ‘let me choose another power that I’m poofing into existence to beat her and everyone else’
The term is “affably evil,” the guy you really can’t hate because they are so nice when they’re making the world burn.
I can definitely hate him. :)
Note what this ruckus did: gathered all dumb troublemaker supers he could find in one place for the Archon to tear apart. It’s basically Maxima’s plan for the conference results, only a bit escalated. And note that V himself did not interfere until everyone else was caught, including helping the team catch those who were trying to run away.
He hasn’t done anything bad to anyone other than the super team, and even then he wasn’t going to kill anyone until Maxima escalated.
Speaking of which. Maxima. Tsk-tsk-tsk. Didn’t they teach you that the police are supposed to calm things down, not escalate the violence?
*checks latest news from US*
ah, never mind
We’re trying to discuss Chuckles here in terms of “good” and “bad” and people are getting into verbal scraps about this. He eats violence as his food? Right, that doesn’t make him bad because everything needs to eat. That’s just wrong and that’s because the statement makes a mistake about his powers. He needs violence to gain power and strength but he hardly eats it. Look at how he was before he actually started fighting people; he was hardly weak and shriveled from starvation, was he? He also admitted to gathering all the dangerous criminals together to assault ARCSwat. He didn’t do this so they could incarcerate all these supervillains. He did it to soak up the violence they would cause. He certainly didn’t care that they created mayhem, property damage and endangered civilians. Now he’s talking about killing Maxima after refusing to surrender even though she offered him the option more than once. Hell, he could have just run away using that dust cloud earlier as cover. But he insisted on staying, not merely to “feed” on violence but to amp his powers. Psycho or not, charming or not, good or bad, Chuckles is a menace and they have to stop him…preferably before he makes good on his threat and kills Maxima.
https://www.grrlpowercomic.com/archives/1533
To start with. He said he’s an Innate User of Vehemic Energy(key word there), just like Dabbler is an Innate User of Tantric Energy. There is nothing stated that says its like Food or Water for either of them. It’s a form of Energy he can absorb and then use for his own purposes..
If that fact is true, then he’s definitely a Sociopath because he’s willing to see other people suffer so that he can benefit. He’s probably also to a large degree a straight up junkie, addicted to Vehemic Energy.
Raging, sorry, that bit wasn’t directed at you. Hope it didn’t come across that way. It was specific commentary about the idea of “feeding” (and a link to his first comment about Vehemic Energy).
“He didn’t do this so they could incarcerate all these supervillains.”
Why’d he prevent their escape then? Certainly the rational thing for the violence empowered villian to do would be to allow a bunch of violent criminals to go free thus providing more juice in the future.
The fact he did not and indeed his own distaste with full scale war shown here, suggests a startlingly principled person for someone with his power set. “Bar fight ethics” taken to the logical extremes.
Of course none of that disproves your other point. He is a grade-A menace and needs to be stopped.
Why did he knock out Opal and Vektor? I’ve thought about this. Given Vehemence’s distinct lack of reasoning for what he does beyond ‘he likes violence’ – the answer is actually pretty clear cut.
Why would someone who does violence for violence’s sake do something violent to other violent people? Because it’s violent. And violent right now is better than violent some time in the future. And violence makes him stronger.
Yeah, I’d consider Vehemence to be sociopathic, in that he really doesn’t consider anyone else as anything more than fuel for violence. Unlike most other arch-villains who want to rule the world or destroy it, he’s not trying to impose or enforce any kind of Order…He wants nothing but Chaos. He doesn’t care if the world burns, as long as there’s still some people around to keep feeding him with violence.
Considering we have a thought bubble of him directly expressing empathy for one of the victims of his scheme (“Good kid. Hope she doesn’t get killed tonight.”), sociopathy is right out as an accurate descriptor. Selfish, arrogant, and desensitized to violence all still work.
Anyone who thinks V cares about Sydney as a person is deluded. He saw the bank how she went off on the “robber” and he saw the press conference. He sees her and more power for him. If she died he would lose a good source of violence, his only concern.
Hannibal Lechter had respect/seeming concern for Clarice Starling and her career.
Didnt stop him from being a sociopath who eats people’s faces.
Now I’m wondering why he misunderestimated (love that one) Max in the first place. Her demonstration and speech afterwards weren’t exactly subtle, so he really shouldn’t be all that surprised that’s she’s willing and able to take his ass down if she needs to. Interesting blunder for someone who’s so far been spot on.
Her demonstration didn’t harm anyone. It’s one thing to nuke an empty field it’s quite a different thing to pop a mans skull like a ripe watermelon.
Many will bruise and break their opponents but be unable to bring themselves to strike lethally or even permanently damage their enemy in ways such as armputation
Except for https://www.grrlpowercomic.com/archives/989 stating she’d already used lethal measures on other supers, even if under war-time circumstances.
And looking around, I’d say this is very nearly a wartime circumstance anyway.
The difference being that this is still considered peace-time, so their actions must follow the rules for police, not soldiers.
Archon has its own legal charter, actually. Arianna went over that a bit during the initial press interview. They don’t have to follow the rules for police – that was outright stated as one of the points of how it’s under military jurisdiction instead of domestic police jurisdiction.
That wasn’t a nuke. There wasn’t any radiation or fallout. It was just a really big conventional explosion. Max called it a Daisycutter impersonation.
I think V’s approach to this attack was a calculated risk. He planned on facing a graduated esclation of power expecting to start with a preliminary boost from the initial melee as he stood by. By his standard Max jumped a level or two too fast. Fortunately he had enough stored energy to expend to patch up the damage. But now he has to cut things short before Max does that again.
My dear, Vexrapopple is completly right.
As someone that as been around Special forces and Martial Artist and what not for a long while trust me:
Maaany talk the talk, very few actually walk the walk!
Thanks for the page.
I’m looking forward to more.
Sydney trying just one orb? Facing away from target with force field off?
Perhaps she really should use it as a molestorb.
At this point V isn’t even noticing it. Any poking is going to be ignored too.
Use it to power up Dabbler?
Sydney had a word for that “Eeew”.
I didn’t say anything about poking.
Pushing it into his mouth and wrapping it around his palatine uvula or pushing it down his throat might be felt by Vehemence.
Remember V is faster now as well as stronger. If he gets any fraction of a second to react, he will keep his mouth shut. (finally) Or worse grab the ‘hook with his free hand and play “Crack The Sydney”. He hoped she would survive. But hey, business is business.
Sydney has a plan. I have not the slightest idea what it might be.
Meanwhile I’m rather curious how this can end at all with both Max and V alife. Hnnng!
AND her bruise disappeared.
And the blood spatters on Max’s face has been missing for three pages too.
At the angle we Sydney’s face here though, it’s possible that we’re just at the wrong angle. But that bruise was large enough that I’d have thought we should see the *edge* of the bruised area from here.
I think it’s there now.
Sydney’s bruise is indeed back, but the blood spatters on Max’s face is still missing for three pages…At some point, it may have been wiped off her face, but only the page where Max blows off V’s arm shows any blood on her face.
I really hope somebody studying the tapes later on gives her a going over in boot camp about continuously forgetting the shield or leaving it down to long.
She just discovered the shield is airtight. Sydney needs to drop it to get fresh air. Right now she is leaving it down since she is in no immediate danger. Hopefully…
I know its airtight. If she is dropping it THIS much then she really needs to be taken aside and told just how long that much air can last. Dave was pushing it that she needed to drop it that early in the first place (I assumed the excitement at first had her hyperventilating or something) let alone multiple times. To leave it down every chance she gets for long periods suggests Sydney is very poorly informed. (kinda thought a scuba diver would have thought about this a bit more)
And so, while I’m willing to accept that this is the best Sydney knows to do for now (barely), it stands to reason that someone takes her aside later after the fight and explains that she can leave it up for much longer. What reading I can do suggests if she was at rest she could probably leave it up for over an hour! So a 20 minute stretch while active would be more like it… at the least.
Later, they can just upgrade her pip-boy to include an oxygen sensor and a warning system.
Rebreather and if she knows she’s gonna be in the shield the whole time and air tank.
A few spare tanks and the shield embiggened would get her to another planet eventually.
Only is she really pisses off Anvil and/or Maxima.
Sydney’s meds are wearing off.
I don’t think she’s acting optimally, now, rather I think she’s doing whatever flashes into her brain. I’m thinking Manic Carrie from homeland Season 1.
You are right, she should definitely have her shield up, but I think this is the flip side of the whole “we will employ people with mental health issues if they have enough powers” attitude from the conference room.
Walter, I have ADHD, so I can attribute to that fact. Spontaneous and on the moment decisions are far “easier” as the meds wear off. They of course seem Right at the time but …
As to the Shield, I’m sure there are ways she could construct it to let air in. IE not a full bubble around her. But that’ll take time and training. For now, her knowledge of what the orbs Can do is a bit on the limited side.
Looks to me she is trying to toss him over her head with both hands on the orb and getting absolutely, positively nothing for her effort. It’s a desperation move to save Max.
Considering they appear to marching down Sesame Street, I’d say it’s already enough of a parody. I choked on my coffee when I noticed that.
With a Bert and Ernie in the crowd no less
Well he is a monster. :)
Sam The Eagle from The Muppet Show is to the right of Ernie as well. :D
I’m just glad I’m not the only one to notice that. Thought I was going crazy for a minute.
Finally! After all those years, somebody actually *does* tell us how to get to Sesame Street!
Funny, I once lived near a Sesame Street. Not as awesome as it was on TV though.
I wanna live on Avenue Q.
The Internet is for PORN!
That would have been better with some links… Oh and some, or maybe all, of these links can be slightly risky for some… Though fortunately only this leads to the lair of the time eater!
Full puppet nudity!
If you take another look at the muppet cast, a lot of them are *always* nude…Kermit, Cookie Monster, Oscar the Grouch & big Bird just to name a few off the top of my head. And these from memories more than a decade gone by.
What I love is the sign of the pitchfork.
I’ve got to respect a villain who iust wants a good scrap. I figured V had unusual motives.
Also, I like that he has her pinned down and is politely chatting. No threats, just discussing vaction plans.
When did “I’m going to kill you” stop being a threat…?
That’s a statement not a threat. Just part of a polite conversation really…
“By the by, I AM going to kill you. Scone?”
Would you like some tea before you die? ;p
By definition under the law, Vehemence IS threatening Max. He’s expressing the intent & motive, he’s already got her pinned down in a choke hold…There’s the means & opportunity fulfilled right there. Assault & battery with lethal intent.
Please tell me this is a joke, saying that if you make a death threat politely, and are planning on carrying it out, that it’s not a threat?
I didn’t see any emoticons, so I’m not sure if people are joking, or if the world has turned upside down and backwards.
If stated like your to do list then it’s not a threat.
The intention of the words is not to be a threat.
Threatening someone has the intention of intimidation or goading where as this is discussing planning.
In war crimes if people are told to line up to be shot, they are not simply being threatened although depending on the person saying it it may be a factor.
Uh… yeah, if someone tells me to line up to be shot, that’s a threat.
When they shoot me, they’ve followed through on the threat.
I’m guessing they mean “empty threat”. A lot of villains do that, and it’s really nice that V doesn’t.
Yes. It’s very considerate of V that he doesnt issue empty threats.
gnnk. Can’t hold in the sarcastic smirk. :)
:-/
Maybe its because english is not my mother tongue, but imo
“Stop that or I’m going to kill you!” is a threat.
At this point V is just stating his course of action.
Mind, he was also talking about all that stuff he wouldn’t really do just to threaten and disturb her. I mean, the tone with which he’s speaking is very casual and relaxed, I agree, I just don’t think you can say he’s not threatening her.
Okay, I suppose I mispoke somewhat. Yes, the kill could be taken as a threat, but the way he is saying it seems to me something along the the same thread as noting that you have to get milk when you go to the grocery store. He is not trying to indimidate her, just rattling down a to do list.
Oh, definitely. And sorry, when nothing’s going on at work on a Thursday, I’ve got little to do other than being a pedant.
Of course he is being polite to Max. After all, she has a very [puts on sunglasses] disarming personality.
“Stop that or I’m going to kill you” isn’t a threat, it’s an ultimatum. He didn’t give her an ultimatum, he just said flat out “I’m going to kill you” which is a threat…
Gah it’s all threats.
A polite threat is a threat.
An impolite threat is a threat.
And an ultimatum is a threat.
Ultimatum – a final demand or statement of terms, the rejection of which will result in retaliation or a breakdown in relations.
“their employers issued an ultimatum demanding an immediate return to work”
synonyms: final offer, final demand, take-it-or-leave-it deal; threat
“he gave me an ultimatum, basically I pay him by Thursday or he calls the cops”
And saying ‘I’ll kill you but i’ll let your teammates live, bruised’ is a double threat.
No, that would be a warning
Interesting point. I always considered those two separate things though. The demand followed by a threat if not followed. To me a threat is when you make a statement of harming someone in some way, physically, financially, etc but I can see your point too. There is almost always a demand attached.
“No Mr. Bond, I want you to die!”
it’s “I expect you to die”, actually. but yeah, it’s not a threat, it’s a statement.
What the heck. Yes. ‘No, Mister Bond, I expect you to die’ is a threat. Then he expects him to actually die so his threat will have been followed through on.
The difference between a “threat” and a “fact”.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=o7Q6ga6RVRw
That’s called an “ultimatum” rather than “a demand followed by a threat”… Though you could define an ultimatum in that fashion.
The english language is weeping right now at the attempt on this comment thread to semantically disassemble what a threat is.
Quite simply, a threat is something the sayer has no intention of carrying out, they are hoping the people listening will get scared and give in to their demands
actually, the main difference between a threat and a warning is that with a threat, someone will do something to you if you do/dont do X. With a warning, doing/not doing X will cause Y to happen, where Y is some undesirable or hazardous outcome resulting from X.
Example: Setting fire to the dynamite will blow you up, this is a warning. Trying to set fire to the dynamite will make the sheriff stop you by shooting you dead before you can get it done. This is technically also a warning. Set fire to that piece of dynamite or your loved ones will suffer is a threat.
Bit of a dark example but I expect it gets the point across :)
Dictionary time.
Threat
1. a declaration of an intention or determination to inflict punishment, injury, etc., in retaliation for, or conditionally upon, some action or course; menace
2. an indication or warning of probable trouble
Synonyms for warn:
intimidate, browbeat, fulminate, terrorize, meace, bully, growl, torment, scare, caution, portend, comminate, presage, admonish, cow, make threat, augur, forebode, forewarn, bluster
Can people please stop saying, now, that ‘he’s not threatening anyone, he’s just warning them.’
An empty threat is one you don’t intend carrying out.
You are quite mistaken. Perhaps I can clear up your misconception:
Assume a bank robber has taken several hostages. He tells the police he’ll kill one if they don’t meet his demands. You would call this a threat made only to achieve a goal, one the bank robber never intends to follow through on. But you are wrong.
His demands aren’t met to his satisfaction, and he kills a hostage and again threatens to kill another if his demands aren’t met. Are you still going to say that there is no intent to follow through with this threat? Because people follow through on threats all the time, they aren’t only made hoping to cow others into following whatever orders they might give.
I think she’s just trying to use both hands for extra pull on the molestorb to drag V off of Maxima. Not thats likely to actually be a thing with the orbs, but she’s trying out of habit I imagine.
that actually could be the solution
what will happen if both hands touch the same ball?
Nothing extra. If you look close Sydney has one hand on top of the other trying to gain some leverage.
Sone suggsted this in the last page with the shield orb. I really doubt it matters, the fact that the orbs only work in her hands makes me think that it’s a purely nominal matter and that the orbs are actvated in a binary fashion: orb in hand: on; orb not in hand:off. I doubt that skin area or number of hands on each orb are influential factors.
I mean, if the orbs were Dabbler’s then she could use 4 at a time, but that’s it really.
As far as I can tell.
Well, she can hold an orb without activating it, but yeah, I can’t imagine holding it in both hands is useful except maybe for stabilizing the PPO.
Probably only 3 at a time since one is bionic. We do know, from the skill tree display, that some of the orbs function together. I’m not sure Sydney knows all the possible combinations yet either. Unless the flight orb, or one of the unknowns, is able to help I don’t see this being a factor here. (flight orb might help, the lighthook might get a lift boost from flight, but that’s a Hail Mary shot at this point.)
We don’t actually know yet whether a cybernetic hand can or can’t work on the orb. That was just theoretical conjecture from Dabbler, though unless Sydney loses her hand and has it replaced by a robot arm, it probably would not be resolved any time soon.
Though it’s a pretty logical-sounding bit of conjecture, given the whole ‘mittens are my kryptonite’ weakness.
yeah i doubt it is helping, the orb does not do much power feedback to the user, maybe a little but she pulled anvil down effortlesly.
That only makes sense if its a force multiplier instead of just a remote control thing. But I guess it could be that way. Dave’s just going through as many theories as he can disprove for us in the comments while it shows Sydney is experimenting while she thinks about what to do. The lack of shield gag is still very annoying though… *sigh*
Oh, we have a number of potential ones still active to replace the shield gag. We got the Harem teleport, the healing, hentacle tickle/rape, or the lust aura. Take your pick. ;p
I am more curious how he will ever make V a recurring Villain like he mentioned, cause like he says here (and I already mentioned in the previous comic comments), he is too dangerous to allow powering up, so Max (or any other super that has a chance) would have to kill him instantly the next time she sees him.
The only thing that could save V from comming back if Sydney finds a enormous weakness that is easily exploitable.
If he shows up again you can bet he’s gonna plan it well enough to be at green glowy levels before he gets there. I’d rather not give him an easily exploitable weakness; a dangerous reaction to hitting his absorption cap would make it dangerous to exploit his weakness, making him a powerful recurring villain who is always tricky to engage.
V should be TOTALLY weak against tickle attacks. :D Especially like the bottoms of feet or the other side of the elbow or something like that. That or horrible horrible puns/jokes.
I’m not so sure. Tickling is actually a stimulation of pain nerves, along with a few other elements. He’s already fairly well armored up, so you’d need some kind of super power of tickling to break his defense.
Not everyone is ticklish
I always knew that Ernie would be trouble, but I expected better of you, Bert.
Hah, considering how high strung Bert is and that Ernie is just chillin with his cookies all the time I always thought of it as the other way around.
He was fine until Wall Street messed with his paperclips.
That & his pens & desk stapler consistently go missing…
I’m not surprised V wants to kill Max. Once his power fades he will be vulunerable to even her non-boosted attacks. And if he keeps showing off, he’s going to run out faster. Sydney can’t budge him (no surprise really) and V can hold off any physical attack with ease. When he goes to boost his energy, he may be distracted for just an instant while he sets it up. That’s all I can think of to get even a distraction to work on him.
The one that took Math out might work ^_~
Max using a ‘nailer’ manuever seems unlikely. And V is focused on her pretty tightly.
Lol, Pitchfork signs XD
Good to know that Vehemence isn’t planning on abusing his powers as hard as I would in his situation.
Why do I feel like that last bubble relates to Sydney somehow?
I think it’s about Max instead. Remember that he is misjudging her powers.
He thinks that electricity saps away her strength, which is not the case. He probably thinks he can absorb her power somehow.
The guy with the pitchfork sign looks very happy with himself, too.
I’m starting to like V more and more :D
I thought I couldnt like him less. But each webcomic proves me wrong, because I do like him less. Not because he’s evil. Because he’s being closer and closer to necessitating a deus ex machina to beat him. Especially if he’s going to be a recurring villain, which I hope he’s not. I’m really hoping DaveB was just saying that to throw us off, then in the next update, Sydney or Maxima blow his head off and he’s dead.
It just occurred to me that it might actually be a good thing if V is (currently) unbeatable for ArcSwat. He is the only kind of unbeatable bad guy that this really works for as he isn’t inherently Evil (according to what we know of him at this time). If he is telling the truth, or at least mostly the truth, then he didn’t arrange this scrap up with expectations of having anyone killed. Sure he considered the possibility, but then anyone signing up for the hero role or defining themselves as a villain already accepted that they’ve got a bulls-eye painted on their chest or they wouldn’t do anything like that.
So if he gets away they’ve got a rouge big bad whom they are currently unable to control or reliably defeat if he gets the drop on them. If he was truly evil then that would be extremely bad, but, and again this is only valid if he is reasonably truthful, he isn’t evil and doesn’t plan on starting a war or killing half the worlds population or something. The threat he poses is that they have no idea of when he will be back for more V-juice, how he is going to encourage them to provide him with his fix or where he will do so. This is a threat level that will keep the team on their toes as long as he’s at large.
Having him escape will also make Archon both more and less intimidating to the public. They did catch a whole bunch of violent super criminals without killing anybody, so far… They did all, again so far, survive, and they did it all in front of the TV cameras.
However V also showed that there are really scary people out there that doesn’t necessarily have public safety as their first priority. So as impressive as Max and the team might be there are obviously things out there that they are not currently able to handle. For the media this will mean open season on Archon and supers in general as well as legislators and politicians. Some will cry for some kind of supers registration act. Some will argue for increasing funding for Archon and others for the organization to be disbanded and the ArcSwat team members incarcerated.
And I’ve lost my thread of thought… Now where were I? Right…
Ahem… Yes, V can be allowed to escape as he is the kind of Big Bad that won’t try to conquer the world, or even go on a
indiscriminateawesome killing spree just for the funzies.It will show the world that ArcSwat isn’t unbeatable, but at the same time they are obviously quite awesome, and they did take down a whole bunch of small fry that would have made mince meat of regular cops. It will mean a blow to Maxima’s public image, but I’m sure she knew that would happen sooner or later, though she probably had planed on it being later.
Any villain who doubted Max claims during the demonstration will now know that she is willing to go for lethal levels of violence. Lets face it, that kind of damage would most likely have killed or incapacitated all but a very few supers. And given the demonstration earlier she has quite a bit more power to put into the blaster if the circumstances allows for it. Only the really stupid or suicidal will want to provoke her, while the smart ones will try to stay below the radar.
As for V he can be relied upon to bee the bogeyman in the dark. When anyone questions the existence of a organization like Archon all they have to do is to point out that somewhere out there Vehemence is still at large, quietly planing and setting up for his next meal and that no one know where or when he will make the scene again. And yes, his target might actually be Archon or any other organized group of supers, but if it weren’t them then who knows what he would do. Perhaps he would try to incite a war? Besides with reasonably law abiding supers on one side at least some of them will try to keep collateral damage to a minimum. If he were to set up villains to fight each others instead then they might not care if a few city blocks gets turned into a glass walled crater.
OK I’m rambling now. I better press submit before I make another try at this…
Wow! That didn’t look quite so intimidating in the edit box!
Cpt. Obvious this isn’t just about your post, but I am tired of seeing people say Vehemence is a good guy.
Why do people keep saying that Vehemence is not evil? He set up a large scale attack in an occupied building with civilians in it, in a city. People have been put at risk of severe bodily injury and death, as well as having their livelihood destroyed, all so Vehemence can get more power. This is not to feed him for survival, this is to placate his desire for power. Any who believe that he will stop after this are completely fooling themselves.
People say he doesn’t want to hurt anyone, but the thing is he really doesn’t care if they do get hurt. He instigated this remember. He brought all these ones who have used deadly violence against all of these people. We have seen many lasers and beam weapons fired off, many indiscriminately. We don’t yet know what the collateral damage from all of that is. If someone goes outside and fires a gun into the air and it kills someone, they are responsible for that death. If you get someone to go do something illegal and someone dies you have committed murder under the law (and no it doesn’t matter how someone dies).
For those that say look he says he doesn’t want anyone to die, look at two of the biggest mass murderers in recent history, Hitler and Stalin. Both would tell you whatever you wanted to hear just to get what they wanted all while killing more and more for their power.
Vehemence is an evil villain, period. Harming people just for power is what is done by dictators and thugs. There should be no saying well they are nice, they aren’t.
Thank you for someone else other than me saying this. Looking at people trying to make all sorts of long posts saying Vehemence isnt evil is making me seriously consider that a large portion of these people are insane. He’s evil.
A person who takes care of homeless kittens, but also hunts humans for sport? Yeah – that person’s evil.
The mayor from Buffy the Vampire Slayer? He wouldnt swear because only potty mouths swear, and was really nice and fatherly to Faith. Oh yeah and he wanted to turn into a demon to destroy the world. EVIL.
Ra’s al Ghul is always very civil and polite towards Batman, and felt bad when Jason Todd died and tried to make amends. Oh yeah and he also wants to destroy most of humanity’s population as some insane environmentalist attempt to ‘fix the world.’ He is EVIL.
Lucifer from Supernatural? He’s actually quite polite. While he’s killing you and causing the world to die and usher in a new era of darkness.
Scorpio from the Simpsons – Best boss homer ever had, really nice guy. Who’s killing the commandos who are trying to storm his base because he has nuclear bombs trained on all the capitals of the world and is holding the world for ransom. He’s evil. Geez.
Worse yet, Vehemence is pretty much a sociopath – he does all this BECAUSE HE CAN DO ALL THIS. There’s no bigger reason than ‘he wants to.’ Please god, none of these people who are defending Vehemence as not really a villain – don’t ever have them sit on juries in RL.
LOTS of evil people can act nice while at the same time doing things which are undeniably evil. I’m just astounded at how many people are trying to say Vehemence is not evil because he was talking politely to Sydney and hoped she would survive the night (from the exact scenario that he has orchestrated)
Larry from Burn Notice
Satan from Reaper
Baal from Stargate SG-1
Khan from Star Trek
Xerxes from 300
Simon Gruber from the Die Hard movies
Don Corleone from the Godfather
Hans Landa from Inglorious Basterds
VIKI from I, Robot
Bill from Kill Bill
Belloq from Raiders of the Lost Ark
The Operative from Serenity (the movie summing up Firefly)
the Androids from Dragonball Z (since V is practically a Dragonball Z character at this point)
Robot Devil from Futurama
Oh yeah. Mr. Burns from the Simpsons. Sure he tries to block out the sun, releases the hounds on everyone, has a dessicated ball of hate where his heart should be, makes his wardrobe out of all sorts of animals – bonus points for endangered ones… but hey… if a greyhound puppy can stand on its two hind legs like a little Rory Calhoun, he loves it and can’t kill it.
Having Ernie & Bert as real as can be and dead serious makes a political and satirical statement on its own and on more than one level :D
tl;dr: GREAT!
So limb can be verbed?
See “nutted” in a slang dictionary.
Ok, I knew about the headbutt thing, the castration thing was new to me, but the third one left me disgusted. Not at the content per se, but at the underlying sexism of all the examples.
“Limbed” still sounds weird, though.
Sorry about that.
No worries, nothing some an hour over at OJST can’t cure.
Huh, I only knew about the “kick in the nuts” definition of that one.
De-limbed would have made more sense.
I’ve heard of the word ‘nut’ used as a verb.
Zombieland. Time to nut up or shut up.
Never heard of limbed as a verb. Still think de-limbed would have sounded better but meh. His speech patterns are the smallest problem I have with the Vehemence character.
Well except for using the word kerfuffle. Because no one should use the word kerfuffle and is try to be tough.
Yes, actually. It’s usually in reference to forestry, though. They sell axes just for limbing.
And now I know. Thanks :)
Regular vernacular in any boffer-sword LARP.
Also, “legged” and “armed”
Using “armed” as an adjective mean to be carrying a weapon in a way that it can easily be used. As a verb, “armed” often means to enter such a state. e.g. The soldiers armed themselves before going into battle.
I don’t mean to go all language nerd on you, but I just legit adverbed “legit”, verbed “adverb”, and adjectived “language nerd”.
The pitchfork protest sign is awesome. If I’m ever in another protest, I’m makin’ that one…
I’d probably also show a lit torch with the pitchfork on there somewhere…
Should make that the opposite side of the sign. :)
Also: Seriously team, your leader is down and, apparently under lethal threat, and all you can manage is some ineffectual flailing? I’m disappointed. Not in Syd, but the others should be much quicker on their feet, considering they are trained military professionals.
Nobody can affect Vehemence at this point by direct attack except maybe Anvil. The rest of the brick types are down. The support crew doesn’t have anything heavier than Peggy’s .50 cal. I can’t imagine Dabbler is just sitting there, but preparing a spell usually takes time. And thinking of an effective one takes more time.
They don’t actually have to do any significant damage, just distract/startle him long enough so Max can get free.
And I refuse to believe that between Syd, Dabs and Harem, they can’t come up with anything suitably surprising and/or insane.
Since getting nekkid is out, I say Dabs ports to the gas station, then to the Zoo and chucks a flaming monkey at him. Ok, that’s a bit cruel. Flaming monkey poo then. But you get the idea: anything to make him go “WHY would you DO that????”
Then again, if he really is a kindergarten teacher (my personal headcanon as of yesterday), there’s probably not much that can phase him.
SHUT AHHHHHPPPPPPPP!!!!!!!
What. (ಠ_ಠ)
He was quoting Arnie from Kindergarten Cop.
It’s probably a tumor…
IT’S NOT A TUMAH!
Please don’t pet his ferret…
V a kindergarten teacher. Head cannon acquired.
I would suggests a cut away to all the behind the battle scenes people like ARC light conversing over mics about V’s nature and what might be done but this is long enough already.
Maybe it’s significant that we only see Kenya and Sydney. Maybe they are just a distraction, while Dabs, Harem and whoever else is left carry out the actual plan.
> Also: Seriously team, your leader is down and, apparently under lethal threat, and all you can manage is some ineffectual flailing?
Who cares about Maxima? Let’s consider – for a moment – the physical implications of someone creating an arm out of thin air. From E=mc^2 an estimated 10^18 joules. That’s only about 100,000 times as big as the nuclear bomb dropped on Hiroshima.
Normally yes, but with magic and super powers, conservation of energy and all that stuff goes right out of the window. Check out Harem’s and Dabs’ teleportation, and the reactionless propulsion of the fliers, or Syd’s explodey beam.
See the last entry on this page.
Addendum: Even if we’re talking mass from thin air: his growth should be a much bigger deal in that respect. Furthermore, if he really is converting stored vehemic energy into mass, he must have a huge store, and *all* the other powers he’s displayed so far would be orders of magnitude below that in energy consumption and efficiency.
I still think a good heavy dose of love would calm things down … sorry, but resisting anything attractive doesn’t seem to be his deal at the moment. In fact, hes in the mood to pander to all sorts of whims … I might be wrong, but I can’t see how his power would save him from a good bit of dabbling in his head …
Shame they don’t have a succubus on the team …
Overpowering him with lust and infatuation (NOT love), if he’s even susceptible to it at this point, would not be a great plan while he’s got enough strength to overpower Max.
Fridge horror to that: do you really want to make the insanely strong juggernaut so horny he can’t control himself? Man of Steel, Woman of Cleenex and all that… Very not pretty. Also: what if he’s gay?
Ok, new headcanon, V’s boyfriend is a blind, mild mannered cellist who has him totally wipped. No pun intended.
I wish you didnt put that image in my head. I so wish you did not.
You’re welcome :3
So, Coulson’s girlfriend’s brother?
Yes. There will be double dates.
I am so grateful to you for this image. Headcanon accepted.
Yikes. If he is homosexual, you would need to bring back Hiro to standing in front of Dabbler when she “turns it up to 11” (or more).
He sure talks a lot… even by villain standards. At least the villains I’m used to, I don’t read western comics, but I watch a fair bit of anime and those villains never shut up. Vehemence talks more.
I’m not even getting “relaxed chat” off him, more like “unstoppable stream of consciousness”. I think there may be something there.
Well…. can’t not like this guy.
I kinda get a strange vibe from all this.
Maybe its just because I really like this character, but I feel like hes kinda tested the team and his final verdict is something along the lines:
“Law enforcement needs to be able to overpower lawbreakers, but you’re far too happy to go for a full on confrontation, and the ease with which you choose to go for a final solution is most disturbing. I do not think a government agency with near unstoppable forces under your command is a good idea, therefore I will have to remove you from your position of power. Which, given the fact that most of your power is yourself, means I have to kill you.”
As I said, I might be totally delusional, but who can blame me?
Also I love his “Violence is for enjoying yourself, not for seriously harming people” attitude. Now thats what I call unusual.
That is how succubi are too otherwise you would be seeing a lot of orgy in most of fantasy settings that harbor one :P
Vehemence just said it: War is too unruly.
He already took into account that Archon IS military & he’d already took some precautions to charge up before confronting them directly. He really should have expected Max to escalate to a “final” level, but she quite probably underestimated how *quickly* she would ramp up that far.
“Violence is for enjoying yourself, not for seriously harming people.”
I keep reading this sentence and say… wha?????
Violence IS for harming people. That’s what violence does. It HARMS. And oh.. you know… stuff like killing harms. Oh and Vektor was pretty harmed when his ribs snapped. Pretty sure Stalwart being unconscious from the one punch is harmed too. Looking at the area and the destruction that was caused from this fight that Vehemence ORCHESTRATED… I’m pretty sure we can say there was harm done.
Vehemence is really starting to get on my nerves. I don’t mind a powerful villain but Dave what you’ve done with him is turn him into an evil golden age superman. Need a specialized power then, you make one mentality is never a good thing.
He’s using spells. At serious cost, which he can only do because he’s absorbed so much power. Treating every spell like a unique power is just silly.
Yup, also as Dabbler noted she could power herself to such an extent with a large enough orgy, the trouble is arranging such an event in preparation for a fight.
Essentially, most if not all magic in a Superhero universe is complete and total BS.
Look at how it’s usually portrayed- Dr Fate and Dr Strange don’t sit around their impregnable towers all day concocting spell circles and lengthy precise rituals to specifically counteract or disrupt the plans of the villains that they’ve scry’d out with their second sight- they fly around blasting things.
Zatanna has the ‘weakness’ of not being able to cast if she can’t speak, but most of her weakness is that she’s uncreative and doesn’t have any real drive. Otherwise she’d just say “doog denrut” at each and every villain she comes across, or maybe “ecaep dlrow”. After all, her magic doesn’t have a macguffin powering it, or any apparent cost to herself, her surroundings or anyone else.
And don’t even get me started on how OP the Lantern Rings ought to be.
What you’re seeing here is the result (as is so much else in this comic) of the creator giving his characters traditional Superhero setting powers and power levels, then actually thinking about what having those powers means in the setting.
Vehemence doesn’t have any more power than any other Comic Book Magician- even with the caveat of gaining that power from a specific source- instead, he’s figured out how to ‘farm’ that source (instead of just being all ‘oh, I get my power from orphan tears! But it would be eevil beating up orphans! Better not just ask the gov’t to collect tear-wet pillowcases from orphanages or get vials of them whenever the kids hurt themselves anyways!), and instead of just being all “AHAHA ENERGY BEEEEEMZ” is using it to augment his own inborn abilities. It’s in a similar way to how Achilles could be a fantastic Power Armour pilot hero, but nobody’s thought of it because they’re not thinking specifically of how to use his powers to make him the most effective hero he can be- instead they’re still thinking beurocratically and in ‘comic book’ sense.
That’s probably where Sydney’s going to have the most impact on the team- she’s the sort of geek who’s spent years of her life discussing and theorizing about all the possible permutations of superpowers and how they interact, while everyone else seems to be acting more like, say, an athlete or certain artists- they have these powers that allow them to do what they set out to do, and don’t worry about going any farther- don’t worry about the ‘what ifs’ as much.
But the presence of people in this setting that actually think through and use the full scope of their abilities is going to significantly change the scale and scope of the action here, in ways that ARCHON hasn’t thought about or prepared for.
I’m actually super looking forwards to the bureaucratic challenges they’re going to face when the universe escalates to the point of fully public, ubiquitous supers ala DC, Marvel or Worm.
Tell that to Jiggawatt and her anti-lighting.
Teams new and he was a movie stunt man before so I’m still holding out hope on the power armor. (thanks for somebody else besides me saying he should have it by the way!)
V sure has his mouth open a lot, between breathing, talking, and grinning evilly. I wonder if Sydney’s energy hook can go in there and fit down his windpipe. Hard to say how “material” that thing is, but as I said earlier, V’s got to be burning oxygen like a jet engine at this point, and cutting that off even for a few seconds might knock him unconscious or kill him. Bumblebees in flight die instantly when they’re sprayed with WD-40, as my brother discovered; they were hassling him when he was working in his garden and he didn’t want to use insecticide, so he tried WD-40. He thought they’d just get knocked down, but they’re dead when they hit the dirt; apparently they burn so much oxygen in flight that cutting any of it off is like blowing out a candle flame.
I know Dave has this wrapped up already with something not related to that, but dragging V’s lungs up into his mouth is something I’d be considering.
If he has his mouth open so much, I wonder if Halo’s blue glow worm could be rammed down his throat and choke him into unconsciousness.
People keep suggesting this like his insides aren’t gonna be just as strong as his outsides, or like somebody who’s violated the laws of conservation of mass and energy is going to follow typical rulesof biology.
To be fair when I started this it was some updates ago when it he wasn’t nearly so powerful. Also I was planning to go for the end without teeth. heh
Possible, even probable, but it is still a simple act of blocking his air passage. Lack of needed air may cause V to panic and not be able to focus long enough to power up to counter the maneuver. Choking is a highly and uniquely unpleasant experience that has deep triggers in our animal brain; hence the reason water-boarding is a more effective torture than standard pain stimulation. Life is pretty much near-constant pain, whereas choking is quite the rarity in relation.
V bites down on it then using his other hand, whips it around until Sydney loses control of the orb or hits the shield/ground hard enough to be KOed.
…If Harem drops all the other bodies and strips down to underwear, how much weight can she take with her? Assuming that she can t-port anything living.
She can’t. Word of Dave.
She can’t teleport the living & her total capacity to teleport is 50 lbs (with only one body manifested) & anything she wears counts toward that limit.
Can she teleport live plants?
What would happen if one of her bodies got pregnant?
Could that body still teleport? Or would that body just be unable to teleport, or would the result of a teleport be utter horror? o.O
I wouldn’t try to make a judgement call on a live plant, but if Harem got pregnant, the developing baby would teleport with her at no extra cost to her weight limit…It IS, after all, part of her own body mass until the actual birth. AFTER birthing, she probably couldn’t teleport with him/her, unless the child itself “absorbed” some of Harem’s own powers before birth.
Oh, and he’s still getting Max wrong. She’s not too strong for him to choke, it’s because she’s in a defence dump.
In theory, now she has her foot on his face she could instantly go in a force dump and kick his head off. She would not be vulnerable long enough for him to kill her before dying himself, just to hurt her a fair bit, but she’d get over it. Unless of course he can survive decapitation, in which case she’d be spelling her own death sentence.
Her head would come off first or melt since he is already attacking it constantly…
Its the lightning that is the problem. That what the author meant by the “wrong but right” heading. V thinks his lightning is draining her strength. Its not, but in order to survive it Maxima must keep her durability maxxed, so it sort of is.
I think the last panel is telling. Vehemence thinks Max is putting her foot in his face as a desperate attempt to push him away. I think it is a desperate action on Max’s part, but not that one. She plans to dump everything into energy blast and blow his head off, and yes, of course she can channel that through her foot. She just needs one good distraction so she doesn’t die doing it…
I like this.
It would cost Max her boot, of course, which is a shame.
Also, rather anticlimactic, which means it prolly won’t be DaveGod’s solution. Hey, I’ve been poasting here so much, my iPad suggested “DaveGod” all on its own. Not sure if good or bad…
The way he’s on her throat I’d call that a suicide move (ie take him with me). It’s at least an even bet her head would pop off before the blast and he would be unhurt.
Well, that would at least be heroically suicidal and give Maxima the “win” instead of Sydney…. but since she’s in the flash forward I am assuming she doesn’t get it done.
Hm, not sure if others have said this, but something tells me he is going to use his powers to turn into lightning, since he mistakenly believes that to be a weakness of Maxima. Then Jiggawatt, after much handwaving from Sydney, to get her attention, will use her Negalightning/Darkening (or whatever it was called again) on Vehemence, thereby defeating him.
And I like V talking more than most anime I’ve seen. I don’t think V is talking in a high, squeaky voice and whining neurotically ;)
Hmm. V’s talk of amping up regional/national violence has me leaning even harder toward the “possessed by a Demon of Violence, and deserving of a visit from Constantine.
But… it’s not his real plan. Stirring up that much chaos would be rude, he’s just gonna go eat a soccer riot.
Unless he is just throwing out tons of plans in order to confuse people trying to predict him later.
someone better be using their brain STAT
or maybe one of the unknown orbs
This is where (I think) one of the unknown orbs come into play and /or she utilizes the upgrade to her truesight orb to see a proverbial chink in his armor. Then the “Sydney fun” starts from there, because like she said before, “her meds are wearing off . “
We still don’t know what the source of Max’s is….
I’m betting it’s electricity and V is about to dump a massive amount into her thinking he’ll turn her into slag.
Q a similar scene to Thor Vs Iron man “Capacitors at 400%… Well, how about that”
Max atomizes V and we cut to a few pages showing the origin story of Maxima with full explain of what exactly just happenned.
I really doubt it. If it were true, Jiggawatt would have been feeding her a massive charge by now.
Additionally, she had to put everything into defense just to resist his lightning attack. I don’t see this particular Deus ex Machina coming to fruition.
I look at the third panel and I see two guys that look like Bert and Ernie,is that so or am I seeing things?
If you look at the sign you can see they at the intersection of Sesame and Wall Street. :P
It’s not just you.
And really, using the lighthook to choke Vehemence is nowhere near as effective as using the lighthook to force feed him tranquilizers. We know Sid has more than sufficient fine control to do so.
Don’t forget Sam the Eagle muppet to the right of Ernie!
Hehe Sesame Streeeet~!
And I think one of the protesters is holding up a fake pitchfork… :)
That’s a sign with a pitchfork pictured on it. The handle of the sign doubles as the handle of the pitchfork’s head.
It’s too bad he has his hand all the way around her neck.
With her foot where it is, I can see her switching some over to flight quickly, and shooting backwards off his face through the ground. In order to move to another location and catch a breather
A hah! I called it! I wonder if I actually mentioned it in the comments somewhere or just to my friends irl…
Anyway, I thought that his motivation was just that he liked a good fight and actually had no interest to kill anyone or even seriously injure them, just fight. I’m reminded of a naruto… um… villain? Opponent we’ll say. I think it was a ninja named Anko that was fighting the opponent and he was a big threat so she was going to use a move that would kill herself to kill him. He stopped her by telling her that she was just fighting one of his clones. He did this because he is fascinated by movement, and dead things don’t move. Same type of motivation here so I’m a little proud of myself for guessing that one right near the beginning of the fight.
Also, this page softens me a bit towards the one two pages ago. I really didn’t like Maxima’s willingness to blow of his arm either. I get that she is a soldier and etc. Not saying that it was badly written, it was just unpleasant. Were I in that scene I would have been Sydney. But it was done for a good reason from a narrative perspective. Maxima made a huge mistake by being so willing to hurt and she was overconfident again. And what’s happening now is a direct result of that. Hopefully these last couple of pages foster some character growth for Maxima in the long run.
I don’t think this shows Maxima was too willing to use serious force at all. If anything it shows she should have _started_ by taking his head off instead of his arm. V may be a likeable villain, but he is still far too dangerous and too much of a threat to the public to allow him to go on his merry way. He’s proven the only safe way to handle him is to end him, permanently and terminally, and I’d be surprised if Maxima hasn’t come to the very same conclusion.
The problem is, Vehemence has come to the same “too-dangerous-to-let-live” conclusion.
V isn’t a threat to the public. He may be a threat to super teams (in the sense they might get a few bruises), but he’s not a threat to the public and is only lethally or permanently violent in response to lethal/permanent violence in response. Which, incidentally, gives him the moral high ground on Maxima.
He is well within his rights to kill her now, while the reverse was not true.
No, he is most definitely a threat to the public. No, he might not pop the skul of a random bystander like a grape, but if you think he’s not going to cause violent riots and situations which would lead to property damage and personal injuries (and possibly even deaths) for those involved or caught in its path then you haven’t been paying attention to what he’s done and said. He’s a _major_ threat to the public. He just doesn’t go around personally punching them all in the face one by one.
Interestingly, though the whole “worried for our lives” thing excuses the military/police force of ARCHON going for the kill/lethal force. However, this is suggesting that, if Vehemence is in fact brought in to court (instead of killed) he might be able to go clean. After all, he ‘started’ the fight by preventing the perps from fleeing. Then ARCHON attacked him and he retaliated.
Wow.
That might actually work. He was being a bit threatening, but Sydney hit him first, and sense then Archon has been doing most of the escalation (physically at least). If it does come down to the court room, with a good lawyer, V could totally walk. What’s really delightful about that scenario is who would be hiring that lawyer. V might end up working for a far more ambitious villain to repay his court fees. and that would be bad (delightfully, wonderfully bad).
He admited that this whole mess is his plan. There are cameras recording. So he is directly responsible for all thats happening there. Attack a Archon, threat to human life, damage to property… a more… much more… he doesn’t walk away unless the jury are a bunch of idiots.
looking back on it, I can’t find a point where he did admit this whole thing was his plan. He heavily implied it was. https://www.grrlpowercomic.com/archives/1490 big difference in court.
Also all the cameras recording are owned by Archon, the party leveling the charges. I’m sure a good lawyer could do something with that.
It would take a really, really good lawyer, but it still could work.
I think it was mentioned in the 2nd Dabblers Science Corner (look at the chalk board):
https://www.grrlpowercomic.com/archives/1302
It was mentioned in the 2nd Dabblers Science Corner (look at the chalk board):
https://www.grrlpowercomic.com/archives/1302
“and I know just how to get strong enough to finish you off”
OK Dave, are you TRYING to get the comment board to overload itself and crash? There is giving a nod to your audience’s comments (‘try Anvil’, ‘try the lighthook’), and then there is just goading them on.
Somewhere in computer room there is a technician with a Scottish accent saying ‘Aye cap’n, the servers canna take much more of this!”
For the love of god I just wish this fight would end with a heroic win without another several months of Vehemence Dragonball Z’ing it up. Have him blow up, have someone blow his head up, have someone throw Death Toll’s unconscious body at him with a lighthook. Something. Guh.
I think I may have figured it out. Sydney can expand or contract her shield, right?
Yes. At minimum she has some elbow room. The biggest we’ve seen was at the demonstration. It covered the reporters and most of the team with lots of room to spare. As long as Sydney is in the shield, the idea gets past the first hurdle. Sydney and Vehemence both being in the shield together is generally considered a bad idea. After that, you are in mostly unexplored possiblities. Go for it.
What is perfectly plausible, based off what we know, is for Sydney to turn on her shield, then fly at V like a guided missile. Yes, it adds to the violence, but could startle him enough to let Max go. Syd should be fine since she doesn’t feel impact while the shield is on.
Apparently now Vehemence can project non-kinetic-inducing force, which I still don’t get, so I don’t see him getting startled even if she didn’t just get stopped as soon as she contacted with V-God.
Nah, this was a Kinetic thing- just a slow shove, rather than a faster blast. Apparently Kenya’s got a lower threshold for kinetic magnitude for the absorbtion. Maybe a reason for the name “Anvil” instead of some more absorb-y name. So smashing her with a hammer gives her a boost, but poking her doesn’t.
It still makes no sense and just seems like another example of Vehemence pulling powers out of his butt. A kinetic shove, hard enough to send Anvil flying back, and the kinetic absorber can’t absorb it? Makes no sense except to again emphasize ‘look how cool Vehemence is you need to think he’s awesome think he’s aweome already’ (no. I don’t think he’s aweome. I think he’s becoming more boring and dumb with each page)
I don’t think it was a ‘slow’ shove at all, or she wouldnt have gone -flying-
back. That’s not how kinetic force works.
She will feel something should she bounce off him and crash.
My point is she shouldnt have been thrown back in the first place from a kinetic shove. It’s just another power out of nowhere that makes no sense just to make Vehemence look cool, when actually it just makes him look like an overpowered, walking deus ex machina of powers derived from vehemic energy. Which don’t even make sense – kinetic force should have been absorbed – that’s the whole point of a kinetic absorber one would think. It’s why Vehemence was trying to fight anvil without punching her earlier.
Plus if he really wanted to knock her back he could have just used the electricity (That he also pulled out of his butt) – without making another ‘look how awesome I am’ power.
He’s not awesome. He WAS a cool idea until the multitude of powers from nowhere. He’s just irritating at this point.
And I really need to again say how disheartening it is that the ‘strong pinnacle female character’ is now in a damsel in distress situation, where she’s patetically pushing her foot against the face of the big strong ‘affably evil’ villain (who some people here are calling ‘not a bad person’), while he obviously ignores the attempt. Plus all this talk he keeps saying of having ‘power to burn’ – he doesnt actually seem to be BURNING OFF ANY OF SAID POWER no matter how many new powers he spontaneously manifests, even simultaneously.
Maxima has so far been utterly useless against the two ‘big’ threats here. Physically, tactically/strategically, etc.
My reply was to Sydney using her shield to attack V as a projectile, the claim being it will distract him and Sydney won’t feel much from the impact. It’d be a Sydney thing to do, but she will end up a ping pong ball inside her own shield.
think more like this: What happens when you expand an esealed volume? Air pressure drops.
And what’s the speed limit on Sydney expanding her bubble? If it’s the speed of thought, it might create X-rays and bounce V into the sun. There’s no described energy limits to that, they’re simply assumed.
but the shield is air tight, and Sydney needs to be in it. The sudden change in presser could kill her. and if it did work everything else would also get hit by the same thing as V, basically killing everyone else. nifty idea though.
The sudden change in pressure doesnt happen. Sydney already asked about that with why her ears don’t pop.
Maxima said ‘I don’t know! Space magic?’
I guess when the shield expands or contracts it becomes porous at least to air. I wonder what would happen if there was some other gas around the shield or just smoke? Alternately, it has been suggested the orbs are for use in space so the shield or maybe one of the unknowns might generate or absorb air.
Space magic. A space wizard did it. I don’t have a problem with that.
The only thing I’ve had a problem with in this entire webcomic has been Vehemence from the point where he starts regenerating on top of everything else. I didnt even see a problem with the ka-pants! because that felt played for laughs. The idea that Sydney’s orbs not allowing in air only bothers me in that preventing OP’ness seems to only be a factor for the superheroines, but not Vehemence.
is it just me or is that bert and erny from sesame street in the wall street panel?
That’s them. Bert is carrying a pitchfork sign. The bald guy with them has been IDed as Sam the Bald Eagle from the Muppet Show.
Ernie has the sign.
I can never tell those two apart. All the Muppets look a little fuzzy to me.
Yes, they are a bit fuzzy. :-) But, Ernie has the flatter head and Burt the tall pointy head.
I have a feeling that If they did ever get to the class warfare part we would see Statler and Waldorf at the Guillotine. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Statler_and_Waldorf
Quick question…. how ticklish is Vehemence? Tentacle + tickle = possible way to power him down? weird and childish i know but then again an ant in the wiring can still fry a tank.
It has been suggested several times, but hasn’t happened. Yet. Sydney is in position to try if it occurs to her.